>"Calling 911 to report a crime happening in your own home or business, etc. are all legal for you to do without a warrant."
Sorry, I should have been more specific in my original post. I was referring to cases where the government is now ASKING for or even contracting and PAYING for information it is not allowed to collect. I wasn't referring to businesses who voluntarily report information or crimes they have discovered or are in progress.
Because the governments are now contracting things to third parties intentionally to get around what is illegal for them to do themselves. That is an active role (requesting or buying info), not a passive one (being voluntarily notified). Big difference, in my mind.
>"As a private entity, Google doesn't have to abide by the Fourth Amendment as the government has to, so it can do those mass searches on its behalf and then give the government the results. The U.S. government has been increasingly using this strategy to bypass Fourth Amendment protections of U.S. citizens and to expand its warrantless surveillance operations further."
This has always puzzled me. How can it be legal for the government to "buy" or "be given" information which collecting, itself, would be illegal. I would think as a FIRST STEP to start a privacy revolution, this should be shut down. I blame both for eroding our privacy and Constitutional protections, but don't blame the corporations as much as I do the government... it is the government that is not following the spirit (or word) of the Constitution, the corporations are not under that obligation.
>"Eventually, the device could become standard equipment, just like air bags. "
Great- so even though I don't drink and nobody else ever drives my car, I would have to add yet another $500 or $1000 or something to the price of any car I want to buy, for yet another feature I don't want or need.
Oh, and for those who do drink- I am sure that information about your "level" histories will be kept super-duper secret and never stored, phoned-home, or be accessible by other companies or government.
Oh, and I am sure it will never fail or be inaccurate and lock me out of my own car AND create a lie record about my BAC. And I am sure it would never hold the owner responsible for something someone else did or a passenger.
Oh, and I am sure it will stop with just BAC and not be enhanced with later models to detect other legal drugs, then illegal drugs, then prescription drugs.
>"If you ate just fruit you would kill those 5, except for the vegetables bullet point. Good luck with trying to consume too many calories by eating fruit alone."
Most fruit is full of fructose- a simple sugar/carbohydrate. In moderation, that is fine, since it is partially regulated by the fiber and pectin in whole fruit. But if you "ate just fruit" you would be very malnourished from lack of proteins and other important nutrients not available in fruit. (I don't think you meant exactly what you wrote, or it can be read in more ways that you expected:) ).
In my list, I was pointing out low consumption of fruit in a diet is probably not terribly important compared to the other 5 things I mentioned, certainly not in a "top 3" list.
>"more than half of them were caused by just three main dietary factors: low consumption of whole grains, low consumption of fruits, and high intake of sodium."
Interesting. Because from everything I have learned, those would not be the main three, especially as presented. I would say my top 5 issues, at least with the typical American diet, would be:
1) High consumption of simple carbohydrates (especially sugar) 2) High consumption of fried and overly processed foods 3) Low consumption of whole grains and fiber-rich foods 4) Low consumption of a variety of fresh vegetables 5) Over-consumption, in general (too many calories)
Fruit can be a good part of a varied diet (if in moderation, and WHOLE, not processed, and certainly not juice) but that wouldn't even make my "most important" list. Nor would sodium.
>"Cats Can Recognize Their Own Names, Study Suggests"
Wow. I thought everyone knew this- at least anyone that has a cat (and bothers to interact with them regularly). What next? A study that says when a cat squints (slow blinks) at you or purrs it is happy? (Duh)
Cats are quite smart, fun, affectionate, and entertaining. They are just not slaves that hinge their entire self-worth on their owners... and that is one of the best things about them.
>"Why yuck Wayland? I personally feel odd about Wayland without great reasons,"
I have lots of great reasons, especially since I actually use X for everything. Effective remote access, Xterminals, all my apps are X. Nothing I do needs or requires Wayland, and I don't want the extra complexity and problems of trying to run X "under" Wayland. For me, it is a solution looking for a problem.
>"What's wrong with Virtualbox? I use it every day."
Nothing wrong with Virtualbox, it just doesn't work right with any Android image I have tried with it- rotation issues, relative cursor problems, sometimes slow video. It is mostly issues with the Android implementation run under it.
>"A new "experimental containerized Android environment" from a company called Collabora allows Android apps to run in floating windows alongside native applications on desktop Linux."
I have heard this kind of thing many times before and tried many of them with limited success. Something always seems to be wrong or broken or missing. AndroVM, Virtualbox, Archron, Android-X86, Genymotion, Anbox, I keep holding out hope.
>"For this to work, the Linux desktop has to be using the Wayland display server"
>"I knew a few that out right admitted they stopped taking it without telling their partner."
I suspect it is quite common, actually (women lying about being on effective birth control). I welcome the idea of it having to truly be consensual- both parties having full control.
>"Foods genetically engineers heme, a protein that makes the vegetarian-friendly burger taste like meat. The ingredient is also responsible for giving the patty red juices that make it look like it's bleeding, just like a piece of beef."
That is not necessarily "vegetarian-friendly". Quite frankly, if you served that to me, and I could even eat it, I would probably throw up. Many vegetarians (and semi-vegetarians) are that way because they don't like meat- the taste or smell.
>"The day they stopped making Safari for Windows is the day they gave up their power to do anything about it."
Nor is it available for Linux or Android. And it is not open source, either. So anyone pointing to Safari as a "choice" has to put a lot of qualifications in front of that example.
There are really only two "all major platform" browsers- Google Chrome and Firefox. And there are really only two "all major platform" and open source browsers- Google Chromium and Firefox. If Firefox is pushed into obscurity by Google (which is already happening), ALL users will lose... and badly, but many just don't quite realize it yet.
When your choice is one choice, there is no choice.
>"We look forward to working with Microsoft and the web standards community to advance the open web, support user choice, and deliver great browsing experiences."
Really? Standards? User choice? My translation this marketing speak is this:
"We look forward to getting Microsoft to use our browser so we can better force whatever we want as web standards to advance our control over the web, reduce user choice, and deliver a great browser-supplier experience"
If you want something actually based on open standards, is actually open source, is actually about user choice, is actually driven by the community (and performs well and runs on all platforms, too); well, at least there is still one choice left. Firefox.
>"Obviously what they claim is impossible, there is no way to determine a person's height from one or two photos that only show the guy from the waist up."
+1
There is a relation between "torso length" and "limb length" but it is far from reliable. I know people who appear quite tall sitting, but have short legs/arms, and the reverse- short torso, long legs/arms. You have to get a full photo of someone first.... and even then, you can only estimate height.
Anyway, it is pretty sad that something so shallow as height will drive people's dating decisions.
>"They build it in Texas, they close fossil fuel plants so you can bet your ass that money can be made this way."
Hopefully, yes. Trying to force something to work that isn't ready doesn't pan out well for anyone. This could mean the technology is finally ready. That is good, because we need reliable, long-term energy independence.
>"This is an exciting line of research. If they can find a way to dull pain permanently it could help a lot of people with chronic pain. It's hard to describe to people who don't have it just had debilitating it can be. Even relatively low levels of pain have a huge effect if they are constant."
Agreed. I remember a period of my life where, for years, I was in constant, dull pain. It changes a person in a way that is hard to describe. Near the end of that period, I had a day where there was suddenly no pain for some reason and it was immediately life-changing. The next day it was back and I just cried continuously, not because the pain was so bad, but mostly at the terrifying prospect that it would never really go away for good. I can't imagine how bad it would be if that pain were double or triple. Scary.
Current medical science doesn't offer much for such persons, unless the exact point of pain can be identified and ablated.
The problem is both. And I do agree that the telcoms should be held responsible also for allowing it to continue. They do nothing to help ensure caller ID isn't spoof and do nothing to stop what are clearly illegal schemes.
>"No, if you are pulling in less than a million a year, you are a small business, and this law doesn't apply to you anyway so costs exactly $0, which is also not expensive let alone too expensive."
Well, that is a good point (and something I missed in the summary- my bad).
Slashdot Mirror
>"Calling 911 to report a crime happening in your own home or business, etc. are all legal for you to do without a warrant."
Sorry, I should have been more specific in my original post. I was referring to cases where the government is now ASKING for or even contracting and PAYING for information it is not allowed to collect. I wasn't referring to businesses who voluntarily report information or crimes they have discovered or are in progress.
>"What's so controversial about that?"
Because the governments are now contracting things to third parties intentionally to get around what is illegal for them to do themselves. That is an active role (requesting or buying info), not a passive one (being voluntarily notified). Big difference, in my mind.
>"As a private entity, Google doesn't have to abide by the Fourth Amendment as the government has to, so it can do those mass searches on its behalf and then give the government the results. The U.S. government has been increasingly using this strategy to bypass Fourth Amendment protections of U.S. citizens and to expand its warrantless surveillance operations further."
This has always puzzled me. How can it be legal for the government to "buy" or "be given" information which collecting, itself, would be illegal. I would think as a FIRST STEP to start a privacy revolution, this should be shut down. I blame both for eroding our privacy and Constitutional protections, but don't blame the corporations as much as I do the government... it is the government that is not following the spirit (or word) of the Constitution, the corporations are not under that obligation.
>"No one is under any obligation to make it affordable for you, and the world would be a better place if it were affordable for more people."
I think you just contradicted yourself. Forcing the addition of features not useful for a large number of buyers increases the costs for everyone.
>"Eventually, the device could become standard equipment, just like air bags. "
Great- so even though I don't drink and nobody else ever drives my car, I would have to add yet another $500 or $1000 or something to the price of any car I want to buy, for yet another feature I don't want or need.
Oh, and for those who do drink- I am sure that information about your "level" histories will be kept super-duper secret and never stored, phoned-home, or be accessible by other companies or government.
Oh, and I am sure it will never fail or be inaccurate and lock me out of my own car AND create a lie record about my BAC. And I am sure it would never hold the owner responsible for something someone else did or a passenger.
Oh, and I am sure it will stop with just BAC and not be enhanced with later models to detect other legal drugs, then illegal drugs, then prescription drugs.
>"If you ate just fruit you would kill those 5, except for the vegetables bullet point. Good luck with trying to consume too many calories by eating fruit alone."
Most fruit is full of fructose- a simple sugar/carbohydrate. In moderation, that is fine, since it is partially regulated by the fiber and pectin in whole fruit. But if you "ate just fruit" you would be very malnourished from lack of proteins and other important nutrients not available in fruit. (I don't think you meant exactly what you wrote, or it can be read in more ways that you expected :) ).
In my list, I was pointing out low consumption of fruit in a diet is probably not terribly important compared to the other 5 things I mentioned, certainly not in a "top 3" list.
>"more than half of them were caused by just three main dietary factors: low consumption of whole grains, low consumption of fruits, and high intake of sodium."
Interesting. Because from everything I have learned, those would not be the main three, especially as presented. I would say my top 5 issues, at least with the typical American diet, would be:
1) High consumption of simple carbohydrates (especially sugar)
2) High consumption of fried and overly processed foods
3) Low consumption of whole grains and fiber-rich foods
4) Low consumption of a variety of fresh vegetables
5) Over-consumption, in general (too many calories)
Fruit can be a good part of a varied diet (if in moderation, and WHOLE, not processed, and certainly not juice) but that wouldn't even make my "most important" list. Nor would sodium.
Reply to self-
BTW, all my cats know many words- such as:
* Special treat
* Let's play
* No
* Whacha want?
* Kitty kitty (come)
* Where's the bird?
* OW
Yes, it does matter HOW the words are said... they are recognizing the sounds- pitch and intonation do matter.
>"Cats Can Recognize Their Own Names, Study Suggests"
Wow. I thought everyone knew this- at least anyone that has a cat (and bothers to interact with them regularly). What next? A study that says when a cat squints (slow blinks) at you or purrs it is happy? (Duh)
Cats are quite smart, fun, affectionate, and entertaining. They are just not slaves that hinge their entire self-worth on their owners... and that is one of the best things about them.
>"Huh? You're trying to run Virtualbox on a phone? Really?"
No, of course not. Running an Android image as a guest in a VB hosted under Linux on a desktop.
>"Why yuck Wayland? I personally feel odd about Wayland without great reasons,"
I have lots of great reasons, especially since I actually use X for everything. Effective remote access, Xterminals, all my apps are X. Nothing I do needs or requires Wayland, and I don't want the extra complexity and problems of trying to run X "under" Wayland. For me, it is a solution looking for a problem.
>"What's wrong with Virtualbox? I use it every day."
Nothing wrong with Virtualbox, it just doesn't work right with any Android image I have tried with it- rotation issues, relative cursor problems, sometimes slow video. It is mostly issues with the Android implementation run under it.
>"A new "experimental containerized Android environment" from a company called Collabora allows Android apps to run in floating windows alongside native applications on desktop Linux."
I have heard this kind of thing many times before and tried many of them with limited success. Something always seems to be wrong or broken or missing. AndroVM, Virtualbox, Archron, Android-X86, Genymotion, Anbox, I keep holding out hope.
>"For this to work, the Linux desktop has to be using the Wayland display server"
Yuck. Oh well, guess this one uninteresting.
>"I knew a few that out right admitted they stopped taking it without telling their partner."
I suspect it is quite common, actually (women lying about being on effective birth control). I welcome the idea of it having to truly be consensual- both parties having full control.
>"Foods genetically engineers heme, a protein that makes the vegetarian-friendly burger taste like meat. The ingredient is also responsible for giving the patty red juices that make it look like it's bleeding, just like a piece of beef."
That is not necessarily "vegetarian-friendly". Quite frankly, if you served that to me, and I could even eat it, I would probably throw up. Many vegetarians (and semi-vegetarians) are that way because they don't like meat- the taste or smell.
>"The day they stopped making Safari for Windows is the day they gave up their power to do anything about it."
Nor is it available for Linux or Android. And it is not open source, either. So anyone pointing to Safari as a "choice" has to put a lot of qualifications in front of that example.
There are really only two "all major platform" browsers- Google Chrome and Firefox. And there are really only two "all major platform" and open source browsers- Google Chromium and Firefox. If Firefox is pushed into obscurity by Google (which is already happening), ALL users will lose... and badly, but many just don't quite realize it yet.
When your choice is one choice, there is no choice.
>"We look forward to working with Microsoft and the web standards community to advance the open web, support user choice, and deliver great browsing experiences."
Really? Standards? User choice? My translation this marketing speak is this:
"We look forward to getting Microsoft to use our browser so we can better force whatever we want as web standards to advance our control over the web, reduce user choice, and deliver a great browser-supplier experience"
If you want something actually based on open standards, is actually open source, is actually about user choice, is actually driven by the community (and performs well and runs on all platforms, too); well, at least there is still one choice left. Firefox.
>"Obviously what they claim is impossible, there is no way to determine a person's height from one or two photos that only show the guy from the waist up."
+1
There is a relation between "torso length" and "limb length" but it is far from reliable. I know people who appear quite tall sitting, but have short legs/arms, and the reverse- short torso, long legs/arms. You have to get a full photo of someone first.... and even then, you can only estimate height.
Anyway, it is pretty sad that something so shallow as height will drive people's dating decisions.
>"They build it in Texas, they close fossil fuel plants so you can bet your ass that money can be made this way."
Hopefully, yes. Trying to force something to work that isn't ready doesn't pan out well for anyone. This could mean the technology is finally ready. That is good, because we need reliable, long-term energy independence.
>"Congenital insensitivity to pain. It's pretty rare."
I suspect mostly because such people die young due to severe complications from injuries.
>"This is an exciting line of research. If they can find a way to dull pain permanently it could help a lot of people with chronic pain. It's hard to describe to people who don't have it just had debilitating it can be. Even relatively low levels of pain have a huge effect if they are constant."
Agreed. I remember a period of my life where, for years, I was in constant, dull pain. It changes a person in a way that is hard to describe. Near the end of that period, I had a day where there was suddenly no pain for some reason and it was immediately life-changing. The next day it was back and I just cried continuously, not because the pain was so bad, but mostly at the terrifying prospect that it would never really go away for good. I can't imagine how bad it would be if that pain were double or triple. Scary.
Current medical science doesn't offer much for such persons, unless the exact point of pain can be identified and ablated.
>"Isn't pain necessary?"
Absolutely. In fact, it is amazing anyone with such a disorder even survives long. I suspect most that have it don't.
Then...
Frexit
Grexit
Itexit
Spexit
etc...
The problem is both. And I do agree that the telcoms should be held responsible also for allowing it to continue. They do nothing to help ensure caller ID isn't spoof and do nothing to stop what are clearly illegal schemes.
>"No, if you are pulling in less than a million a year, you are a small business, and this law doesn't apply to you anyway so costs exactly $0, which is also not expensive let alone too expensive."
Well, that is a good point (and something I missed in the summary- my bad).