Um. Yes. However, the overriding form of government is that of a constitutional republic; that's a form where the elected representatives make the laws, not the direct democratic vote of the people.
Further, the constitution guarantees a republican form of government to the states (see article IV, section 4, first assertion.)
It seems to me that "proposition anything" within the form that California currently enables is a violation of the very idea of a republican form of government. I strongly suspect that a supreme court actually reading the intent of the framers would rule out the very idea.
maybe the consequence of your never shutting the fuck up is the masses get pissed off, swing violently against you and Trump gets elected.
The masses, by which I specifically mean a majority of voters and potential voters, show no indication of this at all. On the contrary, Trump is disliked and deemed unacceptable by a very large majority of those same people; unless that can be turned around, something there is also no indication of, the man is outright not electable.
The fact that a majority of voters in the Republican primary might prefer the man notwithstanding, that's not anywhere near enough to result in his election. He also has to convince the rest of the Republicans, and the swing voters or some equivalent swatch of Democrats. Again: There is no indication of this at all.
To put it another way, 51% of Republicans liking a candidate will get them through the primary quite handily; it will not in any way suffice in and of itself to see that candidate through to elected office.
...and as of today, it doesn't even look like he'll reach 51%.
In fact, again as of today, his ultimate contribution to the process has every indication of serving as a near-guarantee that we will have another four years of a presidency sourced from within the Democratic party.
The really thin keyboard of the current Macbook laptop, which has reduced vertical play, is already one step too far for me in the lack of adequate feedback.
I can't even use my not-very-new macbook without an external keyboard. The provided surface is not designed for people to actually type on. Just to poke a key now and then, or input 140 characters of (cough) insight. Extended use is incredibly annoying. Hence... external keyboard.
But you know, it has to be thinner. Form takes priority over function every time with Apple.
Look at the nightmare the new mac pro represents. The inability to host any drive or ram expansion, the doesn't fit-anywhere trashcan, the desk full of warts and theftable drives and widgets if you want it to do anything more than just sit there stock... awful. Form over function.
That's why I exclusively buy used Macs now. Where they have gone, I have no interest in following.
What is funny to me is that a touchscreen and a raspberry pi can do this already, minus the haptic feedback; and I strongly suspect that if you're not actually trying to read braille, that's not going to be very much of an advantage, whereas pushing on a flat surface will very quickly become annoying, followed by actual sore fingertips.
As with the chiclet and membrane keyboards of yore, this thing shows no signs at all of actually being comfortable to type on.
For people who don't type much, I'm sure it'll be fine.
For me... no. I've used membrane and chiclet keyboards. I have nothing kind to say about them. At all.
Of course it's encrypted. The fact that in its present form it is human-readable in no way helps you decipher the actual message. But the information is there. The intended recipient, in possession of the key, will decode it easily. You will never do so.
iPads support external microphones. Some really good ones, in fact.
But in any case, as I clearly stated, I was talking about monitors and laptops there, not ipads and phones.
When I moved on to phones (and for that, you can read tablet in general if you like), I suggested destroying the mic and then using bluetooth and/or wifi. And if your tablet has no ability to handle such features (the iPad definitely does), then if this is important to you, just switch tablets.
Unbreakable encryption -- outside of direct coercion of the sender or receiver -- is trivial. Here's an encrypted message from me:
"The cockatrice is in the jacuzzi"
Let me know when you can decrypt it without directly coercing me. You're allowed to use any intellectual or computing resources available to anyone on the planet. Or all of them. Until you can, there's no way, literally no way to make unbreakable encryption inaccessible to anyone with a vocabulary larger than a parrot's (on second thought, that might be enough anyway.) Making such a thing illegal to do, or use, is completely impractical.
You can punish someone for using it, if you can catch them at it.
If the cops can't decipher your communications, they can bust the door down, take everything and arrest you on mere suspicion.
They can already do that. For any reason, or no reason. And shoot your pets and family while they're at it. The consequences? Someone may be required to say "oops." But probably not. Unless you're thinking of another country than the US, of course, can't speak for them. Here, though, totally a way of doing business for law enforcement.
You don't even need a phone book. A pad - one time or otherwise - requires that both ends have the key. IOW, agreement ahead of time on encoding.
If you're going to do that, you can just agree to nonsensical, 100% non-mapping encodings such as this:
message: "The swan is in the jacuzzi" meaning: "set the timer for 10 minutes and run like hell"
message: "seven burgers at midnight" meaning: "the VP is the target"
message: "Transgender cotton candy" meaning: "we'll meet at the fenceline"
...and of course, the key to breaking such an encoding is, as always, a heavy wrench, liberally applied with great force to either the sender or the recipient. Obligatory
It looks like electioneering propaganda from here, not a serious proposal that anyone really expects to become law.
If you hadn't already said that you weren't in the US, I'd know it from this remark. The US, I am very sorry to tell you, has an incredible overabundance of absurdist, foolish, ridiculous, unconstitutional, and otherwise (cough) "serious" laws.
Oh, "free speech" is no obstacle. We've already been informed -- by legal action -- that "free speech zones" are perfectly acceptable limitations on speech. As is content. As is FCC regulation. And so on. In this case, "free speech zones" will be within government purview, that's all. You don't such a law would apply to the US government, do you???
Just as with "no right to shout fire in a crowded building", you aren't allowed to exercise the right of free speech that way, but a crowded school conducting a fire drill? No problem. They can shout fire in a crowded building without any legal worries at all. Because, you know, people are too stupid to behave properly in any situation unless they are led by the nose by an authority figure.
Oh, that's easy. You just take off your tinfoil hat and wrap it around the laptop or phone. I hear that dipping the phone in maple syrup also helps stop the signals.
Controlling the embedded microphone is far more difficult
Nah. A pair of wirecutters or a penknife "controls" the microphone in a monitor or laptop just fine. You can add your own switch to the broken conductor, and then you're back to "it's physics." Failing that, stick a pin in the hole and swish it around until it doesn't work any longer.
If you simply kill the built-in mic, when you need one, plug in a USB mic. Painless. Probably a better mic, too.
For a phone you can't really get into, keep it in a nice thick black bag. Or get rid of it entirely. It's always fun to actually, you know, talk to people in person. For those of us who still remember how...:) But again, you can probably kill the mic outright with nothing more than a pin. Then use a bluetooth headset when you want to talk.
Torpedo, mine, ram, various ballistic insults. Or as in the case of the tug Blish (Detroit Free Press, April 23rd, 1862), just leaving something open you really shouldn't have...:)
Demanding a fully, experimentally proven theory is just demanding inaction in the face of near certain disaster.
You are overstating the case the other way, though. How about just expecting a model that does a decent job before we accept its output as actually likely to be predictive of what's actually going to happen? That seems eminently reasonable to me. I am unaware of any such model at this point in time (and I'd be delighted if there was one, so by all means, point one out if you know of one.)
Again, no reason not to behave as reasonably as possible in the interim, releasing the least pollutants, particulates, greenhouse gasses, etc. into the ecology.
Slashdot Mirror
Um. Yes. However, the overriding form of government is that of a constitutional republic; that's a form where the elected representatives make the laws, not the direct democratic vote of the people.
Further, the constitution guarantees a republican form of government to the states (see article IV, section 4, first assertion.)
It seems to me that "proposition anything" within the form that California currently enables is a violation of the very idea of a republican form of government. I strongly suspect that a supreme court actually reading the intent of the framers would rule out the very idea.
Just my opinion.
The masses, by which I specifically mean a majority of voters and potential voters, show no indication of this at all. On the contrary, Trump is disliked and deemed unacceptable by a very large majority of those same people; unless that can be turned around, something there is also no indication of, the man is outright not electable.
The fact that a majority of voters in the Republican primary might prefer the man notwithstanding, that's not anywhere near enough to result in his election. He also has to convince the rest of the Republicans, and the swing voters or some equivalent swatch of Democrats. Again: There is no indication of this at all.
To put it another way, 51% of Republicans liking a candidate will get them through the primary quite handily; it will not in any way suffice in and of itself to see that candidate through to elected office.
...and as of today, it doesn't even look like he'll reach 51%.
In fact, again as of today, his ultimate contribution to the process has every indication of serving as a near-guarantee that we will have another four years of a presidency sourced from within the Democratic party.
I can't even use my not-very-new macbook without an external keyboard. The provided surface is not designed for people to actually type on. Just to poke a key now and then, or input 140 characters of (cough) insight. Extended use is incredibly annoying. Hence... external keyboard.
But you know, it has to be thinner. Form takes priority over function every time with Apple.
Look at the nightmare the new mac pro represents. The inability to host any drive or ram expansion, the doesn't fit-anywhere trashcan, the desk full of warts and theftable drives and widgets if you want it to do anything more than just sit there stock... awful. Form over function.
That's why I exclusively buy used Macs now. Where they have gone, I have no interest in following.
What is funny to me is that a touchscreen and a raspberry pi can do this already, minus the haptic feedback; and I strongly suspect that if you're not actually trying to read braille, that's not going to be very much of an advantage, whereas pushing on a flat surface will very quickly become annoying, followed by actual sore fingertips.
As with the chiclet and membrane keyboards of yore, this thing shows no signs at all of actually being comfortable to type on.
For people who don't type much, I'm sure it'll be fine.
For me... no. I've used membrane and chiclet keyboards. I have nothing kind to say about them. At all.
s/editors/moderators and editors/
Oh, it's not a waste. Step two is to hold the phone in your mouth at all times.
Yes, of course. So. Can you break it? No, you can't.
Of course it's encrypted. The fact that in its present form it is human-readable in no way helps you decipher the actual message. But the information is there. The intended recipient, in possession of the key, will decode it easily. You will never do so.
iPads support external microphones. Some really good ones, in fact.
But in any case, as I clearly stated, I was talking about monitors and laptops there, not ipads and phones.
When I moved on to phones (and for that, you can read tablet in general if you like), I suggested destroying the mic and then using bluetooth and/or wifi. And if your tablet has no ability to handle such features (the iPad definitely does), then if this is important to you, just switch tablets.
Unbreakable encryption -- outside of direct coercion of the sender or receiver -- is trivial. Here's an encrypted message from me:
"The cockatrice is in the jacuzzi"
Let me know when you can decrypt it without directly coercing me. You're allowed to use any intellectual or computing resources available to anyone on the planet. Or all of them. Until you can, there's no way, literally no way to make unbreakable encryption inaccessible to anyone with a vocabulary larger than a parrot's (on second thought, that might be enough anyway.) Making such a thing illegal to do, or use, is completely impractical.
You can punish someone for using it, if you can catch them at it.
They can already do that. For any reason, or no reason. And shoot your pets and family while they're at it. The consequences? Someone may be required to say "oops." But probably not. Unless you're thinking of another country than the US, of course, can't speak for them. Here, though, totally a way of doing business for law enforcement.
Dentures, my brother. Or sister. You end up with really nice teeth, and it totally quiets the voices.
We just need to ban lawmakers. We have enough laws now anyway.
You don't even need a phone book. A pad - one time or otherwise - requires that both ends have the key. IOW, agreement ahead of time on encoding.
If you're going to do that, you can just agree to nonsensical, 100% non-mapping encodings such as this:
message: "The swan is in the jacuzzi"
meaning: "set the timer for 10 minutes and run like hell"
message: "seven burgers at midnight"
meaning: "the VP is the target"
message: "Transgender cotton candy"
meaning: "we'll meet at the fenceline"
Wait, you think terrorist suppression is the purpose of this bill?
Oh, my. Good thing you weren't at Jonestown.
The battle was lost long, long ago. But that does not reduce the satisfaction one gets from complaining about it.
If you hadn't already said that you weren't in the US, I'd know it from this remark. The US, I am very sorry to tell you, has an incredible overabundance of absurdist, foolish, ridiculous, unconstitutional, and otherwise (cough) "serious" laws.
Oh, "free speech" is no obstacle. We've already been informed -- by legal action -- that "free speech zones" are perfectly acceptable limitations on speech. As is content. As is FCC regulation. And so on. In this case, "free speech zones" will be within government purview, that's all. You don't such a law would apply to the US government, do you???
Just as with "no right to shout fire in a crowded building", you aren't allowed to exercise the right of free speech that way, but a crowded school conducting a fire drill? No problem. They can shout fire in a crowded building without any legal worries at all. Because, you know, people are too stupid to behave properly in any situation unless they are led by the nose by an authority figure.
That will work just about as well as laws that make suicide illegal. Or guns.
Unenforceable; impractical; in the final analysis, stupid.
Oh, that's easy. You just take off your tinfoil hat and wrap it around the laptop or phone. I hear that dipping the phone in maple syrup also helps stop the signals.
Nah. A pair of wirecutters or a penknife "controls" the microphone in a monitor or laptop just fine. You can add your own switch to the broken conductor, and then you're back to "it's physics." Failing that, stick a pin in the hole and swish it around until it doesn't work any longer.
If you simply kill the built-in mic, when you need one, plug in a USB mic. Painless. Probably a better mic, too.
For a phone you can't really get into, keep it in a nice thick black bag. Or get rid of it entirely. It's always fun to actually, you know, talk to people in person. For those of us who still remember how... :) But again, you can probably kill the mic outright with nothing more than a pin. Then use a bluetooth headset when you want to talk.
This isn't all that hard to solve. Yet.
Let's take that one step further... let's replace the moderators with emojis. They'd certainly do less harm to the conversations.
"I see you turned your shame into an asset"
q:Johnny Mnemonic
"Anthropogenic Buoyancy Change", or ABC.
Torpedo, mine, ram, various ballistic insults. Or as in the case of the tug Blish (Detroit Free Press, April 23rd, 1862), just leaving something open you really shouldn't have... :)
You are overstating the case the other way, though. How about just expecting a model that does a decent job before we accept its output as actually likely to be predictive of what's actually going to happen? That seems eminently reasonable to me. I am unaware of any such model at this point in time (and I'd be delighted if there was one, so by all means, point one out if you know of one.)
Again, no reason not to behave as reasonably as possible in the interim, releasing the least pollutants, particulates, greenhouse gasses, etc. into the ecology.