People who are capable, will learn from whatever source is available (And google is a much better source than all but a handful of professors).
The problem with learning from Google is that you're not challenged. Take a university course; at the end of the course you'll have to demonstrate that you actually understand the material, through tests. The ability to look something up on Google is not the same as actually understanding it, nor are you challenged by Google in the same manner as you would be challenged by professors and classmates. Nobody would have claimed in the 1980s that possession of a current copy of Encyclopedia Britannica was a decent substitute for higher education.
Sure, just try and talk to them about a social contract to reduce the harm that comes from widespread ownership of firearms
You could replace 'firearms' with 'free speech' and find Great Powers (the PRC and Russia) that are sympathetic; somehow I doubt you'd be willing to emigrate there though. I also suspect that you'd be looking at a -1 mod right now, rather than +5, since your contribution to the discussion would be both offtopic and flamebait.
Even if I accepted your premise about the social cost of gun ownership (I don't, violent crime in the US has continued to drop for decades, even as gun laws have been largely liberalized) it would not change my opinion about firearms ownership. Self-defense is an inherent human right, one that can not be exercised effectively without weaponry that negates disparities in physical strength, numbers, or size. The right of self-defense is recognized in the United States by the 2nd Amendment, as well as Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Because most people aren't assholes? Build me an electric car which meets my daily needs that I can afford and I'll buy it. Offer me carbon neutral electricity that I can afford and I'll buy it.
The sad reality of the situation is that it's hard to beat fossil fuels in terms of energy density and cost. Available "green" replacements (many of which aren't terribly green, hence the quote marks) tend to fail both of those tests; they cost more and offer less. That's not a formula for success.
I suggest you take a look at what China is doing in the South China Sea and its economic activities in Africa.
I suggest you open a history book and review the Monroe Doctrine. They're not doing anything that every up and coming power before them has not already done. They're taking steps to protect their critical interests and expand their economic clout. You can't seriously have expected them to do anything else.
The real trick will be what happens when their critical interests (real or perceived) conflict with those of another Great Power. My assumption and hope is that we'll be able to come to an understanding that both sides can live with. In any case, you'll more than China's activities in the South China Sea to convince me that they're a greater threat to world peace than barbarians with an end times ideology that refuse to play by the rules of the civilized world. The Chinese think differently than Westerners do, but they're still rational human beings that you can have a meeting of the minds with.
If the underlying story is a good one (we both seem to agree it is in this case) it's best to just turn your brain off and not think about such contradictions.
The notion that a civilization at 1950s levels of technology (as I recall they were just starting to experiment with artificial satellites, so think Sputnik) could build a probe capable of seizing control of an alien brain is out there, to say the least. Here we sit in 2015 and we don't have the technology to do that with our own brains, never mind an alien one.
I don't really care about that though, or the implausibility of a civilization that communicates entirely through metaphor. As long as the story obeys its own rules and takes us for a good ride who cares how plausible it is? There's a reason why it's called fiction.:)
You can't give "things" that have nothing to lose that power, it should always be a human that the same could happen too.
Really? Because the consensus on Slashdot seems to be that pilot-less airliners and driver-less automobiles are a good thing that removes human error from the equation. We're to believe that software engineers are smart enough to account for all conceivable air disaster scenarios but not smart enough to build an IFF system into an armed autonomous weapons system?
Personally I think both ideas are bad ones, I just find it curious that the group-think around here views humans behind the controls of an airliner as a problem but desires them behind the controls of a hellfire missile platform.
If there is ever to be a one world government, it means that the citizens of Shanghai would have to have the same rights the citizens of Riyadh who would have to have the same rights as the citizens of New Jersey, and if the differences remain then fundamental divides between nations remain.
That's not necessarily true; the United States Senate would seem to offer a model that could address that concern. The citizens of New Jersey do not have the same clout within that body as citizens of Vermont or Alaska.
Granted, I do not think a unified global government is possible or desirable, for a lot of reasons, but concerns about the tyranny of the majority are actually easy to address.
China is a member of the community of nations and seems content (today and historically) to play in their own sandbox most of the time. What do you purpose to do with assholes like ISIL? There's no magic pill that's capable of turning murderous thugs into Jean-Luc Picard.
If I were the student, I would have defended myself by saying "my home machine password is the same, i just tried it and it worked, what a coincidence!"
You've got a 1 in 10,000 chance of that working with my ATM card; let me know if that legal defense passes muster if you drain my account and get caught.
I can only speak for New York State; in NYS when charges are dropped/dismissed or the defendant acquitted you receive a canned "Order of Dismissal" from the court. This order provides that:
1. Records of the arrest held at the State level are sealed in almost all instances, with specified exemptions, one of which is pistol license applications. Apply for a NYS pistol license and they can and will obtain the sealed records.
2. All copies of fingerprints taken by the State are ordered to be destroyed or returned to the defendant.
3. The State Court asks the Feds to destroy any copies of records transmitted to them by the State of New York after your arrest.
The astute observer will note the bolded part of #3; virtually all local/state arrests in the United States are reported to the FBI by your State's clearinghouse. In New York State it's the Division of Criminal Justice Services. They usually transmit your fingerprints to the Feds too. If you think the Feds are deleting these records because some State Court asks (not orders) them to I've got a bridge to sell you.....
For what it's worth, the FBI won't disclose records in most instances, except to the applicable parties (i.e., you, via a FOIA request), so it's not something that will show up on a private background check. It will show up as part of any Federal background investigation (i.e., for a security clearance) and is almost certainly made available to State and Local law enforcement authorities.
Another thing to keep in mind: If you're asked whether or not you've ever been arrested and choose to lie about it you may well have committed a crime, depending on the circumstances. A verbal lie to a private citizen or employer? Most likely not a crime. A written lie, i.e., an employment application? In New York State it could be considered a forged instrument.
The other hole that exists is the public record. If you make the police blotter in the local paper it's almost certainly going to go online and get captured by Google. At that point there isn't a court in the world that's powerful enough to make it go away. The United States has no right to be forgotten, so that shit is going to be out there for your entire life, available to anyone who is smart enough to look for it.
In my particular case I was lucky, the police had it in their heads that I had information on co-conspirators, and they very deliberately kept it out of the blotter hoping that I would roll on them. The only records that exist of my arrest are held in Albany and Washington, available only under select circumstances, and I've yet to come across an employment application that asks about arrests. Most only care about convictions, and I answer "No" to that question in good faith.
If the costs weren't that onerous it would have happened already. But thanks for attacking me again and proving the point that you're a partisan asshole more interested in the party line than actually finding a solution to the problem.
Scaring the kid would end at putting him in the back of a patrol car in handcuffs and driving him to the station while sternly lecturing him about his life choices. I would have no problem with that and would in fact encourage it if I was his parents. To actually charge with him a felony though? That's absurd.
Being charged with a felony will follow him forever, even if the charges are ultimately dismissed. Want a gun license? In many States (even gun friendly ones) you have to disclose arrests, not convictions. Want to apply for a security clearance? Same deal. Depending on the laws of your State you may have to disclose arrests for mundane job applications that don't involve security clearances or the like. Even if the records are sealed it'll still show up on a Google search if you made the police blotter.
You can explain away the arrest -- I was charged with a felony at age 19 and it hasn't really impeded my life -- but what do you suppose happens if an employer or institute of higher education is looking at two otherwise equal candidates and one of them has an arrest record?
The crime is using a password you didn't have permission to use to gain access to a computer account that a reasonable person would have known they would not entitled to access.
Disclaimer: I am not justifying it, I think this is overreaction is patently stupid, I am just explaining what the underlying criminal offense is.
I am surprised it's a felony level offense; I just pursued New York State's penal law and our mostanalogous offenses are both misdemeanors; I guess that's Florida for you. In New York you would have to access "computer material" (i.e., steal a file) to turn it into a felony, or be engaged in the commission of another felony while accessing the system without authorization.
I'm not saying it would be ideal but perhaps you should read what I was replying to?
"Exactly; in the future, we'll still have horseshoe crabs, sharks, and cockroaches. No mammals (including humans), though."
I don't much care to be one of the survivors of a nuclear exchange, super-volcanic eruption, or any other planet wide cataclysm. All I'm saying is that humanity itself would almost certainly survive such an event. Strip away all of our advancements and at the core we're still tough little buggers, one of the most (if not the most) adaptable species ever to exist on Planet Earth.
I don't think this should be a felony, but just because I leave my front door unlocked and slightly ajar doesn't give you permission to enter it.
It shouldn't even be a criminal charge. It may be a crime by the letter of the law, but c'mon, this couldn't be handled in-house?! A moronic stunt like this calls for in-school suspension with a few extra and tedious academic assignments. I can't decide what's more pathetic, the fact that the school couldn't handle this internally or the fact that law enforcement took the "case."
Coming soon, the 2015 remake of The Breakfast Club; it begins with all four kids in handcuffs, charged with felonies for their misadventures, and ends with the parents bankrupted by legal fees while the kids lose any hope of becoming productive members of society.
I do think one of our last acts as a species should be to build a giant monument on the Moon (where it won't be eroded by the weather) to explain what happened to us, in case any aliens come by
Humanity survived a climate shift that was orders of magnitudes worse than even the worst case "the sky is falling!" predictions of the ongoing climate shift. We'll be fine and frankly I think it's arrogance to think that we have the power to do ourselves in.
If humanity is destined to be wiped out before it escapes the solar system it will be because of cosmological events, quite likely one that we never even saw coming.
They've been saying that for as long as science has been promising us nuclear fusion. It's been 50 years away for my entire lifespan; I'm now in my 30s and don't see it happening before I'm 50. Do you?
I would love to see the day when technology provides a solution to this problem and am optimistic enough to believe that it will happen before I die. That said, we're forced to deal with reality as it exists today, and the sad truth of the matter is that you can't replace carbon based sources of energy today, tomorrow, or even in the next few decades. That would hold true even if we launched a crash nuclear power program, which is something that we should do, alongside solar, wind, hydro, and yes, even carbon for those applications (aerospace, shipping, agriculture) where no other viable technology exists.
I wish the people who think this is the greatest threat facing humanity would at least acknowledge the reality of the situation, which is that carbon emissions are going to continue to rise for the foreseeable future. The third world is not going to meekly accept their current lot in life, they're going to develop regardless of what the West does. What do you propose to do about that? Go to war to stop them? Unless you've got plans for Mr. Fusion in your basement that's what you would have to do.
Willfully ignorant? Fuck you. I accept the underlying premise that the climate is changing and mankind's activities are contributing a non-zero amount to that change. Pointing out the fact that the climate has changed before does not make me a denier and it speaks volumes about you that you feel the need to attack someone who largely agrees with you because they don't completely toe the party line.
Incidentally, the only things I don't accept are the doomsday rhetoric about the consequences of climate change and the proposed "solutions" that will ultimately accomplish nothing. Well, that's not entirely true, they'll massively increase energy bills in the first world while simultaneously halting development in the third world. But hey, who gives a shit, we've got ours, fuck all of those poor brown people.
Whether you're willing to admit it or not, energy is civilization and massively increasing the cost thereof condemns billions of people to remain in poverty. You'd do better to spend those countless trillions on preparing humanity for the change that we couldn't stop even if we axed all carbon emissions tomorrow.
There's nothing wrong with the pen register ruling; you don't have any expectation of privacy when you voluntarily hand information to a third party. The ruling abides by both the letter and the spirit of the 4th Amendment.
The bigger issue here, in my not so humble opinion is the very existence of the DEA and so-called War on Drugs. The sooner we get the Government out of the business of protecting people from themselves the better. There are a lot of things that may justify Governmental intrusion; protecting idiots from themselves is not one of them.
I have an objection to the lion's share of the proposed solutions, which invariably require reductions in the standard of living. The green crowd doesn't seem to be willing to acknowledge the fact that energy is civilization, their desired "green" replacements don't scale well enough to maintain civilization at the current level (and aren't all that "green" anyway), and as an added level of stupid many of them are ardency opposed to nuclear power. The last bit really annoys the piss out of me, you can't profess that mankind's carbon emissions are destroying life as we know it while simultaneously condemning the only scalable carbon neutral energy source available with today's technology.
Earth's climate has never been and will never be static.
Slashdot Mirror
it's their parent's money after all.
Fixed it for you.
People who are capable, will learn from whatever source is available (And google is a much better source than all but a handful of professors).
The problem with learning from Google is that you're not challenged. Take a university course; at the end of the course you'll have to demonstrate that you actually understand the material, through tests. The ability to look something up on Google is not the same as actually understanding it, nor are you challenged by Google in the same manner as you would be challenged by professors and classmates. Nobody would have claimed in the 1980s that possession of a current copy of Encyclopedia Britannica was a decent substitute for higher education.
Sure, just try and talk to them about a social contract to reduce the harm that comes from widespread ownership of firearms
You could replace 'firearms' with 'free speech' and find Great Powers (the PRC and Russia) that are sympathetic; somehow I doubt you'd be willing to emigrate there though. I also suspect that you'd be looking at a -1 mod right now, rather than +5, since your contribution to the discussion would be both offtopic and flamebait.
Even if I accepted your premise about the social cost of gun ownership (I don't, violent crime in the US has continued to drop for decades, even as gun laws have been largely liberalized) it would not change my opinion about firearms ownership. Self-defense is an inherent human right, one that can not be exercised effectively without weaponry that negates disparities in physical strength, numbers, or size. The right of self-defense is recognized in the United States by the 2nd Amendment, as well as Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Because most people aren't assholes? Build me an electric car which meets my daily needs that I can afford and I'll buy it. Offer me carbon neutral electricity that I can afford and I'll buy it.
The sad reality of the situation is that it's hard to beat fossil fuels in terms of energy density and cost. Available "green" replacements (many of which aren't terribly green, hence the quote marks) tend to fail both of those tests; they cost more and offer less. That's not a formula for success.
I suggest you take a look at what China is doing in the South China Sea and its economic activities in Africa.
I suggest you open a history book and review the Monroe Doctrine. They're not doing anything that every up and coming power before them has not already done. They're taking steps to protect their critical interests and expand their economic clout. You can't seriously have expected them to do anything else.
The real trick will be what happens when their critical interests (real or perceived) conflict with those of another Great Power. My assumption and hope is that we'll be able to come to an understanding that both sides can live with. In any case, you'll more than China's activities in the South China Sea to convince me that they're a greater threat to world peace than barbarians with an end times ideology that refuse to play by the rules of the civilized world. The Chinese think differently than Westerners do, but they're still rational human beings that you can have a meeting of the minds with.
If the underlying story is a good one (we both seem to agree it is in this case) it's best to just turn your brain off and not think about such contradictions.
The notion that a civilization at 1950s levels of technology (as I recall they were just starting to experiment with artificial satellites, so think Sputnik) could build a probe capable of seizing control of an alien brain is out there, to say the least. Here we sit in 2015 and we don't have the technology to do that with our own brains, never mind an alien one.
I don't really care about that though, or the implausibility of a civilization that communicates entirely through metaphor. As long as the story obeys its own rules and takes us for a good ride who cares how plausible it is? There's a reason why it's called fiction. :)
You can't give "things" that have nothing to lose that power, it should always be a human that the same could happen too.
Really? Because the consensus on Slashdot seems to be that pilot-less airliners and driver-less automobiles are a good thing that removes human error from the equation. We're to believe that software engineers are smart enough to account for all conceivable air disaster scenarios but not smart enough to build an IFF system into an armed autonomous weapons system?
Personally I think both ideas are bad ones, I just find it curious that the group-think around here views humans behind the controls of an airliner as a problem but desires them behind the controls of a hellfire missile platform.
If there is ever to be a one world government, it means that the citizens of Shanghai would have to have the same rights the citizens of Riyadh who would have to have the same rights as the citizens of New Jersey, and if the differences remain then fundamental divides between nations remain.
That's not necessarily true; the United States Senate would seem to offer a model that could address that concern. The citizens of New Jersey do not have the same clout within that body as citizens of Vermont or Alaska.
Granted, I do not think a unified global government is possible or desirable, for a lot of reasons, but concerns about the tyranny of the majority are actually easy to address.
China is a member of the community of nations and seems content (today and historically) to play in their own sandbox most of the time. What do you purpose to do with assholes like ISIL? There's no magic pill that's capable of turning murderous thugs into Jean-Luc Picard.
You're over-thinking my cheap joke. I guess the wink emoticon wasn't obvious enough.... :)
Dr. Strangelove was not a documentary.....
If I were the student, I would have defended myself by saying "my home machine password is the same, i just tried it and it worked, what a coincidence!"
You've got a 1 in 10,000 chance of that working with my ATM card; let me know if that legal defense passes muster if you drain my account and get caught.
I can only speak for New York State; in NYS when charges are dropped/dismissed or the defendant acquitted you receive a canned "Order of Dismissal" from the court. This order provides that:
1. Records of the arrest held at the State level are sealed in almost all instances, with specified exemptions, one of which is pistol license applications. Apply for a NYS pistol license and they can and will obtain the sealed records.
2. All copies of fingerprints taken by the State are ordered to be destroyed or returned to the defendant.
3. The State Court asks the Feds to destroy any copies of records transmitted to them by the State of New York after your arrest.
The astute observer will note the bolded part of #3; virtually all local/state arrests in the United States are reported to the FBI by your State's clearinghouse. In New York State it's the Division of Criminal Justice Services. They usually transmit your fingerprints to the Feds too. If you think the Feds are deleting these records because some State Court asks (not orders) them to I've got a bridge to sell you.....
For what it's worth, the FBI won't disclose records in most instances, except to the applicable parties (i.e., you, via a FOIA request), so it's not something that will show up on a private background check. It will show up as part of any Federal background investigation (i.e., for a security clearance) and is almost certainly made available to State and Local law enforcement authorities.
Another thing to keep in mind: If you're asked whether or not you've ever been arrested and choose to lie about it you may well have committed a crime, depending on the circumstances. A verbal lie to a private citizen or employer? Most likely not a crime. A written lie, i.e., an employment application? In New York State it could be considered a forged instrument.
The other hole that exists is the public record. If you make the police blotter in the local paper it's almost certainly going to go online and get captured by Google. At that point there isn't a court in the world that's powerful enough to make it go away. The United States has no right to be forgotten, so that shit is going to be out there for your entire life, available to anyone who is smart enough to look for it.
In my particular case I was lucky, the police had it in their heads that I had information on co-conspirators, and they very deliberately kept it out of the blotter hoping that I would roll on them. The only records that exist of my arrest are held in Albany and Washington, available only under select circumstances, and I've yet to come across an employment application that asks about arrests. Most only care about convictions, and I answer "No" to that question in good faith.
If the costs weren't that onerous it would have happened already. But thanks for attacking me again and proving the point that you're a partisan asshole more interested in the party line than actually finding a solution to the problem.
Scaring the kid would end at putting him in the back of a patrol car in handcuffs and driving him to the station while sternly lecturing him about his life choices. I would have no problem with that and would in fact encourage it if I was his parents. To actually charge with him a felony though? That's absurd.
Being charged with a felony will follow him forever, even if the charges are ultimately dismissed. Want a gun license? In many States (even gun friendly ones) you have to disclose arrests, not convictions. Want to apply for a security clearance? Same deal. Depending on the laws of your State you may have to disclose arrests for mundane job applications that don't involve security clearances or the like. Even if the records are sealed it'll still show up on a Google search if you made the police blotter.
You can explain away the arrest -- I was charged with a felony at age 19 and it hasn't really impeded my life -- but what do you suppose happens if an employer or institute of higher education is looking at two otherwise equal candidates and one of them has an arrest record?
No, but where is the "crime"?
The crime is using a password you didn't have permission to use to gain access to a computer account that a reasonable person would have known they would not entitled to access.
Disclaimer: I am not justifying it, I think this is overreaction is patently stupid, I am just explaining what the underlying criminal offense is.
I am surprised it's a felony level offense; I just pursued New York State's penal law and our most analogous offenses are both misdemeanors; I guess that's Florida for you. In New York you would have to access "computer material" (i.e., steal a file) to turn it into a felony, or be engaged in the commission of another felony while accessing the system without authorization.
I'm not saying it would be ideal but perhaps you should read what I was replying to?
"Exactly; in the future, we'll still have horseshoe crabs, sharks, and cockroaches. No mammals (including humans), though."
I don't much care to be one of the survivors of a nuclear exchange, super-volcanic eruption, or any other planet wide cataclysm. All I'm saying is that humanity itself would almost certainly survive such an event. Strip away all of our advancements and at the core we're still tough little buggers, one of the most (if not the most) adaptable species ever to exist on Planet Earth.
I don't think this should be a felony, but just because I leave my front door unlocked and slightly ajar doesn't give you permission to enter it.
It shouldn't even be a criminal charge. It may be a crime by the letter of the law, but c'mon, this couldn't be handled in-house?! A moronic stunt like this calls for in-school suspension with a few extra and tedious academic assignments. I can't decide what's more pathetic, the fact that the school couldn't handle this internally or the fact that law enforcement took the "case."
Coming soon, the 2015 remake of The Breakfast Club; it begins with all four kids in handcuffs, charged with felonies for their misadventures, and ends with the parents bankrupted by legal fees while the kids lose any hope of becoming productive members of society.
I do think one of our last acts as a species should be to build a giant monument on the Moon (where it won't be eroded by the weather) to explain what happened to us, in case any aliens come by
There's a better way. ;)
(Sorry for the duplicate reply; that'll teach me to post from my phone.....)
Humanity survived a climate shift that was orders of magnitudes worse than even the worst case "the sky is falling!" predictions of the ongoing climate shift. We'll be fine and frankly I think it's arrogance to think that we have the power to do ourselves in.
If humanity is destined to be wiped out before it escapes the solar system it will be because of cosmological events, quite likely one that we never even saw coming.
They've been saying that for as long as science has been promising us nuclear fusion. It's been 50 years away for my entire lifespan; I'm now in my 30s and don't see it happening before I'm 50. Do you?
I would love to see the day when technology provides a solution to this problem and am optimistic enough to believe that it will happen before I die. That said, we're forced to deal with reality as it exists today, and the sad truth of the matter is that you can't replace carbon based sources of energy today, tomorrow, or even in the next few decades. That would hold true even if we launched a crash nuclear power program, which is something that we should do, alongside solar, wind, hydro, and yes, even carbon for those applications (aerospace, shipping, agriculture) where no other viable technology exists.
I wish the people who think this is the greatest threat facing humanity would at least acknowledge the reality of the situation, which is that carbon emissions are going to continue to rise for the foreseeable future. The third world is not going to meekly accept their current lot in life, they're going to develop regardless of what the West does. What do you propose to do about that? Go to war to stop them? Unless you've got plans for Mr. Fusion in your basement that's what you would have to do.
Willfully ignorant? Fuck you. I accept the underlying premise that the climate is changing and mankind's activities are contributing a non-zero amount to that change. Pointing out the fact that the climate has changed before does not make me a denier and it speaks volumes about you that you feel the need to attack someone who largely agrees with you because they don't completely toe the party line.
Incidentally, the only things I don't accept are the doomsday rhetoric about the consequences of climate change and the proposed "solutions" that will ultimately accomplish nothing. Well, that's not entirely true, they'll massively increase energy bills in the first world while simultaneously halting development in the third world. But hey, who gives a shit, we've got ours, fuck all of those poor brown people.
Whether you're willing to admit it or not, energy is civilization and massively increasing the cost thereof condemns billions of people to remain in poverty. You'd do better to spend those countless trillions on preparing humanity for the change that we couldn't stop even if we axed all carbon emissions tomorrow.
There's nothing wrong with the pen register ruling; you don't have any expectation of privacy when you voluntarily hand information to a third party. The ruling abides by both the letter and the spirit of the 4th Amendment.
The bigger issue here, in my not so humble opinion is the very existence of the DEA and so-called War on Drugs. The sooner we get the Government out of the business of protecting people from themselves the better. There are a lot of things that may justify Governmental intrusion; protecting idiots from themselves is not one of them.
Do you have an actual objection to the science
I have an objection to the lion's share of the proposed solutions, which invariably require reductions in the standard of living. The green crowd doesn't seem to be willing to acknowledge the fact that energy is civilization, their desired "green" replacements don't scale well enough to maintain civilization at the current level (and aren't all that "green" anyway), and as an added level of stupid many of them are ardency opposed to nuclear power. The last bit really annoys the piss out of me, you can't profess that mankind's carbon emissions are destroying life as we know it while simultaneously condemning the only scalable carbon neutral energy source available with today's technology.
Earth's climate has never been and will never be static.
I can't figure out which one of the the thousands of manmade global catastrophes is going to be the one to take us out any moment now.
I used to worry about anthropological climate change but then I got a Facebook account and learned that GMO foods are going to kill me.
(That's another issue where public opinion is at complete odds with the scientific consensus, incidentally)