If you did, you would know how absolutely ludicrous it is for a formation 15,000 feet below ground, that is trapping hydrocarbons, in a low permeability strata, to have any affect on a water table 10,000 feet or more above it.
I would like to simple add a few thoughts to the discussion.
If the area they are frakking is 10,000 feet "Below" the water table, then they probably have to go through the water table in order to reach it.
So there is at least one path for contamination.
Additionally, frakking is the process of breaking geological formations in order to allow for the collection and extraction of liquid petroleum and gasses, AND a direct correlation has been show between frakking and increased geological activity.
So, they are intentionally breaking the layers of rock separating pockets of gas and oil, and causing small earthquakes.
Meanwhile you are arguing that "it is impossible for the technology to cause the problems", and that there is no way that during all of the intentional layer breaking they might cause something to change in the layers that are sitting on top of the work area
I'm not sure that "impossible" is the right term to use. I'd have chosen "marginally unlikely", but that's just me.
Just because visualizations are necessary doesn't mean the keyboard isn't a better tool for interacting.
I personally do quite a bit of audio and video editing as a paid hobby, and 95% of the work I do can be done completely via the keyboard shortcuts built into the software.
Even for things I don't use often enough to memorize the shortcut to, It is generally faster to hit the shortcut for the menu it is under and then look at the item I want to get it's hotkey. (Firefox example: ALT+T for Tools, then P for Private browsing)
The hotkeys are even underlined by default, so there is no need to memorize "countless arcane keyboard combinations.
As for your comment about "things that can be more easily done graphically", I'm going to have to ask for an example.
Every single computing task I have ever encountered has a method available for keyboard use to be just as efficient (or more so).
Even selecting links in a web browser (the example I used during the early 90's when this discussion came up) has been addressed.
Now, it is much more common for me to find tasks that are faster and easier via the keyboard.
For example, it's almost impossible to quickly scrub exactly 30 frames (one second) forward without using keyboard shortcuts in most programs. (no, clicking the little "next frame" button 30 times doesn't count.)
This doesn't even address the repeatability issue.
If I have to copy a fading scene change to every scene in a video, it is much faster to copy the transition [ctrl+c] and hit "right arrow,[ctrl+v]" 10 times instead of "scroll down the timeline, click the next clip, click edit, and click paste" 10 times.
Lastly, Keyboard commands can be easily scripted. This isn't true of mouse movements.
Worst case, I can use autoit, applescript, or a similar program to inject the button presses directly into the keyboard buffer to force the program to do what I want.
Dear jackass,
The kernel module is a subprocess of the existing hardware detection loop, and is only loaded when it's actually needed.
The user-mode service is a separate loop that polls the hardware every 10ms or so, and as such is running at all times.
So to use small words, kernel modules use resources while they are being used, and services are using resources at all times.
Do I need to spell it out for you in any more detail?
There are injuries that can cripple a person for life and require 70 years of expenses to care for that disability
I am quite intimately aware of this. I had an uncle who was rendered quadriplegic in a car accident, and several other family members who are disabled. (truly disabled, not just claiming disability)
I am also fully aware that the insurance of the person who hit him didn't cover anywhere near the initial medical bills. (liability only: $10,000/$20,000/$10,000)
Instead, he had sue his own health insurance and car insurance providers.
In the US, his medications, doctors visits, and other medical care cost upwards of $75,000 a year.
This does not include the initial emergency room costs.
5 years later, he moved to Europe and discovered that the actual costs of his medical care were closer to $5,000 per year.
According to him and my aunt, the care he received was better quality as well.
So, that $1,000,000 settlement you stipulated? Would have only lasted for 13 years, covering ONLY medical expenses.
In Germany, 1/2 of that ($500,000) would have covered him for a FULL CENTURY.
However, lets drop my anecdote, and get back to your next point.
There are injuries that can cripple a person for life and require 70 years of expenses to care for that disability
Yes, yes there are.
And every single joe sixpack should be fully aware that they could get hit by a bus tomorrow.
Joe could also forget to tie his shoelaces and fall down a flight of stairs head first.
Either one of these can result in a lifetime injury. So, who should get sued in the second case?
The owner of the property? It's Joe's house.
The builder of the stairs? It's perfectly designed to code.
What about the shoe designer? Unfortunately, this one might work.
So, should Joe automatically contact a lawyer after he breaks his own neck through his own carelessness?
OR, should he be responsible for his own well being?
This is one of those huge personally defining questions that have huge amounts of baggage associated with them, so it honestly doesn't matter what your answer is.
My answer is that Joe, and everyone else, should be responsible for protecting themselves.
No one wants to pay $80,000+ for a single surgery.
In other countries, these procedures are usually 50 to 75 percent cheaper than they are here.
Meanwhile, here in the USA, we have "liability insurance" and lawsuits instead of reasonable costs.
Lastly, i'll try to expand on my last point.
Exactly what is the point of bankrupting someone who caused an accident?
It's not like the illegal immigrant that is going to broadside your car tomorrow will have insurance.
The $7.50/hour McDonalds employee who is going to cause a 5 car pileup only has minimum liability. The ambulance fees alone are more than his insurance will cover.
So instead of getting a payoff, you end up covering your own expenses, and then the other guy winds up having to file for bankruptcy.
However, considering that the other guy is already poor and has terrible credit, what exactly has changed for him? What lesson has he learned?
So, since you have to have your own insurance in order to be protected, why even bother with the whole lawsuit?
Why not actually punish the people who cause harm to others?
Arrest them and try them for attempted manslaughter/involuntary manslaughter/willfull endangerment/etc.
Bonus, while they're in jail/on probation, we can actually provide them with real training, education, and work experience.
Of course revamping our penal system is a WHOLE different rant.
INSURANCE IS SUPPOSED TO COVER THE ASS OF THE PERSON WHO PAYS FOR IT, NOT THE OTHER MORON WHO DECIDED TO RISK IT.
The only reason why insurance covers "the other guy" is because you are going to get sued by the "Victim". Or by their insurance company....
Make each driver responsible for their own CYA methods, and actually enforce safe driving instead of "profitable ticketing".
In the case of an accident with injury, there should be a TRIAL, not a lawsuit.
If they were responsible? Send the offending party to freaking prison.
Otherwise, fuck off. It was an accident/your were both at fault/other.
Additionally,
A two car collision with serious injuries can easily cause close to a million dollars in medical costs
Why in the hell is this the case? Think about it for a minute.
$1,000,000+? Only in America. Why?
Because of the commercial health insurance system, and the medical system that has developed in self defense.
My chiropractor charges $200 for a visit if you are insured, and $40 if you pay cash.
The reason for this?
The insurance company is only going to pay him what they decide to cover, and it is NEVER the full bill.
If the damned insurance companies where either forced to pay out the policies (without having to sue them first) or there was a cheap public healthcare system to compete with them directly we wouldn't have to worry about million dollar medical bills.
Look at canada, germany, sweden, etc. for examples of mostly reasonable insurance systems.
Snow,
Unless I misunderstand your stance here, you feel that complex laws are not only needed, but unavoidable.
You also seem to be arguing that it is the responsibility of the citizen to actively understand the laws that relate to actions they may choose to take.
On the surface, I agree with both of these assertions.
You have been very good at giving examples of laws which support your arguments.
For example, you have referenced Basic Traffic law, manslaughter, and hunting.
However, your choices for example themselves are flawed.
All of these are easily read, understood, and (generally speaking) follow commonly accepted behavior patterns.
These are areas of law where an average person has at least a chance to understand the what and the why that the law is meant to address, and most of these laws specify in (fairly simple terms) exactly what actions are and are not allowed.
I believe that I have found an extreme enough example (currently on the books, and affecting anyone who owes money to the state of ohio) to make sjames' point.
Please go look at This Link. (I will copy the pertinent sentence below, but for readability, it will be below my comment. )
Now, can you explain what that sentence means? I have a vague idea, but I am fairly confident that no lawyer would be willing to bet on his ability to accurately summarize that wall of text.
Unfortunately, there are thousands of pages of law that look almost exactly like this. Tax code in the USA is almost entirely this type of language, but the criminal code in many places is equally guilty.
The federal penal code is an excellent example. There are enough regulatory laws on the books that just about everyone has broken at least a few of them.
The primary issue isn't that people aren't aware of these laws, it's that you probably can't understand them.
Even the example i gave above has several references to other laws and documents.
""under section 118.19 of the Revised Code""
""under Section 6 of Article XIII and Section 13 of Article XVIII, Ohio Constitution""
So how many pages of law does this sentence actually reference?
Additionally, as sjames stated below, there are many laws on the books that aren't actively enforced.
These aren't just obscure laws about outdated, silly things like eating oranges in hotel rooms.
Many of them are regulatory requirements for documentation or storage requirements, with mandatory sentences.
Often, these lesser known, normally unenforced laws are used as an alternative method for "punishing criminals" who were acquitted of other crimes (or got on the wrong side of a law enforcement officer).
For example, without a hazmat placard and a Commercial drivers license you cannot transport more than 1000 lbs of liquid fuel (including the weight of the tank it is stored in).
This means that any of the larger RV camper trailers with 150gallon tanks are technically illegal to drive across state lines!
NOTE: I confirmed this limit with 3 law enforcement officers and the local fire department dispatch, but not a single one of them could cite the reference number for the law, only that it was a federal regulation. I managed to narrow it down to an epa regulation from 1981 but the search on http://nepis.epa.gov/ does not appear to work correctly.
So, if you get pulled over for a "seatbelt check" or "random traffic stop", and the officer decides he doesn't like you, you may find yourself being charged with Illegal transport of hazardous materials.
Good luck finding these laws ahead of time, even knowing about this one, I still couldn't locate it!
The American method of 'learning' is mostly rote learning
Overall? No. I'd say the US has been much better in this respect than many other countries. However, it is like this for premeds, and that's what matters!
I have to disagree with you here, TerranFury. It's not just premed that is taught in this fashion, it's everything up to and including premed.
The US education system was specifically designed to prevent the development of critical thinking skills and logical analysis.
Unfortunately, by the time students reach premed/grad school it is too late for them to start developing these skills.
You gave a perfect example yourself,
It's also how biology is taught in college. "Go memorize this arbitrary chemical pathway. No, we won't talk about 'why.' Yes, you can forget it later.
This type of education is not teaching the student anything other than how to memorize and follow someone else's directions without question.
I wrote a rather long comment here about exactly this issue.
To summarize it, I'll just copy the pertinent paragraph here.
Our system works well at doing one thing, creating content, bored, consumers.
Our Current education system is strongly based on the principles of a man named John Dewey, feel free to look up information of the phonics vs whole word method online, but I'll try to summarize it for you.
Basically the whole word method is a method of teaching via rote memorization instead of with critical thinking.
Instead of giving a child the building blocks to sound out the parts of a word (via latin roots etc) the child is taught the entire word as a single chunk, and never shown the underlying methodology.
This method is consistently repeated throughout our educational system, with students being given subsets of data and told to memorize them. The same information is often repeated through multiple semesters and even years, but the student is never shown the actual underlying reason for why the data is what it is. (another good example is history classes, how many teachers proved a timeline or list of dates to memorize, but don't go into detail on the social motivations for the events?)
A big side effect of this method is that the student never learns the methods for independent thought/study and critical thinking is left out of the curriculum completely. Why?
Because teaching critical thinking skills creates people who can think for themselves and are less likely to follow the status quo.
I replied to a similar comment further up the thread, but i'll summarize it here.
Just because the people taking over system aren't going to send a deletion command intentionally doesn't prevent them from causing a catastrophic failure that looks like a deletion.
Most of the time these kinds of federal seizures are handled by 1 guy with a clue and 20 guys with muscles.
Feel free to go disconnect the drive array in an improperly configured NAS cluster some time.
I've seen several systems that assume that all of the missing files were deleted.
And you are probably correct, if they took the server down no data would be deleted.
That would be why I specifically asked about the data being deleted.
However, consider what would happen if someone disconnected the front end web farm from the storage system during a federal seizure. Also, what about catastrophic failure at the datacenter?
Are we certain that the dropbox servers wouldn't assume that there was no data for a little while?
I haven't seen the code, so we can only hope that the system is properly designed.
Or, we can do exactly what I said in the original post, and KEEP LOCAL BACKUPS.
I wish that was true, but stupid has nothing to do with it.
Almost everyone knows about copyright laws.
Most people are ignorant about anything that is not directly related to their day to day lives.
Copyright may be something you and I deal with, but your average joe doesn't even know that fair use exists much less how it affects his day to day life.
Don't assume that everyone knows something just because the people you socialize with are aware of it.
And regardless, not knowing about laws doesn't remove your liability.
And this is exactly where the problem with the current legal system lies.
Laws are created every day that are broken by most of the population.
90% of them are never mentioned or covered in any media, so no one knows they exist until they're used to seize your property.
But that's a separate discussion.
Honestly, I agree with you for the most part, but you are correct.
Most home users don't have any type of backup.
Unfortunately, neither do most small businesses.
A residential user who has to reinstall a new software can either purchase it or go download a free alternative. It's an annoyance, but not world-ending.
A LARGE number of small businesses have custom software/databases/configuration that was installed for them by a vendor at some point.
Often, this vendor is unreachable/shut down/dead or wants to charge to reinstall the software and link it to the old database. The worst ones have grown into a large development house and refuse to help unless the customer buys the newest version for $20,000.
While a Nuke-and-Pave can guarantee the virus is gone, it's up to the customer to decide if the risk is worth the savings.
Usually, it is.
However, we do NOT want the customer to have to deal with a reinfection, so we offer to store our backups of the customer's data for 30 days.
We also offer a 30 warranty on all cleanups (as long as the customer follows a set of basic guidelines).
Our backup server re-scans the archived data automatically every weekend (with current AV) while the office is closed, and provides us with a report of what new infections were found. This way we can decide who needs to be contacted for a follow-up clean.
This gives us 4 more chances to catch anything that may have been missed. In my experience, even the slowest antivirus vendors can detect a virus that has been on ice for 4 weeks.
In the 4 years since we implemented this, we have recalled
Most of the time the only files missed are simply inert and get removed automatically by the AV software we install.
Just because you've been doing this for a few decades doesn't mean you should assume that you still know what you're doing.
I suggest you go do some research on the current state of virus removal.
90% of the viruses you will deal with on a daily basis are based on the same kits.
This means that they follow the same basic methods for infection, self-preservation, and spreading.
Most of the time, with tools like Process Monitor, you can identify a few of the payload files and upload them to virustotal.
This gives you a nice long rundown of EXACTLY which AV tools already detect the virus, and what the virus name is.
15 minutes on google, and you have a full list of every known trace the virus leaves, and what other viruses it is usually bundled with.
Once you know what the virus does, then you can double check for proper removal and test for reinfection.
Nuke and Pave is NOT the optimal solution. (unless you are more concerned with finishing the job fast than doing it right.)
Perhaps you should consider bring the system to an experienced shop who knows how to properly deal with rootkits and viruses.
Symantec has a removal tool available on their web site which will remove the software, but you should absolutely not do this until the virus has been removed.
As for removing the virus itself, good luck.
My experience is that you can not effectively remove a virus from inside the infected operating system.
Pull the drive, scan from a different system running a different OS, scan again 2 time with alternate AV software.
Then go through and double check the normal start up locations by hand, and scan again with a 4rth AV from inside the OS.
(Note: The GOOD shops have all of the scans automated, along with a full forensic-style backup before anything gets modified on the drive)
especially those that involve connecting multiple gamepads and one large monitor for local multiplayer.
I'm fairly certain that the main reason for this is developer focus (and greed)
There is absolutely NOTHING stopping me from plugging in 2 usb controllers and starting up a split screen/multiple monitor game in less than a minute.
As a matter of fact, i do this regularly with old console games run via emulation.
However, in the past 10 years, i've seen less than 10 PC games that allowed local multiplayer.
The part that pisses me off of? The exact same games have local Multiplayer already programmed in for the console versions, it's just been disabled on PC.
Why is it disabled? so that they can charge for a second copy of the game.
This trend has even started happening on consoles, how many modern console games have been published without local split-screen?
There are several databases that use the mac address and ssid of nearby wifi networks for geolocation. (android and iphone map applications both use these)
How do you think that defices like the ipod touch (no gps) can give you approximate location data?
Basically, your phone scans for networks, correlates the names and mac addresses of the nearby routers, connects this to current gps data, and then uploads that information to a server.
Also, the mapping and camera cars google has driving around also scan for and log ssid/mac address data.
In other words, someones lojack software is using google's geolocation api to locate the laptop using the mac address and ssid of nearby wireless networks, and the parent poster is probably the only network in the area that is also in the database.
Then, per system. 15 minutes to assemble. ( If you're really slow. I average 6 minutes each on identical units. ) 5 more to hook it up on a bench, drop in a live cd to run a few automated tests. 20 minutes of testing. 10 minutes to dump a sysprep image. Meanwhile, I've built 2 more systems.
If it takes longer than that, you're doing it WRONG.
A slow tech can build 200 systems in about 70 man hours. At $20/hr that's $7 per system for build time.
I've managed to assemble 150 identical systems in 24 hours.
Dell takes over a week to deliver one system, 2 weeks for ten, and last time I placed a larger order we ended up with a 3 week lead and 10% failure out of the box.
Additionally:
Even if you buy from a big name vendor your internal IT has to do most of the diagnosis to confirm a need for warranty repair.
It takes less time to pull the unit and replace than to sit on hold to talk to warranty support. Just setup one day a month for bench time to repair the replaced units, and you save time and money.
Caveat: you need to be somewhat more competent than your average A+/MCSE certified tech, enough room to spread out some and a shielded power screwdriver helps also.
I seriously hope that either they're covering a larger area than this, or you screwed up on these numbers.
7000 officers / 500 miles = 14 cops per square mile
Lets split that into 3 on duty shifts and assume that 25% are off duty at any one time (10% would be more likely, but I'll err on the side of caution).
This still leaves 3.5 cops on duty for every square mile.
Even when you account for detectives, administration, maintenance teams, and dispatch, that's still absolutely insane.
This is especially excessive considering that most of the dispatch/maintenance/administration personnel can be shared between districts fairly easily, so personnel requirements are directly proportional to size of area.
Or you could go out and make a few friends locally, run your own dedicated server, and introduce other people to the games you enjoy.
Hell, this weekend we're throwing a warcraft-a-thon. WC1 through WOW, including crystal towers and dota.
Last weekend it was the jedi knight series.
Before that it was quake, q2, q3 and quakelive.
Who knows what next weekend will be. But i'll bet most of the online multiplayer servers are offline.
We also regularly play a game called battle realms, There's NO community left from what I can tell but it's a fun game to play.
Also, how many of you remember battlezone? We've been playing it off and on for a decade.
Game lifespan should be (and used to be) set by PLAYER interest, not CORPORATE interest.
Slashdot Mirror
If you did, you would know how absolutely ludicrous it is for a formation 15,000 feet below ground, that is trapping hydrocarbons, in a low permeability strata, to have any affect on a water table 10,000 feet or more above it.
I would like to simple add a few thoughts to the discussion.
If the area they are frakking is 10,000 feet "Below" the water table, then they probably have to go through the water table in order to reach it.
So there is at least one path for contamination.
Additionally, frakking is the process of breaking geological formations in order to allow for the collection and extraction of liquid petroleum and gasses, AND a direct correlation has been show between frakking and increased geological activity.
So, they are intentionally breaking the layers of rock separating pockets of gas and oil, and causing small earthquakes.
Meanwhile you are arguing that "it is impossible for the technology to cause the problems", and that there is no way that during all of the intentional layer breaking they might cause something to change in the layers that are sitting on top of the work area
I'm not sure that "impossible" is the right term to use. I'd have chosen "marginally unlikely", but that's just me.
Just because visualizations are necessary doesn't mean the keyboard isn't a better tool for interacting.
I personally do quite a bit of audio and video editing as a paid hobby, and 95% of the work I do can be done completely via the keyboard shortcuts built into the software.
Even for things I don't use often enough to memorize the shortcut to, It is generally faster to hit the shortcut for the menu it is under and then look at the item I want to get it's hotkey. (Firefox example: ALT+T for Tools, then P for Private browsing)
The hotkeys are even underlined by default, so there is no need to memorize "countless arcane keyboard combinations.
As for your comment about "things that can be more easily done graphically", I'm going to have to ask for an example.
Every single computing task I have ever encountered has a method available for keyboard use to be just as efficient (or more so).
Even selecting links in a web browser (the example I used during the early 90's when this discussion came up) has been addressed.
Now, it is much more common for me to find tasks that are faster and easier via the keyboard.
For example, it's almost impossible to quickly scrub exactly 30 frames (one second) forward without using keyboard shortcuts in most programs. (no, clicking the little "next frame" button 30 times doesn't count.)
This doesn't even address the repeatability issue.
If I have to copy a fading scene change to every scene in a video, it is much faster to copy the transition [ctrl+c] and hit "right arrow,[ctrl+v]" 10 times instead of "scroll down the timeline, click the next clip, click edit, and click paste" 10 times.
Lastly, Keyboard commands can be easily scripted. This isn't true of mouse movements.
Worst case, I can use autoit, applescript, or a similar program to inject the button presses directly into the keyboard buffer to force the program to do what I want.
Dear jackass,
The kernel module is a subprocess of the existing hardware detection loop, and is only loaded when it's actually needed. The user-mode service is a separate loop that polls the hardware every 10ms or so, and as such is running at all times.
So to use small words, kernel modules use resources while they are being used, and services are using resources at all times.
Do I need to spell it out for you in any more detail?
The drivers include an executable service on every usb3.0 capable system I have built.
Ymmv.
The service is actively running, and takes up ram and processor time even when idle.
WIndows8, Linux, and MacOs all have native support, and don't need these services.
There are injuries that can cripple a person for life and require 70 years of expenses to care for that disability
I am quite intimately aware of this. I had an uncle who was rendered quadriplegic in a car accident, and several other family members who are disabled. (truly disabled, not just claiming disability)
I am also fully aware that the insurance of the person who hit him didn't cover anywhere near the initial medical bills. (liability only: $10,000/$20,000/$10,000)
Instead, he had sue his own health insurance and car insurance providers.
In the US, his medications, doctors visits, and other medical care cost upwards of $75,000 a year.
This does not include the initial emergency room costs.
5 years later, he moved to Europe and discovered that the actual costs of his medical care were closer to $5,000 per year.
According to him and my aunt, the care he received was better quality as well.
So, that $1,000,000 settlement you stipulated? Would have only lasted for 13 years, covering ONLY medical expenses.
In Germany, 1/2 of that ($500,000) would have covered him for a FULL CENTURY.
There is a reason why Medical tourism exists.
However, lets drop my anecdote, and get back to your next point.
There are injuries that can cripple a person for life and require 70 years of expenses to care for that disability
Yes, yes there are.
And every single joe sixpack should be fully aware that they could get hit by a bus tomorrow.
Joe could also forget to tie his shoelaces and fall down a flight of stairs head first.
Either one of these can result in a lifetime injury. So, who should get sued in the second case?
The owner of the property? It's Joe's house.
The builder of the stairs? It's perfectly designed to code.
What about the shoe designer? Unfortunately, this one might work.
So, should Joe automatically contact a lawyer after he breaks his own neck through his own carelessness?
OR, should he be responsible for his own well being?
This is one of those huge personally defining questions that have huge amounts of baggage associated with them, so it honestly doesn't matter what your answer is.
My answer is that Joe, and everyone else, should be responsible for protecting themselves.
No one wants to pay $80,000+ for a single surgery.
In other countries, these procedures are usually 50 to 75 percent cheaper than they are here.
Meanwhile, here in the USA, we have "liability insurance" and lawsuits instead of reasonable costs.
Lastly, i'll try to expand on my last point.
Exactly what is the point of bankrupting someone who caused an accident?
It's not like the illegal immigrant that is going to broadside your car tomorrow will have insurance.
The $7.50/hour McDonalds employee who is going to cause a 5 car pileup only has minimum liability. The ambulance fees alone are more than his insurance will cover.
So instead of getting a payoff, you end up covering your own expenses, and then the other guy winds up having to file for bankruptcy.
However, considering that the other guy is already poor and has terrible credit, what exactly has changed for him? What lesson has he learned?
So, since you have to have your own insurance in order to be protected, why even bother with the whole lawsuit?
Why not actually punish the people who cause harm to others?
Arrest them and try them for attempted manslaughter/involuntary manslaughter/willfull endangerment/etc.
Bonus, while they're in jail/on probation, we can actually provide them with real training, education, and work experience.
Of course revamping our penal system is a WHOLE different rant.
The only reason why insurance covers "the other guy" is because you are going to get sued by the "Victim". Or by their insurance company....
Make each driver responsible for their own CYA methods, and actually enforce safe driving instead of "profitable ticketing".
In the case of an accident with injury, there should be a TRIAL, not a lawsuit.
If they were responsible? Send the offending party to freaking prison.
Otherwise, fuck off. It was an accident/your were both at fault/other.
Additionally,
A two car collision with serious injuries can easily cause close to a million dollars in medical costs
Why in the hell is this the case? Think about it for a minute.
$1,000,000+? Only in America. Why?
Because of the commercial health insurance system, and the medical system that has developed in self defense.
My chiropractor charges $200 for a visit if you are insured, and $40 if you pay cash.
The reason for this?
The insurance company is only going to pay him what they decide to cover, and it is NEVER the full bill.
If the damned insurance companies where either forced to pay out the policies (without having to sue them first) or there was a cheap public healthcare system to compete with them directly we wouldn't have to worry about million dollar medical bills.
Look at canada, germany, sweden, etc. for examples of mostly reasonable insurance systems.
I actually found the "working reference" that all of these officers/firemen were trained from.
It's CFR 29 1910.110
But this isn't the law itself, just the reference manual.
Honestly, I feel I have to chime in here.
Snow,
Unless I misunderstand your stance here, you feel that complex laws are not only needed, but unavoidable.
You also seem to be arguing that it is the responsibility of the citizen to actively understand the laws that relate to actions they may choose to take.
On the surface, I agree with both of these assertions.
You have been very good at giving examples of laws which support your arguments.
For example, you have referenced Basic Traffic law, manslaughter, and hunting.
However, your choices for example themselves are flawed.
All of these are easily read, understood, and (generally speaking) follow commonly accepted behavior patterns.
These are areas of law where an average person has at least a chance to understand the what and the why that the law is meant to address, and most of these laws specify in (fairly simple terms) exactly what actions are and are not allowed.
I believe that I have found an extreme enough example (currently on the books, and affecting anyone who owes money to the state of ohio) to make sjames' point.
Please go look at This Link. (I will copy the pertinent sentence below, but for readability, it will be below my comment. )
Now, can you explain what that sentence means? I have a vague idea, but I am fairly confident that no lawyer would be willing to bet on his ability to accurately summarize that wall of text.
Unfortunately, there are thousands of pages of law that look almost exactly like this. Tax code in the USA is almost entirely this type of language, but the criminal code in many places is equally guilty.
The federal penal code is an excellent example. There are enough regulatory laws on the books that just about everyone has broken at least a few of them.
The primary issue isn't that people aren't aware of these laws, it's that you probably can't understand them.
Even the example i gave above has several references to other laws and documents.
""under section 118.19 of the Revised Code""
""under Section 6 of Article XIII and Section 13 of Article XVIII, Ohio Constitution""
So how many pages of law does this sentence actually reference?
Additionally, as sjames stated below, there are many laws on the books that aren't actively enforced.
These aren't just obscure laws about outdated, silly things like eating oranges in hotel rooms.
Many of them are regulatory requirements for documentation or storage requirements, with mandatory sentences.
Often, these lesser known, normally unenforced laws are used as an alternative method for "punishing criminals" who were acquitted of other crimes (or got on the wrong side of a law enforcement officer).
For example, without a hazmat placard and a Commercial drivers license you cannot transport more than 1000 lbs of liquid fuel (including the weight of the tank it is stored in).
This means that any of the larger RV camper trailers with 150gallon tanks are technically illegal to drive across state lines!
NOTE: I confirmed this limit with 3 law enforcement officers and the local fire department dispatch, but not a single one of them could cite the reference number for the law, only that it was a federal regulation. I managed to narrow it down to an epa regulation from 1981 but the search on http://nepis.epa.gov/ does not appear to work correctly.
So, if you get pulled over for a "seatbelt check" or "random traffic stop", and the officer decides he doesn't like you, you may find yourself being charged with Illegal transport of hazardous materials.
Good luck finding these laws ahead of time, even knowing about this one, I still couldn't locate it!
The American method of 'learning' is mostly rote learning
Overall? No. I'd say the US has been much better in this respect than many other countries. However, it is like this for premeds, and that's what matters!
I have to disagree with you here, TerranFury.
It's not just premed that is taught in this fashion, it's everything up to and including premed.
The US education system was specifically designed to prevent the development of critical thinking skills and logical analysis.
Unfortunately, by the time students reach premed/grad school it is too late for them to start developing these skills.
You gave a perfect example yourself,
It's also how biology is taught in college. "Go memorize this arbitrary chemical pathway. No, we won't talk about 'why.' Yes, you can forget it later.
This type of education is not teaching the student anything other than how to memorize and follow someone else's directions without question.
I wrote a rather long comment here about exactly this issue.
To summarize it, I'll just copy the pertinent paragraph here.
Our system works well at doing one thing, creating content, bored, consumers.
Our Current education system is strongly based on the principles of a man named John Dewey, feel free to look up information of the phonics vs whole word method online, but I'll try to summarize it for you.
Basically the whole word method is a method of teaching via rote memorization instead of with critical thinking.
Instead of giving a child the building blocks to sound out the parts of a word (via latin roots etc) the child is taught the entire word as a single chunk, and never shown the underlying methodology.
This method is consistently repeated throughout our educational system, with students being given subsets of data and told to memorize them. The same information is often repeated through multiple semesters and even years, but the student is never shown the actual underlying reason for why the data is what it is. (another good example is history classes, how many teachers proved a timeline or list of dates to memorize, but don't go into detail on the social motivations for the events?)
A big side effect of this method is that the student never learns the methods for independent thought/study and critical thinking is left out of the curriculum completely. Why?
Because teaching critical thinking skills creates people who can think for themselves and are less likely to follow the status quo.
I replied to a similar comment further up the thread, but i'll summarize it here.
Just because the people taking over system aren't going to send a deletion command intentionally doesn't prevent them from causing a catastrophic failure that looks like a deletion.
Most of the time these kinds of federal seizures are handled by 1 guy with a clue and 20 guys with muscles.
Feel free to go disconnect the drive array in an improperly configured NAS cluster some time.
I've seen several systems that assume that all of the missing files were deleted.
While both you and I are aware of that, there are many people who are mislead into believing that dropbox is a backup service.
Heck, go look at their sales pitch.
"Dropbox - Secure backup, sync and sharing made easy"
This is plastered all over their web site, advertising, and over a million linked sites
And you are probably correct, if they took the server down no data would be deleted.
That would be why I specifically asked about the data being deleted.
However, consider what would happen if someone disconnected the front end web farm from the storage system during a federal seizure. Also, what about catastrophic failure at the datacenter?
Are we certain that the dropbox servers wouldn't assume that there was no data for a little while?
I haven't seen the code, so we can only hope that the system is properly designed.
Or, we can do exactly what I said in the original post, and KEEP LOCAL BACKUPS.
People aren't as stupid as you think.
I wish that was true, but stupid has nothing to do with it.
Almost everyone knows about copyright laws.
Most people are ignorant about anything that is not directly related to their day to day lives.
Copyright may be something you and I deal with, but your average joe doesn't even know that fair use exists much less how it affects his day to day life.
Don't assume that everyone knows something just because the people you socialize with are aware of it.
And regardless, not knowing about laws doesn't remove your liability.
And this is exactly where the problem with the current legal system lies.
Laws are created every day that are broken by most of the population.
90% of them are never mentioned or covered in any media, so no one knows they exist until they're used to seize your property.
But that's a separate discussion.
if they close it I've still got my files locally
Are you certain of that?
If I delete a file from my dropbox folder on my laptop, it gets removed on my desktop.
What happens is someone with access to the dropbox server deletes a file?
Online "backup" services ARE NOT A VALID REPLACEMENT LOCAL BACKUP PROCEDURES.
They are for convenience and additional protection only.
Honestly, I agree with you for the most part, but you are correct.
Most home users don't have any type of backup.
Unfortunately, neither do most small businesses.
A residential user who has to reinstall a new software can either purchase it or go download a free alternative. It's an annoyance, but not world-ending.
A LARGE number of small businesses have custom software/databases/configuration that was installed for them by a vendor at some point.
Often, this vendor is unreachable/shut down/dead or wants to charge to reinstall the software and link it to the old database. The worst ones have grown into a large development house and refuse to help unless the customer buys the newest version for $20,000.
While a Nuke-and-Pave can guarantee the virus is gone, it's up to the customer to decide if the risk is worth the savings.
Usually, it is.
However, we do NOT want the customer to have to deal with a reinfection, so we offer to store our backups of the customer's data for 30 days.
We also offer a 30 warranty on all cleanups (as long as the customer follows a set of basic guidelines).
Our backup server re-scans the archived data automatically every weekend (with current AV) while the office is closed, and provides us with a report of what new infections were found. This way we can decide who needs to be contacted for a follow-up clean.
This gives us 4 more chances to catch anything that may have been missed.
In my experience, even the slowest antivirus vendors can detect a virus that has been on ice for 4 weeks.
In the 4 years since we implemented this, we have recalled Most of the time the only files missed are simply inert and get removed automatically by the AV software we install.
That's actually the whole point of a forensic level backup prior to working on it.
You restore from backup, then start the cleanup over again if any important data is damaged or lost.
Or
You restore the backup to a separate drive and manually recover and clean the files that were determined to be vital.
Where I work, losing customer data is NEVER an option. If it can be prevented in any way, we do so.
Just because you've been doing this for a few decades doesn't mean you should assume that you still know what you're doing.
I suggest you go do some research on the current state of virus removal.
90% of the viruses you will deal with on a daily basis are based on the same kits.
This means that they follow the same basic methods for infection, self-preservation, and spreading.
Most of the time, with tools like Process Monitor, you can identify a few of the payload files and upload them to virustotal.
This gives you a nice long rundown of EXACTLY which AV tools already detect the virus, and what the virus name is.
15 minutes on google, and you have a full list of every known trace the virus leaves, and what other viruses it is usually bundled with.
Once you know what the virus does, then you can double check for proper removal and test for reinfection.
Nuke and Pave is NOT the optimal solution. (unless you are more concerned with finishing the job fast than doing it right.)
Perhaps you should consider bring the system to an experienced shop who knows how to properly deal with rootkits and viruses.
Symantec has a removal tool available on their web site which will remove the software, but you should absolutely not do this until the virus has been removed.
As for removing the virus itself, good luck.
My experience is that you can not effectively remove a virus from inside the infected operating system.
Pull the drive, scan from a different system running a different OS, scan again 2 time with alternate AV software.
Then go through and double check the normal start up locations by hand, and scan again with a 4rth AV from inside the OS.
(Note: The GOOD shops have all of the scans automated, along with a full forensic-style backup before anything gets modified on the drive)
especially those that involve connecting multiple gamepads and one large monitor for local multiplayer.
I'm fairly certain that the main reason for this is developer focus (and greed)
There is absolutely NOTHING stopping me from plugging in 2 usb controllers and starting up a split screen/multiple monitor game in less than a minute.
As a matter of fact, i do this regularly with old console games run via emulation.
However, in the past 10 years, i've seen less than 10 PC games that allowed local multiplayer.
The part that pisses me off of? The exact same games have local Multiplayer already programmed in for the console versions, it's just been disabled on PC.
Why is it disabled? so that they can charge for a second copy of the game.
This trend has even started happening on consoles, how many modern console games have been published without local split-screen?
Sorry gd3shoe, but you are misinformed.
There are several databases that use the mac address and ssid of nearby wifi networks for geolocation. (android and iphone map applications both use these) How do you think that defices like the ipod touch (no gps) can give you approximate location data?
Basically, your phone scans for networks, correlates the names and mac addresses of the nearby routers, connects this to current gps data, and then uploads that information to a server.
Also, the mapping and camera cars google has driving around also scan for and log ssid/mac address data.
In other words, someones lojack software is using google's geolocation api to locate the laptop using the mac address and ssid of nearby wireless networks, and the parent poster is probably the only network in the area that is also in the database.
Google link
Additional reference with some technical data
Unpack and sort parts for 200 systems? 4 hours.
Then, per system.
15 minutes to assemble. ( If you're really slow. I average 6 minutes each on identical units. )
5 more to hook it up on a bench, drop in a live cd to run a few automated tests.
20 minutes of testing.
10 minutes to dump a sysprep image.
Meanwhile, I've built 2 more systems.
If it takes longer than that, you're doing it WRONG.
A slow tech can build 200 systems in about 70 man hours. At $20/hr that's $7 per system for build time.
I've managed to assemble 150 identical systems in 24 hours.
Dell takes over a week to deliver one system, 2 weeks for ten, and last time I placed a larger order we ended up with a 3 week lead and 10% failure out of the box.
Additionally:
Even if you buy from a big name vendor your internal IT has to do most of the diagnosis to confirm a need for warranty repair.
It takes less time to pull the unit and replace than to sit on hold to talk to warranty support.
Just setup one day a month for bench time to repair the replaced units, and you save time and money.
Caveat: you need to be somewhat more competent than your average A+/MCSE certified tech, enough room to spread out some and a shielded power screwdriver helps also.
One and one don't make two, one and one make one.
One and one make eleven. (or 3 if you use binary)
One PLUS one makes 2.
Or if you're talking biology,
One and one make "One More"
One and 3 make a bad porn.
One and 2 make a fun night (or a good reason to break up)
only have 7000 officers to cover 500 square miles
I seriously hope that either they're covering a larger area than this, or you screwed up on these numbers.
7000 officers / 500 miles = 14 cops per square mile
Lets split that into 3 on duty shifts and assume that 25% are off duty at any one time (10% would be more likely, but I'll err on the side of caution).
This still leaves 3.5 cops on duty for every square mile.
Even when you account for detectives, administration, maintenance teams, and dispatch, that's still absolutely insane.
This is especially excessive considering that most of the dispatch/maintenance/administration personnel can be shared between districts fairly easily, so personnel requirements are directly proportional to size of area.
Then the sun is gods version of a binary word processor?
Guess we should be glad he never switched to dvorak...
Or you could go out and make a few friends locally, run your own dedicated server, and introduce other people to the games you enjoy. Hell, this weekend we're throwing a warcraft-a-thon. WC1 through WOW, including crystal towers and dota. Last weekend it was the jedi knight series. Before that it was quake, q2, q3 and quakelive. Who knows what next weekend will be. But i'll bet most of the online multiplayer servers are offline. We also regularly play a game called battle realms, There's NO community left from what I can tell but it's a fun game to play. Also, how many of you remember battlezone? We've been playing it off and on for a decade. Game lifespan should be (and used to be) set by PLAYER interest, not CORPORATE interest.
Off topic I know, but what is prestanda?
I don't recognize the word, and my googlefu seems to be weak this morning.