So, you're saying you're in favor of ridiculously high punishments that have no relationship to what the accused did?
The consequence of what Carmen Ortiz did was that a man died.
Harassing someone to the point of suicide is a crime, there are precedents for that.
Swartz is a lousy poster boy, because physically breaking into a network and committing massive copyright violation
He did nothing of the sort. If you just RTFA you would know that the only thing he did wrong was to use a script to download the papers, instead of getting them one by one.
He had the right to download those papers, he never passed them to anybody else, he did not commit copyright violation.
The only effect of his actions was that, because he downloaded a lot of documents, the system was stressed more than it would ordinarily be.
Essentially, it was like being prosecuted for clicking on too many links in a web page. Or, as his lawyer put it, for checking out too many books from a library. He did nothing he didn't have the right to do, only he did it more often than was expected.
What do you mean, "augment"?
Do you mean by inserting special devices in the body? Or just creating some sort of interface between brain and computer?
In any case, that's much harder and more expensive than creating computers. Think artificial heart vs. water pump. Anything that goes inside a human body must be made with an extreme degree of reliability, and it must not react with body fluids or create any sort of adverse effect.
I think we will have augmented human beings only after we have human-like AI. It will take longer to develop devices that can be used in a harmless way to augment a human brain than to develop chips with super-human data handling capacity.
Not to mention the price, of course. Given the choice between having a bunch of very cheap robots or paying a fortune (that I cannot afford) to augment my brain, I would take the first option.
Sorry, I remembered wrong, it wasn't 50 years, just 35 years in prison, to be followed by three years of supervised release, restitution, forfeiture and a fine of up to $1 million.
Do you feel better now? Is 35 years in prison plus a $1 million fine the correct punishment for using a script to download documents?
Swartz did something wrong, for sure, he used a script to download documents. He was being rude, making the system slower for everybody else.
The DOJ reaction? Slap a 50 years sentence on him.
If that's the prosecutor's reaction, she is certainly not competent for the job she does, she should be fired and the bar association should start an investigation on her.
I think disbarment would be the proper solution. That would be the right level of punishment in her case. She demonstrated very plainly that she doesn't have the understanding of law needed to work on it professionally.
The scheme is not as much about price arbitrage as about smoothing demand.
There's more demand for energy during the evenings than during the mornings, and price differences will never be able to eliminate that. No one will turn off their lights in the evening to turn them on during the morning, no matter what the prices are.
The effect of energy storage are to allow a steady supply, like wind, to be used when it's most needed. Storage would be even more important if solar energy is used, for obvious reasons.
If robots do all the work, or nearly all, does it really matter if most people get lazy?
The problem is that people aren't satisfied with having all they need, they want to have the same as the other guy.
Right now, we live in a society of undreamed riches to people in centuries past. Even a homeless guy on the street can get more by diving in the dumpster than a person could get by hard work a couple of centuries ago.
But no one would be satisfied by that. They want the same or better standard of living as their neighbor. Inequality is widely perceived as a major societal problem. However, a society where everyone is absolutely equal is impossible, by definition.
Take real estate, for instance. Who would get the beach front home? The penthouse apartment? There are natural limits to equality.
When people work, some of them will work harder to obtain what they want, others are satisfied with laying on the couch and watch TV. Human society needs some form of merit accounting.
You present an interesting model, but whether it works as you expect or not depends on the parameters.
For instance, you say "Sexual selection (that is, natural selection by way of how mates are chosen) is highly sensitive...". Exactly how much is it sensitive? Let's say two people of opposite genders meet by chance, how is the probability that they will mate affected by whatever parameter you are studying?
No one knows exactly the answer to these questions, because society is so complex. It's very hard to isolate the relevant parameters, and don't even think you can measure them to get numerical results with any accuracy.
When people create detailed mathematical models of society, they get wildly different answers from their simulations because no one knows the relevant parameters or their numerical values. That's why you get so many conflicting opinions on the economy, no one really knows what they are talking about.
it was greed, ruthlessness and carelessness
You sound like the pope talking about masturbation. Yes, it's a sin, according to your opinion.
It was the policies enacted during the Clinton government that created the situation that led to the bubble in real estate.
by putting the risk into bundles, completely ignoring the (all too obvious in hindsight) risk of a domino effect.
What "puts the risk into bundles" is a Government-Sponsored Enterprise. It's not the "greedy, ruthless, careless" bankers that do it. It's the democratically elected federal government of the United States who is responsible for that.
it wasn't the "Occupy Wall Street" hipsters that caused the global economy to collapse.
It was the regulations that created a bubble in the housing market that caused it, which amounts to the same thing. People who know nothing about financial markets trying to manipulate things. It's not "Wall Street" that makes mistakes, it's the politicians who try to regulate it who cause shit to happen.
But then, maybe everything went as planned, and at least some of the Wall Street people successfully played "the market" with this.
Of course they did. When you apply the principles mentioned in the books I posted above, which a couple of dimwit moderators termed "flamebait", it doesn't matter if the market plunges, you are out by then.
You only lose in the market if you ignore the signs it gives. A good investor knows how to detect early signs that the market is going down and cuts his losses in time to avoid the worst of it. By correctly applying the technical analysis of the market you may not win every time, but when you lose it will be a small loss, when you win it's a big win, in the end it averages in your favor.
The first methodical studies of market dynamics were done by Charles Dow in the late nineteenth century. Since then there have been many people who studied the behavior of te market with mathematical tools. The only people who lose money in the market are those who try to play it without knowing the tools.
As in every other human activity, ignorance is a hindrance.
However, what is different in financial markets, is that so many people pretend to know something about it without going to the trouble of learning the basics. Why is it that OWS and other people think they have the right to point out the supposed shortcomings of the market if they don't know shit about it?
We all need money to live, knowledge about finances and the way markets work should be a basic requirement for everyone.
Start by reading this book.
This one is somewhat simpler and easier to read, but it still is a very good and useful introduction to the market.
There's no big deal in making money in the market, the simple fact is that, like in any other profession, you must learn the trade before you get in.
People like those "Occupy Wall Street" hipsters preaching about the market are like the pope preaching about sex. You must try to learn about things before you can have an opinion on them.
Oh, it's an app for the phone?
At first I thought about something like a hose and a plastic bag.
You'll probably get much more bang for the buck, for the watts, and for the physical space, if you use GPUs.
There are video cards with 4000 processing cores available for under $400, look for HD7970x2. That is $0.10 for each core. No way a cluster of small computers will beat that.
The authors of Freakonomics raised a correlation with abortion legalization after Roe vs. Wade in 1973.
The most likely answer is that there is no single cause for the reduction in crime, but my bet would be in some cultural influence, not anything related to the physical environment.
Belonging to gangs stopped being "cool".
a monopoly based on Linux is still a monopoly.
It's not a monopoly because the source code is public and available for anyone to use.
If Microsoft wants the full power of Android, they are free to create their own Android phone, provided they comply to the licensing agreement.
You knew the job was dangerous when you took it, Fred. -- Superchicken
