Since class action status must be approved by a judge, why not create a 'Class Action District Attorney' as a government position?
The CADA would be paid in a manner similar to a regular DA, and just logs hours. He doesn't get to select the cases he prosecutes, they are referred to the CADA office by the judge once class action status is approved. Resources could be managed in a manner similar to the prosecutor's office. If enough CA cases aren't moving through fast enough people can pressure the legislature to assign additional resources to the office. (or however that is normally accomplished for prosecutors now)
To me it makes sense for class action lawsuits to be handled by a government representative because the scope of the case. Once you reach class action status you really are faced witha situation where it is 'The People v A company' and not 'A person v A company'.
Given that these companies have a fiduciary duty to shareholders, can the even legally challenge orders like this without exposing themselves to liability?
Oh, and I forgot to mention the other part: if they did revive your body, you'd likely wake up to find your body only had weeks to live, as your it would be defenseless against the "modern" microorganisms it would encounter.
Because evolution happens so fast in 500 years? Yeah the microorganisms might change, but I highly doubt that 10 generations is that big of a deal for humans. ie: It's a long time with respect to technology, but not a long time with respect to human genetic drift.
I think he was referring to the fact that you do investigate something like, "Type 'fhee' in this field, send 3 page requests, and do XYZ, and you can access the timeline of an account".
But if the bug report was "Hey, I found this really severe security flaw, you think it's patched, but I've seen everything"
One is taken a bit more seriously than the other. Without the actual bug report, I can't say either way, but it could be a serious waste of time to investigate if you don't believe the submission.
Which take 500 MB of one's monthly cap to move a 250 MB video file (250 up + 250 down) and don't work if there's no Internet connection (such as on a bus or in a bowling center). What works for me more often is sharing a folder over the network and using Rhythmsoft File Manager on my tablet to copy files out of the shared folder.
1 - Turn all citizens into criminals. 2 - Be the one in charge to decide which citizens to prosecute. 3 - Make your position inheritable. 4 - Construct large pyramidal tombs in the desert to be remembered forever.
5 - PROPHET!
6. Invite others to look upon your works 7. Recommend a state of desparation
I could be terribly mistaken but last time I checked Homo did not refer exclusively to humans its root is "the same". If it was in this instance the killer whale killing another killer whale it would in fact be a case of homicide. However it is a killer whale killing a member of another species.
But what if you enjoyed it? Less lashes in that case?
Well, in the book, it wasn't just lashes or mundane torture. The main character's profession was that of a torturer. They took things like that into account, so someone like those cases that can't process pain would get something like waterboarding as that's more of a basal response than tactile, or induced motion sickness... etc.
Due to nerve damage, I don't feel pain (or much of anything, which means my hands look pretty beat up), but if I were stuck in one of those motion sickness inducing things they put astronauts into, and did that for a week straight, it would not be an experience I would be able to ignore. Maybe intentionally induced but controlled food poisoning? I remember that being one hell of an unfun experience.
Wow, if I had a million dollars, would I... buy the right to drive a taxi?
How about just put the money somewhere and live off the interest?
Someone did have a million dollars. They loaned it to the cab driver so that he could work and send a portion of his fares to the lender as interest.
So if you had a million bucks, you might actually end up putting your money in an investment fund that could actually loan money to small businesses for things like permits/fees/medallions.;)
Granted it's sci fi, but the Gene Wolfe book Shadow of the Torturer had an interesting take on physical punishment in lieu of fines/imprisonment.
The basic of it was this: Fines are difficult to assess, and have different impacts for different people. A rich guy might not care as he can afford the fine, and an old guy might not care about a fine as he won't have to care much longer if he goes into debt (Sure, sign my grandpa up for a credit card...)
While imprisonment may seem equal, it has a drawback as it ties up a lot of resources, both for keeping the prisoner and the loss of the prisoner as a working member of society.
It basically boiled down to: Commit a crime, get sentenced to an excruciation commensurate to the offence, and next week or so everyone is back to work. Since no matter if you are rich/poor/young/old/connected, physical pain is physical pain.
Not saying I'd advocate such a system, but it was interesting to contemplate physical punishment from another point of view. Going into the book I couldn't imagine I would ever think such a thing even remotely justifiable.
In NYC it is even worse. The licenses (or medallions) are sold as commodities. I think the latest estimate is that one goes for over $1,000,000 in NYC now.
Try the powdered version. I used to 'premix' non-fat dry milk and an ensure powder. In the morning I'd put 1/2c in an empty sealable drinking container and take it with me to work. If I were too busy to eat a proper lunch, I'd fill up the drinking container from the water fountain, give it a few shakes, and at least have something to keep me from getting ravenous.
I liked it because I could forget the premade lunch at work, or in my car without it going bad since it was powder until the moment I decided to eat.
Yes. my tongue is in my head, and I don't know if it's millions of years of evolution tweaking my taste buds to associate the taste of insects with 'spoiled food' (ie: Go eat the food that doesn't have an insect infestation).
But with insects, I hate the texture. You really can't argue for the flavor of insects when most recipes go like this:
1. Take insects 2. Cover them in a strong flavor seasoning (chile powder, honey, tomato sauces, etc) 3. Fry
So can pork, chicken, eggs etc. if not prepared properly, no-ones saying you eat raw uncooked bugs... and as for allergies... well there are enough food allergies out there already... Just ask anyone with a peanut allergy. I myself am allergic to potatos, corn and chocolate, (so sayeth the allergist, of course potato and corn are RAW potato and corn... cooked is just fine.)
I know how to prepare pork, chicken, eggs, etc. I know what a typical 'diseased' animal looks like. thousands of years of domestication has generally given us a good idea for the types of parasites/bacteria we might encounter and how to either kill it or avoid them.
I have no clue how to tell if a grasshopper is carrying a parasite/bacteria. I suppose I could heat the hell out of it, but that's not going to lead to tasty food. Have we identified a sufficient number of potentially lethal bacteria/parasites which exist in native insect populations of areas where insects are not normally consumed by humans?
"Humans, on the other hand, can have babies about once a year" No, they can have a baby every 10.5 months. There are MANY that pooped out 6-8 kids that are all less than 1 year apart from the previous.
No. Not 6-8. Seven.
(Had to tweak you on your response of 10.5 months to someone saying 'about once a year'. )
DNA is just one method of passing information from parent to offspring. For billions of years, adaptation occured through genetic selection which typically only changed during reproduction.
However, once we evolved the capability to pass information via non-DNA based mechanisms, I would argue that adaptation can occur in-situ AND that information can be passed down to successive generations.
I learned what poison ivy looks like, and can now avoid it. I taught my children what it looks like, and they can also avoid it.
How is that different than evolved instinctual behavior that we see manifest in certain animals. ie: predators who 'know' to avoid deadly poison frogs due to their color and patterns. That's genetic, and not a learned behavior (because they typically don't survive the learning process)
Evolution if considered to be adaptation, can certainly occur in an individual.
(And of course, would you consider genetic modification of the DNA in an individual which results in increased likelyhood of survival/reproduction to be evolution?)
That seems a tad slow. I can write and verify a 5GB DVD in about 8-10 minutes, and that's using a four-year-old burner. You may want to see if something on your machine could be tuned a little better.
It might be an issue of SATA vs PATA. I discovered that for some reason when ripping my music CDs that one drive was a hell of a lot faster than the other. I had several hundred CDs to work through, so I stuck a new SATA drive in the PC so I could rip 2 CDs at once. The existing drive was an old PATA thing I've had for years. In fact, the PC didn't support PATA so I had the drive connected to a USB converter and ran the cable to a USB port.
The thing is though, the PATA drive worked through the disks in a minute, while the SATA drive (properly connected to the motherboard) took 15 minutes or more per disk. The speeds were similar even when each drive was used on its own with the other disconnected.
Not to say that it should take him 20-30 minutes, but if my experience is anything to go by, maybe he encountered the same weird bug that I ran into?
Film lovers/buffs like me love the extras that often come with optical media - commentary tracks, "making of" videos, interviews, alternate versions, etc.
I haven't seen these available on streaming services yet (granted, I haven't checked all streaming services to see). That, plus lag time for HD video makes me far prefer optical media. Even if connection speeds could handle all of this, I think I'd still prefer to have a physical copy. Just old-fashioned I guess.
I've noticed an annoying trend, at least with the Pixar films on FIOS, is that the shorts which normally precede the main films have been stripped out and are sold as separate rentals/purchases.
I was a bit dismayed to discover this because when I rented "Up" to watch during a movie night with my children, it went straight into "Up". I was expecting the same experience as if I had rented the DVD or watched it in the theater. Later, I discovered the short was being sold as a $2 rental all on it's own. (And $2 is a freaking ripoff for a 5-10min short).
It bothers me because companies like Comcast, Verizon, Amazon, etc are charging the same (if not more) than what it would cost to buy a physical copy.
Nothing more parasitic than a songwriter getting paid for the public performance of their work... shame on those people... shame.
With how much our culture and technology has been retarded in the name of preserving archaic quasi-governmental licensing systems...
I shed the same tears for the newspapers who lose revenue when jurisdictions no longer require legal notices to be posted in the classifieds. Won't you consider the jobs of the fax machine manufacturers? If signatures can be electronically signed, what will happen to the market for specialized devices designed to print images received over outdated phone lines?
Slashdot Mirror
Since class action status must be approved by a judge, why not create a 'Class Action District Attorney' as a government position?
The CADA would be paid in a manner similar to a regular DA, and just logs hours. He doesn't get to select the cases he prosecutes, they are referred to the CADA office by the judge once class action status is approved. Resources could be managed in a manner similar to the prosecutor's office. If enough CA cases aren't moving through fast enough people can pressure the legislature to assign additional resources to the office. (or however that is normally accomplished for prosecutors now)
To me it makes sense for class action lawsuits to be handled by a government representative because the scope of the case. Once you reach class action status you really are faced witha situation where it is 'The People v A company' and not 'A person v A company'.
Given that these companies have a fiduciary duty to shareholders, can the even legally challenge orders like this without exposing themselves to liability?
Society should work hard to avoid making prisoners criminals.
Oh, and I forgot to mention the other part: if they did revive your body, you'd likely wake up to find your body only had weeks to live, as your it would be defenseless against the "modern" microorganisms it would encounter.
Because evolution happens so fast in 500 years? Yeah the microorganisms might change, but I highly doubt that 10 generations is that big of a deal for humans. ie: It's a long time with respect to technology, but not a long time with respect to human genetic drift.
No, not almost invariably. Invariably.
I think he was referring to the fact that you do investigate something like, "Type 'fhee' in this field, send 3 page requests, and do XYZ, and you can access the timeline of an account".
But if the bug report was "Hey, I found this really severe security flaw, you think it's patched, but I've seen everything"
One is taken a bit more seriously than the other. Without the actual bug report, I can't say either way, but it could be a serious waste of time to investigate if you don't believe the submission.
Which take 500 MB of one's monthly cap to move a 250 MB video file (250 up + 250 down) and don't work if there's no Internet connection (such as on a bus or in a bowling center). What works for me more often is sharing a folder over the network and using Rhythmsoft File Manager on my tablet to copy files out of the shared folder.
How often are you swapping SD cards on a bus?
1 - Turn all citizens into criminals. 2 - Be the one in charge to decide which citizens to prosecute. 3 - Make your position inheritable. 4 - Construct large pyramidal tombs in the desert to be remembered forever.
5 - PROPHET!
6. Invite others to look upon your works
7. Recommend a state of desparation
I could be terribly mistaken but last time I checked Homo did not refer exclusively to humans its root is "the same".
If it was in this instance the killer whale killing another killer whale it would in fact be a case of homicide. However it is a killer whale killing a member of another species.
Homicide, not homocide.
But what if you enjoyed it? Less lashes in that case?
Well, in the book, it wasn't just lashes or mundane torture. The main character's profession was that of a torturer. They took things like that into account, so someone like those cases that can't process pain would get something like waterboarding as that's more of a basal response than tactile, or induced motion sickness... etc.
Due to nerve damage, I don't feel pain (or much of anything, which means my hands look pretty beat up), but if I were stuck in one of those motion sickness inducing things they put astronauts into, and did that for a week straight, it would not be an experience I would be able to ignore. Maybe intentionally induced but controlled food poisoning? I remember that being one hell of an unfun experience.
Wow, if I had a million dollars, would I ... buy the right to drive a taxi?
How about just put the money somewhere and live off the interest?
Someone did have a million dollars. They loaned it to the cab driver so that he could work and send a portion of his fares to the lender as interest.
So if you had a million bucks, you might actually end up putting your money in an investment fund that could actually loan money to small businesses for things like permits/fees/medallions. ;)
Granted it's sci fi, but the Gene Wolfe book Shadow of the Torturer had an interesting take on physical punishment in lieu of fines/imprisonment.
The basic of it was this: Fines are difficult to assess, and have different impacts for different people. A rich guy might not care as he can afford the fine, and an old guy might not care about a fine as he won't have to care much longer if he goes into debt (Sure, sign my grandpa up for a credit card...)
While imprisonment may seem equal, it has a drawback as it ties up a lot of resources, both for keeping the prisoner and the loss of the prisoner as a working member of society.
It basically boiled down to: Commit a crime, get sentenced to an excruciation commensurate to the offence, and next week or so everyone is back to work. Since no matter if you are rich/poor/young/old/connected, physical pain is physical pain.
Not saying I'd advocate such a system, but it was interesting to contemplate physical punishment from another point of view. Going into the book I couldn't imagine I would ever think such a thing even remotely justifiable.
Personally, I think executions should be done by oxygen deprivation. It's painless and effective.
But but but... if we don't inflict ever amount of pain we can it wouldn't be justice!
(I also don't understand why we don't just use Nitrogen filled rooms)
72 virgins? /quote.
He was at a hacker convention. I'm sure there were quite a few more than 72.
You don't have to cross state lines to be considered interstate commerce.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn
Wickard v Filburn went further than that. You don't even have to engage in commerce for it to be considered interstate commerce.
The prices are set by the local authorities
In NYC it is even worse. The licenses (or medallions) are sold as commodities. I think the latest estimate is that one goes for over $1,000,000 in NYC now.
Try the powdered version. I used to 'premix' non-fat dry milk and an ensure powder. In the morning I'd put 1/2c in an empty sealable drinking container and take it with me to work. If I were too busy to eat a proper lunch, I'd fill up the drinking container from the water fountain, give it a few shakes, and at least have something to keep me from getting ravenous.
I liked it because I could forget the premade lunch at work, or in my car without it going bad since it was powder until the moment I decided to eat.
It's all in our heads
Yes. my tongue is in my head, and I don't know if it's millions of years of evolution tweaking my taste buds to associate the taste of insects with 'spoiled food' (ie: Go eat the food that doesn't have an insect infestation).
But with insects, I hate the texture. You really can't argue for the flavor of insects when most recipes go like this:
1. Take insects
2. Cover them in a strong flavor seasoning (chile powder, honey, tomato sauces, etc)
3. Fry
So can pork, chicken, eggs etc. if not prepared properly, no-ones saying you eat raw uncooked bugs... and as for allergies... well there are enough food allergies out there already... Just ask anyone with a peanut allergy. I myself am allergic to potatos, corn and chocolate, (so sayeth the allergist, of course potato and corn are RAW potato and corn... cooked is just fine.)
I know how to prepare pork, chicken, eggs, etc. I know what a typical 'diseased' animal looks like. thousands of years of domestication has generally given us a good idea for the types of parasites/bacteria we might encounter and how to either kill it or avoid them.
I have no clue how to tell if a grasshopper is carrying a parasite/bacteria. I suppose I could heat the hell out of it, but that's not going to lead to tasty food. Have we identified a sufficient number of potentially lethal bacteria/parasites which exist in native insect populations of areas where insects are not normally consumed by humans?
Why don't you back up to your NAS and use your blank discs as coasters.
Because umm... what I said was:
backup my music and movies to my NAS
I don't have blank discs ;) The interesting coasters were the old audio CDs. :p
"Humans, on the other hand, can have babies about once a year"
No, they can have a baby every 10.5 months. There are MANY that pooped out 6-8 kids that are all less than 1 year apart from the previous.
No. Not 6-8. Seven.
(Had to tweak you on your response of 10.5 months to someone saying 'about once a year'. )
No *individual* ever evolves.
DNA is just one method of passing information from parent to offspring. For billions of years, adaptation occured through genetic selection which typically only changed during reproduction.
However, once we evolved the capability to pass information via non-DNA based mechanisms, I would argue that adaptation can occur in-situ AND that information can be passed down to successive generations.
I learned what poison ivy looks like, and can now avoid it. I taught my children what it looks like, and they can also avoid it.
How is that different than evolved instinctual behavior that we see manifest in certain animals. ie: predators who 'know' to avoid deadly poison frogs due to their color and patterns. That's genetic, and not a learned behavior (because they typically don't survive the learning process)
Evolution if considered to be adaptation, can certainly occur in an individual.
(And of course, would you consider genetic modification of the DNA in an individual which results in increased likelyhood of survival/reproduction to be evolution?)
That seems a tad slow. I can write and verify a 5GB DVD in about 8-10 minutes, and that's using a four-year-old burner. You may want to see if something on your machine could be tuned a little better.
It might be an issue of SATA vs PATA. I discovered that for some reason when ripping my music CDs that one drive was a hell of a lot faster than the other. I had several hundred CDs to work through, so I stuck a new SATA drive in the PC so I could rip 2 CDs at once. The existing drive was an old PATA thing I've had for years. In fact, the PC didn't support PATA so I had the drive connected to a USB converter and ran the cable to a USB port.
The thing is though, the PATA drive worked through the disks in a minute, while the SATA drive (properly connected to the motherboard) took 15 minutes or more per disk. The speeds were similar even when each drive was used on its own with the other disconnected.
Not to say that it should take him 20-30 minutes, but if my experience is anything to go by, maybe he encountered the same weird bug that I ran into?
Film lovers/buffs like me love the extras that often come with optical media - commentary tracks, "making of" videos, interviews, alternate versions, etc.
I haven't seen these available on streaming services yet (granted, I haven't checked all streaming services to see). That, plus lag time for HD video makes me far prefer optical media. Even if connection speeds could handle all of this, I think I'd still prefer to have a physical copy. Just old-fashioned I guess.
I've noticed an annoying trend, at least with the Pixar films on FIOS, is that the shorts which normally precede the main films have been stripped out and are sold as separate rentals/purchases.
I was a bit dismayed to discover this because when I rented "Up" to watch during a movie night with my children, it went straight into "Up". I was expecting the same experience as if I had rented the DVD or watched it in the theater. Later, I discovered the short was being sold as a $2 rental all on it's own. (And $2 is a freaking ripoff for a 5-10min short).
It bothers me because companies like Comcast, Verizon, Amazon, etc are charging the same (if not more) than what it would cost to buy a physical copy.
my newest computer doesn't even have a disc drive...
Mine still does.
I've yet to figure out another way to backup my music and movies to my NAS in a manner that also produces interesting coasters.
Nothing more parasitic than a songwriter getting paid for the public performance of their work... shame on those people... shame.
With how much our culture and technology has been retarded in the name of preserving archaic quasi-governmental licensing systems...
I shed the same tears for the newspapers who lose revenue when jurisdictions no longer require legal notices to be posted in the classifieds. Won't you consider the jobs of the fax machine manufacturers? If signatures can be electronically signed, what will happen to the market for specialized devices designed to print images received over outdated phone lines?