If getting me angry is a victory for the terrorists, then they must also consider firing a paintball gun at a warship to be a victory.
Most people in the UK aren't angry, they just don't care about it at all. And my voice, my opinion, my vote, means nothing and changes nothing. I don't think the terrorists are winning, but I do see their actions helping the govenment get the ubiquitous surveillance it wants.
No, the government has won - it just so happens they have the same aims as the terrorists so they've co-opted them as a useful smokescreen.
They're saying they have introduced this measure as a response to the Christmas underpants bomber, the truth is they were waiting for anything, any kind of attack no matter how small as an excuse to introduce these scanners. They already trialled them, they were always going to be introduced, Brown was just waiting for an excuse.
It's a similar tactic to having a public consultation to give the appearance of fairness, when they have already decided what they're going to do anyway. Yes I'm angry.
People discuss the controversial news on sites with other people who agree with them.
Well to combine both your post and the GPs, people discuss these things on sites not necessarily where there are other people who agree with them, but where there are other people who understand the argument in the same way, even if they don't agree with you. There's no point discussing VI vs Emacs on a non-tech site, but on a tech site, even if most of the people there have an opposing viewpoint to you, their understanding of your viewpoint will allow there to be a dicussion.
It got to the point a while ago that I realised any time the authorities want to send you down, you're going down - it doesn't matter what the actual laws are. The new laws they're passing are largely irrelevant - the legal sytem is already so convoluted and incomprehesible that the average man has no idea at any time what laws he may be breaking, and any new law that enters the books only strengthens the hand of the authorities and weakens the hand of the public. Stories like this, depressingly, have ceased to be surprising.
Re:Geek funeral?
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A Geek Funeral
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· Score: 1, Offtopic
Though it does say "we'd elect", and he was elected in 2008. You could be right, unfortunately.
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A Geek Funeral
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Obama became President in January 2009, though - in 2008 the pres was still Bush.
Re:Geek funeral?
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A Geek Funeral
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· Score: 2, Insightful
I could be wrong, but it seems obvious that he meant George "monkey boy" Bush, not Obama, and was referencing stupidity with the "lower primate" comment, not race.
That raises an interesting point, though - as soon as a police officer plugs a USB stick in to a suspect's computer, the computer surely stops being an untouched "forensic scene", and so anything on it becomes inadmissable in court? We've had speed detectors being chalenged in court, how long after these are used in the wild before they are challenged, too? The "USB stick" would have to be a read-only, use once item so that it could be used for one crime scene only to find probable cause, then bagged and stored to be presented as evidence later - if it was a standard USB stick then ANYTHING could have been on it when the police officer stuck it in to your computer.
What vote? When do the voting public get a chance to vote for legalisation?
And why should drugs be the answer to society's problems anyway? Society is never going to solve all of it's problems - ever. As long as there are more than two people in the world there will be someone who thinks someone else is doing something wrong.
The truth is that we already are a nation of illegal drug-takers - millions of people take them every day. Drugs are essential to society and it would grind to a halt without them. It's time we accepted that and stopped criminalising people for it.
Is there a Bad Analogy Guy fan club? Or t-shirt, hat, walking stick, mouse pad, frisbee, wallpaper or carpet? Bad Analogy of the Day desk calendar? iPhone App? Your ideas intrigue me, I would like to subscribe to your newsletter. Or RSS feed, whichever.
True, but dreaming the most amazing thing without all the less impressive incremental steps is to miss the big picture altogether. If you think of all the little steps as well you have more chance of seeing the path to making it become reality.
Or a buzzing or pipping played through headphones? That's about the smallest and lowest power I can think of, but much more distracting than the necklace/belt/armband and less accurate as it's only two points of reference. Could have different pitch for facing North or South, though.
Or LEDs on the inside of spectacle frames? Green when facing North, red for South.
True, it's an order of magnitude more complicated than building the belt. The iPhone has GPS and an accelerometer now, and is apparently getting a magnetometer in the next revision.
But you're right, there is a problem with the orientation of the armband being different to that of the iPhone. It would have to be a belt with a pocket in it for the iPhone which would make the whole thing just as big (and far more complex) than the one you built. Unless you put more electronics in the armband itself, by which point there'd be so much duplication between the two that the iPhone would be redundant.
No, wouldn't know where to start looking. The closest I've used are electromagnetic relays (out of washing machines).
Maybe small locking sprung relays? Power pulls it inwards to touch your skin, it locks, when the direction changes the lock is released and the spring pulls it back and another relay is triggered. Power (for the relay) is only needed when you change direction. I've never seen relays that small, though. Ideally you'd want a watch strap with rubber dimples on the inside that raise and lower.
Thinking about it - I bet with piezos on a wristband you would be able to use it with them only being triggered when the direction changes and not constantly buzzing. To trigger it and sense north you just twist your wrist. Worth a shot to see if it would work.
The idea of using a belt just doesn't sit right with me - unless it's actually touching your skin it seems awfully wasteful of power. I'd go smaller.
I wouldn't want a belt, but a piezoelectric armband might be less conspicuous and use less power. I can see these being built in to watch straps, too - your arm does change orientation much more often than your torso, which is presumably why they went with a belt, but combined with an accelerometer it wouldn't matter whether your arm was pointing up or down as the device could compensate.
You think they're storing up evidence against me for two years, and that they're going to take me to court some day for using a service they provide? If there is illegal content there, it is Virgin who are making it available - they'd have to take themselves to court as well.
(In Virgin's case they don't own the server, they contract it out to a third party who provides the feed. I doubt it makes any difference to how easily they can inspect the logs, though.)
Slashdot Mirror
No, you're still a nut :-)
If getting me angry is a victory for the terrorists, then they must also consider firing a paintball gun at a warship to be a victory.
Most people in the UK aren't angry, they just don't care about it at all. And my voice, my opinion, my vote, means nothing and changes nothing. I don't think the terrorists are winning, but I do see their actions helping the govenment get the ubiquitous surveillance it wants.
No, the government has won - it just so happens they have the same aims as the terrorists so they've co-opted them as a useful smokescreen.
They're saying they have introduced this measure as a response to the Christmas underpants bomber, the truth is they were waiting for anything, any kind of attack no matter how small as an excuse to introduce these scanners. They already trialled them, they were always going to be introduced, Brown was just waiting for an excuse.
It's a similar tactic to having a public consultation to give the appearance of fairness, when they have already decided what they're going to do anyway. Yes I'm angry.
Well to combine both your post and the GPs, people discuss these things on sites not necessarily where there are other people who agree with them, but where there are other people who understand the argument in the same way, even if they don't agree with you. There's no point discussing VI vs Emacs on a non-tech site, but on a tech site, even if most of the people there have an opposing viewpoint to you, their understanding of your viewpoint will allow there to be a dicussion.
It is for him.
It got to the point a while ago that I realised any time the authorities want to send you down, you're going down - it doesn't matter what the actual laws are. The new laws they're passing are largely irrelevant - the legal sytem is already so convoluted and incomprehesible that the average man has no idea at any time what laws he may be breaking, and any new law that enters the books only strengthens the hand of the authorities and weakens the hand of the public. Stories like this, depressingly, have ceased to be surprising.
Or rise.
Though it does say "we'd elect", and he was elected in 2008. You could be right, unfortunately.
Obama became President in January 2009, though - in 2008 the pres was still Bush.
I could be wrong, but it seems obvious that he meant George "monkey boy" Bush, not Obama, and was referencing stupidity with the "lower primate" comment, not race.
That raises an interesting point, though - as soon as a police officer plugs a USB stick in to a suspect's computer, the computer surely stops being an untouched "forensic scene", and so anything on it becomes inadmissable in court? We've had speed detectors being chalenged in court, how long after these are used in the wild before they are challenged, too? The "USB stick" would have to be a read-only, use once item so that it could be used for one crime scene only to find probable cause, then bagged and stored to be presented as evidence later - if it was a standard USB stick then ANYTHING could have been on it when the police officer stuck it in to your computer.
What vote? When do the voting public get a chance to vote for legalisation?
And why should drugs be the answer to society's problems anyway? Society is never going to solve all of it's problems - ever. As long as there are more than two people in the world there will be someone who thinks someone else is doing something wrong.
The truth is that we already are a nation of illegal drug-takers - millions of people take them every day. Drugs are essential to society and it would grind to a halt without them. It's time we accepted that and stopped criminalising people for it.
There's a Slashdot like that, too. But we're not supposed to talk about it. ((you're on it now))
Is there a Bad Analogy Guy fan club? Or t-shirt, hat, walking stick, mouse pad, frisbee, wallpaper or carpet? Bad Analogy of the Day desk calendar? iPhone App? Your ideas intrigue me, I would like to subscribe to your newsletter. Or RSS feed, whichever.
There's a mistake there - Louis Armstrong was the jazz trumpeter and singer, it was his son, Neil Armstrong, who went to the moon.
I checked on the internet, it's true.
True, but dreaming the most amazing thing without all the less impressive incremental steps is to miss the big picture altogether. If you think of all the little steps as well you have more chance of seeing the path to making it become reality.
Or a buzzing or pipping played through headphones? That's about the smallest and lowest power I can think of, but much more distracting than the necklace/belt/armband and less accurate as it's only two points of reference. Could have different pitch for facing North or South, though.
Or LEDs on the inside of spectacle frames? Green when facing North, red for South.
True, it's an order of magnitude more complicated than building the belt. The iPhone has GPS and an accelerometer now, and is apparently getting a magnetometer in the next revision.
But you're right, there is a problem with the orientation of the armband being different to that of the iPhone. It would have to be a belt with a pocket in it for the iPhone which would make the whole thing just as big (and far more complex) than the one you built. Unless you put more electronics in the armband itself, by which point there'd be so much duplication between the two that the iPhone would be redundant.
I am not a millionaire.
Or an iPhone app plus an armband connected by a wire or bluetooth. There's a million dollar idea for you.
No, wouldn't know where to start looking. The closest I've used are electromagnetic relays (out of washing machines).
Maybe small locking sprung relays? Power pulls it inwards to touch your skin, it locks, when the direction changes the lock is released and the spring pulls it back and another relay is triggered. Power (for the relay) is only needed when you change direction. I've never seen relays that small, though. Ideally you'd want a watch strap with rubber dimples on the inside that raise and lower.
Thinking about it - I bet with piezos on a wristband you would be able to use it with them only being triggered when the direction changes and not constantly buzzing. To trigger it and sense north you just twist your wrist. Worth a shot to see if it would work.
The idea of using a belt just doesn't sit right with me - unless it's actually touching your skin it seems awfully wasteful of power. I'd go smaller.
I wouldn't want a belt, but a piezoelectric armband might be less conspicuous and use less power. I can see these being built in to watch straps, too - your arm does change orientation much more often than your torso, which is presumably why they went with a belt, but combined with an accelerometer it wouldn't matter whether your arm was pointing up or down as the device could compensate.
There's no "just" about it - that's the problem right there.
Yeah, I swear if there was a quiz called "Are you the type of person who takes quizzes? Find out!!!", six people in my office would take it.
And be genuinely surprised by the answer.
They need to stop now not because it doesn't work, but because eventually it will get to the point where it does work.
You think they're storing up evidence against me for two years, and that they're going to take me to court some day for using a service they provide? If there is illegal content there, it is Virgin who are making it available - they'd have to take themselves to court as well.
(In Virgin's case they don't own the server, they contract it out to a third party who provides the feed. I doubt it makes any difference to how easily they can inspect the logs, though.)