Those that the US wants to fight with robots will just do the same and everybody will be a lot less safe as a result.
I am not sure I understand your logic. Are you saying that our enemies will refrain from using robots unless we go first?
The real trick is in maintaining the right amount of edge. An unrestricted arms war costs the world economy trillions of dollars and results in destructive capability that is even more disproportionate to our ability to use it responsibly than there is now. During the cold war, America was sold on the idea that the Russians had nuclear stockpiles that were much bigger and more advanced than the reality turned out to be, and as a result America spent an ungodly fortune making more and more nukes. If both sides had made a few hundred nukes each, that would have been all you needed--instead there are many thousands of devices, which not only wasted money to build but which mean the world is inherently less safe.
Unfortunately, robots are harder. Once they get good enough they can create a decisive advantage in a variety of land, sea, and air combat scenarios. There are not a lot of comparable military advances that have come about in the last few centuries.
As importantly, they decrease the political risk in war-making for superpowers. If you are risking none of your own people when you invade a country, you are much, much, much more likely to invade.
Hello USA , Hello UK, Hello any of the usual suspects. Why are Americans so blind to the fact their nation does this shit to?
USA has not yet been caught using its intelligence apparatus with a major aim of industrial espionage, as opposed to its state interests. It should be doing that as a matter of game theory, to incentivize a phased and negotiated reduction in attacks, but I haven't seen evidence that it does. But there is a great deal of evidence of state-sponsored attacks coming out of China against many, many American institutions.
It doesn't mean the USA doesn't do it--but it does make China a more likely suspect.
Their job is to lie by saying things that may be true, technically. (At least when they're dealing with entrenched interests working against the public good to maximize profit.)
They're just pointing out the hypocrisy of politicians being protected by guns and fences, while telling citizens they can't have guns and that a fence isn't needed on our nations borders (despite cartels and bad guys with known terrorist ties crossing daily).
Downtown Washington is littered with dozens of federal buildings, each having its own set of trained security and metal detectors and the like. We spend a fortune on it.
I agree. The other thing, though, is that IT'S A CONTRACT. Read, read read! I don't know why people who don't read the contract try to get out of it later. I know it's not kosher to put things like this in the contact, but contracts are like that. They're usually one sided in favor of one party or another. The question is, whether this was illegal (extorting money for negative reviews). If it wasn't, then I don't see how one should be able to get out of it.
This was a simple retail transaction, not a commercial negotiation.
Luckily, I doubt that this hotel will be seeing many of the latter until they come to talk to their liquidators.
Retail or not, contracts are binding.
Contracts tend to be binding even when both parties don't read--most contracts are not read but are binding. Even lawyers don't usually read the contracts they sign for everyday things--they only do it when a lot is at stake or when it is for a client.
In commercial transactions in the United States, there are default rules that vary from state to state (generally slightly modified from the Uniform Commercial Code), but almost all of the terms can be changed by a contract between the parties, so a lot of places will change them on an order form or receipt or the like.
There are exceptions--contracts can't violate the law, for example. But they can still be written to unreasonably favor one party, and usually are.
If it was for base connectivity I would be very surprised if fiber wasn't laid. I am more likely to believe the military use for this was designed for something which can be setup quickly in forward operating locations. Fiber takes time and substantially more infrastructure to install. Theoretically this could be run off a steerable pop-up mast which could be setup in minutes.
That's relevant to, but not the full story of, the ethical controversy over human cloning, but we're talking about mammoths. I don't think anyone's proposing that we insert mammoth DNA into human eggs.
Sounds like a military project. (Not all militaries would be willing to try this, but some certainly would.)
>Hehe, so in this case a Slashdotter thinks you should be able to get details without a court order, but when the RIAA or MPAA wants details its a completely different situation...
Yes. Most Slashdotters recognize that the penalties for noncommercial copyright violation are ridiculously disproportional to the crime and have limited economic impact, and might support something small (like a $50 ticket that doesn't leave anyone with a criminal record or entry in any system) but will generally side with pirates against content-creators when you are looking at $10,000 per title, criminal penalties, dealing with the legal system, or really anything more than a slap on the wrist.
On the other hand, when someone is responsible for crimes that are much more universally recognized as deserving of criminalization, and as an actual pain in the ass, they are much more willing to support substantial actions against that person--and more, to preserve the reputation and business of the people being significantly harmed.
They'll be aware of it, sure; they will avoid making decisions that tank later opportunities in the private sector. But they are also usually not actively trying to do the wrong thing--they're trying to figure out what a fairly decent policy is that they can get traction on.
The FCC doesn't have big teeth, and it has a lot of people who have industry experience and therefore an industry point-of-view. They are realists, and will probably try to put together a policy that makes things slightly better than they would be otherwise.
If they try to be too active, Congress will whip them around. Communications vendors are major Congressional donors.
As to the will of the people--we're talking net neutrality. People support it because they like the word "Neutral." This is one of those cases where democracy is a really bad basis for decision-making; kinda like asking voters to design a network topology.
Well, you've just made the suggestion in a public forum monitored (at a very low-level) by multiple intelligence agencies. Some intern will now write it up and toss it up the chain, and if someone can develop such a thing, they will.
If they have no reason to believe you're breaking the law, sue. If you are being harassed and detained by government officials for exercising your constitutional rights, that is exactly what the federal courts are for.
There would be no issue here if the state didn't have a BS licensing law.
Seriously: who or what interest does the state imagine it is "protecting" with this license? It isn't there for practical purposes, it's there for the purposes of intimidation and control.
The licensing law is bad because it is the licensing law itself that led to this conflict between public's right to know and an individual's privacy. I do agree that the individual has a right to privacy away from the workplace... but it is the STATE that is violating it with this STUPID law.
Obvious answers: underage dancers, human trafficking, tax collection.
Washington State is supposed to remove certain sensitive information in records requests--like the home address of a state employee--but generally it has a very permissive open records law. The strippers can probably just argue their identity is basically sensitive information, and then the court will probably say that the identities can't be released for a request to pray for them.
I thought the article was about running out of sand for silicon semiconductors. Besides California falling into the Pacific Ocean after a big earthquake, a lack of sand would be the end of Silicon Valley.
Or sand for construction. Sand is a major ingredient in cement, so running out of sand would be a big deal.
It's not US retailers, generally, who are overcharging Australians. If the retailers also do business in Australia, they might care. But if you buy something from a company with no presence in Australia who previously wouldn't ship there themselves, then it'll be fine.
This. It's like Canada--the middle-man makes a ridiculous amount of money because there's less competition in middle-men, so products often cost more than in the states. It's not as bad as it was pre-NAFTA, but it's not great either. The cost of a tire was at least 30% higher the last time I checked, although YMMV.
It's not vague, it's inclusive. They meant to criminalize the destruction of evidence in federal criminal investigations and that's what they did. Had they meant something different, they'd have chosen different words. The "strict constructionists" on the court are favoring the idea that the law doesn't mean exactly what it says, but some they're-going-to-define-it-for-us subset of what it says? This makes sense to you?
Nevermind the consequences if they limit the meaning -- it will be legal to destroy most kinds of evidence in a criminal investigation. It's all A-OK if it didn't contain financial records right? Right?
Destroying evidence is not actually legal regardless, you can just go after people differently. Obstruction of justice or accessory after the fact charges could apply in some cases, for example, and you could also get procedural punishments like an "adverse inference instruction" to the jury, where they take the fact that you've destroyed evidence as evidence that it would have gone against you. You can even get them for failing to properly preserve evidence--i.e. not saving your emails after getting notice of a lawsuit. Adverse Inference Instructions are a really stupid way to lose lawsuits.
There are probably other charges you could apply.
Disclaimer: I am not your lawyer, consult an attorney if this stuff comes up for you.
It's still Federally illegal. Even in any state that it is "legal" it can still be prosecuted. It won't be under the current president, but that can change in 2 years.
True. Although to be entirely fair, DC isn't a big fan of enforcing federal laws. They certainly can and may, but I remember a story by a disability rights advocate where it turned out to be easier to have portions of the federal law rewritten verbatim into the DC Code than it was to convince DC officials that federal laws applied.
Aside from the anecdote, though, DC generally doesn't like the fact that Congress can meddle. A number of years ago they even changed their license plates to read "Taxation without representation," because that's what they have.
So basically, nothing they couldn't already learn by using radio scanners?
A good thought, but it would include some they couldn't learn, and more easily processed. Radio scanners show reports of certain activity; this would be publicly available monitoring that showed where police were *at all times*. So you could get patrol routes and timings much more easily, for example.
I didn't know a person could become gay-tainted after they die if their successor is gay. Hope the next person to have my job after I die isn't gay, otherwise my tombstone might set off someone's gaydar. that would be embarrassing.
Why would that be embarrassing? It's just gay. It's not embarrassing.
Yeah. "The cops were at this place an hour ago, so if I drive my de Lorean at 88 I can be sure to not get caught this time!"
No, you're thinking too small. More like "This is the neighborhood with the highest ratio of accumulated wealth to police presence, so we will pull off some big jobs there." Or "Hey, did you notice how the police never seem to drive down 4th Street?" Or "police response times to this neighborhood drop by 75% at time X."
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The grand jury found no reason to even send this to trial. Cut and dry case of justifiable self defense. END of story.
No, the grand jury found on probable cause. So it was not more likely than not that he was guilty, based on what they heard.
That does *not* mean it was a cut and dry case of justifiable self-defense, or that the officer was innocent.
Those that the US wants to fight with robots will just do the same and everybody will be a lot less safe as a result.
I am not sure I understand your logic. Are you saying that our enemies will refrain from using robots unless we go first?
The real trick is in maintaining the right amount of edge. An unrestricted arms war costs the world economy trillions of dollars and results in destructive capability that is even more disproportionate to our ability to use it responsibly than there is now. During the cold war, America was sold on the idea that the Russians had nuclear stockpiles that were much bigger and more advanced than the reality turned out to be, and as a result America spent an ungodly fortune making more and more nukes. If both sides had made a few hundred nukes each, that would have been all you needed--instead there are many thousands of devices, which not only wasted money to build but which mean the world is inherently less safe.
Unfortunately, robots are harder. Once they get good enough they can create a decisive advantage in a variety of land, sea, and air combat scenarios. There are not a lot of comparable military advances that have come about in the last few centuries.
As importantly, they decrease the political risk in war-making for superpowers. If you are risking none of your own people when you invade a country, you are much, much, much more likely to invade.
Stuxnet.
Hello USA , Hello UK, Hello any of the usual suspects. Why are Americans so blind to the fact their nation does this shit to?
USA has not yet been caught using its intelligence apparatus with a major aim of industrial espionage, as opposed to its state interests. It should be doing that as a matter of game theory, to incentivize a phased and negotiated reduction in attacks, but I haven't seen evidence that it does. But there is a great deal of evidence of state-sponsored attacks coming out of China against many, many American institutions.
It doesn't mean the USA doesn't do it--but it does make China a more likely suspect.
Among other things, they were infecting ISP machines to monitor specific customers.
Anyway, guesses on the responsible party? China, Israel, Russia?
Their job is to lie by saying things that may be true, technically. (At least when they're dealing with entrenched interests working against the public good to maximize profit.)
They're just pointing out the hypocrisy of politicians being protected by guns and fences, while telling citizens they can't have guns and that a fence isn't needed on our nations borders (despite cartels and bad guys with known terrorist ties crossing daily).
Downtown Washington is littered with dozens of federal buildings, each having its own set of trained security and metal detectors and the like. We spend a fortune on it.
I agree. The other thing, though, is that IT'S A CONTRACT. Read, read read! I don't know why people who don't read the contract try to get out of it later. I know it's not kosher to put things like this in the contact, but contracts are like that. They're usually one sided in favor of one party or another. The question is, whether this was illegal (extorting money for negative reviews). If it wasn't, then I don't see how one should be able to get out of it.
This was a simple retail transaction, not a commercial negotiation.
Luckily, I doubt that this hotel will be seeing many of the latter until they come to talk to their liquidators.
Retail or not, contracts are binding.
Contracts tend to be binding even when both parties don't read--most contracts are not read but are binding. Even lawyers don't usually read the contracts they sign for everyday things--they only do it when a lot is at stake or when it is for a client.
In commercial transactions in the United States, there are default rules that vary from state to state (generally slightly modified from the Uniform Commercial Code), but almost all of the terms can be changed by a contract between the parties, so a lot of places will change them on an order form or receipt or the like.
There are exceptions--contracts can't violate the law, for example. But they can still be written to unreasonably favor one party, and usually are.
If it was for base connectivity I would be very surprised if fiber wasn't laid. I am more likely to believe the military use for this was designed for something which can be setup quickly in forward operating locations. Fiber takes time and substantially more infrastructure to install. Theoretically this could be run off a steerable pop-up mast which could be setup in minutes.
Fiber can also be cut.
That's relevant to, but not the full story of, the ethical controversy over human cloning, but we're talking about mammoths. I don't think anyone's proposing that we insert mammoth DNA into human eggs.
Sounds like a military project. (Not all militaries would be willing to try this, but some certainly would.)
>Hehe, so in this case a Slashdotter thinks you should be able to get details without a court order, but when the RIAA or MPAA wants details its a completely different situation...
Yes. Most Slashdotters recognize that the penalties for noncommercial copyright violation are ridiculously disproportional to the crime and have limited economic impact, and might support something small (like a $50 ticket that doesn't leave anyone with a criminal record or entry in any system) but will generally side with pirates against content-creators when you are looking at $10,000 per title, criminal penalties, dealing with the legal system, or really anything more than a slap on the wrist.
On the other hand, when someone is responsible for crimes that are much more universally recognized as deserving of criminalization, and as an actual pain in the ass, they are much more willing to support substantial actions against that person--and more, to preserve the reputation and business of the people being significantly harmed.
> But, I ask, what is the point of a slow passenger train for commuting?
Two points--
(1) it reduces traffic congestion
(2) it still may be faster than driving.
If everyone who tooks trains into NY drove, we wouldn't have needed a large hadron collider. The Cross Bronx would have collapsed into a black hole.
The problem at this point is building trains, not that trains don't make sense. It's politically sensitive to expropriate property.
These guys don't really think like that, usually.
They'll be aware of it, sure; they will avoid making decisions that tank later opportunities in the private sector. But they are also usually not actively trying to do the wrong thing--they're trying to figure out what a fairly decent policy is that they can get traction on.
The FCC doesn't have big teeth, and it has a lot of people who have industry experience and therefore an industry point-of-view. They are realists, and will probably try to put together a policy that makes things slightly better than they would be otherwise.
If they try to be too active, Congress will whip them around. Communications vendors are major Congressional donors.
As to the will of the people--we're talking net neutrality. People support it because they like the word "Neutral." This is one of those cases where democracy is a really bad basis for decision-making; kinda like asking voters to design a network topology.
Well, you've just made the suggestion in a public forum monitored (at a very low-level) by multiple intelligence agencies. Some intern will now write it up and toss it up the chain, and if someone can develop such a thing, they will.
Sure you'll conclude that, just with low confidence.
Sue.
If they have no reason to believe you're breaking the law, sue. If you are being harassed and detained by government officials for exercising your constitutional rights, that is exactly what the federal courts are for.
There would be no issue here if the state didn't have a BS licensing law.
Seriously: who or what interest does the state imagine it is "protecting" with this license? It isn't there for practical purposes, it's there for the purposes of intimidation and control.
The licensing law is bad because it is the licensing law itself that led to this conflict between public's right to know and an individual's privacy. I do agree that the individual has a right to privacy away from the workplace... but it is the STATE that is violating it with this STUPID law.
Obvious answers: underage dancers, human trafficking, tax collection.
Washington State is supposed to remove certain sensitive information in records requests--like the home address of a state employee--but generally it has a very permissive open records law. The strippers can probably just argue their identity is basically sensitive information, and then the court will probably say that the identities can't be released for a request to pray for them.
I was actually thinking of mixing Portland Cement with sand; my bad for accuracy, but still a problem either way.
I thought the article was about running out of sand for silicon semiconductors. Besides California falling into the Pacific Ocean after a big earthquake, a lack of sand would be the end of Silicon Valley.
Or sand for construction. Sand is a major ingredient in cement, so running out of sand would be a big deal.
It's not US retailers, generally, who are overcharging Australians. If the retailers also do business in Australia, they might care. But if you buy something from a company with no presence in Australia who previously wouldn't ship there themselves, then it'll be fine.
This. It's like Canada--the middle-man makes a ridiculous amount of money because there's less competition in middle-men, so products often cost more than in the states. It's not as bad as it was pre-NAFTA, but it's not great either. The cost of a tire was at least 30% higher the last time I checked, although YMMV.
It's not vague, it's inclusive. They meant to criminalize the destruction of evidence in federal criminal investigations and that's what they did. Had they meant something different, they'd have chosen different words. The "strict constructionists" on the court are favoring the idea that the law doesn't mean exactly what it says, but some they're-going-to-define-it-for-us subset of what it says? This makes sense to you?
Nevermind the consequences if they limit the meaning -- it will be legal to destroy most kinds of evidence in a criminal investigation. It's all A-OK if it didn't contain financial records right? Right?
Destroying evidence is not actually legal regardless, you can just go after people differently. Obstruction of justice or accessory after the fact charges could apply in some cases, for example, and you could also get procedural punishments like an "adverse inference instruction" to the jury, where they take the fact that you've destroyed evidence as evidence that it would have gone against you. You can even get them for failing to properly preserve evidence--i.e. not saving your emails after getting notice of a lawsuit. Adverse Inference Instructions are a really stupid way to lose lawsuits.
There are probably other charges you could apply.
Disclaimer: I am not your lawyer, consult an attorney if this stuff comes up for you.
It's still Federally illegal. Even in any state that it is "legal" it can still be prosecuted. It won't be under the current president, but that can change in 2 years.
True. Although to be entirely fair, DC isn't a big fan of enforcing federal laws. They certainly can and may, but I remember a story by a disability rights advocate where it turned out to be easier to have portions of the federal law rewritten verbatim into the DC Code than it was to convince DC officials that federal laws applied.
Aside from the anecdote, though, DC generally doesn't like the fact that Congress can meddle. A number of years ago they even changed their license plates to read "Taxation without representation," because that's what they have.
So basically, nothing they couldn't already learn by using radio scanners?
A good thought, but it would include some they couldn't learn, and more easily processed. Radio scanners show reports of certain activity; this would be publicly available monitoring that showed where police were *at all times*. So you could get patrol routes and timings much more easily, for example.
I didn't know a person could become gay-tainted after they die if their successor is gay. Hope the next person to have my job after I die isn't gay, otherwise my tombstone might set off someone's gaydar. that would be embarrassing.
Why would that be embarrassing? It's just gay. It's not embarrassing.
Yeah. "The cops were at this place an hour ago, so if I drive my de Lorean at 88 I can be sure to not get caught this time!"
No, you're thinking too small. More like "This is the neighborhood with the highest ratio of accumulated wealth to police presence, so we will pull off some big jobs there." Or "Hey, did you notice how the police never seem to drive down 4th Street?" Or "police response times to this neighborhood drop by 75% at time X."