I'm tired of all this phoney-baloney liberal crap. The FBI are here for our own good. Only those with something to hide pay them any attention.
Yes, they've been involved in some Constitutionally sketchy stuff. But a lot of their work *IS* really catching ordinary criminals. Not even terrorists or keeping files on "political" people. People who break into houses, rob and kill; serial killers; escaped prisoners, etc.
...but it's going to be slower than his current modem and there might be a lot of packet loss due to Hawks;-)
Wrong. A 4GB Flash disk can easily be attached to a pigeon's leg. If round trip time is even 30 min (1800 sec) between his home and the collection point, and only one pigeon is in flight at the time, you get 4GB = 32Gb =~ 32,000,000,000b. 32,000,000,000 bits / 1500 s = 17,777,777 bits / sec = 17 MBps. This is faster than FIOS!
Not everyone can access FBI records directly, so this won't increase non-governmental background checks (which typically use data collected by private sources). But it WILL cause innocent people being held under suspicion of being a fugitive to be released faster. The data is being accessed anyway -- may as well do it quickly to minimally inconvenience those who shouldn't be inconvenienced.
Seems the way it works is, if someone wants to step down, they can, but if they betray their trust, they are executed in a coup.
They tried that in 1989. Remember Tian'men Square? Thing is, if there's efficient secret police, it's kind of hard to organize a mass resistance movement. And unlike in some of the Eastern European countries that successfully revolted, the Chinese have never had a democratic tradition, so the roots of the system are entrenched in dozens of generations rather than two.
If you want to live under Confucian totalitarianism, then go live in China. No one is stopping you.
Then again, the threat of China beating us in technology may be the thing that'll light a fire under our collective arses. And once that fire is lit... well, look at the Manhattan Project, the Space Race of the 1960s, etc for examples.
The Chinese are evil as people. Their government keeps the worst vestiges of a discredited system, though. Look at it this way: how many people want to immigrate there vs the USA or Europe to find "freedom."
Why yes it does. To give an example, there's a difference between a man who shoots a burglar in self-defense and a serial killer who shoots people because he's hallucinating that they're evil.
You mean, they have community service, and jails, and executions?
The US hasn't had an execution for a crime that wasn't murder since the late 1950s. China has many more capital offenses and the laws are applied often. "Laogai" or "GULAG" isn't equal to the community service given in Western countries. Perhaps the closest thing would be an old-school chaingang but with even worse food and living conditions.
Yes, but the standard definition of "terrorist" isn't "one who terrorises". What China does is called "human rights violations", not "terrorism".
It's state terrorism, and if anything is WORSE than terrorism since they aren't killing outside enemies (or people perceived as such). They're killing and maiming their OWN people, whom they should be helping and protecting.
Hopefully the people at the top will be held accountable eventually.
Yes, I know China is not a terrorist organisation, but it's close enough for the US government to use it as an excuse when convenient
Could have fooled me -- they TERRORIZE their own citizens. Step out of line and you might end up in a laogai (corrective labor camp), in prison, or even with a bullet to the head. If you think the War on Terror is bad, look at China.
Of course, carriers really hate the idea because it pushes the idea that you can have a dumb pipe, and separate from that you have voice service which could possible be provided by another provider.
Sort of -- standard TCP/IP is really bad at doing voice, especially over poor connections. Too much latency, even when speed is high.
refuse to use the IPhone until they have one with a replaceable battery and a minisd slot.
Why? It's already smaller/lighter/thinner than many competitors, and if you're worried about battery life, there are several external batteries that fit on the back almost seamlessly and connect to the bottom connector. And if you want to replace the internal battery without giving up the phone, there are already several replacement kits out.
Well they can check whatever they want AND keep records on it because it is a PRIVILEGE not a RIGHT.
Nope, that's why we have a thing called the "Bill of Rights" in the USA. Reasonable search and seizure is looking for explosives and weapons. Unreasonable search and seizure is a fishing expedition and keeping of records about everything. Once the current hysteria about terrorism dies down, the courts are sure to see it that way. And "conspiracy to deprive constitutional rights" is a serious Federal felony (18 USC 241) -- punishable by up to 10 yrs in jail or death if someone dies or is seriously injured. Haven't heard of a death due to airport screening, but it only takes one cop messing up...
I'd prefer to get some old tech manuals from the 1960s and cover them with custom covers. "Guide to Underage Bestial Homosexual Sodomy and Sadomasochistic Technology. Vol. XLII"
So they can check whatever the FUCK they want, but they shouldn't keep records of stuff that doesn't pertain to terrorism. It's the keeping of records that bothers people, not checking for weapons or explosives.
We know that innocent people have been detained and then killed by U.S. forces. If you're not familiar with the case of Dilawar the taxi driver, you need to read this. This guy was captured by an Iraqi warlord trying to deflect suspicion from himself for an attack on U.S. troops.
This was actually in Afghanistan not Iraq. But your point stands -- the soldiers responsible should be tried for murder/war crimes and face a firing squad.
One of the iPhones most appealing characteristics for me is how accommodating its been for developers of 3rd party applications. I've no intention of unlocking the phone and going over to t-mobile, I don't have a problem with AT&T (I want visual voice mail too). But I will reconsider if Apple starts going after developers.
I think part of the reason is that the iPhone OS is pretty insecure by default -- everything seems to run with root privs, so you should be careful what you install. Contrast this with the latest BB which has options for what applications can access what resources.
As far as updates, you can always just not update from 1.0.2 if it becomes a problem and use STRICTLY 3rd party applications. (Probably will end up being better than a lot of Apple's applets!)
. The fact of the matter is that since June 30th, Apple has released only two updates to the iPhone software. Is this the action of a company desperate to keep people out? Jobs is not concerned with hackers playing around with iPhones.
Put a strong lock on the front door to appease your wife (AT&T) and keep the back porch door unlocked so that your friends can come in, drink, and play cards late at night. This strategy has been going on since time immemorial and kudos to Apple for making the iPhone easy to hack.
Cheers! The iPhone has a beautiful UI and is a really neat piece of hardware. But a lot of functionality (IM, decent SMS client able to even save drafts or SMS multiple people, etc, so forth) is missing out of the box. The iPhone is a beta device, still, and 3rd party developers increase Apple's development team about tenfold. Apple should leap for joy and even offer to buy some third-party applications rather than complaining.
Note that I'm not talking about SIM unlocking, which is a seperate issue. Apple should simply offer SIM-unlocked phones for a higher price to make up for the lack of AT&T subsidy.
Apple has just waisted its time and could be open to lawsuits.
Oh, puh-leeze. I guess Apple wasted its time with iWork, too, since MS Office was available for the Mac beforehand. Write good apps, and people will use them!
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I think those have to be destroyed by local authorities at age 18 and only kept locally (at least per most states' minor privacy laws).
-b.
The police just had their servers boosted by the FBI, and are therefore running round in confusion.
Yes, they've been involved in some Constitutionally sketchy stuff. But a lot of their work *IS* really catching ordinary criminals. Not even terrorists or keeping files on "political" people. People who break into houses, rob and kill; serial killers; escaped prisoners, etc.
-b.
Wrong. A 4GB Flash disk can easily be attached to a pigeon's leg. If round trip time is even 30 min (1800 sec) between his home and the collection point, and only one pigeon is in flight at the time, you get 4GB = 32Gb =~ 32,000,000,000b. 32,000,000,000 bits / 1500 s = 17,777,777 bits / sec = 17 MBps. This is faster than FIOS!
Latency may be a problem as would be packet loss.
-b.
Not everyone can access FBI records directly, so this won't increase non-governmental background checks (which typically use data collected by private sources). But it WILL cause innocent people being held under suspicion of being a fugitive to be released faster. The data is being accessed anyway -- may as well do it quickly to minimally inconvenience those who shouldn't be inconvenienced.
They tried that in 1989. Remember Tian'men Square? Thing is, if there's efficient secret police, it's kind of hard to organize a mass resistance movement. And unlike in some of the Eastern European countries that successfully revolted, the Chinese have never had a democratic tradition, so the roots of the system are entrenched in dozens of generations rather than two.
If you want to live under Confucian totalitarianism, then go live in China. No one is stopping you.
Then again, the threat of China beating us in technology may be the thing that'll light a fire under our collective arses. And once that fire is lit ... well, look at the Manhattan Project, the Space Race of the 1960s, etc for examples.
-b.
The Chinese are evil as people. Their government keeps the worst vestiges of a discredited system, though. Look at it this way: how many people want to immigrate there vs the USA or Europe to find "freedom."
-b.
-b.
Why yes it does. To give an example, there's a difference between a man who shoots a burglar in self-defense and a serial killer who shoots people because he's hallucinating that they're evil.
The US hasn't had an execution for a crime that wasn't murder since the late 1950s. China has many more capital offenses and the laws are applied often. "Laogai" or "GULAG" isn't equal to the community service given in Western countries. Perhaps the closest thing would be an old-school chaingang but with even worse food and living conditions.
-b.
I assume the OP is talking about humans returning to the moon.
-b.
It's state terrorism, and if anything is WORSE than terrorism since they aren't killing outside enemies (or people perceived as such). They're killing and maiming their OWN people, whom they should be helping and protecting.
Hopefully the people at the top will be held accountable eventually.
-b.
Could have fooled me -- they TERRORIZE their own citizens. Step out of line and you might end up in a laogai (corrective labor camp), in prison, or even with a bullet to the head. If you think the War on Terror is bad, look at China.
-b.
Sort of -- standard TCP/IP is really bad at doing voice, especially over poor connections. Too much latency, even when speed is high.
-b.
Google up the location, set ringer on "vibrate."
-b.
Why? It's already smaller/lighter/thinner than many competitors, and if you're worried about battery life, there are several external batteries that fit on the back almost seamlessly and connect to the bottom connector. And if you want to replace the internal battery without giving up the phone, there are already several replacement kits out.
-b.
Nope, that's why we have a thing called the "Bill of Rights" in the USA. Reasonable search and seizure is looking for explosives and weapons. Unreasonable search and seizure is a fishing expedition and keeping of records about everything. Once the current hysteria about terrorism dies down, the courts are sure to see it that way. And "conspiracy to deprive constitutional rights" is a serious Federal felony (18 USC 241) -- punishable by up to 10 yrs in jail or death if someone dies or is seriously injured. Haven't heard of a death due to airport screening, but it only takes one cop messing up...
-b.
-b.
-b.
This was actually in Afghanistan not Iraq. But your point stands -- the soldiers responsible should be tried for murder/war crimes and face a firing squad.
-b.
I think part of the reason is that the iPhone OS is pretty insecure by default -- everything seems to run with root privs, so you should be careful what you install. Contrast this with the latest BB which has options for what applications can access what resources.
As far as updates, you can always just not update from 1.0.2 if it becomes a problem and use STRICTLY 3rd party applications. (Probably will end up being better than a lot of Apple's applets!)
-b.
Put a strong lock on the front door to appease your wife (AT&T) and keep the back porch door unlocked so that your friends can come in, drink, and play cards late at night. This strategy has been going on since time immemorial and kudos to Apple for making the iPhone easy to hack.
-b.
Note that I'm not talking about SIM unlocking, which is a seperate issue. Apple should simply offer SIM-unlocked phones for a higher price to make up for the lack of AT&T subsidy.
-b.
Oh, puh-leeze. I guess Apple wasted its time with iWork, too, since MS Office was available for the Mac beforehand. Write good apps, and people will use them!