If these "insurgents" were totally crazy suicidal, they would avoid civilian areas and dress in a clearly identifiable uniform.
There, fixed that for you.
Seriously, the French resistance did not avoid civilian areas or wear uniforms. Neither did the Belgians, or the Greeks, or any resistance force, ever.
But the guys who do have weapons, and do have RPGs, caused that mistake; and they did it on purpose. They have the greater blame.
That is the same logic that the Nazis used in occupied Europe to justify violence against the civilian population following attacks on German forces. Don't gun proponents always say that ultimate responsibility lies with the man holding the gun, and with nobody else? Why in this case are the men firing the weapons not held responsible for their actions?
This abdication of military responsibility and projection onto a third party is reminiscent of Bloody Sunday, where British forces opened fire on civil rights protesters and then blamed the IRA. It is the same excuse that the Serbian forces used whenever they killed civilians - that the KLA were ultimately to blame. The fact that a third party may somehow benefit from soldiers killing civilians does not make it okay to do so. Blaming the third party is a poor excuse - it is the fault of the soldier pulling the trigger, and of his superiors for providing inadequate rules of engagement. Soldiers operating in civilian areas have a duty different from those operating in a war zone - a role more akin to a police force than an invading army, and the rules of engagement need to make that clear.
This was not an active war. This was an occupying military force. The roles and rules of engagement are supposed to be different. Opening fire on civilians without verifying that they are even armed is not supposed to be allowed. Most Americans would go crazy if U.S. police officers or National Guard troops opened fire on some innocent people walking down the street. There was no warning. There was no provocation. This wasn't even some protest. If this happened in the U.S. there would be a hundred posts here decrying government force and suggesting violent revolution. Why do you makes excuses for excessive government and military force being used to kill civilians in Iraq, when you would not excuse it in your own country?
Targeting civilians because they just might be able to be in the military at some point
Reservists are not just people "who might be in the military at some point" - reservists are part of the military: "A reservist is a person who is a member of a military reserve force. They are otherwise civilians, and in peacetime have careers outside the military." The U.S. National Guard is a reserve force.
Obviously reservists are not usually on active duty, and would probably be considered civilians by many people when they are inactive, but nevertheless they are still a trained and functional part of the military system of many nations. Whether off-duty soldiers are legitimate targets depends highly on the point of view of the individual - it is a topic of debate in the West and elsewhere e.g. Tafsil A: Off-duty soldiers are treated as civilians: "Our jurists agree that during a valid war when there is no ceasefire, and when an attack is not aimed at a valid military target, a hostile soldier (whether male or female, whether conscripted or not) who is not on operational duty or not wearing a military uniform and when there is nothing in the soldier’s outward appearance to suggest that the soldier is in combat, then the soldier is considered a non-combatant [man lâ yuqâtilu] (and in this case must therefore be treated as a normal civilian)."
When it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian issue, both sides want to push the boundary of "who is a civilian".
So since smoking correlates to low IQ and low IQ correlates to low income, it may be true that smoking correlates to low income as the author states in TFS.
Yes, smoking does correlate with low-income, but TFS states that this factor has been eliminated for this study: 'Because our study included subjects with diverse socio-economic backgrounds, we've been able to rule out socio-economics as a major factor.'
Several years of military service in the IDF is mandatory for young Israelis. After that they are considered lifetime reservists, can be called up for a months service every year, and for an unlimited duration when national security is threatened. This is one of the reasons some Palestinian groups give for targeting Israeli civilians - since every Israeli civilian is also a military reservist, these groups state that there is no such thing as an Israeli civilian in the traditional sense.
It is easy to legally purchase and carry a weapon in both Isreal and Switzerland
No it isn't.
In Switzerland it is practically impossible to carry unless it is for an occupation (e.g. security guard). Most of the guns that people cite as being in "gun-loving" Switzerland are government issued, and kept in pre-sealed boxes in people's homes, with sealed ammunition. If you ever open the box when the country is not as war you will be committing a crime and will be prosecuted - even if you open the box in order to defend your home. There are a lot of guns, but you are not legally allowed to use them. Switzerland is not the gun heaven you believe it is.
In Israel I am not sure of the law, but I am sure that they don't allow Israeli-Arabs (>20% of the population) to walk around with guns...and since they could not do this without having a blatantly racist legal system, I suspect that ownership and carrying with be heavily regulated.
Because in the UK, the home of the highest number of cameras per capita, the technology has not helped one bit. Crime is not down, and the cameras are used instead to look into peoples' windows
Right, so according to you - CCTV has not helped any police activity in the UK, ever, and the cameras are used exclusively to look into the homes of individuals? Therefore a single instance of CCTV either helping an investigation, or not being used to look into a residential window, will disprove your statement. CCTV: Does it work?:
Cameras set up in a Bootle shopping centre in 1993 caught three-year-old James Bulger being led away by the two 10-year-olds who murdered him.
"It showed the police they were looking for two kids rather than a paedophile," said Professor Laycock.
Detectives hunting a nail bomber who was responsible for three murders during 13 days in London in April 1999, credited CCTV cameras with the major breakthrough in the case.
Gun control laws do nothing to stop criminals from carrying guns
Then why do the majority of British criminals not carry guns? The gun laws are strict, and the population mostly unarmed - according to you this should be a recipe for a bloodbath of innocent victims, no? And yet your average British criminal does not own or carry a gun, and homicide rates in the UK are lower than the USA .
From the second paragraph: "Before the mid-1800s, American and British citizens - even in large cities - were expected to protect themselves and each other. Indeed, they were legally required to pursue and attempt to apprehend criminals. The notion of a police force in those days was abhorrent in England and America, where liberals viewed it as a form of the dreaded "standing army... England's first police force, in London, was not instituted until 1827."
This is not true. Starting ones thesis with "facts" that are provably not true does not imbue confidence in ones analytical abilities.
Chrome is only doing well because you get nagged on the google search page if you aren't using it.
If Chrome were a bad product, then people would try it once and then forget about it. The fact that people keep using it means that Chrome is doing something right.
"IE is only doing well because it's preinstalled on Windows" "Safari is only doing well because it's preinstalled on OS X and the iPhone" "Chrome is only doing well because people have to manually install it, then find that they like it and continue to use it in preference to their preinstalled browser (and because it's preinstalled on Android)"
See the difference? Seriously, if Windows or OS X shipped with Opera as default, and users had to manually download and install IE and Safari, what do you think their market share would be?
Linux is too fragmented to take over and actually set the standard rather than chasing it.
Linux is the standard. Unix servers and desktops have mostly disappeared for new deployments. Is it a coincidence that IBM and Sun, two of the biggest Unix vendors, have both seen Linux sales increase whilst new AIX and Solaris deployments fell? That Linux has become the standard for high performance computing clusters? That Linux is the standard for 3D rendering in movies (DreamWorks etc.)? That Linux is the standard for web servers? That Linux is the standard for embedded systems?
Let me give you a hint: The OSS world doesn't really know what a release is
Let me give you a hint: most of the software world doesn't really know what a release is. If you think that having a closed source product magically imbues a company with quality control processes, then you are wrong.
That depends on what your definition of "success" is. Successfully filtering the net completely - so that no single person is ever able to access some forbidden information even once - may well be impossible. However, filtering the net enough to be effective in manipulating the views of an entire population is entirely possible. I have met Chinese students who have been raised behind the "Great Firewall" and who had never heard of the Tiananmen Square protests until they relocated to the West. People who were convinced that the Chinese model of government was the best because (quote) "you vote and sometimes pick the wrong people. We select so we always get the best people." People who did not know that China had invaded Tibet (quote) "of course Tibet is part of China! (laughs) Tibet has always been part of China!"
These were intelligent, well-read students - why had they never heard of Tianamen Square? I imagine that making it illegal to publish information about the event, and imposing a firewall between the population and countries where it is legal to talk about the event, had a huge part to play in this. Censorship isn't an all or nothing thing - here in the West we censor certain types of pornography, and yet people who really want to find that content still find a way. Does that mean that this censorship is pointless? Not at all - because the behaviour of a population is not a binary event. Instead, consider what proportion of the population would view some content were it legal and unrestricted, versus what proportion would if it were illegal and banned completely. Clearly, if a law is actually enforced, then the legal consequences of accessing that content are going to dissuade at least a few people - possibly more than a few. And we know that this is the reality, because some well educated Chinese people have not heard of Tianamen Square, and the ones that have often don't believe it happened. Propaganda doesn't have to convince everybody in order to be deemed successful - just enough people.
The leaked "Digital Agenda" doesn't appear to be so bad.. it mainly aims to promote cross-border interoperable electronic ID, health systems, and open standards in general. This will make it easier for European citizens to trade and physically relocate across borders (the existing systems are different in every country, and moving between countries is a PITA). The reason this kind of stuff is important is that the aims and details will be hammered out at a European level, then implemented as policy by the various counties of Europe. Once a few of the more powerful countries (Germany, France, UK) establish a common framework for digital ID or whatever, it will be required to interact with government online services in those countries, a software ecosystem will develop around these protocols, and the other countries will follow within a few years. The EU will provide funding for development of software platforms that implement these open standards. The potential risk here is that Microsoft and other companies will twist the definition of "open" to include proprietary patented protocols (which are "open" because you are free to license them at some cost), and then they can lobby countries and companies taking part in public sector procurements to choose closed standard solutions, which would obviously be a bad thing for cross-border interoperability. The relevant parts of the document are:
The Digital Agenda outlines a set of crucial policy actions, including legal measures and programmes that must be launched or upgraded to get the Union on track. The actions are clustered in six areas: (1)Very fast internet access; (2)A digital single market; (3)A sustainable digital society; (4)Trust and security; (5)Research and innovation; (6)Open standards and interoperability.
Use CIP support seamless cross-border public services, based on open and internationally recognised standards, and a European eID management infrastructure;
An "EU eHealth Passport" could give citizens secure online access to their personal health data. On such a platform, improved medical services can be developed raising efficiency and patient empowerment. The Commission will work with the competent authorities to equip 15% of Europeans with such passports by 2015. The eHealth Lead Market Initiative1 will promote standardisation and interoperability testing and certification.
Electronic identity (eID) technologies and services are key to trust in electronic transactions and in e-payment systems, including mobile payments. A European framework for eID and authentication, and internationally agreed standards and practices can help the cross-border recognition of eID and increase citizens' trust and confidence. A European eID and authentication framework by [.] is the headline target for this action area.
Promoting more open standards The headline target for this action area is to reform the EU standardisation regime by 2015 to reflect the rise and growing importance of ICT standards developed by various fora and consortia, in particular as regards the internet. Another challenge is to ensure that public authorities – including the EU institutions – can make the best use of the full range of existing open standards when procuring hardware, software and IT services, for example to adhere to technology neutrality and to avoid technological lock-in to legacy ICT. Transparent disclosure rules for intellectual property rights (IPR) and licensing conditions in the context of standard-setting can contribute to lower royalty demands for the use of standards and thus to lower market entry costs for SMEs. This can be achieved without a negative impact on the owners of IPRs. Therefore rules for ex-ante disclosure of essential IPR and licensing terms and conditions will be promoted. Key actions Reform the governance system for ICT standards in Europe to recognise ICT fora and consortia standards; Issue a Recommendation to streamline the use of open standards in p
I've heard Bridgman say they use 2-3% of the effort on Linux despite accounting for 1% of the sales
Maybe that is true, but the smart investor looks at future growth and not just current sales - with Linux being shipped on a considerable number of cellphones coming out in the next year, and settop boxes, and even digital radios, there is a huge potential for growth. At the moment it seems Intel graphics chipsets will be powering many of these predominantly ARM based systems. Other manufacturers would be wise to compete.
The problem is, that means you have absolutely no privacy, and absolutely no security.
This is the same as every non-SSL web site - your ISP can intercept everything. Most people are quite happy to browse regular sites like Facebook or the New York Times over non-encrypted sessions. They may think twice before doing online banking in Opera Mini (or for that matter, a closed source device at all...), but for regular daily use, the vast majority of people won't be bothered.
It doesn't matter which way you enter the address into your browser, it still resolves to the same IP. If that IP is blocked, you won't get through even if you use this method.
Some of the major internet filters only block by domain name matching. You can bypass them by just using the IP address (of course, this fails when the site html contains URLs that specify the domain name.
Hello, Big Brother, can you please keep track of everything I ever buy and everywhere I ever go for me?
How is this different to debit and credit cards? And travel cards like the Oyster card?
I was always surprised that the UK ID card was less capable than the Estonian ID card. Who had the brilliant idea to introduce a National ID card that can't authenticate over the internet? Seriously, it would actually be quite useful to have one standardised, secure card that could be used to authenticate with banks etc. The security arrangements at the moment are woefully inadequate, and a physical token will add another layer of security.
Most people in the UK are happy to be profiled in exchange for financial benefits. When the Tesco Clubcard was introduced it was so popular that people stopped shopping at other supermarkets like Sainsburys, which then had to introduce their own "loyalty card" schemes. Tesco announced last year that there are now 16 million active clubcards in the UK. As a comparison point there are around 25 million households in the UK , so a significant number of British households are having their shopping profiled in detail already.
This is a well known point and one which forensic scientists are well aware of. The point is not that DNA is the whole evidence, but forms part of the evidence. Juries are supposed to take other evidence into account too:
"It seems logical therefore that DNA evidence alone cannot be a proof – some additional information is necessary. However, the amount of additional information that is necessary might be a very small amount. For example, add to the DNA matching evidence (of 7000 to one) the mere knowledge that the suspect was arrested before his DNA type was known, and you have something like a proof." link
"In the early days of the use of genetic fingerprinting as criminal evidence, juries were often swayed by spurious statistical arguments by defense lawyers along these lines: given a match that had a 1 in 5 million probability of occurring by chance, the lawyer would argue that this meant that in a country of say 60 million people there were 12 people who would also match the profile. This was then translated to a 1 in 12 chance of the suspect being the guilty one. This argument is not sound unless the suspect was drawn at random from the population of the country. In fact, a jury should consider how likely it is that an individual matching the genetic profile would also have been a suspect in the case for other reasons" wiki
The less data you have from the DNA, the more matches you are going to find.... Now that's usually pretty good, like 1 in a million or something. However not so useful if your sample size is 300,000,000 and growing.
Even reducing the whole genotype to 10 regions provides enough data to differentiate between most individuals:
wiki:"for unrelated individuals with full matching DNA profiles a match probability of 1 in a billion is considered statistically supportable (Since 1998 the DNA profiling system supported by The National DNA Database in the UK is the SGM+ DNA profiling system which includes 10 STR regions and a sex indicating test."
Also there's the fact that DNA tests aren't cheap, or particularly quick. They aren't the kind of thing you can use for every criminal case, it'd be way too expensive, not to mention unnecessary.
As somebody already mentioned, everybody in the U.K. is DNA fingerprinted when taken into custody (not even necessarily charged). The cost of sampling the whole nation has been estimated at £700 million. For comparison the Iraq war has cost Britain around £8 billion. So £700 million is easily doable if there is the political will.
Yes, ACTA is aimed towards giving IP laws more power, globally. But how much do you think countries with real problems care about protecting IP laws from countries they don't care about?
From the position of the MPAA and RIAA there are several different positions that they care about or don't. Russians and Chinese copying music and movies isn't a big problem - those countries have always had large scale piracy operations and undeveloped IP markets, and the potential profit margins are thin or non-existant. If this were to change, then there would be an opportunity to develop new markets, which the RIAA/MPAA would be interested in. But at the moment the markets are lost. The real global battlefield is in the European Union - a larger market economy than the USA, where the average price for a DVD or CD is much higher than the US, and with a voracious appetite for American produced content. If groups like the Pirate Party begin to make serious headway in scaling back European copyright, then the RIAA/MPAA is going to lose control over one of its most profitable markets. The other market they really care about is (obviously) the USA. It is not such a large battlefield since U.S. laws are already more MPAA/RIAA friendly. By agreeing to a global copyright enforcement treaty, that is supported by American corporations, they will be able to easily pass legislation with broad cross-party support, and with little room for debate because the details have "already been agreed and signed" before being considered at the level of national law.
Because its consumers have to hand money to the IP owners abroad, with nothing to little coming back in return.
Have you got any idea how much money is spent by European consumers and businesses on U.S. software, movies, books, films etc?
The pensioners now are using the current working populations contributions.
This was always the case with state pensions.
So what will be left when today's workers reach retirement age ?
The retirement age will be increased to compensate. It looks like an age of 70 for both men and women will become the norm within the next 30-40 years.
"The traditional stereotype of the Indian pavement-dweller is a destitute peasant, newly arrived from the countryside, who survives by parasitic begging, but as research in Mumbai has revealed, almost all (97 percent) have at least one breadwinner, and 70 percent have been in the city at least six years..." Slum dwellers are often busy with low paying service jobs in nearby high rent districts; they have money but live in a squatter city because it's close to their work. Because they are industrious, they progress fast. One UN report found that households in the older slums of Bangkok have on average 1.6 televisions, 1.5 cell phones, a refrigerator; two-thirds have a washing machine and CD player, and half have a fixed line phone, video player and a motor scooter. In the favelas of Rio, the first generation of squatters had a literacy rate of only 5%, but their kids were 97% literate."
"The 4bn people at the base of the economic pyramid—all those with [annual] incomes below $3,000 in local purchasing power—live in relative poverty. Their incomes are less than $3.35 a day in Brazil, $2.11 in China, $1.89 in Ghana, and $1.56 in India. Yet they have substantial purchasing power... [and] constitute a $5 trillion global consumer market."
Is digging though human waste and burning plastic off electrical cables for a few cents of copper a 'dymanic and growing economy'? I don't think so.
60% of the residents of Mumbai live in slums. Are all of those 60% "digging though human waste and burning plastic off electrical cables for a few cents of copper"? No. Some of them are, but there are many who have real, wage earning jobs.
Slashdot Mirror
If these "insurgents" were totally crazy suicidal, they would avoid civilian areas and dress in a clearly identifiable uniform.
There, fixed that for you.
Seriously, the French resistance did not avoid civilian areas or wear uniforms. Neither did the Belgians, or the Greeks, or any resistance force, ever.
But the guys who do have weapons, and do have RPGs, caused that mistake; and they did it on purpose. They have the greater blame.
That is the same logic that the Nazis used in occupied Europe to justify violence against the civilian population following attacks on German forces. Don't gun proponents always say that ultimate responsibility lies with the man holding the gun, and with nobody else? Why in this case are the men firing the weapons not held responsible for their actions?
This abdication of military responsibility and projection onto a third party is reminiscent of Bloody Sunday, where British forces opened fire on civil rights protesters and then blamed the IRA. It is the same excuse that the Serbian forces used whenever they killed civilians - that the KLA were ultimately to blame. The fact that a third party may somehow benefit from soldiers killing civilians does not make it okay to do so. Blaming the third party is a poor excuse - it is the fault of the soldier pulling the trigger, and of his superiors for providing inadequate rules of engagement. Soldiers operating in civilian areas have a duty different from those operating in a war zone - a role more akin to a police force than an invading army, and the rules of engagement need to make that clear.
This was not an active war. This was an occupying military force. The roles and rules of engagement are supposed to be different. Opening fire on civilians without verifying that they are even armed is not supposed to be allowed. Most Americans would go crazy if U.S. police officers or National Guard troops opened fire on some innocent people walking down the street. There was no warning. There was no provocation. This wasn't even some protest. If this happened in the U.S. there would be a hundred posts here decrying government force and suggesting violent revolution. Why do you makes excuses for excessive government and military force being used to kill civilians in Iraq, when you would not excuse it in your own country?
Targeting civilians because they just might be able to be in the military at some point
Reservists are not just people "who might be in the military at some point" - reservists are part of the military: "A reservist is a person who is a member of a military reserve force. They are otherwise civilians, and in peacetime have careers outside the military." The U.S. National Guard is a reserve force.
Obviously reservists are not usually on active duty, and would probably be considered civilians by many people when they are inactive, but nevertheless they are still a trained and functional part of the military system of many nations. Whether off-duty soldiers are legitimate targets depends highly on the point of view of the individual - it is a topic of debate in the West and elsewhere e.g. Tafsil A: Off-duty soldiers are treated as civilians: "Our jurists agree that during a valid war when there is no ceasefire, and when an attack is not aimed at a valid military target, a hostile soldier (whether male or female, whether conscripted or not) who is not on operational duty or not wearing a military uniform and when there is nothing in the soldier’s outward appearance to suggest that the soldier is in combat, then the soldier is considered a non-combatant [man lâ yuqâtilu] (and in this case must therefore be treated as a normal civilian)."
When it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian issue, both sides want to push the boundary of "who is a civilian".
So since smoking correlates to low IQ and low IQ correlates to low income, it may be true that smoking correlates to low income as the author states in TFS.
Yes, smoking does correlate with low-income, but TFS states that this factor has been eliminated for this study: 'Because our study included subjects with diverse socio-economic backgrounds, we've been able to rule out socio-economics as a major factor.'
Several years of military service in the IDF is mandatory for young Israelis. After that they are considered lifetime reservists, can be called up for a months service every year, and for an unlimited duration when national security is threatened. This is one of the reasons some Palestinian groups give for targeting Israeli civilians - since every Israeli civilian is also a military reservist, these groups state that there is no such thing as an Israeli civilian in the traditional sense.
It is easy to legally purchase and carry a weapon in both Isreal and Switzerland
No it isn't.
In Switzerland it is practically impossible to carry unless it is for an occupation (e.g. security guard). Most of the guns that people cite as being in "gun-loving" Switzerland are government issued, and kept in pre-sealed boxes in people's homes, with sealed ammunition. If you ever open the box when the country is not as war you will be committing a crime and will be prosecuted - even if you open the box in order to defend your home. There are a lot of guns, but you are not legally allowed to use them. Switzerland is not the gun heaven you believe it is.
In Israel I am not sure of the law, but I am sure that they don't allow Israeli-Arabs (>20% of the population) to walk around with guns...and since they could not do this without having a blatantly racist legal system, I suspect that ownership and carrying with be heavily regulated.
Because in the UK, the home of the highest number of cameras per capita, the technology has not helped one bit. Crime is not down, and the cameras are used instead to look into peoples' windows
Right, so according to you - CCTV has not helped any police activity in the UK, ever, and the cameras are used exclusively to look into the homes of individuals? Therefore a single instance of CCTV either helping an investigation, or not being used to look into a residential window, will disprove your statement. CCTV: Does it work?:
Cameras set up in a Bootle shopping centre in 1993 caught three-year-old James Bulger being led away by the two 10-year-olds who murdered him.
"It showed the police they were looking for two kids rather than a paedophile," said Professor Laycock.
Detectives hunting a nail bomber who was responsible for three murders during 13 days in London in April 1999, credited CCTV cameras with the major breakthrough in the case.
Gun control laws do nothing to stop criminals from carrying guns
Then why do the majority of British criminals not carry guns? The gun laws are strict, and the population mostly unarmed - according to you this should be a recipe for a bloodbath of innocent victims, no? And yet your average British criminal does not own or carry a gun, and homicide rates in the UK are lower than the USA .
As loath as I am to link to this site, it gives a very good explanation.
http://www.firearmsandliberty.com/kasler-protection.html
From the second paragraph: "Before the mid-1800s, American and British citizens - even in large cities - were expected to protect themselves and each other. Indeed, they were legally required to pursue and attempt to apprehend criminals. The notion of a police force in those days was abhorrent in England and America, where liberals viewed it as a form of the dreaded "standing army... England's first police force, in London, was not instituted until 1827."
This is not true. Starting ones thesis with "facts" that are provably not true does not imbue confidence in ones analytical abilities.
Chrome is only doing well because you get nagged on the google search page if you aren't using it.
If Chrome were a bad product, then people would try it once and then forget about it. The fact that people keep using it means that Chrome is doing something right.
"IE is only doing well because it's preinstalled on Windows"
"Safari is only doing well because it's preinstalled on OS X and the iPhone"
"Chrome is only doing well because people have to manually install it, then find that they like it and continue to use it in preference to their preinstalled browser (and because it's preinstalled on Android)"
See the difference? Seriously, if Windows or OS X shipped with Opera as default, and users had to manually download and install IE and Safari, what do you think their market share would be?
Linux is too fragmented to take over and actually set the standard rather than chasing it.
Linux is the standard. Unix servers and desktops have mostly disappeared for new deployments. Is it a coincidence that IBM and Sun, two of the biggest Unix vendors, have both seen Linux sales increase whilst new AIX and Solaris deployments fell? That Linux has become the standard for high performance computing clusters? That Linux is the standard for 3D rendering in movies (DreamWorks etc.)? That Linux is the standard for web servers? That Linux is the standard for embedded systems?
Let me give you a hint: The OSS world doesn't really know what a release is
Let me give you a hint: most of the software world doesn't really know what a release is. If you think that having a closed source product magically imbues a company with quality control processes, then you are wrong.
Limiting carbon emissions is expensive - that's why there is a legitimate argument about how much human contribution to emissions matters
"It would be expensive" is not a valid argument against a scientific theory.
Successfully filtering the net is impossible
That depends on what your definition of "success" is. Successfully filtering the net completely - so that no single person is ever able to access some forbidden information even once - may well be impossible. However, filtering the net enough to be effective in manipulating the views of an entire population is entirely possible. I have met Chinese students who have been raised behind the "Great Firewall" and who had never heard of the Tiananmen Square protests until they relocated to the West. People who were convinced that the Chinese model of government was the best because (quote) "you vote and sometimes pick the wrong people. We select so we always get the best people." People who did not know that China had invaded Tibet (quote) "of course Tibet is part of China! (laughs) Tibet has always been part of China!"
These were intelligent, well-read students - why had they never heard of Tianamen Square? I imagine that making it illegal to publish information about the event, and imposing a firewall between the population and countries where it is legal to talk about the event, had a huge part to play in this. Censorship isn't an all or nothing thing - here in the West we censor certain types of pornography, and yet people who really want to find that content still find a way. Does that mean that this censorship is pointless? Not at all - because the behaviour of a population is not a binary event. Instead, consider what proportion of the population would view some content were it legal and unrestricted, versus what proportion would if it were illegal and banned completely. Clearly, if a law is actually enforced, then the legal consequences of accessing that content are going to dissuade at least a few people - possibly more than a few. And we know that this is the reality, because some well educated Chinese people have not heard of Tianamen Square, and the ones that have often don't believe it happened. Propaganda doesn't have to convince everybody in order to be deemed successful - just enough people.
The leaked "Digital Agenda" doesn't appear to be so bad.. it mainly aims to promote cross-border interoperable electronic ID, health systems, and open standards in general. This will make it easier for European citizens to trade and physically relocate across borders (the existing systems are different in every country, and moving between countries is a PITA). The reason this kind of stuff is important is that the aims and details will be hammered out at a European level, then implemented as policy by the various counties of Europe. Once a few of the more powerful countries (Germany, France, UK) establish a common framework for digital ID or whatever, it will be required to interact with government online services in those countries, a software ecosystem will develop around these protocols, and the other countries will follow within a few years. The EU will provide funding for development of software platforms that implement these open standards. The potential risk here is that Microsoft and other companies will twist the definition of "open" to include proprietary patented protocols (which are "open" because you are free to license them at some cost), and then they can lobby countries and companies taking part in public sector procurements to choose closed standard solutions, which would obviously be a bad thing for cross-border interoperability. The relevant parts of the document are:
The Digital Agenda outlines a set of crucial policy actions, including legal measures and programmes that must be launched or upgraded to get the Union on track. The actions are clustered in six areas:
(1)Very fast internet access;
(2)A digital single market;
(3)A sustainable digital society;
(4)Trust and security;
(5)Research and innovation;
(6)Open standards and interoperability.
Use CIP support seamless cross-border public services, based on open and internationally recognised standards, and a European eID management infrastructure;
An "EU eHealth Passport" could give citizens secure online access to their personal health data. On such a platform, improved medical services can be developed raising efficiency and patient empowerment. The Commission will work with the competent authorities to equip 15% of Europeans with such passports by 2015. The eHealth Lead Market Initiative1 will promote standardisation and interoperability testing and certification.
Electronic identity (eID) technologies and services are key to trust in electronic transactions and in e-payment systems, including mobile payments. A European framework for eID and authentication, and internationally agreed standards and practices can help the cross-border recognition of eID and increase citizens' trust and confidence. A European eID and authentication framework by [.] is the headline target for this action area.
Promoting more open standards
The headline target for this action area is to reform the EU standardisation regime by 2015 to reflect the rise and growing importance of ICT standards developed by various fora and consortia, in particular as regards the internet.
Another challenge is to ensure that public authorities – including the EU institutions – can make the best use of the full range of existing open standards when procuring hardware, software and IT services, for example to adhere to technology neutrality and to avoid technological lock-in to legacy ICT.
Transparent disclosure rules for intellectual property rights (IPR) and licensing conditions in the context of standard-setting can contribute to lower royalty demands for the use of standards and thus to lower market entry costs for SMEs. This can be achieved without a negative impact on the owners of IPRs. Therefore rules for ex-ante disclosure of essential IPR and licensing terms and conditions will be promoted.
Key actions
Reform the governance system for ICT standards in Europe to recognise ICT fora and consortia standards;
Issue a Recommendation to streamline the use of open standards in p
I've heard Bridgman say they use 2-3% of the effort on Linux despite accounting for 1% of the sales
Maybe that is true, but the smart investor looks at future growth and not just current sales - with Linux being shipped on a considerable number of cellphones coming out in the next year, and settop boxes, and even digital radios, there is a huge potential for growth. At the moment it seems Intel graphics chipsets will be powering many of these predominantly ARM based systems. Other manufacturers would be wise to compete.
The problem is, that means you have absolutely no privacy, and absolutely no security.
This is the same as every non-SSL web site - your ISP can intercept everything. Most people are quite happy to browse regular sites like Facebook or the New York Times over non-encrypted sessions. They may think twice before doing online banking in Opera Mini (or for that matter, a closed source device at all...), but for regular daily use, the vast majority of people won't be bothered.
It doesn't matter which way you enter the address into your browser, it still resolves to the same IP. If that IP is blocked, you won't get through even if you use this method.
Some of the major internet filters only block by domain name matching. You can bypass them by just using the IP address (of course, this fails when the site html contains URLs that specify the domain name.
Hello, Big Brother, can you please keep track of everything I ever buy and everywhere I ever go for me?
How is this different to debit and credit cards? And travel cards like the Oyster card?
I was always surprised that the UK ID card was less capable than the Estonian ID card. Who had the brilliant idea to introduce a National ID card that can't authenticate over the internet? Seriously, it would actually be quite useful to have one standardised, secure card that could be used to authenticate with banks etc. The security arrangements at the moment are woefully inadequate, and a physical token will add another layer of security.
Most people in the UK are happy to be profiled in exchange for financial benefits. When the Tesco Clubcard was introduced it was so popular that people stopped shopping at other supermarkets like Sainsburys, which then had to introduce their own "loyalty card" schemes. Tesco announced last year that there are now 16 million active clubcards in the UK. As a comparison point there are around 25 million households in the UK , so a significant number of British households are having their shopping profiled in detail already.
This is a well known point and one which forensic scientists are well aware of. The point is not that DNA is the whole evidence, but forms part of the evidence. Juries are supposed to take other evidence into account too:
"It seems logical therefore that DNA evidence alone cannot be a proof – some additional information is necessary. However, the amount of additional information that is necessary might be a very small amount. For example, add to the DNA matching evidence (of 7000 to one) the mere knowledge that the suspect was arrested before his DNA type was known, and you have something like a proof." link
"In the early days of the use of genetic fingerprinting as criminal evidence, juries were often swayed by spurious statistical arguments by defense lawyers along these lines: given a match that had a 1 in 5 million probability of occurring by chance, the lawyer would argue that this meant that in a country of say 60 million people there were 12 people who would also match the profile. This was then translated to a 1 in 12 chance of the suspect being the guilty one. This argument is not sound unless the suspect was drawn at random from the population of the country. In fact, a jury should consider how likely it is that an individual matching the genetic profile would also have been a suspect in the case for other reasons" wiki
DNA profiling is basically a one-way hash, so here you go:
# md5sum /etc/shadow /etc/shadow
1455d8b99e194b5d8d3cb3825c3104e1
Not as big a problem as you thought?
The less data you have from the DNA, the more matches you are going to find.... Now that's usually pretty good, like 1 in a million or something. However not so useful if your sample size is 300,000,000 and growing.
Even reducing the whole genotype to 10 regions provides enough data to differentiate between most individuals:
wiki:"for unrelated individuals with full matching DNA profiles a match probability of 1 in a billion is considered statistically supportable (Since 1998 the DNA profiling system supported by The National DNA Database in the UK is the SGM+ DNA profiling system which includes 10 STR regions and a sex indicating test."
Also there's the fact that DNA tests aren't cheap, or particularly quick. They aren't the kind of thing you can use for every criminal case, it'd be way too expensive, not to mention unnecessary.
As somebody already mentioned, everybody in the U.K. is DNA fingerprinted when taken into custody (not even necessarily charged). The cost of sampling the whole nation has been estimated at £700 million. For comparison the Iraq war has cost Britain around £8 billion. So £700 million is easily doable if there is the political will.
Plenty of orthodox rabbis also say donating is permissible (as far as I've heard from members of the New York ultra-orthodox contingent)
It has also been argued that trafficking in human organs on the black market and laundering the money is also religiously permitted (when it saves lives, apparently - the lucrative profits are completely coincidental)...
Yes, ACTA is aimed towards giving IP laws more power, globally. But how much do you think countries with real problems care about protecting IP laws from countries they don't care about?
From the position of the MPAA and RIAA there are several different positions that they care about or don't. Russians and Chinese copying music and movies isn't a big problem - those countries have always had large scale piracy operations and undeveloped IP markets, and the potential profit margins are thin or non-existant. If this were to change, then there would be an opportunity to develop new markets, which the RIAA/MPAA would be interested in. But at the moment the markets are lost. The real global battlefield is in the European Union - a larger market economy than the USA, where the average price for a DVD or CD is much higher than the US, and with a voracious appetite for American produced content. If groups like the Pirate Party begin to make serious headway in scaling back European copyright, then the RIAA/MPAA is going to lose control over one of its most profitable markets. The other market they really care about is (obviously) the USA. It is not such a large battlefield since U.S. laws are already more MPAA/RIAA friendly. By agreeing to a global copyright enforcement treaty, that is supported by American corporations, they will be able to easily pass legislation with broad cross-party support, and with little room for debate because the details have "already been agreed and signed" before being considered at the level of national law.
Because its consumers have to hand money to the IP owners abroad, with nothing to little coming back in return.
Have you got any idea how much money is spent by European consumers and businesses on U.S. software, movies, books, films etc?
The pensioners now are using the current working populations contributions.
This was always the case with state pensions.
So what will be left when today's workers reach retirement age ?
The retirement age will be increased to compensate. It looks like an age of 70 for both men and women will become the norm within the next 30-40 years.
Should've said "largest" economy.
The European Union?
(Nominal GDP: EU=$18.394 trillion, US=$14.441 trillion)
Services? Revenus streams? These people have -nothing- to sell. If they did it would get stolen fast...
There are no goods, there are no services. Begging and theft are the only income streams.
The statistics say otherwise. From TFA:
"The traditional stereotype of the Indian pavement-dweller is a destitute peasant, newly arrived from the countryside, who survives by parasitic begging, but as research in Mumbai has revealed, almost all (97 percent) have at least one breadwinner, and 70 percent have been in the city at least six years..." Slum dwellers are often busy with low paying service jobs in nearby high rent districts; they have money but live in a squatter city because it's close to their work. Because they are industrious, they progress fast. One UN report found that households in the older slums of Bangkok have on average 1.6 televisions, 1.5 cell phones, a refrigerator; two-thirds have a washing machine and CD player, and half have a fixed line phone, video player and a motor scooter. In the favelas of Rio, the first generation of squatters had a literacy rate of only 5%, but their kids were 97% literate."
There are no goods, there are no services.
From TFA:
"The 4bn people at the base of the economic pyramid—all those with [annual] incomes below $3,000 in local purchasing power—live in relative poverty. Their incomes are less than $3.35 a day in Brazil, $2.11 in China, $1.89 in Ghana, and $1.56 in India. Yet they have substantial purchasing power... [and] constitute a $5 trillion global consumer market."
Is digging though human waste and burning plastic off electrical cables for a few cents of copper a 'dymanic and growing economy'? I don't think so.
60% of the residents of Mumbai live in slums. Are all of those 60% "digging though human waste and burning plastic off electrical cables for a few cents of copper"? No. Some of them are, but there are many who have real, wage earning jobs.