Here are some examples. Speeding is illegal because excessive speed creates a much higher chance of damage, injury and death. It is not necessary to show actual damage, injury or death was caused by a speeding motorist to charge them. Speeding is illegal because there is a law against speeding. Now, it may be the case that the law was created because it creates a much higher chance of damage, injury, and death, but that doesn't make behaving in such a manner illegal unless there is a law against such activity.
In this case, while you could argue that "making available" should be illegal for similar reasons as speeding is illegal, the laws (in this judge's interpretation) do not say that "making available" is illegal.
If I'm out playing soccer and accidentally break your window, surely I should pay for it even though it wasn't intentional? This is a great analogy. Intent should not remove someone's liability for something. If I rear end you because my brakes failed (let's assume I got them checked yesterday), then there's no negligence or recklessness, but I'm still going to be liable for the damages to your car (excepting no-fault states, of course). Where intent comes into play, for civil cases at least, is on the punitive damages. If there is no negligence or recklessness, and the damages were demonstratably unintentional, then there should be no punitive damages. If you were reckless and caused damages, then punitive damages would be reasonable.
It's very similar to the different convictions you can get for killing someone. If, in my first example, you kill someone when you rear end them, then you likely would not face any criminal charges. If you were driving a car that was past inspection and you never got the brakes looked at, then you might be charged with involuntary manslaughter due to your negligence. If you were drunk, then you would probably get vehicular manslaughter. If you intentionally ran someone over, then you're probably looking at Murder 2 or Murder 1.
<disclaimer>IANAL and this is not legal advice</disclaimer>
This is the same problem as the witching hour every year when switching to and from daylight savings time. The remedy for that is to ensure you don't schedule jobs for those hours, or get vendor assurance of what, exactly, will happen for jobs scheduled at the start, middle or end of the witching hours. I remember reading several years ago a man page for some time setting command on Unix. In it, it described that the command didn't actually overwrite the system time, but instead caused the system time to run faster or slower over a period of time until the time was once again correct. The point was to prevent jobs from being skipped or run twice due to a time change.
I don't know if this is a Unix standard or not, but it makes a lot of sense. Sure you could have issues with things that worry about time deltas (such as timeouts, or speed calculations), but that would be less worrisome than entirely missing a job or running a job twice.
Personally, I think the people who judge other people fit to be "darwinised" - especially based on a page-long Web article - are the ones we could do without, rather than the people who's worst known flaw is that they can't count below zero. Personally, I think the people who judge other people fit to be "darwinised" - especially based on a paragraph long posting on a popular website - are the ones we could do without, rather than the people whose worst known flaw is that they want to "darwinise" people whose worst known flaw is that they can't count below zero.</irony>
Take one hundred I'm assuming you made an attempt at a haiku, given the syllable counts of the other two lines...so I have to ask, do you pronounce hundred as "hun-der-ed" or take as "Tah-kee"?
It might be a good idea, to let somebody, else proofread your essay before publishing, it on a site with thousands^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hmillions, of readers^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hgrammar nazis. Fixed.
Maybe people should just realize that "he" is the gender-neutral pronoun in English! All you dipshits butchering the language in the name of "political-correctness" can kiss my ass! Or, for an even better solution, you can just use "dipshits" and never have to use "he" or "she" or any other pronoun!
Hence why cocaine nuclear weapons are banned for personal unregulated usage. It's all over, the terrorists have won. Judging by the inability to stop cocaine imports into the US, if terrorists have discovered a way to create cocaine nuclear weapons, it will only be a matter of time before we have a major incident!
As the parent states there is not a total ban as this is possibly a rights issue with an adult. There are two reasons there is not a total ban on smoking, and neither have to do with an adult's rights (especially true in the current US administration).
The primary reason for there not being a total ban on smoking is the almighty dollar. Don't underestimate the power of the tobacco industry and their lobbying efforts. Tobacco is a $100 billion per year industry, which equates to a lot of lobbying and a lot of tax dollars. In the US, cigarettes are taxed at an extremely high rate. While smoking undoubtedly increases the expenditures by governmental agencies (for healthcare, etc.), I would imagine that the revenue governments gets from taxes on the tobacco industry as well as its products far outweighs the associated increase in costs (especially when those governments win large civil cases).
The second reason there is not a total ban on smoking is that supporting such a law would likely be political suicide. Localized bans in public places have been successful because the ban directly affects non-smokers. Therefore non-smokers are more likely to care about a ban and will outnumber the smokers who would oppose such a ban. A total ban, however, doesn't affect non-smokers directly. The number of non-smokers who would actively support a total ban and a candidate who wanted to enact such legislation would not be as large as the number of smokers who would oppose a candidate and the total ban.
What a load of CRAP Yahoo insists on downloading and displaying on their main search page! I'm no Yahoo fanboy or apologist, but their main search page is NOT www.yahoo.com, it is search.yahoo.com. Remember that Yahoo is first and foremost an internet portal, not a search engine. Their main search page is very similar to Google's. The only difference is that Google chose to have their main search page as their main page, while Yahoo chose to have their portal as theirs.
But don't most if not all satellites have rockets to prevent that? Wouldn't it make more sense to just use said rockets to nudge the satellite down to burn away? A working satellite wouldn't be considered space junk -- space junk includes not only dysfunctional satellites (which probably can't use any rockets, if any, to change orbit) but also random bits and pieces of stuff, such as nuts and bolts, random pieces of rockets that stay in orbit, etc.
Re:Besides imagining a beowulf cluster of those...
on
Make Your Own Sputnik
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So my patented idea for a backyard launcher is a biggish hobbyist rocket with some stubby hypersonic Nordweiler wings. Put it on a helium balloon - let it go up some 30 miles. That loses most of the air resistance, and only costs a hundred pounds or so. One problem with that is that "hobbyish rockets" use atmospheric oxygen as its oxidizer. If you go up 30 miles, you not only lose air resistance, you also lose the air (which includes oxygen). Try lighting that rocket 30 miles up -- you're going to have problems.
It's weird that a smaller mass (20 suns down to 16) can create a black hole, I guess it's about density and distance to the whole volume, but I wonder how little mass could be the minimum requirement to prevent the light from escaping. It's exactly about the density. Basically, if you pack any amount of mass (no matter how large or small) into a small enough space, you have created a black hole. If you assume a sphere of mass, it will create a black hole if the escape velocity from the surface of that mass is greater than the speed of light. Escape velocity is determined by sqrt(2*G*M/r), where G is the gravitational constant, M is the mass of the object, and r is the distance from the center of mass. For example, if you have a 1 kilogram mass, you would have to shove it into a sphere of radius 1.48 x 10^-27 meters. For reference's sake, the diameter of a hydrogen atom is about 1 x 10^-10 meters.
For example if you go on Google expecting to buy something, how do you know that you should trust the first, second, or even third result on the page? You don't. Actually, you probably can know that you shouldn't trust them...companies that spend all their money trying to get a high pagerank often are the ones you would want to otherwise avoid. There are obvious exceptions to this rule, but you can usually tell right away if the high pagerank is due to the pagerank algorithm working well or when it's being exploited. When it's exploited, that's when it's time to move along.
No, what's really humorous is that the VIRTUALLY EXACT SAME POST (substitute Linux for OSX & OS9, change a couple of the system specs - otherwise identical) was modded flamebait while this was modded informative.
Neat, huh? I love consistent moderation! Or perhaps we should ask what that says of/. mods of late? Is Linux (or Ubuntu Linux in particular) on the way out of/. mod's favs - and being replaced with OSX/OS9? I normally don't feed trolls, but here goes:
The original post (in this thread) was clearly meant as a satire based upon the post that you also dug up. The post is now showing as funny instead of informative, but often you'll find informative or interesting mods on funny posts as an additional satire, which in itself is often quite funny (e.g. seeing a clearly nonsense but otherwise funny post modded as informative is often funny). Regardless, this post is funny, not because of the content alone, but because it is poking fun at a fairly infamous post in/.'s history. It's all about intent!
Thus less cool spots could imply more energy coming from the sun giving the global warming crowd more fuel for their arguements. Coincidence?;) I think the "global warming crowd" to which you're referring would not like this data in the way that you suggest. Nearly everyone agrees that the Earth is, on average, getting warmer. The "global warming crowd," at least in my interpretation of the phrase, would be the likes of the Al Gores of the world who are of the belief that human interactions with the environment (CO2 emissions, etc.) are what is causing global warming. If the decreased amount of sunspots does actually cause an increase in solar radiation reaching Earth, this would be a case against the fact that humans are the ones causing global warming. That being said, I don't think there's any evidence that decreased sunspots causes increased solar radiation to hit the Earth, and even if there was, I doubt it would cause any appreciable change in the temperature on Earth.
So, uh... are we or aren't we all going to die? I think it's pretty safe to say that we're all going to die, although statistics would indicate it probably won't be from sunspots.
While you were probably joking, this brings up a very important point -- elected officials do more than just vote "yea" or "nay," and I'm not talking about all the subversive stuff like accepting bribes and getting wined and dined...
A good elected official will take a piece of legislation that has good parts and bad parts, strip out the bad parts, and add more good parts to it. If all you can do is simply vote yes or no, you're losing quite a bit of power there. Would they allow you to vote on a particular bill and say "yes if you strike out this one provision" or "yes as long as we add x, y, or z." What about creating legislation from scratch? If you rely on the other senators to do so, you are really at their mercy in terms of what legislation the "voting mass" ever gets to vote on.
love how the slashdot headline screams this like it has already taken affect.
In fact, its a set of proposed rules that hasn't even come close to be implemented yet. Not only that, but if you read the underlying rules, it states that the airlines only need to send what they have 72 hours in advance. Airlines are supposed to then send updates as the passenger manifest changes during the 72 hours immediately preceding flight. The idea is that they want to be able to work on the manifest in advance as much as possible. This really isn't a big deal, and if anything, would help to remove false positives since you'll likely have 3 days to work out any issues as opposed to an hour or two.
If you can keep up the pace, you can drive by car between any 2 points in the continental US in 72 hours: 60mph * 72h = 4320 miles. If you think you can average 60mph you've never driven in the northeast/California before.
I tried finding it just now, searching for TEXT REMOVED in a few different varieties, but no luck. My Google-fu must be waning, or the post's "gone missing"... You may not have found the post, but I have a feeling that the secret service will be finding you very shortly for the above post.
I understand the desire for a true flying car like in the Jetsons (one that really hovers/floats). I don't really understand the desire for a hybrid car/airplane. Many other/.ers have pointed out the drawbacks of having a hybrid car/airplane, including the fact that very little of the equipment required for flight or driving would be shared. Would having a hybrid car/airplane be cost/time efficient compared to having a separate car and airplane?
The way I see it, a hybrid car/plane would likely be around the same cost as a separate car and plane. In addition, the performance of the separate car and plane should be substantially better than the hybrid in terms of speed/fuel efficiency/safety. Since you have to drive to the local airstrip before you can take off in the hybrid, you aren't saving any appreciable time in getting in the air (and converting to the plane would likely take longer than moving your stuff from the car to the airplane). The only drawback I can see of having the separate plane/car is that once you arrive at your destination, you do not have a means of travel away from the airport at your destination. However, given the ubiquity of rental car agencies in/near airports, you could rent a car and once again have that mobility at your destination. I can't imagine that the cost of the rental car would be greater than the difference in fuel economy between a separate car/plane and a hybrid.
Until I can get in my car and lift off right from my driveway (and hover, instead of flying), I don't see the "flying car" concept ever getting off the ground (pun intended).
Thinking about it some more, why are all these flying car concepts based on fixed-wing designs for the flying part? It would seem that a rotor-based aircraft would be more suitable to a flying car. A rotor-based aircraft could easily fold up the rotors in less than the footprint of a normal car, there are no wings to worry about, and a car's shape is more aerodynamically inclined to a rotor aircraft than a fixed-wing aircraft. You would also be able to take off from nearly anywhere a car could drive.
Shoes are not wheels. Targeting two has predictable results: Everyone is let down. Judging by the popularity of roller shoes -- I don't think I've been to a store/mall/public place without seeing several kids with them -- I'd have to disagree with you. I think your premise is true in general, but shoes/wheels is a very bad example of it.
I've been observing it since they found it, and I just did some quick calculations using Excel, and I can confirm that it IS going to hit Earth. You are probably using Excel 2003 or earlier. The astronomers are using Excel 2007.
Slashdot Mirror
In this case, while you could argue that "making available" should be illegal for similar reasons as speeding is illegal, the laws (in this judge's interpretation) do not say that "making available" is illegal.
It's very similar to the different convictions you can get for killing someone. If, in my first example, you kill someone when you rear end them, then you likely would not face any criminal charges. If you were driving a car that was past inspection and you never got the brakes looked at, then you might be charged with involuntary manslaughter due to your negligence. If you were drunk, then you would probably get vehicular manslaughter. If you intentionally ran someone over, then you're probably looking at Murder 2 or Murder 1.
<disclaimer>IANAL and this is not legal advice</disclaimer>
I don't know if this is a Unix standard or not, but it makes a lot of sense. Sure you could have issues with things that worry about time deltas (such as timeouts, or speed calculations), but that would be less worrisome than entirely missing a job or running a job twice.
The primary reason for there not being a total ban on smoking is the almighty dollar. Don't underestimate the power of the tobacco industry and their lobbying efforts. Tobacco is a $100 billion per year industry, which equates to a lot of lobbying and a lot of tax dollars. In the US, cigarettes are taxed at an extremely high rate. While smoking undoubtedly increases the expenditures by governmental agencies (for healthcare, etc.), I would imagine that the revenue governments gets from taxes on the tobacco industry as well as its products far outweighs the associated increase in costs (especially when those governments win large civil cases).
The second reason there is not a total ban on smoking is that supporting such a law would likely be political suicide. Localized bans in public places have been successful because the ban directly affects non-smokers. Therefore non-smokers are more likely to care about a ban and will outnumber the smokers who would oppose such a ban. A total ban, however, doesn't affect non-smokers directly. The number of non-smokers who would actively support a total ban and a candidate who wanted to enact such legislation would not be as large as the number of smokers who would oppose a candidate and the total ban.
http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=329765&cid=20999373
Neat, huh? I love consistent moderation! Or perhaps we should ask what that says of
The original post (in this thread) was clearly meant as a satire based upon the post that you also dug up. The post is now showing as funny instead of informative, but often you'll find informative or interesting mods on funny posts as an additional satire, which in itself is often quite funny (e.g. seeing a clearly nonsense but otherwise funny post modded as informative is often funny). Regardless, this post is funny, not because of the content alone, but because it is poking fun at a fairly infamous post in
While you were probably joking, this brings up a very important point -- elected officials do more than just vote "yea" or "nay," and I'm not talking about all the subversive stuff like accepting bribes and getting wined and dined...
A good elected official will take a piece of legislation that has good parts and bad parts, strip out the bad parts, and add more good parts to it. If all you can do is simply vote yes or no, you're losing quite a bit of power there. Would they allow you to vote on a particular bill and say "yes if you strike out this one provision" or "yes as long as we add x, y, or z." What about creating legislation from scratch? If you rely on the other senators to do so, you are really at their mercy in terms of what legislation the "voting mass" ever gets to vote on.
In fact, its a set of proposed rules that hasn't even come close to be implemented yet. Not only that, but if you read the underlying rules, it states that the airlines only need to send what they have 72 hours in advance. Airlines are supposed to then send updates as the passenger manifest changes during the 72 hours immediately preceding flight. The idea is that they want to be able to work on the manifest in advance as much as possible. This really isn't a big deal, and if anything, would help to remove false positives since you'll likely have 3 days to work out any issues as opposed to an hour or two.
The way I see it, a hybrid car/plane would likely be around the same cost as a separate car and plane. In addition, the performance of the separate car and plane should be substantially better than the hybrid in terms of speed/fuel efficiency/safety. Since you have to drive to the local airstrip before you can take off in the hybrid, you aren't saving any appreciable time in getting in the air (and converting to the plane would likely take longer than moving your stuff from the car to the airplane). The only drawback I can see of having the separate plane/car is that once you arrive at your destination, you do not have a means of travel away from the airport at your destination. However, given the ubiquity of rental car agencies in/near airports, you could rent a car and once again have that mobility at your destination. I can't imagine that the cost of the rental car would be greater than the difference in fuel economy between a separate car/plane and a hybrid.
Until I can get in my car and lift off right from my driveway (and hover, instead of flying), I don't see the "flying car" concept ever getting off the ground (pun intended).
Thinking about it some more, why are all these flying car concepts based on fixed-wing designs for the flying part? It would seem that a rotor-based aircraft would be more suitable to a flying car. A rotor-based aircraft could easily fold up the rotors in less than the footprint of a normal car, there are no wings to worry about, and a car's shape is more aerodynamically inclined to a rotor aircraft than a fixed-wing aircraft. You would also be able to take off from nearly anywhere a car could drive.