When the Supreme Court rejects a law as unconstitutional, the Congress simply passes the law a second time (minus the objectionable bits).
They don't actually bother to pass the law a second time. There is no need to. When the Supreme Court uses judicial review, it merely sets a judicial precedent on how to interpret that section of law. It has no power to nullify the law itself.
This is precisely why my company does R&D and Manufacturing in the same location - right here in South Carolina.
Do you machine all the parts there? If you do, where did those machines come from? Does your company build it's own computers? How about the bolts, fasteners, and tools? How about the steel? The plastic? Your office paper? You are just one piece of the supply chain.
I too work for a company that has R&D and manufacturing together, here in Maryland. It is a Fortune 500. We constantly have problems getting parts in time. The machine shops can't meet their deadlines (and we always require at least 2 sources). Often times they can't get their parts in time. Eventually, the supply chain winds up dependent on things made in Asia.
I love the argument that "everybody else is doing it!" Yes: China, Pakistan, India, and Iran block free speech. So why can't we? If it works for them, it has to work for us, right?
but from a lot of the comments we got it became clear that the people who were calling us did not understand the bill any better than we did
This is probably true. It is a frustrating part of fighting any legislation. Most people are emotionally motivated, not logically motivated. They don't understand what the heck they are talking about. Yet you need sheer numbers so you can't say "don't call your legislator unless you have a CS degree and can explain all this." So unfortunately, no matter what the issue, most of the people standing with you don't know what they are talking about. Same goes for most of the people standing against you too.
In the UK at least, most people use debit rather than credit cards for normal transactions like shopping in supermarkets.
Oh, umm... misunderstanding here. In the US it works differently. Umm... how to explain...
I can pull out my "revolving credit card" and swipe it. This card draws goes against my "credit" and I am billed at the end of the month. After I swipe the card, the screen prompts me for "credit" -vs- "debit." Regardless of my selection, I am billed at the end of the month.
I can pull out my "bank card" and swipe it. This card withdraws money from my bank account immediately. After I swipe the card, the screen prompts me for "credit" -vs- "debit," Regardless of my selection, the money is withdrawn immediately.
Historically, the first was called a "credit card" and the second called a "debit card" but nowadays that is meaningless because many cards support both protocols. In my example, "credit" means without pin, and "debit" means with pin.
Heh, in the US, there are penalties for using a PIN!
For example: If I scan my bank card the terminal asks if I want to use credit or debit. Pressing credit means it won't ask for a PIN, and I am subject to the US laws on credit cards. The credit card processor is liable for fraud, I get special credit protections, and I get a guaranteed dispute resolution process and the ability to issue a chargeback. If I click debit, I must enter a 4-digit PIN (yeah, that's secure!) and none of the aforementioned protections apply.
All of what you say might be true. But it sure has to hurt making those kinds of decisions with a Nobel Peace Prize hanging over your conscience. (Where does he keep it?)
I would also like to offer some perspective here:
First is your assumption that Iran is destabilizing the region. Is Iran destabilizing the nation by building weapons? From their perspective, isn't the US the the destabilizing force since it keeps invading their neighbors? I know that isn't Obama's fault, but if he accepted that prize he needs to push for peace, not start attacks.
Did he attack? Well, Barack Obama is the one who likened cyber attacks to military action. So in his own words, he attacked. It may very well have been the right thing to do, but he can't pretend it wasn't an attack. Another hit against that shiny medal.
Also, the peace prize wasn't issued to him for Iran. It was issued in the hopes of his actions on Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Guantanamo,... I think he has failed to earn his medal in those regions.
Maybe Obama has done all the right things. But I don't see him as earning a peace prize for any of them.
Now, the rhetorical question under the hood here: Would Israel really have bombed Iran if we hadn't deployed Stuxnet?
I find it sad that people actually think AI or any sort of AI is actually present here, or improving when they read about things like this.
There are two problems here. One is that movies and science fiction set the bar very high - to full human intelligence, because that is what is most fun to write about. The other problem is that for we keep redefining what practical AI means. If you showed Siri to someone in 1975, they would be blown away. Unfortunately, their basis in Science Fiction would convince them that in 2012 they could buy a home on Mars and get there with a flying car.
But please don't act like AI made progress. But just like with every other superstition, once you understand it, it doesn't seem magical any longer. Solving a jigsaw puzzle is just an algorithm. And speech recognition is just an algorithm. And natural language processing is just an algorithm. And driving a car on a real road, and playing robosoccer... Eventually, when someone builds an android with full human intelligence, someone will dismiss it as just being a standard implementation of a positronic algorithm. meh, who cares? Humans achieved this thousands of years ago, right?
The average is meaningless without the raw data. Suppose it averaged 5%: is that because all sites were 5% faster, or because one site was 500% faster and the others were 2% faster? The former would mean that SPDY is mostly useless. The latter would mean that SPDY is immensely useful, but just not in all cases.
Suppose a company creates a way to insert a gene into a human egg, perhaps to imbue some immunity to a disease or correct for a genetic defect. Under the current law, the company could patent their new gene. Add according to Monsanto, that person's children would be using the company's gene and would have to pay a royalty for their own existence.
I had never heard of this case so I became outraged, and read up on it. You posted that "the students were released from school early" which is not true. They were not released from school at all. Instead, the students were escorted across the street, as part of a school event, including supervision by teachers. That's a huge difference. You can walk across the street and be free of school rules. But you can't go on a school field trip, with school teachers, and expect not to follow school rules.
Be very careful when reading these surveys. The wording can be critical, and can mean something different than what the headline is implying. For example:
If you were told that you were going to be fired tomorrow, what, if anything would you take with you?
The answer would have to include things that you already have in your possession. So no malicious intent is required here! For example, 5% responded "R&D plans." That doesn't mean that they would steal R&D plans in response to being fired. It could be that they already had those plans on a flash drive on their key ring, perhaps because they gave a presentation on the topic recently. 8% responded "Privileged password list" which could mean that they keep an encrypted copy of vital passwords in case they need to remote into the servers from home. They might take the "Customer database" because they keep a copy on their laptop in case they are on call and need to contact a customer.
I hope that software vendors start updating to work with high DPI displays. Key failures in this area are Firefox and (ironically) iTunes on Windows. Both don't handle high DPI settings properly.
Yaaay! This is how it should work! Slashdot often reports on poor police response, which taints our thinking. But based on personal experience, when someone tells me the police acted inappropriately it usually turns out that there are other details they were hiding. Let the truth be told and let us make decisions with full information. I'm glad to see the police embracing this technology instead of hiding it.
What they are giving you is a discount that is reflected by the technical reality that they can transmit video to you over their own network for a lower cost than access to services on the internet at large.
You are right that this is a technical reality. But that doesn't mean it is okay: we are in this situation because of politics. Comcast should be a service provider (ISP and cable TV provider), but not a content provider. Allowing monopoly content providers and service providers to merge into one distorts the market.
Here's a final question - name a single network neutrality bill that would prevent Comcast from doing what they are doing, and why.
The FTC should not have allowed Comcast to purchase NBC. The people against it, senators did too: yet it passed despite significant opposition, in part, because Meredith Baker voted yes in exchange for a position at Comcast.
Think about if I asked you to put up 10% of your liquid assets to something that might not make any money, would you be interested in doing so?
My goodness man, get some perspective! Most people put more than 10% of their net worth into something that will not make any money every month: Their house payment. Add in other bills and for most people that is their entire net worth. Saving 10% of your income is considered a good goal for the average middle class person.
Note that this entire discussion thread is a strawman, because none of us have any idea what Neal Stephenson is worth.
I don't think you can get back episodes of The Big Bang Theory. Streaming is pointless if all you can do is get the latest episode(s). I would love the show, but I'm not going to get into it years into the series.
I hadn't heard of this so I looked into it. From Wikipedia:
It is available to HBO subscribers of Verizon FIOS,[39] AT&T U-verse, Google TV,[40] Cox Communications, Comcast,[41] DirecTV,[42] Dish Network,[43] Suddenlink Communications,[44] and Charter Communications.[45]
To further one of my anecdotes: One of the companies in my list was very paranoid. They used big expensive SAN systems and had been encrypting network traffic forever. They even escrowed customer data they thought they should not hold themselves. Yet they still didn't salt passwords.
I can only conclude that hashing and salting is less well known than encrypting.
Slashdot Mirror
When the Supreme Court rejects a law as unconstitutional, the Congress simply passes the law a second time (minus the objectionable bits).
They don't actually bother to pass the law a second time. There is no need to. When the Supreme Court uses judicial review, it merely sets a judicial precedent on how to interpret that section of law. It has no power to nullify the law itself.
This is precisely why my company does R&D and Manufacturing in the same location - right here in South Carolina.
Do you machine all the parts there? If you do, where did those machines come from? Does your company build it's own computers? How about the bolts, fasteners, and tools? How about the steel? The plastic? Your office paper? You are just one piece of the supply chain.
I too work for a company that has R&D and manufacturing together, here in Maryland. It is a Fortune 500. We constantly have problems getting parts in time. The machine shops can't meet their deadlines (and we always require at least 2 sources). Often times they can't get their parts in time. Eventually, the supply chain winds up dependent on things made in Asia.
I love the argument that "everybody else is doing it!" Yes: China, Pakistan, India, and Iran block free speech. So why can't we? If it works for them, it has to work for us, right?
but from a lot of the comments we got it became clear that the people who were calling us did not understand the bill any better than we did
This is probably true. It is a frustrating part of fighting any legislation. Most people are emotionally motivated, not logically motivated. They don't understand what the heck they are talking about. Yet you need sheer numbers so you can't say "don't call your legislator unless you have a CS degree and can explain all this." So unfortunately, no matter what the issue, most of the people standing with you don't know what they are talking about. Same goes for most of the people standing against you too.
In the UK at least, most people use debit rather than credit cards for normal transactions like shopping in supermarkets.
Oh, umm... misunderstanding here. In the US it works differently. Umm... how to explain...
I can pull out my "revolving credit card" and swipe it. This card draws goes against my "credit" and I am billed at the end of the month. After I swipe the card, the screen prompts me for "credit" -vs- "debit." Regardless of my selection, I am billed at the end of the month.
I can pull out my "bank card" and swipe it. This card withdraws money from my bank account immediately. After I swipe the card, the screen prompts me for "credit" -vs- "debit," Regardless of my selection, the money is withdrawn immediately.
Historically, the first was called a "credit card" and the second called a "debit card" but nowadays that is meaningless because many cards support both protocols. In my example, "credit" means without pin, and "debit" means with pin.
I never realized before how stupid this is.
Forgiveness requires first an apology, or even recognition of error.
Heh, in the US, there are penalties for using a PIN!
For example: If I scan my bank card the terminal asks if I want to use credit or debit. Pressing credit means it won't ask for a PIN, and I am subject to the US laws on credit cards. The credit card processor is liable for fraud, I get special credit protections, and I get a guaranteed dispute resolution process and the ability to issue a chargeback. If I click debit, I must enter a 4-digit PIN (yeah, that's secure!) and none of the aforementioned protections apply.
Unemployment does not supposed to cover all expenses. That's why there are food stamps, section 8, public housing, free school lunch programs, etc.
The Time Cavern
This is much lighter than a lot of the suggestions I've seen here, that I think are more appropriate for a pre-teen than pre-ten.
All of what you say might be true. But it sure has to hurt making those kinds of decisions with a Nobel Peace Prize hanging over your conscience. (Where does he keep it?)
I would also like to offer some perspective here:
First is your assumption that Iran is destabilizing the region. Is Iran destabilizing the nation by building weapons? From their perspective, isn't the US the the destabilizing force since it keeps invading their neighbors? I know that isn't Obama's fault, but if he accepted that prize he needs to push for peace, not start attacks.
Did he attack? Well, Barack Obama is the one who likened cyber attacks to military action. So in his own words, he attacked. It may very well have been the right thing to do, but he can't pretend it wasn't an attack. Another hit against that shiny medal.
Also, the peace prize wasn't issued to him for Iran. It was issued in the hopes of his actions on Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Guantanamo, ... I think he has failed to earn his medal in those regions.
Maybe Obama has done all the right things. But I don't see him as earning a peace prize for any of them.
Now, the rhetorical question under the hood here: Would Israel really have bombed Iran if we hadn't deployed Stuxnet?
I wonder if that Nobel Peace Prize burns in his hand yet.
I find it sad that people actually think AI or any sort of AI is actually present here, or improving when they read about things like this.
There are two problems here. One is that movies and science fiction set the bar very high - to full human intelligence, because that is what is most fun to write about. The other problem is that for we keep redefining what practical AI means. If you showed Siri to someone in 1975, they would be blown away. Unfortunately, their basis in Science Fiction would convince them that in 2012 they could buy a home on Mars and get there with a flying car.
But please don't act like AI made progress. But just like with every other superstition, once you understand it, it doesn't seem magical any longer. Solving a jigsaw puzzle is just an algorithm. And speech recognition is just an algorithm. And natural language processing is just an algorithm. And driving a car on a real road, and playing robosoccer... Eventually, when someone builds an android with full human intelligence, someone will dismiss it as just being a standard implementation of a positronic algorithm. meh, who cares? Humans achieved this thousands of years ago, right?
The average is meaningless without the raw data. Suppose it averaged 5%: is that because all sites were 5% faster, or because one site was 500% faster and the others were 2% faster? The former would mean that SPDY is mostly useless. The latter would mean that SPDY is immensely useful, but just not in all cases.
Suppose a company creates a way to insert a gene into a human egg, perhaps to imbue some immunity to a disease or correct for a genetic defect. Under the current law, the company could patent their new gene. Add according to Monsanto, that person's children would be using the company's gene and would have to pay a royalty for their own existence.
I had never heard of this case so I became outraged, and read up on it. You posted that "the students were released from school early" which is not true. They were not released from school at all. Instead, the students were escorted across the street, as part of a school event, including supervision by teachers. That's a huge difference. You can walk across the street and be free of school rules. But you can't go on a school field trip, with school teachers, and expect not to follow school rules.
Be very careful when reading these surveys. The wording can be critical, and can mean something different than what the headline is implying. For example:
If you were told that you were going to be fired tomorrow, what, if anything would you take with you?
The answer would have to include things that you already have in your possession. So no malicious intent is required here! For example, 5% responded "R&D plans." That doesn't mean that they would steal R&D plans in response to being fired. It could be that they already had those plans on a flash drive on their key ring, perhaps because they gave a presentation on the topic recently. 8% responded "Privileged password list" which could mean that they keep an encrypted copy of vital passwords in case they need to remote into the servers from home. They might take the "Customer database" because they keep a copy on their laptop in case they are on call and need to contact a customer.
I hope that software vendors start updating to work with high DPI displays. Key failures in this area are Firefox and (ironically) iTunes on Windows. Both don't handle high DPI settings properly.
Yaaay! This is how it should work! Slashdot often reports on poor police response, which taints our thinking. But based on personal experience, when someone tells me the police acted inappropriately it usually turns out that there are other details they were hiding. Let the truth be told and let us make decisions with full information. I'm glad to see the police embracing this technology instead of hiding it.
What they are giving you is a discount that is reflected by the technical reality that they can transmit video to you over their own network for a lower cost than access to services on the internet at large.
You are right that this is a technical reality. But that doesn't mean it is okay: we are in this situation because of politics. Comcast should be a service provider (ISP and cable TV provider), but not a content provider. Allowing monopoly content providers and service providers to merge into one distorts the market.
Here's a final question - name a single network neutrality bill that would prevent Comcast from doing what they are doing, and why.
The FTC should not have allowed Comcast to purchase NBC. The people against it, senators did too: yet it passed despite significant opposition, in part, because Meredith Baker voted yes in exchange for a position at Comcast.
Think about if I asked you to put up 10% of your liquid assets to something that might not make any money, would you be interested in doing so?
My goodness man, get some perspective! Most people put more than 10% of their net worth into something that will not make any money every month: Their house payment. Add in other bills and for most people that is their entire net worth. Saving 10% of your income is considered a good goal for the average middle class person.
Note that this entire discussion thread is a strawman, because none of us have any idea what Neal Stephenson is worth.
The peacock mantis shrimp, a crustacean which is neither a mantis nor a shrimp...
Ok. So it is a peacock.
I don't think you can get back episodes of The Big Bang Theory. Streaming is pointless if all you can do is get the latest episode(s). I would love the show, but I'm not going to get into it years into the series.
I hadn't heard of this so I looked into it. From Wikipedia:
It is available to HBO subscribers of Verizon FIOS,[39] AT&T U-verse, Google TV,[40] Cox Communications, Comcast,[41] DirecTV,[42] Dish Network,[43] Suddenlink Communications,[44] and Charter Communications.[45]
Completely defeating the purpose.
This is a great marketing tactic here:
And it will enable developers working on open source applications to target existing and previous versions of Windows.
Translation: It will not forbid developers working on open source applications to target existing and previous versions of Windows.
developers want to have for Windows desktop development the same great experience and access to the latest Visual Studio 2012 features
Translation: developers want to have what they already had.
To further one of my anecdotes: One of the companies in my list was very paranoid. They used big expensive SAN systems and had been encrypting network traffic forever. They even escrowed customer data they thought they should not hold themselves. Yet they still didn't salt passwords.
I can only conclude that hashing and salting is less well known than encrypting.
I find that very few sites have a deactivate option. I think your backup plan will be the most common approach.