Personally I don't like Apple's tactics or philosophy very much, but you would have to be fairly dishonest to say that the original iPhone was a step backwards.
Loads of really basic stuff like tethering, ability to run third party software, etc. was missing... It may have had a half decent browser, but most of what makes a "smart phone" smart was left out - it was more like a feature phone with a fancy touch screen display. (And hell, every phone I've ever owned has supported tethering, including the non-smart nokia bricks many years before the iphone was thought of).
Also 3G wasn't as widely available as it is now, so it was a reasonable compromise at the time.
It may have been a reasonable compromise in the US, but everyone in the UK was left asking WTF Apple thought they were doing since 3G networks have been pretty wide spread here since well before the iphone appeared.
It changed the smartphone industry in a meaningful way.
I'm unconvinced about that. Certainly, the smartphone industry has changed massively since the advent of the iphone (more specifically the iPhone 3G), but whilst Apple and their fanboys seem to think they invented everything you see in a modern smartphone, I remain very unconvinced - there were forerunners to the iphone from other vendors that looked _very_ similar, and many of the "iphone-alike" phones that came out not long after the iphone were in development for a long time prior to the iphone being released. I am inclined to think that technology had reached the point that suddenly allowed a lot of phone manufacturers to produce fairly revolutionary devices, and I think it still would've happened even without Apple.
Not as big if an issue as you would think for the manufactures. The drivers would just be loadable and not statically linked to the kernel. The reason for not using Open-DRT is that the UI is terrible Luci is not great but the standard out of box UI is just a command line. Oh yes I use a TP-Link TR-3220 as a media extender. It is really cool that they have it and I will probably get a few more TP-Link routers for other projects but Open-DRT is not friendly at all. DD and Tomato do not work on as many devices so I have not had a chance to play with them.
I have a TD8816 ADSL 2+ router running in modem mode (plain PPPoE stream that's terminated on a separate machine). I was initially impressed at the fairly extensive featureset, given that it was dirt cheap. Unfortunately, that's where my impressedness ended: when running in ADSL2+ mode it syncs to a nice high speed during the day... then at night the SNR on the line drops. Unfortunately, the modem doesn't ever bother to resync as the SNR gets worse - eventually *all* the packets are arriving as CRC errors and it still keeps trying to run at the speed it originally synced at. Rebooting it causes it to sync at a lower speed due to the lower SNR.
Obviously I thought this was a bug, so I contacted TP-Link... they got back to me and said it was the "expected behaviour"... It seems that their firmware doesn't resync unless the router's PPP daemon has to restart the connection, and of course with a PPPoE configuration, the router's PPP daemon isn't ever running so it never has to restart the connection so the router never resyncs...
Its running ok in ADSL1 mode for now... at some point I'll get around to binning it and installing an FTTC connection.
They are still actively supporting the GS2 and 3. The GS3 has had multiple updates, and more are in the pipeline. Samsung are very good with updates, in a par with Apple for their high end phones.
Keep spouting the FUD though, someone is bound to listen.
They're ok with _some_ of their phones... but you do take your chances. My Captivate Glide came with Gingerbread, and it was a loooooong time after Jellybean was released before Samsung released a firmware update to ICS... and when they did, that firmware update was extremely buggy (I've not upgraded since I've seen so many reports of regressions).
But this seems to be the same with all the Android phones - even the Nexus series devices have nowhere near the length of support I would expect for a £300+ device (my fiancée's Nexus-S is never going to get another firmware update, for example - Google announced that last year).
I've never understood the need to have a phone last weeks on a single charge. Have people evolved beyond the need for sleep? After all, it seems like it's the perfect time to charge your phone. Heck, I always charged my dumbphones every night anyways - I never even bothered trying to run it for weeks.
Which is all well and good if you have a power socket near by. Some of us go camping, etc. where there is no such luxury. Luckilly, my smartphone _can_ last over a week on one charge, but I have to remember to turn off all the background battery suckers.
441ppi is AWESOME, by the way! The "retina" display is only 326ppi! Your eyes will not be able to see individual pixels on that screen... it'll look as good or even better than print.
233ppi seems fine for me on my phone... can't see any staircasing artifacts, etc... I wouldn't really like to burn the extra battery to shift more pixels around for no gain.
I would've skipped the original iPhone - it was a major step backwards in functionality from most smart phones, and I can't think why anyone would want a smartphone _without_ 3G...
No...no it isn't - marriage predates that. Religious organisations have _adopted_ marriage, much as they have adopted many other ceremonies that were nothing to do with the organisation in question; but even so, you can have a nonreligious wedding and many (possibly most?) people do these days. Admittedly (in the UK at least) there are lots of legal restrictions on civil ceremonies that were clearly imposed in an attempt to keep the church relevant, but if you want a totally non-religious wedding you can do just that.
The only reason gay people want marriage, is not for love (they can have that!) , but for "benefits" from the state.
I'm sure _some_ want it for that reason (and hell, why shouldn't they - if a hetrosexual couple is entitled to various state benefits then WTF shouldn't a gay couple be entitiled to the same?), but the idea that that's the general reason why people want to marry is just BS. Marriage isn't love, its a _declaration_ of love, which is completely different and has nothing to do with any state benefits.
The key is "unreasonable". Most people don't think it's unreasonable that you aren't allowed porn in TV programs and magazines you can buy in a supermarket. It's partly because there's no need for children to be subjected to porn, but also because a lot of adults don't to be subjected to porn unless they go and find it.
There's a really big difference between making it "difficult to access" and making it easy to avoid. Sticking porn on the top shelf in a shop (which is the usual practice) doesn't make it difficult to access, but does make it easy to avoid.
That doesn't mean they're sexually repressed, it's essentially a matter of manners.
There's a whole lot of stuff legally available (not just porn) that I don't especially want to see - that doesn't mean I advocate making it difficult to get hold of for those who do want to see it, it just means that I avoid looking for it. Who has the authority to decide what each individual person might find offensive? I would much prefer to accidentally see something I don't want to see than have some authoritative figure tell me I shouldn't be looking for something purely because they don't approve of it.
Making porn (or any other type of material) difficult to access would be a bad thing.
Why? This sounds like a reflexive libertarian response. If you think abou tit for a min, what is your reasoning?
Because unreasonable restrictions of freedom of speech are a bad thing. What about if certain political material were made difficult to access? Is that ok too?
The difference between adults and kids is that adults are expected to make their own decisions whereas kids don't always have the experience to do that - this is why making it easy for parents to block these websites from their kids is a good thing. On the other hand, the state is not supposed to be in the business of telling the population what they are allowed to look at - that way is a very slippery slope.
I would like it if porn were more difficult to access. also, by ubiquitous i mean a google search away. I remember in my day we had to hustle to find some titty pictures!
Making porn (or any other type of material) difficult to access would be a bad thing. Requiring the porn industry to include headers in their HTTP responses to make it easier for parents to control access to porn would probably be good though. And not just the porn industry - the same goes for any "questionable" content...
However, given the global nature of the internet, coupled with the lack of interest in enforcing the existing communications laws, means that this is never going to happen.
If the aim is really to keep drivers to a safe speed through a hazardous area then average speed check systems (like they use for motorway roadworks in the UK) seem like the way to go.
Absolutely. Although average speed cameras for limits of 50mph or less on motorways do sometimes scare me quite shitless in busy traffic: On 2 separate occasions I have been forced off the road by a lorry who has decided that they want to do 51mph in an enforced 50 zone on a motorway, pulls out to overtake me, then pulls in before having actually got past me. The first time I ended up on the hard shoulder, the second time I ended up on the slip road for an on-ramp (thank goodness nothing was on the slip road!). When I'm around big lorries I tend to think I'm much safer if I'm going faster than them...
I'm all for enforcing safer driving, but many camera emplacements are obviously for revenue-generating rather than safety.
What you mean is that they are places in areas where people are likely to be speeding.
One or more of the following: 1. Where people are likley to be speeding relatively safely. 2. Where people are unlikley to spot the camera. 3. Where someone is likley to be speeding for safety reasons.
Isn't that the point?
I thought the point was supposed to be to make the road safer. This is something that is not going to be achieved if the speeding isn't actually causing a significant decrease in the safety; and in situations where it is causing a significant decrease in the safety its often still not clear as to whether installing a speed camera would improve things or actually decrease safety further.
Here's a real life example of (3): I road I frequently drive along is a single carriageway, one lane in each direction. Every so often, there is an extra lane added in one or other direction so that you can overtake.
Lets say you start overtaking and get almost past the vehicle you're overtaking when you realise that you've slightly misjudged the manouver and your extra overtaking lane is about to disappear. So you have a choice: 1. hit the accellerator and exceed the speed limit briefly in order to complete the overtaking manouver before your lane runs out. 2. slam on the brakes to abort the manouver and try to slot in behind the vehicle you're overtaking. Neither of these choices are entirely safe - on the one hand, (1) means you're going to be going too fast, so increases the seriousness of an accident if one were to occur; whilst (2) may be extremely difficult and dangerous if you and/or the vehicle you're overtaking has a line of traffic behind it. Choosing the best solution requires you to evaluate the current situation. So maybe you decide that (1) is the safest idea - even though it increases the seriousness of any accident, you decide that an accident is going to be pretty serious anyway, the oncoming traffic is far enough away that it isn't going to be serious if you slightly overshoot and there's enough traffic behind to make (2) a pretty dangerous proposition. Just as you pass the vehicle you're overtaking, you spot the lines in the road indicative of a speed camera. Arguably the logical step here is to keep accellerating and accept the ticket since you're way past the point of being able to safely abort the manouver, but having yet another thing to think through isn't exactly what you need right now.
As I said, this is a real life example - the road in question has exactly this setup. If your argument is "well you shouldn't have midjudged it in the first place" then you're an idiot and failing to realise that people _do_ screw up all the time and have to use their best judgement to get themselves out of the hole they got themselves into. It is my opinion that this speed camera is dangerous, since it adds another unnecessary decision point to an already stressful situation, and I don't believe its ever going to catch anyone who is _not_ in that situation.
if you are installing the speed camera because "people should adhere to the law" rather than to improve safety, then I tend to think the law should be examined more closely. If people are speeding in a particular location and there isn't a problem with speed-related accidents then maybe the speed limit should be raised a bit rather than enforcing the existing limit?
Law is binary, you are breaking it or not.
Not really true - the law is often vague. Even if you're blatently speeding there are situations where a court would rule that you had a damned good reason to be speeding and let you off.
But even where you clearly are breaking the law, the question has to be asked: what is the law _for_? If the law is serving no useful purpose then I
Given the tolerances most radar based speed cameras operate at and the fact that 2 cars travelling side by side can totally screw the results anyway. I'm surprised most speeding tickets don't get laughed out of court anyway. Especially given that most of them are simply employed as a revenue stream for local authorities.
This is why in the UK, speeding cameras take 2 photos a know time apart and they are manually checked to ensure you've exceeded the maximum distance between the 2 photos... Of course none of this proves that the speed camera's clock is calibrated correctly.
You are conflating speeding tickets with parking tickets and, hence, deliberately mis-representing the issue in the UK.
They are handled in similar ways (albeit by different departments) - in both cases you are offered a "reduced fine" and are required to decline that offer and accept the full fine if you want to appeal to court.
Obviously, for parking tickets you can appeal to the local council after they have been issued and have them cancelled.
When you receive a parking ticket from the local council, you are given a "reduced fine" offer if you pay within a certain number of days. You can appeal to the council and the council will almost invariably decline the appeal. Your choice now is to either pay the reduced fine, or accept the full fine and make a court appeal. If the court rules against you, you pay the full fine - once you decide to make a court appeal there is no going back to the reduced fine that you were originally offered.
I've done this and it relies on you collecting evidence to show you were not at fault (lines not painted correctly / visible etc...).
This may sound like a silly question, but why is the motorist required to show evidence proving no fault, but the council is not required to show similarly good evidence showing fault? The evidence offered by the councils these days tends to be a photo of the car, rather than a photo of the car _obviously in contravention of the traffic laws_
Also, there are no points on your licence for parking tickets - stop lying about this.
Correct - I never said there were. I was talking about the general case of all traffic offences (which are all handled in a similar "reduced fine unless you make a court appeal" way) and said "possible points", not that you would get points for all offences.
And there are no "courses" for parking offences.
Correct again - you'll not that as above I said "possible" in the general case of traffic offences, not relating to a specific offence.
Much of what you wrote only applies to speeding tickets which are entirely different. You either don't drive or aren't from the UK.
I do drive and am in the UK. I have been sent on a course for doing 33mph in a 30 zone in a line of traffic where everyone was doing the same speed (boy they must've handed out a lot of tickets that day and I almost ended up in court over the fact that I didn't respond to the NIP which the royal mail never delivered); similarly I've had to swallow a parking fine because it just wasn't worth the risk of proving that a council's signage was extremely ambigous. I also know a number of people who have similarly swallowed both speeding and parking fines because it just wasn't worth the risk of going to court, even though they believed they were in the right. If the playing field was levelled and your innocence didn't have to be *absolutely clear cut* for it to be worth going to court then it would be a lot better, but that would of course annoy the enforcers since they would have to actually prove someone's guilt instead of their word being law.
Between automatic cameras, GPS, and OBD we could completely eliminate speeding. Or, at the very lease, insure than anyone who speeds _even a little_ is instantly ticketed. If speeding really is dangerous, maybe we should take these steps to eliminate it. If speed limits are too low, maybe we should raise them. But we seem to prefer these strange cat and mouse games.
Would you prefer drivers to be watching their speedo like a hawk, or watching the road?
The camera in question was installed in a school zone. I'm going with yes.
I wasn't talking about this specific instance; I was making a general point about all speed cameras.
2. Is it to blindly uphold the law, irrespective of safety?
Please cite one proven example where going faster is in the interest of safety.
The obvious one is when responding to various kinds of emergency (may or may not be official emergency vehicles).
However, I didn't say that going faster would make things safer, I said that it may not make things significantly more dangerous in some locations. If you are installing speed cameras because people are exceeding the speed limit and causing accidents then fair enough (so long as those cameras are actually making things safer, which isn't always the case). If people are exceeding the speed limit but are _not_ causing a significant number of accidents as a result then there seems to be little safety value in slowing people down - instead, it suggests that the speed limit may be set inappropriately. Setting speed limits needlessly low encourages people to exceed them, which becomes a problem when speed limits _are_ set appropriately (people are still more inclined to exceed them)
In fact, inappropriate speed limits are a big problem in both directions - for example, in the UK it is policy for through-roads on new housing estates to have a 30mph limit but with traffic calming designed to ensure the 80th percentile does not exceed 20mph. This seems insane - the first and foremost method of getting people to drive at an appropriate speed should be to _tell them_ what the appropriate speed should be by making that the speed limit - setting the speed limit to 30mph and then putting physical restrictions in to try and prevent people getting close to that limit seems inappropriate. (I also don't understand how speed bumps don't fall foul of the disabilities discrimination act, since they make roads impassable for drivers with certain back problems, etc.)
3. Is it to generate revenue?
This isn't revenue generating. This is seeking a 100% voluntary donation from the people driving in the area.
Im sure the tax office would be interested if you were taking "voluntary donations" and not declaring them as revenue.
I don't know what's happening recently, but it's a pleasant surprise to see these kinds of article cropping up more frequently on/.
Now if only we had the same kind of possibilities here in Europe, where there are more and more cameras everywhere, and the margin before you get a ticket is in some places ridiculosly low. I'm all for enforcing safer driving, but many camera emplacements are obviously for revenue-generating rather than safety.
They don't do anything to discourage the single-biggest cause of road deaths either, drunk driving.
Indeed. In principle I have no problem with enforcing the speed limit in places where excess speed is a safety problem. But whenever someone suggests installing speed cameras, I have to ask them what the purpose is: 1. Is it to improve safety? 2. Is it to blindly uphold the law, irrespective of safety? 3. Is it to generate revenue? The only one of these I see as valid is (1). And all to often I am unconvinced that a speed camera will actually improve safety - if people are driving too fast and the introduction of a speed camera causes more accidents by encouraging harsh braking then it has failed at improving safety. I'm not blaming the camera for this - clearly the motorists who are going too fast are at fault; but however you slice it, if the introduction of the camera causes more accidents then it has failed at improving safety and should be removed (and possibly replaced by some other method of reducing speed in a safer way).
As for (2) - if you are installing the speed camera because "people should adhere to the law" rather than to improve safety, then I tend to think the law should be examined more closely. If people are speeding in a particular location and there isn't a problem with speed-related accidents then maybe the speed limit should be raised a bit rather than enforcing the existing limit?
And as you point out, speed cameras only catch one specific instance of poor driving whilst ignoring other instances which may be significantly more dangerous. It is very common for me to see people tailgating or cutting people up whilst driving within the speed limit and I would argue that these activities are far more dangerous than most speeding incidents; the only way to crack down on that kind of thing is to put more police on the roads who can pull motorists over when they are spotted driving dangerously, but this is something that actually seems to be being reduced in an effort to save money.
Secondly, I would say that even in the speeding incidents, often an on-the-spot ticking off by a police officer would be more effective than getting a bit of paper in the post 2 weeks later.
I'm sure they are also against the IRS using computers to catch revenue cheaters, because it gives them an unfair advantage.
Sure they can win, just don't speed. The motorists are just used to breaking the law and not getting caught most of the time.
Did somebody check how many tickets the judge got?
I think the issue is not that people are getting caught, but that there is a lack of due process when they are; which inevitably leads to some innocent people being wrongly convicted.
I don't know how things work in the US, but in the UK it works thusly: - You get somehow "caught" alledgedly committing a traffic offence. This may be that a speed camera photographed you speeding, or a traffic warden decided that you were parked illegally or whatever. - You get notified by post (note: if a member of the general public needs to send legal documents to someone they are required to employ a process server to ensure they got there. On the other hand the police are allowed to just pop them in the post and retain proof of posting (*NOT* proof of delivery) so its entirely possibly that you will never even get the notification and still a court will deem that it has been served and that you were responsible for responding to the notice you never received. - You will be offered a choice: Accept a fixed penalty notice (a fixed fine (probably £30 - 60) and possibly a fixed number of points on your licence); you *may* be offered a "training course" instead of a fine and points; or you can decline the "fixed penalty" notice and have an automatic criminal conviction, £1000 fine. - If you want to appeal, you are required to decline the fixed penalty notice and training course; therefore you voluntarily agree to be convicted and be fined £1000. Once you have been convicted, you may take the case to the appeals court and appeal the conviction.
The upshot of this is that if you believe you were wrongly accused, you have to be *absolutely* sure you would win in court before you can risk appealing, because if there's even the slightest chance that the court will side with the police then you're risking an enormous fine. I know a good few people who have just accepted the fixed notice, even though they believe they were not in the wrong, because they simply can't risk the possability that they would be hit with a £1000 fine if they lost the case.
In order for things to be just, the cards should not be so heavily stacked against the accused that they can't risk defending themselves when they believe the accuser (the police or traffic warden) is wrong.
I finally bothered to look up what the TV license costs - it's much higher than I thought it was. That and it made me chuckle that there's still a separate black and white license...
Then again I've liked most of the BBC shows I've seen here, and it is only the equivalent of four or maybe five months of *basic* cable here in the states. All that and no ads? I don't think you guys are getting a bum deal.
Yes, amusing there's a B&W licence, can't imagine there are that many B&W TVs still working...
As for the cost, its about £12/month, which as you point out is much less than the basic cost of pay TV. For example, Sky's basic package is £21.50/month, which apparently gives us 40 "entertainment channels" (most of which are complete dross and also available for free elsewhere anyway), which have an ad break every 15 minutes. I dropped my Sky subscription many years ago because I realised: 1. It had got to the point where there were only 2 or 3 shows on the Sky channels worth watching (all fiction). 2. I was watching many more shows on free TV than Sky (almost all on BBC, which has no ads at all; although the occasional programme on S4C, etc. which is ad supported (although contrary to popular belief some of the TV licence goes to fund programmes on all the channels, not just the BBC)) 3. I realised that the few shows I did watch on Sky I could just buy on DVD for a cheaper price and not have to deal with the ads and scheduling.
Some bad things I would say about the TV licence though: 1. The BBC produce a lot of content that doesn't require a TV licence to watch, even though it is funded by the TV licence. For example, everyone (even those not paying a TV licence) get free access to all the BBC's radio channels, the BBC website, most of the BBC's radio and TV content in the form of podcasts and iplayer. This is only going to get sillier as more and more people drop the TV licence and just start watching iPlayer instead - in fact I currently don't have a working TV and this is exactly what I currently do. IMHO, a fairer method of taxing people is going to be needed soon (even though that means I would once again be paying for TV I support the idea of funding the TV licence in a fairer way). 2. The TV licencing authority (run by Capita) is downright abusive to anyone who doesn't have a TV licence. They send extremely threatening letters that look like you're about to be taken to court if you don't pay and send "inspectors" to your door. If you're not watching broadcast TV then you don't need a licence, but I'm sure a lot of more vulnerable people end up getting one anyway because they fear what will happen if they ignore the threats. In the past they have also taken libelous actions, although this seems to have stopped - for example, when I had just left university and had no TV I regularly got threatening letters from them with "YOU ARE BREAKING THE LAW" printed in large letters across the outside of the envelope; as far as I'm concerned this is libel since I wasn't watching TV and therefore there was no requirement for me to have a licence. Frankly, if they were an independent business trying these sorts of tactics they would by prosecuted, but since they are sanctioned by the state they seem to get away with it. 3. As a result of (1) and (2) I've come to the conclusion that the TV licence would be better funded by taxing *all* households rather than applying the nebulous and rather unenforcable criteria they currently apply. It could be collected as part of the council tax bill. This would mean less TV licence money going on enforcement, the abusive tactics of Capita would be no more and it would seem a fairer way to fund *all* the BBC's services.
On the contraire. The adult entertainment industry profits are going very very well, despite any influence piracy may have.
Porn is one of the few things that I nolonger understand why anyone would pay for... Its so easy to get anonymously for free on the internet, why would anyone pay; let alone pay by tracable credit cards?
What if you don't like or agree with the BBC's state produced content and don't feel like supporting them?
What if you don't like your government's schools/police/hospitals/whatever and don't feel like supporting them through your taxes? I'm sure your government allows you to opt out of funding all of these services...
Do you still have to pay if you don't watch BBC and just use your TV as a PC monitor or for sat/cable?
You are required to pay the TV licence fee if you watch or record any programmes (through whatever means) at the same time as they are being transmitted by traditional broadcast TV channels (i.e. DVB-S, DVB-T, DVB-C). If you don't do this then you don't have to pay. So yes, you can use your TV as a PC monitor or to watch DVDs or whatever without paying for a TV licence - it is a fee to _watch_ TV, not a fee to own any certain equipment.
It's a license, or fee, to own a TV. You have to pay it whether or not you actually watch TV.
Incorrect. You have to pay the TV licence fee if you watch or record TV programs (via any means) at the same time as they are being broadcast on standard over-the-air channels. If you don't do this then you don't need a TV licence, even if you have a TV (conversely, if you watch live content on iplayer and you don't have a TV you still need to pay for a TV licence).
Personally I think it's an extremely good idea, although the way it is collected leaves a lot to be desired.
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Personally I don't like Apple's tactics or philosophy very much, but you would have to be fairly dishonest to say that the original iPhone was a step backwards.
Loads of really basic stuff like tethering, ability to run third party software, etc. was missing... It may have had a half decent browser, but most of what makes a "smart phone" smart was left out - it was more like a feature phone with a fancy touch screen display. (And hell, every phone I've ever owned has supported tethering, including the non-smart nokia bricks many years before the iphone was thought of).
Also 3G wasn't as widely available as it is now, so it was a reasonable compromise at the time.
It may have been a reasonable compromise in the US, but everyone in the UK was left asking WTF Apple thought they were doing since 3G networks have been pretty wide spread here since well before the iphone appeared.
It changed the smartphone industry in a meaningful way.
I'm unconvinced about that. Certainly, the smartphone industry has changed massively since the advent of the iphone (more specifically the iPhone 3G), but whilst Apple and their fanboys seem to think they invented everything you see in a modern smartphone, I remain very unconvinced - there were forerunners to the iphone from other vendors that looked _very_ similar, and many of the "iphone-alike" phones that came out not long after the iphone were in development for a long time prior to the iphone being released. I am inclined to think that technology had reached the point that suddenly allowed a lot of phone manufacturers to produce fairly revolutionary devices, and I think it still would've happened even without Apple.
Not as big if an issue as you would think for the manufactures. The drivers would just be loadable and not statically linked to the kernel. The reason for not using Open-DRT is that the UI is terrible Luci is not great but the standard out of box UI is just a command line. Oh yes I use a TP-Link TR-3220 as a media extender. It is really cool that they have it and I will probably get a few more TP-Link routers for other projects but Open-DRT is not friendly at all.
DD and Tomato do not work on as many devices so I have not had a chance to play with them.
I have a TD8816 ADSL 2+ router running in modem mode (plain PPPoE stream that's terminated on a separate machine). I was initially impressed at the fairly extensive featureset, given that it was dirt cheap. Unfortunately, that's where my impressedness ended: when running in ADSL2+ mode it syncs to a nice high speed during the day... then at night the SNR on the line drops. Unfortunately, the modem doesn't ever bother to resync as the SNR gets worse - eventually *all* the packets are arriving as CRC errors and it still keeps trying to run at the speed it originally synced at. Rebooting it causes it to sync at a lower speed due to the lower SNR.
Obviously I thought this was a bug, so I contacted TP-Link... they got back to me and said it was the "expected behaviour"... It seems that their firmware doesn't resync unless the router's PPP daemon has to restart the connection, and of course with a PPPoE configuration, the router's PPP daemon isn't ever running so it never has to restart the connection so the router never resyncs...
Its running ok in ADSL1 mode for now... at some point I'll get around to binning it and installing an FTTC connection.
They are still actively supporting the GS2 and 3. The GS3 has had multiple updates, and more are in the pipeline. Samsung are very good with updates, in a par with Apple for their high end phones.
Keep spouting the FUD though, someone is bound to listen.
They're ok with _some_ of their phones... but you do take your chances. My Captivate Glide came with Gingerbread, and it was a loooooong time after Jellybean was released before Samsung released a firmware update to ICS... and when they did, that firmware update was extremely buggy (I've not upgraded since I've seen so many reports of regressions).
But this seems to be the same with all the Android phones - even the Nexus series devices have nowhere near the length of support I would expect for a £300+ device (my fiancée's Nexus-S is never going to get another firmware update, for example - Google announced that last year).
I've never understood the need to have a phone last weeks on a single charge. Have people evolved beyond the need for sleep? After all, it seems like it's the perfect time to charge your phone. Heck, I always charged my dumbphones every night anyways - I never even bothered trying to run it for weeks.
Which is all well and good if you have a power socket near by. Some of us go camping, etc. where there is no such luxury. Luckilly, my smartphone _can_ last over a week on one charge, but I have to remember to turn off all the background battery suckers.
441ppi is AWESOME, by the way! The "retina" display is only 326ppi! Your eyes will not be able to see individual pixels on that screen... it'll look as good or even better than print.
233ppi seems fine for me on my phone... can't see any staircasing artifacts, etc... I wouldn't really like to burn the extra battery to shift more pixels around for no gain.
I would have skipped the 3GS and the 4S.
I would've skipped the original iPhone - it was a major step backwards in functionality from most smart phones, and I can't think why anyone would want a smartphone _without_ 3G...
If the old covenant was replaced by Jesus, why does the Catholic Church care if they are celibate or not?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkGFpxRq-dg
Marriage is a religious institution
No...no it isn't - marriage predates that. Religious organisations have _adopted_ marriage, much as they have adopted many other ceremonies that were nothing to do with the organisation in question; but even so, you can have a nonreligious wedding and many (possibly most?) people do these days. Admittedly (in the UK at least) there are lots of legal restrictions on civil ceremonies that were clearly imposed in an attempt to keep the church relevant, but if you want a totally non-religious wedding you can do just that.
The only reason gay people want marriage, is not for love (they can have that!) , but for "benefits" from the state.
I'm sure _some_ want it for that reason (and hell, why shouldn't they - if a hetrosexual couple is entitled to various state benefits then WTF shouldn't a gay couple be entitiled to the same?), but the idea that that's the general reason why people want to marry is just BS. Marriage isn't love, its a _declaration_ of love, which is completely different and has nothing to do with any state benefits.
Yup. A free world ... unless you're a Catholic who was born gay, or, for that matter, a Catholic who was born female.
Or, in fact, not catholic at all since they try to use their power to prevent legislators giving everyone else freedoms...
The key is "unreasonable". Most people don't think it's unreasonable that you aren't allowed porn in TV programs and magazines you can buy in a supermarket. It's partly because there's no need for children to be subjected to porn, but also because a lot of adults don't to be subjected to porn unless they go and find it.
There's a really big difference between making it "difficult to access" and making it easy to avoid. Sticking porn on the top shelf in a shop (which is the usual practice) doesn't make it difficult to access, but does make it easy to avoid.
That doesn't mean they're sexually repressed, it's essentially a matter of manners.
There's a whole lot of stuff legally available (not just porn) that I don't especially want to see - that doesn't mean I advocate making it difficult to get hold of for those who do want to see it, it just means that I avoid looking for it. Who has the authority to decide what each individual person might find offensive? I would much prefer to accidentally see something I don't want to see than have some authoritative figure tell me I shouldn't be looking for something purely because they don't approve of it.
Making porn (or any other type of material) difficult to access would be a bad thing.
Why? This sounds like a reflexive libertarian response. If you think abou tit for a min, what is your reasoning?
Because unreasonable restrictions of freedom of speech are a bad thing. What about if certain political material were made difficult to access? Is that ok too?
The difference between adults and kids is that adults are expected to make their own decisions whereas kids don't always have the experience to do that - this is why making it easy for parents to block these websites from their kids is a good thing. On the other hand, the state is not supposed to be in the business of telling the population what they are allowed to look at - that way is a very slippery slope.
I would like it if porn were more difficult to access. also, by ubiquitous i mean a google search away. I remember in my day we had to hustle to find some titty pictures!
Making porn (or any other type of material) difficult to access would be a bad thing. Requiring the porn industry to include headers in their HTTP responses to make it easier for parents to control access to porn would probably be good though. And not just the porn industry - the same goes for any "questionable" content...
However, given the global nature of the internet, coupled with the lack of interest in enforcing the existing communications laws, means that this is never going to happen.
If the aim is really to keep drivers to a safe speed through a hazardous area then average speed check systems (like they use for motorway roadworks in the UK) seem like the way to go.
Absolutely. Although average speed cameras for limits of 50mph or less on motorways do sometimes scare me quite shitless in busy traffic: On 2 separate occasions I have been forced off the road by a lorry who has decided that they want to do 51mph in an enforced 50 zone on a motorway, pulls out to overtake me, then pulls in before having actually got past me. The first time I ended up on the hard shoulder, the second time I ended up on the slip road for an on-ramp (thank goodness nothing was on the slip road!). When I'm around big lorries I tend to think I'm much safer if I'm going faster than them...
I'm all for enforcing safer driving, but many camera emplacements are obviously for revenue-generating rather than safety.
What you mean is that they are places in areas where people are likely to be speeding.
One or more of the following:
1. Where people are likley to be speeding relatively safely.
2. Where people are unlikley to spot the camera.
3. Where someone is likley to be speeding for safety reasons.
Isn't that the point?
I thought the point was supposed to be to make the road safer. This is something that is not going to be achieved if the speeding isn't actually causing a significant decrease in the safety; and in situations where it is causing a significant decrease in the safety its often still not clear as to whether installing a speed camera would improve things or actually decrease safety further.
Here's a real life example of (3): I road I frequently drive along is a single carriageway, one lane in each direction. Every so often, there is an extra lane added in one or other direction so that you can overtake.
Lets say you start overtaking and get almost past the vehicle you're overtaking when you realise that you've slightly misjudged the manouver and your extra overtaking lane is about to disappear. So you have a choice:
1. hit the accellerator and exceed the speed limit briefly in order to complete the overtaking manouver before your lane runs out.
2. slam on the brakes to abort the manouver and try to slot in behind the vehicle you're overtaking.
Neither of these choices are entirely safe - on the one hand, (1) means you're going to be going too fast, so increases the seriousness of an accident if one were to occur; whilst (2) may be extremely difficult and dangerous if you and/or the vehicle you're overtaking has a line of traffic behind it. Choosing the best solution requires you to evaluate the current situation.
So maybe you decide that (1) is the safest idea - even though it increases the seriousness of any accident, you decide that an accident is going to be pretty serious anyway, the oncoming traffic is far enough away that it isn't going to be serious if you slightly overshoot and there's enough traffic behind to make (2) a pretty dangerous proposition. Just as you pass the vehicle you're overtaking, you spot the lines in the road indicative of a speed camera. Arguably the logical step here is to keep accellerating and accept the ticket since you're way past the point of being able to safely abort the manouver, but having yet another thing to think through isn't exactly what you need right now.
As I said, this is a real life example - the road in question has exactly this setup. If your argument is "well you shouldn't have midjudged it in the first place" then you're an idiot and failing to realise that people _do_ screw up all the time and have to use their best judgement to get themselves out of the hole they got themselves into. It is my opinion that this speed camera is dangerous, since it adds another unnecessary decision point to an already stressful situation, and I don't believe its ever going to catch anyone who is _not_ in that situation.
if you are installing the speed camera because "people should adhere to the law" rather than to improve safety, then I tend to think the law should be examined more closely. If people are speeding in a particular location and there isn't a problem with speed-related accidents then maybe the speed limit should be raised a bit rather than enforcing the existing limit?
Law is binary, you are breaking it or not.
Not really true - the law is often vague. Even if you're blatently speeding there are situations where a court would rule that you had a damned good reason to be speeding and let you off.
But even where you clearly are breaking the law, the question has to be asked: what is the law _for_? If the law is serving no useful purpose then I
Given the tolerances most radar based speed cameras operate at and the fact that 2 cars travelling side by side can totally screw the results anyway. I'm surprised most speeding tickets don't get laughed out of court anyway. Especially given that most of them are simply employed as a revenue stream for local authorities.
This is why in the UK, speeding cameras take 2 photos a know time apart and they are manually checked to ensure you've exceeded the maximum distance between the 2 photos... Of course none of this proves that the speed camera's clock is calibrated correctly.
You are conflating speeding tickets with parking tickets and, hence, deliberately mis-representing the issue in the UK.
They are handled in similar ways (albeit by different departments) - in both cases you are offered a "reduced fine" and are required to decline that offer and accept the full fine if you want to appeal to court.
Obviously, for parking tickets you can appeal to the local council after they have been issued and have them cancelled.
When you receive a parking ticket from the local council, you are given a "reduced fine" offer if you pay within a certain number of days. You can appeal to the council and the council will almost invariably decline the appeal. Your choice now is to either pay the reduced fine, or accept the full fine and make a court appeal. If the court rules against you, you pay the full fine - once you decide to make a court appeal there is no going back to the reduced fine that you were originally offered.
I've done this and it relies on you collecting evidence to show you were not at fault (lines not painted correctly / visible etc...).
This may sound like a silly question, but why is the motorist required to show evidence proving no fault, but the council is not required to show similarly good evidence showing fault? The evidence offered by the councils these days tends to be a photo of the car, rather than a photo of the car _obviously in contravention of the traffic laws_
Also, there are no points on your licence for parking tickets - stop lying about this.
Correct - I never said there were. I was talking about the general case of all traffic offences (which are all handled in a similar "reduced fine unless you make a court appeal" way) and said "possible points", not that you would get points for all offences.
And there are no "courses" for parking offences.
Correct again - you'll not that as above I said "possible" in the general case of traffic offences, not relating to a specific offence.
Much of what you wrote only applies to speeding tickets which are entirely different. You either don't drive or aren't from the UK.
I do drive and am in the UK. I have been sent on a course for doing 33mph in a 30 zone in a line of traffic where everyone was doing the same speed (boy they must've handed out a lot of tickets that day and I almost ended up in court over the fact that I didn't respond to the NIP which the royal mail never delivered); similarly I've had to swallow a parking fine because it just wasn't worth the risk of proving that a council's signage was extremely ambigous. I also know a number of people who have similarly swallowed both speeding and parking fines because it just wasn't worth the risk of going to court, even though they believed they were in the right. If the playing field was levelled and your innocence didn't have to be *absolutely clear cut* for it to be worth going to court then it would be a lot better, but that would of course annoy the enforcers since they would have to actually prove someone's guilt instead of their word being law.
Between automatic cameras, GPS, and OBD we could completely eliminate speeding. Or, at the very lease, insure than anyone who speeds _even a little_ is instantly ticketed. If speeding really is dangerous, maybe we should take these steps to eliminate it. If speed limits are too low, maybe we should raise them. But we seem to prefer these strange cat and mouse games.
Would you prefer drivers to be watching their speedo like a hawk, or watching the road?
1. Is it to improve safety?
The camera in question was installed in a school zone. I'm going with yes.
I wasn't talking about this specific instance; I was making a general point about all speed cameras.
2. Is it to blindly uphold the law, irrespective of safety?
Please cite one proven example where going faster is in the interest of safety.
The obvious one is when responding to various kinds of emergency (may or may not be official emergency vehicles).
However, I didn't say that going faster would make things safer, I said that it may not make things significantly more dangerous in some locations. If you are installing speed cameras because people are exceeding the speed limit and causing accidents then fair enough (so long as those cameras are actually making things safer, which isn't always the case). If people are exceeding the speed limit but are _not_ causing a significant number of accidents as a result then there seems to be little safety value in slowing people down - instead, it suggests that the speed limit may be set inappropriately. Setting speed limits needlessly low encourages people to exceed them, which becomes a problem when speed limits _are_ set appropriately (people are still more inclined to exceed them)
In fact, inappropriate speed limits are a big problem in both directions - for example, in the UK it is policy for through-roads on new housing estates to have a 30mph limit but with traffic calming designed to ensure the 80th percentile does not exceed 20mph. This seems insane - the first and foremost method of getting people to drive at an appropriate speed should be to _tell them_ what the appropriate speed should be by making that the speed limit - setting the speed limit to 30mph and then putting physical restrictions in to try and prevent people getting close to that limit seems inappropriate. (I also don't understand how speed bumps don't fall foul of the disabilities discrimination act, since they make roads impassable for drivers with certain back problems, etc.)
3. Is it to generate revenue?
This isn't revenue generating. This is seeking a 100% voluntary donation from the people driving in the area.
Im sure the tax office would be interested if you were taking "voluntary donations" and not declaring them as revenue.
I don't know what's happening recently, but it's a pleasant surprise to see these kinds of article cropping up more frequently on /.
Now if only we had the same kind of possibilities here in Europe, where there are more and more cameras everywhere, and the margin before you get a ticket is in some places ridiculosly low. I'm all for enforcing safer driving, but many camera emplacements are obviously for revenue-generating rather than safety.
They don't do anything to discourage the single-biggest cause of road deaths either, drunk driving.
Indeed. In principle I have no problem with enforcing the speed limit in places where excess speed is a safety problem. But whenever someone suggests installing speed cameras, I have to ask them what the purpose is:
1. Is it to improve safety?
2. Is it to blindly uphold the law, irrespective of safety?
3. Is it to generate revenue?
The only one of these I see as valid is (1). And all to often I am unconvinced that a speed camera will actually improve safety - if people are driving too fast and the introduction of a speed camera causes more accidents by encouraging harsh braking then it has failed at improving safety. I'm not blaming the camera for this - clearly the motorists who are going too fast are at fault; but however you slice it, if the introduction of the camera causes more accidents then it has failed at improving safety and should be removed (and possibly replaced by some other method of reducing speed in a safer way).
As for (2) - if you are installing the speed camera because "people should adhere to the law" rather than to improve safety, then I tend to think the law should be examined more closely. If people are speeding in a particular location and there isn't a problem with speed-related accidents then maybe the speed limit should be raised a bit rather than enforcing the existing limit?
And as you point out, speed cameras only catch one specific instance of poor driving whilst ignoring other instances which may be significantly more dangerous. It is very common for me to see people tailgating or cutting people up whilst driving within the speed limit and I would argue that these activities are far more dangerous than most speeding incidents; the only way to crack down on that kind of thing is to put more police on the roads who can pull motorists over when they are spotted driving dangerously, but this is something that actually seems to be being reduced in an effort to save money.
Secondly, I would say that even in the speeding incidents, often an on-the-spot ticking off by a police officer would be more effective than getting a bit of paper in the post 2 weeks later.
" 'It is a scam that motorists can't win.'"
I'm sure they are also against the IRS using computers to catch revenue cheaters, because it gives them an unfair advantage.
Sure they can win, just don't speed. The motorists are just used to breaking the law and not getting caught most of the time.
Did somebody check how many tickets the judge got?
I think the issue is not that people are getting caught, but that there is a lack of due process when they are; which inevitably leads to some innocent people being wrongly convicted.
I don't know how things work in the US, but in the UK it works thusly:
- You get somehow "caught" alledgedly committing a traffic offence. This may be that a speed camera photographed you speeding, or a traffic warden decided that you were parked illegally or whatever.
- You get notified by post (note: if a member of the general public needs to send legal documents to someone they are required to employ a process server to ensure they got there. On the other hand the police are allowed to just pop them in the post and retain proof of posting (*NOT* proof of delivery) so its entirely possibly that you will never even get the notification and still a court will deem that it has been served and that you were responsible for responding to the notice you never received.
- You will be offered a choice: Accept a fixed penalty notice (a fixed fine (probably £30 - 60) and possibly a fixed number of points on your licence); you *may* be offered a "training course" instead of a fine and points; or you can decline the "fixed penalty" notice and have an automatic criminal conviction, £1000 fine.
- If you want to appeal, you are required to decline the fixed penalty notice and training course; therefore you voluntarily agree to be convicted and be fined £1000. Once you have been convicted, you may take the case to the appeals court and appeal the conviction.
The upshot of this is that if you believe you were wrongly accused, you have to be *absolutely* sure you would win in court before you can risk appealing, because if there's even the slightest chance that the court will side with the police then you're risking an enormous fine. I know a good few people who have just accepted the fixed notice, even though they believe they were not in the wrong, because they simply can't risk the possability that they would be hit with a £1000 fine if they lost the case.
In order for things to be just, the cards should not be so heavily stacked against the accused that they can't risk defending themselves when they believe the accuser (the police or traffic warden) is wrong.
Well at least you seem totally mentally balanced now...
I finally bothered to look up what the TV license costs - it's much higher than I thought it was. That and it made me chuckle that there's still a separate black and white license...
Then again I've liked most of the BBC shows I've seen here, and it is only the equivalent of four or maybe five months of *basic* cable here in the states. All that and no ads? I don't think you guys are getting a bum deal.
Yes, amusing there's a B&W licence, can't imagine there are that many B&W TVs still working...
As for the cost, its about £12/month, which as you point out is much less than the basic cost of pay TV. For example, Sky's basic package is £21.50/month, which apparently gives us 40 "entertainment channels" (most of which are complete dross and also available for free elsewhere anyway), which have an ad break every 15 minutes. I dropped my Sky subscription many years ago because I realised:
1. It had got to the point where there were only 2 or 3 shows on the Sky channels worth watching (all fiction).
2. I was watching many more shows on free TV than Sky (almost all on BBC, which has no ads at all; although the occasional programme on S4C, etc. which is ad supported (although contrary to popular belief some of the TV licence goes to fund programmes on all the channels, not just the BBC))
3. I realised that the few shows I did watch on Sky I could just buy on DVD for a cheaper price and not have to deal with the ads and scheduling.
Some bad things I would say about the TV licence though:
1. The BBC produce a lot of content that doesn't require a TV licence to watch, even though it is funded by the TV licence. For example, everyone (even those not paying a TV licence) get free access to all the BBC's radio channels, the BBC website, most of the BBC's radio and TV content in the form of podcasts and iplayer. This is only going to get sillier as more and more people drop the TV licence and just start watching iPlayer instead - in fact I currently don't have a working TV and this is exactly what I currently do. IMHO, a fairer method of taxing people is going to be needed soon (even though that means I would once again be paying for TV I support the idea of funding the TV licence in a fairer way).
2. The TV licencing authority (run by Capita) is downright abusive to anyone who doesn't have a TV licence. They send extremely threatening letters that look like you're about to be taken to court if you don't pay and send "inspectors" to your door. If you're not watching broadcast TV then you don't need a licence, but I'm sure a lot of more vulnerable people end up getting one anyway because they fear what will happen if they ignore the threats. In the past they have also taken libelous actions, although this seems to have stopped - for example, when I had just left university and had no TV I regularly got threatening letters from them with "YOU ARE BREAKING THE LAW" printed in large letters across the outside of the envelope; as far as I'm concerned this is libel since I wasn't watching TV and therefore there was no requirement for me to have a licence. Frankly, if they were an independent business trying these sorts of tactics they would by prosecuted, but since they are sanctioned by the state they seem to get away with it.
3. As a result of (1) and (2) I've come to the conclusion that the TV licence would be better funded by taxing *all* households rather than applying the nebulous and rather unenforcable criteria they currently apply. It could be collected as part of the council tax bill. This would mean less TV licence money going on enforcement, the abusive tactics of Capita would be no more and it would seem a fairer way to fund *all* the BBC's services.
On the contraire. The adult entertainment industry profits are going very very well, despite any influence piracy may have.
Porn is one of the few things that I nolonger understand why anyone would pay for... Its so easy to get anonymously for free on the internet, why would anyone pay; let alone pay by tracable credit cards?
What if you don't like or agree with the BBC's state produced content and don't feel like supporting them?
What if you don't like your government's schools/police/hospitals/whatever and don't feel like supporting them through your taxes? I'm sure your government allows you to opt out of funding all of these services...
Do you still have to pay if you don't watch BBC and just use your TV as a PC monitor or for sat/cable?
You are required to pay the TV licence fee if you watch or record any programmes (through whatever means) at the same time as they are being transmitted by traditional broadcast TV channels (i.e. DVB-S, DVB-T, DVB-C). If you don't do this then you don't have to pay. So yes, you can use your TV as a PC monitor or to watch DVDs or whatever without paying for a TV licence - it is a fee to _watch_ TV, not a fee to own any certain equipment.
It's a license, or fee, to own a TV.
You have to pay it whether or not you actually watch TV.
Incorrect. You have to pay the TV licence fee if you watch or record TV programs (via any means) at the same time as they are being broadcast on standard over-the-air channels. If you don't do this then you don't need a TV licence, even if you have a TV (conversely, if you watch live content on iplayer and you don't have a TV you still need to pay for a TV licence).
Personally I think it's an extremely good idea, although the way it is collected leaves a lot to be desired.