I'm afraid this might disqualify me from consideration, but I can't seem to figure out how to send a PM in Slashdot. I don't suppose someone might either give me a nudge, or you'd do me the favor of using my contact info? Thanks.

What's the market share of a Bugatti Veryon" Or a Lamborghini? You "market share" drones need to move to Idaho, so you can get a license plate that brags about "Famous Potatoes" to put on your Toyota Corolla.

I think you are making a straw man. The clue is that in one sentence oyu blame the scientists, then people around here. I know scientists, and there aren't many around here.

Now if you would have said that 70 years ago, a lot of people were expecting something like Robbie the Robot from the old Lost in Space Television show, that was a gastraphagus that acted somewhat like a human, only sensed danger some how. Or C3PO from Star Wars, who thought and acted like a human, back in the 70's. Yeah, I'd believe that a lot of lay people thought that was where AI was going.

Fast forward to today, and some are still trying to apply that same metric, that unless the intelligence is a human analogue, that it can't be intelligent.

My guess is that some never will. But I suspect we're going to have something pretty close pretty soon for people to reject.

Some of it is based on the morality laws in the country. What's acceptable around sex and violence varies from country to country. Companies like Steam (as well as the publishers on Steam) have to play ball if they want to be able to operate in that region. So you'll get some countries where you can have all the tits you want, but all that blood needs to be green. Or you can show the nude insides of someone, but not nudes of the outside of the body.

Some small time indie version of Steam could probably just go global and say "fuck you" to all the morality laws of all the countries on Earth, but there's no way Steam could get away with it.

I would love to see a free-for-all Steam, but while we have our current IP laws, geoblocking will be here to stay, unfortunately.

Do you have any idea what % of landings are VFR? (Visual Flight Rules) It's almost certainly over half, and may be as much as 90%.

Well, "unusual punishment" is more complicated, but an unreasonable search is explicitly defined in the Fourth Amendment:

I don't know about you, but that sounds pretty clear to me: probable cause supported by oath or affirmation, and a specific description of the place to be searched, along with the person and things it applies to.

The Founders wanted to be very explicit in this case to exclude the generic "general warrants" that the British had used as tools of oppression, so they required cause and detailed instructions for the target of the warrant.

Now that you've read that, see how much "interpretation" it takes to distort that into allowing government agents to do an invasive search of every single person and every single thing that might go on a plane, with no evidence of wrong-doing or probable cause. Before 9/11, airport security got away with it because (1) it wasn't government agents, but airlines/airports doing the searching, (2) you consented to this search by a private airport security as a condition of doing business, and (3) the search was a minimal "procedural search" where you walked through a metal detector -- they'd need probable cause or sufficient suspicion to search you further or detain you. Nowadays we don't even pretend to adhere to the Constitutional text.

There's a very simple explanation: there just aren't that many terrorists with both the knowledge and initiative to carry out such attacks. If your idea was feasible for terrorists, so would attacks on any number of public places with loads of people -- shopping malls, major city squares, subways, buses, etc. Places with REAL terrorist problems (e.g. some places in the Middle East) see these sorts of attacks on public places.

The fact that such attacks don't happen in the U.S. is pretty strong evidence that the terrorist threat is likely nowhere as big as the TSA (and others) would have us believe.

Yep, and that's precisely my point. This thread started about a police officer doing something illegal to justify a search. That could have happened in a parallel construction case, or it could have happened in some normal case where a cop needed more "evidence" for a search and manufactured it. My original response was to someone who claimed that it was "called parallel construction" when there was nothing in the anecdote to suggest that parallel construction was actually taking place.

And by the way, I think almost all parallel construction should also be illegal. I also know that fabricating evidence definitely is already illegal. But none of this means that a cop observed fabricating evidence for probable cause is NECESSARILY participating in a parallel construction case... so I'm still waiting to hear about how I'm "misinformed" and the original person I responded to was correct....

How so?

I know this, and I don't see how anything I said disagrees with this. The point is the construction of an alternative chain of evidence to avoid revealing a source, but the whole point is that the evidence chain needs to appear legitimate. In the case in question, an officer instead clearly fabricated evidence, instead of actually gathering an alternative set of legitimate evidence.

While this may in fact be part of a "parallel construction" case (an ILLEGAL one), GGGP's original story could just be an example of an officer fabricating evidence to, say, enhance an otherwise legit investigation without necessarily any hidden source. For example, maybe police received a tip about the location, but a judge wouldn't offer a warrant on only that evidence... so this guy goes out and gets "more evidence." That does NOT make it parallel construction -- it's just an example of fabricating evidence.

The purpose of the debate is not with the creationist. The creationist has faith, and not much can shake that.

The purpose of the debate is not with the denier. The denier has political will, and often has a well greased palm.

The purpose of hte debate is to try to keep them from working their destructive magic. Or else we'd be teaching about how the universe was created in October 4004 b.c.e. and that dinosaurs were actually Jesus puppies.

In Advanced science classes.

That's reason number one

The second reason is that it is just so damned much fun. Nothing like a fundie or denier foaming at the mouth.

Yeah, that would be a hilarious conversation. Ding-dong! "Hello, have you accepted rationality and the lack of superstition as your lord and savior?"

Typical evening at home: the wife is watching television, while also telling me things about the day about every three minutes, as she thinks of them. I'm trying to ignore the TV by wearing headphones, except I have to take them off to listen to the real conversation. Every twenty minutes the toddler wants water, or to go potty, or any excuse she can think of to stay up a little longer. And what I'm really trying to do is work on the novel. It's amazing I make any progress at all.

I can't speak for anyone else, but generally one of the most immediate benefits of sitting to think is you remember things. Like: oh, boy, my electric bill is due. And then you want to get up and take care of it. Or if you're deep in planning mode (thinking hard about a program, working out a scene in your novel, etc.) and come up with something good, it's difficult not to want to write it down. I've lost more good ideas than I'd like to count, due entirely to my inability to remember. You say it'll resurface, but in my experience that just isn't always true. Particularly if you don't get as many opportunities to sit and think as you'd like.

Honestly, it confirms a dark suspicion I've had for years, that most people are desperate to fill a little quiet/void with anything at all. It's something I struggle to understand, but maybe this gives me a little sympathy if the urge for distraction is that terrible.

Sorry, they want the cheapest pool. Perhaps they need to hire only foreign CEO's and accountants? Get the largest possible talent pool?