Following your argument a small country like Hungary with 10M people has no chance for its own affordable market based TV programming. It is true that a lot of foreign crap is shown, but there are programs (movies) for Hungarian only audience.
The people (actors, reporters, directors, technicians etc.) making the less popular shows still will be able to make a decent living. Oke, maybe not millions a year, but is that such a big concern?
I am not sure. It was seated in a speaker system (made by Apple) and we did not handle the player that much. It had the round wheel thing, with a screen size of about 35-40% of the front panel.
It has a trackpoint like button/stick. What annoyed me in the beginning is that to switch from music to radio you need to press and hold this button and then select the station/music. (I did not read the manual...)
Otherwise the music is arranged in a dictionary tree. A click (quick press of the stick) gives 3 options (pressed on a directory): expand, play (whole directory) add to list. A right movement expends the directory right away. Up down can be used to select the right entry. The laft movement goes up the tree.
When a song is playing, a press goes up the tree, while laft rewinds the song (with speed per your options). This is a little nuance at first, that is you need to press to go up, while a long press takes you to the root of the tree where you can select the radio as well. You will rewind the song a few times before getting used to the different behaviour depending on whether you sit on a song or a directory.
A friend of mine has Linux installed on it, I guess one can design their own interface. He also claims improved battery life from this switch.
I guess I am different. In the local dance studio the teacher uses an iPod so with my fiancee we are exposed to the interface. We both find it quite annoying. The looks of the player is good though. I have an iAudio X5, I give that a 7 out of 10, while the iPod may earn a 4 perhaps. (The iAudio X5 is technically superior for my use.)
I use OGG because it is: open and free, better compression, quality (I use -q7). The only downside is that decoding ogg is sligthly more energy consuming on my iAudio.
Note that no causation has been established yet. That is, the 'mental flexibility' is only claimed to be a *marker* for liberalism.
It is possible that mental flexibility results in liberal thinking, but it is also possible that a conservative political influence (say through upbringing) may decrease the mental flexibility. Or that there is no causation but both are tied to age as you suggest.
The effect of the age could be studied, if say in 10 years they would repeat the study with the same subjects and see whether aging makes someone more conservative *and* whether the brain activity changes.
I conjecture that family background and/or religion is a much stronger influence on 'mental flexibility' than age.
When printing was discovered copies of the Bible were made and those who printed, distributed stocked these copies were prosecuted (for example burned, cooked in oil etc.). The sermon's at the time were in Latin only and the ruling elite (in the church) was not interested in changing that. They did not want people translate the Bible, interpret it etc. etc.
I do not believe so, but one may make the argument that the Scientology leaders want to avoid the misinterpretation of their teachings. I do not buy the argument though that you can only understand the text through them and their auditing or whatever. Since they refused to publish thir stuff others did.
My bad. I should have mentioned discrimination. I consider it wrong (and stupid) to deny service because of the browser's name or who wrote it etc. The browser should only be required to advertise its compliance to the standard it implements. That is not tenable today: some websites deny service simply if you do not report being IE.
Privacy: a state in which one is not observed or disturbed by others. (English is not my native language, I am just trying to use it.)
Web sites do observe your browser type, maybe your OS too. The fact that you can easily fool them does not mean the intent was not there.
I wonder why websites were allowed to inquire about the type of the browser to begin with. That should be 1. impossible (technically) 2. illegal (because of privacy)
We would loose the 'insightful' browser statistics as well, but would you really care?
Of course the problem started with web developers and companies who had no incentive, environment and/or skill to write standard compliant code.
How should I refer to the GPL licence if I want to release my project under the *latest* GPL version only (without editing all the source files)? I do not want to say that GPLv3 or later *at your option*. When a new verion is released I want the latest GPL version apply to that new version. Even better would be if I could force the use of the latest GPL version in effect at the time of redistribution. Would this work:
"This program is licenced under the latest version of the GPL licences."
Is the phrase latest version well defined in the legal sense?
Maybe the FSF should set up a web page always pointing to the full text of the latest GPL version and I could include a link to that.
Publicize the list of companies, (managers) who did not hire them. If a company steps forward with a reason* other than the forum for not hiring them remove them from the list. (*Or with firing the head of HR etc.)
Subtly suggest that prospective clients should look at companies other than those listed... From the comments on slashdot I think many would honor such a list.
How did get the parent moderated insightful? Or maybe I am missing something about the phrase "get to have... obeyed"?
A legal order issued by police should be followed. One may ask: What about an illegal order? The short answer is: no. You do not have to follow an illegal order. However, the legality may be disputed and until the question is resolved, expect the police to assume that they are right, and arrest you for not following the order.
Example 1: consider an order that would physicaly endanger yourself or another human being (say kick or punch another protester , eat or drink something harmful etc.) that order you would be very right to disobey. (You will be arrested and hopefully cleared and the cop(s) involved prosecuted.)
Example 2: consider that you are ordered to hand over the keys to your car, though there is no search warrant and probable cause (note that this latter may be argued in court for hours, while the officer and you has seconds to decide), or that you turn of your camera or cell phone without any law asking you to do so. If you disobey you will be arrested, confined and probably not charged and soon released.
Note that in example 2 you may not even win a false arrest charge, since the arrest was for disobeying a direct police order. I guess that a good lawyer could show that the arrest was solely based on the illegal police request to begin with; the police will try to claim they also felt threatened by your conduct (nebulous) etc., litigating this will not worth your time and money. The difference with example 1 is the scope, litigating that one will be (hopefully) done by the DA and the false arrest will be the least of problems of the officer(s) in question.
Also consider, what will happen in example 2. If you do not hand over your car keys, they may also search your person, or if the car opens with a number code say or you throw the key into the nearest gutter, then just force the car open causing damage. Same for the camera. Notice that in the story the videographer followed the order and turned off the device. (It was very funny though how the officer tried and could not figure out the camera off switch.) The officer was correct in pointing out that the camera could get damaged if they have to turn it off.
So what should you do in situations like this (example 2)? First, note that the videographer may have achieved his goal: a youtube video and even a spot on TV.
In the camera case turn off the camera. I would say you have about 10 seconds to do this, and may say while the tape running that you contest/dispute the legality of the order, but that you will obey. Once the camera turned off, ask for the officers identification (write it down as an old fashioned journalist using pen and paper) ask what law he was intending to enforce. Ask clarification on where and when you can resume taping. Hand over the legal material describing your position.
In an ideal world the officer will be impressed by you following his order and will stop yelling at you. He will consider what you said and showed him. Then he either allows you continue taping or will say (if he is clever) that he follows the instructions of his superiors on this matter. At this point you ask for his superior's contact, and try to get an interview and get your fame that way.
In the car example you take your keys out and offer opening the car yourself while also clearly stating that you do not consent to the search. Make sure you and the officer are both in the visible range of the camera installed in the officer's car when you say that you do not consent.
Do not look for confrontation with a police officer. When stopped, turn off the radio/music, remove your sunglasses, keep your hand on the wheel. Show respect.
I had no real serious dealings with police, but had traffic stops. (I got warnings for speeding in both cases.) The officer asked why I was speeding, was there a medical or other emergency! That impressed
> This is one of the reasons I can't vote Democrat. I really don't need mommy to tell me to wear a seatbelt.
The seatbelt protects *not* only the person wearing it. In accidents of medium impact, without the seatbelt the driver may become completely incapacitated (knocked unconscious) and lose the ability (chance) to avoid another impact (maybe more fatal) or other danger. This effects the other drivers on the road (and the passengers if there are any).
I cannot comment on whether the seatbelt is a Democrat or Republican idea really (I am not a US voter). Let us assume that it is indeed a Democrat thing. Some friends of mine say they can't vote Republican, because of the way the war on terror and the war in Iraq is handled. I humbly suggest you cite some other reasons for not voting Democrat than the seatbelt issue, because it might sound somewhat lightweight or even ridiculus in comparison to the war one.
The signal does not 'travel'; it is a wave. Look at a water wave and observe that the particles only oscillate around a midpoint. Only information travels. If Manitoba wants to stop that information propagating through their airspace, they should buy a giant tinfoil hat!
I guess that from now on we will have to say that the selfish jerks suffer from a mental disease instead. They will be called the Altruistically Challenged.
> Which would require a major restructuring of the internet. Mail gets thrown all over the place and taxing someone just because they are the first server touched and not the source or destination will not fly.
Yes to restructuring. Introducing taxation where tax has not been collected before is expected to have costs. Ever wondered how much of the tax paid is spent on administering the collection and administration efforts?
>>Or they will tax the recipient for email received.
>And exactly how will this be accomplish for something like gmail or hotmail? What about email hosting services that are off shore (e.g. for example the hanmail my inlaws used that is hosted in Korea) and are accessed via http?
Google and Microsoft would be paying. The customers only use http and only pay if http is taxed (a possiblity which was not mentioned). Say good bye to free webmail! The offshore solution works and would not be taxed by the US IRS. Note that the email in that case need not enter a US server (as an email) as you pointed out.
>>US bills similarly for cell phone use (the called party also pays).
>this is way different...
Both makes the same amount of sense to me. You just got used to the cell phone billing practice already.
>>I would not mind at all a 1c tax on outgoing email.
>Ahh but you yourself just said its more likely to bill *incoming* emails.
I did not ponder about the likelyhood of any implementation. (And watch out for the use of 'its'.) My original text: "Or they will tax the recipient for email received. That sounds pretty bad,..." was not intended to imply that that solution has higher probability when implementations are considered. I am sorry if I was mistaken, English is my second language.
>>Let the spammers pay, and let the IRS get rid of the spammers when they evade paying.
>The IRS has *zero* jurisdiction over spammers hosting in China. it will only hurt Individuates and Legit Business that need email.
The Chinese spammer would have hard time getting its spam accepted at a US server. I imagined an analogy with paper mail. If a Chineses letter has inadequate postage on it, I assume that it will not make it to a US address. It might not even be returned, but simply dumped. So if a Chinese email is not accompanied by proof of payment it would be just ignored.
By the way legit business send paper mail cheaper than the regular rate. I would assume that a similar system would evolve with email. The key word is legitimate, so that the company can be held accountable for the email it sent. That does not appear to be the case today.
Like for regular mail, they would probably levy the tax when the email is first handled by a US based server. Or they will tax the recipient for email received. That sounds pretty bad, but not without precedent: the US bills similarly for cell phone use (the called party also pays).
I would not mind at all a 1c tax on outgoing email. Let the spammers pay, and let the IRS get rid of the spammers when they evade paying. As soon as money is involved in hunting down spammers (unpaid tax) spammer hunting could become quite lucrative. I am drooling just at the thought!
I would call the Honda bellow average but not having abysmal ratings (the best of the above 3). Interesting that the Toyota has better Crashworthiness but worse "Injury, Collision, & Theft Indicators" than the Chevrolet.
The idea is to move to 3D. (It is assumed that no two roads are being parallel. This was omitted in the original post.)
Assign a bird to each ranger flying exactly over their head, while all four of them rise with the same speed. Because of this latter condition, the birds are at the same heights all the time and so the rangers meet if and only if their birds do. Consider the birds' line of travel in 3D. Since A, B and C's bird meet each other their lines must lie on the same plane (or meet in one point, but in that extreme case it is easy to see that the rangers meet in a single point as well). The line of travel for the bird assigned to D meets A and B's birds travel line establishing that the line is again in the same above mentioned plane. Therefore, D's bird meets C's bird as well and therefore the rangers must meet too!
The above argument appears to be about some semantical issue regarding what is math. Good luck on that one.
To appreciate 3D solve this problem (presented in 2D, no mistake there!!!): Four rangers A, B, C and D walk on four straight roads with constant speeds. We know that A meets B, C and D. We also know that B meets the others. Prove that C and D also will (or did) meet!
Thanks Skljarsky, Tsentsov, Jaglom! This is one of the most beautiful elementary problem (and solution). No coordinate geometry is necessary, solution is about 5 sentences.
> The amount of wealth in the world is NOT like a tank of water which, when the valves are opened, empties out and distributes the water all around. It's more like a large set of fountains fed by a small set of pumps. And corporate America isn't opening valves to let the water (money?) flow all around. They're taking sledgehammers to the pumps because they stupidly believe that by doing so, they'll get more than their fair share of the water. For the first few hits, they get doused pretty well, and they think "look at all this water! Hit it again!" But then the pumps shut down and that's the end of that.
To clarify, you mean that: the US is guarding the few pumps (and does not let new ones to be set up) and that is where its wealth originates from?
> able to do this due to a number of cultural and structural factors that aren't replicated anywhere else. For example, among all the people in the world, we are easily the most independent minded, the least bound by dogma and tradition (at least when it comes to science and technology). Our inventors have a "what the hell, let's give it a shot" mindset you won't find in many other places.
This must be a different country than the US. The religous right has a strong grip on politics IMO. Have you heard that stem cell research and Kyoto is blocked by the president? Has this been going on in the last couple of years only and not decades?
[I am late to respond, maybe the parent poster will read this...]
> There are no new job booms beyond tech now, because of offshoring.
You mean in the US, since you mentioned bio- and nanotech.
I think I understand what you are saying, but consider my view for a second. In recent history (20th century) the US population was very lucky: consumed more, enjoyed more luxury than what they worked for. Ye, ye I heard that they were more efficient yadda-yadda, it is just not so. The US started to ride a lot on (exploit unfairly) it being the strongest world power. Now that other contenders are coming up the inevitable sobering happens. The US population put in less than what they took out (whole Earth) etc. Outsorcing and globalization will bring the US down and bring others up.
I came to the US from Europe. Some of my peers from my home country work more (and less enjoyable jobs) for less money. (Meanwhile I make less than some who are doing less than me here in the US.) My sister is a CRA (clinical research assistant), she makes about 60% of what the same position pays in the US. And get this: the prices are the same for food, clothes, utilities, movies if not higher for her. To be fair, education is free (till the first masters degree) and there is universal healtcare so that health expenses do not bankrupt people, but taxes are about the double (or more) of what I pay in the US. (And by the way, my syster has just changed jobs for a 40% increase in salary: she was hired by an American company, so she earned very much below US standards. Note that it is not outsourcing, since her work could not be done by somebody living in the US, she must be located near the patients/doctors.)
I look around: people still drive enormous cars. I just bought a new vehicle and noticed that most of the cars have at least an 1.8L engine. No new houses built with less than 4 bedrooms in my area. WHY? Maybe, the US economy is based on unsustainable consumption. A correction is needed in habits regarding money management and buying habits.
And yes, it bothers me that CEO-s , high management get insanely large compensation (they take out more than what they put in); basketball coach making 1 million, Seinfeld 1 million per episode (I love Seinfeld!). I am not too bothered though. I just wish that the guy who will discover the cure for AIDS or malaria or Alzheimers etc will make that much money, however I fear that the CEO of the drug company and its(!) ilk will make all the profit. And then I did not even mention that the high school biology teacher of said researcher should deserve some more compensation too... We are rewarding the wrong people...
The process will be gradual, to protect your interests you need to be politically active: do not let corporations rule the country. Fight for decent treatment of workers all around the world: the reason outsorced labor is cheap is because they do not have the same level of public services and/or they are "slaves" to some extent. You see, if we do not fight for this global justice, then it will hurt us via the outsorcing.
I hope that I can still prove that I am very good at what I do, that I will be able to adapt as needed. I want to put in more than what I take out, but not much more.
Good luck to you, and I hope you will be able to look at these issues with some optimism in the future.
I just bought a new car (will pick it up when the foglights are installed).
I chose the 2007 Honda Civic EX Coupe with manual transmission. (I currently drive a 1998 Civic LX.) I said to myself that the following matters: safety, reliability, environmental impact, looks; in this order. (Notice, that price was not there.)
To be honest I realized that I am a tree-hugger and the excellent fuel efficiency alone would have steered me to this model. And of course price matters.
I test drove a Lexus of similar dimensions, because I wanted to know whether there is any more to those luxary cars than "prestige". (Lexus IS 250) I found that the engine are hardly noticable in both models (Honda/Lexus) and that the road noise dominates, it is slightly more on the Honda Civic. The comfort features of the Lexus were nice, especially: digital AC setting (and adjustable for front/back) seat has push button 8-way adjustment (probably with memory) compared to 6-way manual adjustment, the cup holders, compartments are more classy and open close nicer in the Lexus, mirror compas (optional for the Civic though) etc. I just would not pay 10K+ for these features. I do not need the 2.4L engine and the reduced mileage, that is not needed for my luxury. (When I was a child my father drove a 26hp car!!)
And actually the driver's visibility is excellent (better) in the civic (The door frame is in the way in most cars, at least for me.)
I was surprised that the highway mileage numbers are 38 for the manual transmission and 40 for the automatic. The manual used to beat automatic hands down. (I love manual by the way, makes me feel I *drive*, this is kind of similar to command line versus gui, Linux versus Windows/Mac.) This gave me a pause and made me consider automatic for a bit. I talked this over with my Dad, who used to inspect car shops to ensure they follow the mandated procedures. He said that indeed the automatics are getting better and beat some humans, but not all. I hope I will get better than 40mpg. By the way, my '98 Civic gets 32-36mpg with AC on 90% of the time (Texas...).
I did not get a hybrid after reading up on the total environmental impact. I support the hybrid effort though and hope that it will improve much further.
I will still test drive a BMW or a Mercedes just for fun and to see how much in their price the prestige factor contributes. It is my theory that they just have to raise the price so that fewer people will be able to buy it: if >30% of the population could afford a model, then it cannot be a luxury...
I got the impression that the gag order became the more stressful aspect, he writes:
"Living under the gag order has been stressful and surreal. Under the threat of criminal prosecution, I must hide all aspects of my involvement in the case -- including the mere fact that I received an NSL -- from my colleagues, my family and my friends. When I meet with my attorneys I cannot tell my girlfriend where I am going or where I have been."
I wonder who can issue a gag order in the USA? An answer from a lawyer would be appreciated. It appears that the FBI thinks that they can issue gag orders without a judge's approval. I hope that a violation of such order is viewed leniently at least by a judge if not a jury. (On the other hand, violating the gag order may result in a terrorism charge and hence a loss of the right to the normal judicial process; and you do not want to wait 4+ years in military prison while Congress/Supreme Court/President figures the process out for you.)
He also complains that he was forced to lie:
"When clients and friends ask me whether I am the one challenging the constitutionality of the NSL statute, I have no choice but to look them in the eye and lie."
I wonder why that is. Does the gag order describe this in detail? Why cannot you stay silent and say nothing or say that you are not allowed to discuss the matter based on your attorney's advice? (Using the latter form if you consult an attorney about this, which I certainly would do.)
My point is: can any (even judge underwritten) gag order force you to actively protect the information by telling a lie? What if your religion instructs you not to lie? I have no exact numbers how popular such religions are in the USA, but some are surely affected...:-;
The teacher's union and the the group of teachers complacent with the Kentucky decision have lost my respect. They force me to stop arguing for the Texas's teacher's right to unionize and in general for higher pay for teachers.
My advice to the 60% qualified group is: 1. Seize control of the union 2. If that fails try to work for private schools 3. Or get a different (better paying) job and volunteer if you cannot do without the thrill and satisfaction provided by teaching.
It seems the system needs a reboot and patching is not going to do it anymore.
I also thought that teacher's pay cannot go lower so what is the 40% are afraid of? Oh, I get it: with differential pay the competition would replace them with qualified applicants...
Slashdot Mirror
Following your argument a small country like Hungary with 10M people has no chance for its own affordable market based TV programming. It is true that a lot of foreign crap is shown, but there are programs (movies) for Hungarian only audience.
The people (actors, reporters, directors, technicians etc.) making the less popular shows still will be able to make a decent living. Oke, maybe not millions a year, but is that such a big concern?
I am not sure. It was seated in a speaker system (made by Apple) and we did not handle the player that much. It had the round wheel thing, with a screen size of about 35-40% of the front panel.
It has a trackpoint like button/stick. What annoyed me in the beginning is that to switch from music to radio you need to press and hold this button and then select the station/music. (I did not read the manual...)
Otherwise the music is arranged in a dictionary tree. A click (quick press of the stick) gives 3 options (pressed on a directory): expand, play (whole directory) add to list. A right movement expends the directory right away. Up down can be used to select the right entry. The laft movement goes up the tree.
When a song is playing, a press goes up the tree, while laft rewinds the song (with speed per your options). This is a little nuance at first, that is you need to press to go up, while a long press takes you to the root of the tree where you can select the radio as well. You will rewind the song a few times before getting used to the different behaviour depending on whether you sit on a song or a directory.
A friend of mine has Linux installed on it, I guess one can design their own interface. He also claims improved battery life from this switch.
I guess I am different. In the local dance studio the teacher uses an iPod so with my fiancee we are exposed to the interface. We both find it quite annoying. The looks of the player is good though. I have an iAudio X5, I give that a 7 out of 10, while the iPod may earn a 4 perhaps. (The iAudio X5 is technically superior for my use.)
I use OGG because it is: open and free, better compression, quality (I use -q7). The only downside is that decoding ogg is sligthly more energy consuming on my iAudio.
Note that no causation has been established yet. That is, the 'mental flexibility' is only claimed to be a *marker* for liberalism.
It is possible that mental flexibility results in liberal thinking, but it is also possible that a conservative political influence (say through upbringing) may decrease the mental flexibility. Or that there is no causation but both are tied to age as you suggest.
The effect of the age could be studied, if say in 10 years they would repeat the study with the same subjects and see whether aging makes someone more conservative *and* whether the brain activity changes.
I conjecture that family background and/or religion is a much stronger influence on 'mental flexibility' than age.
When printing was discovered copies of the Bible were made and those who printed, distributed stocked these copies were prosecuted (for example burned, cooked in oil etc.). The sermon's at the time were in Latin only and the ruling elite (in the church) was not interested in changing that. They did not want people translate the Bible, interpret it etc. etc.
I do not believe so, but one may make the argument that the Scientology leaders want to avoid the misinterpretation of their teachings. I do not buy the argument though that you can only understand the text through them and their auditing or whatever. Since they refused to publish thir stuff others did.
My bad. I should have mentioned discrimination. I consider it wrong (and stupid)
to deny service because of the browser's name or who wrote it etc. The browser
should only be required to advertise its compliance to the standard it implements.
That is not tenable today: some websites deny service simply if you do not report
being IE.
Privacy: a state in which one is not observed or disturbed by others.
(English is not my native language, I am just trying to use it.)
Web sites do observe your browser type, maybe your OS too. The fact that you can
easily fool them does not mean the intent was not there.
I wonder why websites were allowed to inquire about the type of the browser to begin with. That should be
1. impossible (technically)
2. illegal (because of privacy)
We would loose the 'insightful' browser statistics as well, but would you really care?
Of course the problem started with web developers and companies who had no incentive, environment and/or skill to write standard compliant code.
How should I refer to the GPL licence if I want to release my project under the *latest* GPL version only (without editing all the source files)? I do not want to say that GPLv3 or later *at your option*. When a new verion is released I want the latest GPL version apply to that new version. Even better would be if I could force the use of the latest GPL version in effect at the time of redistribution. Would this work:
"This program is licenced under the latest version of the GPL licences."
Is the phrase latest version well defined in the legal sense?
Maybe the FSF should set up a web page always pointing to the full text of the latest GPL version and I could include a link to that.
My suggestion for the victims:
Publicize the list of companies, (managers) who did not hire them. If a company steps forward with a reason* other than the forum for not hiring them remove them from the list. (*Or with firing the head of HR etc.)
Subtly suggest that prospective clients should look at companies other than those listed... From the comments on slashdot I think many would honor such a list.
How did get the parent moderated insightful? Or maybe I am missing something about the phrase "get to have ... obeyed"?
A legal order issued by police should be followed. One may ask: What about an illegal order? The short answer is: no. You do not have to follow an illegal order. However, the legality may be disputed and until the question is resolved, expect the police to assume that they are right, and arrest you for not following the order.
Example 1: consider an order that would physicaly endanger yourself or another human being (say kick or punch another protester , eat or drink something harmful etc.) that order you would be very right to disobey. (You will be arrested and hopefully cleared and the cop(s) involved prosecuted.)
Example 2: consider that you are ordered to hand over the keys to your car, though there is no search warrant and probable cause (note that this latter may be argued in court for hours, while the officer and you has seconds to decide), or that you turn of your camera or cell phone without any law asking you to do so. If you disobey you will be arrested, confined and probably not charged and soon released.
Note that in example 2 you may not even win a false arrest charge, since the arrest was for disobeying a direct police order. I guess that a good lawyer could show that the arrest was solely based on the illegal police request to begin with; the police will try to claim they also felt threatened by your conduct (nebulous) etc., litigating this will not worth your time and money. The difference with example 1 is the scope, litigating that one will be (hopefully) done by the DA and the false arrest will be the least of problems of the officer(s) in question.
Also consider, what will happen in example 2. If you do not hand over your car keys, they may also search your person, or if the car opens with a number code say or you throw the key into the nearest gutter, then just force the car open causing damage. Same for the camera. Notice that in the story the videographer followed the order and turned off the device. (It was very funny though how the officer tried and could not figure out the camera off switch.) The officer was correct in pointing out that the camera could get damaged if they have to turn it off.
So what should you do in situations like this (example 2)? First, note that the videographer may have achieved his goal: a youtube video and even a spot on TV.
In the camera case turn off the camera. I would say you have about 10 seconds to do this, and may say while the tape running that you contest/dispute the legality of the order, but that you will obey. Once the camera turned off, ask for the officers identification (write it down as an old fashioned journalist using pen and paper) ask what law he was intending to enforce. Ask clarification on where and when you can resume taping. Hand over the legal material describing your position.
In an ideal world the officer will be impressed by you following his order and will stop yelling at you. He will consider what you said and showed him. Then he either allows you continue taping or will say (if he is clever) that he follows the instructions of his superiors on this matter. At this point you ask for his superior's contact, and try to get an interview and get your fame that way.
In the car example you take your keys out and offer opening the car yourself while also clearly stating that you do not consent to the search. Make sure you and the officer are both in the visible range of the camera installed in the officer's car when you say that you do not consent.
Do not look for confrontation with a police officer. When stopped, turn off the radio/music, remove your sunglasses, keep your hand on the wheel. Show respect.
I had no real serious dealings with police, but had traffic stops. (I got warnings for speeding in both cases.) The officer asked why I was speeding, was there a medical or other emergency! That impressed
> This is one of the reasons I can't vote Democrat. I really don't need mommy to tell me to wear a seatbelt.
The seatbelt protects *not* only the person wearing it. In accidents of medium impact, without the seatbelt the driver may become completely incapacitated (knocked unconscious) and lose the ability (chance) to avoid another impact (maybe more fatal) or other danger. This effects the other drivers on the road (and the passengers if there are any).
I cannot comment on whether the seatbelt is a Democrat or Republican idea really (I am not a US voter). Let us assume that it is indeed a Democrat thing. Some friends of mine say they can't vote Republican, because of the way the war on terror and the war in Iraq is handled. I humbly suggest you cite some other reasons for not voting Democrat than the seatbelt issue, because it might sound somewhat lightweight or even ridiculus in comparison to the war one.
The signal does not 'travel'; it is a wave. Look at a water wave and observe that the particles only oscillate around a midpoint. Only information travels. If Manitoba wants to stop that information propagating through their airspace, they should buy a giant tinfoil hat!
I guess that from now on we will have to say that the selfish jerks suffer from a mental disease instead. They will be called the Altruistically Challenged.
> Which would require a major restructuring of the internet. Mail gets thrown all over the place and taxing someone just because they are the first server touched and not the source or destination will not fly.
Yes to restructuring. Introducing taxation where tax has not been collected before is expected to have costs. Ever wondered how much of the tax paid is spent on administering the collection and administration efforts?
>>Or they will tax the recipient for email received.
>And exactly how will this be accomplish for something like gmail or hotmail? What about email hosting services that are off shore (e.g. for example the hanmail my inlaws used that is hosted in Korea) and are accessed via http?
Google and Microsoft would be paying. The customers only use http and only pay if http is taxed (a possiblity which was not mentioned). Say good bye to free webmail! The offshore solution works and would not be taxed by the US IRS. Note that the email in that case need not enter a US server (as an email) as you pointed out.
>>US bills similarly for cell phone use (the called party also pays).
>this is way different...
Both makes the same amount of sense to me. You just got used to the cell phone billing practice already.
>>I would not mind at all a 1c tax on outgoing email.
>Ahh but you yourself just said its more likely to bill *incoming* emails.
I did not ponder about the likelyhood of any implementation. (And watch out for the use of 'its'.) My original text: "Or they will tax the recipient for email received. That sounds pretty bad,..." was not intended to imply that that solution has higher probability when implementations are considered. I am sorry if I was mistaken, English is my second language.
>>Let the spammers pay, and let the IRS get rid of the spammers when they evade paying.
>The IRS has *zero* jurisdiction over spammers hosting in China. it will only hurt Individuates and Legit Business that need email.
The Chinese spammer would have hard time getting its spam accepted at a US server. I imagined an analogy with paper mail. If a Chineses letter has inadequate postage on it, I assume that it will not make it to a US address. It might not even be returned, but simply dumped. So if a Chinese email is not accompanied by proof of payment it would be just ignored.
By the way legit business send paper mail cheaper than the regular rate. I would assume that a similar system would evolve with email. The key word is legitimate, so that the company can be held accountable for the email it sent. That does not appear to be the case today.
Like for regular mail, they would probably levy the tax when the email is first handled by a US based server. Or they will tax the recipient for email received. That sounds pretty bad, but not without precedent: the US bills similarly for cell phone use (the called party also pays).
I would not mind at all a 1c tax on outgoing email. Let the spammers pay, and let the IRS get rid of the spammers when they evade paying. As soon as money is involved in hunting down spammers (unpaid tax) spammer hunting could become quite lucrative. I am drooling just at the thought!
> Just be aware, Hondas prior to 2000 or so have abysmal crash ratings (I don't know about Toyotas.)
y ear/1998/make/HONDA/model/CIVIC/trim_id/1998HOND4D FCIVIC_LX
y ear/1998/make/TOYOTA/model/COROLLA
y ear/1998/make/CHEVROLET/model/CAVALIER/trim_id/199 8CHEV4DFCAVALIER
Honda Civic 1998 (I own one, and I just got a 2007):
http://www.carfax.com/car_safety/ratings/SRR.cfm/
Toyota Corolla 1998:
http://www.carfax.com/car_safety/ratings/SRR.cfm/
Chevrolet Cavallier 1998:
http://www.carfax.com/car_safety/ratings/SRR.cfm/
I would call the Honda bellow average but not having abysmal ratings (the best of the above 3). Interesting that the Toyota has better Crashworthiness but worse "Injury, Collision, & Theft Indicators" than the Chevrolet.
The idea is to move to 3D. (It is assumed that no two roads are being parallel. This was omitted in the original post.)
Assign a bird to each ranger flying exactly over their head, while all four of them rise with the same speed. Because of this latter condition, the birds are at the same heights all the time and so the rangers meet if and only if their birds do. Consider the birds' line of travel in 3D. Since A, B and C's bird meet each other their lines must lie on the same plane (or meet in one point, but in that extreme case it is easy to see that the rangers meet in a single point as well). The line of travel for the bird assigned to D meets A and B's birds travel line establishing that the line is again in the same above mentioned plane. Therefore, D's bird meets C's bird as well and therefore the rangers must meet too!
Thanks for your interest.
The above argument appears to be about some semantical issue regarding what is math. Good luck on that one.
To appreciate 3D solve this problem (presented in 2D, no mistake there!!!):
Four rangers A, B, C and D walk on four straight roads with constant speeds. We know that A meets B, C and D. We also know that B meets the others. Prove that C and D also will (or did) meet!
Thanks Skljarsky, Tsentsov, Jaglom! This is one of the most beautiful elementary problem (and solution). No coordinate geometry is necessary, solution is about 5 sentences.
> The amount of wealth in the world is NOT like a tank of water which, when the valves are opened, empties out and distributes the water all around. It's more like a large set of fountains fed by a small set of pumps. And corporate America isn't opening valves to let the water (money?) flow all around. They're taking sledgehammers to the pumps because they stupidly believe that by doing so, they'll get more than their fair share of the water. For the first few hits, they get doused pretty well, and they think "look at all this water! Hit it again!" But then the pumps shut down and that's the end of that.
To clarify, you mean that: the US is guarding the few pumps (and does not let new ones to be set up) and that is where its wealth originates from?
> able to do this due to a number of cultural and structural factors that aren't replicated anywhere else. For example, among all the people in the world, we are easily the most independent minded, the least bound by dogma and tradition (at least when it comes to science and technology). Our inventors have a "what the hell, let's give it a shot" mindset you won't find in many other places.
This must be a different country than the US. The religous right has a strong grip on politics IMO. Have you heard that stem cell research and Kyoto is blocked by the president? Has this been going on in the last couple of years only and not decades?
[I am late to respond, maybe the parent poster will read this...]
> There are no new job booms beyond tech now, because of offshoring.
You mean in the US, since you mentioned bio- and nanotech.
I think I understand what you are saying, but consider my view for a second. In recent history (20th century) the US population was very lucky: consumed more, enjoyed more luxury than what they worked for. Ye, ye I heard that they were more efficient yadda-yadda, it is just not so. The US started to ride a lot on (exploit unfairly) it being the strongest world power. Now that other contenders are coming up the inevitable sobering happens. The US population put in less than what they took out (whole Earth) etc. Outsorcing and globalization will bring the US down and bring others up.
I came to the US from Europe. Some of my peers from my home country work more (and less enjoyable jobs) for less money. (Meanwhile I make less than some who are doing less than me here in the US.) My sister is a CRA (clinical research assistant), she makes about 60% of what the same position pays in the US. And get this: the prices are the same for food, clothes, utilities, movies if not higher for her. To be fair, education is free (till the first masters degree) and there is universal healtcare so that health expenses do not bankrupt people, but taxes are about the double (or more) of what I pay in the US. (And by the way, my syster has just changed jobs for a 40% increase in salary: she was hired by an American company, so she earned very much below US standards. Note that it is not outsourcing, since her work could not be done by somebody living in the US, she must be located near the patients/doctors.)
I look around: people still drive enormous cars. I just bought a new vehicle and noticed that most of the cars have at least an 1.8L engine. No new houses built with less than 4 bedrooms in my area. WHY? Maybe, the US economy is based on unsustainable consumption. A correction is needed in habits regarding money management and buying habits.
And yes, it bothers me that CEO-s , high management get insanely large compensation (they take out more than what they put in); basketball coach making 1 million, Seinfeld 1 million per episode (I love Seinfeld!). I am not too bothered though. I just wish that the guy who will discover the cure for AIDS or malaria or Alzheimers etc will make that much money, however I fear that the CEO of the drug company and its(!) ilk will make all the profit. And then I did not even mention that the high school biology teacher of said researcher should deserve some more compensation too... We are rewarding the wrong people...
The process will be gradual, to protect your interests you need to be politically active: do not let corporations rule the country. Fight for decent treatment of workers all around the world: the reason outsorced labor is cheap is because they do not have the same level of public services and/or they are "slaves" to some extent. You see, if we do not fight for this global justice, then it will hurt us via the outsorcing.
I hope that I can still prove that I am very good at what I do, that I will be able to adapt as needed. I want to put in more than what I take out, but not much more.
Good luck to you, and I hope you will be able to look at these issues with some optimism in the future.
I just bought a new car (will pick it up when the foglights are installed).
I chose the 2007 Honda Civic EX Coupe with manual transmission. (I currently drive a 1998 Civic LX.) I said to myself that the following matters: safety, reliability, environmental impact, looks; in this order. (Notice, that price was not there.)
To be honest I realized that I am a tree-hugger and the excellent fuel efficiency alone would have steered me to this model. And of course price matters.
I test drove a Lexus of similar dimensions, because I wanted to know whether there is any more to those luxary cars than "prestige". (Lexus IS 250) I found that the engine are hardly noticable in both models (Honda/Lexus) and that the road noise dominates, it is slightly more on the Honda Civic. The comfort features of the Lexus were nice, especially: digital AC setting (and adjustable for front/back) seat has push button 8-way adjustment (probably with memory) compared to 6-way manual adjustment, the cup holders, compartments are more classy and open close nicer in the Lexus, mirror compas (optional for the Civic though) etc. I just would not pay 10K+ for these features. I do not need the 2.4L engine and the reduced mileage, that is not needed for my luxury. (When I was a child my father drove a 26hp car!!)
And actually the driver's visibility is excellent (better) in the civic (The door frame is in the way in most cars, at least for me.)
I was surprised that the highway mileage numbers are 38 for the manual transmission and 40 for the automatic. The manual used to beat automatic hands down. (I love manual by the way, makes me feel I *drive*, this is kind of similar to command line versus gui, Linux versus Windows/Mac.) This gave me a pause and made me consider automatic for a bit. I talked this over with my Dad, who used to inspect car shops to ensure they follow the mandated procedures. He said that indeed the automatics are getting better and beat some humans, but not all. I hope I will get better than 40mpg. By the way, my '98 Civic gets 32-36mpg with AC on 90% of the time (Texas...).
I did not get a hybrid after reading up on the total environmental impact. I support the hybrid effort though and hope that it will improve much further.
I will still test drive a BMW or a Mercedes just for fun and to see how much in their price the prestige factor contributes. It is my theory that they just have to raise the price so that fewer people will be able to buy it: if >30% of the population could afford a model, then it cannot be a luxury...
I got the impression that the gag order became the more stressful aspect, he writes:
:-;
"Living under the gag order has been stressful and surreal. Under the threat of criminal prosecution, I must hide all aspects of my involvement in the case -- including the mere fact that I received an NSL -- from my colleagues, my family and my friends. When I meet with my attorneys I cannot tell my girlfriend where I am going or where I have been."
I wonder who can issue a gag order in the USA? An answer from a lawyer would be appreciated. It appears that the FBI thinks that they can issue gag orders without a judge's approval. I hope that a violation of such order is viewed leniently at least by a judge if not a jury. (On the other hand, violating the gag order may result in a terrorism charge and hence a loss of the right to the normal judicial process; and you do not want to wait 4+ years in military prison while Congress/Supreme Court/President figures the process out for you.)
He also complains that he was forced to lie:
"When clients and friends ask me whether I am the one challenging the constitutionality of the NSL statute, I have no choice but to look them in the eye and lie."
I wonder why that is. Does the gag order describe this in detail? Why cannot you stay silent and say nothing or say that you are not allowed to discuss the matter based on your attorney's advice? (Using the latter form if you consult an attorney about this, which I certainly would do.)
My point is: can any (even judge underwritten) gag order force you to actively protect the information by telling a lie? What if your religion instructs you not to lie? I have no exact numbers how popular such religions are in the USA, but some are surely affected...
The teacher's union and the the group of teachers complacent with the Kentucky decision have lost my respect. They force me to stop arguing for the Texas's teacher's right to unionize and in general for higher pay for teachers.
My advice to the 60% qualified group is:
1. Seize control of the union
2. If that fails try to work for private schools
3. Or get a different (better paying) job and volunteer if you cannot do without the thrill and satisfaction provided by teaching.
It seems the system needs a reboot and patching is not going to do it anymore.
I also thought that teacher's pay cannot go lower so what is the 40% are afraid of? Oh, I get it: with differential pay the competition would replace them with qualified applicants...