Ludicrous you may find it, but it is legally valid. Property rights, once granted, are not easily taken back. (We disposed of the idea of a Monarch that can do so over 200 years ago.)

These property owners aren't negligent. They're in compliance with the existing building codes. They have property rights, including the right to use their property in ways that were lawful at the time the buildings were constructed. Take away those rights, and the Fifth Amendment says they have to be fairly compensated. The purpose behind that taking is irrelevant.

It doesn't matter who owns the building. It only matters (for application of the Fifth Amendment) that the government pay for what it takes. If the government wants to change the rights of a homeowner to use his property, it gets to do that, so long as it pays for what it took.

Buildings are not condemned all the time because of new building codes. They are condemned because the become unsafe under the existing ones.

I didn't say the City didn't have a stake in this. What I said is that its proposed solution (merely changing the building code) won't work. California politicians are infamous for waving magic wands (new laws) that turn out to be worth less than a straw found in a disposable cup in the gutter.

If the City wants to require a building upgrade AND pay for that upgrade, it can do it. If it wants it for free, then up to the Supreme Court we'll go. (If it makes it that far.)

Hey, I'm not telling you how to fix the problem of unsafe properties. I'm just telling you what won't work (as per the present L.A. government.) Calling a stupid politician stupid doesn't require me to find a better one to replace him...

No, the really sad part is that you don't see that the City isn't enforcing building codes. They're passing new ones, and that is a "taking" of the property owner's rights. The building owners already complied with the law that existed at the time the buildings were built. If the City wants safer buildings, they get to pay for it one way or another.

The government has to give the property owner fair compensation if they use eminent domain. Here's a link at the top of the Google search: http://www.eminentdomainlaw.ne...

The fact that they do it through regulation rather than a transfer of title makes no difference.

Folks: the U.S. government (or any part thereof) can't just march in and force property owners to change their property. Government has to compensate the owners for any taking of a property-owner's rights. If the City of L.A. wants to march in and say "you don't get to use your office building because it isn't earthquake-proof", then the City has to buy the property at fair market value.

Are all politicians in California really this dumb? All they have to do is compile a list of buildings that the City deems to be unsafe, and the owners will be sufficiently encouraged to make the upgrades (or lose their present tenants.) No subsidies, no tax breaks, no cost to the city.

FTA:

In other words, they don't know what the hell is going on or what's going to happen. It could be part of a self-correcting, natural process, or it could be the end of the world as we know it. Tune back in at 5:00...

And that's even worse. The owner could merely take the device off to show his "incapacity" allegedly due to an injury, while he goes right on about his business about town. Conversely, if he wanted to show he was active around town, he could hand the thing to his friend or pace around the floor. It's unreliable.

My point is that the reliability of the evidence will be so low and susceptible to attack, that no competent trial attorney will bother with it.

There's one big problem with trying to use fitbit data. There's no way to prove that the device was actually attached to a person that is allegedly producing the data. Six months down the road, the witness (alleged wearer) won't remember what he had for dinner, let alone what was on his person. Add to that motives to lie (and people do that on the stand in spite of the penalties) and you have a data source that won't prove anything in most cases.

Besides, who the hell cares whether or not I was moving at any particular time during the day? Can't my level of activity already be determined from my phone, where I eat and what kind of shoes I buy? My privacy isn't being invaded in any substantial way even if these companies release my data. Sheesh!

You know, for places off the grid there are these magical things out there that use solar energy to produce fuels. They're called "plants" and "livestock", they produce such things as wood and waxes, and they don't need any batteries. But for someone urgently needing to justify dumping a lot of non-recyclables somewhere it sure can be made to sound great...

That's really my question here: what is the power return after charging a typical battery pack. If you wind up putting in 10Whrs to get 1 back out, then I'd have to wonder if it wouldn't be more efficient just to burn candles & kerosene. The fact that you're using an LED will be insignificant compared to the wasted power during the charging.

If a cell won't charge, then you're toting around a block of dead weight between the site of charging and the site of usage. (Not efficient.) If a cell won't hold a charge for more than a few hours (due to an internal short usually) then it's worse: you're just wasting energy at the charging site (until the short gets bad enough that the charger shuts down or worse, the battery explodes.)

For the shallow reader wanting to save materials and energy, this looks like a great idea. But, old batteries have been around a long time and if this really were a good idea, someone would have put it into use decades ago. In the dustbin it goes...

If I can't convert software released under a FSF-approved license into a commercial one, then I can't modify and use the software commercially. (I'd have to release the modified source under a non-commercial FSF license, which would ordinarily require that I distribute my software at no charge. I won't be able to charge for my modifications, as everyone will know they can get it for free.) That is a restriction on use.

I don't care who you are, you don't get to redefine a word/term like "horse" to mean a cow unless and until the word/term has been accepted by the community at large. For the term "open source", it does not mean free software in the legal/licensing community. Until this new meaning has been adopted, pejoratives like "openwashing" are just blather without a true context.