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  1. Re:"Illinois, Massachusetts, and Maryland" on Police Officers Seek Right Not To Be Recorded · · Score: 1

    I don't think his point was to promote the Republicans, though if you see things in black and white, as you seemingly do, I can see how you would think that.

    Actually my point was that there is likely no causal relationship between the majority party and these incidences.

    Rather, I believe his point is that for all the talk Democrats give of freedom and so on, they really aren't doing anything to help.

    Whereas Republicans do what according to you? Not talk of freedom but delivering it? Or what? Your answer ought to be good for a laugh.

    They're just like a competing corporation.

    I don't know what a "competing corporation" is supposed to be. Competing with what? Are you trying to say that the two parties are like two corporations competing for customers? Well, yeah, of course they are. Any more such profound insights that you want to share?

  2. Re:How can the USA be proud? on Police Officers Seek Right Not To Be Recorded · · Score: 1

    While all that may be true, how does that contradict anything GP said?

    The GP was making an implicit comparison with other places.

    NB: I'm an American who agrees with him.

    Legal guarantees of civil liberties have generally increased in the US through its history, and among major developed nations, the US has the greatest degree of civil liberties. If you call the US a police state, then there has never been anything other than a police state.

    Of course, these liberties are under constant threat, so we need to be vigilant. But we also shouldn't let ourselves be paralyzed by fear or hopelessness.

  3. Re:Recording isn't the real issue... on Police Officers Seek Right Not To Be Recorded · · Score: 1

    It’s not libel by definition; libel is deliberately spreading false information.

    No, that's not the definition, and depending on the jurisdiction and context, truth may not be an absolute defense. For example, if you show a picture of a police officer at a Nazi parade and then talk about how some police officers are Nazi sympathizers, both the picture and the statement are true, but together they may still constitute libel. Likewise, editing a video recording down so that it wrongly suggests police brutality might constitute libel.

    But that's the way it should be: you should be permitted to record pretty much whatever you like, but misuse of those recordings should be limited. In different words, it's better to require people to exercise some care when publishing a recording than to make recordings illegal altogether.

  4. Re:"Illinois, Massachusetts, and Maryland" on Police Officers Seek Right Not To Be Recorded · · Score: 1

    That's probably simply because Democratic states happen to be where most people live and where the densest population centers are.

    You don't seriously expect your average law-and-order Republican politician or judge to decide differently, do you?

  5. Re:How can the USA be proud? on Police Officers Seek Right Not To Be Recorded · · Score: 2, Informative

    Try recording a police officer in Europe doing something unflattering and posting that video on YouTube; you'll get prosecuted for invasion of privacy. Europeans don't even allow you to record and publish murderers and criminals.

    The only thing that's different in the US is that in the US some people actually still complain about their erosion of civil liberties. In Europe, they're effectively already gone, but the people don't even notice.

  6. Re:Dinosour language on Objective-C Enters Top Ten In Language Popularity · · Score: 1

    "He also didn't know about name mangling" Again, only something you need in a statically linked object-inheritance style language like C++.

    The function of name mangling is to do type checking and overloading for function and method argument types even if the linker doesn't support it. The lack of name mangling in Objective-C means that you can have inconsistent argument type declarations for messages in different compilation units without the compiler or runtime ever noticing that you're sending messages with incorrect argument types. It's a gaping type hole in Objective-C, and exactly the kind of problem that C++ took seriously and fixed. It's not a frequent source of problems in practice, but it can be a total b*tch when it does happen, and it's so easy to fix.

    Objective-C has always been frustratingly close to a really great language. They should have fixed the holes in the type system, they should have added garbage collection early on (fixed now), and they should have more cleanly separated "Smalltalk" and C code, instead of making Smalltalk messages kind of a foreign body within C code. None of those would have been hard, but the people who created the language just didn't give a damn. And potential users (like myself) just went on to languages like C++ that just looked better at the time.

  7. Re:Dinosour language on Objective-C Enters Top Ten In Language Popularity · · Score: 1

    Smalltalk syntax is different from named parameters. For Smalltalk, the order of the names matters and they are part of the method name. That makes Smalltalk syntax less verbose than named parameters when you do use parameter names.

  8. Re:he was emulating SmallTalk dynamic binding on Objective-C Enters Top Ten In Language Popularity · · Score: 1

    Your history is wrong. NeXT didn't get Objective-C from PARC people, it got it from StepStone. Also, Objective-C didn't fail because it was proprietary; there were good and free Objective-C compilers around sooner than there were good and free C++ compilers around.

    I think the reason Objective-C failed was because of its unnatural syntax, holes in its type system, and lack of automatic resource management. C++ had natural syntax, at least attempted to go for type correctness, and smart pointers. Although philosophically, I like dynamic type systems better, those difference made me choose C++ over Objective-C back in the late 80's.

    It's a shame, really: if Objective-C had been just a little better, the computer and software industry would look very different. But many of the old problems still exist to this very day. And nowadays, languages like C# are really better all around.

  9. Re:Absolute vs. Relative. on Microsoft Talks Back To Google's Security Claims · · Score: 1

    How secure something is in itself doesn't have anything to do with how often it gets attacked.

    But I don't care about how secure it is "in itself", I care about how secure it is sitting on my desktop and doing my work.

  10. it's not about technology or design on Microsoft Talks Back To Google's Security Claims · · Score: 1

    One can argue at length whether Linux is more secure by design or whether it uses more secure technology (it is certainly at least state of the art).

    But for Google in particular, Linux is a much better choice than Windows: Google has its own internal Linux distribution, and they're shipping Android and ChromeOS. They review a lot of the code and contribute a lot more. Even if all things were equal otherwise, that alone makes Linux a much more secure choice for Google.

    Another huge difference between Windows and Linux is installation: most Linux users just get all their software from their distribution, and the distribution manages, reviews, and fixes security issues centrally. That's much better than your typical Windows installation, which gets software from dozens of vendors and freeware sites, with no consistent updates and no consistent monitoring of security issues.

  11. Re:Old meets new Europe on EU To Monitor All Internet Searches · · Score: 1

    The West was collecting the same kind of data even back then. And Europe already has data retention directives for phone calls, SMS, and E-mail. This is just one more.

  12. Re:SSL Google? on EU To Monitor All Internet Searches · · Score: 1

    Why would they care? Under such an EU directive, Google would be required to collect the data on behalf of the government.

    That's nothing new, there are already data retention directives in place in Europe for phone calls, SMS, and E-mail. Europeans simply don't seem to mind or care.

  13. Re:Hey EU! on EU To Monitor All Internet Searches · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Why don't you monitor all the post and telephones too?

    The EU already has data retention mandates for telephone and E-mail. Supposedly, those are not data-mined, but do you really believe that?

    I want everything monitored. I want cameras in my room and on my shitter too!

    You may already have them if you're subject to police monitoring based on your suspicious phone calls or E-mails. Drug monitoring for your "shitter" is probably coming too as soon as the technology comes down in price.

  14. Re:Google settings on EU To Monitor All Internet Searches · · Score: 1

    Not if European governments mandate that Google retain your data. Such data retention is already mandated for other kinds of communications. If companies don't comply, they may themselves be taken to court over their lack of compliance.

  15. European schizophrenia on EU To Monitor All Internet Searches · · Score: 1

    On the one hand, European media and politicians are tearing Google to shreds for recording street images and publicly broadcast data, on the other hand, European governments want Google and other companies to record something as personal as Internet searches and then do data mining for suspected child pornographers on it.

    Google recording public WLAN packets isn't going to hurt you; they aren't going to defraud your credit card or expose your extramarital affair even if you're stupid enough to broadcast it.

    European governments, however, are going to hurt you, when they ineptly mine your Internet searches and then conclude that because you were searching for "Lolita" they need to investigate your for child pornography.

    People really need to get their priorities straight about privacy. The fact that this can even be proposed at the EU level means that European voters have made seriously bad choices in their politicians. (It's no accident that one of the main candidates for the German presidency is considered the Czarina of Censorship in Germany.)

  16. Re:Independent studies warranted on Study Claims Cellphones Implicated In Bee Loss · · Score: 1

    Uhhh - you lost it when you claimed that California is bankrupt due to the distribution of wealth - then forgot all about ILLEGAL ALIEN INVADERS. Yes, of course Cali is bankrupt, but not because they are sending money to other states. They are bankrupt because they have welcomed an invading hoard that eats money like locusts eat crops.

    Oh, stop your stupid ideological posturing and assumptions. I am strongly opposed to illegal "immigration", and I want to see Arizona-style laws in California. But, there is not a shred of evidence that illegal aliens are bankrupting California. In fact, one reason California has been pretty tolerant of them is that California growers like the cheap labor for harvesting.

    However, the California budget shortfall (about $26b) is about the same amount of money that Californians pay more in federal taxes than they get back in federal services. You can simply look that up.

    That sounds about as asinine as the Communist manifesto. Ass sitters don't deserve to eat. No work, no eat. Produce, or die.

    What's "asinine" is your lack of understanding of the free market. I'm not saying that it's good that people are sitting on their asses, I'm saying that increasingly, people will not be able to find jobs because it makes no sense to employ them; they cost more to employ than they create. And the US isn't going to let them starve, no matter what.

  17. Re:Independent studies warranted on Study Claims Cellphones Implicated In Bee Loss · · Score: 1

    Why don't you read what I responded to?

    The controlled for the presence of a "giant plastic lump". OK?

  18. Re:Independent studies warranted on Study Claims Cellphones Implicated In Bee Loss · · Score: 1

    See - this happens in almost every discussion on the web. Someone has to see the issue as a partisan issue. Instead of asking, "How can we fix the problem?" you choose to point your finger, and say, "Well, the problem is THEIR fault!"

    No, I point out an actual problem: the transfer of hundreds of billions of dollars from productive, industrial states to rural states for creating infrastructure and agricultural products that our nation does not need.

    The consequences are horrendous: it distorts prices for foods, hurts developing nations, and bankrupts states like California.

    Blue state, red state, it doesn't matter.

    No, it doesn't matter per se. It just happens to be the case that the states that get more than they contribute are all Republican, while the states that contribute more than they get back are mostly Democrat. And that's not a coincidence: the Republican party has become a party of big government and redistribution of wealth. And realizing that does matter because it means that you can view them differently at the next election.

    How can we fix the problem? Simple: end agricultural subsidies and ensure that federal taxes and benefits/investments are generally balanced across states.

    Oh, and put pressure on Republicans to stop getting federal welfare for their states, and put pressure on Democrats to stop handing over their money so freely.

    Far to many people are sitting on their asses, playing music and video games all day, on the taxpayer's dime, when the COULD find a job.

    Many people simply can't contribute usefully to the economy; hiring them and training them takes more money than they add in productivity. The basic needs of Americans are met by a small core of workers, and we could probably retire a double-digit fraction of current workers with no ill effect on anything.

    You need to stop thinking of our economy as one of scarcity and instead one of potential: the hundreds of millions of people in our nation aren't there to work, they are there to occasionally produce a brilliant artist or scientist. Ass sitting and video game playing is what our economy is going to be increasingly about.

  19. nothing to guess about on My Location the Next Google Privacy Controversy? · · Score: 1

    You don't have to guess what Google does because they do the same thing everybody else does.

    Skyhook and lots of other companies have WLAN geolocation databases. Lots of phone apps use such databases and services, including iPhone and Nokia.

    EyeFi and other cameras determine your location from visible WiFi APs and encode it in your images. They probably transmit your locations to your server. When you upload your images to Flickr, Picasa, or your own web site, you transmit that information along.

    HTML5 has a standard location API. Every mobile phone browser will support that because it's so darn useful.

    Mobile operators already know where you are; in fact, they are required to know that by law, supposedly to allow "Enhanced 911" calls, but also for law enforcement purposes. They clearly share that information with governments and police. They almost certainly also share it within their own "group". They offer location services to you. They may or may not sell that information as well.

    Phone applications can find out which tower they are talking to (and have been able to do so for a while), so on most smartphones, sofware already could track you.

    The only thing that's different about Google is that they actually offer you a free and useful service based on that data, whereas others have been using the data without telling you and/or have been charging you for it. And Google has stopped collecting this data because they don't actually need to; most geolocation is now done via towers or GPS, and for the few WiFi-based use cases, they can just buy the data from several vendors.

    And even if all of those are not available, web sites can usually tell roughly where you are from your IP address. For cable, DSL, and WiFi that can be very accurate; for 3G connections, it usually is some proxy server that's not too far away.

    If you're worried about people tracking you, Google is probably the least of your worries; at least they tell you and you can turn it off. That's a lot better than most of the other people who have access to your location.

  20. Re:Independent studies warranted on Study Claims Cellphones Implicated In Bee Loss · · Score: 1

    As far as we know with other examples of non-ionizing radiation, there are virtually no effects, immediate, delayed, substantial or otherwise.

    That's wrong. Go check the literature, there are numerous effects of non-ionizing radiation. The only thing that's not clear yet is whether it's harmful.

    Even in the case of ionizing radiation, the effects *are* immediate. One might not notice the effects right away if they are mild, but the tissue damage happens when you're exposed, not some time later via radiation time-delay magic.

    That's totally wrong, too. The main effect of ionizing radiation that's of concern here is DNA damage; DNA damage often has no immediate effect at all, either because it is in genes that are not currently used, or because the cell compensates. Only if there is enough exposure so that all the alternative pathways and repair mechanisms are overwhelmed do you actually see an effect. Those effects often occur long after the initial exposure. For ionizing radiation, there is delay and there is no magic in it either.

    For non-ionizing radiation, nobody knows what the mechanisms of its action on biological cells are. However, as with ionizing radiation, observable effects are likely neither proportional to dose nor necessarily immediately observable.

  21. Re:Independent studies warranted on Study Claims Cellphones Implicated In Bee Loss · · Score: 1

    No, America would have all the manpower needed, if we ended most welfare

    Yeah, a good start would be to end welfare to residents of Republican states, because on average, residents of red states get thousands of dollars more in federal services and benefits per year than they pay in federal taxes, services and benefits like agricultural subsidies, roads, schools, flood protection, and others. If you want to live in the country, you should pay for it yourself.

    In the end, the Republican and Democratic parties are both means redistributing wealth; however, welfare-Republicans are much better at it than welfare-Democrats.

  22. Re:Independent studies warranted on Study Claims Cellphones Implicated In Bee Loss · · Score: 1

    He isn't talking about "indentured servitude", he is talking about ending welfare. I think it's a bit extreme, but it's not the same thing.

  23. Re:Independent studies warranted on Study Claims Cellphones Implicated In Bee Loss · · Score: 1

    RTFA, they controlled for that.

  24. lots of different kinds of RF on Study Claims Cellphones Implicated In Bee Loss · · Score: 3, Informative

    There are lots of different kinds of RF, and whatever effects there may be are likely to be wavelength dependent. The kind of RF that's used for cell phones now didn't use to exist much in nature. CB radios use completely different frequencies. And given that the devices were placed in the hives, they were not "very low power"; the bees were directly next to the antenna. Any effect in the wild may be more subtle.

    These experiments are not conclusive enough for any action yet, and there's always the possibility of fraud or error, but calling them "crackpot" is not warranted based on what they said and published.

    Actually, it's your analysis and your blanket dismissal of the possibility of these kinds of effects that are "crackpot".

  25. it's not about "correlation" on Study Claims Cellphones Implicated In Bee Loss · · Score: 1

    One study involving two hives doesn't even prove correlation, as it could be just random chance, as one hive will always do better than another hive.

    Many things "could be" random chance. But if the probability of an events is low enough by itself, then even a single event can be sufficient to prove a cause and effect relationship.

    But are we going to all give up our cell phones if it turns out that they cause problems with bees?

    Most people wouldn't have to; just those living outside of major cities.