Then change the systems to work around the fact that some people bilk them; don't come the corporate and try to spin the bad message, it just makes people mad.
Unless the US wants to give up it's guns for the few idiots that ventilate people in the street? A curious double standard, non?
"Imagine, being able to talk to someone on the phone while out at the movies! Or while driving! The future holds such promise!"
I see what you did there. That's so funny. I mean, plenty of people might not have thought of that, but you did. I mean, you must keep the people you know in such stitches with such irreverent comedy. Do your write your own material?
The point between the disconnect of cellular and Wifi is to create an alternative that will eventually drop the price of data transfer on the cellular networks (currently the most expensive bandwidth you can buy) and creating a much better environment for convergence later. Seen the PDA/Phones converging? Ipaq's were doing it on VOIP/Bluetooth voice gateway six months ago, and quite fun it was too.
Eventually this is going to end in the idea that we're just shifting information around, which is pretty much the holy grail of IT.
"What the treaty does is set impossible goals for rich industrial countries"
What you meant to say was 'America' instead of 'rich industrial countries'. That's because the majority of G8 nations have actually dealt with it.
"In the end, the emissions aren't actually reduced-- it becomes just another redistributionist scheme."
Are you objecting to the fact that developing countries now have a source of income other than black poppys or that the overall GG burden doesn't actually lessen? You can't refer to it as an impossible goal, then claim that it's simply redistribution.
"I know its packaged completely differently but in the fabled worst case scenario a pebble bed could turn in to a burning pile of graphite just like Chernobyl."
I think you're stretching things a little there. No offence meant.
"Again its probably a worse case scenario and may not even be possible but I prefer to ponder those since the people who are advocating something often try to avoid thinking about the worst case scenario."
Hence the tottering pile of safety measures that make PWRs so darned safe. The main problem is complexity doesn't really allow you to examine all of the possible failures, so you tend to go with 'unlikely', 'likely' and 'almost impossible'.
Pebble-beds should be a lot less complex, and that would allow people more scope for checking out the 'unlikely' and 'impossible' failures.
I see some mileage in the pebble-bed design because it's elegant and simple.
If fission is the way we'll have to go (and my energy bills have just risen by another 9% this year), then this is the design that we need, not something that dumps hydrogen over a hot core of irradiated material.
There are no real alternatives at the moment, not with fusion yet another 20 years down the line.
"To be pedantic Israel is not a confirmed nuclear power."
Yeah, but would you be prepared to make a long bet on that? You know they have at least one, I know that they have at least one.
Makes the kidnapping of Mordechi Vanunu seem a bit petulant otherwise.
"They have the worlds largest superpower on puppet strings already."
Nah. That's the perception, but the screws are being tightened steadily. Bear in mind that Isreal has done some things over the past decade that have given the world's largest superpower cause for concern; and the consistent refusal to engage the whole palestinian question in a more meaningful fashion is nigh on laughable. If you like black comedy and spotted the relative irony of the USA being 'johnny come latelys' to the whole terrorism game, that is.
I meant 'victims of' rather than 'major funders of'.
"Someone will start screaming pebble bed reactors at this point. Well maybe pebble bed reactors are safer but its not a certainty."
Nothing is ever certain, but putting PWR, PGR and other over-engineered solutions together, and the pebble-bed starts to look insanely attractive.
"If you recall Chernobyl was the disaster it was partially thanks to graphite because in the event of an accident and enough heat graphite burns furiously."
As do most other things; but hot graphite has the advantage of not doing much other than being hot. Problems come from other stuff, mainly due to breaking hydrogen out of things. Icky stuff, hydrogen.
I don't get the reference to Chernobyl, though. That was due to a complete lack of moderators that led to a runaway energy production spike. The pebble-bed design would tend to simmer rather than melt it's way through the containment vessel.
"The pebbles have ceramic shielding to prevent the graphite from burning but there is a suspicion that manufacturing defects or mishandling might compromise the shielding and open up the chance a pebble would burn and explode."
About the only thing that could happen is gas bubbles in the ceramic coating undergoing rapid expansion and exploding. As they've already been fired under extremely high temperatures, this is fairly unlikely. Ceramics have a tendancy to be _extremely_ hard, so the mishandling would have to be severe. My main problem isn't those aspects of the design, but more about the handling of a failure mode in a production facility.
The other aspect is that, as a species, we've been piddling around with ceramics for an inordinate amount of time. Three guesses what my original field was in? You haven't seen cool until you've seen refractory ceramics.
"If it did it could damage the pebbles around it and start a non nuclear chain reaction."
What's a non-nuclear chain reaction? You talking about a heat cascade? Because that's pretty much designed in.
"A hurdle is old reactor designs have become prohibitively expensive"
Nineteen-fifties overengineering at work. Slap in a safety measure. Then a safety measure to cover the safety measure. Then a redundancy with a safety measure to make sure...and that's the way it goes.
Design ideas have changed quite considerably because we can't rely on any one component or system to provide fault-free operation. Monju nearly melted down because the sodium coolant ate it's way through a sub-basement. The problem is always cooling...
Funnily enough we have an entire generation who have much the same problem with their processors...
Obvious gags aside, this is a claim without merit, because solar energy varies throughout the year and according to latitude. Then you use 'large' as a descriptor.
What I've been looking for is an indicator of the square-footage of solar cells required, daylight hours and latitude to produce 'x' watts of power, but everyone seems to vary their estimates. The reason for this is that a lot of countries don't have anything like the sparse population of continental North America.
You may have missed the bit at school where they mentioned that the nuclear club contains Isreal, and contrary to any opinion, Isreal is not a superpower.
In terms of superpowers, you have to look at the GDP and economic growth, and China has quite a deal going. Any company wishing to take advantage of the huge potential workforce has to sign a fifty/fifty deal with the chinese government. There isn't a lot of creative accounting that you can do, and this has fueled the growth over the past ten years, admittedly past it's ability to create infrastructure, but they're attending to that now.
"when they said that the ID card and laws surrounding the ID card turn our government from working for the people into turning the people into monitored subjects and essentially tipping the balance of power."
The idea of the government working for the people is an American ideal. You're in a country where parliment is made up from people who actually sought the power, without the 'service' BS that the Americans flowered up their political process with.
Government is there to steer the country, internally and externally using the Home and Foreign office. They get jittery when the tax income falls, or when people pick up the rocks to see what's skittering underneath. Things like the Dame Porter affair are not that unusual.
"I'd rather have Thatcher back in power"
And the West Midlands serious crimes squad? No, we're better off in the current world than the one that allowed the government of the time to be so pig headed as to ignore public opinion, which happened during the strikes of the late seventies, and sanctioned baton charges against peaceful demostrations. The world is made of it's current state, not by cherry-picking nostalgic portions of history.
"We all know that government shouldn't have too much power,"
No, that's our opinion. Governments have as much power as _we_ allow them before making enough noise and reducing campaign contributions, but knowing when they've gone too far is a matter for opinion...and when you have enough people of a like mind...
"We all know that government shouldn't have too much power, but they use the media to brainwash the people into thinking that new totalitarian laws are justifiable, when they are not."
Be careful, you suggest that people don't like the idea of an ID card, when people are generally focussed very closely on the things that personally hinder or help them. You could make the ID card attractive, but the major concern of the technically competent is that this is a costly panacea to a problem that doesn't really exist, and we'd be sold on the ignorance of the government on a solution that would waste OUR money.
"I don't really care about the ID card myself, it is the laws surrounding it (Identify Yourself!), the fact that the police do misuse powers, the fact that government cannot and should not be trusted with things like this... also I don't want to have to pay for this thing."
"I have to say Doom3 is far more cinematic and, frankly, fun."
Six years between the games; but you'll notice that the scene setting leading to the 'disaster' on base was identical to the Half-Life one; believe me that was groundbreaking at the time when Quake II was repeating the formula of Doom I.
I never did get hold of the Thief series or System Shock, so I can't comment on those...I'm resisting playing them now because I suspect I've been spoiled by 'Deus Ex'. I'm hoping that HL2 hasn't lost the storyline in favour of the flashy graphics.
"The Suicide Girls concept is about sharing the self-actualization of women in Portland's post-punk subculture. Suicide Girls was developed to be a celbration of attitude of young women rather than specifically providing a visual stimulation for male sexual climax."
Post-modernist art critique aside, I think it's fairly safe to say that they're exercising a certain level of freedom of speech, and enjoying themselves before gravity introduces them to the ugly truth of skin elasticity.
I content myself with admiring Voltaire from afar.
"Nintendo should just lighten up and forget this nonsense."
Or stop having people kill things in their games. Talk about mixed messages and moral hypocrisy. Personally I believe that a pretty girl in the nip isn't more morally reprehensible than murder by proxy, especially if she's enjoying herself.
I will point out that I'm currently panting for the release of San Andreas (delayed, bast*rds), so I don't have a moral objection to computer games.
"The police have (as far as I know) no legal right to stop me and demand that I prove who I am."
They do, depending on the circumstances.
"Even with drivers licences I believe that if you get stopped without yours whilst driving you have 5 days to turn up at the police station with your licence in hand."
A 'producer' is a slip of paper that has boxes ticked to indicate what documents you have to take to a police station within 7 days of being given it. I've gotten away with 10 days and a telling off.
"Most people I think want ID for conveniance, since they percieve more and more places are requiring legal ID"
No, generally they want proof of address; this then links to the Experian credit database and the electoral register (which Experian have full access to, but most other companies do not...a recent change to mean 'opting out' of the sold copy of the electoral register is now possible). Proof of address is as simple as a utility bill. You'd be surprised how many times a Passport is refused as ID.
As for 'ID as convenience', this is a fairly daft idea that completely ignores the problem of government misuse of databases, or even the idea that the government _can_ maintain a very large database after the style of Envision, the TV License people. Who, incidentally, evade the Data Protection Act.
"security and fraud protection"
Of course, the chip and pin proponents completely fail to realise that it shifts liability from the merchant to the consumer, so instead of the supposedly superior method of having someone check the signature on the back of the card with the actual signature (which is still the accepted method for cheques worldwide), they've gone for 9^4 combination with a private key that relies on nobody shoulder-surfing in a store.
Likewise, the Biometric card identifies the person holding it. To suggest that the technologies used in such a card wouldn't be duplicatable within a couple of months of rollout is to ignore the fact that our 'new' passport design was faked within 2 weeks of unveiling, and you can _still_ obtain a chain of documentary evidence for a false persona given the desire, money and tools.
This is essentially the backdoor to the desired gene/fingerprint database that gives Blunkett the giggles and it's this that has earned him Big Brother awards galore. The man has _introduced_ 270 offences over the term of the present government, and is one of the reasons I'm questioning my socialism.
"I live in Europe and therefore I can't easily download strong-encryption PGP, but if I do, whose fault is it? Mine, or the server that hosts it in the US?"
Oh yes you can. Export controls were relaxed in 2000.
Mind you, I believe it's currently illegal to use encryption in France.
"it's strange how a few people that actually put some posts here saying that this is a dupe and even made links to original slashdot discussion are being modded into zeros as redundant."
Not really, more than on 'dupe' declaration is redundant, whereas you can't moderate a story.
On the other hand, would you prefer 'insightful' for every one?
"If it means the chance to change a mind, I'm willing to take that chance."
I'm pretty much the same, but I've taken a huge back seat to some arguments because it's patently obvious that some people are so set on promoting their own ignorance and sticking to an agenda that isn't even close to being internally consistent that you may as well waste the breath on someone willing to compromise.
That does mean that I end up ignoring extremists, but I think the point is that extremists are a lost cause.
"It's cute the way geeks randomly divide companies into 'good' and 'evil' while the companies just go on trying to make a profit"
Who said anything about 'random'? I tend to follow quite a few companies fortunes and Google is one that hasn't made many compromises in it's run up to floatation, but it's going to be interesting to watch what happens if a controlling interest goes to a slightly less ethical entity.
The important point is that corporate entities have no possible reason to act in an ethical manner, except for public opinion and dumping their products faster than meat-flavoured icecream. My choice of bank now has an ethical investment policy, and I've been shifting my stock portfolio to avoid any companies that hover around the grey areas. And you know, it can be effective.
"What I did say was the American system actively, actively works against these traits in people."
What 'American System'? Are you talking societal, governmental or economic?
"For example you don't find any of these positive traits in car salesman, at least while they are on the job."
I know quite a few who are honest. If they were all dishonest, then nobody would buy a car from a car salesman.
"will probably climb over your broken body"
Which is a worldwide trait only not echoed in Wombles. Japanese business is known for being particularly hard on people, but to put this down to a single country really gets into the 'R' word, unless you really enumerate the 'system' you're talking about rather than pandering to THAT viewpoint.
"Ralph Nader has lived a spartan life."
Good on him, but bear in mind that's his choice, and I would warrant that he has more money that you or I. However, don't raise people up to support your viewpoint unless they actually support your viewpoint.
"Most American's strive to make money first, buy things and not live a spartan life."
I've never heard Maslow's Heirarchy so mangled. Substitute 'Americans' with 'people' and you can see a certain amount of folly in your point. Oh, and read up on Abraham Maslow. Interesting guy who has a better grip on what makes people tick than you do.
"Really?! Can you back this up in any way? Do you have a single ounce of support?"
Not from this Briton, although there is a popular movement out there in the world that seems to blame America for a huge number of things.
Personally I just think your government system has been subverted to create a *very* assymetric society, but that's by-the-by.
"You know what? Some of them are honest."
How about Realtors?;)
You appear to have come across someone here who uses blanket generalisations as a method of getting over the idea of there being a continuum of grey rather than a nice solid 'black and white' decision. A worldview as rigid and static as that you won't change through text.
In fact, I think you've been trolled, either on purpose, or mistakenly by an idiot. If they're in with the anti-capitalist movement (and some of the rhetoric sounds familiar), then essentially you're into a degenerative argument with someone who doesn't have answers.
Re:It's like a free ride when you've already paid.
on
GTA: San Andreas Leaked
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
"I'm sick of the fucking hippy element around here that can't learn to live and let live."
That's the fundamental basis of the 'fucking hippy element'. You may have meant something else.
"way of thinking by altering language"
He's just being fashionable. I think the rot started with 'By the people, for the people'. It later continued with the redefinition of 'defense' into 'bomb 'em first'.
"Oh wait, we can't use the word creator anymore either..."
Only as long as you don't apply it to a homocentric anthromorphic diety, or other such fictional construct. It's terribly crass and likely to get people backing away from you.
"You *DO* know the english language is almost designed"
Slashdot Mirror
"These people do exist."
Then change the systems to work around the fact that some people bilk them; don't come the corporate and try to spin the bad message, it just makes people mad.
Unless the US wants to give up it's guns for the few idiots that ventilate people in the street? A curious double standard, non?
"Imagine, being able to talk to someone on the phone while out at the movies! Or while driving! The future holds such promise!"
I see what you did there. That's so funny. I mean, plenty of people might not have thought of that, but you did. I mean, you must keep the people you know in such stitches with such irreverent comedy. Do your write your own material?
The point between the disconnect of cellular and Wifi is to create an alternative that will eventually drop the price of data transfer on the cellular networks (currently the most expensive bandwidth you can buy) and creating a much better environment for convergence later. Seen the PDA/Phones converging? Ipaq's were doing it on VOIP/Bluetooth voice gateway six months ago, and quite fun it was too.
Eventually this is going to end in the idea that we're just shifting information around, which is pretty much the holy grail of IT.
"What the treaty does is set impossible goals for rich industrial countries"
What you meant to say was 'America' instead of 'rich industrial countries'. That's because the majority of G8 nations have actually dealt with it.
"In the end, the emissions aren't actually reduced-- it becomes just another redistributionist scheme."
Are you objecting to the fact that developing countries now have a source of income other than black poppys or that the overall GG burden doesn't actually lessen? You can't refer to it as an impossible goal, then claim that it's simply redistribution.
"I know its packaged completely differently but in the fabled worst case scenario a pebble bed could turn in to a burning pile of graphite just like Chernobyl."
I think you're stretching things a little there. No offence meant.
"Again its probably a worse case scenario and may not even be possible but I prefer to ponder those since the people who are advocating something often try to avoid thinking about the worst case scenario."
Hence the tottering pile of safety measures that make PWRs so darned safe. The main problem is complexity doesn't really allow you to examine all of the possible failures, so you tend to go with 'unlikely', 'likely' and 'almost impossible'.
Pebble-beds should be a lot less complex, and that would allow people more scope for checking out the 'unlikely' and 'impossible' failures.
I see some mileage in the pebble-bed design because it's elegant and simple.
If fission is the way we'll have to go (and my energy bills have just risen by another 9% this year), then this is the design that we need, not something that dumps hydrogen over a hot core of irradiated material.
There are no real alternatives at the moment, not with fusion yet another 20 years down the line.
"To be pedantic Israel is not a confirmed nuclear power."
Yeah, but would you be prepared to make a long bet on that? You know they have at least one, I know that they have at least one.
Makes the kidnapping of Mordechi Vanunu seem a bit petulant otherwise.
"They have the worlds largest superpower on puppet strings already."
Nah. That's the perception, but the screws are being tightened steadily. Bear in mind that Isreal has done some things over the past decade that have given the world's largest superpower cause for concern; and the consistent refusal to engage the whole palestinian question in a more meaningful fashion is nigh on laughable. If you like black comedy and spotted the relative irony of the USA being 'johnny come latelys' to the whole terrorism game, that is.
I meant 'victims of' rather than 'major funders of'.
"Someone will start screaming pebble bed reactors at this point. Well maybe pebble bed reactors are safer but its not a certainty."
Nothing is ever certain, but putting PWR, PGR and other over-engineered solutions together, and the pebble-bed starts to look insanely attractive.
"If you recall Chernobyl was the disaster it was partially thanks to graphite because in the event of an accident and enough heat graphite burns furiously."
As do most other things; but hot graphite has the advantage of not doing much other than being hot. Problems come from other stuff, mainly due to breaking hydrogen out of things. Icky stuff, hydrogen.
I don't get the reference to Chernobyl, though. That was due to a complete lack of moderators that led to a runaway energy production spike. The pebble-bed design would tend to simmer rather than melt it's way through the containment vessel.
"The pebbles have ceramic shielding to prevent the graphite from burning but there is a suspicion that manufacturing defects or mishandling might compromise the shielding and open up the chance a pebble would burn and explode."
About the only thing that could happen is gas bubbles in the ceramic coating undergoing rapid expansion and exploding. As they've already been fired under extremely high temperatures, this is fairly unlikely. Ceramics have a tendancy to be _extremely_ hard, so the mishandling would have to be severe. My main problem isn't those aspects of the design, but more about the handling of a failure mode in a production facility.
The other aspect is that, as a species, we've been piddling around with ceramics for an inordinate amount of time. Three guesses what my original field was in? You haven't seen cool until you've seen refractory ceramics.
"If it did it could damage the pebbles around it and start a non nuclear chain reaction."
What's a non-nuclear chain reaction? You talking about a heat cascade? Because that's pretty much designed in.
"A hurdle is old reactor designs have become prohibitively expensive"
Nineteen-fifties overengineering at work. Slap in a safety measure. Then a safety measure to cover the safety measure. Then a redundancy with a safety measure to make sure...and that's the way it goes.
Design ideas have changed quite considerably because we can't rely on any one component or system to provide fault-free operation. Monju nearly melted down because the sodium coolant ate it's way through a sub-basement. The problem is always cooling...
Funnily enough we have an entire generation who have much the same problem with their processors...
"A large home solar system"
Obvious gags aside, this is a claim without merit, because solar energy varies throughout the year and according to latitude. Then you use 'large' as a descriptor.
What I've been looking for is an indicator of the square-footage of solar cells required, daylight hours and latitude to produce 'x' watts of power, but everyone seems to vary their estimates. The reason for this is that a lot of countries don't have anything like the sparse population of continental North America.
"£500 million - $924 million"
And is surprisingly low, considering that the total IT spend is several billion a year.
You may have missed the bit at school where they mentioned that the nuclear club contains Isreal, and contrary to any opinion, Isreal is not a superpower.
In terms of superpowers, you have to look at the GDP and economic growth, and China has quite a deal going. Any company wishing to take advantage of the huge potential workforce has to sign a fifty/fifty deal with the chinese government. There isn't a lot of creative accounting that you can do, and this has fueled the growth over the past ten years, admittedly past it's ability to create infrastructure, but they're attending to that now.
"when they said that the ID card and laws surrounding the ID card turn our government from working for the people into turning the people into monitored subjects and essentially tipping the balance of power."
... also I don't want to have to pay for this thing."
The idea of the government working for the people is an American ideal. You're in a country where parliment is made up from people who actually sought the power, without the 'service' BS that the Americans flowered up their political process with.
Government is there to steer the country, internally and externally using the Home and Foreign office. They get jittery when the tax income falls, or when people pick up the rocks to see what's skittering underneath. Things like the Dame Porter affair are not that unusual.
"I'd rather have Thatcher back in power"
And the West Midlands serious crimes squad? No, we're better off in the current world than the one that allowed the government of the time to be so pig headed as to ignore public opinion, which happened during the strikes of the late seventies, and sanctioned baton charges against peaceful demostrations. The world is made of it's current state, not by cherry-picking nostalgic portions of history.
"We all know that government shouldn't have too much power,"
No, that's our opinion. Governments have as much power as _we_ allow them before making enough noise and reducing campaign contributions, but knowing when they've gone too far is a matter for opinion...and when you have enough people of a like mind...
"We all know that government shouldn't have too much power, but they use the media to brainwash the people into thinking that new totalitarian laws are justifiable, when they are not."
Be careful, you suggest that people don't like the idea of an ID card, when people are generally focussed very closely on the things that personally hinder or help them. You could make the ID card attractive, but the major concern of the technically competent is that this is a costly panacea to a problem that doesn't really exist, and we'd be sold on the ignorance of the government on a solution that would waste OUR money.
"I don't really care about the ID card myself, it is the laws surrounding it (Identify Yourself!), the fact that the police do misuse powers, the fact that government cannot and should not be trusted with things like this
Then you care about the ID card.
"I have to say Doom3 is far more cinematic and, frankly, fun."
Six years between the games; but you'll notice that the scene setting leading to the 'disaster' on base was identical to the Half-Life one; believe me that was groundbreaking at the time when Quake II was repeating the formula of Doom I.
I never did get hold of the Thief series or System Shock, so I can't comment on those...I'm resisting playing them now because I suspect I've been spoiled by 'Deus Ex'. I'm hoping that HL2 hasn't lost the storyline in favour of the flashy graphics.
"The only game that has gone beyond the basic "run down the hallways and shoot things""
You missed the Dam in HL? The alien world? (which was reminiscent of 'Jet Set Willy', but I'm showing my age) The trash compactor?
Another thing you might want to consider is when both games were released.
Given both of those things, I suspect you're trolling to get more people to buy Nintendo...
" In Doom, the levels were well-architected"
Well-designed, architect isn't a bloody verb.
"but that's an adventure not a shooter so let's not compare apples and oranges."
Very magnanimous, but how are you defining both of those?
You pwn3d AC? Wow, l33t.
Can I hav y0re baybi3s?
"The Suicide Girls concept is about sharing the self-actualization of women in Portland's post-punk subculture. Suicide Girls was developed to be a celbration of attitude of young women rather than specifically providing a visual stimulation for male sexual climax."
Post-modernist art critique aside, I think it's fairly safe to say that they're exercising a certain level of freedom of speech, and enjoying themselves before gravity introduces them to the ugly truth of skin elasticity.
I content myself with admiring Voltaire from afar.
"Nintendo should just lighten up and forget this nonsense."
Or stop having people kill things in their games. Talk about mixed messages and moral hypocrisy. Personally I believe that a pretty girl in the nip isn't more morally reprehensible than murder by proxy, especially if she's enjoying herself.
I will point out that I'm currently panting for the release of San Andreas (delayed, bast*rds), so I don't have a moral objection to computer games.
"The police have (as far as I know) no legal right to stop me and demand that I prove who I am."
They do, depending on the circumstances.
"Even with drivers licences I believe that if you get stopped without yours whilst driving you have 5 days to turn up at the police station with your licence in hand."
A 'producer' is a slip of paper that has boxes ticked to indicate what documents you have to take to a police station within 7 days of being given it. I've gotten away with 10 days and a telling off.
"Most people I think want ID for conveniance, since they percieve more and more places are requiring legal ID"
No, generally they want proof of address; this then links to the Experian credit database and the electoral register (which Experian have full access to, but most other companies do not...a recent change to mean 'opting out' of the sold copy of the electoral register is now possible). Proof of address is as simple as a utility bill. You'd be surprised how many times a Passport is refused as ID.
As for 'ID as convenience', this is a fairly daft idea that completely ignores the problem of government misuse of databases, or even the idea that the government _can_ maintain a very large database after the style of Envision, the TV License people. Who, incidentally, evade the Data Protection Act.
"security and fraud protection"
Of course, the chip and pin proponents completely fail to realise that it shifts liability from the merchant to the consumer, so instead of the supposedly superior method of having someone check the signature on the back of the card with the actual signature (which is still the accepted method for cheques worldwide), they've gone for 9^4 combination with a private key that relies on nobody shoulder-surfing in a store.
Likewise, the Biometric card identifies the person holding it. To suggest that the technologies used in such a card wouldn't be duplicatable within a couple of months of rollout is to ignore the fact that our 'new' passport design was faked within 2 weeks of unveiling, and you can _still_ obtain a chain of documentary evidence for a false persona given the desire, money and tools.
This is essentially the backdoor to the desired gene/fingerprint database that gives Blunkett the giggles and it's this that has earned him Big Brother awards galore. The man has _introduced_ 270 offences over the term of the present government, and is one of the reasons I'm questioning my socialism.
"I live in Europe and therefore I can't easily download strong-encryption PGP, but if I do, whose fault is it? Mine, or the server that hosts it in the US?"
Oh yes you can. Export controls were relaxed in 2000.
Mind you, I believe it's currently illegal to use encryption in France.
"DOOM 3 defines first-person cinematic action"
Actually, my vote goes to Half-Life.
"it's strange how a few people that actually put some posts here saying that this is a dupe and even made links to original slashdot discussion are being modded into zeros as redundant."
Not really, more than on 'dupe' declaration is redundant, whereas you can't moderate a story.
On the other hand, would you prefer 'insightful' for every one?
"If it means the chance to change a mind, I'm willing to take that chance."
I'm pretty much the same, but I've taken a huge back seat to some arguments because it's patently obvious that some people are so set on promoting their own ignorance and sticking to an agenda that isn't even close to being internally consistent that you may as well waste the breath on someone willing to compromise.
That does mean that I end up ignoring extremists, but I think the point is that extremists are a lost cause.
"Hippies want to rule the world. They want to force us to believe how they believe."
They
Do you enjoy stereotypes?
"anti-Judeo-Christian rant?"
When you labelled it, there.
"There's no need to bring God into this"
So why did you? I was referring to the Great Green Arkleseizure.
"It's cute the way geeks randomly divide companies into 'good' and 'evil' while the companies just go on trying to make a profit"
Who said anything about 'random'? I tend to follow quite a few companies fortunes and Google is one that hasn't made many compromises in it's run up to floatation, but it's going to be interesting to watch what happens if a controlling interest goes to a slightly less ethical entity.
The important point is that corporate entities have no possible reason to act in an ethical manner, except for public opinion and dumping their products faster than meat-flavoured icecream. My choice of bank now has an ethical investment policy, and I've been shifting my stock portfolio to avoid any companies that hover around the grey areas. And you know, it can be effective.
"What I did say was the American system actively, actively works against these traits in people."
What 'American System'? Are you talking societal, governmental or economic?
"For example you don't find any of these positive traits in car salesman, at least while they are on the job."
I know quite a few who are honest. If they were all dishonest, then nobody would buy a car from a car salesman.
"will probably climb over your broken body"
Which is a worldwide trait only not echoed in Wombles. Japanese business is known for being particularly hard on people, but to put this down to a single country really gets into the 'R' word, unless you really enumerate the 'system' you're talking about rather than pandering to THAT viewpoint.
"Ralph Nader has lived a spartan life."
Good on him, but bear in mind that's his choice, and I would warrant that he has more money that you or I. However, don't raise people up to support your viewpoint unless they actually support your viewpoint.
"Most American's strive to make money first, buy things and not live a spartan life."
I've never heard Maslow's Heirarchy so mangled. Substitute 'Americans' with 'people' and you can see a certain amount of folly in your point. Oh, and read up on Abraham Maslow. Interesting guy who has a better grip on what makes people tick than you do.
"Really?! Can you back this up in any way? Do you have a single ounce of support?"
;)
Not from this Briton, although there is a popular movement out there in the world that seems to blame America for a huge number of things.
Personally I just think your government system has been subverted to create a *very* assymetric society, but that's by-the-by.
"You know what? Some of them are honest."
How about Realtors?
You appear to have come across someone here who uses blanket generalisations as a method of getting over the idea of there being a continuum of grey rather than a nice solid 'black and white' decision. A worldview as rigid and static as that you won't change through text.
In fact, I think you've been trolled, either on purpose, or mistakenly by an idiot. If they're in with the anti-capitalist movement (and some of the rhetoric sounds familiar), then essentially you're into a degenerative argument with someone who doesn't have answers.
"I'm sick of the fucking hippy element around here that can't learn to live and let live."
That's the fundamental basis of the 'fucking hippy element'. You may have meant something else.
"way of thinking by altering language"
He's just being fashionable. I think the rot started with 'By the people, for the people'. It later continued with the redefinition of 'defense' into 'bomb 'em first'.
"Oh wait, we can't use the word creator anymore either..."
Only as long as you don't apply it to a homocentric anthromorphic diety, or other such fictional construct. It's terribly crass and likely to get people backing away from you.
"You *DO* know the english language is almost designed"
You call it design, we call it evolution.