Actually, the justification used for wiring England with video cameras was to combat crime and the fear of crime. Terrorism didn't really come into it.
Unfortunately, the cameras aren't all that effective at stopping crime. Apparently the criminals forget they are there and so go ahead and commit the crimes anyway. The footage is generally of a rather poor quality and so of limited use. And the cameras are placed rather high up (to avoid vandals) so only give views of the tops of people's heads.
That said, the cameras are very effective at combating fear of crime. Make of that what you will.
Also, for the record, we haven't had anything blown up here in England for quite a few years now.
Before we think that this is a panacea for our security worriess we should be aware that facial recognition technology isn't all that good. In ideal conditions, with a relatively small database of images, it works reasonably well. But as soon as you put it in a real world environment (an airport for example) the reliability goes way down.
Once this is rolled out on passports, how many false negatives are they going to be getting? To my eyes, my own passport photograph doesn't look all that much like me. God knows what a computer would make of it.
Essentially this is a way for Gov't to waste lots and lots of money without adding to security. If that's all they want to do, they should give the money to me - I'll waste it for them, no problem.
There may well be a degree of incompetance in the US patent office, but it is still the case that assessing all those patent applications for prior art is an herculean task.
Surely the sensible option would be to accept that the patent office will do a flawed job. So, you need a cheap, fair and readily accessible way of resolving disputes over patents. Currently, challenging a patent in law can be prohibitively expensive, which only serves to undermine the rule of law.
It is the process of resolving patent disputes that is the problem, not the issuing of those patents in the first place.
So here we have a study that has not even been published yet. It is likely that the article is based on a press release rather than a reading of the study in question. Because the study is not yet published we have no idea whether the methodology used is sound or not.
Furthermore, the few figures in the report are all shown as percentage probabilities. Probabilities represented as percentages can be very misleading. An increase from 1 to 2 is a 100% percent increase, but it is still only an increase of 1.
I'm afraid that, on the basis of this article, we can draw no conclusions about the safety or otherwise of AM transmitters. There simply is not enough information. So move along people, there's nothing to see here.
I think one of the writers of the US Constitution said, "those who would sacrifice essential liberty for a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety".
America was blessed to have a group of true and honest men of vision around at the time the nation was forged. It's a great shame that this isn't true today.
Under British Law, a work produced in another country is protected under the copyright laws of that country unless the term of protection exceeds that offered under British law, in which case British law applies.
So our 50 year protection trumps the USA's billion year protection (or whatever it is these days) because it's the shorter of the two.
Time for everyone to go back to school and retake all those classes about statistics.
These figures, produced by WebSideStory, tell you only that 94.73% of visitors to a given list of sites use IE. It tells you nothing reliable about browser usage as a whole. To do that you would have to put together a list of sites that will provide you with a representative sample of internet users. Only then can you draw any conclusions about browser usage as a whole.
WebSideStory's sample is based upon "thousands of sites" that are all customers of one company. This is a tiny fraction of the total sites out there and it is extremely unlikely to be a representative sample of the web as a whole.
The tell-tale giveaway with WebSideStory's statistics is that they do not state a "margin of error". As their approach does not give you results that can be reliably extrapolated, the margin of error for any such extrapolation is effectively 100%.
10 can be divided by every single number apart from 0, but this is not the same as saying it is divisible by every single number apart from 0.
Division is the act of finding, for two numbers, a third number (called the 'quotient') such that the first number is equal to the quotient multiplied by the second number.
Calling a number 'divisible', however, is to say that it can be divided an exact number of times by another number.
So 10 can be divided by 3 but it is not divisible by 3. They are different words, they mean different things.
This particular brit uses the "new" metric measurements day to day, save for in a few hallowed areas:
Travelling distance is always in miles because the road signs are always in miles.
Speed on the road is always miles per hour.
The pint of beer is, of course, sacred and thus cannot be tinkered with.
Weights of humans and pets are recorded in stones and ounces.
Heights of humans and pets are recorded in feet and inches.
As far as I can recall, everything else in my life is metric. My milk comes in litres (mind you I had to check that by peering into my fridge; I am currently in posession of 1L of milk).
The degree to which a given Briton uses metric or imperial in their personal life depends largely upon which generation they belong to.
In the UK, pornography (excepting that involving children, which is de facto illegal) is not illegal unless it qualifies as 'obscene' under the Obscene Publications Act 1959. The test provided by this act for obscenity status is that the material, in the opinion of the prosecuting authority, is likely to deprave and corrupt.
Inevitably this is a rather subjective judgement and has lead to a very inconsistent application of the act. It also makes it all but impossible for an individual to determine whether a given image in their possession is illegal under the act or not - it all depends on the opinion of the judge that you may or may not be hauled in front of.
That said, possession of such 'obscene' material is not itself illegal unless it was imported illegally. Distribution and publication of 'obscene' material is an offence. And simply showing someone an 'obscene' image is classed as publication for this purpose.
The law regarding pornography involving consenting adults is really a complete mess in the UK.
A private company such as BT might have good reason to block child pornography. Most customers will not want to see it themselves, or risk having their children stumble over the stuff accidentally. The fact that BT is trying to block this material will probably attract customers to the service. So BT has a profit motive for this censorship.
What motive would BT have for blocking access to political sites? Does BT really think its customers are worried about their children accidentally stumbling over sites that criticise Tony Blair? I don't think so. And I can just picture what a PR disaster it would be for a company like BT to be accused of political censorship of the 'net. BT is already losing a great many customers to competition, being accused of political censorship could seriously damage an already wounded company.
Blocking child porn, on the other hand, is likely to be quite popular with their customers and is no doubt being done precisely for that reason.
Don't forget that BT is a company. They are there to make a profit. Widespread censorship by one private company in a free society is not going to make a profit. It would be unpopular and their customers would simply go elsewhere. There is no slippery slope here.
Whether it is a sensible approach to dealing with child pornography is another question of course.
You might want to change the refresh rate if different people use the same pc. Some people are better at perceiving fast moving objects and so need to increase the refresh rate of the monitor to avoid seeing an unpleasant flicker. Another person may be more comfortable with the refresh rate at the original value. Different people come with different eyes you know.
Maybe we need to design prophylactics for guns. So that you have to fit one over the muzzle before using the weapon - that way no-one gets hurt. You know it makes sense.
IANAL but, though I don't know about US law, I understand that under English law if one clause of a contract is rendered void for whatever reason this does not normally affect the status of the rest of the contract. If any of the other clauses depend upon the void clause then they too will be void, however any clauses that can reasonably stand apart from the void clause would still apply and be enforceable.
You could argue before a Judge or Magistrate that the other party has demonstrated bad faith and so the whole contract should be anulled. Apart from that, however, the rest of the contract would stand.
That said, if you never used or installed the copy of Windows in question then you never agreed to abide by the EULA so you are not bound by it. But then neither is Microsoft, so they don't owe you any money. You knowingly bought the product of your own free will so the supplier is under no legal obligation to offer you a refund.
However (sorry to go on for so long) in my opinion - remember IANAL - there's nothing to stop you reselling the software. You just have to bear in mind that whoever buys it will have to abide by the EULA, assuming they install the software, so it would have to be *possible* for them to abide by it. If it's not then you would have sold the software in bad faith and they could claim a refund from you!
All the hardware-tied EULA's that I've seen state only that the software is licensed with the accompanying unnamed hardware. In my view this means that you would have to sell the software along with a piece of hardware and the buyer could then only use the software in conjunction with that hardware. So bundle a nice mouse with the OEM copy of Windows XP and you're sorted.
If these strange quarks are so dense would I be right in thinking that a relatively small collection would generate a significant gravitational field? And, if so, could you - theoretically - coat the bottom of a space station with them thus creating artifical gravity? Or is that just silly - I am not a physicist after all...
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, the justification used for wiring England with video cameras was to combat crime and the fear of crime. Terrorism didn't really come into it.
Unfortunately, the cameras aren't all that effective at stopping crime. Apparently the criminals forget they are there and so go ahead and commit the crimes anyway. The footage is generally of a rather poor quality and so of limited use. And the cameras are placed rather high up (to avoid vandals) so only give views of the tops of people's heads.
That said, the cameras are very effective at combating fear of crime. Make of that what you will.
Also, for the record, we haven't had anything blown up here in England for quite a few years now.
Before we think that this is a panacea for our security worriess we should be aware that facial recognition technology isn't all that good. In ideal conditions, with a relatively small database of images, it works reasonably well. But as soon as you put it in a real world environment (an airport for example) the reliability goes way down.
Once this is rolled out on passports, how many false negatives are they going to be getting? To my eyes, my own passport photograph doesn't look all that much like me. God knows what a computer would make of it.
Essentially this is a way for Gov't to waste lots and lots of money without adding to security. If that's all they want to do, they should give the money to me - I'll waste it for them, no problem.
There may well be a degree of incompetance in the US patent office, but it is still the case that assessing all those patent applications for prior art is an herculean task.
Surely the sensible option would be to accept that the patent office will do a flawed job. So, you need a cheap, fair and readily accessible way of resolving disputes over patents. Currently, challenging a patent in law can be prohibitively expensive, which only serves to undermine the rule of law.
It is the process of resolving patent disputes that is the problem, not the issuing of those patents in the first place.
So here we have a study that has not even been published yet. It is likely that the article is based on a press release rather than a reading of the study in question. Because the study is not yet published we have no idea whether the methodology used is sound or not.
Furthermore, the few figures in the report are all shown as percentage probabilities. Probabilities represented as percentages can be very misleading. An increase from 1 to 2 is a 100% percent increase, but it is still only an increase of 1.
I'm afraid that, on the basis of this article, we can draw no conclusions about the safety or otherwise of AM transmitters. There simply is not enough information. So move along people, there's nothing to see here.
I think one of the writers of the US Constitution said, "those who would sacrifice essential liberty for a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety".
America was blessed to have a group of true and honest men of vision around at the time the nation was forged. It's a great shame that this isn't true today.
Under British Law, a work produced in another country is protected under the copyright laws of that country unless the term of protection exceeds that offered under British law, in which case British law applies.
So our 50 year protection trumps the USA's billion year protection (or whatever it is these days) because it's the shorter of the two.
Just thought I should point out that you are not going to see the Coriolis effect in a toilet flush unless it's a really big toilet.
Time for everyone to go back to school and retake all those classes about statistics.
These figures, produced by WebSideStory, tell you only that 94.73% of visitors to a given list of sites use IE. It tells you nothing reliable about browser usage as a whole. To do that you would have to put together a list of sites that will provide you with a representative sample of internet users. Only then can you draw any conclusions about browser usage as a whole.
WebSideStory's sample is based upon "thousands of sites" that are all customers of one company. This is a tiny fraction of the total sites out there and it is extremely unlikely to be a representative sample of the web as a whole.
The tell-tale giveaway with WebSideStory's statistics is that they do not state a "margin of error". As their approach does not give you results that can be reliably extrapolated, the margin of error for any such extrapolation is effectively 100%.
Once more we see the importance of the humble comma. Compare:
"If this is confirmed, in seven days we will..."
with:
"If this is confirmed in seven days, we will..."
If vacuum cleaners keep small things undisturbed then I want my money back.
"10 is divisible by 2 and 5. 12 is divisible by 2, 3, 4, and 6. This makes mental division twice as easy with feet than with meters."
Now, now. Let's compare like with like: 10cm is divisible by 5cm and 2cm; 3.937007874 inches is divisible by...um...er...
10 can be divided by every single number apart from 0, but this is not the same as saying it is divisible by every single number apart from 0.
Division is the act of finding, for two numbers, a third number (called the 'quotient') such that the first number is equal to the quotient multiplied by the second number.
Calling a number 'divisible', however, is to say that it can be divided an exact number of times by another number.
So 10 can be divided by 3 but it is not divisible by 3. They are different words, they mean different things.
As far as I can recall, everything else in my life is metric. My milk comes in litres (mind you I had to check that by peering into my fridge; I am currently in posession of 1L of milk).
The degree to which a given Briton uses metric or imperial in their personal life depends largely upon which generation they belong to.
I work for a governmental organisation in the UK. I feel duty bound to assure people that we are by no means as well organised as you suggest.
Not to mention the gleam of the laptop's screen shining through the murk and revealing your location.
In the UK, pornography (excepting that involving children, which is de facto illegal) is not illegal unless it qualifies as 'obscene' under the Obscene Publications Act 1959. The test provided by this act for obscenity status is that the material, in the opinion of the prosecuting authority, is likely to deprave and corrupt.
Inevitably this is a rather subjective judgement and has lead to a very inconsistent application of the act. It also makes it all but impossible for an individual to determine whether a given image in their possession is illegal under the act or not - it all depends on the opinion of the judge that you may or may not be hauled in front of.
That said, possession of such 'obscene' material is not itself illegal unless it was imported illegally. Distribution and publication of 'obscene' material is an offence. And simply showing someone an 'obscene' image is classed as publication for this purpose.
The law regarding pornography involving consenting adults is really a complete mess in the UK.
A private company such as BT might have good reason to block child pornography. Most customers will not want to see it themselves, or risk having their children stumble over the stuff accidentally. The fact that BT is trying to block this material will probably attract customers to the service. So BT has a profit motive for this censorship.
What motive would BT have for blocking access to political sites? Does BT really think its customers are worried about their children accidentally stumbling over sites that criticise Tony Blair? I don't think so. And I can just picture what a PR disaster it would be for a company like BT to be accused of political censorship of the 'net. BT is already losing a great many customers to competition, being accused of political censorship could seriously damage an already wounded company.
Blocking child porn, on the other hand, is likely to be quite popular with their customers and is no doubt being done precisely for that reason.
Don't forget that BT is a company. They are there to make a profit. Widespread censorship by one private company in a free society is not going to make a profit. It would be unpopular and their customers would simply go elsewhere. There is no slippery slope here.
Whether it is a sensible approach to dealing with child pornography is another question of course.
You might want to change the refresh rate if different people use the same pc. Some people are better at perceiving fast moving objects and so need to increase the refresh rate of the monitor to avoid seeing an unpleasant flicker. Another person may be more comfortable with the refresh rate at the original value. Different people come with different eyes you know.
"Supposing this isn't some stupid scam, there's no doubt a simple explaination for what they've seen."
Yes, they are alien spaceships. That's a nice and simple explanation.
Maybe we need to design prophylactics for guns. So that you have to fit one over the muzzle before using the weapon - that way no-one gets hurt. You know it makes sense.
IANAL but, though I don't know about US law, I understand that under English law if one clause of a contract is rendered void for whatever reason this does not normally affect the status of the rest of the contract. If any of the other clauses depend upon the void clause then they too will be void, however any clauses that can reasonably stand apart from the void clause would still apply and be enforceable.
You could argue before a Judge or Magistrate that the other party has demonstrated bad faith and so the whole contract should be anulled. Apart from that, however, the rest of the contract would stand.
That said, if you never used or installed the copy of Windows in question then you never agreed to abide by the EULA so you are not bound by it. But then neither is Microsoft, so they don't owe you any money. You knowingly bought the product of your own free will so the supplier is under no legal obligation to offer you a refund.
However (sorry to go on for so long) in my opinion - remember IANAL - there's nothing to stop you reselling the software. You just have to bear in mind that whoever buys it will have to abide by the EULA, assuming they install the software, so it would have to be *possible* for them to abide by it. If it's not then you would have sold the software in bad faith and they could claim a refund from you!
All the hardware-tied EULA's that I've seen state only that the software is licensed with the accompanying unnamed hardware. In my view this means that you would have to sell the software along with a piece of hardware and the buyer could then only use the software in conjunction with that hardware. So bundle a nice mouse with the OEM copy of Windows XP and you're sorted.
If these strange quarks are so dense would I be right in thinking that a relatively small collection would generate a significant gravitational field? And, if so, could you - theoretically - coat the bottom of a space station with them thus creating artifical gravity? Or is that just silly - I am not a physicist after all...
um, it's a sport. With bats and balls, kind of like baseball except better and the games can last for up to five days and still end in a draw.
in which case I'd like to say that Nasser Hussain is merely biding his time (i hope).
ps. [for the Americans out there] I'm talking about Cricket.
Why what's wrong with it? Oh I see...you mean it should show the Union Jack...