Comment Re:Good for the economy. (Score 1) 451
What does it feel like to see a threat in every shadow?
It's a little unnerving, but it's reassuring to know that other people see them too every now and then.
What does it feel like to see a threat in every shadow?
It's a little unnerving, but it's reassuring to know that other people see them too every now and then.
There seems to be a similar effect in human systems. Namely, failure, such as bankruptcy, seems to be a very effective way to remove businesses that no longer work.
Yes. In fact, it's so effective, it can seriously damage or destroy businesses that do work, too.
So the theory is incorrect (more likely incomplete). That's good news for science - something else to think about for a few years!
I'd be unsurprised to learn that the reasons are due to air being a fluid, the holes being spread out over a large surface (similar to the enhanced resolution of a telescope array), and the holes being large enough for air to flow through. Compression waves in the air pass through the holes, propagate on the other side, and are amplified by the membrane. I guess I could read the article, but that would break tradition.
So do LEDs bother your eyes? I think CRTs gave me headaches far more often than has any form of flat panel display, at least partly because of the whining noise that CRTs emit. No. You're imagining things. But, that being said, you're not alone. I heard somebody walk into the retail establishment that I work at and said, "I'm disappointed that you guys installed automatic doors that emit so much radiation, but I'm glad that at least you don't have horrible fluorescent lights that would make me unable to shop here." Of course, she was saying that standing under about 500 CFL's that she assumed weren't fluorescent because of their size, shape, and color.
If you've never heard a CRT whine, just get one of any quality, a computer that will let you set the vertical and horizontal refresh rates (linux works!), and try out a few configurations that aren't supported. I find at least a third of the settings will give a nice whine, even some of the ones that look okay. Once you've determined that this hardware that depends on oscillations to perform its designed purpose can impart those oscillations to the air around it, maybe you'll believe that a lower-quality CRT can do that even when running in approved configurations.
One little warning. Don't do that test very long with your favorite CRT. As with most things used in a manner that's out of bounds of the engineering specifications, bad things can happen. Also, why do you still have a favorite CRT?
There is a possibility that the OP did run into some badly filtered backlights that actually use mains-frequency. That would be visible to some people but not to most.
but who would build such a thing? it's more trouble and more complicated and probably even more expensive to build it in such a way - or do they just put a thyristor on the mains line and call it a day?
There are one of two answers to your questions. First, they are flawed systems that were not caught in QA. They look like all the ones that were tested and passed, except for that annoying flicker that isn't noticeable by everyone. Second, it is cheaper to make them that way. Remember, even $1 on 100,000 units would be enough savings to make someone very happy.
Read the article a while ago. IIRC, the recidivism rate in Norway is half that of the UK (where the author was from). Not just for the one jail, but for the whole country. I think the recidivism rates in the two countries were 35% and 70%, respectively.
First, I'll deal with the UK portion of your claim to security in him not being extradited to the United States. There is evidence that the UK has engaged in extraordinary rendition to the United States before. I wouldn't hold my breath that they wouldn't give approval merely to extradite him if I were in his shoes.
Second, on these valid reasons to extradite him. Unless he's done something new in the last year, then why did the United States not make that request to the UK while they had him under arrest? As far as I'm aware, the extradition treaties are very similar among the EU nations. Perhaps the reason is like you said, and political offenses can't be extradited. So much easier to redirect a flight in progress and engage in yet another extraordinary rendition with the thinnest veil of deniability than to blatantly do so directly from a UK jail.
While reviewing the legal documents, it sounds like Sweden has some odd technicalities in their legal system. Odd being, not like the technicalities in systems I'm more familiar with. So apparently there is an arrest warrant (accused with probable cause of rape) out there, although they won't charge him with anything until after questioning. Based on what I'm seeing, it still sounds like they have a very flimsy case, based on laws that don't seem to even require guilty intent, by a prosecutor who seems to be a bit of a crusader (case was closed with no charges laid, then reopened after he'd already left the country). None of that, though, takes away from his concerns about extradition or extraordinary rendition. This wouldn't be the first time a "true believer" was used for a deeper purpose.
I will admit, extradition does seem unlikely, but I can't say the same about extraordinary rendition. All three nations in question have too much history in that regard for any protestations to the contrary to change my opinion.
How much is this costing Ecuador
Annoying America - Priceless!
How much is this costing Ecuador? In terms of physically hosting him, probably not much. In terms of political cost, possibly quite a bit.
What's more, the US doesn't dispense foreign aid so we can all hold hands and sing kumbaya together. We spend money on foreign aid as a method of influencing the governments other other countries; it gives us a carrot we can dangle in front of other countries. And for those that have become dependent on it, something we can take away when we're displeased with their behavior.
So...Ecuador is missing out on foreign aid from the United States, and is spending all that political capital they don't have. How is this a problem for them again? I can certainly see where it might be a cautionary tale for other nations, though.
...which turned into a rather enormous political scandal in Sweden when it became known, and was actually caused mostly by typical Swedish naivety (where the U.S. had promised Swedish ministers not to torture him if he was extradited). It is not for no reason there exists such a lengthy Wikipedia article about the poor man, considering his fate is fare from unique internationally speaking. So the example you bring up is in fact a strong argument for why Assange will very likely not be extradited from Sweden on a whim. Doing that would be political suicide for whoever gives the order.
Then it sounds like the Swedish government should be able to guarantee that since there is no (public) indictment against Assange from the United States, that they will guarantee not to extradite him if he goes to Sweden for questioning. If their intention is to not make the same mistake twice (three times?), then stating so before-hand doesn't seem too difficult.
If you have no intention of ever beating your wife, why would you be unwilling to say, "I will never beat my wife?"
Sorry, my mistake, I thought people on Slashdot would all be technically literate enough to use the internet and Google it. The UK is signatory to and has implemented all of these, in fact, it helped write most of them.
Why would this topic be different than any other? Many people on Slashdot have been denying for more than a decade that terrorists exist, conduct attacks, get arrested, and have their own independent motives for doing so apart from anything done by anyone in the West. The whole Assange affair is no different. People regularly misstate ordinary and readily obtainable facts of the matter because they don't like the current and most likely outcome.
It's not that I don't think terrorists don't exists, it's just that the numbers indicate that the average American should be more concerned about the flu than they should be about terrorists. I'm not saying nothing should be done about terrorism, just that a lot of the stuff being done is security theatre and not actual security, and that a normal level of prudence would keep the risk at the minimal level it's occupied for the last 40 years.
See, communism and the free market do have at least one thing in common: they're both models which look good on paper, but do not take human flaws into consideration.
The difference is that it doesn't matter in markets, if the participants are flawed. They can be flawed in other ways and still have a functioning market. For example, there is a tremendous, unregulated, global market out there where the vast majority of the traders involved have the intellect of a rutabaga. We call this market, "pollination". Yet despite the incredibly grave flaws of the traders in this market, it has worked for many tens of millions of years, starting in the age of the dinosaurs.
That's all well and good, but remember that when plants fail in an area, that's just like you becoming bankrupt because the US market crashed. Maybe something with a little more control would make sense. Don't worry, just like plants will spread back into that area over time, you will be able to regain some of your savings after a while, too.
I agree with that in general. I believe in the need for regulation, not just because of human flaws, but to address the known causes for some negative outcomes in the market. Too much regulation can be bad, as well.
A good example is the bank industry. After the stock market crash of 1929, a number of regulations were put in place to reduce the risk of such a thing happening (as easily) again. Years went by, the regulations were seen as too restrictive, and they were removed. Along comes 2008, and major banks around the world fail. Canada, which didn't remove those restrictive laws, suffered from having their banks make somewhat less profit that year.
Again, simplified models which don't accurately match the real world aren't bad - just use them for predictions and not as a plan for what we should try to shoehorn the real world into.
Or they'd simply rather not spend time and money to solve someone else's problem?
You're looking at this the wrong way. The problem is their customer not being able to access the services they wish to in a reasonable manner.
It's not like rack space is free, or electricity is free, or ensuring that someone else's hardware isn't going to harm your network is free. If I were an ISP, Netflix would "get" to install hardware in my network over my dead body - simply because I DO NOT TRUST HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE I HAVEN'T VERIFIED.
You do realize that the whole point of the internet is to connect to servers, clients, and peers of an unverified nature, right? And if they co-locate for any of their clients, they already deal with this issue on a daily basis? Go ahead and google Verizon colocation services, just for fun.
What about the people who AREN'T Netflix customers and DON'T want to pay for someone else's service? Why should my ISP fees be used to help someone else stream movies I can't access?!
Well, the benefit to their other customers would be that their connection to other servers outside of Verizon's network wouldn't be impeded by the congestion of their customers who would like to stream said movies. Keep in mind, the customer who wants to watch movies on Netflix have exactly as many rights as the customer who wants to play MMOs, or the one who wants to send emails. This benefits all their customers - just not their RedBox business.
If Netflix wants to solve this, they can talk to Cogent and help Cogent come up with a solution that isn't making Verizon and their non-Netflix subscribing customers foot the bill. There's absolutely no reason I should be footing the bill for a service I have no intention of using.
It must be a source of relief to you to know that all those services that you use are vitally important to all the other Verizon customers. Or just maybe those other customers' service fees pay for those services they use, on average.
Who says they won't hit you. Or in the case of a robot truck, take you out. There may be times where a human driver can and would do everything possible to avoid an accident, even if it meant driving off the road. A robot truck with $500,000 inventory may be less gracious. It may stop as fast as prudently possible, but since the other guy is at fault, stay on the road and protect its cargo.
And then the company who developed the software will be sued for negligent homicide, and the trucking and software companies will be on the hook for a preventable accident with no risk of human life on their side of the scale. Any software that is designed to have a preference to save the cargo of an unmanned vehicle versus not hitting a potentially manned vehicle will likely be ruled as failing to take action to prevent an accident (which will also be provable from the video recordings). There will be plenty of lawyers and jurors who will be happy to say robots are evil and the faceless companies should pay.
The two more likely scenarios are that a) the software will not be able to prevent all accidents, and hence loss of life, and b) people who are recorded engaging in reckless behaviour which causes massive loss of cargo will be summarily sued out of existence (if they survived in the first place). Tthe combination of the two will mean that there will be a spate of people doing stupid things, and then being reasonably cautious around unmanned cargo vehicles, at much the same levels as today.
So, a thief who steals as much as an HFT corporation is also fine? Without the metric of social value, there is little or no point to many of the laws we have, especially the ones we think of as 'good'. I'd posit that if the social value of HFT is on par with grand theft, it should be outlawed, and for the same reason.
Well, my point is that markets (and in particular capital markets) are fundamentally about profit and nothing else. If you want to impose some additional system of values, be it social, ethical, religious (yes, there is such a thing in capital markets) ones, it has to be done from outside the 'free market' mentality. Because of that it amounts to extra regulation, so whether it is good or bad becomes a hot button issue in the US in general and on
Well, I can't honestly say I'm worried about hot button issues, and I wouldn't say I strayed from facts, either.
You are correct, little things like ethics, and 'doing the right thing' often have a financial cost, however small it might be. Just as not 'doing the right thing' will have a social cost, which can be surprisingly large at times. This, coupled with the irrational belief that a free market is any better than communism, does lead to some ridiculous discussions. See, communism and the free market do have at least one thing in common: they're both models which look good on paper, but do not take human flaws into consideration. And if you don't take those flaws into consideration, they will show themselves, usually in the most horrible ways.
For a look at the failings of the free (or unregulated) market, take a moment to read about a little thing called phossy jaw. And in response to the comment "Ah, but that wasn't truly a free market - the consumers didn't have enough information or influence." First, the problem was known (and solved!) for at least 5 decades, with employees dying on a regular basis before changes were made to improve employee health. Second, when the problem was first addressed, the companies in question were making about 20% dividends, and the industry is still around a century after they stopped poisoning their employees (mainly due to regulation). Third, please find me a free market today that works the way the model predicts, and isn't literally destroying people in the process, merely to maximize profits.
Models are wonderful things, even bad (or incomplete) models. But using models with known flaws doesn't lead to happy endings.
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