Looks like the kind of comment a big oil company's legal team would make when questioned about corrupt or otherwise shady business dealings.
we have a legitimate claim to resources we are able to take and do take from the earth and hold without interfering with what anybody else is already doing.
"Legitimate" my ass: suppose there would exist some material called unobtainium, that's both so rare & essential to (human) life, that it would be unethical if any stash found wasn't -somewhat- evenly distributed over a large # of people. And suppose you happened to stumble upon a heap of this unobtainium. You think it should be yours (including the option to deny others having some of this life-essential material), for the simple reason you happened to dig it up first?
Country has oil field -> corrupt government sells contents to big oil company -> oil company sucks the field dry & and is now legitimate owner of that extracted oil? (according to your logic). Same thing.
If early in life, I had been offered an equal share of this planet's fertile land, mineral resources, unpolluted waters & air, no more, no less, I'd have taken that offer and my life would have been very different today. Specifically: with a more direct relation between [work put in] and [fruits of labour enjoyed].
The "boots on the ground, and my guns are bigger than yours" comment made elsewhere in this thread is very much accurate. That's how it's been historically. Later a whole legal framework was crafted to help protect such interests. And history + practicalities tend to form a massive whole that's damn near impossible to fight. So most people (as they grow up) accept that status quo and get on with their life. But FAIR? Hell no!
We are all just temporary stewards of pieces from this blue marble in space. Anything beyond that is history & legal constructs foisted upon us by our ancestors.
I would RATHER send a damned robot in to face hostiles than one of my KIDS.
Killer robots are a GOOD thing. They will result in a NET REDUCTION in hostilities. People don't pick fights they know they can't win!
Fighters on the receiving end also have kids. Or even are kids (fighters & civilians). Why would their deaths be any less bad than you or your kids' ? Just because they happen to be on the other side of the fence?
That's why perhaps AI powered autonomous weapons should be banned all together, and their use considered a war crime. Simply because they may make it too easy to pull the trigger.
Killing people wholesale should be hard, period. Looking the person on the receiving end in the eye, and not able to pull the trigger? Then why kill 'em from 50 km's away using a push button? Apart from the mechanics it's the same thing right?
And yes people are fighting even when it seems they can't win. Like when they feel they have no other option (like resist/fight or be killed anyway like sheep in a massacre). Fight an enemy that hates them just for the religion they practice. Or that's taking land their ancestors have lived on like.. forever. Plenty good reasons possible even if the fight appears hopeless.
More likely, a number of years from now they'll be sacked because a Facebook-developed AI system does their job cheaper. How ironic...
Kids! If you're reading this, and you have a study to choose: make your choice with the aim of personal growth. To learn more about the world, to follow your interests, to broaden your horizons, help improve the world we live on, etc. If your choice comes with good career prospects, even better. But don't let the career part be your #1 criterium.
The spread of AI intelligent systems may eat into the "career prospects" part quicker than you realize. Possibly within years of graduating. Don't waste some of the best years of your life on that if that's your main motive for choosing that study. But the "personal growth" part will be with you for the rest of your life. That's a good investment regardless of career prospects. When eg. fully-automatic built houses become the norm, we'll have plenty of engineers, carpenters, truck drivers & paper-pushers to go around. What this world needs is more visionaries, entrepreneurs, and people who go where no-one went before (which may include a scientist here & there).
Fwiw: learning how to code is a useful skill in any case, I think. If it's not your thing, just do some of it on the side to "get your feet wet" so to speak.
I have been reliably informed by slashdot that architectural differences don't matter at all because of something called a translation layer.
For modern, high performance cores like the latest x86's you may be right. With their billions of transistors, large multi-layer caches, out-of-order execution, pulling instructions apart into u-ops (and/or multitude of other tricks employed under the hood), some extra complexity in instruction decoding could be a minor part of the transistor budget. Changing little in terms of raw performance, power efficiency etc and making the CISC vs. RISC debate a moot point.
But that's not what RISC-V is about. It's a clean-slate architecture.
It's meant to scale. For a big high performance x86 a complex instruction set may not matter much, but if you're scaling down into low-power / low cost / embedded cpu's, a simpler ISA means smaller, cheaper, more power efficient devices. For scaling up, RISC-V provides for modular extensions to the instruction set. Making applications easy to move from low-end to higher-end parts (and vice versa). Or if you're into some many-core design, having a smaller / simpler core to start with, means you can put more of them on your slab of silicon.
If virtualization is your thing, RISC-V architecture is designed from the start with that in mind. Not bolted onto a 20~30 year old architecture.
Not to mention there's no IP royalties due should you want to bake your own IC's. For large-volume / thin-margin items, that could be a biggie even if you're talking a few $cents a pop (or thereabouts).
Surely the above isn't all - check the RISC-V website if you haven't already. Given the number of organizations & companies behind, I think it's set to take over a large share in several markets. Probably in the long term though, from the low end up.
And if that genetic modification changes something in those pigs' meat that promotes cancer in you (regardless of effect on the pig's health), would you care? If research team says that's not the case, could you trust them? Could those scientists even be sure themselves, that they've 'covered all bases' ?
Lots of questions. Probably a lot more I didn't think of. And possibly even more answers that will be MIA. There's just 1 thing I am sure about: (some) scientists will probably be more confident in making claims, than I'd be confident in believing those claims. Regardless of how much I trust or respect the scientists involved.
Disclaimer: been a vegetarian for close to 40y now, so I wouldn't care much either way. Unless it makes the pig's -short- life happier. In that case: great, go for it!:-)
This is a very predictable result of crowdfunding. No need to demonstrate competence or experience in a market since your funders are even more ignorant.
For what it's worth: one may regard that as a *feature* of crowdfunding. To tread new ground where no established company would have gone because established company 'knows' it wouldn't work (note the quotation marks). Or for whatever reason chose not to go there.
Sure that will produce lemons at times. Letting backers' money go to waste. But it can also produce surprises. Products that nobody thought possible. Or things that were possible, but deemed impractical or having no chance in the market.
Nobody said that backers shouldn't do their homework.
Battery weight is the problem when it comes to aviation.
So? That means (for the time being) it'll only work for very light planes, and/or short hops. Trips like Amsterdam -> London, which iirc is something like 15 or 20 mins actual flight time. Plenty of short flight routes like that around the world. And of course that's only the beginning as battery technology improves.
That said: personally I think it's a shame we're not seeing more electric ships. For that application, weight is a non-issue. And moving masses through water is a very energy-efficient manner to move anything around, so energy contents is also less of an issue than for cars or planes. Well at least we have electric bicycles...:-)
How many times do people charge their phone off a "public" USB charge port in an airport or on public transportation? Any one of those ports could be trying to slurp confidential data.
If you rely on either your phone's security, or trusting whatever 3rd party provides a charge port, you're doing it wrong.
Just use a charge-only cable that has only power wires, but no data lines in it. Or bring an AC -> DC adapter as well, and use an AC mains outlet. Or bring a powerbank. Or charge from your laptop.
Comparing power generation on the basis of installed capacity is like trying to eat enough to live based solely on the weight of food you're consuming completely ignoring the different caloric and nutritional content of the different foods.
You mean like a panda that just eats bamboo, and when hungry just eats more bamboo?
Maybe you're right, and this planet deserves to get rid of humans. But look at it this way:
In geological / planetary timescales, humans have only been around for the blink of an eye. Yes we're stupid. Careless. Stomping out species wherever we go. Using this planet's resources wasteful. Poisoning its air, soil & waters. And it probably wouldn't hurt the planet's ecosystems if all humans disappeared yesterday.
BUT: we're also learning. Sloooowwwwly, yes, but learning. How to avoid mistakes made in the past. How to make more efficient use of resources. How to curb population growth (again: slooooowwwwly). How to clean up rivers & lakes. And in a few cases, how to revive almost-extinct animal or plant species. Or at least preserve a few living specimens in zoos, gardens and seed banks around the world. Over time, chances are we'll become better stewards of this planet than some of our ancestors were.
Now suppose all humans would disappear in short order. The planet would go through some climate change cycles. Many species would disappear. New species would evolve. And perhaps a few million years from now another 'intelligent' (?) species might evolve. Probably only to make the same mistakes again. Or worse.
So... give us time. Mechanisms are in place to bring humans to a halt should things get out of hand. Like a limit on amount of arable land. Oil running out. Or climate change, turning some population centres into un-liveable areas. One way or another, at some point something will have to give.
When naked survival is at stake, humans can learn quick & become very inventive. If / when we learn, both ourselves and our planet may turn out for the better. And should we spread out over the solar system (or even further out) and take those lessons with us, perhaps not make the same mistakes elsewhere.
So if you care: try and do your bit. Help others do the same. And be patient. We're not done on this planet. And this planet is not done with us. Not yet, anyway...:-)
The company's goal is to capture every plate in Ohio and use that information to reveal patterns. A plate shot outside an apartment at 5 a.m. tells you that's probably where the driver spends the night, no matter their listed home address. So when a repo order comes in for a car, the agent already knows where to look.
Repo agents are responsible for the majority of the billions of license plate scans produced nationwide. But they don't control the information. Most of that data is owned by Digital Recognition Network (DRN), a Fort Worth company that is the largest provider of license-plate-recognition systems. And DRN sells the information to insurance companies, private investigators - even other repo agents.
DRN is a sister company to Vigilant Solutions, which provides the plate scans to law enforcement, including police and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Which would indicate every plate scanned ends up in a database. Regardless whether it's on some "wanted" list. And that data is passed on, used for purposes other than what it was gathered for.
That seems like an enormous invasion of privacy. How it's even possible that is legal, is beyond me. In the European Union such shit wouldn't fly (I think). Well perhaps except in police state the UK that is...
Not to mention there's no need for a plate scan to ever leave the scanning vehicle. Not even for a lookup in a "wanted" list: such lists are relatively small, a copy could easily be kept onboard the scanning vehicle, a scanned plate compared against, no match? Forget that plate immediately, only record/upload hits.
Shooting pics in public with -perhaps- some recognisable faces in it, is one thing. But keeping tabs on everyone that passes by is an enormous invasion of privacy - public place or not. That should be illegal unless there's a very pressing need for it. And even then only done with the recording aspect kept to the minimum necessary.
No need to explain the significance of the GNU project. Or the role it played in getting Linux out there. But on my Debian system, I have software written by:
The many, many X.org contributors (past & present)
Mozilla project contributors
Google
Red Hat
John Carmack himself
countless bits & pieces written by others
Just to name a few. Why would GNU be special enough to be named in one breath with Linux, but not those other authors? Makes no sense to me. Therefore, "Linux based OS" or similar will do fine. Or just name the specific distro or software component(s) and be done with it.
You're on Slashdot and you don't know how to bypass a paywall, so I guess the joke is on you.
Irrelevant. You're editor on a site that receives millions of visitors per month, and you post on the front page a paywalled link as the story to read?
FAIL.
I don't like bashing/. editors, but unfortunately it's too often called for. Sending readers to look for ways around a paywall, is not a good thing. From ethical nor editorial p.o.v.
From the article: "the site's administrators, located in the United Kingdom, Croatia, Canada, and Serbia. (..) server infrastructure located in the Netherlands, the US and Germany".
I would think the people who own the site should have known to put it in a country with a small king and include him in on the money.
I'm from the NL, which is known for hosting things that are frowned upon elsewhere (eg. the NL is a popular choice for hosting porn sites). Why? Because my country has a long tradition of protecting free speech, protecting minorities, embracing diversity among groups of people etc. Besides well-connected internet infrastructure. Which makes the NL a good choice for hosting stuff that might come under attack either legally, DoS-wise or even physical attacks.
Hosting such things in a 'dirty corner' of the net makes it easier (for folks that don't like your site) to blacklist, remove from search engines, or bribe some officials to cut a line & look the other way. Much more difficult for content hosted in the NL. Similar story for US & Germany.
We used to have editors that knew some tech stuff and wouldn't just spam clickbait all the time.
Maybe they were already replaced by some AI machinery years ago, editors have been sitting on a beach somewhere sipping Margarita's, and even us haven't been smart enough to figure it out. Good job there/., your AI gear passed the Turing test!
Makes no sense. Once conditions turn bad enough that another civil war breaks out in the USA, wouldn't you *want* neighbouring countries to provide food & ammo while you're busy shooting each other? (no need for more guns I assume)
Let's face it: whatever technology lead the US used to have, it's gone, or about to in the coming years / decades. Just reading tech news regularly yields a # of reasons:
* Housing prices in the Silicon Valley area.
* Anti-immigration views displayed by the current US president (and quite a few of his followers).
* The crazy Republicans vs. Democrats political situation.
* Intellectual property hassles combined with a lawsuit-happy culture (with expensive lawyers as the cherry on top;-).
* Investments in fundamental R&D slipping (vs. other countries gearing up).
* Silicon Valley itself turning from a brand-new-tech 'heaven' to a create-value-for-shareholders focus.
* Other countries reaching a stage of development such that there are many tech centres to choose from (see eg. AI talent gathering in China).
Just to name a few. Not saying the above is good or bad in itself... But if I were about to run a tech startup, rather than Silicon Valley I'd be looking to move to Hong Kong / Shenzhen area. Or even some lesser known place in say, Eastern Europe or South America, provided enough talent in the field & facilities / suppliers were already there.
Get used to it, US! High tech is spreading around the world.:-)) Your days as top dog are numbered.
No, they'd have to release the movies involved in French theatres (okay), but then (according to the law) wait 3 years before offering it to their French subscribers? Obviously not happening.
Or they could show the movies at Cannes, but not have 'em compete. Why not compete alongside the other movies shown there? Not fair (at least in Netflix' opinion, and I would agree).
Remaining option: pull out all together. Which seems quite a reasonable choice given the above.
Observed from 6 a.m. until 6 a.m. the next morning, Nyepi is a day reserved for self-reflection, and as such, anything that might interfere with that purpose is restricted. The main restrictions are no lighting fires (and lights must be kept low); no working; no entertainment or pleasure; no traveling; and, for some, no talking or eating at all. The effect of these prohibitions is that Bali's usually bustling streets and roads are empty, there is little or no noise from TVs and radios, and few signs of activity are seen even inside homes.
sounds good (we could have more of that, people tend to be noisy & stir things up wherever they go), the line following above quote already spoils it:
The only people to be seen outdoors are the Pecalang, traditional security men who patrol the streets to ensure the prohibitions are being followed.
To avoid confusion: I have no problem with religion in general. At all. But too much trouble in this world starts when [population group A] wants to enforce their world views on [population group B]. Above example seems pretty harmless, but the principle still holds. For that reason I hate it whenever this happens. Practical reasons: fine. When an issue must be decided one way or the other, and a super-majority picks the 'least evil' option with minimized harm to others: okay. But forcing some measure upon others for NO GOOD REASON other than tradition / culture / religion / state repression or whatever: not okay.
While looking harmless enough in this case, it includes denying a basic utility service to (also according to WP) around 16.5% of non-Hindus in Bali. Or in the order of ~800k people. Who may or may not choose to participate in the event. But in case not, see their freedom to fill in their day as desired, trampled upon by the majority.
If you want peace & quiet, go some place where there is peace & quiet, and do nothing to disturb that. If you want that as a group, find a place big enough for that group. If you want that for the rest of your live, go live in a place with no / few people around. Otherwise: stop messing with OTHER PEOPLE's lives. They are not your life, and thus (unless your rights are inflicted upon) not your business to mess with.
How do you explain all of the major open source software that is widely hated by users, such as systemd, Firefox, Gnome 3, PulseAudio, and NetworkManager? Those projects have bad reputations for not listening to their users.
Duh.. simple:
Many people have tried. But no matter what, that source code just wouldn't go away!
Slashdot Mirror
Looks like the kind of comment a big oil company's legal team would make when questioned about corrupt or otherwise shady business dealings.
we have a legitimate claim to resources we are able to take and do take from the earth and hold without interfering with what anybody else is already doing.
"Legitimate" my ass: suppose there would exist some material called unobtainium, that's both so rare & essential to (human) life, that it would be unethical if any stash found wasn't -somewhat- evenly distributed over a large # of people. And suppose you happened to stumble upon a heap of this unobtainium. You think it should be yours (including the option to deny others having some of this life-essential material), for the simple reason you happened to dig it up first?
Country has oil field -> corrupt government sells contents to big oil company -> oil company sucks the field dry & and is now legitimate owner of that extracted oil? (according to your logic). Same thing.
If early in life, I had been offered an equal share of this planet's fertile land, mineral resources, unpolluted waters & air, no more, no less, I'd have taken that offer and my life would have been very different today. Specifically: with a more direct relation between [work put in] and [fruits of labour enjoyed].
The "boots on the ground, and my guns are bigger than yours" comment made elsewhere in this thread is very much accurate. That's how it's been historically. Later a whole legal framework was crafted to help protect such interests. And history + practicalities tend to form a massive whole that's damn near impossible to fight. So most people (as they grow up) accept that status quo and get on with their life. But FAIR? Hell no!
We are all just temporary stewards of pieces from this blue marble in space. Anything beyond that is history & legal constructs foisted upon us by our ancestors.
I would RATHER send a damned robot in to face hostiles than one of my KIDS. Killer robots are a GOOD thing. They will result in a NET REDUCTION in hostilities. People don't pick fights they know they can't win!
Fighters on the receiving end also have kids. Or even are kids (fighters & civilians). Why would their deaths be any less bad than you or your kids' ? Just because they happen to be on the other side of the fence?
That's why perhaps AI powered autonomous weapons should be banned all together, and their use considered a war crime. Simply because they may make it too easy to pull the trigger.
Killing people wholesale should be hard, period. Looking the person on the receiving end in the eye, and not able to pull the trigger? Then why kill 'em from 50 km's away using a push button? Apart from the mechanics it's the same thing right?
And yes people are fighting even when it seems they can't win. Like when they feel they have no other option (like resist/fight or be killed anyway like sheep in a massacre). Fight an enemy that hates them just for the religion they practice. Or that's taking land their ancestors have lived on like.. forever. Plenty good reasons possible even if the fight appears hopeless.
I've always preferred hex glass myself. More drops per digit, y' know.
More likely, a number of years from now they'll be sacked because a Facebook-developed AI system does their job cheaper. How ironic...
Kids! If you're reading this, and you have a study to choose: make your choice with the aim of personal growth. To learn more about the world, to follow your interests, to broaden your horizons, help improve the world we live on, etc. If your choice comes with good career prospects, even better. But don't let the career part be your #1 criterium.
The spread of AI intelligent systems may eat into the "career prospects" part quicker than you realize. Possibly within years of graduating. Don't waste some of the best years of your life on that if that's your main motive for choosing that study. But the "personal growth" part will be with you for the rest of your life. That's a good investment regardless of career prospects. When eg. fully-automatic built houses become the norm, we'll have plenty of engineers, carpenters, truck drivers & paper-pushers to go around. What this world needs is more visionaries, entrepreneurs, and people who go where no-one went before (which may include a scientist here & there).
Fwiw: learning how to code is a useful skill in any case, I think. If it's not your thing, just do some of it on the side to "get your feet wet" so to speak.
I have been reliably informed by slashdot that architectural differences don't matter at all because of something called a translation layer.
For modern, high performance cores like the latest x86's you may be right. With their billions of transistors, large multi-layer caches, out-of-order execution, pulling instructions apart into u-ops (and/or multitude of other tricks employed under the hood), some extra complexity in instruction decoding could be a minor part of the transistor budget. Changing little in terms of raw performance, power efficiency etc and making the CISC vs. RISC debate a moot point.
But that's not what RISC-V is about. It's a clean-slate architecture.
It's meant to scale. For a big high performance x86 a complex instruction set may not matter much, but if you're scaling down into low-power / low cost / embedded cpu's, a simpler ISA means smaller, cheaper, more power efficient devices. For scaling up, RISC-V provides for modular extensions to the instruction set. Making applications easy to move from low-end to higher-end parts (and vice versa). Or if you're into some many-core design, having a smaller / simpler core to start with, means you can put more of them on your slab of silicon.
If virtualization is your thing, RISC-V architecture is designed from the start with that in mind. Not bolted onto a 20~30 year old architecture.
Not to mention there's no IP royalties due should you want to bake your own IC's. For large-volume / thin-margin items, that could be a biggie even if you're talking a few $cents a pop (or thereabouts).
Surely the above isn't all - check the RISC-V website if you haven't already. Given the number of organizations & companies behind, I think it's set to take over a large share in several markets. Probably in the long term though, from the low end up.
Will the pigs get cancers?
Not before I eat them.
And if that genetic modification changes something in those pigs' meat that promotes cancer in you (regardless of effect on the pig's health), would you care? If research team says that's not the case, could you trust them? Could those scientists even be sure themselves, that they've 'covered all bases' ?
Lots of questions. Probably a lot more I didn't think of. And possibly even more answers that will be MIA. There's just 1 thing I am sure about: (some) scientists will probably be more confident in making claims, than I'd be confident in believing those claims. Regardless of how much I trust or respect the scientists involved.
Disclaimer: been a vegetarian for close to 40y now, so I wouldn't care much either way. Unless it makes the pig's -short- life happier. In that case: great, go for it! :-)
This is a very predictable result of crowdfunding. No need to demonstrate competence or experience in a market since your funders are even more ignorant.
For what it's worth: one may regard that as a *feature* of crowdfunding. To tread new ground where no established company would have gone because established company 'knows' it wouldn't work (note the quotation marks). Or for whatever reason chose not to go there.
Sure that will produce lemons at times. Letting backers' money go to waste. But it can also produce surprises. Products that nobody thought possible. Or things that were possible, but deemed impractical or having no chance in the market.
Nobody said that backers shouldn't do their homework.
Come on give 'em a break, this company is still learning. Their next product will be SO much more secure!
Battery weight is the problem when it comes to aviation.
So? That means (for the time being) it'll only work for very light planes, and/or short hops. Trips like Amsterdam -> London, which iirc is something like 15 or 20 mins actual flight time. Plenty of short flight routes like that around the world. And of course that's only the beginning as battery technology improves.
That said: personally I think it's a shame we're not seeing more electric ships. For that application, weight is a non-issue. And moving masses through water is a very energy-efficient manner to move anything around, so energy contents is also less of an issue than for cars or planes. Well at least we have electric bicycles... :-)
How many times do people charge their phone off a "public" USB charge port in an airport or on public transportation? Any one of those ports could be trying to slurp confidential data.
If you rely on either your phone's security, or trusting whatever 3rd party provides a charge port, you're doing it wrong.
Just use a charge-only cable that has only power wires, but no data lines in it. Or bring an AC -> DC adapter as well, and use an AC mains outlet. Or bring a powerbank. Or charge from your laptop.
Comparing power generation on the basis of installed capacity is like trying to eat enough to live based solely on the weight of food you're consuming completely ignoring the different caloric and nutritional content of the different foods.
You mean like a panda that just eats bamboo, and when hungry just eats more bamboo?
Maybe you're right, and this planet deserves to get rid of humans. But look at it this way:
In geological / planetary timescales, humans have only been around for the blink of an eye. Yes we're stupid. Careless. Stomping out species wherever we go. Using this planet's resources wasteful. Poisoning its air, soil & waters. And it probably wouldn't hurt the planet's ecosystems if all humans disappeared yesterday.
BUT: we're also learning. Sloooowwwwly, yes, but learning. How to avoid mistakes made in the past. How to make more efficient use of resources. How to curb population growth (again: slooooowwwwly). How to clean up rivers & lakes. And in a few cases, how to revive almost-extinct animal or plant species. Or at least preserve a few living specimens in zoos, gardens and seed banks around the world. Over time, chances are we'll become better stewards of this planet than some of our ancestors were.
Now suppose all humans would disappear in short order. The planet would go through some climate change cycles. Many species would disappear. New species would evolve. And perhaps a few million years from now another 'intelligent' (?) species might evolve. Probably only to make the same mistakes again. Or worse.
So... give us time. Mechanisms are in place to bring humans to a halt should things get out of hand. Like a limit on amount of arable land. Oil running out. Or climate change, turning some population centres into un-liveable areas. One way or another, at some point something will have to give.
When naked survival is at stake, humans can learn quick & become very inventive. If / when we learn, both ourselves and our planet may turn out for the better. And should we spread out over the solar system (or even further out) and take those lessons with us, perhaps not make the same mistakes elsewhere.
So if you care: try and do your bit. Help others do the same. And be patient. We're not done on this planet. And this planet is not done with us. Not yet, anyway... :-)
Some quotes from the article:
The company's goal is to capture every plate in Ohio and use that information to reveal patterns. A plate shot outside an apartment at 5 a.m. tells you that's probably where the driver spends the night, no matter their listed home address. So when a repo order comes in for a car, the agent already knows where to look.
Repo agents are responsible for the majority of the billions of license plate scans produced nationwide. But they don't control the information. Most of that data is owned by Digital Recognition Network (DRN), a Fort Worth company that is the largest provider of license-plate-recognition systems. And DRN sells the information to insurance companies, private investigators - even other repo agents. DRN is a sister company to Vigilant Solutions, which provides the plate scans to law enforcement, including police and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Which would indicate every plate scanned ends up in a database. Regardless whether it's on some "wanted" list. And that data is passed on, used for purposes other than what it was gathered for.
That seems like an enormous invasion of privacy. How it's even possible that is legal, is beyond me. In the European Union such shit wouldn't fly (I think). Well perhaps except in police state the UK that is...
Not to mention there's no need for a plate scan to ever leave the scanning vehicle. Not even for a lookup in a "wanted" list: such lists are relatively small, a copy could easily be kept onboard the scanning vehicle, a scanned plate compared against, no match? Forget that plate immediately, only record/upload hits.
Shooting pics in public with -perhaps- some recognisable faces in it, is one thing. But keeping tabs on everyone that passes by is an enormous invasion of privacy - public place or not. That should be illegal unless there's a very pressing need for it. And even then only done with the recording aspect kept to the minimum necessary.
No need to explain the significance of the GNU project. Or the role it played in getting Linux out there. But on my Debian system, I have software written by:
Just to name a few. Why would GNU be special enough to be named in one breath with Linux, but not those other authors? Makes no sense to me. Therefore, "Linux based OS" or similar will do fine. Or just name the specific distro or software component(s) and be done with it.
You're on Slashdot and you don't know how to bypass a paywall, so I guess the joke is on you.
Irrelevant. You're editor on a site that receives millions of visitors per month, and you post on the front page a paywalled link as the story to read?
FAIL.
I don't like bashing /. editors, but unfortunately it's too often called for. Sending readers to look for ways around a paywall, is not a good thing. From ethical nor editorial p.o.v.
From the article: "the site's administrators, located in the United Kingdom, Croatia, Canada, and Serbia. (..) server infrastructure located in the Netherlands, the US and Germany".
I would think the people who own the site should have known to put it in a country with a small king and include him in on the money.
I'm from the NL, which is known for hosting things that are frowned upon elsewhere (eg. the NL is a popular choice for hosting porn sites). Why? Because my country has a long tradition of protecting free speech, protecting minorities, embracing diversity among groups of people etc. Besides well-connected internet infrastructure. Which makes the NL a good choice for hosting stuff that might come under attack either legally, DoS-wise or even physical attacks.
Hosting such things in a 'dirty corner' of the net makes it easier (for folks that don't like your site) to blacklist, remove from search engines, or bribe some officials to cut a line & look the other way. Much more difficult for content hosted in the NL. Similar story for US & Germany.
We used to have editors that knew some tech stuff and wouldn't just spam clickbait all the time.
Maybe they were already replaced by some AI machinery years ago, editors have been sitting on a beach somewhere sipping Margarita's, and even us haven't been smart enough to figure it out. Good job there /., your AI gear passed the Turing test!
Makes no sense. Once conditions turn bad enough that another civil war breaks out in the USA, wouldn't you *want* neighbouring countries to provide food & ammo while you're busy shooting each other? (no need for more guns I assume)
</sarcasm>
Let's face it: whatever technology lead the US used to have, it's gone, or about to in the coming years / decades. Just reading tech news regularly yields a # of reasons:
* Housing prices in the Silicon Valley area. ;-).
* Anti-immigration views displayed by the current US president (and quite a few of his followers).
* The crazy Republicans vs. Democrats political situation.
* Intellectual property hassles combined with a lawsuit-happy culture (with expensive lawyers as the cherry on top
* Investments in fundamental R&D slipping (vs. other countries gearing up).
* Silicon Valley itself turning from a brand-new-tech 'heaven' to a create-value-for-shareholders focus.
* Other countries reaching a stage of development such that there are many tech centres to choose from (see eg. AI talent gathering in China).
Just to name a few. Not saying the above is good or bad in itself... But if I were about to run a tech startup, rather than Silicon Valley I'd be looking to move to Hong Kong / Shenzhen area. Or even some lesser known place in say, Eastern Europe or South America, provided enough talent in the field & facilities / suppliers were already there.
Get used to it, US! High tech is spreading around the world. :-)) Your days as top dog are numbered.
No, they'd have to release the movies involved in French theatres (okay), but then (according to the law) wait 3 years before offering it to their French subscribers? Obviously not happening.
Or they could show the movies at Cannes, but not have 'em compete. Why not compete alongside the other movies shown there? Not fair (at least in Netflix' opinion, and I would agree).
Remaining option: pull out all together. Which seems quite a reasonable choice given the above.
Sorry messed up the numbers a bit there. Might be closer to ~700k non-Hindus in Bali...
There. Plain and simple. While Nyepi:
Observed from 6 a.m. until 6 a.m. the next morning, Nyepi is a day reserved for self-reflection, and as such, anything that might interfere with that purpose is restricted. The main restrictions are no lighting fires (and lights must be kept low); no working; no entertainment or pleasure; no traveling; and, for some, no talking or eating at all. The effect of these prohibitions is that Bali's usually bustling streets and roads are empty, there is little or no noise from TVs and radios, and few signs of activity are seen even inside homes.
sounds good (we could have more of that, people tend to be noisy & stir things up wherever they go), the line following above quote already spoils it:
The only people to be seen outdoors are the Pecalang, traditional security men who patrol the streets to ensure the prohibitions are being followed.
To avoid confusion: I have no problem with religion in general. At all. But too much trouble in this world starts when [population group A] wants to enforce their world views on [population group B]. Above example seems pretty harmless, but the principle still holds. For that reason I hate it whenever this happens. Practical reasons: fine. When an issue must be decided one way or the other, and a super-majority picks the 'least evil' option with minimized harm to others: okay. But forcing some measure upon others for NO GOOD REASON other than tradition / culture / religion / state repression or whatever: not okay.
While looking harmless enough in this case, it includes denying a basic utility service to (also according to WP) around 16.5% of non-Hindus in Bali. Or in the order of ~800k people. Who may or may not choose to participate in the event. But in case not, see their freedom to fill in their day as desired, trampled upon by the majority.
If you want peace & quiet, go some place where there is peace & quiet, and do nothing to disturb that. If you want that as a group, find a place big enough for that group. If you want that for the rest of your live, go live in a place with no / few people around. Otherwise: stop messing with OTHER PEOPLE's lives. They are not your life, and thus (unless your rights are inflicted upon) not your business to mess with.
(..) I only use Chrome when I specifically need to access a site which still uses Flash.
No such use case here. If a site 'needs' Flash, I don't 'need' that site.
It's a good time to learn how robots work. Specifically: their weaknesses, how to make 'em not work. Just in case...
How do you explain all of the major open source software that is widely hated by users, such as systemd, Firefox, Gnome 3, PulseAudio, and NetworkManager? Those projects have bad reputations for not listening to their users.
Duh.. simple:
Many people have tried. But no matter what, that source code just wouldn't go away!