Fair enough. Is this seriously endangering others?
To use the cellphone example, if this were seriously endangering others, we should have at least 1 airplane crash a month. So obviously it's not seriously endangering people: Number of airplanes crashed due to laser interference: 0.
How many pilots have been injured by laser pointers? I'm pretty sure we come back with "None."
Actually, my issue was more with the bastardization of Oliver Wendell Holmes' quote. The argument behind the quote is that you can do whatever you want until you affect other people. Like I said, adding in "potential" means that if something might happen, it needs to be treated as if it will happen and, therefore, must be outlawed.
So, you suggest you can drive dangerously in a school zone, pass illegally, and do all sorts of things... and until you actually kill someone there's no crime?
I suppose that's what ol' Olly was suggesting. And it's an intriguing concept.
Consider the state of our freeways today. People speed. People send text messages. People talk on their phones. All of these things are illegal. And yet, they're still done. And when there's an accident, we just sort of tsk tsk tsk it away.
Perhaps trying to enforce preventative laws--actions that may cause a problem--is a waste. Perhaps we should make the consequences more severe.
My roommate used to be a truck driver. She had a California Class A professional driver license. Now, here in California, if you have a Class A license, any traffic fine is immediately doubled. It doesn't matter if you are driving in a professional or personal capacity. The theory being that as a professional driver, you should know better. The result: My roommate drove the speed limit. She was a very cautious driver when she got behind the wheel because the consequences of a mistake were quite severe. When she stopped driving trucks (she quit because of the stress) and went back to a typical Class C license, she relearned all of her bad habits--she speeds around other drivers who annoy her and talks on her cellphone while driving (though, in her defense, she only answers calls.)
Your 'right' to drive how you see fit ends where the potential for you to damage me begins.
This is a variation on the phrase coined by Oliver Wendell Holmes, "Your right to swing your arms ends just where the other man's nose begins." And it sounds good.
The problem I have with your variation is the word "potential."
To go back to the Holmes quote, I can swing my arms as much as I want until I hit someone's nose. Then we have a problem. In your variation, I can't swing my arms at all because there is potential for me to strike someone else's nose.
So in other words, it's okay because it's corporate welfare. It's something that SpaceX doesn't have to build, so they--in return--will give us a discount on trips to orbit.
I think NASA could find something more interesting to spend $350 million on.
What he's saying is you can get a pretty picture but you can't actually get the data that makes up those pretty pictures.
For example, I have a little bike computer that uses OpenStreetMap. It will tell me what street I'm on and what intersection I'm approaching and whether that intersection has a traffic light or a stop sign. No map. Just data.
Google will be happy to send me a pretty map with my present location and the next intersection all drawn out. Which is nice if I don't mind squinting at a map while riding a bicycle and trying to read a street name sideways. But if I actually want the data about a street and what other streets intersect it? Google won't tell you. They'll just give you a map.
The idea is to create a concept of a "lie detector." Then you tell your suspect, "If you didn't do it, just take a 'lie detector' test. If that comes out clean, then you'll be off the hook. You can go home right away. No need to spend a few more hours sitting here with us going over this stuff over and over and over again."
Plug him into the "lie detector." Ask him some questions. Then have the police come in and say, "The lie detector says you were lying. Why don't you tell us what really happened? We can be here all night until you decide to tell us the truth..."
Transporting rovers back to earth will have very low priority over samples from Mars when/if we get the ability to transport anything from Mars to Earth
However, parts of it could possibly come back. Consider Apollo 12 bringing back parts of Surveyor 3 for study.
Years ago, a company had your idea. They had a "personality" module for whatever UI they were trying to deal with. At the time, they had DOS and Mac.
If you were using the DOS version, you might see a message on your screen like this:
Are you sure you want to delete this record? (Yes/No)
On the Mac, you would get a dialog box with "Are you sure you want to delete this record?", two radio buttons labeled "Yes" and "No", and two buttons labeled "OK" and "Cancel"
I somewhat agree, but I think it'll be interesting to see how it plays out.
I'll go out on a limb and pull a number out of my ass and say that 50% of Americans could drive an electric car with a 250 mile range with no change to their lifestyles (except for plugging it in). I'll admit that this number is completely out of my ass, but I base it on the fact that the average American drives 16 miles to work. That implies that half the people in America drive less and half drive more, but it is an average and a few long-distance commuters can screw things up. So let's say 50% of Americans go out and buy electric cars. The other 50% don't. They either can't because it doesn't have the capabilities that they need ("I drive 300 miles every day, you insensitive clod!"), desire ("How am I going to tow my boat to the lake?"), or they like the freedom of a gasoline powered car ("What if my mother suddenly becomes sick and I have to go up and see her and she's 400 miles away and she's dying and I need to get to her before she dies to tell her how much I love her?!")
The interesting question is, what happens to the gasoline car infrastructure when half the people don't need it?
Will you see as many gas stations? Without the competition, what will happen to the price of gas? Will you have the wide variety of gasoline-powered cars that you have today? For example, I could see the gasoline-powered sedan becoming a thing of the past.
Don't get me, I don't disagree with you. The interesting thing is that the amount of money is trending down and I don't see much of anything to stop that trend.
Slashdot Mirror
Fair enough. Is this seriously endangering others?
To use the cellphone example, if this were seriously endangering others, we should have at least 1 airplane crash a month. So obviously it's not seriously endangering people: Number of airplanes crashed due to laser interference: 0.
How many pilots have been injured by laser pointers? I'm pretty sure we come back with "None."
And it creates less controversy than "God did it."
NBC News vs. MSNBC.
Not the same thing.
Personally, I think the band is being outrageous. After all, consider the promotion that the band has gotten. I'll bet their sales go up after this.
They should be thanking their customers, the US Government, not trying to sue them.
You're probably right. But let's be clear--we definitely don't want another Long Island.
Actually, my issue was more with the bastardization of Oliver Wendell Holmes' quote. The argument behind the quote is that you can do whatever you want until you affect other people. Like I said, adding in "potential" means that if something might happen, it needs to be treated as if it will happen and, therefore, must be outlawed.
So, you suggest you can drive dangerously in a school zone, pass illegally, and do all sorts of things ... and until you actually kill someone there's no crime?
I suppose that's what ol' Olly was suggesting. And it's an intriguing concept.
Consider the state of our freeways today. People speed. People send text messages. People talk on their phones. All of these things are illegal. And yet, they're still done. And when there's an accident, we just sort of tsk tsk tsk it away.
Perhaps trying to enforce preventative laws--actions that may cause a problem--is a waste. Perhaps we should make the consequences more severe.
My roommate used to be a truck driver. She had a California Class A professional driver license. Now, here in California, if you have a Class A license, any traffic fine is immediately doubled. It doesn't matter if you are driving in a professional or personal capacity. The theory being that as a professional driver, you should know better. The result: My roommate drove the speed limit. She was a very cautious driver when she got behind the wheel because the consequences of a mistake were quite severe. When she stopped driving trucks (she quit because of the stress) and went back to a typical Class C license, she relearned all of her bad habits--she speeds around other drivers who annoy her and talks on her cellphone while driving (though, in her defense, she only answers calls.)
Your 'right' to drive how you see fit ends where the potential for you to damage me begins.
This is a variation on the phrase coined by Oliver Wendell Holmes, "Your right to swing your arms ends just where the other man's nose begins." And it sounds good.
The problem I have with your variation is the word "potential."
To go back to the Holmes quote, I can swing my arms as much as I want until I hit someone's nose. Then we have a problem. In your variation, I can't swing my arms at all because there is potential for me to strike someone else's nose.
Not the same thing.
So if NASA were to charge SpaceX $350 million to use it, what's to keep SpaceX from building their own cheaper version?
Of course, millions upon millions of people bought Windows. Sometimes the mob is not smart.
[...] it could make sense on a watch that is in light most of the time [...]
I wear a long sleeved shirt, you insensitive clod!
So in other words, it's okay because it's corporate welfare. It's something that SpaceX doesn't have to build, so they--in return--will give us a discount on trips to orbit.
I think NASA could find something more interesting to spend $350 million on.
So, in other words, it's corporate welfare. We spend money building the test facility, they use, it and then they charge us for trips into orbit.
if it can be [...] used in the future, by say SpaceX and Blue Origin, then it is a good deal.
...for SpaceX and Blue Origin.
Pfft. Go back to the Max Headroom episode "Deities" in 1987.
What he's saying is you can get a pretty picture but you can't actually get the data that makes up those pretty pictures.
For example, I have a little bike computer that uses OpenStreetMap. It will tell me what street I'm on and what intersection I'm approaching and whether that intersection has a traffic light or a stop sign. No map. Just data.
Google will be happy to send me a pretty map with my present location and the next intersection all drawn out. Which is nice if I don't mind squinting at a map while riding a bicycle and trying to read a street name sideways. But if I actually want the data about a street and what other streets intersect it? Google won't tell you. They'll just give you a map.
The idea is to create a concept of a "lie detector." Then you tell your suspect, "If you didn't do it, just take a 'lie detector' test. If that comes out clean, then you'll be off the hook. You can go home right away. No need to spend a few more hours sitting here with us going over this stuff over and over and over again."
Plug him into the "lie detector." Ask him some questions. Then have the police come in and say, "The lie detector says you were lying. Why don't you tell us what really happened? We can be here all night until you decide to tell us the truth..."
Well, considering he notes that it's Superbowl week, I was thinking of San Francisco 49ers fans.
They're not deporting illegals.
Actually, more illegal immigrants are being deported now than ever before.
Transporting rovers back to earth will have very low priority over samples from Mars when/if we get the ability to transport anything from Mars to Earth
However, parts of it could possibly come back. Consider Apollo 12 bringing back parts of Surveyor 3 for study.
Not to mention a good lead-up to Puppy Bowl!
Not to mention the occasional dust-devil to clean the solar panels.
Not necessarily.
Years ago, a company had your idea. They had a "personality" module for whatever UI they were trying to deal with. At the time, they had DOS and Mac.
If you were using the DOS version, you might see a message on your screen like this:
Are you sure you want to delete this record? (Yes/No)
On the Mac, you would get a dialog box with "Are you sure you want to delete this record?", two radio buttons labeled "Yes" and "No", and two buttons labeled "OK" and "Cancel"
Did it work? Yup. Was it correct? No.
If I were you, I'd keep an eye on it.
I somewhat agree, but I think it'll be interesting to see how it plays out.
I'll go out on a limb and pull a number out of my ass and say that 50% of Americans could drive an electric car with a 250 mile range with no change to their lifestyles (except for plugging it in). I'll admit that this number is completely out of my ass, but I base it on the fact that the average American drives 16 miles to work. That implies that half the people in America drive less and half drive more, but it is an average and a few long-distance commuters can screw things up. So let's say 50% of Americans go out and buy electric cars. The other 50% don't. They either can't because it doesn't have the capabilities that they need ("I drive 300 miles every day, you insensitive clod!"), desire ("How am I going to tow my boat to the lake?"), or they like the freedom of a gasoline powered car ("What if my mother suddenly becomes sick and I have to go up and see her and she's 400 miles away and she's dying and I need to get to her before she dies to tell her how much I love her?!")
The interesting question is, what happens to the gasoline car infrastructure when half the people don't need it?
Will you see as many gas stations? Without the competition, what will happen to the price of gas? Will you have the wide variety of gasoline-powered cars that you have today? For example, I could see the gasoline-powered sedan becoming a thing of the past.
You'll probably still need a back up generator, unless you want your food to go off after a freak hail storm destroys your solar panels.
Versus the reliability of "the grid." Why, I've never heard of the power going out someplace because of a "freak" accident.
Oh wait. Here's one.
Don't get me, I don't disagree with you. The interesting thing is that the amount of money is trending down and I don't see much of anything to stop that trend.