It's kind of like adding insult to injury, that's all. Not only is the land not going to be owned by the (state) government, it's not even going to be majority owned by the constituents (state residents) that government is supposed to represent. Legally there is no difference.
Not being a Texan, though, it's really not my business. Unless there is (another) federal court ruling in favor of this outrage.
In the early 1950s, a landmark case changed that. Washington, D.C., wanted to redevelop a rundown part of town. So it declared eminent domain and condemned the property by arguing that it constituted a public use by getting rid of the "blighted" area. The Supreme Court upheld the notion that it's a public good to get rid of blight, but made no determination one way or the other on the appropriateness of handing the property to private developers.
Since the Supreme Court didn't rule on the legality of handing over the property to private developers, I would say it's still kind of a grey area from a legal standpoint.
From an ethical standpoint, I think it should be an impeachable offense.
The thing that galls me about this plan is they're talking about using Eminent Domain to appropriate people's land, and then hand that land over to a private company (a foreign owned one no less). Yes, the government can force people to sell land for public use but till recently that has meant state parks, military bases, and such - not private development.
How much do you want to bet the developer is going to recoup their $175 billion investment by snatching up a 10-mile wide swath of what is now farm and ranch land, but will later be prime commercial real estate - and every possible access point to the superhighway - if this plan goes through.
If your child's video games aren't teaching them valuable lessons about World History who is?
Actually, I learned a lot of interesting history from some old Microprose PC games. Sid Meier's Pirates! (original version), Colonization, and Darklands were all historically accurate and taught me lots of anecdotal stuff about world history that was never mentioned in school, like for instance the first permanent European colony in the New World was not on the mainland but in Cuba if I recall (Colonization), or that medieval alchemists were not just looking for ways to turn lead into gold, they were looking to cure disease and prolong life (Darklands).
Admittedly I am the kind of person who took an interest in this stuff and read further, but computer games did contain a lot of history that was just ignored or glossed over in school. I see no reason why even today's plot-light, graphics-heavy games can't incorporate accurate historical settings.
Yeah, it would also be good if the article said anything about the intensity of the signals in the experiment relative to the intensity of the signals actually coming out of a cell phone.
I fail to see how this would make coding easier. Won't software still have to deal with dates in the past? For example, if you took out a mortgage in 1998 and now you go switch calendars, you get to re-amortize on account of the new calendar. Good luck with the compound interest, buddy.
Sounds to me like he just wants to be his own editor. And who wouldn't?
But, an editor is what separates the Washington Post from, well, Slashdot. Two heads are better than one. Mr. Gilmor may be able to make it work, but I think most of the time the news benefits from having editorial control outside the hands of the journalist.
I haven't seen the show, but judging from LeGuin's side of the story, it sounds like they've butchered her work.
I wonder how she feels about the new readers who will be drawn to her books after having seen the TV series. Their preconceptions of what Earthsea is all about will no doubt heavily influence their experience with the books.
Wow, the terrorists would never think to use a FedEx drop-box instead. I'm sure glad to live in a country that is doing such smart things to keep me safe.
If there is another significant terrorist attack inside the U.S., don't you think it would be too late for shutting down the GPS network to help anything?
The only way this would be useful would be if the government knew an attack was imminent, and knew the attackers were relying on GPS, and was so sure of their knowledge that they were willing to disrupt air traffic, shipping, traveling salesmen, and everyone trying to find their way to a party. In short, I think the likelihood of this ever being used is low, and the likelihood of it actually helping protect against terrorism is near zero.
I think this capability makes more sense as a bargaining chip to threaten other countries with in trade negotiations. Their commerce depends on the GPS system, too.
What is illegal about invading your privacy? The government does it all the time.
Seriously, I thought most prosecutions of crackers have been for things like wire fraud. Crimes against big companies. Spyware goes after the little guy, so I see slim to no chance of the government stepping in. To intefere in the "data-driven marketing industry" would be stifling innovation! Or something.
When I was getting out of school, some big companies had an actual formula to calculate your starting salary. So if you went to X Institute of Technology you would get more starting money than if you went to Y State College. This was explained to me during an interview by a rather attractive but inexperienced HR lady.
I suspect the way the formula worked was that there was a base starting salary, then four or five factors between maybe 0.8 and 1.2 that were multiplied by that base salary.
Grade point average was also a factor. In this particular case, GPA and the reputation of the school were rated equally.
The most crucial thing in getting a good job is having references.
Look at your school's internship program. Ask about actual placements, not just openings. If your school is placing CS people in internships, then get one and do a good job. The colleagues you meet there will be your references that get you in the door of your first real job. Strong references mean a lot more to me when I interview people, than whether they went to a big-name school.
If you think an internship will be tough to get, transfer to a school that has a better track record with placements. It's that important.
A problem I can see with Wikipedia's model is that its reads form a biased sample of the population (in the statistical sense).
If Joe User is searching Wikipedia for information on Alexander Hamilton, chances are good Mr. User is not himself an expert in U.S. history. It's more likely he knows little or nothing about Hamilton and came to Wikipedia to learn something. Therefore, Joe User is ill prepared to identify factual errors, let alone correct them through editing.
I believe the point of the article is that article quality will go down over time because there are more ignorant people than knowledgeable people visiting the site. It does not follow that the ignorant people will necessarily ruin the article by editing it, but one must admit the possibility exists.
This is an interesting point and, I believe, a flaw in the philosophy of the Wikipedia. On what basis can we expect readers to be qualified to actually improve an existing article, given that most experts on a subject don't go looking it up on the Web at all?
The cost of building nuclear power plants greatly exceeds that of fossil-fuel plants due to the safety measures required. When I researched this for a physics paper in college, building a nuclear plant cost about 3x as much as an oil plant. That cost is often left out of analyses that claim nuclear energy is cost effective compared to fossil fuels.
Assuming that enough fraud is uncovered that it could have swung the election the other way, what recourse is there?
That is a question of Ohio state law. Fraud in Ohio does not invalidate the results in New Jersey or Alaska. Presumably Ohio has state laws for what to do if an election is found to be fraudulent, and those are the laws that must be followed.
The process by which the states choose their electors is supposed to be the states' business, Supreme Court intervention in the 2000 election notwithstanding
Throwing out Ohio's results definitely does not invalidate the whole national election because Ohio does not even have to show up at the Electoral College in order for the College to choose a President (Article II, Section 1, Clause 3)
They say we get the government we deserve. If we don't raise hell with out state governments and election boards over the use of these machines, you can be certain of it.
Don't give me that. Various professional societies, independent experts, and public-interest groups have been campaigning against paperless voting for years. If elected officials aren't listening, it's not John Q. Public's fault. Perhaps then we should elect officials who will listen? Good luck. It's not as if we have a clear choice between the "auditable voting party" and the "Diebold's sucker party."
Not in my opinion. Note that only public (not private) performance is restricted. I can stage a performance of "A Streetcar Named Desire" in my living room with my family and it's fine, but if I do it in the town square then it's infringement. The "public" part makes the performance a form of distribution.
In spite of what the MPAA/RIAA want you to believe, downloading copyrighted material is not illegal (yet). Uploading copyrighted material is illegal. U.S. copyright law prohibits unauthorized distribution, not unauthorized use, of copyrighted material.
They can "declare war" all they want but unless and until the law changes, it is legal to download whatever you want (except: child porn) as long as you don't share it. This requires checking a box on your P2P client's "preferences" screen, or switching to using binary newsgroups instead of P2P.
In this as in many other cases, legality != morality. The (MP | RI)AA at least have an argument (albeit a distorted one) when they claim downloading takes food out of the mouths of poor struggling artists, but when they call downloading "illegal" they are just plain lying.
My reply to "If you're not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about." is this:
If the government isn't doing anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about. With footnotes to
Filegate,
Yasser Hamdi, and
Brandon Mayfield to name three off the top of my head.
Slashdot Mirror
Can you imagine how many armadillos a road like this would kill? It boggles the mind.
It's kind of like adding insult to injury, that's all. Not only is the land not going to be owned by the (state) government, it's not even going to be majority owned by the constituents (state residents) that government is supposed to represent. Legally there is no difference.
Not being a Texan, though, it's really not my business. Unless there is (another) federal court ruling in favor of this outrage.
From the CSMonitor article:
Since the Supreme Court didn't rule on the legality of handing over the property to private developers, I would say it's still kind of a grey area from a legal standpoint.
From an ethical standpoint, I think it should be an impeachable offense.
The thing that galls me about this plan is they're talking about using Eminent Domain to appropriate people's land, and then hand that land over to a private company (a foreign owned one no less). Yes, the government can force people to sell land for public use but till recently that has meant state parks, military bases, and such - not private development.
How much do you want to bet the developer is going to recoup their $175 billion investment by snatching up a 10-mile wide swath of what is now farm and ranch land, but will later be prime commercial real estate - and every possible access point to the superhighway - if this plan goes through.
If your child's video games aren't teaching them valuable lessons about World History who is?
Actually, I learned a lot of interesting history from some old Microprose PC games. Sid Meier's Pirates! (original version), Colonization, and Darklands were all historically accurate and taught me lots of anecdotal stuff about world history that was never mentioned in school, like for instance the first permanent European colony in the New World was not on the mainland but in Cuba if I recall (Colonization), or that medieval alchemists were not just looking for ways to turn lead into gold, they were looking to cure disease and prolong life (Darklands).
Admittedly I am the kind of person who took an interest in this stuff and read further, but computer games did contain a lot of history that was just ignored or glossed over in school. I see no reason why even today's plot-light, graphics-heavy games can't incorporate accurate historical settings.
Yeah, it would also be good if the article said anything about the intensity of the signals in the experiment relative to the intensity of the signals actually coming out of a cell phone.
I fail to see how this would make coding easier. Won't software still have to deal with dates in the past? For example, if you took out a mortgage in 1998 and now you go switch calendars, you get to re-amortize on account of the new calendar. Good luck with the compound interest, buddy.
Sounds to me like he just wants to be his own editor. And who wouldn't?
But, an editor is what separates the Washington Post from, well, Slashdot. Two heads are better than one. Mr. Gilmor may be able to make it work, but I think most of the time the news benefits from having editorial control outside the hands of the journalist.
I haven't seen the show, but judging from LeGuin's side of the story, it sounds like they've butchered her work.
I wonder how she feels about the new readers who will be drawn to her books after having seen the TV series. Their preconceptions of what Earthsea is all about will no doubt heavily influence their experience with the books.
That's a private company conducting surveillance. Substantially different from the government doing it.
Wow, the terrorists would never think to use a FedEx drop-box instead. I'm sure glad to live in a country that is doing such smart things to keep me safe.
They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security - Benjamin Franklin
If there is another significant terrorist attack inside the U.S., don't you think it would be too late for shutting down the GPS network to help anything?
The only way this would be useful would be if the government knew an attack was imminent, and knew the attackers were relying on GPS, and was so sure of their knowledge that they were willing to disrupt air traffic, shipping, traveling salesmen, and everyone trying to find their way to a party. In short, I think the likelihood of this ever being used is low, and the likelihood of it actually helping protect against terrorism is near zero.
I think this capability makes more sense as a bargaining chip to threaten other countries with in trade negotiations. Their commerce depends on the GPS system, too.
Does this mean the end of OS/2?
What is illegal about invading your privacy? The government does it all the time. Seriously, I thought most prosecutions of crackers have been for things like wire fraud. Crimes against big companies. Spyware goes after the little guy, so I see slim to no chance of the government stepping in. To intefere in the "data-driven marketing industry" would be stifling innovation! Or something.
When I was getting out of school, some big companies had an actual formula to calculate your starting salary. So if you went to X Institute of Technology you would get more starting money than if you went to Y State College. This was explained to me during an interview by a rather attractive but inexperienced HR lady. I suspect the way the formula worked was that there was a base starting salary, then four or five factors between maybe 0.8 and 1.2 that were multiplied by that base salary. Grade point average was also a factor. In this particular case, GPA and the reputation of the school were rated equally.
The most crucial thing in getting a good job is having references. Look at your school's internship program. Ask about actual placements, not just openings. If your school is placing CS people in internships, then get one and do a good job. The colleagues you meet there will be your references that get you in the door of your first real job. Strong references mean a lot more to me when I interview people, than whether they went to a big-name school. If you think an internship will be tough to get, transfer to a school that has a better track record with placements. It's that important.
A problem I can see with Wikipedia's model is that its reads form a biased sample of the population (in the statistical sense).
If Joe User is searching Wikipedia for information on Alexander Hamilton, chances are good Mr. User is not himself an expert in U.S. history. It's more likely he knows little or nothing about Hamilton and came to Wikipedia to learn something. Therefore, Joe User is ill prepared to identify factual errors, let alone correct them through editing.
I believe the point of the article is that article quality will go down over time because there are more ignorant people than knowledgeable people visiting the site. It does not follow that the ignorant people will necessarily ruin the article by editing it, but one must admit the possibility exists.
This is an interesting point and, I believe, a flaw in the philosophy of the Wikipedia. On what basis can we expect readers to be qualified to actually improve an existing article, given that most experts on a subject don't go looking it up on the Web at all?
The cost of building nuclear power plants greatly exceeds that of fossil-fuel plants due to the safety measures required. When I researched this for a physics paper in college, building a nuclear plant cost about 3x as much as an oil plant. That cost is often left out of analyses that claim nuclear energy is cost effective compared to fossil fuels.
That is a question of Ohio state law. Fraud in Ohio does not invalidate the results in New Jersey or Alaska. Presumably Ohio has state laws for what to do if an election is found to be fraudulent, and those are the laws that must be followed.
Take a look at Article II of the United States Constitution. I think it is pretty clear that:
They say we get the government we deserve. If we don't raise hell with out state governments and election boards over the use of these machines, you can be certain of it.
Don't give me that. Various professional societies, independent experts, and public-interest groups have been campaigning against paperless voting for years. If elected officials aren't listening, it's not John Q. Public's fault. Perhaps then we should elect officials who will listen? Good luck. It's not as if we have a clear choice between the "auditable voting party" and the "Diebold's sucker party."
Not in my opinion. Note that only public (not private) performance is restricted. I can stage a performance of "A Streetcar Named Desire" in my living room with my family and it's fine, but if I do it in the town square then it's infringement. The "public" part makes the performance a form of distribution.
In spite of what the MPAA/RIAA want you to believe, downloading copyrighted material is not illegal (yet). Uploading copyrighted material is illegal. U.S. copyright law prohibits unauthorized distribution, not unauthorized use, of copyrighted material.
They can "declare war" all they want but unless and until the law changes, it is legal to download whatever you want (except: child porn) as long as you don't share it. This requires checking a box on your P2P client's "preferences" screen, or switching to using binary newsgroups instead of P2P.
In this as in many other cases, legality != morality. The (MP | RI)AA at least have an argument (albeit a distorted one) when they claim downloading takes food out of the mouths of poor struggling artists, but when they call downloading "illegal" they are just plain lying.
I hate it when the mass media call it "identify theft." If someone impersonates me, he's not taking away my identity, he's committing fraud.
Repeat after me... intangible and intellectual "property" cannot be "stolen." It can only be used in unauthorized ways.
My reply to "If you're not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about." is this:
If the government isn't doing anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about. With footnotes to Filegate, Yasser Hamdi, and Brandon Mayfield to name three off the top of my head.