I hate to embrace such technologies, but secure networking equipment probably need some sort of firmware DRM / Trusted Computing / game-console-like protection against modification.
We would still see signs like "No Irish Apply", and black people would not ever be hired for white collar jobs. That is the truth, and you should think about that. Anarchy isn't always the solution -- and I'm a libertarian saying this.
That's pretty funny that you think 2 of the most similar cultures on the planet can be called anything close to "entirely different cultures".
You also don't seem to pay attention to the fact that whenever bad things start happening in the UK (like having a camera on every street corner, turning on cell phone microphones when calls aren't being made, or forcefully collecting DNA from arrested people, even if they are innocent), those same tactics are employed in the USA, usually within 3 years.
You also seem to be under the poor misconception that no UK police are armed. Um, that guy they shot in the head on the subway? Remember him? Or did you just conveniently forget.
Furthermore, this article wasn't about police shootings. It was about police using Facebook to lift information that they really shouldn't have. Facebook applications have already lied to users in many ways -- like when you click X to remove a story from your feed, it's still in the feed that your friends all see, so you are mis-led into thinking you buried a story. Or the Blockbuster lawsuit, where they are putting people's faces next to movies, representing them as liking a movie when they don't necessarily do.
The point being, police are dicks. And your failed empire of a country is most definitely not immune to the dickery of authority -- after all, it's why we succeeded from you:
http://del.icio.us/ClintJCL/abuseofauthority+uk
I forgot that a cop in another country is a completely different entity than a cop here! No resemblance in any way, shape, or form. Please forgive me for my apples and oranges comparison. (More like oranges and mandarin oranges, actually.)
A few mistakes DO cancel out the good they do. One officer in one second can take away someone's life just because he felt threatened, even if the threat is unjustifiable. Police die at a lower rate than garbage men and farmers, yet are cowardly enough to unjustifiably shoot people on a near-daily basis. Someone being murdered by a government official sworn to uphold the law is 100X worse than someone being murdered by a criminal. And one murder that, for example, takes away 70 years of potential life from the victim -- does indeed to more evil than 100 cops working all day.
This is the first article on slashdot that describes what I have been calling the "Technology War" for quite a few years. The point is that governments around the world are trying to make it so that technology does what THEY want, but at the same time trying to take away rights from civilians to use the technology that THEY want.
One small example? Radar detectors being illegal in my state. Another example? DRM. Another example: Photographers rights to take pictures in public coming under fire.
Please check out some of these links; I have been saving stories which fall under the "Technology War" category:
Another facet of the technology war: As real-world situations are replaced by virtual/technological situations, the corporations are trying very hard to ensure that the same rights we had in the real world do not transfer over to technology. There are a lot of situations that fall into this rather broad description.
I'm trying to make more people aware that there is a global phenomenon going on here. It's not a bunch of evil men in a board room conspiring against us while laughing maniacally in the dark; it is simply a side-effect of a lot of global abstract forces at work.
if only I had mod points, I would mod that as the flamebait it is. It's also pretty irrelevant to the article at hand, but obviously you dismissed it based on the attitude of the article writer.
I'd like to remind you that a data protocol, and the data it carries, are two separate things. Just because someone doesn't write an article in the method (data protocol) you like, doesn't mean that the actual data contained (data payload) is invalid.
How did all the people on the 911 planes use their cellphones to call their families at the last second? How did those on Flight 93 get news about 911, so that they could crash the plane in Shanksville? Who gets reception on a plane?
So you're saying if I'm sick, and I'm not sure if antibiotics may help or not, that I should NOT take them, increasing my risk of actually getting ill --- so that some schmuck 20 years from now doesn't die of an antibiotic-resistant strain that developed?
How about scientists do their job and stay ahead of the diseases, rather than asking me to GET SICK NOW just to give them more time to find new cures?
No.. They packed all the fun of 4 20-minute episodes into this 4-episode 'movie'. And it tied together a LOT of the series. They weren't just 4 one-off adventures. Meh.. You probably hated the Simpsons, South Park, and Aqua Teen movies too.
The way they are making these movies is to make 4 episodes, take out the themes, and widescreen it. These ARE episodes. Quit your whining. Any book, comic, or tv show made into a movie gets these predictable complaints from people who call themselves "fans".
Taxi drivers, fishermen, and garbage men all die at a rate greater than police. This was in mainstream media just a few months ago -- article probably still up at CNN.com. Meanwhile, police act like this, and pretty much get away with it the majority of the time. Criticism is more than necessary, and being skewed has nothing to do with it -- They are already skewed by being in the position they are. They can already shoot someone in the back and have internal affairs clear it in a week. That's pretty skewed too. Like the others said, Free Speech isn't necessarily about being fair. You need a little more perspective into the police. Go RSS subscribe to BadCopNews and read EVERY article for 6 months and tell me if your worldview is not changed by the experience.
You mean the same speakeasy that had a pre-sales online chat saying I could use 100% of my bandwidth 100% of the time, and then told me I had to download under 100G a month (that's 3G a day -- not even enough for a dvd!) or that they would terminate me. And then terminated me. And then threatened to charge me the $300 early termination fee -- even though it was THEM doing the terminating -- unless I wouldn't talk about it online.
That speakeasy?
Fuck them. They are worse fucking liars than any other ISP I've had.
It's unnecessarily divisive. I happen to think rights exist regardless of anyone enforcing those rights. At all times, for all beings. (Not that I respect the rights of lesser beings, I'll kill a spider -- but it still has rights, regardless of whether they are being enforced or not.)
So I should give the benefit of the doubt to people who would break into my home, and not have a gun to protect myself? Is that what you're saying? Most burglars are nice people who wouldn't hurt anybody who discovered them?? I should rely on statistics to protect me, right?
The National Center for Policy Analysis, a conservative think tank, reported the following statistics:[91]
* New Jersey adopted what sponsors described as "the most stringent gun law" in the nation in 1966; two years later, the murder rate was up 46% and the reported robbery rate had nearly doubled.
* In 1968, Hawaii imposed a series of increasingly harsh measures, and its murder rate tripled from a low of 2.4 per 100,000 in 1968 to 7.2 by 1977.
* In 1976, Washington, D.C., enacted one of the most restrictive gun control laws in the nation. Since then, the city's murder rate has risen 134% while the national murder rate has dropped 2%.
In addition:
* Over 50% of American households own guns, despite government statistics showing the number is approximately 35%, because guns not listed on any government roll were not counted during the gathering of data. [92]
* Evanston, Illinois, a Chicago suburb of 75,000 residents, became the largest town to ban handgun ownership in September 1982 but experienced no decline in violent crime.[citation needed]
* Among the 15 states with the highest homicide rates, 10 have restrictive or very restrictive gun laws. [93]
* Twenty percent of U.S. homicides occur in four cities with just 6% of the population--New York, Chicago, Detroit and Washington, D.C.--and each has (or, in the case of Detroit, had until 2001) a virtual prohibition on private handguns.[citation needed]
* UK banned private ownership of most handguns in 1997, previously held by an estimated 57,000 people--0.1% of the population. [94] Since 1998, the number of people injured by firearms in England and Wales has more than doubled, despite a massive increase in the number of police personnel.[95] In 2005-06, of 5,001 such injuries, 3,474 (69%) were defined as "slight," and a further 965 (19%) involved the "firearm" being used as a blunt instrument. Twenty-four percent of injuries were caused with air weapons, and 32% with "imitation firearms" (including BB guns and soft air weapons).[96] Since 1998, the number of fatal shootings has varied between 49 and 97, and was 50 in 2005.
* Australia forced the surrender of nearly 650,000 personal firearms in 1997. A study published in 2001 [97] shows a 47% decrease of firearms related deaths, but also reveals an overall rise in non-firearm related violent crime.
* Violent crime accelerated in Jamaica after handguns were banned. [98]
Of course, most importantly is -- it doesn't matter if a million people murder a million other people with guns. Taking away MY rights based on the action of others is as unfair as a teacher sending a whole class to detention because 1 person chewed gum (been there, done that). Revolution is a basic human right, and only possible with a handgun. As they say -- freedom isn't free. Freedom comes with a price. You'd rather be in a locked cage, protected by the government... Much like an indoor cat. In the real world, bad guys have guns -- no matter what the ban. And using their actions to justify taking away MY right to protect MY life and MY family is plain wrong. Statistics don't truly matter.
Besides, just look at automobile deaths! Maybe they should take away your license, becuase 40,000 people die in car accidents every year? After all, driving is a privilege, not a constitutional right. But somehow, I suspect you would not like that course of action. Yet to many of us, being able to protect our life is FAR more important than being able to go to work.
(and don't get me started on the domestic violence red herring -- I'm guessing men killed their spouses at greater than or equal rates before guns were around, and the real correlation to spousal murders is probably societal awareness of the equality of women; if a man thinks a woman is less than him, he will find a way to kill her, gun or not.)
The number of home invasions that are thwarted by guns in america outnumber the murders by far far far far more than a 4:1 ratio (more like 10 to 1). So yes: Take away the guns, and people can't protect their families. All criminals -- usually the ones who murder -- will still be able to get guns, just like all prisoners can get marijuana INSIDE OF A PRISON. But then law abiding citizens would not be able to defend themselves. So, basically, criminals will still have guns, but we wont be able to defend ourself. In our case, the murder rate would actually go up.
Now how does their gun ownership rate compare? If their murder rate is 25%, but they have, say, 5% of the gun ownership -- Then that pretty much points to people finding other ways to kill people, even if their guns are taken away.
Slashdot Mirror
I hate to embrace such technologies, but secure networking equipment probably need some sort of firmware DRM / Trusted Computing / game-console-like protection against modification.
We would still see signs like "No Irish Apply", and black people would not ever be hired for white collar jobs. That is the truth, and you should think about that. Anarchy isn't always the solution -- and I'm a libertarian saying this.
You also don't seem to pay attention to the fact that whenever bad things start happening in the UK (like having a camera on every street corner, turning on cell phone microphones when calls aren't being made, or forcefully collecting DNA from arrested people, even if they are innocent), those same tactics are employed in the USA, usually within 3 years.
You also seem to be under the poor misconception that no UK police are armed. Um, that guy they shot in the head on the subway? Remember him? Or did you just conveniently forget.
Furthermore, this article wasn't about police shootings. It was about police using Facebook to lift information that they really shouldn't have. Facebook applications have already lied to users in many ways -- like when you click X to remove a story from your feed, it's still in the feed that your friends all see, so you are mis-led into thinking you buried a story. Or the Blockbuster lawsuit, where they are putting people's faces next to movies, representing them as liking a movie when they don't necessarily do.
The point being, police are dicks. And your failed empire of a country is most definitely not immune to the dickery of authority -- after all, it's why we succeeded from you: http://del.icio.us/ClintJCL/abuseofauthority+uk
I forgot that a cop in another country is a completely different entity than a cop here! No resemblance in any way, shape, or form. Please forgive me for my apples and oranges comparison. (More like oranges and mandarin oranges, actually.)
Please tell me all the stories chronicled here are just a misrepresentation of reality:
http://del.icio.us/ClintJCL/AbuseOfAuthority
One small example? Radar detectors being illegal in my state. Another example? DRM. Another example: Photographers rights to take pictures in public coming under fire.
Please check out some of these links; I have been saving stories which fall under the "Technology War" category:
The links: http://del.icio.us/ClintJCL/TechnologyWar
I have also blogged about a lot of them, but these would be harder to read than my saved links:
http://clintjcl.wordpress.com/category/politics/technology-war/
Another facet of the technology war: As real-world situations are replaced by virtual/technological situations, the corporations are trying very hard to ensure that the same rights we had in the real world do not transfer over to technology. There are a lot of situations that fall into this rather broad description.
I'm trying to make more people aware that there is a global phenomenon going on here. It's not a bunch of evil men in a board room conspiring against us while laughing maniacally in the dark; it is simply a side-effect of a lot of global abstract forces at work.
I'd like to remind you that a data protocol, and the data it carries, are two separate things. Just because someone doesn't write an article in the method (data protocol) you like, doesn't mean that the actual data contained (data payload) is invalid.
You're superficial.
How did all the people on the 911 planes use their cellphones to call their families at the last second? How did those on Flight 93 get news about 911, so that they could crash the plane in Shanksville? Who gets reception on a plane?
How about scientists do their job and stay ahead of the diseases, rather than asking me to GET SICK NOW just to give them more time to find new cures?
Why the hell should I take one for THIS team?
Last I checked.
yea really. what a douche.
No.. They packed all the fun of 4 20-minute episodes into this 4-episode 'movie'. And it tied together a LOT of the series. They weren't just 4 one-off adventures. Meh.. You probably hated the Simpsons, South Park, and Aqua Teen movies too.
The way they are making these movies is to make 4 episodes, take out the themes, and widescreen it. These ARE episodes. Quit your whining. Any book, comic, or tv show made into a movie gets these predictable complaints from people who call themselves "fans".
I agree wholeheartedly.
Those that cannot write in complete sentences are similarly annoying ;)
(oblig Simpsons ref)
Taxi drivers, fishermen, and garbage men all die at a rate greater than police. This was in mainstream media just a few months ago -- article probably still up at CNN.com. Meanwhile, police act like this, and pretty much get away with it the majority of the time. Criticism is more than necessary, and being skewed has nothing to do with it -- They are already skewed by being in the position they are. They can already shoot someone in the back and have internal affairs clear it in a week. That's pretty skewed too. Like the others said, Free Speech isn't necessarily about being fair. You need a little more perspective into the police. Go RSS subscribe to BadCopNews and read EVERY article for 6 months and tell me if your worldview is not changed by the experience.
That speakeasy?
Fuck them. They are worse fucking liars than any other ISP I've had.
FL^HP!
You read into statements too not. It says exactly what it says. You're the one who read an implication into it.
It's unnecessarily divisive. I happen to think rights exist regardless of anyone enforcing those rights. At all times, for all beings. (Not that I respect the rights of lesser beings, I'll kill a spider -- but it still has rights, regardless of whether they are being enforced or not.)
The National Center for Policy Analysis, a conservative think tank, reported the following statistics:[91]
* New Jersey adopted what sponsors described as "the most stringent gun law" in the nation in 1966; two years later, the murder rate was up 46% and the reported robbery rate had nearly doubled.
* In 1968, Hawaii imposed a series of increasingly harsh measures, and its murder rate tripled from a low of 2.4 per 100,000 in 1968 to 7.2 by 1977.
* In 1976, Washington, D.C., enacted one of the most restrictive gun control laws in the nation. Since then, the city's murder rate has risen 134% while the national murder rate has dropped 2%.
In addition:
* Over 50% of American households own guns, despite government statistics showing the number is approximately 35%, because guns not listed on any government roll were not counted during the gathering of data. [92]
* Evanston, Illinois, a Chicago suburb of 75,000 residents, became the largest town to ban handgun ownership in September 1982 but experienced no decline in violent crime.[citation needed]
* Among the 15 states with the highest homicide rates, 10 have restrictive or very restrictive gun laws. [93]
* Twenty percent of U.S. homicides occur in four cities with just 6% of the population--New York, Chicago, Detroit and Washington, D.C.--and each has (or, in the case of Detroit, had until 2001) a virtual prohibition on private handguns.[citation needed]
* UK banned private ownership of most handguns in 1997, previously held by an estimated 57,000 people--0.1% of the population. [94] Since 1998, the number of people injured by firearms in England and Wales has more than doubled, despite a massive increase in the number of police personnel.[95] In 2005-06, of 5,001 such injuries, 3,474 (69%) were defined as "slight," and a further 965 (19%) involved the "firearm" being used as a blunt instrument. Twenty-four percent of injuries were caused with air weapons, and 32% with "imitation firearms" (including BB guns and soft air weapons).[96] Since 1998, the number of fatal shootings has varied between 49 and 97, and was 50 in 2005.
* Australia forced the surrender of nearly 650,000 personal firearms in 1997. A study published in 2001 [97] shows a 47% decrease of firearms related deaths, but also reveals an overall rise in non-firearm related violent crime.
* Violent crime accelerated in Jamaica after handguns were banned. [98]
Of course, most importantly is -- it doesn't matter if a million people murder a million other people with guns. Taking away MY rights based on the action of others is as unfair as a teacher sending a whole class to detention because 1 person chewed gum (been there, done that). Revolution is a basic human right, and only possible with a handgun. As they say -- freedom isn't free. Freedom comes with a price. You'd rather be in a locked cage, protected by the government... Much like an indoor cat. In the real world, bad guys have guns -- no matter what the ban. And using their actions to justify taking away MY right to protect MY life and MY family is plain wrong. Statistics don't truly matter.
Besides, just look at automobile deaths! Maybe they should take away your license, becuase 40,000 people die in car accidents every year? After all, driving is a privilege, not a constitutional right. But somehow, I suspect you would not like that course of action. Yet to many of us, being able to protect our life is FAR more important than being able to go to work.
(and don't get me started on the domestic violence red herring -- I'm guessing men killed their spouses at greater than or equal rates before guns were around, and the real correlation to spousal murders is probably societal awareness of the equality of women; if a man thinks a woman is less than him, he will find a way to kill her, gun or not.)
The number of home invasions that are thwarted by guns in america outnumber the murders by far far far far more than a 4:1 ratio (more like 10 to 1). So yes: Take away the guns, and people can't protect their families. All criminals -- usually the ones who murder -- will still be able to get guns, just like all prisoners can get marijuana INSIDE OF A PRISON. But then law abiding citizens would not be able to defend themselves. So, basically, criminals will still have guns, but we wont be able to defend ourself. In our case, the murder rate would actually go up.
Now how does their gun ownership rate compare? If their murder rate is 25%, but they have, say, 5% of the gun ownership -- Then that pretty much points to people finding other ways to kill people, even if their guns are taken away.
But that still doesn't explain how the UK murder rate is so high given how few guns they have.