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User: stiggle

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  1. Re:Suggestion: the EU should harmonize copyright t on EU Copyright Reform: Your Input Is Needed! · · Score: 1

    We should distinguish between the end user and a commerical user.
    While I don't think there is much to be made from the early Beatles albums (first 2 albums are now over 50 years old), I don't think anyone should be allowed to use one of those tracks in movies, adverts, etc without permission or payment.

    So 50 years for sales, 70 years for commercial re-use.

  2. Re:Have the legal questions been tested? on Watch Out, Amazon: DHL Tests Drug-Delivery Drone · · Score: 1

    As the drone is an aircraft engaged in commerce then this applies:
    18 USC 32 - Destruction of aircraft or aircraft facilities
    a) Whoever willfully—
    (1) sets fire to, damages, destroys, disables, or wrecks any aircraft in the special aircraft jurisdiction of the United States or any civil aircraft used, operated, or employed in interstate, overseas, or foreign air commerce;
    (8) attempts or conspires to do anything prohibited under paragraphs (1) through (7) of this subsection;

    shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years or both.

    http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/32

    Now you could argue that the as the drone is local that it is not performing interstate commerce and so it would not be liable under this federal law, but if the drone is foreign registered then it is covered under a later clause.

  3. Re:I think... on US Treasury Completes Bailout of General Motors · · Score: 1

    IF GM had collapsed then the remains would have been picked over by the other main car manufacturers and you'd have ended up with the brands being owned by VW, Fiat, TATA, etc. Not good for the America.

    Although Fiat already has strong links with Chrysler (they basically own it)

  4. Re:Booze Bus on Texas Drivers Stopped At Roadblock, Asked For Saliva, Blood · · Score: 2

    Its was off duty cops and a research institution doing specific work for a government department.
    The contractors were going a specific job for the government, they're not government employees.

  5. Re:Casual slashdot racism in 3... on India's Mars Mission Back On Track After Brief Hiccup · · Score: 1

    The Americans have already faked a Mars landing :-)
    http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077294/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

  6. Re:Can anyone tell them apart? on British Intelligence Responds To Slashdot About Man-in-Middle Attack · · Score: 2

    GCHQ is based in a donut and work around tea.
    NSA is based in a shiny box and work around coffee.

    GCHQ has invented some good stuff (like PKI - but they didn't tell anyone about it until the papers were declassified) http://cryptome.org/ukpk-alt.htm

  7. Re:Hardly the same thing on Brazil Admits To Spying On US Diplomats After Blasting NSA Surveillance · · Score: 2

    All US Embassy ban all civilians from bringing in consumer electronic devices.
    From: http://london.usembassy.gov/ukembmap.html
    "PLEASE DO NOT bring Electronic devices such as mobile phones, Blackberries, iPods, iPads, notebook computers, PDAs, headsets, remote-entry automobile key "fobs" or anything with a power plug or battery, as they are not allowed within the Embassy grounds."

  8. Re:God forbid someone proposes something useful on TSA Union Calls For Armed Guards At Every Checkpoint · · Score: 2

    You'd be surprised at how different the English languages can be :-)

    Cellphone, mobile phone.
    Pants, trousers, underwear.
    Fannypack, bumbag.
    Tinny, can, bevvy, brew.
    Police, cops, bobbies, fuzz, peelers.

  9. Re: NOT posted as AC. on TSA Union Calls For Armed Guards At Every Checkpoint · · Score: 1

    They listen at GCHQ - the black helicopters will come from RHQ Credenhill with you vanishing to Colchester.

  10. Re:The problems with nuclear aren't pollution.... on 4 Prominent Scientists Say Renewables Aren't Enough, Urge Support For Nuclear · · Score: 1

    Fossil fuels seem to be doing a pretty good job of working towards killing millions and rendering millions of square miles uninhabitable. Where do you think all this man-made climate change has come from? Fossil fuels.

  11. Re:The US, for all its power, hasn't plugged the l on Edward Snowden's New Job: Tech Support · · Score: 1

    Snowden is no longer leaking docs, and hasn't since the original handover.
    Its the journalists (Glen Greenwald & Laura Poitras) he handed the docs to who have been trickling out the docs.

    They have stated that they have multiple copies in multiple locations and the intercept at Heathrow Airport of Glen Greenwald's partner, David Miranda, where the British confiscated USB drives containing copies of classifed materials did not hinder their access to the material.

    (Who gives their partner a bunch of classified docs and then asks them to fly via one of the USA's closest allies and not expect them to get stopped?)

  12. Re:You've got to spot them first on UN Mounts Asteroid Defense Plan Following Chelyabinsk Meteor · · Score: 1

    If an asteroid is deflected to avoid a collision with earth then its orbit is now changed. Where previously it might have transited the asteroid belt without colliding with another object, there is now the risk that on its new orbit it might hit something else.

    While the risk of collison is very minor, it is still there, and we might be trading an impact now for one or more in the future.

    Either way - we need to improve our detection of these objects, we've got some of the way there over the last 30 years, but there are still a lot of objects out there, and we only need to miss one to get wiped out.

    Scott Manley's asteroid discovery video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONUSP23cmAE

  13. You've got to spot them first on UN Mounts Asteroid Defense Plan Following Chelyabinsk Meteor · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The main issue we've got is the lack of warning we have. Even a year is too late if you want to divert large lumps of rock.
    Once you're going to divert something then you have to work out where its going to end up - no point diverting it from the earth this year, to have it end up crashing into something else which ends up sending 100 rocks at us.

  14. Re:What a waste of taxpayer dollars... on Dream Chaser Damaged In Landing Accident At Edwards AFB · · Score: 1

    They're also pushing the length of time humans can remain in micro-gravity which is needed for a trip out of near-earth orbit to other bodies. So yeah, the ISS doesn't produce anything immediately evident, but they do improve our general understanding of space travel and improve international co-operation on further goals in space exploration.

  15. Old News from August? on Open Rights Group International Says Virgin, Sky Blocking Innocent Sites · · Score: 4, Informative

    I know Slashdot is usually behind the curve on news, but the linked articles date back to August....
    (I know - shocking someone read both linked articles :-) )

  16. One kid is vegan on UK Court Orders Two Sisters Must Receive MMR Vaccine · · Score: 1

    The vegan child is against the vaccine due to its production using animal product (eggs).
    But admitted they knew nothing about the drugs used to treat the diseases if they contracted them without the vaccine.
    So avoiding the vaccine produced with eggs might result in a greater exposure to animal sourced products.

  17. Re:Tone up your rhetoric on The W3C Sells Out Users Without Seeming To Get Anything In Return · · Score: 1

    Plus there are the content delivery companies like Akamai who provide content for many sites. You can't easily block out just the evil company they host content for without blocking out all the good stuff too.

  18. Re: Anyone noticed on The W3C Sells Out Users Without Seeming To Get Anything In Return · · Score: 1

    How much of that $67B is through crippled software which needs a permanent net connection to function in single player mode?

  19. Re:Yea what a great idea on BlackBerry Founders May Try To Take Over the Company · · Score: 2

    Jobs also setup NeXT after leaving Apple, proving he could make another company selling nicely designed expensive GUI systems :-)

  20. Re:hmmm... on In Room With No Cell Service, Verizon Works On Future of Mobile · · Score: 1

    This is Verizon we're talking about - so its about on par for them catching up with modern tech :-)

  21. EMPEG on Auto Makers To Standardize On Open Source · · Score: 1

    The original Linux car infotainment system. Only 13 years old now.

  22. Re:Non-Essential Employees on U.S. Government: Sorry, We're Closed · · Score: 1

    Non-essential services.
    Passports are non-essential as they are not an essential requirement for the functioning of the government. They are essential to citizens travelling overseas, who are not by definition 'government' as those travelling as government have diplomatic papers.

    All company staff are non-essential. This is why you can have companies which exist only on paper for legal and tax purposes. You don't need sales staff, but it can make the company more profitable if you have some. You don't need IT staff, but it makes the company run smoother if you have some. You don't need HR, but they exist to annoy staff everywhere :-)

  23. NASA looked into fission power with Prometheus on Without Plutonium, Deep-Space Probe Missions May Sputter Out · · Score: 1

    Nuclear fission reactor powered craft - assembled in space whose initial mission was out to the icy moons of Jupiter, where solar power would not be reliable.

    Aswell as the JIMO (Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter) it was also considered for an unmanned inner-planet ion drive delivery system, where you would launch cargo into orbit around the Earth which would then be collected and delivered to the inner planets where the cargo would be released. This would then be able to deliver satellites and landers to Mars aswell as return goods back to earth.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Prometheus

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jupiter_Icy_Moons_Orbiter

  24. Been like this since post-WWII on UK Cryptographers Call For UK and US To Out Weakened Products · · Score: 1

    After WWII German enigma & lorenz machines were being sold to other nations as uncrackable. It was the forerunner to GCHQ, Bletchley Park which cracked them during the war and then buried all evidence of it.

  25. Re:Not autonomous? on FEMA Grounds Private Drones That Were Helping To Map Boulder Floods · · Score: 1

    The long pipes on a set of bagpipes are also "drones"