IANAL, but I believe that the truth is only a defense to slander. Libel is an intentional tort one of the elements of which is malice. True written malicious words may be true and still be libel.
Hmm. I have spent some time in the AT&T building in Chicago in the past year. Cingular/AT&T wireless is my service. Guess what? Poor to no connectivity in that building. You really think there is an assurance that ANY building will have cell service? I don't.
We have what sounds like a similar system in our building at One California Street, San Francisco. This building has two banks of elevators and extends some 30 floors. My experience is that the system does not, in fact, speed up anything.
1. Traffic flow is such that a bank rarely has more than a few users at one time. All get assigned to the next car as normal.
2. The next available car is shown after you punch in your destination. Better be sure to note it, because there is no other notice, other than a door opening or closing, to advise that the car is there.
3. The system is quite happy to assign you to a car WHILE THE DOOR IS CLOSING and does not seem to feel obliged to open it back up again.
4. You never get the option to let the full car go and grab the next empty car.
5. In the rare instance that traffic is heavy, the line to punch in may take enough time that you miss the next car while the person in front either dithers or waits for the announcement of which elevator is assigned.
All in all, the old way worked fine. This approach still has wrinkles to iron out.
Dunno, but the thought of being able to build a device 'in a small factory' that would 'fit inside the trunk of a car' and which would be able to conver upto 100k of matter into energy in an instant seemed scary enough for me!
IANAP and IANAE, but isn't there an axis around which the body rotates (or a finite set of anchor points if it wobbles) such that one could tether to that point/s with a gymbal (is that the right word) so the body could rotate but the sail would not?
I am an insurance broker specializing in the placement of coverage for former manufacturers of asbestos containing materials. As such, I have read something on the order of 600 medical,epidemiological, and regulatory articles on the subject. There is one statement presented as fact in the parent that is actually most likely not true, and it is a very important point both for the prevention of future illness and for the current elephantine morass of asbestos litigation. That asserted fact was that the only known cause of asbestos related disease (generally grouped as Mesothelioma, asbestosis,lung cancer and other cancer). Of the diseases, mesothelioma is by far the most serious, deadly, painful and expensive.
Asbestos comes in, as I recall, 7 mineral forms, of which one is chrysotile and the rest generally categorized as amhpiboles. The core debate is whether chrysotile (aka 'white' asbestos) can cause meso.
While it is true that there are a small number of authors that claim to prove otherwise (classically a husband and wife team known in the industry as 'the McDonalds), the vast weight of medical and epidemiological evidence demonstrates that all forms of asbestos include a statistically significant increased risk of mesothelioma.
This view has been uniformly and with rare exception been accepted by courts and juries throughout the US.
On the specific question of tremolite, see the ASTD study on Libby Montana. Their screenings suggest that well over 1/4 of the mine workers in that town show evidence of asbestosis, despite the low percentage of tremolite in the vermiculite mined there.
I happen to agree with the broad principles of the Laffer Curve. Surely it is correct at the limits (t = 0 and t= 1) and provably the government can increase or decrease tax revenues by broadly increasing or decreasing tax rates.
As a policy tool, however, it is lacking robustness. Because of the complexity of the tax code one cannot use the curve to predict the impact of changes to the code; for small changes in t one cannot predict even the direction of the change in revenues.
So while it may be an interesting strawman for entertaining legislators, it is not a serious economic tool. Simplify the tax code, and perhaps it could be made meaningful.
There is an outside chance I do understand it. Gardner's point is that since the curve is of unknown shape, with mulitple 'laffer points' and possibly even sections in which changes in tax policy produce no change in revenue (a straight line) it is a useless policy device:
1. You cannot tell where you are on the curve.
2. You cannot assume that at what ever point you are on will be improved by a change in either direction
3. You cannot assume that you will not pass over some discontinutiy and get unexpected results.
Now, simplfiy the tax code first, then you might find Dr. Laffer's work useful for policy making. As it is you might as well roll dice.
"make no mistake there is a Laffer point"
This, of course, is false. It assumes a 'smooth' tax code. Ours is anything but. There maybe two Laffer points, many, or an infinite number.
Martin Gardners Scientific American article from the 80's was a definitive demolition of the case for a single Laffer point. Surprising that the author was not aware of it.
I believe you confuse the economic term 'profit' as in an excess rent earned due to monopoly or some similar situation with the more common use of the term as 'return on invested capital.' The first does get driven out of efficient markets by competition, without the second no one invests.
One reason why the Brits were able to do so well with the 7/21 ring was the deployment of cameras thoughout the Underground and, indeed, much of the rest of London. Having photos and the ablity to back trace was undoubtedly vital to the investigation.
We could have the same, but of course the balance between privacy and terror prevention works differently here.
Just a guess, but the occupation of the mother probably has more to do with it than that of the father.
Not very many married male nurses; most engineers are male. This might just be the effect of being employed on the stress on the mother making Y sperm less likely to survive. If this explanation is correct you would expect most engineers in the UK to be single income households.
Those into Everquest might look at the reponse to Allakhazam's hoax annoncement of fee increases and time based charges. It got me at first, along with a lot of others.
This post and the others like it miss an important point. The justification of punishment includes, among others, deterrence and retribution. To be effective as a deterrent, and to meet our common views of fairness in retribution it seems right, IMO, to consider the reasonably foreseeable personal gain that the offender expected when the crime was committed. Grand theft has an easily foreseeable personal beneft. Scripting a virus or worm has a much different calculus - some form of personal self worth as opposed to dollar reward.
This sentence seems fair to me, if not on the harsh side. Multiple offenses of car theft involve far more immediate personal benefit and suggest a much harsher punishmnet, to my way of thinking.
The trade-off is 5 minutes of commercials vs 30 seconds on fast fast fast forwarding. I have no problem. Besides, how long will it be before the pop-up blocker arrives?
"the Segway requires that the operator be standing whilst in use"
I've seen a Segway in SF that had been modded to be a wheelchair. It was being used in a crowded market and was substantially more compact, and manueverable than a standard powered wheelchair.
This idea, which occurred to me the other day in a different context is so simple I am sure it has been discussed before (just not around me) but just in case, why wouldn't this work?
You get a spam or a phish. You launch a reply that sends thousands of apparently correct (but phony)replies back (automated completion of forms may be needed here) from anonymous sources. The spammer has to find the real response in the counter spam.
If only a few percent of each spam mailing got a countermeasure like this, their needles would get buried in haystacks.
Consider this little work: George Lucas in Love. Not exactly SF, but funny - you betcha.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000053V3J/ qid%3D1093622296/sr%3D11-1/ref%3Dsr%5F11%5F1/103-4 383997-8792611
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IANAL, but I believe that the truth is only a defense to slander. Libel is an intentional tort one of the elements of which is malice. True written malicious words may be true and still be libel.
Hmm. I have spent some time in the AT&T building in Chicago in the past year. Cingular/AT&T wireless is my service. Guess what? Poor to no connectivity in that building. You really think there is an assurance that ANY building will have cell service? I don't.
We have what sounds like a similar system in our building at One California Street, San Francisco. This building has two banks of elevators and extends some 30 floors. My experience is that the system does not, in fact, speed up anything.
1. Traffic flow is such that a bank rarely has more than a few users at one time. All get assigned to the next car as normal.
2. The next available car is shown after you punch in your destination. Better be sure to note it, because there is no other notice, other than a door opening or closing, to advise that the car is there.
3. The system is quite happy to assign you to a car WHILE THE DOOR IS CLOSING and does not seem to feel obliged to open it back up again.
4. You never get the option to let the full car go and grab the next empty car.
5. In the rare instance that traffic is heavy, the line to punch in may take enough time that you miss the next car while the person in front either dithers or waits for the announcement of which elevator is assigned.
All in all, the old way worked fine. This approach still has wrinkles to iron out.
Dunno, but the thought of being able to build a device 'in a small factory' that would 'fit inside the trunk of a car' and which would be able to conver upto 100k of matter into energy in an instant seemed scary enough for me!
IANAP and IANAE, but isn't there an axis around which the body rotates (or a finite set of anchor points if it wobbles) such that one could tether to that point/s with a gymbal (is that the right word) so the body could rotate but the sail would not?
One you had that much shiny mylar, why not just mount it to the offending asteroid and use solar pressure to steer it away?
I am an insurance broker specializing in the placement of coverage for former manufacturers of asbestos containing materials. As such, I have read something on the order of 600 medical,epidemiological, and regulatory articles on the subject. There is one statement presented as fact in the parent that is actually most likely not true, and it is a very important point both for the prevention of future illness and for the current elephantine morass of asbestos litigation. That asserted fact was that the only known cause of asbestos related disease (generally grouped as Mesothelioma, asbestosis,lung cancer and other cancer). Of the diseases, mesothelioma is by far the most serious, deadly, painful and expensive. Asbestos comes in, as I recall, 7 mineral forms, of which one is chrysotile and the rest generally categorized as amhpiboles. The core debate is whether chrysotile (aka 'white' asbestos) can cause meso. While it is true that there are a small number of authors that claim to prove otherwise (classically a husband and wife team known in the industry as 'the McDonalds), the vast weight of medical and epidemiological evidence demonstrates that all forms of asbestos include a statistically significant increased risk of mesothelioma. This view has been uniformly and with rare exception been accepted by courts and juries throughout the US. On the specific question of tremolite, see the ASTD study on Libby Montana. Their screenings suggest that well over 1/4 of the mine workers in that town show evidence of asbestosis, despite the low percentage of tremolite in the vermiculite mined there.
I happen to agree with the broad principles of the Laffer Curve. Surely it is correct at the limits (t = 0 and t= 1) and provably the government can increase or decrease tax revenues by broadly increasing or decreasing tax rates. As a policy tool, however, it is lacking robustness. Because of the complexity of the tax code one cannot use the curve to predict the impact of changes to the code; for small changes in t one cannot predict even the direction of the change in revenues. So while it may be an interesting strawman for entertaining legislators, it is not a serious economic tool. Simplify the tax code, and perhaps it could be made meaningful.
There is an outside chance I do understand it. Gardner's point is that since the curve is of unknown shape, with mulitple 'laffer points' and possibly even sections in which changes in tax policy produce no change in revenue (a straight line) it is a useless policy device: 1. You cannot tell where you are on the curve. 2. You cannot assume that at what ever point you are on will be improved by a change in either direction 3. You cannot assume that you will not pass over some discontinutiy and get unexpected results. Now, simplfiy the tax code first, then you might find Dr. Laffer's work useful for policy making. As it is you might as well roll dice.
"make no mistake there is a Laffer point" This, of course, is false. It assumes a 'smooth' tax code. Ours is anything but. There maybe two Laffer points, many, or an infinite number. Martin Gardners Scientific American article from the 80's was a definitive demolition of the case for a single Laffer point. Surprising that the author was not aware of it.
I believe you confuse the economic term 'profit' as in an excess rent earned due to monopoly or some similar situation with the more common use of the term as 'return on invested capital.' The first does get driven out of efficient markets by competition, without the second no one invests.
One reason why the Brits were able to do so well with the 7/21 ring was the deployment of cameras thoughout the Underground and, indeed, much of the rest of London. Having photos and the ablity to back trace was undoubtedly vital to the investigation. We could have the same, but of course the balance between privacy and terror prevention works differently here.
I think you mean NLRB in the headline!
Needlessly pedantic distinction. The value of the thing is taken. Call it infringement or stealing, it amounts to the same.
Just a guess, but the occupation of the mother probably has more to do with it than that of the father. Not very many married male nurses; most engineers are male. This might just be the effect of being employed on the stress on the mother making Y sperm less likely to survive. If this explanation is correct you would expect most engineers in the UK to be single income households.
Those into Everquest might look at the reponse to Allakhazam's hoax annoncement of fee increases and time based charges. It got me at first, along with a lot of others.
This post and the others like it miss an important point. The justification of punishment includes, among others, deterrence and retribution. To be effective as a deterrent, and to meet our common views of fairness in retribution it seems right, IMO, to consider the reasonably foreseeable personal gain that the offender expected when the crime was committed. Grand theft has an easily foreseeable personal beneft. Scripting a virus or worm has a much different calculus - some form of personal self worth as opposed to dollar reward. This sentence seems fair to me, if not on the harsh side. Multiple offenses of car theft involve far more immediate personal benefit and suggest a much harsher punishmnet, to my way of thinking.
Or John Varley's symbiotic dwellers of tht Oort cloud.
The other really great thing about NYC is that the rats are quite large, and you probably won't have to cook them either.
The trade-off is 5 minutes of commercials vs 30 seconds on fast fast fast forwarding. I have no problem. Besides, how long will it be before the pop-up blocker arrives?
This was the central topic of a SF story in Analog in the 60's. We may be catching up.
"the Segway requires that the operator be standing whilst in use" I've seen a Segway in SF that had been modded to be a wheelchair. It was being used in a crowded market and was substantially more compact, and manueverable than a standard powered wheelchair.
This idea, which occurred to me the other day in a different context is so simple I am sure it has been discussed before (just not around me) but just in case, why wouldn't this work? You get a spam or a phish. You launch a reply that sends thousands of apparently correct (but phony)replies back (automated completion of forms may be needed here) from anonymous sources. The spammer has to find the real response in the counter spam. If only a few percent of each spam mailing got a countermeasure like this, their needles would get buried in haystacks.
Consider this little work: George Lucas in Love. Not exactly SF, but funny - you betcha. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000053V3J/ qid%3D1093622296/sr%3D11-1/ref%3Dsr%5F11%5F1/103-4 383997-8792611
"An armed society is a polite society." -- Robert Anton Heinlein