People are willing to pay for a product if its offered at a price that makes them paying for the media that they consume within their budget. The problem is, the industry hasn't done that for everyone yet.
While I may share your opinion that most of their stuff is shit, the fact remains that the people who do the most non-approved downloading are, in fact, the people who couldn't afford to have so much music or watch so many movies otherwise.
So whether people will pay for the product or not is not the question, people who have money will. I don't pirate anything. However, if I go downstairs and decide to spend the next 3 days watching Pay per View movies on cable, and order the latest boyband album, it doesn't mean my wife is out on the street doing tricks so we can eat. Simply the people with the most time to sit around and do nothing are the people with the least money (I know a family where both parents became disabled and can barely get around much less do their old labor intensive jobs, they have almost no money and almost infinite time to watch movies.... guess who it is that downloads the most of all the people I know?)
In fact, just about everyone I know, including myself, who used to download movies, music, pirate video games... every single one of us did it at a time when they were broke, and stopped doing it when they got jobs and could afford the media that they consumed.... the exceptions being... the ones who don't have any money.
Frankly, when it comes down to it... people just don't care about control or any of that. Oh sure, some of us do... but even I grabbed a video license off amazon when I wanted to spend a weekend showing my cousin firefly... even if I do find the idea of "buying" something and not controling the physical media. I mean hell, ideologically I find myself allied with Stallman on most issues around the owner of computer should have a right to the code that runs on it and the right to edit it. fuck yah!.... I still spend money on games for myself, wife, and gifts to our nephew and others.... without even a glimer of hope of seeing Skyrim come under the GPL anytime soon.
Anyway yah, I get it, most of the content sucks... but lets not delude ourselves as to why its happening or what the effects are. Its, mostly a null effect, as the people who pirate didn't have the money to begin with, and the people who have the money, already bought it because its not worth it to them to take the risk, or worry about getting a virus. So the only real effect is the added exposure that things get by being seen by people who otherwise wouldn't have seen them.... except that in these cases that "otherwise" means.... like decades ago before affordable recording equipment of any kind existed...because people have been making copies for each other ever since.
A co-worker/long time friend (longer than we have worked together) recently became a full time remote employee as he moved his family back to where he and his wife are from to be near their extended family for child care (day care is very expensive, they figured she was working basically just to pay for day care)
I told him...if they are going to let you go full time remote.... fuck the south, move to India! Take your big American professional, solid middle to upper middle class salary, and up and move to India. They could live like kings and come back with a retirement. Shit, I know a guy who lived there for 6 months without cooking for himself, on less per week than I got from unemployment when I was between jobs.
I get this but, I think you are forgetting some history here, in that this only justifies the start of the system of doing things this way, it doesn't address the current situation of continuing it, and where we actually have come today, that is.... its one thing to start doing something but, at what point do you reach diminishing returns?
Look at Charles Ponzi, the person who, while I wont say he invented scemes like this (he got the idea from watching someone else do it), but gave his name to them. A judge put him away for 5 years. Why the light sentance? Well...it wasn't seen as a light sentance then!
These perceptions change so drastically over time, and I wonder that we haven't completely decoupled from the real reasons. Do we really think 100 years vs 75 years vs 50 years vs 25 make so much difference? I have found myself feeling bad for murders who, after 20 years in prison, with no hope of getting out, are still paying for a crime commited by a teenager that is less the same person today than I am the same person I was as a teenager, and thats a monumental difference for me.
frankly, I think we have gotten entiely out of whack with all this focusing on the victims. The victims will ALWAYS ask for more and more punishment. It will NEVER be enough for some of them. Where is the balance between appeasing them and throwing lives away pointlessly? Where is that point of diminishing returns?
frankly, people get off on rather heinous crimes, or get light sentances, it happens, but, when it does, its exceedingly rare that any retribution is seen from victims. frankly, i think we are so far past the point of diminishing returns on appeasing the victims that its hardly even relevant.
Actually I feel it doesn't accomplish much except to further some prosecutors careers. Don't get me wrong, I am glad it was exposed, and some lgood lawyers out there have done some good work trying to fix the mess....
but the criminal side of things? Meh. Strict penalty...woo hoo. It doesn't actually fix anything. It clearly wasn't a deterrent. Meh.
I would rather he was sentanced to spend several nights a week in soup kitchens for as long as he is medically able, if you really need to sentance him to something... why give him a forced retirement in a cell? Have him do something useful for society. I mean, its not like anyone is going to trust the guy with investments again, and he certainly isn't a physical danger to anyone.
Thats what I have been using for years. In fact, in my last job when one of the DBAs was complaining about how long it took to transfer really large files with winscp, I showed her how to set blowfish as the cipher and she about started glowing she was so happy at the speed.
Reason is such a funny word to apply to a process that involves people appointed by committee asking for funding.
In a real way, you are absolutely correct. However, that sort of rational thinking is often totally absent, and I think you really need to look at how the Military Industrial Complex, and its newer subsidieries work.
Long story short... the Military asked for some number of planes that they expected to need. Congress bought 50 times that for them. Not 10% extra, not 50%...5000% more. Why? Because Lockheed-Martin started directing their sales efforts directly at politicians.
What you have done is made a ground assessment of need, and looked at what they have vs what they need, and concluded that they have a hidden agenda. You are absolutely correct, but that agenda is to waste money on equipment. Money wasted on equipment is money that goes into jobs, that buy constituents.
Oh it leaves them prepared for war against us, and since they have the ability, it becomes that much easier, but, that's not what they are preparing for, that's just the accidental consequence, they just don't care about that, its not their problem.
I was recently talking with a friend, he is a pot head who is dating a substance abuse councillor. We were giving him shit, not because we have any issue with pot heads, just that he lied to her about it and kept the extent of it from her. He went on about how hes changing that now, quiting etc,
It was pointed out that he started out with the lies to which he said "Well I couldn't exactly tell her that"... but the thing is...no he couldn't have told her that...if he wanted her to date him and sleep with him. Thats the subtext he left off "I couldn't tell her that". It was really "I couldn't tell her that, and still get what I wanted from her".
Its really the same issue to my mind. If you can't tell people the truth and still have them support your goals, that doesn't really give you license to lie to them. (there are situations I would consider extenuating but, none of them apply to making these sorts of cases for social policy)
I don't know, but I would be shocked to see Schneier actually make such a claim. I think you misunderstand. While its true, one does not NEED a giant military org to do such things, that doesn't mean that giant military orgs do not HAVE them.
Just this morning I was listening to an interview with a Syrian who claimed he was recruited by the Syrian military for their military units. Its not a matter of whether such units are needed for attacks so much as the fact that they have been created and are indeed operational.
It may seem silly to be talking about cyberweapons but, thats what they are, they are means of attack. Anybody can make them or stockpile them, just like anyone can make guns and or stockpile them. However, there is a serious difference between "anybody could do it" and "groups are doing it and making use of their arsenal on a daily basis".
As for pundits, aside from him, they are mostly uninformed and parrot whatever they are told. When someone talks about cyberwar, they simply don't have the technical chops to question it. I mean, I constantly hear things about how attacks were "traced to china", and it always bothers me because I know how they would do that, and the chances that they really had anything so conclusive? Unlikely.
How many pundits, when told that, would you expect to ask how that was determined? How many would have any clue if they talked about packet latency timing? Do you think it even crosses their mind that it may have been traced to a proxy?
How exactly would researchers distinguish chineese government hackers from non? from professionals in another group or army framing the chineese? These are not trivial questions, I wouldn't expect most talking heads to even know where to begin asking these sorts of questions.
> All this is, is an attempt by the court, to establish a strong verification of the truth. > The person isn't required to take the test.
But where is the evidence that this "Attempt" would be expected to be meaningful?
He isn't required to take the test, but its being placed as a condition on something he does have the right to do. Its reasonable for a court to take steps to establish truth but, shouldn't they do so in ways that there is evidence to believe would do that?
The right to due process is most certainly violated when the process is not due. What makes this process, in any way, sound? Why should such a process be taken as establishing anything? If it isn't sound, then it doesn't make sense as a condition.
I mean, I can shoot you in the face and claim that I was just attempting to tie my shoes, however, I would be shocked if anyone accepted that as a reasonable attempt at putting a knot in my laces.
1, 3, and 4 definitely show a person, at least isn't paying much attention. However, being lied to by the people who raised you and misinformed doesn't really make one insane.
Talking about the NRA as if its some nutjob group though? Well that doesn't show insanity either, but it does show one to be almost as misinformed as the people in categories 1, 3, and 4. The NRA is just a lobby group....and one which represents a huge cross section of society.
I disagree entirely with the notion that speeding is somehow cheating, or should be seen the same way.
A while back I had a chuckle with some co-workers ovemajr a University making a new rule: No sex in dorm rooms with anyone else present. It was funny, but, someone pointed out at the time, it was about perfect because: there was no active enforcement, and anybody who didn't care would go about their business, meaning that the only enforcement would be...when it caused enough of a problem for someone to complain.
Likewise, while its very useful to have rules of the road which inform accident liability, and there is clear benefit there...and the vast majority of motorists have every reason to avoid an accident since it means loss of life, health, or transportation, before any question of liability, so generally, it all works out.... without active enforcement.
Except, being able to do it, and figuring out a method are not the same thing. Building a machine requires discovery of the method which the machine implements.
So up until now we had a situation, where speeding is a violation, but rarely enforced. This situation has gone on for years and years. Now suddenly enforcement changes, and everyone is getting hit...and you blame.... the people.
Its enforcement that changed, not the people. To what benefit? None that I see. Why is technical rules enforcement so importent? Is it really a safety concern if someone stops over a line or goes a few miles over some arbitrary limit?
No, its just money grubbing. Some company found a way to step up cash extraction and convinced politicians to enact it, and now, the truth about how lazy and poorly written...and divorced from the purpose of safety the laws are is coming out.
when your rule makes the majority of people violators....its the rule thats wrong.
Clearly you have not been exposed to the public sector.
All departments justify their existance by spending all of the money that they are allocated in the budget. To not spend it, is to say to the people who do the budgeting "we are not doing our job, cut us or replace us". To just spend it.... well, that doesn't really show the kind of initiative of people who want to really go above and beyond.
No, to survive, departments must justify their existance, which is defined as using up all of the money allocated to them, and submitting plans to spend even more.
This is just how the system is setup. Incidentally, its not limited to government. I have worked in non-profit healthcare and academia. While the details do change with the ebb and flow of organizational finances, when there is money to spend, you will even hear managers asking for things to spend it on "The fiscal year is almost up, we still have budget to spend"... and when times are lean watch out, every other group should be the ones to sacrifice, our mission is too important.
Which is part of the problem with tasking departments, you get what you ask them to do. Even if there is only benefit in doing a little of something, so long as they exist, they will nearly without fail, find reasons to expand and do more.
To take a weird example, when i worked at the University we laughed at a new rule banning students in dorms from having sex with anyone else in the room, including their dorm roomate. Silly but, someone pointed out it was nearly perfect because the only way to get caught was for the person to complain, so roomates who didn't care could go about as they pleased.
But what happens when you task a department with the job of making sure students are not having sex in the room with others? It totally changes whats going on. Does it make sense to put up posters with tip lines? To roam the halls with a notepad looking for potential incidents? In the end, you really get what you want.... a clear guidence for domestic dispute resolution, just by having the original rule, even without active enforcement.
Its been said a person can't comprehend things that contradict the notion of his salary.... this most definitely extends to the concept of diminishing (or long since vanished) returns.
So you are walking into a building that requires you sign in, you show your ID, the system tells the security desk that you are 45, but your ID says 26. If it does this too often, it will either be ignored (useless system) or cause people to be detained needlessly (useless and costly).
You just had a screaming match with your soon to be ex wife over the phone driving in... ut oh, emotional distress right there.
Even wost, you may end up with people having major panic attacks because the scanner is telling security this person is under huge emotional stress, causing them to watch more closely and cause more anxiety.
Then the sociopath walks in and starts spinning well meshed lies right to the security gaurds face, and the scanner picks up no emotional stress, because he isn't really under any. But thats ok, security is too busy having the police escort out the girl who just broke down in a panic to really deal with him anyway.
> Given the prevailing attitude towards nuclear weapons, these are the only two options that are really > on the table. The Iranian sanctions are mentioned in the NPR story specifically.
Sure and in my estimation that is the problem. Normalizing relations will do more to prevent war than any sanctions or intervention will. Questions of whether or not they really are working towards nuclear weapons aside (there are several believable scenarios including that they are not really but feel its useful to look like they are)... what bolsters the argument in favor of such developments internally more than having external adversaries that pose an existential threat?
As long as those are the only options, then yes, sanctions are better.
And hammers can drive pointy things into wood, hand me those screws!
Sanctions do not topple governments. Sanctions make operation harder, they increase many types of pressure but, if a bit more pressure isn't going to crack them, then sanctions wont work. Not only that, but look at the effect of sanctions.
I was talking to an Iranian friend recently, I couldn't believe he would cheer the people he himself calles "towel heads" (a lot of not very religious people from Iran you know), so I called him on it. He looked at me and said "the sanctions hurt my people so much, it just makes me mad". Mad....not at the "towel heads" who run Iran... mad at the US and other countries that are imposing these ineffectual sanctions.
Frankly, a better question is.... not CAN sanctions topple governments, what do they do more often, topple them, or internally strenghten them? Sanctions are no good if they rally the people of a country behind the leaders that you intend to punish, and more often than not, I think thats exactly what they do.
However, its only counter-productive if your not a politican who needs permenant enemies.
"Coffee with milk and no sugar" "That will be three dollars" "thanks"
OMG! The meaningful interactions I will miss! What am I going to miss out on? Meaningless protocol driven exchanges? The occasional moments where protocol breaks and customer and server have a brief moment of human interaction? Frankly, if it bothers you to lose these minute interactions, then you have bigger issues.
My only issue is characterising this as them seeking us out.
More like they started living closer to us because we had lots of food around, enough to keep them well enough fed that they were not such a menace that we drove them all off. Frankly, this theory is very much like the conclusions I came to watching a documentary on the experiments with domesticating foxes.
There is clear generic variation that affects their agressiveness towards us. So mixing with us, more closely is going to put some selective pressure on those genes for the the ones that live near us. No shock, just that being friendly to humans turns out to be a distinct evolutionary advantage. Worked for cats too.
>: Non-violent crime barely gets investigated unless you're out in the sticks, and even there it's more >for the purposes of providing a case number to insurers, make people feel safer and , frankly, >justifying the existence of a local PD that barely has anythng to do than because of any possibility > of the "investigation" producing a result.
That is unless its a drug crime and the victim, er I mean perp has assets that would help fund the department.
Then it gets super top priotity. They have entire divisions that work on those kinds of heist...er boost...er busts.
Reed was charged with assault after she was accused of paddling the buttocks of another woman who was strapped to a table during the party. Police said that according to state law, a person cannot consent to being assaulted, even for sexual pleasure.
I notice the NH wording has no mention of consent. So not only can I not take a picture of your dwelling, you can't either, nor can you ask me to. (hell, if you ask me, and I do it, thats conspiracy!)
We had an issue here in MA a while back where a private BDSM party got raided by police, for this very sort of issue.... paddles and whips were called "insturments of abuse", because there is no provision in the law for consent.
And I know someone who was in a school with all new labs when the Chemistry teacher left and some other random teacher was put on as the chemisty teacher.... so everyone in their 8th grade class had an entire year of going into class, being given a paraphraph from the chemistry book with words removed, and being asked to read the chapter and fill in the words.
she, quite predictably, has no idea what an Ion is.
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Um no, you have it entirely wrong.
People are willing to pay for a product if its offered at a price that makes them paying for the media that they consume within their budget. The problem is, the industry hasn't done that for everyone yet.
While I may share your opinion that most of their stuff is shit, the fact remains that the people who do the most non-approved downloading are, in fact, the people who couldn't afford to have so much music or watch so many movies otherwise.
So whether people will pay for the product or not is not the question, people who have money will. I don't pirate anything. However, if I go downstairs and decide to spend the next 3 days watching Pay per View movies on cable, and order the latest boyband album, it doesn't mean my wife is out on the street doing tricks so we can eat. Simply the people with the most time to sit around and do nothing are the people with the least money (I know a family where both parents became disabled and can barely get around much less do their old labor intensive jobs, they have almost no money and almost infinite time to watch movies.... guess who it is that downloads the most of all the people I know?)
In fact, just about everyone I know, including myself, who used to download movies, music, pirate video games... every single one of us did it at a time when they were broke, and stopped doing it when they got jobs and could afford the media that they consumed.... the exceptions being... the ones who don't have any money.
Frankly, when it comes down to it... people just don't care about control or any of that. Oh sure, some of us do... but even I grabbed a video license off amazon when I wanted to spend a weekend showing my cousin firefly... even if I do find the idea of "buying" something and not controling the physical media. I mean hell, ideologically I find myself allied with Stallman on most issues around the owner of computer should have a right to the code that runs on it and the right to edit it. fuck yah! .... I still spend money on games for myself, wife, and gifts to our nephew and others.... without even a glimer of hope of seeing Skyrim come under the GPL anytime soon.
Anyway yah, I get it, most of the content sucks... but lets not delude ourselves as to why its happening or what the effects are. Its, mostly a null effect, as the people who pirate didn't have the money to begin with, and the people who have the money, already bought it because its not worth it to them to take the risk, or worry about getting a virus. So the only real effect is the added exposure that things get by being seen by people who otherwise wouldn't have seen them.... except that in these cases that "otherwise" means.... like decades ago before affordable recording equipment of any kind existed...because people have been making copies for each other ever since.
A co-worker/long time friend (longer than we have worked together) recently became a full time remote employee as he moved his family back to where he and his wife are from to be near their extended family for child care (day care is very expensive, they figured she was working basically just to pay for day care)
I told him...if they are going to let you go full time remote.... fuck the south, move to India! Take your big American professional, solid middle to upper middle class salary, and up and move to India. They could live like kings and come back with a retirement. Shit, I know a guy who lived there for 6 months without cooking for himself, on less per week than I got from unemployment when I was between jobs.
I get this but, I think you are forgetting some history here, in that this only justifies the start of the system of doing things this way, it doesn't address the current situation of continuing it, and where we actually have come today, that is.... its one thing to start doing something but, at what point do you reach diminishing returns?
Look at Charles Ponzi, the person who, while I wont say he invented scemes like this (he got the idea from watching someone else do it), but gave his name to them. A judge put him away for 5 years. Why the light sentance? Well...it wasn't seen as a light sentance then!
These perceptions change so drastically over time, and I wonder that we haven't completely decoupled from the real reasons. Do we really think 100 years vs 75 years vs 50 years vs 25 make so much difference? I have found myself feeling bad for murders who, after 20 years in prison, with no hope of getting out, are still paying for a crime commited by a teenager that is less the same person today than I am the same person I was as a teenager, and thats a monumental difference for me.
frankly, I think we have gotten entiely out of whack with all this focusing on the victims. The victims will ALWAYS ask for more and more punishment. It will NEVER be enough for some of them. Where is the balance between appeasing them and throwing lives away pointlessly? Where is that point of diminishing returns?
frankly, people get off on rather heinous crimes, or get light sentances, it happens, but, when it does, its exceedingly rare that any retribution is seen from victims. frankly, i think we are so far past the point of diminishing returns on appeasing the victims that its hardly even relevant.
Actually I feel it doesn't accomplish much except to further some prosecutors careers. Don't get me wrong, I am glad it was exposed, and some lgood lawyers out there have done some good work trying to fix the mess....
but the criminal side of things? Meh. Strict penalty...woo hoo. It doesn't actually fix anything. It clearly wasn't a deterrent. Meh.
I would rather he was sentanced to spend several nights a week in soup kitchens for as long as he is medically able, if you really need to sentance him to something... why give him a forced retirement in a cell? Have him do something useful for society. I mean, its not like anyone is going to trust the guy with investments again, and he certainly isn't a physical danger to anyone.
Thats what I have been using for years. In fact, in my last job when one of the DBAs was complaining about how long it took to transfer really large files with winscp, I showed her how to set blowfish as the cipher and she about started glowing she was so happy at the speed.
Reason is such a funny word to apply to a process that involves people appointed by committee asking for funding.
In a real way, you are absolutely correct. However, that sort of rational thinking is often totally absent, and I think you really need to look at how the Military Industrial Complex, and its newer subsidieries work.
Check out this: http://www.speroforum.com/a/UGRHJGPCSM51/73796-Hercules-C130-An-epic-tale-of-military-aviation-and-pork-spending?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=email3-13-2013
Long story short... the Military asked for some number of planes that they expected to need. Congress bought 50 times that for them. Not 10% extra, not 50%...5000% more. Why? Because Lockheed-Martin started directing their sales efforts directly at politicians.
What you have done is made a ground assessment of need, and looked at what they have vs what they need, and concluded that they have a hidden agenda. You are absolutely correct, but that agenda is to waste money on equipment. Money wasted on equipment is money that goes into jobs, that buy constituents.
Oh it leaves them prepared for war against us, and since they have the ability, it becomes that much easier, but, that's not what they are preparing for, that's just the accidental consequence, they just don't care about that, its not their problem.
I was recently talking with a friend, he is a pot head who is dating a substance abuse councillor. We were giving him shit, not because we have any issue with pot heads, just that he lied to her about it and kept the extent of it from her. He went on about how hes changing that now, quiting etc,
It was pointed out that he started out with the lies to which he said "Well I couldn't exactly tell her that"... but the thing is...no he couldn't have told her that...if he wanted her to date him and sleep with him. Thats the subtext he left off "I couldn't tell her that". It was really "I couldn't tell her that, and still get what I wanted from her".
Its really the same issue to my mind. If you can't tell people the truth and still have them support your goals, that doesn't really give you license to lie to them. (there are situations I would consider extenuating but, none of them apply to making these sorts of cases for social policy)
Followed up by the history channel special on the secrets of Alien Dolphins.
I don't know, but I would be shocked to see Schneier actually make such a claim. I think you misunderstand. While its true, one does not NEED a giant military org to do such things, that doesn't mean that giant military orgs do not HAVE them.
Just this morning I was listening to an interview with a Syrian who claimed he was recruited by the Syrian military for their military units. Its not a matter of whether such units are needed for attacks so much as the fact that they have been created and are indeed operational.
It may seem silly to be talking about cyberweapons but, thats what they are, they are means of attack. Anybody can make them or stockpile them, just like anyone can make guns and or stockpile them. However, there is a serious difference between "anybody could do it" and "groups are doing it and making use of their arsenal on a daily basis".
As for pundits, aside from him, they are mostly uninformed and parrot whatever they are told. When someone talks about cyberwar, they simply don't have the technical chops to question it. I mean, I constantly hear things about how attacks were "traced to china", and it always bothers me because I know how they would do that, and the chances that they really had anything so conclusive? Unlikely.
How many pundits, when told that, would you expect to ask how that was determined? How many would have any clue if they talked about packet latency timing? Do you think it even crosses their mind that it may have been traced to a proxy?
How exactly would researchers distinguish chineese government hackers from non? from professionals in another group or army framing the chineese? These are not trivial questions, I wouldn't expect most talking heads to even know where to begin asking these sorts of questions.
> All this is, is an attempt by the court, to establish a strong verification of the truth.
> The person isn't required to take the test.
But where is the evidence that this "Attempt" would be expected to be meaningful?
He isn't required to take the test, but its being placed as a condition on something he does have the right to do. Its reasonable for a court to take steps to establish truth but, shouldn't they do so in ways that there is evidence to believe would do that?
The right to due process is most certainly violated when the process is not due. What makes this process, in any way, sound? Why should such a process be taken as establishing anything? If it isn't sound, then it doesn't make sense as a condition.
I mean, I can shoot you in the face and claim that I was just attempting to tie my shoes, however, I would be shocked if anyone accepted that as a reasonable attempt at putting a knot in my laces.
1, 3, and 4 definitely show a person, at least isn't paying much attention. However, being lied to by the people who raised you and misinformed doesn't really make one insane.
Talking about the NRA as if its some nutjob group though? Well that doesn't show insanity either, but it does show one to be almost as misinformed as the people in categories 1, 3, and 4. The NRA is just a lobby group....and one which represents a huge cross section of society.
I disagree entirely with the notion that speeding is somehow cheating, or should be seen the same way.
A while back I had a chuckle with some co-workers ovemajr a University making a new rule: No sex in dorm rooms with anyone else present. It was funny, but, someone pointed out at the time, it was about perfect because: there was no active enforcement, and anybody who didn't care would go about their business, meaning that the only enforcement would be...when it caused enough of a problem for someone to complain.
Likewise, while its very useful to have rules of the road which inform accident liability, and there is clear benefit there...and the vast majority of motorists have every reason to avoid an accident since it means loss of life, health, or transportation, before any question of liability, so generally, it all works out.... without active enforcement.
Except, being able to do it, and figuring out a method are not the same thing. Building a machine requires discovery of the method which the machine implements.
So up until now we had a situation, where speeding is a violation, but rarely enforced. This situation has gone on for years and years. Now suddenly enforcement changes, and everyone is getting hit...and you blame.... the people.
Its enforcement that changed, not the people. To what benefit? None that I see. Why is technical rules enforcement so importent? Is it really a safety concern if someone stops over a line or goes a few miles over some arbitrary limit?
No, its just money grubbing. Some company found a way to step up cash extraction and convinced politicians to enact it, and now, the truth about how lazy and poorly written...and divorced from the purpose of safety the laws are is coming out.
when your rule makes the majority of people violators....its the rule thats wrong.
Clearly you have not been exposed to the public sector.
All departments justify their existance by spending all of the money that they are allocated in the budget. To not spend it, is to say to the people who do the budgeting "we are not doing our job, cut us or replace us". To just spend it.... well, that doesn't really show the kind of initiative of people who want to really go above and beyond.
No, to survive, departments must justify their existance, which is defined as using up all of the money allocated to them, and submitting plans to spend even more.
This is just how the system is setup. Incidentally, its not limited to government. I have worked in non-profit healthcare and academia. While the details do change with the ebb and flow of organizational finances, when there is money to spend, you will even hear managers asking for things to spend it on "The fiscal year is almost up, we still have budget to spend"... and when times are lean watch out, every other group should be the ones to sacrifice, our mission is too important.
Which is part of the problem with tasking departments, you get what you ask them to do. Even if there is only benefit in doing a little of something, so long as they exist, they will nearly without fail, find reasons to expand and do more.
To take a weird example, when i worked at the University we laughed at a new rule banning students in dorms from having sex with anyone else in the room, including their dorm roomate. Silly but, someone pointed out it was nearly perfect because the only way to get caught was for the person to complain, so roomates who didn't care could go about as they pleased.
But what happens when you task a department with the job of making sure students are not having sex in the room with others? It totally changes whats going on. Does it make sense to put up posters with tip lines? To roam the halls with a notepad looking for potential incidents? In the end, you really get what you want.... a clear guidence for domestic dispute resolution, just by having the original rule, even without active enforcement.
Its been said a person can't comprehend things that contradict the notion of his salary.... this most definitely extends to the concept of diminishing (or long since vanished) returns.
Exactly and thats just the start of it.
So you are walking into a building that requires you sign in, you show your ID, the system tells the security desk that you are 45, but your ID says 26. If it does this too often, it will either be ignored (useless system) or cause people to be detained needlessly (useless and costly).
You just had a screaming match with your soon to be ex wife over the phone driving in... ut oh, emotional distress right there.
Even wost, you may end up with people having major panic attacks because the scanner is telling security this person is under huge emotional stress, causing them to watch more closely and cause more anxiety.
Then the sociopath walks in and starts spinning well meshed lies right to the security gaurds face, and the scanner picks up no emotional stress, because he isn't really under any. But thats ok, security is too busy having the police escort out the girl who just broke down in a panic to really deal with him anyway.
> Given the prevailing attitude towards nuclear weapons, these are the only two options that are really
> on the table. The Iranian sanctions are mentioned in the NPR story specifically.
Sure and in my estimation that is the problem. Normalizing relations will do more to prevent war than any sanctions or intervention will. Questions of whether or not they really are working towards nuclear weapons aside (there are several believable scenarios including that they are not really but feel its useful to look like they are)... what bolsters the argument in favor of such developments internally more than having external adversaries that pose an existential threat?
As long as those are the only options, then yes, sanctions are better.
And hammers can drive pointy things into wood, hand me those screws!
Sanctions do not topple governments. Sanctions make operation harder, they increase many types of pressure but, if a bit more pressure isn't going to crack them, then sanctions wont work. Not only that, but look at the effect of sanctions.
I was talking to an Iranian friend recently, I couldn't believe he would cheer the people he himself calles "towel heads" (a lot of not very religious people from Iran you know), so I called him on it. He looked at me and said "the sanctions hurt my people so much, it just makes me mad". Mad....not at the "towel heads" who run Iran... mad at the US and other countries that are imposing these ineffectual sanctions.
Frankly, a better question is.... not CAN sanctions topple governments, what do they do more often, topple them, or internally strenghten them? Sanctions are no good if they rally the people of a country behind the leaders that you intend to punish, and more often than not, I think thats exactly what they do.
However, its only counter-productive if your not a politican who needs permenant enemies.
"Coffee with milk and no sugar"
"That will be three dollars"
"thanks"
OMG! The meaningful interactions I will miss! What am I going to miss out on? Meaningless protocol driven exchanges? The occasional moments where protocol breaks and customer and server have a brief moment of human interaction? Frankly, if it bothers you to lose these minute interactions, then you have bigger issues.
This method has certainly been used by many to detect whether the toilet seat is in the correct position.
My only issue is characterising this as them seeking us out.
More like they started living closer to us because we had lots of food around, enough to keep them well enough fed that they were not such a menace that we drove them all off. Frankly, this theory is very much like the conclusions I came to watching a documentary on the experiments with domesticating foxes.
There is clear generic variation that affects their agressiveness towards us. So mixing with us, more closely is going to put some selective pressure on those genes for the the ones that live near us. No shock, just that being friendly to humans turns out to be a distinct evolutionary advantage. Worked for cats too.
>: Non-violent crime barely gets investigated unless you're out in the sticks, and even there it's more
>for the purposes of providing a case number to insurers, make people feel safer and , frankly,
>justifying the existence of a local PD that barely has anythng to do than because of any possibility
> of the "investigation" producing a result.
That is unless its a drug crime and the victim, er I mean perp has assets that would help fund the department.
Then it gets super top priotity. They have entire divisions that work on those kinds of heist...er boost...er busts.
Not as many references from a quick google search as their
used to be:
http://www.boston.com/news/daily/21/paddling.htm
I notice the NH wording has no mention of consent. So not only can I not take a picture of your dwelling, you can't either, nor can you ask me to. (hell, if you ask me, and I do it, thats conspiracy!)
We had an issue here in MA a while back where a private BDSM party got raided by police, for this very sort of issue.... paddles and whips were called "insturments of abuse", because there is no provision in the law for consent.
And I know someone who was in a school with all new labs when the Chemistry teacher left and some other random teacher was put on as the chemisty teacher.... so everyone in their 8th grade class had an entire year of going into class, being given a paraphraph from the chemistry book with words removed, and being asked to read the chapter and fill in the words.
she, quite predictably, has no idea what an Ion is.