[pedantry] Slander is spoken, a blog post would therefore be libel. [/pedantry]
There is one significant difference between the World Wide Web and traditional media: globalisation. What you describe is a fine comparison if both the victim and libeller reside in say the USA but what would happen here if the blogger was not in the USA, perhaps in a country where there is no first amendment or right to privacy (like say the UK*). Google can provide the IP address, the US Court can authorise the revelation of their name and address but how simple is it for the model to sue somebody for libel if that person resides outside the model's country?
I'm by no means condoning their behaviour - just wondering what happens if say a UK newspaper libels a citizen of the USA? Presumably in that case the US Citizen attempts to bring a libel in the UK because the libel would not have been published in the USA. So what happens when the blogger is from the USA and (as is *not* the case here) the blog is also outside the USA? In that aspect the World Wide Web is quite different from other media, wouldn't you say?
* IANAL but as far as I can tell there is no legislative rule in the UK which guarantees citizen's right to privacy in the way that the first amendment does in the USA. Heck we don't even have a constitution
> In the UK 49% of the population over the age of 19 believe that cannabis should be legal. When the politicians can ignore the will of 49% of the voting population, why should they care about a mere 8.3%?
That sounds good but that is an 8 year old survey and was made across a sample of just 1000 people. Neither could be considered significantly representative of the populace today. Opinion polls are always a bad way to judge public opinion because they will always be based on results from a) those who were prepared to answer and b) surrounding questions and debate. I recall an excellent routine on polls from yes Prime Minister in which Bernard is led to answer the same question in two opposing ways by Sir Humphrey.
That said, I will agree that the government only pays attention to the opinion polls that support them but it has always been thus. Furthermore, I'm not aware of any governmental system which accurately pays attention to what is loosely termed public "opinion". Especially as the latter is so often coerced by the media and indeed the government themselves. There are several instances where the government has been right to ignore "popular opinion" and several where it has been wrong. That's the nature of government.
> What's the problem with rejecting the SMTP session, with the error displaying the SMTP error code along with your phone number/error message in it?
Agreed! Back-scatter in the form of messages generated by the recipient server are worse than the original spam in my opinion because you can't effectively block them without blocking bounces for mail your clients _did_ send. Add to this that spammers usually fake the from and reply-to headers and it's somebody else getting the bounces.
Receiving SMTP servers should not send bounces for unknown recipients (and should _never_ respond to suspect spam messages). Instead they should simply reject the message at SMTP level with a user unknown error. You can add any custom message to that. On a previous server we had "user unknown - please try info@". This works because the relaying server handles the rejection and in turn responds to whomever it permitted to relay through it. I am yet to see a legitimate reason for a receiving SMTP server to generate a bounce message (out off office replies is a different issue!).
What would that be then: a 250GB HDD and a 17" screen? MS already managed to coerce the netbook market into turning netbooks from niche web-based appliances into mini-laptops which more closely resemble the power laptops of five years ago. Enough!
IYAM a netbook should:
- have solid state storage - have a small footprint (no more 12" screens) - be largely a web-based client: minimal local apps.
Why do I immediately think of the scene in Demolition man where the police confront Welsey Snipes at a phone booth. The lead cop is holding a handheld device which tells him how to apprehend a psychopathic mass murderer and on first failure it tells him to repeat the command in a more stern tone.:)
In any case, word excel and powerpoint documents can contain multiple sheets of paper, and I see a lot of people take that to extremes - for example having all the day's letters contained in one word document, or every single spreadsheet they work on in one excel document.
During the late 80s/early 90s I worked for a firm that had a satellite office with a single PC which was running Wordpress on DOS. The secretary there had a single document containing every single letter she had typed over the past three years. She typed letters for an office of 15 engineers and regularly wrote several every day.
Worse still, when she opened it (fortunately just the once per day) she would press the down cursor key repeatedly until she got to the last line. She spent approximately half an hour doing this I asked her how she found an old letter to check, and she replied it would be in the filing cabinet behind her. No matter ho many times I tried to show her how to use individual files, she went back to this single document. I once discovered we had no backup of this single file (it was saved outside of the document directory) and I still have the occasional nightmares about it.
these days it's probably more accurate to say Right-wing, Middle-england crap. The rest is spot-on though. And if you're going to say the Daily mail, Telegraph etc are right-wing, you should probably point out that the Grauniad is generally left-wing.
> The People: Apparently still running. First UK paper to be printed in colour...
The Daily Express: More Right-wing, Middle-england crap. Obsessed with Diana, Princess of Wales - seems to be outraged about something on a daily basis.
> Of course, you are asking for *advice* on Slashdot, so don't complain if you get terrible advice
There, fixed that for you.:o)
Of course, he's not really asking for video advice:
FTS: "I am the IT guy and will be responsible for most if not all aspects of hardware and software (not to include editing).... Computers use will mainly be for communications and writing."
In that respect, and in no particular order, it will mostly come down to budget, expected systems performance and data integrity expectations. BTW if the project is to use Google apps for docs and comms - what will you be doing regarding backup? e.g. if Google goes down, if only for a while - how will you cope, how will you get your data back if Google goes under (unlikely but you should at least consider it)?
Yeah that's a problem. I liked the G! in principle but every time I picked one i felt like it was going to break in minds. This one will by nature feel more solide (less moving parts) but lack of keyboard is a bit of an issue for me.
Not sure about the proprietary headphone jack either
>...how many of you have completely switched to Linux.
*raises hand*
I switched entirely in 2003 (but had been dual-booting since 99) have three laptops which all run Debian and only Debian. I am not the only one using them either - other regular users include my wife and my 5 and 3 yr old kids. So far I have not heard a complaint from any of them.
Fuel tax has nothing to do with road usage and everything to do with fuel usage. A more fuel efficient vehicle may use the road more than a "gas-guzzler" but who will pay more fuel tax? Answer: the one who uses more fuel.
London (UK) has had the congestion charge for a few years now. It effectively makes an entire portion of the city a toll road. Your number is tagged when you enter the zone and it's up to you to pay by 10pm that night. You get no warning, no "monthly bill". If you don't pay - you get a fine. Multiple entries in the same day count as one and not all vehicles are liable (which is one reason I drive a motorbike). We also have a number of toll bridges and roads around the UK - not that any use number-plate monitoring (yet). Everyone who pays the congestion charge, pays fuels and road duty as well. Don't expect the government to drop road tax because of a toll.
Seems our friends in Denver, having given us the clamp - are just catching up on some of our ideas.
> What better way to increase the profit margin on your products? Hire, train, and pay staff,
why would they train their retail staff - nobody else seems to:o)
> Develop a logistics network.
surely they'd just buy or rent one.
> Oh, Get into a market where you have no experience.
What you mean as they did with the Xbox? I think (and hope) these shops will fail because their products don't suit that environment but MS have proven how they can "embrace and extend" unfamiliar markets in the past.
> Sounds like a fantastic way to cut costs and overhead.
Yeah but MS have rarely been about cutting their costs, they seem to focus on increasing everybody else's. Aside from that remember who in charge at MS now. This kind of mad idea has Ballmer written all over it.
I can see it now: you walk into the store (by accident) and an assistant dressed as a paper clip appears beside you saying
"You look like you're trying to buy a PC. Shall I.. * ignore all your needs and suggest one now * spew FUD about anything not owned by Microsoft * help myself to your wallet now * do a weird little spin and bugger off!"
Seriously though - the IRMA (Ireland's RIAA) will not need to examine the data between you and the sites you visit. They'll just need the fact that you visited a suspicious sounding url itself and then make a pretty big assumption. From that they contact Eircom with an accusation and (as Eircom do not actually require the evidence to be proven) you get your first strike.
> what guarantee is there that Linux... doesn't contain sleeping trojans written by Russians or Chinese ?
Let me answer your point in the form of a multiple-choice question.
You are about to deploy software into a tactical nuclear submarine, would you prefer to use code that is :
a) available for you (or your experts) to read in full and find any bugs, "trojans" or other errors? b) closed but you can see it (or what they claim is it) if you sign an NDA?
what makes you think they wouldn't just put the dead laptop itself on eBay? They claim it is "recently untested but worked a while ago" and some sucker buys it. I mean we're not talking about honest people here are we?
| If you want to use it on Wikipedia, you'll have to release it under a free license.
Right. Even if it is my own creation, I must allow everyone else to use it, or else even I can't use it -- not even on my own user page.
Whether it's your creation is irrelevant here - it's who owns the copyright. I could create an image for a client but it's not mine to do with as I please if I give the copyright to them.
Also "Everyone else" does not come into it. Regardless of whether you own the copyright, *you* are not using it here , Wikipedia is and it is they whom the free licence protects. If you want *Wikipedia* to use it on *their* site then you have to permit them to. The nature of Wikipedia means content on their site is meant to be shared.
Of course if you don't like or don't want to do that then you are free not to put it on Wikipedia.
TFA relates to the USA so it doesn't really apply to a Brit like me but some of the discussion about bringing up kids does interest me: a parent of a five and a 3 yr old.
As a lot of people have already said the real key for any parent is to monitor what your child is watching/doing. Our house has one TV, one DVD player and one games console. Whenever possible we watch TV/DVD together. The kids rarely get to watch TV without one of us - it's something we do together. It means I have to endure the mystery that is "In the night garden" but hey that's being a Dad. The kids rarely watch TV alone and even then it is for no more than half hour. Even then they are restricted to the channel we select (Cbeebies at the moment). This has extended from both of our own (good) childhood experiences when our homes had one TV and watching it was a social thing for the whole family. Family arguments over what side to watch are settled with a DVD-recorder but when you watch stuff with your kids you get to talk with them about at other times - and talking with your kids is good.
Aside from this we also encourage the kids to engage in other activities - drawing, puzzles, reading, playing with toys. These are the things they do when we need to be doing the household stuff. It doesn't always work and they will often require you to settle disputes while you're making dinner but in general it works. Now they are both at school five days a week (mornings for the 3yr old) it has given my wife a chance to do household stuff.
For those who say they both have to work so where is the time: true my wife doesn't go out to work - she does some voluntary work once a week though. This is a decision we took early on to enable us to bring up the kids how we wanted. At the moment my earning potential is higher so I go to work and she works at the home but I do my share of chores as well - it's about helping. We have given up things to enable this: like owning our own home, holidays abroad (and we live in the UK!), a garden etc. We compensate for the latter as we live on an estate with significant amounts of greenery and with the others we just "make do".
As for computer usage: we have two laptops in the house (actually four but two are in rebuild status right now!). The kids aren't on them every day - GCompris and Tux Paint mostly but when they do need to use a computer it'll be downstairs where we can see them.
Short version: Our kids will not get a TV or computer in their bedroom, parental controls are best when incorporated into the parent's head. Our kids are by no means angels but they do seem happy and in general so does the house. We get tantrums at bedtime and arguments over who's turn it is first like any other household but the one thing we do the most in our house.. is talk. Mind you that's probably because my family line has an hereditary verbose setting (as you can probably tell from this post!).
Maybe the data isn't stored on the RFID in the passport.
And there is most people's problem. It's not the card but the data storage. Specifically who has authorised access to it and also how secure it really is what with the number of government data-leaks there have been in the UK lately.
What many people noticed on applying for a UK passport recently was the leaflet that came with the form telling you exactly how to pose for your photograph
And that anybody over 16 must sign their own passport - this is a new requirement and it is causing havoc for families with disabled kids. I work for a disability charity and we've had parents bemoaning that they just can't get their disabled child to not smile when they sit in front of a camera - let alone stay still! But UK gov has made no provision for this - effectively telling disabled children they cannot have a passport.
Many is the time I've turned up at a place and found I needed a photo-ID or my passport and not had one, buying foreign currency, for example.
I take it you have an old-style paper driving licence then (or no driving licence). The modular style passport you mention is already in place in driving licences. Any "need" for an ID card being needed to prove who I am can be usually met by my driving licence - which proves who I am without all the other stuff.
A classic example of science journalists who don't have any idea what they're writing about!
"A classic example of journalists who don't have any idea what they're writing about!"
There fixed that for you.
Re:The bigger the risk the better the payout
on
LHC Success!
·
· Score: 1
You know if these "naysayers" and doomsday fanatics had there way then we would not have half of the tech that we and them rely on, on a daily basis. With the Atom bomb everyone thought we would kill ourselves but out of the deadlist WMD every made came a cheap reliable source of fuel.
Don't be so quick to label everybody who disagrees with the experiment as a nay-saying luddite. A lot of people seem to me to just asking if those responsible for the LHCM have excercised enough caution before proceeding.
Whilst tech itself is generally benign, those that use it (i.e. we humans) are not. We have traits that don't mix that well with tech really: laziness, parsimoniousness, pride and lack of forethought spring to mind. It's true that we also have many traits that do mix with tech. Trouble is it only takes one of the bad ones to be present at the wrong time. Don't believe me? Try telling the people of Belarus about this cheap reliable source of fuel (by which I take it you mean energy).
Slashdot Mirror
MS Poland's site now shows the same photo as the US one.
Either MS have changed the photo to the original or the one on the link in TFS is a fake (e.g. not produced by MS).
[pedantry] Slander is spoken, a blog post would therefore be libel. [/pedantry]
There is one significant difference between the World Wide Web and traditional media: globalisation. What you describe is a fine comparison if both the victim and libeller reside in say the USA but what would happen here if the blogger was not in the USA, perhaps in a country where there is no first amendment or right to privacy (like say the UK*). Google can provide the IP address, the US Court can authorise the revelation of their name and address but how simple is it for the model to sue somebody for libel if that person resides outside the model's country?
I'm by no means condoning their behaviour - just wondering what happens if say a UK newspaper libels a citizen of the USA? Presumably in that case the US Citizen attempts to bring a libel in the UK because the libel would not have been published in the USA. So what happens when the blogger is from the USA and (as is *not* the case here) the blog is also outside the USA? In that aspect the World Wide Web is quite different from other media, wouldn't you say?
* IANAL but as far as I can tell there is no legislative rule in the UK which guarantees citizen's right to privacy in the way that the first amendment does in the USA. Heck we don't even have a constitution
> In the UK 49% of the population over the age of 19 believe that cannabis should be legal. When the politicians can ignore the will of 49% of the voting population, why should they care about a mere 8.3%?
That sounds good but that is an 8 year old survey and was made across a sample of just 1000 people. Neither could be considered significantly representative of the populace today. Opinion polls are always a bad way to judge public opinion because they will always be based on results from a) those who were prepared to answer and b) surrounding questions and debate. I recall an excellent routine on polls from yes Prime Minister in which Bernard is led to answer the same question in two opposing ways by Sir Humphrey.
That said, I will agree that the government only pays attention to the opinion polls that support them but it has always been thus. Furthermore, I'm not aware of any governmental system which accurately pays attention to what is loosely termed public "opinion". Especially as the latter is so often coerced by the media and indeed the government themselves. There are several instances where the government has been right to ignore "popular opinion" and several where it has been wrong. That's the nature of government.
> What's the problem with rejecting the SMTP session, with the error displaying the SMTP error code along with your phone number/error message in it?
Agreed! Back-scatter in the form of messages generated by the recipient server are worse than the original spam in my opinion because you can't effectively block them without blocking bounces for mail your clients _did_ send. Add to this that spammers usually fake the from and reply-to headers and it's somebody else getting the bounces.
Receiving SMTP servers should not send bounces for unknown recipients (and should _never_ respond to suspect spam messages). Instead they should simply reject the message at SMTP level with a user unknown error. You can add any custom message to that. On a previous server we had "user unknown - please try info@". This works because the relaying server handles the rejection and in turn responds to whomever it permitted to relay through it. I am yet to see a legitimate reason for a receiving SMTP server to generate a bounce message (out off office replies is a different issue!).
What would that be then: a 250GB HDD and a 17" screen? MS already managed to coerce the netbook market into turning netbooks from niche web-based appliances into mini-laptops which more closely resemble the power laptops of five years ago. Enough!
IYAM a netbook should:
- have solid state storage
- have a small footprint (no more 12" screens)
- be largely a web-based client: minimal local apps.
You want anything else: go buy a laptop!
Why do I immediately think of the scene in Demolition man where the police confront Welsey Snipes at a phone booth. The lead cop is holding a handheld device which tells him how to apprehend a psychopathic mass murderer and on first failure it tells him to repeat the command in a more stern tone. :)
In any case, word excel and powerpoint documents can contain multiple sheets of paper, and I see a lot of people take that to extremes - for example having all the day's letters contained in one word document, or every single spreadsheet they work on in one excel document.
During the late 80s/early 90s I worked for a firm that had a satellite office with a single PC which was running Wordpress on DOS. The secretary there had a single document containing every single letter she had typed over the past three years. She typed letters for an office of 15 engineers and regularly wrote several every day.
Worse still, when she opened it (fortunately just the once per day) she would press the down cursor key repeatedly until she got to the last line. She spent approximately half an hour doing this I asked her how she found an old letter to check, and she replied it would be in the filing cabinet behind her. No matter ho many times I tried to show her how to use individual files, she went back to this single document. I once discovered we had no backup of this single file (it was saved outside of the document directory) and I still have the occasional nightmares about it.
> The Daily Mail: Right wing christian crap...
these days it's probably more accurate to say Right-wing, Middle-england crap. The rest is spot-on though. And if you're going to say the Daily mail, Telegraph etc are right-wing, you should probably point out that the Grauniad is generally left-wing.
> The People: Apparently still running. First UK paper to be printed in colour...
I thought that was Eddie Shah's Today in the 80s
Oh and you forgot
The Daily Express: More Right-wing, Middle-england crap. Obsessed with Diana, Princess of Wales - seems to be outraged about something on a daily basis.
> This seems like a pretty decent way to get full HD at home.
at 10 Lumens? I think not
> Of course, you are asking for *advice* on Slashdot, so don't complain if you get terrible advice
There, fixed that for you. :o)
Of course, he's not really asking for video advice:
FTS: "I am the IT guy and will be responsible for most if not all aspects of hardware and software (not to include editing). ... Computers use will mainly be for communications and writing."
In that respect, and in no particular order, it will mostly come down to budget, expected systems performance and data integrity expectations. BTW if the project is to use Google apps for docs and comms - what will you be doing regarding backup? e.g. if Google goes down, if only for a while - how will you cope, how will you get your data back if Google goes under (unlikely but you should at least consider it)?
Yeah that's a problem. I liked the G! in principle but every time I picked one i felt like it was going to break in minds. This one will by nature feel more solide (less moving parts) but lack of keyboard is a bit of an issue for me.
Not sure about the proprietary headphone jack either
> ...how many of you have completely switched to Linux.
*raises hand*
I switched entirely in 2003 (but had been dual-booting since 99) have three laptops which all run Debian and only Debian. I am not the only one using them either - other regular users include my wife and my 5 and 3 yr old kids. So far I have not heard a complaint from any of them.
Fuel tax has nothing to do with road usage and everything to do with fuel usage. A more fuel efficient vehicle may use the road more than a "gas-guzzler" but who will pay more fuel tax? Answer: the one who uses more fuel.
London (UK) has had the congestion charge for a few years now. It effectively makes an entire portion of the city a toll road. Your number is tagged when you enter the zone and it's up to you to pay by 10pm that night. You get no warning, no "monthly bill". If you don't pay - you get a fine. Multiple entries in the same day count as one and not all vehicles are liable (which is one reason I drive a motorbike). We also have a number of toll bridges and roads around the UK - not that any use number-plate monitoring (yet). Everyone who pays the congestion charge, pays fuels and road duty as well. Don't expect the government to drop road tax because of a toll.
Seems our friends in Denver, having given us the clamp - are just catching up on some of our ideas.
> What better way to increase the profit margin on your products? Hire, train, and pay staff,
why would they train their retail staff - nobody else seems to :o)
> Develop a logistics network.
surely they'd just buy or rent one.
> Oh, Get into a market where you have no experience.
What you mean as they did with the Xbox? I think (and hope) these shops will fail because their products don't suit that environment but MS have proven how they can "embrace and extend" unfamiliar markets in the past.
> Sounds like a fantastic way to cut costs and overhead.
Yeah but MS have rarely been about cutting their costs, they seem to focus on increasing everybody else's. Aside from that remember who in charge at MS now. This kind of mad idea has Ballmer written all over it.
I can see it now: you walk into the store (by accident) and an assistant dressed as a paper clip appears beside you saying
"You look like you're trying to buy a PC. Shall I ..
* ignore all your needs and suggest one now
* spew FUD about anything not owned by Microsoft
* help myself to your wallet now
* do a weird little spin and bugger off!"
Just as long as they don't start using self-signed certificates we'll be fine :)
Seriously though - the IRMA (Ireland's RIAA) will not need to examine the data between you and the sites you visit. They'll just need the fact that you visited a suspicious sounding url itself and then make a pretty big assumption. From that they contact Eircom with an accusation and (as Eircom do not actually require the evidence to be proven) you get your first strike.
> what guarantee is there that Linux ... doesn't contain sleeping trojans written by Russians or Chinese ?
Let me answer your point in the form of a multiple-choice question.
You are about to deploy software into a tactical nuclear submarine, would you prefer to use code that is :
a) available for you (or your experts) to read in full and find any bugs, "trojans" or other errors?
b) closed but you can see it (or what they claim is it) if you sign an NDA?
what makes you think they wouldn't just put the dead laptop itself on eBay? They claim it is "recently untested but worked a while ago" and some sucker buys it. I mean we're not talking about honest people here are we?
This bogus statistic keeps resurfacing. Having x downloads doesn't mean you have x users.
Very true, especially in the case of free software in which one download will often result in multiple installations.
Whether it's your creation is irrelevant here - it's who owns the copyright. I could create an image for a client but it's not mine to do with as I please if I give the copyright to them.
Also "Everyone else" does not come into it. Regardless of whether you own the copyright, *you* are not using it here , Wikipedia is and it is they whom the free licence protects. If you want *Wikipedia* to use it on *their* site then you have to permit them to. The nature of Wikipedia means content on their site is meant to be shared.
Of course if you don't like or don't want to do that then you are free not to put it on Wikipedia.
TFA relates to the USA so it doesn't really apply to a Brit like me but some of the discussion about bringing up kids does interest me: a parent of a five and a 3 yr old.
As a lot of people have already said the real key for any parent is to monitor what your child is watching/doing. Our house has one TV, one DVD player and one games console. Whenever possible we watch TV/DVD together. The kids rarely get to watch TV without one of us - it's something we do together. It means I have to endure the mystery that is "In the night garden" but hey that's being a Dad. The kids rarely watch TV alone and even then it is for no more than half hour. Even then they are restricted to the channel we select (Cbeebies at the moment). This has extended from both of our own (good) childhood experiences when our homes had one TV and watching it was a social thing for the whole family. Family arguments over what side to watch are settled with a DVD-recorder but when you watch stuff with your kids you get to talk with them about at other times - and talking with your kids is good.
Aside from this we also encourage the kids to engage in other activities - drawing, puzzles, reading, playing with toys. These are the things they do when we need to be doing the household stuff. It doesn't always work and they will often require you to settle disputes while you're making dinner but in general it works. Now they are both at school five days a week (mornings for the 3yr old) it has given my wife a chance to do household stuff.
For those who say they both have to work so where is the time: true my wife doesn't go out to work - she does some voluntary work once a week though. This is a decision we took early on to enable us to bring up the kids how we wanted. At the moment my earning potential is higher so I go to work and she works at the home but I do my share of chores as well - it's about helping. We have given up things to enable this: like owning our own home, holidays abroad (and we live in the UK!), a garden etc. We compensate for the latter as we live on an estate with significant amounts of greenery and with the others we just "make do".
As for computer usage: we have two laptops in the house (actually four but two are in rebuild status right now!). The kids aren't on them every day - GCompris and Tux Paint mostly but when they do need to use a computer it'll be downstairs where we can see them.
Short version: Our kids will not get a TV or computer in their bedroom, parental controls are best when incorporated into the parent's head. Our kids are by no means angels but they do seem happy and in general so does the house. We get tantrums at bedtime and arguments over who's turn it is first like any other household but the one thing we do the most in our house .. is talk. Mind you that's probably because my family line has an hereditary verbose setting (as you can probably tell from this post!).
And there is most people's problem. It's not the card but the data storage. Specifically who has authorised access to it and also how secure it really is what with the number of government data-leaks there have been in the UK lately.
And that anybody over 16 must sign their own passport - this is a new requirement and it is causing havoc for families with disabled kids. I work for a disability charity and we've had parents bemoaning that they just can't get their disabled child to not smile when they sit in front of a camera - let alone stay still! But UK gov has made no provision for this - effectively telling disabled children they cannot have a passport.
I take it you have an old-style paper driving licence then (or no driving licence). The modular style passport you mention is already in place in driving licences. Any "need" for an ID card being needed to prove who I am can be usually met by my driving licence - which proves who I am without all the other stuff.
"A classic example of journalists who don't have any idea what they're writing about!"
There fixed that for you.
Don't be so quick to label everybody who disagrees with the experiment as a nay-saying luddite. A lot of people seem to me to just asking if those responsible for the LHCM have excercised enough caution before proceeding.
Whilst tech itself is generally benign, those that use it (i.e. we humans) are not. We have traits that don't mix that well with tech really: laziness, parsimoniousness, pride and lack of forethought spring to mind. It's true that we also have many traits that do mix with tech. Trouble is it only takes one of the bad ones to be present at the wrong time. Don't believe me? Try telling the people of Belarus about this cheap reliable source of fuel (by which I take it you mean energy).