To pose a straw man argument, if he'd been standing in that auditorium during the Q&A session and he'd just started reciting random poetry or something similarly immaterial to the purpose of the event, would it be violating his free speech to take the mic from him? Or even if he's asking valid questions, is it violating his free speech to stop him from monopolizing the speaker's time? And if he refuses to stop talking, is it 'censorship' to take the mic away forcibly?
"The project relies on 'advanced techniques such as Web spidering, link analysis, content analysis, authorship analysis, sentiment analysis and multimedia analysis [to] find, catalog and analyze extremist activities online."
Reminds me of something..."I'm ready, man, check it out. I am the ultimate badass! State of the badass art! You do NOT wanna fuck with me. Check it out!...Independently targeting particle beam phalanx, VWAP! Fry half a city with this puppy! We got tactical smart missiles, phase-plasma pulse rifles, RPGs! We got sonic, electronic ball-breakers! We got nukes, we got knives, sharp sticks..."
I read an interesting article the other day by Bruce Blair (former missile commander and expert on nuclear weapons) that claimed that back in the 1960's and early '70s, the generals in charge of nukes were much more concerned that a problem in the chain of command would prevent the appropriate use of a nuke than the possibility that someone might try to set one off maliciously. As a result, the code for the permissive action links was '0000000.' Though that's been changed since now, I imagine.
So, they can focus intently on things that interest them, but they have a lot of trouble focusing on things that don't interest them?
So, what part of that is the 'disordered' part?
Many acts that would traditionally be considered amoral, such as stealing, or rape, do in fact produce some evolutionary benefit to the actor--you get some resource without having to work for it, or you get a reproductive opportunity you might not have otherwise. However, as the frequency of these strategies increases in a population, they usually become less effective. I.e., if you're the only thief in town, you can steal stuff and live well off of otherwise. If you're surrounded by crooks, though, your gains will be diluted as other people rip you off. There's often an equilibrium where these strategies exist only in low frequencies.
So, simply put, yeah, there's good reason to think that humans have a certain empathic moral sense that allows us to live and work in groups without killing each other; however, because exploitation can be an effective strategy in small numbers, there will also be folks who don't play nice. And even more interestingly, there's a fair body of research that indicates that most people, faced with a 'defector,' will willingly sacrifice of themselves in order to punish the defector. So is morality (as we know it) purely biological? No, but there are definitely strong evolutionary underpinings for much of moral behavior. The book 'Survival Game' (forgot the author) does a nice treatment of this material.
You joke, but I notice that several of the above comments that might be construed as joking about Islam were posted by ACs. Makes you wonder what folks are afraid of.
What would the flight plan have said in this case? "Flying around to see some lakebeds, back in the morning?" Based on what his friends have said, it's not like he had a specific destination in mind.
"The guy may not needed to show ID, but he did have to identify himself and answer any question the officer had truthfully. Of course without video tape, we have little choice but to draw our own conclusions with so little hard facts. Personally I tend to doubt the story told by a combative personality since they do tend to embelish..."
Granted, we can't really know the truth of Righi's claim, and we have only his side of the story to go on. But unless you contest his claim that he identified himself properly, there doesn't seem to be any grounds for the cop to demand a license. Since the Ohio law (apparently, I haven't read it) doesn't require you to present a license outside of traffic stops, this guy was arrested on pretty flimsy pretenses. It would be different if he had refused to identify himself, or perhaps if he identified himself falsely and was found out later.
This, of course, is an entirely separate matter from what the store's rights are in dealing with customers. Most states require probably cause (defined as a store employee witnessing some part of the shoplifting act) before you can detain a suspect for the police. So if they don't have any such evidence, then it would seem they detained Righi improperly, which is illegal.
Slam dunk? I don't know, but neither case appears to be spurious.
Yeah, if he wasn't such a pretentious dick, refusing to show his papers, he would have been fine.
Did you read the article? When the store manager detained him in the parking lot, Righi told him (paraphrase) "either accuse me of shoplifting and call the cops, let me leave, or else I'm calling the cops on you for detaining me." The manager refused to accuse him at this point (probably because they had no probable cause in the first place) and it then that Righi called the cops. I'm also fairly sure that refusal to allow a search doesn't consitute probable cause, so technically the cop probably couldn't even have searched him unless A) the store showed some evidence of shoplifting, or B)Righi himself gave consent (which seems to be the case).
I'm not going to put this up there with Rosa Parks, or anything like that, but the guy stood up for his rights at the cost of some significant inconvenience. If more people were willing to do the same, then perhaps those who abuse our rights would be a bit less eager to do so. And considering the aggravation this will surely cause him, why shouldn't he use the appropriate legal mechanisms (i.e., a lawsuit) to seek some kind of redress?
If you think no money is being made off those books, you're sorely mistaken. Now, that's not to say it's going into the Dalai Lama's pocket (I have no idea) but it's probably safe to say that the publishing company is making a buck off of it. And the fact that they sell so well would also seem to indicate that they increase the fame of the author.
Your post was reasoned, and well-expressed, and all, so I'm sorry to say that the only part that really made an impression on me was the part about the Buddhist monk commiting crime. I suddenly pictured a traditionally-clad Buddhist monk, shaved head and robes and all, knocking off a 7-11, doing drive-bys, snorting blow off a hooker's ass. Cracked me right up, I don't mind telling you.
Forgive my near-total ignorance on matters of copyright law and my failure to RTFA, but if these college kids' cases are attacking the basic underpinings of the RIAA's case, is there a chance that this will benefit the regular folks who are under attack? It'd be nice if those darn kids did something productive for a change, instead of spending all their time at the Woolworth's drinking malteds, or whatever they do nowadays.
And if the popular vote was the only thing that mattered, there'd be no point. But if there's a state in which, say, the Green party might actually win a majority (and thus the state's electoral votes) then a Green party supporter would much rather have his vote count there than in a state where the Greens have no chance at reaching majority.
And even discounting that, with more than two candidates you can have a situation where I agree to vote for candidate A over candidate B in my state so that someone else will vote for candidate C over candidate B in his state: we both want B to lose, but our preference for the winner varies.
'Toughness' is relative. There are types of bacteria (Dinococcus radiodurans is probably the best known) that survive happily in radioactive waste water, but in any other environment, the same adaptation that makes them capable of surviving irradiation makes them too slow a replicator to really flourish. They're specialists. So a bug that can survive freezing may be well adapted to cold temperatures but not so much warm ones.
Again, why should the theater be put in the position of investigating whether someone falls within fair use or not? What distinguishes somebody recording 'fairly' from someone recording 'unfairly' who just happened to be caught quickly? Why should that burden fall to the theater that's already told you to keep the cameras out?
Maybe you don't like the process in this country, but generally speaking, if somebody thinks you're doing something illegal, and the cops who come think you're doing something illegal, then you get arrested (or cited) and if the evidence exists, it goes to trial. So, to go back to the perfectly valid analogy, if 7-11 thinks you stole from them, they're within their right to call the cops, and if the cops agree, you're busted. Which is why most folks generally try not to give the appearance of criminal behavior, because, ya know, you can get arrested for it.
When you pay for a movie ticket, you're not buying "extra brain or leg work"--you're buying entrance to a show. One of the conditions of that entrance at any modern theater is that you don't bring in a camera. She did. She got busted. The theater, no doubt following a policy handed down from corporate HQ to deter piracy by prosecuting offenders, called the cops. If the prosecuting attorney thinks he's got a case, it will go to trial, otherwise likely nothing will happen.
Think about it. If you go to a store an 'accidentally' put something in your pocket and walk out, is it the store owner's responsibility to do "extra brain or leg work" to figure out if you're REALLY a shoplifter or if you just made a mistake? Of course not. And while they might be willing to let one person slide, if it was a major problem, they'd start getting tough. Ever been in a 7-11? Notice how most of them have signs saying "all shoplifters will be prosecuted?" Think there might be a connection?
Go ahead, boycott the theater. I'm sure the $10 per week/month/whatever they lose will really show them who's boss.
Don't be ridiculous. Why should the theater owner be responsible for policing patrons who are clearly violating the law? Is it his job to seize the camera and examine the recording to make sure it complies with copyright laws? Should they have to do this for everyone in a 200 person auditorium who decides to whip out a cell phone with a camera and snap shots of the screen?
And no, it's not a travesty of justice. It WOULD be, if she was thrown in prison for a year over it, but that hasn't happened yet and isn't likely to. She was caught in the act of doing something illegal, the police arrested her, and the trial will expose the facts of the situation for judgment, and she'll be sentenced (or not) accordingly. Which is exactly what's supposed to happen.
The problem with articles like this is that the usually emphasize the maximum allowable punishment, rather than the likely punishment. Makes for a much more exciting story, but at the expense of inflaming folks unnecessarily.
I recognize your point that some "harmless" lies really aren't, but in this case, the spirit of the rule is to prevent people from bootlegging the movie, not to keep Treos out of the theater--keeping the Treo out is simply a means to the desired end. So, insofar as the poster doesn't intend to film, but merely has to keep it handy for work, does lying about whether he has it really violate the spirit of the rule in such a way as to cause harm?
Yeah, the dude totally should have picked a fight with security over his phone. I mean, he'd probably have been thrown out, and the guard certainly wouldn't have challenged his employer's policy over it, but nonetheless, it's the goal of everyone with "a clue" to choose the path of most resistance at all times, so as to generate the necessary "negative attention" for social change. That makes so much more sense than just lying.
Slashdot Mirror
To pose a straw man argument, if he'd been standing in that auditorium during the Q&A session and he'd just started reciting random poetry or something similarly immaterial to the purpose of the event, would it be violating his free speech to take the mic from him? Or even if he's asking valid questions, is it violating his free speech to stop him from monopolizing the speaker's time? And if he refuses to stop talking, is it 'censorship' to take the mic away forcibly?
"The project relies on 'advanced techniques such as Web spidering, link analysis, content analysis, authorship analysis, sentiment analysis and multimedia analysis [to] find, catalog and analyze extremist activities online."
Reminds me of something..."I'm ready, man, check it out. I am the ultimate badass! State of the badass art! You do NOT wanna fuck with me. Check it out!...Independently targeting particle beam phalanx, VWAP! Fry half a city with this puppy! We got tactical smart missiles, phase-plasma pulse rifles, RPGs! We got sonic, electronic ball-breakers! We got nukes, we got knives, sharp sticks..."
River Phoenix is a personal favorite.
"...I've HAD it with the motherfsckin' nukes on that motherfsckin' plane!"
Sorry. It's been too long.
I read an interesting article the other day by Bruce Blair (former missile commander and expert on nuclear weapons) that claimed that back in the 1960's and early '70s, the generals in charge of nukes were much more concerned that a problem in the chain of command would prevent the appropriate use of a nuke than the possibility that someone might try to set one off maliciously. As a result, the code for the permissive action links was '0000000.' Though that's been changed since now, I imagine.
So, they can focus intently on things that interest them, but they have a lot of trouble focusing on things that don't interest them? So, what part of that is the 'disordered' part?
Many acts that would traditionally be considered amoral, such as stealing, or rape, do in fact produce some evolutionary benefit to the actor--you get some resource without having to work for it, or you get a reproductive opportunity you might not have otherwise. However, as the frequency of these strategies increases in a population, they usually become less effective. I.e., if you're the only thief in town, you can steal stuff and live well off of otherwise. If you're surrounded by crooks, though, your gains will be diluted as other people rip you off. There's often an equilibrium where these strategies exist only in low frequencies.
So, simply put, yeah, there's good reason to think that humans have a certain empathic moral sense that allows us to live and work in groups without killing each other; however, because exploitation can be an effective strategy in small numbers, there will also be folks who don't play nice. And even more interestingly, there's a fair body of research that indicates that most people, faced with a 'defector,' will willingly sacrifice of themselves in order to punish the defector. So is morality (as we know it) purely biological? No, but there are definitely strong evolutionary underpinings for much of moral behavior. The book 'Survival Game' (forgot the author) does a nice treatment of this material.
You joke, but I notice that several of the above comments that might be construed as joking about Islam were posted by ACs. Makes you wonder what folks are afraid of.
What would the flight plan have said in this case? "Flying around to see some lakebeds, back in the morning?" Based on what his friends have said, it's not like he had a specific destination in mind.
"The guy may not needed to show ID, but he did have to identify himself and answer any question the officer had truthfully. Of course without video tape, we have little choice but to draw our own conclusions with so little hard facts. Personally I tend to doubt the story told by a combative personality since they do tend to embelish..."
Granted, we can't really know the truth of Righi's claim, and we have only his side of the story to go on. But unless you contest his claim that he identified himself properly, there doesn't seem to be any grounds for the cop to demand a license. Since the Ohio law (apparently, I haven't read it) doesn't require you to present a license outside of traffic stops, this guy was arrested on pretty flimsy pretenses. It would be different if he had refused to identify himself, or perhaps if he identified himself falsely and was found out later.
This, of course, is an entirely separate matter from what the store's rights are in dealing with customers. Most states require probably cause (defined as a store employee witnessing some part of the shoplifting act) before you can detain a suspect for the police. So if they don't have any such evidence, then it would seem they detained Righi improperly, which is illegal.
Slam dunk? I don't know, but neither case appears to be spurious.
Yeah, if he wasn't such a pretentious dick, refusing to show his papers, he would have been fine.
Did you read the article? When the store manager detained him in the parking lot, Righi told him (paraphrase) "either accuse me of shoplifting and call the cops, let me leave, or else I'm calling the cops on you for detaining me." The manager refused to accuse him at this point (probably because they had no probable cause in the first place) and it then that Righi called the cops. I'm also fairly sure that refusal to allow a search doesn't consitute probable cause, so technically the cop probably couldn't even have searched him unless A) the store showed some evidence of shoplifting, or B)Righi himself gave consent (which seems to be the case).
I'm not going to put this up there with Rosa Parks, or anything like that, but the guy stood up for his rights at the cost of some significant inconvenience. If more people were willing to do the same, then perhaps those who abuse our rights would be a bit less eager to do so. And considering the aggravation this will surely cause him, why shouldn't he use the appropriate legal mechanisms (i.e., a lawsuit) to seek some kind of redress?
I'm partial to the Dean variant:
"See the turtle,
ain't he keen?
All things serve
the fsckin' Beam."
...but why would God need a starship?
Just wait until modded-up splicers start frying clerks with their electricity plasmids, then you'll see some action.
If you think no money is being made off those books, you're sorely mistaken. Now, that's not to say it's going into the Dalai Lama's pocket (I have no idea) but it's probably safe to say that the publishing company is making a buck off of it. And the fact that they sell so well would also seem to indicate that they increase the fame of the author.
Your post was reasoned, and well-expressed, and all, so I'm sorry to say that the only part that really made an impression on me was the part about the Buddhist monk commiting crime. I suddenly pictured a traditionally-clad Buddhist monk, shaved head and robes and all, knocking off a 7-11, doing drive-bys, snorting blow off a hooker's ass. Cracked me right up, I don't mind telling you.
Forgive my near-total ignorance on matters of copyright law and my failure to RTFA, but if these college kids' cases are attacking the basic underpinings of the RIAA's case, is there a chance that this will benefit the regular folks who are under attack? It'd be nice if those darn kids did something productive for a change, instead of spending all their time at the Woolworth's drinking malteds, or whatever they do nowadays.
I wonder if they plan to drive these drunk, too.
And if the popular vote was the only thing that mattered, there'd be no point. But if there's a state in which, say, the Green party might actually win a majority (and thus the state's electoral votes) then a Green party supporter would much rather have his vote count there than in a state where the Greens have no chance at reaching majority.
And even discounting that, with more than two candidates you can have a situation where I agree to vote for candidate A over candidate B in my state so that someone else will vote for candidate C over candidate B in his state: we both want B to lose, but our preference for the winner varies.
'Toughness' is relative. There are types of bacteria (Dinococcus radiodurans is probably the best known) that survive happily in radioactive waste water, but in any other environment, the same adaptation that makes them capable of surviving irradiation makes them too slow a replicator to really flourish. They're specialists. So a bug that can survive freezing may be well adapted to cold temperatures but not so much warm ones.
Again, why should the theater be put in the position of investigating whether someone falls within fair use or not? What distinguishes somebody recording 'fairly' from someone recording 'unfairly' who just happened to be caught quickly? Why should that burden fall to the theater that's already told you to keep the cameras out?
Maybe you don't like the process in this country, but generally speaking, if somebody thinks you're doing something illegal, and the cops who come think you're doing something illegal, then you get arrested (or cited) and if the evidence exists, it goes to trial. So, to go back to the perfectly valid analogy, if 7-11 thinks you stole from them, they're within their right to call the cops, and if the cops agree, you're busted. Which is why most folks generally try not to give the appearance of criminal behavior, because, ya know, you can get arrested for it.
When you pay for a movie ticket, you're not buying "extra brain or leg work"--you're buying entrance to a show. One of the conditions of that entrance at any modern theater is that you don't bring in a camera. She did. She got busted. The theater, no doubt following a policy handed down from corporate HQ to deter piracy by prosecuting offenders, called the cops. If the prosecuting attorney thinks he's got a case, it will go to trial, otherwise likely nothing will happen.
Think about it. If you go to a store an 'accidentally' put something in your pocket and walk out, is it the store owner's responsibility to do "extra brain or leg work" to figure out if you're REALLY a shoplifter or if you just made a mistake? Of course not. And while they might be willing to let one person slide, if it was a major problem, they'd start getting tough. Ever been in a 7-11? Notice how most of them have signs saying "all shoplifters will be prosecuted?" Think there might be a connection?
Go ahead, boycott the theater. I'm sure the $10 per week/month/whatever they lose will really show them who's boss.
Don't be ridiculous. Why should the theater owner be responsible for policing patrons who are clearly violating the law? Is it his job to seize the camera and examine the recording to make sure it complies with copyright laws? Should they have to do this for everyone in a 200 person auditorium who decides to whip out a cell phone with a camera and snap shots of the screen?
And no, it's not a travesty of justice. It WOULD be, if she was thrown in prison for a year over it, but that hasn't happened yet and isn't likely to. She was caught in the act of doing something illegal, the police arrested her, and the trial will expose the facts of the situation for judgment, and she'll be sentenced (or not) accordingly. Which is exactly what's supposed to happen.
The problem with articles like this is that the usually emphasize the maximum allowable punishment, rather than the likely punishment. Makes for a much more exciting story, but at the expense of inflaming folks unnecessarily.
I recognize your point that some "harmless" lies really aren't, but in this case, the spirit of the rule is to prevent people from bootlegging the movie, not to keep Treos out of the theater--keeping the Treo out is simply a means to the desired end. So, insofar as the poster doesn't intend to film, but merely has to keep it handy for work, does lying about whether he has it really violate the spirit of the rule in such a way as to cause harm?
Yeah, the dude totally should have picked a fight with security over his phone. I mean, he'd probably have been thrown out, and the guard certainly wouldn't have challenged his employer's policy over it, but nonetheless, it's the goal of everyone with "a clue" to choose the path of most resistance at all times, so as to generate the necessary "negative attention" for social change. That makes so much more sense than just lying.