No need for an excuse - the ANPR cameras are already there (they're used to record information that is passed on to police if you drive off without paying). Adding the PNC check is just a validation to prevent that (ie, mainly the loss of revenue to the the gas station itself - most bilking is done by uninsured drivers, and they shouldn't be on the road anyway).
The ANPR system is already widespread in the UK (although the headline seems to suggest this is new, it is not).
At gas stations it is generally used to catch bilking after the fact (ie, once the drive off has already happened), and is used elsewhere (eg, in police vehicles and on static cameras that watch the main motorway routes) to catch uninsured and untaxed drivers.
The overwhelming majority of fuel theft (in the form of drive offs) is committed by uninsured drivers, and adding a further obstacle to keep the dickheads off the road in the first place can only be a benefit.
At present the DVLA's database is not perfect so as it stands there would be a small but non-trivial number of false positives (too high for a system that prevents fuelling as a binary choice) but it is very easy to correct genuine mistakes. It might even be beneficial for those who are flagged incorrectly in the DB since they would have a chance to sort it out (reporting correct details to the DVLA and making sure your insurance is valid is *your* responsibility) before being pulled over by a police interceptor while you're on the motorway or something (thus wasting both your and the police's time sorting out the mistake).
Let's not paint this as a "the government can't tell me what to do! freedom! rah!" issue - there is no "right" to drive a car, and you have no innate "right" to buy fuel for it from a private business that specialises in selling such flammable liquids to the public. If you're driving around uninsured then, honestly, fuck you - get your uninsured pile of shit off the public road so you don't crash into someone and cause them all manner of headaches because you *are not insured*.
Very few drivers here are armed. Handguns are just not common here by any stretch of the imagination, despite what the sensationalist media would have you believe.
Even fewer are going to shoot at a petrol station attendant in the presence of blanket forecourt and in-building CCTV.
Most petrol stations here already have window service only at late hours, also.
There already is a black market for gasoline and diesel. You can buy it tax-free from all sorts of places if you know where to look, and it's a huge, huge source of revenue loss for the government because fuel is so expensive here (you yanks whine and moan about $4 per gallon, I would be ecstatic for prices that absurdly cheap). The most common offenders are cab drivers running their cars on red diesel bought from black market fuel stations. (red diesel is so called because it is for farm and construction vehicle use and not for use on the road and thus sold tax free. It is dyed red to make it easily identifiable.)
And yes, we do have seat belt laws, and baby/car seat laws.
To put it in/. terms, if the atom was a Library of Congress, the nucleus could be kept in the coffee cup on a desk in the middle of the building. The electrons would be the size of a period on one of the large print books.
You seem to be missing what the light actually does.
Photosystem II is the power plant of the photosynthetic process. It sets up the high energy electrons that step down the chain that can then be used for powering reactions. It does this by photocatalytic oxidation of water. This process also sets up a proton gradient that is used to run the ATP synthase enzyme.
> This used to be a place where you could have a decent discussion
Great, more empathy-seeking and misdirection that would make a stage magician blush.
> the campaigns to silence "hostile" voices are so effective - it's very easy to accuse and whip up a froth of vitriol
Oh dear, now you're a victim of maleficent persecution. Really, did you even read your post before clicking Submit, or did the fury of your adolescent anger and indignation rush your trigger finger to the button as uncontrollably as a rising orgasm having reached beyond the point of no return?
We all are. I'm not just talking about it personally. I'm making an observation about how/. has changed over the years. In the past few months it has become a downright hostile place to post if you don't follow a very specific set of criteria. It wasn't always like that, which is one of the reasons I was still here after all this time. I've had some cracking debates on here with some genuinely great people, despite our clear differences of opinion and it never became nasty. Now, not so much.
I'd rather it didn't turn into an echo chamber - there are enough of them around already, but who knows, it might be too late. Finding a decent place to talk about technology where the forum participants actually have some brains about them and can actually construct a sentence? It's not an easy thing to find when combining it with a diverse set of opinions as well. Slashdot had that, and it still has it here and there but when a hot button story comes up; with the list of "hot button" things that people can get stomped on for growing ever longer.
I'm not trying to make this a pity party, I'm just wondering how we got from you "knowing" that I'm an Apple shill (enough that you emphasised the "I" in your comment, to me repeating the denial of that allegation and being told I'm "misdirecting" when discussing why I believe it is happening.
I'd be interested to know how you know so definitively that I'm a shill. Obviously I know it's totally untrue, since I am me and I know what I have and have not done regarding my own life and internet activity, but I'm interested in what brings you so definitively (enough that you emphasised "I") to that conclusion, given that I know there's no actual proof of it. I'd point out that merely holding a different opinion to me on a discussion board is not evidence, nor is my posting history in line with the supposed shilling I have been accused of (hell, I've been accused of being an Apple, Google and MS shill simultaneously, which I guess is where the paranoid idea that it's all handled by one PR firm and that all these big companies use the same one? I have no idea). Either way, you seem so sure, so I'm curious.
The sun doesn't "help" plants grow. The sun provides energy that drives an electron cascade. The plant uses this energy to synthesise ATP. If you remove this source of energy, the plant cannot do this, so it's essential (in the absence of artificial light) not just "a help".
Y'know, if we're being pedantic and everything.
Your last sentence makes no sense (and conveniently doesn't specify a font size, or a size relative to the screen size, given that they are different resolutions to start with).
Put it this way, if you took a slice of the iPad 2's screen that was the same size as the iPhone 4's screen and displayed text of the same size on both, starting big and getting smaller and smaller, which would become illegible first? (assumption: the viewer has perfect eyesight and can easily distinguish very small fonts)
Actually I am looking at a Galaxy SII as my next phone.
Currently using an iPhone 3GS and the upgrade choice (I'll buy the phone outright either way) is between the iPhone 4S and the Samsung Galaxy SII. Both are about even in the running so far.
I'll take any legitimate criticism if it's posted by an actual logged in member, and as long as it is accurate - I don't mind that at all.
What I do mind is being accused of being someone else (I am not); being accused of being paid to post (I have never been, nor will I ever be); or, as in some other posts have suggested, been one of several sock puppet accounts for a PR firm.
I mention the length of time I've been on/. merely as an aside. It's not a dick waving contest - I don't even have a particularly low UID so it's hardly something to drop trousers over since there are plenty of older veterans around - that said, I have been around here for a very long time (at least as far as forum memberships go), so the accusations that are being levelled at me (that have really only started in the last few months) would be amusing if they didn't make me sigh in pity for a site I've been a part of for so long really sinking to the level of a troll pit.
This used to be a place where you could have a decent discussion on the net without an opposing opinion painting you as an "obvious" paid shill.
I'll stand up and admit to anything I have *actually* done wrong, but I will not admit to something I have not done, no matter how much "proof" (as one post laughably put it) is claimed, since I personally know it's nonsense. I cannot prove the AC trolls wrong, of course, which is why the campaigns to silence "hostile" voices are so effective - it's very easy to accuse and whip up a froth of vitriol, but impossible to prove a negative. All I can do is try to weather the storm.
Again, for the record. Not bonch, never will be bonch, never been paid to post, never will be paid to post, not a sock puppet account, never shared login details with anyone else.
You are looking for ways to make Apple's marketing look bad, but failing.
High dpi at a small physical size already means high resolution, but I didn't think I'd have to specify that we're not reading the text on one of those jumbo screens (where the same resolution as an iPad would result in a low dpi).
The high dpi of the iPhone 4 screen (compared to the 3GS) is what makes the text readable. Now, you achieve that on a screen of the same physical dimensions by increasing the resolution of the panel, but in terms of how you discuss what has been done (higher dpi vs higher resolution in the same physical dimensions) you are talking about the same thing.
In other words, higher resolution in the same physical size leads to higher dpi. How is this "falling for marketing"?
(We're also assuming vector typography here - I assume that can be taken as read and not explicitly stated, lest you again claim that I'm "falling for marketing")
I guess it depends what the carriers are calling "4G". I assume the menu displays whatever the carrier has termed 4G, since the 4S supports most of those "3.5G" technologies that have been rebranded as 4G.
Although sometimes software upgrades can upgrade hardware - remember the enforced-charged-$1.99-SO 802.11n patch for some early systems with draft-n support but no software support when they came out? (yes, yes, I know that's not what has happened with the 4S)
If the new iPad's screen compared to the iPad 2 is the same delta as the 3GS > 4 switch for the iPhone, only at 9.7" then it absolutely is worth the extra $100 if you intend to do a lot of reading on it.
The high dpi on the iPhone 4+ screen is extremely good for reading text, more than almost any other benefit (I assume that HD movies will also be a big thing on the iPad, unlike the iPhone).
Yes, because of the zero point energy, since we're using a molecule. The bond has a minimum vibrational energy of 1/2 h*nu when the vibrational quantum number is 0 (ground state), so even when the temperature is 0 K, the bond still has energy and the molecule will still move around.
Slashdot Mirror
So, your argument is that you should be unhindered from purchasing fuel for your illegal vehicle?
I'm sorry, I'm all for individual rights, but uninsured drivers can just fuck right off.
No need for an excuse - the ANPR cameras are already there (they're used to record information that is passed on to police if you drive off without paying). Adding the PNC check is just a validation to prevent that (ie, mainly the loss of revenue to the the gas station itself - most bilking is done by uninsured drivers, and they shouldn't be on the road anyway).
Why so much hate?
The ANPR system is already widespread in the UK (although the headline seems to suggest this is new, it is not).
At gas stations it is generally used to catch bilking after the fact (ie, once the drive off has already happened), and is used elsewhere (eg, in police vehicles and on static cameras that watch the main motorway routes) to catch uninsured and untaxed drivers.
The overwhelming majority of fuel theft (in the form of drive offs) is committed by uninsured drivers, and adding a further obstacle to keep the dickheads off the road in the first place can only be a benefit.
At present the DVLA's database is not perfect so as it stands there would be a small but non-trivial number of false positives (too high for a system that prevents fuelling as a binary choice) but it is very easy to correct genuine mistakes. It might even be beneficial for those who are flagged incorrectly in the DB since they would have a chance to sort it out (reporting correct details to the DVLA and making sure your insurance is valid is *your* responsibility) before being pulled over by a police interceptor while you're on the motorway or something (thus wasting both your and the police's time sorting out the mistake).
Let's not paint this as a "the government can't tell me what to do! freedom! rah!" issue - there is no "right" to drive a car, and you have no innate "right" to buy fuel for it from a private business that specialises in selling such flammable liquids to the public. If you're driving around uninsured then, honestly, fuck you - get your uninsured pile of shit off the public road so you don't crash into someone and cause them all manner of headaches because you *are not insured*.
You mean alongside the one that already exists?
The black market for fuel (especially diesel) is an enormous and profitable industry.
Very few drivers here are armed. Handguns are just not common here by any stretch of the imagination, despite what the sensationalist media would have you believe.
Even fewer are going to shoot at a petrol station attendant in the presence of blanket forecourt and in-building CCTV.
Most petrol stations here already have window service only at late hours, also.
There already is a black market for gasoline and diesel. You can buy it tax-free from all sorts of places if you know where to look, and it's a huge, huge source of revenue loss for the government because fuel is so expensive here (you yanks whine and moan about $4 per gallon, I would be ecstatic for prices that absurdly cheap). The most common offenders are cab drivers running their cars on red diesel bought from black market fuel stations. (red diesel is so called because it is for farm and construction vehicle use and not for use on the road and thus sold tax free. It is dyed red to make it easily identifiable.)
And yes, we do have seat belt laws, and baby/car seat laws.
To put it in /. terms, if the atom was a Library of Congress, the nucleus could be kept in the coffee cup on a desk in the middle of the building. The electrons would be the size of a period on one of the large print books.
My system guesses "deserve access to my accounts".
What, about taking cock up the ass?
I guess I did. Make of that what you will.
You forgot to log in again.
Yes, I was going for the pedantry angle, given that I was being called up on it for talking about dpi over pixel resolution in the same area...
It wasn't a full on analysis of the entire energy cycle in the plant!
You seem to be missing what the light actually does.
Photosystem II is the power plant of the photosynthetic process. It sets up the high energy electrons that step down the chain that can then be used for powering reactions. It does this by photocatalytic oxidation of water. This process also sets up a proton gradient that is used to run the ATP synthase enzyme.
It's good to be loved. ;p
> This used to be a place where you could have a decent discussion
Great, more empathy-seeking and misdirection that would make a stage magician blush.
> the campaigns to silence "hostile" voices are so effective - it's very easy to accuse and whip up a froth of vitriol
Oh dear, now you're a victim of maleficent persecution. Really, did you even read your post before clicking Submit, or did the fury of your adolescent anger and indignation rush your trigger finger to the button as uncontrollably as a rising orgasm having reached beyond the point of no return?
We all are. I'm not just talking about it personally. I'm making an observation about how /. has changed over the years. In the past few months it has become a downright hostile place to post if you don't follow a very specific set of criteria. It wasn't always like that, which is one of the reasons I was still here after all this time. I've had some cracking debates on here with some genuinely great people, despite our clear differences of opinion and it never became nasty. Now, not so much.
I'd rather it didn't turn into an echo chamber - there are enough of them around already, but who knows, it might be too late. Finding a decent place to talk about technology where the forum participants actually have some brains about them and can actually construct a sentence? It's not an easy thing to find when combining it with a diverse set of opinions as well. Slashdot had that, and it still has it here and there but when a hot button story comes up; with the list of "hot button" things that people can get stomped on for growing ever longer.
I'm not trying to make this a pity party, I'm just wondering how we got from you "knowing" that I'm an Apple shill (enough that you emphasised the "I" in your comment, to me repeating the denial of that allegation and being told I'm "misdirecting" when discussing why I believe it is happening.
I'd be interested to know how you know so definitively that I'm a shill. Obviously I know it's totally untrue, since I am me and I know what I have and have not done regarding my own life and internet activity, but I'm interested in what brings you so definitively (enough that you emphasised "I") to that conclusion, given that I know there's no actual proof of it. I'd point out that merely holding a different opinion to me on a discussion board is not evidence, nor is my posting history in line with the supposed shilling I have been accused of (hell, I've been accused of being an Apple, Google and MS shill simultaneously, which I guess is where the paranoid idea that it's all handled by one PR firm and that all these big companies use the same one? I have no idea). Either way, you seem so sure, so I'm curious.
The sun doesn't "help" plants grow. The sun provides energy that drives an electron cascade. The plant uses this energy to synthesise ATP. If you remove this source of energy, the plant cannot do this, so it's essential (in the absence of artificial light) not just "a help".
Y'know, if we're being pedantic and everything.
Your last sentence makes no sense (and conveniently doesn't specify a font size, or a size relative to the screen size, given that they are different resolutions to start with).
Put it this way, if you took a slice of the iPad 2's screen that was the same size as the iPhone 4's screen and displayed text of the same size on both, starting big and getting smaller and smaller, which would become illegible first? (assumption: the viewer has perfect eyesight and can easily distinguish very small fonts)
Actually I am looking at a Galaxy SII as my next phone.
Currently using an iPhone 3GS and the upgrade choice (I'll buy the phone outright either way) is between the iPhone 4S and the Samsung Galaxy SII. Both are about even in the running so far.
You forgot to log in.
Not bonch. Not employed to post. Not paid to post.
This is getting silly, kid.
I'll take any legitimate criticism if it's posted by an actual logged in member, and as long as it is accurate - I don't mind that at all.
What I do mind is being accused of being someone else (I am not); being accused of being paid to post (I have never been, nor will I ever be); or, as in some other posts have suggested, been one of several sock puppet accounts for a PR firm.
I mention the length of time I've been on /. merely as an aside. It's not a dick waving contest - I don't even have a particularly low UID so it's hardly something to drop trousers over since there are plenty of older veterans around - that said, I have been around here for a very long time (at least as far as forum memberships go), so the accusations that are being levelled at me (that have really only started in the last few months) would be amusing if they didn't make me sigh in pity for a site I've been a part of for so long really sinking to the level of a troll pit.
This used to be a place where you could have a decent discussion on the net without an opposing opinion painting you as an "obvious" paid shill.
I'll stand up and admit to anything I have *actually* done wrong, but I will not admit to something I have not done, no matter how much "proof" (as one post laughably put it) is claimed, since I personally know it's nonsense. I cannot prove the AC trolls wrong, of course, which is why the campaigns to silence "hostile" voices are so effective - it's very easy to accuse and whip up a froth of vitriol, but impossible to prove a negative. All I can do is try to weather the storm.
Again, for the record. Not bonch, never will be bonch, never been paid to post, never will be paid to post, not a sock puppet account, never shared login details with anyone else.
I'd make it a sig, but who reads those, right?
Not at all mad, just making sure the record is straight.
Never been bonch, never been anyone else, never been paid to post on /. in 12 years of membership, never given my login to anyone else.
You still forgot to log in kid! Once is just embarrassing, twice is plain stupidity.
Not bonch, never been bonch, not an Apple shill. Not paid to post. Never been paid to post in my 12 year /. history.
You forgot to log in kid.
You are looking for ways to make Apple's marketing look bad, but failing.
High dpi at a small physical size already means high resolution, but I didn't think I'd have to specify that we're not reading the text on one of those jumbo screens (where the same resolution as an iPad would result in a low dpi).
The high dpi of the iPhone 4 screen (compared to the 3GS) is what makes the text readable. Now, you achieve that on a screen of the same physical dimensions by increasing the resolution of the panel, but in terms of how you discuss what has been done (higher dpi vs higher resolution in the same physical dimensions) you are talking about the same thing.
In other words, higher resolution in the same physical size leads to higher dpi. How is this "falling for marketing"?
(We're also assuming vector typography here - I assume that can be taken as read and not explicitly stated, lest you again claim that I'm "falling for marketing")
I guess it depends what the carriers are calling "4G". I assume the menu displays whatever the carrier has termed 4G, since the 4S supports most of those "3.5G" technologies that have been rebranded as 4G.
Although sometimes software upgrades can upgrade hardware - remember the enforced-charged-$1.99-SO 802.11n patch for some early systems with draft-n support but no software support when they came out? (yes, yes, I know that's not what has happened with the 4S)
If the new iPad's screen compared to the iPad 2 is the same delta as the 3GS > 4 switch for the iPhone, only at 9.7" then it absolutely is worth the extra $100 if you intend to do a lot of reading on it.
The high dpi on the iPhone 4+ screen is extremely good for reading text, more than almost any other benefit (I assume that HD movies will also be a big thing on the iPad, unlike the iPhone).
But your highly scientific benchmark is?
Yes, because of the zero point energy, since we're using a molecule. The bond has a minimum vibrational energy of 1/2 h*nu when the vibrational quantum number is 0 (ground state), so even when the temperature is 0 K, the bond still has energy and the molecule will still move around.