Yup, the key should be something you can plausibly claim was lost or destroyed.
It could even be an irreproducible file hosted on a remote server which has a cron job set to delete it at a regular interval, requiring your direct regular intervention to prevent its destruction. By the time a judge orders you to disclose the key, you can legitimately say it is no longer possible.
God forbid you get in front of a judge who doesn't believe you though. You may spend the rest of your life in a cell without any trial at all.
There are more trees on earth since the advent of modern forestry than before it.
This is patently untrue. Even the most conservative counts put current forest populations at about half what they were in the 1800s. Globally, there is a loss of roughly 32,000,000 acres of forest per year. The modest modern increases in forest size in North America and Europe are vastly outweighed by deforestation in South America and Africa. Between 1990 and 2005 alone the Earth lost roughly 309,500,000 acres of forest. Adding the next 6 years at the estimated rate brings us to around half a billion acres lost in just the last two decades of modern forestry.
I'd like to see even a single authoritative source claiming the Earth has anywhere near the forest area that existed 200 years ago.
These numbers have been called into question since they don't count areas of selective logging. If there were still trees standing, it was counted as forest: http://www.fao.org/forestry/32033/en/
There are hundreds of other studies taking into account other time periods, all of which show declines. The only argument is about the extent of the decline, not whether or not one exists.
I've seen what happens when embedded piping fails in residential concrete floors. Sometimes, engineers just screw up in their estimations, and when they do the failures are ugly.
Last I heard, the majority of the transmission infrastructure in the US was 50 or more years old. I don't have a way to actually verify that though.
That said, I was indeed incorrect in what I had believed about the composition of modern high-voltage conductors. They're copper- or aluminum-clad steel, the tensile strength of which outweighs the increased load and allows for longer spans than all-aluminum or all-copper conductors.
You can cut up to about 1kcmil of copper (~1" dia.) with readily-obtainable shears (~$200 for a ratcheting shear). Above that, usually it's a pneumatic, hydraulic, or electric shear. Some are more portable than others, though I've never heard of a thief using that sort of equipment. Any live conductor of that size, and the likelihood of the thief living through the attempt is pretty slim. I could see one using it to chop up already-stolen copper though.
I've never really heard of cable thieves using torches in the field. My use of cutting torches is limited to those which are far less portable than any manual tool though. Maybe there are some which exist that are as portable, cheap, and powerful enough to do the job more efficiently than shears to be used easily in the field. I could understand their use at remote sites where there exists a very small chance of discovery (and hence allowing more time for the theft).
And yes, I actually would agree that an axe could be used in a pinch. I don't even think it would take much time to cut through an inch of copper cable. I'd try it out of curiosity, but I value my axes too much to subject them to that sort of abuse.:)
I understand the concept behind your statement, but not how it applies at all to what you quoted. Both the things in the quote will help reduce the theft rate, though technically not the susceptibility to theft. The cutting resistance reduces susceptibility and the latter reduces the likelihood the theft will be carried to completion once the would-be thief realizes what it's composed of. At the very least, it will reduce the likelihood of that same thief subsequently carrying a theft of steel cable once they have learned how cheap the scrap is from the first theft.
Comparing the fishing industry to unorganized crime doesn't really work in regard to this particular issue though. You have an organized commercial interest that invests in the development of new techniques and technologies in order to overcome the hurdles of declining populations vs thieves who have to put a much greater amount of actual physical effort into severing large cables. These aren't people who, in general, will be investing in better techniques and technologies to sever tougher cables. Those cables they do steal will be of much lower value as well, unlike the commercial catch it's being compared to.
Yes, there will be idiots who sit there for an hour trying to hack through a steel cable. They're unlikely to try again except to test whether their new target is bonded steel or actual copper.
I wasn't saying there wouldn't be attempts on the newer cable, but the idea that the same thieves would continue making a concerted effort to steal the newer cables vs simply damaging them from "test-and-move-on" is laughable.
More cables may be damaged, but it won't increase the amount of cables actually stolen, which was what Joce (I was hoping jokingly) claimed. Thieves (successful ones, anyway) rely on timing much more than effort. Something that dramatically increases the time required to steal cables is going to immediately reduce the number stolen.
At the high transmission level, yes, but that's not what's targeted by (living) copper thieves.
The largest they get are residential transmission lines, where the span isn't long enough for the additional cable weight to matter nearly as much as it does for high transmission lines.
It will if the cable is any sort of sizable conductor. Cutting through that much steel cable will prevent them from actually finishing the job without either a) being caught or b) giving up out of sheer frustration.
It may not stop the initial damage caused by the attempt, but cutting anything of the size required for grid-scale power transmission is not going to work out well for the would-be thief.
Sorry, wasn't really in a mindset to be looking for jokes. Didn't mean to rain on your parade. XD
I didn't mean the House served no rational purpose at all, just that the function of geographical representation has been duplicated, albeit on a slightly more centralized level.
As for disproportionate representation such as you describe, I'm not really sure exactly how you mean that. It doesn't function that way currently, unless I'm missing something important in what you were trying to say. Each House district represents a specific number of people, which is set every 10 years. Those districts are geographical rather than ideological right now. What I meant was shifting them so that those 1% corn belt producers need not be in the same geographical district to be represented proportionately. By removing districts, you can get a much closer level of representation even if there is geographical disparity among the represented population. Right now, only those who represent the majority in a given district are represented.
I've had to do that for a number of OEM reinstall CDs as well. Manufacturers don't send them, or they set it up so they must be created by the customer. Guess what, most people don't have a clue, so when you have to re-image a hosed system your options are to purchase the media (even though you already have the rights to what's held on the media) and wait for shipping or torrent an OEM reinstall disk.
If I were downloading them to create pirate installations, I'd just download a VLK image and be done with it, so that's not a valid rebuttal.
That wasn't my point, because the effects of being perceived as "guilty" simply on account of an accusation go far beyond the circumstances of whether you're incarcerated or not. In fact, I'd say that there are many effects far more important in terms of impacting your life long-term than simply being incarcerated.
That said, there certainly are many who go to jail in the USA simply for being accused. If you can't pay bail, you go away until your trial. If you're accused of certain crimes, you may not even get a chance to post bail.
Actually I did, but you missed it entirely by picking up the minority tangent. Other election methods are not counter to the Constitution, since elections methods and regulation of a given state's Electoral College votes are up to each state. Funny that there was silence on the main point of reply, and the only point which had direct bearing on your comment.
It's fine if you are happy with the status quo and partisan politics. You've already decided to label me, and will view my comments in light of the label you have made up in your head. Fortunately, that's not my problem.
I was referring to any ideological position which has the support of a large enough percentage to be represented by at least one of a given block of representatives. Most greens annoy me, but there are enough of them that they should have representation in the national government.
The use of the House to represent geographical areas serves no rational purpose anymore, and should be restructured to actually represent the populace directly. Another benefit is that such a system eliminates the ability of parties to gerrymander their way to victory.
Ideologically he's not a minority any more than almost any other national politician is. By skin color, everyone is a minority, since skin colors varies a great deal even within "accepted" classifications. The latter is irrelevant to anything that matters (outside specific medical concerns), and as such should be ignored for any other substantive purpose.
Are you really saying that the person with the less popular views should get the job?
No, and by the very fact that you found it necessary to ask means any further replies on my part are a waste of time.
Those last two sentences refer to two different things. We have more than one type of election in the US, last I checked. There's one with a single winner for the leader of an entire branch of government, and others which are designed to pick representatives of an area smaller than the entire country.
And if you believe Obama is an actual minority representative, you've just lost all credibility for being a rational person.
It's truly sad people are willing to take the view that a suspect must necessarily have done something to deserve whatever he gets.
When someone is killed while "resisting arrest," the only evidence is frequently the word of the murderer. Not all cops are good guys. We have one here locally who's about to start a prison sentence 6 years after unjustifiably killing someone, a crime which was caught on no less than 4 cameras.
The city prosecutor covered up the two most damning angles in an effort to characterize the killing as "justified." Fortunately, he'll either be out of a job or the new mayor who promised to fire him will be. At least he's been removed unilaterally from representing the police force, since he's a sick little fuck whose first act is to counter-sue absolutely anyone who brings a judicial complaint against the city.
It's not in any way. It's an abused stretch of the concept of "one man, one vote," though it doesn't actually change that. You don't actually get more than one vote counted, but for people who are mathematically illiterate it's trotted out as an excuse for why any change to the way votes are held is bad.
First past the post is about the worst method for choosing a palatable leader, and its failure is more clear as elections become more partisan. For having accurate minority representation it fails entirely for any minority which is not at least close in size to the majority party.
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Yup, the key should be something you can plausibly claim was lost or destroyed.
It could even be an irreproducible file hosted on a remote server which has a cron job set to delete it at a regular interval, requiring your direct regular intervention to prevent its destruction. By the time a judge orders you to disclose the key, you can legitimately say it is no longer possible.
God forbid you get in front of a judge who doesn't believe you though. You may spend the rest of your life in a cell without any trial at all.
There are more trees on earth since the advent of modern forestry than before it.
This is patently untrue. Even the most conservative counts put current forest populations at about half what they were in the 1800s. Globally, there is a loss of roughly 32,000,000 acres of forest per year. The modest modern increases in forest size in North America and Europe are vastly outweighed by deforestation in South America and Africa. Between 1990 and 2005 alone the Earth lost roughly 309,500,000 acres of forest. Adding the next 6 years at the estimated rate brings us to around half a billion acres lost in just the last two decades of modern forestry.
I'd like to see even a single authoritative source claiming the Earth has anywhere near the forest area that existed 200 years ago.
These numbers have been called into question since they don't count areas of selective logging. If there were still trees standing, it was counted as forest:
http://www.fao.org/forestry/32033/en/
There are hundreds of other studies taking into account other time periods, all of which show declines. The only argument is about the extent of the decline, not whether or not one exists.
I've seen what happens when embedded piping fails in residential concrete floors. Sometimes, engineers just screw up in their estimations, and when they do the failures are ugly.
Last I heard, the majority of the transmission infrastructure in the US was 50 or more years old. I don't have a way to actually verify that though.
That said, I was indeed incorrect in what I had believed about the composition of modern high-voltage conductors. They're copper- or aluminum-clad steel, the tensile strength of which outweighs the increased load and allows for longer spans than all-aluminum or all-copper conductors.
You can cut up to about 1kcmil of copper (~1" dia.) with readily-obtainable shears (~$200 for a ratcheting shear). Above that, usually it's a pneumatic, hydraulic, or electric shear. Some are more portable than others, though I've never heard of a thief using that sort of equipment. Any live conductor of that size, and the likelihood of the thief living through the attempt is pretty slim. I could see one using it to chop up already-stolen copper though.
I've never really heard of cable thieves using torches in the field. My use of cutting torches is limited to those which are far less portable than any manual tool though. Maybe there are some which exist that are as portable, cheap, and powerful enough to do the job more efficiently than shears to be used easily in the field. I could understand their use at remote sites where there exists a very small chance of discovery (and hence allowing more time for the theft).
And yes, I actually would agree that an axe could be used in a pinch. I don't even think it would take much time to cut through an inch of copper cable. I'd try it out of curiosity, but I value my axes too much to subject them to that sort of abuse. :)
I understand the concept behind your statement, but not how it applies at all to what you quoted. Both the things in the quote will help reduce the theft rate, though technically not the susceptibility to theft. The cutting resistance reduces susceptibility and the latter reduces the likelihood the theft will be carried to completion once the would-be thief realizes what it's composed of. At the very least, it will reduce the likelihood of that same thief subsequently carrying a theft of steel cable once they have learned how cheap the scrap is from the first theft.
Comparing the fishing industry to unorganized crime doesn't really work in regard to this particular issue though. You have an organized commercial interest that invests in the development of new techniques and technologies in order to overcome the hurdles of declining populations vs thieves who have to put a much greater amount of actual physical effort into severing large cables. These aren't people who, in general, will be investing in better techniques and technologies to sever tougher cables. Those cables they do steal will be of much lower value as well, unlike the commercial catch it's being compared to.
Yes, there will be idiots who sit there for an hour trying to hack through a steel cable. They're unlikely to try again except to test whether their new target is bonded steel or actual copper.
I wasn't saying there wouldn't be attempts on the newer cable, but the idea that the same thieves would continue making a concerted effort to steal the newer cables vs simply damaging them from "test-and-move-on" is laughable.
More cables may be damaged, but it won't increase the amount of cables actually stolen, which was what Joce (I was hoping jokingly) claimed. Thieves (successful ones, anyway) rely on timing much more than effort. Something that dramatically increases the time required to steal cables is going to immediately reduce the number stolen.
At the high transmission level, yes, but that's not what's targeted by (living) copper thieves.
The largest they get are residential transmission lines, where the span isn't long enough for the additional cable weight to matter nearly as much as it does for high transmission lines.
It will if the cable is any sort of sizable conductor. Cutting through that much steel cable will prevent them from actually finishing the job without either a) being caught or b) giving up out of sheer frustration.
It may not stop the initial damage caused by the attempt, but cutting anything of the size required for grid-scale power transmission is not going to work out well for the would-be thief.
I really hope there's a *woosh* in there.
Steel is far harder to cut than copper though.
Ah, more humor being sucked out of /. I'd think this would have been modded above -1 at this point.
The last bit is why it's increasingly being made illegal for scrap dealers to purchase burnt cable.
Sorry, wasn't really in a mindset to be looking for jokes. Didn't mean to rain on your parade. XD
I didn't mean the House served no rational purpose at all, just that the function of geographical representation has been duplicated, albeit on a slightly more centralized level.
As for disproportionate representation such as you describe, I'm not really sure exactly how you mean that. It doesn't function that way currently, unless I'm missing something important in what you were trying to say. Each House district represents a specific number of people, which is set every 10 years. Those districts are geographical rather than ideological right now. What I meant was shifting them so that those 1% corn belt producers need not be in the same geographical district to be represented proportionately. By removing districts, you can get a much closer level of representation even if there is geographical disparity among the represented population. Right now, only those who represent the majority in a given district are represented.
I've had to do that for a number of OEM reinstall CDs as well. Manufacturers don't send them, or they set it up so they must be created by the customer. Guess what, most people don't have a clue, so when you have to re-image a hosed system your options are to purchase the media (even though you already have the rights to what's held on the media) and wait for shipping or torrent an OEM reinstall disk.
If I were downloading them to create pirate installations, I'd just download a VLK image and be done with it, so that's not a valid rebuttal.
The capacity hasn't changed. What has changed is the efficiency with which it can be done.
That wasn't my point, because the effects of being perceived as "guilty" simply on account of an accusation go far beyond the circumstances of whether you're incarcerated or not. In fact, I'd say that there are many effects far more important in terms of impacting your life long-term than simply being incarcerated.
That said, there certainly are many who go to jail in the USA simply for being accused. If you can't pay bail, you go away until your trial. If you're accused of certain crimes, you may not even get a chance to post bail.
Actually I did, but you missed it entirely by picking up the minority tangent. Other election methods are not counter to the Constitution, since elections methods and regulation of a given state's Electoral College votes are up to each state. Funny that there was silence on the main point of reply, and the only point which had direct bearing on your comment.
It's fine if you are happy with the status quo and partisan politics. You've already decided to label me, and will view my comments in light of the label you have made up in your head. Fortunately, that's not my problem.
I was referring to any ideological position which has the support of a large enough percentage to be represented by at least one of a given block of representatives. Most greens annoy me, but there are enough of them that they should have representation in the national government.
The use of the House to represent geographical areas serves no rational purpose anymore, and should be restructured to actually represent the populace directly. Another benefit is that such a system eliminates the ability of parties to gerrymander their way to victory.
Ideologically he's not a minority any more than almost any other national politician is. By skin color, everyone is a minority, since skin colors varies a great deal even within "accepted" classifications. The latter is irrelevant to anything that matters (outside specific medical concerns), and as such should be ignored for any other substantive purpose.
Are you really saying that the person with the less popular views should get the job?
No, and by the very fact that you found it necessary to ask means any further replies on my part are a waste of time.
Those last two sentences refer to two different things. We have more than one type of election in the US, last I checked. There's one with a single winner for the leader of an entire branch of government, and others which are designed to pick representatives of an area smaller than the entire country.
And if you believe Obama is an actual minority representative, you've just lost all credibility for being a rational person.
It's truly sad people are willing to take the view that a suspect must necessarily have done something to deserve whatever he gets.
When someone is killed while "resisting arrest," the only evidence is frequently the word of the murderer. Not all cops are good guys. We have one here locally who's about to start a prison sentence 6 years after unjustifiably killing someone, a crime which was caught on no less than 4 cameras.
The city prosecutor covered up the two most damning angles in an effort to characterize the killing as "justified." Fortunately, he'll either be out of a job or the new mayor who promised to fire him will be. At least he's been removed unilaterally from representing the police force, since he's a sick little fuck whose first act is to counter-sue absolutely anyone who brings a judicial complaint against the city.
Yup. Too many people conflate "accused" with "guilty."
It's not in any way. It's an abused stretch of the concept of "one man, one vote," though it doesn't actually change that. You don't actually get more than one vote counted, but for people who are mathematically illiterate it's trotted out as an excuse for why any change to the way votes are held is bad.
First past the post is about the worst method for choosing a palatable leader, and its failure is more clear as elections become more partisan. For having accurate minority representation it fails entirely for any minority which is not at least close in size to the majority party.
You'd think that would be the case after all this time. Still seems that they're frequently evaluated in the original order listed though.