What does that have to do with finding ways to charge batteries? Frankly, I have been the victim of a few crimes...and I never really got the whole punishment thing, never was something I cared for, even when I was the victim....I don't really care what happens to the person who wronged me, I just want it made right with me, if possible, and then to move on. Generally I am just happy to find out someone couldn't be trusted and then just cut them out of my life (if possible).
The times I have seen someone go to jail (not for wronging me personally per se), I generally thought the whole jail thing was pointless compared to the probation and other lacks of freedom and criminal records.
I tend to agree. Moreover... I would say there are two concerns that i have here, neither of which lead me to think "An exception is in order".
1. Perhaps, as you say, they should be able to pay for liability or go out of business. This assumes there is nothing wrong with the law thats stupidly making this impossible.
or...
2. They mention laws for ski slopes. Which beggs the question... why so ski slopes need it? The article says:
âoeWhen you buy a ski ticket, you waive your right to sue the ski operator if certain rules are properly followedâ¦. When you buy a ticket to go to space, you willingly assume all of the risk.â
This doctrine sounds entirely reasonable. As long as the operaters are doing everything reasonable to make things safe, its silly to hold them liable for issues that were not within their control or not known to be issues. Clearly this shouldn't indemnify them for ignoring issues, or cutting corners, but....
Why do we need special laws to make special cases to legislate the fact that some activities (many really) have inherent risks that are not reasonably within anyones control? It seems like, if they need legislation for this, they have already fucked up.
There was a survey a while back that I heard some NPR commentators bantering about a while back (few years ago, tried to find a link but nothing is popping up)
We all know the standard stereotype is that men are threatend by smart/hard working women, look down at them, don't consider them good mates etc....
What they were finding was that these attridues were becoming less common in younger boys, and younger boys have been,more and more, indicating that they find intelligence and hard work attractive in women and don't really see just a "housewife" as a woman's place.
Leading me to remember an old quote about scientific theories and thinking it may apply to social ones:
A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it. -- Max Plank
Neat trick. I wouldn't call it THAT sophisticated, but definitely a neat trick. You know... the very fact that its so hard to stop actually gives me a little more hope for humanity. I know a prison gaurd who has said its amazing what you see people figure out how to do. Every time I hear that it makes me smile inside, just a little to know we are so adaptable.
Of course, making false claims is, itself, already illegal. So Alice doing this is putting herself in some jeapordy. Bribes being paid in cash is problematic, sure, but that doesn't really change. Thats the same in both cases. If Alice claims "I bribed him to get X", at most that triggers an investigation.,.. an actual trial comes down to he said she said..... unless something happened that otherwise indicates impropriety....
On the other hand.... yes, having it illegal for both DOES prevent most false claims. What does more damage though? Real bribery, which is clearly happening (my own state has put politicians in jail for it in the past few years) or false claims? Which is it that is more important to stop?
> We should make bribery illegal (instead of necessary).
Gonna take that and run as fast as I can off topic....
I heard some great comments about why bribery should be half legal. Specifically, it should be perfectly legal to offer bribes, pay bribes etc. However, it should be highly illegal to accept a bribe.
Why? Quite simple, it messes up the power balance.
Think of it this way, Alice wants to bribe Bob today. Either Alice officers, or Bob solicits the bribe, they may use very vague language, or other techniques to conceal their intents, and that may help them get away with it....but get away with it is the operative term since they are BOTH breaking the law. If either of them admits the truth, they can BOTH go to jail (or at least be prosecuted and end up with a criminal record... which has more long lasting downsides than the jail time).
On the other hand, lets say it becomes legal for Alice, and the penalty for Bob doesn't change. Now Alice wants to bribe Bob still...but if either of them talks, only Bob goes to jail. Bob, the man with the power, the guy who can choose to take the bribe and act in a corrupt manner or reject it, he is the one taking the risk, and taking it alone.
The problem is not just now but later. In the first scenario, Bob and Alice are conspirators from the moment the bribery starts, into the future. They each have mutually assured destruction, and only need to worry if one of them otherwise fell under the eye of the law and might use it as a bargaining chip.... but unless that happens, neither need worry too much.
In their next meeting, they can do it all over again....same deal.
In the second scenario, Alice may get what she wants sure.... but.... she has what she wanted. Her and Bob are no longer conspirators. In their next meeting, Bob can do it all over again, but Alice now has power over Bob. If Bob doesn't give her what she wants, all she has to do is drop a dime on him. Each transaction gives her more and more power over him, and digs him deeper and deeper into his relationship with his future bunk mate.
So end result? Bob would have to be exceptionally stupid to accept even the first bribe.
It may leave Alice getting off scott free for her behaviour, if it happens, but.... I wager (and it is the claim of those who advocate this) that it prevents more bribes than it lets Alices get off.
Yes and? It hasn't happened because...well... there isn't a high demand for murder. Not many people want to engage in it (really, I mean, everyone says it when blowing off steam but, very few would actually do it, even if handed means and opportunity).
Planned murders like you see in movies are, by far, the exception. Not just the exception but the exceptional case of an already rare occurance. In a major city, 100-200 murders a year seems on the mid range to high side from a casual perusal of the numbers.... in populations of a million or more?
I don't doubt that it WILL happen, and I don't doubt that someone WILL get caught doing it. However, thats almost like rule 34.... of course its going to happen.... eventually. Someone is going to murder some people with a home built drone too.... ill put that prediction right out there too. It is going to happen, theres just too many people for it not to happen eventually.
However, its going to be a long time before its easier to kill someone with your internet connection than it is to grab a sharp object and shove it into their chest....or to accelerate lead slugs at them at high velocities... and it will continue to be easier to do these manually than with robots.... so I expect these to remain the extreme rare exception.
Nice story.... I love how the Isrealis don't bother with arrest and trial, they just stoop right to assasination.... its nice having a conflict where this is no moral authority on any side. Makes it easy to just sit back and enjoy it as they kill eachother.
But its true, no internet connection on phones in 1995.
I would assume that is exactly the case, especially given that the first person I showed this story to said that he had personally done this in the mid 90s, years before their claimed 2001 patent date....I have to assume that they know that they will get laughed out of court, were this to actually find a challenge.
> Once you decide machines are the same as you, you've disavowed your own human-ness, and > accepted the fact that you are just another purpose built device which no intrinsic or unique value.
Is this what happened when we accepted dark skinned people as the same as us? Or women?
How does recognizing the value and individuality of one, negate those in another?
We cartainly have a long way to go, I don't think we are even near the point where we have to start discussing exactly at what point a machine stops being your property and begins being its own entity with its own individual rights.
thus far the main place this comes up is the abortion debate, which has mostly been decided, for convinence sake, by heart beat. However, at some point, we are going to have to generalize these ideas to beings without hearts or gestation periods.
However its a feedback loop of social acceptability. Not too many years back, you wouldn't o to work without a suit on in many professions, thats changed. In fact, I have even had people say to me, wearing cargo pants and a T-shirt, that they are "surprized I can go to work like that". What changed? Perception within the company.
If good people hide the fact that they are real people, then they reinforce these perceptions. Every person who likes to party is betraying everyone else who likes a good party when he hides this fact for a job.
So we define positive in terms of social stigma? God forbid you would be associated with having some social accumen and having a good time. Its always a negative to find out someone has ever been to a party with alcohol.
I don't see whats so negative.... some people could hold anything against you. Do you really want to work for/with such people?
In what way excactly do we need to become MORE comfortable with machines than we are now?
Has driving a car, warming food in a microwave, and allowing a roomba to vacuume my floors not enough? None of these make me uncomfortable, despite their lack of human interface. Why should other forms of purpose built machines, or even general purpose, suddenly need to be humanoid?
Don't get me wrong, its cool research, and it could yield some interesting results but... as something required to make us more comfortable with machines? Nah, not unless you mean having sex with machines or something.... even that we already have people quite comfortable with some rather non-human form mimicing products.
I have seen some interesting polls that show clearly, the street level people in OWS and The Tea Party both agreed on a number of issues that totally fly in the face of the media portrayal of either. The sad part is, while each side hates the way they are portrayed in the media and feels it unfair....each seems to buy the portrayal of the other as complete astroturf and ignorance....division is well achieved.
In fact, its the majority of people agree on these issues. OWS and The Tea Party are manifestations of the same outrage, just from different groups, and with different groups of spinsters trying to profit from them.
There is another huge problem with Eugenics.... put aside all the ethical issues and that.... no person can live long enough to impart a consistent vision on such a program.
Realistically starting a Eugenics program you are looking at starting with people (running the program), at LEAST in their 20s, but, more likely in their 30s and 40s in the senior management.
The thing is, each generation takes a year to produce, then really, if youthful vigor is all you care about, you are looking at a good 15 to 20 years before you get a really good idea which ones are interesting and can start feeding them back into the program.
Assuming this is someones lifes work, thats 2 or 3 cycles max. A proper eugenics program.... which is fundamentally not terribly different from animal breeding programs, don't produce real fruits within 2-3 cycles! In those time frames you are really just culling from the "wild" population.
Any true breeding program (yes I am going there), would take many more generations than that, something like the Bene Gesserit of Dune, who, I think demonstrate how a breeding program could progress without the use of any unethical techniques. (which is not to say that they even attempted to achieve that, but that they provide a blueprint).... by tracking breeding throughout a population and encouraging pairings (often by providing concubines with specific genes to men who poses desirable genes)
SO while one could certainly START such a system with a number of conspirators, it would take many generations and would have to outlive its creators....leading to a problem.... the cycle on which the program shows results that are input to the decision making process is approaching the lifespan of the decision makers.
Its relatively easy (conceptually, it takes significant space and work as it needs to churn through generations upon generation of individuals of various lines) as long as generations come at a reasonable rate to observe. Breeding your own species however, is a significant challenge for this reason, amongst others (humans are a pesky animal)
For some reason this reminds me of a particularly amusing speech by some pacific island muslim leader a few years back. He went on a tear about all the things jews have done...but not "Oh those horrible jews", it was "Look how smart those jews are, we should be smart like them", but... came off totally badly.
I believe he even credited Jews with inventing the concept of human rights, because they have suffered so much. It was pretty funny actually.
You do if you want people to stop talking about it....or even acting on it. If enough people have enough disagreement with a decision, then it reduces respect for the justice system and can lead to the situation changing, dramatically.
Its easy to do after the fact with no emotional investment. He said he was angry, and I believe him. That is a lot harder to do when you are angry, and maybe its best to not write things like that while you are angry if you can't bury it.... but when userspace is badly breaking, I can see why he would feel it needed to just be said.
Also, I entirely disagree that saying anything directly about his status on the team would have been appropriate. This was a public mailing list, in front of customers. He shouldn't have blown up, but he shouldn't have said that either.... that should be reserved for private emails.
The thing is, it IS a public mailing list. So the team lead just watched one of his guys wrongly imply the customer was at fault, to the customer, in front of everyone, including all their other customers.
Kudos to anyone who can supress their anger and stay level headed in such a situation. Flying off the handle may have been the wrong response but, it was a very understandable one.
The thing is, if he was doing this every day, it wouldn't be news. So the fact that it is news, makes me think Linus flying off the handle isn't a big deal; or particularly telling about him, so... its all kinda silly, its just time for everyone to drop it and move on, and not do it again.
GP's 'Latent Psychic' crack wasn't a dead giveaway? wow, have you considered a job at the FBI or TSA?
> Compelling circumstantial evidence can also win cases
as can lies, misunderstandings, and judges who are out to get "those anarchist bastards" (as one judge was famously quoted as saying after an old and controversial case in my own city). Winning a case is not the same as proving anything, or settling the matter in everyones mind. You may be able to convict with less, but you wont convince everyone that its not a wrongful conviction with less.
On the other hand, leading the police directly to where you buried the body is, generally, a dead giveaway.
I am sure about 3d printing. The quality is already quite good for some things. What it really does is bring down the cost of rapid prototyping. This may not be directly obvious as a benefit, I don't see 3d printers in every house.... but enough of them.
I built one as a project this year (mendel kit from makergear). I can already see the huge benefits. I was working on a custom jig I needed.... in the course of a day, I was able to go through many iterations on screen, and 3 or 4 iterations in physical form, finally settling on the final form.
Contrast that with designing virtually and then sending it out to be manufactured.... each iteration could easily have taken between a day and a week...and thats just me, sitting at my house, learning Openscad as I go about taking bong rips and petting the cat..... can you imagine how much this could increase the productivity of someone who did this stuff all the time? I can.
at under $1000 for a kit and just a bit more for a fully assembled machine, I think the price is already there. Compare that to other tools you would outfit a workshop with, and I think it compares quite favorably for what it is capable of....and thats assuming you want something off the shelf rather than sourcing your own parts (which can cut the price in half...though that probably means sacrificing some of the premium parts like brass bushings and linear steal rod for PLA bushings and tool rod)
The thing is... Big Pharma could capitalize on placebo if it were ethical and they could patent it (I might even argue that they already do given the actual effectiveness of some drugs).
The problem is, if pot is good for something (or even if it isn't but it helps someone feel better so they shut up) then anybody can supply it. Nobody, except Phillip Morris and their ilk, could possibly ensure that they will profit big from it, when they have to compete. Their business is competing to discovery and patent, not sales.
Now anecdotally, I know one person who got rid of 3 prescriptions for sleep issues by smoking pot before bed. So far, she reports its working better, and has less side effects, and even some medical doctors we talked to just smiled and said that if it works, its probably a better choice.
What this gets down to, even starts heading down that path right in the question, was covered by Ken Thompson in the classic paper "Reflections on Trusting Trust": http://cm.bell-labs.com/who/ken/trust.html
There are some good questions in there but, the rathole its starting to go down is not helpful. You need to look at what secure means to you first. What are the use cases for the environment? What does the environment need to allow? What should it not allow? Why? Answer those, and the path forward will become more clear.
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What does that have to do with finding ways to charge batteries? Frankly, I have been the victim of a few crimes...and I never really got the whole punishment thing, never was something I cared for, even when I was the victim....I don't really care what happens to the person who wronged me, I just want it made right with me, if possible, and then to move on. Generally I am just happy to find out someone couldn't be trusted and then just cut them out of my life (if possible).
The times I have seen someone go to jail (not for wronging me personally per se), I generally thought the whole jail thing was pointless compared to the probation and other lacks of freedom and criminal records.
I think a cow would better be moddled by an upside down pear shape.... that is... if it wasn't a frictionless point mass.
I tend to agree. Moreover... I would say there are two concerns that i have here, neither of which lead me to think "An exception is in order".
1. Perhaps, as you say, they should be able to pay for liability or go out of business. This assumes there is nothing wrong with the law thats stupidly making this impossible.
or...
2. They mention laws for ski slopes. Which beggs the question... why so ski slopes need it? The article says:
This doctrine sounds entirely reasonable. As long as the operaters are doing everything reasonable to make things safe, its silly to hold them liable for issues that were not within their control or not known to be issues. Clearly this shouldn't indemnify them for ignoring issues, or cutting corners, but....
Why do we need special laws to make special cases to legislate the fact that some activities (many really) have inherent risks that are not reasonably within anyones control? It seems like, if they need legislation for this, they have already fucked up.
There was a survey a while back that I heard some NPR commentators bantering about a while back (few years ago, tried to find a link but nothing is popping up)
We all know the standard stereotype is that men are threatend by smart/hard working women, look down at them, don't consider them good mates etc....
What they were finding was that these attridues were becoming less common in younger boys, and younger boys have been,more and more, indicating that they find intelligence and hard work attractive in women and don't really see just a "housewife" as a woman's place.
Leading me to remember an old quote about scientific theories and thinking it may apply to social ones:
There is some really delicious irony to a project released named "Spherical Cow" finding that assumptions made in planning were not correct :)
Neat trick. I wouldn't call it THAT sophisticated, but definitely a neat trick. You know... the very fact that its so hard to stop actually gives me a little more hope for humanity. I know a prison gaurd who has said its amazing what you see people figure out how to do. Every time I hear that it makes me smile inside, just a little to know we are so adaptable.
Of course, making false claims is, itself, already illegal. So Alice doing this is putting herself in some jeapordy. Bribes being paid in cash is problematic, sure, but that doesn't really change. Thats the same in both cases. If Alice claims "I bribed him to get X", at most that triggers an investigation.,.. an actual trial comes down to he said she said..... unless something happened that otherwise indicates impropriety....
On the other hand.... yes, having it illegal for both DOES prevent most false claims. What does more damage though? Real bribery, which is clearly happening (my own state has put politicians in jail for it in the past few years) or false claims? Which is it that is more important to stop?
> We should make bribery illegal (instead of necessary).
Gonna take that and run as fast as I can off topic....
I heard some great comments about why bribery should be half legal. Specifically, it should be perfectly legal to offer bribes, pay bribes etc. However, it should be highly illegal to accept a bribe.
Why? Quite simple, it messes up the power balance.
Think of it this way, Alice wants to bribe Bob today. Either Alice officers, or Bob solicits the bribe, they may use very vague language, or other techniques to conceal their intents, and that may help them get away with it....but get away with it is the operative term since they are BOTH breaking the law. If either of them admits the truth, they can BOTH go to jail (or at least be prosecuted and end up with a criminal record... which has more long lasting downsides than the jail time).
On the other hand, lets say it becomes legal for Alice, and the penalty for Bob doesn't change. Now Alice wants to bribe Bob still...but if either of them talks, only Bob goes to jail. Bob, the man with the power, the guy who can choose to take the bribe and act in a corrupt manner or reject it, he is the one taking the risk, and taking it alone.
The problem is not just now but later. In the first scenario, Bob and Alice are conspirators from the moment the bribery starts, into the future. They each have mutually assured destruction, and only need to worry if one of them otherwise fell under the eye of the law and might use it as a bargaining chip.... but unless that happens, neither need worry too much.
In their next meeting, they can do it all over again....same deal.
In the second scenario, Alice may get what she wants sure.... but.... she has what she wanted. Her and Bob are no longer conspirators. In their next meeting, Bob can do it all over again, but Alice now has power over Bob. If Bob doesn't give her what she wants, all she has to do is drop a dime on him. Each transaction gives her more and more power over him, and digs him deeper and deeper into his relationship with his future bunk mate.
So end result? Bob would have to be exceptionally stupid to accept even the first bribe.
It may leave Alice getting off scott free for her behaviour, if it happens, but.... I wager (and it is the claim of those who advocate this) that it prevents more bribes than it lets Alices get off.
Yes and? It hasn't happened because...well... there isn't a high demand for murder. Not many people want to engage in it (really, I mean, everyone says it when blowing off steam but, very few would actually do it, even if handed means and opportunity).
Planned murders like you see in movies are, by far, the exception. Not just the exception but the exceptional case of an already rare occurance. In a major city, 100-200 murders a year seems on the mid range to high side from a casual perusal of the numbers.... in populations of a million or more?
I don't doubt that it WILL happen, and I don't doubt that someone WILL get caught doing it. However, thats almost like rule 34.... of course its going to happen.... eventually. Someone is going to murder some people with a home built drone too.... ill put that prediction right out there too. It is going to happen, theres just too many people for it not to happen eventually.
However, its going to be a long time before its easier to kill someone with your internet connection than it is to grab a sharp object and shove it into their chest....or to accelerate lead slugs at them at high velocities... and it will continue to be easier to do these manually than with robots.... so I expect these to remain the extreme rare exception.
So....meh.
Nice story.... I love how the Isrealis don't bother with arrest and trial, they just stoop right to assasination.... its nice having a conflict where this is no moral authority on any side. Makes it easy to just sit back and enjoy it as they kill eachother.
But its true, no internet connection on phones in 1995.
I would assume that is exactly the case, especially given that the first person I showed this story to said that he had personally done this in the mid 90s, years before their claimed 2001 patent date....I have to assume that they know that they will get laughed out of court, were this to actually find a challenge.
> Once you decide machines are the same as you, you've disavowed your own human-ness, and
> accepted the fact that you are just another purpose built device which no intrinsic or unique value.
Is this what happened when we accepted dark skinned people as the same as us? Or women?
How does recognizing the value and individuality of one, negate those in another?
We cartainly have a long way to go, I don't think we are even near the point where we have to start discussing exactly at what point a machine stops being your property and begins being its own entity with its own individual rights.
thus far the main place this comes up is the abortion debate, which has mostly been decided, for convinence sake, by heart beat. However, at some point, we are going to have to generalize these ideas to beings without hearts or gestation periods.
However its a feedback loop of social acceptability. Not too many years back, you wouldn't o to work without a suit on in many professions, thats changed. In fact, I have even had people say to me, wearing cargo pants and a T-shirt, that they are "surprized I can go to work like that". What changed? Perception within the company.
If good people hide the fact that they are real people, then they reinforce these perceptions. Every person who likes to party is betraying everyone else who likes a good party when he hides this fact for a job.
So we define positive in terms of social stigma? God forbid you would be associated with having some social accumen and having a good time. Its always a negative to find out someone has ever been to a party with alcohol.
I don't see whats so negative.... some people could hold anything against you. Do you really want to work for/with such people?
In what way excactly do we need to become MORE comfortable with machines than we are now?
Has driving a car, warming food in a microwave, and allowing a roomba to vacuume my floors not enough? None of these make me uncomfortable, despite their lack of human interface. Why should other forms of purpose built machines, or even general purpose, suddenly need to be humanoid?
Don't get me wrong, its cool research, and it could yield some interesting results but... as something required to make us more comfortable with machines? Nah, not unless you mean having sex with machines or something.... even that we already have people quite comfortable with some rather non-human form mimicing products.
I have seen some interesting polls that show clearly, the street level people in OWS and The Tea Party both agreed on a number of issues that totally fly in the face of the media portrayal of either. The sad part is, while each side hates the way they are portrayed in the media and feels it unfair....each seems to buy the portrayal of the other as complete astroturf and ignorance....division is well achieved.
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/11/a-majority-of-americans-including-both-ows-and-the-tea-party-agree-on-the-most-important-issues-we-just-dont-realize-it.html
In fact, its the majority of people agree on these issues. OWS and The Tea Party are manifestations of the same outrage, just from different groups, and with different groups of spinsters trying to profit from them.
Yup, and another, tight beside that speech, is the right to peaceful assembly.
Hmm right to speak out, and a right to assemble.... sounds like protest to me!
There is another huge problem with Eugenics.... put aside all the ethical issues and that.... no person can live long enough to impart a consistent vision on such a program.
Realistically starting a Eugenics program you are looking at starting with people (running the program), at LEAST in their 20s, but, more likely in their 30s and 40s in the senior management.
The thing is, each generation takes a year to produce, then really, if youthful vigor is all you care about, you are looking at a good 15 to 20 years before you get a really good idea which ones are interesting and can start feeding them back into the program.
Assuming this is someones lifes work, thats 2 or 3 cycles max. A proper eugenics program.... which is fundamentally not terribly different from animal breeding programs, don't produce real fruits within 2-3 cycles! In those time frames you are really just culling from the "wild" population.
Any true breeding program (yes I am going there), would take many more generations than that, something like the Bene Gesserit of Dune, who, I think demonstrate how a breeding program could progress without the use of any unethical techniques. (which is not to say that they even attempted to achieve that, but that they provide a blueprint).... by tracking breeding throughout a population and encouraging pairings (often by providing concubines with specific genes to men who poses desirable genes)
SO while one could certainly START such a system with a number of conspirators, it would take many generations and would have to outlive its creators....leading to a problem.... the cycle on which the program shows results that are input to the decision making process is approaching the lifespan of the decision makers.
Its relatively easy (conceptually, it takes significant space and work as it needs to churn through generations upon generation of individuals of various lines) as long as generations come at a reasonable rate to observe. Breeding your own species however, is a significant challenge for this reason, amongst others (humans are a pesky animal)
For some reason this reminds me of a particularly amusing speech by some pacific island muslim leader a few years back. He went on a tear about all the things jews have done...but not "Oh those horrible jews", it was "Look how smart those jews are, we should be smart like them", but... came off totally badly.
I believe he even credited Jews with inventing the concept of human rights, because they have suffered so much. It was pretty funny actually.
You do if you want people to stop talking about it....or even acting on it. If enough people have enough disagreement with a decision, then it reduces respect for the justice system and can lead to the situation changing, dramatically.
Its easy to do after the fact with no emotional investment. He said he was angry, and I believe him. That is a lot harder to do when you are angry, and maybe its best to not write things like that while you are angry if you can't bury it.... but when userspace is badly breaking, I can see why he would feel it needed to just be said.
Also, I entirely disagree that saying anything directly about his status on the team would have been appropriate. This was a public mailing list, in front of customers. He shouldn't have blown up, but he shouldn't have said that either.... that should be reserved for private emails.
The thing is, it IS a public mailing list. So the team lead just watched one of his guys wrongly imply the customer was at fault, to the customer, in front of everyone, including all their other customers.
Kudos to anyone who can supress their anger and stay level headed in such a situation. Flying off the handle may have been the wrong response but, it was a very understandable one.
The thing is, if he was doing this every day, it wouldn't be news. So the fact that it is news, makes me think Linus flying off the handle isn't a big deal; or particularly telling about him, so... its all kinda silly, its just time for everyone to drop it and move on, and not do it again.
> Can't tell if you're for real Anon
GP's 'Latent Psychic' crack wasn't a dead giveaway? wow, have you considered a job at the FBI or TSA?
> Compelling circumstantial evidence can also win cases
as can lies, misunderstandings, and judges who are out to get "those anarchist bastards" (as one judge was famously quoted as saying after an old and controversial case in my own city). Winning a case is not the same as proving anything, or settling the matter in everyones mind. You may be able to convict with less, but you wont convince everyone that its not a wrongful conviction with less.
On the other hand, leading the police directly to where you buried the body is, generally, a dead giveaway.
I am sure about 3d printing. The quality is already quite good for some things. What it really does is bring down the cost of rapid prototyping. This may not be directly obvious as a benefit, I don't see 3d printers in every house.... but enough of them.
I built one as a project this year (mendel kit from makergear). I can already see the huge benefits. I was working on a custom jig I needed.... in the course of a day, I was able to go through many iterations on screen, and 3 or 4 iterations in physical form, finally settling on the final form.
Contrast that with designing virtually and then sending it out to be manufactured.... each iteration could easily have taken between a day and a week...and thats just me, sitting at my house, learning Openscad as I go about taking bong rips and petting the cat..... can you imagine how much this could increase the productivity of someone who did this stuff all the time? I can.
at under $1000 for a kit and just a bit more for a fully assembled machine, I think the price is already there. Compare that to other tools you would outfit a workshop with, and I think it compares quite favorably for what it is capable of....and thats assuming you want something off the shelf rather than sourcing your own parts (which can cut the price in half...though that probably means sacrificing some of the premium parts like brass bushings and linear steal rod for PLA bushings and tool rod)
The thing is... Big Pharma could capitalize on placebo if it were ethical and they could patent it (I might even argue that they already do given the actual effectiveness of some drugs).
The problem is, if pot is good for something (or even if it isn't but it helps someone feel better so they shut up) then anybody can supply it. Nobody, except Phillip Morris and their ilk, could possibly ensure that they will profit big from it, when they have to compete. Their business is competing to discovery and patent, not sales.
Now anecdotally, I know one person who got rid of 3 prescriptions for sleep issues by smoking pot before bed. So far, she reports its working better, and has less side effects, and even some medical doctors we talked to just smiled and said that if it works, its probably a better choice.
What this gets down to, even starts heading down that path right in the question, was covered by Ken Thompson in the classic paper "Reflections on Trusting Trust": http://cm.bell-labs.com/who/ken/trust.html
There are some good questions in there but, the rathole its starting to go down is not helpful. You need to look at what secure means to you first. What are the use cases for the environment? What does the environment need to allow? What should it not allow? Why? Answer those, and the path forward will become more clear.