It's not that simple. I'll point you at this Harvard Law Review article[1] to start but shareholder value is not the only consideration for executives and doesn't even need to override.
I dread the day that Logitech kills the servers for Harmony. If they don't release the IR code database, they're going to have a lot of people (myself included) pretty annoyed.
(To be clear, they still work today if you can get a second hand remote / hub.)
I also love the Harmony remote in my living room. It's imperfect, but it's plenty good enough. It flows well and works predictably. It's easy to reconfigure.
And no matter what bizarro-world co-dependent cacophony of AV gear I manage to pile up together, any person can pick up the remote and watch TV or play a game or whatever.
I will be particularly unhappy when Logitech finally pulls the plug on Harmony servers.
At that point, I'll definitely need something different.
But IR codes are only part of the puzzle. And that is perhaps the easiest part to solve: We've already got lots of databases with IR-stuff available. There's databases focused on RC5, and the sleepy LIRC project, and some other things (all of which tend to be very Old Web in appearance).
License-permitting, it's simple enough to use this work as a foundation onto which newer codes can be placed.
That just leaves making the Harmony hardware interface work (hah, hahah -- and it's a dead-end anyway), or developing a new open-source remote to rule them all (which actually might not be too terrible of a task).
That all covers the first 90% of the problem.
The remaining 90% of the problem is just creating software that has a usable UI and actually works.
Having just swapped to a new TV on my Harmony setup I was concerned if it was still going to work. Lucky me, it did.
I really REALLY want someone to manufacture the thin harmony RF remote with a simple receiver puck with an open firmware. That's all we'd need because the HA crowd would be all over it and have it doing anything you want.
Assuming ir means infrared, you could get one of these (or any ir transceiver) and decode the signals and use it or whatever to send them out if your $thing dies.
Anecdotally as someone in a large tech company, fairly common and much easier to get than a lot of visa classes. But then, you have to be Canadian or Mexican (and the Canadian one is generally easier).
Also keep in mind that it's a non-immigrant, non-dual intent visa, so if you end up wanting to stay, you'll need to adjust to another class at some point.
I'm assuming good faith debate against my own judgment, but in case anyone is confused, here's your sign:
1st Amendment:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
Read that carefully and note that the word "citizen" is nowhere to be found.
Next, some may argue that "the people" inherently represents only citizens. Jurisprudence has generally accepted that phrase to mean everyone, including illegal immigrants, but it depends on the surrounding context[1]. The idea that the Bill of Rights applies only to citizens, though, doesn't match any court interpretation of which I'm aware.
Executive orders cannot overrule the Constitution.
14th Amendment:
"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."
There are rumblings about "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" somehow excluding folks based on their immigration status, but frankly, the meaning is clear, and jurisprudence recognizes this. The jurisdiction carveout is for international diplomats, i.e. people who are literally not subject to US law. Immigrants, even illegal immigrants, are subject to US law. Stating otherwise would have vast repercussions.
> Executive orders cannot overrule the Constitution.
And I would hope this is a fairly universally held position, not so partisan. Today one side might cheer an executive order overriding the 14th amendment, but how will they feel if the next administration decides to pull the same stunt with the 2nd?
We don't want to go there. There are already some states experimenting with doing end-runs around the Constitution with their own civil laws, and for similar reasons I would expect rational people to want that effort to fail.
>> Executive orders cannot overrule the Constitution.
> I would hope this is a fairly universally held position, not so partisan.
I agree. I think the constitution limits both the executive and the legislative branches.
> how will they feel if the next administration decides to pull the same stunt with the 2nd?
The 2nd amendment has already been overridden by federal laws without a constutional amendment.
The 2nd used to mean that the states has a right to let their citizens arm themselves privately with military weapons. The federal government was forbidden by the 2nd to interfere with this.
I'm from Europe and fine with the very restrictive licensing we have here.
But it looks very shortsighted to wildly re-interpret the constitution far outside of the original meaning, instead of passing new amendments.
> The 2nd used to mean that the states has a right to let their citizens arm themselves privately with military weapons
In particular, at the time that it was written, it meant arm themselves with military weapons for the purposes of military action. That's what the contemporary use of the term "bear arms" was understood to mean. Try to find any mention of self-defense from back then. It wasn't what they were thinking about.
Or look at this earlier version: “A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, being the best security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, but no one religiously scrupulous of bearing arms, shall be compelled to render military service in person.”
That conscientious objector clause at the end certainly gives some context to the discussion.
The modern interpretation of the second amendment is very different.
> In particular, at the time that it was written, it meant arm themselves with military weapons for the purposes of military action. That's what the contemporary use of the term "bear arms" was understood to mean. Try to find any mention of self-defense from back then. It wasn't what they were thinking about.
That's what I meant too. I didn't bring up self-defense, did I?
The 2nd amendment protects the states' right to build up their own state militias by allowing their citizens to arm themselves with military weapons. It forbids the federal government from interfering with this.
> The modern interpretation of the second amendment is very different.
Yes. The federal "assault weapons ban" is completely incompatible with the 2nd amendment.
This was pushed through without a new amendment. Instead people used linguistic acrobatics to re-interpret the meaning of the 2nd amendment.
It would have been a lot easier today to shut down any attempts to re-interpret the 14th amendment if we hadn't started down this path with the 2nd.
Thanks for the detailed answer, I think that'll be a relief for many. However, would you say this still is a volatile situation for people who are facing this issue? Are the rulings _final_ on this? Or is there chance of people getting stuck in limbo?
> Thanks for the detailed answer, I think that'll be a relief for many. However, would you say this still is a volatile situation for people who are facing this issue? Are the rulings _final_ on this? Or is there chance of people getting stuck in limbo?
No, rulings are not final. SCOTUS could and very well may disagree with more than a hundred years of jurisprudence and overrule e.g. US v. Wong Kim Ark[1], enabling much easier denaturalization by the federal government. Here's an example article from a right-wing think tank about why they believe SCOTUS should overrule Ark[2].
That seems like a very good demonstration of the pitfalls of originalist interpretations of the Constitution. Even then, the argument comes off as extremely weak. And it doesn't even begin to try and address the consequences of reinterpreting the meaning of "and subject to the jurisdiction thereof".
Are conservatives envisioning a new class of slaves? People born on US soil who have none of the protections of the Constitution? Even if that is not the goal, it's not hard to imagine that there would be far-reaching consequences from deciding that the Constitution was not a limit on the behavior of government, but in fact only applied to citizens. What a massive bump in power for the bureaucrats in DC.
Heck, we could just snatch people off the street and declare they cannot prove they are a citizen therefore they have no Constitutional protections. No right to due process so they can prove they're a citizen, nothing like that. Better plan on carrying your passport at all times (and hope it doesn't get ... lost).
> Heck, we could just snatch people off the street and declare they cannot prove they are a citizen therefore they have no Constitutional protections.
I'm not sure if you intended this as a joke, but this is happening now, even if you do have proof of citizenship on you[1]:
> Congressman Bennie Thompson, ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee, reported that “ICE officials have told us that an apparent biometric match by Mobile Fortify is a “definitive” determination of a person’s status and that an ICE officer may ignore evidence of American citizenship—including a birth certificate” when the app says a person is undocumented.
Polarized light reflecting off a textured surface scrambles into nonpolarized light.
There are modest costs (signage & road markings shouldn't be perfectly smooth, retroreflectors work a little differently, and you lose a certain percent efficiency), but they're much less intense than the costs of the current situation.
To be fair, a handful of large companies have explicitly said[1][2] that their layoffs were largely about individual performance. All my experience as a manager in a large tech company says that that's almost certainly not the whole story, and unfair to many of the folks getting let go, but official word from the companies say otherwise.
> Receiving government assistance? Some kinds are taxable, some aren’t.
One would think that the government should know what government assistance you're getting. In any case, taxable benefits get reported to the IRS automatically on form 1099-G.
> Moved states? You have multiple state filings now.
Arguably irrelevant. You can change how filings work federally without changing how state filings work. Perfect is the enemy of good, etc.
> Got married? divorced? Splitting custody or property? Special tax forms to fill.
Sure. Sometimes you have life events that happen where you'll need to make adjustments. Such possible events can be mentioned in the letter / email you get from the IRS, with details as to how to adjust the filing. This is typically how it's been done in other countries with automatic filing.
> Native American? Veteran with disability? Senior? Student with loans? Bankruptcy? Freelance income? Etc.
Income typically gets reported to the IRS on a 1099 or a W-2.
Loan interest gets reported to the IRS on 1098-E, so the deduction could be automatically calculated.
Presumably the IRS would know if you previously filed a tax exemption and could assume that hasn't changed if it's based on things like having registered membership in a federally recognized tribe. Even if you haven't filed that exemption before, presumably the government would know that you registered the membership.
The government knows your birth date so presumably they'd be able to calculate when you become a senior, where that's relevant.
Bankruptcy is one of those special cases that I'd expect would be an exception case where you'd need to adjust the filing (and your trustee would probably help with that).
Most people don't have special cases that require changes. The IRS already has a shockingly large amount of data on people. I encourage you to try getting your tax transcript some time[1], it should be illuminating.
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