The corpses piled up in a society based on libertarian ideals would be infinitesimal compared to the mass slaughters perpetrated by governments. Even if you exclude wars, the governments of the 20th century murdered 170 million people, mostly their own citizens.
If there is no institutional power structure in place to confiscate wealth and coerce behavior, it's extremely difficult to fight a large scale war, engage in mass murder or even mass incarceration. Can you imagine a war of aggression in which all of the soldiers were unpaid volunteers furnishing their own weapons and equipment? How far would they be willing to travel and how long would they be willing to be away from their homes? Without a government, you wouldn't get people to travel from North America to Iraq or Vietnam to fight a war. Most people would rather maintain a peaceful existence and fight only in self defense.
Libertarianism does not mean "no rules", it just means "no ruleRs".
I get the gist of what you're saying, but cops can't just wander around ordering people to do things, arresting them if they refuse & getting them prosecuted for the crime of disobeying orders. All of the statutes about disobeying an officer cover only "lawful" orders. If they arrested you and roughed you up for disobeying what was clearly an unlawful order, you would have a legal case against them.
I'm agreeing that the First Amendment argument seems a little awkward. I'm saying that if recording the police is not violating any particular criminal statute, then cops ordering people to stop filming are issuing unlawful orders. Why couldn't the case be argued on that basis alone? It would establish the same precedent.
In this case, the court said that the cops could not be held liable for what they did to the people filming because of "qualified immunity". They stated that at the time of the incidents the right to record had not been "clearly established". Now that it has been established, you would have a legal case against any cop who arrested you for failing to follow the unlawful order to stop filming. They couldn't prosecute you for disobeying their unlawful order.
It makes no sense to me that the 1st Amendment had to be brought into it, but I believe that the ACLU lawyers know what they're doing, and it worked, so more power to them.
Right. The individual's subjective experience isn't the question. A person with a mental disorder like paranoid schizophrenia might be genuinely terrified in a particular situation, but that wouldn't necessarily justify use of force. For citizens, a typical legal standard is to consider what a "reasonable person" would perceive in certain circumstances. This is often written explicitly in the statutes. Many of the so-called "stand your ground laws" state that use of force is justified in a situation where a "reasonable person" would fear death or serious bodily injury. I'm not sure if cops are covered by the same standard.
The problem with public sector unions is that closing down the business and selling off the assets is not an option in the event of a strike. In the private sector, if the owners and the union reach an impasse, the company can always choose to go out of business and sell their assets. If public sector unions are going to be allowed to exist, they must not be allowed to go on strike.
Slaves? Yeah, I feel terrible for those poor abused government employees with their health insurance, their insane fixed benefit pension plans & wages higher than comparable private sector workers. I'd like to see them all try to market their skills in the private sector.
The ruling affirmed the people's right to record, but it also used "qualified immunity" to say that the police officers in question could not be held liable for what they did to the people doing the recording. The court claimed that the right to record had not been "clearly established" when the incidents took place. Nothing happens to the cops and the victims can't sue for damages. Look on the bright side though. Overturning that idiotic lower court ruling was a big win. Coming down on the cops would have been a bonus.
I don't understand why they had to make a First Amendment argument in the first place. If the government cannot point to a specific law which prohibits recording, the police have no authority to interfere. When We, The People are in a public place and government is spying on us, they assert that we have no "reasonable expectation of privacy". How can government employees claim that they are entitled to special rights when they're in public? I think the ruling should have affirmed the right to record on that basis. No law is being broken and police cannot interfere in lawful activity.
I'm not sure why we needed the First Amendment here, but I trust that the ACLU & their lawyers know what they're doing & I'm very pleased with the end result. For once, a ruling goes our way.
The enormous "grey area" in this oft-quoted unemployment rate is the definition and determination of the "work force". That number seems rather arbitrary and very difficult to estimate accurately. A person's unemployment benefits expire and they are suddenly no longer in the "work force"? Even though UE typically requires people to be actively looking for work? It doesn't make any sense. Unemployment goes down? Great. Does that mean the economy is getting better, or are we in a prolonged recession in which millions of people have been out of work for more than 6 months?
To me, the clearest measure of employment is found in the "A Tables" of the BLS report. This is the employment rate of the population. Simply the number of people employed as a fraction of the total. That number can't be fudged by arbitrarily throwing people in and out of the "work force". It's a clear indication of our economic health as well because the employment rate would not be trending upward during a prolonged recession.
To me, it also seems like the most relevant metric because everyone in our society is dependent on the working people. Sure, there are a few retired people living mostly off their own savings, but even they receive benefits from government and the entire government is funded by the working people. The other non-working people have to get their food, clothing & shelter from somewhere, so the employment rate of the population tells us the number of producers and the number of dependents in the economy. It's hard to spin that number.
"Of course this isn't really a vaccine in the traditional sense of the word,"
What makes you say that? A "vaccine" is something that triggers the immune system to recognize a certain strand of DNA(typically a virus) as an infection and develop the capability to attack it.
A tumor also has its own unique DNA. According to these papers, the immune system can also be stimulated to attack that specific DNA. Wouldn't that meet the definition of "vaccine"? The only difference being that something like the smallpox virus is the same no matter who it infects so one vaccine works for everybody. Unfortunately, tumors really are "unique"(recurrent tumors are apparently the same) which is why this particular vaccine needs to be individualized.
If you have to fear "consequences" for what you're saying, there is little practical difference whether the reprisal is carried out by government or by private citizens & corporations. The philosophy underlying the First Amendment is that people should be free to express unpopular or controversial thoughts free of consequences. It is enshrined in law, but it was supposed to be, and still should be, a societal principle. Disagree with what people are saying, but at the same time respect their right to say it.
"democracies debate."
Then the U.S.A. isn't a democracy. It's not a "debate" when I state my ideas, and your response is to punch me in the face. That's exactly what's happening in this country. There are people who are so convinced that theirs is the only correct world view that they have no desire to debate. Their goal is merely to stifle anyone who disagrees with them. They will even prevent a person from delivering a lecture and having a Q&A (a dialogue) with a willing audience. It's not a "debate" when one side isn't even allowed to present their arguments.
The only "consequences" for free speech should be having your ideas & opinions analyzed, questioned, criticized and ridiculed. There should be no reprisals against the individual.
"While the constitution does (guarantee) this right, his/her identity was never intended to be unknown."
I'm sure that the American revolutionaries were doing their best to remain anonymous while circulating pamphlets & putting up posters promoting their cause. Why? Because they knew that they would be punished for spreading those ideas. The Constitution was written so that people wouldn't feel the need to speak anonymously, because there would be no punishment.
"Slanderous content must be punished. Non-slanderous content should not matter."
In the USA, "slander" almost always involves someone making false statements. You're right, other content should not matter, but it does matter. In the contemporary USA, you can be subjected to physical violence or other forms of reprisal for your speech even if nothing you said is false. Having a First Amendment that prohibits government from infringing on your speech is a wonderful thing. Unfortunately, there are now gangs of people who have appointed themselves as the thought police. They will use every conceivable means to attack anyone who dares express thoughts which run contrary to their politically correct world view.
"...the ability to accurately identify the poster seems appropriate. Let the posting entity beware!"
The fact that we have to "beware!" when stating facts and expressing personal opinions simply because they are unpopular is precisely why anonymous speech must be protected.
"immigration tends to create more jobs than are taken."
Yes, but that doesn't benefit the residents of the country receiving immigrants.
There are more jobs because immigrants suppress wages. It's supply and demand. If you have people who are willing to supply their labor at a lower price, demand for labor increases. But the rest of us laborers are stuck on the same supply curve as the immigrants.
We already have relatively small pressurized water reactors. It seems like a reactor that could power a submarine would be the right size for a small colony of people. Is that still too physically large, or would the problem be the quantity of water/coolant required for operation? Maybe they could figure out a way to include the human waste processing function in the reactor system? i.e. cool the reactor by peeing on it.
Such a perspective would imply that everyone in the world with the basic ability to communicate has "freedom of speech". Clearly that's not the case. Would you argue that people in Thailand have "freedom of speech"? Even though using their supposed "freedom" in a way that is insulting to the monarchy can have the consequences of a 15 year prison sentence?
Freedom from consequences is the foundation of freedom of speech. Nobody can actually suppress speech by preventing certain words and ideas from ever being spoken(or typed) in the first place. The only way to stifle free speech is by imposing "consequences" on people. You obviously can't speak "freely" if you are guarding your words to avoid punishment. If you have to fear consequences, other than someone criticizing your ideas & opinions, then you do not have "freedom of speech".
Even the NRA now joining in... They get a cut of gun sales. Ka-chink!
FALSE
The NRA has a fundraising program in partnership with firearms retailers. Customers are asked to round their purchase up to the nearest dollar with the pocket change going to the NRA. The NRA does not "get a cut" of gun sales. Buyers are solicited for donations at the point of sale.
"Computer nerds lack creativity, empathy, sense of beauty... They are socially defective."
You are talking about people... and it's not very sociable or empathetic of you to use such negative stereotypes in this forum. I was talking about the value of programming as part of an educational curriculum. A kid isn't going to become a "socially defective" computer nerd just by taking a few courses about computers & programming. With the pervasiveness of these things in our society, it's important that people have a rudimentary understanding of how they work.
"Art and Literature are culture. They stimulate creativity and intelligence"
Forcing kids to read Toni Morrison, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Shakespeare does not stimulate creativity and intelligence. It just makes sure that there is perennial demand for Cliff Notes & work for people who write book reports for a price. Art is an even more worthless subject in education because any assessment of the student is entirely subjective. How many writers and artists who excelled in their fields learned creativity through some form of structured education?
I'm actually an engineer, but I'll take "computer nerd" as a compliment. Save your sympathy for the art & literature majors trying to convince potential employers about how smart & creative they are.
Gimme a f***ing break! The kids are inside studying Art, Literature and other mostly useless subjects and you're arguing that coding is a waste of their time? They'd be better off on the playground than learning about computers? Idiot. Why would kids think this particular subject is their future any more than they would think accounting or any other subject is their future?
Obsolescence? So what? Every single programming language you'll ever encounter is going to use fundamental concepts like sequences, selections, loops & data structures. Learning these concepts is valuable even if they forget the syntax of the language they're learning on. Algorithms is another inherently valuable concept. Kids these days will encounter 1000s of devices that use some form of code to function. Learning the basics of how these things work is an invaluable part of their education.
Are you sure you're not in a shitty mood that's clouding your thinking?
I think the hackers need to hire some... I don't know... would it be "actuaries" that could make a good estimate for the ransom amount that would yield the highest total payout? Perhaps they do and I don't know what I'm talking about, but I think $300 per machine must be way above optimal.
Remember supply & demand curves from econ 101? The lower the price, the greater the demand for your "decryption service". And in this case, the supplier's cost is negligible so the demand curve is all that matters. Demand goes infinite as the price approaches $0, and disappears as the price goes too high. Seem like the sweet spot on that curve would be considerably lower than $300.
There are roughly 1.8 Billion Muslims in the world. This ban affects six countries.
Country|Population in millions Iran 79.11 Syria 18.5 Somalia 10.79 Iraq 36.42 Yemen 26.83 Libya 6.278 Total 177.93
Yes, Trump talked about a "Muslim ban" when he was candidate Trump, but how can any reasonable person interpret this order as a "Muslim ban" when it affects 10% of Muslims worldwide?
Countries affected by the travel ban: Iraq, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Yemen, Iran
Countries being bombed by the previous administration: Iraq, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Yemen, Afghanistan, Sudan
People are claiming that the current president does not have the legal authority to ban people from these countries from entering the U.S., but nobody questioned the previous president's legal authority to kill them?
The circuit courts used a wild stretch of the imagination to conflate a ban based on national origin with a ban based on religion. Trump said something during his campaign and the courts used that to infer that this ban was somehow based on religious background? This, despite the fact that there are more than a billion Muslims from dozens of countries all over the world who were unaffected and there was no exception for non-Muslims?
They are supposed to rule on the law itself. The President has the power or he doesn't. Guessing what he might be thinking as the basis for a court ruling is ridiculous.
I'm sorry about your personal predicament, but I don't think the decision of whether you live or die should be in the hands of a government. We didn't always have welfare programs. We've lived with them for so long however, that we don't know anything different. People have made their decisions based on a particular institutional environment. Who knows what would have evolved if government had not taken this mission upon itself or what will evolve if we scale back their activity?
What if we all sat around and did nothing and demanded that our most basic needs be met? I don't think The Constitution gives you the "right" to food, clothing, shelter or anything else that requires the labor of other people.
"Why not just take money out of the equation and provide universal healthcare?"
With a magic wand? Do you expect doctors, nurses, medical device manufacturers, drug developers, etc. etc. to all work without compensation? No, you expect everyone else in society to spend part of their time working without compensation to pay for medical services. You cannot take money/wealth out of the equation.
"So want to privatize the police and firefighter protection too?"
It's worth considering, but it's not really feasible. I definitely want government out of the business of healthcare, except for enforcing the types of laws that apply to all other businesses.
I don't think we have a pervasive lack of compassion and empathy in our society. I think we've been brainwashed into believing that caring about others should be a mission left to government. A mission at which they fail in the most catastrophic manner. We're already paying for Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, SNAP, housing subsidies, heating subsidies, etc. etc. People see the fraud & abuse of these programs and naturally recoil at the thought of funding more of the same. Advocating for higher taxes and more or bigger government programs doesn't demonstrate how much you care. We should get government OUT of the charity business and adopt the attitude that these problems are our collective responsibility, but not through the wasteful and inefficient institution of government.
If you file a report, is the FBI under any obligation to keep it confidential? I wouldn't trust them to stay quiet even if that was their official policy. Those guys who leaked the "Orange is the New Black" episodes somehow learned that the studio had called the FBI, after being warned not to, and punished them for doing it, even though they paid the ransom.
I read one paper by a security expert and he said that big banks in Europe and N. America have been doing this for years. Eat the losses from computer crime as a cost of doing business rather than risk damage to their reputation by reporting that someone had broken into their customer's accounts.
I'm sure a lot of other companies would rather pay up than endure the bad publicity which would come from word getting out that "Company X was hacked".
If you really need full sized lumber, you're probably going to have to go directly to a sawmill. My family was in the wood products business when I was growing up. We had a sawmill, but it was mostly to supply our own needs for other products. We were willing to sell rough cut, full sized lumber to people however. It's going to have to be small business though. A big sawmill operation, like the types who would be supplying Home Depot aren't going to pull half a dozen pieces out of their operation for you, but there are still small operations around serving niche markets. As far back as I can remember, the advertised dimensions have meant the cut size. You lose 1/4" on each side by planing. I'm not sure when they started planing everything headed to the retail market. Probably in the late '60's or sometime in the '70s. I've seen houses built in the 1960s which had rough wall studs, but in 30+ years, except for our own small business, I don't think I've ever seen rough lumber for retail sale.
Slashdot Mirror
The corpses piled up in a society based on libertarian ideals would be infinitesimal compared to the mass slaughters perpetrated by governments. Even if you exclude wars, the governments of the 20th century murdered 170 million people, mostly their own citizens.
If there is no institutional power structure in place to confiscate wealth and coerce behavior, it's extremely difficult to fight a large scale war, engage in mass murder or even mass incarceration. Can you imagine a war of aggression in which all of the soldiers were unpaid volunteers furnishing their own weapons and equipment? How far would they be willing to travel and how long would they be willing to be away from their homes? Without a government, you wouldn't get people to travel from North America to Iraq or Vietnam to fight a war. Most people would rather maintain a peaceful existence and fight only in self defense.
Libertarianism does not mean "no rules", it just means "no ruleRs".
I get the gist of what you're saying, but cops can't just wander around ordering people to do things, arresting them if they refuse & getting them prosecuted for the crime of disobeying orders. All of the statutes about disobeying an officer cover only "lawful" orders. If they arrested you and roughed you up for disobeying what was clearly an unlawful order, you would have a legal case against them.
I'm agreeing that the First Amendment argument seems a little awkward. I'm saying that if recording the police is not violating any particular criminal statute, then cops ordering people to stop filming are issuing unlawful orders. Why couldn't the case be argued on that basis alone? It would establish the same precedent.
In this case, the court said that the cops could not be held liable for what they did to the people filming because of "qualified immunity". They stated that at the time of the incidents the right to record had not been "clearly established". Now that it has been established, you would have a legal case against any cop who arrested you for failing to follow the unlawful order to stop filming. They couldn't prosecute you for disobeying their unlawful order.
It makes no sense to me that the 1st Amendment had to be brought into it, but I believe that the ACLU lawyers know what they're doing, and it worked, so more power to them.
Right. The individual's subjective experience isn't the question. A person with a mental disorder like paranoid schizophrenia might be genuinely terrified in a particular situation, but that wouldn't necessarily justify use of force.
For citizens, a typical legal standard is to consider what a "reasonable person" would perceive in certain circumstances. This is often written explicitly in the statutes. Many of the so-called "stand your ground laws" state that use of force is justified in a situation where a "reasonable person" would fear death or serious bodily injury.
I'm not sure if cops are covered by the same standard.
The problem with public sector unions is that closing down the business and selling off the assets is not an option in the event of a strike. In the private sector, if the owners and the union reach an impasse, the company can always choose to go out of business and sell their assets. If public sector unions are going to be allowed to exist, they must not be allowed to go on strike.
Slaves? Yeah, I feel terrible for those poor abused government employees with their health insurance, their insane fixed benefit pension plans & wages higher than comparable private sector workers. I'd like to see them all try to market their skills in the private sector.
But unfortunately it did work.
The ruling affirmed the people's right to record, but it also used "qualified immunity" to say that the police officers in question could not be held liable for what they did to the people doing the recording. The court claimed that the right to record had not been "clearly established" when the incidents took place. Nothing happens to the cops and the victims can't sue for damages.
Look on the bright side though. Overturning that idiotic lower court ruling was a big win. Coming down on the cops would have been a bonus.
I don't understand why they had to make a First Amendment argument in the first place. If the government cannot point to a specific law which prohibits recording, the police have no authority to interfere. When We, The People are in a public place and government is spying on us, they assert that we have no "reasonable expectation of privacy". How can government employees claim that they are entitled to special rights when they're in public? I think the ruling should have affirmed the right to record on that basis. No law is being broken and police cannot interfere in lawful activity.
I'm not sure why we needed the First Amendment here, but I trust that the ACLU & their lawyers know what they're doing & I'm very pleased with the end result. For once, a ruling goes our way.
The enormous "grey area" in this oft-quoted unemployment rate is the definition and determination of the "work force". That number seems rather arbitrary and very difficult to estimate accurately. A person's unemployment benefits expire and they are suddenly no longer in the "work force"? Even though UE typically requires people to be actively looking for work? It doesn't make any sense. Unemployment goes down? Great. Does that mean the economy is getting better, or are we in a prolonged recession in which millions of people have been out of work for more than 6 months?
To me, the clearest measure of employment is found in the "A Tables" of the BLS report. This is the employment rate of the population. Simply the number of people employed as a fraction of the total. That number can't be fudged by arbitrarily throwing people in and out of the "work force". It's a clear indication of our economic health as well because the employment rate would not be trending upward during a prolonged recession.
To me, it also seems like the most relevant metric because everyone in our society is dependent on the working people. Sure, there are a few retired people living mostly off their own savings, but even they receive benefits from government and the entire government is funded by the working people. The other non-working people have to get their food, clothing & shelter from somewhere, so the employment rate of the population tells us the number of producers and the number of dependents in the economy. It's hard to spin that number.
"Of course this isn't really a vaccine in the traditional sense of the word,"
What makes you say that? A "vaccine" is something that triggers the immune system to recognize a certain strand of DNA(typically a virus) as an infection and develop the capability to attack it.
A tumor also has its own unique DNA. According to these papers, the immune system can also be stimulated to attack that specific DNA. Wouldn't that meet the definition of "vaccine"? The only difference being that something like the smallpox virus is the same no matter who it infects so one vaccine works for everybody. Unfortunately, tumors really are "unique"(recurrent tumors are apparently the same) which is why this particular vaccine needs to be individualized.
If you have to fear "consequences" for what you're saying, there is little practical difference whether the reprisal is carried out by government or by private citizens & corporations. The philosophy underlying the First Amendment is that people should be free to express unpopular or controversial thoughts free of consequences. It is enshrined in law, but it was supposed to be, and still should be, a societal principle. Disagree with what people are saying, but at the same time respect their right to say it.
"democracies debate."
Then the U.S.A. isn't a democracy. It's not a "debate" when I state my ideas, and your response is to punch me in the face. That's exactly what's happening in this country. There are people who are so convinced that theirs is the only correct world view that they have no desire to debate. Their goal is merely to stifle anyone who disagrees with them. They will even prevent a person from delivering a lecture and having a Q&A (a dialogue) with a willing audience. It's not a "debate" when one side isn't even allowed to present their arguments.
The only "consequences" for free speech should be having your ideas & opinions analyzed, questioned, criticized and ridiculed. There should be no reprisals against the individual.
"While the constitution does (guarantee) this right, his/her identity was never intended to be unknown."
I'm sure that the American revolutionaries were doing their best to remain anonymous while circulating pamphlets & putting up posters promoting their cause. Why? Because they knew that they would be punished for spreading those ideas. The Constitution was written so that people wouldn't feel the need to speak anonymously, because there would be no punishment.
"Slanderous content must be punished. Non-slanderous content should not matter."
In the USA, "slander" almost always involves someone making false statements.
You're right, other content should not matter, but it does matter. In the contemporary USA, you can be subjected to physical violence or other forms of reprisal for your speech even if nothing you said is false. Having a First Amendment that prohibits government from infringing on your speech is a wonderful thing. Unfortunately, there are now gangs of people who have appointed themselves as the thought police. They will use every conceivable means to attack anyone who dares express thoughts which run contrary to their politically correct world view.
"...the ability to accurately identify the poster seems appropriate. Let the posting entity beware!"
The fact that we have to "beware!" when stating facts and expressing personal opinions simply because they are unpopular is precisely why anonymous speech must be protected.
"immigration tends to create more jobs than are taken."
Yes, but that doesn't benefit the residents of the country receiving immigrants.
There are more jobs because immigrants suppress wages. It's supply and demand. If you have people who are willing to supply their labor at a lower price, demand for labor increases. But the rest of us laborers are stuck on the same supply curve as the immigrants.
We already have relatively small pressurized water reactors. It seems like a reactor that could power a submarine would be the right size for a small colony of people. Is that still too physically large, or would the problem be the quantity of water/coolant required for operation? Maybe they could figure out a way to include the human waste processing function in the reactor system? i.e. cool the reactor by peeing on it.
Such a perspective would imply that everyone in the world with the basic ability to communicate has "freedom of speech". Clearly that's not the case. Would you argue that people in Thailand have "freedom of speech"? Even though using their supposed "freedom" in a way that is insulting to the monarchy can have the consequences of a 15 year prison sentence?
Freedom from consequences is the foundation of freedom of speech. Nobody can actually suppress speech by preventing certain words and ideas from ever being spoken(or typed) in the first place. The only way to stifle free speech is by imposing "consequences" on people. You obviously can't speak "freely" if you are guarding your words to avoid punishment. If you have to fear consequences, other than someone criticizing your ideas & opinions, then you do not have "freedom of speech".
Even the NRA now joining in ... They get a cut of gun sales. Ka-chink!
FALSE
The NRA has a fundraising program in partnership with firearms retailers. Customers are asked to round their purchase up to the nearest dollar with the pocket change going to the NRA.
The NRA does not "get a cut" of gun sales. Buyers are solicited for donations at the point of sale.
"Computer nerds lack creativity, empathy, sense of beauty ... They are socially defective."
You are talking about people ... and it's not very sociable or empathetic of you to use such negative stereotypes in this forum. I was talking about the value of programming as part of an educational curriculum. A kid isn't going to become a "socially defective" computer nerd just by taking a few courses about computers & programming. With the pervasiveness of these things in our society, it's important that people have a rudimentary understanding of how they work.
"Art and Literature are culture. They stimulate creativity and intelligence"
Forcing kids to read Toni Morrison, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Shakespeare does not stimulate creativity and intelligence. It just makes sure that there is perennial demand for Cliff Notes & work for people who write book reports for a price. Art is an even more worthless subject in education because any assessment of the student is entirely subjective. How many writers and artists who excelled in their fields learned creativity through some form of structured education?
I'm actually an engineer, but I'll take "computer nerd" as a compliment. Save your sympathy for the art & literature majors trying to convince potential employers about how smart & creative they are.
Gimme a f***ing break! The kids are inside studying Art, Literature and other mostly useless subjects and you're arguing that coding is a waste of their time? They'd be better off on the playground than learning about computers? Idiot. Why would kids think this particular subject is their future any more than they would think accounting or any other subject is their future?
Obsolescence? So what? Every single programming language you'll ever encounter is going to use fundamental concepts like sequences, selections, loops & data structures. Learning these concepts is valuable even if they forget the syntax of the language they're learning on. Algorithms is another inherently valuable concept. Kids these days will encounter 1000s of devices that use some form of code to function. Learning the basics of how these things work is an invaluable part of their education.
Are you sure you're not in a shitty mood that's clouding your thinking?
Good job OP. Keep up the good work.
I think the hackers need to hire some ... I don't know ... would it be "actuaries" that could make a good estimate for the ransom amount that would yield the highest total payout? Perhaps they do and I don't know what I'm talking about, but I think $300 per machine must be way above optimal.
Remember supply & demand curves from econ 101? The lower the price, the greater the demand for your "decryption service". And in this case, the supplier's cost is negligible so the demand curve is all that matters. Demand goes infinite as the price approaches $0, and disappears as the price goes too high. Seem like the sweet spot on that curve would be considerably lower than $300.
There are roughly 1.8 Billion Muslims in the world. This ban affects six countries.
Country|Population in millions
Iran 79.11
Syria 18.5
Somalia 10.79
Iraq 36.42
Yemen 26.83
Libya 6.278
Total 177.93
Yes, Trump talked about a "Muslim ban" when he was candidate Trump, but how can any reasonable person interpret this order as a "Muslim ban" when it affects 10% of Muslims worldwide?
Countries affected by the travel ban:
Iraq, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Yemen, Iran
Countries being bombed by the previous administration:
Iraq, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Yemen, Afghanistan, Sudan
People are claiming that the current president does not have the legal authority to ban people from these countries from entering the U.S., but nobody questioned the previous president's legal authority to kill them?
The circuit courts used a wild stretch of the imagination to conflate a ban based on national origin with a ban based on religion. Trump said something during his campaign and the courts used that to infer that this ban was somehow based on religious background? This, despite the fact that there are more than a billion Muslims from dozens of countries all over the world who were unaffected and there was no exception for non-Muslims?
They are supposed to rule on the law itself. The President has the power or he doesn't. Guessing what he might be thinking as the basis for a court ruling is ridiculous.
I'm sorry about your personal predicament, but I don't think the decision of whether you live or die should be in the hands of a government.
We didn't always have welfare programs. We've lived with them for so long however, that we don't know anything different. People have made their decisions based on a particular institutional environment. Who knows what would have evolved if government had not taken this mission upon itself or what will evolve if we scale back their activity?
What if we all sat around and did nothing and demanded that our most basic needs be met? I don't think The Constitution gives you the "right" to food, clothing, shelter or anything else that requires the labor of other people.
"Why not just take money out of the equation and provide universal healthcare?"
With a magic wand? Do you expect doctors, nurses, medical device manufacturers, drug developers, etc. etc. to all work without compensation? No, you expect everyone else in society to spend part of their time working without compensation to pay for medical services. You cannot take money/wealth out of the equation.
"So want to privatize the police and firefighter protection too?"
It's worth considering, but it's not really feasible. I definitely want government out of the business of healthcare, except for enforcing the types of laws that apply to all other businesses.
Why shouldn't you have to "earn" what you get?
I don't think we have a pervasive lack of compassion and empathy in our society. I think we've been brainwashed into believing that caring about others should be a mission left to government. A mission at which they fail in the most catastrophic manner.
We're already paying for Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, SNAP, housing subsidies, heating subsidies, etc. etc. People see the fraud & abuse of these programs and naturally recoil at the thought of funding more of the same.
Advocating for higher taxes and more or bigger government programs doesn't demonstrate how much you care. We should get government OUT of the charity business and adopt the attitude that these problems are our collective responsibility, but not through the wasteful and inefficient institution of government.
If you file a report, is the FBI under any obligation to keep it confidential? I wouldn't trust them to stay quiet even if that was their official policy. Those guys who leaked the "Orange is the New Black" episodes somehow learned that the studio had called the FBI, after being warned not to, and punished them for doing it, even though they paid the ransom.
I read one paper by a security expert and he said that big banks in Europe and N. America have been doing this for years. Eat the losses from computer crime as a cost of doing business rather than risk damage to their reputation by reporting that someone had broken into their customer's accounts.
I'm sure a lot of other companies would rather pay up than endure the bad publicity which would come from word getting out that "Company X was hacked".
If you really need full sized lumber, you're probably going to have to go directly to a sawmill. My family was in the wood products business when I was growing up. We had a sawmill, but it was mostly to supply our own needs for other products. We were willing to sell rough cut, full sized lumber to people however.
It's going to have to be small business though. A big sawmill operation, like the types who would be supplying Home Depot aren't going to pull half a dozen pieces out of their operation for you, but there are still small operations around serving niche markets.
As far back as I can remember, the advertised dimensions have meant the cut size. You lose 1/4" on each side by planing. I'm not sure when they started planing everything headed to the retail market. Probably in the late '60's or sometime in the '70s. I've seen houses built in the 1960s which had rough wall studs, but in 30+ years, except for our own small business, I don't think I've ever seen rough lumber for retail sale.