If they get enough evidence to justify questioning someone as a suspect or person if interest and that person isn't smart enough to shut the fuck up until they have a lawyer to do the talking for them, the authorities will probably get all they need to continue prosecution from there. "Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law" is not a concept unique to the United States.
However in the UK, it's more a case of "Anything you say will be used against you in a court of law, and anything you don't say may harm your defence".
The right to remain silent can be used to make "adverse inferences", unlike the US. So unfortunately "shut the fuck up" doesn't always work too well.
You can stream live video to an account (much like the related app for ustream), and/or download it later. If you set the privacy options properly, no-one else will see it, but you'll still be able to download it afterwards.
Not once you take general relativity into account.
The equator is whizzing about faster, but it experiences a weaker gravitational field, and a subsequent decrease in gravitational time dilation.
At sea level, the weaker gravitational time dilation and stronger kinematic time dilation cancel. Although GP is correct in pointing out that altitude must be taken into account.
Becquerels are actually the easiest to understand - they're dimensionally equivalent to Hz. It's a straight count of the number of disintegrations per second. In the ideal case of a detector that registers every disintegration event, the radioactivity of the sample in Bq is the average number of counts on the detector per second (but because detectors/geometry/samples aren't ideal, you have to apply correction factors because many of the disintegrations aren't detected). The curie is the obsolete equivalent, based on the radioactivity of Radium as a reference.
Roentgens are a measure of the ability of radiation to ionize air. I think the SI equivalent is C/kg (ionizing 1 C worth of charge per kilogram of air), but Roentgens are based on the increasingly obsolete (and annoying, as a scientist) cgs system, corresponding to another awkward conversion factor.
The gray is 1 J of energy absorbed per kg. The rad is again a cgs equivalent, but the conversion factor is simpler. 100 rad = 1 gray.
The sievert and rem are the weighted equivalents of the gray and rad respectively.
In a sense, the actual verdict here was somewhat irrelevant, given that both sides were certain to appeal the outcome if they lost.
It's a little uncertain where things will go from here. The fact that one of the three justices was willing to give AFACT members the power to force ISPs to disconnect their customers based on mere allegations is extremely troubling, but the proposals by the majority justices appear to constitute what would be seen by the High Court as a reasonable compromise, making the rather extreme position held by AFACT less likely to win (particularly having lost twice already).
Could go either way, I guess, given how backwards our country is on digital technology.
Bingo. The filter will (ostensibly) block content that has been refused classification, but Conroy and Labor have long been equivocating between "refused classification" and "illegal" and repeatedly imply that they're only really going after child pornography. The lack of an R18+ rating has long been a thorn in their side because "refused classification" for games has always meant "unsuitable for teenagers, but we don't have an adult rating so it's banned for everyone".
It's hard to know what to feel about that - the filter remains a disaster and the primary free speech objections remain (mainly that the blacklist is a government secret), but it's ever so slightly less evil now. Hopefully the limited support for the filter stays that way and any legislation still fails to pass through either house of the hung parliament.
It's not just about click tracking by Google, it's about having some idea about where the link I'm about to click on will take me.
Even without slashdot's anti-troll inclusion of domain names, you can mouse over a link to see what the actual URL is. But what is "QTRlo" and "rRDok"? Is it something that's going to get me fired? Should I not have eaten before clicking? Is it another "N guys/girls, 1 X" shock site, or an 80's one-hit wonder?
If you know how to use HREF tags and aren't artificially constrained to 140 characters, use the proper URL. Please.
After the red ring of death, one of the most common technical problems was the scratching of discs, due to Microsoft trying to save 25 cents per console. It's definitely a problem I observed before the RROD took out my Xbox 360, and being able to backup my $100 games (the price of a new console game here in Australia) would definitely be welcome.
Don't fall for Microsoft's lie that "backup" is code for "pirated".
Not sure about Abbott, but both the Libs and Nats officially rejected it, and appointing the even more anti-filter Turnbull as Communications minister suggests that they're sticking to that opposition.
Abbott did make it a difficult choice, and the Libs didn't get my first preference, but the filter is worrying enough to be the most important issue for me (although it was a pretty uninspiring campaign overall from both sides, so that might have had something to do with it). I know the filter is very unlikely to go through now, and I'd have circumvented it anyway, but a government that shows that much contempt for freedom of expression and government transparency needs to be opposed on principle.
Well since the blacklist contents is blacklisted itself, there's no way of knowing. When the list was leaked last year, there were about 1300 sites and not a single one of them contained any child pornography. Most of it was plain old adult content, with dentists, dog boarding kennels, caterers, poker websites, and anti-abortion sites making up the balance.
We know that most of the worst stuff on the net is much further underground, with P2P and private trading via email.
What limited child porn there is on the web specifically falls under only a handful of categories.
* Hacked websites. Supposedly this is why some of the sites appeared in error in the leaked list - they were "hacked by the Russian mob". An Aussie dentist website with a known hosting company had some child pornography buried under several "backslashes" (as Conroy put it) after being hacked. Instead of contacting the owner/host and getting their co-operation in removing the content and prosecuting those responsible, the whole site was just blacklisted without notifying anyone. The guy running it only found out when the list was leaked. A "just ban it" filter will only encourage laziness such as this when we should be policing it.
* Trolling attempts. There was a rather unfortunate case a few months ago of a certain imageboard trolling the facebook memorial of a murdered eight-year-old girl by flooding it with gore, bestiality and child porn. Not a lot really needs to be said about the perpetrators here, I think most will reach the same conclusion. It was jumped on by the censorphiles in Australia, but even in the best case, classification of websites takes months (I know, I've tested the submission process). Legislation is probably years in the future, and certain to fail with the current parliament. Sites like Facebook would actually be exempted because "high traffic" websites would break the filter and embarrass the government. Rather than the filtering approach, Facebook removed the images themselves in a matter of hours (and the police would have if they didn't), and the guy who did it was eventually prosecuted. Good riddance.
* Honeypots/sting operations. I think Conroy's even said he'll exempt sites from the filter if the filter would interfere with a police investigation. People dumb enough to access/post child porn on the open web deserve to be caught. With the proxying of the filters making online forensics more difficult, and policing resources being diverted to an idiotic waste, this is yet another example the filter will only make worse.
And that's without even mentioning the fact that the filter is being sold as a child-safe filter. The government has already dumped its "voluntary filters for parents" program, and has left almost all hardcore material accessible under the filter because blocking it all is obviously impossible.
Every time I think about this plan, it makes me furious. It's the main issue I voted against the government on last month, and I wouldn't be surprised if enough people joined me to have cost them their majority. But the independents hand the reins back to the ALP and it's full-steam ahead with the filter despite no-one outside of the ALP supporting it, the ALP being in minority in both houses of parliament, significant elements within the party opposing it, and ALP members only likely to vote for it because they will be expelled from the party if they don't. (That's basically what a conscience vote is for those who aren't familiar - a "we won't kick you out of the party if you don't vote for this" vote. By refusing one, anyone who doesn't toe the line is out of the party. The ALP is extremely strict on this.)
Along with the standard "did you spend time in agricultural regions" and "are you carrying more than $10,000 cash" is a question about whether travellers are carrying pornography. Not just child porn or videos intended for redistribution in the country, but any porn whatsoever, including your honeymoon snaps. Privacy isn't really something that is taken quite seriously by successive Australian governments. The one we end up with on Saturday won't be any different, regardless of who wins, but at least it looks likely the Greens will hold the balance of power and keep whoever wins accountable.
Yes, you have to number them all, but I think with 84 candidates, they allow for one or two minor errors (e.g. having two people ranked 25 or missing a number).
If you only mark two candidates, your vote will be thrown out completely.
No, if you vote above the line, you're not selecting only one candidate, you're picking their pre-submitted preference list instead of your own. That's the main problem - the voters don't make the choice directly and the parties make deals or tactical decisions with their pre-submitted tickets. Slashdot's favourite Senator Stephen Conroy tried his luck at tactical voting in 2004 and accidentally elected a fundamentalist nutjob who got about 1% of the primary vote because they were trying to hold off a challenge from the Greens (when most Labor voters would have preferenced Greens first).
A preference system is better than a first-past-the-post system, but the current system isn't perfect. Most Australian states currently go with optional preferential voting, which should be the way to go.
It's not illegal to cast an invalid vote (it just won't get counted), and the punishment for not turning up is only a fine.
Still, compulsory voting does compound the deficiencies in our system. Most people go with the easy way out because they see voting as a chore, most evident in the high proportion of donkey votes (that's where a voter just numbers the ballot 1,2,3,4... for our international readers).
I think the system is obviously pretty broken if the only choices are to number each of 84 boxes, go with a pre-decided list that the main parties have reached through secret preference deals, or have your vote rejected. At the moment you have to choose between two evils, and it has been made as inconvenient as possible for you to even make that choice rather than the party powerbrokers.
Group voting tickets are just undemocratic. Preferential voting should only go as far as the voter wants - if your vote doesn't get distributed to any of your preferences, it should be discarded.
It looks like earlier iPhones did have the same problem, but because they didn't have anywhere near the drop of the iPhone 4, it wasn't as obvious. Apple have until now deliberately exaggerated the signal, but they've managed to get away with it because a -90 dBm signal (which reads 5 bars, but should read fewer) will work perfectly fine.
But if your crappy antenna design needs 20 or 30 dBm of headroom because holding it naturally shorts it out, that -90 dBm isn't even enough to make a call, so people are understandably a little upset.
While there is definitely a software problem, I have a bridge to sell to anyone who thinks Apple is genuinely "shocked" by the fact, or to anyone who thinks the software fix will fix the fundamental hardware problem.
The PR from Apple is pretty sickening.
"Despite holding it how we do in our marketing videos, it's your fault because you're holding it wrong" "It's not a real problem, we've just been lying to you all along about the real signal level. Sorry about that." "There is no problem. But you can solve the problem with our $30 rubber band."
I'll accept that this is largely a semantic argument, not a logical argument.
But the thing is that in almost every statement of both the "one of my children is a boy" and the "one of my children is a boy born on Tuesday", significance is attached already. There's the child being described, and the child being asked about. Because the word "other" is being used, these two children are not the same. Any information you give about the first child has nothing at all to do with the gender of the second child.
One of my children I am giving you useless information about. I am asking you to guess the gender of the other one.
If it was stated as:
"At least one of my children is a boy born on Tuesday. What is the probability that I have at least one girl?"
The 13/27 answer would be perfectly fine. This phrasing might not be as interesting, but at least the answer is correct.
Or a 3G... I've been running the GM for a few days now, and even after removing some of the best features (wallpapers, rotation lock, multitasking), it still runs like crap. I'd rather stick with my jailbroken 3.1.3 (almost all the 4.0 features were available as jailbroken apps, often implemented better), but Apple makes it extremely difficult to roll back firmware upgrades.
Hopefully they improve the performance issues in a later release, but I get the feeling some of us older users are being pushed towards an iPhone 4.
As for the background images, even if it's an obvious attempt to emulate bing and a shift away from the minimalism that drew most to Google, it wouldn't have been too bad if they didn't screw it up so badly.
The closest you could come to opting out was selecting an all-white background, but because the text was white with a grey shadow, that didn't work too well either. While most backgrounds were pretty pictures, they made dreadful backgrounds -- conspicuous, blending badly with the text, slow to load (relative to the very simple white background).
A simple "remove background" would have sufficed, but even without it a little usability testing of the backgrounds they actually used wouldn't have hurt.
As will the government if they're interested enough. This is certainly a step forward that will help for MITM attacks, but I don't think the government really needs to perform MITM attacks.
"Hey Google, give us your information, or else." "Here you go."
We know it happens because it's something Google openly admits.
Slashdot Mirror
They'll have to move to 64 bit soon - at this rate, Firefox 4294967296 will be released some time around January.
Ah, okay... subtle difference, but I see your point.
Thanks for clarifying.
If they get enough evidence to justify questioning someone as a suspect or person if interest and that person isn't smart enough to shut the fuck up until they have a lawyer to do the talking for them, the authorities will probably get all they need to continue prosecution from there. "Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law" is not a concept unique to the United States.
However in the UK, it's more a case of "Anything you say will be used against you in a court of law, and anything you don't say may harm your defence".
The right to remain silent can be used to make "adverse inferences", unlike the US. So unfortunately "shut the fuck up" doesn't always work too well.
I might be mistaken, but I think qik allows that.
You can stream live video to an account (much like the related app for ustream), and/or download it later. If you set the privacy options properly, no-one else will see it, but you'll still be able to download it afterwards.
Not once you take general relativity into account.
The equator is whizzing about faster, but it experiences a weaker gravitational field, and a subsequent decrease in gravitational time dilation.
At sea level, the weaker gravitational time dilation and stronger kinematic time dilation cancel. Although GP is correct in pointing out that altitude must be taken into account.
Becquerels are actually the easiest to understand - they're dimensionally equivalent to Hz. It's a straight count of the number of disintegrations per second. In the ideal case of a detector that registers every disintegration event, the radioactivity of the sample in Bq is the average number of counts on the detector per second (but because detectors/geometry/samples aren't ideal, you have to apply correction factors because many of the disintegrations aren't detected). The curie is the obsolete equivalent, based on the radioactivity of Radium as a reference.
Roentgens are a measure of the ability of radiation to ionize air. I think the SI equivalent is C/kg (ionizing 1 C worth of charge per kilogram of air), but Roentgens are based on the increasingly obsolete (and annoying, as a scientist) cgs system, corresponding to another awkward conversion factor.
The gray is 1 J of energy absorbed per kg. The rad is again a cgs equivalent, but the conversion factor is simpler. 100 rad = 1 gray.
The sievert and rem are the weighted equivalents of the gray and rad respectively.
In a sense, the actual verdict here was somewhat irrelevant, given that both sides were certain to appeal the outcome if they lost.
It's a little uncertain where things will go from here. The fact that one of the three justices was willing to give AFACT members the power to force ISPs to disconnect their customers based on mere allegations is extremely troubling, but the proposals by the majority justices appear to constitute what would be seen by the High Court as a reasonable compromise, making the rather extreme position held by AFACT less likely to win (particularly having lost twice already).
Could go either way, I guess, given how backwards our country is on digital technology.
Bingo. The filter will (ostensibly) block content that has been refused classification, but Conroy and Labor have long been equivocating between "refused classification" and "illegal" and repeatedly imply that they're only really going after child pornography. The lack of an R18+ rating has long been a thorn in their side because "refused classification" for games has always meant "unsuitable for teenagers, but we don't have an adult rating so it's banned for everyone".
It's hard to know what to feel about that - the filter remains a disaster and the primary free speech objections remain (mainly that the blacklist is a government secret), but it's ever so slightly less evil now. Hopefully the limited support for the filter stays that way and any legislation still fails to pass through either house of the hung parliament.
Not quite a remake, but a prequel is being made.
Hopefully it lives up to the original. The second one perhaps fell just short, but it did have high standards to meet.
It's not just about click tracking by Google, it's about having some idea about where the link I'm about to click on will take me.
Even without slashdot's anti-troll inclusion of domain names, you can mouse over a link to see what the actual URL is. But what is "QTRlo" and "rRDok"? Is it something that's going to get me fired? Should I not have eaten before clicking? Is it another "N guys/girls, 1 X" shock site, or an 80's one-hit wonder?
If you know how to use HREF tags and aren't artificially constrained to 140 characters, use the proper URL. Please.
What does the charging station use? Is it ultracapacitors?
Also, last time I checked both Germany, Japan and pretty much the rest of the planet used the metric system, so:
Oh, come on, now you're being unfair. It's not the rest of the planet, Liberia and Myanmar are also yet to adopt the metric system. Sheesh.
Why is "backup" in scare quotes?
After the red ring of death, one of the most common technical problems was the scratching of discs, due to Microsoft trying to save 25 cents per console. It's definitely a problem I observed before the RROD took out my Xbox 360, and being able to backup my $100 games (the price of a new console game here in Australia) would definitely be welcome.
Don't fall for Microsoft's lie that "backup" is code for "pirated".
Not sure about Abbott, but both the Libs and Nats officially rejected it, and appointing the even more anti-filter Turnbull as Communications minister suggests that they're sticking to that opposition.
Abbott did make it a difficult choice, and the Libs didn't get my first preference, but the filter is worrying enough to be the most important issue for me (although it was a pretty uninspiring campaign overall from both sides, so that might have had something to do with it). I know the filter is very unlikely to go through now, and I'd have circumvented it anyway, but a government that shows that much contempt for freedom of expression and government transparency needs to be opposed on principle.
Well since the blacklist contents is blacklisted itself, there's no way of knowing. When the list was leaked last year, there were about 1300 sites and not a single one of them contained any child pornography. Most of it was plain old adult content, with dentists, dog boarding kennels, caterers, poker websites, and anti-abortion sites making up the balance.
We know that most of the worst stuff on the net is much further underground, with P2P and private trading via email.
What limited child porn there is on the web specifically falls under only a handful of categories.
* Hacked websites. Supposedly this is why some of the sites appeared in error in the leaked list - they were "hacked by the Russian mob". An Aussie dentist website with a known hosting company had some child pornography buried under several "backslashes" (as Conroy put it) after being hacked. Instead of contacting the owner/host and getting their co-operation in removing the content and prosecuting those responsible, the whole site was just blacklisted without notifying anyone. The guy running it only found out when the list was leaked. A "just ban it" filter will only encourage laziness such as this when we should be policing it.
* Trolling attempts. There was a rather unfortunate case a few months ago of a certain imageboard trolling the facebook memorial of a murdered eight-year-old girl by flooding it with gore, bestiality and child porn. Not a lot really needs to be said about the perpetrators here, I think most will reach the same conclusion. It was jumped on by the censorphiles in Australia, but even in the best case, classification of websites takes months (I know, I've tested the submission process). Legislation is probably years in the future, and certain to fail with the current parliament. Sites like Facebook would actually be exempted because "high traffic" websites would break the filter and embarrass the government. Rather than the filtering approach, Facebook removed the images themselves in a matter of hours (and the police would have if they didn't), and the guy who did it was eventually prosecuted. Good riddance.
* Honeypots/sting operations. I think Conroy's even said he'll exempt sites from the filter if the filter would interfere with a police investigation. People dumb enough to access/post child porn on the open web deserve to be caught. With the proxying of the filters making online forensics more difficult, and policing resources being diverted to an idiotic waste, this is yet another example the filter will only make worse.
And that's without even mentioning the fact that the filter is being sold as a child-safe filter. The government has already dumped its "voluntary filters for parents" program, and has left almost all hardcore material accessible under the filter because blocking it all is obviously impossible.
Every time I think about this plan, it makes me furious. It's the main issue I voted against the government on last month, and I wouldn't be surprised if enough people joined me to have cost them their majority. But the independents hand the reins back to the ALP and it's full-steam ahead with the filter despite no-one outside of the ALP supporting it, the ALP being in minority in both houses of parliament, significant elements within the party opposing it, and ALP members only likely to vote for it because they will be expelled from the party if they don't. (That's basically what a conscience vote is for those who aren't familiar - a "we won't kick you out of the party if you don't vote for this" vote. By refusing one, anyone who doesn't toe the line is out of the party. The ALP is extremely strict on this.)
You might be joking, but they are already doing it for pornography.
Along with the standard "did you spend time in agricultural regions" and "are you carrying more than $10,000 cash" is a question about whether travellers are carrying pornography. Not just child porn or videos intended for redistribution in the country, but any porn whatsoever, including your honeymoon snaps. Privacy isn't really something that is taken quite seriously by successive Australian governments. The one we end up with on Saturday won't be any different, regardless of who wins, but at least it looks likely the Greens will hold the balance of power and keep whoever wins accountable.
Yes, you have to number them all, but I think with 84 candidates, they allow for one or two minor errors (e.g. having two people ranked 25 or missing a number).
If you only mark two candidates, your vote will be thrown out completely.
True, the tickets aren't secret, although most people don't know where to find them.
I was referring more to the deals and behind-the-scenes reasoning which led to the group voting tickets, though.
No, if you vote above the line, you're not selecting only one candidate, you're picking their pre-submitted preference list instead of your own. That's the main problem - the voters don't make the choice directly and the parties make deals or tactical decisions with their pre-submitted tickets. Slashdot's favourite Senator Stephen Conroy tried his luck at tactical voting in 2004 and accidentally elected a fundamentalist nutjob who got about 1% of the primary vote because they were trying to hold off a challenge from the Greens (when most Labor voters would have preferenced Greens first).
A preference system is better than a first-past-the-post system, but the current system isn't perfect. Most Australian states currently go with optional preferential voting, which should be the way to go.
It's not illegal to cast an invalid vote (it just won't get counted), and the punishment for not turning up is only a fine.
Still, compulsory voting does compound the deficiencies in our system. Most people go with the easy way out because they see voting as a chore, most evident in the high proportion of donkey votes (that's where a voter just numbers the ballot 1,2,3,4... for our international readers).
There are actually 84 Senate candidates in NSW.
I think the system is obviously pretty broken if the only choices are to number each of 84 boxes, go with a pre-decided list that the main parties have reached through secret preference deals, or have your vote rejected. At the moment you have to choose between two evils, and it has been made as inconvenient as possible for you to even make that choice rather than the party powerbrokers.
Group voting tickets are just undemocratic. Preferential voting should only go as far as the voter wants - if your vote doesn't get distributed to any of your preferences, it should be discarded.
It looks like earlier iPhones did have the same problem, but because they didn't have anywhere near the drop of the iPhone 4, it wasn't as obvious. Apple have until now deliberately exaggerated the signal, but they've managed to get away with it because a -90 dBm signal (which reads 5 bars, but should read fewer) will work perfectly fine.
But if your crappy antenna design needs 20 or 30 dBm of headroom because holding it naturally shorts it out, that -90 dBm isn't even enough to make a call, so people are understandably a little upset.
While there is definitely a software problem, I have a bridge to sell to anyone who thinks Apple is genuinely "shocked" by the fact, or to anyone who thinks the software fix will fix the fundamental hardware problem.
The PR from Apple is pretty sickening.
"Despite holding it how we do in our marketing videos, it's your fault because you're holding it wrong"
"It's not a real problem, we've just been lying to you all along about the real signal level. Sorry about that."
"There is no problem. But you can solve the problem with our $30 rubber band."
Ugh.
I'll accept that this is largely a semantic argument, not a logical argument.
But the thing is that in almost every statement of both the "one of my children is a boy" and the "one of my children is a boy born on Tuesday", significance is attached already. There's the child being described, and the child being asked about. Because the word "other" is being used, these two children are not the same. Any information you give about the first child has nothing at all to do with the gender of the second child.
One of my children I am giving you useless information about. I am asking you to guess the gender of the other one.
If it was stated as:
"At least one of my children is a boy born on Tuesday. What is the probability that I have at least one girl?"
The 13/27 answer would be perfectly fine. This phrasing might not be as interesting, but at least the answer is correct.
Or a 3G... I've been running the GM for a few days now, and even after removing some of the best features (wallpapers, rotation lock, multitasking), it still runs like crap. I'd rather stick with my jailbroken 3.1.3 (almost all the 4.0 features were available as jailbroken apps, often implemented better), but Apple makes it extremely difficult to roll back firmware upgrades.
Hopefully they improve the performance issues in a later release, but I get the feeling some of us older users are being pushed towards an iPhone 4.
No idea why they introduced fading-in text, but there's a greasemonkey script to remove it:
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/63436
As for the background images, even if it's an obvious attempt to emulate bing and a shift away from the minimalism that drew most to Google, it wouldn't have been too bad if they didn't screw it up so badly.
The closest you could come to opting out was selecting an all-white background, but because the text was white with a grey shadow, that didn't work too well either. While most backgrounds were pretty pictures, they made dreadful backgrounds -- conspicuous, blending badly with the text, slow to load (relative to the very simple white background).
A simple "remove background" would have sufficed, but even without it a little usability testing of the backgrounds they actually used wouldn't have hurt.
As will the government if they're interested enough. This is certainly a step forward that will help for MITM attacks, but I don't think the government really needs to perform MITM attacks.
"Hey Google, give us your information, or else."
"Here you go."
We know it happens because it's something Google openly admits.