There are numerous cases going through the federal court system seeking to strike down enforcement through speed cam as a violation of due process law, since the owner is given a fine without proof he was actually driving the vehicle. I think this is why all the articles I've read state that the authorities controlling these things don't put it onto your MVR -- they know people will stomp them flat in court and people are less likely to challenge them if it's "just a 50 to 100 dollar fine, not worth the hassle, i'll just pay it".
There is an earlier ruling from 2007 which struck down such cams, but google is dominated by a recent decision (the 9th) in a federal district court in ohio that stated the things were constitutional.
Personally, I think it's a corrupt judge, as the lack of due process is glaring.
The parties involved plan to go with this all the way to the supreme court if necessary, and my guess is it will, in the end, get struck down as unconstitutional. This is not some "politicized" issue, it's a clear cut case of state abuse.
For those who are infuriated by the idea of speed cams, I know for a fact Georgia has made it illegal for municipalities to install them.
'For a while now, readers have had the best of both worlds: all the benefits of the old, high-profit regime â" intensive reporting, experienced editors, and so on â" and the low costs of the new one. But that situation can't last. Soon enough, we're going to start getting what we pay for, and we may find out just how little that is.'
really? I thought that vanished in 1999
There has been very little fact checking or true investigation in reporting in quite some time, and I'm afraid you can't blame the internet for that.
Newspapers will not die though. Most of their stories are sourced from the same organizations which source on-line content (reuters, associated press, et al), and they will continue on in their ineptitude and failure to fact check or investigate, as usual.
FWIW, I myself prefer a national sales tax (with all bare necessities exempted for everyone) replacing the income taxes.
oh, so you're for massive tax cuts for the rich, and for heavily penalizing the middle class and poor, who often have to rely on debt to maintain their standard of living through the low points of the economic roller coaster.
I wonder how much faster the economic crash would have happened if everyone's credit card bills were 15 to 20% fatter.
you see, even though the wealthy consume more, they spend far far less relative to their income than "*name* the *profession*". The only thing "fair" about the so called "fair tax" is the growth of the wealthy's bank accounts, most of which will never be spent, simply sitting there earning interest.
Note though, that recent studies are leading to the conclusion that our capacity for empathy is what has advanced us so far over purely competitive species.
Indeed, these studies state that very few species are actually capable of empathy, and among those even fewer have dedicated neural structure for it. Humans are among this latter group.
I find this ironic given all these people claiming that "competition" and pseudo-anarchy will produce more advancement than regulations which help compel cooperation, especially given the glaring example of what a "pure, government free market" does in the form of somalia.
The OP suggests that "most people will opt for the free route" simply because the product is free. I would argue that due to overly restrictive DRM, people prefer the free route because "hacked" or pirated products are better.
This is the case for me (though the fact these mega-glomerates are in a vast conspiracy against a neutral internet and strangling the tech sector also helps a lot).
"rips" are DRM free, about 4 to 10 times more storage efficient, play anywhere without issues, and, freed from a disk, don't MURDER my laptop's battery life.
DVDs may be too mangled by DRM to back up, even with ripping tools. Both DVD and Blu-Ray will eat a laptop battery faster than pirana on a fresh carcass. Then there's the atrocity that is blu-ray. "Down-resing" and blacking people's screen? Raising the cost of our hardware considerably by using MS to dictate ludicrous hardware requirements? Destabilizing drivers and operating systems by making them incredibly difficult to write?
Steve jobs alluded to this in his statement on why mac has been slow to integrate blu-ray, albeit with a great deal more civility than anyone who has fallen victim to this scheme would be.
Pirated products are the better choice, and I have absolutely no sympathy for these companies when a few teenagers in their basements can encode their movies four times more efficiently while maintaining the same quality.
Every person on earth could "potentially" buy my new tennis shoe line, but if they don't, or if they buy a competing line, they're not "stealing" from me. (don't compare it to shoplifting, copying does not deprive the originator of inventory).
Additionally, those people consider the price too high. Since they've already optimized the price, they're not going to lower it. That is their problem, not a problem of piracy. They didn't implement differential pricing, and probably never will because of all the backlash it would cause by the people who pay "regular" price.
It's quite simple. Pirated copy or not, they would not have bought the game. To them, the convenience to price ratio is not good enough.
If someone is cut off in this manner, can they not sue the RIAA for malicious harassment?
I know the ISP agreements prevent breach of contract with ISP's, but the RIAA inciting this kind of customer abuse and denying them their rights in the process should produce a justified case.
Re:Does it always produce true responses?
on
Torture in Games
·
· Score: 1
well, the undead are "undead", they need to be made "dead".
as for ghosts, anyone who has seen WoW ghosts knows they're not ghosts at all, but cannon balls in disguise. You are merely removing the disguise.
this is the quest in question. While there's a similar one in the death knight starting zone, the NPC's there are armed, and are not strapped to a chair begging you to stop.
If you look at the response column the player base was squeamish enough to create forum threads in objection. As someone who browses the forum on occasion, the first couple weeks after the wrath of the lich king launch saw an explosion of similar threads.
I think it would be better to have you torture the npc in question multiple times, being sent on quests related to the false information extracted 3 or more times before they give up and have you investigate in other ways.
Given blizzard's record of making changes either schizophrenically or far too slowly, it could be a while before they make any changes, if at all.
I guess you will just have to check out the private fire companies that occurred in the US in the beginning. Do you even realize where they came from? The original fire department idea was started as part of fire insurance. Once you had the insurance you put a shield on your house that signaled they needed to put your fire out.
a fat lot of good it does to prevent property damage when the row house next door doesn't have insurance, allowing fires to burn out of control, then spread at maximum strength into your house, destroying anything before anyone can put out YOUR property.
face it, some things are better under government control, and smart regulation is the way to go in areas where considerable abuse is possible.
Funny how republicans and libertarians are selective about their supposed deregulations by only removing pro-consumer regulations btw.
In the US there is this idea of "the american dream"..
It's a myth, subscribed to by many, that in the US anyone can make whatever money they want to and achieve whatever they want to because of the freedom this country provides.
Almost without exception every person to achieve ultra-wealthy status in this country is mythologized in this way.
Their real childhood in privileged households is replaced by "hard scrabble poverty", the massive help and advantage they received through their parents or social circles is replaced by some story about "crawling up from nothing on their own blood and sweat".
There is also a philosophy born of several early sects in the US that god rewards his favorites with worldly wealth.
It follows, then, under this economic-religion, that anyone who is not making enough to cover their costs is lazy, not working hard enough, or is being punished by god for a sin, and does not deserve pity or assistance.
It's all a bunch of hogwash of course, but people still romanticise this, and it's in the interest of the powerful to purvey this myth as an excuse for policy at the expense of the general public.
the silent message is:
"if you vote for anything which undermines the current business structure, you may never be able to "claw your way up" and abuse it yourself"
Most people don't understand how it works at those income levels. In reality there are two types: 1 - inheritors. They never have to work again if they don't want to, but grew up around the people who will assure them easy access to top 0.5% income no matter their qualifications.
2 - black kinghts. They build up their businesses, which were started in almost every case with the help of upper-middle class (often higher income than that) progenitors, through sacrifice of everything else. They have very little time to themselves, and are burning twice as hard but half as long. They will die much younger than group 1, and their obsession with that success would overcome ANY barrier in any nation in which they resided. Their success has nothing to do with "american freedom" or american political policy, and is often IN SPITE of american political policy.
In other words: They myth of the american dream is just that: a myth!
Who says universal healthcare needs to be a government monopoly?
3 broad insurance regulations: 1 - flat rate, or progressive rate based on income (like taxes) 2 - must cover anyone who can pay the rate (under a progressive rate you may very well see some get it "free", much like the earned income tax credit is a negative tax) 3 - oversight officials will audit aggressively to assure you are not gouging.
Private companies have operated well in such regimes in other sectors, and they can in this one as well.
Ahh.. so what we should do is undermine the ability for someone permanently maimed or otherwise incapacitated by malpractice to retrieve compensation for the possible permanent assistance they will need for the rest of their lives?
You do know that universal healthcare would mitigate THAT aspect as well right?
Doctors are people, and people make mistakes. In a universal system people who suffer from those mistakes will be able to receive whatever care is necessary to mitigate that situation without further expense. Settlements would be considerably smaller.
think about it for a moment. Most people are crammed indoors on video games because those games are the only places left where certain risky or edgy behavior is legal.
Anything that can be done in a socialist system can be done in a free-enterprise one
let me know how those private police and fire companies do.
I sometimes lie awake at night thinking about how amazing it was that the free market gave rise to our interstate system, railroad system, military, and space programs.
I'm amazed at how columbus retained private funding to discover the new world.
Now let's go back to the real world, where government intervention has its place to preserve the public welfare by imposing a little stability and ensuring necessary services are available to more than simply the privileged few.
Any truly savvy, truly wealthy investor looking at the long term would be ALL FOR universal healthcare.
It removes this administrative concern and expense from the shoulders of corporations and small business, leveling the playing field in the competition for talent.
Additionally, productivity rises from people receiving proper preventive care, taking fewer sick days, and feeling better overall (many people will go to work sick several days before they consider taking time off).
Those who are against this are: A - pharmaceutical companies who will lose a fraction of their obscene profits if a national group plan were there to collectively bargain on the price of meds.
B - Medical supply companies who are likewise gouging for their products as an industry.
C - Private medical insurance providers who would not be allowed to gouge and discriminate against the american populace (NO, UNIVERSAL DOES NOT HAVE TO MEAN "STATE RUN" AT ALL, but it certainly will mean much heavier regulation for private healthcare providers)
D - any joe schmo they can get to believe their public spiel about "the nasty poor" "stealing" their "hard earned paychecks".
Do you honestly believe that crap? Do you think ER visits by uninsured people pay for themselves? If you don't think you're paying for other peoples' healthcare now, you need to think again.
Massive download. Check. OGG. Check. Torrent. Check. Christmas release. Check. All the geek's bases are covered. His sense of timing perfected. But does he have a movie that anyone else will be watching?
Exactly! Let me know when this airs on the CBC.
Until it's aired on "main stream" sets nationwide, or at least publicised somewhere OUTSIDE the circles which created it, it's not useful to the cause it advocates.
i think the biggest reason our side has been slowly but steadily losing ground is the refusal of most of these organizations to take a harder line.
Copyright cartels present dingbat-right outlook, these advocates present center-left, and because nobody puts the real far-left in their faces, legislators assume a good compromise is "Between" the two sides. (ever hear that old axiom: "You know you've ruled well when both sides are unhappy" ?)
You can't reverse existing momentum or gain momentum of your own without pulling against the current state of affairs. These organizations need to pull.
no, in the US ALL canadian parties are left-wing, which is why i want to move to canada.
Sadly it's too early in my career to allow me to do so, and i'm not going to get that "Skilled worker" experience when jobs are being slashed at 100k/mo
except that's not "effective" or "working" DRM at all, it's just a slot to put in different DRM every couple months, which has all the effectiveness of placing a thin aluminum sheet across a railroad track.
Multiple DRM systems in a row which each get cracked do not equate to a DRM system that "works", and decryption is not the only way around it either.
The rips will still show up on P2P networks, the infringing DVD's will still fly off the honk kong docks, etc.
I shift a LOT of data on my systems, and alter my files quite a bit on terabyte drives.
The idea that this "better" technology, which has lower performancefor the long sequential reads required for music and movie playback, could eventually be "hyped" into the market until i'm unable to find a spinning plate solution is quite scary.
SSD's should be included in systems as an AUGMENT to hard drives, but never as a replacement.
Most people who use their systems for media have long writes/reads as a routine task.
spinning platters are still better performance at this than SSD's.
While the hypesters are also playing with the numbers trying to make SSD's look as dependable as hard drives, i'm just not convinced.
SSD's should be integrated into systems for storage of program files and other data which complement their strengths, but they should not supplant the already cheaper storage solutions for applications in which they are weaker.
Slashdot Mirror
There are numerous cases going through the federal court system seeking to strike down enforcement through speed cam as a violation of due process law, since the owner is given a fine without proof he was actually driving the vehicle. I think this is why all the articles I've read state that the authorities controlling these things don't put it onto your MVR -- they know people will stomp them flat in court and people are less likely to challenge them if it's "just a 50 to 100 dollar fine, not worth the hassle, i'll just pay it".
There is an earlier ruling from 2007 which struck down such cams, but google is dominated by a recent decision (the 9th) in a federal district court in ohio that stated the things were constitutional.
Personally, I think it's a corrupt judge, as the lack of due process is glaring.
The parties involved plan to go with this all the way to the supreme court if necessary, and my guess is it will, in the end, get struck down as unconstitutional. This is not some "politicized" issue, it's a clear cut case of state abuse.
For those who are infuriated by the idea of speed cams, I know for a fact Georgia has made it illegal for municipalities to install them.
'For a while now, readers have had the best of both worlds: all the benefits of the old, high-profit regime â" intensive reporting, experienced editors, and so on â" and the low costs of the new one. But that situation can't last. Soon enough, we're going to start getting what we pay for, and we may find out just how little that is.'
really? I thought that vanished in 1999
There has been very little fact checking or true investigation in reporting in quite some time, and I'm afraid you can't blame the internet for that.
Newspapers will not die though. Most of their stories are sourced from the same organizations which source on-line content (reuters, associated press, et al), and they will continue on in their ineptitude and failure to fact check or investigate, as usual.
FWIW, I myself prefer a national sales tax (with all bare necessities exempted for everyone) replacing the income taxes.
oh, so you're for massive tax cuts for the rich, and for heavily penalizing the middle class and poor, who often have to rely on debt to maintain their standard of living through the low points of the economic roller coaster.
I wonder how much faster the economic crash would have happened if everyone's credit card bills were 15 to 20% fatter.
you see, even though the wealthy consume more, they spend far far less relative to their income than "*name* the *profession*". The only thing "fair" about the so called "fair tax" is the growth of the wealthy's bank accounts, most of which will never be spent, simply sitting there earning interest.
I was driving about when I heard this story on NPR.
I will be emailing them back through their feedback system with a link to this writeup.
I urge others to do the same.
Note though, that recent studies are leading to the conclusion that our capacity for empathy is what has advanced us so far over purely competitive species.
Indeed, these studies state that very few species are actually capable of empathy, and among those even fewer have dedicated neural structure for it. Humans are among this latter group.
I find this ironic given all these people claiming that "competition" and pseudo-anarchy will produce more advancement than regulations which help compel cooperation, especially given the glaring example of what a "pure, government free market" does in the form of somalia.
The OP suggests that "most people will opt for the free route" simply because the product is free. I would argue that due to overly restrictive DRM, people prefer the free route because "hacked" or pirated products are better.
This is the case for me (though the fact these mega-glomerates are in a vast conspiracy against a neutral internet and strangling the tech sector also helps a lot).
"rips" are DRM free, about 4 to 10 times more storage efficient, play anywhere without issues, and, freed from a disk, don't MURDER my laptop's battery life.
DVDs may be too mangled by DRM to back up, even with ripping tools.
Both DVD and Blu-Ray will eat a laptop battery faster than pirana on a fresh carcass.
Then there's the atrocity that is blu-ray. "Down-resing" and blacking people's screen? Raising the cost of our hardware considerably by using MS to dictate ludicrous hardware requirements? Destabilizing drivers and operating systems by making them incredibly difficult to write?
Steve jobs alluded to this in his statement on why mac has been slow to integrate blu-ray, albeit with a great deal more civility than anyone who has fallen victim to this scheme would be.
Pirated products are the better choice, and I have absolutely no sympathy for these companies when a few teenagers in their basements can encode their movies four times more efficiently while maintaining the same quality.
"Moral values" generally go out the window when you think you won't get caught.
statistically, only 13% of burglaries are ever solved. This has been spoken on the news and various prime-time crime shows for ages.
Robbery has not gone through the roof since this statistic started floating around.
Sorry, but "potential income" != income.
Every person on earth could "potentially" buy my new tennis shoe line, but if they don't, or if they buy a competing line, they're not "stealing" from me. (don't compare it to shoplifting, copying does not deprive the originator of inventory).
Additionally, those people consider the price too high. Since they've already optimized the price, they're not going to lower it. That is their problem, not a problem of piracy. They didn't implement differential pricing, and probably never will because of all the backlash it would cause by the people who pay "regular" price.
It's quite simple. Pirated copy or not, they would not have bought the game. To them, the convenience to price ratio is not good enough.
"The RIAA said it has agreements in principle with some ISPs, but declined to say which ones."
Because the ISP's know damn well what will happen when people find out who they are.
Someone needs to dig this up fast and post it far and wide.
When these ISP's are raped by class action lawsuits and face customers bailing in droves, you will see a different tune.
If someone is cut off in this manner, can they not sue the RIAA for malicious harassment?
I know the ISP agreements prevent breach of contract with ISP's, but the RIAA inciting this kind of customer abuse and denying them their rights in the process should produce a justified case.
well, the undead are "undead", they need to be made "dead".
as for ghosts, anyone who has seen WoW ghosts knows they're not ghosts at all, but cannon balls in disguise. You are merely removing the disguise.
this is the quest in question. While there's a similar one in the death knight starting zone, the NPC's there are armed, and are not strapped to a chair begging you to stop.
If you look at the response column the player base was squeamish enough to create forum threads in objection. As someone who browses the forum on occasion, the first couple weeks after the wrath of the lich king launch saw an explosion of similar threads.
I think it would be better to have you torture the npc in question multiple times, being sent on quests related to the false information extracted 3 or more times before they give up and have you investigate in other ways.
Given blizzard's record of making changes either schizophrenically or far too slowly, it could be a while before they make any changes, if at all.
I guess you will just have to check out the private fire companies that occurred in the US in the beginning. Do you even realize where they came from? The original fire department idea was started as part of fire insurance. Once you had the insurance you put a shield on your house that signaled they needed to put your fire out.
a fat lot of good it does to prevent property damage when the row house next door doesn't have insurance, allowing fires to burn out of control, then spread at maximum strength into your house, destroying anything before anyone can put out YOUR property.
face it, some things are better under government control, and smart regulation is the way to go in areas where considerable abuse is possible.
Funny how republicans and libertarians are selective about their supposed deregulations by only removing pro-consumer regulations btw.
In the US there is this idea of "the american dream"..
It's a myth, subscribed to by many, that in the US anyone can make whatever money they want to and achieve whatever they want to because of the freedom this country provides.
Almost without exception every person to achieve ultra-wealthy status in this country is mythologized in this way.
Their real childhood in privileged households is replaced by "hard scrabble poverty", the massive help and advantage they received through their parents or social circles is replaced by some story about "crawling up from nothing on their own blood and sweat".
There is also a philosophy born of several early sects in the US that god rewards his favorites with worldly wealth.
It follows, then, under this economic-religion, that anyone who is not making enough to cover their costs is lazy, not working hard enough, or is being punished by god for a sin, and does not deserve pity or assistance.
It's all a bunch of hogwash of course, but people still romanticise this, and it's in the interest of the powerful to purvey this myth as an excuse for policy at the expense of the general public.
the silent message is:
"if you vote for anything which undermines the current business structure, you may never be able to "claw your way up" and abuse it yourself"
Most people don't understand how it works at those income levels. In reality there are two types:
1 - inheritors. They never have to work again if they don't want to, but grew up around the people who will assure them easy access to top 0.5% income no matter their qualifications.
2 - black kinghts. They build up their businesses, which were started in almost every case with the help of upper-middle class (often higher income than that) progenitors, through sacrifice of everything else. They have very little time to themselves, and are burning twice as hard but half as long. They will die much younger than group 1, and their obsession with that success would overcome ANY barrier in any nation in which they resided. Their success has nothing to do with "american freedom" or american political policy, and is often IN SPITE of american political policy.
In other words: They myth of the american dream is just that: a myth!
Who says universal healthcare needs to be a government monopoly?
3 broad insurance regulations:
1 - flat rate, or progressive rate based on income (like taxes)
2 - must cover anyone who can pay the rate (under a progressive rate you may very well see some get it "free", much like the earned income tax credit is a negative tax)
3 - oversight officials will audit aggressively to assure you are not gouging.
Private companies have operated well in such regimes in other sectors, and they can in this one as well.
Ahh.. so what we should do is undermine the ability for someone permanently maimed or otherwise incapacitated by malpractice to retrieve compensation for the possible permanent assistance they will need for the rest of their lives?
You do know that universal healthcare would mitigate THAT aspect as well right?
Doctors are people, and people make mistakes. In a universal system people who suffer from those mistakes will be able to receive whatever care is necessary to mitigate that situation without further expense. Settlements would be considerably smaller.
isn't that already the case though?
think about it for a moment. Most people are crammed indoors on video games because those games are the only places left where certain risky or edgy behavior is legal.
Anything that can be done in a socialist system can be done in a free-enterprise one
let me know how those private police and fire companies do.
I sometimes lie awake at night thinking about how amazing it was that the free market gave rise to our interstate system, railroad system, military, and space programs.
I'm amazed at how columbus retained private funding to discover the new world.
Now let's go back to the real world, where government intervention has its place to preserve the public welfare by imposing a little stability and ensuring necessary services are available to more than simply the privileged few.
Any truly savvy, truly wealthy investor looking at the long term would be ALL FOR universal healthcare.
It removes this administrative concern and expense from the shoulders of corporations and small business, leveling the playing field in the competition for talent.
Additionally, productivity rises from people receiving proper preventive care, taking fewer sick days, and feeling better overall (many people will go to work sick several days before they consider taking time off).
Those who are against this are:
A - pharmaceutical companies who will lose a fraction of their obscene profits if a national group plan were there to collectively bargain on the price of meds.
B - Medical supply companies who are likewise gouging for their products as an industry.
C - Private medical insurance providers who would not be allowed to gouge and discriminate against the american populace (NO, UNIVERSAL DOES NOT HAVE TO MEAN "STATE RUN" AT ALL, but it certainly will mean much heavier regulation for private healthcare providers)
D - any joe schmo they can get to believe their public spiel about "the nasty poor" "stealing" their "hard earned paychecks".
Do you honestly believe that crap? Do you think ER visits by uninsured people pay for themselves? If you don't think you're paying for other peoples' healthcare now, you need to think again.
Massive download. Check. OGG. Check. Torrent. Check. Christmas release. Check. All the geek's bases are covered. His sense of timing perfected. But does he have a movie that anyone else will be watching?
Exactly! Let me know when this airs on the CBC.
Until it's aired on "main stream" sets nationwide, or at least publicised somewhere OUTSIDE the circles which created it, it's not useful to the cause it advocates.
I agree here.
i think the biggest reason our side has been slowly but steadily losing ground is the refusal of most of these organizations to take a harder line.
Copyright cartels present dingbat-right outlook, these advocates present center-left, and because nobody puts the real far-left in their faces, legislators assume a good compromise is "Between" the two sides. (ever hear that old axiom: "You know you've ruled well when both sides are unhappy" ?)
You can't reverse existing momentum or gain momentum of your own without pulling against the current state of affairs. These organizations need to pull.
no, in the US ALL canadian parties are left-wing, which is why i want to move to canada.
Sadly it's too early in my career to allow me to do so, and i'm not going to get that "Skilled worker" experience when jobs are being slashed at 100k/mo
except that's not "effective" or "working" DRM at all, it's just a slot to put in different DRM every couple months, which has all the effectiveness of placing a thin aluminum sheet across a railroad track.
Multiple DRM systems in a row which each get cracked do not equate to a DRM system that "works", and decryption is not the only way around it either.
The rips will still show up on P2P networks, the infringing DVD's will still fly off the honk kong docks, etc.
I shift a LOT of data on my systems, and alter my files quite a bit on terabyte drives.
The idea that this "better" technology, which has lower performancefor the long sequential reads required for music and movie playback, could eventually be "hyped" into the market until i'm unable to find a spinning plate solution is quite scary.
SSD's should be included in systems as an AUGMENT to hard drives, but never as a replacement.
Most people who use their systems for media have long writes/reads as a routine task.
spinning platters are still better performance at this than SSD's.
While the hypesters are also playing with the numbers trying to make SSD's look as dependable as hard drives, i'm just not convinced.
SSD's should be integrated into systems for storage of program files and other data which complement their strengths, but they should not supplant the already cheaper storage solutions for applications in which they are weaker.