in order to protect our own companies, if any such legislation is introduced, we should expect and enforce the same for all imported products.
Yes! Insist that all imported goods must be manufactured under conditions that meet all local requirements in the destination country. At present, goods are made cheaply in the third world without the "inconvenience" of things like health and safety regulations, workers' rights and, as you say, now environmental protection. Manufacturers in developed countries cannot hope to compete with cheap foreign labour when they have to meet strict standards for safety and minimum wages. Goods are designed "down to a price" rather than "up to a specification", and corner-cutting is rife.
This is going to mean, however, that the prices of goods will rise sharply. In the long term, of course, jobs will be created, but there will be a need for massive social investment in order to make it work.
The problem with this technique is that it breaks on ADSL connections, where there is typically no MX record for IP addresses assigned to subscribers. {Why would they need one if they didn't have an SMTP server?} Neither BT openworld nor Freeserve have any plans to introduce this on their ADSL services.
SMTP authentication could work, iff enough ISPs implemented it. If there were significant numbers of non-authenticated SMTP servers in action, these could end up being used for sending spam.
Another method, used by my ISP, is to require a successful POP3 login from any IP address before it will permit any SMTP send operations. This is subject to a 15-minute timeout {just long enough to rattle off replies}.
And graphite powder, clear adhesive tape, a UV exposure box, some photosensitised copper clad PCB board, developer and etching fluid. You can pick up the first two in any office and the rest from Maplin electronics. Buying PCB etching kit from an electronics store is about as suspicious as hot air coming out of a chimney.
Yeah, that's the theory. But my contention is that the amount of interference introduced by the balancing circuitry is still greater than the amount that would have been picked up by a single ended line.
I've seen mic level audio {2mV} fed through several m. of unshielded {in fact, ordinary 0.5mm2 mains} cable bunched up with other real mains cables and mains cables carrying speaker level audio, into a hi-Z {50K} load and no 50Hz hum pickup! Go figure.
Still, that's just the Perversity Factor in action. I'm sure if you tried to replicate anything like that in the lab, it would pick up.....
Pah! Balanced lines are crap. Before transistors, the concept was justifiable. Mixers were invariably passive, and it was common to use multi-ganged pots to attenuate both halves of the balanced line whilst correcting for the impedance change. Frequency equalisation networks also were passive. Amplifiers were mainly single-stage; pentodes for high gain, triodes for just about everything else, and required coupling transformers to unbalance the differential signal.
These days, it's possible to make such low-noise kit, and get away with ridiculously low impedances {just a few hundred ohms as opposed to a near-open-circuit} internally, that the balancing and unbalancing stages are actually the biggest noise sources in balanced kit. Unfortunately, there's too much legacy balanced kit out there; and probably always will be till digital finally buries it under a fixed and tolerable level of noise.
By cunning use of procmail recipes and ten-minute perl hacks, we can implement a spam filter as follows.
Check headers for signs of relay-misuse.
Strip out anything between <mustang> signs; s/(\<.*\>)//g;
Strip out all remaining punctuation.
Use a tr/// to convert accented characters to unaccented.
Recall that when used in a scalar context, s/// and tr/// return a count of successful changes made.
Check for certain words in the munged text.
We can assign messages a score based on how many "nasties" were removed as compared to how many would be in a legitimate e-mail. Then despatch to one of three mailboxes: one for stuff we are sure is legit, one for stuff we are sure is spam, and one for stuff where we aren't sure. If we wanted to be really paranoid, we would strip out image links and JavaScript from HTML e-mails. It's not inconceivable that an image link could actually be a link to a CGI script with a unique identifier embedded into it, for the purpose of alerting the spammer that copy # 31337 {faute de mieux} of the message went to a working e-mail address. {Possibility for mischief?}
And if we were an ISP, doing this on a public server, we would allow our customers to send abuse notifications to the appropriate server owners {for all the good it's likely to do} with just a few clicks.
Maybe, but if I buy a piece of software {something which I have never done in my life BTW!} which says "for sale in UK only" and has a price tag in pounds, then I don't think it at all unreasonable to expect it already to be set up for what people in this country are going to expect. That would also include, inter alia, spelling "colour" and "millimetre" properly.
You say the populations of the USA and Europe are approximately equal, but you have forgotten about Asia, S. America, Africa and Oceania. They do use paper in those countries too, you know!
Protein has about 4kcal / g, carbohydrate about 4kcal / g, fat about 9 kcal/g. Recall 1kcal = enough energy to make 1kg of water 1 degree C hotter = about 4kJ. The thing you need to realise is that not every calorie you put into your body gets turned into useful energy. Some of it is expended in movement, some of it is stored as fat {according to the First Law of Thermodynamics, manufacturing 1kg. of fat should cost your body 9000kcal} and the rest passes through undigested. {You can prove this by drying out some faeces and seeing whether or not it burns. You actually could measure the calories in shit this way. Weigh it while it is fresh and moist, of course.}
But protein requires a lot of moisture to digest. If you don't have enough available water, then your gutful of protein will get shat out mostly undigested. This lowers your metabolic efficiency.
Throttling back your metabolism could be a more successful way of losing weight than reducing calorific intake. If you go on a "traditional" diet, your stomach shrinks and your metabolic efficiency rises. So, if you were on 2000kcal/day and passing out 500kcal/day undigested {75% efficiency}, then you dropped to 1500kcal/day, your metabolic efficiency might start to improve so you were only wasting 150kcal/day {90% efficiency}. Go suddenly back up to 2000kcal/day, and your body will initially be taking in 1800kcal/day - 300 more than before - and you'll almost certainly put on weight while your efficiency readjusts back down. {Note: These figures are just wild guesses to serve as examples. I have no real measured data. Experimentation is required.....}
As a corollary, it should be possible to lose weight temporarily by eating more! If you increase your calorific intake, so your metabolic efficiency goes down, then it should stay down for awhile when you go back to normal.
Or, of course, you could just learn to accept the way you are. I've seen people fantasise about changing other people and mostly they get disappointed. What's to suggest that you're going to have any better luck with changing yourself?
Please could you explain further? Because I really don't see what the problem is. You say it "sucks to drive" but your issue is not the "controls" -- well, what is it?
I am genuinely curious to know exactly what you mean, because I really believe something must have escaped my senses.
They aren't 'apostrophes', they are `backticks`, you insensitive clod! MySQL uses `backticks` to delimit field names {in case you used a reserved word such as `date`} and either 'apostrophes' or "speech marks" around literal data. One can never be sure what new words are going to be reserved in the next release, so it makes more sense to stick the `` in than risk running afoul of some future SQL extension making a reserved word out of your fieldnames.
Whats the point of a legal tray if you can't print the full sheet of legal paper (i.e. LEGAL documents) ?
Every country in the world except the USA uses ISO standard A4 paper, which is 210*297. Unfortunately, Windows tries to default everyone's printer to US Letter, which is 216*279. This bitches up most printers, which seem to let you print on the "wrong" sized paper only one sheet at a time.
The logical answer is for the minority to get used to it, and start using the same paper size as everyone else.
OK. I've heard it often enough and now I've got to the point where I have to say something about it.
What is it with you Windows fans knocking Linux just because some of the controls are a little bit different?
Allow me to give you an example using your car analogy. On a Ford, reverse is right and towards you. On a Vauxhall {or even, since this is Australia we're talking about, a Holden}, reverse is left and away from you. People do not have fits over this. All the forward gears are in the same places in pretty much all cars. That just about makes up for reverse being in a different place {and the swapping over of sides of the direction indicators and wipers controls}. Plus, there's a little diagram on the top of the knob -- and you're only ever going to engage reverse from rest.
With Linux, everything is much the same as it is with windows. The keyboard still has the keys in the same familiar pattern. The mouse still moves a pointer around the screen which you use to select things from menus {although with Linux, you only have to click once to select something}. The programmes may have different names {Kword instead of Microsoft Word, KSpread instead of Excel, KMail instead of Outlook Express and Konqueror instead of Internet Exploder} but they do roughly similar things. In a word processor, you type text. In a spreadsheet, you type numbers.
Nobody who learned to drive in a Vauxhall ever had a problem adapting to a Ford. And we shouldn't automatically assume that someone who has got used to Windows won't be able to cope with Linux. Yes, there might be some issues of adaptation. Who has never gone to turn left in a new / borrowed / otherwise unfamiliar car, and started up the wipers? And who amongst them hasn't got over it?
File format incompatibilities needn't be. KWord can read and write.rtf files, which MS Word can handle. Nobody should be sending.doc files anyway - the format is full of unwanted information and hidey-holes for macro viruses. And if everyone in the Government is using KWord, which can read its own files, then there won't be issues, will there? Microsoft could always write KWord import/export filters, it isn't as though the format isn't documented or anything.
To sum up, there are differences. People can deal with that. To pretend otherwise is patronising to the point of being offensive.
This is probably off topic but I think it actually used to be illegal to broadcast the sound of a doorbell or telephone ring on the TV, until quite recently, for that reason..... this was in the days when all telephones had mechanical bells. So any time you needed to have a telephone ringing on TV, it had to be a few semitones higher or lower in pitch than the real ones, or give a single long ring such as they have in Less Civilised Countries (tm). Nowadays, however, this seems to have gone to pot, and there are some too-convincing phone and doorbell sounds on the TV. Perhaps it was just some particular BBC top brass that had this idea?
This could be enormous fun. Imagine now. A group of people go into a supermarket and disperse. Half the group each select a packet of razor blades, then pass them to members of the other half of the group, who take them to the tills and pay.
Or just keep picking up packs of razor blades, wandering around the store for awhile and putting them back on the shelves. Or wave a packet of razor blades back and forth in front of the sensor to keep taking photographs.
In some stores, you can go out to the exit side of the checkout e.g. to go to the tobacco kiosk - there is only one exit, with security guards in attendance. You could sneak packets of razor blades out of the main sales floor, then pass them backward through the checkouts, triggering the cameras as you go. Put the blades back on the shelves.
If there is an easy way to kill the RFID tags or blind the sensors {this will require experimentation} then maybe this can be done right there in-store.
Yes, there is plenty of potential for fun to be had with these things.
I have been wondering for some time whether people would be willing to pay for an Internet service with an aggressive anti-spam and advert-blocking policy.
I know some people know how to accomplish this for free, and best of luck to them. What I'm wondering is, are consumers ready to pay for the convenience of having this set up for them?
Maybe there is a market for a local ISP with value-added features like parental control, advert-blocking and a human being at the end of a phone line. {Sort of like what AOL would have us believe them to be, but for real}.
The definition of a firearm is a weapon in which a chemical reaction provides the energy to accelerate the projectile. In this gun, the projectile is accelerated electromagnetically, by energy supplied from a rechargeable battery. Inside that battery is..... a chemical reaction! Ergo, this weapon is a firearm.
In this country, it is illegal for anyone to own a gun; so only criminals have guns. And they are using them. But since criminals constitute a tiny minority of the population, then this is not as bad as some people make it out to be. Some innocent people are bound to get shot, but that's just bad luck you can't legislate for. Generally, if you stay away from military types and criminals, you can be born and die without ever coming anywhere near a live firearm.
If I had mod points, I'd use them. However, I haven't, so I'll reply instead.
You're pretty spot on. The only nit I'd pick is that your labelling scheme changes direction partway through {A = never, B = always, C = sometimes; I'd prefer B = sometimes}. But details like that are bound to be discussed at length later anyway. For example, there may have to be more than three bands if some aircraft are found to be significantly more sensitive than others to RFI. On the whole, though, it's an excellent idea. That, and portable frequency analysers with a simple enough user interface so you wouldn't have to be a qualified elec. eng. to use it. Again, these are details that can be discussed later.
The only problem I can see with this is that it requires people to co-operate. Aircraft manufacturers, airline operators, national and international standards bodies and electronic equipment manufacturers all need to be involved. And there's the sticking point; in my experience, any simple task can be made impossible if enough meetings are held to discuss it!
Are you related to the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork, by any chance?
I like your scheme. Goes along the lines of you can't con an honest person => anyone who falls victim to a con-trick had some dishonest intention.
I'm trying to think of a historical example of someone trying to fool people into thinking they were doing something dishonest. No joy so far, but I'm sure someone else will point one out.
Unless the box turns itself off when you unplug the cable and won't let you turn it back on until you plug it back in.
Oh, come on. For one thing, it would be prohibitively expensive for them to set up anything like that. For another, kids mess about with these things all the time, pulling cables out and stuff. It mustn't ever look like it's broken, otherwise they'd get unnecessary call-outs. And lastly, it would be too easy to trick it into thinking the cable was connected and turning back on.
What if the inner enclosure that contains the hard drive, decryption chip, and DAC is under an airtight seal?
I'm relying on the second law of thermodynamics, a.k.a. anything electrical gets hot, to stop them doing this. They could fit the sealed box with a Peltier cooler as a heat pump, but now this is compromising reliability and seriously upping the cost. It probably would be cheaper for them just to let you make unauthorised use of whatever you're receiving.
watch governments require licensure for ownership of [a high-frequency] ADC. Some drafts of the CBDTPA and broadcast flag legislation had such a requirement.
This sounds like a case of total and utter plot loss. Are they trying to tell me what circuits I can and can't build? Muddy Mildred! How long before we get arrested for Thoughtcrime? {A fast ADC can be built using comparators and 74HC TTL chips. Anyone who knows that - it's just A-level stuff - would never even imagine you could control possession of such devices.}
Don't get so paranoid and pessimistic. The Authorities prattle on proposing unworkable solutions to nonexistent problems, because they get paid to do it. But down at Street Level, things are still run by ordinary people with a healthy contempt for such control-freakery -- at least, enough of us are enlightened to stop the worst excesses of authority. Absit omen it should be any other way.
Ah, Canadian or European?
Canadian or European what? I presume you aren't talking about me because you should already know where I'm from, just from my e-mail address.
If my state (Pennsylvania) has no restrictions on the amount of arsenic that an industrial plant can release into a river, but when that river gets to Ohio, those people have no recourse if there is no Federal standard.
In that case, how much arsenic you can release into the river is properly a federal matter, if and only if the river flows through more than one state; because you haven't got an Enclosed Space anymore. On the other hand, if the river had its source and estuary in Pennsylvania {Penn. may be landlocked. Don't flame me for this. Can you name the landlocked counties in this country?} and did not pass outside your state's borders, then it would be nobody else's business but Pennsylvania's how much arsenic you were dumping in it..... at least, not until it washed up on someone else's shores.
The point is that if an action and its consequences can be contained within a smaller unit {family / school / workplace / estate / city / county / region / state}, then they should be dealt with entirely within that small unit. And for any larger unit to interfere, would constitute an excess of authority on their part.
Employees who satisfy their own curiousity without caring whose privacy they compromise should never have be allowed to have jobs where "poking around" in private data is possible.
I can't agree with that. My sense of morbid curiosity makes gerbils look positively ignorant. As long as you never (a) reveal information you shouldn't have accessed, nor (b) base a decision on such information, it is not a problem for me.
Possession of information is never wrong {claiming otherwise creates the concept of thoughtcrime}, though it can certainly be misused.
Is Ogg clearer or cheaper or have smaller file sizes?
Yes, yes, and yes.
Do p2p for Ogg exist?
Apache and ProFTPd exist, and will work with all file formats now known or to be invented.
If someone like myself was going to convert my mp3's (if that is even possible)
It's possible in theory, but you probably wouldn't want to. MP3 has already lost material in the compression, and this won't ever be recovered. Even if Ogg Vorbis didn't introduce errors of its own, the result wouldn't be any better than the original MP3.
It's not about translating existing files, it's about using a new format for new files. And there are no patent issues with Ogg Vorbis {not that there ever should have been any with MP3, it's a mathematical process for crying out loud, what would happen if absit omen somebody patented addition? but I'm digressing}. OK, the cat is well and truly out of the bag now, and anyone could write an unlicenced MP3 encoder or decoder if they really wanted, but you would never get away with selling it commercially.
Slashdot Mirror
Our washing machines have concrete blocks in the base!
This is going to mean, however, that the prices of goods will rise sharply. In the long term, of course, jobs will be created, but there will be a need for massive social investment in order to make it work.
The problem with this technique is that it breaks on ADSL connections, where there is typically no MX record for IP addresses assigned to subscribers. {Why would they need one if they didn't have an SMTP server?} Neither BT openworld nor Freeserve have any plans to introduce this on their ADSL services.
SMTP authentication could work, iff enough ISPs implemented it. If there were significant numbers of non-authenticated SMTP servers in action, these could end up being used for sending spam.
Another method, used by my ISP, is to require a successful POP3 login from any IP address before it will permit any SMTP send operations. This is subject to a 15-minute timeout {just long enough to rattle off replies}.
And graphite powder, clear adhesive tape, a UV exposure box, some photosensitised copper clad PCB board, developer and etching fluid. You can pick up the first two in any office and the rest from Maplin electronics. Buying PCB etching kit from an electronics store is about as suspicious as hot air coming out of a chimney.
Yeah, that's the theory. But my contention is that the amount of interference introduced by the balancing circuitry is still greater than the amount that would have been picked up by a single ended line.
.....
I've seen mic level audio {2mV} fed through several m. of unshielded {in fact, ordinary 0.5mm2 mains} cable bunched up with other real mains cables and mains cables carrying speaker level audio, into a hi-Z {50K} load and no 50Hz hum pickup! Go figure.
Still, that's just the Perversity Factor in action. I'm sure if you tried to replicate anything like that in the lab, it would pick up
Pah! Balanced lines are crap. Before transistors, the concept was justifiable. Mixers were invariably passive, and it was common to use multi-ganged pots to attenuate both halves of the balanced line whilst correcting for the impedance change. Frequency equalisation networks also were passive. Amplifiers were mainly single-stage; pentodes for high gain, triodes for just about everything else, and required coupling transformers to unbalance the differential signal.
These days, it's possible to make such low-noise kit, and get away with ridiculously low impedances {just a few hundred ohms as opposed to a near-open-circuit} internally, that the balancing and unbalancing stages are actually the biggest noise sources in balanced kit. Unfortunately, there's too much legacy balanced kit out there; and probably always will be till digital finally buries it under a fixed and tolerable level of noise.
Is it just me, or do other people get a surge of panic on seeing the word "audiophile" ?
.....
I'm seeing mobs of angry News of the World readers torching hi-fi shops
--
The baby is dead. It was the minging bathwater that killed it.
- Check headers for signs of relay-misuse.
- Strip out anything between <mustang> signs; s/(\<.*\>)//g;
- Strip out all remaining punctuation.
- Use a tr/// to convert accented characters to unaccented.
- Recall that when used in a scalar context, s/// and tr/// return a count of successful changes made.
- Check for certain words in the munged text.
We can assign messages a score based on how many "nasties" were removed as compared to how many would be in a legitimate e-mail. Then despatch to one of three mailboxes: one for stuff we are sure is legit, one for stuff we are sure is spam, and one for stuff where we aren't sure. If we wanted to be really paranoid, we would strip out image links and JavaScript from HTML e-mails. It's not inconceivable that an image link could actually be a link to a CGI script with a unique identifier embedded into it, for the purpose of alerting the spammer that copy # 31337 {faute de mieux} of the message went to a working e-mail address. {Possibility for mischief?}And if we were an ISP, doing this on a public server, we would allow our customers to send abuse notifications to the appropriate server owners {for all the good it's likely to do} with just a few clicks.
Maybe, but if I buy a piece of software {something which I have never done in my life BTW!} which says "for sale in UK only" and has a price tag in pounds, then I don't think it at all unreasonable to expect it already to be set up for what people in this country are going to expect. That would also include, inter alia, spelling "colour" and "millimetre" properly.
You say the populations of the USA and Europe are approximately equal, but you have forgotten about Asia, S. America, Africa and Oceania. They do use paper in those countries too, you know!
Protein has about 4kcal / g, carbohydrate about 4kcal / g, fat about 9 kcal/g. Recall 1kcal = enough energy to make 1kg of water 1 degree C hotter = about 4kJ. The thing you need to realise is that not every calorie you put into your body gets turned into useful energy. Some of it is expended in movement, some of it is stored as fat {according to the First Law of Thermodynamics, manufacturing 1kg. of fat should cost your body 9000kcal} and the rest passes through undigested. {You can prove this by drying out some faeces and seeing whether or not it burns. You actually could measure the calories in shit this way. Weigh it while it is fresh and moist, of course.}
.....}
But protein requires a lot of moisture to digest. If you don't have enough available water, then your gutful of protein will get shat out mostly undigested. This lowers your metabolic efficiency.
Throttling back your metabolism could be a more successful way of losing weight than reducing calorific intake. If you go on a "traditional" diet, your stomach shrinks and your metabolic efficiency rises. So, if you were on 2000kcal/day and passing out 500kcal/day undigested {75% efficiency}, then you dropped to 1500kcal/day, your metabolic efficiency might start to improve so you were only wasting 150kcal/day {90% efficiency}. Go suddenly back up to 2000kcal/day, and your body will initially be taking in 1800kcal/day - 300 more than before - and you'll almost certainly put on weight while your efficiency readjusts back down. {Note: These figures are just wild guesses to serve as examples. I have no real measured data. Experimentation is required
As a corollary, it should be possible to lose weight temporarily by eating more! If you increase your calorific intake, so your metabolic efficiency goes down, then it should stay down for awhile when you go back to normal.
Or, of course, you could just learn to accept the way you are. I've seen people fantasise about changing other people and mostly they get disappointed. What's to suggest that you're going to have any better luck with changing yourself?
Please could you explain further? Because I really don't see what the problem is. You say it "sucks to drive" but your issue is not the "controls" -- well, what is it?
I am genuinely curious to know exactly what you mean, because I really believe something must have escaped my senses.
They aren't 'apostrophes', they are `backticks`, you insensitive clod! MySQL uses `backticks` to delimit field names {in case you used a reserved word such as `date`} and either 'apostrophes' or "speech marks" around literal data. One can never be sure what new words are going to be reserved in the next release, so it makes more sense to stick the `` in than risk running afoul of some future SQL extension making a reserved word out of your fieldnames.
The logical answer is for the minority to get used to it, and start using the same paper size as everyone else.
OK. I've heard it often enough and now I've got to the point where I have to say something about it.
.rtf files, which MS Word can handle. Nobody should be sending .doc files anyway - the format is full of unwanted information and hidey-holes for macro viruses. And if everyone in the Government is using KWord, which can read its own files, then there won't be issues, will there? Microsoft could always write KWord import/export filters, it isn't as though the format isn't documented or anything.
What is it with you Windows fans knocking Linux just because some of the controls are a little bit different?
Allow me to give you an example using your car analogy. On a Ford, reverse is right and towards you. On a Vauxhall {or even, since this is Australia we're talking about, a Holden}, reverse is left and away from you. People do not have fits over this. All the forward gears are in the same places in pretty much all cars. That just about makes up for reverse being in a different place {and the swapping over of sides of the direction indicators and wipers controls}. Plus, there's a little diagram on the top of the knob -- and you're only ever going to engage reverse from rest.
With Linux, everything is much the same as it is with windows. The keyboard still has the keys in the same familiar pattern. The mouse still moves a pointer around the screen which you use to select things from menus {although with Linux, you only have to click once to select something}. The programmes may have different names {Kword instead of Microsoft Word, KSpread instead of Excel, KMail instead of Outlook Express and Konqueror instead of Internet Exploder} but they do roughly similar things. In a word processor, you type text. In a spreadsheet, you type numbers.
Nobody who learned to drive in a Vauxhall ever had a problem adapting to a Ford. And we shouldn't automatically assume that someone who has got used to Windows won't be able to cope with Linux. Yes, there might be some issues of adaptation. Who has never gone to turn left in a new / borrowed / otherwise unfamiliar car, and started up the wipers? And who amongst them hasn't got over it?
File format incompatibilities needn't be. KWord can read and write
To sum up, there are differences. People can deal with that. To pretend otherwise is patronising to the point of being offensive.
I think the advertiser is just trying to annoy you into never buying whatever it is they are selling. If that's the case, it works fine for me.
.....
Now, if you were epileptic
This is probably off topic but I think it actually used to be illegal to broadcast the sound of a doorbell or telephone ring on the TV, until quite recently, for that reason ..... this was in the days when all telephones had mechanical bells. So any time you needed to have a telephone ringing on TV, it had to be a few semitones higher or lower in pitch than the real ones, or give a single long ring such as they have in Less Civilised Countries (tm). Nowadays, however, this seems to have gone to pot, and there are some too-convincing phone and doorbell sounds on the TV. Perhaps it was just some particular BBC top brass that had this idea?
This could be enormous fun. Imagine now. A group of people go into a supermarket and disperse. Half the group each select a packet of razor blades, then pass them to members of the other half of the group, who take them to the tills and pay.
Or just keep picking up packs of razor blades, wandering around the store for awhile and putting them back on the shelves. Or wave a packet of razor blades back and forth in front of the sensor to keep taking photographs.
In some stores, you can go out to the exit side of the checkout e.g. to go to the tobacco kiosk - there is only one exit, with security guards in attendance. You could sneak packets of razor blades out of the main sales floor, then pass them backward through the checkouts, triggering the cameras as you go. Put the blades back on the shelves.
If there is an easy way to kill the RFID tags or blind the sensors {this will require experimentation} then maybe this can be done right there in-store.
Yes, there is plenty of potential for fun to be had with these things.
I have been wondering for some time whether people would be willing to pay for an Internet service with an aggressive anti-spam and advert-blocking policy.
I know some people know how to accomplish this for free, and best of luck to them. What I'm wondering is, are consumers ready to pay for the convenience of having this set up for them?
Maybe there is a market for a local ISP with value-added features like parental control, advert-blocking and a human being at the end of a phone line. {Sort of like what AOL would have us believe them to be, but for real}.
The definition of a firearm is a weapon in which a chemical reaction provides the energy to accelerate the projectile. In this gun, the projectile is accelerated electromagnetically, by energy supplied from a rechargeable battery. Inside that battery is ..... a chemical reaction! Ergo, this weapon is a firearm.
In this country, it is illegal for anyone to own a gun; so only criminals have guns. And they are using them. But since criminals constitute a tiny minority of the population, then this is not as bad as some people make it out to be. Some innocent people are bound to get shot, but that's just bad luck you can't legislate for. Generally, if you stay away from military types and criminals, you can be born and die without ever coming anywhere near a live firearm.
If I had mod points, I'd use them. However, I haven't, so I'll reply instead.
You're pretty spot on. The only nit I'd pick is that your labelling scheme changes direction partway through {A = never, B = always, C = sometimes; I'd prefer B = sometimes}. But details like that are bound to be discussed at length later anyway. For example, there may have to be more than three bands if some aircraft are found to be significantly more sensitive than others to RFI. On the whole, though, it's an excellent idea. That, and portable frequency analysers with a simple enough user interface so you wouldn't have to be a qualified elec. eng. to use it. Again, these are details that can be discussed later.
The only problem I can see with this is that it requires people to co-operate. Aircraft manufacturers, airline operators, national and international standards bodies and electronic equipment manufacturers all need to be involved. And there's the sticking point; in my experience, any simple task can be made impossible if enough meetings are held to discuss it!
Are you related to the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork, by any chance?
I like your scheme. Goes along the lines of you can't con an honest person => anyone who falls victim to a con-trick had some dishonest intention.
I'm trying to think of a historical example of someone trying to fool people into thinking they were doing something dishonest. No joy so far, but I'm sure someone else will point one out.
Don't get so paranoid and pessimistic. The Authorities prattle on proposing unworkable solutions to nonexistent problems, because they get paid to do it. But down at Street Level, things are still run by ordinary people with a healthy contempt for such control-freakery -- at least, enough of us are enlightened to stop the worst excesses of authority. Absit omen it should be any other way.
The point is that if an action and its consequences can be contained within a smaller unit {family / school / workplace / estate / city / county / region / state}, then they should be dealt with entirely within that small unit. And for any larger unit to interfere, would constitute an excess of authority on their part.
It's not about translating existing files, it's about using a new format for new files. And there are no patent issues with Ogg Vorbis {not that there ever should have been any with MP3, it's a mathematical process for crying out loud, what would happen if absit omen somebody patented addition? but I'm digressing}. OK, the cat is well and truly out of the bag now, and anyone could write an unlicenced MP3 encoder or decoder if they really wanted, but you would never get away with selling it commercially.