Have you ever watched TV in other countries? If it's not reruns of old stuff from the US, It's knock-offs like [insert country here] Idol.
Sorry to burst your bubble but it is the other way around. The US shows are knock-offs of programs in the UK: The Office, Who Wants to be a Millionaire, Weakest Link,... etc. Even American Idol started as 'Pop Idol' in the UK...although there are certain similarities to the US presidential election procedure so perhaps we could give you that one.
It's dangerous for the world to learn that you can make piles of money without freedom.
If you are worried about that then just look at the US. Considerable reductions in freedoms, particularly for us foreigners some of whom come to trade, at the same time as a major economic decline. That should persuade people otherwise.
I'm not convinced: I think it is by mutual arrangement. The Chinese government do not want outsiders informing the Chinese what their government is up to and the Western phone companies don't want the Chinese to inform their subscribers what they are up to: fleecing their subscribers for all they can with things like massively inflated SMS prices.
I ask this - why would there be dark matter at the core of the galaxy? Doesn't dark matter repel normal matter?
No - Dark Matter is, gravitationally, exactly the same as normal matter. You are thinking of Dark Energy which is not matter. It has a positive energy but behaves as something which is gravitationally repulsive...as far as I am aware there is not even a good theory as to what this stuff is let alone experimental evidence of its nature.
The very first thing that astronomers reached for to explain these phenomena was as yet unseen, or "dark" matter. Personally... I think Dark Matter raises more questions than it answers.
The reason they reached for Dark Matter is that it is the simplest explanation. It is very easy to imagine that there is more mass there than you can see. It is a lot harder to start adding new forces or modifying existing ones. It certainly raises new questions but that does not exclude it from being the simplest solution.
dark matter, a substance which is invisible, intangible, and undetectable expect through its gravitational effects is too far of a step for physics to take without more evidence.
Er...what do you think we are doing? We are looking for that evidence. You are contradicting yourself here: we think DM is the best explanation to date so we are now looking for evidence to confirm it. If we had "taken the step" and truly accepted Dark Matter as the truth why would we bother searching for evidence of it? Also there are very good reasons to think that it interacts through the weak force as well as gravity - although it is not a requirement.
The particle physics community has had a history of success using assumptions and models that are counterintuitive and often bizarre.
We have? What part of particle physics is counter-intuitive? I think you are getting confused between Quantum Mechanics (which is very counter-intuitive) and particle physics. The Standard Model of particle physics is generally very simple, straight forward and easy to understand at a basic conceptual level - it is even sometimes taught at secondary school level.
When a theory like MOND fails in a particular case, this has the effect of strengthening confidence in the Dark Matter model, even though it should do nothing of the sort.
Why is this wrong? If, as is the current case, all alternative theories to DM have series flaws, then you end up with only one candidate theory to test so naturally there will be more work being done on it. I think you are confusing belief with knowledge. A lot of us believe that DM is likely to be correct but none of us know it to be correct. As the best theory to date there is a lot of interest in proving it correct so we look for data to do that.
we have no way of measuring dark matter, even indirectly.
Wrong - there are ways to measure it directly but they depend on the type of dark matter. We can produce it directly in the LHC, we can search for its interactions with nuclei in low background locations deep underground like SNOlab. These experiments have already put limits on what the Dark Matter could be. So far they have not seen anything but that does not preclude them from seeing it.
Exotic matter, while it may work in subatomic circles, will not I think stand up to scrutiny in the macroscopic domain.
...and yet neutrinos, which are now known to have a mass, are an example of exotic matter and standup to scrutiny very well indeed.
Bear in mind that the extradition treaty is an expresson of sovereign will enabled by an Act of Parliament
I was not arguing that parliament cannot pass such a law - the UK is effectively a parliamentary dictatorship: once elected they can pretty much do anything as long as the Queen signs it. I suppose what I should have said was that it is an abdication of sovereignty. Rather than take the responsibility for enforcing our own laws they have just decided to allow US laws to apply in certain cases and to let the US authorities to prosecute them. This is terrible since we have no control over what those laws are and, as you note, the US justice system is significantly flawed by European standards.
By your logic those countries would have to decide to crack down.
Yes - what is your problem with this? The US can certainly apply pressure to a country to change it laws to make such actions illegal there (like it does with IP law) or it can decide to not deal with that country e.g. cut network access. In an extreme case this sort of thing can lead to war - for example Israel and Lebanon. However, if sovereignty is to mean anything at all, each country has to decide and enforce its own laws.
He had a presence in the US, otherwise he wouldn't have been able to commit the crime.
He had no presence in the US. He was able to access the information because computers in the US gave it to him i.e. the person in the US responsible for those computers "decided" (at some level) to allow such activity. He was physically located in the UK and committed a crime there and so he should be prosecuted there. While I'm sure he knew where the servers were located in this case, suppose instead he had hacked a.com domain of a European company that used a hosting site in the US. Should he then be carted of to the US even though he had no idea where the servers were?
The UK is in the EU and we eat lots of curry there. Wherever you happen to be there might not be lots of curry eaten but don't generalize to regions of the EU you know nothing about - our diversity is one of our strengths.
We do have water in the toilets. The function of the water is to seal the pipe to prevent odours coming in from the sewers and not to fill the entire toilet bowl as seems to be the fashion in the US.
As long as I don't have to pay with checks I'm good. I don't have checks and don't expect to need any either.
You don't have any checks on what you pay? Not checking what you pay is just asking for trouble. I always want to check what I pay which is why I use cheques.
The Microsoft campus is built on solidified mud that flowed down during the last big eruption of Mount Rainer.
Which was when? According to wikipedia the last eruption was over 150 years ago and the last mudslides 500+ years ago. Volcanoes, like hurricanes, are to some degree predictable. So, having to evacuate and rebuild parts of your city once every 500 years (if not longer) does not seem so unreasonable. In fact, looking at the last few thousand years of recorded history, if you can go 500 years without your country being invaded and someone burning your city down you are doing pretty well!
It also means to pass over or overlook, see the Oxford English Dictionary. According to them this meaning dates from circa 1000 AD so perhaps you might want to update your knowledge of English a little?
The question is not whether he did something wrong but about where he did it. It was in the UK and not the US. If the US government doesn't want people from the UK messing with its computers then it is free to block all UK access: nobody is forcing them to allow acces from the UK. If they decide to allow UK access then they implicitly agree to let UK law deal with any hackers based there.
The problem with this treaty is that it completely undermines UK sovereignty. Now everyone in the UK not only has to follow UK law but US law as well because, even if they have never visited the US, if they violate its laws they can get hauled off there and prosecuted. I don't care whether it is reciprocal or not: the basic premise is wrong. US citizens should not have to obey UK law in their own country either....cross the border though and it is a different matter.
In an ideal world I'd agree. However the way things seem to be going I'd be dead against it because some corporate lawyer would find away to make me pay to use my own handwriting.
So basically every single operator they've ever employed, can find or just remember your username _and_ password if they want to. And who's to stop them from calling after hours and pretending to be you?
How is this different from withdrawing cash from the bank in person? All you are doing is verifying your identity to a bank employee who could drain your entire account without a password. Just like the bank clerk does not have to ask you to enter a password before they give you money.
It specifically says that he believes in protecting children from porn and the RIAA's War on Sharing, but NOT 'prescriptive' legislation like Net Neutrality.
Well two out of three isn't bad. Children should be protected from all three: porn, the RIAA war on sharing and prescriptive legislation like net neutrality.
Don't you know your science fiction? Long dead civilizations with advanced technology are always supposed to require some sort of test of worthiness before you are allowed to access their stored knowledge. These usually require great courage, intelligence and integrity to succeed in so "Build yourself a 500x microscope" seems pretty lame by comparison. I think we are letting our future selves off far too easily.
...and how would that show we are not superstitious? Can you imagine what sort of picture a future archaeologist would paint of our society using Harry Potter as a basis? Mind you the "historical" re-enactments would be fun to watch.
Yet we have "data loss" on an almost weekly base and nothing happens.
Who do you expect to fix it? Governments, particularly the one in the UK, are more incompetent about protecting their data (posting CDs, leaving things on trains etc) than most companies. Given that these are the people writing the laws do you really expect them to come down hard on the companies? It would be shooting themselves in the foot.
Slashdot Mirror
I will never forgive them for Internet Explorer.
You should - why else do you think Firefox is so popular that companies have to make their websites work with it?
Have you ever watched TV in other countries? If it's not reruns of old stuff from the US, It's knock-offs like [insert country here] Idol.
Sorry to burst your bubble but it is the other way around. The US shows are knock-offs of programs in the UK: The Office, Who Wants to be a Millionaire, Weakest Link,... etc. Even American Idol started as 'Pop Idol' in the UK...although there are certain similarities to the US presidential election procedure so perhaps we could give you that one.
It's dangerous for the world to learn that you can make piles of money without freedom.
If you are worried about that then just look at the US. Considerable reductions in freedoms, particularly for us foreigners some of whom come to trade, at the same time as a major economic decline. That should persuade people otherwise.
They don't get anything in exchange for the US currency. It means nothing.
I thought this is what they were using to buy up all the US companies?
Blaming "the rest of the world" is idiotic.
I'm not convinced: I think it is by mutual arrangement. The Chinese government do not want outsiders informing the Chinese what their government is up to and the Western phone companies don't want the Chinese to inform their subscribers what they are up to: fleecing their subscribers for all they can with things like massively inflated SMS prices.
I ask this - why would there be dark matter at the core of the galaxy? Doesn't dark matter repel normal matter?
No - Dark Matter is, gravitationally, exactly the same as normal matter. You are thinking of Dark Energy which is not matter. It has a positive energy but behaves as something which is gravitationally repulsive...as far as I am aware there is not even a good theory as to what this stuff is let alone experimental evidence of its nature.
The very first thing that astronomers reached for to explain these phenomena was as yet unseen, or "dark" matter. Personally... I think Dark Matter raises more questions than it answers.
The reason they reached for Dark Matter is that it is the simplest explanation. It is very easy to imagine that there is more mass there than you can see. It is a lot harder to start adding new forces or modifying existing ones. It certainly raises new questions but that does not exclude it from being the simplest solution.
dark matter, a substance which is invisible, intangible, and undetectable expect through its gravitational effects is too far of a step for physics to take without more evidence.
Er...what do you think we are doing? We are looking for that evidence. You are contradicting yourself here: we think DM is the best explanation to date so we are now looking for evidence to confirm it. If we had "taken the step" and truly accepted Dark Matter as the truth why would we bother searching for evidence of it? Also there are very good reasons to think that it interacts through the weak force as well as gravity - although it is not a requirement.
The particle physics community has had a history of success using assumptions and models that are counterintuitive and often bizarre.
We have? What part of particle physics is counter-intuitive? I think you are getting confused between Quantum Mechanics (which is very counter-intuitive) and particle physics. The Standard Model of particle physics is generally very simple, straight forward and easy to understand at a basic conceptual level - it is even sometimes taught at secondary school level.
When a theory like MOND fails in a particular case, this has the effect of strengthening confidence in the Dark Matter model, even though it should do nothing of the sort.
Why is this wrong? If, as is the current case, all alternative theories to DM have series flaws, then you end up with only one candidate theory to test so naturally there will be more work being done on it. I think you are confusing belief with knowledge. A lot of us believe that DM is likely to be correct but none of us know it to be correct. As the best theory to date there is a lot of interest in proving it correct so we look for data to do that.
we have no way of measuring dark matter, even indirectly.
Wrong - there are ways to measure it directly but they depend on the type of dark matter. We can produce it directly in the LHC, we can search for its interactions with nuclei in low background locations deep underground like SNOlab. These experiments have already put limits on what the Dark Matter could be. So far they have not seen anything but that does not preclude them from seeing it.
Exotic matter, while it may work in subatomic circles, will not I think stand up to scrutiny in the macroscopic domain.
Bear in mind that the extradition treaty is an expresson of sovereign will enabled by an Act of Parliament
I was not arguing that parliament cannot pass such a law - the UK is effectively a parliamentary dictatorship: once elected they can pretty much do anything as long as the Queen signs it. I suppose what I should have said was that it is an abdication of sovereignty. Rather than take the responsibility for enforcing our own laws they have just decided to allow US laws to apply in certain cases and to let the US authorities to prosecute them. This is terrible since we have no control over what those laws are and, as you note, the US justice system is significantly flawed by European standards.
By your logic those countries would have to decide to crack down.
Yes - what is your problem with this? The US can certainly apply pressure to a country to change it laws to make such actions illegal there (like it does with IP law) or it can decide to not deal with that country e.g. cut network access. In an extreme case this sort of thing can lead to war - for example Israel and Lebanon. However, if sovereignty is to mean anything at all, each country has to decide and enforce its own laws.
He had a presence in the US, otherwise he wouldn't have been able to commit the crime.
He had no presence in the US. He was able to access the information because computers in the US gave it to him i.e. the person in the US responsible for those computers "decided" (at some level) to allow such activity. He was physically located in the UK and committed a crime there and so he should be prosecuted there. While I'm sure he knew where the servers were located in this case, suppose instead he had hacked a .com domain of a European company that used a hosting site in the US. Should he then be carted of to the US even though he had no idea where the servers were?
Yeah, they all speak with weird accents. Why can't they just speak english and accept american currency!!
Better be careful, except for the currency, that's what a lot of Europeans say about Americans...
a) people don't eat curry in the EU
The UK is in the EU and we eat lots of curry there. Wherever you happen to be there might not be lots of curry eaten but don't generalize to regions of the EU you know nothing about - our diversity is one of our strengths.
We do have water in the toilets. The function of the water is to seal the pipe to prevent odours coming in from the sewers and not to fill the entire toilet bowl as seems to be the fashion in the US.
Actually I think of them as being part of North America or the Americas but never America.
As long as I don't have to pay with checks I'm good. I don't have checks and don't expect to need any either.
You don't have any checks on what you pay? Not checking what you pay is just asking for trouble. I always want to check what I pay which is why I use cheques.
here in the UK much of our housing is on flood-plains
No, much of the recently built housing is on flood plains because the land was cheaper...hmmm...I wonder why?
The Microsoft campus is built on solidified mud that flowed down during the last big eruption of Mount Rainer.
Which was when? According to wikipedia the last eruption was over 150 years ago and the last mudslides 500+ years ago. Volcanoes, like hurricanes, are to some degree predictable. So, having to evacuate and rebuild parts of your city once every 500 years (if not longer) does not seem so unreasonable. In fact, looking at the last few thousand years of recorded history, if you can go 500 years without your country being invaded and someone burning your city down you are doing pretty well!
Try looking at the date, it is encoded in the URL.
It also means to pass over or overlook, see the Oxford English Dictionary. According to them this meaning dates from circa 1000 AD so perhaps you might want to update your knowledge of English a little?
Actually, the NatWest three were guilty as sin of a major financial fraud.
The question is not whether he did something wrong but about where he did it. It was in the UK and not the US. If the US government doesn't want people from the UK messing with its computers then it is free to block all UK access: nobody is forcing them to allow acces from the UK. If they decide to allow UK access then they implicitly agree to let UK law deal with any hackers based there.
The problem with this treaty is that it completely undermines UK sovereignty. Now everyone in the UK not only has to follow UK law but US law as well because, even if they have never visited the US, if they violate its laws they can get hauled off there and prosecuted. I don't care whether it is reciprocal or not: the basic premise is wrong. US citizens should not have to obey UK law in their own country either....cross the border though and it is a different matter.
Copyright on fonts makes a lot of sense
In an ideal world I'd agree. However the way things seem to be going I'd be dead against it because some corporate lawyer would find away to make me pay to use my own handwriting.
So basically every single operator they've ever employed, can find or just remember your username _and_ password if they want to. And who's to stop them from calling after hours and pretending to be you?
How is this different from withdrawing cash from the bank in person? All you are doing is verifying your identity to a bank employee who could drain your entire account without a password. Just like the bank clerk does not have to ask you to enter a password before they give you money.
It specifically says that he believes in protecting children from porn and the RIAA's War on Sharing, but NOT 'prescriptive' legislation like Net Neutrality.
Well two out of three isn't bad. Children should be protected from all three: porn, the RIAA war on sharing and prescriptive legislation like net neutrality.
Don't you know your science fiction? Long dead civilizations with advanced technology are always supposed to require some sort of test of worthiness before you are allowed to access their stored knowledge. These usually require great courage, intelligence and integrity to succeed in so "Build yourself a 500x microscope" seems pretty lame by comparison. I think we are letting our future selves off far too easily.
...and how would that show we are not superstitious? Can you imagine what sort of picture a future archaeologist would paint of our society using Harry Potter as a basis? Mind you the "historical" re-enactments would be fun to watch.
Yet we have "data loss" on an almost weekly base and nothing happens.
Who do you expect to fix it? Governments, particularly the one in the UK, are more incompetent about protecting their data (posting CDs, leaving things on trains etc) than most companies. Given that these are the people writing the laws do you really expect them to come down hard on the companies? It would be shooting themselves in the foot.