For "Generic Landscape A" or "Unidentifiable Sports Scene B" Flickr is going to beat the old stock photographer. And I say this as an amateur who would love to be a professional photographer. The problem is that Joe User has, for the most part, no clue about how contracts work, what a release is, and what Getty charges others to use the picture that they are getting paid $1 for.
At some point, all of those are going to cause some backlash. Getty may catch a lot of flack when people figure out they charge up to $500 for a non-resized 17mega pixel image. Many Flickr photographers do not understand the need for a model release, so I hope Getty is prepared to teach them why they won't accept their precious picture of someone blowing out candles on a cake but will take a, in their opinion, much worse picture from someone else. And contracts; I am not even sure why Getty is dealing with the user directly anyways. Flickr has the ability to sub-license a user's pictures, even after they delete their account; perpetual and sub-licensable are nasty words. Could be that Flickr knows what backlash it would cause, or that Getty is worried about model releases.
The difference between pro and amateur photographers has been, for a long time, just about the money one spent on lenses and what they get paid for a photograph. 35mm film was the same, camera bodies had different features but were all mostly the same, the lens quality is the major difference. Amateurs with a point-and-click or lower end DSLR are getting better picture quality than they would have a decade ago, if this lets them turn semi-pro it might be a good thing. The average non-photographer with a camera will still let the camera do all the lifting. After flooding the market with badly lit scenes, the pendulum should swing back the other way. Or the point-and-click cameras may come up with better chips to take pictures with more depth/range/feeling.
You used the word morals for an individual. For the most part, that is the incorrect word. An individual has values; a society of individuals have morals based on the values of the members of that society.
You also implied that morals would prevent a person from killing their own first-born son. Again, not true. Societal morals might punish them, personal values might prevent them. Alternatively, to such a sweeping generalization, you could look at multiple societies where such an act might not be frowned upon.
Perhaps I could do with not posting at 5am, and we could both use a writing course.
I would have read the article, but between the title and the text was an advert for some new ADHD medicine. "Are your child's ADHD symptoms controlled . . . even after soccer practice?" I got distracted by the shiny Flash advert telling me to take more drugs.
Say the FDA were to go away, who do you think would be trying out these new experimental treatments first? The poor who can't afford the expensive, tested treatments.
Have you seen the current costs of some experimental treatments? By the time they get through enough FDA red tape to begin human testing, the fees can sky rocket. As it stands, either you have the money or insurance to pay for something that might save your life, or you die. Is it some how better that only the rich can get an experimental treatment while the poor die without treatment?
Arguably, people have values. The norm of those values for a society are the morals. You can find historical reference where almost any value that we hold today to be normal is thrown away. Ancient Greece and the Thuggee are two examples. A certain God even killed his chosen people's enemies' first-born sons just to prove a point. Ahh, philosophy and sociology, the study of those ruined my faith in my fellow human beings.
Also, adult stem cell research has led to over seventy approved treatments being used today. The number from embryonic research? Zero.
I don't know the numbers, so I can't argue those. But the rest of your argument is that "This treatment no one is allowed to research here has not shown any results, therefore we are right to oppose and ban any research into it." This is exactly the circular reasoning that annoys science types. It won't show any results as long as no one is allowed to test it.
I wish I had mod points right now, as I don't think posting 'THIS' is sufficient.
It does still suggest not repeating the treatment they tried, it didn't work.
Well, the confidence interval for a single test is not by any means conclusive. I wouldn't want to be the person taking the jump to be the next test subject but if someone else wanted to do it then let them. Or run a large scale animal test to see if this treatment causes this problem. Some meta analysis of any future treatments of this type might turn up something. They might not; that's science.
Some regulation should still apply in instances like this. At some point these types of things cross the line from "experimental" to "taking advantage of some poor soul who'd dieing and will try anything".
For instance, from TFA
Where is that line? How does a treatment cross that line from 'complete unknown' to 'experimental'? Is animal testing enough, or theoretical modeling, or what? And how would said regulation be enforced?
Now, I will freely admit that I don't have any medical expertise at all but this certainly sounds like snake oil to me. Her immune system is attacking her kidneys so they just pump her kidneys full of stem cells? Again, not an expert, but I could write several pages worth of thought as to why that doesn't seem to make any sense.
Right, not an expert but your several pages of thoughts should be heard and regulations based on that. I can come up with several pages of thoughts myself, the summary is this:The doctor might has just messed up, plain old malpractice. The doctor might have some animal testing that backed this treatment up, first human test just doesn't work; sucks but that happens and you would never hear about it if it happened in an accredited test in the states. Maybe the doctor played a hunch based on accumulated research, doctor blew it.
Medical treatments are experimental. That's part of medicine. Years from now, a standard method of treatment will be seen as barbaric. Years after that someone will find a reason why it might be useful and how to better refine it. Along the way people will die. Medicine isn't magic, where sick people walk into a hospital and, if they get there in time, they walk out healthy. Regulation might cause fewer people to die as a result of experimental treatments but those regulations are why people are, right now, going over seas to get the treatments they think will work. Do you really want some agency to step in and tell you that you can not do research your self and decide if you want to take a risk?
I hate to sound callus, but the woman did live two years after the treatment. No mention if she was in pain from the treatment or not, or if the decline happened similarly to what she would have experienced without the treatment. Only that, at time of her death, the doctors found that the treatment had not helped her. Not that it killed her, not that it accelerated her death; at least that is what the linked article stated, I have no clue about the full paper.
I still find it amusing that Blizzard is going after the makers of Glider, when the license violation is on the part of each player using it.
Sure, maybe Glider is infringing on some trademark or copyright, but the company making it did not facilitate the user in violating the license any more than the authors of libpcap facilitated someone running ShowEQ and violating Sony's license. The route Blizzard seems to be going ends up at, "The user violated our license, and so we want them to pay the next 20 years of subscription fees while we also cancel their account. After all, they would have paid us anyways." which is patently, and I hope legally, ridiculous. Nothing at all shows that these users would have continued playing if they did not have access to a program like Glider, in fact I recall back in the peek of EQ people quitting when seq or mq or any of the other programs got defeated. If they just got banned, they bought other accounts.
If Blizzard is really egotistical enough to claim, in a court of law, that the user would play if only they had played by our rules, than let them sue the user. Better yet, let them track down which users are not only still playing, but purchased new accounts to do so. Then lets hope the judge laughs them out of the court room.
When HTML 5 can do something like this then I will be impressed. The specification people put a lot of work into the video canvas, allowing lots of interaction, and then left audio as a play=mp3 tag. Firefox has made some progress in this area, I have seen their non-W3C stuff work and it is getting there. But that falls back to the complaint about Flash, write once and play only for people with the right browser.
And don't get me started on the mess that is Javascript events. Each browser has some sub-set that they support, and some of the ones they support behave differently from other major browsers. We are going backwards to the browser wars again, and everyone seems to be cheering because some Flash developers annoy them.
Disclaimer: I write Flash audio. Not the link above; wish I could claim that one. But I use Flash for local apps, not web apps.
So, you are willing to complain, but not willing to do anything about it? The people who don't have a problem with this policy probably will not bother to join in. So how, exactly, do you think the government can "come down on those practices" if no one is willing to do more than say "My ISP does this, but I will not help you prove it"?
Put this device between your DMZ/wifi router and your internal router. Then just make sure your torrent or other illicit traffic goes around this device. Easy, helps you nail your ISP for this crap, and you don't have to worry about the government spying on your Ubuntu iso uploads.
The re-captcha I got when looking at the signup sheet was "that narcs". While not being paranoid about helping the government, this detail does give me pause.
So, Paris has had 1300 years longer to get the sidewalks in usable shape, and still hasn't? Sheesh, next you will tell me these old cities can't even get buildings to stand up straight.
As a cable user, no. Someone will have to provide you the 'last mile' and since you get that through cable you will not be able to use this as is. If they offer last mile service, either as fiber or anything else, then you can use that. You might even find that a local phone company will be able to use their service, and offer DSL or some other connection.
Or it could be that their phase 4 is last mile service. That leaves phase 5 unknown, while phase 6 is obviously PROFIT!
Can you imagine what would happen if it was bad? Everyone walking out of the theater in a bad 'mood', and no forges in sight. Think of the tantrums. . .
Actually, yeah, I would pay to see the reaction of that many fell and possessed fans.
I think that, in an extreme case, someone who was disturbed when they committed their initial crime but still found competent for trial could emerge from prison even more disturbed.
Isn't it also possible that the law uses different standards when determining whether someone is responsible for their actions, and when they're too dangerous to be free, respectively?
Oh, definitely. But someone who is so disconnected as to require hospitalization because they present an eminent threat would, almost by definition of being so disconnected, be unable to assist in their own defense. It seems the law has three categories:sane, insane enough to hospitalize, insane enough to be not guilty. If they can be 5150ed without defending themselves because they are believed to be insane, how can it said that they are both insane enough to stay hospitalized, yet sane enough to defend themselves in court?
I guess I just feel the odds should be skewed the other direction.
The problem here is authorized power. The government can, and does, define its own rules to break the constitution. Civil commitment post term served adds to the punishment. Any claim that it does not is purest sophist nonsense. Therefore, it too is ex post facto, and UNAUTHORIZED
Do you know what ex-post-facto means? Was this law enacted after the crime it is punishing? Or are you searching for the phrase habeas corpus. Slow down, take a breath, and get the words right. Until then, you just sound like you are ranting. That may count as insightful in your post above, but it just sounds silly to me.
You aren't dense, that is what section 4248 says. But, section 4246 Hospitalization of a person due for release but suffering from mental disease or defect does allow for them to be determined competent to stand trial, but not still competent at time of release. See all of Chapter 313.
Never before in memory (well, except for Guantanamo) has SCOTUS claimed that the government has the authority to incarcerate someone indefinitely without trial.
The whole of Title 18, Part III, Chapter 313 concerns the way that courts can hospitalize a person found guilty of a crime. The chapter has been on the books since at least the '49, thats when section 4246 was added. Section 4246 allows a psychiatric review of a prisoner due for release, and allows for their civil confinement if they are found to be mentally incompetent. It has been used before, it exists on a state level in various mental health laws. I can not find a case that the SCOTUS has heard where their ruling was based on this chapter of law, but it is 4am and I don't have subscriptions to the proper journals. There are several appellate court cases that I could find; see U.S. v. Ecker, or Anthony Threatt's appeal where the law was upheld but the evidence was ruled to not be substantial enough. You can also see O'Connor v. Donaldson where the court ruled that a person could not be indefinitely detained under mental health laws if they were non-dangerous and capable of living on their own or with family/friends/etc. They specifically did not rule that indefinite detainment was forbidden, if the patient was dangerous. And I believe there are cases where they have upheld the ability of the state to declare a person, who may have committed no criminal act, to be mentally unfit and in need of hospitalization. So, yes, they have allowed the state government to have this ability. Section 4246 and 4248 just make it a federal law, allowing all states the same ability in very narrow circumstances.
None of that is to say I agree with it, but please do not argue that this concept of civil commitment has not been used before. It has been used many times, usually on a much shorter basis as it is used at the state level to try and treat people with psychiatric disorders who may harm themselves or others. See 5150s and other involuntary commitment laws. My opinion of the law is, however, based on the state's ability to treat the patient. Since there seems to be no known treatment for pedophiles, unlike other psychiatric disorders, it seems absurd to me that the state can hold this patient until he is treated.
Reading the opinion, and I haven't gotten all the way through it yet, the ruling seems to be that a civil commitment can be ordered after the jail term is served. The case is odd, in that my first impression is that the accused is having his confinement extended. That does not appear to be the legal interpretation of events. The SCOTUS seems to be of the opinion that the defendant served his term, and was then found to still be mentally disturbed. Enough so that a civil commitment was ordered, granted, and upheld.
I think that, in an extreme case, someone who was disturbed when they committed their initial crime but still found competent for trial could emerge from prison even more disturbed. They would then present a danger to society, possibly enough so that a separate civil commitment could be ordered. Each piece individually is allowed under law and even understandable, but the combination and the timing of this reek of a system that is eager to call everything abnormal a 'mental disease'. But, Title 18 section 4248 reads as legal, and does not appear unconstitutional, and the court found it such. That Title 18 Chapter 313 has existed this long seems to be the primary reason the Court allowed it to stand. Taken as part of that entire chapter, section 4248 does not seem that much further of a step for federal law.
Ah, good point. I was too busy picking apart the "omg, orbiting stuff moves fast" that I ignored that. Thanks for reminding me. The junk up there, though, is pretty stable. If it wasn't in a stable orbit, it would burn up or escape. Since it is stable, it's pretty documented. Don't go through a orbit transfer while near the junk.
Okay, not all of it is documented, because all the various governments don't want to admit what they put up there. But in a sphere 7 times the diameter of Earth, there is a lot of empty space.
Well, of course that picture looks nasty. From sea level out to geo-stationary orbit is 36,000 kilometers*. Earth itself is only 12,000 km (or so) across at the equator. There is a ton of empty space there. And as for 'bullet speed', in relation to the ground they are moving rather quickly. In relation to anything else that is in orbit at the same altitude as a given piece of debris, they are not moving at all. If something were moving at bullet speed in relation to another object in the same orbit, that bullet object would not remain in orbit for long. Since it is debris, and does not have any thrust left, it would either be moving so fast as to escape orbit completely, or it would alter it's orbit enough that it's return would destroy it in the atmosphere. Take geo-stationary orbit, for example, which is 265,000 km long*. Any object staying in geostationary orbit is going to make that whole trip every 24 hours*.Any faster or slower, and it's orbit degrades some.
Bad facts like this are why the green movement gets billed as ignoring the facts. Only picking on them since you linked to treehugger as a reference. Yes, the debris will be a danger at some point, but your reason and density argument are bunk. Those objects occupy a space anywhere from 300 km above sea level, out to 36,000km or more. Add to that the compressed area that makes up the edges of that projection, and the graphic is either intentionally deceptive, or ignorant of facts.
*: ish, I know, I know. The numbers are pulled from wiki, and I don't want to do the math for the extra distance covered by the additional traversal around the sun. This is the soft math version of the problem, not the rocket science version. Not a rocket scientist. Just a hippie who hates other people giving us all a bad name.
Slashdot Mirror
For "Generic Landscape A" or "Unidentifiable Sports Scene B" Flickr is going to beat the old stock photographer. And I say this as an amateur who would love to be a professional photographer. The problem is that Joe User has, for the most part, no clue about how contracts work, what a release is, and what Getty charges others to use the picture that they are getting paid $1 for.
At some point, all of those are going to cause some backlash. Getty may catch a lot of flack when people figure out they charge up to $500 for a non-resized 17mega pixel image. Many Flickr photographers do not understand the need for a model release, so I hope Getty is prepared to teach them why they won't accept their precious picture of someone blowing out candles on a cake but will take a, in their opinion, much worse picture from someone else. And contracts; I am not even sure why Getty is dealing with the user directly anyways. Flickr has the ability to sub-license a user's pictures, even after they delete their account; perpetual and sub-licensable are nasty words. Could be that Flickr knows what backlash it would cause, or that Getty is worried about model releases.
The difference between pro and amateur photographers has been, for a long time, just about the money one spent on lenses and what they get paid for a photograph. 35mm film was the same, camera bodies had different features but were all mostly the same, the lens quality is the major difference. Amateurs with a point-and-click or lower end DSLR are getting better picture quality than they would have a decade ago, if this lets them turn semi-pro it might be a good thing. The average non-photographer with a camera will still let the camera do all the lifting. After flooding the market with badly lit scenes, the pendulum should swing back the other way. Or the point-and-click cameras may come up with better chips to take pictures with more depth/range/feeling.
I suppose if you ignore the second half of my post, then yes, that was the entire argument.
You used the word morals for an individual. For the most part, that is the incorrect word. An individual has values; a society of individuals have morals based on the values of the members of that society.
You also implied that morals would prevent a person from killing their own first-born son. Again, not true. Societal morals might punish them, personal values might prevent them. Alternatively, to such a sweeping generalization, you could look at multiple societies where such an act might not be frowned upon.
Perhaps I could do with not posting at 5am, and we could both use a writing course.
I would have read the article, but between the title and the text was an advert for some new ADHD medicine. "Are your child's ADHD symptoms controlled . . . even after soccer practice?" I got distracted by the shiny Flash advert telling me to take more drugs.
Say the FDA were to go away, who do you think would be trying out these new experimental treatments first? The poor who can't afford the expensive, tested treatments.
Have you seen the current costs of some experimental treatments? By the time they get through enough FDA red tape to begin human testing, the fees can sky rocket. As it stands, either you have the money or insurance to pay for something that might save your life, or you die. Is it some how better that only the rich can get an experimental treatment while the poor die without treatment?
false dichotomy is false, I know.
Good point, and I sympathize with you, but in this case there was precisely ZERO chance that the "treatment" would cure her.
What do you base your ZERO chance on, a study of one person with an inherently awful confidence interval and p value?
Arguably, people have values. The norm of those values for a society are the morals. You can find historical reference where almost any value that we hold today to be normal is thrown away. Ancient Greece and the Thuggee are two examples. A certain God even killed his chosen people's enemies' first-born sons just to prove a point. Ahh, philosophy and sociology, the study of those ruined my faith in my fellow human beings.
Also, adult stem cell research has led to over seventy approved treatments being used today. The number from embryonic research? Zero.
I don't know the numbers, so I can't argue those. But the rest of your argument is that "This treatment no one is allowed to research here has not shown any results, therefore we are right to oppose and ban any research into it." This is exactly the circular reasoning that annoys science types. It won't show any results as long as no one is allowed to test it.
It does still suggest not repeating the treatment they tried, it didn't work.
Well, the confidence interval for a single test is not by any means conclusive. I wouldn't want to be the person taking the jump to be the next test subject but if someone else wanted to do it then let them. Or run a large scale animal test to see if this treatment causes this problem. Some meta analysis of any future treatments of this type might turn up something. They might not; that's science.
Some regulation should still apply in instances like this. At some point these types of things cross the line from "experimental" to "taking advantage of some poor soul who'd dieing and will try anything". For instance, from TFA
Where is that line? How does a treatment cross that line from 'complete unknown' to 'experimental'? Is animal testing enough, or theoretical modeling, or what? And how would said regulation be enforced?
Now, I will freely admit that I don't have any medical expertise at all but this certainly sounds like snake oil to me. Her immune system is attacking her kidneys so they just pump her kidneys full of stem cells? Again, not an expert, but I could write several pages worth of thought as to why that doesn't seem to make any sense.
Right, not an expert but your several pages of thoughts should be heard and regulations based on that. I can come up with several pages of thoughts myself, the summary is this:The doctor might has just messed up, plain old malpractice. The doctor might have some animal testing that backed this treatment up, first human test just doesn't work; sucks but that happens and you would never hear about it if it happened in an accredited test in the states. Maybe the doctor played a hunch based on accumulated research, doctor blew it.
Medical treatments are experimental. That's part of medicine. Years from now, a standard method of treatment will be seen as barbaric. Years after that someone will find a reason why it might be useful and how to better refine it. Along the way people will die. Medicine isn't magic, where sick people walk into a hospital and, if they get there in time, they walk out healthy. Regulation might cause fewer people to die as a result of experimental treatments but those regulations are why people are, right now, going over seas to get the treatments they think will work. Do you really want some agency to step in and tell you that you can not do research your self and decide if you want to take a risk?
I hate to sound callus, but the woman did live two years after the treatment. No mention if she was in pain from the treatment or not, or if the decline happened similarly to what she would have experienced without the treatment. Only that, at time of her death, the doctors found that the treatment had not helped her. Not that it killed her, not that it accelerated her death; at least that is what the linked article stated, I have no clue about the full paper.
I still find it amusing that Blizzard is going after the makers of Glider, when the license violation is on the part of each player using it.
Sure, maybe Glider is infringing on some trademark or copyright, but the company making it did not facilitate the user in violating the license any more than the authors of libpcap facilitated someone running ShowEQ and violating Sony's license. The route Blizzard seems to be going ends up at, "The user violated our license, and so we want them to pay the next 20 years of subscription fees while we also cancel their account. After all, they would have paid us anyways." which is patently, and I hope legally, ridiculous. Nothing at all shows that these users would have continued playing if they did not have access to a program like Glider, in fact I recall back in the peek of EQ people quitting when seq or mq or any of the other programs got defeated. If they just got banned, they bought other accounts.
If Blizzard is really egotistical enough to claim, in a court of law, that the user would play if only they had played by our rules, than let them sue the user. Better yet, let them track down which users are not only still playing, but purchased new accounts to do so. Then lets hope the judge laughs them out of the court room.
When HTML 5 can do something like this then I will be impressed. The specification people put a lot of work into the video canvas, allowing lots of interaction, and then left audio as a play=mp3 tag. Firefox has made some progress in this area, I have seen their non-W3C stuff work and it is getting there. But that falls back to the complaint about Flash, write once and play only for people with the right browser.
And don't get me started on the mess that is Javascript events. Each browser has some sub-set that they support, and some of the ones they support behave differently from other major browsers. We are going backwards to the browser wars again, and everyone seems to be cheering because some Flash developers annoy them.
Disclaimer: I write Flash audio. Not the link above; wish I could claim that one. But I use Flash for local apps, not web apps.
So, you are willing to complain, but not willing to do anything about it? The people who don't have a problem with this policy probably will not bother to join in. So how, exactly, do you think the government can "come down on those practices" if no one is willing to do more than say "My ISP does this, but I will not help you prove it"?
Put this device between your DMZ/wifi router and your internal router. Then just make sure your torrent or other illicit traffic goes around this device. Easy, helps you nail your ISP for this crap, and you don't have to worry about the government spying on your Ubuntu iso uploads.
The re-captcha I got when looking at the signup sheet was "that narcs". While not being paranoid about helping the government, this detail does give me pause.
So, Paris has had 1300 years longer to get the sidewalks in usable shape, and still hasn't? Sheesh, next you will tell me these old cities can't even get buildings to stand up straight.
It will help the cable company reduce cost. That may, or may not, go along to the customer.
Local prejudice, I guess. The phone service here tends to have local co-ops, while the cable company is a national brand.
As a cable user, no. Someone will have to provide you the 'last mile' and since you get that through cable you will not be able to use this as is. If they offer last mile service, either as fiber or anything else, then you can use that. You might even find that a local phone company will be able to use their service, and offer DSL or some other connection.
Or it could be that their phase 4 is last mile service. That leaves phase 5 unknown, while phase 6 is obviously PROFIT!
Can you imagine what would happen if it was bad? Everyone walking out of the theater in a bad 'mood', and no forges in sight. Think of the tantrums. . .
Actually, yeah, I would pay to see the reaction of that many fell and possessed fans.
I think that, in an extreme case, someone who was disturbed when they committed their initial crime but still found competent for trial could emerge from prison even more disturbed.
Isn't it also possible that the law uses different standards when determining whether someone is responsible for their actions, and when they're too dangerous to be free, respectively?
Oh, definitely. But someone who is so disconnected as to require hospitalization because they present an eminent threat would, almost by definition of being so disconnected, be unable to assist in their own defense. It seems the law has three categories:sane, insane enough to hospitalize, insane enough to be not guilty. If they can be 5150ed without defending themselves because they are believed to be insane, how can it said that they are both insane enough to stay hospitalized, yet sane enough to defend themselves in court?
I guess I just feel the odds should be skewed the other direction.
The problem here is authorized power. The government can, and does, define its own rules to break the constitution. Civil commitment post term served adds to the punishment. Any claim that it does not is purest sophist nonsense. Therefore, it too is ex post facto, and UNAUTHORIZED
Do you know what ex-post-facto means? Was this law enacted after the crime it is punishing? Or are you searching for the phrase habeas corpus. Slow down, take a breath, and get the words right. Until then, you just sound like you are ranting. That may count as insightful in your post above, but it just sounds silly to me.
You aren't dense, that is what section 4248 says. But, section 4246 Hospitalization of a person due for release but suffering from mental disease or defect does allow for them to be determined competent to stand trial, but not still competent at time of release. See all of Chapter 313.
Never before in memory (well, except for Guantanamo) has SCOTUS claimed that the government has the authority to incarcerate someone indefinitely without trial.
The whole of Title 18, Part III, Chapter 313 concerns the way that courts can hospitalize a person found guilty of a crime. The chapter has been on the books since at least the '49, thats when section 4246 was added. Section 4246 allows a psychiatric review of a prisoner due for release, and allows for their civil confinement if they are found to be mentally incompetent. It has been used before, it exists on a state level in various mental health laws. I can not find a case that the SCOTUS has heard where their ruling was based on this chapter of law, but it is 4am and I don't have subscriptions to the proper journals. There are several appellate court cases that I could find; see U.S. v. Ecker, or Anthony Threatt's appeal where the law was upheld but the evidence was ruled to not be substantial enough. You can also see O'Connor v. Donaldson where the court ruled that a person could not be indefinitely detained under mental health laws if they were non-dangerous and capable of living on their own or with family/friends/etc. They specifically did not rule that indefinite detainment was forbidden, if the patient was dangerous. And I believe there are cases where they have upheld the ability of the state to declare a person, who may have committed no criminal act, to be mentally unfit and in need of hospitalization. So, yes, they have allowed the state government to have this ability. Section 4246 and 4248 just make it a federal law, allowing all states the same ability in very narrow circumstances.
None of that is to say I agree with it, but please do not argue that this concept of civil commitment has not been used before. It has been used many times, usually on a much shorter basis as it is used at the state level to try and treat people with psychiatric disorders who may harm themselves or others. See 5150s and other involuntary commitment laws. My opinion of the law is, however, based on the state's ability to treat the patient. Since there seems to be no known treatment for pedophiles, unlike other psychiatric disorders, it seems absurd to me that the state can hold this patient until he is treated.
Reading the opinion, and I haven't gotten all the way through it yet, the ruling seems to be that a civil commitment can be ordered after the jail term is served. The case is odd, in that my first impression is that the accused is having his confinement extended. That does not appear to be the legal interpretation of events. The SCOTUS seems to be of the opinion that the defendant served his term, and was then found to still be mentally disturbed. Enough so that a civil commitment was ordered, granted, and upheld.
I think that, in an extreme case, someone who was disturbed when they committed their initial crime but still found competent for trial could emerge from prison even more disturbed. They would then present a danger to society, possibly enough so that a separate civil commitment could be ordered. Each piece individually is allowed under law and even understandable, but the combination and the timing of this reek of a system that is eager to call everything abnormal a 'mental disease'. But, Title 18 section 4248 reads as legal, and does not appear unconstitutional, and the court found it such. That Title 18 Chapter 313 has existed this long seems to be the primary reason the Court allowed it to stand. Taken as part of that entire chapter, section 4248 does not seem that much further of a step for federal law.
Ah, good point. I was too busy picking apart the "omg, orbiting stuff moves fast" that I ignored that. Thanks for reminding me. The junk up there, though, is pretty stable. If it wasn't in a stable orbit, it would burn up or escape. Since it is stable, it's pretty documented. Don't go through a orbit transfer while near the junk.
Okay, not all of it is documented, because all the various governments don't want to admit what they put up there. But in a sphere 7 times the diameter of Earth, there is a lot of empty space.
Well, of course that picture looks nasty. From sea level out to geo-stationary orbit is 36,000 kilometers*. Earth itself is only 12,000 km (or so) across at the equator. There is a ton of empty space there. And as for 'bullet speed', in relation to the ground they are moving rather quickly. In relation to anything else that is in orbit at the same altitude as a given piece of debris, they are not moving at all. If something were moving at bullet speed in relation to another object in the same orbit, that bullet object would not remain in orbit for long. Since it is debris, and does not have any thrust left, it would either be moving so fast as to escape orbit completely, or it would alter it's orbit enough that it's return would destroy it in the atmosphere. Take geo-stationary orbit, for example, which is 265,000 km long*. Any object staying in geostationary orbit is going to make that whole trip every 24 hours*.Any faster or slower, and it's orbit degrades some.
Bad facts like this are why the green movement gets billed as ignoring the facts. Only picking on them since you linked to treehugger as a reference. Yes, the debris will be a danger at some point, but your reason and density argument are bunk. Those objects occupy a space anywhere from 300 km above sea level, out to 36,000km or more. Add to that the compressed area that makes up the edges of that projection, and the graphic is either intentionally deceptive, or ignorant of facts.
*: ish, I know, I know. The numbers are pulled from wiki, and I don't want to do the math for the extra distance covered by the additional traversal around the sun. This is the soft math version of the problem, not the rocket science version.
Not a rocket scientist. Just a hippie who hates other people giving us all a bad name.