being 'legally right' is moot. They are already carrying out secret operations against you.
I think you mean "They are already carrying out completely legal operations against you, using the legitimate and constitutional authority granted to them by a court of law," right?
You may not LIKE the authority they're given, but as the law stands today, they absolutely have every right to do it, and it *is* legal for them to do it. If you don't LIKE it, you should vote for legislative candidates who will promise to do something about the issue that concerns you. Or, become a candidate yourself, and educate your fellow citizens about the abuses of power you will correct when you're a representative or senator.
It is not placed "in your custody" any more than somebody losing their iPhone in a bar placed their iPhone in the "custody" of the bar owner. The bar owner didn't know that somebody left it there, it is not his responsibility to keep it safe and secure - until such time as he becomes aware of, and takes possession of, the lost / unclaimed property.
Under California Law, if you find lost / unclaimed property, you are obligated to keep it safe & secure, and make a legitimate attempt to find the owner - regardless of where you found it. If you cannot find the owner, or do not want to take responsibility for keeping it safe & secure until the proper owner is found, you are legally obligated to turn it over to the police.
If, after they (the police) search for an owner, they don't find one, they may then put the item up for auction, to recover the costs of storing & trying to find the owner.
As with the iPhone case, there is no such thing as "Finders Keepers" under the law. Any attempt to justify selling, destroying, or 'losing' a found item is on shaky legal ground, and will probably put you in hot water, legally speaking.
Good thing the people who showed up on this guy's doorstep were FBI agents, rather than cops who are usually "from lower income backgrounds, with a chip on their shoulder," then - right?
Because I'm pretty sure that people meeting the Special Agent requirements are going to make pretty solid money (entry level, agents will average ~60-70k), and also already have at least a 4-year degree, and in many cases, additional professional certifications.
All of which leads me to suggest that... your broad-brush characterizations of cops is: a) not applicable to FBI agents, and b) therefore irrelevant to this discussion, since it was federal agents from the FBI who showed up at the guy's house to retrieve their device. It wasn't a bunch of local BFE cops showing up going, "Give us the flashy thing or we'll pants you, NERD!"
Better example would be, you move to a location where there's no hospital, and they specifically tell you, "There's no hospital here, so if you get sick... well, you have to make your own arrangements." You "forget" to make those arrangements, and then demand that a nearby city send an ambulance to your house to transport you to the hospital.
The people *in* the city have fire service. This man doesn't live within the city limits, and has no county fire service available for him. As such, he has two choices: Pay for service from the city, or opt to spend nothing, but take his risk that a fire will destroy his house and he'll be unable to get help.
You may feel that the citizens are better served by accepting a tax to pay for fire service (and I would tend to agree with that assessment, personally), but clearly the citizens of South Fulton, TN disagree with that assessment, because they've put in place a situation where you can opt to NOT pay the tax, and bear the costs of your own risks.
It's a very clear tradeoff: "Pay less taxes, but you're on your own if you need fire services," or "Pay higher taxes, and have these services available." It's likely a prime reason many people move outside city limits. It saves money, but it increases your risk of catastrophic loss, too.
It's actually not as cut & dry as you seem to think, considering there are numerous conflicting opinions as to what powers the "General welfare" clause in the Constitution confers on the Federal government.
More to the point, even if everybody agreed that this *is* the purpose of the 'general welfare' clause, there'd also be a significant question of whether it's constitutional for the Federal government to say "people in Fulton TN must pay taxes to the state and county to support a state or county fire service."
I'm not sure how the state constitution of Tennessee reads, but I'd guess that there's probably similar conflicting interpretations there if any mention is made of "the general welfare."
Yes, and there is probably a county police force / sheriff's department which provides policing services to this guy, or some sort of jurisdiction sharing between town / city officers and the county surrounding their towns. Perhaps supported by state founds, or perhaps supported by funds that towns pay to the county government.
There is no such arrangement for firefighters today in this area. The firefighters *COULD* operate in similar fashion, but the laws are not currently written to make that a requirement.
As far as police not refusing to render assistance if you have unpaid speeding tickets, you're right - they won't refuse to aid you. But they will arrest you and haul you before a court that has the authority to extract payment from you after they render assistance.
Arson would require that they set the fire, and did so deliberately.
I think the crime you're looking for would more aptly be termed 'neglect' or 'negligence,' but then, you have to prove that there was an expectation that their job *would* entail providing services to everybody, and while your expectation may be that they should, apparently the state & local laws in Tennessee do not create that expectation for government at all.
It's an argument for changing the laws, and putting new people in place to write new / change existing laws, but you'd have a hard time proving neglect and negligence against people who are simply enforcing & upholding the laws as they are written there today.
People want really low taxes, but this is the result: really poor services.
That's not entirely accurate. More correctly, the result is: "People who are irresponsible and don't pay their bills get really poor service."
As a "responsible" person, the first thing I did when I signed a lease on the apartment I live in currently, was to call my insurance company and take out a renter's insurance policy. Then I called to set up electrical, cable, and phone service. If I lived in an area like what is described, the second thing I'd do after getting property insurance would be to call and set up my 'fire insurance' by paying the $75 fire coverage fee.
Low taxes with opt-in paid services are possible, but it presumes both a high degree of responsibility among the people living under this system, and the financial wherewithal to pay market rates for the services / insurance / fees.
My biggest concern would be with that latter clause - if it's possible (*demonstrably so,* not just "of course the government can, we're the government!") that the government can do the job cheaper/better/faster/more effectively than a patchwork of independent providers, then it would make sense to make it a centrally-managed service funded by tax money. However, I would not say that "requiring your citizens to be responsible for themselves" is necessarily a bad way of running things, and I'd say it's not entirely unreasonable to expect it.
Fair enough - and for what it's worth, I agree, Apple does exert a lot of control over what you may and may not do. The question of whether or not the control is insufferable is certainly debatable, but you're right - suggesting that it doesn't exist is incorrect.
BUT, I have a little faith, because from what I've seen, the long-term direction for Apple's products has been to remove restrictions on them, and expand the API / SDK functionality. I know that statement will draw lots of ire from the apple-bashers around here, but bear with me for a moment:
When iPhone was released, the only app dev option was web apps. A year later, they released the first version of the SDK. And the SDK and the iOS API set has only been polished, enhanced, and enlarged since then.
I think with most of Apple's products, you can see a trend, where they start fairly tightly controlled, and with a smaller subset of functionality ("No wireless. Less Space than a Nomad.") then geeks might expect, but with a high degree of 'fit and finish' detailing on the smaller subset of features. They seem to prefer starting with a small set of 'core' features, and polishing those to a shine, and then in future releases, they expand upon that functionality and allow more flexibility.
So, what we see is that Apple releases a 1.0 with what many tech-savvy folks consider "missing" features, and then they add to those over time, as they finalize a polished implementation: think copy/paste or multitasking in iOS. Take that out a few more steps, and I wouldn't be surprised to see Apple eventually expanding the ad-hoc install model to allow for some additional installation methods.
Now, you can get that with Android right now, but like you, I think the Android fragmentation and carrier control is going to eventually cause it a huge number of problems in the marketplace, where "Android" won't mean much, because each carrier will customize it and lock it down to the point that it'll be "a Verizon phone" or "a Sprint phone." I think the best chance for a coherent platform was Google pushing the Nexus One model, but it looks like they've scrapped that plan.
That seems to be a rather pointless "just 'cause I can" way of sending SMS messages. You can send them directly from your desktop using an AIM client on your desktop (send a message to +15554441234, or whatever phone number you want to connect to), and you can carry on an sms conversation right there without running down the battery of your phone.
regularly do as much as they can to the device to try to prevent jailbreaking.
In some circles, this is also known as "closing exploitable holes which can allow an attacker to gain root access to a device." And we actually tend to appreciate companies doing that.
If the iOS dev model is not for you, looks like you'd be happier working with Android & the Android Marketplace. Nobody's forcing you to buy or use iOS devices, and if you listen to the talk around here, Android is the way of the future anyway, so might as well start riding that wave early, right?
Looks like somebody's confusing "infrequently-used" with "never".:(
The number of times I've *ever* wanted a printout of something while not at home or work where I have a printer connected to my desktop computer, I could probably count on the fingers of one hand. So why do you see a dire and immediate *need* for printer support on a device that is primarily intended as: 1) A companion device to a desktop / laptop computer; 2) Aimed squarely at mobile usage?
Personally, I'd much rather see Apple focus on robustness of the features they do implement, rather than throwing every half-baked feature they can think of into the OS in an attempt to make some imaginary feature checklist longer. I'm sure printing will be "nice to have" the one or two times I'll ever need it, but I sincerely doubt I'd miss it if it never appeared in the device, because I can easily print a document from my desktop at home or at work if I need to, and I'm not going to carry a printer with me "just in case" when I'm away from my desktop anyway.
LMAO at printing being a "feature"
Since when is printing not a "feature" of a computing device? And if you're saying it's not a feature... why the fuck do you care if the iPad can't print then?
Because it's incomplete & unreleased. Until it's released, we can dream of all the AWESOME features it's going to have, like free, on-demand hookers and a beer tap.
Then we'll actually see it and realize that, functionally, it's just another web browser. But single-use devices are *awesome* when they're open source. Not like those locked-down one-trick ponies Apple sells at all.
Stop crying. Take your lumps when you're not funny, instead of bitching that other people lack a sense of humor.
The whole point was it's not a "new medical condition caused by stupid user tricks." It's a known medical condition being caused by an unexpected source - like if kids started developing scurvy because their schools only gave them milk, or office workers began developing black lung from sitting too close to a closet full of toner cartridges.
Why would I? You said your comment was supposed to be funny, and then hastened to point out that it wasn't really. And then you slagged *my* sense of humor because you failed at being funny. Perhaps you should go back and retract your original statement and replace it with something that is funny instead?
My sense of humor is quite operational - it lets me know when somebody is being funny. Unfortunately for you, it also fails to activate when somebody is not funny.
It's not a question of "burning" and "feeling pain but ignoring it." It's a condition that arises from long-term exposure to and close contact with a heat source - Erythema ab Igne.
It's uncommon because most people don't sit for hours at a time day in and day out with a hot laptop resting on their legs, but the condition (which is most frequently seen in elderly people who use heating pads & space heaters to stay warm) carries with it an increased risk of cancer as a result, and this is why the study is suggesting that a warning might be beneficial.
This is the condition under discussion, and what it boils down to is that people don't realize that they're doing damage to their skin because they are not feeling "burned," they are feeling "warm" - but even that, not uncomfortably so.
Long-term exposure to heat damages the skin in a way that makes it more prone to developing squamous cell carcinoma - it's not about burns and pain, it's about "doing this to your skin could result in an increase in your prospects for malignant skin cancer."
I certainly wouldn't object even cheaper unit prices, but I don't mind paying a reasonable price ($0.99 per show for most of the shows I watch doesn't feel unreasonable to me, if there's no ads - for daily shows, perhaps offer a weekly / monthly pass that offers a discounted price) to reward content creators whose work I do value. I don't watch TV enough to justify the Cable bill I get today, and I don't re-watch enough episodes to justify purchasing the shows through iTunes, so a rental model with reasonable (and ad-free) prices would be a great option.
Slashdot Mirror
I think you mean "They are already carrying out completely legal operations against you, using the legitimate and constitutional authority granted to them by a court of law," right?
You may not LIKE the authority they're given, but as the law stands today, they absolutely have every right to do it, and it *is* legal for them to do it. If you don't LIKE it, you should vote for legislative candidates who will promise to do something about the issue that concerns you. Or, become a candidate yourself, and educate your fellow citizens about the abuses of power you will correct when you're a representative or senator.
It is not placed "in your custody" any more than somebody losing their iPhone in a bar placed their iPhone in the "custody" of the bar owner. The bar owner didn't know that somebody left it there, it is not his responsibility to keep it safe and secure - until such time as he becomes aware of, and takes possession of, the lost / unclaimed property.
Under California Law, if you find lost / unclaimed property, you are obligated to keep it safe & secure, and make a legitimate attempt to find the owner - regardless of where you found it. If you cannot find the owner, or do not want to take responsibility for keeping it safe & secure until the proper owner is found, you are legally obligated to turn it over to the police.
If, after they (the police) search for an owner, they don't find one, they may then put the item up for auction, to recover the costs of storing & trying to find the owner.
As with the iPhone case, there is no such thing as "Finders Keepers" under the law. Any attempt to justify selling, destroying, or 'losing' a found item is on shaky legal ground, and will probably put you in hot water, legally speaking.
Good thing the people who showed up on this guy's doorstep were FBI agents, rather than cops who are usually "from lower income backgrounds, with a chip on their shoulder," then - right?
Because I'm pretty sure that people meeting the Special Agent requirements are going to make pretty solid money (entry level, agents will average ~60-70k), and also already have at least a 4-year degree, and in many cases, additional professional certifications.
All of which leads me to suggest that... your broad-brush characterizations of cops is: a) not applicable to FBI agents, and b) therefore irrelevant to this discussion, since it was federal agents from the FBI who showed up at the guy's house to retrieve their device. It wasn't a bunch of local BFE cops showing up going, "Give us the flashy thing or we'll pants you, NERD!"
Better example would be, you move to a location where there's no hospital, and they specifically tell you, "There's no hospital here, so if you get sick... well, you have to make your own arrangements." You "forget" to make those arrangements, and then demand that a nearby city send an ambulance to your house to transport you to the hospital.
The people *in* the city have fire service. This man doesn't live within the city limits, and has no county fire service available for him. As such, he has two choices: Pay for service from the city, or opt to spend nothing, but take his risk that a fire will destroy his house and he'll be unable to get help.
You may feel that the citizens are better served by accepting a tax to pay for fire service (and I would tend to agree with that assessment, personally), but clearly the citizens of South Fulton, TN disagree with that assessment, because they've put in place a situation where you can opt to NOT pay the tax, and bear the costs of your own risks.
It's a very clear tradeoff: "Pay less taxes, but you're on your own if you need fire services," or "Pay higher taxes, and have these services available." It's likely a prime reason many people move outside city limits. It saves money, but it increases your risk of catastrophic loss, too.
It's actually not as cut & dry as you seem to think, considering there are numerous conflicting opinions as to what powers the "General welfare" clause in the Constitution confers on the Federal government.
More to the point, even if everybody agreed that this *is* the purpose of the 'general welfare' clause, there'd also be a significant question of whether it's constitutional for the Federal government to say "people in Fulton TN must pay taxes to the state and county to support a state or county fire service."
I'm not sure how the state constitution of Tennessee reads, but I'd guess that there's probably similar conflicting interpretations there if any mention is made of "the general welfare."
Yes, and there is probably a county police force / sheriff's department which provides policing services to this guy, or some sort of jurisdiction sharing between town / city officers and the county surrounding their towns. Perhaps supported by state founds, or perhaps supported by funds that towns pay to the county government.
There is no such arrangement for firefighters today in this area. The firefighters *COULD* operate in similar fashion, but the laws are not currently written to make that a requirement.
As far as police not refusing to render assistance if you have unpaid speeding tickets, you're right - they won't refuse to aid you. But they will arrest you and haul you before a court that has the authority to extract payment from you after they render assistance.
Arson would require that they set the fire, and did so deliberately.
I think the crime you're looking for would more aptly be termed 'neglect' or 'negligence,' but then, you have to prove that there was an expectation that their job *would* entail providing services to everybody, and while your expectation may be that they should, apparently the state & local laws in Tennessee do not create that expectation for government at all.
It's an argument for changing the laws, and putting new people in place to write new / change existing laws, but you'd have a hard time proving neglect and negligence against people who are simply enforcing & upholding the laws as they are written there today.
That's not entirely accurate. More correctly, the result is: "People who are irresponsible and don't pay their bills get really poor service."
As a "responsible" person, the first thing I did when I signed a lease on the apartment I live in currently, was to call my insurance company and take out a renter's insurance policy. Then I called to set up electrical, cable, and phone service. If I lived in an area like what is described, the second thing I'd do after getting property insurance would be to call and set up my 'fire insurance' by paying the $75 fire coverage fee.
Low taxes with opt-in paid services are possible, but it presumes both a high degree of responsibility among the people living under this system, and the financial wherewithal to pay market rates for the services / insurance / fees.
My biggest concern would be with that latter clause - if it's possible (*demonstrably so,* not just "of course the government can, we're the government!") that the government can do the job cheaper/better/faster/more effectively than a patchwork of independent providers, then it would make sense to make it a centrally-managed service funded by tax money. However, I would not say that "requiring your citizens to be responsible for themselves" is necessarily a bad way of running things, and I'd say it's not entirely unreasonable to expect it.
Fair enough - and for what it's worth, I agree, Apple does exert a lot of control over what you may and may not do. The question of whether or not the control is insufferable is certainly debatable, but you're right - suggesting that it doesn't exist is incorrect.
BUT, I have a little faith, because from what I've seen, the long-term direction for Apple's products has been to remove restrictions on them, and expand the API / SDK functionality. I know that statement will draw lots of ire from the apple-bashers around here, but bear with me for a moment:
When iPhone was released, the only app dev option was web apps. A year later, they released the first version of the SDK. And the SDK and the iOS API set has only been polished, enhanced, and enlarged since then.
I think with most of Apple's products, you can see a trend, where they start fairly tightly controlled, and with a smaller subset of functionality ("No wireless. Less Space than a Nomad.") then geeks might expect, but with a high degree of 'fit and finish' detailing on the smaller subset of features. They seem to prefer starting with a small set of 'core' features, and polishing those to a shine, and then in future releases, they expand upon that functionality and allow more flexibility.
So, what we see is that Apple releases a 1.0 with what many tech-savvy folks consider "missing" features, and then they add to those over time, as they finalize a polished implementation: think copy/paste or multitasking in iOS. Take that out a few more steps, and I wouldn't be surprised to see Apple eventually expanding the ad-hoc install model to allow for some additional installation methods.
Now, you can get that with Android right now, but like you, I think the Android fragmentation and carrier control is going to eventually cause it a huge number of problems in the marketplace, where "Android" won't mean much, because each carrier will customize it and lock it down to the point that it'll be "a Verizon phone" or "a Sprint phone." I think the best chance for a coherent platform was Google pushing the Nexus One model, but it looks like they've scrapped that plan.
That seems to be a rather pointless "just 'cause I can" way of sending SMS messages. You can send them directly from your desktop using an AIM client on your desktop (send a message to +15554441234, or whatever phone number you want to connect to), and you can carry on an sms conversation right there without running down the battery of your phone.
In some circles, this is also known as "closing exploitable holes which can allow an attacker to gain root access to a device." And we actually tend to appreciate companies doing that.
If the iOS dev model is not for you, looks like you'd be happier working with Android & the Android Marketplace. Nobody's forcing you to buy or use iOS devices, and if you listen to the talk around here, Android is the way of the future anyway, so might as well start riding that wave early, right?
No, rainbows and unicorns will only appear in the device when Slashdot officially declares "The Year of the Chrome OS Tablet."
Unfortunately, I fear that'll always defined as "The Year of the Linux Desktop" + 1.
Looks like somebody's confusing "infrequently-used" with "never". :(
The number of times I've *ever* wanted a printout of something while not at home or work where I have a printer connected to my desktop computer, I could probably count on the fingers of one hand. So why do you see a dire and immediate *need* for printer support on a device that is primarily intended as:
1) A companion device to a desktop / laptop computer;
2) Aimed squarely at mobile usage?
Personally, I'd much rather see Apple focus on robustness of the features they do implement, rather than throwing every half-baked feature they can think of into the OS in an attempt to make some imaginary feature checklist longer. I'm sure printing will be "nice to have" the one or two times I'll ever need it, but I sincerely doubt I'd miss it if it never appeared in the device, because I can easily print a document from my desktop at home or at work if I need to, and I'm not going to carry a printer with me "just in case" when I'm away from my desktop anyway.
Since when is printing not a "feature" of a computing device? And if you're saying it's not a feature... why the fuck do you care if the iPad can't print then?
Not his password, not his data. He was convicted of "disrupting or denying computer services to an authorized user."
Very different details, and that makes a lot of difference.
Looks like somebody's confusing "robustness" with "huge set of infrequently-used features." :(
Because it's incomplete & unreleased. Until it's released, we can dream of all the AWESOME features it's going to have, like free, on-demand hookers and a beer tap.
Then we'll actually see it and realize that, functionally, it's just another web browser. But single-use devices are *awesome* when they're open source. Not like those locked-down one-trick ponies Apple sells at all.
Stop crying. Take your lumps when you're not funny, instead of bitching that other people lack a sense of humor.
The whole point was it's not a "new medical condition caused by stupid user tricks." It's a known medical condition being caused by an unexpected source - like if kids started developing scurvy because their schools only gave them milk, or office workers began developing black lung from sitting too close to a closet full of toner cartridges.
Why would I? You said your comment was supposed to be funny, and then hastened to point out that it wasn't really. And then you slagged *my* sense of humor because you failed at being funny. Perhaps you should go back and retract your original statement and replace it with something that is funny instead?
My sense of humor is quite operational - it lets me know when somebody is being funny. Unfortunately for you, it also fails to activate when somebody is not funny.
So, your inability to be funny somehow puts my sense of humor in question?
Usually the cart goes behind the horse, friend.
No no no. Everybody knows that human flesh goes best with fava beans. And a nice chianti.
I doubt he's heard of any of them, since apparently he only reads the headline, with a passing glance at the summary.
In other words, just the sort of person that warning labels are designed for.
There is a name for the condition this causes: Erythema ab Igne, which increases your risk of developing a malignant squamous cell carcinoma.
Amazing that science has words for all these things which 2 minutes of reading TFA might have informed you of.
I guess it's people like you who can't be arsed to RTFA that the warning labels are designed for. Go figure.
It's not a question of "burning" and "feeling pain but ignoring it." It's a condition that arises from long-term exposure to and close contact with a heat source - Erythema ab Igne.
It's uncommon because most people don't sit for hours at a time day in and day out with a hot laptop resting on their legs, but the condition (which is most frequently seen in elderly people who use heating pads & space heaters to stay warm) carries with it an increased risk of cancer as a result, and this is why the study is suggesting that a warning might be beneficial.
This has nothing to do with heating the skin to the point where it is painful. We're not talking about burns.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erythema_ab_igne
This is the condition under discussion, and what it boils down to is that people don't realize that they're doing damage to their skin because they are not feeling "burned," they are feeling "warm" - but even that, not uncomfortably so.
Long-term exposure to heat damages the skin in a way that makes it more prone to developing squamous cell carcinoma - it's not about burns and pain, it's about "doing this to your skin could result in an increase in your prospects for malignant skin cancer."
I certainly wouldn't object even cheaper unit prices, but I don't mind paying a reasonable price ($0.99 per show for most of the shows I watch doesn't feel unreasonable to me, if there's no ads - for daily shows, perhaps offer a weekly / monthly pass that offers a discounted price) to reward content creators whose work I do value. I don't watch TV enough to justify the Cable bill I get today, and I don't re-watch enough episodes to justify purchasing the shows through iTunes, so a rental model with reasonable (and ad-free) prices would be a great option.