In some systems, multiple large objects rotate around a shared center of mass.
Well, actually, that's how orbits work in general, its just in some cases, one object is massive enough that the "shared center of mass" is not far from the center of mass of the massive object.
If you think about it a while you can see the problem - these stars are in orbit, so they should fall at all. Essentially, the stars are being sorted by mass when they should be just going around in circles...
Well, that's the obvious expectation if you consider only the interactions between each orbiting star and the center of mass of the galaxy; but their actual motion is a lot more complicated because the you've really got a bunch of non-uniformly distributed objects attracting each other, which is why (besides this effect), you get spiral arms, which aren't clumps of stars orbitting together, but, IIRC, compression waves that move at speeds different than those of the individual stars, with stars bunching up in them and then spreading out after they pass.
OTOH, had he linked directly to a US product, UK slashdotters wouldn't get any benefit from it; I'd say his approach was more generally useful, if less useful for you personally.
It does not *beg* the question, it *raises* the question.
And no I won't accept 'modern' usage, dammit I want it to mean what it originally meant.
The usage "begs the question" without modification, or the more rarelyheard "begs the question at issue", clearly and unambiguously refers to the petitio principii fallacy. The common modern usage "begs the question $foo" is distinct, and refers to calling for another question to be answered. There is no ambiguity (its possible to specify the question at issue when referring to the petitio principii fallacy, but as a argument that demands an answer to the same question originally at issue is precisely the petitio principii fallacy, there is no possibility for confusion even there.)
It seems to me to be especially pointless pseudo-pedantry to complain about the "modern" usage here, since, in the only case where one might use the construction in the original sense but in the modern usage's structure (so that, if they meaning was different, the usage would be ambiguous), the meaning is exactly identical in either usage.
Do investors really need these common-sense announcments?
If Sony doesn't warn investors, and then does badly, then the investors sue, and claim that Sony management concealed its problems, and should have warned investors. Therefore, Sony makes the announcement for the same reason it recalls the batteries: it is expected to cost less than the lawsuits if it fails to do it.
He has sex with someone else? Or maybe uses a condom?
He gets no say in the matter and she can get pregnant on a whim.
No, I think the man is still required to be an active participant, barring some extraordinarily unlikely scenarios.
If it's the other way around and the guy wants kids and the woman doesn't?
Then the guy either accepts not having kids, or finds someone else to do it with. The "male pill" doesn't change this.
A male pill goes a little way to changing one of those choices and not the other, which is not far enough IMHO but it's a step in the right direction.
Er, are you saying that both the situations you suggest should be changed? I.e., that men should not only have the choice not to have kids when the woman wants to, but also the ability to force the woman to have children when she doesn't want to?
Well, it will stop men from bitching "She said she was on the pill! She trapped me!" because everyone will just ask him "Why weren't you on the pill?"
"Because she said she was on the pill, so I didn't need to be."
I mean, its the same response used now to "Why didn't you use a condom?"
Its hardly like we live in a situation now where people of either sex don't have adequate tools in most normal circumstances to fairly reliably prevent pregnancy. OTOH, if this becomes popular, I'd expect to see an upswing in STDs as condom use falls.
On a more serious note, This development should seriously empower women.
Hmm. I would think, in that regard, its pretty much negligible: the female pill seriously empowers women, reproductively; this new development adds nothing for women that the condom and the ability to refuse to couple with anyone not using one didn't already provide.
A friend of mine from highschool has three kids with three different guys. Perhaps some women will prefer to date guys that wear the patch regularly.
I don't think that anyone who wouldn't taken responsibility for contraception with existing technology after having one or more previous unwanted pregnancies is, because of this new technology, going to take responsibility any sooner.
Is it a post sale restriction if it says on the box that a Mac is required to use the OS?
Yup, if it doesn't identify that as a licensing term rather than a practical requirement.
If I buy a piece of software that says on the package it requires a particular operating system and processor, and run it on a different OS and processor and get it to work, I'm not breaking the license, (OTOH, if it doesn't work, I'll have even less ability to take the vendor or manufacturer to court for a refund then I would normally, though all the usual disclaimers of warranty, etc., do as much as legally possible to avoid that even if I use it with a system with the published specs.)
So, yes, I'd say its a post-sale condition if it is indentified as a licensing requirement up front, since there is a substantial difference between a claim about where the product works, and a binding covenant not to attempt to use the product on any but specified computers.
If it is opensource, and someone is really stiffling the progress.... it can be forked.
I'm not sure how that addresses the main problem GP points to: "The problem (AFAIK) with OO.o is that they have a huge code base that nobody understands"
You know, if I had any reason to respect your opinion, I might care what you think. But, really, you spew a bunch of stuff that is wrong on the facts, an insane distortion of the holding in a court decision, and then start with personal attacks. Who cares.
Cowards like you who are willing to give up privacy and rights in exchange for the hope that those they give it to will do the right thing, with no oversight are a sad combination of cowardice and stupidity.
What rights? There is no "right" to keep secret what is done in public places. And what is done in public places is not within the scope of any reasonable definition of "privacy", either.
And, even though there is no "right" or "privacy" involved, I still don't think the police should have "no oversight" if they get this technology, or if they don't. If it becomes commercially available, communities should demand oversight as they should demand public oversight of all aspects of police operations, should establish appropriate proceduers with accountability, etc. All I say is that the technology has obvious potential utility and should not be rejected out of hand. All this "no oversight" stuff is stuff you made up to justify attacks based on your own preconceived notions.
Perhaps you should look in the mirror before you call anyone an "idiot".
You hope this won't be abused and will make you safer, despite the fact that it has not done so in the past.
Since this technology has not been used in the past, I fail to see how it could have done anything in the past, or how the failure of technology that has not previously existed to have been effective when it did not exist is any basis for evaluating how effective it might be were it to exist.
But, no, I don't blindly hope any of that, any more than I hope the same thing about existing police technology like firearms, pepper spray, or automobiles: they all can and have been abused, and they all need appropriate procedures, accountability, and oversight to prevent abuse.
At the same time, its a good idea that police have access to them.
The same seems true of this kind of technology to use cameras to provide automated flagging of behavior of potential law-enforcement interest.
This wouldn't give police any more legal authority to search what is private. It wouldn't give them the authority to arrest without probable cause. It would allow them to behavior in which there is no legitimate expectation of privacy, in public areas, more economically, with automated assistance in detecting behavior which might warrant further attention. They'd still need probable cause to arrest, to search, etc.
What type of horrible coding can we expect if bugs that "totally crash the system, requiring a complete reinstall" are just now being found?
The same type of horrible coding for which Microsoft is ridiculed in every thread referring to a pre-Vista MS Operating System on Slashdot, I would expect.
So you're telling me that just because the police have no legal obligation to protect me, willingly admit they won't be there to protect me, and statistically are unlikely to be able to protect me I shouldn't consider it unreasonable for them to ask for more power under that premise when that power is highly unlikely to add to their capability, but is a huge danger to my privacy and democracy in general?
If you replace "won't", with "may not", replace "statistically are unlikely to be able to protect me", with "will be statistically more likely to be able to protect me if granted the new technology", replace "power" with "technology (with no expansion in authority)", and replace "that power is highly unlikely...and democracy in general" with "that power is certain to add to their capability if intelligently applied, and poses little danger to any cognizable privacy interest and absolutely none to democracy in general", then, yes, that's about what I've been saying.
The state police officers handbook for my state disagrees with you.
That's harder to verify than your claim that the courts disagreed with me, where you cited a specific, verifiable case that proved your claim wrong, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was no more accurate...
Why is it that so many people are now willing to hand more power to the central government under the idea that it will make them "safer."
I'm paying the police to do a job. If there is modern technology that, with no expansion in what is legally permitted for the police to observe or act on, will make them more effective in doing that job, I want them, in general, to have it.
I mean, I suppose we could prohibit police from having automobiles and semi-automatic firearms and pepper spray and bullet proof vests and handcuffs and radios, since all of those things gave them, in a sense, more "power" than they once had.
The whole reason we switched to CDs from records and cassettes was supposedly the higher fidelity of CD audio.
The reason I switched is that CD's, while they might fail entirely, don't gradually degrade.
Oh, and random access.
Now we all listen to crappy mp3s that sound like cassette tapes.
If the cassette tapes I actually had sounded like MP3 files after a year or five, and had instant random access, I probably would never have switched to CDs in the first place.
The police are not responsible for acting to prevent crime.
They are, in the same sense, not responsible for investigating and gathering evidence for a crime: just as you can't sue the police for not preventing a crime, similarly you can't sue them for not investigating a crime against you thoroughly (or at all).
Read Warren Vs. District of Columbia.
I'm familiar with the case; it is one of many cases holding that the police of no legally enforceable specific duty to members of the public, as such, in their law enforcement, and this reasoning has been repeatedly applied equally well to what you claim is the "job" of police (investigation and evidence gathering in resposne to crime) as for what you claim is not (prevention of crime). See, for instance, Nichols v. District of Columbia, decided by the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in a consolidated decision with Warren v. District of Columbia.
I'm not sure, exactly, what you think that adds to your argument.
It is called illegal search and seizure.
No, its not.
The police can only legally radar a car if they have already observed it and suspect it is going over the speed limit.
Um, no. Radar speed verification is not a search, you don't have a 4th Amendment privacy expectation in the speed of your vehicle on a public street.
They cannot just radar all cars going by because it is considered a search without probable cause.
Yes, they can (under the federal Constitution, at any rate; of course, your state may have more restrictive laws of its own.) Probable cause is needed for a search or an arrest, it is not needed to use radar to verify the speed of a vehicle.
The death penalty doesn't increase the probability of getting caught. Nor does it apply to most crimes; nor is there evidence that it doesn't deter crimes as well as life imprisonment, just that it doesn't provide any additional deterrent compared to the possibility life imprisonment. Its a complete nonsequitur.
what makes you think a camera will?
Because a camera does increase the probability of getting caught.
People will commit crimes, regardless of the consequenses.
Some people will commit some crimes regardless of the consequences. Some people who might commit crimes in some circumstances will not in others because of the perceived threat of detection.
The only way you will ever prevent that is to change the social situation of the people committing the crimes.
Sure. One way to do that is to increase the probability that people who commit crimes against them will be caught. This decreases the feeling that the law is useless and irrelevant to them, and the motivation to seek redress outside of the legal system.
This is, of course, not the only thing that needs done, but it certainly addresses part of the problem.
If their cameras accidently get shot alot with a 3006 sniper rifle all the time from off camera locations, they will give up,
Maybe if they are mounting cameras in isolated spots in the wilderness.
In populated areas, people firing.30-06 rifles, whether or not caught on camera, and whether or not they are shooting a police cameras, stand a substantial risk of getting noticed and having the police show up.
I think the police should be restricted to their real job, investigating and collecting evidence of crimes.
That's not the real job of police, otherwise, they'd eliminate the bulk of the uniformed force, and just have crime scene crews, community services officers, and detectives.
I have no problem with them being posted in random locations, or locations with a high concentration of people to speed response times, but realistically, the police don't respond to crimes in time to prevent them, or do so very, very rarely.
It is impossible to respond to an event occurring in time to prevent it from occurring; the very concept is self-contradictory.
And, yes, police are generally unable to respond quickly enough to even immediately apprehend criminals after a crime; that doesn't mean that's not their "real job" and the primary reason for which professional police forces were created, its just that it is a very hard part of their real job, which technology like this makes a lot easier.
In the same way it is illegal to radar gun everyone driving by
While some jurisdictions require notice (like "Speed enforced by radar") signs for cops to do this, I don't think it is at all accurate to say, as a generality, that it is illegal to radar gun everyone driving by. What precise law do you think is being broken?
Has anyone here lived in a downtown area? How about one with an active club scene?
There would be hundreds of thousands of false positives.
Areas with large groups of people would be low priorities for such a system (crowds, except alerting to unusual crowds, could probably be deprioritized in software.) The system seems a lot better for flagging crimes in places that might otherwise not be seen by anyone but the victim, and where the victim might be unable to summon help in a timely manner.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, actually, that's how orbits work in general, its just in some cases, one object is massive enough that the "shared center of mass" is not far from the center of mass of the massive object.
Where do the matching socks to the ones that go into the laundry as a pair and come out as singles end up?
Where are about half of the sets of keys I've owned in my life?
I can think of lots of things that could explain.
Er, yeah, so its "only" on the order of the mass of, very roughly, 10^6 average-sized stars.
Well, that's the obvious expectation if you consider only the interactions between each orbiting star and the center of mass of the galaxy; but their actual motion is a lot more complicated because the you've really got a bunch of non-uniformly distributed objects attracting each other, which is why (besides this effect), you get spiral arms, which aren't clumps of stars orbitting together, but, IIRC, compression waves that move at speeds different than those of the individual stars, with stars bunching up in them and then spreading out after they pass.
OTOH, had he linked directly to a US product, UK slashdotters wouldn't get any benefit from it; I'd say his approach was more generally useful, if less useful for you personally.
The usage "begs the question" without modification, or the more rarelyheard "begs the question at issue", clearly and unambiguously refers to the petitio principii fallacy. The common modern usage "begs the question $foo" is distinct, and refers to calling for another question to be answered. There is no ambiguity (its possible to specify the question at issue when referring to the petitio principii fallacy, but as a argument that demands an answer to the same question originally at issue is precisely the petitio principii fallacy, there is no possibility for confusion even there.)
It seems to me to be especially pointless pseudo-pedantry to complain about the "modern" usage here, since, in the only case where one might use the construction in the original sense but in the modern usage's structure (so that, if they meaning was different, the usage would be ambiguous), the meaning is exactly identical in either usage.
If Sony doesn't warn investors, and then does badly, then the investors sue, and claim that Sony management concealed its problems, and should have warned investors. Therefore, Sony makes the announcement for the same reason it recalls the batteries: it is expected to cost less than the lawsuits if it fails to do it.
He has sex with someone else? Or maybe uses a condom?
No, I think the man is still required to be an active participant, barring some extraordinarily unlikely scenarios.
Then the guy either accepts not having kids, or finds someone else to do it with. The "male pill" doesn't change this.
Er, are you saying that both the situations you suggest should be changed? I.e., that men should not only have the choice not to have kids when the woman wants to, but also the ability to force the woman to have children when she doesn't want to?
"Because she said she was on the pill, so I didn't need to be."
I mean, its the same response used now to "Why didn't you use a condom?"
Its hardly like we live in a situation now where people of either sex don't have adequate tools in most normal circumstances to fairly reliably prevent pregnancy. OTOH, if this becomes popular, I'd expect to see an upswing in STDs as condom use falls.
Hmm. I would think, in that regard, its pretty much negligible: the female pill seriously empowers women, reproductively; this new development adds nothing for women that the condom and the ability to refuse to couple with anyone not using one didn't already provide.
I don't think that anyone who wouldn't taken responsibility for contraception with existing technology after having one or more previous unwanted pregnancies is, because of this new technology, going to take responsibility any sooner.
Yup, if it doesn't identify that as a licensing term rather than a practical requirement.
If I buy a piece of software that says on the package it requires a particular operating system and processor, and run it on a different OS and processor and get it to work, I'm not breaking the license, (OTOH, if it doesn't work, I'll have even less ability to take the vendor or manufacturer to court for a refund then I would normally, though all the usual disclaimers of warranty, etc., do as much as legally possible to avoid that even if I use it with a system with the published specs.)
So, yes, I'd say its a post-sale condition if it is indentified as a licensing requirement up front, since there is a substantial difference between a claim about where the product works, and a binding covenant not to attempt to use the product on any but specified computers.
You know, if I had any reason to respect your opinion, I might care what you think. But, really, you spew a bunch of stuff that is wrong on the facts, an insane distortion of the holding in a court decision, and then start with personal attacks. Who cares.
What rights? There is no "right" to keep secret what is done in public places. And what is done in public places is not within the scope of any reasonable definition of "privacy", either.
And, even though there is no "right" or "privacy" involved, I still don't think the police should have "no oversight" if they get this technology, or if they don't. If it becomes commercially available, communities should demand oversight as they should demand public oversight of all aspects of police operations, should establish appropriate proceduers with accountability, etc. All I say is that the technology has obvious potential utility and should not be rejected out of hand. All this "no oversight" stuff is stuff you made up to justify attacks based on your own preconceived notions.
Perhaps you should look in the mirror before you call anyone an "idiot".
Since this technology has not been used in the past, I fail to see how it could have done anything in the past, or how the failure of technology that has not previously existed to have been effective when it did not exist is any basis for evaluating how effective it might be were it to exist.
But, no, I don't blindly hope any of that, any more than I hope the same thing about existing police technology like firearms, pepper spray, or automobiles: they all can and have been abused, and they all need appropriate procedures, accountability, and oversight to prevent abuse.
At the same time, its a good idea that police have access to them.
The same seems true of this kind of technology to use cameras to provide automated flagging of behavior of potential law-enforcement interest.
This wouldn't give police any more legal authority to search what is private. It wouldn't give them the authority to arrest without probable cause. It would allow them to behavior in which there is no legitimate expectation of privacy, in public areas, more economically, with automated assistance in detecting behavior which might warrant further attention. They'd still need probable cause to arrest, to search, etc.
The reason I switched is that CD's, while they might fail entirely, don't gradually degrade.
Oh, and random access.
If the cassette tapes I actually had sounded like MP3 files after a year or five, and had instant random access, I probably would never have switched to CDs in the first place.
No, they don't.
They are, in the same sense, not responsible for investigating and gathering evidence for a crime: just as you can't sue the police for not preventing a crime, similarly you can't sue them for not investigating a crime against you thoroughly (or at all).
I'm familiar with the case; it is one of many cases holding that the police of no legally enforceable specific duty to members of the public, as such, in their law enforcement, and this reasoning has been repeatedly applied equally well to what you claim is the "job" of police (investigation and evidence gathering in resposne to crime) as for what you claim is not (prevention of crime). See, for instance, Nichols v. District of Columbia, decided by the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in a consolidated decision with Warren v. District of Columbia.
I'm not sure, exactly, what you think that adds to your argument.
No, its not.
Um, no. Radar speed verification is not a search, you don't have a 4th Amendment privacy expectation in the speed of your vehicle on a public street.
Yes, they can (under the federal Constitution, at any rate; of course, your state may have more restrictive laws of its own.) Probable cause is needed for a search or an arrest, it is not needed to use radar to verify the speed of a vehicle.
The death penalty doesn't increase the probability of getting caught. Nor does it apply to most crimes; nor is there evidence that it doesn't deter crimes as well as life imprisonment, just that it doesn't provide any additional deterrent compared to the possibility life imprisonment. Its a complete nonsequitur.
Because a camera does increase the probability of getting caught.
Some people will commit some crimes regardless of the consequences. Some people who might commit crimes in some circumstances will not in others because of the perceived threat of detection.
Sure. One way to do that is to increase the probability that people who commit crimes against them will be caught. This decreases the feeling that the law is useless and irrelevant to them, and the motivation to seek redress outside of the legal system.
This is, of course, not the only thing that needs done, but it certainly addresses part of the problem.
No, police can, quite legally, follow you without a warrant.
Apparently, he thinks that Wine is a pirated version of Windows.
Maybe if they are mounting cameras in isolated spots in the wilderness.
In populated areas, people firing
That's not the real job of police, otherwise, they'd eliminate the bulk of the uniformed force, and just have crime scene crews, community services officers, and detectives.
It is impossible to respond to an event occurring in time to prevent it from occurring; the very concept is self-contradictory.
And, yes, police are generally unable to respond quickly enough to even immediately apprehend criminals after a crime; that doesn't mean that's not their "real job" and the primary reason for which professional police forces were created, its just that it is a very hard part of their real job, which technology like this makes a lot easier.
While some jurisdictions require notice (like "Speed enforced by radar") signs for cops to do this, I don't think it is at all accurate to say, as a generality, that it is illegal to radar gun everyone driving by. What precise law do you think is being broken?
So you are now proposing that the police, as government officers, should be prohibited from patrolling public areas?