Yeah. It's called eduflation, and it's the result of too many degrees chasing too few job openings. And despite the noble intentions of certain political elements, making it easier for everyone to go to college and get a degree is not going to improve the situation.
As one who still remembers school pretty clearly, let me just say...
Adults these days! Why, back in my day, sonny, the worst thing that the worst of teachers did was give obscene amounts of homework. You never heard of them bullying students; that was for students to do! Bah, this whole dang country's going to pot...
I'm not sure I agree that "terrorism is a warfighting tactic"--what army was Timothy McVeigh a part of?
Terrorism is something fundamentally different. As the old joke (of the "ha ha but I'm serious" variety) goes, a terrorist is a guy with a bomb who can't afford an air force.
He further rejected requests to refer this matter to the European Court of Justice, insisting that his interpretation of the law is plenty.
Wait... he can do that?!?
In the US at least, it's not a judge's prerogative to decide whether or not his decision should be appealed to a higher court; that's up to the parties involved. You would sorta think it would work the same way in the EU, but... apparently not?
Moreover, even if the Younger elements were satisfied here, the court would not be required to abstain here because an exception to the application of the doctrine applies. Indeed, federal courts may disregard the Younger doctrine when a state court proceeding was brought in bad faith or with the purpose of harassing the federal plaintiff...
Translation:
Hood: Younger! Younger! The law: I may be younger but I wasn't born yesterday
If they so choose, they will have the option of selecting theme-based packages—such as sports, lifestyle or comedy—offered by their service providers
What exactly are "lifestyle-themed" channels? Lifestyle is such a broad word, it could encompass just about anything.
To compare a human rated aircraft to that of a non human rated spacecraft is simply beyond ridiculous.
Why? Sure, the people who screwed up on the spacecraft weren't airline pilots... but still, remember what they were: rocket scientists. Literally. Which, if the popular lexicon is to be believed, are supposed to be the smartest of the smart, and yet they managed to screw that one up because they're still human.
So why couldn't a mere airline pilot?
I'm not saying I believe that that's what happened. Only that it shouldn't be simply dismissed out of hand as too implausible to be worth taking seriously.
NOTHING IN THIS SECTION SHALL BE CONSTRUED TO REQUIRE A MANUFACTURER TO DIVULGE A TRADE SECRET.
That's probably the most disappointing part of this whole thing. Of all of the different concepts covered under the umbrella term of "intellectual property," trade secrets are the one with the least legitimacy, since you can't have less than zero.
Trade secrets are actively harmful to civilization. They're the problem that patents were created to fix, and legislators who don't understand this are the stuff of cautionary tales and aphorisms; the one about those who don't understand history being doomed to repeat it comes to mind!
Fox News host Anna Kooiman suggested the metric system was to blame, what with kilometers being different than miles and Celsius and Fahrenheit not seeing eye-to-eye, potentially leading to some sort of in-flight calculation error.
Now, I'm no fan of Fox News, but it's worth pointing out that that theory sounds a whole lot less ridiculous when you realize it's actually happened at least once.
Even Jesus didn't get off easy, and the Romans were just getting started.
Crucifixion was hardly a Roman innovation; by the time of Jesus Christ it had been used as a form of execution for centuries by various different countries.
It has enough power to keep your laptop online while you're out and about
Just to be clear, is this thing actually capable of keeping my laptop running? (On a plane, for example?) It appears from the linked page that all it can provide power though is USB ports, but my laptop draws its power from standard wall sockets.
How a device that delivers a 0.2% hit rate has become something the cops lean on so heavily they simply can't go on without it is a question that deserves a "transparent" answer, rather than the hitch-in-the-throat talking points delivered here.
That's actually pretty simple statistics. 0.2% hit rate sounds like something really small, until you realize it means "1 in 500." How long does it take you to see 500 different cars? Cops in a big city could encounter that many in a single day.
many of them clearly aiming to undermine some of Reda's ideas completely -- for example, those seeking to rein in DRM.
I'd like to undermine those ideas too. "Rein in" is something you do to a horse you want to keep. This is a horse that needs to be taken out back of the barn and shot.
DRM serves no legitimate purpose, and the only correct legal regime to deal with it is to criminalize it as the hacking tool it is.
Yes, that's one theory. But the problem with no one knowing why it died out is that no one knows why it died out. And considering that the reason steelmaking was lost in every other case was due to not publishing the techniques involved...
Well, you know what they say about extraordinary claims requiring extraordinary evidence.
The new rules only do one thing. Allow the FCC to pick and choose winners & losers.
How exactly do they do that? Seems to me that all they do is allow the FCC to forbid the ISPs from picking and choosing winners & losers, which is actually something completely different. It puts the power of picking and choosing winners and losers back in the hands of the people who use those services, which is who ought to have had that power all along.
Except that it is a 1000 year old problem that, in today's world, would not be a problem (we can do an analysis on steel to determine what it is comprised of).
The problem isn't "what is it comprised of?" The problem is "how do you make it?", and the answer is non-obvious.
Everyone knows (today, at least) that steel is made of an alloy of iron and carbon. Even if you knew how much of each to mix, there's the tricky question of how to get them to alloy properly when the ignition temperature of most common forms of free carbon is well below the melting point of iron! And the tolerances are pretty narrow, too. Not enough carbon, and you get iron that's slightly harder than usual. Too much, and you end up with pig iron, which is hard but so brittle as to be almost useless. There's a very narrow "sweet spot" in between that produces steel.
What the Bessmer Converter did was take pig iron (which had too much carbon in it), melt it down, and blow air over it in a controlled manner to slowly burn off the excess carbon until they got it down to the right percentage, and then let it solidify again. That's not a trick that analysis of what the steel is composed of is going to reveal; that's a genuine new invention that someone has to think of and publish before it becomes generally available.
On the post: DailyDirt: Higher Education, Not So High-Minded Anymore?
Re:
On the post: Record A Teacher Bullying A Student? That's A Suspension
Re: Re: Re: Common sense approach?
Adults these days! Why, back in my day, sonny, the worst thing that the worst of teachers did was give obscene amounts of homework. You never heard of them bullying students; that was for students to do! Bah, this whole dang country's going to pot...
On the post: Maybe The Best Way To Stop All This Swatting Is To Have Fewer SWAT Teams?
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: It gets worse
Terrorism is something fundamentally different. As the old joke (of the "ha ha but I'm serious" variety) goes, a terrorist is a guy with a bomb who can't afford an air force.
On the post: Ridiculous Ruling In Ireland Requires ISP To Kick Those Accused (Not Convicted) Of File Sharing Off The Internet
Wait... he can do that?!?
In the US at least, it's not a judge's prerogative to decide whether or not his decision should be appealed to a higher court; that's up to the parties involved. You would sorta think it would work the same way in the EU, but... apparently not?
On the post: Judge Suggests Attorney General Jim Hood Is Unconstitutionally Threatening Google 'In Bad Faith'
Translation:
Hood: Younger! Younger!
The law: I may be younger but I wasn't born yesterday
On the post: Canada Forces A La Carte Rules On Cable Industry, Bell Pouts By Refusing To Show Regulator On Television
What exactly are "lifestyle-themed" channels? Lifestyle is such a broad word, it could encompass just about anything.
On the post: CyberNadir: Former Pilot Randomly Speculates (Incorrectly) That Recent Airbus Crash Could Be The Work Of Hackers
Re: Re:
Why? Sure, the people who screwed up on the spacecraft weren't airline pilots... but still, remember what they were: rocket scientists. Literally. Which, if the popular lexicon is to be believed, are supposed to be the smartest of the smart, and yet they managed to screw that one up because they're still human.
So why couldn't a mere airline pilot?
I'm not saying I believe that that's what happened. Only that it shouldn't be simply dismissed out of hand as too implausible to be worth taking seriously.
On the post: New York Legislators Seeking A 'Right To Repair' Law For Electronic Devices
That's probably the most disappointing part of this whole thing. Of all of the different concepts covered under the umbrella term of "intellectual property," trade secrets are the one with the least legitimacy, since you can't have less than zero.
Trade secrets are actively harmful to civilization. They're the problem that patents were created to fix, and legislators who don't understand this are the stuff of cautionary tales and aphorisms; the one about those who don't understand history being doomed to repeat it comes to mind!
On the post: Bill Introduced To Repeal Patriot Act And Prevent The Government From Demanding Encryption Backdoors
It works on so many levels...
On the post: CyberNadir: Former Pilot Randomly Speculates (Incorrectly) That Recent Airbus Crash Could Be The Work Of Hackers
Now, I'm no fan of Fox News, but it's worth pointing out that that theory sounds a whole lot less ridiculous when you realize it's actually happened at least once.
On the post: DailyDirt: Suicide Isn't Painless -- Neither Is The Death Penalty (Yet?)
Re: Re: Re: Chop Suey
Crucifixion was hardly a Roman innovation; by the time of Jesus Christ it had been used as a form of execution for centuries by various different countries.
On the post: Daily Deal: 72% Off Power Vault 18000mAh Portable Battery Pack
Just to be clear, is this thing actually capable of keeping my laptop running? (On a plane, for example?) It appears from the linked page that all it can provide power though is USB ports, but my laptop draws its power from standard wall sockets.
On the post: Cops To Congress: Please Leave Us And Our License Plates Readers Alone
That's actually pretty simple statistics. 0.2% hit rate sounds like something really small, until you realize it means "1 in 500." How long does it take you to see 500 different cars? Cops in a big city could encounter that many in a single day.
On the post: Open Letter To Key EU Copyright Working Group Calls For 'Balanced Representation Of Views'
I'd like to undermine those ideas too. "Rein in" is something you do to a horse you want to keep. This is a horse that needs to be taken out back of the barn and shot.
DRM serves no legitimate purpose, and the only correct legal regime to deal with it is to criminalize it as the hacking tool it is.
On the post: Apple's Attempt At A TV Revolution Runs Face First Into Comcast Corporation
I wish I could say I was surprised. I also wish I could say that any part of that is illegal.
On the post: UK Positioning Itself As Bitcoin's Best Friend
Yeah, something like Silk Road is so incredibly unlikely that it already happened. Twice.
On the post: Does Patent Licensing by Patent Trolls - Or Anyone - Serve A Useful Purpose?
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Well, you know what they say about extraordinary claims requiring extraordinary evidence.
On the post: Amazon Quietly Bricked Jailbroken Kindle Devices Last Year
On the post: First Legal Challenges To FCC's Net Neutrality Rules Filed
Re: Anything
How exactly do they do that? Seems to me that all they do is allow the FCC to forbid the ISPs from picking and choosing winners & losers, which is actually something completely different. It puts the power of picking and choosing winners and losers back in the hands of the people who use those services, which is who ought to have had that power all along.
On the post: Does Patent Licensing by Patent Trolls - Or Anyone - Serve A Useful Purpose?
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
The problem isn't "what is it comprised of?" The problem is "how do you make it?", and the answer is non-obvious.
Everyone knows (today, at least) that steel is made of an alloy of iron and carbon. Even if you knew how much of each to mix, there's the tricky question of how to get them to alloy properly when the ignition temperature of most common forms of free carbon is well below the melting point of iron! And the tolerances are pretty narrow, too. Not enough carbon, and you get iron that's slightly harder than usual. Too much, and you end up with pig iron, which is hard but so brittle as to be almost useless. There's a very narrow "sweet spot" in between that produces steel.
What the Bessmer Converter did was take pig iron (which had too much carbon in it), melt it down, and blow air over it in a controlled manner to slowly burn off the excess carbon until they got it down to the right percentage, and then let it solidify again. That's not a trick that analysis of what the steel is composed of is going to reveal; that's a genuine new invention that someone has to think of and publish before it becomes generally available.
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