Couldn't agree more. On motorways the actual top "safe-speed" (i.e. the max speed you can travel while being able to react to changes in road configuration/direction) is often far higher than the imposed limit. See 8th Percentile Rule. This knowingly makes criminals out of the remaining 15% who still drive within the road's safety tolerance.
Germany is the obvious example of a country which does not have speed limits on some of it's major roads yet has comparable accident statistics to the US. I would argue that if the goal is to prevent accidents cameras should focus on the causes of accidents (undertaking, tailgating, poor signalling, erratic driving) equally, if not solely.
Having said all that, you might have just been agreeing with me.
I can't argue with what you're saying. Re-reading your OP I realise I mis-read the extent to which you were making the point. The phrase "what they normally would do anyway" had suggested to me that you thought they had no effect, although I now realise that's not neccessarily the case.
Perhaps we agree that "laws can be useful to moderate behaviour but not enforce it"?
Is anyone else starting to wonder if the Patent Office is using Slashdot to check for prior art, rather than employ clerks to do it in-house?
1. Receive application for patent 2. Create dummy patent-approved page 3. Submit to Slashdot with "Shock! Horror!" summary (3b. While still claiming expenses for a horde of patent clerks) 4. ???? 5. Profit!!!
So, you are saying smoking is declining because there was a law written?
I'm saying smoking is declining in public spaces because a law was written making it illegal to do so.
I guess just I have more respect for the human spirit than to ever believe words on paper could affect our will to be individuals.
Individuality is a poor second to the desire to be part of a community: given the choice most do not want to be pariahs. In a democratic system a law is (or should be used as) a declaration that the outlawed behaviour is against the ethics of the majority. The power of the law is in not in the words on the paper, but in what they represent.
People are of course free to do what they will outside of legislated areas (and implicit ethical limits).
You're also free to do anything if you're willing to face the consequences. That's freedom for you.
This is not just true with technology law. People obey laws because they are what they normally would do anyway, aren't overly inconvenienced by it, or it only affects a minority of people.
So...
Laws are effective ways to change behavior, just not by much.
The smoking ban in Scotland has been largely effective for that reason. It's limited to public spaces making the inconvenience relatively small and applies to a minority (albeit a fairly large one). It has been effective in changing behaviour.
The problem for the DMCA is that it has the potential to be a moderate inconvenience to a large number of people.
It hit me pretty close to home, being so near to everything and everyone, so I am by no means downplaying the events that happened that day. I was just bothered by the way this summary completely shifts the focus from the article, and turns it into senseless eBay bashing.
You're not the one in danger of downplaying the events at Virginia Tech. I just can't decide whether it's a eBay hater using the shootings as justification, or a gun hater using eBay as an excuse to spout off. In either case it's a rather crass use of a horrific event for political posturing.
I'm a firm believer in increased gun control myself but nonsense like this is an insult to the discussion.
Maybe the part that is broken is the part that allows patents to be invalidated without cost.
(My addition in bold)
Charging fines for patents invalid at time of submission would cut perhaps be enough to make companies stop and think. But how to do this without hurting smaller inventors who do not have the resources to check thoroughly?
The fact that some people react to the effort this way is arguably one of the reasons it's probably a good idea.
Changing a CS degree to contain elements of Fashion Design would achieve the same results. That does not mean it's a good idea. Watering down one degree for mass appeal inevitably reduces the proficiency of graduates in the specific areas targeted. Mass appeal is no indicator of quality.
Perhaps a better solution is a wider range of degrees and options for those that wish to avoid programming, while retaining courses for those with a genuine interest.
Actually, the point was that putting "lack of gun-control" in the same collection of "causes" as access to violent video games or loud music is a little disingenuous. One is potentially lethal, while the others are not.
My point is that even where you CAN easily get the same (well, worse) weapons than the VT guy used, many people still choose to strap on simple explosives laden with $10 of nails from the hardware store, and kill a couple dozen people all the time. Road side bombs are a special case... I'm talking about someone with a death wish, like the guy that did this mess in Virgina, and like the people who take out markets and restraurants in the middle east. An engineering student with as much deliberation as this guy exhibited, might actually have killed MORE people if he'd put his mind to do and didn't have his head full of cinematic, glamorous shooting spree imagery.
If somebody wants to kill or harm they can do it in any number of ways. The argument however is the effectiveness of the various methods and the requirement for preparation associated with each. The method of creating a Molotov cocktail may be obvious to you (who knows what you get up to at the weekend) but for a lot of people it isn't. It requires investigation.
It is also likely to either go wrong or be less effective than imagined. I doubt (without any evidence I admit) that a bottle full of petrol would do widely fatal damage to a room full of people (assuming a room is bigger than a cupboard). A gun is a pre-packaged, guaranteed, method of inflicting deadly injuries.
Finally, you are making an assumption that this gun was acquired for the purposes of committing the crime. The problem with open-availability of guns is that they can find their way into anyone's possession. Perhaps the shooter owned this gun, perhaps not - but all he required was access to it.
Wrong in places that gun controls true believers have won they see skyrocketing crime.
This is nonsense. Point me to a recent enforcement of gun control that has resulted in increase crime. Note: Iraq does not count (for various, I hope, obvious reasons).
Ask England, it is the people that are determined to commit the crimes not what ever they use to commit them. Note that criminals by definition do not follow the laws can you explain how yet another gun law is going to keep them from doing it? When they are what?...11k+ gun laws on the books that haven't stopped them? If a gun is not handy they use a bat or explosives or they drive their SUBs into crowds.
I am from England, although presently living in Scotland.
As I replied to an earlier poster the point is not that removing guns makes it impossible for nutters to cause harm, but rather that it makes it harder for them to do so. Of course it would be possible to cause (less) harm with a bat or an SUV, just as it's always been possible to cause harm with clenched fists.
Quoting the number of gun laws does nothing to prove or disprove your argument without reference to the content or enforcement of those laws. There is no law banning hand gun ownership in the United States, since that's what we're discussing it's slightly pointless to reference law.
Again England is a nice example, they have banned guns and now feel the need to ban knives to protect people. That is right it is not a joke they really want to ban knives.
Actually they want to ban carrying of knives in public (with various exclusions), check your sources.
Something that you can make with a grinder and a few minutes. Because they will protect people by banning them.
The application and wording of the particular law has it's flaws and I'd be happy to discuss that with you outside an attempt to back up a separate, largely unrelated, argument.
And even though the evil guns are gone their crime rate is still going up.
Care to provide statistics? I will. Crime is actually falling in the UK. Violent crime was also much higher in the 1990s than present day.
Current concern over knives is due to increased fatalities related to knife crime than crime in general.
How about taking just a little responsibility here people?
I am not arguing that it's only possible to kill people with guns, rather that it's easier. Molotov cocktails require knowledge and preparation, instantly excluding the stupid & the impulsive (two very large groups of killers).
If your reference to the Middle East is to the roadside bombs then that is a case of different task, different tool. A roadside bomb is a device with which you can kill without putting yourself in danger, an AK47 is not.
That relies on 2 things: 1) that there is a distinction between good guys and bad guys, and 2) that good guys are good shots. For the first, many (to that point) honest citizens commit "heat of the moment" crimes, which would certainly be made worse with the presence of guns. The second creates problems when well meaning laypeople start playing hero and injure bystanders.
This is very good point. In a situation like this I would prefer (despite never having fired a gun) to have one - simply to improve my chances of surviving. However, I would not want anyone else to have one - because this acts in the opposite way. When people call for wider availability of guns I can only imagine they mean themselves and not me a poor shot, poorly trained, random element. I am also sure they don't think of themselves in that way.
Police and other public personnel who are armed wear identifying clothing to indicate they are there for the protection of the general population, and they do this for a reason.
Don't worry. There will be a whole host of people who will blame this on just about everything you can imagine. Some of the likely targets will be:
* Computer games
* Music of some sort
* Lack of gun control
* Religion
* Lack of religion
* Educational system
* Lack of mental-health counseling
* If the person turns out to be an engineering student, expect blame to fall on H1B visas for providing too much competition for local engineers
* If the person turns out to be foreign, I can imagine a whole slew of others to blame
In short, blame everything/everybody except the person who did the deed. Personal responsibility is not even a concept in America any more.
Quite. Except the lack of gun control makes it far easier to cause a large amount of damage.
A computer-gaming Marilyn Manson obsessed repressed Islamic fundamentalist, inconsistently educated mentalist engineer with an Arabic look about him, does a lot less damage when armed with a toothpick.
Let me propose something completely different than 95% of the above responses. This is actually not a bad idea, should proper restrictions, criteria, and identity vetting be put in place for requesting institutions. In fact I would go as far to say this is a brilliant idea. The article makes the arguments for it that are more than sufficient IMHO. Now focusing on ".safe" is not so great to me. I believe one of the alternate suggestions, ".bank", is a much better idea.
I like the.bank idea, but I...
...tried it a few times and ended up on my side. ...I have no interest in watercourses. ...am not very good at billiards. ...have central heating and therefore no requirement for long burning coals.
No, the problem is things like Phishing scams and XSS vulnerabilities and stupid users who can't tell the difference between http://www.paypal.com/ and http://www.paypal.com.scammer.cn/ or who rea and follow emails from people they've never even heard of to claim their $500 gift certificate to Cracker Barrel or something equally ridiculous.
The odd thing about domain names is that the "Top Level" domain name is shown at the bottom (a.k.a. the right hand side). This makes it especially easy to create reasonable-looking fake URLs as it removes the ability to read left to right to identify authority.
The too-many-chefs-in-the-kitchen problem does not apply if a project is organised efficiently. Compiz or Beryl (or KDE or Gnome) are not singular projects but made up of multiple smaller largely self-organised entities quite capable of absorbing surplus egos. Individual coders are able to work on specific areas of interest outside "the whole."
To say that moving all developers from one to the other would create an lossy overload (a.k.a. mythical man month) is nonsense. If developers lack the initiative to allocate themselves appropriately I would have serious doubts for their value.
Most projects split for ideological reasons - not practical, technical or sensible ones.
Public shame and the threat of putting their supposed programming skills where their mouth is is a very efficient method of putting these people in their place.
When I ran a very (very) small project I simply assigned these folk to minor sub-projects away from other people. You either discover that they can work (but don't mix well with people) or that they're incapable.
If it's the second then a public demonstration of that fact will take the wind out of their sails. If it's the first you've solved the problem already.
Slashdot Mirror
Couldn't agree more. On motorways the actual top "safe-speed" (i.e. the max speed you can travel while being able to react to changes in road configuration/direction) is often far higher than the imposed limit. See 8th Percentile Rule. This knowingly makes criminals out of the remaining 15% who still drive within the road's safety tolerance.
Germany is the obvious example of a country which does not have speed limits on some of it's major roads yet has comparable accident statistics to the US. I would argue that if the goal is to prevent accidents cameras should focus on the causes of accidents (undertaking, tailgating, poor signalling, erratic driving) equally, if not solely.
Having said all that, you might have just been agreeing with me.
Any law that makes a criminal out of the majority is a bad law by definition.
But I liked your analogy too.
I can't argue with what you're saying. Re-reading your OP I realise I mis-read the extent to which you were making the point. The phrase "what they normally would do anyway" had suggested to me that you thought they had no effect, although I now realise that's not neccessarily the case.
Perhaps we agree that "laws can be useful to moderate behaviour but not enforce it"?
Is anyone else starting to wonder if the Patent Office is using Slashdot to check for prior art, rather than employ clerks to do it in-house?
1. Receive application for patent
2. Create dummy patent-approved page
3. Submit to Slashdot with "Shock! Horror!" summary
(3b. While still claiming expenses for a horde of patent clerks)
4. ????
5. Profit!!!
Watch it CmdrTaco, I'm onto you.
People are of course free to do what they will outside of legislated areas (and implicit ethical limits).
You're also free to do anything if you're willing to face the consequences. That's freedom for you.
The problem for the DMCA is that it has the potential to be a moderate inconvenience to a large number of people.
You're not the one in danger of downplaying the events at Virginia Tech. I just can't decide whether it's a eBay hater using the shootings as justification, or a gun hater using eBay as an excuse to spout off. In either case it's a rather crass use of a horrific event for political posturing.
I'm a firm believer in increased gun control myself but nonsense like this is an insult to the discussion.
Wireless Keyboards, Mice, Monitors, Printers all powered from the middle of a chunk of wood. I'd buy that.
...I can't afford the cleanup.
You read the article.
'nuff said.
(My addition in bold)
Charging fines for patents invalid at time of submission would cut perhaps be enough to make companies stop and think. But how to do this without hurting smaller inventors who do not have the resources to check thoroughly?
Changing a CS degree to contain elements of Fashion Design would achieve the same results. That does not mean it's a good idea. Watering down one degree for mass appeal inevitably reduces the proficiency of graduates in the specific areas targeted. Mass appeal is no indicator of quality.
Perhaps a better solution is a wider range of degrees and options for those that wish to avoid programming, while retaining courses for those with a genuine interest.
Actually, the point was that putting "lack of gun-control" in the same collection of "causes" as access to violent video games or loud music is a little disingenuous. One is potentially lethal, while the others are not.
It's the gun one, btw.
It is also likely to either go wrong or be less effective than imagined. I doubt (without any evidence I admit) that a bottle full of petrol would do widely fatal damage to a room full of people (assuming a room is bigger than a cupboard). A gun is a pre-packaged, guaranteed, method of inflicting deadly injuries.
Finally, you are making an assumption that this gun was acquired for the purposes of committing the crime. The problem with open-availability of guns is that they can find their way into anyone's possession. Perhaps the shooter owned this gun, perhaps not - but all he required was access to it.
This is nonsense. Point me to a recent enforcement of gun control that has resulted in increase crime. Note: Iraq does not count (for various, I hope, obvious reasons).
I am from England, although presently living in Scotland.
As I replied to an earlier poster the point is not that removing guns makes it impossible for nutters to cause harm, but rather that it makes it harder for them to do so. Of course it would be possible to cause (less) harm with a bat or an SUV, just as it's always been possible to cause harm with clenched fists.
Quoting the number of gun laws does nothing to prove or disprove your argument without reference to the content or enforcement of those laws. There is no law banning hand gun ownership in the United States, since that's what we're discussing it's slightly pointless to reference law.
Actually they want to ban carrying of knives in public (with various exclusions), check your sources.
Requires intelligence, planning & preparation. Excludes impulsive crimes / crimes of passion, reducing deaths.
The application and wording of the particular law has it's flaws and I'd be happy to discuss that with you outside an attempt to back up a separate, largely unrelated, argument.
Care to provide statistics? I will. Crime is actually falling in the UK. Violent crime was also much higher in the 1990s than present day.
Current concern over knives is due to increased fatalities related to knife crime than crime in general.
Means, motive, opportunity.
We're discussing the 3rd.
I am not arguing that it's only possible to kill people with guns, rather that it's easier. Molotov cocktails require knowledge and preparation, instantly excluding the stupid & the impulsive (two very large groups of killers).
If your reference to the Middle East is to the roadside bombs then that is a case of different task, different tool. A roadside bomb is a device with which you can kill without putting yourself in danger, an AK47 is not.
This is very good point. In a situation like this I would prefer (despite never having fired a gun) to have one - simply to improve my chances of surviving. However, I would not want anyone else to have one - because this acts in the opposite way. When people call for wider availability of guns I can only imagine they mean themselves and not me a poor shot, poorly trained, random element. I am also sure they don't think of themselves in that way.
Police and other public personnel who are armed wear identifying clothing to indicate they are there for the protection of the general population, and they do this for a reason.
I like the .bank idea, but I...
...tried it a few times and ended up on my side.
...I have no interest in watercourses.
...am not very good at billiards.
...have central heating and therefore no requirement for long burning coals.
The odd thing about domain names is that the "Top Level" domain name is shown at the bottom (a.k.a. the right hand side). This makes it especially easy to create reasonable-looking fake URLs as it removes the ability to read left to right to identify authority.
Reading an URL like http://www.paypal.com.scammer.cn/ without knowledge of the "how it all works" you may assume that this is part of www.paypal.com's website. With the top at the top it becomes, http://cn.scammer.com.paypal.www/
Maybe it's just me.
I'd be interested to know the history of the backward heirarchy (short of it being pulled out of someones backside).
Patti Santangelo v. RIAA May Be Over ...in Space.
My work here is done.
The Real Reasons Phones Are Kept Off Planes ...In Space
My work here is done.
The too-many-chefs-in-the-kitchen problem does not apply if a project is organised efficiently. Compiz or Beryl (or KDE or Gnome) are not singular projects but made up of multiple smaller largely self-organised entities quite capable of absorbing surplus egos. Individual coders are able to work on specific areas of interest outside "the whole."
To say that moving all developers from one to the other would create an lossy overload (a.k.a. mythical man month) is nonsense. If developers lack the initiative to allocate themselves appropriately I would have serious doubts for their value.
Most projects split for ideological reasons - not practical, technical or sensible ones.
When I ran a very (very) small project I simply assigned these folk to minor sub-projects away from other people. You either discover that they can work (but don't mix well with people) or that they're incapable.
If it's the second then a public demonstration of that fact will take the wind out of their sails. If it's the first you've solved the problem already.
Google has an API for Snakes On A Plane? No wonder they're going down the (series of) tubes.