It's just a matter of definition. "user information" != "user data".
"user information" is something about you that FB doesn't know about you yet (so, it's not surprising they don't sell it or give it away - it's hard to sell a database of nulls).
"user data", on the other hand, is something FB (thinks) they know about you (although, their image classification system probably makes FB think I'm a big nasty green scaly beast that spends a lot of time in the water and snags the occasional small child that gets too close to the bank of my pond -- and they are wrong as I'm not really very nasty).
If your priority is your privacy and you take steps to retain that, how does that cause you to be in "a less desirable position" to someone who didn't care about their privacy as much. You are deriving benefit from being very private just as a hermit in the old days did and that benefit must be greater to you than whatever advantage you might gain by sacrificing your privacy (else, if you are rational, you would sacrifice your privacy). It's a bit like being a politician, they sacrifice their privacy so they can control other people around so they must feel the cost of sacrificing their privacy is less than the endorphin rush they get from controlling people.
When I was watching the original Uber video, it was immediately clear to me that how a human might perceive the situation in those lighting conditions might be quite different than what the video would have recorded. It also seemed strange that even the safety driver, when she was actually looking at the road (which, I assume she must have at some time during the trip, perhaps in a less than well lit area), would have been uncomfortable "overdriving" their headlights as much as it appeared the car was.
I would like to think that Uber didn't intentionally doctor the video and that the misleading contrast was the result of a camera that sucked (perhaps too slow to adjust adequately to changing light conditions). But, then, this is Uber so I probably shouldn't give them the benefit of the doubt.
No. I was in a (apparently too) dry attempt at humor suggesting that perhaps Uber was suing for repairs to the car and the family paid them rather than go to court. Nothing that's been I've seen reported tells us who paid who so everyone's making assumptions.
Of course, if I had to bet, I'd bet Uber/their insurance company paid off the family rather than go to court to defend themselves. It was probably cheaper than fighting the case in court even if they thought they would win (which, depending on Arizona's laws on such cases, they probably couldn't have won completely anyway - the "safety driver" was obviously not paying attention and if there was a rational chance she could have noticed and even slowed down a bit and/or swerved and reduced the severity of the collision, Uber would likely have been held at least some percent liable).
...reach a settlement, but why would the daughter participate?
The damage to the car didn't look all that extensive - although perhaps some expensive sensors were damaged. I believe Arizona is a community property state so the husband may be obligated to pay for damages caused by the his wife's illegal jaywalking, but if the husband couldn't afford to pay for repairs, why would the daughter help out -- she has no legal obligation to do so.
In my experience (all in the USA) and in, one form or the other, systems software development (such as database kernels and storage systems targeted at use in large enterprises), the best developers tend to take pride in their work and enjoy it - in fact, part of the "compensation" is having an environment to engage in that work.
Sure, there are parts one hates - mostly because they occur at 2AM. But the customer is king (they are why your paycheck clears the bank and are the reason you get to do interesting stuff and get paid for it rather than working at McDonald's by day to pay the rent and coding by night to exercise the brain). If a customer system blows up at 2AM your time and the support organization needs the most qualified engineer to help resolve the problem and you're that person, you don't hesitate -- because you want the customer to be successful (of course the site team and your CEO also wants the customer to be successful, but that's not the primary motivation for you). This is true even if no one thinks the problem is in code that you "own", but that your knowledge of the overall system, your inherent diagnostic skills, and/or the architectural role of "your" code gives you the best chance of narrowing the problem down quickly and figuring out what to do next and by who.
I've gotten paid fairly well for this of course, but am strictly salaried (and, of course, receive bonuses and other financial perks). I have never gotten a penny of additional income just because I worked more hours. Of course, I do expect to be reimbursed for additional expenses I incur or financial benefits I "lose" as a direct result of becoming involved at odd hours -- such as for food ordered out, for tickets to a show that I couldn't use because of being called to work the problem, for taxi/Uber home and back if I feel I shouldn't be driving home after a 20 hour stint, for a babysitter, etc...
However, I must admit I also have the freedom to point out that my participation in a particular crisis is no longer useful and that I'm done with it unless and until that changes or that the crisis isn't really critical and can wait so I basically refuse to waste my time or interrupt my life -- you can't pay me enough to waste my time (I generally have plenty of ways at any point in time that I would rather waste my time). What are they going to do - fire me?
Oh, and when I've been an engineering manager when support (and even my boss) has demanded that one of my people get involved at 2AM in a problem and I know their participation is not necessary or helpful, I tell support to go fly a kite or to have the EVP of engineering or (at smaller companies) the CEO call me and I will explain why my team member's participation won't be helpful (and may even delay resolution of the problem). Funny thing is, I never got a call from my EVP or CEO in these cases so it must not have been quite as important as the support person thought.
If you don't enjoy your work, I understand that. However, some of us enjoy our work (and, if we don't, we change jobs so we do). I can't imagine "counting hours" like a hourly employee -- it would limit my flexibility to do self initiated projects, get stuff off my plate so I could pursue projects I have a passion for, but not a mandate to do etc.
My point about bullying certainly wasn't that it was a "good thing" in itself or that it is a behavior kids should be encouraged to instigate. However it is a reality and most people will encounter "bullying" behavior (generally emotional rather than physical as adults in polite society) in professional and social life and maybe, particularly unfortunately, in their personal life. Thus, even though they don't "live in the trees" or want to do so, it is valuable to recognize it instinctively, realize people will try to bully you, and develop strategies to cope with bullying (other than just running to an authority figure as a first or even second resort -- managers rightfully expect professionals to work things out among themselves to the greatest extent possible).
A limited amount of bullying on the schoolyard, is a mechanism for kids to develop innate skills for recognizing and coping with bullying -- and also potentially, if they have a tendency to bully, to learn that the consequences can be quite painful when you misjudge and bully the wrong person. Certainly bullying should not be allowed to run so rampant that it's interfering substantially with other growth opportunities for children including, but not limited to, educational ones. As well, if a particular individual is the target of excessive bullying that should be addressed (both by having a discussion with the target to find out what is happening and providing suggestions on how to counter or avoid the bullying and, ultimately, by stopping those doing the bullying with whatever means necessary - all the way to expulsion or school reassignment if needed).
Some level of fighting and bullying on the schoolyard is not unlike how kittens play with each other while still depending on their mother for support -- it trains their hunting skills so they can survive on their own. In the case of the schoolyard, it trains kids to cope with bullying in a low stakes environment so they are prepared to do so in a higher stakes environment.
There are plenty of intelligent bullies in professional world - including managers, coworkers, and people in other organizations that are trying to coerce you to do something for their benefit when you have neither the free time or responsibility to do. Thus, I feel the complete tamping down of bullying in the school (and similar) environments is actually harmful to even intelligent people.
Of course, threading the needle on determining the level of "bullying" to accept is a task that requires judgement and discretion and, unfortunately, organizations (not just schools) have largely migrated to a "rule book" approach that is applied "evenly" without much discretion. Part of this is probably laziness on part of those managing these entities but I suspect a lot of it is done to reduce the threat of discrimination complaints and lawsuits.
I don't have a clue how much of this has to do directly with school shootings, but I agree inappropriate brainwashing of kids that ignores the reality of the real world seems quite damaging (and probably better explains the large percentage of young people who end up living at home for years after college than the "great recession" does).
The zero tolerance policies for fighting and "bullying" (whatever that means) and the "everyone gets an award" philosophy and over-stressing "being respectful" eliminates many important life lessons from children when they are best equipped to deal with and learn from them.
When I was in school, teachers didn't usually stop fights between boys (or girls, but those were quite rare) if the combatants were somewhat reasonably matched, it was one-on-one, there was little danger of lasting physical damage (for example neither party was trying to poke the other's eyes out or using weapons or beating up a lot on someone who was down on the ground), those involved weren't notorious bullies (of which there were few if any) or particularly vulnerable and were picked on very often. Sometimes we would get disciplined very lightly (have to stay in over the next lunch break rather than go outside for example), but that was it. Trips to the principal's office over such things were very rare, parental notification was even rarer, and suspension (let alone expulsion) was extraordinarily rare (I think we knew it was possible, but I don't think I ever knew anyone very well who it happened to).
Very important life lessons were learned at an appropriate age through such physical combative situations. Most kids learned that they were not as tough as they thought they were (or, conversely that they were actually tougher than they thought). Most kids learned that they could, and should, defend themselves (this lesson sometimes took a while for some). Most kids learned that even though they "win" a fight, sometimes it takes a physical toll on them so fighting may not be the best strategy. Most kids learned that you can have a fight with someone and still be friends. Some, including myself, discovered that after fights with relative strangers, both parties respected each other more having tested the limits of the other party and demonstrated their own abilities -- in fact, after most such fights, regardless of who won, I ended up being substantially more friendly with the other kid.
To deprive kids of these experiences seems unwise.
Similarly, when I was in school, everyone didn't get an award or trophy (even for "participation") and little attempt was made to mask the fact that some students were more capable than others at some things. In this environment, students learned what success and failure felt like, how to deal with constructive (and sometimes not so constructive) criticism, that to get an award or recognition or even a good grade could require hard work and focus and that such hard work and focus could often be the difference between being at the top and in the middle. Having to learn these lessons later in life is much more difficult and, it appears, happens too rarely.
From watching the video in this case, this woman didn't "appear suddenly" in front of the car. She appears to have been ambling over from the median, a full lane away. She didn't drop out of the sky or jump from behind a parked truck.
I can't imagine why she didn't react in some obvious way even when the car was almost on top of her - the full toxicology report might be revealing.
I have hit a deer instead of swerving because I was going too fast to safely swerve - the thought crossed my mind in a fleeting tiny moment and I decided not to do it and instead engaged in safe braking knowing that would not prevent the collision.
There were several deer crossing the freeway and there was no traffic. When my lights hit them, at least one (the deceased one) stopped and looked at me. I think part of my decision not to swerve may have been influenced by not being sure where to swerve to - there were deer on my right and one right in front of me, but I couldn't quickly process/decide if other members of the group were continuing on across the freeway into the left lane where they would be when I arrived there.
However, I think I would have instinctively made a different decision if it had been a single person.
I ended up with a flying deer that caved in the top of my roof with a loud thump a few moments after the collision (after, of course, trashing the front of my car and hood during the initial impact). Apparently the impact had accelerated the deer quite a bit and the hood and windshield created a launch ramp that resulted in the deer becoming airborne. I was slowing down as I was braking, but the poor deer only had air resistance to slow it down so it landed back on top of my roof. I wish I hadn't hit the deer, but given that happened, I wish there were a video of it (I also wish I had let up on the brake at the moment of impact -- that would have reduced the cost of repairs if the deer ended up landing behind me because of that).
It's hard to tell from the video how visible she would have been to a human eye which has different sensitivity than the image sensor.
However, assuming that when she would have been visible to a typical human eye is the same point that she is visible on the video to us, I think there's a pretty good chance that an attentive human driver would have at least swerved to the left as there were no oncoming cars and she was obviously moving left to right. This would have been more of a reflex reaction requiring very little conscious analysis. Humans can be exceptionally fast at such reflex like reactions. That might have moved the impact point, if any, to the very back of the bike and might have caused much less harm to the human body walking the bike.
I think an attentive human driver also would have gotten onto the brake but it's harder to tell without more data if that would have been before or after the software did so and if it would have resulted in a lower impact collision (and hence more survivable) than what actually happened.
It seems this car (the software that is) perhaps was doing the human equivalent of "overdriving its headlights" - i.e., the sensors it had available to it were unable to see far enough ahead to give the software time to react to an obstacle in the road and bring the car to a controlled safe stop. Alternatively, it saw the woman and the bike but failed to classify them correctly for some reason. Either one is a priority 1 bug in my view.
The driver, had he been paying any attention, might also have been guilty of allowing the car to overdrive both its sensors and his own vision and ability. In that case, he should have either taken complete command of the car earlier or manually adjusted the speed (if the UI allows that) while leaving the rest of the driving to the software. Of course, since he wasn't paying attention, about all we can know is that he was guilty of reckless distracted driving.
Yes, the woman was at fault also, but this is exactly the sort of thing that I would expect a self-driving car NOT to do even in a case like this. IFF self driving cars are reliable at these simple things (don't hit stuff in front of you, don't hit buses to your left, and even don't drive under semitrailers that are turning in front of you) am I going to be tolerant of some of the unnecessary delays they will cause in some traffic conditions or odd, rare and complex corner cases where they make an incorrect judgement resulting in an accident.
It seems that this particular case is an obvious test case that one would run long before putting the first car on the public roads so this is likely also a serious QA flaw. It smells a bit of a situation where everyone in the development organization is incented to ship now, debug later. Perhaps companies who are developing self driving cars should hire some engineers "outside the camp" whose sole job is to develop and help execute tests without pressure to "ship now, debug later". Perhaps this independent team should be given about four hours a quarter of every executive, manager, architect, and senior engineer involved in the project (all the way up to and including the CEO) to use as test dummies (after a detailed description of the test, they can opt out -- but that fact will be recorded and will be considered a test failure, it's up to the CEO to then take sole responsibility for declaring that it's okay to ship with that test failure -- such as if the test involved requiring the "test dummy" to jump off the top of a parked truck just into the path of the car when the car was just three feet away and going 60 MPH).
There are some exceptions to minimum hourly wage for agricultural workers, for example:
Additional exemptions from the minimum wage and overtime provisions of the Act for agricultural employees apply to the following: [...] Local hand harvest laborers who commute daily from their permanent residence, are paid on a piece rate basis in traditionally piece-rated occupations, and were engaged in agriculture less than thirteen weeks during the preceding calendar year [...]
It seems likely that Discgolferusa fell into one of these exceptions (and, perhaps, he wouldn't have been hired at all to even give it a try without that exception).
It should be a crime to store plaintext passwords for users on any web site where the public can create ids. There is no reason for it and it's been decades since it was an unacceptable practice on any computer system.
Of course, once it's a crime, civil liability follows.
A person who disbelieves or lacks belief in the existence of God or gods.
Thus, an atheist is often just someone who, having seen no credible evidence of the existence of a god and seen many examples of conflicting claims of gods that lack credibility, has no rational basis to believe there are gods and therefore doesn't assume that gods exist. It is not necessary to travel to the ends of the universe and examine every subatomic particle in the universe to rationally be an atheist.
Theists can offer no credible evidence in recorded history that gods exist and they can't even agree among themselves what gods exist. Yet, they generally claim vehemently that "their" particular gods exist and are the origin of our existence. This is a remarkable conclusion resulting from a lack of critical thinking. Rationally, few atheists are likely to spend much of their energy considering trying to help prove or accept something that "believers" have, time and time again, generation after generation, failed to provide one shred of evidence of.
It is quite possible that some, perhaps many, humans have evolved to have a strong tendency to believe in something akin to a "religion" replete with gods. In an unenlightened time where science as we know it today didn't exist and there was no way of passing information reliably from person to person and generation to generation, a "religion" trait may have helped societies survive better as it could help give a structure to society and enforce (via the fear of retribution by "big daddy in the sky") some moral codes. We have moved beyond this time, but it will take some time for evolution catch up due to humans' low reproduction rate and the tendency of modern society to interfere with natural selection.
Religion is something like a placebo, as long as one is ignorant of reality it can make some more comfortable but has little value once one figures out they are just getting a sugar pill.
Otherwise known as negotiating. And, those that negotiate in the workplace will generally get more stuff accomplished. Those who successfully negotiate for salary are likely to be more effective in the workplace and are worth the extra compensation they received.
Not all negotiations are "hard ball" and salary negotiations for most software development positions are usually not. The employer knows what they can pay, they offer somewhat less (both to save money if you accept the offer and to give them room to negotiate if needed). Of course, you have to be willing to take some risks -- including swallowing your pride or passing on the job if the employer is unwilling to meet you in the middle.
Negotiations happen all the time in the workplace, it's an important skill. Of course if I stay until 3AM for five days straight helping you track down a heisenbug that I'm sure is in your area but I can help you with, I expect something in return for my extra effort. Maybe you will never be in a position to help me, but if you are and don't, expect your professional life to take a hit.
Insurance companies in the US now can't refuse to issue or charge more based on pre-existing conditions. As well, they must, in general, pay out 80% of the premiums they collect in claims and, if they pay out less than 80%, must rebate the difference to their policy holders. This leaves up to 20% of premiums for administrative costs (claims processing and validation, customer service, statements, payment processing, leases, utilities, facilities), marketing (including negotiating with providers) and sales, and profit.
It's pretty hard to blame insurance companies for much since the imposition of the PPACA and, at most, you can only blame them for LESS than 20% of the cost. Remember that Medicare and Medicaid which have virtually no marketing costs and no profit motive and have the power of government to coerce private providers to accept their terms unilaterally still have administrative costs. Although proponents of Medicare sometimes assert that its overhead is only 2% vs. private insurers 15-20%, that analysis has some serious flaws.
Also, many (perhaps most -- although the more sophisticated providers have learned how to game the Medicare system to maximize payments -- sometimes with ridiculously inefficient tricks) medical providers can't survive on Medicare, let alone Medicaid, payments alone which is why many practices limit in some way the number of such patients they accept. What this means is that some percentage of private insurance money is subsidizing Medicare and Medicaid.
For example, there is one procedure that most healthy people will have once a year that my provider bills $150 for, my insurance knocks it down to a negotiated rate of $79 and Medicare either pays nothing for (claiming it is bundled with other related services) or about $15 (if it truly is provided in an "unbundled" situation). The actual cost to the provider is almost certainly well below the $79 and above the $15 price points.
Another example is that experienced by someone I know who transitioned to Medicare from employer insurance. On employer insurance, they went in for some routine office visits for a particular (non life threatening and more just annoying) medical condition and saw the doctor, they talked, the doctor did an exam and the visit was over and the provider got something like $150 or so negotiated rate from the insurer. Immediately upon transitioning to Medicare, the entire experience changed -- the doctor still saw the patient but for a bit less time, but then a lower skilled person (I don't think they were even a PA) spent much longer with the patient. The doctor only collected about $30 for the visit, but the whole package ended up through some clever billing, ended up costing Medicare about $150 still but was much less efficient for all involved.
Of course, the Constitution (not just the BoR which you keep focusing on for some reason) is the supreme law of the land and trumps all other Federal laws as well as state and local laws. However, the Constitution is very limited as it describes specifically what the Federal government has the power to do and what state and local governments are prohibited from doing. This leaves most power in the hands of state and local governments.
Note that the BoR placed absolutely NO constraints on the state or local governments when its amendments were ratified and does not do so directly today. The Due Process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment (ratified in 1868) coupled with the judicial imposition of the Incorporation Doctrine (beginning in 1897) has resulted in some but not all of the Bill of Rights being applied to state and local governments as well. IIRC, the last such incorporation was of the Second Amendment in McDonald v. City of Chicago in 2010. For an example of a right in the BoR which has not been incorporated onto the states, see the right to jury trial in civil cases in the Seventh Amendment.
It is interesting that the "Incorporation Doctrine" was first "discovered" thirty years after the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment. Somehow this feature of a newly ratified amendment remained invisible to the people who wrote it, the states that ratified it, and the courts for so many years - this has the reek of judicial activism.
The Constitution specifies how legislators can change any or all of the Constitution. The BoR is no easier or harder to change than any other amendments or the body of the Constitution (with only a couple of exceptions -- the only relevant one today is that an amendment can't deprive a state equal suffrage in the Senate without that state's consent - but that could be accomplished by getting an amendment ratified that eliminates that restriction in Article V and then get another ratified that eliminates equal suffrage). The BoR also doesn't address the process of amending the Constitution at all.
Article I, Section 8 doesn't give Congress the power to pass laws limiting free speech or the RKBA - therefore, they didn't have that authority regardless of the BoR.
The Tenth Amendment should not take precedence over any clause elsewhere in the Constitution except to the extent that the Tenth Amendment specifically states that it does (and, it does not).
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
simply reiterates that the only powers that the Federal government has are those explicitly listed in the body of the Constitution -- and the Commerce Clause certainly is in the body of the Constitution and is a "power" "delegated to the United States by the Constitution".
The Tenth Amendment (along with all of the other Amendments we refer to as the Bill of Rights) were just putting into writing things that the Federalists thought were already covered in the body of the Constitution and the Anti-Federalists expressed concern (largely as a political ploy to call into question the overall structure of governance in the proposed Constitution) about not being explicitly mentioned. In fact, some of the Federalists were actively against the notion of appending the Bill of Rights as they were concerned (correctly, it turns out) that future generations would interpret the enumeration of some rights to be construed as a complete list of rights retained by the states and people respectively (the Ninth and Tenth Amendments attempt to address this concern). The Bill of Rights was not meant to alter anything already in the Constitution, just to clarify.
For example, obviously the Federal Government didn't have the power to infringe on the right of the people to keep and bear arms as they were not granted that power anywhere in the Constitution. However, since a Bill of Rights was being written and the Founders were acutely aware that arms in the hands of ordinary people were quite helpful in defeating the tyranny of the British and perhaps for other uses such as self defense, they made specific mention of the RKBA.
Of course, don't forget that not a single right enumerated in the Bill of Rights restricted state and local governments from doing anything - including establishing a state religion, restricting speech, or forcing residents of their state to testify against themselves in state or county courts. It wasn't until the Court's creation of the Incorporation Doctrine over 100 years later that various portions of the Bill of Rights were declared to (via the Fourteenth Amendment) to also restrict state and local governments from infringing on some of the enumerated rights in the Bill of Rights.
The simple answer is "Because they didn't pass any such law".
The automatic voter registration (if the applicant doesn't opt out) only applies to those applying for "traditional" drivers' licenses in California as legal residents.
Illegal aliens can get a driver's license, but it is of a different type sometimes called an "AB 60 License" (due to the fact that Assembly Bill 60 created this class of licenses). On the front these licenses have the annotation "federal limits apply" and on the back the annotation "not acceptable for official federal purposes". Those applying for an AB 60 license are not automatically registered to vote (they are not even given the option to "opt out" since that would make no sense because they will never be registered anyway).
Oh... Those magical things that require no capital to build, no human labor or intellect to build or maintain, that can do every job including mining, fire-fighting (literally) when a fire starts in a robot factory, the demolition and reconstruction of structures damaged by fire or flood or terrorist attack or earthquake,...
Since some of this sounds pretty much like robot procreation and self-awareness, humans will look back fondly at the days when many of them only had to worry about reporting to their jobs under the oversight of a corporate overlord. Fortunately, it won't happen in my lifetime.
That would be fine - if the new employer is willing to do so. However, if there's a fully trained person without the "overhang" cost, they will get the job and/or the applicant with the overhang would likely get a lower offer. If the old employer trained you in A, B, and C and the new employer only needed B and C they are unlikely to be willing to bother with some sort of repayment scheme. Also, the system you suggest has plenty of room for abuse.
Slashdot Mirror
Oh foolish you...
It's just a matter of definition. "user information" != "user data".
"user information" is something about you that FB doesn't know about you yet (so, it's not surprising they don't sell it or give it away - it's hard to sell a database of nulls).
"user data", on the other hand, is something FB (thinks) they know about you (although, their image classification system probably makes FB think I'm a big nasty green scaly beast that spends a lot of time in the water and snags the occasional small child that gets too close to the bank of my pond -- and they are wrong as I'm not really very nasty).
If your priority is your privacy and you take steps to retain that, how does that cause you to be in "a less desirable position" to someone who didn't care about their privacy as much. You are deriving benefit from being very private just as a hermit in the old days did and that benefit must be greater to you than whatever advantage you might gain by sacrificing your privacy (else, if you are rational, you would sacrifice your privacy). It's a bit like being a politician, they sacrifice their privacy so they can control other people around so they must feel the cost of sacrificing their privacy is less than the endorphin rush they get from controlling people.
Thanks, AC, for the link.
When I was watching the original Uber video, it was immediately clear to me that how a human might perceive the situation in those lighting conditions might be quite different than what the video would have recorded. It also seemed strange that even the safety driver, when she was actually looking at the road (which, I assume she must have at some time during the trip, perhaps in a less than well lit area), would have been uncomfortable "overdriving" their headlights as much as it appeared the car was.
I would like to think that Uber didn't intentionally doctor the video and that the misleading contrast was the result of a camera that sucked (perhaps too slow to adjust adequately to changing light conditions). But, then, this is Uber so I probably shouldn't give them the benefit of the doubt.
No. I was in a (apparently too) dry attempt at humor suggesting that perhaps Uber was suing for repairs to the car and the family paid them rather than go to court. Nothing that's been I've seen reported tells us who paid who so everyone's making assumptions.
Of course, if I had to bet, I'd bet Uber/their insurance company paid off the family rather than go to court to defend themselves. It was probably cheaper than fighting the case in court even if they thought they would win (which, depending on Arizona's laws on such cases, they probably couldn't have won completely anyway - the "safety driver" was obviously not paying attention and if there was a rational chance she could have noticed and even slowed down a bit and/or swerved and reduced the severity of the collision, Uber would likely have been held at least some percent liable).
...reach a settlement, but why would the daughter participate?
The damage to the car didn't look all that extensive - although perhaps some expensive sensors were damaged. I believe Arizona is a community property state so the husband may be obligated to pay for damages caused by the his wife's illegal jaywalking, but if the husband couldn't afford to pay for repairs, why would the daughter help out -- she has no legal obligation to do so.
In my experience (all in the USA) and in, one form or the other, systems software development (such as database kernels and storage systems targeted at use in large enterprises), the best developers tend to take pride in their work and enjoy it - in fact, part of the "compensation" is having an environment to engage in that work.
Sure, there are parts one hates - mostly because they occur at 2AM. But the customer is king (they are why your paycheck clears the bank and are the reason you get to do interesting stuff and get paid for it rather than working at McDonald's by day to pay the rent and coding by night to exercise the brain). If a customer system blows up at 2AM your time and the support organization needs the most qualified engineer to help resolve the problem and you're that person, you don't hesitate -- because you want the customer to be successful (of course the site team and your CEO also wants the customer to be successful, but that's not the primary motivation for you). This is true even if no one thinks the problem is in code that you "own", but that your knowledge of the overall system, your inherent diagnostic skills, and/or the architectural role of "your" code gives you the best chance of narrowing the problem down quickly and figuring out what to do next and by who.
I've gotten paid fairly well for this of course, but am strictly salaried (and, of course, receive bonuses and other financial perks). I have never gotten a penny of additional income just because I worked more hours. Of course, I do expect to be reimbursed for additional expenses I incur or financial benefits I "lose" as a direct result of becoming involved at odd hours -- such as for food ordered out, for tickets to a show that I couldn't use because of being called to work the problem, for taxi/Uber home and back if I feel I shouldn't be driving home after a 20 hour stint, for a babysitter, etc...
However, I must admit I also have the freedom to point out that my participation in a particular crisis is no longer useful and that I'm done with it unless and until that changes or that the crisis isn't really critical and can wait so I basically refuse to waste my time or interrupt my life -- you can't pay me enough to waste my time (I generally have plenty of ways at any point in time that I would rather waste my time). What are they going to do - fire me?
Oh, and when I've been an engineering manager when support (and even my boss) has demanded that one of my people get involved at 2AM in a problem and I know their participation is not necessary or helpful, I tell support to go fly a kite or to have the EVP of engineering or (at smaller companies) the CEO call me and I will explain why my team member's participation won't be helpful (and may even delay resolution of the problem). Funny thing is, I never got a call from my EVP or CEO in these cases so it must not have been quite as important as the support person thought.
If you don't enjoy your work, I understand that. However, some of us enjoy our work (and, if we don't, we change jobs so we do). I can't imagine "counting hours" like a hourly employee -- it would limit my flexibility to do self initiated projects, get stuff off my plate so I could pursue projects I have a passion for, but not a mandate to do etc.
My point about bullying certainly wasn't that it was a "good thing" in itself or that it is a behavior kids should be encouraged to instigate. However it is a reality and most people will encounter "bullying" behavior (generally emotional rather than physical as adults in polite society) in professional and social life and maybe, particularly unfortunately, in their personal life. Thus, even though they don't "live in the trees" or want to do so, it is valuable to recognize it instinctively, realize people will try to bully you, and develop strategies to cope with bullying (other than just running to an authority figure as a first or even second resort -- managers rightfully expect professionals to work things out among themselves to the greatest extent possible).
A limited amount of bullying on the schoolyard, is a mechanism for kids to develop innate skills for recognizing and coping with bullying -- and also potentially, if they have a tendency to bully, to learn that the consequences can be quite painful when you misjudge and bully the wrong person. Certainly bullying should not be allowed to run so rampant that it's interfering substantially with other growth opportunities for children including, but not limited to, educational ones. As well, if a particular individual is the target of excessive bullying that should be addressed (both by having a discussion with the target to find out what is happening and providing suggestions on how to counter or avoid the bullying and, ultimately, by stopping those doing the bullying with whatever means necessary - all the way to expulsion or school reassignment if needed).
Some level of fighting and bullying on the schoolyard is not unlike how kittens play with each other while still depending on their mother for support -- it trains their hunting skills so they can survive on their own. In the case of the schoolyard, it trains kids to cope with bullying in a low stakes environment so they are prepared to do so in a higher stakes environment.
There are plenty of intelligent bullies in professional world - including managers, coworkers, and people in other organizations that are trying to coerce you to do something for their benefit when you have neither the free time or responsibility to do. Thus, I feel the complete tamping down of bullying in the school (and similar) environments is actually harmful to even intelligent people.
Of course, threading the needle on determining the level of "bullying" to accept is a task that requires judgement and discretion and, unfortunately, organizations (not just schools) have largely migrated to a "rule book" approach that is applied "evenly" without much discretion. Part of this is probably laziness on part of those managing these entities but I suspect a lot of it is done to reduce the threat of discrimination complaints and lawsuits.
I don't have a clue how much of this has to do directly with school shootings, but I agree inappropriate brainwashing of kids that ignores the reality of the real world seems quite damaging (and probably better explains the large percentage of young people who end up living at home for years after college than the "great recession" does).
The zero tolerance policies for fighting and "bullying" (whatever that means) and the "everyone gets an award" philosophy and over-stressing "being respectful" eliminates many important life lessons from children when they are best equipped to deal with and learn from them.
When I was in school, teachers didn't usually stop fights between boys (or girls, but those were quite rare) if the combatants were somewhat reasonably matched, it was one-on-one, there was little danger of lasting physical damage (for example neither party was trying to poke the other's eyes out or using weapons or beating up a lot on someone who was down on the ground), those involved weren't notorious bullies (of which there were few if any) or particularly vulnerable and were picked on very often. Sometimes we would get disciplined very lightly (have to stay in over the next lunch break rather than go outside for example), but that was it. Trips to the principal's office over such things were very rare, parental notification was even rarer, and suspension (let alone expulsion) was extraordinarily rare (I think we knew it was possible, but I don't think I ever knew anyone very well who it happened to).
Very important life lessons were learned at an appropriate age through such physical combative situations. Most kids learned that they were not as tough as they thought they were (or, conversely that they were actually tougher than they thought). Most kids learned that they could, and should, defend themselves (this lesson sometimes took a while for some). Most kids learned that even though they "win" a fight, sometimes it takes a physical toll on them so fighting may not be the best strategy. Most kids learned that you can have a fight with someone and still be friends. Some, including myself, discovered that after fights with relative strangers, both parties respected each other more having tested the limits of the other party and demonstrated their own abilities -- in fact, after most such fights, regardless of who won, I ended up being substantially more friendly with the other kid.
To deprive kids of these experiences seems unwise.
Similarly, when I was in school, everyone didn't get an award or trophy (even for "participation") and little attempt was made to mask the fact that some students were more capable than others at some things. In this environment, students learned what success and failure felt like, how to deal with constructive (and sometimes not so constructive) criticism, that to get an award or recognition or even a good grade could require hard work and focus and that such hard work and focus could often be the difference between being at the top and in the middle. Having to learn these lessons later in life is much more difficult and, it appears, happens too rarely.
From watching the video in this case, this woman didn't "appear suddenly" in front of the car. She appears to have been ambling over from the median, a full lane away. She didn't drop out of the sky or jump from behind a parked truck.
I can't imagine why she didn't react in some obvious way even when the car was almost on top of her - the full toxicology report might be revealing.
I have hit a deer instead of swerving because I was going too fast to safely swerve - the thought crossed my mind in a fleeting tiny moment and I decided not to do it and instead engaged in safe braking knowing that would not prevent the collision.
There were several deer crossing the freeway and there was no traffic. When my lights hit them, at least one (the deceased one) stopped and looked at me. I think part of my decision not to swerve may have been influenced by not being sure where to swerve to - there were deer on my right and one right in front of me, but I couldn't quickly process/decide if other members of the group were continuing on across the freeway into the left lane where they would be when I arrived there.
However, I think I would have instinctively made a different decision if it had been a single person.
I ended up with a flying deer that caved in the top of my roof with a loud thump a few moments after the collision (after, of course, trashing the front of my car and hood during the initial impact). Apparently the impact had accelerated the deer quite a bit and the hood and windshield created a launch ramp that resulted in the deer becoming airborne. I was slowing down as I was braking, but the poor deer only had air resistance to slow it down so it landed back on top of my roof. I wish I hadn't hit the deer, but given that happened, I wish there were a video of it (I also wish I had let up on the brake at the moment of impact -- that would have reduced the cost of repairs if the deer ended up landing behind me because of that).
It's hard to tell from the video how visible she would have been to a human eye which has different sensitivity than the image sensor.
However, assuming that when she would have been visible to a typical human eye is the same point that she is visible on the video to us, I think there's a pretty good chance that an attentive human driver would have at least swerved to the left as there were no oncoming cars and she was obviously moving left to right. This would have been more of a reflex reaction requiring very little conscious analysis. Humans can be exceptionally fast at such reflex like reactions. That might have moved the impact point, if any, to the very back of the bike and might have caused much less harm to the human body walking the bike.
I think an attentive human driver also would have gotten onto the brake but it's harder to tell without more data if that would have been before or after the software did so and if it would have resulted in a lower impact collision (and hence more survivable) than what actually happened.
It seems this car (the software that is) perhaps was doing the human equivalent of "overdriving its headlights" - i.e., the sensors it had available to it were unable to see far enough ahead to give the software time to react to an obstacle in the road and bring the car to a controlled safe stop. Alternatively, it saw the woman and the bike but failed to classify them correctly for some reason. Either one is a priority 1 bug in my view.
The driver, had he been paying any attention, might also have been guilty of allowing the car to overdrive both its sensors and his own vision and ability. In that case, he should have either taken complete command of the car earlier or manually adjusted the speed (if the UI allows that) while leaving the rest of the driving to the software. Of course, since he wasn't paying attention, about all we can know is that he was guilty of reckless distracted driving.
Yes, the woman was at fault also, but this is exactly the sort of thing that I would expect a self-driving car NOT to do even in a case like this. IFF self driving cars are reliable at these simple things (don't hit stuff in front of you, don't hit buses to your left, and even don't drive under semitrailers that are turning in front of you) am I going to be tolerant of some of the unnecessary delays they will cause in some traffic conditions or odd, rare and complex corner cases where they make an incorrect judgement resulting in an accident.
It seems that this particular case is an obvious test case that one would run long before putting the first car on the public roads so this is likely also a serious QA flaw. It smells a bit of a situation where everyone in the development organization is incented to ship now, debug later. Perhaps companies who are developing self driving cars should hire some engineers "outside the camp" whose sole job is to develop and help execute tests without pressure to "ship now, debug later". Perhaps this independent team should be given about four hours a quarter of every executive, manager, architect, and senior engineer involved in the project (all the way up to and including the CEO) to use as test dummies (after a detailed description of the test, they can opt out -- but that fact will be recorded and will be considered a test failure, it's up to the CEO to then take sole responsibility for declaring that it's okay to ship with that test failure -- such as if the test involved requiring the "test dummy" to jump off the top of a parked truck just into the path of the car when the car was just three feet away and going 60 MPH).
There are some exceptions to minimum hourly wage for agricultural workers, for example:
It seems likely that Discgolferusa fell into one of these exceptions (and, perhaps, he wouldn't have been hired at all to even give it a try without that exception).
It should be a crime to store plaintext passwords for users on any web site where the public can create ids. There is no reason for it and it's been decades since it was an unacceptable practice on any computer system.
Of course, once it's a crime, civil liability follows.
But when you step on the cat while stumbling around the dark bedroom I'll bet it wakes her up.
TL;DR
A definition of atheist is:
Thus, an atheist is often just someone who, having seen no credible evidence of the existence of a god and seen many examples of conflicting claims of gods that lack credibility, has no rational basis to believe there are gods and therefore doesn't assume that gods exist. It is not necessary to travel to the ends of the universe and examine every subatomic particle in the universe to rationally be an atheist.
Theists can offer no credible evidence in recorded history that gods exist and they can't even agree among themselves what gods exist. Yet, they generally claim vehemently that "their" particular gods exist and are the origin of our existence. This is a remarkable conclusion resulting from a lack of critical thinking. Rationally, few atheists are likely to spend much of their energy considering trying to help prove or accept something that "believers" have, time and time again, generation after generation, failed to provide one shred of evidence of.
It is quite possible that some, perhaps many, humans have evolved to have a strong tendency to believe in something akin to a "religion" replete with gods. In an unenlightened time where science as we know it today didn't exist and there was no way of passing information reliably from person to person and generation to generation, a "religion" trait may have helped societies survive better as it could help give a structure to society and enforce (via the fear of retribution by "big daddy in the sky") some moral codes. We have moved beyond this time, but it will take some time for evolution catch up due to humans' low reproduction rate and the tendency of modern society to interfere with natural selection.
Religion is something like a placebo, as long as one is ignorant of reality it can make some more comfortable but has little value once one figures out they are just getting a sugar pill.
Otherwise known as negotiating. And, those that negotiate in the workplace will generally get more stuff accomplished. Those who successfully negotiate for salary are likely to be more effective in the workplace and are worth the extra compensation they received.
Not all negotiations are "hard ball" and salary negotiations for most software development positions are usually not. The employer knows what they can pay, they offer somewhat less (both to save money if you accept the offer and to give them room to negotiate if needed). Of course, you have to be willing to take some risks -- including swallowing your pride or passing on the job if the employer is unwilling to meet you in the middle.
Negotiations happen all the time in the workplace, it's an important skill. Of course if I stay until 3AM for five days straight helping you track down a heisenbug that I'm sure is in your area but I can help you with, I expect something in return for my extra effort. Maybe you will never be in a position to help me, but if you are and don't, expect your professional life to take a hit.
Insurance companies in the US now can't refuse to issue or charge more based on pre-existing conditions. As well, they must, in general, pay out 80% of the premiums they collect in claims and, if they pay out less than 80%, must rebate the difference to their policy holders. This leaves up to 20% of premiums for administrative costs (claims processing and validation, customer service, statements, payment processing, leases, utilities, facilities), marketing (including negotiating with providers) and sales, and profit.
It's pretty hard to blame insurance companies for much since the imposition of the PPACA and, at most, you can only blame them for LESS than 20% of the cost. Remember that Medicare and Medicaid which have virtually no marketing costs and no profit motive and have the power of government to coerce private providers to accept their terms unilaterally still have administrative costs. Although proponents of Medicare sometimes assert that its overhead is only 2% vs. private insurers 15-20%, that analysis has some serious flaws.
Also, many (perhaps most -- although the more sophisticated providers have learned how to game the Medicare system to maximize payments -- sometimes with ridiculously inefficient tricks) medical providers can't survive on Medicare, let alone Medicaid, payments alone which is why many practices limit in some way the number of such patients they accept. What this means is that some percentage of private insurance money is subsidizing Medicare and Medicaid.
For example, there is one procedure that most healthy people will have once a year that my provider bills $150 for, my insurance knocks it down to a negotiated rate of $79 and Medicare either pays nothing for (claiming it is bundled with other related services) or about $15 (if it truly is provided in an "unbundled" situation). The actual cost to the provider is almost certainly well below the $79 and above the $15 price points.
Another example is that experienced by someone I know who transitioned to Medicare from employer insurance. On employer insurance, they went in for some routine office visits for a particular (non life threatening and more just annoying) medical condition and saw the doctor, they talked, the doctor did an exam and the visit was over and the provider got something like $150 or so negotiated rate from the insurer. Immediately upon transitioning to Medicare, the entire experience changed -- the doctor still saw the patient but for a bit less time, but then a lower skilled person (I don't think they were even a PA) spent much longer with the patient. The doctor only collected about $30 for the visit, but the whole package ended up through some clever billing, ended up costing Medicare about $150 still but was much less efficient for all involved.
Of course, the Constitution (not just the BoR which you keep focusing on for some reason) is the supreme law of the land and trumps all other Federal laws as well as state and local laws. However, the Constitution is very limited as it describes specifically what the Federal government has the power to do and what state and local governments are prohibited from doing. This leaves most power in the hands of state and local governments.
Note that the BoR placed absolutely NO constraints on the state or local governments when its amendments were ratified and does not do so directly today. The Due Process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment (ratified in 1868) coupled with the judicial imposition of the Incorporation Doctrine (beginning in 1897) has resulted in some but not all of the Bill of Rights being applied to state and local governments as well. IIRC, the last such incorporation was of the Second Amendment in McDonald v. City of Chicago in 2010. For an example of a right in the BoR which has not been incorporated onto the states, see the right to jury trial in civil cases in the Seventh Amendment.
It is interesting that the "Incorporation Doctrine" was first "discovered" thirty years after the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment. Somehow this feature of a newly ratified amendment remained invisible to the people who wrote it, the states that ratified it, and the courts for so many years - this has the reek of judicial activism.
The Constitution specifies how legislators can change any or all of the Constitution. The BoR is no easier or harder to change than any other amendments or the body of the Constitution (with only a couple of exceptions -- the only relevant one today is that an amendment can't deprive a state equal suffrage in the Senate without that state's consent - but that could be accomplished by getting an amendment ratified that eliminates that restriction in Article V and then get another ratified that eliminates equal suffrage). The BoR also doesn't address the process of amending the Constitution at all.
Article I, Section 8 doesn't give Congress the power to pass laws limiting free speech or the RKBA - therefore, they didn't have that authority regardless of the BoR.
The Tenth Amendment should not take precedence over any clause elsewhere in the Constitution except to the extent that the Tenth Amendment specifically states that it does (and, it does not).
simply reiterates that the only powers that the Federal government has are those explicitly listed in the body of the Constitution -- and the Commerce Clause certainly is in the body of the Constitution and is a "power" "delegated to the United States by the Constitution".
The Tenth Amendment (along with all of the other Amendments we refer to as the Bill of Rights) were just putting into writing things that the Federalists thought were already covered in the body of the Constitution and the Anti-Federalists expressed concern (largely as a political ploy to call into question the overall structure of governance in the proposed Constitution) about not being explicitly mentioned. In fact, some of the Federalists were actively against the notion of appending the Bill of Rights as they were concerned (correctly, it turns out) that future generations would interpret the enumeration of some rights to be construed as a complete list of rights retained by the states and people respectively (the Ninth and Tenth Amendments attempt to address this concern). The Bill of Rights was not meant to alter anything already in the Constitution, just to clarify.
For example, obviously the Federal Government didn't have the power to infringe on the right of the people to keep and bear arms as they were not granted that power anywhere in the Constitution. However, since a Bill of Rights was being written and the Founders were acutely aware that arms in the hands of ordinary people were quite helpful in defeating the tyranny of the British and perhaps for other uses such as self defense, they made specific mention of the RKBA.
Of course, don't forget that not a single right enumerated in the Bill of Rights restricted state and local governments from doing anything - including establishing a state religion, restricting speech, or forcing residents of their state to testify against themselves in state or county courts. It wasn't until the Court's creation of the Incorporation Doctrine over 100 years later that various portions of the Bill of Rights were declared to (via the Fourteenth Amendment) to also restrict state and local governments from infringing on some of the enumerated rights in the Bill of Rights.
The simple answer is "Because they didn't pass any such law".
The automatic voter registration (if the applicant doesn't opt out) only applies to those applying for "traditional" drivers' licenses in California as legal residents.
Illegal aliens can get a driver's license, but it is of a different type sometimes called an "AB 60 License" (due to the fact that Assembly Bill 60 created this class of licenses). On the front these licenses have the annotation "federal limits apply" and on the back the annotation "not acceptable for official federal purposes". Those applying for an AB 60 license are not automatically registered to vote (they are not even given the option to "opt out" since that would make no sense because they will never be registered anyway).
Oh... Those magical things that require no capital to build, no human labor or intellect to build or maintain, that can do every job including mining, fire-fighting (literally) when a fire starts in a robot factory, the demolition and reconstruction of structures damaged by fire or flood or terrorist attack or earthquake, ...
Since some of this sounds pretty much like robot procreation and self-awareness, humans will look back fondly at the days when many of them only had to worry about reporting to their jobs under the oversight of a corporate overlord. Fortunately, it won't happen in my lifetime.
That would be fine - if the new employer is willing to do so. However, if there's a fully trained person without the "overhang" cost, they will get the job and/or the applicant with the overhang would likely get a lower offer. If the old employer trained you in A, B, and C and the new employer only needed B and C they are unlikely to be willing to bother with some sort of repayment scheme. Also, the system you suggest has plenty of room for abuse.