Most sex offenders commit the crime again. If they are on the street they should have limited rights and being chipped as a condition of release is very reasonable.
If someone forcibly rapes a child, especially repeat offenders, the only condition for their release should be that they agree to sit down in a comfortable wooden chair, put a cap on their head, and have a few thousand volts passed through them. If someone is so dangerous as to never be trusted in society, let's be honest and execute them. Far more humane than keeping them in a cage for the rest of their natural lives or releasing them with no hope of finding a job better than a supermarket bagger. If someone can be reformed, then give them a few years of parole to prove it, and then start treating them like a normal citizen with no restrictions. Our society is (or was) based on trust.
It won't matter that radiation generated by polonium can't even pentrate paper, let alone paper; that it is lethal (if ingested or inhaled) is what will stick in people's mind.
What's worse is that coal contains traces of natural polonium. Burning coal releases more radioisotopes into the atmosphere than the equivalent energy production by a decently-run (i.e. no serious accidents) nuke power station.
Can you be poisoned by any Alpha source entering your body or is it just a problem with certain types? I was just wondering this because there are radiation sources all around this.
Actually, just swallowing the source and having it pass through your system is unlikely to do serious damage. Intestinal mucus would probably block the alphas pretty nicely. The source would have to be in a bioavailable (absorbable) form - i.e. some bare metals or preferrably a soluable salt.
Its still not clear that it was an assassination.
We still don't know just how much of this polonium is around our normal lives to be worried about the scaremongering.
Could the guy have been smuggling radioisotopes using the same method as drug mules (condoms full of product) and had an "accident"? Polonium is an alpha emitter, and is thus not dangerous unless absorbed. And a condom would block the alpha particles quite nicely. I'm not sure how bioavailable pure polonium is, but if it were in the form of a salt, I could see it getting absorbed in fatal quantities.
The Slashdot FAQ says the politics section is for stories related to US Government politics. This story has no political connection at all, US or otherwise.
Relations between the West and Russia (though weakened, it's still got 50% or so of the world's nukes!) are definitely an appropriate story for "Politics". If there's no section for non-US politics, perhaps the editors should start one. This may have been a predominately US site at one time, but it is no longer, and politics of other countries are fair game IMHO.
As a major supplier of European natural gas, we could be sitting freezing in our homes within a week or two if Russia turned off the taps.
Build more atomic power stations and invest in reprocessing technologies and you won't have to worry about the Russians. You're still using MAGNOX reactors from the 60s since the NIMBY (not in my backyard) crowd has blocked building of new ones.
What's wrong with that? You end up with a very quiet desktop with low energy consumption. Since the box is bigger, you actually have a lot of leeway as far as heat sink designs, so the desktop can be made to run cool as well.
Unless like me you bought your new shuffle at Bestbuy (Canada) where in their infinite wisdom they have wrapped Apple's excellent OOBE (Out Of Box Experience) in an infernal clamshell.
Apple is *very* picky about how their products are sold new and by whom. Maybe you should report it to Apple, complete with pictures. Apple might actually come down on BeastGuy's ass. Hard.
The point is, the customer has no respect for the retailer's property and didn't ask permission.
In a small store, I'd probably ask. I would *try* to ask in a place like CompUSA. But the last time I had to go to CompUSA, I waited (I shit you not) 30 min for a floor salesguy to unlock the damn display case. Getting human help in the big box stores is like pulling teeth.
The only way to stop this is to put a ban on this.
Banning is a bit too strong here. Just tack on a 100% sales tax if the weight of the packaging exceeds the weight of the item unless the item is (a) jewelery or (b) fragile - where a drop onto a floor from, say, 4 ft height is liable to destroy it or it contains glass/crystal parts.
The power to tax is the power to destroy, or at least limit.
No one's hit this yet, but those hard-plastic impossible-to-open cases were designed, as I understand it, to prevent shoplifting.
So just keep the high-value small items in a glass display case in front of the counter. Problem solved. It's not like you really need to "test drive" a USB key or flash memory card. With things like music players and digicams, you can always have (alarmed) demo models available and keep the rest behind the counter, which is what a lot of stores do anyway.
A lot of folks are probably hesitant to take a defective/unwanted product back to the store when the packaging is destroyed because they think the store will refuse to take it back and don't want to deal with the hassle of arguing with store management and would never think to dig up state law on returns policies.
Arguing loudly in a busy store to get all the customers looking at the situation usually works. Don't be rude, don't swear, just stay firm and make the person who doesn't accept the return look like a heartless asshat if needed.
I saw one too many "elite hackers" returning "defective" hardware AND sofware (incl. MS Office) clearly labeled *Windows 98/2k/XP* after it "failed" to work under their generic install of Fedora Core, or their POS box not liking the CS jumper.
Or maybe they tried to use the hardware using Linux drivers and found out that the manufacturer had changed the chipset between versions. Whoever decides to make products with the same model # and external casing but with entirely different chipsets should be hanged up by their thumbs and paddled in the arse with an Ubuntu CD. Different hardware should equal different model #, not just different sub version number that may or may not be in the external package.
Or a kid genius returning Linux Mathematica because it did not work on this 10.2 mac ("But OS Ex is linux too").
What brick-and-mortar software store actually sells Mathematica? Or do you work in a Uni bookstore?
I've noticed an increasing number of these packages with recycling codes embossed in them,
Uh, but recycling them takes quite a bit of energy, too. And there's no good reason why the packaging needs to (often) weigh more than the product. This is just gratuitous waste.
In California, if you have someone's property and want to throw it away, you are legally obliged to attempt to contact them at their last known (to you) address. They have 60 days from the date of postmark to come pick it up. Depending on location, your mileage may vary.
Maybe it wasn't legal, but no one made an issue about it. The parents were given ample time to fetch the contraband back. Those who chose not to because they wanted their kids to learn not to play games in class didn't get them back. This was in NJ, not CA.
Wow the American car companies (the only ones dumb enough to be using hydrogen-gas for feul for green cars) just lucked out big time.
Why dumb? Hydrogen + oxygen combining in a fuel cell generates pure water as exhaust. And the process isn't limited by Carnot efficiency, so it can be well over the 40% or so max efficiency for an internal combustion engine. Methane in the form of natural gas is a greenhouse gas, and even with a reformer you still need to do something with the carbon after you burn it. Methanol is an idea, but you'd need to grow a *lot* of corn to fuel the entire USA auto fleet. And that comes with problems like the fact that the land can be better used for other things, like growing other foods, leaving it in its natural state, etc. Not to mention that farming the corn takes energy in and of itself, so it's not as attractive as first thought unless you're just fermenting the waste cobs from food corn (which you get free). Hydrogen, if produced cleanly using either this process or heat/electricity from nuclear reactors *is* really the way to go.
Only American companies? Not AFAIK - both Honda and BMW have done research into hydrogen cars since the early 90ies at least.
Compared to a five dollar laser pointer and a fifty cent photovoltaic cell, yeah.
That system is more prone to interference and the laser pointer has to be aimed at exactly the right angle. Not to mention, if a crowd of people happens to stand next to the bombmobile, your Evil Master Plan(tm) is sunk.
You can buy anonymous prepaid cell phones at 7/11 (a US chain of convenience stores).
and are going to be the first thing blocked if anyone figured that's what you were up to.
Assuming anyone realizes what you're up to before it's too late. The whole idea is not to get caught before you perpetrate your crimes. Underrating criminals is dangerous.
My brother is a teacher and several of his friends are teachers. He would love to jam cell phones for his classroom.
Cell phones weren't common in school when I went in the 80s, but GameBoys were. GameBoys weren't specifically banned, but a lot of teachers' policy was that if they were *used* in class and the user got caught, they'd be confiscated and returned to the parents. If the parents chose not to come in and pick them up within a week, they would no longer be available for pickup.
That would be the only effective method, yes- get a court order and require the telecoms to force shutdown their switches.
I think the telecoms might cooperate without a court order in the case of a bona-fide emergency. If the software is written correctly, they might even allow calls to 911 and the police to go through, just not calls to non-emergency phones.
What's up with cellular-triggered bombs?
Assassination weapon. Just as the limo in the Grand Poohbah of Ruritania's convoy passes the red Taurus, the red Taurus explodes due to an observer in a fifth-story window of a nearby brownstone dialing a certain number. Easier than machine vision technology, wouldn't you say? Then again, such triggering may be more easily done with normal walkie-talkie type radios.
This seems like a brute-force approach, especially because cell signals are approximately line-of-sight, so the jammers would have to be emplaced pretty carefully to kill all coverage in an area.
They would affect all cell users including emergency responders adversely. Couldn't a capability be built into the network instead to reject all calls except those from phones with certain ID numbers? It should only be used if there's a suspicion that someone's about to trigger a bomb by phone or some similar type of situation, of course.
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If someone forcibly rapes a child, especially repeat offenders, the only condition for their release should be that they agree to sit down in a comfortable wooden chair, put a cap on their head, and have a few thousand volts passed through them. If someone is so dangerous as to never be trusted in society, let's be honest and execute them. Far more humane than keeping them in a cage for the rest of their natural lives or releasing them with no hope of finding a job better than a supermarket bagger. If someone can be reformed, then give them a few years of parole to prove it, and then start treating them like a normal citizen with no restrictions. Our society is (or was) based on trust.
-b.
What's worse is that coal contains traces of natural polonium. Burning coal releases more radioisotopes into the atmosphere than the equivalent energy production by a decently-run (i.e. no serious accidents) nuke power station.
-b.
Actually, just swallowing the source and having it pass through your system is unlikely to do serious damage. Intestinal mucus would probably block the alphas pretty nicely. The source would have to be in a bioavailable (absorbable) form - i.e. some bare metals or preferrably a soluable salt.
-b.
Could the guy have been smuggling radioisotopes using the same method as drug mules (condoms full of product) and had an "accident"? Polonium is an alpha emitter, and is thus not dangerous unless absorbed. And a condom would block the alpha particles quite nicely. I'm not sure how bioavailable pure polonium is, but if it were in the form of a salt, I could see it getting absorbed in fatal quantities.
-b.
Relations between the West and Russia (though weakened, it's still got 50% or so of the world's nukes!) are definitely an appropriate story for "Politics". If there's no section for non-US politics, perhaps the editors should start one. This may have been a predominately US site at one time, but it is no longer, and politics of other countries are fair game IMHO.
-b.
Build more atomic power stations and invest in reprocessing technologies and you won't have to worry about the Russians. You're still using MAGNOX reactors from the 60s since the NIMBY (not in my backyard) crowd has blocked building of new ones.
-b.
What's wrong with that? You end up with a very quiet desktop with low energy consumption. Since the box is bigger, you actually have a lot of leeway as far as heat sink designs, so the desktop can be made to run cool as well.
-b.
Surely a biological supply company specialising in dissection specimens could sell you one. Though you might get further asking for a 'teste'...
-b.
Apple is *very* picky about how their products are sold new and by whom. Maybe you should report it to Apple, complete with pictures. Apple might actually come down on BeastGuy's ass. Hard.
-b.
In a small store, I'd probably ask. I would *try* to ask in a place like CompUSA. But the last time I had to go to CompUSA, I waited (I shit you not) 30 min for a floor salesguy to unlock the damn display case. Getting human help in the big box stores is like pulling teeth.
-b.
Banning is a bit too strong here. Just tack on a 100% sales tax if the weight of the packaging exceeds the weight of the item unless the item is (a) jewelery or (b) fragile - where a drop onto a floor from, say, 4 ft height is liable to destroy it or it contains glass/crystal parts.
The power to tax is the power to destroy, or at least limit.
-b.
So just keep the high-value small items in a glass display case in front of the counter. Problem solved. It's not like you really need to "test drive" a USB key or flash memory card. With things like music players and digicams, you can always have (alarmed) demo models available and keep the rest behind the counter, which is what a lot of stores do anyway.
-b.
Arguing loudly in a busy store to get all the customers looking at the situation usually works. Don't be rude, don't swear, just stay firm and make the person who doesn't accept the return look like a heartless asshat if needed.
-b.
Or maybe they tried to use the hardware using Linux drivers and found out that the manufacturer had changed the chipset between versions. Whoever decides to make products with the same model # and external casing but with entirely different chipsets should be hanged up by their thumbs and paddled in the arse with an Ubuntu CD. Different hardware should equal different model #, not just different sub version number that may or may not be in the external package.
Or a kid genius returning Linux Mathematica because it did not work on this 10.2 mac ("But OS Ex is linux too").
What brick-and-mortar software store actually sells Mathematica? Or do you work in a Uni bookstore?
-b.
Uh, but recycling them takes quite a bit of energy, too. And there's no good reason why the packaging needs to (often) weigh more than the product. This is just gratuitous waste.
-b.
Some of us can walk to the store :)
-b.
Maybe it wasn't legal, but no one made an issue about it. The parents were given ample time to fetch the contraband back. Those who chose not to because they wanted their kids to learn not to play games in class didn't get them back. This was in NJ, not CA.
-b.
Why dumb? Hydrogen + oxygen combining in a fuel cell generates pure water as exhaust. And the process isn't limited by Carnot efficiency, so it can be well over the 40% or so max efficiency for an internal combustion engine. Methane in the form of natural gas is a greenhouse gas, and even with a reformer you still need to do something with the carbon after you burn it. Methanol is an idea, but you'd need to grow a *lot* of corn to fuel the entire USA auto fleet. And that comes with problems like the fact that the land can be better used for other things, like growing other foods, leaving it in its natural state, etc. Not to mention that farming the corn takes energy in and of itself, so it's not as attractive as first thought unless you're just fermenting the waste cobs from food corn (which you get free). Hydrogen, if produced cleanly using either this process or heat/electricity from nuclear reactors *is* really the way to go.
Only American companies? Not AFAIK - both Honda and BMW have done research into hydrogen cars since the early 90ies at least.
-b.
-b.
That system is more prone to interference and the laser pointer has to be aimed at exactly the right angle. Not to mention, if a crowd of people happens to stand next to the bombmobile, your Evil Master Plan(tm) is sunk.
-b.
No, I mean:
2H2O2 --> O2 + 2H2O
(can't seem to get subscripts to work!)
-b.
$100 is expensive?
leave a substantial paper trail
You can buy anonymous prepaid cell phones at 7/11 (a US chain of convenience stores).
and are going to be the first thing blocked if anyone figured that's what you were up to.
Assuming anyone realizes what you're up to before it's too late. The whole idea is not to get caught before you perpetrate your crimes. Underrating criminals is dangerous.
-b.
Cell phones weren't common in school when I went in the 80s, but GameBoys were. GameBoys weren't specifically banned, but a lot of teachers' policy was that if they were *used* in class and the user got caught, they'd be confiscated and returned to the parents. If the parents chose not to come in and pick them up within a week, they would no longer be available for pickup.
-b.
I think the telecoms might cooperate without a court order in the case of a bona-fide emergency. If the software is written correctly, they might even allow calls to 911 and the police to go through, just not calls to non-emergency phones.
What's up with cellular-triggered bombs?
Assassination weapon. Just as the limo in the Grand Poohbah of Ruritania's convoy passes the red Taurus, the red Taurus explodes due to an observer in a fifth-story window of a nearby brownstone dialing a certain number. Easier than machine vision technology, wouldn't you say? Then again, such triggering may be more easily done with normal walkie-talkie type radios.
-b.
They would affect all cell users including emergency responders adversely. Couldn't a capability be built into the network instead to reject all calls except those from phones with certain ID numbers? It should only be used if there's a suspicion that someone's about to trigger a bomb by phone or some similar type of situation, of course.
-b.