Yes, we get it, we all get it, the whole of Europe gets it. We KNOW that public services are paid for with taxes, we don't think they magically exist for free. The other thing is that we tend to pay our taxes up to the top, and then the top ensures that stuff like firefighting are paid-for nationwide. That also means that there isn't a jobsworth being employed to check whether homes currently being burnt down are covered. Frankly, this situation is stupid even for all the people who DO pay because time is wasted checking to see if they're on the list (and faffing around resolving mis-spellings, no-doubt) when the firefighters SHOULD be going to put out the fire immediately.
The UK has the same double-jeopardy rule as the USA (you got it from us) - it's been around for hundreds of years. During the last 10 years, it was disposed of so that a handful of people could be prosecuted after compelling new evidence came to light (like confessions). 'The previous government' is obviously, therefore, the previous UK government which fell in May, who were responsible for the change.
As a rule, the British right to remain silent at a trial is the right to not enter the witness box at all. You can choose to testify (and open yourself up to cross-examination), or you can refuse to testify outright (which is the better idea, since no-one is going to believe anything you say anyway).
You don't have a right to not provide your fingerprints or DNA if that evidence is appropriate to the case and a warrant is issued.
Warrant? Bwahahaha. The Police, as a whole, can take your fingerprints and DNA (and keep them forever), and search your home, on their own authority if they've arrested you.
The Labour party when it was in power and creating laws out its wazoo (including the RIP Act deployed here) made it an offence to have photos of persons under the age of 18 engaged in sexual acts. To put that in context, you can have a gangbang with a 16 year old (assuming that's her thing) and it's perfectly legal. But if you have a photo of the same girl with her boobs out, taken while you weren't there (!) or if you aren't in a government-sanctioned relationship, ie, long-term or stable (I shit you not) you're a dirty sex criminal.
Sexual photos of persons under 18 have been illegal since well before 1997. The photo taken of a 16 year old would be illegal whether you were there or not AND if you were married to her or not.
Also, CPS stands for Crown Prosecution Service.
You're right that it's horrendously badly legislated and handled, but the core of it is not the fault of the Labour government (or, well, it may be, I don't know exactly when the laws came in, but it's not the 1997-2010 New Labour government, even if it was one of the other Labour governments). On the other hand, much of the particularly dangerous and totalitarian stuff around it is NuLab's fault.
Even if it's technically possible, I don't think there's anyone being held on absurd perpetual contempt charges in the UK at present.
On the other hand, the proceeds of crime act allows for someone to be repeatedly imprisoned until they pay back the probable proceeds of their crimes, even if they no longer have the money.
Yes, sort, of, if the evidence is really compelling, and the case is serious enough. That's another 'innovation' to thank our previous government for. Double-jeopardy has been pretty tough here for a jolly long time too, and was sort of swept away a few years ago, along with the right to trial-by-jury in a crown court.
"May contain" isn't the same as "did contain", and I'd hate to see anyone convicted of a crime he or she "might" have done.
Interesting that you should say that, RIPA also allows for the maximum penalty to be increased from 2 years to 5 years if the judge thinks it likely (i.e. balance-of-probabilities) that the material being protected falls into certain categories.
Well, mostly because we elect representatives for 4-5 years (normally) who then don't have to do what we tell them. (As it works in more-or-less every 'democratic' country with the possible exception of Switzerland) Although if you're interested, the dangerous government which brought this is was finally disposed of in May. It remains to be seen if our brave new government chucks this law in their much vaunted freedom legislation.
Also, contrary to the detective quoted in Auntie's coverage, the courts have not taken this particularly seriously - maximum penalty is 2 years and he's been given 16 weeks. The only people who took it seriously were the authoritarian morons in Parliament who invented it. It's also the first case I've noticed where it's been used.
The first person to reply did so to state that Vi is better than Emacs. It's not in my head, it actually happened. OP may not have intended to start that flamewar, but it's an entirely reasonable postion for 1 of the 5 people who moderated the post to think that he did. Maybe he had a serious point and wanted to see if he could start a small flamewar, we don't know, but there's something about the construction of the post which feels a little 'off' for starting a discussion. For instance, he gives no reasons WHY Emacs is a greater accomplishment than GCC, or inventing the GPL, or any of those. It's just a bare praise of Emacs, the sort of statement guaranteed to create a flamewar around here - it's not surprising, or worthy of criticism, that one moderator thought that it was primarily intended to stir up controversy.
See, that doesn't make sense to me. If someone's argument is wrong at several points, you explain each & every single point where it is wrong. You break every point in the logical chain that you can.
She sued because her name came up with unsavoury results, that's insane and I'd rather it be thrown out because it's fundamentally insane than because this particular means of trying to establish liability doesn't apply. This way it just looks like an open door for (a) her to try and get in with a different law (b) anyone else with a commercial interest to protect to fire up a search engine and see if they have an unexpected payday waiting.
I understand that it's not how the courts usually work, but that doesn't mean I have to think the status quo is the right way for them to operate.
Not really - it was rejected because she couldn't show damage to commercial interests, not because it was bat-crap insane. If this ruling is followed through to its logical conclusion, anyone who DOES run a small business (or a large business) will be able to bring a sucessful claim against a search engine because their algorithm leaves unsavoury results near legitimate information about that person. Now, that doesn't mean that any other court will accept this position (doesn't say it's a precedent-setting appeal decision), or that they will just flip the coin over and follow to the logical conclusion, but it's not a great victory for common sense either (as evidenced by the fact that the ruling harps on about why X obscure law doesn't apply, rather than applying some common sense).
Correct, flamebait is a mod for posts which seem to be deliberately crafted to stir up meaningless debates. Like the Emacs vs Vi debate (which is no debate at all, they both suck).
What is there to be said in reply to 'emacs was his greatest accomplishment'? Only posts of the sort of the first reply, 'Nah, vi is better'. I can easily see how someone thought it was just there to stir up an argument, and for that 'flamebait' is entirely appropriate.
You know if you put a $1 1-100 bet on aliens not coming in the next year, and you get your $101 payoff which WOULD probably be a larger return than any interest rate that you're likely to get on a savings account...
Then it doesn't look like we're going to agree on this one. It you will have rules, then having them clearly defined with no room for taking a chance as to whether X action will break them is a good idea. When I'm driving I don't want to have to guess at what someone else is going to do, I want there to be rules which we both understand and which if we both obey, will result in us not crashing into each other. Similarly, I don't want my actions second-guessed as to whether I 'did good' by someone else's judgement, I want to be able to point at the highway code where it says "second exit on a roundabout should be approached in the left hand lane with no indicator" and there be no room for someone to tell me that I should have approached the roundabout differently when going for the second exit.
The German problem is not being willing to consciously break the rules when the outcome of obeying them would be unacceptable, not the desire to have clear rules in the first place.
no, I said that unless what they're doing creates winners and losers, it won't have anyone willing to pay for it. Ergo, if they manage to sell this service it will be precisely because it is creating winners and, more importantly, losers.
I can't entirely follow what you're saying, but I think we agree with each other.
until you reach saturation and that effect starts, surely there's no value in being prioritised.
i.e. no-one is going to pay for this unless they get some result out (better performance than others), so by definition someone else will be getting poorer performance, else there won't be a service to sell.
My problems are doubled - my player, though it does play mp3s, is primarilly used for playing vorbis, so calling it an mp3 player is, to me, almost as wrong as calling it an ipod. This technology business is complicated stuff...
Excluding the illegal immigrants; I suspect that all of the others, even if they had never voted before, would have gone to the ballot box just to get rid of Sherriff Joe.
Most human beings on this planet live with uncertainty and need to accept consequences of poor personal choices
Good idea, now, how do we establish that a given choice is a poor one before we make it? Oh, we can't. The courts under a common-law system operate more like quantum mechanics than classical mechanics, and that's really not good for anyone.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, we get it, we all get it, the whole of Europe gets it. We KNOW that public services are paid for with taxes, we don't think they magically exist for free. The other thing is that we tend to pay our taxes up to the top, and then the top ensures that stuff like firefighting are paid-for nationwide. That also means that there isn't a jobsworth being employed to check whether homes currently being burnt down are covered. Frankly, this situation is stupid even for all the people who DO pay because time is wasted checking to see if they're on the list (and faffing around resolving mis-spellings, no-doubt) when the firefighters SHOULD be going to put out the fire immediately.
The UK has the same double-jeopardy rule as the USA (you got it from us) - it's been around for hundreds of years. During the last 10 years, it was disposed of so that a handful of people could be prosecuted after compelling new evidence came to light (like confessions).
'The previous government' is obviously, therefore, the previous UK government which fell in May, who were responsible for the change.
As a rule, the British right to remain silent at a trial is the right to not enter the witness box at all. You can choose to testify (and open yourself up to cross-examination), or you can refuse to testify outright (which is the better idea, since no-one is going to believe anything you say anyway).
You don't have a right to not provide your fingerprints or DNA if that evidence is appropriate to the case and a warrant is issued.
Warrant? Bwahahaha. The Police, as a whole, can take your fingerprints and DNA (and keep them forever), and search your home, on their own authority if they've arrested you.
The Labour party when it was in power and creating laws out its wazoo (including the RIP Act deployed here) made it an offence to have photos of persons under the age of 18 engaged in sexual acts. To put that in context, you can have a gangbang with a 16 year old (assuming that's her thing) and it's perfectly legal. But if you have a photo of the same girl with her boobs out, taken while you weren't there (!) or if you aren't in a government-sanctioned relationship, ie, long-term or stable (I shit you not) you're a dirty sex criminal.
Sexual photos of persons under 18 have been illegal since well before 1997. The photo taken of a 16 year old would be illegal whether you were there or not AND if you were married to her or not.
Also, CPS stands for Crown Prosecution Service.
You're right that it's horrendously badly legislated and handled, but the core of it is not the fault of the Labour government (or, well, it may be, I don't know exactly when the laws came in, but it's not the 1997-2010 New Labour government, even if it was one of the other Labour governments). On the other hand, much of the particularly dangerous and totalitarian stuff around it is NuLab's fault.
Even if it's technically possible, I don't think there's anyone being held on absurd perpetual contempt charges in the UK at present.
On the other hand, the proceeds of crime act allows for someone to be repeatedly imprisoned until they pay back the probable proceeds of their crimes, even if they no longer have the money.
Yes, sort, of, if the evidence is really compelling, and the case is serious enough.
That's another 'innovation' to thank our previous government for. Double-jeopardy has been pretty tough here for a jolly long time too, and was sort of swept away a few years ago, along with the right to trial-by-jury in a crown court.
"May contain" isn't the same as "did contain", and I'd hate to see anyone convicted of a crime he or she "might" have done.
Interesting that you should say that, RIPA also allows for the maximum penalty to be increased from 2 years to 5 years if the judge thinks it likely (i.e. balance-of-probabilities) that the material being protected falls into certain categories.
Well, mostly because we elect representatives for 4-5 years (normally) who then don't have to do what we tell them. (As it works in more-or-less every 'democratic' country with the possible exception of Switzerland)
Although if you're interested, the dangerous government which brought this is was finally disposed of in May. It remains to be seen if our brave new government chucks this law in their much vaunted freedom legislation.
Also, contrary to the detective quoted in Auntie's coverage, the courts have not taken this particularly seriously - maximum penalty is 2 years and he's been given 16 weeks. The only people who took it seriously were the authoritarian morons in Parliament who invented it. It's also the first case I've noticed where it's been used.
That must be a common flame-war topic which has passed me by...
The first person to reply did so to state that Vi is better than Emacs. It's not in my head, it actually happened.
OP may not have intended to start that flamewar, but it's an entirely reasonable postion for 1 of the 5 people who moderated the post to think that he did.
Maybe he had a serious point and wanted to see if he could start a small flamewar, we don't know, but there's something about the construction of the post which feels a little 'off' for starting a discussion. For instance, he gives no reasons WHY Emacs is a greater accomplishment than GCC, or inventing the GPL, or any of those. It's just a bare praise of Emacs, the sort of statement guaranteed to create a flamewar around here - it's not surprising, or worthy of criticism, that one moderator thought that it was primarily intended to stir up controversy.
See, that doesn't make sense to me. If someone's argument is wrong at several points, you explain each & every single point where it is wrong. You break every point in the logical chain that you can.
She sued because her name came up with unsavoury results, that's insane and I'd rather it be thrown out because it's fundamentally insane than because this particular means of trying to establish liability doesn't apply. This way it just looks like an open door for (a) her to try and get in with a different law (b) anyone else with a commercial interest to protect to fire up a search engine and see if they have an unexpected payday waiting.
I understand that it's not how the courts usually work, but that doesn't mean I have to think the status quo is the right way for them to operate.
Not really - it was rejected because she couldn't show damage to commercial interests, not because it was bat-crap insane. If this ruling is followed through to its logical conclusion, anyone who DOES run a small business (or a large business) will be able to bring a sucessful claim against a search engine because their algorithm leaves unsavoury results near legitimate information about that person. Now, that doesn't mean that any other court will accept this position (doesn't say it's a precedent-setting appeal decision), or that they will just flip the coin over and follow to the logical conclusion, but it's not a great victory for common sense either (as evidenced by the fact that the ruling harps on about why X obscure law doesn't apply, rather than applying some common sense).
Correct, flamebait is a mod for posts which seem to be deliberately crafted to stir up meaningless debates. Like the Emacs vs Vi debate (which is no debate at all, they both suck).
What is there to be said in reply to 'emacs was his greatest accomplishment'? Only posts of the sort of the first reply, 'Nah, vi is better'. I can easily see how someone thought it was just there to stir up an argument, and for that 'flamebait' is entirely appropriate.
You know if you put a $1 1-100 bet on aliens not coming in the next year, and you get your $101 payoff which WOULD probably be a larger return than any interest rate that you're likely to get on a savings account...
Then it doesn't look like we're going to agree on this one. It you will have rules, then having them clearly defined with no room for taking a chance as to whether X action will break them is a good idea.
When I'm driving I don't want to have to guess at what someone else is going to do, I want there to be rules which we both understand and which if we both obey, will result in us not crashing into each other. Similarly, I don't want my actions second-guessed as to whether I 'did good' by someone else's judgement, I want to be able to point at the highway code where it says "second exit on a roundabout should be approached in the left hand lane with no indicator" and there be no room for someone to tell me that I should have approached the roundabout differently when going for the second exit.
The German problem is not being willing to consciously break the rules when the outcome of obeying them would be unacceptable, not the desire to have clear rules in the first place.
well, maybe not a Zune...
no, I said that unless what they're doing creates winners and losers, it won't have anyone willing to pay for it. Ergo, if they manage to sell this service it will be precisely because it is creating winners and, more importantly, losers.
I can't entirely follow what you're saying, but I think we agree with each other.
until you reach saturation and that effect starts, surely there's no value in being prioritised.
i.e. no-one is going to pay for this unless they get some result out (better performance than others), so by definition someone else will be getting poorer performance, else there won't be a service to sell.
or that speech where he said that he had no quarrel with Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, etc.
Also, Godwin!
My problems are doubled - my player, though it does play mp3s, is primarilly used for playing vorbis, so calling it an mp3 player is, to me, almost as wrong as calling it an ipod. This technology business is complicated stuff...
I felt like I was purposely being provoked for no reason at all
Obviously, because when you lamp him one, he can get some more charges against you, not to mention an extra arrest for his statistics.
Excluding the illegal immigrants; I suspect that all of the others, even if they had never voted before, would have gone to the ballot box just to get rid of Sherriff Joe.
It does not and should not include recordings of conversations in a pubic place
Recording, or it didn't happen!
Most human beings on this planet live with uncertainty and need to accept consequences of poor personal choices
Good idea, now, how do we establish that a given choice is a poor one before we make it? Oh, we can't.
The courts under a common-law system operate more like quantum mechanics than classical mechanics, and that's really not good for anyone.