Wouldn't it be easier for the criminals to ditch the car once the police have backed off? Then they could steal another car and continue their escape untracked.
At no point have the people or organisations outed by these allegations claimed his information is fabricated; in effect they've admitted its truth, so there's no libel involved.
Unfortunately, in the UK, truth isn't a defense against libel. (I think they're working to fix that, though.) You can say something absolutely true, but be sued for and convicted of libel.
Of course, I'd like to see the UK PM try to sue the Guardian for libel over the Snowden revelations. It would be a very interesting court case.
The second thing is fear of failure. Everyone is terrified of taking the blame for the next successful big attack. They want all the data in the vain hope that it means that failure can be avoided forever. It's not possible, but given effectively unlimited resources they can engage in the insane project of trying to spy on every human on earth.
Not only isn't it possible, but it's counterproductive. If you tapped every cell phone conversation, e-mail exchange, web browsing session, etc, you would definitely capture data to show terrorist plots in the making. The trouble would be sorting through all of that data to find the "terrorist plot" data elements. How do you do this without having too many Googled Backpacks and Pressure Cooker false positives? It's much better to have a more focused approach and just pull the data for selected individuals.
Then again, as you stated, there is a climate of fear and control. They are afraid of missing a data point that shows a terrorist plot in progress so they try to pull more and more data to make sure they collect them all. (Yes, that Pokemon reference was intentional.) At the same time, they want to maintain "control" over the situation so they use fear of terrorism to justify bigger budgets, less oversight ("don't get in our way or the next attack will be your fault"), and more powers to do basically whatever they want. Because "terrorists".
I don't know. Before all of this, I think that the worst I would have imagined would have still been better than what Snowden has revealed. And if they are STILL worried about further leaks, then what bad things are still to be revealed?!!
Along the same vein, Republicans like to talk about how the Federal government should be smaller, taxes should be less, and more should be left up to the states to provide, but then the Red states pull more money from the Federal government than they give in. (Blue states tend to give more than they take in.) They are pocketing money with one hand while holding up a "Federal government money is evil" sign with the other hand. No sign of hypocritical behavior here. Just politics as usual.
Leela A: This is getting confusing. Why don't we call our universe "Universe A" and this universe "Universe B"? Bender 1: Hey! Why can't we be Universe A? Fry 1: Yeah! Amy 1: Yeah! Farnsworth 1: We want A! Zoidberg 1: It's the best letter! Fry A: We called it first. Besides, this place kinda feels like a "B", y'know? Leela 1: Alright, you can be crummy Universe A and we'll be Universe 1. Fry 1: Or "The Mongooses". That's a cool team name. The Fighting Mongooses!
It's all in the timing. What if the hypothetical mall bombings took place at a few malls around the country during the Christmas shopping rush? You'd have people scared to go shopping in stores and the economic fallout of stores counting on Christmas rush revenue that didn't appear.
Children (and by children I don't mean teens but kids under 12 years old) shouldn't be working. They should be in school getting an education. No, they might not wind up in academia, but they should have some level of schooling. Otherwise you wind up with the poor remaining poor because their kids need to work to help the family survive. Since the kids don't get an education, they have no chance of having a better life and stay poor and their children will need to work to help the family survive.
Child labor also gets into tricky issues like "how can a child agree to an employment contract" or "what is a safe job for children to perform." (Children were once used for certain jobs because their fingers could reach into the little areas of machines. Don't mind the fact that those "little areas" were dangerous to reach into. Kids were disposable.)
If you are talking something small like a paper route (part time, not interfering with school work(, I see no problem with it. If you are talking having an 8 year old hold down a full time job and stop going to school because they've been deemed "not cut out for academia", I have a big problem with it.
I'm reminded of an incident that happened a century ago. Short story: Workers at a big company (Colorado Fuel & Iron Company) weren't happy with wages/working conditions/living conditions (company town setup)/etc. so they went on strike. The company called in the national guard. The national guard (along with some company guards) went through the company town and shot a lot of workers (and their families) dead. Now I know this company didn't have its own army, but this was the company using the government as its own personal army.
More information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludlow_Massacre
Unfortunately, the other end of that is: If government was limited too much, it would not be able to stop abusive practices of big businesses. Some government rules and regulations might be garbage, but others are the result of businesses in the past trying to get away with anything and everything. Minimum wage laws and limits on worker hours or child labor? Because big business used to work people (including children) to the bone for virtually nothing. Workplace safety laws? Look at the garment district in NYC around the 1910's for why these were in place. (Tons of people on the 2nd floor of a building with only one exit - which was blocked off until quitting time - and then a fire started. You can guess the result.)
If we had a truly small federal government, businesses might not lobby the government to do what they want done but only because they would just do it on their own knowing that nobody could stop them. Imagine if Wal-Mart decided that all employees had to work for $3 an hour and needed to work 15 hour days, 7 days a week. Yes, some would quit, but others would likely be in such a bad financial position that they wouldn't be able to leave their jobs. (Especially if other big businesses copied these policies.) Now, imagine the federal government's only recourse was to ask nicely if they would pretty please with a cherry on top stop it. If Wal-Mart said no and the federal government's only available action was wagging their finger at Wal-Mart, it would send a clear signal to all other businesses: Open season on your employees. Do what you like and nobody will stop you.
No, a large, overly powerful federal government isn't good. However, neither is too small of a federal government. The key is getting the federal government *just* the right size and keeping it there. Of course, if you figure out how to do this, you're likely to win a Nobel Prize. If you figure it out AND get it put into action, you're a miracle worker!
In addition, from that I understand, the European Christian groups focus their efforts on poverty. They use what political clout they have to try to help the poor out. Contrast this with America's Christian groups who use their political clout to invade women's reproductive systems, people's bedrooms, and the educational system (creationism, etc). Honestly, if the American Christian groups were more like their European counterparts, I'd have a lot less problems with them and would have a much higher opinion of them.
Unless said item is illegal in and of itself, I don't agree with the courts. If the police officer stops a person for speeding and seeing a pile of cocaine in the back seat, no problem. If there's a machine gun in the back seat, I can see having an issue with that. But if we are going to take legal items like handguns and let the officers assume that they are illegal then what's to stop an officer from noticing that the driver has hands and therefore might beat someone to death? Or noticing that the driver is a woman or a man and therefore has the potential to be a prostitute or have paid for prostitution? Worst of all: The driver has eyes and ears, right? They could have used those to view/listen to copyright infringing material!!!
Then again, "court system" and "common sense" go together far less often than I'd like.
I'd also like to add that these "nut bans" are taking place in local schools. If you don't like it, you can talk to your superintendent or local school board to get them changed.
Who would you talk to to get the TSA's practices changed? Until the federal government begins confiscating all products with nuts in them and arrests people who peddle black market pecans, I don't think we have a "War on Nuts."
I'd only add that kids should know to wash their hands after eating. This is especially true if a child in their class is extremely allergic to the point that Child A touching a crayon after eating a PB sandwich causes Child B to go into anaphlactic shock when he picks up that same crayon. My kids have been in those situations. This happened to be at a daycare where they all ate together so they banned nut products entirely. We gladly altered our kids' lunches to suit this other child's needs knowing that this was a minor inconvenience to us but life and death to the child.
Do some schools go nuts (pun intended) over these bans? Sure. But that doesn't mean all requests to avoid nut products are overreactions.
I have two kids so, yes, I'm very familiar with nut allergy issues. Thankfully, my kids don't have nut allergies. My wife has a walnut allergy so we need to watch for that, but that's pretty easy to handle. It's also not so bad that she'll get a reaction if she touches something that was touched by someone who touched a walnut. Some allergies are that bad. There are kids who will go into anaphlactic shock if they touch a pencil that another kid touched after eating peanut butter.
If a school has to guarantee the safety of a child with a severe nut allergy, I see nothing wrong with setting certain rules for food coming into the building. Yes, they can go overboard, but for the most part these rules (unlike the TSA's rules) actually do help keep kids from having severe allergic reactions. My boys bring peanut butter sandwiches to school but know not to give their food to other kids.
My oldest will actually get very worried about kids eating food that they might be allergic to. He used to grill the waiters at restaurants about food his cousin would order when she had an egg allergy. He also wouldn't order a food he really wanted because he was sitting next to her and his food would contain eggs. Even if we said it was fine (as long as she didn't eat from his plate), he'd refuse and would order something else.
I almost exclusively game on my Android smartphone nowadays. My kids mostly use their Android tablets (with occasional DS usage).
That being said, Nintendo would be idiotic to release "Super Mario Brothers" for Android or iOS. People know that the place to get Nintendo titles (Mario, Zelda, etc) is on a Nintendo system. They will (for the most part) buy a WiiU, 3DS, or 2DS just to get that game. If they release the games on Android/iOS, they become just another Android/iOS developer. Perhaps they would dwarf all others, but they'd still get lost in the crowd.
All that being said, if they release a Mario Kart, Zelda, or similar game for Android, I'd buy it. (I'm not holding my breath, though.)
My kids recently caught up to watch the episode where River drives the TARDIS. (It's fun re-watching these and seeing what points will be brought up later. Like the museum they start out in being the final resting place of the headless monks... who make an appearance next season.)
River comments how she was taught by the best, the Doctor thinks that means him, but River adds "too bad you weren't available that day" (or words to that effect). Next season, we find out that he "wasn't available" because he was dying from poison lipstick that River dosed him with. And the "best" was the TARDIS itself (herself?).
Too bad the TARDIS doesn't teach the Doctor how to drive her. Then again, we'd lose that cool VWORP VWORP VWORP sound if he stops leaving the parking brake on!
Psssst! Hey Bad Guys! Want to cripple air travel in the US? Just bomb a couple airport security checkpoints. Lots of people, tightly packed together, all standing in a nice line, and no chance of being discovered early.
A thousand times this.
Pre-911 hijackings weren't a huge issue. You played along, kept your head down, and eventually you'd be released after the hijackers made their statement. It was a huge inconvenience and I'm sure scary at the time, but playing along meant you were safe.
On 911 passengers played by the pre-911 rules assuming they would just be diverted to Mexico or something. The last plane got word of what happened to the previous 3 and fought back.
Post-911 security improvements have made another 911 virtually impossible. And by security improvements, I mean locked, reinforced cabin doors. Not TSA "security theater" checks. In addition, passengers won't trust any potential hijacker who says everyone will live if they just stay in their seats. A hijacker will quickly find himself outnumbered 30-1 by people who are facing death if they don't take him down and who, unlike the hijacker, don't want to die.
This isn't to say that no terrorist will ever bring a plane down again. Just that it will be extremely difficult for them to do so. They can get more bang for their buck (pun intended) by switching to other targets. Crowded airport security lines in major airports. (A few of these hit at the same time will ground all flights.) Crowded malls during the Christmas rush. Big sports events. These would all cause a lot of chaos and would be more likely to succeed than an airplane attack.
Of course, even then terrorism would be rare in the US. Look at the number of people who have died from terrorist attacks in the US over the last 15 years. Going by Wikipedia, that's about 3,038. This is only 203 people per year. If we don't count 9-11 (as it is obviously not a normal occurrence given the death tolls of the other terrorist attacks), we're down to 3 people per year. More people die from nut allergies each year (about 150) and I don't see us declaring a War on Nuts.
This terrorism-paranoia is ridiculous. We need to stay alert, yes, but we don't need to give up our freedoms to ensure our safety.
Not to mention that a lot of these patents are written extremely vaguely so that it can apply to Case A when approved and then can be turned around and applied to Case B when that becomes popular and/or when the patent is sold to a patent troll.
Some towns have tried to make it a municipal service because no ISP was willing to serve them. In almost every case, they were challenged in court for "government competing with private companies." Yes, the companies that wouldn't serve the town felt insulted that they were being deprived of the opportunity to serve the town in the future should they decide to. They honestly thought that the town should just sit there without high speed Internet until a Big Business decided to grace them with it (for a price both political and sales-wise). In some cases, the legal challenges brought the projects to a halt (though still with no high speed Internet). In other cases, the towns proceeded and the project was a success.
Personally, I think that ISPs and content companies should be required to be separate. Time Warner Cable provides content (via TV) and thus should be forced to separate from "Time Warner Internet" (for lack of a better hypothetical company name). This way the Internet access policies won't be dictated by the content provider side of the business.
That was the game. Thanks. That game was so tough that the only way to enjoy it was to intentionally play badly. So many virtual patients' lives destroyed. So many good memories.
Decades ago, I had a "operating room simulator" for my 286 which presented you with a series of patients. Your job was to assign tests to be performed (but not too many!), interpret the results, and recommend the proper course of action. For some patients, surgery would be needed and you would need to administer the anesthetic, slice the patient open, perform the needed operation without the patient dying from blood loss, and then close them up again.
I stunk at this game so I found entertainment in ruining the lives of my virtual patients. First, I would recommend all possible tests to run up their hospital bill. Next, I would recommend surgery for them no matter what. ("Sore throat? Got to slice you open!") For some patients, I would "forget" to administer the anesthetic (resulting in a badly synthesized scream and the operation coming to a halt). For others, I'd put them under, and then just start cutting left and right until they bled out and died. Needless to say, the game kicked me out of the virtual hospital every single time.
I used a thumb drive for awhile and then had some scares where I almost lost it.
I do use a cloud drive now (Google Drive) but Google Drive also automatically backs up the data to each of my computers. (Thumb drives you need to remember to back them up and I'm notoriously bad at that.) If Google were to "accidentally" delete all of my data, I would be fine. I also don't store anything there that would lead to ID theft were it to fall into the wrong hands.
Good point. I was assuming that the person was travelling on public property or was visible from public property. If the person gets in their car (parked on a short driveway visible from the street), drives (via public roads) to another location and parks in a location on or visible from public property, there is no problem with police in an unmarked vehicle following them. The second it goes onto private property and they need to enter said property to keep their target in sight, though, a warrant is needed. If the GPS tracker could, somehow, follow the car automatically without being attached to the car, it would be fine so long as it stayed on public property. A hypothetical miniature car drone would need to stop before entering private property without the police first obtaining a warrant.
Slashdot Mirror
Wouldn't it be easier for the criminals to ditch the car once the police have backed off? Then they could steal another car and continue their escape untracked.
At no point have the people or organisations outed by these allegations claimed his information is fabricated; in effect they've admitted its truth, so there's no libel involved.
Unfortunately, in the UK, truth isn't a defense against libel. (I think they're working to fix that, though.) You can say something absolutely true, but be sued for and convicted of libel.
Of course, I'd like to see the UK PM try to sue the Guardian for libel over the Snowden revelations. It would be a very interesting court case.
Not only isn't it possible, but it's counterproductive. If you tapped every cell phone conversation, e-mail exchange, web browsing session, etc, you would definitely capture data to show terrorist plots in the making. The trouble would be sorting through all of that data to find the "terrorist plot" data elements. How do you do this without having too many Googled Backpacks and Pressure Cooker false positives? It's much better to have a more focused approach and just pull the data for selected individuals.
Then again, as you stated, there is a climate of fear and control. They are afraid of missing a data point that shows a terrorist plot in progress so they try to pull more and more data to make sure they collect them all. (Yes, that Pokemon reference was intentional.) At the same time, they want to maintain "control" over the situation so they use fear of terrorism to justify bigger budgets, less oversight ("don't get in our way or the next attack will be your fault"), and more powers to do basically whatever they want. Because "terrorists".
I don't know. Before all of this, I think that the worst I would have imagined would have still been better than what Snowden has revealed. And if they are STILL worried about further leaks, then what bad things are still to be revealed?!!
Along the same vein, Republicans like to talk about how the Federal government should be smaller, taxes should be less, and more should be left up to the states to provide, but then the Red states pull more money from the Federal government than they give in. (Blue states tend to give more than they take in.) They are pocketing money with one hand while holding up a "Federal government money is evil" sign with the other hand. No sign of hypocritical behavior here. Just politics as usual.
Obligatory Futurama:
Leela A: This is getting confusing. Why don't we call our universe "Universe A" and this universe "Universe B"?
Bender 1: Hey! Why can't we be Universe A?
Fry 1: Yeah!
Amy 1: Yeah!
Farnsworth 1: We want A!
Zoidberg 1: It's the best letter!
Fry A: We called it first. Besides, this place kinda feels like a "B", y'know?
Leela 1: Alright, you can be crummy Universe A and we'll be Universe 1.
Fry 1: Or "The Mongooses". That's a cool team name. The Fighting Mongooses!
It's all in the timing. What if the hypothetical mall bombings took place at a few malls around the country during the Christmas shopping rush? You'd have people scared to go shopping in stores and the economic fallout of stores counting on Christmas rush revenue that didn't appear.
Children (and by children I don't mean teens but kids under 12 years old) shouldn't be working. They should be in school getting an education. No, they might not wind up in academia, but they should have some level of schooling. Otherwise you wind up with the poor remaining poor because their kids need to work to help the family survive. Since the kids don't get an education, they have no chance of having a better life and stay poor and their children will need to work to help the family survive.
Child labor also gets into tricky issues like "how can a child agree to an employment contract" or "what is a safe job for children to perform." (Children were once used for certain jobs because their fingers could reach into the little areas of machines. Don't mind the fact that those "little areas" were dangerous to reach into. Kids were disposable.)
If you are talking something small like a paper route (part time, not interfering with school work(, I see no problem with it. If you are talking having an 8 year old hold down a full time job and stop going to school because they've been deemed "not cut out for academia", I have a big problem with it.
I'm reminded of an incident that happened a century ago. Short story: Workers at a big company (Colorado Fuel & Iron Company) weren't happy with wages/working conditions/living conditions (company town setup)/etc. so they went on strike. The company called in the national guard. The national guard (along with some company guards) went through the company town and shot a lot of workers (and their families) dead. Now I know this company didn't have its own army, but this was the company using the government as its own personal army.
More information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludlow_Massacre
Unfortunately, the other end of that is: If government was limited too much, it would not be able to stop abusive practices of big businesses. Some government rules and regulations might be garbage, but others are the result of businesses in the past trying to get away with anything and everything. Minimum wage laws and limits on worker hours or child labor? Because big business used to work people (including children) to the bone for virtually nothing. Workplace safety laws? Look at the garment district in NYC around the 1910's for why these were in place. (Tons of people on the 2nd floor of a building with only one exit - which was blocked off until quitting time - and then a fire started. You can guess the result.)
If we had a truly small federal government, businesses might not lobby the government to do what they want done but only because they would just do it on their own knowing that nobody could stop them. Imagine if Wal-Mart decided that all employees had to work for $3 an hour and needed to work 15 hour days, 7 days a week. Yes, some would quit, but others would likely be in such a bad financial position that they wouldn't be able to leave their jobs. (Especially if other big businesses copied these policies.) Now, imagine the federal government's only recourse was to ask nicely if they would pretty please with a cherry on top stop it. If Wal-Mart said no and the federal government's only available action was wagging their finger at Wal-Mart, it would send a clear signal to all other businesses: Open season on your employees. Do what you like and nobody will stop you.
No, a large, overly powerful federal government isn't good. However, neither is too small of a federal government. The key is getting the federal government *just* the right size and keeping it there. Of course, if you figure out how to do this, you're likely to win a Nobel Prize. If you figure it out AND get it put into action, you're a miracle worker!
In addition, from that I understand, the European Christian groups focus their efforts on poverty. They use what political clout they have to try to help the poor out. Contrast this with America's Christian groups who use their political clout to invade women's reproductive systems, people's bedrooms, and the educational system (creationism, etc). Honestly, if the American Christian groups were more like their European counterparts, I'd have a lot less problems with them and would have a much higher opinion of them.
Unless said item is illegal in and of itself, I don't agree with the courts. If the police officer stops a person for speeding and seeing a pile of cocaine in the back seat, no problem. If there's a machine gun in the back seat, I can see having an issue with that. But if we are going to take legal items like handguns and let the officers assume that they are illegal then what's to stop an officer from noticing that the driver has hands and therefore might beat someone to death? Or noticing that the driver is a woman or a man and therefore has the potential to be a prostitute or have paid for prostitution? Worst of all: The driver has eyes and ears, right? They could have used those to view/listen to copyright infringing material!!!
Then again, "court system" and "common sense" go together far less often than I'd like.
I'd also like to add that these "nut bans" are taking place in local schools. If you don't like it, you can talk to your superintendent or local school board to get them changed.
Who would you talk to to get the TSA's practices changed? Until the federal government begins confiscating all products with nuts in them and arrests people who peddle black market pecans, I don't think we have a "War on Nuts."
I'd only add that kids should know to wash their hands after eating. This is especially true if a child in their class is extremely allergic to the point that Child A touching a crayon after eating a PB sandwich causes Child B to go into anaphlactic shock when he picks up that same crayon. My kids have been in those situations. This happened to be at a daycare where they all ate together so they banned nut products entirely. We gladly altered our kids' lunches to suit this other child's needs knowing that this was a minor inconvenience to us but life and death to the child.
Do some schools go nuts (pun intended) over these bans? Sure. But that doesn't mean all requests to avoid nut products are overreactions.
I have two kids so, yes, I'm very familiar with nut allergy issues. Thankfully, my kids don't have nut allergies. My wife has a walnut allergy so we need to watch for that, but that's pretty easy to handle. It's also not so bad that she'll get a reaction if she touches something that was touched by someone who touched a walnut. Some allergies are that bad. There are kids who will go into anaphlactic shock if they touch a pencil that another kid touched after eating peanut butter.
If a school has to guarantee the safety of a child with a severe nut allergy, I see nothing wrong with setting certain rules for food coming into the building. Yes, they can go overboard, but for the most part these rules (unlike the TSA's rules) actually do help keep kids from having severe allergic reactions. My boys bring peanut butter sandwiches to school but know not to give their food to other kids.
My oldest will actually get very worried about kids eating food that they might be allergic to. He used to grill the waiters at restaurants about food his cousin would order when she had an egg allergy. He also wouldn't order a food he really wanted because he was sitting next to her and his food would contain eggs. Even if we said it was fine (as long as she didn't eat from his plate), he'd refuse and would order something else.
I almost exclusively game on my Android smartphone nowadays. My kids mostly use their Android tablets (with occasional DS usage).
That being said, Nintendo would be idiotic to release "Super Mario Brothers" for Android or iOS. People know that the place to get Nintendo titles (Mario, Zelda, etc) is on a Nintendo system. They will (for the most part) buy a WiiU, 3DS, or 2DS just to get that game. If they release the games on Android/iOS, they become just another Android/iOS developer. Perhaps they would dwarf all others, but they'd still get lost in the crowd.
All that being said, if they release a Mario Kart, Zelda, or similar game for Android, I'd buy it. (I'm not holding my breath, though.)
My kids recently caught up to watch the episode where River drives the TARDIS. (It's fun re-watching these and seeing what points will be brought up later. Like the museum they start out in being the final resting place of the headless monks... who make an appearance next season.)
River comments how she was taught by the best, the Doctor thinks that means him, but River adds "too bad you weren't available that day" (or words to that effect). Next season, we find out that he "wasn't available" because he was dying from poison lipstick that River dosed him with. And the "best" was the TARDIS itself (herself?).
Too bad the TARDIS doesn't teach the Doctor how to drive her. Then again, we'd lose that cool VWORP VWORP VWORP sound if he stops leaving the parking brake on!
A thousand times this.
Pre-911 hijackings weren't a huge issue. You played along, kept your head down, and eventually you'd be released after the hijackers made their statement. It was a huge inconvenience and I'm sure scary at the time, but playing along meant you were safe.
On 911 passengers played by the pre-911 rules assuming they would just be diverted to Mexico or something. The last plane got word of what happened to the previous 3 and fought back.
Post-911 security improvements have made another 911 virtually impossible. And by security improvements, I mean locked, reinforced cabin doors. Not TSA "security theater" checks. In addition, passengers won't trust any potential hijacker who says everyone will live if they just stay in their seats. A hijacker will quickly find himself outnumbered 30-1 by people who are facing death if they don't take him down and who, unlike the hijacker, don't want to die.
This isn't to say that no terrorist will ever bring a plane down again. Just that it will be extremely difficult for them to do so. They can get more bang for their buck (pun intended) by switching to other targets. Crowded airport security lines in major airports. (A few of these hit at the same time will ground all flights.) Crowded malls during the Christmas rush. Big sports events. These would all cause a lot of chaos and would be more likely to succeed than an airplane attack.
Of course, even then terrorism would be rare in the US. Look at the number of people who have died from terrorist attacks in the US over the last 15 years. Going by Wikipedia, that's about 3,038. This is only 203 people per year. If we don't count 9-11 (as it is obviously not a normal occurrence given the death tolls of the other terrorist attacks), we're down to 3 people per year. More people die from nut allergies each year (about 150) and I don't see us declaring a War on Nuts.
This terrorism-paranoia is ridiculous. We need to stay alert, yes, but we don't need to give up our freedoms to ensure our safety.
Not to mention that a lot of these patents are written extremely vaguely so that it can apply to Case A when approved and then can be turned around and applied to Case B when that becomes popular and/or when the patent is sold to a patent troll.
And will there be a new method of attacking someone?
1) Find a user's IP address.
2) Stage a DDOS attack against them.
3) Laugh as their Internet bill goes through the roof (aka "reverse Profit").
Some towns have tried to make it a municipal service because no ISP was willing to serve them. In almost every case, they were challenged in court for "government competing with private companies." Yes, the companies that wouldn't serve the town felt insulted that they were being deprived of the opportunity to serve the town in the future should they decide to. They honestly thought that the town should just sit there without high speed Internet until a Big Business decided to grace them with it (for a price both political and sales-wise). In some cases, the legal challenges brought the projects to a halt (though still with no high speed Internet). In other cases, the towns proceeded and the project was a success.
Personally, I think that ISPs and content companies should be required to be separate. Time Warner Cable provides content (via TV) and thus should be forced to separate from "Time Warner Internet" (for lack of a better hypothetical company name). This way the Internet access policies won't be dictated by the content provider side of the business.
That was the game. Thanks. That game was so tough that the only way to enjoy it was to intentionally play badly. So many virtual patients' lives destroyed. So many good memories.
Decades ago, I had a "operating room simulator" for my 286 which presented you with a series of patients. Your job was to assign tests to be performed (but not too many!), interpret the results, and recommend the proper course of action. For some patients, surgery would be needed and you would need to administer the anesthetic, slice the patient open, perform the needed operation without the patient dying from blood loss, and then close them up again.
I stunk at this game so I found entertainment in ruining the lives of my virtual patients. First, I would recommend all possible tests to run up their hospital bill. Next, I would recommend surgery for them no matter what. ("Sore throat? Got to slice you open!") For some patients, I would "forget" to administer the anesthetic (resulting in a badly synthesized scream and the operation coming to a halt). For others, I'd put them under, and then just start cutting left and right until they bled out and died. Needless to say, the game kicked me out of the virtual hospital every single time.
I used a thumb drive for awhile and then had some scares where I almost lost it.
I do use a cloud drive now (Google Drive) but Google Drive also automatically backs up the data to each of my computers. (Thumb drives you need to remember to back them up and I'm notoriously bad at that.) If Google were to "accidentally" delete all of my data, I would be fine. I also don't store anything there that would lead to ID theft were it to fall into the wrong hands.
Good point. I was assuming that the person was travelling on public property or was visible from public property. If the person gets in their car (parked on a short driveway visible from the street), drives (via public roads) to another location and parks in a location on or visible from public property, there is no problem with police in an unmarked vehicle following them. The second it goes onto private property and they need to enter said property to keep their target in sight, though, a warrant is needed. If the GPS tracker could, somehow, follow the car automatically without being attached to the car, it would be fine so long as it stayed on public property. A hypothetical miniature car drone would need to stop before entering private property without the police first obtaining a warrant.