The key is proper compliance. Just like when you can't keep a baseball bat in the front seat of your car, but if you have a baseball bat, ball, and glove all in the front seat of your car then it is OK.
In between drug runs I would chose to keep a ziploc bag of dog shit in the secret compartment. That way when I get pulled over and my secret compartment is discovered, if they ask "what do you keep in here?" I'd just say "I keep my shit in there." Then when they start poking and sniffing around they can't say I didn't warn them. I'd like to see them bring me to trial for having a compartment full of shit.
We don't have the (moral) right to scream "Taxed Enough Already", gut the budgets of government provided services, and then complain when departments have to hire sub-par personnel because more qualified potential officers aren't willing to accept low pay for such an unrewarding job.
If the consequence for a traffic violation was to visit a nursing home of your choice and clean the floors, as opposed to a monetary fine that goes into local government coffers, would this officer still be giving more tickets for texting and driving than any other officer in the state?
Unfortunately, the lawmakers are not "lazy". Most of the laws that go on the books are written by lawyers and lobbyists at private corporations. They bring their drafts over to lawmakers and convince them to introduce the bill to the legislature. From there it is often amended, usually after input from other lobbyists and key campaign donors. In most states and nationally, the two primary parties joust over who will get screwed over by the new law. The Democrats won't give in to anything that will hurt the poor and the Republicans won't cave in to anything that would offend their wealthy campaign backers. So in almost all cases the laws are drafted intentionally vague, with carefully designed loopholes that are intended to 'stick it' to the middle class. After all, the lawmakers tend to be wealthy attorneys, and they write laws that will advance their profession while keeping an option open for them to make sure their own wealth and that of their family is not put at risk.
Laws that are clear cut and dry, plain and simple, can be understood and acted upon by ordinary citizens. The law is written to be vague, open to interpretation, and with volumes too large for any one person to read it all, let alone understand it. This creates demand for middle class Americans to fork over their savings to pay attorney fees. This also makes it possible to prosecute "offenders" by deciding first who to target, and then dig up a law to accuse him/her of breaking.
Perhaps the problem is a lack of a homogenous driving culture. Our roads are shared by people who are overly cautious, drive very close to the speed limit (usually +/- 1 or 2 mph) courteous, and very focused on the road; shared also by drivers who try to follow the 'intent' of the rules of the road, follow the flow of traffic even if it is 5 or 10 mph higher than the limit, don't always wait for all four wheels to come to a complete stop when turning right on red, occasionally drive one-handed with the other hand holding their phone to their ear to answer an important phone call; shared also by speed demons, dare devils, dragsters, road ragers; shared also by little old ladies that have trouble seeing over the hood and drive 20 mph under the limit hoping on luck that they don't crash into anything.
Obviously we need to get rid of the extremes (impaired drivers, road rage, etc.), but then we need to clarify: do we drive according to the strict letter of the law? or do we allow for some discretion? Given the number of deaths and injuries on our roads, not to mention property damage, I think our elected officials and the staff they have appointed have mostly decided that a strict adherence to the rules is required. That said, warnings can often change driving behavior for minor infractions, while tickets with arbitrarily determined fines serve as a 'regressive' punishment that can be a severe hardship for a poor family whereas the same fine might not be more than a minor irritant for a driver with substantial disposable income, though possibly not enough to impact behavior of the latter. If the ticket were a fixed percentage of an offender's income or net worth then the behavior modification sought might be uniform across all economic classes of citizens.
That's how Capitalism works. It's also the core bread-and-butter advice you get from SEO consultants.
How is it that much different than the mutual self-promotion of board members and executives in most American corporations? If you look to see who is on the board of directors of top companies, you will find executives from other top companies. Then they sit around on each other's boards and vote each other exhorbitant compensation at the expenses of consumers (no price cuts but lower quality), employees (declining wages and offshoring jobs), and even investors (how has your 401k performed over the past 10 years? CEO pay since 2009 has increased 38%). Not convinced? How about some anecdotes:
Miles D. White is the CEO of Abbot Laboratories. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of McDonald's, Caterpillar Inc., Northwestern Memorial Hospital and MediSense. Marc Benioff is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, salesforce.com, inc. He sits on the Board of Directors of Cisco. Greg Brown is Chairman and CEO, Motorola Solutions, Inc. He also sits on the Board of Directors of Cisco. Marissa A. Mayer is the President and CEO of Yahoo!, Inc.. She also sits on the Board of Directors of Walmart. Ursula M. Burns is the Chairman of the Board and CEO of Xerox. She is also on the boards for American Express and Exxon Mobile.
The list goes on. In fact, you can see these details right on most company websites. It is quite uncommon to find board members who are not sitting on other boards of public companies while also serving as CEO of some other big corporation. They also serve as presidents and trustees of universities, industry groups, charities, hospitals, schools, and other non-profits, as well as even some government agencies, think tanks or advisory groups. So, pretty much all of your for-profit and non-profit leadership positions are occupied by a select group of well connected self-appointed aristocrats.
Keep in mind that according to TFA obesity is affecting animals as well as humans. But you're right - corn is the main culprit - specifically our monocultural industrial practice of including corn as THE major ingredient in most processed foods from frozen TV dinners to animal feed. The fast growing cycle and ease with which corn can be harvested favors this crop for these industrial processes. The feed is often formulated to encourage livestock to eat more of it since then the meat will have a more "marbelized" distribution of fat into the muscles. Sedentary lifestyle is probably a cofactor, given that in our industrial age, both humans and animals are forced to spend most of their time confined to cube-shaped structures with little opportunity to walk or run significant distances. Most animals should be playing, pursuing prey, fleeing predators, migrating, and consuming a variety of fresh whole foods. Before becoming "civilized" humans also used to hunt, fish, gather, migrate, play sports (occassionally violent - we'll save that for a later discussion), and eat a variety of fresh whole foods. But now that we are "civilized" and "technologically advanced" we have jobs sitting at a desk most of the day, we drink beverages containing corn syrup (which can only be derived from corn by mixing with hydrochloric acid), or bevarages distilled from corn, and we eat meals consisting of corn chips, goods baked with corn meal, corn flour, corn starch, corn oil (which cannot simply be squeezed out of the corn - it has to be solvent extracted using hexane or 2-methylpentane (isohexane)), or other corn byproducts. Then we serve it up with a slab of corn-feed beef or other livestock that is literally over-fed corn, especially in the final weeks of life the livestock are fattened on corn, sometimes corn and molasses, to the point where the animal is about to die from a diabetic coma by the time it is slaughtered. To make the meal balanced, we might add a few other vegetables, but we'll coat these in a corn batter and deep fry them in corn oil to make them more appetizing. Or maybe we'll make a salad and pour vinegar and corn oil over it. Corn-based feed is the basis for most of the milk, eggs, and even farm-raised fish. There's no escaping the corn - it's even in your gastank, and soon your plastic goods will be coming from corn (which are some of the few uses of corn I actually welcome).
Or you can visit me and my farm and eat fresh, naturally grown, and sometimes even wild foraged fruits and vegetables, pastured chickens that eat mostly grasshoppers and garden scraps, eggs from the same chickens - eggs with shells so strong they don't break when you drop them, grass feed lamp and goat - and easily digestable goat milk, yogurt, and cheese (no added hormones, antibiotics), fish caught in local streams, and a moderate variety of starchy plants including potatoes, sunflower chokes, whole wheat, quinoa, and occassionally a fresh ear of non-GMO corn. I would love to sell my excess healthy and nutritious eggs, diary, meat, fish, and wild game, but laws and regulations, mainly in the name of "food safety" (and some valid game laws - given the impact of poaching on game populations) either forbid or make it prohibitively expensive for me to do so on the small scale that I raise and harvest these goods. But there are no restrictions on preparing and serving such foods to myself, my family, and I can legally give away to friends and serve at church dinners.
While on the farm, you can help chase a chicken or a goat for slaughter, dig post holes, shovel manure, or participate in any number of physical activities that a farm requires - and I guarantee you could ditch your gym membership. This effort is only part-time for me, as I am in an office during the day. Given the high cost of land due to our unchecked population growth made possible by our industrial food production and distribution system, I understand that not everyone can do this. But it makes for a better, healthier, and more satisfying hobby than locking one's self in a room to play video games or wasting away in front of a TV screen.
IANAL, but this case sounds like it might be a good candidate for an unjust enrichment lawsuit. If Zuckerborg refuses to pay the $500 bounty on the grounds that FB terms of use were violated, then shouldn't they pay the hacker "fair market value" for identifying the bug? After all, FB openly solicited bug reports from the general public with a promise of compensation. And did FB not implement new safeguards after they found out the exploit was legitimate, as evidenced by Zuckerberg's hacked page?
If my neighbor hires a painter, and the painter paints my house instead of my neighbor's house, and I stand by and watch the painter work on my house without informing the painter he is working on the wrong house, then I am obligated to pay the painter the amount he would have charged my neighbor for the work performed. Absent any written agreement, the amount due would be based on the fair market value of the labor performed plus a generally accepted markup for the cost of materials.
So now I'm curious, what would be the fair market value for finding an exploit that would allow a hacker to alter Mr. Zuckerberg's own FB page? Given that the IRS can tax certain unsaleable items based on "illicit market" value, could the "street value" of Mr. Shreateh's findings be considered for valuation given that there is no "fair" market value, since such a value implies that there exists a market, meaning more than one possible customer legally able and willing to make an offer for such findings?
Even that wouldn't bother me so much if they weren't training with "No Hesitate" targets featuring children and pregnant women and simulating attacks on American cities.
Except there is not one member of the Senate that would even bring such an amendment to the floor. There might be one in the House, but the House tends to have a few unbaked cookies, so it's usually possible to find at least one House member to support just about any cause.
And you can forget about offshore proxies, VPNs, or any other anonymizing gimmick, the USA owns you from the ISP connection. So unless you're wardriving from a network of stealthy, untraceable, home-built, solar powered, Helium buoyant UAVs relaying encrypted web traffic back and forth from your undisclosed lair, you're SOL even if you just want to make soap in your own kitchen.
Disclaimer: I neither confirm nor deny the possibilty that I am wardriving right now from a network of stealthy, untraceable, home-built, solar powered, Helium buoyant UAVs
Gun-totin' Republicans can't stand Obama, but just watch how many will rally to his aid if anyone was going to try to haul him off to some international court for trial. Try to understand, that from most American's point of view, the UN is located in New York City, which is in New York State, which is in the USA, therefore the USA owns the world. Since the Spanish-American War the USA has occupied or come to the aid of most of the world's nations, so here in the USA the attitude is that we can pretty much tell everybody else what they should do.
You're also more likely to die in a car crash than a plane crash, but look at how much money and effort is thrown into airline safety. Meanwhile, people are dying in every American city because of automobile accidents, but just one airline crash will make front page news for days.
One of our government's side businesses is maintaining law and order. Maintaining order is largely about perception. So is winning elections.
...is a souped-up, high-speed, commercial-grade version of the RepRap that uses free open source hardware and software, and can be built using materials commonly available in remote, poor, third world communities so as to reduce the cost of shipping in parts to assembe a system on site. Once put in place and operational, one or a dozen of these printers working around the clock at a village center 3D print shop could provide for the needs of the local population. There are a lot of aid programs that ship depreciated used machinery to third world countries, such as older used equipment for hospitals, schools, agriculture, etc., but since this equipment is so old often times parts aren't available or expensive to procure and ship. Being able to print off such components as needed would help these communities, and the skills developed while designing replacement parts could help many in the third world to have a new service to offer internationally via the internet (which is slowly making gains by skipping landlines or powerlines and connecting villages wirelessly with solar powered equipment). Being able to print other common goods on site and on demand would be an added benefit, given that even the retail price of a new toothbrush can be beyond the means of a poor working family.
Except many of today's poor can't afford to live in slums. The rent is too damn high. Today's poor tend to be displaced adult middle-class who lost everything over the past decade due to two stock crashes that burned up their 401ks, the housing crash, the labor decline, and bankruptcy "reform" that forced them to lose too much before they can qualify for a "fresh start" (case in point, in chapter 13 bankruptcy you are not allowed room in your budget to build up an emergency fund, yet they take every "disposable" dollar you have for five years straight). You can find them living in their cars, or sometimes permanently living in pitched tents at campgrounds. The dependency on automobiles is a steady strain given the constantly increasing cost of fuel. Most of the poorest people I know maintain their own vehicles since they could never afford service from a repair shop. But this also means they have to drive cars from the 1980's that are mostly user serviceable with tools they store in their trunk. Today's vehicles have so much added technology that even basic repairs are difficult or too expensive (requiring specialized tools) to attempt on one's own. Many are living this way in secret because most employers and schools (for their children) require a physical address - sometimes even proof of residency, like a utility bill. Families with children may not seek aid because they fear their children being taken away. Many others are able to couch surf if they have enough friends or family willing to help, but then they rarely are able to qualify for any state assistance or even bankruptcy, since the programs consider "household income", and free rent and utilities is counted as income in determining what aid they can qualify for (tip: don't crash at your brother's mansion). Since they are still receiving enough income to barely survive (from low paying part-time jobs and/or odd jobs/gigs/handyman type work or scrap metal scavenging) they often don't qualify for state assistance or private charity. Often there are programs that they do qualify for, but there is no magic entitlements fairy to explain to them what options they have. Applying for benefits often involves traveling deep into a city, showing up early in the morning, and possibly standing in a line for an entire day just to be told to come back tomorrow, or to come back with another proof of ID or another form filled out or just being told they don't qualify. Often they have disabilities that are a competitive disadvantage, but don't qualify for assistance for one reason or another - most often because they were not "employed" or employed long enough when they became disabled.
Now, for those "poor" enough to receive entitlements, there is no shortage of those who could if they were willing be more self reliant, but they have learned how to milk the cow at both ends - by getting help from government and charities while also getting support from family and earning cash under the table doing domestic work. I've known people collecting disabilty and "can't work" - but can drive a tractor to mow the family acreage. Navigating the entitlements system becomes a job in itself, and bestows a whole new set of skills which when honed over time leads to a higher standard of living for those gaming the system. Unfortunately, the system itself becomes a trap. Once you are in there is always a fear of losing those benefits if one is able to earn too much money to qualify. Or as their child grows older and the entitlements are reduced there is the counter-productive incentive to have another child to maintain those entitlements. In fact, often times the poorest a person can be in America is earning $1.00 more than the cutoff for receiving aid, as the actual cost of living on one's own means suddenly becomes magnitudes higher when programs aren't subsidizing your food, housing, and medical care.
And yet you are allowed to ride motorcyles without airbags or seat belts. This is a good example for when common sense needs to be applied to the decision to regulate or not regulate.
Please read en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons carefully before dismissing all government regulation. As for the notion that we should all take personal responsibility for our own risk management, we are already a country of crazy, paranoid, delusional preppers, stocking up on ammo and growing our own food because of a lack of trust of the "system" - however you define the "system" (whether government controlled or corporate controlled).
Now, I consider myself an advocate for individual liberties and taking personal responsibility for most of life's choices. But when the resources I need are controlled by only three companies, or a rail line or pipeline or fertilizer plant is built right near where I live I want the government to impose regulations to keep my family and my property safe. There is no doubt in my mind that many regulations, even those supposedly for "safety" are not necessary or serve a hidden agenda (such as the private interests of a trade union, corporation, or industry), but I don't think that means we should lift every regulation.
Take safety belts for example. I don't see the point in ticketing adults who have made their own decision. Not wearing that safety belt will only lead to their own harm, and will not harm others. But I do think that securing children should be enforced, as I do not believe that parents have exclusive life and death rights over their offspring.
The proper balance of moderate regulation is what is needed. Just enough to keep society from "taking the stairs" in your example. The patent and copyright system goes back to our founding because the government does not exist solely to provide military and police protection services. There is a national unifying interest in forming a society where people can make rational decisions and pursue efficient use of their limited resources without holding back because of irrational fears or paranoia. Public safety and environmental regulations help ease some of those fears and paranoia, which is important given certain disasters that shook the confidence of the public, such as the school explosion in Texas that lead to the licensing of professional engineers.
A fundamental problem with regulations is that we do have "some" consumer protection from our government, not everything is guaranteed to protect consumers. What we need are clear boundaries and public awareness so that citizens understand what they can expect to be safe and where they need to exercise their own discernment. And where possible, regulations should be loosened or left to free market mechanisms, so long as the public is not abandoned and left in danger. Third party private certification agencies are good example of free market mechanisms. You have UL and similar listings for electrical products, ABS product approval for the international shipping industry, AKC registration for dogs, Verisign for SSL Certificates, the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval, etc.
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The key is proper compliance. Just like when you can't keep a baseball bat in the front seat of your car, but if you have a baseball bat, ball, and glove all in the front seat of your car then it is OK.
You may doubt, but I can guarantee that the CIA intervenes with the global narcotics trade:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_CIA_drug_trafficking
In between drug runs I would chose to keep a ziploc bag of dog shit in the secret compartment. That way when I get pulled over and my secret compartment is discovered, if they ask "what do you keep in here?" I'd just say "I keep my shit in there." Then when they start poking and sniffing around they can't say I didn't warn them. I'd like to see them bring me to trial for having a compartment full of shit.
We don't have the (moral) right to scream "Taxed Enough Already", gut the budgets of government provided services, and then complain when departments have to hire sub-par personnel because more qualified potential officers aren't willing to accept low pay for such an unrewarding job.
If the consequence for a traffic violation was to visit a nursing home of your choice and clean the floors, as opposed to a monetary fine that goes into local government coffers, would this officer still be giving more tickets for texting and driving than any other officer in the state?
Unfortunately, the lawmakers are not "lazy". Most of the laws that go on the books are written by lawyers and lobbyists at private corporations. They bring their drafts over to lawmakers and convince them to introduce the bill to the legislature. From there it is often amended, usually after input from other lobbyists and key campaign donors. In most states and nationally, the two primary parties joust over who will get screwed over by the new law. The Democrats won't give in to anything that will hurt the poor and the Republicans won't cave in to anything that would offend their wealthy campaign backers. So in almost all cases the laws are drafted intentionally vague, with carefully designed loopholes that are intended to 'stick it' to the middle class. After all, the lawmakers tend to be wealthy attorneys, and they write laws that will advance their profession while keeping an option open for them to make sure their own wealth and that of their family is not put at risk.
Laws that are clear cut and dry, plain and simple, can be understood and acted upon by ordinary citizens. The law is written to be vague, open to interpretation, and with volumes too large for any one person to read it all, let alone understand it. This creates demand for middle class Americans to fork over their savings to pay attorney fees. This also makes it possible to prosecute "offenders" by deciding first who to target, and then dig up a law to accuse him/her of breaking.
Perhaps the problem is a lack of a homogenous driving culture. Our roads are shared by people who are overly cautious, drive very close to the speed limit (usually +/- 1 or 2 mph) courteous, and very focused on the road; shared also by drivers who try to follow the 'intent' of the rules of the road, follow the flow of traffic even if it is 5 or 10 mph higher than the limit, don't always wait for all four wheels to come to a complete stop when turning right on red, occasionally drive one-handed with the other hand holding their phone to their ear to answer an important phone call; shared also by speed demons, dare devils, dragsters, road ragers; shared also by little old ladies that have trouble seeing over the hood and drive 20 mph under the limit hoping on luck that they don't crash into anything.
Obviously we need to get rid of the extremes (impaired drivers, road rage, etc.), but then we need to clarify: do we drive according to the strict letter of the law? or do we allow for some discretion? Given the number of deaths and injuries on our roads, not to mention property damage, I think our elected officials and the staff they have appointed have mostly decided that a strict adherence to the rules is required. That said, warnings can often change driving behavior for minor infractions, while tickets with arbitrarily determined fines serve as a 'regressive' punishment that can be a severe hardship for a poor family whereas the same fine might not be more than a minor irritant for a driver with substantial disposable income, though possibly not enough to impact behavior of the latter. If the ticket were a fixed percentage of an offender's income or net worth then the behavior modification sought might be uniform across all economic classes of citizens.
...unfortunately I ran out of film
You really need to upgrade to the next iPhone. The new ones are digital and you don't have to install film anymore.
Don't worry - we will fix this conundrum once we privatize the nation's police forces.
That's how Capitalism works. It's also the core bread-and-butter advice you get from SEO consultants.
How is it that much different than the mutual self-promotion of board members and executives in most American corporations? If you look to see who is on the board of directors of top companies, you will find executives from other top companies. Then they sit around on each other's boards and vote each other exhorbitant compensation at the expenses of consumers (no price cuts but lower quality), employees (declining wages and offshoring jobs), and even investors (how has your 401k performed over the past 10 years? CEO pay since 2009 has increased 38%). Not convinced? How about some anecdotes:
Miles D. White is the CEO of Abbot Laboratories. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of McDonald's, Caterpillar Inc., Northwestern Memorial Hospital and MediSense.
Marc Benioff is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, salesforce.com, inc. He sits on the Board of Directors of Cisco.
Greg Brown is Chairman and CEO, Motorola Solutions, Inc. He also sits on the Board of Directors of Cisco.
Marissa A. Mayer is the President and CEO of Yahoo!, Inc.. She also sits on the Board of Directors of Walmart.
Ursula M. Burns is the Chairman of the Board and CEO of Xerox. She is also on the boards for American Express and Exxon Mobile.
The list goes on. In fact, you can see these details right on most company websites. It is quite uncommon to find board members who are not sitting on other boards of public companies while also serving as CEO of some other big corporation. They also serve as presidents and trustees of universities, industry groups, charities, hospitals, schools, and other non-profits, as well as even some government agencies, think tanks or advisory groups. So, pretty much all of your for-profit and non-profit leadership positions are occupied by a select group of well connected self-appointed aristocrats.
...Computers hack into YOU!
Keep in mind that according to TFA obesity is affecting animals as well as humans. But you're right - corn is the main culprit - specifically our monocultural industrial practice of including corn as THE major ingredient in most processed foods from frozen TV dinners to animal feed. The fast growing cycle and ease with which corn can be harvested favors this crop for these industrial processes. The feed is often formulated to encourage livestock to eat more of it since then the meat will have a more "marbelized" distribution of fat into the muscles. Sedentary lifestyle is probably a cofactor, given that in our industrial age, both humans and animals are forced to spend most of their time confined to cube-shaped structures with little opportunity to walk or run significant distances. Most animals should be playing, pursuing prey, fleeing predators, migrating, and consuming a variety of fresh whole foods. Before becoming "civilized" humans also used to hunt, fish, gather, migrate, play sports (occassionally violent - we'll save that for a later discussion), and eat a variety of fresh whole foods. But now that we are "civilized" and "technologically advanced" we have jobs sitting at a desk most of the day, we drink beverages containing corn syrup (which can only be derived from corn by mixing with hydrochloric acid), or bevarages distilled from corn, and we eat meals consisting of corn chips, goods baked with corn meal, corn flour, corn starch, corn oil (which cannot simply be squeezed out of the corn - it has to be solvent extracted using hexane or 2-methylpentane (isohexane)), or other corn byproducts. Then we serve it up with a slab of corn-feed beef or other livestock that is literally over-fed corn, especially in the final weeks of life the livestock are fattened on corn, sometimes corn and molasses, to the point where the animal is about to die from a diabetic coma by the time it is slaughtered. To make the meal balanced, we might add a few other vegetables, but we'll coat these in a corn batter and deep fry them in corn oil to make them more appetizing. Or maybe we'll make a salad and pour vinegar and corn oil over it. Corn-based feed is the basis for most of the milk, eggs, and even farm-raised fish. There's no escaping the corn - it's even in your gastank, and soon your plastic goods will be coming from corn (which are some of the few uses of corn I actually welcome).
Or you can visit me and my farm and eat fresh, naturally grown, and sometimes even wild foraged fruits and vegetables, pastured chickens that eat mostly grasshoppers and garden scraps, eggs from the same chickens - eggs with shells so strong they don't break when you drop them, grass feed lamp and goat - and easily digestable goat milk, yogurt, and cheese (no added hormones, antibiotics), fish caught in local streams, and a moderate variety of starchy plants including potatoes, sunflower chokes, whole wheat, quinoa, and occassionally a fresh ear of non-GMO corn. I would love to sell my excess healthy and nutritious eggs, diary, meat, fish, and wild game, but laws and regulations, mainly in the name of "food safety" (and some valid game laws - given the impact of poaching on game populations) either forbid or make it prohibitively expensive for me to do so on the small scale that I raise and harvest these goods. But there are no restrictions on preparing and serving such foods to myself, my family, and I can legally give away to friends and serve at church dinners.
While on the farm, you can help chase a chicken or a goat for slaughter, dig post holes, shovel manure, or participate in any number of physical activities that a farm requires - and I guarantee you could ditch your gym membership. This effort is only part-time for me, as I am in an office during the day. Given the high cost of land due to our unchecked population growth made possible by our industrial food production and distribution system, I understand that not everyone can do this. But it makes for a better, healthier, and more satisfying hobby than locking one's self in a room to play video games or wasting away in front of a TV screen.
IANAL, but this case sounds like it might be a good candidate for an unjust enrichment lawsuit. If Zuckerborg refuses to pay the $500 bounty on the grounds that FB terms of use were violated, then shouldn't they pay the hacker "fair market value" for identifying the bug? After all, FB openly solicited bug reports from the general public with a promise of compensation. And did FB not implement new safeguards after they found out the exploit was legitimate, as evidenced by Zuckerberg's hacked page?
If my neighbor hires a painter, and the painter paints my house instead of my neighbor's house, and I stand by and watch the painter work on my house without informing the painter he is working on the wrong house, then I am obligated to pay the painter the amount he would have charged my neighbor for the work performed. Absent any written agreement, the amount due would be based on the fair market value of the labor performed plus a generally accepted markup for the cost of materials.
So now I'm curious, what would be the fair market value for finding an exploit that would allow a hacker to alter Mr. Zuckerberg's own FB page? Given that the IRS can tax certain unsaleable items based on "illicit market" value, could the "street value" of Mr. Shreateh's findings be considered for valuation given that there is no "fair" market value, since such a value implies that there exists a market, meaning more than one possible customer legally able and willing to make an offer for such findings?
Read more: http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/607346_IRS-values-stolen-or-illegal-items-at-black-market-rate.html#ixzz2cRIxNEoC
In the year 2000 cars will be able to drive themselves, so texting, talking, sleeping, or being drunk shouldn't have any affect on accident rates.
It's just a bug in the NSA eavesdropping algorithm.
...about Thomas Sterling's and Donald Becker's Beowulf Cluster at NASA?
Even that wouldn't bother me so much if they weren't training with "No Hesitate" targets featuring children and pregnant women and simulating attacks on American cities.
http://www.infowars.com/law-enforcement-requested-shooting-targets-of-pregnant-women/
http://www.examiner.com/article/military-drills-major-cities-alarm-citizens-raise-fears-of-government-action
Except there is not one member of the Senate that would even bring such an amendment to the floor. There might be one in the House, but the House tends to have a few unbaked cookies, so it's usually possible to find at least one House member to support just about any cause.
And you can forget about offshore proxies, VPNs, or any other anonymizing gimmick, the USA owns you from the ISP connection. So unless you're wardriving from a network of stealthy, untraceable, home-built, solar powered, Helium buoyant UAVs relaying encrypted web traffic back and forth from your undisclosed lair, you're SOL even if you just want to make soap in your own kitchen.
Disclaimer: I neither confirm nor deny the possibilty that I am wardriving right now from a network of stealthy, untraceable, home-built, solar powered, Helium buoyant UAVs
Gun-totin' Republicans can't stand Obama, but just watch how many will rally to his aid if anyone was going to try to haul him off to some international court for trial. Try to understand, that from most American's point of view, the UN is located in New York City, which is in New York State, which is in the USA, therefore the USA owns the world. Since the Spanish-American War the USA has occupied or come to the aid of most of the world's nations, so here in the USA the attitude is that we can pretty much tell everybody else what they should do.
You're also more likely to die in a car crash than a plane crash, but look at how much money and effort is thrown into airline safety. Meanwhile, people are dying in every American city because of automobile accidents, but just one airline crash will make front page news for days.
One of our government's side businesses is maintaining law and order. Maintaining order is largely about perception. So is winning elections.
...is a souped-up, high-speed, commercial-grade version of the RepRap that uses free open source hardware and software, and can be built using materials commonly available in remote, poor, third world communities so as to reduce the cost of shipping in parts to assembe a system on site. Once put in place and operational, one or a dozen of these printers working around the clock at a village center 3D print shop could provide for the needs of the local population. There are a lot of aid programs that ship depreciated used machinery to third world countries, such as older used equipment for hospitals, schools, agriculture, etc., but since this equipment is so old often times parts aren't available or expensive to procure and ship. Being able to print off such components as needed would help these communities, and the skills developed while designing replacement parts could help many in the third world to have a new service to offer internationally via the internet (which is slowly making gains by skipping landlines or powerlines and connecting villages wirelessly with solar powered equipment). Being able to print other common goods on site and on demand would be an added benefit, given that even the retail price of a new toothbrush can be beyond the means of a poor working family.
Except many of today's poor can't afford to live in slums. The rent is too damn high. Today's poor tend to be displaced adult middle-class who lost everything over the past decade due to two stock crashes that burned up their 401ks, the housing crash, the labor decline, and bankruptcy "reform" that forced them to lose too much before they can qualify for a "fresh start" (case in point, in chapter 13 bankruptcy you are not allowed room in your budget to build up an emergency fund, yet they take every "disposable" dollar you have for five years straight). You can find them living in their cars, or sometimes permanently living in pitched tents at campgrounds. The dependency on automobiles is a steady strain given the constantly increasing cost of fuel. Most of the poorest people I know maintain their own vehicles since they could never afford service from a repair shop. But this also means they have to drive cars from the 1980's that are mostly user serviceable with tools they store in their trunk. Today's vehicles have so much added technology that even basic repairs are difficult or too expensive (requiring specialized tools) to attempt on one's own. Many are living this way in secret because most employers and schools (for their children) require a physical address - sometimes even proof of residency, like a utility bill. Families with children may not seek aid because they fear their children being taken away. Many others are able to couch surf if they have enough friends or family willing to help, but then they rarely are able to qualify for any state assistance or even bankruptcy, since the programs consider "household income", and free rent and utilities is counted as income in determining what aid they can qualify for (tip: don't crash at your brother's mansion). Since they are still receiving enough income to barely survive (from low paying part-time jobs and/or odd jobs/gigs/handyman type work or scrap metal scavenging) they often don't qualify for state assistance or private charity. Often there are programs that they do qualify for, but there is no magic entitlements fairy to explain to them what options they have. Applying for benefits often involves traveling deep into a city, showing up early in the morning, and possibly standing in a line for an entire day just to be told to come back tomorrow, or to come back with another proof of ID or another form filled out or just being told they don't qualify. Often they have disabilities that are a competitive disadvantage, but don't qualify for assistance for one reason or another - most often because they were not "employed" or employed long enough when they became disabled.
Now, for those "poor" enough to receive entitlements, there is no shortage of those who could if they were willing be more self reliant, but they have learned how to milk the cow at both ends - by getting help from government and charities while also getting support from family and earning cash under the table doing domestic work. I've known people collecting disabilty and "can't work" - but can drive a tractor to mow the family acreage. Navigating the entitlements system becomes a job in itself, and bestows a whole new set of skills which when honed over time leads to a higher standard of living for those gaming the system. Unfortunately, the system itself becomes a trap. Once you are in there is always a fear of losing those benefits if one is able to earn too much money to qualify. Or as their child grows older and the entitlements are reduced there is the counter-productive incentive to have another child to maintain those entitlements. In fact, often times the poorest a person can be in America is earning $1.00 more than the cutoff for receiving aid, as the actual cost of living on one's own means suddenly becomes magnitudes higher when programs aren't subsidizing your food, housing, and medical care.
And yet you are allowed to ride motorcyles without airbags or seat belts. This is a good example for when common sense needs to be applied to the decision to regulate or not regulate.
Please read en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons carefully before dismissing all government regulation. As for the notion that we should all take personal responsibility for our own risk management, we are already a country of crazy, paranoid, delusional preppers, stocking up on ammo and growing our own food because of a lack of trust of the "system" - however you define the "system" (whether government controlled or corporate controlled).
Now, I consider myself an advocate for individual liberties and taking personal responsibility for most of life's choices. But when the resources I need are controlled by only three companies, or a rail line or pipeline or fertilizer plant is built right near where I live I want the government to impose regulations to keep my family and my property safe. There is no doubt in my mind that many regulations, even those supposedly for "safety" are not necessary or serve a hidden agenda (such as the private interests of a trade union, corporation, or industry), but I don't think that means we should lift every regulation.
Take safety belts for example. I don't see the point in ticketing adults who have made their own decision. Not wearing that safety belt will only lead to their own harm, and will not harm others. But I do think that securing children should be enforced, as I do not believe that parents have exclusive life and death rights over their offspring.
The proper balance of moderate regulation is what is needed. Just enough to keep society from "taking the stairs" in your example. The patent and copyright system goes back to our founding because the government does not exist solely to provide military and police protection services. There is a national unifying interest in forming a society where people can make rational decisions and pursue efficient use of their limited resources without holding back because of irrational fears or paranoia. Public safety and environmental regulations help ease some of those fears and paranoia, which is important given certain disasters that shook the confidence of the public, such as the school explosion in Texas that lead to the licensing of professional engineers.
A fundamental problem with regulations is that we do have "some" consumer protection from our government, not everything is guaranteed to protect consumers. What we need are clear boundaries and public awareness so that citizens understand what they can expect to be safe and where they need to exercise their own discernment. And where possible, regulations should be loosened or left to free market mechanisms, so long as the public is not abandoned and left in danger. Third party private certification agencies are good example of free market mechanisms. You have UL and similar listings for electrical products, ABS product approval for the international shipping industry, AKC registration for dogs, Verisign for SSL Certificates, the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval, etc.