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User: laughingcoyote

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  1. Re:so how do you prevent from scanning your plate on Repo Men Scan Billions of License Plates -- For the Government (washingtonpost.com) · · Score: 3, Interesting

    In the US at least, you can absolutely take photographs that include private property from a public place. You can't do it in such a way as to violate an actual reasonable expectation of privacy or to photo something you normally couldn't see (e.g., a long zoom through a bedroom window), but if something would be ordinarily visible from public space, it can be photographed. Copyright has nothing to do with it; the copyright belongs to the photographer. A car in a driveway is not reasonably expected to be in private, since anyone walking or driving by could see it.

    The eyes can't trespass. If it's something you could see, you can photograph it. Ask Barbara Streisand about trying to stop photography.

  2. The sad part of this is, a lot of these "anti-GMO" types claim they're protecting the environment. Yet they oppose a technology that could cause agriculture to require less land, less pesticide and herbicide, less fertilizer, and less water. Now they're even fighting against plants that would dramatically reduce CO2.

    It reminds me a lot of the "anti-nuclear" activists who claim they're environmentalists. You don't get to call yourself that and then oppose technologies that would actually help. Some of these people need to learn to actually think.

  3. Given that there's absolutely no reason to dislike the deal, and many companies have similar arrangements with USPS, I can't see any other reason. Trump is not attacking the idea of bulk service contracts in general, just with Amazon, but he's provided no numbers to indicate it's actually a bad deal. Conversely, the USPS has, and the deal is serving them quite well. It's certainly good for Amazon as well, but well, business contracts are usually entered into because both parties stand to benefit from them.

    And Trump has blasted the Washington Post many times, but once again, he could not come up with one single thing that was factually inaccurate in their reporting. Now, if they were reporting something false, he'd have a good case for being pissed off at them, but, well, if the facts make you look bad, that doesn't put the blame on the one who reports those facts...

  4. The USPS is bringing in tons of money through their deals with companies like Amazon. They're not somehow getting screwed. Like in a lot of cases, if you're going to buy a large amount of a product or service, you can generally negotiate to get it at a lower bulk rate. That's not somehow unusual.

    It's essentially guaranteed business for USPS. If they double the rate, I'm sure FedEx, UPS, etc., will be quite happy to carry Amazon's packages instead, and the USPS will wind up being the one that loses.

    But, what's that matter when you've got an ego to feed? This never was about postal rates. This is about Trump not liking Jeff Bezos, because the Washington Post has the gall to call people's attention to it when Trump says something stupid.

  5. Re:Can you put the genie back in the bottle? on Alleged Owners of Mugshots.com Have Been Arrested For Extortion (lawandcrime.com) · · Score: 1

    Very true indeed. I don't think my parents thought intentionally to do it, but I do have a very common one. If I google my name, I find that "I" am a comedian in Canada, an aerospace engineer in California, a lawyer in Florida, and was arrested for aggravated assault in Virginia when I was four years old. Even if some of the results that came up really were about me, it would be extremely difficult to filter that from the stuff about other people who share my name.

  6. Re:A good idea regardless on Fed Up With Apple's Policies, App Developers Form a 'Union' (wired.com) · · Score: 1

    No, they couldn't. There was a time limit, I think an hour or two. That's long enough to decide if the app is worth what you paid for it, but not so much time that you could do whatever you wanted with it and get a refund a month later.

    If they were giving refunds to people years down the line, it was in some other way, not the auto refund via Google Play since that was only available for a short while. But I would tend to agree with you that it's unreasonable to demand a refund for something that went EOL after being maintained for several years, especially when most of those apps only cost a buck or two. If I got five years' use out of an app I like for a couple bucks, I would certainly think I got my money's worth.

  7. Re: Simple solution: on Australia To Ban Cash Purchases Over $10,000 (theguardian.com) · · Score: 1

    When I worked fast food, I periodically went to help at one of our stores that was located at Coors Field, the Denver baseball stadium. I guarantee you, after a sold-out game, we had well over $10,000 in cash.

    I didn't handle depositing it (and I would have refused if they'd wanted me to), it was given to an armored car company, but it was a perfectly legitimate enterprise that was depositing substantially more than $10k. The reason people are willing to pay exorbitant fees to set up an outlet in a stadium is because those outlets rake in money like you would not believe.

  8. A good idea regardless on Fed Up With Apple's Policies, App Developers Form a 'Union' (wired.com) · · Score: 3, Informative

    The Google store used to do this. They'd allow you to uninstall an application within, I think it was an hour or two, and you'd be refunded for it.

    When I think about it, I was more willing to try paid applications at that time. I don't mind paying a buck or two for something that's going to serve me well, but I do mind paying a buck or two for a steaming pile, or even for something that works okay but isn't really to my taste.

    I don't know why they quit doing that. I'm a lot more willing to try something out if I can kick the tires a bit before I'm committed to paying for it. I hardly think I'm the only one.

  9. Actually, what he did was walked down a sidewalk that appeared to be open to the public. It is a reasonable assumption that a resource accessible by simple URL is intended to be made available to the general public to view. If that's not the case, there's no reasonable way he could have known that, and his presumption that it was intended to be open to the public was entirely reasonable, just like a pedestrian's presumption that they are allowed to walk along a publicly accessible sidewalk. If the sidewalk is private or restricted, it is up to its owner to clearly notify people that the default state of affairs is not true in this particular case.

  10. Sounds great, does nothing on Placing Election Ads On Google Will Require a Government ID (gizmodo.com) · · Score: 1

    In all fairness, I don't think there's much Google even can do about it, but this makes it seem like the problem's being addressed when it's not. All a foreign actor would have to do is hire a US-based consultant or PR company and have them place the ads.

    This issue won't really get settled until we find a way to get the money out of politics. And of course, politicians are not exactly interested in doing that, so I'm not holding my breath. But this won't in any way prevent foreign actors from having influence in US elections, and may just serve to obfuscate when they do.

  11. The metadata records collected by the NSA include the numbers and time of a call, but not its content.

    ...until the next Snowden comes along and tells us they're lying again.

  12. Nothing new. on Facebook Has Fired Multiple Employees for Snooping on Users: Motherboard (vice.com) · · Score: 5, Interesting

    There is really nothing new under the sun.

    Some years ago now, I ran a MUD (a multiplayer text game, for those of us who wouldn't know what that is). We had strict rules as to under what circumstances the immortals (administrators) were allowed to monitor what the players were doing on private and local channels, essentially good cause to believe the player in question was engaged in cheating, harassing other players, etc. And if asked, you better be able to say just what those reasons were.

    I had to remove more than one immortal for inappropriately snooping on players when they didn't have good cause to, including watching some, shall we say, rather intimate encounters. Unfortunately, some people apparently find the allure of spying irresistible. It's at least good in this case, as in the one I'm describing, that someone actually seems to be watching the watchers.

  13. Re:Make cars more expensive on California Leads States In Suing the EPA For Attacking Vehicle Emissions Standards (theverge.com) · · Score: 1

    Electric and natural gas engines are already in wide use. Fuel cells are certainly also a possibility.

  14. Re:Make cars more expensive on California Leads States In Suing the EPA For Attacking Vehicle Emissions Standards (theverge.com) · · Score: 1

    Or, if we've truly reached the limits of the internal combustion engine, use a different type of engine. It is quite possible to do now, after all.

  15. Re:Different here though on Will the T-Mobile, Sprint Merger Be Bad For Consumers? (vice.com) · · Score: 1

    Hope springs eternal, I suppose. But I'm not holding my breath.

  16. Uh, yes? on Will the T-Mobile, Sprint Merger Be Bad For Consumers? (vice.com) · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Same tune, different pipers.

    Every time they want to do these mega-mergers, we hear the same thing. It'll be great for consumers! It'll let us provide much more efficient service and lower prices! And we can't do X unless you let us merge!

    After they squeak it through approval, it ends up with shittier service, higher prices, mass layoffs, and in many cases, X not getting done anyway (because why do that when they're no longer competing?). This will be the exact same thing.

    We already know how this story ends. Why do we need to replay it yet again?

  17. Just out of curiosity: How would someone responding to a question on SO even know someone's race or gender? I suppose for people who use their real names that could sometimes give it away, but SO also allows pseudonyms. So it's rather confusing to me how that could be an issue at all.

  18. Re:I thought so some years ago...A cheese example. on Ultra-Processed Foods May Be Linked To Cancer, Says Study (theguardian.com) · · Score: 0

    Hey, you know how dangerous that dihydrogen monoxide stuff can be. Thousands of people a year die from it.

  19. Re:will they refund real users? give them an unloc on Valve Bans Developer After Employees Leave Fake User Reviews (arstechnica.com) · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'm very glad Valve has "made an example" here, and I hope they follow suit with any other studios that pull the same stunt. If you want to get good reviews, make a good game. If you cheat and you get caught, you pay the price.

    I certainly feel sorry for the devs and others affected by this who weren't responsible, but we can't let that stop us from penalizing cheaters.

  20. Re:Yeah but on Customer Feedback Surveys Could Be Considered Harmful (easydns.org) · · Score: 2

    Most of these places will look you up by phone number if you tell them you don't have the card with you.

    The local area code plus "867-5309" has worked at any place I've ever been. (From the "Jenny" song, from those of us who wouldn't remember it.) And I'm apparently not the only one who knows this. According to my store receipt, Jenny spent over $30,000 at my local grocery store last year.

  21. Re:"Amazon be ashamed pay their workers so little" on Struggling Workers Found Sleeping In Tents Behind Amazon's Warehouse (thecourier.co.uk) · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If that would happen, sure.

    But it wouldn't matter for two reasons. Your average employee might reach management, but the days of there being a career path from the factory floor to the CEO's office are long gone. (It wasn't very often the case to start with anyway.) We're talking about executives, not your average floor manager position that an employee might have a chance of reaching.

    Secondly, the reason I say to cut it in half is because these people make tons of money. Are you telling me you'd take the position for $3 million a year, but $1.5 million just wouldn't cut it? Because I suspect most of these lower level employees would be overjoyed to take it at the $1.5 million level.

    There is no excuse for the people at the top making that much while paying employees starvation wages.

  22. Re:"Amazon be ashamed pay their workers so little" on Struggling Workers Found Sleeping In Tents Behind Amazon's Warehouse (thecourier.co.uk) · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Cut executive salaries in half, put the savings in your hypothetical fund, and I bet you'll find it has plenty of money.

  23. Re:Since this wasn't a line item in the budget ... on The DEA Has Been Secretly Paying Transport Employees To Search Travelers' Bags (economist.com) · · Score: 1

    They still could have declared it as "payment for services rendered", or even "earnings from work as a law enforcement informant". The IRS doesn't care where the money you earned came from. If you declare it and pay your taxes on it, they're satisfied.

  24. You realize that Jews, like everyone else, are individuals?

    There are some Jews who support BLM. There are some who oppose it. There are some who support their principles but question their tactics.

    Like, you know, all the rest of us.

  25. It doesn't matter if I'm alright with it or not. They're allowed to do that. That in fact happens with many celebrities, they're called paparazzi. As long as they only film and photo in public, it's perfectly legal for them to be doing it.

    If I ever got that famous, I suppose that'd be a good problem to have. If the person acts threatening or harasses you in any way, they could be prosecuted under harassment or stalking laws. But if they just want to waste their time taping me, hey, have fun being bored to death.