Treaties are the ultimate law they even trump the constituions of other nations. If the Auzzies did not want their people to be taken from their little island they should not have signed on the dotted line
Australia is hardly a "little" island. Anyway why shouldn't the Australian government do what the US government and ignore treaties on a whim?
We haven't yet abolished elections so that isn't ever happening.
The US hasn't abolished elections yet. Most likely that will never happen, just bring more and more machines to make it impossible to verify that the "results" have any connection to the votes cast. There are plenty of dictatorships which hold regular elections...
The major "crime" of an adult website operator going to KSA is likely to be is of them not being Muslim. Something which might be punishable by disdain, shoddy treatment etc, but unlikely to be flogging. Is Danni Ashe a Muslim?
This isn't a case of someone going to the Kingdom of their own free will, so much as someone being brought there against their will.
Generally non-Muslims do not get flogged in Riyadh, they simply get permanently expelled from the country.
If they didn't want to be there in the first place wouldn't the just ask the Saudi Immigration authorities to deport them...
If I arrange an assassin to murder a US citizen, have I broken my home country's law? Probably not
It depends who you are, if you are a private individual then you probably have. Since conspiring to murder someone generally is against the law. If you are a member of some military special forces outfit you'd probably be "just following orders"...
Question with the sort of thing this case deals with is where the crime is actually committed. I think that as long as he hosted stuff on a server in Australia and he was in Australia, it does not matter which US copyrights he violated, he did not commit a crime in the US, so he shouldn't be extradited. How can he possibly break US law without being in the US or doing anything in the US?
The only way he could do this would be if he is a US Citizen.
I'm not fanmiliar with Australian copyright laws but him saying that it is not a crime is not incompatible with you saying that it is illegal. A great many things that are illegal are not crimes. And yes, the distinction can matter a lot.
Even if the action is a "crime" in both places there plenty of situations where extradition treaties are not applicable. There are also specific issues relating to extradition to the US. e.g. human rights issues. Especially now that the way US authorities abused innocent people kidnapped in Afghanistan has recently been made public.
I thought that the usual rule was that you could not be extradited for an act that was not classified as a crime in your country of residence. This causes the IRS grief when someone moves to a country where tax evasion is not a crime.
The other rule is that if you are a big enough criminal you are unlikely to be punished at all. See Enron, Microsoft, Palamate, etc.
People don't seem to realize that you cannot simply throw democracy/elections at something and make it better (which is why I disagree with the sentiment some politicians are floating around that the Senate should be elected).
Sounds like you are describing the US. Where one of the basic problems is the lack of political parties. The other thing is that elections do not equate to democracy. It's quite possible to have elections and a complete absence of democracy. Or to have elected governments which completly ignore the populace once they get elected.
Someone suitably qualified. Software installation is an intimate and complex task. How many people do you think would be happy pulling apart a piece of consumer electronics and soldering new components in?
Especially on personal computers?
The vast majority of computers and not personal computers. With the vast majority of computers the last thing you want are end users being able to install anything. To the point where there is an industry of third party addons to make Windows act more like a workstation OS. If you want a good "personal computer" design then games consoles appear to be a good starting point. Minimal or no "installation" of self contained applications with good "sandboxing".
Remember, Linux has come from the unix side, where there are system administrators that do all the important setup stuff. Windows, on the other hand, comes from the home computer perspective, where the users are also consumers.
That is a good argument for keeping Windows within the home computer marke (assuming that it is even fit for that) and out of the corporate, education, embedded, etc market (where it typically isn't even remotly the right tool for the job). There being far more computers in the latter than the former situation.
Then you want something designed like a games console. If you were to have a true "personal computer".
The personal computer revolution started 20 years ago and started to shatter the idea that you've got to be an uber administrator to make a computer do what you want.
Wrong. If having end users maintain machines made sense there would be end user maintainable machines dating back thousands of years. Instead "no user servicable parts" is the norm on machines far simpler than even the first computers. The idea that a paradigm which makes no sense applied to simple machines should make sense applied to complex machines is nonsensical. Historically end-user maintanance is for enthusiasts, early adoptors and "hackers". A situation where someone can just use a machine without having to worry about maintanance tasks is a step forward. Obvious examples are cars and radios.
Add in the amount of commercials in modern television, a 90 minute movie becomes a 135 minute show, if not longer.
Not an issue with pre-recorded tapes. The problem of "commercial padding" (sometimes associated with content cutting) is one which has got worst with time. Even in the US, 25 years ago there probably wasn't 50% extra added onto most movies.
Just a little engineering pedantry from someone in the biz....the 747 does not have a RAT, but the 767 and 777 do. The 747 has 4 engine redundancy (versus 2 of the other twin-aisle models) and is a much older design that was never updated to incorporate a RAT.
Not undating the design, especially given that the 747 has been through many changes since it first flew, appears to be a bad decision on the part of Boeing. Flying through a volcanic erruption typically takes out all of an aircraft's engines. Since the APU (Auxillary Power Unit) is also a gas turbine that probably wouldn't work either. Redundent systems are only as redundent as the least redundent component. With contaminated air (or fuel) the number of engines isn't an issue.
Hardware installation? You're kidding right? Linux with Hotplug is far better than Windows. I know because I setup linux and windows on the same machine, and linux got all the hardware running on first boot, no questions asked. And I changed hardware later and it is instantly configured again. Windows took several hours. And changing hardware broke the driver system because the kernel is brainless here.
It used to be possible to confuse Windows by swapping two PCI cards. Now it's possible to do this by unplugging a USB mouse and replugging it into a different USB socket... If Windows hasn't seen that mouse in that USB socket before then up comes the "found new hardware" dialog.
I agree that development packages, databases, etc. are harder to install - and work needs to be done to address these problems
Actually the "problem" here is the idea that installation should be an end user task. Which is an idea which Microsoft appears to have invented. With just about any other machine you care to think of there is a split between using and installing/configuring/etc.
People who believe the conspiracy theory think the scientists and government are lying
With other Conspiracy theorists believing governments and disbelieving scientists. Historically governments lie frequently, but they don't always tell the lies people, at the time, suspect them of.
and they actually know that there will be an eruption soon and we will all die
For geological events "soon" can mean "sometime within the next few hundred thousand years".
And here's what happened to one 747: "As the crew of KLM Flight 867 struggled to restart the plane's engines, "smoke" and a strong odor of sulfur filled the cockpit and cabin. For five long minutes the powerless 747 jetliner, bound for Anchorage, Alaska, with 231 terrified passengers aboard, fell in silence toward the rugged,
A 747 without engine power does not fall it glides... Nor would it do so in silence, airflow over the wings and fuselage produces noise, as does the RAT.
The two major objections that are usually posted here are that paper ballots take too long to count,
Which apparently is only the case within the USA. For the rest of the planet this isn't an issue. Even for elections which take effect immediatly. In many US elections time is not an issue since the sucessful candidate dosn't take up office for months.
The thing about compulsory voting is that I am really split over it. I know it is my democratic right not to vote, yet I also know that making people vote gives you a much better outcome as everyone is represented.
In which case the ballot paper really should have a "none of these candidates" option. If not is it possible to put a blank ballot paper in the box?
I think that part of the simplicity of Canada's voting system is that there are usually at most six candiates on the ballot, since you only vote for the representative of your riding.
One problem with the US system is that often many elections take place at the same time. Including having multiple elections being marked on the same ballot paper. Which complicates counting and has intersting data-mining possibilities.
I never realized how unstable the US voting system was until the Florida incident. How do you know that votes are tabulated correctly in Canada and/or the UK? Maybe your Labour vote was really given to the Tory (or whatever).
Because watching the papers being sorted will be representatives of the candidates, possibly the press too.
We most certainly do NOT "need" a Federal standard for how each state votes. Shit, with attitudes like that, why even bother having states at all?
Since the US dosn't have elections for anything bigger than one state there is hardly a need for anything other than a "State standard". The real problem in the is the lack of independent administration and oversight of elections. The US simply dosn't appear to have any history of an independant "civil service", or even attempting to create the impression of independance. e.g. The US press did not immediatly scream "corruption" with respect to Jeb Bush's involvement in the 2000 fiasco.
Also, I think you are way overestimating the politicians who bought into these stupid machines. Marketers are slick, and politicians are clueless re: technology. So no, I think they didn't know how easy the machines are to mess with... or at least, not enough of them knew.
Or more likely they know, but they are happy so long as it is themselves doing any manipulations.
Simple: The normal licence. Microsoft is still selling those. The 'subscription' is cheaper, if Microsoft updates on a regular schedule and you use every update,
And the update does actually have value for you. It's quite possible to have a situation where applying the "update" has huge consequential costs.
Maybe one can use this against GPL violations. What does the legislation say about when, oh, Phillips or Vivendi might be violating GPL terms? Can we have their assets frozen?
No doubt big business either has some kind of exemption or can play corporate ownership games to ensure that their "piracy devision" has no assets at all.
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Treaties are the ultimate law they even trump the constituions of other nations. If the Auzzies did not want their people to be taken from their little island they should not have signed on the dotted line
Australia is hardly a "little" island. Anyway why shouldn't the Australian government do what the US government and ignore treaties on a whim?
We haven't yet abolished elections so that isn't ever happening.
The US hasn't abolished elections yet. Most likely that will never happen, just bring more and more machines to make it impossible to verify that the "results" have any connection to the votes cast. There are plenty of dictatorships which hold regular elections...
The major "crime" of an adult website operator going to KSA is likely to be is of them not being Muslim. Something which might be punishable by disdain, shoddy treatment etc, but unlikely to be flogging. Is Danni Ashe a Muslim?
This isn't a case of someone going to the Kingdom of their own free will, so much as someone being brought there against their will.
Generally non-Muslims do not get flogged in Riyadh, they simply get permanently expelled from the country.
If they didn't want to be there in the first place wouldn't the just ask the Saudi Immigration authorities to deport them...
If I arrange an assassin to murder a US citizen, have I broken my home country's law? Probably not
It depends who you are, if you are a private individual then you probably have. Since conspiring to murder someone generally is against the law. If you are a member of some military special forces outfit you'd probably be "just following orders"...
Question with the sort of thing this case deals with is where the crime is actually committed. I think that as long as he hosted stuff on a server in Australia and he was in Australia, it does not matter which US copyrights he violated, he did not commit a crime in the US, so he shouldn't be extradited. How can he possibly break US law without being in the US or doing anything in the US?
The only way he could do this would be if he is a US Citizen.
I'm not fanmiliar with Australian copyright laws but him saying that it is not a crime is not incompatible with you saying that it is illegal. A great many things that are illegal are not crimes. And yes, the distinction can matter a lot.
Even if the action is a "crime" in both places there plenty of situations where extradition treaties are not applicable. There are also specific issues relating to extradition to the US. e.g. human rights issues. Especially now that the way US authorities abused innocent people kidnapped in Afghanistan has recently been made public.
I thought that the usual rule was that you could not be extradited for an act that was not classified as a crime in your country of residence. This causes the IRS grief when someone moves to a country where tax evasion is not a crime.
The other rule is that if you are a big enough criminal you are unlikely to be punished at all. See Enron, Microsoft, Palamate, etc.
People don't seem to realize that you cannot simply throw democracy/elections at something and make it better (which is why I disagree with the sentiment some politicians are floating around that the Senate should be elected).
Sounds like you are describing the US. Where one of the basic problems is the lack of political parties. The other thing is that elections do not equate to democracy. It's quite possible to have elections and a complete absence of democracy. Or to have elected governments which completly ignore the populace once they get elected.
So, who's task should installation be?
Someone suitably qualified. Software installation is an intimate and complex task. How many people do you think would be happy pulling apart a piece of consumer electronics and soldering new components in?
Especially on personal computers?
The vast majority of computers and not personal computers. With the vast majority of computers the last thing you want are end users being able to install anything. To the point where there is an industry of third party addons to make Windows act more like a workstation OS.
If you want a good "personal computer" design then games consoles appear to be a good starting point. Minimal or no "installation" of self contained applications with good "sandboxing".
Remember, Linux has come from the unix side, where there are system administrators that do all the important setup stuff. Windows, on the other hand, comes from the home computer perspective, where the users are also consumers.
That is a good argument for keeping Windows within the home computer marke (assuming that it is even fit for that) and out of the corporate, education, embedded, etc market (where it typically isn't even remotly the right tool for the job). There being far more computers in the latter than the former situation.
Personal computers are for end users, after all.
Then you want something designed like a games console. If you were to have a true "personal computer".
The personal computer revolution started 20 years ago and started to shatter the idea that you've got to be an uber administrator to make a computer do what you want.
Wrong. If having end users maintain machines made sense there would be end user maintainable machines dating back thousands of years. Instead "no user servicable parts" is the norm on machines far simpler than even the first computers. The idea that a paradigm which makes no sense applied to simple machines should make sense applied to complex machines is nonsensical.
Historically end-user maintanance is for enthusiasts, early adoptors and "hackers". A situation where someone can just use a machine without having to worry about maintanance tasks is a step forward. Obvious examples are cars and radios.
Add in the amount of commercials in modern television, a 90 minute movie becomes a 135 minute show, if not longer.
Not an issue with pre-recorded tapes. The problem of "commercial padding" (sometimes associated with content cutting) is one which has got worst with time. Even in the US, 25 years ago there probably wasn't 50% extra added onto most movies.
Just a little engineering pedantry from someone in the biz....the 747 does not have a RAT, but the 767 and 777 do. The 747 has 4 engine redundancy (versus 2 of the other twin-aisle models) and is a much older design that was never updated to incorporate a RAT.
Not undating the design, especially given that the 747 has been through many changes since it first flew, appears to be a bad decision on the part of Boeing. Flying through a volcanic erruption typically takes out all of an aircraft's engines. Since the APU (Auxillary Power Unit) is also a gas turbine that probably wouldn't work either.
Redundent systems are only as redundent as the least redundent component. With contaminated air (or fuel) the number of engines isn't an issue.
The vast majority of movies fit on one disc. Betamax required multiple tapes for anything over 2 hours.
The vast majority of movies are under two hours anyway.
Hardware installation? You're kidding right? Linux with Hotplug is far better than Windows. I know because I setup linux and windows on the same machine, and linux got all the hardware running on first boot, no questions asked. And I changed hardware later and it is instantly configured again. Windows took several hours. And changing hardware broke the driver system because the kernel is brainless here.
It used to be possible to confuse Windows by swapping two PCI cards. Now it's possible to do this by unplugging a USB mouse and replugging it into a different USB socket... If Windows hasn't seen that mouse in that USB socket before then up comes the "found new hardware" dialog.
I agree that development packages, databases, etc. are harder to install - and work needs to be done to address these problems
Actually the "problem" here is the idea that installation should be an end user task. Which is an idea which Microsoft appears to have invented.
With just about any other machine you care to think of there is a split between using and installing/configuring/etc.
People who believe the conspiracy theory think the scientists and government are lying
With other Conspiracy theorists believing governments and disbelieving scientists. Historically governments lie frequently, but they don't always tell the lies people, at the time, suspect them of.
and they actually know that there will be an eruption soon and we will all die
For geological events "soon" can mean "sometime within the next few hundred thousand years".
And here's what happened to one 747: "As the crew of KLM Flight 867 struggled to restart the plane's engines, "smoke" and a strong odor of sulfur filled the cockpit and cabin. For five long minutes the powerless 747 jetliner, bound for Anchorage, Alaska, with 231 terrified passengers aboard, fell in silence toward the rugged,
A 747 without engine power does not fall it glides... Nor would it do so in silence, airflow over the wings and fuselage produces noise, as does the RAT.
They've been working with the government and military long enough to know this. It sounds like Microsoft still thinks the rules don't apply to them.
Microsoft treats rules like standards, they think they can make them up as they go along.
The two major objections that are usually posted here are that paper ballots take too long to count,
Which apparently is only the case within the USA. For the rest of the planet this isn't an issue. Even for elections which take effect immediatly. In many US elections time is not an issue since the sucessful candidate dosn't take up office for months.
The thing about compulsory voting is that I am really split over it. I know it is my democratic right not to vote, yet I also know that making people vote gives you a much better outcome as everyone is represented.
In which case the ballot paper really should have a "none of these candidates" option. If not is it possible to put a blank ballot paper in the box?
I think that part of the simplicity of Canada's voting system is that there are usually at most six candiates on the ballot, since you only vote for the representative of your riding.
One problem with the US system is that often many elections take place at the same time. Including having multiple elections being marked on the same ballot paper. Which complicates counting and has intersting data-mining possibilities.
I never realized how unstable the US voting system was until the Florida incident. How do you know that votes are tabulated correctly in Canada and/or the UK? Maybe your Labour vote was really given to the Tory (or whatever).
Because watching the papers being sorted will be representatives of the candidates, possibly the press too.
We most certainly do NOT "need" a Federal standard for how each state votes. Shit, with attitudes like that, why even bother having states at all?
Since the US dosn't have elections for anything bigger than one state there is hardly a need for anything other than a "State standard". The real problem in the is the lack of independent administration and oversight of elections. The US simply dosn't appear to have any history of an independant "civil service", or even attempting to create the impression of independance. e.g. The US press did not immediatly scream "corruption" with respect to Jeb Bush's involvement in the 2000 fiasco.
Also, I think you are way overestimating the politicians who bought into these stupid machines. Marketers are slick, and politicians are clueless re: technology. So no, I think they didn't know how easy the machines are to mess with... or at least, not enough of them knew.
Or more likely they know, but they are happy so long as it is themselves doing any manipulations.
Simple: The normal licence. Microsoft is still selling those. The 'subscription' is cheaper, if Microsoft updates on a regular schedule and you use every update,
And the update does actually have value for you. It's quite possible to have a situation where applying the "update" has huge consequential costs.
Maybe one can use this against GPL violations. What does the legislation say about when, oh, Phillips or Vivendi might be violating GPL terms? Can we have their assets frozen?
No doubt big business either has some kind of exemption or can play corporate ownership games to ensure that their "piracy devision" has no assets at all.