You can buy a drone like this (http://ebay.to/1lzsmj8) that can lift 15 pounds of weight for under $10k. Imagine someone with a van and 3 or more of these loaded with plastic explosives. Many can even be set to fly a preset GPS pattern. A moderately capable individual could launch a series of these miles from the event and have them drop their payload into the Superbowl or some other large event. They wouldn't likely directly kill thousands, but I bet hundreds would be killed just from the stampede of people trying to get out. Especially if multiple attacks were happening. And this action would have a decade plus multi-billion dollar impact of causing people to fear going to large events like this. It could be the end of attending professional sports as we know it.
And you may say they could just put domes on arenas to protect people. I suspect 15lbs of high explosive could punch a hole in most domed structures.
"And? is he fiddling with the trigger or something? or is it properly holstered and you're more likely to die from a freak lightning strike than it going off?"
Have you never had an accident of any kind? Never bumped into a door, tripped, snagged your clothing on an object?
I would guess that having a loaded weapon pointed at your face 8 hours a day, even if there is no malicious intent, has a higher likelihood of you being harmed than a lightening strike.
This site (http://smartgunlaws.org/gun-deaths-and-injuries-statistics/) indicates that ~600 people die a year from accidental gun deaths in the US. This site (http://www.lightningsafety.noaa.gov/fatalities.shtml) shows there are ~35 lightening deaths per year. Guns are fun, but to compare the likelihood of being accidentally shot to being struck by lightening is disingenuous at best.
"If they were truly intelligent species then they wouldn't be going around trying to conquer each other."
That's by your definition/interpretation of being intelligent. For all you know, we are super tasty to them. Most people wouldn't hesitate harvesting fish from the ocean for a meal. What makes you think we aren't just another yummy meal to them?
So to summarize, a type of plastic is not bacteria friendly. To make it more interesting, they made an article saying that it could be used as fake teeth. And to make that more interesting, they had to add that it could be 3-D printed. Why didn't they go for the hat trick and say it could be delivered to your mouth by a drone?
This is a bank in Atlanta. No one is moving to another country. I suspect 99% of these people haven't even been to another country. The few who have likely have only made it to Cancun via a cruise out of Mobile AL.
They would likely just say the severance is a prepayment for consulting services. I could see this being the wave of the future. Why just give money away with severance when they can prepay you for xx hours which they may never need, but if they do they have you.
Really, if you left some place and they said, "Hey, we will prepay you $250\hour for 10 hours of consulting services which we may\may not take advantage of in the next 24 months." Would you take that $2500 or not?
Federal minimum wages only apply if your business deals in interstate commerce. I suspect most attorneys don't. That said, I doubt any attorneys work for less than minimum wage. Also, you can't really force anyone to work 100 hours a week. You can ask, and if they don't you can fire them, but you cant really force them to do it.
If rather than ad blocking, users employed an app that downloaded the ads but neglected to render them, the advertisers would be paying for ads that well to null but they could never tell. I bet that could severely hurt the advertising industry if advertisers weren't sure if they were paying for ads that were delivered but never viewed.
If they keep pushing, this is where the war may go.
The 2nd amendment doesn't say anything about having to be responsible. I bet the NRA would argue you are infringing on people's rights if you made them secure their weapons.
" if someone deliberately tries to run you over with a car, that's vehicular homicide"
What if you are standing behind their car and they try to back out at 1mph so they can leave? Does the fact that you fail to move out of the way classify their action as vehicular homicide? And does it give you the right to shoot them because you CHOOSE not to move? I guess what is in question is what constitutes the ability to "reasonably evade them".
I'm not saying that's what happened, but the facts seem to be sparse at this point in time.
"Hand wringing second guessers would say that the cop was wrong to lie and threaten excessive force"
So to you, it is acceptable for police to lie and threaten excessive force in certain conditions? And those conditions include a "youthful suspect" running away?
Remember when Bones got Kirk the antique reading glasses because Kirk is allergic to retinax? And he noted that Kirk liked to collect antiques. Well, even with replicators, there is a limited supply of antiques. So if/when people wanted to connect "real" antiques, they would need a way to coerce those who possessed them to give them up. Hence something akin to money would be required.
I can imagine other uses. If someone wanted a servant to assist them with cleaning house, getting dressed, keeping them company, wiping their ass, etc; money may also be required. Robots and volunteers may serve some functions, but I can't see them doing everything without some form of compensation.
Perhaps some projects can be broken down into component, but there is a point that they can't anymore. If it takes 5 people 5 months, then perhaps 25 people can get it done in 1 month. But there are limits. I don't think anyone who has ever worked on a project believes that you can then put 750 people on most projects and get them done in a day. Sure, its possible if the task is trivial, but most aren't.
That link has the US at #13. But it does seem to be the most 1st world country with this problem. In contrast, the Ukraine is #62 and Zimbabwe is #66. If only the US could match up to the uber standards of those ultra civilized nation states.
Rank Country Total 1 Honduras 64.8 2 Venezuela 50.9 3 El Salvador 46.85 4 Jamaica 39.74 5 Swaziland 37.16 6 Guatemala 36.38 7 Colombia 28.14 8 South Africa 9 Brazil 19.03 10 Panama 17.6 11 Uruguay 14.01 12 Mexico 11.17 13 United States 10.64
Most jobs have few possibilities for advancement beyond going into management. That isn't necessarily a bad thing. Its not like brain surgeons are bummed out they can't be something better.
If the goal is to build a habitat in extreme cold conditions, I'm sure Alaska has plenty of places to build it. Before we likely spend trillions of dollars sending a body to mars, I'd like to see a self sustaining habitat on Earth last for at least 10 years. And have it be one that is the same size and contents as would be buildable off planet. And it would be even better if they were able to do more than just survive.
As I've said before, even if we totally trashed the earth, it would still likely be more habitable than the moon or mars or anywhere else we could go to. I suspect a post-nuked earth would be more human friendly than dwelling on another planet.
So you could take about 1/3 of NASA's yearly budget and recreate it all from scratch. Just think of what could be available if NASA was defunded for 5 years and that money went into a national open source development project where everything created would be free to the world.
Of course, imagine if we did the same with 1/2 of the US military budget. I suspect you'd run out of developers to hire before you ran out of money. And the pay for developers would be higher than airline pilots.
You friends could also rent a car for those occasional long trips. You can generally rent a car for under $30/day with unlimited mileage. Then you can go as far as you like, plus put all those miles on someone else's vehicle.
That's what I've always hoped was the truth. That once someone gets into office, they are told about secret stuff that makes the NSA, CIA, etc. all seem more than necessary. I can't imagine what that would be, but maybe there really are shape shifting aliens lurking in our midst waiting to take over.
Slashdot Mirror
You can buy a drone like this (http://ebay.to/1lzsmj8) that can lift 15 pounds of weight for under $10k. Imagine someone with a van and 3 or more of these loaded with plastic explosives. Many can even be set to fly a preset GPS pattern. A moderately capable individual could launch a series of these miles from the event and have them drop their payload into the Superbowl or some other large event. They wouldn't likely directly kill thousands, but I bet hundreds would be killed just from the stampede of people trying to get out. Especially if multiple attacks were happening. And this action would have a decade plus multi-billion dollar impact of causing people to fear going to large events like this. It could be the end of attending professional sports as we know it.
And you may say they could just put domes on arenas to protect people. I suspect 15lbs of high explosive could punch a hole in most domed structures.
"And? is he fiddling with the trigger or something? or is it properly holstered and you're more likely to die from a freak lightning strike than it going off?"
Have you never had an accident of any kind? Never bumped into a door, tripped, snagged your clothing on an object?
I would guess that having a loaded weapon pointed at your face 8 hours a day, even if there is no malicious intent, has a higher likelihood of you being harmed than a lightening strike.
This site (http://smartgunlaws.org/gun-deaths-and-injuries-statistics/) indicates that ~600 people die a year from accidental gun deaths in the US. This site (http://www.lightningsafety.noaa.gov/fatalities.shtml) shows there are ~35 lightening deaths per year. Guns are fun, but to compare the likelihood of being accidentally shot to being struck by lightening is disingenuous at best.
"If they were truly intelligent species then they wouldn't be going around trying to conquer each other."
That's by your definition/interpretation of being intelligent. For all you know, we are super tasty to them. Most people wouldn't hesitate harvesting fish from the ocean for a meal. What makes you think we aren't just another yummy meal to them?
So to summarize, a type of plastic is not bacteria friendly. To make it more interesting, they made an article saying that it could be used as fake teeth. And to make that more interesting, they had to add that it could be 3-D printed. Why didn't they go for the hat trick and say it could be delivered to your mouth by a drone?
This is a bank in Atlanta. No one is moving to another country. I suspect 99% of these people haven't even been to another country. The few who have likely have only made it to Cancun via a cruise out of Mobile AL.
"sue them for violating minimum wage laws"
They would likely just say the severance is a prepayment for consulting services. I could see this being the wave of the future. Why just give money away with severance when they can prepay you for xx hours which they may never need, but if they do they have you.
Really, if you left some place and they said, "Hey, we will prepay you $250\hour for 10 hours of consulting services which we may\may not take advantage of in the next 24 months." Would you take that $2500 or not?
"Federal minimum wages still apply"
Federal minimum wages only apply if your business deals in interstate commerce. I suspect most attorneys don't. That said, I doubt any attorneys work for less than minimum wage. Also, you can't really force anyone to work 100 hours a week. You can ask, and if they don't you can fire them, but you cant really force them to do it.
If rather than ad blocking, users employed an app that downloaded the ads but neglected to render them, the advertisers would be paying for ads that well to null but they could never tell. I bet that could severely hurt the advertising industry if advertisers weren't sure if they were paying for ads that were delivered but never viewed.
If they keep pushing, this is where the war may go.
The 2nd amendment doesn't say anything about having to be responsible. I bet the NRA would argue you are infringing on people's rights if you made them secure their weapons.
" if someone deliberately tries to run you over with a car, that's vehicular homicide"
What if you are standing behind their car and they try to back out at 1mph so they can leave? Does the fact that you fail to move out of the way classify their action as vehicular homicide? And does it give you the right to shoot them because you CHOOSE not to move? I guess what is in question is what constitutes the ability to "reasonably evade them".
I'm not saying that's what happened, but the facts seem to be sparse at this point in time.
"Hand wringing second guessers would say that the cop was wrong to lie and threaten excessive force"
So to you, it is acceptable for police to lie and threaten excessive force in certain conditions? And those conditions include a "youthful suspect" running away?
I just hope they don't run into any loose seals when they do this. They have been known to take a hand or two.
Remember when Bones got Kirk the antique reading glasses because Kirk is allergic to retinax? And he noted that Kirk liked to collect antiques. Well, even with replicators, there is a limited supply of antiques. So if/when people wanted to connect "real" antiques, they would need a way to coerce those who possessed them to give them up. Hence something akin to money would be required.
I can imagine other uses. If someone wanted a servant to assist them with cleaning house, getting dressed, keeping them company, wiping their ass, etc; money may also be required. Robots and volunteers may serve some functions, but I can't see them doing everything without some form of compensation.
Perhaps some projects can be broken down into component, but there is a point that they can't anymore. If it takes 5 people 5 months, then perhaps 25 people can get it done in 1 month. But there are limits. I don't think anyone who has ever worked on a project believes that you can then put 750 people on most projects and get them done in a day. Sure, its possible if the task is trivial, but most aren't.
That link has the US at #13. But it does seem to be the most 1st world country with this problem. In contrast, the Ukraine is #62 and Zimbabwe is #66. If only the US could match up to the uber standards of those ultra civilized nation states.
Rank Country Total
1 Honduras 64.8
2 Venezuela 50.9
3 El Salvador 46.85
4 Jamaica 39.74
5 Swaziland 37.16
6 Guatemala 36.38
7 Colombia 28.14
8 South Africa
9 Brazil 19.03
10 Panama 17.6
11 Uruguay 14.01
12 Mexico 11.17
13 United States 10.64
" with little room for career advancement"
Most jobs have few possibilities for advancement beyond going into management. That isn't necessarily a bad thing. Its not like brain surgeons are bummed out they can't be something better.
If the goal is to build a habitat in extreme cold conditions, I'm sure Alaska has plenty of places to build it. Before we likely spend trillions of dollars sending a body to mars, I'd like to see a self sustaining habitat on Earth last for at least 10 years. And have it be one that is the same size and contents as would be buildable off planet. And it would be even better if they were able to do more than just survive.
As I've said before, even if we totally trashed the earth, it would still likely be more habitable than the moon or mars or anywhere else we could go to. I suspect a post-nuked earth would be more human friendly than dwelling on another planet.
So you could take about 1/3 of NASA's yearly budget and recreate it all from scratch. Just think of what could be available if NASA was defunded for 5 years and that money went into a national open source development project where everything created would be free to the world.
Of course, imagine if we did the same with 1/2 of the US military budget. I suspect you'd run out of developers to hire before you ran out of money. And the pay for developers would be higher than airline pilots.
You friends could also rent a car for those occasional long trips. You can generally rent a car for under $30/day with unlimited mileage. Then you can go as far as you like, plus put all those miles on someone else's vehicle.
That's what I've always hoped was the truth. That once someone gets into office, they are told about secret stuff that makes the NSA, CIA, etc. all seem more than necessary. I can't imagine what that would be, but maybe there really are shape shifting aliens lurking in our midst waiting to take over.
"until Cheney agrees that waterboarding is torture"
What if Cheney never agrees that it is torture? That's an alternative possibility.
"clearly because its effective"
Even if its effective, that doesn't make it right. Slavery is an effective way to get work done cheap and has been for thousands of years.
"My building security won't let just some asshole in "
Maybe you will need to alert them that you have a package coming within an hour from an unmarked/nonuniformed courier. Problem solved.
" I care when his meth head roommate knows I'm buying expensive electronics from Amazon"
How often are you buying "expensive electronics" ? This would seem to be a rare occasion. Or are you having $1000 items delivered daily?
"the National Minimum Wage where I live is $17.25 per hour"
What nation is that?