The "killer app" for iPhone is that it combines a cell phone with the iPod, and the neat design and interface of the iPod. If I wanted a phone that would let third-parties develop their own "killer apps", I would buy one of the clunky qwerty-phones. But most "killer apps" for phones so far, has been in hardware, not software. They have added cameras, flashlights, GPS units, mp3 players and FM radios, bluetooth headsets, etc... Sure, the watch, calculator and calendar can be handy at times, but I don't want or need third-party software. I want to buy a phone with exactly the features I need. If someone develops a "killer app", and I find I need it, it will be on the next phone I buy. Phones don't last forever...
What someone does have a right to is compensation for their work, so if you take their work, you have to pay them for it. Otherwise, it's slavery.
It would only be slavery if someone was forcing the musicians to create their music. That is not the case. I have put a lot of work into lots of things that nobody has paid for. That doesn't mean it's slavery, and I certainly don't feel unfairly treated because nobody has paid me yet.
In other words, you don't have a god-given right to their music.
Correct. I don't. But do they have a God-given right to prevent me from using their music in any way I choose to do, once they have chosen to let me have access to it?
I knew somebody would use this classic tactic--change the debate from the morality of making sure an artist doesn't get paid to a history lesson on copyright and how it's "antiquated" or "obsolete" or "dead." Which, of course, isn't true since the GPL relies on copyright.
There's a reason the GPL is also known as copyleft. The GPL is a clever hack, that uses current copyright law, to circumvent its effects. The GPL is not a goal in itself. Freedom of intellectual property is. If copyright law didn't exist, there would be no need for the GPL.
What does the time it takes to listen to something have to do with anything?! Does that mean fine wine should be worth 25 cents because I can drink it really fast? Products are priced based on the value assigned to them by market demand, not by their production costs or consumption duration.
We are not discussing wine here. Wine is a physical product. Intellectual property can be copied with a keystroke. You can't do that with wine. If the cost of making a copy is basically zero, why do you believe someone should have the right to deny me that? My point was that, in a historical perspective, copying is an expensive operation that requires lots of time and training and/or highly specialized equipment. In todays world, copying is basically free, and trying to restrict people from making copies, is basically futile. A rental model would make more sense, although I'm not exactly a big advocate of that either.
You're just using more distraction tactics to make sure people aren't discussing the artists.
Artists don't have a god-given right to profit. I like what artists do. I would prefer a system that allowed artists to continue creating stuff, and still have enough to make a living. But if the traditional model or royalties no longer works for artists, artists will have to reinvent how they make money. This means we may no longer have Hollywood blockbusters, or well-marketed mega-artists, but it sure wouldn't stop the artists from creating stuff, or getting paid in other ways. There are plenty of people willing to pay for the creation of artistic works, including me (and you, I would guess).
Wow. Just wow. "It would be nice if artists got paid." At least you admit that you're okay having artistic slaves putting out work with no compensation so that you selfish pirates can enjoy it for free, as if you have some right to it.
I don't see why you insist on calling something that clearly isn't slavery, for slavery. If you can point to just one artist who are forced at gunpoint to create artistic works, I would be very surprised. Do you feel guilty if you buy stuff on sale? The shop would get a higher profit if you bought it at full price. But the shop doesn't have a god-given right to profit either.
You just want some technical justification for ripping someone off and getting something out of it, solely to ease your moral concerns and put you on the highground. It's bullshit.
I'm not arguing for piracy. I'm arguing against copyright. The two are not the same. While many people, both those in favour of copyright, and
First off, Nobody has a god-given right to profit. This is as valid for the RIAA and for artists, as it is for people selling "counterfeited" CDs. Copyright allows some people to profit from their creations, at the expense of having other people not being able to copy intellectual property freely. This is a law created by humans. It is not the end of the universe if copyright-law is changed or even abolished.
Proponents of copyright argue that giving a monetary incentive to artists is good, because we will have more talented artists that choose to spend their time creating intellectual property. While it's possible to argue about how large this effect is, it's very hard to deny it. So far so good. Detractors of copyright say that people should have the right to do whatever they want with information. Just because someone has taken the time to create it, doesn't mean they should be allowed to limit my freedom to use or copy it as I want. This is also very tough to argue against. It seems that the only way copyright makes sense, is to somehow find a balance between these issues. Artists should get some form of pay, people should have some form of freedom. There is very little black and white about the idea of copyright. While laws must necessarily be clear, the ideas behind it, are in effect quite grey.
Copyright is actually a very old idea. It existed as far back as in the Roman empire. Back in those days, it was mostly used in books. Just like today, books were written by authors. But unlike today, making a copy of a book, could involve one or more highly educated slaves, slaving for a year or more. Needless to say, books were quite expensive. In such a system, arguing that the author should receive a fair share whenever a new copy was produced, is not particulary hard.
Today (where I live), an album of music costs (in retail) about 2 average-salary work-hours. The cost (for a consumer) of making ONE exact replica of it, is less than a tenth of that. The cost of making mp3s out of it, would then be about 1-2 minutes. The cost of copying these mp3s to a buddy, would be about 1-2 seconds. Despite these almost shocking numbers (at least in a historical perspective), copyright legislation has recently become more in favour of copyright-holders. Essentially, the music industry, or more generally, the content industry, has partnered with the law-makers, to create a system that is completely unfair for the average consumer.
Actually, since today it is cheaper to produce a copy of some intellectual property, than it is to enjoy it (I can copy a CD much faster than I can listen to it), artificially restricting copying of content seems completely backwards. Why should the public accept such completely silly laws? Even if we can agree in principle, that it would be nice if artists got paid, that doesn't mean we must agree that copyright is the way to do it. Actually, it doesn't even mean that artists must get paid, it just means we would prefer a system that does so. But even so, a system that puts what looks like completely arbitrary restrictions on copying of content (that would otherwise be essentially free), is not something that can survive for long into the future. Copyright is dead!
In my book, selling knockoffs, bootlegs, etc, as the real thing is Piracy. Downloading an MP3? Not piracy. Piracy involves money. Copyright infringement can be piracy if you sell it.
In my book, using violence or threat of violence to take control over a ship you do not own, is piracy. Selling counterfeit CDs? Not piracy. Piracy involves vessels moving on the surface of a large body of water, and weapons. Selling counterfeit CDs can be piracy if you stole them from a ship.
Copyright infringement can also involve fair use, depending on who you ask, LOL.
Yeah, just like piracy can be legal, if you have a letter of marque.
Whether you can hear that with the latter is up to the audiophiles though:)
Correction: Whether you can hear the latter is something that is best settled in double blind test experiements. Most people can't, at least if they're older than 30. If you ask an audiophile, the answer will of course be YES, but the same audiophile will probably also tell you that the quality of the power cord from the wall socket to your amplifier matters, with the more expensive power cord sounding "warmer", "richer", and "more detailed". After all, he already spent $10000 on the power cord, so it'd better sound right!
but if you can't tell what they said, why bother with a script?
This is the next planned cost-saving mesaure.
Actually, it has already been implemented. Although it didn't really save any money, they just replaced the script with car-chases, gunfights, swordfights, and boobies. Turns out it brought in more money, so it was a good idea anyway.
If its ugly its not solid. Ugly code is hard to understand at first glance, and its easy to introduce an error. Or do you consider code that's easy to make a mistake with as actually being "maintainable"?
You are confusing two aspects here. Ugliness does limit maintainability. But it does not limit "solidness". "Solidness" would mean that the code actually works, and has a proven track record, such as being used in production for over 20 years. Code that has been in production for over 20 years is usually both solid and ugly.
That ugly code is usually a monument to the "there's not enough time to do it right, but there's always enough time to do it over... and over... and over" and "ship it now - fix it later."
Or it could be a monument over "the world is a complex place, and if you change anything here, and it causes the program to fail in some weird special case, your company is going to loose umpteen zillion dollars". While the reality is probably somewhere in between, rewrites should still be avoided like the plague. However, if you really have taken the time to understand what some nasty bit of code does, there's nothing wrong about cleaning it up. But most of the time, the ugly code is there for a reason.
They still make VCRs? Ok, I guess some people have lots of old tapes. But why do they still make them record? If I bought a VCR today, the only thing I would use it for, was to convert old tapes to a more usable format. Ideally, I would prefer to buy this as a service rather than a device.
It looks like it has in-ear headphones which is something that I consider too dangerous while biking in traffic. But it's the closest I've seen so far. Thanks, I'll check it out more closely!
You are mistaken. If they used PVC they would have created a more useful product that would be easier to maintain and work just as well. But that wouldn't allow them to put the Gore-Tex sticker on it. So nobody sells PVC running shoes.
Actually, for running in wet terrain or rain, what I would really like, is to have them made of some watertight material with a mesh of holes in it. That would be almost like sandals, but give you less problems with small rocks getting inside the shoe. And there is no way you can avoid getting wet anyway, so you can just as well have the holes there. Why watertight material if there are holes anyway? Because it isn't damaged by water, it dries easily, and is easy to maintain. They didn't sell this at the sports shop either.
In hiking shoes, I have good experiences with Gore-Tex. But realize that Gore-Tex is mainly put there because it's cheaper than using good quality leather. A method that works almost as good is to put your feet (with socks) inside a plastic bag before you put on the shoes. If the Gore-Tex punctures (which will happen one day, trust me), you can still use this method, if you brought some dry socks.
Even properly maintained (or fabric new) Gore-Tex XCR "breathes" a lot less vapour out than your body does release under heavy physical activity. Running is heavy physical activity, you get clammy even in normal clothing, not to mention how you feel inside watertight/breathable gear like Gore-Tex. In running shoes, the main difference between Gore-Tex and PVC is that Gore-Tex takes longer to dry out afterwards, and is harder to clean.
Not that Gore-Tex isn't useful, but it isn't magic, like marketers would have us believe. (I once visited a sports shop, where the young female clerk explained to a customer that he should choose a Gore-Tex jacket because it's breathable, and it would soon be to clammy inside the microfiber jacket. Which is exactly the opposite of the truth. Gore-Tex breathes better than e.g. PVC, but less so, than e.g. cotton or microfiber, on the other hand, cotton or microfiber doesn't protect you from the rain. The advice would be true if the customer was comparing the Gore-Tex one with one made of PVC or old garbage bags).
Gore-Tex in running shoes. The water will get in at the top of the shoe (as it is only 3cm high), and never get out, since Gore-Tex is watertight. Besides, when running, my feet sweat, so water will end up inside the shoe even if it isn't wet outside.
Handsfree with short cords. I still haven't found one that allows me to have my phone in my side pocket in my pants. And I still haven't found a bluetooth handsfree with traditional lanyard design.
DVD-covers. They are larger than CDs for no good reason.
Flatscreen TVs with grounded powerchords. Apparently they cause fires because the antenna is grounded too, only not to the same "ground".
Yup, that's why I recommended a newspaper. If the local newspaper doesn't care, try an even more local newspaper. They have less to write about, and are closer to your police district. But on slow news days, this could be made into a major story. Slam the picture of some poor wheelchair-user who couldn't park, over the entire page. Make a pictorial out of weird cop-parking habits. Interview the police chief, and a representative for an organization for people with disabilities. And so on...
There's a reason the press is called the "fourth power", and it's exactly because it's good at stuff like this. If you call the dispatcher at the police, they don't have routines to handle it, and won't consider it important enough to spend time on, since they have other more important work to do, and since they are not in a position to do anything about it, and also because they view it as a minor exception, not as systematical abuse.
The situation is exactly analogous to someone calling McDonalds and complaining that there was an ant in his hamburger. What should the person answering phones at McDonalds do about it? Refer the caller to the ant-in-burger department? Try to reach the quality chief, and inform him about it? Or just forget about it? Which do you think is most likely to happen in practice?
"Break" was put into quotes, because if one is allowed to "break" the law, it's not really breaking it. You are also allowed to "break" the law in exceptional circumstances. For example, if you see a burning house, you are allowed to break a window to save the baby inside. Breaking windows in other peoples houses, are normally against the law. This is no different from cops, they are only allowed to "break" the law, in certain well-regulated and exceptional circumstances.
While a cop-car is "on the way to a call", that doesn't mean it needs to have the siren on all the time. Turning on the siren at red lights only, allow them to disrupt traffic less. This is a judgement that they have to take themselves. Of course, if they use the siren, while not on a call, that would be abuse, and is punishable. The same for parking in handicapped spots while shopping. Take a picture, send it to a local newspaper, and see what happens...
I believe greed is mostly a trait people have, not something that is equally distributed, so that poor people by necessity have x percent more greed than rich people. The world just doesn't work that way. People have different priorities. Board-leaders of companies that give themselves billion-dollar revenues for laying off thousands of other workers are exceptionally greedy, and immoral. I believe cops in general, chose to be cops, partly because it appealed to their high integrity. That doesn't mean that people never change, or that there can't exist dirty cops.
And of course, if the salary gets too low, people will struggle economically, and this can corrupt the judgement of just about anyone. It's important that people with responsibilities are not underpaid. This is no different from cops, than it is for clerks handling money, nurses handling patient drugs, or secretaries handling coca-cola trade secrets. In the case of cops, it becomes so important, that I'm of the opinion that a credit remark should lead to an evaluation by their superiors, to see if they are fit to continue their duty. I doubt it works this way, but it should.
And if you have a law against local cafeterias giving rebates on coffee and donuts to cops, yet this practice continues, local newspapers are again a good ally. I'm sure it's pretty easy to document.
Your complain about 2 million pages of law can hardly be directed at cops. This must be directed either at "the system" which makes creating new laws easy, and removing old laws hard. Or alternatively at the politicians, who don't do anything to fix this flaw in the system. Or the voters, who fail to influence the politicians to clear this up.
Assuming, of course, that it's daytime, and that the warden keeps his head perfectly still, and pointed at the road at a suitable angle to observer the license plates of passing traffic. I think I'll maintain my position.
I'm sure it's technically possible to extract license-plates of every car that passes by on a road. Doing so from a camera mounted on the head of a traffic warden, seems like a lot of trouble to go through, and a huge waste of taxpayer money.
Either Great Britain completely solved the problem of jobless people, or you need to let the job seekers decide on this. Deciding on their behalf is a little odd.
By that logic, you could just as well start a campaign for government-subsidized coconut-farming in Britain, because it surely would create one heck of a lot of new jobs. Back in the real world, it's cheaper to simply import coconuts.
A police officer can kill a suspect and get away with it
If ordinary policemen had a "license to kill", there would have been no catchiness in naming the 16th Bond movie just that. And by the way, you can also get away with killing someone. All you have to do, is to do it in self-defense. Cops can also in some extremely rare cases get away with accidents, because unlike most people, their job-description involves pointing loaded guns at unpredictable people who also have guns. In other words, their jobs involve deliberate risk-taking, and whenever risk is involved; accidents, statistically speaking, happens. In most any other business, risk is something you avoid.
One who can kill you - and one who you may not kill - is not your equal.
Equal in some situations, unequal in others. Or are you able to rank these people in a fixed hierarchy?
What this sort of squatting has done, in the end, is to utterly undermine and render worthless the notion of the domain name itself.
It's funny then, that every time I type google.com, or slashdot.org into my browser window I end up at the same page. I would say that domain names are not worthless.
trying to get meaningful domain names is pointless
It always was. Search.com is not Google. Chopper.com is not Harley Davidson. Yahoo.com is not about happy people. Amazon.com is not about tall and powerful women.
most people don't give the old notion of "you're only a professional if your email address has a legitimate domain" much thought any more.
Why should they? It's not like a con-man couldn't afford to buy a domain name, and rent some space on a server. This rule is as silly as insisting that "you're only a professional if you wear a tie".
Search engines have pretty much rendered moot the idea that the domain name itself need to have anything to do with the business or organization that runs it.
Yet for some unexplained reason, the Coca Cola Company decided that they wouldn't represent their company through the jfkojiovjojw2.com domain name, but decided to go for a meaningful one instead.
I can;t imagine the advertisers who pay him for hits actually get any return either.
You would be surprised. I can't even count the number of types where I've been with a friend and we've googled for something, and one of these pages come up. While I subconsciously immediately identify the page as "nothing there", I've had cases where I've even had to give up explaining to my friend exactly why it's "nothing there". He/she just can't get their head around the fact that it looks like a real site, but isn't. And it's not like all my friends are complete morons, more typically, they are average computer users who know how to install windows, and perhaps even hand-write HTML, but unlike geeks, can't or won't program.
It is legal. The cops may not like it. They will probaby get more used to it in the future. But there are good reasons for cops to ask you to stop filming anyway. E.g: It's not everybody that likes to have their arrest posted on youtube for posteriority.
The cost of cameras does not make any sense, it would be better to just hire more wardens instead.
Ok, so let's be generous and assume the cameras and other gadgetry (portable storage device, accumulated cost of computer(s) at main office, etc) add up to abut $2000 per warden. This will allow you to hire an extra warden for...a day or two? (Remember, the same cameras will be used by all three shifts). I can only conclude that hiring more wardens instead of adding cameras does not seem very economical to me.
Do you register every car's license plate in your memory as the cars go by? I don't, but the camera does.
If by "register", you mean, that it is put into a searchable database that can later be used by evildoers to monitor a certain individuals position, you are wrong. Nobody is extracting license plates, and putting them into a database. Even the government have better things to waste taxpayer money on.
On the other hand, if by "register", you mean, that it can be read later by an observer looking at the recording, you are also wrong; the cameras most likely have far too low resolution, and low shutter speed, to capture anything but the license plate of slow-moving or still objects close to the warden, if he looks directly at it.
I would compare it to giving officers an X-ray eyesight, where they could see through clothes - presumably to search for weapons.
Yeah, or that other ability that superman had, it's as if the parking attendants could suddenly fly, or get superhuman strength!
and who would be you to them? Anything but an equal citizen; a lowly plebeian, to be abused in any way.
If you feel that way in front of parking attendants, you seriously need to work on your self-esteem. How would you ever manage to talk to the waiter at an exclusive restaurant?
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The "killer app" for iPhone is that it combines a cell phone with the iPod, and the neat design and interface of the iPod. If I wanted a phone that would let third-parties develop their own "killer apps", I would buy one of the clunky qwerty-phones. But most "killer apps" for phones so far, has been in hardware, not software. They have added cameras, flashlights, GPS units, mp3 players and FM radios, bluetooth headsets, etc... Sure, the watch, calculator and calendar can be handy at times, but I don't want or need third-party software. I want to buy a phone with exactly the features I need. If someone develops a "killer app", and I find I need it, it will be on the next phone I buy. Phones don't last forever...
It would only be slavery if someone was forcing the musicians to create their music. That is not the case. I have put a lot of work into lots of things that nobody has paid for. That doesn't mean it's slavery, and I certainly don't feel unfairly treated because nobody has paid me yet.
Correct. I don't. But do they have a God-given right to prevent me from using their music in any way I choose to do, once they have chosen to let me have access to it?
There's a reason the GPL is also known as copyleft. The GPL is a clever hack, that uses current copyright law, to circumvent its effects. The GPL is not a goal in itself. Freedom of intellectual property is. If copyright law didn't exist, there would be no need for the GPL.
We are not discussing wine here. Wine is a physical product. Intellectual property can be copied with a keystroke. You can't do that with wine. If the cost of making a copy is basically zero, why do you believe someone should have the right to deny me that? My point was that, in a historical perspective, copying is an expensive operation that requires lots of time and training and/or highly specialized equipment. In todays world, copying is basically free, and trying to restrict people from making copies, is basically futile. A rental model would make more sense, although I'm not exactly a big advocate of that either.
Artists don't have a god-given right to profit. I like what artists do. I would prefer a system that allowed artists to continue creating stuff, and still have enough to make a living. But if the traditional model or royalties no longer works for artists, artists will have to reinvent how they make money. This means we may no longer have Hollywood blockbusters, or well-marketed mega-artists, but it sure wouldn't stop the artists from creating stuff, or getting paid in other ways. There are plenty of people willing to pay for the creation of artistic works, including me (and you, I would guess).
I don't see why you insist on calling something that clearly isn't slavery, for slavery. If you can point to just one artist who are forced at gunpoint to create artistic works, I would be very surprised. Do you feel guilty if you buy stuff on sale? The shop would get a higher profit if you bought it at full price. But the shop doesn't have a god-given right to profit either.
I'm not arguing for piracy. I'm arguing against copyright. The two are not the same. While many people, both those in favour of copyright, and
Actually, it is a cube...
Nice trolling. I'll bite anyway.
First off, Nobody has a god-given right to profit. This is as valid for the RIAA and for artists, as it is for people selling "counterfeited" CDs. Copyright allows some people to profit from their creations, at the expense of having other people not being able to copy intellectual property freely. This is a law created by humans. It is not the end of the universe if copyright-law is changed or even abolished.
Proponents of copyright argue that giving a monetary incentive to artists is good, because we will have more talented artists that choose to spend their time creating intellectual property. While it's possible to argue about how large this effect is, it's very hard to deny it. So far so good. Detractors of copyright say that people should have the right to do whatever they want with information. Just because someone has taken the time to create it, doesn't mean they should be allowed to limit my freedom to use or copy it as I want. This is also very tough to argue against. It seems that the only way copyright makes sense, is to somehow find a balance between these issues. Artists should get some form of pay, people should have some form of freedom. There is very little black and white about the idea of copyright. While laws must necessarily be clear, the ideas behind it, are in effect quite grey.
Copyright is actually a very old idea. It existed as far back as in the Roman empire. Back in those days, it was mostly used in books. Just like today, books were written by authors. But unlike today, making a copy of a book, could involve one or more highly educated slaves, slaving for a year or more. Needless to say, books were quite expensive. In such a system, arguing that the author should receive a fair share whenever a new copy was produced, is not particulary hard.
Today (where I live), an album of music costs (in retail) about 2 average-salary work-hours. The cost (for a consumer) of making ONE exact replica of it, is less than a tenth of that. The cost of making mp3s out of it, would then be about 1-2 minutes. The cost of copying these mp3s to a buddy, would be about 1-2 seconds. Despite these almost shocking numbers (at least in a historical perspective), copyright legislation has recently become more in favour of copyright-holders. Essentially, the music industry, or more generally, the content industry, has partnered with the law-makers, to create a system that is completely unfair for the average consumer.
Actually, since today it is cheaper to produce a copy of some intellectual property, than it is to enjoy it (I can copy a CD much faster than I can listen to it), artificially restricting copying of content seems completely backwards. Why should the public accept such completely silly laws? Even if we can agree in principle, that it would be nice if artists got paid, that doesn't mean we must agree that copyright is the way to do it. Actually, it doesn't even mean that artists must get paid, it just means we would prefer a system that does so. But even so, a system that puts what looks like completely arbitrary restrictions on copying of content (that would otherwise be essentially free), is not something that can survive for long into the future. Copyright is dead!
In my book, using violence or threat of violence to take control over a ship you do not own, is piracy. Selling counterfeit CDs? Not piracy. Piracy involves vessels moving on the surface of a large body of water, and weapons. Selling counterfeit CDs can be piracy if you stole them from a ship.
Yeah, just like piracy can be legal, if you have a letter of marque.
You are confusing two aspects here. Ugliness does limit maintainability. But it does not limit "solidness". "Solidness" would mean that the code actually works, and has a proven track record, such as being used in production for over 20 years. Code that has been in production for over 20 years is usually both solid and ugly.
Or it could be a monument over "the world is a complex place, and if you change anything here, and it causes the program to fail in some weird special case, your company is going to loose umpteen zillion dollars". While the reality is probably somewhere in between, rewrites should still be avoided like the plague. However, if you really have taken the time to understand what some nasty bit of code does, there's nothing wrong about cleaning it up. But most of the time, the ugly code is there for a reason.
You need to work on you gheyness
They still make VCRs? Ok, I guess some people have lots of old tapes. But why do they still make them record? If I bought a VCR today, the only thing I would use it for, was to convert old tapes to a more usable format. Ideally, I would prefer to buy this as a service rather than a device.
I don't get it. If you can shove the tray in, why do you need to look for the eject button? You only need the eject button to eject, right?
It looks like it has in-ear headphones which is something that I consider too dangerous while biking in traffic. But it's the closest I've seen so far. Thanks, I'll check it out more closely!
You are mistaken. If they used PVC they would have created a more useful product that would be easier to maintain and work just as well. But that wouldn't allow them to put the Gore-Tex sticker on it. So nobody sells PVC running shoes.
Actually, for running in wet terrain or rain, what I would really like, is to have them made of some watertight material with a mesh of holes in it. That would be almost like sandals, but give you less problems with small rocks getting inside the shoe. And there is no way you can avoid getting wet anyway, so you can just as well have the holes there. Why watertight material if there are holes anyway? Because it isn't damaged by water, it dries easily, and is easy to maintain. They didn't sell this at the sports shop either.
In hiking shoes, I have good experiences with Gore-Tex. But realize that Gore-Tex is mainly put there because it's cheaper than using good quality leather. A method that works almost as good is to put your feet (with socks) inside a plastic bag before you put on the shoes. If the Gore-Tex punctures (which will happen one day, trust me), you can still use this method, if you brought some dry socks.
Even properly maintained (or fabric new) Gore-Tex XCR "breathes" a lot less vapour out than your body does release under heavy physical activity. Running is heavy physical activity, you get clammy even in normal clothing, not to mention how you feel inside watertight/breathable gear like Gore-Tex. In running shoes, the main difference between Gore-Tex and PVC is that Gore-Tex takes longer to dry out afterwards, and is harder to clean.
Not that Gore-Tex isn't useful, but it isn't magic, like marketers would have us believe. (I once visited a sports shop, where the young female clerk explained to a customer that he should choose a Gore-Tex jacket because it's breathable, and it would soon be to clammy inside the microfiber jacket. Which is exactly the opposite of the truth. Gore-Tex breathes better than e.g. PVC, but less so, than e.g. cotton or microfiber, on the other hand, cotton or microfiber doesn't protect you from the rain. The advice would be true if the customer was comparing the Gore-Tex one with one made of PVC or old garbage bags).
My God, the stupidity!
But if you didn't have "..", how would you do "cd .."?
Gore-Tex in running shoes. The water will get in at the top of the shoe (as it is only 3cm high), and never get out, since Gore-Tex is watertight. Besides, when running, my feet sweat, so water will end up inside the shoe even if it isn't wet outside.
Handsfree with short cords. I still haven't found one that allows me to have my phone in my side pocket in my pants. And I still haven't found a bluetooth handsfree with traditional lanyard design.
DVD-covers. They are larger than CDs for no good reason.
Flatscreen TVs with grounded powerchords. Apparently they cause fires because the antenna is grounded too, only not to the same "ground".
I think that's it for now
Yup, that's why I recommended a newspaper. If the local newspaper doesn't care, try an even more local newspaper. They have less to write about, and are closer to your police district. But on slow news days, this could be made into a major story. Slam the picture of some poor wheelchair-user who couldn't park, over the entire page. Make a pictorial out of weird cop-parking habits. Interview the police chief, and a representative for an organization for people with disabilities. And so on...
There's a reason the press is called the "fourth power", and it's exactly because it's good at stuff like this. If you call the dispatcher at the police, they don't have routines to handle it, and won't consider it important enough to spend time on, since they have other more important work to do, and since they are not in a position to do anything about it, and also because they view it as a minor exception, not as systematical abuse.
The situation is exactly analogous to someone calling McDonalds and complaining that there was an ant in his hamburger. What should the person answering phones at McDonalds do about it? Refer the caller to the ant-in-burger department? Try to reach the quality chief, and inform him about it? Or just forget about it? Which do you think is most likely to happen in practice?
Amazing! I just hammered some random keys on my keyboard.
"Break" was put into quotes, because if one is allowed to "break" the law, it's not really breaking it. You are also allowed to "break" the law in exceptional circumstances. For example, if you see a burning house, you are allowed to break a window to save the baby inside. Breaking windows in other peoples houses, are normally against the law. This is no different from cops, they are only allowed to "break" the law, in certain well-regulated and exceptional circumstances.
While a cop-car is "on the way to a call", that doesn't mean it needs to have the siren on all the time. Turning on the siren at red lights only, allow them to disrupt traffic less. This is a judgement that they have to take themselves. Of course, if they use the siren, while not on a call, that would be abuse, and is punishable. The same for parking in handicapped spots while shopping. Take a picture, send it to a local newspaper, and see what happens...
I believe greed is mostly a trait people have, not something that is equally distributed, so that poor people by necessity have x percent more greed than rich people. The world just doesn't work that way. People have different priorities. Board-leaders of companies that give themselves billion-dollar revenues for laying off thousands of other workers are exceptionally greedy, and immoral. I believe cops in general, chose to be cops, partly because it appealed to their high integrity. That doesn't mean that people never change, or that there can't exist dirty cops.
And of course, if the salary gets too low, people will struggle economically, and this can corrupt the judgement of just about anyone. It's important that people with responsibilities are not underpaid. This is no different from cops, than it is for clerks handling money, nurses handling patient drugs, or secretaries handling coca-cola trade secrets. In the case of cops, it becomes so important, that I'm of the opinion that a credit remark should lead to an evaluation by their superiors, to see if they are fit to continue their duty. I doubt it works this way, but it should.
And if you have a law against local cafeterias giving rebates on coffee and donuts to cops, yet this practice continues, local newspapers are again a good ally. I'm sure it's pretty easy to document.
Your complain about 2 million pages of law can hardly be directed at cops. This must be directed either at "the system" which makes creating new laws easy, and removing old laws hard. Or alternatively at the politicians, who don't do anything to fix this flaw in the system. Or the voters, who fail to influence the politicians to clear this up.
Assuming, of course, that it's daytime, and that the warden keeps his head perfectly still, and pointed at the road at a suitable angle to observer the license plates of passing traffic. I think I'll maintain my position.
I'm sure it's technically possible to extract license-plates of every car that passes by on a road. Doing so from a camera mounted on the head of a traffic warden, seems like a lot of trouble to go through, and a huge waste of taxpayer money.
By that logic, you could just as well start a campaign for government-subsidized coconut-farming in Britain, because it surely would create one heck of a lot of new jobs. Back in the real world, it's cheaper to simply import coconuts.
If ordinary policemen had a "license to kill", there would have been no catchiness in naming the 16th Bond movie just that. And by the way, you can also get away with killing someone. All you have to do, is to do it in self-defense. Cops can also in some extremely rare cases get away with accidents, because unlike most people, their job-description involves pointing loaded guns at unpredictable people who also have guns. In other words, their jobs involve deliberate risk-taking, and whenever risk is involved; accidents, statistically speaking, happens. In most any other business, risk is something you avoid.
Equal in some situations, unequal in others. Or are you able to rank these people in a fixed hierarchy?
Get my drift?
It's funny then, that every time I type google.com, or slashdot.org into my browser window I end up at the same page. I would say that domain names are not worthless.
It always was. Search.com is not Google. Chopper.com is not Harley Davidson. Yahoo.com is not about happy people. Amazon.com is not about tall and powerful women.
Why should they? It's not like a con-man couldn't afford to buy a domain name, and rent some space on a server. This rule is as silly as insisting that "you're only a professional if you wear a tie".
Yet for some unexplained reason, the Coca Cola Company decided that they wouldn't represent their company through the jfkojiovjojw2.com domain name, but decided to go for a meaningful one instead.
You would be surprised. I can't even count the number of types where I've been with a friend and we've googled for something, and one of these pages come up. While I subconsciously immediately identify the page as "nothing there", I've had cases where I've even had to give up explaining to my friend exactly why it's "nothing there". He/she just can't get their head around the fact that it looks like a real site, but isn't. And it's not like all my friends are complete morons, more typically, they are average computer users who know how to install windows, and perhaps even hand-write HTML, but unlike geeks, can't or won't program.
It is legal. The cops may not like it. They will probaby get more used to it in the future. But there are good reasons for cops to ask you to stop filming anyway. E.g: It's not everybody that likes to have their arrest posted on youtube for posteriority.
Ok, so let's be generous and assume the cameras and other gadgetry (portable storage device, accumulated cost of computer(s) at main office, etc) add up to abut $2000 per warden. This will allow you to hire an extra warden for...a day or two? (Remember, the same cameras will be used by all three shifts). I can only conclude that hiring more wardens instead of adding cameras does not seem very economical to me.
If by "register", you mean, that it is put into a searchable database that can later be used by evildoers to monitor a certain individuals position, you are wrong. Nobody is extracting license plates, and putting them into a database. Even the government have better things to waste taxpayer money on.
On the other hand, if by "register", you mean, that it can be read later by an observer looking at the recording, you are also wrong; the cameras most likely have far too low resolution, and low shutter speed, to capture anything but the license plate of slow-moving or still objects close to the warden, if he looks directly at it.
Yeah, or that other ability that superman had, it's as if the parking attendants could suddenly fly, or get superhuman strength!
If you feel that way in front of parking attendants, you seriously need to work on your self-esteem. How would you ever manage to talk to the waiter at an exclusive restaurant?