While I'm not sure how serious you are, I was sort of surprised when I read the line about how the "conservatives" and "religious right" were behind all of this.
Most religious people I know have no problem showing kids what evils can befall you if you make the wrong choices. They'll let you know if you have sex before you're married, etc., you're going to Hell to burn for all eternity. So I have a hard time believing they'd have a problem with Cookie Monster or Oscar the Grouch.
Most conservatives I know see this as liberal "Political Correctness" run amok.
"Well, if you could do something 40 or 50 years ago, and you can't do it now, that, by definition is slipping."
Fair enough. How about if you could do it 10 years ago?
NASA's Lunar Prospector launched in early 1998 (so a little less than ten years ago today). Are you saying there is no way we could send a satellite to the moon like we did 10 years ago?
I'm a hardcore geek from way back. Waaaay back. But these days I simply don't have time to spend all day and night just getting an OS to work. I have a wife and kids [...] So, let me get this straight. You're a hardcore geek and you deliberately got married and had kids knowing full well this would interfere with your hardcore geekery?
Actually, back in 1989 or 1990, my Vermont driver's license didn't have a picture. I'd carry around a college ID with me, which had a picture and, if I showed both, I could usually get by.
I remember when my sister got married--must've been about six or seven years ago--my Dad had to make the trip to the state capitol, Montpelier, in order to get a new driver's license with a picture on it so that he could get on an airplane to go to the wedding.
The scenario in the article assumed that people would replace their players after 18 months (After all, that's how long an iPod's battery lasts;^). Personally--and maybe I'm not into music or players--I can't see replacing a music player after 18 months, short of planned obsolescence (ie, replacing the battery in the device costs more than a new device would) unless something really new and cool comes along.
For example, I have a 2G iPod nano which works great. I don't see any reason to spend money on a 3G iPod nano. I wouldn't get one unless my 2G iPod nano, for some reason, went belly-up.
So that's the neat question. Will the music be mine as long as I own the device? Or is it more like a cellphone-type contract that I get with the player (eg, free music for 18 months and then I have to pay a "subscription-fee")?
I would imagine there wouldn't be any restrictions on copying your music from one compatible device to another one. After all, when you bought the new device, you paid for the subscription just like you did with the old device.
You're right, but it is up to the car manufacturer to show that the modification caused the problem. So if I blow my engine because of my turbo modifications, it's pretty easy for the car manufacturer to void engine repairs/replacement based upon this. However, if my power windows stop working, the car manufacturer can't void my warranty because of my turbo modification without showing how the turbo modification caused the problem.
Software can damage hardware, but it would be up to Apple to show that software that the user installed damaged the hardware. That's sort of the point.
Now, is it worth it for Apple to do this or just say, "Fine, whatever!" and give the customer another $400 phone? That's the question. I suppose it depends on how many people show up on Apple's doorstep saying, "You bricked my iPhone!"
Consider a concert. Before you go in, they'll search you. Your choice, if you don't want to be searched, is to not attend the concert. The property owner has the right to search you. If you're already in the concert, say, and the property owner wants to search you, you don't have to consent to the search. However, you must leave.
In the case of a store, there's also some "probable cause" issues. I can't detain you for shoplifting because something's missing and you're black. I can detain you for shoplifting because something is missing and I saw you put it in your coat. The laws on shoplifting vary from area to area. For example, if I take an item and stick it in my pants pocket and walk around the store, I haven't shoplifted the item. The point where I have legally stolen the item varies--sometimes it's at the point of sale (ie, still inside the store) and sometimes I have to take it outside the store before it's considered stolen.
Now, obviously, you don't lose all your rights. I can't bar you from my store because you're not the same race or gender as I am. I don't have the right to murder you in cold blood on my property. I don't have the right to turn you into a slave. Etc, etc. etc. But fourth-amendment(?) rights? Yup. They're flexible outside your own home.
The classic example is the nightclub or stadium where you have to submit to a search before being allowed to enter. If you don't want to be searched, you cannot enter. Your choice is basically to enter and submit or don't enter.
1) Vandalism -- there are always dicks who destroy stuff just to be destroying something.
2) Drug couriers using them for drops. 3) Eeeeeevil Terrorists Could Leave Bombs In Them And Kill Your Children.
Why on earth would you need wi-fi and rfid at the beach? WiFi = Cheap Voice Communication. Lots of relatively inexpensive technology for that sort of thing, versus using cellphones, walkie-talkies, etc.
RFID = Cheap and tough to counterfeit.
I'm not an RFID expert, but rashly assuming these things have the capability, it could be handy for parents to keep track of their kids. Ignoring the whole "some crazy pervert is going to kidnap and molest my child" argument, it's pretty easy to lose small people at a crowded beach. Having some way for Mom to go to the lifeguard and say, "I can't find my kid!" and have the lifeguard pull up a laptop and say, "She's over there with that other girl building a sand castle" (or talking to the nice man in the speedos) will certainly help calm nerves and give lifeguards more time to watch for serious problems (like people drowning) versus sending out messages to keep an eye out for a lost child.
I live in a beach community on the west coast. Access to the beach is free (I believe it's a state law), but the city makes a ton of money from parking. You cannot find free parking near the beach. Any parking spot within convenient walking distance has a parking meter. The city has made some nice parking lots where you can get out of your car and you're pretty much on the beach--but those are even more expensive than the parking meters.
If you don't mind a long walk and park in a neighborhood along the street, you'd better make sure that you aren't breaking any law because you'll get a ticket. The people who live in those neighborhoods hate having their roads turned into parking lots and, while they can't stop you from parking there, if you park 14 feet from a fire hydrant and the law is fifteen, they'll call the cops and the cops will be more than happy to give you a ticket.
"A few meters..." as in a quarter of a mile. If it REALLY was easier to use the access paths, EVERYONE would be doing it. People are probably going under your house because there is no parking anywhere near the access paths. Your convenience does not override my rights.
If it would shave 5 minutes from your bike to work by biking through my yard, that does not mean that I have to allow you to do so. You're still trespassing and I have every right to sic the cops on you.
Also, I'd add another element that my friends who live really close to the beach see. It's not that there's no parking near the beach--there's no free parking. So, people will park along the street, which is free, and head down to the beach (blocking my friends' driveways and such). One friend called the cops when someone parked their big honkin' SUV such that it blocked part of his driveway. They gave the guy a ticket. Hopefully, he decided that it would be cheaper to use the public parking from now on...
People, especially rich people, have to accept the fact that they are not islands. If you live near a PUBLIC resource like the beach, or a park, or an airport, you have to accept noise and discomfort involved in the public accessing that resource. I somewhat agree with you, here. People who live by the beach or park and complain about the noise and such--they have to accept it. It's a public area and people will tend to be noisy in those areas. Don't like the noise, don't live by the public area.
That said, there's a difference between being loud on the public beach and trespassing on my property to get to the public beach. If the city wants to invoke eminent domain to build beach access across my property, that's one thing. But until they do, that's my yard and I'd rather not have to track randoms walking through and make sure that my yard is safe for you to walk through. Remember that if you step on a rake in my yard, you can sue me.
Heck, consider just plain ol' normal intensity. At the very least, it would solve the typical layman question to solar power, "Whaddaya do when it's night out?"
I'm no expert on the technology involved, but I'm guessing that if you know that incoming rockets/mortar are in the air with enough time to get the trucks in position and shoot them down with a laser, you also have enough time to get out of the way, and you probably already have a bead on the source of the fire. Which is why you leave them sitting out in the middle of compound and constantly manned. So that in case there's a mortar attack, the trucks are all warmed up and ready to start shooting.
Although this does beg an entertaining question: How will this affect the various radars that are used to destroy mortars (counter-battery fire?). As I understand it--and I'm also no expert--these radars work by tracking the flight of the mortar and figuring out where it was fired from so that you can send a bunch of mortars back at them. So if you destroy all the incoming mortars, do you have to let some of them fly for awhile intil you can track it backwards? If so, does this give less time to the laser to destroy them before they hit the ground?
That's the tricky part. You have limited time in which to do this. Also, while I'm not an expert in this stuff, I assume that if you have the mortar spinning, it would be difficult to heat one point to cause a failure.
Once again, I'm not an expert on this stuff and I may be wrong. That said, here's my strategy for defeating one of these: Fire a group of spinning and reflective mortars followed closely by a larger group of "regular" mortars. At worst, the laser will spend more time destroying the reflective mortars and allow the regular mortars to get through. Firing the reflective and "regular" mortars from opposite sides of the compass might also be useful.
The unknowns would be how effective spinning and reflective painting would be against this laser and how many mortars would you have to fire to overwhelm the system. Also, to solve this problem you just deploy more of the trucks. After all, we have unlimited tax dollars here in the US to spend on such things...
I'm still baffled as to why anyone would *want* to sync their mp3 player over wifi, given that you have to plug it in to charge it anyway. Well, I have an iPod nano. I love it. I only have to charge it maybe once every couple of weeks (I listen to it when I bike).
So I don't really need to charge it all that often. But it would be nice if I could sync it without having to plug it in.
The ones I've seen give you the amount in cash, assuming the amount is within the machine. If it's not, then it will give you the receipt. So I assume they just sent some drone around to empty all the machines, noticed that one didn't have much money in it, and went on to the next one. It might have taken a few days or so before somebody looked at the records.
Second, I could see them not seeing it immediately because the records wouldn't show the "pay-in." If I put in $1 and immediately hit the 'Give me back my money' button, the machine might show that it dispensed $10. But it wouldn't show that it only got $1 in, necessarily.
The gas station owner left gasoline in a dispenser which was obviously not being sold for the advertised price. The sign out front said $4.09/gallon. While I'm willing to believe that it might be off by a few cents because the owner didn't get a chance to change the sign, off by $3.68 would lead any reasonable person to believe that there was a problem with the pump. By taking gasoline out of the pump, you are stealing.
Actually, the first time I saw it, I assumed it had something to do with, "I'm talking out my ass" (slang for, I don't know what I'm talking about). Which, since I'm not a lawyer, is pretty accurate.
Actually, this has nothing to do with using credit cards.
The way the machines work is that when you put in a coin, you get a credit. If you put in 10 coins, you get ten credits. If you put in 100 coins, you get 100 credits.
Whenever you pull the handle, you either lose a credit (if you lose) or gain however many credits depending on the odds of the machine displaying what it displayed. The payoffs and odds are usually shown on the front of the machine when you sit down to play it.
Usually, there are different denominations of slot machines. There are penny, nickle, dime, quarter, and dollar slots. These machines take those coins and only those coins. So a slot machine doesn't differentiate between pennies and nickles. All the slot machine has to know is that it got a "coin" and it gives you a credit. This is handy for the casino because all they have to do is change out the mechanism that handles the coins to turn a penny slot into a dollar slot (or vice versa).
When you are done playing, assuming you have credits left, you hit a button on the front of the machine and it will stick that many coins in the output tray. The problem with the machine was that it was a dollar slot machine and, if you put in $1, it gave you 10 credits. You could then hit the button and it would give you 10 dollars. So the machine was loaded with real money and dropped real money back.
As an aside, Casinos also like credits because they are less "real"--you're not gambling your hard-earned money, you're playing a game for credits. So there's less of a feeling of losing or gaining actual money which inspires you to play the game longer (and lose more). After all, you're not losing money or gaining money--just credits. So if you won 100 credits, you're more likely to keep playing than if you won $100. Same rationale for chips used in card games. Putting down a $50 dollar chip is less "real" to people than plopping down a $50 bill.
I'll take a stab...
what happens with that same ATM gives you an extra $20 when you press the "fast $200" button. Does it matter if you counted the money dispensed or not? Nope. You stole $20 from the bank.
What if it shorts you and only hands out $180? The bank stole $20 from you.
Whats your time worth having to make a special trip back to the bank to return the $20, or the time you spend on hold on the phone reporting it? Dunno. That sort of depends on the time available to the injured party, I suppose.
Consider the bank giving you an extra $20. The bank will know they're out $20. It's doubtful that they'll know who received it. For $20, they'll probably just chalk it up to a loss. If you walk in to the bank and say, "Hey! Your machine gave me an extra $20 and I'm not giving it back! Nyah nyah nyah!" they could probably debit your account for $20 and force you to take them to court to get it back (a case you'd probably lose since, after all, you admitted it).
Consider the bank shorting you $20. The bank would know that they're out $20 (probably because the ATM gave someone else $20 too much). In this case, it would probably be the first person to complain wins. If you walked in with your receipt showing that you received $200 and the date and time that you received the money and you claim that you only received $180 and the bank knows that it was short $20 that night, they'd probably give you the benefit of the doubt and credit your account $20. But, if the bank wants to be a hardass, you'd have to drag them to court and you'd better have someone other than yourself who saw the bank short you.
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While I'm not sure how serious you are, I was sort of surprised when I read the line about how the "conservatives" and "religious right" were behind all of this.
Most religious people I know have no problem showing kids what evils can befall you if you make the wrong choices. They'll let you know if you have sex before you're married, etc., you're going to Hell to burn for all eternity. So I have a hard time believing they'd have a problem with Cookie Monster or Oscar the Grouch.
Most conservatives I know see this as liberal "Political Correctness" run amok.
Hey! Was that you on the news the other night?
"Well, if you could do something 40 or 50 years ago, and you can't do it now, that, by definition is slipping."
Fair enough. How about if you could do it 10 years ago?
NASA's Lunar Prospector launched in early 1998 (so a little less than ten years ago today). Are you saying there is no way we could send a satellite to the moon like we did 10 years ago?
Bah. Turn in your geek card.
Actually, back in 1989 or 1990, my Vermont driver's license didn't have a picture. I'd carry around a college ID with me, which had a picture and, if I showed both, I could usually get by.
I remember when my sister got married--must've been about six or seven years ago--my Dad had to make the trip to the state capitol, Montpelier, in order to get a new driver's license with a picture on it so that he could get on an airplane to go to the wedding.
"Maybe now you'll never slime a guy with a positron collider, huh?"
The scenario in the article assumed that people would replace their players after 18 months (After all, that's how long an iPod's battery lasts ;^). Personally--and maybe I'm not into music or players--I can't see replacing a music player after 18 months, short of planned obsolescence (ie, replacing the battery in the device costs more than a new device would) unless something really new and cool comes along.
For example, I have a 2G iPod nano which works great. I don't see any reason to spend money on a 3G iPod nano. I wouldn't get one unless my 2G iPod nano, for some reason, went belly-up.
So that's the neat question. Will the music be mine as long as I own the device? Or is it more like a cellphone-type contract that I get with the player (eg, free music for 18 months and then I have to pay a "subscription-fee")?
I would imagine there wouldn't be any restrictions on copying your music from one compatible device to another one. After all, when you bought the new device, you paid for the subscription just like you did with the old device.
Heck, make it more interesting than Hollywood & Software. How about IP such as medical drugs? Start selling AIDS drugs to Africa really cheap.
Pretty much, but with some exceptions.
You're right, but it is up to the car manufacturer to show that the modification caused the problem. So if I blow my engine because of my turbo modifications, it's pretty easy for the car manufacturer to void engine repairs/replacement based upon this. However, if my power windows stop working, the car manufacturer can't void my warranty because of my turbo modification without showing how the turbo modification caused the problem.
Software can damage hardware, but it would be up to Apple to show that software that the user installed damaged the hardware. That's sort of the point.
Now, is it worth it for Apple to do this or just say, "Fine, whatever!" and give the customer another $400 phone? That's the question. I suppose it depends on how many people show up on Apple's doorstep saying, "You bricked my iPhone!"
IMHO, you're gonna need a lawyer to get involved.
Actually, they do.
Consider a concert. Before you go in, they'll search you. Your choice, if you don't want to be searched, is to not attend the concert. The property owner has the right to search you. If you're already in the concert, say, and the property owner wants to search you, you don't have to consent to the search. However, you must leave.
In the case of a store, there's also some "probable cause" issues. I can't detain you for shoplifting because something's missing and you're black. I can detain you for shoplifting because something is missing and I saw you put it in your coat. The laws on shoplifting vary from area to area. For example, if I take an item and stick it in my pants pocket and walk around the store, I haven't shoplifted the item. The point where I have legally stolen the item varies--sometimes it's at the point of sale (ie, still inside the store) and sometimes I have to take it outside the store before it's considered stolen.
Now, obviously, you don't lose all your rights. I can't bar you from my store because you're not the same race or gender as I am. I don't have the right to murder you in cold blood on my property. I don't have the right to turn you into a slave. Etc, etc. etc. But fourth-amendment(?) rights? Yup. They're flexible outside your own home.
Actually...you do.
The classic example is the nightclub or stadium where you have to submit to a search before being allowed to enter. If you don't want to be searched, you cannot enter. Your choice is basically to enter and submit or don't enter.
RFID = Cheap and tough to counterfeit.
I'm not an RFID expert, but rashly assuming these things have the capability, it could be handy for parents to keep track of their kids. Ignoring the whole "some crazy pervert is going to kidnap and molest my child" argument, it's pretty easy to lose small people at a crowded beach. Having some way for Mom to go to the lifeguard and say, "I can't find my kid!" and have the lifeguard pull up a laptop and say, "She's over there with that other girl building a sand castle" (or talking to the nice man in the speedos) will certainly help calm nerves and give lifeguards more time to watch for serious problems (like people drowning) versus sending out messages to keep an eye out for a lost child.
I live in a beach community on the west coast. Access to the beach is free (I believe it's a state law), but the city makes a ton of money from parking. You cannot find free parking near the beach. Any parking spot within convenient walking distance has a parking meter. The city has made some nice parking lots where you can get out of your car and you're pretty much on the beach--but those are even more expensive than the parking meters.
If you don't mind a long walk and park in a neighborhood along the street, you'd better make sure that you aren't breaking any law because you'll get a ticket. The people who live in those neighborhoods hate having their roads turned into parking lots and, while they can't stop you from parking there, if you park 14 feet from a fire hydrant and the law is fifteen, they'll call the cops and the cops will be more than happy to give you a ticket.
If it would shave 5 minutes from your bike to work by biking through my yard, that does not mean that I have to allow you to do so. You're still trespassing and I have every right to sic the cops on you.
Also, I'd add another element that my friends who live really close to the beach see. It's not that there's no parking near the beach--there's no free parking. So, people will park along the street, which is free, and head down to the beach (blocking my friends' driveways and such). One friend called the cops when someone parked their big honkin' SUV such that it blocked part of his driveway. They gave the guy a ticket. Hopefully, he decided that it would be cheaper to use the public parking from now on... People, especially rich people, have to accept the fact that they are not islands. If you live near a PUBLIC resource like the beach, or a park, or an airport, you have to accept noise and discomfort involved in the public accessing that resource. I somewhat agree with you, here. People who live by the beach or park and complain about the noise and such--they have to accept it. It's a public area and people will tend to be noisy in those areas. Don't like the noise, don't live by the public area.
That said, there's a difference between being loud on the public beach and trespassing on my property to get to the public beach. If the city wants to invoke eminent domain to build beach access across my property, that's one thing. But until they do, that's my yard and I'd rather not have to track randoms walking through and make sure that my yard is safe for you to walk through. Remember that if you step on a rake in my yard, you can sue me.
Heck, consider just plain ol' normal intensity. At the very least, it would solve the typical layman question to solar power, "Whaddaya do when it's night out?"
Although this does beg an entertaining question: How will this affect the various radars that are used to destroy mortars (counter-battery fire?). As I understand it--and I'm also no expert--these radars work by tracking the flight of the mortar and figuring out where it was fired from so that you can send a bunch of mortars back at them. So if you destroy all the incoming mortars, do you have to let some of them fly for awhile intil you can track it backwards? If so, does this give less time to the laser to destroy them before they hit the ground?
...before or after it manages to hit the ground?
That's the tricky part. You have limited time in which to do this. Also, while I'm not an expert in this stuff, I assume that if you have the mortar spinning, it would be difficult to heat one point to cause a failure.
Once again, I'm not an expert on this stuff and I may be wrong. That said, here's my strategy for defeating one of these: Fire a group of spinning and reflective mortars followed closely by a larger group of "regular" mortars. At worst, the laser will spend more time destroying the reflective mortars and allow the regular mortars to get through. Firing the reflective and "regular" mortars from opposite sides of the compass might also be useful.
The unknowns would be how effective spinning and reflective painting would be against this laser and how many mortars would you have to fire to overwhelm the system. Also, to solve this problem you just deploy more of the trucks. After all, we have unlimited tax dollars here in the US to spend on such things...
So I don't really need to charge it all that often. But it would be nice if I could sync it without having to plug it in.
We want the airwaves!
The ones I've seen give you the amount in cash, assuming the amount is within the machine. If it's not, then it will give you the receipt. So I assume they just sent some drone around to empty all the machines, noticed that one didn't have much money in it, and went on to the next one. It might have taken a few days or so before somebody looked at the records.
Second, I could see them not seeing it immediately because the records wouldn't show the "pay-in." If I put in $1 and immediately hit the 'Give me back my money' button, the machine might show that it dispensed $10. But it wouldn't show that it only got $1 in, necessarily.
The gas station owner left gasoline in a dispenser which was obviously not being sold for the advertised price. The sign out front said $4.09/gallon. While I'm willing to believe that it might be off by a few cents because the owner didn't get a chance to change the sign, off by $3.68 would lead any reasonable person to believe that there was a problem with the pump. By taking gasoline out of the pump, you are stealing.
An explanation of IANAL, just in case you were serious.
Actually, the first time I saw it, I assumed it had something to do with, "I'm talking out my ass" (slang for, I don't know what I'm talking about). Which, since I'm not a lawyer, is pretty accurate.
Actually, this has nothing to do with using credit cards.
The way the machines work is that when you put in a coin, you get a credit. If you put in 10 coins, you get ten credits. If you put in 100 coins, you get 100 credits.
Whenever you pull the handle, you either lose a credit (if you lose) or gain however many credits depending on the odds of the machine displaying what it displayed. The payoffs and odds are usually shown on the front of the machine when you sit down to play it.
Usually, there are different denominations of slot machines. There are penny, nickle, dime, quarter, and dollar slots. These machines take those coins and only those coins. So a slot machine doesn't differentiate between pennies and nickles. All the slot machine has to know is that it got a "coin" and it gives you a credit. This is handy for the casino because all they have to do is change out the mechanism that handles the coins to turn a penny slot into a dollar slot (or vice versa).
When you are done playing, assuming you have credits left, you hit a button on the front of the machine and it will stick that many coins in the output tray. The problem with the machine was that it was a dollar slot machine and, if you put in $1, it gave you 10 credits. You could then hit the button and it would give you 10 dollars. So the machine was loaded with real money and dropped real money back.
As an aside, Casinos also like credits because they are less "real"--you're not gambling your hard-earned money, you're playing a game for credits. So there's less of a feeling of losing or gaining actual money which inspires you to play the game longer (and lose more). After all, you're not losing money or gaining money--just credits. So if you won 100 credits, you're more likely to keep playing than if you won $100. Same rationale for chips used in card games. Putting down a $50 dollar chip is less "real" to people than plopping down a $50 bill.
Las Vegas has some amazing psychology behind it.
Consider the bank giving you an extra $20. The bank will know they're out $20. It's doubtful that they'll know who received it. For $20, they'll probably just chalk it up to a loss. If you walk in to the bank and say, "Hey! Your machine gave me an extra $20 and I'm not giving it back! Nyah nyah nyah!" they could probably debit your account for $20 and force you to take them to court to get it back (a case you'd probably lose since, after all, you admitted it).
Consider the bank shorting you $20. The bank would know that they're out $20 (probably because the ATM gave someone else $20 too much). In this case, it would probably be the first person to complain wins. If you walked in with your receipt showing that you received $200 and the date and time that you received the money and you claim that you only received $180 and the bank knows that it was short $20 that night, they'd probably give you the benefit of the doubt and credit your account $20. But, if the bank wants to be a hardass, you'd have to drag them to court and you'd better have someone other than yourself who saw the bank short you.