Australia went from having some of the best (fairest) drone regulations in the world to what will become some of the worst.
Obviously "money talks" because Google is able to fly its big, heavy delivery drones around Canbera, over people's houses, heads and roads -- but as of November of this year, nobody under the age of 16 will be allowed to fly even a 101 gram toy plane in their own back yard without being "supervised" by another person who is 18 years or older and has passed a drone competency exam.
Seriously?
Talk about a great way to kill the hobby that has, for a century or more, gotten kids excited about aviation to the extent that they go on to become pilots, engineers and designers of full-sized aircraft.
I'd love to know what "inducements" Google rolled out to those granting the permissions for its drone tests because it seems they even got an exemption from the requirement to meet minimum noise standards -- otherwise their tests would still be illegal.
Which is why I see the future of user-generated video content being served via "web/video server appliances". A small, cheap, pre-configured SBC that plugs into your broadband modem/router and allows you to serve content up directly. That content would be indexed and curated through a "video search" site that provided the front-end but didn't host any videos and thus needed far less iron and bandwidth than YouTube needs.
Remember the whole tenet of the internet and networkign in general -- distribute the load!!!
With Facebook and YT in decline, I think we'll see a return to the days when people hosted their own content rather than relying on a social media giant to do so. This gives you full control and ensures the right to free speech is maintained without "shaping" by corporations.
YouTube shot itself in the foot. I've had a YouTube account for *many* years and was one of the very first YT Channel Partners (ie: monetized my vids). Here is the timeline:
1. YouTube starts -- no ads, virtually no censorship 2. YouTube sold to Google 3. YouTube fixes some stuff but in the process, breaks a lot more 4. YouTube introduces "Channel Partners" who can monetize their vids and thus ads start appearing on a very few videos.
It is worth noting that at this stage it was *very* difficult to qualify for monetization. Although there was no minimum subcriber or view count, you did have to be creating reasonable quality content on a pretty regular basis. As a result there were probably only a few tens of thousands of "monetized" channels and YouTube was, as a result, still largely ad-free. Also, because there were so few monetized channels, ad-rates were pretty damned high so those who did get "Channel Partner" status were able to earn a reasonable amount of money for their efforts.
5. YouTube realised that there was a growing demand for ads on YT so they decided to let *anyone/everyone* monetize their channels.
As a result of this move, the laws of supply and demand kicked in -- which meant that the CPM (Cost Per Thousand) for ads fell precipitously. Those hard-working Channel Partners had their income severely reduced by the sudden abundance of ad-space. The supply of ad-space now exceeded the demand so ads sold for a song and in the months/years that followed, quite a few formerly active channels withered as their creators had to go back to getting a day-job to pay the bills.
In short, YouTube/Google got greedy. Previously they were selling what was effectively premium advertising on channels which had been carefully hand-selected for monetization. This selection process ensured that the content was of sufficient quality and met community standards. When they opened the doors to let everyone monetize, they devalued the ads and lost control of the content against which they were shown.
6. Someone noticed that brand-name advertisers were appearing alongside rather unsavory content. -- enter the first adpocalypse!
A very sizeable chunk of brand-name advertising revenue dried up overnight, as big names pulled their ads from YouTube for fear of appearing alongside terror videos, violence or other content with which they did not want to be associated. This meant a further hit in the pocket for those of us who had committed to becoming full-time YouTube content creators. The result was more really good channels disappearing or going quiet.
7. YouTube's response to the adpocalypse was to fire up some AI to try and determine whether uploaded videos were suitable for monetization.
Epic fail. Many channels had huge swathes of their back-catalog demonetized and some genres of content (such as firearms videos) were finding that videos had been demonetized before they'd even been published on the platform. Once again, legit, hard-working content creators were now paying the price for YouTube's greed.
8. YouTube decided that most of the problem channels (from an undesirable content perspective) were small ones -- so they totally removed monetization from those which did not meet a minimum viewcount and subscriber-count threshold.
Suddenly, YouTube was headed back to the old days of fewer (but higher quality) channels carrying ads -- except they had still lost the confidence of those big-dollar advertisers.
9. In an attempt to get back some of those advertisers, YouTube began some more AI silliness by turning off comments on videos featuring kids, effectively stigmatizing many completely wholesome family channels.
In short... YouTube had a really good thing going but they got greedy and, ever since, have been paying the price for that. Now if Google/YouTube was the only one affected by the fallout from that greed then I wouldn't give a toss... but they're not. With YouTube's encouragement, a lot of people have given up th
I'm with you. I have a "dumb" monitor and feed it with a sub-$100 Rasberry Pi setup (since I only need 1080p because I'm old and feeble of sight). I can run Kodi (with illegal plug-ins) and thus access a raft of great stuff (including YouTube) and I have a Chromecast that lets me access Netflix.
For the money, I bet a *much* better quality "dumb" screen than I'd get if I went the "Smart TV" way and if I don't like the smart side of things I can always change software at the flip of a micro-SD card. Who the hell would buy a smart TV????
I won't be relieved until it's actually gone -- and even then, only if they don't break too much stuff in the process.
God knows how many people will find themselves locked out of their YouTube or GMail accounts if Google stuffs this up (as they so often do).
Every time they "fix" one thing they end up breaking a dozen other things. The Google ecosystem is a mess due to the number of bits they've killed off.
Attitude is only one element of the aircraft's operation -- what about airspeed?
Surely if there was a large disparity between the aircraft's airspeed and its attitude (ie: it is accelerating beyond 500mph while the attitude sensor says it's in a steep climb) then the safety system ought to have recognized that there was a fault condition and triggered an alarm which would allow pilots to disable it with the simple flick of a switch.
Sadly, it seems that this system was never designed to be disabled -- because it was part of the FBW system used to modify the apparent flight characteristics of the new Max8 model so that it would fly like an earlier 737. This was done (so I understand) solely to make the plane more attractive to airlines that didn't want the extra expense of having to get their pilots "rated" for a new aircraft type.
When it comes to the mighty dollar versus safety -- you *know* which one wins:-(
Meanwhile, some people are still saying "it's only a matter of time before a drone brings down an airliner". I wish they'd shut up and focus on the *real* risks that are *actually* claiming hundreds of lives in the aviation industry.
Yep, but flying taxis powered by nuclear fusion will be 10 years away of course.
The reality is that we already have flying taxis -- they're called *helicopters* but the economics simply don't stack up.
An electric-powered flying taxi (of the type commonly popping up as "real soon now") is woefully lacking in economics -- even worse than a helicopter. In order for a vehicle like this to be operated at a profit it must spend a very high percentiage of the day "in operation". The problem with EVs (of all kinds) is that they have significant down-time whilst being recharged.
A gas-powered heli can be refueled in minutes so can operate at its normal hourly recovery-rate for most of the day. An electric flying taxi will spend as much (or more) time on the ground being recharged as it does actually flying -- hence the economics (by way of the return on capital) will be unworkable.
In New Zealand it has felt like a very short and not-so-hot summer. For the past week, late-summer temperatures have been as low as 5 degrees in the morning and topping out at a not-so-flash 19 degrees around here (we're talking Celcius for you 'mericans) during the day.
Even today, there's a cold Southerly and I went back to wearing jeans (instead of shorts and a teeshirt) well before the end of February whereas in years-past, it's been safe to keep wearing my summer gear through to near the end of March.
Of course this may be just an anomoly (in which case it's just "weather") but it might also mean that the bloody Aussies stole our summer in order to get their "hottest ever" weather. Bastards!:-)
Very true. Even when I was much younger (I'm 66 now) I could never do more than about 28 press-ups in one continuous session. Today I think I'm doing well if I can manage 25 and I do press-ups (to failure level) as part of my regular exercise regimen every second day. I'm not overweight but some of us just aren't push-up people.
"When it comes to terrorism, backpacks are a far bigger risk than dornes"
Absolutely true. In fact, pressure cookers are a far bigger risk than recreational drone flying (3 dead, hundreds injured by pressure-cooker bombs in the Boston Marathon attack) -- so why is it that in most countries, people owning drones weighing more than 250g have to be registered yet people owning pressure cookers don't?
This incident, plus the Gatwick one shows that the hysteria over "dangerous drones" has reached unacceptable and ridiculous proportions.
How many young children have died from suffocation as a result of plastic bags? (answer: a lot more than one).
How many people have been killed by manned aircraft crashing into populated areas? (answer, a double-digit number every year).
How many people have died as a result of domesticated dog attacks? (answer, far more than you might realise)
And here's the really important question:
How many people have died as a result of recreational multirotor drone use? Answer: A BIG FAT ZERO!
That's right, despite all the claims that these things are dangerous, that these things will bring down airliners, that these things will result in needless deaths... NOT ONE SINGLE PERSON has been killed as a result of recreational multirotor drone operation ANYWHERE in the world, EVER.
Firstly they said that if a drone collides with a plane, people will die. Then, after several documented instances of collisions between drones and planes -- without even an injury to show for it, they said "Ah, but if a drone collides with a HELICOPTER, *then* people will undoubtedly die.
After the collision with a military helicopter over NY harbour where nobody was injured and the helicopter landed safely they said "Ah, but if a drone strikes a helicopter's tail rotor -- *then* people will die".
After a drone struck an MD500 helicopter's tail-rotor at the Baha races and the craft landed safely without injuries they said "Ah, but if a drone strikes an airliner, *then* people will die".
Do you see the way this is playing out?
But let's look at the science instead of the hysteria (not that the media nor the regulators seem interested in doing so).
As reported by ArsTechnica, one university crunched the numbers some time ago and came to the conclusion that drones are a lot safer than we're being led to believe.
Who are you going to believe -- academics who've done the science or a bunch of hysterical know-nothings in the media who simply want to sell papers or accumulate clicks on web-pages?
I love how this scientific paper has been completely ignored -- in favour of predictions by parties (such as unions of commercial pilots, who stand to lose their jobs if/when drones take over).
But not all pilots believe that drones are the devil's spawn. Check out what Captain Chris Mano, a veteran 737 pilot for a major US carrier has to say in his blog about the issue of drone risk to airliners.
I'm sorry but I get really peeved when I see the mainstream media blowing the true risks (as proven by the passage of time and in complete contradiction to the predictions of death and disaster by the ignorant or those parties with their own agendas) right out of proportion.
I trust that those who use Slashdot will appreciate the reality of the situation and not be suckered into believing that recreational drone use is a major threat to public safety -- as the media would have us believe.
So what they're telling us is that if you want to launch a bunch of satellites anywhere you like, the permit-cost is $900K. Sounds like a great deal to me.
Sorry but this outrage on the part of Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand and the UK is so hypocritical.
Hacking, spying and even assassination is the currency of international politics and every single one of these countries has undoubtedly broken the law in the process.
Here in New Zealand, the courts have ruled on numerous occasions that NZ's spy agencies have acted "unlawfully" by spying on its citizens and the police have acted "unlawfully" by holding foreign nationals at gunpoint and taking their property (Dotcom).
I have absolutely no doubt that most of these Western nations are doing exactly the same as China... but, just as with the CIA's assassinations of foreign targets, the whole thing is kept hush-hush.
The faces were probably pixelated because YouTube will take-down any video which features someone who did not agree to be in it -- if they lodge a complaint.
I've had this happen to one of my videos because someone, who was being a real arse, didn't want to be seen being a "real arse" so they complained.
No point in making a viral video if someone in it can have it pulled with a single complaint.
There are already regulations forbidding the flying of drones within cooeey of airports and in controlled airspace.
Do you think that (if this was actually a drone), the rogue few who break these regulations will suddenly change their behaviour if more regulations are put in place?
By definition... lawbreakers don't take any notice of the law so more laws are simply a demonstration of how stupid the law-makers are.
It's okay, a well known team of troubleshooters has contacted the rover with this call:
"Hello, ve are calling from de Vindows Support Center because we have been getting reports that your solar pannels are contaminated with dust and wiruses".
My $19 bar-phone has a removable battery -- and that battery gives OVER TWO WEEKS of operation per charge.
Sure, I don't have a fancy "retina" touch-screen, octo-core processor or the ability to surf the web but hey, all *I* want is a phone to talk on and send SMS/receive SMS messages.
For *real* computing tasks I have an array of different computers (tablets, laptops, desktops).
Horses for courses!
This tiny phone is small enough to fit nicely in my shirt or jacket pocket without even causing a bulge so even if you do carry around a big electron-guzzling smartphone, a little unit like this makes a great backup for basic comms activities.
About 6 months ago I built a new budget video editing rig. I was torn between going with an i7 8700 or a an AMD2700 but opted for Intel because of QSV.
QSV allows for decoding and encoding H264 and H265 video in hardware using the on-chip video hardware. It's brillant watching my 6-cores idling while rendering 4K video into H265 files at realtime speeds. Try that with your AMD processor:-)
However, these days I'd probably go for the 1950 Threadripper (cheaper and almost as good as the 2950 because those extra cores *are* useful in good video NLEs such as Davinci Resolve.
A good move, given that there are a lot of poor families in NZ (and our standard of living continues to fall) so chances are that a Chrome device will be cheaper than a Windows one, ensuring that everyone has access to the necessary resources.
Slashdot Mirror
Australia went from having some of the best (fairest) drone regulations in the world to what will become some of the worst.
Obviously "money talks" because Google is able to fly its big, heavy delivery drones around Canbera, over people's houses, heads and roads -- but as of November of this year, nobody under the age of 16 will be allowed to fly even a 101 gram toy plane in their own back yard without being "supervised" by another person who is 18 years or older and has passed a drone competency exam.
Seriously?
Talk about a great way to kill the hobby that has, for a century or more, gotten kids excited about aviation to the extent that they go on to become pilots, engineers and designers of full-sized aircraft.
I'd love to know what "inducements" Google rolled out to those granting the permissions for its drone tests because it seems they even got an exemption from the requirement to meet minimum noise standards -- otherwise their tests would still be illegal.
It's not what you know that counts -- eh?
Which is why I see the future of user-generated video content being served via "web/video server appliances". A small, cheap, pre-configured SBC that plugs into your broadband modem/router and allows you to serve content up directly. That content would be indexed and curated through a "video search" site that provided the front-end but didn't host any videos and thus needed far less iron and bandwidth than YouTube needs.
Remember the whole tenet of the internet and networkign in general -- distribute the load!!!
With Facebook and YT in decline, I think we'll see a return to the days when people hosted their own content rather than relying on a social media giant to do so. This gives you full control and ensures the right to free speech is maintained without "shaping" by corporations.
YouTube shot itself in the foot. I've had a YouTube account for *many* years and was one of the very first YT Channel Partners (ie: monetized my vids). Here is the timeline:
1. YouTube starts -- no ads, virtually no censorship
2. YouTube sold to Google
3. YouTube fixes some stuff but in the process, breaks a lot more
4. YouTube introduces "Channel Partners" who can monetize their vids and thus ads start appearing on a very few videos.
It is worth noting that at this stage it was *very* difficult to qualify for monetization. Although there was no minimum subcriber or view count, you did have to be creating reasonable quality content on a pretty regular basis. As a result there were probably only a few tens of thousands of "monetized" channels and YouTube was, as a result, still largely ad-free. Also, because there were so few monetized channels, ad-rates were pretty damned high so those who did get "Channel Partner" status were able to earn a reasonable amount of money for their efforts.
5. YouTube realised that there was a growing demand for ads on YT so they decided to let *anyone/everyone* monetize their channels.
As a result of this move, the laws of supply and demand kicked in -- which meant that the CPM (Cost Per Thousand) for ads fell precipitously. Those hard-working Channel Partners had their income severely reduced by the sudden abundance of ad-space. The supply of ad-space now exceeded the demand so ads sold for a song and in the months/years that followed, quite a few formerly active channels withered as their creators had to go back to getting a day-job to pay the bills.
In short, YouTube/Google got greedy. Previously they were selling what was effectively premium advertising on channels which had been carefully hand-selected for monetization. This selection process ensured that the content was of sufficient quality and met community standards. When they opened the doors to let everyone monetize, they devalued the ads and lost control of the content against which they were shown.
6. Someone noticed that brand-name advertisers were appearing alongside rather unsavory content. -- enter the first adpocalypse!
A very sizeable chunk of brand-name advertising revenue dried up overnight, as big names pulled their ads from YouTube for fear of appearing alongside terror videos, violence or other content with which they did not want to be associated. This meant a further hit in the pocket for those of us who had committed to becoming full-time YouTube content creators. The result was more really good channels disappearing or going quiet.
7. YouTube's response to the adpocalypse was to fire up some AI to try and determine whether uploaded videos were suitable for monetization.
Epic fail. Many channels had huge swathes of their back-catalog demonetized and some genres of content (such as firearms videos) were finding that videos had been demonetized before they'd even been published on the platform. Once again, legit, hard-working content creators were now paying the price for YouTube's greed.
8. YouTube decided that most of the problem channels (from an undesirable content perspective) were small ones -- so they totally removed monetization from those which did not meet a minimum viewcount and subscriber-count threshold.
Suddenly, YouTube was headed back to the old days of fewer (but higher quality) channels carrying ads -- except they had still lost the confidence of those big-dollar advertisers.
9. In an attempt to get back some of those advertisers, YouTube began some more AI silliness by turning off comments on videos featuring kids, effectively stigmatizing many completely wholesome family channels.
In short... YouTube had a really good thing going but they got greedy and, ever since, have been paying the price for that. Now if Google/YouTube was the only one affected by the fallout from that greed then I wouldn't give a toss... but they're not. With YouTube's encouragement, a lot of people have given up th
That's why I use the YouTube plug-in for Kodi. NEVER seen an ad using that bit of code and I watch *lots* of YT vids.
I'm with you. I have a "dumb" monitor and feed it with a sub-$100 Rasberry Pi setup (since I only need 1080p because I'm old and feeble of sight). I can run Kodi (with illegal plug-ins) and thus access a raft of great stuff (including YouTube) and I have a Chromecast that lets me access Netflix.
For the money, I bet a *much* better quality "dumb" screen than I'd get if I went the "Smart TV" way and if I don't like the smart side of things I can always change software at the flip of a micro-SD card. Who the hell would buy a smart TV????
I won't be relieved until it's actually gone -- and even then, only if they don't break too much stuff in the process.
God knows how many people will find themselves locked out of their YouTube or GMail accounts if Google stuffs this up (as they so often do).
Every time they "fix" one thing they end up breaking a dozen other things. The Google ecosystem is a mess due to the number of bits they've killed off.
I fear the 2nd!
Yep, GIMP for images, Davinci Resolve for video and Fusion 9 for VFX/compositing.
GIMP is free and Davinci Resolve/Fusion is free or (for the studio version) a one-time license fee (even the updates are free).
Adobe's rentware model will be its demise.
Attitude is only one element of the aircraft's operation -- what about airspeed?
Surely if there was a large disparity between the aircraft's airspeed and its attitude (ie: it is accelerating beyond 500mph while the attitude sensor says it's in a steep climb) then the safety system ought to have recognized that there was a fault condition and triggered an alarm which would allow pilots to disable it with the simple flick of a switch.
Sadly, it seems that this system was never designed to be disabled -- because it was part of the FBW system used to modify the apparent flight characteristics of the new Max8 model so that it would fly like an earlier 737. This was done (so I understand) solely to make the plane more attractive to airlines that didn't want the extra expense of having to get their pilots "rated" for a new aircraft type.
When it comes to the mighty dollar versus safety -- you *know* which one wins :-(
Meanwhile, some people are still saying "it's only a matter of time before a drone brings down an airliner". I wish they'd shut up and focus on the *real* risks that are *actually* claiming hundreds of lives in the aviation industry.
Yep, but flying taxis powered by nuclear fusion will be 10 years away of course.
The reality is that we already have flying taxis -- they're called *helicopters* but the economics simply don't stack up.
An electric-powered flying taxi (of the type commonly popping up as "real soon now") is woefully lacking in economics -- even worse than a helicopter. In order for a vehicle like this to be operated at a profit it must spend a very high percentiage of the day "in operation". The problem with EVs (of all kinds) is that they have significant down-time whilst being recharged.
A gas-powered heli can be refueled in minutes so can operate at its normal hourly recovery-rate for most of the day. An electric flying taxi will spend as much (or more) time on the ground being recharged as it does actually flying -- hence the economics (by way of the return on capital) will be unworkable.
Yesterday it was GMail and YouTube that went down... today Facebook...
Is there a storm brewing in them thar clouds perhaps? :-)
In New Zealand it has felt like a very short and not-so-hot summer. For the past week, late-summer temperatures have been as low as 5 degrees in the morning and topping out at a not-so-flash 19 degrees around here (we're talking Celcius for you 'mericans) during the day.
Even today, there's a cold Southerly and I went back to wearing jeans (instead of shorts and a teeshirt) well before the end of February whereas in years-past, it's been safe to keep wearing my summer gear through to near the end of March.
Of course this may be just an anomoly (in which case it's just "weather") but it might also mean that the bloody Aussies stole our summer in order to get their "hottest ever" weather. Bastards! :-)
Seriously? People still use Facebook?
Reminds me of when we were kids and would tape a "kick me" sign to someone's back.
At least selling your soul to the devil usually comes with some real benefits -- but Facebook? I don't get it.
Very true. Even when I was much younger (I'm 66 now) I could never do more than about 28 press-ups in one continuous session. Today I think I'm doing well if I can manage 25 and I do press-ups (to failure level) as part of my regular exercise regimen every second day. I'm not overweight but some of us just aren't push-up people.
"When it comes to terrorism, backpacks are a far bigger risk than dornes"
Absolutely true. In fact, pressure cookers are a far bigger risk than recreational drone flying (3 dead, hundreds injured by pressure-cooker bombs in the Boston Marathon attack) -- so why is it that in most countries, people owning drones weighing more than 250g have to be registered yet people owning pressure cookers don't?
This incident, plus the Gatwick one shows that the hysteria over "dangerous drones" has reached unacceptable and ridiculous proportions.
How many young children have died from suffocation as a result of plastic bags? (answer: a lot more than one).
How many people have been killed by manned aircraft crashing into populated areas? (answer, a double-digit number every year).
How many people have died as a result of domesticated dog attacks? (answer, far more than you might realise)
And here's the really important question:
How many people have died as a result of recreational multirotor drone use? Answer: A BIG FAT ZERO!
That's right, despite all the claims that these things are dangerous, that these things will bring down airliners, that these things will result in needless deaths... NOT ONE SINGLE PERSON has been killed as a result of recreational multirotor drone operation ANYWHERE in the world, EVER.
Firstly they said that if a drone collides with a plane, people will die. Then, after several documented instances of collisions between drones and planes -- without even an injury to show for it, they said "Ah, but if a drone collides with a HELICOPTER, *then* people will undoubtedly die.
After the collision with a military helicopter over NY harbour where nobody was injured and the helicopter landed safely they said "Ah, but if a drone strikes a helicopter's tail rotor -- *then* people will die".
After a drone struck an MD500 helicopter's tail-rotor at the Baha races and the craft landed safely without injuries they said "Ah, but if a drone strikes an airliner, *then* people will die".
Do you see the way this is playing out?
But let's look at the science instead of the hysteria (not that the media nor the regulators seem interested in doing so).
As reported by ArsTechnica, one university crunched the numbers some time ago and came to the conclusion that drones are a lot safer than we're being led to believe.
Who are you going to believe -- academics who've done the science or a bunch of hysterical know-nothings in the media who simply want to sell papers or accumulate clicks on web-pages?
I love how this scientific paper has been completely ignored -- in favour of predictions by parties (such as unions of commercial pilots, who stand to lose their jobs if/when drones take over).
But not all pilots believe that drones are the devil's spawn. Check out what Captain Chris Mano, a veteran 737 pilot for a major US carrier has to say in his blog about the issue of drone risk to airliners.
I'm sorry but I get really peeved when I see the mainstream media blowing the true risks (as proven by the passage of time and in complete contradiction to the predictions of death and disaster by the ignorant or those parties with their own agendas) right out of proportion.
I trust that those who use Slashdot will appreciate the reality of the situation and not be suckered into believing that recreational drone use is a major threat to public safety -- as the media would have us believe.
So what they're telling us is that if you want to launch a bunch of satellites anywhere you like, the permit-cost is $900K. Sounds like a great deal to me.
Sorry but this outrage on the part of Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand and the UK is so hypocritical.
Hacking, spying and even assassination is the currency of international politics and every single one of these countries has undoubtedly broken the law in the process.
Here in New Zealand, the courts have ruled on numerous occasions that NZ's spy agencies have acted "unlawfully" by spying on its citizens and the police have acted "unlawfully" by holding foreign nationals at gunpoint and taking their property (Dotcom).
I have absolutely no doubt that most of these Western nations are doing exactly the same as China... but, just as with the CIA's assassinations of foreign targets, the whole thing is kept hush-hush.
Hypocrites the lot of them!
The faces were probably pixelated because YouTube will take-down any video which features someone who did not agree to be in it -- if they lodge a complaint.
I've had this happen to one of my videos because someone, who was being a real arse, didn't want to be seen being a "real arse" so they complained.
No point in making a viral video if someone in it can have it pulled with a single complaint.
Oh yeah, like they banned trucks after the Oklahoma City bombing -- and they banned pressure cookers after the Boston bombings.
What planet are you on?
People can use *anything* for evil if they put their mind to it (even commercial airliners -- 9/11 -- remember?).
Banning the item does nothing except show that those imposing such a ban have no real grasp of the problem.
Expect regulation soon?
Excuse me... what planet are you living on?
There are already regulations forbidding the flying of drones within cooeey of airports and in controlled airspace.
Do you think that (if this was actually a drone), the rogue few who break these regulations will suddenly change their behaviour if more regulations are put in place?
By definition... lawbreakers don't take any notice of the law so more laws are simply a demonstration of how stupid the law-makers are.
It's okay, a well known team of troubleshooters has contacted the rover with this call:
"Hello, ve are calling from de Vindows Support Center because we have been getting reports that your solar pannels are contaminated with dust and wiruses".
"Are you sitting in front of your computer?"
"Do you see a key with de Vindows symbol on it?"
"Please be hlding that key and pressing the R..."
LOL... this is funny... if you read the previous comment first ;-)
first comment:
"The Intel CEO must pay for his crimes... He failed us and must be hung in the town square"
Following comment:
"How long until they prohibit execution on vulnerable CPUs"
LOL
My $19 bar-phone has a removable battery -- and that battery gives OVER TWO WEEKS of operation per charge.
Sure, I don't have a fancy "retina" touch-screen, octo-core processor or the ability to surf the web but hey, all *I* want is a phone to talk on and send SMS/receive SMS messages.
For *real* computing tasks I have an array of different computers (tablets, laptops, desktops).
Horses for courses!
This tiny phone is small enough to fit nicely in my shirt or jacket pocket without even causing a bulge so even if you do carry around a big electron-guzzling smartphone, a little unit like this makes a great backup for basic comms activities.
About 6 months ago I built a new budget video editing rig. I was torn between going with an i7 8700 or a an AMD2700 but opted for Intel because of QSV.
QSV allows for decoding and encoding H264 and H265 video in hardware using the on-chip video hardware. It's brillant watching my 6-cores idling while rendering 4K video into H265 files at realtime speeds. Try that with your AMD processor :-)
However, these days I'd probably go for the 1950 Threadripper (cheaper and almost as good as the 2950 because those extra cores *are* useful in good video NLEs such as Davinci Resolve.
Hmmm... Chrome... shiney!
A good move, given that there are a lot of poor families in NZ (and our standard of living continues to fall) so chances are that a Chrome device will be cheaper than a Windows one, ensuring that everyone has access to the necessary resources.
What could possibly go wrong :-)