The easiest solution is probably to set up a filter in your mail client that automatically trashes emails from that IP. It's not really the same as blocking all communications from that IP, but the end result is that you don't see the mail.
"It is also fitted with resistors to stop it heating up and becoming too hot to touch."
Um. What? Whoever wrote this clearly has no electronics knowledge. This is Slashdot. We have real engineers and scientists around here. Could we have real science reporting, please? Not only is that sentence moronic, the entire article fails to explain how this device operates, even in the most basic terms. It's shaped like a flashlight, but that seems to be where the similarity ends. It is not a light source whatsoever. From the actual scientific publication, it appears that this is a high voltage pulse generator that produces a discharge between the device and the patient. A series of 100ns pulses at 20KHz repetition rate ionizes the air between the device and the patient, thus producing the ions that kill the bacteria. The peak current is 6mA, but the average current (and thus average power) is very low so heating is minimal. This is a relatively low-tech device electronically, and could easily be replicated by many hobbyists.
You didn't read the article. She was arrested SOLELY based on a person's identification of her Facebook picture, completely out of context. She was not present at the alleged altercation, and had a solid alibi. They proceeded anyways.
For around $1500, you could have a radio controlled aircraft with one or more video links that can fly reliably over that kind of range. The price goes down to under $1000 if you can deal with shorter range. Basic autopilot functions (wing leveling and heading-hold) can be integrated for not much additional cost. All of this has been done before by many RC aircraft hobbyists, and flying by video is easier than flying by line of sight. However, you still have to fly the aircraft and it is not autonomous. Aircraft autonomy of the type you are requesting is very challenging and not available off-the-shelf. The cost and complexity required to achieve it will probably not be worthwhile for your application.
May I be the first to say, "SCREW OFF!" The entire argument is that the federal government should enforce a nationwide ban on the use of electronic devices during takeoff and landing, backed by criminal penalties for violation, simply because this author believes it's good for everyone to take a little break from their gadgets every now and then? Even if there's absolutely no safety issue? Jesus. Thankfully that basis for such a regulation clearly doesn't pass constitutional muster, even under the current interpretation of the 10th Amendment. People who think government should work like this are what's wrong with this country.
I haven't pirated music in about 5 years. I also haven't bought any CD's in that time, either. I have moved almost entirely to using Spotify, Pandora, and other subscription services for my music. Music I do buy, I buy electronically. I estimate I spent about 25% as much on recorded musical entertainment now than I did in the late 90's, during the heyday of the CD. This probably results in less revenue for the content owners, but that is not attributable to piracy. An industry's decline due to changing market factors is not necessarily a problem - it's just the natural way of things.
Yep, there is. Kinda. Called the "hearsay rule". Doesn't block all anecdotes, but at least tries to keep them first-hand only.
Hearsay is second-hand evidence, not anecdotal evidence. The admissibility of anecdotal evidence is governed by the rules on relevancy and, if applicable, expert testimony.
Are you against having any gas milage requirements for cars, too?
Or energy efficiency requirements for homes, businesses, etc?
Yes, absolutely. Every advancement in human civilization has been enabled and accompanied by a huge increase in energy consumption. Dedicating our scientific and industrial resources to reducing energy consumption is doubly damaging. It stigmatizes advancements in technology that (naturally) require more energy, and it takes scientific resources away from efforts to increase energy availability. If all the resources dedicated to reducing energy consumption were turned to advancing fusion power, we might be getting somewhere.
I don't think any run of the mill lawyer would be able to explain the GPL better than what you'd find on the first page of googling "GPL".
Unless said lawyer regularly deals with software licensing issues, it'd probably take that lawyer more than an hour to read and understand the GPL himself/herself (possibly poorly), before he/she'd be able to explain it back to you.
What you'll get is a warm and fuzzy feeling that you've spoken to a lawyer and got expert legal advice, but in reality it's like asking slashdotters to explain P?=NP (because they're related to computers, right?)... sure there are some people who know what they're saying, but the others simply have no clue.
That's why you choose a lawyer who is already familiar with the GPL. Pretty much any lawyer with some technical background has delved into it, even if software licensing isn't their main practice area. And you don't want a lawyer handling software licensing who doesn't have some technical background. Paying for a liberal arts major to learn what libraries and classes are so he can comprehend your work before giving legal advice is probably not a good investment. There are plenty of technically competent lawyers out there who can help.
As lawyers are part of the apparatus of law then do it for free as a public service.
The "apparatus of law" exists for everyone's mutual benefit. As much as you may dislike certain aspects of it, other aspects are greatly beneficial to you. While attorneys certainly do "pro bono" representation, civil litigation to wring money out of false copyright claimants isn't likely to be a pro bono exercise. It's risky and complicated, and the payoff if it works is a huge and mostly unearned windfall for the true rights-holder. Hence, a contingency fee is an appropriate arrangement for that kind of case.
whether the advertiser profited wrongly from the video depends on youtube's EULA which the uploader agreed to, not just copyright.
That is partly true. The article implies that the only way Rumblefish obtained advertizing rights on the video was by claiming (repeatedly) that they owned the copyright. If this is the case, then the EULA is irrelevant - Rumblefish's wrongful assertion of copyright for profit is an infringing act.
Absolutely, but with one hiccup: my Arizona bar admission is pending. Our other two partners, Ben Kafka and Karen Poulton, are admitted to practice in a total of seven states collectively. Karen is our senior partner and has been litigating for over 20 years. Ben and I are fresh out of law school, both geeks, and interested in tackling technology-related cases that most firms may not understand or wish to pursue. For strong copyright cases with available statutory damages, we would consider contingency fee arrangements. General contact address: PK at poultonkafka dot com
In the case at hand, there are no content owners, because nobody owns the bird songs (not even the birds).
Not true. The content owner is the person who made the recording. It is copyrighted, and the owner can potentially pursue a claim against Rumblefish for infringement if Rumblefish has placed ads on the video and profited from it by claiming it's theirs. My law firm would be interested in representing this uploader (and others). That's the kind of case we would love.
I posted this to YouTube, trying not to be provocative, but the post vanished.
Clearly, the fact that folks were shooting up into the air is damn reckless. The fact that they were trying to willfully destroy your property is flat out illegal.
My issue is with the footage at 02:15. It appears that you're trying to indicate the prop damage is what took the drone down. The likelihood of two hits on that single tiny prop area is highly improbable. Moreover, I've seen drone crashes and the prop damage is more consistent with a crash into the brush.
Help me out here. I've watched this a dozen times and I'm trying to believe you. What did I miss? Did the impossible happen?
You have interesting points about the prop damage, However, your statements about the recklessness of the hunters shows a complete lack of familiarity with shotguns. Shotguns SHOULD be fired up into the air. That's what they're for, and that's how they're used. The tiny pellets lose kinetic energy very quickly, so the harmful range is limited to about 100 yards. The pellets fall to the earth at low enough velocities not to injure people. The intentional damage to the helicopter was probably unlawful (at least civilly, maybe criminally), but arguments may exist to the contrary depending on some details we don't have.
Forget the hunters. What if some Bozo flying a drone manages to crash it causing significant damage somewhere? Sue the Bozo? Naw, he ain't got no money. Sue the manufacturing for selling a dangerous product?
How do serious RC flyers handle this? Fly only over club owned land? Maybe a collective liability insurance for members?
The AMA (Academy of Model Aeronautics) is the national organization that most RC fliers are members of. They carry a liability insurance policy which covers members in the event of aero-modeling related accidents, as long as the member complied with the AMA code of conduct - which prohibits flying in the manner these people did. Flying over land that's not yours, or in a manner that could result in crashing on a roadway or other occupied area, is a violation. These guys created a much greater public hazard than the hunters. In fact, having seen the video, the hunters did not break any of the standard rules of gun safety and caused no hazard at all. The helicopter was well above and also to the side of all bystanders, such that falling shot would have landed far from any of the people.
Radio controlled equipment is already used in construction. Working in trenches is dangerous and required elaborate and expensive safety precautions. To avoid this, contractors use methods that avoid putting people in trenches. This usually involves equipment with long arms to manipulate things (like a robotic pipelayer) but some equipment is remote controlled. Like this compactor: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oc18eKDyMlc Radio control of large pieces of equipment like concrete pumps is also common, but for the opposite reason. It allows the operator to be at the location where the action is happening rather than in a cab far away.
The most I ever cost my employer for a screw up is about $1.1 million.
This is the reality of business. People make mistakes, and when the stakes are high the mistakes are expensive. Anyone whose career trajectory includes positions of great responsibility WILL eventually make mistakes in this general price range. It doesn't mean they're bad at their jobs or should be fired, it's just a cost of achieving big things. I've only made about a $20,000 mistake, but I was fresh out of college so my damage potential was limited.
well, it doesn't take a rocket surgeon to see that you're not going to bang one of these babies together over the weekend in your garage.
I certainly agree with your general point, but you actually can throw together a gas turbine in your garage in a weekend. I've done it. Start with the biggest diesel engine turbocharger you can find, build a combustion chamber, and then hack together all the other little bits needed to make it run. Of course, the design of the combustion chamber and the hacking together of all the support systems is quite a project! But it is totally achievable in a garage, and takes no more than a weekend if you have all the parts and a good design in advance. The result is a functional and very noisy but completely useless gas turbine engine.
CMEs always drastically affect long-distance radio communications, especially in modes that rely on upper atmospheric characteristics (skip and ducting). It's not subtle at all. Anyone who woks with radio in a technical capacity has to cope with it. It's just that most commercial services are designed and operated in ways that keep end users from having to deal with these effects.
But considering the fact of global warming/climate change and the topic of greenhouse gases, isn't our core problem that we are simply burning too much stuff?
Not really. Our problem is that we burn stuff that was buried underground for ever and ever, and we dug it up. Burning stuff that just recently grew is just fine. Growing algae (or any plant, for that matter) removes CO2 from the environment and collects the carbon in the plant tissue. Burning it simply releases the same amount of CO2 that was consumed by growing the plant. It's "carbon neutral" in hippie parlance.
Yes, the battery must be drained after an accident.
The draining of the battery is no big deal. It won't toast the battery.
Are you sure about that? No current battery technology suitable for use in an electric vehicle can withstand complete discharge without ruining the battery. Discharging deeply enough to eliminate the risk of fire would also destroy the battery, I would think. Is there a reliable source that says otherwise?
The average energy of the X-ray beam used is three times that used in a CT scan
This may or may not be a misleading statement. There's inadequate context and specificity in the article. "Energy" here could refer to the total amount of ionizing radiation energy delivered to a person in the scanner, in which case these portal scanners could be considered extremely dangerous, since a typical CT is already a substantial and potentially dangerous radiation dose. Alternatively, the word "energy" may refer to the energy of the individual x-ray photons. In other words, if a typical CT uses 100keV x-rays and these scanners use 300keV. That is probably what was meant. It's clinically meaningless. Within reasonable ranges of several tens of keV to several MeV, only the total absorbed dose really matters health-wise, not the energies of the individual particles.
With that said, I still don't condone this type of intrusive inspection - even at the border.
Note that this reasoning can be extended to all kinds of payments for non-work: financial speculation; earning interest on loans; investing, unless you're there, actually doing something useful at the company you invested in; and so on and so forth. Which looks kinda socialistic, but isn't, as actual property, of the physical kind, remains fully private, and operating as expected.
That's not really extensible to most of those examples. When you loan money or invest in something, you're actively "working" the entire time that your money is out of your hands. If I loan you $1000, I'm "loaning" for the entire period of time that I don't have my $1000.
Slashdot Mirror
The easiest solution is probably to set up a filter in your mail client that automatically trashes emails from that IP. It's not really the same as blocking all communications from that IP, but the end result is that you don't see the mail.
"It is also fitted with resistors to stop it heating up and becoming too hot to touch."
Um. What? Whoever wrote this clearly has no electronics knowledge. This is Slashdot. We have real engineers and scientists around here. Could we have real science reporting, please? Not only is that sentence moronic, the entire article fails to explain how this device operates, even in the most basic terms. It's shaped like a flashlight, but that seems to be where the similarity ends. It is not a light source whatsoever. From the actual scientific publication, it appears that this is a high voltage pulse generator that produces a discharge between the device and the patient. A series of 100ns pulses at 20KHz repetition rate ionizes the air between the device and the patient, thus producing the ions that kill the bacteria. The peak current is 6mA, but the average current (and thus average power) is very low so heating is minimal. This is a relatively low-tech device electronically, and could easily be replicated by many hobbyists.
You didn't read the article. She was arrested SOLELY based on a person's identification of her Facebook picture, completely out of context. She was not present at the alleged altercation, and had a solid alibi. They proceeded anyways.
For around $1500, you could have a radio controlled aircraft with one or more video links that can fly reliably over that kind of range. The price goes down to under $1000 if you can deal with shorter range. Basic autopilot functions (wing leveling and heading-hold) can be integrated for not much additional cost. All of this has been done before by many RC aircraft hobbyists, and flying by video is easier than flying by line of sight. However, you still have to fly the aircraft and it is not autonomous. Aircraft autonomy of the type you are requesting is very challenging and not available off-the-shelf. The cost and complexity required to achieve it will probably not be worthwhile for your application.
A quick Googling of "arrested for not turning cell phone off on plane" shows MANY results. First: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/06/air-passenger-arrested-fo_0_n_950326.html
May I be the first to say, "SCREW OFF!" The entire argument is that the federal government should enforce a nationwide ban on the use of electronic devices during takeoff and landing, backed by criminal penalties for violation, simply because this author believes it's good for everyone to take a little break from their gadgets every now and then? Even if there's absolutely no safety issue? Jesus. Thankfully that basis for such a regulation clearly doesn't pass constitutional muster, even under the current interpretation of the 10th Amendment. People who think government should work like this are what's wrong with this country.
I haven't pirated music in about 5 years. I also haven't bought any CD's in that time, either. I have moved almost entirely to using Spotify, Pandora, and other subscription services for my music. Music I do buy, I buy electronically. I estimate I spent about 25% as much on recorded musical entertainment now than I did in the late 90's, during the heyday of the CD. This probably results in less revenue for the content owners, but that is not attributable to piracy. An industry's decline due to changing market factors is not necessarily a problem - it's just the natural way of things.
Yep, there is. Kinda. Called the "hearsay rule". Doesn't block all anecdotes, but at least tries to keep them first-hand only.
Hearsay is second-hand evidence, not anecdotal evidence. The admissibility of anecdotal evidence is governed by the rules on relevancy and, if applicable, expert testimony.
Are you against having any gas milage requirements for cars, too?
Or energy efficiency requirements for homes, businesses, etc?
Yes, absolutely. Every advancement in human civilization has been enabled and accompanied by a huge increase in energy consumption. Dedicating our scientific and industrial resources to reducing energy consumption is doubly damaging. It stigmatizes advancements in technology that (naturally) require more energy, and it takes scientific resources away from efforts to increase energy availability. If all the resources dedicated to reducing energy consumption were turned to advancing fusion power, we might be getting somewhere.
I don't think any run of the mill lawyer would be able to explain the GPL better than what you'd find on the first page of googling "GPL".
Unless said lawyer regularly deals with software licensing issues, it'd probably take that lawyer more than an hour to read and understand the GPL himself/herself (possibly poorly), before he/she'd be able to explain it back to you.
What you'll get is a warm and fuzzy feeling that you've spoken to a lawyer and got expert legal advice, but in reality it's like asking slashdotters to explain P?=NP (because they're related to computers, right?)... sure there are some people who know what they're saying, but the others simply have no clue.
That's why you choose a lawyer who is already familiar with the GPL. Pretty much any lawyer with some technical background has delved into it, even if software licensing isn't their main practice area. And you don't want a lawyer handling software licensing who doesn't have some technical background. Paying for a liberal arts major to learn what libraries and classes are so he can comprehend your work before giving legal advice is probably not a good investment. There are plenty of technically competent lawyers out there who can help.
As lawyers are part of the apparatus of law then do it for free as a public service.
The "apparatus of law" exists for everyone's mutual benefit. As much as you may dislike certain aspects of it, other aspects are greatly beneficial to you. While attorneys certainly do "pro bono" representation, civil litigation to wring money out of false copyright claimants isn't likely to be a pro bono exercise. It's risky and complicated, and the payoff if it works is a huge and mostly unearned windfall for the true rights-holder. Hence, a contingency fee is an appropriate arrangement for that kind of case.
whether the advertiser profited wrongly from the video depends on youtube's EULA which the uploader agreed to, not just copyright.
That is partly true. The article implies that the only way Rumblefish obtained advertizing rights on the video was by claiming (repeatedly) that they owned the copyright. If this is the case, then the EULA is irrelevant - Rumblefish's wrongful assertion of copyright for profit is an infringing act.
Absolutely, but with one hiccup: my Arizona bar admission is pending. Our other two partners, Ben Kafka and Karen Poulton, are admitted to practice in a total of seven states collectively. Karen is our senior partner and has been litigating for over 20 years. Ben and I are fresh out of law school, both geeks, and interested in tackling technology-related cases that most firms may not understand or wish to pursue. For strong copyright cases with available statutory damages, we would consider contingency fee arrangements. General contact address: PK at poultonkafka dot com
In the case at hand, there are no content owners, because nobody owns the bird songs (not even the birds).
Not true. The content owner is the person who made the recording. It is copyrighted, and the owner can potentially pursue a claim against Rumblefish for infringement if Rumblefish has placed ads on the video and profited from it by claiming it's theirs. My law firm would be interested in representing this uploader (and others). That's the kind of case we would love.
I posted this to YouTube, trying not to be provocative, but the post vanished.
You have interesting points about the prop damage, However, your statements about the recklessness of the hunters shows a complete lack of familiarity with shotguns. Shotguns SHOULD be fired up into the air. That's what they're for, and that's how they're used. The tiny pellets lose kinetic energy very quickly, so the harmful range is limited to about 100 yards. The pellets fall to the earth at low enough velocities not to injure people. The intentional damage to the helicopter was probably unlawful (at least civilly, maybe criminally), but arguments may exist to the contrary depending on some details we don't have.
Forget the hunters. What if some Bozo flying a drone manages to crash it causing significant damage somewhere? Sue the Bozo? Naw, he ain't got no money. Sue the manufacturing for selling a dangerous product?
How do serious RC flyers handle this? Fly only over club owned land? Maybe a collective liability insurance for members?
The AMA (Academy of Model Aeronautics) is the national organization that most RC fliers are members of. They carry a liability insurance policy which covers members in the event of aero-modeling related accidents, as long as the member complied with the AMA code of conduct - which prohibits flying in the manner these people did. Flying over land that's not yours, or in a manner that could result in crashing on a roadway or other occupied area, is a violation. These guys created a much greater public hazard than the hunters. In fact, having seen the video, the hunters did not break any of the standard rules of gun safety and caused no hazard at all. The helicopter was well above and also to the side of all bystanders, such that falling shot would have landed far from any of the people.
Radio controlled equipment is already used in construction. Working in trenches is dangerous and required elaborate and expensive safety precautions. To avoid this, contractors use methods that avoid putting people in trenches. This usually involves equipment with long arms to manipulate things (like a robotic pipelayer) but some equipment is remote controlled. Like this compactor: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oc18eKDyMlc Radio control of large pieces of equipment like concrete pumps is also common, but for the opposite reason. It allows the operator to be at the location where the action is happening rather than in a cab far away.
No it isn't. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_v._Texas
The most I ever cost my employer for a screw up is about $1.1 million.
This is the reality of business. People make mistakes, and when the stakes are high the mistakes are expensive. Anyone whose career trajectory includes positions of great responsibility WILL eventually make mistakes in this general price range. It doesn't mean they're bad at their jobs or should be fired, it's just a cost of achieving big things. I've only made about a $20,000 mistake, but I was fresh out of college so my damage potential was limited.
Are you serious?
well, it doesn't take a rocket surgeon to see that you're not going to bang one of these babies together over the weekend in your garage.
I certainly agree with your general point, but you actually can throw together a gas turbine in your garage in a weekend. I've done it. Start with the biggest diesel engine turbocharger you can find, build a combustion chamber, and then hack together all the other little bits needed to make it run. Of course, the design of the combustion chamber and the hacking together of all the support systems is quite a project! But it is totally achievable in a garage, and takes no more than a weekend if you have all the parts and a good design in advance. The result is a functional and very noisy but completely useless gas turbine engine.
CMEs always drastically affect long-distance radio communications, especially in modes that rely on upper atmospheric characteristics (skip and ducting). It's not subtle at all. Anyone who woks with radio in a technical capacity has to cope with it. It's just that most commercial services are designed and operated in ways that keep end users from having to deal with these effects.
But considering the fact of global warming/climate change and the topic of greenhouse gases, isn't our core problem that we are simply burning too much stuff?
Not really. Our problem is that we burn stuff that was buried underground for ever and ever, and we dug it up. Burning stuff that just recently grew is just fine. Growing algae (or any plant, for that matter) removes CO2 from the environment and collects the carbon in the plant tissue. Burning it simply releases the same amount of CO2 that was consumed by growing the plant. It's "carbon neutral" in hippie parlance.
Yes, the battery must be drained after an accident.
The draining of the battery is no big deal. It won't toast the battery.
Are you sure about that? No current battery technology suitable for use in an electric vehicle can withstand complete discharge without ruining the battery. Discharging deeply enough to eliminate the risk of fire would also destroy the battery, I would think. Is there a reliable source that says otherwise?
The average energy of the X-ray beam used is three times that used in a CT scan
This may or may not be a misleading statement. There's inadequate context and specificity in the article. "Energy" here could refer to the total amount of ionizing radiation energy delivered to a person in the scanner, in which case these portal scanners could be considered extremely dangerous, since a typical CT is already a substantial and potentially dangerous radiation dose. Alternatively, the word "energy" may refer to the energy of the individual x-ray photons. In other words, if a typical CT uses 100keV x-rays and these scanners use 300keV. That is probably what was meant. It's clinically meaningless. Within reasonable ranges of several tens of keV to several MeV, only the total absorbed dose really matters health-wise, not the energies of the individual particles.
With that said, I still don't condone this type of intrusive inspection - even at the border.
Note that this reasoning can be extended to all kinds of payments for non-work: financial speculation; earning interest on loans; investing, unless you're there, actually doing something useful at the company you invested in; and so on and so forth. Which looks kinda socialistic, but isn't, as actual property, of the physical kind, remains fully private, and operating as expected.
That's not really extensible to most of those examples. When you loan money or invest in something, you're actively "working" the entire time that your money is out of your hands. If I loan you $1000, I'm "loaning" for the entire period of time that I don't have my $1000.