"Whenever a controversial law is proposed, and its supporters, when confronted with an egregious abuse it would permit, use a phrase along the lines of 'Perhaps in theory, but the law would never be applied in that way' - they're lying. They intend to use the law that way as early and as often as possible."
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=169254&cid=14107454
You take them seriously when they are in a position of power. With a title like "Presidency of the EU's Law Enforcement Working Party", you better damn well take him seriously, or in the end you are not the one who is going to be laughing.
Consider that the rest of the world has 22x the US's population. Consider that a large part of that does not have the good roads and vehicle safety laws of the US, or ready access to emergency rooms in the event of an accident. Even if their vehicular death rate was the same, that means 42k*22=924k, for 966k total. I'd say 1m is not a bad estimate.
If they have a 0.001% failure rate they will still err every decade or so. Good point. And let me add, consider the fact that hospitals can have hundreds of nurses. If the average nurse makes an error only once a decade, then 100 nurses will average 10 errors each year. Error prevention systems are a good thing.
Call me cynical, but it would never happen. Instead, oil companies would take a lesson from Hollywood, and make every single oil well its own corporation, so any disaster would be insulated to a single small corporation that goes broke.
I would much rather see America turn to public funding for public domain news, instead of trying to let businesses copyright facts. One of the best news organizations in the world is funding by a TV license fee.
Tesco (think British Wal-mart) was legal purchasing Levi's jeans in Europe from wholesalers, and then reselling them in the UK for lower price than Levi's wanted them sold there. Levi's sued them, and won. We can only hope the US Supreme Court sees things differently.
A Chumby One, with a small touch screen, WiFi and FM radio, was $99 on pre-order, and $119.95 now, so it's not impossible, if the screen cost can be kept down. I'd suspect $150 is a more reasonable number to shoot for, though.
It seems these drives need a new "don't lie to me, I can handle it" command, so OSes that don't have a problem with 4k size sectors can get the real info.
I did it a few times when I had my window manager configured to use ctrl+alt+(#) to switch between desktop windows. Type something on desktop 3, ctrl+alt+4 to check something on desktop 4, ctrl+alt+3 back, hit backspace with my right hand to correct my typing before fully releasing ctrl+alt with my left... boom, down goes X.
Granted, I would do something like that maybe twice a year, with 7 hour a day use, but I have done it.
It'll be amazing how many people suddenly come down with "disabilities" once insurance companies start paying for fancy PDAs and SmartPhones.
Even if 5x as many people suddenly "need" these devices, since they cost 10-20x less, wouldn't the insurance companies save money?
Ever heard of the Hays Code? It applied to movies, but they didn't have video games back then.
The Production Code enumerated three "General Principles" as follows:
No picture shall be produced that will lower the moral standards of those who see it. Hence the sympathy of the audience should never be thrown to the side of crime, wrongdoing, evil or sin.
Correct standards of life, subject only to the requirements of drama and entertainment, shall be presented.
Law, natural or human, shall not be ridiculed, nor shall sympathy be created for its violation.
See "The Ghosts of Evolution: Nonsensical Fruit, Missing Partners, and Other Ecological Anachronisms" by Connie Barlow. For instance, Osage Oranges were eaten by extinct North American megafauna. In fact, the tree is rather similar to the one in this article, in that it also has sharp spines to defend it.
Iceland has an astounding 46.89% of its population on Facebook (since you have to be over 13 to join FB, that means over 50% of adults in Iceland are on Facebook). Norway and Denmark also beat out Canada on a per-capita, with 40.25% and 38.28%. Canada is #4 with 34.37%.
And for those that care, the USA stands at #14 with 19.55%.
Data taken from http://www.nickburcher.com/2009/04/facebook-usage-statistics-by-population.html
Even if they only published a list of names, and omitted the SSNs, that would be an act of immense evil.
Oh yes, because a publishing a list of names of people in this country would be so evil. You know what would be even eviler than that? A list of names, with phone numbers! And maybe even addresses! They could call it a "phone book".
What the parent said. SSN should only be used as a uniquifier, to distinguish John Smith 123-45-6789 from John Smith 123-99-4321. The government should pick a date, say 5 years from now, and state that on that date they will publish the full list of Name & SSN data. Everyone using SSN as a shared secret must fix their databases.
You could most likely save money by renting your books, and then for the ones you want to keep, purchasing used copies of previous editions for pennies on the dollar.
Rather than an email "recall" or "delete" command, I think an "amend" function could be useful. For instance, if an email was properly signed with the right key, it could amend/update a previously sent (similarly signed) email, while maintaining a revision history.
Need to make a small change (adding a forgotten attachment, for instance): no problem. Need to make a big change (e.g., removing your 2 am drunken rant), and manage to send it before the recipient has read the original? Better hope the recipient doesn't click on the "previous versions" button.
a person could donate money ONLY to a candidate he was eligible to vote for.
I like this idea, but it needs to be stated the other way: a candidate can only accept campaign money from people who are eligible to vote for him/her.
No money from corporations. No money from the main branch of a political party. No money from anyone but voters.
The government is going to take heat on the switchover whenever it happens. Better to do it next month, and place the blame on former administrations, than delay 6+ months and have the blame firmly land on this administration.
Within a few more years, people will have 1TB in their pocket, whether on an ipod-like device or flash drives on their keychains. With normal compression, that's about 100,000 songs.
If Governments(/business interests) were to succeed in making stuff unswappable online, sneakernet will return.
Slashdot Mirror
...then why aren't we charging copyright holders Property Tax?
"Whenever a controversial law is proposed, and its supporters, when confronted with an egregious abuse it would permit, use a phrase along the lines of 'Perhaps in theory, but the law would never be applied in that way' - they're lying. They intend to use the law that way as early and as often as possible." http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=169254&cid=14107454
You take them seriously when they are in a position of power. With a title like "Presidency of the EU's Law Enforcement Working Party", you better damn well take him seriously, or in the end you are not the one who is going to be laughing.
Consider that the rest of the world has 22x the US's population. Consider that a large part of that does not have the good roads and vehicle safety laws of the US, or ready access to emergency rooms in the event of an accident. Even if their vehicular death rate was the same, that means 42k*22=924k, for 966k total. I'd say 1m is not a bad estimate.
If they have a 0.001% failure rate they will still err every decade or so.
Good point. And let me add, consider the fact that hospitals can have hundreds of nurses. If the average nurse makes an error only once a decade, then 100 nurses will average 10 errors each year. Error prevention systems are a good thing.
Call me cynical, but it would never happen. Instead, oil companies would take a lesson from Hollywood, and make every single oil well its own corporation, so any disaster would be insulated to a single small corporation that goes broke.
I would much rather see America turn to public funding for public domain news, instead of trying to let businesses copyright facts. One of the best news organizations in the world is funding by a TV license fee.
Tesco (think British Wal-mart) was legal purchasing Levi's jeans in Europe from wholesalers, and then reselling them in the UK for lower price than Levi's wanted them sold there. Levi's sued them, and won. We can only hope the US Supreme Court sees things differently.
A Chumby One, with a small touch screen, WiFi and FM radio, was $99 on pre-order, and $119.95 now, so it's not impossible, if the screen cost can be kept down. I'd suspect $150 is a more reasonable number to shoot for, though.
It seems these drives need a new "don't lie to me, I can handle it" command, so OSes that don't have a problem with 4k size sectors can get the real info.
I did it a few times when I had my window manager configured to use ctrl+alt+(#) to switch between desktop windows. Type something on desktop 3, ctrl+alt+4 to check something on desktop 4, ctrl+alt+3 back, hit backspace with my right hand to correct my typing before fully releasing ctrl+alt with my left... boom, down goes X.
Granted, I would do something like that maybe twice a year, with 7 hour a day use, but I have done it.
It'll be amazing how many people suddenly come down with "disabilities" once insurance companies start paying for fancy PDAs and SmartPhones.
Even if 5x as many people suddenly "need" these devices, since they cost 10-20x less, wouldn't the insurance companies save money?
Competent people turn to violence much sooner.
The Production Code enumerated three "General Principles" as follows:
See "The Ghosts of Evolution: Nonsensical Fruit, Missing Partners, and Other Ecological Anachronisms" by Connie Barlow. For instance, Osage Oranges were eaten by extinct North American megafauna. In fact, the tree is rather similar to the one in this article, in that it also has sharp spines to defend it.
Iceland has an astounding 46.89% of its population on Facebook (since you have to be over 13 to join FB, that means over 50% of adults in Iceland are on Facebook). Norway and Denmark also beat out Canada on a per-capita, with 40.25% and 38.28%. Canada is #4 with 34.37%.
And for those that care, the USA stands at #14 with 19.55%.
Data taken from http://www.nickburcher.com/2009/04/facebook-usage-statistics-by-population.html
Oh yes, because a publishing a list of names of people in this country would be so evil. You know what would be even eviler than that? A list of names, with phone numbers! And maybe even addresses! They could call it a "phone book".
What the parent said. SSN should only be used as a uniquifier, to distinguish John Smith 123-45-6789 from John Smith 123-99-4321. The government should pick a date, say 5 years from now, and state that on that date they will publish the full list of Name & SSN data. Everyone using SSN as a shared secret must fix their databases.
You could most likely save money by renting your books, and then for the ones you want to keep, purchasing used copies of previous editions for pennies on the dollar.
Rather than an email "recall" or "delete" command, I think an "amend" function could be useful. For instance, if an email was properly signed with the right key, it could amend/update a previously sent (similarly signed) email, while maintaining a revision history.
Need to make a small change (adding a forgotten attachment, for instance): no problem. Need to make a big change (e.g., removing your 2 am drunken rant), and manage to send it before the recipient has read the original? Better hope the recipient doesn't click on the "previous versions" button.
a person could donate money ONLY to a candidate he was eligible to vote for.
I like this idea, but it needs to be stated the other way: a candidate can only accept campaign money from people who are eligible to vote for him/her. No money from corporations. No money from the main branch of a political party. No money from anyone but voters.
The government is going to take heat on the switchover whenever it happens. Better to do it next month, and place the blame on former administrations, than delay 6+ months and have the blame firmly land on this administration.
So the obvious thing to do is to run half the windmills in reverse at off-peak times, and push the wind back so it can be used later!
Within a few more years, people will have 1TB in their pocket, whether on an ipod-like device or flash drives on their keychains. With normal compression, that's about 100,000 songs.
If Governments(/business interests) were to succeed in making stuff unswappable online, sneakernet will return.
It is also the stuff we eat; or do you think that corn meal, corn chips, corn pops cereal, etc are made from sweet corn? (They're not.)