My thoughts exactly. This violates the Fifth Amendment as I understand it. Around this time last year we got this ruling from a federal judge ruling that forcing someone to divulge encryption passphrases was a violation of the 5th. I believe that a valid argument could be made by just about anyone that divulging their e-mail passphrase might reveal illegal activity, and therefore is constitutionally forbidden. My two cents.
First off, let's define militia, and we'll use current US law regarding the militia - TITLE 10 - Subtitle A - PART I - CHAPTER 13 - 311 states that there are two classes of the Militia, the organized militia (National Guard), and the unorganized militia (all men between 17 and 45, and the women in the National Guard - current Supreme Court binding precedent would also include all women between 17 and 45 - equality of the sexes). Most Slashdot readers are probably legally part of the militia whether they knew it or not.
Right now the courts are split far and wide. The Miller decision was ambiguous at best (full text of decision), there has been a lot of wrangling about what they meant, with most coming out on the "no personal right to bear arms" side of the argument. The decision was centered around whether or not a a sawed off shotgun was a legitimate militia style weapon. The court decided that sawed off shotguns had no legitimate use in a militia - they did not know that sawed-off shotguns had a history of being used in the trench warfare of World War One. This is important because if you read the decision, basically what is said is that people have an individual right to bear arms, but only those arms which have a legitimate military purpose. Some on the "personal right to bear arms" side interpret this as meaning that you have no right to own that hunting rifle that grandpop left you in his will, but you do have the right to, say a fully automatic M4 with grenade launcher attachment. HOWEVER, since the law that it was dealing with, which it didn't strike down - NFA1934 - essentially bans all weapons used in the modern military (Automatic weapons, Destructive Devices {weapons larger than 50 caliber}, and short barreled shotguns and rifles) we were left with the idea that most people who are part of the militia have no right to personally own military weapons.
The circuit courts have split this down further - The Ninth and Tenth have both found that the Second Amendment does not protect an individuals right to bear arms - the Fifth has found that there is a right to bear arms (see this Wiki article for more).
Where does this leave us? Well, the District of Columbia Circuit will now be deciding its stance on whether the Second applies to individuals or the collective. Eventually, the SCOTUS will have to make a decision, because there will be so many different circuits with differing opinions on the matter. I'm frankly surprised that they haven't taken it up already, since they already have the conflict between the different circuits, but so it goes.
Ok, I did a little bit of system building and networking for some older friends with their own business back the the mid 90's while I was in high school. It was pretty nice, but I didn't want to end up spending all my time building gaming systems or running networks through local grocery stores. Eventually I hit paydirt when I was built one of the tech guys at a local factory a custom gaming rig.
I was offered a position as a "Weekend Mainframe Operator." The job, as I remember, required that you be 18 years old (factory regulations that no employee could be under 18, ymmv). Basically what happened was that factory ran 24 hours a day 7 days a week. The mainframe had to be up and running for the factory to work. There are three shifts in a day, weekends or not. One person in the computer room each shift, but to avoid massive amounts of overtime, on the weekends it wasn't staffed by regular full timers. They pulled kids from the local high school and community college to come in and work 12 hour shifts over the weekend. That's where I came in. I would go in for 12 hour shifts on weekends, alternating with another guy. We watched the mainframes, made sure they kept up and running, handled reports, and on Sundays we'd make backups and take them to off-site storage. It was a little boring at times, but it was great for several reasons. I got to see tech I never would have touched otherwise: Old IBM mainframes, brand spanking new (at the time) IRIX servers, OS/2 servers, and the occasional NT box - very little Windows used there, mainly it was Sun and SGI boxes, hooked up to and ancient (and now dead due to the Y2K problem) 1960's era mainframe. I learned a good bit about COBOL, FORTRAN, Visual BASIC and C (pretty much in that order). Got to experience the corporate bureaucracy (which does suck, but it was nice to get introduced to that at a young age). Networked in the tech field quite a bit, and set up connections that I still have with relatively influential people.
Check around and see what there might be like this for you, it was a good learning experience and the pay was good. Downside was that the work was from all on weekend nights (11PM-11AM or 11AM-11PM), but still it was worth the eight months I spent doing it.
At work on the new Intel iMac, I typically have Thunderbird, Firefox, Photoshop, Illustrator, Filemaker Pro, iChat and Address Book open. I have the computer set to automatically startup at 8:30am and shutdown at 6:00pm. Since I use those programs every day (and often) I have them all set to open at startup. Occasionally I'll open Excel, Word, Powerpoint, iPhoto or Fugu - once it's opened for the day it stays open (with the notable exceptions of iPhoto and Fugu - for some reason things get slow and buggy when those two are open at the same time) I do the leave things open all day because I hate to wait on things to load, and I especially hate splash screens when a program opens. I will close windows when needed, but the program keeps running. As you can tell, I do not work in the Tech field.
At home I have a crappy old HP laptop. I typically only use it for web use so I just keep Firefox running all the time, hibernating the computer when not in use. Only other thing ever really used it the Flickr Uplodr and Photoshop. It gimps out on me if I open too much at once.
Am I the only one here who disassmbles cell phones for parts? LCD Screens, vibrating motors. Most things are too entirely small to use, but I do it anyway.
You are entirely correct. Funding does play a big part (archaeology is incredibly expense if it's done right), however the truth is that for the most part, those of us who do archaeology today are worlds better than those who went before us. We also realize that those who come after us will be much better than we are due to advances in methodology, theory, and technologies such as gradiometry and resistivity. When I was working actively in the academic research side of things we tried to excavate no more than 5% of a site, leave the rest for future archs who will know things we don't, and thus will be able to get information we cannot. It must always be remembered that archaeology is at its heart a destructive science - we can't just do it over again if we screw up, screw ups mean that information is permanently lost.
On the salvage side of things it's slightly different, for example if there was a new interstate highway going through an archaeological site and there was absolutely no way to reroute that road, we would attempt to do 100% recovery of the site. This almost never happens (it'd have to be a really small site - digging right takes a long time and the road builders get pissy if you sit there and delay them for too long. Can't stop progress). In salvage or "Section 106" or whathaveyou style archaeology the rule is to reover as much as possible as quickly as possible.
They're using a lawnmower engine that can do up to 3600 RPM, 4 cycle. (4 cylinders then?)
No, 4 cycle means 4-stoke (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4-stroke) engine, as opposed to a 2-stroke engine. EPA laws now forbid new 2-stroke vehicles from using the 2-stroke (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2-stroke) type engine (you usually see 2-strokes in things like chainsaws and dirtbikes - you have to mix oil in with the gas). The thing is that 4-stroke designs are much more environmentally friendly than 2-stroke designs, however 2-strokes are generally more efficent in power production (more HP for less gas used). I would imageine that this rule is in keeping with the 'we may one day use vehicles like this' and the environmentally friedly nature of this competition. I read about this thing a few weeks ago, I'm pretty sure that it had a really tiny displacement single cylinder engine.
I remember a quote from a long time ago that went something like
"Psycology is applied biology, Biology is applied chemistry, Chemistry is applied physics, Physics is applied mathematics, Math is applied logic, Logic is applied philosophy."
I'm sure that CS -> Logic -> Philosophy might be a perfectly acceptable substitute.
For what it's worth I have a philosophy degree, and I focused on Logic, Philosophy of Science and Research Ethics. I would recommend an ethics class be forced down EVERYONE'S throat.
I dunno man, I've got quite abit of experience following girls. It gets more fun once they ask you to stop and you have to go all steath commando./* looks around nervously */
I'm in Illinois too. The state may be hurting for cash, but the politicos shure aren't. I think that maybe a bill forcing politicians who pass unconstitutional laws to pay the legal bills associated with striking those laws down.
Of course that law would also be unconstitutional, so I guess that it would never fly.
Agreed. For a 'realistic' game, the unpleasent click that you get from an empty magazine is the best indicator that you're out of ammo. It's hard enough to count your shots with a semi-auto. In my very limited full-auto experience it's impossible. I don't know about health, but I think that maybe the blood and debris might work, or maybe a visual sagging of the player, or some kind of visual effect to indicate the dizziness/fatuige/general unease that comes (at least to me) after a grave injury.
The problem with requiring a photo ID to vote is particularly sensitive in the black community of the United States. Keep in mind that there are many living people out there who remember having to show ID, or pay a poll tax, or prove that they could read before voting. These issues are not something that died with slavery. The thought is that one is given the right to vote, and that they shouldn't have to do anything to prove that they have that right. The simple fact that they show up at their precinct is proof enough that they have the right. There are those who believe that the might be targeted in retaliation to their votes if they show a card with a photo, their address and names before they vote - it doesn't make a whole lot of sense but it is true.
For the poor in general the photo ID requirement can also be considered a poll tax. Keep in mind that photo IDs typically cost around between $15 and $25 - for many urban poor this is a weeks worth of groceries - it doesn't sound like a lot to people who read/., but to a single mother making minimum wage with three kids it is an awful lot. In essence it costs them a whole lot to be able to vote.
Then there is the homeless issue. With no fixed address, no birth certificate, no social security card it is pretty much impossible to get an official photo ID, regardless of the money issue.
All of the above people have the right to vote, and the photo ID requirement might prevent them from voting. Your elected officials have to keep all of this in mind, plus more when they decide about laws like this. Until a manditory ID for everyone law is passed (and I hope it never is), we can't really required ID for something like voting.
Take a look at Kanji Alive at the University of Chicago. It's called "a web-based teaching aid to help students learn to write, read and memorize kanji in their own time, outside of the classroom" by the guys who wrote it. It shows the user the proper way to draw kanji (order of strokes), and also has demonstrations of how to pronounce words by native speakers. You can't learn japanese with this alone, but it is a good tool for getting a little practice in.
Slashdot Mirror
Sounds like my time in Sudan working on mapping with ArcGIS.
You get used to it after a few more weeks.
My thoughts exactly. This violates the Fifth Amendment as I understand it. Around this time last year we got this ruling from a federal judge ruling that forcing someone to divulge encryption passphrases was a violation of the 5th. I believe that a valid argument could be made by just about anyone that divulging their e-mail passphrase might reveal illegal activity, and therefore is constitutionally forbidden. My two cents.
Yeah, You know I initially saw the headline here as "CS Students Changing Programs to Attract Women."
Oh well.
Clark was a much more interesting character for the lead of a book. Try Without Remorese
I was so hoping for Harry Potter and the Closed Casket Funerals. Guess I should have known that that wasn't going to happen.
Correct there man.
First off, let's define militia, and we'll use current US law regarding the militia - TITLE 10 - Subtitle A - PART I - CHAPTER 13 - 311 states that there are two classes of the Militia, the organized militia (National Guard), and the unorganized militia (all men between 17 and 45, and the women in the National Guard - current Supreme Court binding precedent would also include all women between 17 and 45 - equality of the sexes). Most Slashdot readers are probably legally part of the militia whether they knew it or not.
Right now the courts are split far and wide. The Miller decision was ambiguous at best (full text of decision), there has been a lot of wrangling about what they meant, with most coming out on the "no personal right to bear arms" side of the argument. The decision was centered around whether or not a a sawed off shotgun was a legitimate militia style weapon. The court decided that sawed off shotguns had no legitimate use in a militia - they did not know that sawed-off shotguns had a history of being used in the trench warfare of World War One. This is important because if you read the decision, basically what is said is that people have an individual right to bear arms, but only those arms which have a legitimate military purpose. Some on the "personal right to bear arms" side interpret this as meaning that you have no right to own that hunting rifle that grandpop left you in his will, but you do have the right to, say a fully automatic M4 with grenade launcher attachment. HOWEVER, since the law that it was dealing with, which it didn't strike down - NFA1934 - essentially bans all weapons used in the modern military (Automatic weapons, Destructive Devices {weapons larger than 50 caliber}, and short barreled shotguns and rifles) we were left with the idea that most people who are part of the militia have no right to personally own military weapons.
The circuit courts have split this down further - The Ninth and Tenth have both found that the Second Amendment does not protect an individuals right to bear arms - the Fifth has found that there is a right to bear arms (see this Wiki article for more).
Where does this leave us? Well, the District of Columbia Circuit will now be deciding its stance on whether the Second applies to individuals or the collective. Eventually, the SCOTUS will have to make a decision, because there will be so many different circuits with differing opinions on the matter. I'm frankly surprised that they haven't taken it up already, since they already have the conflict between the different circuits, but so it goes.
I've been keeping a 7 year old HP alive for the past few years. For some stupid reason. Point is they never give me a problem when I order parts.
Ok, I did a little bit of system building and networking for some older friends with their own business back the the mid 90's while I was in high school. It was pretty nice, but I didn't want to end up spending all my time building gaming systems or running networks through local grocery stores. Eventually I hit paydirt when I was built one of the tech guys at a local factory a custom gaming rig.
I was offered a position as a "Weekend Mainframe Operator." The job, as I remember, required that you be 18 years old (factory regulations that no employee could be under 18, ymmv). Basically what happened was that factory ran 24 hours a day 7 days a week. The mainframe had to be up and running for the factory to work. There are three shifts in a day, weekends or not. One person in the computer room each shift, but to avoid massive amounts of overtime, on the weekends it wasn't staffed by regular full timers. They pulled kids from the local high school and community college to come in and work 12 hour shifts over the weekend. That's where I came in. I would go in for 12 hour shifts on weekends, alternating with another guy. We watched the mainframes, made sure they kept up and running, handled reports, and on Sundays we'd make backups and take them to off-site storage. It was a little boring at times, but it was great for several reasons. I got to see tech I never would have touched otherwise: Old IBM mainframes, brand spanking new (at the time) IRIX servers, OS/2 servers, and the occasional NT box - very little Windows used there, mainly it was Sun and SGI boxes, hooked up to and ancient (and now dead due to the Y2K problem) 1960's era mainframe. I learned a good bit about COBOL, FORTRAN, Visual BASIC and C (pretty much in that order). Got to experience the corporate bureaucracy (which does suck, but it was nice to get introduced to that at a young age). Networked in the tech field quite a bit, and set up connections that I still have with relatively influential people.
Check around and see what there might be like this for you, it was a good learning experience and the pay was good. Downside was that the work was from all on weekend nights (11PM-11AM or 11AM-11PM), but still it was worth the eight months I spent doing it.
At work on the new Intel iMac, I typically have Thunderbird, Firefox, Photoshop, Illustrator, Filemaker Pro, iChat and Address Book open. I have the computer set to automatically startup at 8:30am and shutdown at 6:00pm. Since I use those programs every day (and often) I have them all set to open at startup. Occasionally I'll open Excel, Word, Powerpoint, iPhoto or Fugu - once it's opened for the day it stays open (with the notable exceptions of iPhoto and Fugu - for some reason things get slow and buggy when those two are open at the same time) I do the leave things open all day because I hate to wait on things to load, and I especially hate splash screens when a program opens. I will close windows when needed, but the program keeps running. As you can tell, I do not work in the Tech field.
At home I have a crappy old HP laptop. I typically only use it for web use so I just keep Firefox running all the time, hibernating the computer when not in use. Only other thing ever really used it the Flickr Uplodr and Photoshop. It gimps out on me if I open too much at once.
That's the wayback machine robot. A whole lot fo sites disallow that one. Alexa also uses that identifier for it's webcrawler.
Am I the only one here who disassmbles cell phones for parts? LCD Screens, vibrating motors. Most things are too entirely small to use, but I do it anyway.
True enough. Don't have to swallow it though, we shouldn't forget about the womb bomber. I guess perhaps a guy could pull off something similar.
You are entirely correct. Funding does play a big part (archaeology is incredibly expense if it's done right), however the truth is that for the most part, those of us who do archaeology today are worlds better than those who went before us. We also realize that those who come after us will be much better than we are due to advances in methodology, theory, and technologies such as gradiometry and resistivity. When I was working actively in the academic research side of things we tried to excavate no more than 5% of a site, leave the rest for future archs who will know things we don't, and thus will be able to get information we cannot. It must always be remembered that archaeology is at its heart a destructive science - we can't just do it over again if we screw up, screw ups mean that information is permanently lost.
On the salvage side of things it's slightly different, for example if there was a new interstate highway going through an archaeological site and there was absolutely no way to reroute that road, we would attempt to do 100% recovery of the site. This almost never happens (it'd have to be a really small site - digging right takes a long time and the road builders get pissy if you sit there and delay them for too long. Can't stop progress). In salvage or "Section 106" or whathaveyou style archaeology the rule is to reover as much as possible as quickly as possible.
You are correct. I had a brain fart. More power for less engine displacement is what I meant.
They're using a lawnmower engine that can do up to 3600 RPM, 4 cycle. (4 cylinders then?)
No, 4 cycle means 4-stoke (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4-stroke) engine, as opposed to a 2-stroke engine. EPA laws now forbid new 2-stroke vehicles from using the 2-stroke (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2-stroke) type engine (you usually see 2-strokes in things like chainsaws and dirtbikes - you have to mix oil in with the gas). The thing is that 4-stroke designs are much more environmentally friendly than 2-stroke designs, however 2-strokes are generally more efficent in power production (more HP for less gas used). I would imageine that this rule is in keeping with the 'we may one day use vehicles like this' and the environmentally friedly nature of this competition. I read about this thing a few weeks ago, I'm pretty sure that it had a really tiny displacement single cylinder engine.
I remember a quote from a long time ago that went something like
"Psycology is applied biology,
Biology is applied chemistry,
Chemistry is applied physics,
Physics is applied mathematics,
Math is applied logic,
Logic is applied philosophy."
I'm sure that CS -> Logic -> Philosophy might be a perfectly acceptable substitute.
For what it's worth I have a philosophy degree, and I focused on Logic, Philosophy of Science and Research Ethics. I would recommend an ethics class be forced down EVERYONE'S throat.
I dunno man, I've got quite abit of experience following girls. It gets more fun once they ask you to stop and you have to go all steath commando. /* looks around nervously */
It would be found to be in conflict with the first amendment to the US Consitution.
I'm in Illinois too. The state may be hurting for cash, but the politicos shure aren't. I think that maybe a bill forcing politicians who pass unconstitutional laws to pay the legal bills associated with striking those laws down.
Of course that law would also be unconstitutional, so I guess that it would never fly.
Agreed. For a 'realistic' game, the unpleasent click that you get from an empty magazine is the best indicator that you're out of ammo. It's hard enough to count your shots with a semi-auto. In my very limited full-auto experience it's impossible. I don't know about health, but I think that maybe the blood and debris might work, or maybe a visual sagging of the player, or some kind of visual effect to indicate the dizziness/fatuige/general unease that comes (at least to me) after a grave injury.
The problem with requiring a photo ID to vote is particularly sensitive in the black community of the United States. Keep in mind that there are many living people out there who remember having to show ID, or pay a poll tax, or prove that they could read before voting. These issues are not something that died with slavery. The thought is that one is given the right to vote, and that they shouldn't have to do anything to prove that they have that right. The simple fact that they show up at their precinct is proof enough that they have the right. There are those who believe that the might be targeted in retaliation to their votes if they show a card with a photo, their address and names before they vote - it doesn't make a whole lot of sense but it is true.
/., but to a single mother making minimum wage with three kids it is an awful lot. In essence it costs them a whole lot to be able to vote.
For the poor in general the photo ID requirement can also be considered a poll tax. Keep in mind that photo IDs typically cost around between $15 and $25 - for many urban poor this is a weeks worth of groceries - it doesn't sound like a lot to people who read
Then there is the homeless issue. With no fixed address, no birth certificate, no social security card it is pretty much impossible to get an official photo ID, regardless of the money issue.
All of the above people have the right to vote, and the photo ID requirement might prevent them from voting. Your elected officials have to keep all of this in mind, plus more when they decide about laws like this. Until a manditory ID for everyone law is passed (and I hope it never is), we can't really required ID for something like voting.
http://kanjialive.lib.uchicago.edu/