Looking in all the wrong places
on
DIY HVAC
·
· Score: 5, Informative
The project was born out of a total and absolute frustration which in turn was a result of a fruitless search of information about existing temperature zoning solutions. The only information available on the zoning system manufacturer web sites was usually "call us for an estimate". The estimates were usually being performed by salespeople. Technical people were difficult to get. Read the complete story for details.
The author obviously didn't look in the right places. Here are a few links to get started:
I've done business with all three, and have retrofitted my home with a two-zone system powered by an RCS zone controller and electronic dampers. All three have been extremely helpful in providing technical advice.
One thing to remember: The HVAC business (as well as the burglar alarm business) are very protective of their turf. You stand little chance of finding an HVAC contractor willing to work with you on designing a custom HVAC system.
Slightly offtopic, but speeding tickets in the US are issued to the driver of the vehicle, not the owner of the vehicle (like a parking ticket).
In Texas, many cities are "home-rule" cities which means they can sometimes enact laws which are not specifically prescribed or proscribed by the state. In the town I live in, they issue civil citations to the owners of vehicles caught by the red light cameras. By issuing a civil citation, the city finds it easier to skirt around due process. If you refuse to pay, then you'll find yourself at the receiving end of a criminal charge for failure to pay a civil fine levied by the city, rather than being held responsible for the offense under criminal statutes.
Here's another example: We have several toll roads where I live. I sold my car a few years back; in Texas, the tags go with the car. So of course,the lowlife I sold my vehicle to decide to rack up several hundred dollars in fines for running the toll gates. The toll authority issued me a civil fine of several hundred dollars based on photographs of the rear license plate of the vehicle! Had I not been able to prove that the vehicle was in fact sold (I had a bill of sale), I would have been held liable for the fines.
So yes, in some parts of the country you can receive a citation by simply owning a vehicle caught speeding, running red lights, etc.
HP gains are real...
on
Hack Your Car
·
· Score: 5, Informative
Ever wonder why, year after year, vehicles seem to "gain" HP with the same stock engine? That's because PCMs (power control modules) are programmed to artificially hinder a vehicle's performance. By tweaking timing parameters, shift points, etc., manufacturers can "gain" HP year after year without having to retool for engine modifications.
Chip/PCM programmers operate by simply modifying the same tables as the manufacturer modifies when they want more HP for marketing purposes. It should be no surprise that the manufacturers are dead set against this.
As for emissions, the new engines and computer systems monitor all aspects of the emissions system. Many states simply plug into the OBD-II computer for later-model vehicles and check to make sure no "fault" codes are set -- that's the extent of "emissions testing." To make an assertion that any modification to the PCM will cause emissions to increase is simply showing one's ignorance as to how today's vehicles operate.
BTW, the OBD-II interface and protocol is an open protocol, available at cost from the SAE. There's nothing "secret" about how these PCMs operate. Of course, I wouldn't consider/. nor the NYTimes to be premier source of automotive knowledge.
This has been known for six decades. Every computer science (CS) student knows the dovetailer, a very simple 2 line program that systematically lists and executes all possible programs for a universal computersuch as a Turing machine (TM).
Could you post this one for us? Otherwise, I'll have to give back my MS in CS, since I don't know what the hell you're talking about.
Wouldn't a two-line program that could execute all possible programs make one excessively rich?
Minor problem: a lot of teaching jobs pay almost nothing.
Adjunct instructors in the community college district I teach in (large metro area) are paid $36 per contact hour. Hardly chump change for part-time work. You can clear more than $3,000 a semester for 96 contact hours, leaving plenty of time for a side business to supplement income.
Full-time pay starts at about $40,000 (adjusted for work & teaching experience, etc.) You'll need a master's degree, but if you really want to teach, that's hardly an obstacle (and an advanced degree has far more intrinsic and lasting value than any certification). Typical teaching load is 32 hours/week, no overtime required or expected. You can easily make $12,000 or so over that if you're willing to teach extra-service courses. On-line courses are even better: The ideal telecommuting job. Take the time you have left over and start a small business. I know of one community college instructor (biology) who pulls down over $100,000/year -- he owns a pool company, which is ideal employment during the summer months.
Community college teaching is probably one of the best-kept employment secrets around. "Little pay and no job security" is a myth we college instructors spread to keep our jobs secure.
I couldn't have said it better. Instant gratification for the masses, as opposed to solid foundations for the future. That's the exact problem I'm speaking of...
I usually don't comment on those who use "Troll" as an excuse to downmod posts they don't agree with, but in this case I'll make an exception. Whoever you are, pull your head out of the sand and use the same brain a higher power gave you to figure out how all this karma stuff works to see what is really going on with space exploration. We get so caught up in the excitement so carefully crafted by the NASA PR machinery that we fail to see the deviation we're taking from the path of true scientific inquiry and discovery.
I no longer have a need to post simply for karma, so your efforts are really wasted. Instead of wasting your efforts trying to stifle ideas that obviously disagree with your personal philosophies, open your mind and try on a different viewpoint. You might be surprised at what you find.
Narrow-mindedness is the elixir of the arrogant and the uninformed. Broaden your horizons for a change by thinking for yourself, rather than through the eyepiece of a finely-tuned PR viewport.
No, it was a systems failure. The initial foam separation might have been an unforeseen event, but the handling (mishandling) of the subsequent events in the chain that led to the shuttle's breakup was a textbook example of a system/process failure.
The last thing NASA should do is spend more money, take more time, and do fewer missions. The only way we will really learn how to operate in space is to go into space.
This approach gives NASA the public exposure it needs to continue its work, but space is a very expensive testing ground. Where's the rush to get into space? It's not as if we're trying to capture fleeting moments of time. It seems ludicrous to me that NASA is on a 15-year time table...given the vastness of time in a cosmological sense, shouldn't NASA be considering 100-year or 1000-year timetables?
The problem is that we as humans have a 70-year lifespan, and desire to see the fruits of our labor now. Plus, there wouldn't be much of a political boost for a president to unveil NASA's new 1000-year colonization plan.
True scientific discovery is being tainted by political short-term gains. I have great respect for the scientific and engineering knowledge of many NASA principals, but I also believe many of them are selling out by playing the political game and adopting a false "can-do" attitude instead of pushing for more responsible scientific inquiry that might be more time-consuming in the long run, but will greatly benefit future generations of scientists.
...is teaching. Break out of the rut that takes your valuable labor and converts it to ready cash for company executives that simply don't give a shit about you. You have had a great opportunity to see the world of networking from the inside. Isn't it time you passed the torch onto others?
You cheapen the value of your knowledge and time by entertaining thoughs of going back into industry. There are always going to be people in this world content to work for someone else. You can take what you know and leverage it into a new career in education. Sure, the pay's not what you would get in industry, but you will have enough extra time on your hands to start a consulting business on the side. Between your consulting income and teaching salary, you stand a strong likelihood of earning more than you did when in industry. (Plus, teaching is often an added badge of credibility to prospective clients. Ignore the adage of "Those who can, do...those who can't teach." This is the mantra of those who can't do either.)
Something like 2/3 of NASA's recent missions have failed in some way or another. Is it quite possible that NASA engineers simply have not mastered the art and science of designing hardware and software operable in the harshest of environments?
In some ways, there is an air of arrogance in everything NASA does, from their press conferences to their marketing agreements. We have dead shuttle astronauts being transformed into "national heroes," even though their demise wasn't the result of any heroic sacrifices on their part, but rather a materials and systems failure scenario that NASA failed to handle properly. We have Spirit as the "little train that could," sending back waves of photographs of rocks that NASA engineers have actually named. Does the naming of rocks somehow bring NASA's mission closer to the unwashed masses who relate better to Beanie Babies than to the stark facts of reality?
Harsh as it sounds, NASA is reaping what they sow: A string of hardware and software failures that is serving as a backdrop to newly-mandated initiatives by Bush to send miners to the moon and astronauts to Mars. Yet NASA can't even seem to get a remote-control buggy to work correctly. The mind just reels at the catastrophes that await us between now and 2015 should NASA continue down this road of inept management and hardware/software designs insufficiently tested against the harsh envrions of space. As geeks, we owe it not only to ourselves but to the non-geek public to recognize these failures as serious shortcomings in the NASA culture. We must resist the temptation to blindly set NASA on a pedestal in the name of scientific achievement without first critically analyzing their failures.
Um, SSRIs (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors -- the new generation of antidepressants, of which Prozac [nih.gov] is the most famous) are a completely different beast from the older generation of tricyclic antidepressants [nih.gov].
Which is probably a good reason why no one should visit/. for medical advice!
Yes, I inadvertently mixed the two of them up. Both affect serotonin levels, but via a different mechanism.
The tricyclics are several decades old. There are newer antidepressants that don't have near the side effects of the old tricyclics.
Since you asked, though, I'll tell you that the one I was taking, protriptyline, would make for very restless nights with lots of "twilight dreams" (you know, those endless threaded dreams that seem to continue all night long, with repeating motifs or conundrums you simply can't solve no matter how hard you try). It also makes it very difficult to piss, and acts like a diuretic (what a combination). Sounds funny, but incredibly uncomfortable.
Interesting you bring this up...for several years I suffered from episodic sleep paralysis. During dream states, your body is semi-paralyzed as a defense mechanism against acting out your dreams. People with episodic SP wake up from vivid nightmares still paralyzed. It's an extremely spooky and gut-wrenching experience. Think about your worst nightmare, and how you thought it was real. Now imagine lying in bed, eyes open, cognizant that you are awake, and your nightmare still continues. But you cannot move, and oftentimes you have great difficulty breathing, shouting out, or otherwise defending yourself from whatever horror you've cooked up. That's what episodic sleep paralysis is about.
One of the methods used to treat the condition is a form of lucid dreaming in which you train yourself to recognize, in your nightmare, that you are in control of the situation. By moving a finger or something similar to "break" the paralysis, you can then wake up fully.
For a long time sleep paralysis was treated with SSRI's, usually tricyclic antidepressants that, in light doses, would keep REM light enough to fully emerge from the paralysis stage. But if you've ever been on an SSRI, the side effects can be pretty miserable.
It's an interesting subject that has a study all its own here.
I had an Engineering teacher once who was too lazy to make up different tests for his courses every year. He got upset that the IEEE student chapter was archiving student's copies of his tests for use in future years
So a teacher that reuses tests every semester is "lazy"...what does that make students who depend upon memorizing archived tests to pass their courses? "Geniuses"?
I think you're being somewhat disingenous here. And good for him for not permitting the IEEE to subvert the education process.
So much CGI looks so...fake. I like to be able to suspend belief when I'm at a movie. It's too bad something that's realistically rendered, like the crash scene in FD2, isn't included. I believe these awards tend to reward quantity over quality, and certainly don't reflect the quality of "realism."
Of course, most of FD2 sucked. But the crash scene was well worth the cost of rental.
Of course not! You gave me a package that I couldn't open (encrypted) and had no idea what the contents were and asked me to deliver it. I had no idea that you were a filthy rotten terrorist sympathizing commie pinko scumbag.
I can see why you posted as an AC, because if you really believe this, there are some folks down along the US-Mexico border who would love to use your services. Ever heard of "mules"? They transport "packages of unknown contents and/or origin" across the US/Mexico border. Guess what happens when a mule is caught with a payload that contains illegal contraband? I can tell you that they don't escape jail time by claiming they didn't know what was in the payload.
It's only a matter of time before the same doctrine is applied consistently when it comes to transmission of illegal/infringing content across a network. Those of you who think Freenet/MUTE/etc. will somehow come to your legal defense might be surprised at how quickly those communities will scatter like leaves in the wind when the Feds come knocking.
RTFA -- the contents of the packets you are passing are encrypted. The only way to get around it would be for the RIAA to run the node hosting the file AND watch the packets reach your machine.
Maybe I'm missing something here, but why couldn't the RIAA simply pose as a downloader on the network? Once infringing material is downloaded, out go the subpoenas to the "neighboring nodes" who facilitated transfer of the infringing material.
As a previous poster mentioned, ignorance isn't an excuse for one's actions in the eyes of the law. If you are stupid enough to allow encrypted traffic to pass through a node under your control, with no idea of what exactly you are allowing to pass, expect to face the consequences.
1. Because it's usually some spamming company performing the spamming, not the real company. They only hired their "PR services", in which case you have to prove they did know it their marketing practices would be illegal.
True, but what if said companies were publicly outed and humiliated? What if an orchestrated effort was made to let said company know exactly how the world feels about their carelessness in hiring their PR firm? Would that not be sufficient to send the message that if you hire a PR company, you better be damn sure you know how they're promoting your good name?
There is a growing movement in the geosciences that claims there is no evidence pointing to "mantle plumes." Everyone knows/. readers are well-balanced and open to new ideas, so in that spirit I offer up this link to the UK Geological Society.
Remember, an open mind is a terrible thing to waste.
Slashdot Mirror
The project was born out of a total and absolute frustration which in turn was a result of a fruitless search of information about existing temperature zoning solutions. The only information available on the zoning system manufacturer web sites was usually "call us for an estimate". The estimates were usually being performed by salespeople. Technical people were difficult to get. Read the complete story for details.
The author obviously didn't look in the right places. Here are a few links to get started:
SmartHome
HomeTech Solutions
Bass Burglar Alarms
I've done business with all three, and have retrofitted my home with a two-zone system powered by an RCS zone controller and electronic dampers. All three have been extremely helpful in providing technical advice.
One thing to remember: The HVAC business (as well as the burglar alarm business) are very protective of their turf. You stand little chance of finding an HVAC contractor willing to work with you on designing a custom HVAC system.
Want proof? Check out dinseyland.com, one of the links in the article. The very first search result displayed is about porn!
Wow, I'm impressed...what a dent the feds have made in the pandering of porn to children. Where do I sign up for a job with those heroes?
Slightly offtopic, but speeding tickets in the US are issued to the driver of the vehicle, not the owner of the vehicle (like a parking ticket).
In Texas, many cities are "home-rule" cities which means they can sometimes enact laws which are not specifically prescribed or proscribed by the state. In the town I live in, they issue civil citations to the owners of vehicles caught by the red light cameras. By issuing a civil citation, the city finds it easier to skirt around due process. If you refuse to pay, then you'll find yourself at the receiving end of a criminal charge for failure to pay a civil fine levied by the city, rather than being held responsible for the offense under criminal statutes.
Here's another example: We have several toll roads where I live. I sold my car a few years back; in Texas, the tags go with the car. So of course,the lowlife I sold my vehicle to decide to rack up several hundred dollars in fines for running the toll gates. The toll authority issued me a civil fine of several hundred dollars based on photographs of the rear license plate of the vehicle! Had I not been able to prove that the vehicle was in fact sold (I had a bill of sale), I would have been held liable for the fines.
So yes, in some parts of the country you can receive a citation by simply owning a vehicle caught speeding, running red lights, etc.
Ever wonder why, year after year, vehicles seem to "gain" HP with the same stock engine? That's because PCMs (power control modules) are programmed to artificially hinder a vehicle's performance. By tweaking timing parameters, shift points, etc., manufacturers can "gain" HP year after year without having to retool for engine modifications.
/. nor the NYTimes to be premier source of automotive knowledge.
Chip/PCM programmers operate by simply modifying the same tables as the manufacturer modifies when they want more HP for marketing purposes. It should be no surprise that the manufacturers are dead set against this.
As for emissions, the new engines and computer systems monitor all aspects of the emissions system. Many states simply plug into the OBD-II computer for later-model vehicles and check to make sure no "fault" codes are set -- that's the extent of "emissions testing." To make an assertion that any modification to the PCM will cause emissions to increase is simply showing one's ignorance as to how today's vehicles operate.
BTW, the OBD-II interface and protocol is an open protocol, available at cost from the SAE. There's nothing "secret" about how these PCMs operate. Of course, I wouldn't consider
Could you post this one for us? Otherwise, I'll have to give back my MS in CS, since I don't know what the hell you're talking about.
Wouldn't a two-line program that could execute all possible programs make one excessively rich?
Minor problem: a lot of teaching jobs pay almost nothing.
Adjunct instructors in the community college district I teach in (large metro area) are paid $36 per contact hour. Hardly chump change for part-time work. You can clear more than $3,000 a semester for 96 contact hours, leaving plenty of time for a side business to supplement income.
Full-time pay starts at about $40,000 (adjusted for work & teaching experience, etc.) You'll need a master's degree, but if you really want to teach, that's hardly an obstacle (and an advanced degree has far more intrinsic and lasting value than any certification). Typical teaching load is 32 hours/week, no overtime required or expected. You can easily make $12,000 or so over that if you're willing to teach extra-service courses. On-line courses are even better: The ideal telecommuting job. Take the time you have left over and start a small business. I know of one community college instructor (biology) who pulls down over $100,000/year -- he owns a pool company, which is ideal employment during the summer months.
Community college teaching is probably one of the best-kept employment secrets around. "Little pay and no job security" is a myth we college instructors spread to keep our jobs secure.
Why waste what we could do for people now?
I couldn't have said it better. Instant gratification for the masses, as opposed to solid foundations for the future. That's the exact problem I'm speaking of...
I usually don't comment on those who use "Troll" as an excuse to downmod posts they don't agree with, but in this case I'll make an exception. Whoever you are, pull your head out of the sand and use the same brain a higher power gave you to figure out how all this karma stuff works to see what is really going on with space exploration. We get so caught up in the excitement so carefully crafted by the NASA PR machinery that we fail to see the deviation we're taking from the path of true scientific inquiry and discovery.
I no longer have a need to post simply for karma, so your efforts are really wasted. Instead of wasting your efforts trying to stifle ideas that obviously disagree with your personal philosophies, open your mind and try on a different viewpoint. You might be surprised at what you find.
Narrow-mindedness is the elixir of the arrogant and the uninformed. Broaden your horizons for a change by thinking for yourself, rather than through the eyepiece of a finely-tuned PR viewport.
It was an accident.
No, it was a systems failure. The initial foam separation might have been an unforeseen event, but the handling (mishandling) of the subsequent events in the chain that led to the shuttle's breakup was a textbook example of a system/process failure.
The last thing NASA should do is spend more money, take more time, and do fewer missions. The only way we will really learn how to operate in space is to go into space.
This approach gives NASA the public exposure it needs to continue its work, but space is a very expensive testing ground. Where's the rush to get into space? It's not as if we're trying to capture fleeting moments of time. It seems ludicrous to me that NASA is on a 15-year time table...given the vastness of time in a cosmological sense, shouldn't NASA be considering 100-year or 1000-year timetables?
The problem is that we as humans have a 70-year lifespan, and desire to see the fruits of our labor now. Plus, there wouldn't be much of a political boost for a president to unveil NASA's new 1000-year colonization plan.
True scientific discovery is being tainted by political short-term gains. I have great respect for the scientific and engineering knowledge of many NASA principals, but I also believe many of them are selling out by playing the political game and adopting a false "can-do" attitude instead of pushing for more responsible scientific inquiry that might be more time-consuming in the long run, but will greatly benefit future generations of scientists.
...is teaching. Break out of the rut that takes your valuable labor and converts it to ready cash for company executives that simply don't give a shit about you. You have had a great opportunity to see the world of networking from the inside. Isn't it time you passed the torch onto others?
You cheapen the value of your knowledge and time by entertaining thoughs of going back into industry. There are always going to be people in this world content to work for someone else. You can take what you know and leverage it into a new career in education. Sure, the pay's not what you would get in industry, but you will have enough extra time on your hands to start a consulting business on the side. Between your consulting income and teaching salary, you stand a strong likelihood of earning more than you did when in industry. (Plus, teaching is often an added badge of credibility to prospective clients. Ignore the adage of "Those who can, do...those who can't teach." This is the mantra of those who can't do either.)
Work smart, not hard.
Something like 2/3 of NASA's recent missions have failed in some way or another. Is it quite possible that NASA engineers simply have not mastered the art and science of designing hardware and software operable in the harshest of environments?
In some ways, there is an air of arrogance in everything NASA does, from their press conferences to their marketing agreements. We have dead shuttle astronauts being transformed into "national heroes," even though their demise wasn't the result of any heroic sacrifices on their part, but rather a materials and systems failure scenario that NASA failed to handle properly. We have Spirit as the "little train that could," sending back waves of photographs of rocks that NASA engineers have actually named. Does the naming of rocks somehow bring NASA's mission closer to the unwashed masses who relate better to Beanie Babies than to the stark facts of reality?
Harsh as it sounds, NASA is reaping what they sow: A string of hardware and software failures that is serving as a backdrop to newly-mandated initiatives by Bush to send miners to the moon and astronauts to Mars. Yet NASA can't even seem to get a remote-control buggy to work correctly. The mind just reels at the catastrophes that await us between now and 2015 should NASA continue down this road of inept management and hardware/software designs insufficiently tested against the harsh envrions of space. As geeks, we owe it not only to ourselves but to the non-geek public to recognize these failures as serious shortcomings in the NASA culture. We must resist the temptation to blindly set NASA on a pedestal in the name of scientific achievement without first critically analyzing their failures.
and that you can also get 30% off if you've registered a previous edition with O'Reilly
I don't remember seeing that offer in my Pogue book...any details on this?
Um, SSRIs (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors -- the new generation of antidepressants, of which Prozac [nih.gov] is the most famous) are a completely different beast from the older generation of tricyclic antidepressants [nih.gov].
/. for medical advice!
Which is probably a good reason why no one should visit
Yes, I inadvertently mixed the two of them up. Both affect serotonin levels, but via a different mechanism.
The tricyclics are several decades old. There are newer antidepressants that don't have near the side effects of the old tricyclics.
Since you asked, though, I'll tell you that the one I was taking, protriptyline, would make for very restless nights with lots of "twilight dreams" (you know, those endless threaded dreams that seem to continue all night long, with repeating motifs or conundrums you simply can't solve no matter how hard you try). It also makes it very difficult to piss, and acts like a diuretic (what a combination). Sounds funny, but incredibly uncomfortable.
Interesting you bring this up...for several years I suffered from episodic sleep paralysis. During dream states, your body is semi-paralyzed as a defense mechanism against acting out your dreams. People with episodic SP wake up from vivid nightmares still paralyzed. It's an extremely spooky and gut-wrenching experience. Think about your worst nightmare, and how you thought it was real. Now imagine lying in bed, eyes open, cognizant that you are awake, and your nightmare still continues. But you cannot move, and oftentimes you have great difficulty breathing, shouting out, or otherwise defending yourself from whatever horror you've cooked up. That's what episodic sleep paralysis is about.
One of the methods used to treat the condition is a form of lucid dreaming in which you train yourself to recognize, in your nightmare, that you are in control of the situation. By moving a finger or something similar to "break" the paralysis, you can then wake up fully.
For a long time sleep paralysis was treated with SSRI's, usually tricyclic antidepressants that, in light doses, would keep REM light enough to fully emerge from the paralysis stage. But if you've ever been on an SSRI, the side effects can be pretty miserable.
It's an interesting subject that has a study all its own here.
I had an Engineering teacher once who was too lazy to make up different tests for his courses every year. He got upset that the IEEE student chapter was archiving student's copies of his tests for use in future years
So a teacher that reuses tests every semester is "lazy"...what does that make students who depend upon memorizing archived tests to pass their courses? "Geniuses"?
I think you're being somewhat disingenous here. And good for him for not permitting the IEEE to subvert the education process.
OTOH, I try not to let blind greed get in the way of my hubris.
So much CGI looks so...fake. I like to be able to suspend belief when I'm at a movie. It's too bad something that's realistically rendered, like the crash scene in FD2, isn't included. I believe these awards tend to reward quantity over quality, and certainly don't reflect the quality of "realism."
Of course, most of FD2 sucked. But the crash scene was well worth the cost of rental.
Of course not! You gave me a package that I couldn't open (encrypted) and had no idea what the contents were and asked me to deliver it. I had no idea that you were a filthy rotten terrorist sympathizing commie pinko scumbag.
I can see why you posted as an AC, because if you really believe this, there are some folks down along the US-Mexico border who would love to use your services. Ever heard of "mules"? They transport "packages of unknown contents and/or origin" across the US/Mexico border. Guess what happens when a mule is caught with a payload that contains illegal contraband? I can tell you that they don't escape jail time by claiming they didn't know what was in the payload.
It's only a matter of time before the same doctrine is applied consistently when it comes to transmission of illegal/infringing content across a network. Those of you who think Freenet/MUTE/etc. will somehow come to your legal defense might be surprised at how quickly those communities will scatter like leaves in the wind when the Feds come knocking.
RTFA -- the contents of the packets you are passing are encrypted. The only way to get around it would be for the RIAA to run the node hosting the file AND watch the packets reach your machine.
Maybe I'm missing something here, but why couldn't the RIAA simply pose as a downloader on the network? Once infringing material is downloaded, out go the subpoenas to the "neighboring nodes" who facilitated transfer of the infringing material.
As a previous poster mentioned, ignorance isn't an excuse for one's actions in the eyes of the law. If you are stupid enough to allow encrypted traffic to pass through a node under your control, with no idea of what exactly you are allowing to pass, expect to face the consequences.
In the same vein, if one really wants to make their 89/92+ useful, I recommend this small utility. I bet PedroM can't touch it.
You cannot be prosecuted more than once in the United states for a single crime, period
Then how do you explain this?
I think the answer here is that prosecutors can do what they want, regardless of what state law or the Constitution might say about it.
1. Because it's usually some spamming company performing the spamming, not the real company. They only hired their "PR services", in which case you have to prove they did know it their marketing practices would be illegal.
True, but what if said companies were publicly outed and humiliated? What if an orchestrated effort was made to let said company know exactly how the world feels about their carelessness in hiring their PR firm? Would that not be sufficient to send the message that if you hire a PR company, you better be damn sure you know how they're promoting your good name?
There is a growing movement in the geosciences that claims there is no evidence pointing to "mantle plumes." Everyone knows /. readers are well-balanced and open to new ideas, so in that spirit I offer up this link to the UK Geological Society.
Remember, an open mind is a terrible thing to waste.