My main concern with it is that we avoid any slippery slopes that lead to the production of embryos specifically for research. Then we are talking about the farming and harvesting of humans for our own gain.
I don't really see the issue with that. We are talking blastocysts with several hundred cells at most.
A blastocyst is not a human being. There are no differentiated organs... and most importantly, there is no nervous system. How can you have a human being when there is no brain for a mind, and no organs?
It is not human life that is precious, it is human beings that are precious. Cancerous tumours cut out of people are human life, biologically speaking, yet they have no special value.
Now that's not to say the field is wholly without concern. There are certain ethical questions regarding the sourcing of the eggs and sperm for fertilization, since those have to come from human beings and "harvesting", especially of eggs, is problematic.
There have actually been cases of stimulant use by pro-league gamers to get a competitive edge. I recall debate on whether they should start testing for drugs...
No, recording is not illegal either. The law only makes an offence of intercepting communications that were intentionally obfuscated (even if the method was easily broken.)
Canadian law, and I generally consider Canada to be a free society, has the possibility of indefinite detention if someone is found to be a dangerous offender, and likely to reoffend. It's not very often used, mostly in the most grievous murder and sexual assault cases.
At least in Canada, if you're stopped on the street, the only thing you are legally required to provide a police officer is your name. You are not obligated to carry or provide identification (though generally doing so is helpful), and you are most certainly not required to prove your citizenship on demand.
Any such law would impact citizens as well as non-citizens. I'm a Canadian citizen. If the police believe I'm not a citizen and stopped me, demanding proof... well, I don't have proof handy. I certainly don't carry my passport around with me when I'm in Toronto.
As for China? Well, it's a repressive hellhole. Their behaviour is not an excuse.
Who said anything about RFID? Debit cards in Canada have a public key encryption chip built-in. They also require physical contact with the reader to work. I suspect that is what the parent was talking about.
I think HDD will continue to stay enough ahead of SSD in raw capacity that it will stay relevant for a long time. When SSD is affordable at 200 GB then HDD will already be affordable at 2 TB, etc.
Ah, but when 200 GB of storage is $20, no hard drive will ever be able to be that cheap. There is a fixed minimum cost for building a hard drive. Spindle, motor, etc. It's about $70. When "enough storage" for the average user, let's say 200 GB costs less than that base cost, almost all new storage sold will be SSD devices due to their overall advantages, especially in a battery-powered machine (which are the majority of all computers sold today).
This will completely gut the market for hard drives and R&D into them will cease. All money will move to SSDs and they will improve even more rapidly.
As to the point of this... we recently had a story about how computers had gotten "too big to understand".
And here we have a program, 45 bytes long, for which every single byte has a well-explained purpose. It's getting back to the bare metal and that's what makes it interesting. =)
There's not really anything as "registered deaf" in Canada (nor as far as I know, the United States) since there's no organization or government body to... register with. And while yes, having a hearing loss or being deaf is something they legally cannot discriminate against and must make reasonable accommodations for, making it known drops your chances of getting employed by something like 90%, and even if they do hire you, they won't care enough to do anything for you... especially if it is a severe loss or total deafness. I speak from personal experience.
A few years ago, in my first year of college I applied for a job at a small pet store, part time. Retail, though I wouldn't be interacting with the customers very much, if ever, since I was to be unloading stock in the back and putting it on carts and maybe occasionally stocking shelves.
I got through the brief interview and so on well enough without telling my manager about the hearing loss (some residual hearing, a quiet environment, in-the-canal hearing aids and lip-reading sometimes make me able to pass as a hearing person). On the first day of the job next week, I tell my manager about the hearing loss, out of a mixture of concern for safety (though it wasn't a risky working environment) and simple practicality.
I was promptly "unhired". Company "image" and "difficulty for the customers" and "safety" concerns.
Not much avenue to follow up with it, being naive about working at the time I never got a copy of my employment contract. I never got paid for the day I did work, either.
I finally, through a friend, got another retail job, and while the store owner was understanding, both the night shift managers were not. I would get called over the PA and if one of my co-workers didn't point it out to me, about 20 minutes later the manager would come storming up to me, yelling at me "why didn't you...".
So yeah. Unless you're profoundly deaf, just fudge it. If they're not total assholes, they'll just forget so it won't actually help you, and if they are assholes you will get burned for it. Never give them anything; they will just use it against you.
I went the Dvorak route. I never bothered switching keyboards or keycaps, so I learnt to touchtype blind. It took me about two weeks of casual use to get up to the speed of my QWERTY keyboarding skills and I improved much beyond that. I do about 80 WPM now.
I also didn't forget QWERTY. I can still type QWERTY as well as I ever did, at a sufficient but painful 30 wpm.
The UK version in which doctors are federal employees is one, but the Canadian system where the federal government is essentially the insurer is another.
While you got the general idea right, you got some facts wrong. The UK doesn't have a federal government to begin with, and universal insurance is implemented at the provincial level in Canada, with each province having its own insurance system.
I don't know Canadian law, but if satire is protected, couldn't someone put a small disclaimer on the website?
Satire and parody are broadly protected, but that wouldn't work if the material wasn't actually satire. It's like a terrorist putting up a disclaimer "these aren't instructions on how to build a bomb" while then describing how to build a bomb...
While a risky move, Microsoft just needs to pull out of the EU and say "Piss off"
Lolwut? Why yes, Microsoft should pull out of the world's largest market, probably cutting their revenue by about 30%, just to stand up to some pushy EU bureaucrats, that makes good business sense!
the courts will very likely find the Minister to be incorrect in his interpretation of the constitution, and that everything he is proposing violates Section 8 of the Charter, "Everyone has the right to be secure against unreasonable search or seizure."
I would point out the Supreme Court has ruled that that whether information is subject to protection by Section 8 is not at the whim of the government, but whether a person has a "reasonable expectation of privacy" of information which could "reveal intimate, personal information", in that particular situation.
It is not particularly difficult to envision a situation where linking an IP address to a name would potentially reveal personal information to the state. Imagine a woman posting on a support forum for victims of sexual assault which tracks posters by IP...
Since IP addresses and so on are identifying information, and this being information people would reasonably expect their ISPs to keep private, I suspect that this entire thing is just begging for a Charter challenge and to have the courts clearly specify that a warrant is required.
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My main concern with it is that we avoid any slippery slopes that lead to the production of embryos specifically for research. Then we are talking about the farming and harvesting of humans for our own gain.
I don't really see the issue with that. We are talking blastocysts with several hundred cells at most.
A blastocyst is not a human being. There are no differentiated organs... and most importantly, there is no nervous system. How can you have a human being when there is no brain for a mind, and no organs?
It is not human life that is precious, it is human beings that are precious. Cancerous tumours cut out of people are human life, biologically speaking, yet they have no special value.
Now that's not to say the field is wholly without concern. There are certain ethical questions regarding the sourcing of the eggs and sperm for fertilization, since those have to come from human beings and "harvesting", especially of eggs, is problematic.
There have actually been cases of stimulant use by pro-league gamers to get a competitive edge. I recall debate on whether they should start testing for drugs...
No. You're drastically reducing the number of possible infections. 90% of exposures would be immunized against.
No, recording is not illegal either. The law only makes an offence of intercepting communications that were intentionally obfuscated (even if the method was easily broken.)
Well then it's a good thing that it's the judiciary's role to enact public policy!
No, but it is the judiciary's duty to enforce the current law: the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
It'll be nice to get some third-party data on exactly how long these things last on average.
But who cares? Sometimes you just have to stop being so serious and laugh a little.
Canadian law, and I generally consider Canada to be a free society, has the possibility of indefinite detention if someone is found to be a dangerous offender, and likely to reoffend. It's not very often used, mostly in the most grievous murder and sexual assault cases.
Wikipedia has more information: Dangerous Offender
What ads? I haven't seen an ad on the Internet since the last century... do people still surf without Adblock or something?
At least in Canada, if you're stopped on the street, the only thing you are legally required to provide a police officer is your name. You are not obligated to carry or provide identification (though generally doing so is helpful), and you are most certainly not required to prove your citizenship on demand.
Any such law would impact citizens as well as non-citizens. I'm a Canadian citizen. If the police believe I'm not a citizen and stopped me, demanding proof... well, I don't have proof handy. I certainly don't carry my passport around with me when I'm in Toronto.
As for China? Well, it's a repressive hellhole. Their behaviour is not an excuse.
Who said anything about RFID? Debit cards in Canada have a public key encryption chip built-in. They also require physical contact with the reader to work. I suspect that is what the parent was talking about.
I think HDD will continue to stay enough ahead of SSD in raw capacity that it will stay relevant for a long time. When SSD is affordable at 200 GB then HDD will already be affordable at 2 TB, etc.
Ah, but when 200 GB of storage is $20, no hard drive will ever be able to be that cheap. There is a fixed minimum cost for building a hard drive. Spindle, motor, etc. It's about $70. When "enough storage" for the average user, let's say 200 GB costs less than that base cost, almost all new storage sold will be SSD devices due to their overall advantages, especially in a battery-powered machine (which are the majority of all computers sold today).
This will completely gut the market for hard drives and R&D into them will cease. All money will move to SSDs and they will improve even more rapidly.
As to the point of this... we recently had a story about how computers had gotten "too big to understand".
And here we have a program, 45 bytes long, for which every single byte has a well-explained purpose. It's getting back to the bare metal and that's what makes it interesting. =)
There's not really anything as "registered deaf" in Canada (nor as far as I know, the United States) since there's no organization or government body to... register with. And while yes, having a hearing loss or being deaf is something they legally cannot discriminate against and must make reasonable accommodations for, making it known drops your chances of getting employed by something like 90%, and even if they do hire you, they won't care enough to do anything for you... especially if it is a severe loss or total deafness. I speak from personal experience.
A few years ago, in my first year of college I applied for a job at a small pet store, part time. Retail, though I wouldn't be interacting with the customers very much, if ever, since I was to be unloading stock in the back and putting it on carts and maybe occasionally stocking shelves.
I got through the brief interview and so on well enough without telling my manager about the hearing loss (some residual hearing, a quiet environment, in-the-canal hearing aids and lip-reading sometimes make me able to pass as a hearing person). On the first day of the job next week, I tell my manager about the hearing loss, out of a mixture of concern for safety (though it wasn't a risky working environment) and simple practicality.
I was promptly "unhired". Company "image" and "difficulty for the customers" and "safety" concerns.
Not much avenue to follow up with it, being naive about working at the time I never got a copy of my employment contract. I never got paid for the day I did work, either.
I finally, through a friend, got another retail job, and while the store owner was understanding, both the night shift managers were not. I would get called over the PA and if one of my co-workers didn't point it out to me, about 20 minutes later the manager would come storming up to me, yelling at me "why didn't you...".
So yeah. Unless you're profoundly deaf, just fudge it. If they're not total assholes, they'll just forget so it won't actually help you, and if they are assholes you will get burned for it. Never give them anything; they will just use it against you.
I went the Dvorak route. I never bothered switching keyboards or keycaps, so I learnt to touchtype blind. It took me about two weeks of casual use to get up to the speed of my QWERTY keyboarding skills and I improved much beyond that. I do about 80 WPM now. I also didn't forget QWERTY. I can still type QWERTY as well as I ever did, at a sufficient but painful 30 wpm.
The UK version in which doctors are federal employees is one, but the Canadian system where the federal government is essentially the insurer is another.
While you got the general idea right, you got some facts wrong. The UK doesn't have a federal government to begin with, and universal insurance is implemented at the provincial level in Canada, with each province having its own insurance system.
I don't know Canadian law, but if satire is protected, couldn't someone put a small disclaimer on the website?
Satire and parody are broadly protected, but that wouldn't work if the material wasn't actually satire. It's like a terrorist putting up a disclaimer "these aren't instructions on how to build a bomb" while then describing how to build a bomb...
Pornography may be naked people having sex, or it may be sites critical of the government.
Oh no, this is actually about pornography. The government of China already openly and unabashedly censors political content it doesn't approve of.
While a risky move, Microsoft just needs to pull out of the EU and say "Piss off"
Lolwut? Why yes, Microsoft should pull out of the world's largest market, probably cutting their revenue by about 30%, just to stand up to some pushy EU bureaucrats, that makes good business sense!
bed shakers (or, more often, pillow vibrators) are very common devices for waking deaf people. Take a look here.
the courts will very likely find the Minister to be incorrect in his interpretation of the constitution, and that everything he is proposing violates Section 8 of the Charter, "Everyone has the right to be secure against unreasonable search or seizure."
I would point out the Supreme Court has ruled that that whether information is subject to protection by Section 8 is not at the whim of the government, but whether a person has a "reasonable expectation of privacy" of information which could "reveal intimate, personal information", in that particular situation.
It is not particularly difficult to envision a situation where linking an IP address to a name would potentially reveal personal information to the state. Imagine a woman posting on a support forum for victims of sexual assault which tracks posters by IP...
Since IP addresses and so on are identifying information, and this being information people would reasonably expect their ISPs to keep private, I suspect that this entire thing is just begging for a Charter challenge and to have the courts clearly specify that a warrant is required.
CanLII has a very interesting brief on section 8 of the Charter here.