Broadband isn't that ubiquitous yet. As a consultant spending most of my time on the road around Europe, whenever I find myself within reach of an affordable broadband connection I jump at it. That's usually back at my hotel in the evening because when I'm at work I'm not allowed access to my customers' broadband systems because of security. If I were dependent on web services then I would only be able to work when I wasn't at work! (GPRS doesn't help not only because I don't consider it affordable but because I'm not allowed a mobile phone in many work locations).
It's not that Thatcher broke people's will - it's that people in the UK only get agitated when it directly hits the wallet - like poll tax and the more recent fuel protests. I'm certain road pricing would result in mass protests if it was ever enacted (look at what's happened while it's still just an idea) You mean the London Congestion Charge riots? Hmm, must have missed those.
Oh, stuff like that is happening, but it's hard to get people out of a "can't fight city hall" mentality. Heck, I'm keyed up to this stuff, and I struggle to see what can be done.
Why yes I am! I suppose you're going to say I haven't had a problem because I'm white? I'm going to suggest that at very least the historical experience of a culture is likely to influence their present expectations.
The real question is how much more of this crap will people accept before there is revolution. I felt that the UK was very close to revolution indeed when Thatcher introduced the poll tax. I don't get anything like that feeling in the streets and pubs at the moment. I think Thatcher succeeded in breaking the will to resist of most people in the UK, and it will take probably at least another generation before we get it back:-(
Seeing as most people can't be bothered to vote, I can't see there ever being a violent uprising.
Well, the last couple of elections, there was essentially a choice between Conservatives, or a party emulating the Conservatives. Why bother? Previous elections, the turnout wasn't too bad. As one person put it the previous time around, the election was a choice between being forced to eat s**t or s**t with razorblades.
I still can't tell which party was supposed to be which.
That'd be the government that has effectively banned protests everywhere unless advance permission is obtained. And it is unlikely to be granted if the powers that be disagree with the protest.
If you UKers really cared about it, you'd go into the streets and protest.
You have the power, you elected those people.
We do. Often. And some of us, myself included, donate to charities that mount legal challenges to this sort of thing. But trust me, I did not elect these people.
Sadly, I am old enough to have watched this erosion of liberties take place unabated through successive govenrments; it's not a matter of "this" government. Although I believe that some enter politics from good motives (and I could name names from all points of the political spectrum), people only rise to the top if they are power-ravenous, so I believe that leaders will always do all they can to increase their power and control. Don't think a change of government will improve anything. The fight against abuse of power continues unchanged through elections.
One question about this whole thing that has bothered me is that she wore diapers to obviate the need for bathroom breaks. Normal behaviour for an astronaut. In space it's a long way between bathrooms. "You may think it's a long walk to the cornerstore" etc.
There's long been a saying in aviation that on the flightdeck of the future there will be a man and a dog. The man is there to feed the dog. The dog is there to bite the man's hand if he tries to touch a control.
For the standard commercial flight I can see two main safety functions for the pilot. One is to implement ATC instructions, and the other is to sort things out when things go wrong.
If lots of planes were doing this then some way of remotely implementing ATC instructions would be needed to keep the aircraft apart, especially near airports: I don't think TCAS is up to that job yet. But if it were rare then ATC could maintain separations just by keeping other airraft out of the way. Presumably the panic button would automatically set the SSR to squawk the hijack code, so it would stand out like a sore thumb on ATC screens.
As for the pilot, well, I think being hijacked comes well within the category of something going wrong, and this gives one way of dealing with it. The pilot may well hope that nothing else goes wrong during the flight, but even if it does it isn't going to make things much worse. "Damn, you mean I'm almost certain to die and we've got to divert to New Jersey?"
Anyway, here in Canada, an EULA is non-binding (in theory, nobody has the money to test this in court) because you have to pay before being able to read the contract. Really? Here in the UK I can go to microsoft.com, search for "EULA" and read lots of EULAs for software that I haven't paid for. Don't tell me Canada has followed China in blocking politically undesirable web sites!
Since "Rising Tide" don't have a time machine all they could be would be to sue "Minerals Council" for damages. Well, I was thinking that they could get their parody back online. But I suppose that, given the time legal procedings can take, the parody would no longer be timely.
Thanks for the clarification. It looks as if I was still right on my second point that the NSWMC is banking on Rising Tide not having the will or resources to fight for their rights. And on the meat of my first point which is that parody may well be fair dealing in Australia. But it looks as if I was unduly harsh on their ISP. Sorry, ISP!
It may well be legal in Australia, too; this looks like an ISP that rolls over and dies whenever a complaint is lodged. Nowhere does it say that the Minerals Council demonstrated a copyright infringement, it just says that they complained and the host took the site down. It hasn't gone to court, and it looks to me as if the Minerals Council is just hoping that Rising Tide won't have the resources to mount an effective legal challenge. I understand that such things happen in the USA, too.
But the "superhuman agencies" is under "esp." (which I take to be short for "especially", not the oxymorinic "extra sensory perception"), so according to that definition it doesn't have to include "superhuman agencies" (or your "suparnatural beings", which doesn't appear in the definition). And the devotional and ritual stuff is only "usually", not "always". All that leaves you with as a definite is "a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe". Allowing that "The universe has no purpose" is indeed a belief about the purpose of the universe, I'd reckon that atheism fits nicely within that definition, particularly if it's based on positivism.
If you think I'm nitpicking and finding loopholes, well, so I am, but the loopholes are put there deliberately by the dictionary compilers to allow just this sort of nitpicking, and they do so because a generally accepted definition of religion is genuinely hard to pin down.
Of course, you are free to define it in a specific way for a particular purpose. But if you try to back-apply it to something that somebody else has written or said then you leave a gaping hole in your argument.
I do not understand the distinction. In the USA, the courts are one of our three branches of government. Ok, that's just a question of terminology then.
I am unsure by your wording, are you saying that "public domain" has essentially been repealed, or are you saying that some specific songs have been removed from public domain? It's not that anything has been removed from the public domain. It's that the collection agency that deals with live performances doesn't respect public domain. I could publish the words and music of the songs, I could record them, but if I perform them in public the PRS will sting the venue for fees because they assume that there will always be something copyright about the performance even if it's my personal styling of the song (so I could claim the fees back, less handling charges -- if I paid the substantial membership fees). That doesn't hit particular songs, but it does hit particular genres and types of venue.
So, "There is mounting evidence that the cellular service companies are going to do whatever they can to kill Wi-Fi." What evidence, where? No mention of any such evidence in the article, just some business analysis.
If belief is "hardwired" then is it at all possible to not believe? I would think if you a on a genetic level "designed" to believe than it would be impossible not to. Which is absurd in the extreme. Plenty of individuals and modern cultures don't believe, bye bye genetic belief notion.
Doesn't work. An instinct can be hard-wired but the instinct can be suppressed. In Freudian terms, the Ego and Superego can override the Id. To put it another way, the instinct to f*** anything that moves is pretty much hardwired into male adolescents, but the fear of angry relatives with sharp knives and of rape prosecutions, along with enlightened consideration for the other person means that most of them are able to keep a lid on it for most of the time.
What I find interesting is the use of the term "hard-wired", which presupposes somebody doing the wiring. An Intelligent Designer, presumably?
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Broadband isn't that ubiquitous yet. As a consultant spending most of my time on the road around Europe, whenever I find myself within reach of an affordable broadband connection I jump at it. That's usually back at my hotel in the evening because when I'm at work I'm not allowed access to my customers' broadband systems because of security. If I were dependent on web services then I would only be able to work when I wasn't at work! (GPRS doesn't help not only because I don't consider it affordable but because I'm not allowed a mobile phone in many work locations).
Oh, stuff like that is happening, but it's hard to get people out of a "can't fight city hall" mentality. Heck, I'm keyed up to this stuff, and I struggle to see what can be done.
Well, the last couple of elections, there was essentially a choice between Conservatives, or a party emulating the Conservatives. Why bother? Previous elections, the turnout wasn't too bad. As one person put it the previous time around, the election was a choice between being forced to eat s**t or s**t with razorblades. I still can't tell which party was supposed to be which.
That'd be the government that has effectively banned protests everywhere unless advance permission is obtained. And it is unlikely to be granted if the powers that be disagree with the protest.
Somebody mod parent up. Oh, wait, it's already at max. Er, /., is there any way to increase the max?
The car surveillance is independent of the passport threat. We get that even if we opt out of the passport.
If you UKers really cared about it, you'd go into the streets and protest.
You have the power, you elected those people.
We do. Often. And some of us, myself included, donate to charities that mount legal challenges to this sort of thing. But trust me, I did not elect these people.Sadly, I am old enough to have watched this erosion of liberties take place unabated through successive govenrments; it's not a matter of "this" government. Although I believe that some enter politics from good motives (and I could name names from all points of the political spectrum), people only rise to the top if they are power-ravenous, so I believe that leaders will always do all they can to increase their power and control. Don't think a change of government will improve anything. The fight against abuse of power continues unchanged through elections.
There's long been a saying in aviation that on the flightdeck of the future there will be a man and a dog. The man is there to feed the dog. The dog is there to bite the man's hand if he tries to touch a control.
For the standard commercial flight I can see two main safety functions for the pilot. One is to implement ATC instructions, and the other is to sort things out when things go wrong.
If lots of planes were doing this then some way of remotely implementing ATC instructions would be needed to keep the aircraft apart, especially near airports: I don't think TCAS is up to that job yet. But if it were rare then ATC could maintain separations just by keeping other airraft out of the way. Presumably the panic button would automatically set the SSR to squawk the hijack code, so it would stand out like a sore thumb on ATC screens.
As for the pilot, well, I think being hijacked comes well within the category of something going wrong, and this gives one way of dealing with it. The pilot may well hope that nothing else goes wrong during the flight, but even if it does it isn't going to make things much worse. "Damn, you mean I'm almost certain to die and we've got to divert to New Jersey?"
Yes, if you follow the thread you'll find that I've already acknowledged that you had no choice and aplogised for being unduly hard on you!
Thanks for the clarification. It looks as if I was still right on my second point that the NSWMC is banking on Rising Tide not having the will or resources to fight for their rights. And on the meat of my first point which is that parody may well be fair dealing in Australia. But it looks as if I was unduly harsh on their ISP. Sorry, ISP!
It may well be legal in Australia, too; this looks like an ISP that rolls over and dies whenever a complaint is lodged. Nowhere does it say that the Minerals Council demonstrated a copyright infringement, it just says that they complained and the host took the site down. It hasn't gone to court, and it looks to me as if the Minerals Council is just hoping that Rising Tide won't have the resources to mount an effective legal challenge. I understand that such things happen in the USA, too.
But the "superhuman agencies" is under "esp." (which I take to be short for "especially", not the oxymorinic "extra sensory perception"), so according to that definition it doesn't have to include "superhuman agencies" (or your "suparnatural beings", which doesn't appear in the definition). And the devotional and ritual stuff is only "usually", not "always". All that leaves you with as a definite is "a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe". Allowing that "The universe has no purpose" is indeed a belief about the purpose of the universe, I'd reckon that atheism fits nicely within that definition, particularly if it's based on positivism.
If you think I'm nitpicking and finding loopholes, well, so I am, but the loopholes are put there deliberately by the dictionary compilers to allow just this sort of nitpicking, and they do so because a generally accepted definition of religion is genuinely hard to pin down.
Of course, you are free to define it in a specific way for a particular purpose. But if you try to back-apply it to something that somebody else has written or said then you leave a gaping hole in your argument.
So, "There is mounting evidence that the cellular service companies are going to do whatever they can to kill Wi-Fi." What evidence, where? No mention of any such evidence in the article, just some business analysis.
Doesn't work. An instinct can be hard-wired but the instinct can be suppressed. In Freudian terms, the Ego and Superego can override the Id. To put it another way, the instinct to f*** anything that moves is pretty much hardwired into male adolescents, but the fear of angry relatives with sharp knives and of rape prosecutions, along with enlightened consideration for the other person means that most of them are able to keep a lid on it for most of the time.
What I find interesting is the use of the term "hard-wired", which presupposes somebody doing the wiring. An Intelligent Designer, presumably?