Nice. The "everyone sucks except us" approach, also known as xenophobia, nationalism or even (shock) racism. Who modded this insightful? Tell me something - who is American, and how do you know? Who deserves to play on your team - Native Americans, Jonestown people, the kid born here from illegal Mexican immigrants, the Bulgarian physicist who was just naturalized?
It's people like you who make me embarrassed to be an American. Stop giving the rest of us a bad name and get the hell out of my country.
I can confirm this. I've worked with a couple of Indian outsourcers, and I can tell you that your chance of getting a quality product back is slim. They buy licenses on the cheap (much less than what they need), skimp on their internal training, and hire people who might be nice, but not necessarily the brightest of the bunch. By now, I'm quite confident that while I can't compete with them on price, the quality that I deliver is far above what they can offer.
My response when I hear that stuff is being outsourced to India? Bring it on. Sooner or later, doing stuff on the cheap is going to bite people, and they will (and have) paid me good money to fix their stuff.
Because the action of the plant is not simply grow towards tomato plant/do not grow towards tomato plant. The dodder has the options of growing slightly to the right of the tomato, slightly to the left of it, up, down, away from it, slightly away from it.... and I'm missing about a million more options.
Given the odds of growing towards the same smell twice in a row, which are about 1 million squared (you get the idea), we can safely assume that there is a specific process involved here. No need to repeat the same thing 1 million times.
You're right, the points I raised are not fundamentally new issues that are strictly tied to RFID chips. However, it is much easier to exploit these existing issues with RFID chips. Want to get the passport information from 100 people in an hour? Stand in the subway next to people arriving at any international terminal. Same thing with data on the passport. Yes, there's plenty of correlation out there already (though nothing on credit cards - at least not the dumb magnetic stripe ones). But that doesn't mean I want more of it.
Good points. However, there are two issues with electronic passports: 1) Someone can still read it remotely, and get access to all kinds of personally identifying information. Yes, you have to get close, but it still is quite possible. Ever seen pickpockets at work? They manage to *remove* your wallet without you noticing it. Considering the potential damage that can result from someone getting their hands on your passport, I'd rather not make it easier for people to access them.
2) You don't know what's on your passport. Yes, there are commercial RFID readers out there. Yes, you can probably buy one. Yes, you might even get it to work properly. But at what cost? Besides, is there any encrypted information on there? I'm sure the friendly US government won't give you access to the data on it. As for the dangers of what's on there... it will basically work like a permanent tag that people will trust completely. Just as an example of how easy it is to screw with these things, my current passport is a replacement for a lost one. However, some nitwit in database entry decided to mark my current passport as lost. Which means that everytime I enter the country, I get to sit for 45 minutes in the special triage section of customs and immigration. And it can't be fixed either - I asked several times.
In short, there is little benefit for me, but a whole lot of risk. I most likely will just fry my RFID chip when I get my new passport.
Ugh... there is so much horrible misinformation being bandied around as "fact" in this entire discussion that I'll only focus on the obvious and easy parts.
Strong AI: the computer is not merely a tool in the study of the mind; rather, the appropriately programmed computer really is a mind. (John Searle - see Wikipedia entry). Weak AI: computers will only ever be able to reason about specific subsets of knowledge for which they have been preprogrammed, and certainly won't become self-aware.
There have been massive philosophical discussions around whether strong AI is impossible by definition or not, and I'll just let you start with the wikipedia entry to get you started: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strong_AI.
The rest of the post is not a reply to the parent, but merely a general rebuttal to the tripe that's been thrown around so far.
Futurologist: fancy word for someone who thinks what the future may be like. This can be anything from what the federal deficit will be like in 5 years and its impact on the US economy, to what Lunar Colonies might look like and when they might come about. Saying that all futurologists are bunk is about as shortsighted as saying that all future is unknowable, so there's no point in trying to predict it. The value of the futurologist's predictions hinges on his/her methodology and the arguments advanced in their favor. If you want to argue that real terminators won't happen, strong AI won't be around in 2020 or that yogurt won't ever be smart, fine. Do it. But do it by debating the arguments, not by waving your hands and saying that all futurologists are stupid anyway.
Brain: the brain is actually a fairly weak computer. It operates at a frequency of about 05. to 30 Hertz. Transmission speed is limited by the speed of the chemical cascades at the neural interfaces. Its storage capacity has been estimated to be anywhere between 1 Terabyte and about 1000 terabytes. Its saving grace is that it has about 10-100 trillion connections (not neurons, connections) for 20-50 billion neurons, which all operate in parallel. This means that there are lots of things that the brain is really good at that computers suck at, and vice versa. In short, it's like comparing apples and oranges. Literally.
Predictions and modeling: what's with the recent habit of disregarding all predictions you don't agree with, just because someone, somewhere, in a similar field made some predictions that turned out to be wrong? That's just the zenith of arrogance and intellectual laziness. It means that not only do you inherently assume that your opinion is inherently superior to all other arguments, but also that you don't need to bother with actually educating yourself about the topic you're discussing. Nice.
I want the 5 minutes of my life back that I spent reading through that badly-written drivel. The only thing worse would have been the same stuff in an audio or video format. Ugh.
To save others from the same pain, here's a quick summary: the vast majority of iPod integrations work either by pretending the iPod is a CD changer, or by sending RDS (radio data stream, I think - it's the stuff that piggybacks song info onto the AM/FM signal) to the radio. Which means they all still suck. It's cumbersome to navigate stuff and you don't get the info you expect (songname, etc). We get promises that next year, everything will be better, but we heard all that stuff last year already.
In short, if you want to use your iPod in your car now, use your headset. And if you live in California, just hope the cops don't catch you.
OK - don't want to hear about Betamax? There's also Memorystick, ATRAC, MiniDisk and UMD. 4 formats, all proprietary, all exclusive to Sony, all designed for consumer lock-in. The sooner Sony dies, the happier I am.
Ah... if it only was that easy. Unfortunately, Chinese have a vastly different idea of country, government and what gives a government the right to govern its people. Watch the Jet-Li movie Hero (or any of the other Chinese kung-fu flicks) to get an idea of that. Yeah, yeah, movies aren't reality, but they do give you an idea of the mindset of the target audience.
Personally, I don't see the current government changing very much. As long as prosperity improves, as long as there's plenty of opportunity to make a buck and as long as the oppression isn't too high-strung, everything will carry on as it is now. I expect Taiwan to be assimilated before the current government structure will change.
Yup, there are. Google for a slow-down of the North Atlantic Current. It's slowing down, which is generally thought to be the prelude for a complete stoppage.
I have mod points, but there is no -1, wrong option. Shame, really. Because really, all you've proven that you don't know how climatology works, what triggered the tsunami in the Phillipines, what the temperature statistics for the last 10 summers were, or that killing every person on this planet is the same as bringing about the end of the world for the human race. The only one more ignorant than you is whoever modded you insightful.
You missed the point. During an election, the government is legally required to tabulate my vote. It is irrelevant whether it is the deciding vote. However, a company can ignore the fact that I'm spending money elsewhere. As a matter of fact, it is the common procedure for a company to ignore a large chunk of the population in a given geographical area. You are confusing witholding money with voting for someone in an either/or election. Furthermore, you are ignoring the problem of monopolies. If there's only one company providing a specific service, I can't vote against it - I can merely withold my money. This is similar to not voting at all; and we all know how ineffective that is in changing anything.
You don't vote an elected official out - you either re-elect or replace them when their term ends.
I disagree, but not enough to actually argue about it. Point taken.
A downturn in perception has very real effects on the bottom line for most industries.
Very true. But that's not what matters. The problem is that by definition, my state government and the federal government *has* to listen to me when I vote. They cannot toss my ballot out because it doesn't match their needs or desires. On the other hand, a corporation is perfectly capable (both legally and practically) of ignoring my dollar vote. And if I'm part of a market fringe group, it is actually demanded of the corporation that it ignores me. This is why there is a significant difference between government and corporate actions - one I am legally entitled to influence, the other can be easily compelled to ignore me.
You have made two assumptions here (in reverse order): a) that you are entitled to a job, which leads to b) TOS replacing the law.
First off, no. If you actually look through my other posts, you'll find that I'm absolutely against job-entitlement. The impact of the removal of the internet on my abilities to do my job were merely for illustrative purposes. Feel free to replace me with anybody else, and my internet related activities with any other communication-based activities. As for part two... there was a reason I didn't want to get into this - this is becoming far more involved than I wanted. TOS replacing the law was not an assumption, it was a description of the current state of affairs. By definition, a TOS is a contract, signed by equal parties, with the force of law behind it as long as it doesn't contradict locally applicable law. The assumption is that if one party is unhappy with the application of the TOS, it can challenge the other party in a court of law. However, there is a massive discrepancy between the abilities of an individual to challenge the other party and the abilities of a corporation to do so. Because the odds are so uneven, challenge of the implementation of a contract is essentially reserved to the corporation, which means that this is less of a contract between equals and more akin to the application of a government law (we'll focus on contract implementations, not blatant violations of the law in the contract). And now we're back to the original premise: if a service is provided by a monopoly (which is essentially what I'm faced with in California), and if said service is not provided in an adequate manner, what are my options? If I want the service, I can suck it up. Or I can live without the service. But in practical terms, I do not have the choice of demanding contract arbitration, as I can't afford it. Nor is it likely that I have the ability to affect the corporation otherwise, as I am by definition outside of its target market, which it is likely to ignore.
As with freedom, absolutely nothing guarantees you an easy way to do any other thing you might wish to do. Where do you get the idea that you are entitled to any of this (other than that guaranteed by law)?
Ah - now we're getting to the crux of the matter. "Other than that guaranteed by law." If you really want to get back to basics, no one is entitled to anything. All laws (religious or secular) are nothing more than agreements by people to follow common rules, with the understanding that the curtailing of one's actions are a) reciprocated, and b) for the greater good of the society. The famous social contract, in essence. Government laws are the embodiment of said agreements, where the group is arbitrarily defined. To make sure that you agree to the laws, you are given both a stake in the process and the ability to change them - or at least change the makers of the laws. Contracts, and their subcategory of TOS, are agreements that are supposed to be between equal parties which have
But offensive ideas come in all shapes and sizes and do not just contain curse words, racial epithets, and naked people doing wacky stuff, etc.
I don't think that I stated anywhere that offensive speech only involves cursing or sex.:)
Yes, so long as you live in a place where it is guaranteed by law. No one outside of the elected ruling body or other guarantor has to make it easy to exercise, though.
I challenge that. To take your example of what offensive speech is, ease of exercise can be defined very narrowly (no one has killed you while you were delivering your speech) or very widely (your potential for access has to be identical to the potential of access for all other speeches).
Here is why corporate limitations on free speech are actually worse than governmental limitations: I can vote our government out. I can't vote a corporation out (I won't get into the debate that votes are identical to dollars in many different ways). Does this mean that corporations have to subsidize my attempts at exercizing my speech? No. But if corporate TOS essentially replace government laws for services that by now are considered essential for the functioning of society (I would not be able to do my job using just intranets and regular mail), they ought to be the same, for their impact is the same (again, I won't go into the debate on why mere threats of lawsuits have the same impact as actual laws these days).
Physics nazi mode on: the extra momentum would not impact the hard disk. The only thing that actually changes is the total momentum of the iPod, not the momentum of the hard disk. The only thing the extra momentum harms is whatever it falls on. However, what could be a problem is that there is no soft plastic to absorb part of the impact energy. This could all get transferred directly to the hd, in which case it could indeed be affected. But that's a question of what kind of deceleration the hd can withstand, how it is hooked internally to the case, and what other components can fail because of deceleration (ok, ok, negative acceleration).
Yeah, I used to think like that as well. Free speech doesn't apply to corporations or private web sites and all that.
However, do you really want to live in a place where Freedom of Speech is merely a hypothetical idea rather than a practical truth? Is the US really a better place than China, Russia or any other country when freedom of speech only exists when it doesn't offend anyone? Do you have freedom of speech if anyone can shut down your speech?
Occupation implies that the occupying forces have some sort of say in the running of the country. If Germany would find any US MP or GI Joe doing any kind of enforcing of laws or military action (outside of cooperative wargames) inside Germany, the US would have hell to pay.
Officially, the occupation of Germany ended in 1990 (see wikipedia), but practically, it ended in 49, when the Federal Republic of Germany was created.
Maybe you should doublecheck the source for your reality.
Good point that we don't know everything about what has happened, and that the independent investigators could have been a bit too independent. However, I'm a firm believer in leaders being responsible for the decisions made by their subordinates. Furthermore, I have a hard time believing that the investigation was started by Dunn calling up the investigation agency, saying "Hi, we're having a leak that we'd like to find", and then hanging up. If this was as important to her as everyone makes it sound like, she would have gotten regular progress reports, including what's being done to find the leak. At best, I can see her saying "I don't care how you do it, just find the leak," which is an implicit confirmation that any methods are fair game - at which point she is responsible for the methods of investigation. You're right, we don't know enough about what actually happened. But I'd say the odds are very, very low for her to have just been blindsided by her investigators.
Regarding the topic of the wealthy getting away with murder, I didn't mean that the wealthy should automatically be more scrutinized. What I meant was that, given the high probability (in my opinion - see above) that Dunn knew what was going on, it is astounding that she is simply asked to give up her title. If it would have been a grunt who was suspected of having authorized the same actions, I'm confident he would have at the very least been placed on forced leave.
As for whether the law is different for those who have more, no. That's not the case. It does mean though that the wealthy can afford legal counsel that is far beyond what mere mortals can afford. The end result is unfortunately that the law might as well be written differently for the very wealthy, as the impact of it on them is much, much different.
Lastly, the topic of misfortune - while it is indeed commonly used to mean something bad happened, the something bad is generally understood to be something outside the control of the person. A bad crop infestation, maybe. An account who runs of with the business money. Or friends who borrowed your car to do a drug run. While all could potentially have been prevented by the person in question, it is also unrealistic to assume that they can control everything around them. What happened to Dunn though is very unlikely to have been 'misfortune' in that sense. As I said earlier, I find it very unlikely that she simply had no clue what methods the investigators were using. Someone had to at least authorize the release of personal information, such has home phone numbers and SSNs, and for that, she bears full responsibility. She might be able to successfully argue in court that she didn't know the details and would have stopped the investigators if she did, but again, that doesn't pass the smell test.
In short, you're right that we don't know everything there is to know, and no one has proven anything. But the story stinks to high heaven, and I'll be very surprised if anything comes out that changes the smell. At best, I expect lots of legal arguments about what was known and what could have been known - and that's where her money essentially guarantees her the safe passage that is not available to average people.
I know you're going for the funny angle here, but it just isn't true. "Forty percent of most frequent game players are under eighteen years old." In other words, the majority of frequent gamers is over 18.
It's actually worse than that. ATMs have to work because it is in everyone's interest to have them work flawlessly. User who use them, corporations who own them and manufacturers who produce them are all united in their desire to have machines that do not fail (or at least, fail rarely enough that it does not cause a massive confidence breach). For voting machines though, there are many people who don't care if they work (incumbents), people who care that they don't work properly (anyone who wants to rig an election) and people who just chalk it up to 'puters being weird (all the end users). The end result is the charade we're getting now: systems that are so fundamentally flawed that all elections that use them cannot be trusted.
Quite frankly, the state of the current voting machines is the #1 reason why I care less and less about voting. Why bother if I don't even know if the machines will be operational, if they actually work as advertised and if the people administrating them know how to administrate them?
She succeeded in that, but to her misfortune, wasn't able to get it done in a manner that would be legal and wouldn't cause major heat from the media
So you're saying she was just unlucky that her methods were illegal? I'm sorry, but what planet did you just come from? Dude, the entire fucking point of the uproar is that she did ILLEGAL stuff to accomplish her goals. Not only that, but for you and me, that means at least a significant fine (like 3-4 years worth of salary) and a trip to the slammer. But, if you are rich and powerful enough, it just means you get to relinquish a title.
Those are the fucking problems. Not that she had the misfortune to choose illegal methods. Nitwit.
Depends on your body composition. I can't gain weight for all the weight training in the world - my muscles just aren't designed for fast twitch. Put me on an aerobic exercise path though, and I gain muscle mass fairly quickly - just not beyond a certain threshold, and certainly not muscle that'll make me Mr Universe.
So while we are on the topic of not jumping to conclusions, let's analyze this even further. China is known to have classified weather reports for specific regions as being a national secret. The US, on the other hand, has (yet) to do anything as egregious as that. So the majority's initial reaction to this is not any indication of bias - it is merely an indication that the Chinese government has a history of defining things in a way that would get the US government thrown out in a blood bath (electoral or literal).
Now, is this anything new? No. It's just the official codification of what has long been standard practice in Chinese Media. Only now, foreign media will be subject to the same constraints. After all, can't have the Olympic games be marred by reports of poverty, riots, suppression or discussion of non-government approved topics.
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Nice. The "everyone sucks except us" approach, also known as xenophobia, nationalism or even (shock) racism. Who modded this insightful? Tell me something - who is American, and how do you know? Who deserves to play on your team - Native Americans, Jonestown people, the kid born here from illegal Mexican immigrants, the Bulgarian physicist who was just naturalized?
It's people like you who make me embarrassed to be an American. Stop giving the rest of us a bad name and get the hell out of my country.
I can confirm this. I've worked with a couple of Indian outsourcers, and I can tell you that your chance of getting a quality product back is slim. They buy licenses on the cheap (much less than what they need), skimp on their internal training, and hire people who might be nice, but not necessarily the brightest of the bunch. By now, I'm quite confident that while I can't compete with them on price, the quality that I deliver is far above what they can offer.
My response when I hear that stuff is being outsourced to India? Bring it on. Sooner or later, doing stuff on the cheap is going to bite people, and they will (and have) paid me good money to fix their stuff.
.... when coming across the name of the scientist - Mrs Beavers? The jokes are endless. :)
Because the action of the plant is not simply grow towards tomato plant/do not grow towards tomato plant. The dodder has the options of growing slightly to the right of the tomato, slightly to the left of it, up, down, away from it, slightly away from it.... and I'm missing about a million more options. Given the odds of growing towards the same smell twice in a row, which are about 1 million squared (you get the idea), we can safely assume that there is a specific process involved here. No need to repeat the same thing 1 million times.
You're right, the points I raised are not fundamentally new issues that are strictly tied to RFID chips. However, it is much easier to exploit these existing issues with RFID chips. Want to get the passport information from 100 people in an hour? Stand in the subway next to people arriving at any international terminal. Same thing with data on the passport. Yes, there's plenty of correlation out there already (though nothing on credit cards - at least not the dumb magnetic stripe ones). But that doesn't mean I want more of it.
Good points. However, there are two issues with electronic passports:
1) Someone can still read it remotely, and get access to all kinds of personally identifying information. Yes, you have to get close, but it still is quite possible. Ever seen pickpockets at work? They manage to *remove* your wallet without you noticing it. Considering the potential damage that can result from someone getting their hands on your passport, I'd rather not make it easier for people to access them.
2) You don't know what's on your passport. Yes, there are commercial RFID readers out there. Yes, you can probably buy one. Yes, you might even get it to work properly. But at what cost? Besides, is there any encrypted information on there? I'm sure the friendly US government won't give you access to the data on it. As for the dangers of what's on there... it will basically work like a permanent tag that people will trust completely. Just as an example of how easy it is to screw with these things, my current passport is a replacement for a lost one. However, some nitwit in database entry decided to mark my current passport as lost. Which means that everytime I enter the country, I get to sit for 45 minutes in the special triage section of customs and immigration. And it can't be fixed either - I asked several times.
In short, there is little benefit for me, but a whole lot of risk. I most likely will just fry my RFID chip when I get my new passport.
Ugh... there is so much horrible misinformation being bandied around as "fact" in this entire discussion that I'll only focus on the obvious and easy parts.
Strong AI: the computer is not merely a tool in the study of the mind; rather, the appropriately programmed computer really is a mind. (John Searle - see Wikipedia entry).
Weak AI: computers will only ever be able to reason about specific subsets of knowledge for which they have been preprogrammed, and certainly won't become self-aware.
There have been massive philosophical discussions around whether strong AI is impossible by definition or not, and I'll just let you start with the wikipedia entry to get you started: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strong_AI.
The rest of the post is not a reply to the parent, but merely a general rebuttal to the tripe that's been thrown around so far.
Futurologist: fancy word for someone who thinks what the future may be like. This can be anything from what the federal deficit will be like in 5 years and its impact on the US economy, to what Lunar Colonies might look like and when they might come about. Saying that all futurologists are bunk is about as shortsighted as saying that all future is unknowable, so there's no point in trying to predict it. The value of the futurologist's predictions hinges on his/her methodology and the arguments advanced in their favor. If you want to argue that real terminators won't happen, strong AI won't be around in 2020 or that yogurt won't ever be smart, fine. Do it. But do it by debating the arguments, not by waving your hands and saying that all futurologists are stupid anyway.
Brain: the brain is actually a fairly weak computer. It operates at a frequency of about 05. to 30 Hertz. Transmission speed is limited by the speed of the chemical cascades at the neural interfaces. Its storage capacity has been estimated to be anywhere between 1 Terabyte and about 1000 terabytes. Its saving grace is that it has about 10-100 trillion connections (not neurons, connections) for 20-50 billion neurons, which all operate in parallel. This means that there are lots of things that the brain is really good at that computers suck at, and vice versa. In short, it's like comparing apples and oranges. Literally.
Predictions and modeling: what's with the recent habit of disregarding all predictions you don't agree with, just because someone, somewhere, in a similar field made some predictions that turned out to be wrong? That's just the zenith of arrogance and intellectual laziness. It means that not only do you inherently assume that your opinion is inherently superior to all other arguments, but also that you don't need to bother with actually educating yourself about the topic you're discussing. Nice.
Eh, I'll stop here. Lunch break's over.
I want the 5 minutes of my life back that I spent reading through that badly-written drivel. The only thing worse would have been the same stuff in an audio or video format. Ugh.
To save others from the same pain, here's a quick summary: the vast majority of iPod integrations work either by pretending the iPod is a CD changer, or by sending RDS (radio data stream, I think - it's the stuff that piggybacks song info onto the AM/FM signal) to the radio. Which means they all still suck. It's cumbersome to navigate stuff and you don't get the info you expect (songname, etc). We get promises that next year, everything will be better, but we heard all that stuff last year already.
In short, if you want to use your iPod in your car now, use your headset. And if you live in California, just hope the cops don't catch you.
OK - don't want to hear about Betamax? There's also Memorystick, ATRAC, MiniDisk and UMD. 4 formats, all proprietary, all exclusive to Sony, all designed for consumer lock-in. The sooner Sony dies, the happier I am.
Ah... if it only was that easy. Unfortunately, Chinese have a vastly different idea of country, government and what gives a government the right to govern its people. Watch the Jet-Li movie Hero (or any of the other Chinese kung-fu flicks) to get an idea of that. Yeah, yeah, movies aren't reality, but they do give you an idea of the mindset of the target audience.
Personally, I don't see the current government changing very much. As long as prosperity improves, as long as there's plenty of opportunity to make a buck and as long as the oppression isn't too high-strung, everything will carry on as it is now. I expect Taiwan to be assimilated before the current government structure will change.
Yup, there are. Google for a slow-down of the North Atlantic Current. It's slowing down, which is generally thought to be the prelude for a complete stoppage.
I have mod points, but there is no -1, wrong option. Shame, really. Because really, all you've proven that you don't know how climatology works, what triggered the tsunami in the Phillipines, what the temperature statistics for the last 10 summers were, or that killing every person on this planet is the same as bringing about the end of the world for the human race. The only one more ignorant than you is whoever modded you insightful.
Not only that, but an actual expert in the field contradicted Sagan and made a correct prediction. I'd say that science is working quite well.
You missed the point. During an election, the government is legally required to tabulate my vote. It is irrelevant whether it is the deciding vote. However, a company can ignore the fact that I'm spending money elsewhere. As a matter of fact, it is the common procedure for a company to ignore a large chunk of the population in a given geographical area. You are confusing witholding money with voting for someone in an either/or election. Furthermore, you are ignoring the problem of monopolies. If there's only one company providing a specific service, I can't vote against it - I can merely withold my money. This is similar to not voting at all; and we all know how ineffective that is in changing anything.
I disagree, but not enough to actually argue about it. Point taken.
Very true. But that's not what matters. The problem is that by definition, my state government and the federal government *has* to listen to me when I vote. They cannot toss my ballot out because it doesn't match their needs or desires. On the other hand, a corporation is perfectly capable (both legally and practically) of ignoring my dollar vote. And if I'm part of a market fringe group, it is actually demanded of the corporation that it ignores me. This is why there is a significant difference between government and corporate actions - one I am legally entitled to influence, the other can be easily compelled to ignore me.
First off, no. If you actually look through my other posts, you'll find that I'm absolutely against job-entitlement. The impact of the removal of the internet on my abilities to do my job were merely for illustrative purposes. Feel free to replace me with anybody else, and my internet related activities with any other communication-based activities. As for part two... there was a reason I didn't want to get into this - this is becoming far more involved than I wanted. TOS replacing the law was not an assumption, it was a description of the current state of affairs. By definition, a TOS is a contract, signed by equal parties, with the force of law behind it as long as it doesn't contradict locally applicable law. The assumption is that if one party is unhappy with the application of the TOS, it can challenge the other party in a court of law. However, there is a massive discrepancy between the abilities of an individual to challenge the other party and the abilities of a corporation to do so. Because the odds are so uneven, challenge of the implementation of a contract is essentially reserved to the corporation, which means that this is less of a contract between equals and more akin to the application of a government law (we'll focus on contract implementations, not blatant violations of the law in the contract). And now we're back to the original premise: if a service is provided by a monopoly (which is essentially what I'm faced with in California), and if said service is not provided in an adequate manner, what are my options? If I want the service, I can suck it up. Or I can live without the service. But in practical terms, I do not have the choice of demanding contract arbitration, as I can't afford it. Nor is it likely that I have the ability to affect the corporation otherwise, as I am by definition outside of its target market, which it is likely to ignore.
Ah - now we're getting to the crux of the matter. "Other than that guaranteed by law." If you really want to get back to basics, no one is entitled to anything. All laws (religious or secular) are nothing more than agreements by people to follow common rules, with the understanding that the curtailing of one's actions are a) reciprocated, and b) for the greater good of the society. The famous social contract, in essence. Government laws are the embodiment of said agreements, where the group is arbitrarily defined. To make sure that you agree to the laws, you are given both a stake in the process and the ability to change them - or at least change the makers of the laws. Contracts, and their subcategory of TOS, are agreements that are supposed to be between equal parties which have
Physics nazi mode on: the extra momentum would not impact the hard disk. The only thing that actually changes is the total momentum of the iPod, not the momentum of the hard disk. The only thing the extra momentum harms is whatever it falls on. However, what could be a problem is that there is no soft plastic to absorb part of the impact energy. This could all get transferred directly to the hd, in which case it could indeed be affected. But that's a question of what kind of deceleration the hd can withstand, how it is hooked internally to the case, and what other components can fail because of deceleration (ok, ok, negative acceleration).
Yeah, I used to think like that as well. Free speech doesn't apply to corporations or private web sites and all that.
However, do you really want to live in a place where Freedom of Speech is merely a hypothetical idea rather than a practical truth? Is the US really a better place than China, Russia or any other country when freedom of speech only exists when it doesn't offend anyone? Do you have freedom of speech if anyone can shut down your speech?
Occupation implies that the occupying forces have some sort of say in the running of the country. If Germany would find any US MP or GI Joe doing any kind of enforcing of laws or military action (outside of cooperative wargames) inside Germany, the US would have hell to pay.
Officially, the occupation of Germany ended in 1990 (see wikipedia), but practically, it ended in 49, when the Federal Republic of Germany was created.
Maybe you should doublecheck the source for your reality.
Good point that we don't know everything about what has happened, and that the independent investigators could have been a bit too independent. However, I'm a firm believer in leaders being responsible for the decisions made by their subordinates. Furthermore, I have a hard time believing that the investigation was started by Dunn calling up the investigation agency, saying "Hi, we're having a leak that we'd like to find", and then hanging up. If this was as important to her as everyone makes it sound like, she would have gotten regular progress reports, including what's being done to find the leak. At best, I can see her saying "I don't care how you do it, just find the leak," which is an implicit confirmation that any methods are fair game - at which point she is responsible for the methods of investigation. You're right, we don't know enough about what actually happened. But I'd say the odds are very, very low for her to have just been blindsided by her investigators.
Regarding the topic of the wealthy getting away with murder, I didn't mean that the wealthy should automatically be more scrutinized. What I meant was that, given the high probability (in my opinion - see above) that Dunn knew what was going on, it is astounding that she is simply asked to give up her title. If it would have been a grunt who was suspected of having authorized the same actions, I'm confident he would have at the very least been placed on forced leave.
As for whether the law is different for those who have more, no. That's not the case. It does mean though that the wealthy can afford legal counsel that is far beyond what mere mortals can afford. The end result is unfortunately that the law might as well be written differently for the very wealthy, as the impact of it on them is much, much different.
Lastly, the topic of misfortune - while it is indeed commonly used to mean something bad happened, the something bad is generally understood to be something outside the control of the person. A bad crop infestation, maybe. An account who runs of with the business money. Or friends who borrowed your car to do a drug run. While all could potentially have been prevented by the person in question, it is also unrealistic to assume that they can control everything around them. What happened to Dunn though is very unlikely to have been 'misfortune' in that sense. As I said earlier, I find it very unlikely that she simply had no clue what methods the investigators were using. Someone had to at least authorize the release of personal information, such has home phone numbers and SSNs, and for that, she bears full responsibility. She might be able to successfully argue in court that she didn't know the details and would have stopped the investigators if she did, but again, that doesn't pass the smell test.
In short, you're right that we don't know everything there is to know, and no one has proven anything. But the story stinks to high heaven, and I'll be very surprised if anything comes out that changes the smell. At best, I expect lots of legal arguments about what was known and what could have been known - and that's where her money essentially guarantees her the safe passage that is not available to average people.
I know you're going for the funny angle here, but it just isn't true. "Forty percent of most frequent game players are under eighteen years old." In other words, the majority of frequent gamers is over 18.
It's actually worse than that. ATMs have to work because it is in everyone's interest to have them work flawlessly. User who use them, corporations who own them and manufacturers who produce them are all united in their desire to have machines that do not fail (or at least, fail rarely enough that it does not cause a massive confidence breach). For voting machines though, there are many people who don't care if they work (incumbents), people who care that they don't work properly (anyone who wants to rig an election) and people who just chalk it up to 'puters being weird (all the end users). The end result is the charade we're getting now: systems that are so fundamentally flawed that all elections that use them cannot be trusted.
Quite frankly, the state of the current voting machines is the #1 reason why I care less and less about voting. Why bother if I don't even know if the machines will be operational, if they actually work as advertised and if the people administrating them know how to administrate them?
So you're saying she was just unlucky that her methods were illegal? I'm sorry, but what planet did you just come from? Dude, the entire fucking point of the uproar is that she did ILLEGAL stuff to accomplish her goals. Not only that, but for you and me, that means at least a significant fine (like 3-4 years worth of salary) and a trip to the slammer. But, if you are rich and powerful enough, it just means you get to relinquish a title. Those are the fucking problems. Not that she had the misfortune to choose illegal methods. Nitwit.
Depends on your body composition. I can't gain weight for all the weight training in the world - my muscles just aren't designed for fast twitch. Put me on an aerobic exercise path though, and I gain muscle mass fairly quickly - just not beyond a certain threshold, and certainly not muscle that'll make me Mr Universe.
So while we are on the topic of not jumping to conclusions, let's analyze this even further. China is known to have classified weather reports for specific regions as being a national secret. The US, on the other hand, has (yet) to do anything as egregious as that. So the majority's initial reaction to this is not any indication of bias - it is merely an indication that the Chinese government has a history of defining things in a way that would get the US government thrown out in a blood bath (electoral or literal).
Now, is this anything new? No. It's just the official codification of what has long been standard practice in Chinese Media. Only now, foreign media will be subject to the same constraints. After all, can't have the Olympic games be marred by reports of poverty, riots, suppression or discussion of non-government approved topics.