If their goal was to dodge a lawsuit, wouldn't they just write, in BIG BOLD LETTERS in the operator's manual (and smaller but still legible letters on a sticker on the battery compartment cover) something like "This device is designed to use only Officially Authorized And Tested Panasonic(R) Camera Batteries. User accepts all responsibility for using a unauthorized third-party battery in this device." The disclaimer would have to be translated into legalese, and IANAL, of course.
The embarrassment factor isn't a problem. The blackmail factor is a problem. "Oh, councilman Smith. How are you planning on voting on Proposition 32? Really, that's too bad. I'd hate to see this tape of you and your mistress going into a room of that sleazy motel get out into the public view.... So you've changed your mind on your vote? Wonderful news."
If there were clear rules on when and why people could get access to the camera footage (only after a crime has been committed, only the footage that covers the area where the evidence indicates the crime took place, and only for official police use in investigation of a specific crime) then that would be one thing. Taping all public property 24/7/365 with little to no control over who can access the footage... that worries me. Power corrupts, and absolute (surveillance) power corrupts absolutely.
1. Because tickets are sent to the wrong people?
2. Because tickets are assessed to the owner (not the driver) of the car?
3. Because you have no accuser to confront in court?
These three are irrelevant, because a picture of the driver is included with the ticket in the mail. If you don't look like the picture, then it's pretty easy to contest it.
So the same picture includes enough information to positively identify both the car (which, if it's a common make and color, means that it includes the license plate) and the driver? If there are two photos, one to identify the car and another to identify the driver, what evidence do you have that they were taken at the same time and in the same location?
Even if by some miracle he keeps his job, he'll essentially be a volunteer when the inevitable law suit by the patient's next-of-kin is done, assuming that the description of the situation in the article is accurate.
Art class. Music class. Gym. Recess. Possibly classes in English literature or history.
I'm guessing if he went through college that fast, he probably didn't take that many humanities/elective classes. I agree that it would be a waste for him to take 6th grade science or math classes (maybe help TEACH them, but that's beside the point) but I think he could beef up his social and "soft" skills by being with people his own age.
You forget that apparently most or all prisons or mental institutions in comic books are apparently built out of papier mache and bubble gum... and they were all out of bubble gum. In the DC universe, as an example, breakouts are a weekly occurrence at Arkham Asylum. So the superhero's not going to go through a dozen evil geniuses annually, they'll go through the same evil genius every month for a year.
Being a supervillain is actually not that bad a gig, depending on the superheroes who would be your opponents. For instance, if you're a member of one of Batman's, Superman's, or the Flash's rogues galleries, the worst that can happen to you from one of the superheroes is that they'll beat the crap out of you and leave you for the authorities. How many people have those superheroes actually killed, ever? Possibly loads and loads of chumps (aka red shirts) that nobody cares about, but how many supervillains have they killed? What's even better is that if your fight with them leads to your super-secret lair being destroyed, by their code of "honor" they're almost obligated to save you! Now Wonder Woman's rogues have a reason to be concerned... although she had good reason for what happened between her and Maxwell Lord.
Whose laws should we be reading if we're in the US and the domain registrar is not? Vice versa?
What happens if I buy a domain name, put my personal website on it for a year, then replace it with a "Buy this domain!" page? A month? A week? A day? 5 minutes?
Where's the line between "bullshit domain squatters... committing illegal acts" and "someone who got bored with their webpage and wants to recoup some of their investment", who gets to decide where that line is, and what gives them the authority to do so? Again, citation needed for your answers to these questions.
In addition, if it were true that Obama was not a natural-born citizen (and hence ineligible to hold the office of President), the Republican party should have challenged that fact DURING THE ELECTION. The fact that the Republicans didn't challenge during the election means one of a few things:
They couldn't find a lawyer willing to file suit challenging Obama's eligibility. I think we can safely rule out this possibility, given the large percentage of members of the Republican party that are lawyers themselves.
They didn't find out about the fact that he was ineligible until after the election. If this is the case, the Republicans should fire whomever was involved in investigating Obama to find dirt on him, either for laziness or gross incompetence.
They assumed they were going to win even without this information. If this is the case, the entire leadership of the Republican party should be fired for arrogance and blatant stupidity in ignoring a legal tool that would have pretty much guaranteed they would win. "The Democrats _knew_ their candidate was ineligible, but they still let him run!"
They wanted to wait until after the election so they could smear the new President's image. If so, that's like killing the goose that lays the golden eggs in order to make yourself a pillow.
Obama is a natural-born citizen, and so the Republicans knew that a challenge would have failed.
There are probably other scenarios, but I can't think of any others offhand that don't smack of arrogance or incompetence on the part of some or all of the members of the Republican party.
Companies that send out legitimate mass emails would need to be added to an "allow-list".
Who defines "legitimate"? I'm sure that (if they could get away with it) some people at Microsoft would say that messages to the Linux Kernel Mailing List or from Apple are not legitimate mass emails, and I'm sure there are some fanatic followers of Linux or Apple who would say the same thing about any emails sent out from Microsoft.
Who determines which companies are allowed on the "allow-list"?
Can companies be removed from the "allow-list" if they start spamming?
Who pays for maintenance on the "allow-list"?
I know, it sux, but the benefit of no spam outweighs the pain of asking legit listserv's to register.
It doesn't "sux[sic]", in my opinion it's unworkable because it requires someone that everyone trusts -- and there's no such person.
Another idea: when anyone signs up for an account with an ISP, they put a small amount of money (let's say $10 just for sake of argument) in escrow. If their accounts are terminated because they violated their contract with the ISP, the escrow is forfeit to the ISP. If they terminate their account normally, the escrow is returned to them.
Now for most people, putting up $10 once when they sign up for internet service isn't a problem and they're going to get that back when they stop using that ISP. But this hurts spammers that are likely to have their service terminated, because they're going to have to sign up for multiple accounts and pay (and lose) the escrow fee for each one. People now have an extra financial stake in keeping their computers secure (since they'll lose their escrow if their service gets terminated when their machine is compromised and used to spam) and ISPs could use forfeited escrow money to pay a workers to scan through logs looking for spammers.
I wonder just how many people are going to be complaining to the ISPs providing personal internet access to the politicians that voted for this bill? What type of punishment is listed in the bill for making a false accusation? If it's something that's never going to be applied (like the DMCA's "I swear under penalty of perjury" clause) those ISPs better start hiring and training staff now to prepare for the onslaught. Even if the accusation is completely bogus, the ISP's still going to need to spend time and money processing them, and you know that's going to result in increased fees for everyone.
It's one thing to be nervous when a plane flies by. It's entirely another thing to evacuate multiple buildings when a plane flies by.
I disagree with the second sentence of that statement. If I see an unattended bag sitting on a park bench, and it looks very similar to another bag that exploded in that same location a week ago, I think it's not unreasonable to take precautions (like moving away from the bag) in case what happened a week ago happens again. These people know that several years ago, an event that started out somewhat similarly ended very badly for people who were in the situation they are in now, so they took precautions to make sure that they don't end up the same way.
Okay, so the producers air an infomercial on local public access in Middle of Nowhere, Montana at 3 AM on Christmas morning offering the phonogram for sale for $499.99. Doesn't that technically, according to the letter of the law, satisfy the requirements of "making it available to the public"?
1) Who's going to pay for all the devices that need to be replaced or updated to support the new communication protocol or the new feature of the existing communication protocols?
2) Why exactly do spammers outside the jurisdiction of the US and in a country with which the US doesn't have an extradition treaty care about a US federal law? [Repeat with $YOUR_FAVORITE_COUNTRY in place of US in the preceding question.]
For your final point, you can ignore most of your "out of area" phone calls... unless you're a company that has customers outside your local area and you'd like for said customers, or new customers outside your local area, to be able to reach your company.
That'd be nice, although I'd like to have one reader that would accept delivery from multiple sources, rather than being required to have a "Boston Globe reader" and a separate "New York Times reader" etc.
Another alternative would be something I remember seeing in an episode of Babylon 5. Captain Sheridan went to the "Universe Today" terminal, placed yesterday's copy into a slot for recycling, and received his printed-on-demand copy (which I assume was customized to include just the sections in which he was interested) all in the span of a few seconds.
This might earn me a "whoosh" but I trust those Debian guys to check the code before they build it into securely signed binary packages for me and other joes to consume. Before it reaches me the software has already had "many eyes" looking at it.
If this vote goes in favor of intelligent design, and so does this, I'm betting employers and schools elsewhere will be scrutinizing VERY carefully any degrees (high school diploma included) from educational institutions in Texas, particularly medical schools who are screening applicants.
The foreman in charge of a team constructing a building (say 3-4 stories) wants to check the blueprints to make sure of a detail. He unrolls his E-paper blueprint from his back pocket and navigates to the correct section, then zooms in. A PDA would limit the display area for the blueprint, while it would be kind of difficult to roll up the whole roll of paper blueprints and stick it in his pocket.
Similarly, an E-paper newspaper could be (potentially) folded to fit in a pocket and is reusable without requiring people to put it in a recycling bin.
Your local grocery or department store could have catalogs available at the entrance that show you where in the store the item you're looking at is located, and how many are left. You could pick one up when you enter and leave it when you're finished shopping. That I suppose a PDA could do, but if you're shopping with small children, having something that's easy to read (because of its size) and durable could be useful.
Why go with something with a brain? Try using a Robot to move the mouse around and click at random (like a drunkard's walk.) If it should happen to click on the Okay button on the EULA, well, the robot did it!
Slashdot Mirror
"nobody wants to mess with a man who blows things up for a living."
If their goal was to dodge a lawsuit, wouldn't they just write, in BIG BOLD LETTERS in the operator's manual (and smaller but still legible letters on a sticker on the battery compartment cover) something like "This device is designed to use only Officially Authorized And Tested Panasonic(R) Camera Batteries. User accepts all responsibility for using a unauthorized third-party battery in this device." The disclaimer would have to be translated into legalese, and IANAL, of course.
The embarrassment factor isn't a problem. The blackmail factor is a problem. "Oh, councilman Smith. How are you planning on voting on Proposition 32? Really, that's too bad. I'd hate to see this tape of you and your mistress going into a room of that sleazy motel get out into the public view. ... So you've changed your mind on your vote? Wonderful news."
If there were clear rules on when and why people could get access to the camera footage (only after a crime has been committed, only the footage that covers the area where the evidence indicates the crime took place, and only for official police use in investigation of a specific crime) then that would be one thing. Taping all public property 24/7/365 with little to no control over who can access the footage ... that worries me. Power corrupts, and absolute (surveillance) power corrupts absolutely.
So the same picture includes enough information to positively identify both the car (which, if it's a common make and color, means that it includes the license plate) and the driver? If there are two photos, one to identify the car and another to identify the driver, what evidence do you have that they were taken at the same time and in the same location?
Even if by some miracle he keeps his job, he'll essentially be a volunteer when the inevitable law suit by the patient's next-of-kin is done, assuming that the description of the situation in the article is accurate.
Art class.
Music class.
Gym.
Recess.
Possibly classes in English literature or history.
I'm guessing if he went through college that fast, he probably didn't take that many humanities/elective classes. I agree that it would be a waste for him to take 6th grade science or math classes (maybe help TEACH them, but that's beside the point) but I think he could beef up his social and "soft" skills by being with people his own age.
You forget that apparently most or all prisons or mental institutions in comic books are apparently built out of papier mache and bubble gum ... and they were all out of bubble gum. In the DC universe, as an example, breakouts are a weekly occurrence at Arkham Asylum. So the superhero's not going to go through a dozen evil geniuses annually, they'll go through the same evil genius every month for a year.
... although she had good reason for what happened between her and Maxwell Lord.
Being a supervillain is actually not that bad a gig, depending on the superheroes who would be your opponents. For instance, if you're a member of one of Batman's, Superman's, or the Flash's rogues galleries, the worst that can happen to you from one of the superheroes is that they'll beat the crap out of you and leave you for the authorities. How many people have those superheroes actually killed, ever? Possibly loads and loads of chumps (aka red shirts) that nobody cares about, but how many supervillains have they killed? What's even better is that if your fight with them leads to your super-secret lair being destroyed, by their code of "honor" they're almost obligated to save you! Now Wonder Woman's rogues have a reason to be concerned
Citation?
Whose laws should we be reading if we're in the US and the domain registrar is not? Vice versa?
What happens if I buy a domain name, put my personal website on it for a year, then replace it with a "Buy this domain!" page?
A month?
A week?
A day?
5 minutes?
Where's the line between "bullshit domain squatters ... committing illegal acts" and "someone who got bored with their webpage and wants to recoup some of their investment", who gets to decide where that line is, and what gives them the authority to do so? Again, citation needed for your answers to these questions.
There are probably other scenarios, but I can't think of any others offhand that don't smack of arrogance or incompetence on the part of some or all of the members of the Republican party.
Who defines "legitimate"? I'm sure that (if they could get away with it) some people at Microsoft would say that messages to the Linux Kernel Mailing List or from Apple are not legitimate mass emails, and I'm sure there are some fanatic followers of Linux or Apple who would say the same thing about any emails sent out from Microsoft.
Who determines which companies are allowed on the "allow-list"?
Can companies be removed from the "allow-list" if they start spamming?
Who pays for maintenance on the "allow-list"?
It doesn't "sux[sic]", in my opinion it's unworkable because it requires someone that everyone trusts -- and there's no such person.
Another idea: when anyone signs up for an account with an ISP, they put a small amount of money (let's say $10 just for sake of argument) in escrow. If their accounts are terminated because they violated their contract with the ISP, the escrow is forfeit to the ISP. If they terminate their account normally, the escrow is returned to them.
Now for most people, putting up $10 once when they sign up for internet service isn't a problem and they're going to get that back when they stop using that ISP. But this hurts spammers that are likely to have their service terminated, because they're going to have to sign up for multiple accounts and pay (and lose) the escrow fee for each one. People now have an extra financial stake in keeping their computers secure (since they'll lose their escrow if their service gets terminated when their machine is compromised and used to spam) and ISPs could use forfeited escrow money to pay a workers to scan through logs looking for spammers.
I wonder just how many people are going to be complaining to the ISPs providing personal internet access to the politicians that voted for this bill? What type of punishment is listed in the bill for making a false accusation? If it's something that's never going to be applied (like the DMCA's "I swear under penalty of perjury" clause) those ISPs better start hiring and training staff now to prepare for the onslaught. Even if the accusation is completely bogus, the ISP's still going to need to spend time and money processing them, and you know that's going to result in increased fees for everyone.
And when XKCD references the Slashdot posts whose comments include those links, the circle of life is at last complete.
I disagree with the second sentence of that statement. If I see an unattended bag sitting on a park bench, and it looks very similar to another bag that exploded in that same location a week ago, I think it's not unreasonable to take precautions (like moving away from the bag) in case what happened a week ago happens again. These people know that several years ago, an event that started out somewhat similarly ended very badly for people who were in the situation they are in now, so they took precautions to make sure that they don't end up the same way.
No really, honey, don't get angry that I was reading that website. I was just trying to help this guy out with his question!
Okay, so the producers air an infomercial on local public access in Middle of Nowhere, Montana at 3 AM on Christmas morning offering the phonogram for sale for $499.99. Doesn't that technically, according to the letter of the law, satisfy the requirements of "making it available to the public"?
1) Who's going to pay for all the devices that need to be replaced or updated to support the new communication protocol or the new feature of the existing communication protocols?
2) Why exactly do spammers outside the jurisdiction of the US and in a country with which the US doesn't have an extradition treaty care about a US federal law? [Repeat with $YOUR_FAVORITE_COUNTRY in place of US in the preceding question.]
For your final point, you can ignore most of your "out of area" phone calls ... unless you're a company that has customers outside your local area and you'd like for said customers, or new customers outside your local area, to be able to reach your company.
Is that the one that's three doors down from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms? [Dammit, that _should_ be the name of an actual store.]
That'd be nice, although I'd like to have one reader that would accept delivery from multiple sources, rather than being required to have a "Boston Globe reader" and a separate "New York Times reader" etc.
Another alternative would be something I remember seeing in an episode of Babylon 5. Captain Sheridan went to the "Universe Today" terminal, placed yesterday's copy into a slot for recycling, and received his printed-on-demand copy (which I assume was customized to include just the sections in which he was interested) all in the span of a few seconds.
Okay, but what does that have to do with making sure your computer isn't compromised?
If this vote goes in favor of intelligent design, and so does this, I'm betting employers and schools elsewhere will be scrutinizing VERY carefully any degrees (high school diploma included) from educational institutions in Texas, particularly medical schools who are screening applicants.
A couple that come to mind:
The foreman in charge of a team constructing a building (say 3-4 stories) wants to check the blueprints to make sure of a detail. He unrolls his E-paper blueprint from his back pocket and navigates to the correct section, then zooms in. A PDA would limit the display area for the blueprint, while it would be kind of difficult to roll up the whole roll of paper blueprints and stick it in his pocket.
Similarly, an E-paper newspaper could be (potentially) folded to fit in a pocket and is reusable without requiring people to put it in a recycling bin.
Your local grocery or department store could have catalogs available at the entrance that show you where in the store the item you're looking at is located, and how many are left. You could pick one up when you enter and leave it when you're finished shopping. That I suppose a PDA could do, but if you're shopping with small children, having something that's easy to read (because of its size) and durable could be useful.
Flowers? There better not be any pollination going on between those flowers, or it would fall (sort of) under the sex prohibition.
It can be cathartic to write the email, but that doesn't mean you need to send that email, at least not as a broadcast email to everyone.
Why go with something with a brain? Try using a Robot to move the mouse around and click at random (like a drunkard's walk.) If it should happen to click on the Okay button on the EULA, well, the robot did it!