If you're wearing clothes, you're a terrorist and the government should arrest you.
If you're not wearing clothes, you're committing indecent exposure and you can be arrested and fined.
All the money people are no longer spending on clothes can go to other sectors of the economy, and the fines will help the government as well. Everyone (except the people) win!
That behavior gets flagged as potentially being used to hide some sort of illegal activity and you get called down to the IRS office (in the US; not sure of the equivalent in Canada) and audited until you start bleeding from the eyes? Is said coworker going to be willing to testify, under penalty of perjury, that the two of you exchanged lunches on September 15th of last year? I don't know about you, but I'm not sure I could swear what I had for lunch last _week_ much less last _year_.
The enforceability of a patent should be correlated to the relative size of the infringer to the patent holder. E.g., Microsoft might get about $100 million from infringement by Apple, but only $100 from MomNPop Software.
Okay, that's fine... but what prevents Microsoft's legal team from bringing MomNPop Software into court for a year or two seeking an injunction against MomNPop Software from using their patent, costing MomNPop thousands or tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees?
Patents should be nullified unless evidence of a good faith attempted entry into the market is presented within 2 years of filing.
What do _you_ consider "good faith"? If I work on a prototype for a year but lose my job and need to spend the next year looking for work/trying to keep my family fed, is that a "good faith" attempt? How about if I work on getting the product to market for half an hour each week, but have not yet gotten it to market by the second anniversary of the filing? How about an hour a week? Two? Ten? Who gets to draw the line and where do they draw it?
I recall my company's legal team doing a search for any instance where intercepted, decrypted messages from a Blackberry Enterprise Server were used in court. The lawyers weren't able to find any cases.
Of course not. If the government was the one who intercepted the messages and any such cases went close to a judge, they would quickly get hit with the "state secret" hammer and put under wraps. If a company had done the intercepting, I'm sure they would have received a nastygram from RIM's lawyers (threatening a lawsuit for contract violations or DMCA or something.)
It's possible that there are legal requirements on Motorola to do this. That doesn't make it a good idea.
How long do you think it's going to be before someone creates a virus that modifies the phone's software _just_ enough that this eFuse protection system gets tripped? Bricks for everyone, including mass quantities of bricks being shipped back to Motorola to fix. If Motorola charges for the fix, I imagine SOMEONE is going to start a class-action suit; if not, it'll be a costly lesson for Motorola.
Passing out is just one reason a caller may not be able to tell the operator their location.
The caller may be physically able to tell the operator their location but may also be extremely scared and/or panicked and so unable to respond coherently to the operator's request for their location.
The caller may be in unfamiliar surroundings and so not know exactly where they are ("I'm somewhere along Route 23, but there's nothing I can see in either direction".)
The caller may not be able to explain very well where they are (particularly if the caller is a young child calling because of a medical emergency or a non-native English speaker.)
The phone is ripped from the caller's hand by an assailant before they have a chance to tell the operator their location.
I wouldn't have a problem with my phone's location being sent to the 911 dispatcher if I initiated the call -- I'd be willing to volunteer that information in that situation. I wouldn't be quite as happy if someone else could ask my phone where it is without my knowledge/consent -- if you want to ask my phone to provide that information, ask me first.
You forgot three words at the end of your comment: in my opinion.
Let's say you break your arm and want to play a game while you recuperate. Which would be the better option in that particular circumstance? Is it the game where you are required to make sweeping gestures with the controller, straining the arm inside the cast? Or is the game that give you the option of pressing buttons as an alternate control system perhaps a better option?
Human language can be vague. The sentence you quoted may seem straightforward, but let me play Devil's Advocate.
Define "Arms". Does a knife count? How about a sword? A pistol? A machine gun? A thermonuclear device? Chemical or biological weapons?
Is the right to keep and bear ammunition included in the right to keep and bear Arms?
Do you have the right to keep and bear Arms, but not to use them? The definitions of the word bear I found say nothing about using, just having.
Are you required to belong to a "well regulated militia", as described in the first part of the sentence, in order to keep and bear Arms? [As written, I'd probably say no, that the first part is providing motivation for the second, but you could theoretically argue there's a connection.]
Does "shall not be infringed" mean that you can never take Arms away from someone? Not even if they have been tried for a crime by a jury of their peers, convicted, and are currently incarcerated?
Again, I'm just taking the Devil's Advocate position.
The Vi@gra spam will be in black and purple, with occasional areas of dark green. Why use any other colors?
Actually I was thinking about that color scheme in terms of what would consume the most ink, but when I think about it in the context of Viagra... somebody pass me the brain bleach, would ya?
And you're assuming that all the arrests were due to something the people arrested had with them or were planning to do. How many of those arrests came because someone who was already annoyed about being in a long screening line didn't take too well to being called out for additional screening and either mouthed off to the TSA agent or acted aggressively? A comment like "WTF, if you rent-a-cops make me miss my flight I'll sue your asses!" could easily become "arrested for resisting a TSA agent".
Or better yet, "If you can't vote for them, you can't contribute to their campaign. If you could vote for them, you can contribute _a limited amount of money_ to their campaign." Thus for a federal office, you have to be a registered voter somewhere in the US to contribute to a candidate running for that office; for a state office, a registered voter somewhere in the state; for a town or city office, a registered voter in the town or city. This would also help with the situation where every other commercial on TV for the month or two prior to the election is an ad for a political candidate -- less money should lead to fewer such commercials.
I'll admit that I've never been to a live auction, but I don't think the auctioneer is using an imaging element of a portable computing device to obtain multiple images and then analyzing a change in position of a facial feature.
What is the human brain but a portable computing device? And it's not much of a stretch in my opinion to see a person's body language as a sort of GUI (raises two fingers, mouths the word "beer" to the bartender, and points to the bar in front of himself.)
But Amazon will be happy with all the people who flip off their site and inadvertently purchase something from it.
If I had the authority to throw people in jail, to write them tickets that would cost them hundreds or thousands of dollars on my say-so (see the discussion about the Ohio Supreme Court decision about speeding tickets), and to use physical (or perhaps even deadly) force to restrain people if in my opinion they were committing a crime? I'd be okay with my work duties being captured by video cameras.
I know it's cliched... but with great power comes great responsibility. Recording the on-the-job behavior of the police seems like a reasonable amount of responsibility to balance out their significant amount of power.
There are some conversations that politicians should have in private. Conversations with their legal representation and conversations with doctors about their care or the care of their families are two that come to mind. So I agree with part of your plan, but here's my take.
Record video and audio of the politician 24/7.
Allow the politician to request that certain segments be treated as private (see above for some examples.)
Have an independent, anonymous, decentralized, sworn to secrecy group review the records and decide into which category they fall.
Deals with the politician's private life. Either this information is deleted immediately or it is stored for posterity but is not made public.
Deals with the politician's public duties but is classified, confidential, or otherwise sensitive. Should be stored for posterity but not made public until or unless it is no longer sensitive.
Deals with the politician's public duties and is not classified, confidential, or otherwise sensitive. Should be stored and made public.
Now finding people willing to be in that "independent, anonymous, decentralized, and sworn to secrecy group" might be tough... but not impossible.
And another (the phrasing needs work, but I think the idea is clear):
When brought up for a vote, a bill must (when measured by at least one standard readability formula) be no more complex than the average adult reading level (as measured periodically by the Department of Education or the Census Bureau.)
Storing the law in a Wiki or requiring the law to have a measurable objective doesn't do the people any good if they can't understand at least the basic gist of what it says.
Re:Was Not Impressed at All
on
Lost Ends
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· Score: 2, Interesting
In the toolbox that I would imagine (hope) would be standard issue for ALL planes for fixing minor issues in-flight -- cushion gets torn? Tape it and let the maintenance guys fix or replace it when the plane's back on the ground. Sign on the bathroom falls down? Tape it. Some button or knob (ideally not inside the cockpit) that shouldn't move does? Tape it.
Even if it wasn't part of some standard issue toolbox, I imagine Lapidus would have stashed some extra tools on the plane before taking off -- after all, he knows (hopes) they're going to get to the island and that it might not be the best of landings.
I don't know where the quote "If it shouldn't move but does, duct tape. If it doesn't move but should, WD-40." but it seems appropriate here. [After watching the MythBusters, I think that phrase should have a third sentence -- "If it shouldn't exist but does, C4."]
What is the basis for morality without a Higher Power? Why should I follow your morals if the physical is all there is?
Tit-for-tat or the Golden Rule. [And yes, I did read the section of the Wikipedia article for the latter that indicated the most commonly used phrasing came from the Bible.]
By the way, if I posted this using the "Post Anonymously" option and then was nominated for federal office (HIGHLY unlikely) would I be expected to call this out as part of the approval process?
While we're doing that for the Supreme Court, maybe we should also do it for other random jobs. It's idiotic to check every Facebook a job candidate has ever made to see if they've failed to toe the line at all times. Doing that favors worthless nonentities.
If someone posts something like "God, I hate everyone and wish they'd all die" once on their Facebook, you can chalk it up to them having a bad day.
If someone posts something like "God, I hate everyone and wish they'd all die" repeatedly over a long period of time on their Facebook, it bears further investigation.
if (trade.value() > Constants.RIDICULOUSLY_LARGE_AMOUNT) Alert ("Um, are you sure about this?");
And if that Alert causes a 1 second delay in a legitimate trade being accepted that costs the company who would have made the trade any money at all, that rule will be gone before you can say "Be careful".
I remember seeing a show on the local news a few weeks back that talked about how financial companies were paying large amounts of money for office space as close to the trading houses as they could get. Why? Network latency. Yes, a delay of a few hundred nanoseconds (the time for light to travel a few hundred feet) was significant for their business. And you want to force them to click on a dialog button to approve that trade? The consequences/fines for not doing so would have to be dire indeed (putting the individual trades in stocks or taking away executive bonuses) to force the companies to implement such a system.
Slashdot Mirror
D) Why bother spending your resources to instill fear in your enemies when they're perfectly willing to do it themselves?
Brilliant!
If you're wearing clothes, you're a terrorist and the government should arrest you.
If you're not wearing clothes, you're committing indecent exposure and you can be arrested and fined.
All the money people are no longer spending on clothes can go to other sectors of the economy, and the fines will help the government as well. Everyone (except the people) win!
That behavior gets flagged as potentially being used to hide some sort of illegal activity and you get called down to the IRS office (in the US; not sure of the equivalent in Canada) and audited until you start bleeding from the eyes? Is said coworker going to be willing to testify, under penalty of perjury, that the two of you exchanged lunches on September 15th of last year? I don't know about you, but I'm not sure I could swear what I had for lunch last _week_ much less last _year_.
Okay, that's fine ... but what prevents Microsoft's legal team from bringing MomNPop Software into court for a year or two seeking an injunction against MomNPop Software from using their patent, costing MomNPop thousands or tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees?
What do _you_ consider "good faith"? If I work on a prototype for a year but lose my job and need to spend the next year looking for work/trying to keep my family fed, is that a "good faith" attempt? How about if I work on getting the product to market for half an hour each week, but have not yet gotten it to market by the second anniversary of the filing? How about an hour a week? Two? Ten? Who gets to draw the line and where do they draw it?
Of course not. If the government was the one who intercepted the messages and any such cases went close to a judge, they would quickly get hit with the "state secret" hammer and put under wraps. If a company had done the intercepting, I'm sure they would have received a nastygram from RIM's lawyers (threatening a lawsuit for contract violations or DMCA or something.)
And each new generation of the compiler is created by telling the previous generation "I want you to create a compiler that's smarter than you"?
It's possible that there are legal requirements on Motorola to do this. That doesn't make it a good idea.
How long do you think it's going to be before someone creates a virus that modifies the phone's software _just_ enough that this eFuse protection system gets tripped? Bricks for everyone, including mass quantities of bricks being shipped back to Motorola to fix. If Motorola charges for the fix, I imagine SOMEONE is going to start a class-action suit; if not, it'll be a costly lesson for Motorola.
I wouldn't have a problem with my phone's location being sent to the 911 dispatcher if I initiated the call -- I'd be willing to volunteer that information in that situation. I wouldn't be quite as happy if someone else could ask my phone where it is without my knowledge/consent -- if you want to ask my phone to provide that information, ask me first.
No, it's a document interpreted by lawyers. That's worse :)
You forgot three words at the end of your comment: in my opinion.
Let's say you break your arm and want to play a game while you recuperate. Which would be the better option in that particular circumstance? Is it the game where you are required to make sweeping gestures with the controller, straining the arm inside the cast? Or is the game that give you the option of pressing buttons as an alternate control system perhaps a better option?
Again, I'm just taking the Devil's Advocate position.
Of course not.
The Vi@gra spam will be in black and purple, with occasional areas of dark green. Why use any other colors?
Actually I was thinking about that color scheme in terms of what would consume the most ink, but when I think about it in the context of Viagra ... somebody pass me the brain bleach, would ya?
And you're assuming that all the arrests were due to something the people arrested had with them or were planning to do. How many of those arrests came because someone who was already annoyed about being in a long screening line didn't take too well to being called out for additional screening and either mouthed off to the TSA agent or acted aggressively? A comment like "WTF, if you rent-a-cops make me miss my flight I'll sue your asses!" could easily become "arrested for resisting a TSA agent".
Ooh, ooh, I know! We get someone who has access to robodialing equipment who does NOT live in California ...
Not if you labeled it "Natalie Portman and Olivia Munn rubbing suntan lotion on each other at the beach" or something similar.
Or better yet, "If you can't vote for them, you can't contribute to their campaign. If you could vote for them, you can contribute _a limited amount of money_ to their campaign." Thus for a federal office, you have to be a registered voter somewhere in the US to contribute to a candidate running for that office; for a state office, a registered voter somewhere in the state; for a town or city office, a registered voter in the town or city. This would also help with the situation where every other commercial on TV for the month or two prior to the election is an ad for a political candidate -- less money should lead to fewer such commercials.
What is the human brain but a portable computing device? And it's not much of a stretch in my opinion to see a person's body language as a sort of GUI (raises two fingers, mouths the word "beer" to the bartender, and points to the bar in front of himself.)
But Amazon will be happy with all the people who flip off their site and inadvertently purchase something from it.
If I had the authority to throw people in jail, to write them tickets that would cost them hundreds or thousands of dollars on my say-so (see the discussion about the Ohio Supreme Court decision about speeding tickets), and to use physical (or perhaps even deadly) force to restrain people if in my opinion they were committing a crime? I'd be okay with my work duties being captured by video cameras.
... but with great power comes great responsibility. Recording the on-the-job behavior of the police seems like a reasonable amount of responsibility to balance out their significant amount of power.
I know it's cliched
Now finding people willing to be in that "independent, anonymous, decentralized, and sworn to secrecy group" might be tough ... but not impossible.
And another (the phrasing needs work, but I think the idea is clear):
When brought up for a vote, a bill must (when measured by at least one standard readability formula) be no more complex than the average adult reading level (as measured periodically by the Department of Education or the Census Bureau.)
Storing the law in a Wiki or requiring the law to have a measurable objective doesn't do the people any good if they can't understand at least the basic gist of what it says.
In the toolbox that I would imagine (hope) would be standard issue for ALL planes for fixing minor issues in-flight -- cushion gets torn? Tape it and let the maintenance guys fix or replace it when the plane's back on the ground. Sign on the bathroom falls down? Tape it. Some button or knob (ideally not inside the cockpit) that shouldn't move does? Tape it.
Even if it wasn't part of some standard issue toolbox, I imagine Lapidus would have stashed some extra tools on the plane before taking off -- after all, he knows (hopes) they're going to get to the island and that it might not be the best of landings.
I don't know where the quote "If it shouldn't move but does, duct tape. If it doesn't move but should, WD-40." but it seems appropriate here. [After watching the MythBusters, I think that phrase should have a third sentence -- "If it shouldn't exist but does, C4."]
Tit-for-tat or the Golden Rule. [And yes, I did read the section of the Wikipedia article for the latter that indicated the most commonly used phrasing came from the Bible.]
No one. That's why they'll skim them, just like Cardinal Richelieu supposedly did:
If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him.
By the way, if I posted this using the "Post Anonymously" option and then was nominated for federal office (HIGHLY unlikely) would I be expected to call this out as part of the approval process?
If someone posts something like "God, I hate everyone and wish they'd all die" once on their Facebook, you can chalk it up to them having a bad day.
If someone posts something like "God, I hate everyone and wish they'd all die" repeatedly over a long period of time on their Facebook, it bears further investigation.
And if that Alert causes a 1 second delay in a legitimate trade being accepted that costs the company who would have made the trade any money at all, that rule will be gone before you can say "Be careful".
I remember seeing a show on the local news a few weeks back that talked about how financial companies were paying large amounts of money for office space as close to the trading houses as they could get. Why? Network latency . Yes, a delay of a few hundred nanoseconds (the time for light to travel a few hundred feet) was significant for their business. And you want to force them to click on a dialog button to approve that trade? The consequences/fines for not doing so would have to be dire indeed (putting the individual trades in stocks or taking away executive bonuses) to force the companies to implement such a system.