I'd be curious to see how effective the iPad accelerometer would be in freefall. I suspect they'd have to flip the (software) switch to disable automatic screen reorientation, to avoid the iPad getting confused about which way is "down".
"Furthermore, the parents should have made a whole lot more of a fuss whilst this was going on..."
The fear of (possibly) detention and (almost certainly) not getting on their flight is enough to keep a lot of people sheepish in a situation like this. Standing up to uniformed authority figures is something most Americans are raised not to do.
The TSA has recently "enhanced" their physical exploration of travelers, to encourage them to instead subject themselves to virtual strip searches. This is part of that. It's called "news".
They might include a "white pages" phone listing, but the point of those books is the "yellow pages": the advertising section. Those aren't going away, and asking to opt out of receiving them is going to be as fruitless as asking to opt out of junk mail. Less, in fact, because instead of being delivered by a single government-authorized agency (the USPS), the people delivering those worthless books to your door are a bunch of underemployed seasonal contractors working for several marketing firms. They aren't going to get any "do not deliver" notice, and wouldn't bother honoring it if they did (since they get paid per pound of wood-pulp delivered).
Anyone who uses the phrase "copy written"* is unqualified to edit anyone else's prose. Ever. If you don't know the difference between "right" and "write", go back to elementary school until you get it... correct.
*Unless they're using it in the sense of "to write copy (text), such as for an advertisement".
I wouldn't even dignify it with the word "explanation".
It's a load of whiny excuses in which the culprit claims to be a victim, much like a killer caught in the act complaining about people not being fair to him when they treat him exactly as he deserves.
Netflix's streaming library is growing pretty steadily. Shipping discs around through the USPS is going to go away in the next year or two, but it's going away. Be sure of that.
Ears change even without injury or "body mod" efforts. The quote in the summary dismisses this rather abruptly, but cartiledge continues to grow throughout the human lifetime, so our ears do change in both shape and size over time (as do our noses). Whatever shortcomings fingerprints might have as tokens for identification, they do not have this problem; the patterns remain the same from birth until death, and somewhere around adulthood they also stop changing size. Ears do not.
The only way that Netflix streaming came to the Mac was for them to resort to Microsoft technology for DRM purposes. So Netflix will come to Android as soon as Microsoft ports Silverlight – and its DRM system (so don't start talking about Moonlight) – to Google's OS. (cue laughter)
Actually killing someone with your own hands and with obvious intent to kill, is a completely different scenario than joking about killing someone that someone else follows up on and does.
"...should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law."
As long as "the full extent of the law" is to require the speaker to live with the the guilt and shame of having said something which inadvertently led to someone's death, I agree with you.
It's just like the printing press or the tape recorder or the photocopier or the CD burner. Another replication device, another panic about how it will be used.
The fact that heat is bad for your sperm count has been well known for decades (at least). It's why your nuts are in a sack hanging outside your body in the first place: to keep them below 98.6F. And it's why doctors have been recommending boxers instead of briefs for couples having difficulty conceiving since before most of the people on/. were conceived. Throw in the not-especially-surprising observation that warm laptops make your lap warm, and you have the obvious conclusion that they'll damage your gametes.
And how many young men (and women) are going to be very disappointed when they discover that it's an astonishingly ineffective method of birth control?
When talking about my technical history, I like to joke that I've been using Windows since version 3.0, and trying to use it since version 1.0.
I bought Win1 and really did try to make use of it, as a task switcher if nothing else. It had potential. So I upgraded to Win2 when it came out because it looked like a big step forward (it supported 286 protected mode!), but still fell back on DESQview, which lacked a GUI of its own, but handled task switching adequately. I only ran Win2 when I needed it for an app. But again I upgraded to Win3, because I could see it had potential. Win3 was the first version that I actually ended up running most of the time, because it finally had competent task-switching capabilities (thanks to the 386) to support my DOS apps, and enough Win apps to make it useful.
Another solution would be alternative ad networks that allow web sites catering to adult audiences. I'm a bit surprised that there don't seem to be any, or that Google itself doesn't have such a service.
It's a de facto near-monopoly all over again, just like Microsoft with IE and Office. I don't think it's necessarily the result of Google being Evil, but when a site's choice of sponsorship is Google or Ohfuckwhatdowedonow, there's a serious problem with the online advertising market.
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I'd be curious to see how effective the iPad accelerometer would be in freefall. I suspect they'd have to flip the (software) switch to disable automatic screen reorientation, to avoid the iPad getting confused about which way is "down".
Um.... I did RTFA, because that's exactly what I was talking about.
"Furthermore, the parents should have made a whole lot more of a fuss whilst this was going on..."
The fear of (possibly) detention and (almost certainly) not getting on their flight is enough to keep a lot of people sheepish in a situation like this. Standing up to uniformed authority figures is something most Americans are raised not to do.
"Creep out and disturb enough TSA employees and even they might start complaining."
Not in the current job market. They know they are lucky to have gotten these jobs, and they know they are easy to replace.
The TSA has recently "enhanced" their physical exploration of travelers, to encourage them to instead subject themselves to virtual strip searches. This is part of that. It's called "news".
They might include a "white pages" phone listing, but the point of those books is the "yellow pages": the advertising section. Those aren't going away, and asking to opt out of receiving them is going to be as fruitless as asking to opt out of junk mail. Less, in fact, because instead of being delivered by a single government-authorized agency (the USPS), the people delivering those worthless books to your door are a bunch of underemployed seasonal contractors working for several marketing firms. They aren't going to get any "do not deliver" notice, and wouldn't bother honoring it if they did (since they get paid per pound of wood-pulp delivered).
"If the subject were copyright infringement of music, we'd all be in support (or at least sympathize with) the infringing party."
Speak for yourself. I have complete contempt for anyone who rips off other people's work in this way.
Anyone who uses the phrase "copy written"* is unqualified to edit anyone else's prose. Ever. If you don't know the difference between "right" and "write", go back to elementary school until you get it... correct.
*Unless they're using it in the sense of "to write copy (text), such as for an advertisement".
I wouldn't even dignify it with the word "explanation".
It's a load of whiny excuses in which the culprit claims to be a victim, much like a killer caught in the act complaining about people not being fair to him when they treat him exactly as he deserves.
make that "isn't going to go away in the next year or two"
Netflix's streaming library is growing pretty steadily. Shipping discs around through the USPS is going to go away in the next year or two, but it's going away. Be sure of that.
Mod parent up.
Is it too late to require people to learn how to use these devices properly before they're sent zooming along the information superhighway?
Ears change even without injury or "body mod" efforts. The quote in the summary dismisses this rather abruptly, but cartiledge continues to grow throughout the human lifetime, so our ears do change in both shape and size over time (as do our noses). Whatever shortcomings fingerprints might have as tokens for identification, they do not have this problem; the patterns remain the same from birth until death, and somewhere around adulthood they also stop changing size. Ears do not.
The only way that Netflix streaming came to the Mac was for them to resort to Microsoft technology for DRM purposes. So Netflix will come to Android as soon as Microsoft ports Silverlight – and its DRM system (so don't start talking about Moonlight) – to Google's OS. (cue laughter)
Actually killing someone with your own hands and with obvious intent to kill, is a completely different scenario than joking about killing someone that someone else follows up on and does.
"And what if they feel no guilt?"
If they feel no guilt, they feel no guilt. Legislating on the assumption that everyone is a sociopath would be nightmarish.
"What if they are inciting people to murder or commit illegal acts because the speaker wants them to do it?"
Then there should be a law against that. Because it's not the same thing as a one-off bad joke.
"...should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law."
As long as "the full extent of the law" is to require the speaker to live with the the guilt and shame of having said something which inadvertently led to someone's death, I agree with you.
Actually I don't believe the panics were silly. We just look back at them that way because we've made it through the other side.
It's just like the printing press or the tape recorder or the photocopier or the CD burner. Another replication device, another panic about how it will be used.
The fact that heat is bad for your sperm count has been well known for decades (at least). It's why your nuts are in a sack hanging outside your body in the first place: to keep them below 98.6F. And it's why doctors have been recommending boxers instead of briefs for couples having difficulty conceiving since before most of the people on /. were conceived. Throw in the not-especially-surprising observation that warm laptops make your lap warm, and you have the obvious conclusion that they'll damage your gametes.
And how many young men (and women) are going to be very disappointed when they discover that it's an astonishingly ineffective method of birth control?
When talking about my technical history, I like to joke that I've been using Windows since version 3.0, and trying to use it since version 1.0.
I bought Win1 and really did try to make use of it, as a task switcher if nothing else. It had potential. So I upgraded to Win2 when it came out because it looked like a big step forward (it supported 286 protected mode!), but still fell back on DESQview, which lacked a GUI of its own, but handled task switching adequately. I only ran Win2 when I needed it for an app. But again I upgraded to Win3, because I could see it had potential. Win3 was the first version that I actually ended up running most of the time, because it finally had competent task-switching capabilities (thanks to the 386) to support my DOS apps, and enough Win apps to make it useful.
Another solution would be alternative ad networks that allow web sites catering to adult audiences. I'm a bit surprised that there don't seem to be any, or that Google itself doesn't have such a service.
It's a de facto near-monopoly all over again, just like Microsoft with IE and Office. I don't think it's necessarily the result of Google being Evil, but when a site's choice of sponsorship is Google or Ohfuckwhatdowedonow, there's a serious problem with the online advertising market.