Yes, you can. When the law labels it as hacking, especially when the individual performing the hack knows this.
The law is an ass...doubly so for computer-related laws.
Laws have very little to do with actual right and wrong. The US has a legal system, not a justice system. Justice and/or fairness are rare occurrence in the US legal system.
All the atrocities and war crimes that occurred in Nazi Germany and other totalitarian regimes were all according to the laws in place at the time and perfectly legal.
Just because some politicians pass a law doesn't make it right.
Hate to break it to you, but, since suicide is illegal, "life" is a prison, except it *doesn't* supply shelter, food, education, and health care.
"Attempted suicide" is illegal and is punishable. "Suicide", although it may technically be illegal, has no punitive consequences for those who successfully commit suicide for obvious reasons.
Life is anything you, the individual, make it. There are those who are dirt-poor who consider their life a happy one and ultra-rich who are miserable and even commit suicide.
It seems the best way to ensure that something will thrive is by having the US government declare a war on it.
As it has always been intended. The government knew when they started these things that it would work that way. Corrupt government and politicians being corrupt.
Millions in poverty and drug-addicted, all dependent for their survival on government entitlements, gives them immense power. The 'War On (some) Drugs is nothing but a form of price control to keep the cartels rolling n US dollars by keeping prices (and profits) high.
Slavery implies one has to work for the money at less than the market rate. That's not happening here
You're putting corrupt politicians, bureaucrats, and their "security/intelligence/enforcement" apparatus in direct control of your means of survival. You *will* do (or not do) as they say, say (or not say) what they want, go where they tell you, and live the lifestyle they tell you to.
There *IS* a system already that supplies shelter, food, education, and health care.
It's called "prison".
Like a prison, Marxist fantasies of a redistributionist society can supply everything except the basic human need to pursue a dream and succeed through ones' own efforts, as that is anathema to the redistributionist ideology.
It quickly devolves to the lowest common denominator of equal misery for all...except those in charge and their cronies.
A government powerful enough to give you everything you need is powerful enough to take it all away whenever and for whatever reasons it wishes.
Things like accepting mandatory and regular drug-testing, requirements not to engage in "hate speech" (who gets to decide what that is?), mandatory diet & exercise because the State knows what's best for you, perform 'public service work' (TSA screener shortage fixed!) etc etc, or lose your benefits.
In other words, you become a serf because you have become totally dependent for basic survival on a corrupt and authoritarian system that is in this for itself. It's not like government bureaucrats and politicians would suddenly become saints. The corrupt assholes would dance in the streets at the huge amount of power & control this would give them.
Picture the IRS and DHS/TLAs controlling everything in your life and everything you do, say, etc etc (or don't), and you get the idea.
You know they will set up the system such that to actually survive you must break laws which the government will mostly ignore...unless you become a problem to the TPTB in some way.
Basic human nature assures that if a small minority can control a larger majority, they will, to the greatest extent and scope they can manage.
Or it's not the people with ill intent they are after?
The sheer volume and scope of data they collect and store makes it very difficult to, say, find a lone terrorist or terrorist cell.
However, a mass trove of bulk data is just dandy for going after political opponents and people who try to curb the expansion of government power and/or expose government criminality or anyone else who they view as a threat to their agenda.
It was never about "terrorists". It's all about *control* over the populace. Heck, they fund and direct terrorist attacks themselves and ignore impending attacks they already know about, and then use the event to expand their power and scope.
I believe the US government has known about almost every major terrorist attack that has occurred but instead of trying to prevent them, facilitates them (or just doesn't act) in order to scare the populace into giving up their rights & freedoms.
It's all Kabuki theater for the masses while they put the finishing touches on the total surveillance network that the police state needs to eliminate dissidents, intimidate who they want, and coerce cooperation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
The primary function of BS in a debate is not to convince the audience (the fear the opponent's BS will convince the audience is bait for the primary purpose). The primary function is to get you to waste your attention and the audience's patience with you.
It's just rope-a-dope.
Yes, I have a BS-to-truth translator. It's called a brain capable of logical, critical thought.
Look, I know you're just trying to help and I appreciate the effort you took. I know that was a troll post I replied to. Most people who are capable of understanding what was being said also know. I turned it around and used it to illustrate the lack of logic and to highlight the concepts that are vital for people who wish to live in a free & open society to understand.
That's the one thing Statists fear most...an informed and thinking populace that doesn't respond to emotion-based, knee-jerk, trigger-memes that are their primary weapon against a free & open society.
You've just increased their costs hundred-fold, even if manufacturing were "free", power were "free" and delivery back to Earth comes free courtesy of gravity.
Why would you think people would be stupid enough to waste money on lifting raw materials out of the Earth's gravity well when there are almost unlimited raw materials for heavy industry available in space for the cost of a robot to place a couple low-thrust ion or plasma engines or similar on an asteroid with suitable materials that is in an orbit that only requires a relatively tiny amount of delta-V to bring it into the desired near-Earth orbit, near-lunar orbit, or a Lagrange point?
And capturing, refining and using material already in space is basically 100% unproven at the moment - we've literally never done it and have no idea of the associated costs.
There are many things that are "unproven" that we have never done...that does not mean that the costs cannot be estimated to an acceptable degree of accuracy and risk.
Are you seriously suggesting that there will never be a "fist time" that will both increase cost-estimate accuracy and reduce costs going forward because of the experience gained and infrastructure built because the exact costs can't be estimated to a high degree of accuracy beforehand for the first trial runs?
One day Europeans may colonize that "New World" called "America", if they can only determine the exact costs beforehand but alas, nobody has ever done it before and so the associated costs cannot be determined.
For a supposedly "nerd/geek-centered" forum, there certainly appears there is no lack of Luddites posting on Slashdot.
Complete strawman. Nowhere did I say 'a right to control'. I said 'a stake in the decision'. Thats a massively different thing which completely and utterly invalidates your response.
I disagree. A 'stake in the decision' when it comes to government == 'duty/ability to regulate/control'. If this were not true then the entire argument for mandating by law the wearing of seat belts is invalid, along with other similar laws/regulations like laws surrounding the discouragement of smoking/smoking in public establishments, etc.
You said yourself in your OP that "The moment your actions affect anybody else - the government (as the representatives of everybody else) gets a stake in the decision."
Well, by that logic the government gets a stake in personal decisions and behaviors affecting individual health since those decisions (more than anything else) affects individual health and the costs to everyone in a shared-cost system.
You can play semantic word-games all day long, but that's the long and short of it.
As a poster above points out, "Statists gonna State". If you allow a government powers, it will use them to further government power & scope whenever possible to the limits of public tolerance and, as history shows us, often well beyond. That's how revolutions and police states happen (depending on who wins, citizens or government).
Many doctors' offices/practices and health care institutions are already including questions in pre-exam questionnaires about things like gun ownership which is a basic civil right. It seems the government itself is proving me correct and you...not so much.
The moment your actions affect anybody else - the government (as the representatives of everybody else) gets a stake in the decision.
So, since now the government requires citizens to purchase government-approved health insurance and forces all citizens to share in the costs of healthcare, does that mean the government has the right to control anything you do that could possibly affect health?
If so, that's a pretty freaking scary thing, as practically everything and anything one does (or doesn't do), eats, drinks, etc etc, has some affect on health. If we include mental health, it's even more frightening. With power over anything that could affect mental and/or physical health, that's a blank check for the government to control just about anything people do, say, or think.
Together with the surveillance-state infrastructure that's already been built and being rapidly expanded, it's Big Brother on steroids and meth.
It's important to note that after the IRS was caught fucking over tea party organizations, not one of the tea-party darlings in Congress floated a bill to cut off or otherwise reduce the IRS's power to fuck with political organizations. This is clearly a power that the tea partiers wish the IRS to have.
It's also important to note that politicians who claim to be tea party types are not necessarily representative of the regular-Joe working-man tea party guy who believes in lower taxes, no bail-outs, and less federal government.
Politicians lie to get elected.
Shocking, I know, after the example set by the current POTUS of all the promises to his political base he has been so diligent in keeping.
So are voter registrations but the government isn't supposed to use them to decide if you get your Social Security Check this month.
Just wait. It's simply a matter of "..they haven't done so yet...as far as we know."
They've already been caught using the IRS against political activists/organizations/citizens' groups, and spying on journalists' private communications and even on members of Congress' communications, so it's not tinfoil-hattery.
Interesting to note that they only halted the spying on members of Congress when the threat of retaliatory budget cuts was raised.
Maybe it's finally time to cross the Rubicon on a mass tax-revolt, as loss of budget seems to be the only thing that really has proven to have been effective at stopping the criminal behavior.
As far as cellphones, I have one "dumb" cellphone that has the replaceable battery removed and taped to the outside of the case for emergencies.
Quoting Ayn Rand means having read her work - having read her work can lead to a serious case of mushy brain. Don't do that.
Her works are illogical, unrealistic paintings of a terrifying world where psychopaths are the ideal. She never followed those ideals herself BTW instead choosing to be a leach on so many levels...
[Runs text through BS-to-truth translator]
"Pay no attention to the principles and concepts presented here! Don't think about them! Only think about the messenger, *do not* consider or think about the message! That person is a dirty [insert derogatory term/ad hominem] and is probably insane and doesn't even take their dog for a walk...they probably beat their spouse and children, too!"
Thanks for your input, Dr. Ferris! Didn't know you actually existed as a real person, never mind also posting on/.!
I'd say the Symantec root CA should be removed from browsers. Only substantial action will teach them to take their great responsibility as a CA seriously.
Under the current US dysfunctional "justice" system and the various anti-terrorism laws, Acts, and other legislation passed over the last 2 decades publicly and by "legislation by judicial actions/decisions" through the secret courts, even calling for such an action could possibly be prosecuted as "advocating an attack on information/communication infrastructure vital to national security".
TPTB don't take kindly to people who call for the public to change their locks so that TPTB's extra-legal "skeleton key" no longer works nearly universally against the public at large.
"Did you really think we want those laws observed?" said Dr. Ferris. "We want them to be broken. You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against... We're after power and we mean it... There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced or objectively interpreted â" and you create a nation of law-breakers â" and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the system, Mr. Reardon, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with." - Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
"The only proper purpose of a government is to protect man's rights, which means: to protect him from physical violence. A proper government is only a policeman, acting as an agent of man's self-defense, and, as such, may resort to force only against those who start the use of force. The only proper functions of a government are: the police, to protect you from criminals; the army, to protect you from foreign invaders; and the courts, to protect your property and contracts from breaches or fraud by the others, to settle disputes by rational rules, according to objective law. But a government that initiates the employment of force against men who had forced no one, the employment of armed compulsion against disarmed victims, is a nightmare infernal machine designed to annihilate morality: such a government reverses its only moral purpose and switches from the role of protector to the role of man's deadliest enemy, from the role of of policeman to the role of a criminal vested with the right to the wielding of violence against the victims deprived of the right of self-defense. Such a government substitutes for morality the following rule of social conduct: you may do whatever you please to your neighbor, provided your gang is bigger than his." - Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
Pretty much the only thing lacking at this point is "Directive 10-289" which I could see any of the current US Presidential candidates issuing if they won.
This poor schlub is being prosecuted because he's highlighted one of the pitfalls of the ACA's requirements that medical records be converted to and stored as computer data...that, even barring malicious and intentional hacking, leaks and poor security practices will ensure that patient data will be exposed regardless of any laws or legal penalties put in place. Something those in power assured us would not happen.
He's getting screwed-over because he dared expose the dishonesty of those in power.
The lesson? If you just happen to discover a way to access any of the US government's law enforcement/intelligence networks, do not notify them of a vulnerability. Either sell the method of access and/or the data acquired, or simply post it on the 'net on a server located in Ecuador.
... you are trying to defend poor product designs.
There is no design in the universe that can stand against "Hold mah beer! Watch *this*!".
You could use the same argument against automobiles/automobile-related deaths and automakers when some Darwin Award-winner puts together a wheeled deathtrap in their garage and kills/injures themselves with it. Is it "poor design" on the part of car makers that some idiot used a cutting torch and a welder to put a high-performance V8 engine in a tiny car designed for a 4-cylinder engine and kills himself? If not, why is it the fault of vape gear makers when somebody does the equivalent with their gear?
How are you going to stop some idiot from modifying vaping gear to an unsafe state? As far as using incorrect chargers etc go that's already an issue with other things like cellphones and laptops. Nothing is safe when stupid people do stupid things regardless of how much regulation there is.
Attempting to regulate against stupidity just removes freedom and choices from everyone else and never solves the problem. Plus, in the case of vaping gear, making it more difficult/expensive for people to use it to stop smoking tobacco.
How many house/apartment fires and subsequent deaths/injuries does tobacco smoking cause every year and how do those numbers compare to injuries/deaths from vaping gear? Why do you want more people to die in smoking-related fires and from smoking-related health issues?
You are making an unwarranted assumption that because humans weren't responsible for previous climate changes they can't be responsible for them now.
But you know, the whole point of being a climatologist is to study the things that affect the climate and how it changes. You must think they're pretty stupid if they're missing the natural changes that are changing the climate now at a rate that is practically unprecedented compared to historical climate changes
There are political/ideological forces with great political power and monetary resources, completely unrelated to science or climatology, at work here that are hellbent on using AGW as a club to force the political/ideological changes and wealth-transfers they desire down everyone's throat which you are ignoring.
You'd have a good chance of winning a Nobel Prize if you can show them the error of their ways.
No. There are trillions of dollars of wealth and tremendous amounts of political power at stake. If I had absolute proof that AGW was a scam I'd be much more likely to end up in a "black facility" in some 2nd- or 3rd-World hellhole or just dead and the evidence destroyed.
Look, if you are learning that much about e-cigs -- to build your own coils and shit -- you probably know what your doing (and anyway, you are on your own, in terms of safety).
Not at all necessarily true.
If you are a manufacturer of vape pens, you should not feel okay with this.
It's not the vape pens that are exploding. It's home-built gear and people forcing together incompatible parts while ignoring all the included warnings (yes, they include warning labels and warnings in the included instructions for commercially-made gear...the atomizer and tank I just bought has warnings on the box and on the sheet inside, and so did the commercially-made box-mod battery unit I purchased).
From your comment mistakenly including/blaming 'vape pens' it seems you're for regulating something you clearly don't understand. Stop that. That's how we got things like the 'War On (some) Drugs' and 'civil forfeiture' laws.
There simply is no way to prevent stupid people from doing stupid things. Even if you regulate away all freedom and choice. I don't want to live in such a society. Let Darwin have his way with those too stupid to live. It strengthens the gene-pool.
Look, at less than 100 deaths/injuries total to-date to show for the tens of thousands of vaping units sold every year, it's a tempest in a teacup. Aren't there any more bathrooms left for the government to regulate, FFS?
Except in Earth's case, Earthlings and their civilization are somehow to blame for the temperature rising and not the natural cycles the planet has gone through in the past, long before humans were a gleam in Darwin's eye.
Since we've already accounted for the effect of Earth's orbit and tilt (which run on 100,000 and 20,000 year cycles), unless you have a bitchin' theory for how Mars' orbit and tilt afffect the climate of the Earth, we're still pretty damn confident that it's the humans.
Strawman. I never claimed Earth's climate changes were the result of the same orbital variations as those affecting Mars' climate.
... we're still pretty damn confident that it's the humans
So, humans are to blame for all the previous warming periods in Earth's long climate change history, and long before humans existed and created an industrial society? No way possible these same causes of previous climate changes in Earth's history could be the primary causes and drivers of current changes?
Time traveling climate terrorists from the twenty-fourth-and-a-half century, then? Quick! Somebody call Duck Dodgers!
The manufactures of e-cigs should have not allowed mismatched parts to be used.
How are government regulations and laws going to stop some idiot from building his own atomizer coils and screwing up his electrical resistance calculations and shorting out a non-short-protected battery he bought from Evilbay and having it explode on him?
This is the result of an industry popping up over night, because of the internet.
No, this is the result with anything, regardless of whether it's regulated or made totally illegal, when people who are stupid are involved.
Expect harsh regulations.
Expect people will build their own and/or buy smuggled (even more cheaply made and dangerous) knock-off vape gear and ignore any such regulation. Yay! Now there's another way to fill prisons with more people guilty of non-violent, victimless crimes while keeping the money rolling into the hospice industry, oncologists, the tobacco companies (gotta protect *them*!), and last but not least, government tax coffers! Drug Wars - Part Deux!
No industry ever regulates itself, it seems.
No industry *should* be regulated unless there is a real, serious, and ongoing issue like public safety (no, fewer than 100 deaths does not rise to that bar) where all other methods of remediation have failed. Government regulation/involvement should always be the last resort.
An analysis of radar images that peered inside the polar ice caps of Mars shows that Earth's neighbor is coming out of an ice age
Golly gee, so is Earth!
Except in Earth's case, Earthlings and their civilization are somehow to blame for the temperature rising and not the natural cycles the planet has gone through in the past, long before humans were a gleam in Darwin's eye.
Silly Earthlings!
No wonder star-faring civilizations have avoided direct contact!
So do frozen turkeys if a dumbass drops one in a gas-burner deep-fryer.
Funny, nobody suggests banning deep-fryers or frozen turkeys.
There is very little that is safe when the people involved are the "Hold mah beer, watch *this*!!" type.
Considering the tens of thousands or more vaping devices of the mechanical-mod type already out there and comparing vaping-gear related deaths/injuries to how many are injured or killed annually by normal, everyday things like ladders and hammers, at under 100 deaths vaping gear is very safe indeed. Particularly when you factor in the lives saved by people stopping their tobacco smoking by switching to vaping.
Many thousands saved from lung cancer/COPD/etc versus...what? Less than 100 deaths/injuries? Of stupid people because they acted stupidly?
Slashdot Mirror
When you know it's illegal, it's wrong.
So then Rosa Parks was wrong?
OK I can see that you've clearly not thought this one through.
Might want to give it another good think. Just saying.
Strat
Yes, you can. When the law labels it as hacking, especially when the individual performing the hack knows this.
The law is an ass...doubly so for computer-related laws.
Laws have very little to do with actual right and wrong. The US has a legal system, not a justice system. Justice and/or fairness are rare occurrence in the US legal system.
All the atrocities and war crimes that occurred in Nazi Germany and other totalitarian regimes were all according to the laws in place at the time and perfectly legal.
Just because some politicians pass a law doesn't make it right.
Strat
Hate to break it to you, but, since suicide is illegal, "life" is a prison, except it *doesn't* supply shelter, food, education, and health care.
"Attempted suicide" is illegal and is punishable. "Suicide", although it may technically be illegal, has no punitive consequences for those who successfully commit suicide for obvious reasons.
Life is anything you, the individual, make it. There are those who are dirt-poor who consider their life a happy one and ultra-rich who are miserable and even commit suicide.
Strat
It seems the best way to ensure that something will thrive is by having the US government declare a war on it.
As it has always been intended. The government knew when they started these things that it would work that way. Corrupt government and politicians being corrupt.
Millions in poverty and drug-addicted, all dependent for their survival on government entitlements, gives them immense power. The 'War On (some) Drugs is nothing but a form of price control to keep the cartels rolling n US dollars by keeping prices (and profits) high.
Strat
You may be retarded. I suggest seeing a doctor and shutting the fuck up.
C'mon Bernie!
Let's keep things civil, hmm?
Slavery implies one has to work for the money at less than the market rate. That's not happening here
You're putting corrupt politicians, bureaucrats, and their "security/intelligence/enforcement" apparatus in direct control of your means of survival. You *will* do (or not do) as they say, say (or not say) what they want, go where they tell you, and live the lifestyle they tell you to.
There *IS* a system already that supplies shelter, food, education, and health care.
It's called "prison".
Like a prison, Marxist fantasies of a redistributionist society can supply everything except the basic human need to pursue a dream and succeed through ones' own efforts, as that is anathema to the redistributionist ideology.
It quickly devolves to the lowest common denominator of equal misery for all...except those in charge and their cronies.
A government powerful enough to give you everything you need is powerful enough to take it all away whenever and for whatever reasons it wishes.
Things like accepting mandatory and regular drug-testing, requirements not to engage in "hate speech" (who gets to decide what that is?), mandatory diet & exercise because the State knows what's best for you, perform 'public service work' (TSA screener shortage fixed!) etc etc, or lose your benefits.
In other words, you become a serf because you have become totally dependent for basic survival on a corrupt and authoritarian system that is in this for itself. It's not like government bureaucrats and politicians would suddenly become saints. The corrupt assholes would dance in the streets at the huge amount of power & control this would give them.
Picture the IRS and DHS/TLAs controlling everything in your life and everything you do, say, etc etc (or don't), and you get the idea.
You know they will set up the system such that to actually survive you must break laws which the government will mostly ignore...unless you become a problem to the TPTB in some way.
Basic human nature assures that if a small minority can control a larger majority, they will, to the greatest extent and scope they can manage.
Strat
I'm going to take a guess and say there will be a lot of hits for this...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
https://www.google.com.mx/sear...
Oedipus, Schmedipus!
I still love ya, Mom!
-From the late Robin Williams' stand-up routine.
Strat
Or it's not the people with ill intent they are after?
The sheer volume and scope of data they collect and store makes it very difficult to, say, find a lone terrorist or terrorist cell.
However, a mass trove of bulk data is just dandy for going after political opponents and people who try to curb the expansion of government power and/or expose government criminality or anyone else who they view as a threat to their agenda.
It was never about "terrorists". It's all about *control* over the populace. Heck, they fund and direct terrorist attacks themselves and ignore impending attacks they already know about, and then use the event to expand their power and scope.
I believe the US government has known about almost every major terrorist attack that has occurred but instead of trying to prevent them, facilitates them (or just doesn't act) in order to scare the populace into giving up their rights & freedoms.
It's all Kabuki theater for the masses while they put the finishing touches on the total surveillance network that the police state needs to eliminate dissidents, intimidate who they want, and coerce cooperation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Strat
Holy crap you have a bs-to-truth translator?
tldr: don't feed the trolls.
The primary function of BS in a debate is not to convince the audience (the fear the opponent's BS will convince the audience is bait for the primary purpose). The primary function is to get you to waste your attention and the audience's patience with you.
It's just rope-a-dope.
Yes, I have a BS-to-truth translator. It's called a brain capable of logical, critical thought.
Look, I know you're just trying to help and I appreciate the effort you took. I know that was a troll post I replied to. Most people who are capable of understanding what was being said also know. I turned it around and used it to illustrate the lack of logic and to highlight the concepts that are vital for people who wish to live in a free & open society to understand.
That's the one thing Statists fear most...an informed and thinking populace that doesn't respond to emotion-based, knee-jerk, trigger-memes that are their primary weapon against a free & open society.
Strat
Raw materials.
You've just increased their costs hundred-fold, even if manufacturing were "free", power were "free" and delivery back to Earth comes free courtesy of gravity.
Why would you think people would be stupid enough to waste money on lifting raw materials out of the Earth's gravity well when there are almost unlimited raw materials for heavy industry available in space for the cost of a robot to place a couple low-thrust ion or plasma engines or similar on an asteroid with suitable materials that is in an orbit that only requires a relatively tiny amount of delta-V to bring it into the desired near-Earth orbit, near-lunar orbit, or a Lagrange point?
And capturing, refining and using material already in space is basically 100% unproven at the moment - we've literally never done it and have no idea of the associated costs.
There are many things that are "unproven" that we have never done...that does not mean that the costs cannot be estimated to an acceptable degree of accuracy and risk.
Are you seriously suggesting that there will never be a "fist time" that will both increase cost-estimate accuracy and reduce costs going forward because of the experience gained and infrastructure built because the exact costs can't be estimated to a high degree of accuracy beforehand for the first trial runs?
One day Europeans may colonize that "New World" called "America", if they can only determine the exact costs beforehand but alas, nobody has ever done it before and so the associated costs cannot be determined.
For a supposedly "nerd/geek-centered" forum, there certainly appears there is no lack of Luddites posting on Slashdot.
Strat
Complete strawman. Nowhere did I say 'a right to control'. I said 'a stake in the decision'. Thats a massively different thing which completely and utterly invalidates your response.
I disagree. A 'stake in the decision' when it comes to government == 'duty/ability to regulate/control'. If this were not true then the entire argument for mandating by law the wearing of seat belts is invalid, along with other similar laws/regulations like laws surrounding the discouragement of smoking/smoking in public establishments, etc.
You said yourself in your OP that "The moment your actions affect anybody else - the government (as the representatives of everybody else) gets a stake in the decision."
Well, by that logic the government gets a stake in personal decisions and behaviors affecting individual health since those decisions (more than anything else) affects individual health and the costs to everyone in a shared-cost system.
You can play semantic word-games all day long, but that's the long and short of it.
As a poster above points out, "Statists gonna State". If you allow a government powers, it will use them to further government power & scope whenever possible to the limits of public tolerance and, as history shows us, often well beyond. That's how revolutions and police states happen (depending on who wins, citizens or government).
Many doctors' offices/practices and health care institutions are already including questions in pre-exam questionnaires about things like gun ownership which is a basic civil right. It seems the government itself is proving me correct and you...not so much.
Strat
The moment your actions affect anybody else - the government (as the representatives of everybody else) gets a stake in the decision.
So, since now the government requires citizens to purchase government-approved health insurance and forces all citizens to share in the costs of healthcare, does that mean the government has the right to control anything you do that could possibly affect health?
If so, that's a pretty freaking scary thing, as practically everything and anything one does (or doesn't do), eats, drinks, etc etc, has some affect on health. If we include mental health, it's even more frightening. With power over anything that could affect mental and/or physical health, that's a blank check for the government to control just about anything people do, say, or think.
Together with the surveillance-state infrastructure that's already been built and being rapidly expanded, it's Big Brother on steroids and meth.
Strat
It's important to note that after the IRS was caught fucking over tea party organizations, not one of the tea-party darlings in Congress floated a bill to cut off or otherwise reduce the IRS's power to fuck with political organizations. This is clearly a power that the tea partiers wish the IRS to have.
It's also important to note that politicians who claim to be tea party types are not necessarily representative of the regular-Joe working-man tea party guy who believes in lower taxes, no bail-outs, and less federal government.
Politicians lie to get elected.
Shocking, I know, after the example set by the current POTUS of all the promises to his political base he has been so diligent in keeping.
Oh, wait...
Strat
So are voter registrations but the government isn't supposed to use them to decide if you get your Social Security Check this month.
Just wait. It's simply a matter of "..they haven't done so yet...as far as we know."
They've already been caught using the IRS against political activists/organizations/citizens' groups, and spying on journalists' private communications and even on members of Congress' communications, so it's not tinfoil-hattery.
Interesting to note that they only halted the spying on members of Congress when the threat of retaliatory budget cuts was raised.
Maybe it's finally time to cross the Rubicon on a mass tax-revolt, as loss of budget seems to be the only thing that really has proven to have been effective at stopping the criminal behavior.
As far as cellphones, I have one "dumb" cellphone that has the replaceable battery removed and taped to the outside of the case for emergencies.
Strat
Quoting Ayn Rand means having read her work - having read her work can lead to a serious case of mushy brain. Don't do that.
Her works are illogical, unrealistic paintings of a terrifying world where psychopaths are the ideal. She never followed those ideals herself BTW instead choosing to be a leach on so many levels...
[Runs text through BS-to-truth translator]
"Pay no attention to the principles and concepts presented here! Don't think about them! Only think about the messenger, *do not* consider or think about the message! That person is a dirty [insert derogatory term/ad hominem] and is probably insane and doesn't even take their dog for a walk...they probably beat their spouse and children, too!"
Thanks for your input, Dr. Ferris! Didn't know you actually existed as a real person, never mind also posting on /.!
Strat
I'd say the Symantec root CA should be removed from browsers. Only substantial action will teach them to take their great responsibility as a CA seriously.
Under the current US dysfunctional "justice" system and the various anti-terrorism laws, Acts, and other legislation passed over the last 2 decades publicly and by "legislation by judicial actions/decisions" through the secret courts, even calling for such an action could possibly be prosecuted as "advocating an attack on information/communication infrastructure vital to national security".
TPTB don't take kindly to people who call for the public to change their locks so that TPTB's extra-legal "skeleton key" no longer works nearly universally against the public at large.
Strat
TLDR: You can't control an innocent man.
"...much more leverage for plea deals..."
This has all been foretold.
"Did you really think we want those laws observed?" said Dr. Ferris. "We want them to be broken. You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against... We're after power and we mean it... There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced or objectively interpreted â" and you create a nation of law-breakers â" and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the system, Mr. Reardon, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with." - Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
"The only proper purpose of a government is to protect man's rights, which means: to protect him from physical violence. A proper government is only a policeman, acting as an agent of man's self-defense, and, as such, may resort to force only against those who start the use of force. The only proper functions of a government are: the police, to protect you from criminals; the army, to protect you from foreign invaders; and the courts, to protect your property and contracts from breaches or fraud by the others, to settle disputes by rational rules, according to objective law. But a government that initiates the employment of force against men who had forced no one, the employment of armed compulsion against disarmed victims, is a nightmare infernal machine designed to annihilate morality: such a government reverses its only moral purpose and switches from the role of protector to the role of man's deadliest enemy, from the role of of policeman to the role of a criminal vested with the right to the wielding of violence against the victims deprived of the right of self-defense. Such a government substitutes for morality the following rule of social conduct: you may do whatever you please to your neighbor, provided your gang is bigger than his." - Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
Pretty much the only thing lacking at this point is "Directive 10-289" which I could see any of the current US Presidential candidates issuing if they won.
Strat
This poor schlub is being prosecuted because he's highlighted one of the pitfalls of the ACA's requirements that medical records be converted to and stored as computer data...that, even barring malicious and intentional hacking, leaks and poor security practices will ensure that patient data will be exposed regardless of any laws or legal penalties put in place. Something those in power assured us would not happen.
He's getting screwed-over because he dared expose the dishonesty of those in power.
The lesson? If you just happen to discover a way to access any of the US government's law enforcement/intelligence networks, do not notify them of a vulnerability. Either sell the method of access and/or the data acquired, or simply post it on the 'net on a server located in Ecuador.
Strat
... you are trying to defend poor product designs.
There is no design in the universe that can stand against "Hold mah beer! Watch *this*!".
You could use the same argument against automobiles/automobile-related deaths and automakers when some Darwin Award-winner puts together a wheeled deathtrap in their garage and kills/injures themselves with it. Is it "poor design" on the part of car makers that some idiot used a cutting torch and a welder to put a high-performance V8 engine in a tiny car designed for a 4-cylinder engine and kills himself? If not, why is it the fault of vape gear makers when somebody does the equivalent with their gear?
How are you going to stop some idiot from modifying vaping gear to an unsafe state? As far as using incorrect chargers etc go that's already an issue with other things like cellphones and laptops. Nothing is safe when stupid people do stupid things regardless of how much regulation there is.
Attempting to regulate against stupidity just removes freedom and choices from everyone else and never solves the problem. Plus, in the case of vaping gear, making it more difficult/expensive for people to use it to stop smoking tobacco.
How many house/apartment fires and subsequent deaths/injuries does tobacco smoking cause every year and how do those numbers compare to injuries/deaths from vaping gear? Why do you want more people to die in smoking-related fires and from smoking-related health issues?
Strat
You are making an unwarranted assumption that because humans weren't responsible for previous climate changes they can't be responsible for them now.
But you know, the whole point of being a climatologist is to study the things that affect the climate and how it changes. You must think they're pretty stupid if they're missing the natural changes that are changing the climate now at a rate that is practically unprecedented compared to historical climate changes
There are political/ideological forces with great political power and monetary resources, completely unrelated to science or climatology, at work here that are hellbent on using AGW as a club to force the political/ideological changes and wealth-transfers they desire down everyone's throat which you are ignoring.
You'd have a good chance of winning a Nobel Prize if you can show them the error of their ways.
No. There are trillions of dollars of wealth and tremendous amounts of political power at stake. If I had absolute proof that AGW was a scam I'd be much more likely to end up in a "black facility" in some 2nd- or 3rd-World hellhole or just dead and the evidence destroyed.
Strat
Look, if you are learning that much about e-cigs -- to build your own coils and shit -- you probably know what your doing (and anyway, you are on your own, in terms of safety).
Not at all necessarily true.
If you are a manufacturer of vape pens, you should not feel okay with this.
It's not the vape pens that are exploding. It's home-built gear and people forcing together incompatible parts while ignoring all the included warnings (yes, they include warning labels and warnings in the included instructions for commercially-made gear...the atomizer and tank I just bought has warnings on the box and on the sheet inside, and so did the commercially-made box-mod battery unit I purchased).
From your comment mistakenly including/blaming 'vape pens' it seems you're for regulating something you clearly don't understand. Stop that. That's how we got things like the 'War On (some) Drugs' and 'civil forfeiture' laws.
There simply is no way to prevent stupid people from doing stupid things. Even if you regulate away all freedom and choice. I don't want to live in such a society. Let Darwin have his way with those too stupid to live. It strengthens the gene-pool.
Look, at less than 100 deaths/injuries total to-date to show for the tens of thousands of vaping units sold every year, it's a tempest in a teacup. Aren't there any more bathrooms left for the government to regulate, FFS?
Strat
Strawman. I never claimed Earth's climate changes were the result of the same orbital variations as those affecting Mars' climate.
... we're still pretty damn confident that it's the humans
So, humans are to blame for all the previous warming periods in Earth's long climate change history, and long before humans existed and created an industrial society? No way possible these same causes of previous climate changes in Earth's history could be the primary causes and drivers of current changes?
Time traveling climate terrorists from the twenty-fourth-and-a-half century, then? Quick! Somebody call Duck Dodgers!
Strat
The manufactures of e-cigs should have not allowed mismatched parts to be used.
How are government regulations and laws going to stop some idiot from building his own atomizer coils and screwing up his electrical resistance calculations and shorting out a non-short-protected battery he bought from Evilbay and having it explode on him?
This is the result of an industry popping up over night, because of the internet.
No, this is the result with anything, regardless of whether it's regulated or made totally illegal, when people who are stupid are involved.
Expect harsh regulations.
Expect people will build their own and/or buy smuggled (even more cheaply made and dangerous) knock-off vape gear and ignore any such regulation. Yay! Now there's another way to fill prisons with more people guilty of non-violent, victimless crimes while keeping the money rolling into the hospice industry, oncologists, the tobacco companies (gotta protect *them*!), and last but not least, government tax coffers! Drug Wars - Part Deux!
No industry ever regulates itself, it seems.
No industry *should* be regulated unless there is a real, serious, and ongoing issue like public safety (no, fewer than 100 deaths does not rise to that bar) where all other methods of remediation have failed. Government regulation/involvement should always be the last resort.
Strat
An analysis of radar images that peered inside the polar ice caps of Mars shows that Earth's neighbor is coming out of an ice age
Golly gee, so is Earth!
Except in Earth's case, Earthlings and their civilization are somehow to blame for the temperature rising and not the natural cycles the planet has gone through in the past, long before humans were a gleam in Darwin's eye.
Silly Earthlings!
No wonder star-faring civilizations have avoided direct contact!
Strat
To be fair the gear blew up...
So do frozen turkeys if a dumbass drops one in a gas-burner deep-fryer.
Funny, nobody suggests banning deep-fryers or frozen turkeys.
There is very little that is safe when the people involved are the "Hold mah beer, watch *this*!!" type.
Considering the tens of thousands or more vaping devices of the mechanical-mod type already out there and comparing vaping-gear related deaths/injuries to how many are injured or killed annually by normal, everyday things like ladders and hammers, at under 100 deaths vaping gear is very safe indeed. Particularly when you factor in the lives saved by people stopping their tobacco smoking by switching to vaping.
Many thousands saved from lung cancer/COPD/etc versus...what? Less than 100 deaths/injuries? Of stupid people because they acted stupidly?
I'd call that a bargain!
Strat