And don't forget cars with built in phones. Hopefully the government will reimburse all the buyers of luxury vehicles and hands free headsets..
I think if you buy a new luxury car with both a built-in cell phone and a built-in cell phone jammer, you deserve to pay extra for something you can't use. You're a moron.
The requirement for a cell jammer in cars would apply to NEW cars.
Fun scenario: car crashes, passengers are trapped. Scrambler stays active. Passengers (and possibly people nearby) can't call for help. Hopefully the scramblers will have a very short range..
This is why it won't happen. I was going to say too many politicians drive off the road and kill their passengers, but I guess the famous one who did that didn't bother calling the cops AT ALL, much less from the scene. So, yes, maybe it will happen. It prevents the politicians who kill people from the responsibility of calling to report it.
BTW, calling it a "scrambler" is just wrong. It's "willful and deliberate interference with a licensed radio transmission from a primary user of the spectrum involved." That's like a $10,000 dollar a day fine.
Oh, and since you missed it, the comment was about keeping up with FAMILY. If your family doesn't give you their email addresses, that tells you something about how much your family wants to hear from you.
If you've lost track of them so much that you don't know where they live so you could look them up in the phone book, then I'm not sure why it's so life critical that you have their email address.
You could, of course, look them up on facebook and get their address, and use email, but that's apparently too hard.
If you do that, however, use facebook to find people you know, don't complain when other people use facebook to find people you know, too. And don't suddenly say "OMG, this is such an embarassing medium".
A government mandated EBS would apparently fix this problem...
Government mandates don't fix technical problems, technicians and engineers who are paid to care do. A mandate won't stop carrier A from pointing the finger at carrier B who points the finger back at A.
...as well as limit the broadcast to phones just in the vicinity of the emergency.
And open the carrier up for a huge liability lawsuit, when they limit the vicinity of the warning and people on the edge get killed because the disaster didn't follow cell-tower boundaries? Sure.
A mandated cell-phone messaging system will expand to fill the space available, just like the current EAS system gets us test alerts from counties 100's of miles away, because the same cable company serves us all and it's easier for them to put the warning on everyone's TBS or SyFy channel than split it up geographically (because the feed is now centralized away from once was called the "head end". )
The idea of this system is to have information after a tragedy has occurred. So it actually is designed to calm people and stopped them from panicking.
"Don't Panic. All the houses in your subdivision have burned down. Don't bother going home..."
I think an alert system is supposed to alert you to dangerous things before they kill you, not try to keep you from panicking after you're dead.
If you're the debtor, you can demand that they cease all communication (and pursue a lawsuit, if that's what they really intend to do). If you're NOT the debtor, you have basically NO legal recourse against being bothered over and over again by bill-collectors trying to collect someone else's debt.
Unless things have changed in the ten years since I got my last collection agency call, that's not true. They even told me that if I told them to stop calling they would have to do so, by law. I wasn't the person they were looking for, either.
Is there a loophole in the federal DNC legislation for collection agencies? There would be were there an "existing commercial relationship", but if you are the wrong person then there is no existing commercial relationship and they would be liable for action under the DNC if they call you and you are on the list. Yes?
Ok, please point me to a service where I can search for people's email address by name or location...
Here's a hint. If they're your friends, ASK THEM FOR THEIR EMAIL ADDRESS. If they won't give it to you, they don't want to hear from you. End of problem.
Just because you don't use or even like a particular service...
I said nothing about not using or not liking Facebook. I simply pointed out that the excuse that one needs Facebook to be able to keep in touch with friends was vacuous.
Are you really saying it's easy to use a mailing list to mail updated baby pictures to 6 aunts 2 sets of grand parents 5 uncles?
Yes. Even pieces of crap software like Outlook have the ability to configure address groups. Even my sister-in-law has mastered this novel and difficult concept.
One big problem is any form of encryption is illegal using your HAM license. So no PGP, no HTTPS, no SSH, etc.
TECHNICALLY, the rule says that you may not obscure the meaning of the message. If your action is not intended to obscure the meaning, it is technically not a violation. At least, that's one argument I've heard.
As far as the OP's question: HSMM. High Speed Multi Media. It's WiFi in the 2.4GHz amateur band, which just happens to be the same band that 2.4GHz license-free WiFi uses. I can just run a lot more power than you can, legally.
The HSMM working group from ARRL came up with an interesting twist on the rules, since ARRL wouldn't put forward a proposed rule to the FCC to allow encryption of domestic traffic above 50MHz (which the ITU treaties allow). They said, WEP keys aren't encryption to obscure the meaning, and if we publish the WEP key then it isn't really encryption at all. So that's what they do.
However, you still have the non-commercial limitation to deal with, so you can't sell access to your network like an ISP would, and you can't convey commercial traffic.
I am not. So my ratio of actual emergencies to annoying tests is somewhere around 1:1000.
For safety, upon the advice of all the local safety experts, I went out and bought a weather alert radio. One of those NOAA SAME deals. I programmed in my county. Set it up.
In the four years I've had it, I've heard it go off exactly once. I was home on a wednesday afternoon when the regular tests go out. Other than that, I don't know if the damn thing is working because it doesn't show the test messages. They're just tests, after all, so why would the user want to know they took place?
If I get a text about a giant tornado headed my way,...
Good thing it's a text and not a voice message. It'd be really hard to hear the voice message over the very loud roar of the approaching tornado. Of course, I wouldn't hear the phone beep for the incoming text over the very loud roar of the approaching tornado, either. I guess I better keep the phone in my hand looking at the status page for incoming texts so I don't miss any text message telling me there's a really loud tornado approaching because there's too much noise from the really loud tornado to hear it.
Pre-paid wireless accounts in the US have long been exempt from funding 911 service but there is legislation working its way through congress to change that.
Not only that, but cities and counties are getting into the act, wanting to add franchise fees to cellular services to pay for E911 and public safety dispatch call centers. The ever-money-hungry city and county pols are unhappy that cell phone callers can clog the lines of the 911 PSAP without paying to fund the call answerers. They don't see the ability of a cellphone customer to make an immediate report of a traffic accident, as opposed to driving to a payphone and calling it in, to be of any public benefit worthy of subsidy. That, and more people are dropping landline phones and the associated access fees and charges and taxes in favor of cells.
Now, as an old-timer, I know that franchise fees are supposed to be payment for the use of public rights-of-way -- in exchange for $X per sub the cable company can run their cables on city easements and whatever, for example. Cell services don't have that cost to the city so there is no reason to have a franchise fee. In fact, cell companies AREN'T franchised by the city or county so a franchise fee is just a dishonest way of calling for a tax.
Our fair city tried to push a cellphone tax through a couple of years ago. It failed miserably because it was a tax that they put up for a vote. They just added "fees" to our water to pay for sidewalk maintenance and free bus service for all, so I don't doubt that the time the cellphone tax comes up, it will be a franchise fee instead.
This is not necessarily new - they have had opt-OUT free text messaging services in different areas of the country for at least two years now.
There, fixed that for you.
Have you ever tried to opt-out of any of these 'call everyone in the vicinity' emergency warning services? The day the local paper carried the story of how proud the local Sheriff was that they had paid to provide this "service" to the local residents, I called up the company they said was providing the service and said "I opt-out. Do not call me." The phone tree I had to navigate included options for "clients" and "activations", but nothing for victims of a "client". I finally got a real human. At first she couldn't understand what I was asking for. I wasn't a client, and they don't deal with "just people". Then I explained it in detail. They had no clue about how to implement that instruction. Not a hint. They hadn't even thought about it before.
So far, it hasn't been activated, so I don't know if they figured out how to exclude phone numbers from their lists or not. I have made a point of telling my local emergency manager that I do not appreciate being on unsolicited calling lists, but I don't think it went further than that.
I can also choose to have my phone number published in a telephone book; doesn't mean that it's suddenly okay for scumbags to call me and/or harass me.
But it does mean you have decided it is ok for them to have your phone number and address. That's what you have decided when you have a facebook account -- people who have access to that account can get any of the information you have VOLUNTARILY put there, including names of relatives and friends. IF you think that Facebook is an "embarassing medium", then don't have a Facebook account.
That's a laughably naïve attitude. A person may have all kinds of legitimate dealings with honest businesses which may turn over the debt to a (what may turn out to be) a scumbag collections agency.
I guess if people won't read TFA, then why would I expect people to read the postings they reply to. I said, pretty clearly, "scum lenders that won't negotiate with you when you have problems." An honest businessman won't refuse to deal with you when you have unforseen problems paying him, simply because he values the customers and knows that in the long run it may cost him more to send your account to collections than he'd get dealing with you directly. Any business that sells your account to a collection agency when you approach them to renegotiate the debt is, by definition, scum.
No one has a choice in which assholes they get to talk to if their account gets sent to collections.
So that's why you have to start the process by dealing with honest businesses.
I also had a CapitalOne credit card...
Q.E.D.
Re:What's the deal with the rush of TSA stories re
on
TSA Pats Down 3-Year-Old
·
· Score: 3, Funny
If you set the metal detector off it's never a "oh, must be your shoes, you can go." It's always, take whatever you have on off, and if you set it off a 2nd time you get the full pat down.
Before the "take off your shoes" nonsense, I used to wear lightweight hiking shoes when flying. Better ankle support. So, one time I'm flying out of PDX (Portland OR) and I go through the metal detector -- BING BING!
I get wanded, and when they get to my feet, BING BING! They make me take them off and then carry them over to another Xray machine. The dope is telling me "your shoes have metal plates in them. " I know that is ridiculous. It's a lie. I say so. The dope tells me, well, sometimes they put a metal plate in the sole of one "by accident". I say that he's full of shit.
So, to prove me wrong, he takes me over to the xray machine where he says the image from my shoes is still on the screen. Except what is on the screen is obviously a full-sized, calf-high boot -- not like mine at all. Complete bullshit.
What this dope did not know, or did not admit, is that the metal wanding process at Portland Airport was being done without raising your feet off the floor, and the wand was reacting, every time, to the REBAR in the concrete flooring. EVERYONE who got wanded had metal-shanked shoes! Obviously!
Security theater at its best. Or worst.
Now we xray all boots, even metal containing ones, so all a bad guy has to do is put his knife in the sole of his boot and take it out when he gets on the plane. Oh, wait, this is clearly impossible. Never mind.
And if they posted something on your wall, that could fall under a number of these laws.
According to the original article, the company "contacted" her sister. What does "contacted" mean? Did they send a message to the sister saying "we need to talk to your sister, do you have her phone number?" (legal). Or did they say "your screwball sister is running from her debts, we are going to sue unless you help us get our money"? Since we don't know, it's hard to judge, isn't it? There was nothing about them writing on the debtor's wall, however.
Hell, if you consider 'Facebook' an embarrassing media:
Then maybe you shouldn't have a Facebook account, huh? It's voluntary. If you choose to participate, you get all the benefits. You don't choose to get postcards vs. letters. You don't choose to have someone put up a billboard with your face and debt details. Or to have someone sit outside your house with a loudspeaker. But Facebook, that was a choice you made. You chose it because of its communications and networking (social) abilities.
By the way, Facebook isn't "doing the work for the collector". The collector is using publicly available information. You wouldn't say that the phone company is doing the work for the collector just because they publish a telephone book, would you?
If you don't want to deal with scum debt collectors for debts you owe, don't borrow money from scum lenders that won't negotiate with you when you have problems. Borrow from a car dealer, what do you expect? Did something change in the last few years and are car dealers now in the group we'd call "honest businessmen?"
(And yes, there are some. I bought my last car from one. I DIDN'T buy a car from one who proved to be a jerk, and I told him that. The salesman pushed me to buy a used car. I thought about it, told him no. Next day, his manager called me to argue about the decision. Screw them. And now, thanks to GM, they're out of business. Good riddance.)
Since W is double-vee in most languages that use the character wouldn't www == 666666?
No, it would be 0xCCC.
My first few days at work here, I had a fellow employee, a woman, come ask me if I knew anything about "the sex protocol".
After I recovered a bit, I learned it was "the SECS protocol", or "Semiconductor Equipment Communications Standard". It's all been downhill since that one exciting day.
A lot more people would agree to abide by copyright laws if they had not been twisted into the lifetime + 50 years locks that they are now.
Citation needed.
I don't believe this. I doubt that the people who are passing around free copies of ripped movies would wait 14 years before doing so, and those who download them wouldn't either.
Just as a point of reference, for a movie that came out when you were 16, you'd need to wait until you were 30 to download a public domain copy legally, were copyright as short as just 14 years. Can anyone here who is 30 remember the movies they liked when they were 16, much less honestly say they'd wait until today to get a free copy of one?
Most people who support copyright violation claim that if only the prices for material were reasonable they'd not be violating copyright. Now you tell us if you only had to wait 14 years for material you'd not violate copyright law.
The thing is, virtually everything is copyrighted, even this freaking posting I'm making. So finding infringements on just about any website is trivial.
Didn't bother reading the summary, did we? That's why it says "without permission". Free clue: when you push that "submit" button, you are not just granting permission to/. to carry your material, you are instructing them to do so.
In your case, assuming the image isn't also a link to somewhere, an alt tag would be more than sufficient with the details "Picture of Y, taken at Z at X time".
But that conveys NONE of the content that the image is supposed to convey. What's IN the image is the important stuff. That's why it's an image and not just a statement "I took an image at time X and place Y."
It would be like a catalog sales site tagging an image of a red cardigan sweater with an embroidered patch of the Harvard rowing team as "an image". Doesn't convey much other than there's an image you can't see. Taunting, almost.
If it's a link as well, you just add a few words describing its purpose like "click for larger version".
If you can't see the smaller version, clicking "here" for a larger one isn't going to accomplish much. Do blind people sit around all day not looking at small images and then clicking on them so they cannot see larger versions either? Or are we just talking about lawyers who will wander the net looking for image links that don't say "click here for larger version" so they can sue on somene's behalf?
Seriously though, this stuff isn't hard and doesn't even have to be unnecessarily time-consuming.
For anything that is more than meaningless lip service to an irrelevant rule, yes, it can be very expensive and extremely time consuming. We have people getting PhD's trying to extract minimal amounts of information out of images; there won't be any automated description writers for them for a few decades at least.
Here's something I've always wondered about. I've seen so many braille signs on the walls of buildings, in hallways and such. Emergency instructions in elevators. All kinds of things. So, here's the question:
How do blind people know how to find the braille signs? Is there a standard for where they'll be placed, or do they just have to walk down the hallway running their hands against the wall until they find one?
But if we don't force these things on private businesses, they could theoretically band together and refuse to sell anything to the oppressed group, so that they literally starve to death, can't buy any clothing or anything. Since this is possible,...
I know this is slashdot and all, but have we truly forgotten how to shop for things without them being presented on a web page? I mean, my local grocery store doesn't HAVE a web page, and they certainly aren't going to "band together" with anyone to keep people in wheelchairs out.
Get a grip, man. Nobody is going to starve to death because they can't access the web.
Slashdot Mirror
I think if you buy a new luxury car with both a built-in cell phone and a built-in cell phone jammer, you deserve to pay extra for something you can't use. You're a moron.
The requirement for a cell jammer in cars would apply to NEW cars.
Fun scenario: car crashes, passengers are trapped. Scrambler stays active. Passengers (and possibly people nearby) can't call for help. Hopefully the scramblers will have a very short range..
This is why it won't happen. I was going to say too many politicians drive off the road and kill their passengers, but I guess the famous one who did that didn't bother calling the cops AT ALL, much less from the scene. So, yes, maybe it will happen. It prevents the politicians who kill people from the responsibility of calling to report it.
BTW, calling it a "scrambler" is just wrong. It's "willful and deliberate interference with a licensed radio transmission from a primary user of the spectrum involved." That's like a $10,000 dollar a day fine.
Oh, and since you missed it, the comment was about keeping up with FAMILY. If your family doesn't give you their email addresses, that tells you something about how much your family wants to hear from you.
You could, of course, look them up on facebook and get their address, and use email, but that's apparently too hard.
If you do that, however, use facebook to find people you know, don't complain when other people use facebook to find people you know, too. And don't suddenly say "OMG, this is such an embarassing medium".
It's Christmas At Ground Zero -- Weird Al.
Government mandates don't fix technical problems, technicians and engineers who are paid to care do. A mandate won't stop carrier A from pointing the finger at carrier B who points the finger back at A.
And open the carrier up for a huge liability lawsuit, when they limit the vicinity of the warning and people on the edge get killed because the disaster didn't follow cell-tower boundaries? Sure.
A mandated cell-phone messaging system will expand to fill the space available, just like the current EAS system gets us test alerts from counties 100's of miles away, because the same cable company serves us all and it's easier for them to put the warning on everyone's TBS or SyFy channel than split it up geographically (because the feed is now centralized away from once was called the "head end". )
"Don't Panic. All the houses in your subdivision have burned down. Don't bother going home..."
I think an alert system is supposed to alert you to dangerous things before they kill you, not try to keep you from panicking after you're dead.
Unless things have changed in the ten years since I got my last collection agency call, that's not true. They even told me that if I told them to stop calling they would have to do so, by law. I wasn't the person they were looking for, either.
Is there a loophole in the federal DNC legislation for collection agencies? There would be were there an "existing commercial relationship", but if you are the wrong person then there is no existing commercial relationship and they would be liable for action under the DNC if they call you and you are on the list. Yes?
Here's a hint. If they're your friends, ASK THEM FOR THEIR EMAIL ADDRESS. If they won't give it to you, they don't want to hear from you. End of problem.
Just because you don't use or even like a particular service...
I said nothing about not using or not liking Facebook. I simply pointed out that the excuse that one needs Facebook to be able to keep in touch with friends was vacuous.
Yes. Even pieces of crap software like Outlook have the ability to configure address groups. Even my sister-in-law has mastered this novel and difficult concept.
TECHNICALLY, the rule says that you may not obscure the meaning of the message. If your action is not intended to obscure the meaning, it is technically not a violation. At least, that's one argument I've heard.
As far as the OP's question: HSMM. High Speed Multi Media. It's WiFi in the 2.4GHz amateur band, which just happens to be the same band that 2.4GHz license-free WiFi uses. I can just run a lot more power than you can, legally.
The HSMM working group from ARRL came up with an interesting twist on the rules, since ARRL wouldn't put forward a proposed rule to the FCC to allow encryption of domestic traffic above 50MHz (which the ITU treaties allow). They said, WEP keys aren't encryption to obscure the meaning, and if we publish the WEP key then it isn't really encryption at all. So that's what they do.
However, you still have the non-commercial limitation to deal with, so you can't sell access to your network like an ISP would, and you can't convey commercial traffic.
For safety, upon the advice of all the local safety experts, I went out and bought a weather alert radio. One of those NOAA SAME deals. I programmed in my county. Set it up.
In the four years I've had it, I've heard it go off exactly once. I was home on a wednesday afternoon when the regular tests go out. Other than that, I don't know if the damn thing is working because it doesn't show the test messages. They're just tests, after all, so why would the user want to know they took place?
Good thing it's a text and not a voice message. It'd be really hard to hear the voice message over the very loud roar of the approaching tornado. Of course, I wouldn't hear the phone beep for the incoming text over the very loud roar of the approaching tornado, either. I guess I better keep the phone in my hand looking at the status page for incoming texts so I don't miss any text message telling me there's a really loud tornado approaching because there's too much noise from the really loud tornado to hear it.
Not only that, but cities and counties are getting into the act, wanting to add franchise fees to cellular services to pay for E911 and public safety dispatch call centers. The ever-money-hungry city and county pols are unhappy that cell phone callers can clog the lines of the 911 PSAP without paying to fund the call answerers. They don't see the ability of a cellphone customer to make an immediate report of a traffic accident, as opposed to driving to a payphone and calling it in, to be of any public benefit worthy of subsidy. That, and more people are dropping landline phones and the associated access fees and charges and taxes in favor of cells.
Now, as an old-timer, I know that franchise fees are supposed to be payment for the use of public rights-of-way -- in exchange for $X per sub the cable company can run their cables on city easements and whatever, for example. Cell services don't have that cost to the city so there is no reason to have a franchise fee. In fact, cell companies AREN'T franchised by the city or county so a franchise fee is just a dishonest way of calling for a tax.
Our fair city tried to push a cellphone tax through a couple of years ago. It failed miserably because it was a tax that they put up for a vote. They just added "fees" to our water to pay for sidewalk maintenance and free bus service for all, so I don't doubt that the time the cellphone tax comes up, it will be a franchise fee instead.
There, fixed that for you.
Have you ever tried to opt-out of any of these 'call everyone in the vicinity' emergency warning services? The day the local paper carried the story of how proud the local Sheriff was that they had paid to provide this "service" to the local residents, I called up the company they said was providing the service and said "I opt-out. Do not call me." The phone tree I had to navigate included options for "clients" and "activations", but nothing for victims of a "client". I finally got a real human. At first she couldn't understand what I was asking for. I wasn't a client, and they don't deal with "just people". Then I explained it in detail. They had no clue about how to implement that instruction. Not a hint. They hadn't even thought about it before.
So far, it hasn't been activated, so I don't know if they figured out how to exclude phone numbers from their lists or not. I have made a point of telling my local emergency manager that I do not appreciate being on unsolicited calling lists, but I don't think it went further than that.
But it does mean you have decided it is ok for them to have your phone number and address. That's what you have decided when you have a facebook account -- people who have access to that account can get any of the information you have VOLUNTARILY put there, including names of relatives and friends. IF you think that Facebook is an "embarassing medium", then don't have a Facebook account.
That's a laughably naïve attitude. A person may have all kinds of legitimate dealings with honest businesses which may turn over the debt to a (what may turn out to be) a scumbag collections agency.
I guess if people won't read TFA, then why would I expect people to read the postings they reply to. I said, pretty clearly, "scum lenders that won't negotiate with you when you have problems." An honest businessman won't refuse to deal with you when you have unforseen problems paying him, simply because he values the customers and knows that in the long run it may cost him more to send your account to collections than he'd get dealing with you directly. Any business that sells your account to a collection agency when you approach them to renegotiate the debt is, by definition, scum.
No one has a choice in which assholes they get to talk to if their account gets sent to collections.
So that's why you have to start the process by dealing with honest businesses.
I also had a CapitalOne credit card ...
Q.E.D.
Before the "take off your shoes" nonsense, I used to wear lightweight hiking shoes when flying. Better ankle support. So, one time I'm flying out of PDX (Portland OR) and I go through the metal detector -- BING BING!
I get wanded, and when they get to my feet, BING BING! They make me take them off and then carry them over to another Xray machine. The dope is telling me "your shoes have metal plates in them. " I know that is ridiculous. It's a lie. I say so. The dope tells me, well, sometimes they put a metal plate in the sole of one "by accident". I say that he's full of shit.
So, to prove me wrong, he takes me over to the xray machine where he says the image from my shoes is still on the screen. Except what is on the screen is obviously a full-sized, calf-high boot -- not like mine at all. Complete bullshit.
What this dope did not know, or did not admit, is that the metal wanding process at Portland Airport was being done without raising your feet off the floor, and the wand was reacting, every time, to the REBAR in the concrete flooring. EVERYONE who got wanded had metal-shanked shoes! Obviously!
Security theater at its best. Or worst.
Now we xray all boots, even metal containing ones, so all a bad guy has to do is put his knife in the sole of his boot and take it out when he gets on the plane. Oh, wait, this is clearly impossible. Never mind.
Yes, email is SUCH a hard concept to master.
Why would I want to delete my account?
I don't know. Maybe because it opens you up to publishing personal and private data in an essentially public medium?
Maybe I should get rid of my phone, and Internet service, and any kind of contact information while I'm at it?
If you can't handle email, then yes, maybe.
According to the original article, the company "contacted" her sister. What does "contacted" mean? Did they send a message to the sister saying "we need to talk to your sister, do you have her phone number?" (legal). Or did they say "your screwball sister is running from her debts, we are going to sue unless you help us get our money"? Since we don't know, it's hard to judge, isn't it? There was nothing about them writing on the debtor's wall, however.
Hell, if you consider 'Facebook' an embarrassing media:
Then maybe you shouldn't have a Facebook account, huh? It's voluntary. If you choose to participate, you get all the benefits. You don't choose to get postcards vs. letters. You don't choose to have someone put up a billboard with your face and debt details. Or to have someone sit outside your house with a loudspeaker. But Facebook, that was a choice you made. You chose it because of its communications and networking (social) abilities.
By the way, Facebook isn't "doing the work for the collector". The collector is using publicly available information. You wouldn't say that the phone company is doing the work for the collector just because they publish a telephone book, would you?
If you don't want to deal with scum debt collectors for debts you owe, don't borrow money from scum lenders that won't negotiate with you when you have problems. Borrow from a car dealer, what do you expect? Did something change in the last few years and are car dealers now in the group we'd call "honest businessmen?" (And yes, there are some. I bought my last car from one. I DIDN'T buy a car from one who proved to be a jerk, and I told him that. The salesman pushed me to buy a used car. I thought about it, told him no. Next day, his manager called me to argue about the decision. Screw them. And now, thanks to GM, they're out of business. Good riddance.)
Are YOU the reason they had to come up with the micro-USB connector, just so it would fit?
No, it would be 0xCCC.
My first few days at work here, I had a fellow employee, a woman, come ask me if I knew anything about "the sex protocol".
After I recovered a bit, I learned it was "the SECS protocol", or "Semiconductor Equipment Communications Standard". It's all been downhill since that one exciting day.
Citation needed.
I don't believe this. I doubt that the people who are passing around free copies of ripped movies would wait 14 years before doing so, and those who download them wouldn't either.
Just as a point of reference, for a movie that came out when you were 16, you'd need to wait until you were 30 to download a public domain copy legally, were copyright as short as just 14 years. Can anyone here who is 30 remember the movies they liked when they were 16, much less honestly say they'd wait until today to get a free copy of one?
Most people who support copyright violation claim that if only the prices for material were reasonable they'd not be violating copyright. Now you tell us if you only had to wait 14 years for material you'd not violate copyright law.
Didn't bother reading the summary, did we? That's why it says "without permission". Free clue: when you push that "submit" button, you are not just granting permission to /. to carry your material, you are instructing them to do so.
But that conveys NONE of the content that the image is supposed to convey. What's IN the image is the important stuff. That's why it's an image and not just a statement "I took an image at time X and place Y."
It would be like a catalog sales site tagging an image of a red cardigan sweater with an embroidered patch of the Harvard rowing team as "an image". Doesn't convey much other than there's an image you can't see. Taunting, almost.
If it's a link as well, you just add a few words describing its purpose like "click for larger version".
If you can't see the smaller version, clicking "here" for a larger one isn't going to accomplish much. Do blind people sit around all day not looking at small images and then clicking on them so they cannot see larger versions either? Or are we just talking about lawyers who will wander the net looking for image links that don't say "click here for larger version" so they can sue on somene's behalf?
Seriously though, this stuff isn't hard and doesn't even have to be unnecessarily time-consuming.
For anything that is more than meaningless lip service to an irrelevant rule, yes, it can be very expensive and extremely time consuming. We have people getting PhD's trying to extract minimal amounts of information out of images; there won't be any automated description writers for them for a few decades at least.
How do blind people know how to find the braille signs? Is there a standard for where they'll be placed, or do they just have to walk down the hallway running their hands against the wall until they find one?
I know this is slashdot and all, but have we truly forgotten how to shop for things without them being presented on a web page? I mean, my local grocery store doesn't HAVE a web page, and they certainly aren't going to "band together" with anyone to keep people in wheelchairs out.
Get a grip, man. Nobody is going to starve to death because they can't access the web.