Another promising theory is that dark matter isn't even necessary, we only assume its present due to its gravitation effect, and that can be explained by other phenomenon.
Gravity decreases in proportion to distance squared between objects, but its not observed beyond a certain distance. To compensate, that space was assumed to be filled with dark matter. This theory suggests that gravity switches from a inverse-square law to a different set of rules after a certain distance.
> Gravity decreases in proportion to distance squared between objects, but its not observed beyond a certain distance.
This isn't true. F = GMmr^-2 has infinite range. This is true from a theoretical standpoint, and it's also borne out in observations. The Andromeda Galaxy, presently 2.5 million light-years away, is being pulled toward our galaxy and will eventually collide with it. Observations on an even larger scale support the idea that the equation has infinite range.
The above theoretical construct could in principle be contradicted by observations, and if it were, someone would win a Nobel Prize, so there's every incentive to find persuasive evidence that contradicts it.
The Andromeda Galaxy, presently 2.5 million light-years away, is being pulled toward our galaxy and will eventually collide with it.
To support an inverse square law, we'd need to know the mass of our galaxy, and the mass of the Andromeda galaxy. We have the speed, computed from various blueshift methods. We'd also need to know the rate at which the speed changes.
Do we know any of those three? The mass of the Andromeda galaxy is very different if you assume its filled with dark matter, vs. only has visible matter. Which mass is used to confirm the inverse square law? If it includes dark matter, you have circular reasoning: dark matter is hypothesized to make the inverse square law work within the Andromeda galaxy. If it doesn't include dark matter, then why does the dark matter in the Andromeda galaxy contribute to its rotational motion, but not the attraction to the Milky Way?
Ah. I took the comment to say the inverse square isn't observed beyond a certain distance, not that gravity wasn't observed at all beyond a certain distance.
Abrams insisted the case was "never about caffeine," and she insisted that Schwab had to have been under the influence of another drug that didn’t show up in the test. Not all drugs do under standard rounds of testing.
To paraphrase: we didn't find anything to justify the charges, but we're still going to tell everyone that he is guilty.
No, telling that someone is guilty can only be done by a court. Prosecutors can say that they believe he could be guilty. In this case, they dropped that and said that he's likely innocent.
The unfortunate thing in the US is just that most cases don't make it to court, and a lot of people plead guilty to get a deal. This is not how the system was designed, and not how it works in most other democracies.
This just shows significant parts of the government are rotten to the core. It's an issue most likely to affect people who are unable to afford good representation.
Let's be honest: courts in most western countries are only really accessible to upper middle class and/or wealthier people. If you do not have proper representation, you will probably lose in cases like these.
The fact that some random smuck is given this much power is shocking.
That is not true for most European countries. Nearly every case will land in court, and you have way fewer people ending up in jail. And if the chance that you'll get a long prison sentence is very low, people will accept a trial instead of getting a deal by pleading guilty.
Also, good lawyers in the US are more expensive than in most European countries (because university fees aren't as high), so you don't have to be rich to afford a lawyer.
Honestly, it's shocking how prosecutors can force people into pleading guilty, just because you might end up in prison for many years because of minor crimes. No other developed country has more prisoners/capita than the US, and it certainly doesn't make the US the safest country on the planet.
The issue of plea bargaining isn't so simple as it's made out to be (by people who don't have any idea of what the justice system actually does).
The overwhelming majority of people that go through the justice system are guilty. For every ambiguous charge, there are a dozen instances where someone was caught with drugs on their person,[1] clearly identified in a security tape robbing a store, etc. That's the bread and butter of the justice system.
Like every system, the courts have been optimized for the common case. That certainly has costs in the uncommon case--as optimizing for the common case always does. Maybe those costs are too much to bear. But it's not a simple issue of government being "rotten to the core."
[1] Whether you think having drugs should or should not be a crime is an entirely separate issue.
>by people who don't have any idea of what the justice system actually does
legal system, we do not have a Justice system it is a legal system
>The overwhelming majority of people that go through the justice system are guilty.
Guilty of victim less violation of legal Statutes that are not crimes at all. A Crime requires a complaining victim.
In order to seek justice there must be a person seeking said justice thus the need for a victim for there to be a crime. For example Growing the wrong plant does not produce a victim thus should not be considered a "crime"
>[1] Whether you think having drugs should or should not be a crime is an entirely separate issue.
No, far from it. It is the issue, the reason the courts need to be "streamlined" is because they have been over burdened by these non-crimes, as such they needed a process to shortcut due process and extort people into signing their legal rights away so they can persecute more people for more non-crimes
> No, far from it. It is the issue, the reason the courts need to be "streamlined" is because they have been over burdened by these non-crimes
Very true. If we had to actually have a trial it would interfere with the profitability of the criminalization cycle.
> shortcut due process and extort people into signing their legal rights away
Yeah, the prosecutors aren't in it to increase society's safety, or even to enforce laws, they're in it for their conviction stats. They'll do anything to game those numbers higher and it's easier to win convictions for strict liability crimes (possession, etc) so they focus on that.
Even if we concede that the overwhelming majority of people that go through the criminal justice system are guilty, US law has a presumption of innocence, perhaps for the very reason that the system should handle so many more guilty people that it makes everything much easier to assume guilt.
We have the standard "beyond a reasonable doubt" in a criminal trial, arguably calculated to let some criminals go to help ensure that we don't imprison as many innocent people as possible. With a presumption of innocence, the system should assume innocence even if dealing with 99.9% guilty people, and I would call any other optimization corruption enough.
But do you need to be punished if you've been caught with a small amount of drugs for personal use? Other countries drop charges if you're being caught with small amounts of certain drugs (e.g. UK, Germany), freeing up the court system and not punishing people who didn't cause any harm.
From his previous comments over the years, I presume Rayiner agrees with pretty much everyone else here that criminal punishment for possession of small amounts of drugs is a bad idea, and that criminal punishment across the board in the US is far too harsh.
Moreover: the condition of most criminal defendants being guilty is probably what we should want out of the system. If a substantial larger number of defendants weren't easy cases, we should instead be worried that prosecutors --- already in a fraught relationship with the public they ostensibly serve --- were further victimizing them by taking flyers.
> No, telling that someone is guilty can only be done by a court. Prosecutors can say that they believe he could be guilty. In this case, they dropped that and said that he's likely innocent.
Just being charged with a felony means you are ineligible for conceal carry in a lot of places, even if you are found innocent in court.
That implies at the very least, that you are and will always be suspected guilty (on some level) even if the court never finds you guilty.
> Just being charged with a felony means you are ineligible for conceal carry in a lot of places, even if you are found innocent in court.
Citation please for the italicized part? That's not only unconstitutional on the federal level, but it's also unconstitutional in most if not all states in the US which issue licenses for concealed carry. It's true that while the felony charge is still pending, the accused temporarily waives their right to carry and may have their licensed suspended, however once the case is closed and the person is found not guilty or the charge is dropped, their license is to be immediately reinstated barring any other disqualification. Here's an example[1] from Florida law, other states have similar provisions.
If you are charged, it'll be assumed that you've had a history of violence (depending on the offense)
Then there's California:
> California law allows Police Chiefs and County Sheriffs to issue a license to carry a concealed firearm if the following requirements are met:
1. Upon proof that the person applying is of good moral character
2. That good cause exists for the issuance
3. The applicant is a resident of the county or city to which they are applying (or the applicant’s place of employment is within the city or county)
4. The applicant has completed a course of training (16-24 hours)
Sorry, yeah I forgot about California. I'm honestly surprised it's legal for anyone to own a gun in that state. DC is also infamous for strict gun laws (for example having to register your weapon), as is Illinois. In states that adhere more closely to the US Constitution, it's more difficult to deny legally able citizens to carry.
I do wish all states would adopt California's training course requirement, though. As much as I am proud of my legal right to bear arms, I cringe at the thought of the untrained masses carrying deadly weapons they have no idea how to handle and care for. I'm also a proponent of mental health checks and domestic violence restrictions on weapons licensing.
Exactly... and if you reverse the roles, the hypocrisy just becomes more clear, to quote Emin Gün Sirer:
"Had the attacker lost money by mistake, I am sure the devs would have had no difficulty appropriating his funds and saying "this is what happens in the brave new world of programmatic money flows."
Statements like that immediately make me suspect the integrity of the article. Instead of reporting the actual figures of Oxycontin related overdoses, they bundle it with ALL overdoses over a year (which obviously would be a large enough number). Why didn't they mention the % of overdoses directly related to Oxy ? My assumption is that it would be significantly smaller number which didn't serve the article's purpose. Personally, I don't think its the Pharma's job to track if the pills are illegally prescribed. Just like its not an ISP's job to track if the internet is getting used for illegal downloads. They are absolutely right to assert that they "at all times complied with the law." and any conduct "did not interfere with legitimate patients getting medication". Moral arguments apart, they are simply not in the business of reporting their patients to law enforcement, nor they ever should.
Personally, I don't think its the Pharma's job to track if the pills are illegally prescribed.
Federal law, namely 21 CFR 1301.74(a) disagrees with you. And they're not reporting patients, they're reporting doctors that that are humongous outliers for prescribing certain painkillers.
> Why didn't they mention the % of overdoses directly related to Oxy ? My assumption is that it would be significantly smaller number which didn't serve the article's purpose.
Most likely because the statistics aren't available.
> Moral arguments apart, they are simply not in the business of reporting their patients to law enforcement, nor they ever should.
Why should they be allowed to be in business at all when their product is so destructive?
> Why should they be allowed to be in business at all when their product is so destructive?
I don't think it's that simple.
If you're going to start doing heroin--which you shouldn't--oxy is a much safer form than street level heroin where you have no idea what you're getting.
Phillip Seymour Hoffman ODed and died because he didn't know what he was getting. Heroin is actually pretty safe, but it destroys your soul and you never really "cure" the addiction. Even still, I'd rather have oxy out there than tar heroin from Mexican drug cartels. And I'd rather spend government resources on something else.
There is nothing particular about heroin that puts one's soul at hazard compared to other opiates. I started my descent into opiate addiction with nice prescription drugs like oxycodone, but all to soon I found myself using heroin because it was cheaper, stronger, and more available.
I've read what happens often is that when heroin addicts relapse they often don't account for the dropped tolerance while they were sober and they start back at the same levels as when they were using and because of that OD. I'm pretty sure I saw that this was what happened with Hoffman.
One reason for overdose is that dealers increase the potency of their product by cutting it with Fentanyl, and other synthetic opioids.
These opiates, while easy to produce in a lab, are active in very small amounts (at the microgram level.)
As a result, if a batch of heroin isn't fully mixed, you end up with "hot spots" in some doses, where the fentanyl content is high enough to kill you.
This is how one of the first young women I met at university died. We grew apart, and one day she stopped responding to my text messages. A few days later I found out via Facebook.
Sometimes a really pure batch appears, and the users' old dosage of impure/cut stuff is way too much. Quality control &consistent product isn't really high on importers' list of priorities.
> oxy is a much safer form than street level heroin where you have no idea what you're getting.
Just for clarity many people are getting oxycontin from the street, which leaves them open to counterfeit product. At $60 to $80 per 80 mg tablet there's considerable pressure to create counterfeits.
that's only because of misguided regulation and formula changes, you can't get a crushable 80mg oxycodone anymore through legit channels.
shockingly, changing the formula did nothing to quell the demand for abusable oxycontin formulations, leaving the market wide open to anyone willing to press their own chinese powder. chinese powder doesn't strictly mean oxycodone powder, either.
the counterfeits are often filled with cheaper, more easily acquired, more potent fentanyl analogues. fentanyl and it's analogues are active in microgram dosages. that's why heroin addicts are dropping like flies coast to coast, even heroin is being cut with the cheaper, exponentially more potent fentanyl.
Oxycontin was simply a massive dose of oxycodone, enough to kill an opiate-naive individual, wrapped in what might has well have been a candy shell.
Technically a time-release mechanism, it was easily defeated by anyone with a razor blade or a wet paper towel.
They aren't different drugs, and I'm sure Purdue has a finger in the oxycodone pie other than simply brand-name Oxycontin.
A little bit of old-fashioned police work would easily reveal what prescriptions a person was prescribed, a search of their personal property would reveal paraphenilia related to their drug use. Empty oxycontin bottles would indicated an oxycontin overdose. An empty syringe would indicate heroin abuse. Spent patches would indicate fentanyl abuse. etc
It's worse than that. When a serious drug user ODs and the tox screen comes back with opioids, cocaine, and barbituates, how could you possibly assign a particular drug to the death?
Perhaps the problem with breaking out the data involves not being able to read the manufacturers label on the side of the pill during an autopsy, and the unfortunate sudden unavailability of the lone reliable eyewitness.
Yes, I'd be willing to bet that the vast majority of that headline OD number are heroin plus alcohol or benzos deaths. It's actually pretty hard to overdose on just Oxy pills...
After the downvotes, I decided to check out the numbers, and looks like I'd lose the bet. According to the CDC [0] the ratio is almost 2:1 for Opioid analgesics versus Heroin. What's interesting is that this is very different to the statistics for the UK [1] and Europe.
Even still, it's rather difficult to accidentally fatally overdose on just prescription opioids. The majority of prescription opioid-related deaths involve a mixture with some other depressant -- typically, as you say, alcohol or benzos.
Heroin is a different story, since there's no telling how potent a particular batch will be until you do some -- if it winds up being significantly stronger than what you're used to, it can be easy to do way too much. You also have various adulterants to take into account, including fentanyl which is often added with "worthless" adulterants as a cheap way to keep the qualitative potency of the effects up while significantly cutting the product. The thing about heroin is that you really don't know what you're getting -- this is a very different story when you're getting pills, unless you're happening upon counterfeits.
Other big problem is people going to rehab/getting clean, then relapsing after a while. Tolerance is much lower, but out of habit they are likely to do a dose similar to before.
Sure, but the reagent tests are really just qualitative, there's no good way of telling that the heroin I just bought from the nice man on the street corner is twice as pure as last weeks. I suppose there may be some tests that can tell if there is fentanyl present, which might help...?
Winston Churchill casually diverted the supplies of medical aid and food that was being dispatched to the starving victims to the already well supplied soldiers of Europe. When entreated upon he said, "Famine or no famine, Indians will breed like rabbits." The Delhi Government sent a telegram painting to him a picture of the horrible devastation and the number of people who had died. His only response was, "Then why hasn’t Gandhi died yet?"
> Not one Indian payment processor (I've talked to a many) gives you the option to create recurring subscriptions.
Not true, Paypal allows you to create recurring subscriptions in India, I already have two subscriptions which PayPal charges to my CC every month automatically. So, I'm questioning the premise of this post, PayPal certainly follows RBI regulations now, and if other payment processors are not doing it, it must be a business decision on their part, and maybe they will do it going forward. Can you provide any references of RBI policies prohibiting recurring subscriptions ?
After a search, I see that companies need to obtain the necessary clearances from RBI (Indian or international) to charge recurring payments on credit cards. These are only granted to businesses with established track records. So, yes, a SaaS startup might not qualify for it. But as a consumer, I'm actually happy with this RBI policy.
Talking about CC is a distraction, because the meaning varies in different countries. (debit, credit, post-office, chequing, etc)
The majority of SaaS startups rely on friction free recurring payments. An even larger number of companies have a subscription model; e.g. Spotify, Team Treehouse, Soylent, Birchbox, Makespace and Netfix. Then you have all the 'One Click Purchase' companies like Uber...
The list of companies you can screw over with unnecessary regulation is extraordinarily large.
an established business with 3 years+ track record OR $3 million or more in transactions.
I assume that's how PayPal got it, they certainly qualify for the $3 million criteria.
If they lower the bar, they will have to do it for everyone, and a lot of unscrupulous businesses will try to place recurring chargebacks. What's wrong with billing the client every payment cycle, or let them pay on longer durations, like quarterly? Refund extra money if someone discontinues earlier. Plenty of options, until 3 years of a financial history, then apply for a RBI clearance.
Credit card fraud is very common across the world, maybe the guidelines can be more clear and the clearance process made simpler, however I don't see why a startup should be allowed to place recurring charges on cards unless they have been a trustworthy business for a while.
Nothing like another example of a todo list app to illustrate the downward spiral of app store pricing. Creativity can still get a high price in app store. Find a niche, and develop a great app, and customer will pay. Case in point: Cubasis https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/cubasis/id583976519
Absolutely agree. My coworker built a business app that sold very well for $120, until the company that provides the API crushed it with their own $10 app (bummer).
A US company selling internationally will have to be very careful, especially at first, applying any "fraud best practices."
One of the (apparent) advantage to the OP's service is that there is a built-in learning component, presumably tailored to your particular store. That should help quite a lot with recognizing patterns unique to an individual situation.
As you mention in your article, copyright infringement is not theft. You have a legitimate claim against BuzzFeed, but don't start using the terminology of MPAA/RIAA , unless you want to be hated as much as they are.
MPAA/RIAA aren't hated for abusing terminology. They're hated for extorting exorbitant payments from people (some of whom don't even own computers, let alone download copyrighted material) by abusing legal process (threatening people with lawsuits that are probably groundless, but which the defendants can't afford to pay a lawyer to defend). I doubt that the author of this article could ever deserve that amount of hatred.
Yeah right. They're hated because they look at the people ripping off their stuff and sites like ThePirateBay profiteering on their content and try to stomp on that sandcastle.
No, they are hated for doing the legal/moral equivalent of beating a child bloody for shoplifting a snickers bar. (And added to that, not taking especially good care that the child they happen to be punching is the one that actually took it).
Its not that they react to being ripped off, its that they react more like Los Zetas than law abiding shop-keepers when they do.
And also subverting the public domain (the Disney extensions) and trying to force everyone on the internet to do policing for them (SOPA). And pushing for much harsher IP laws both in scope and penalties.
I'm talking about the Copyright Extension Act in 1995, largely attributed to Disney, that makes really old stuff almost nobody is pirating remain copyright and out of the public domain?
The reasons they may be hated for that don't bear much relationship with copyright infringement which focuses almost exclusively on newly released things that would be copyright regardless of Disney's lobbying.
The Copyright Extension Act in 1995 is a significant part of why they are hated. It is anything but irrelevant or unrelated.
You are the one attempting to insinuate that only people who use The Pirate Bay object to their perversion of copyright laws and discussion. Multiple alternative reasons to be angry with them have now been presented to you, but you just claim they are unrelated because you assert that the real reason is that they are just interested in pirating recent things. In discarding these alternative reasons because they they don't mesh with your already unsupported assertion, you are begging the question.
People are in fact upset with the MPAA/RIAA for their abuse of terminology and all that it facilitates: the corruption of copyright laws, weaponized lawsuits, and the shackling of (frankly ancient) culture.
Pretend that people are only upset with their abuse of terminology because they want to pirate things all you want, but you are dead wrong.
If that were really true, then there should be markedly less piracy of content from publishers not affiliated with the MPAA or RIAA, but that doesn't seem to actually be the case.
How do you think that follows? I am not asserting that people pirate MPAA/RIAA content because they hate those organizations, nor do I think that is the case. That would be a foolish thing to assert.
I think that people pirate primarily opportunistically. Some of these people try to justify their piracy by saying they hate the MPAA/RIAA and pirate for ideological reasons, other pirates do not.
People, sometimes people who pirate, sometimes not, hate the MPAA/RIAA for a wide variety of reasons that have been beaten to death in this thread.
TPB are paramount in any accurate representation of copyright infringement as it exists today.
I don't dispute people are upset with the MPAA/RIAA, just that it has very little to do with Disney or material that shoulda/coulda/woulda been public domain at various times in the last century.
Centuries before Disney was created the copyright length was still decades longer than the age of material people primarily pirate.
You are completely ignoring the possibility that there exist people who hate the MPAA/RIAA despite not pirating. Furthermore you are completely ignoring the possibility that some people pirate opportunistically, and hate the MPAA/RIAA for reasons unrelated to their pirating habit.
You cannot strike out the possibility of non-pirating critics with evidence of what pirates prefer to pirate, since all critics just being pirates is your unsupported assertion.
1. Critics are pirates.
2. Pirates pirate new material. Pirates are not concerned
with old material.
3. Critics are not concerned with old material.
2 is almost certainly true; I certainly do not deny it. 1 is your unsupported assertation. 3 cannot logically follow from 1 and 2 so long as 1 is unsupported. 3 cannot be cited as support of 1, that is circular reasoning.
TPB wouldn't have taken off on such a rapid trajectory if the MPAA and RIAA hadn't been so content to gouge the public in decades past.
Rabid public adoption of music and video piracy is most certainly a function of the public's perceptions re: price/value and anger at blatant collusion on the part of record labels to inflate prices.
Oh bullshit, most people couldn't give a flying fuck about that or they'd have boycotted the products before the internet came along. People like free stuff; it's not like they've been sending 1/10th of the money they saved on stuff they downloaded to the artists' fan clubs.
No reasonable person is going to hate him for using ordinary colloquial English. In ordinary English, we can "steal" many things besides tangible property.
If your friend convinces your girlfriend to leave you for him, it is common to say he "stole" her from you.
A sports team that wins from behind at the last minute against a supposedly better team is often said to have "stolen" the game.
If a restaurant owner paid a waiter at another restaurant to spy on the kitchen to figure out a sauce recipe, and then put that sauce on his menu, many would say the recipe was "stolen" [1].
Falling in love is often described as having your heart "stolen".
If someone bugs your office and hears you practicing your pitch for a startup incubator, and then they apply and pitch your idea before you, using the points from your pitch, most would say he "stole" your idea and your pitch.
[1] This may not be such a good example, because the recipe could be a trade secret, and "theft" might then be legally correct usage instead of just colloquial usage since misappropriating trade secrets is actually called "theft of trade secrets" in some jurisdictions. For instance, see 18 USC 1832, "Theft of Trade Secrets" [2].
It's theft of money. You do something that incurs a debt, but instead of paying that debt you simply keep the money in you pocket - money which is, by right, no longer yours. It's like bouncing a check. Generally speaking, that's chalked up as theft.
By focusing on the infinitely reproducible media (which cannot, strictly speaking, be stolen) the RIAA/MPAA made themselves look like idiots. But just because they failed to correctly identify what was being stolen does not mean that no theft was taking place. Focus on the money not changing hands (which obviously can't be duplicated) and the picture becomes a lot clearer.
Edit: Downvotes? I guess the truth stings, especially when the logic is airtight.
I said "check" not "contract" for a reason. Specifically, because it creates an obligation to pay that does not require a separate contract. Copyright law works in the same way, in that it creates an obligation to pay that does not depend on an additional contract between parties.
Obviously, there are exceptions to this rule. That is to say, copies that can be made without triggering a corresponding obligation. These are gathered under the Fair Use provision of the law.
There are also criminal and civil violations within copyright. But the larger point is that refusing to pay money owed is very much a form of deprivation.
I'm trying to inform you as to why you received downvotes. Perhaps regurgitating descriptions of logical fallacies makes you feel better, but unfortunately it doesn't improve your argument.
Theft has a specific meaning which you should learn before you make broad, sweeping, incorrect statements about it.
Even if your analogy had any relevance to this copyright dispute, it doesn't follow that theft has occurred. Giving a bad cheque is not theft. Giving a bad cheque with a certain intention may amount to fraud.
His argument isn't based on contractual relations. He's quite right; Buzzfeed has kept the money they should have paid him in licensing fees for using his picture, so they have it and he doesn't.
Isn't that a little extreme? Don't see how a person protecting the claims on the photo of his/her own child that is being exploited for commercial gain by someone not authorized by the creator to do so is even in the same context as MPAA/RIAA stuff...
Eh, I think we understand what "theft" means in this context. It's "theft" more in the "theft of service" or "theft of value" sense: Buzzfeed has taken something that would otherwise cost money to use and has used it without payment ("theft of service"). And has potentially sapped value from it by making it tougher for the author to use as he wants (like in a book -- "theft of value").
The problem with doing that is it condones language-creep for rhetorical reasons.
Theft has a meaning which involves "taking with an intent to deprive the owner of their rightful possession". Sure I understand you when you misuse the word, but that doesn't make it a good thing.
My response to this is to say the OP is using extortion to squeeze money out of Buzzfeed with the threat of expensive lawsuits.
That makes him sound like a real bastard doesn't it? Because it isn't really extortion, it is a legitimate attempt to settle a legal dispute. My answer is... let's use words as accurately as we can, rather than twisting them to make our point.
Gravity decreases in proportion to distance squared between objects, but its not observed beyond a certain distance. To compensate, that space was assumed to be filled with dark matter. This theory suggests that gravity switches from a inverse-square law to a different set of rules after a certain distance.
https://www.quantamagazine.org/20161129-verlinde-gravity-dar...