How do so many people getting moderated up on Slashdot for posting lists full of BS issues that are trivial to solve or don't even exist. Your entire post is a waste of fucking time, we've had these cameras for a decade in the UK. Guess what, we can still fill up our cars perfectly well thank you. Sometimes I think if someone posted about an idea that included walking to a local shop you'd get a dozen responses on here pointing out 'insightful' issues like 'what if you get mugged?', 'they might not stock it?', 'how do you know they accept your currency?'.
Secondly we're talking about insurance not tax dumb ass and we do put stickers in our windows for road tax like everywhere else. Try and having something of value to share if you must share at all rather than just wasting peoples time. As to whichever cretins moderated your ignorance up, FOAD.
There's a couple of flaws with your points. I'm going to assume you're not from the UK rather than just completely oblivious to what goes on it your own country. Firstly, we already have ANPR at stations to stop drive away theft and while we have seend petrol/diesel theft increase it hasn't rocketed and most of it could be explained by the increase in the value (cost). Secondly, good luck trying to get a garage to allow you to fill a 25 ltr container. Garages will only allow you to use certain containers and I believe the limit on size is 10 ltrs. Most garages would quickly catch on to someone constantly coming in to fill up a container.
There are a lot of people driving without insurance in the UK. A notable proportion of them are also driving without a license, with a revoked license, while banned, without tax or without an MOT. If you can stop this you make the roads safer and make insurance more affordable (at the moment your insurance has to cover accidents with an uninsured vehicle in most cases). Perhaps the solution isn't perfect, but I think it is a considerable improvement on the current situation and isn't really more invasive. Number plates are already being tracked now.
Number plate recognition at fuel pumps already works well. Issues like dodgy records and foriegn plates will need addressing but they're not stupid. I'm not worried about whether they can make it work or not.
One of the directors at work had a really annoying habit of leaving his phone at his desk when he went to meetings for the entire day. The rest of the open plan office then had to put up with it going off dozens of times. He stopped, or started putting it on silent, after we started removing the battery.
If you find something like that, you do NOT report it.
How about we wait and see what the result is here before we make wide generalisations. The guy isn't under arrest. The ban on being alone with his daughter seems overly harsh but I can appreciate why. The guy does have child pornography on his laptop; it's not like a reasonably likely cause of that isn't himself. There is a chance, I couldn't guess on odds, that the guy had looked at child pornography and was concerned his details may have gotten to the police. I think it is pretty reasonable for the police to want to make sure that isn't the case and I can see why they are concerned about him being left alone with a child in the meanwhile.
The other option he had, assuming he is innocent, is to delete it and hope that the police don't come knocking about the fact his laptop was used to download some child porn. Having deleted it isn't exactly in his favour if that came before a jury. Obviously the odds are small. Finally, clearly the child pornography was there because someone put it there. Either he did it by accident (which may be possible if he was downloading something else shady) or someone else is using his laptop to do it. They might do it again and they won't get caught if he didn't report it.
It costs the government more than 2.5x the cost of the penny to make and distribute it at the moment. Even if you ignore any of the other benefits of losing it, and you ignore that rounding in countries that do this normally works to nearest value not one above, the saving to the government budget would more than justify the change (either via more spending or less tax).
To this day I remember how I felt watching Aeris die
There's an entire generation of gamers out there who all share the same shocked and dismayed face every time that comes up. I spent the next 20+ hours playing the game refusing to believe they'd actually killed her off and that she was blatantly going to be revived somehow. Story games can be fantastic, gameplay games (pacman, tetris, forza) can be great. I'd actually argue that Skyrim has pretty poor gameplay. The combat is low skill, the interface is clunky and the crafts are collect goods & combine. You know what? I don't care, the gameplay is good enough to allow you to be immersed in this incredible world Bethesda created. Mass Effect 3 will never match it for expansiveness, and will certainly allow less freedom, so what? It will almost certainly have strong compelling characters, well voiced and a strong combat mechanic (even if it may not be KotR good). Variety is the spice of life and all.
I have no intention of defending the USA's often excessive intrusions; however, as with many other issues, trying to make out that they are operating on the same level as China is misleading and counter-productive. Unless you actually have, or can provide links to a credible source showing, evidence that the US is routinely compromising the electronic devices of a vast number of foriegn visitors then you're just spreading FUD.
For prostitution, a license should be required to ensure prostitutes get regular medical check-ups, and they should have training and support in insisting on use of condoms.
For a guy who thinks pedophilia should be legal it seems strange that he then thinks prostitutes should be licensed and must have regular check ups. Seems like an aweful lot of government enforced requirements.
You're absolutely right that much of what happens is blown out or proportion. It's also true that this isn't a case of government acting secretly (secret courts etc) which limits just how terrible it is. However, when the government asks two groups to get together to discuss how to control citizens, without anyone speaking for them, and to do so in secret it is still dissapointing. Obviously we don't know what is said in there, but for all we know this could be a government sanctioned exercise in controlling use of the internet and how to manipulate people into accepting it.
PS - Give me the option to search using an older algorithm.
I'd expect an 'intelligent technical user' to be aware that a major part of the problem with Google results is that people game the algorithms, which is why Google updates them. Chances are you'd get even less worthwhile content if you use older versions of the algorithm.
It seems almost like a conciliation prize for the police when they have failed to gather any other evidence and would otherwise have to let the suspect go.
That is exactly what this is. I can sympathise with the reasoning; after all, if a police officer saw documents strongly linking someone to a murder but was later unable to access them due to encryption then letting the person go would not be desired solution. At the same time allowing an indefinite period of detention until the provide the password, or effectively saying that not providing a password is proof that evidence does exist and thus find them guilty are not great solutions either.
Probably my largest concern is that by creating this 2nd best option we haven't put more pressure onto the police to find evidence before arresting the criminal (obviously not always possible). Now any criminal who is given the option of remembering the password can weigh up the 2 years for 'forgetting it' vs whatever the sentence would be for disclosing it.
How can this woman be charged with contempt? Is there precedent in law to ignore the Fifth Amendment [wikipedia.org]?
I'm not entirely comfortable with the legal precedent of detaining people for refusing to disclose a password. At the same time I can appreciate that providing a password is not, in and of itself, providing witness against himself. The password is in all senses bar existing as a physical object analogous to a key. If a court can require someone to provide a key then it should be able to require them to provide a password. Obviously in practice both of these bring about a quandry when the person cannot find the key or remember the password.
Ultimately, the only satisfactory solution to this problem is for law enforcement to get better at collecting evidence prior to arrest.
You're either a troll or an idiot. 'Legally speaking' the judge can hold you in civil contempt if they believe you know the password and refuse to disclose it. Given that there is no point encrypting a file using the method you describe they're unlikely to believe you're telling the truth, and as you can't PROVE (for future reference it isn't proof) you don't know it you're pretty well fucked. Just because you created a file with 'instructions' doesn't mean that the judge is going to believe that is actually how you created the password.
something one believes in and follows devotedly; a point or matter of ethics or conscience: to make a religion of fighting prejudice.
Oh come on. Even the example included with your 'definition' makes clear that this is using religion as an approximation for behaviour not its inherent meaning. Just because I can say his morning work out is like a religion to him does not mean his workout is a religion nor that anyone else would accept it as such. To accept that definition as truly defining what religion means would be to accept anything as a religion, virtually without exception.
Their worst nightmare is people like me that usually choose to research and shop online without ever setting foot in the store.
I hate to burst your bubble, but if you're as clever as you think you are and you're buying best price and not likely to be distracted by the in-store *NEW SHINY* then they probably don't give a fuck whether you go to there store or not.
Who cares how the sale is made: if having a store improves online sales, that's a good thing.
If the sale isn't made by your company then you generate no revenue or profit; I think most businesses are clued to realise that is no 'good thing'. I don't think anyone has an issue with a physical store driving sales through the companies own website, so if that is what you meant then it's hardly insightful.
How exactly are you going to compete on service when you run a computer game store for example? How are you going to differentiate your service enough that people will use you even though they need to pay a significant amount more than Amazon etc (who dodge sales tax, minimise staffing cost, don't have to pay for a retail presence)? It's easy to say that companies should focus on service to survive but for a lot of markets the idea hasn't been effective so far.
But half the people i know, walk in browse around, look it up on amazon on their smart phone, and if they can get it a dollar cheaper online will walk out without making a book purchase.
I expect that this is true across a wide range of shoppers. The end result is that many traditional retail stores will close. Some will survive because they exist in a sector where physically being able to interact with the product is key, or because they offer service that justifies the cost (only practical for certain markets).
Ignorance is bliss proven nicely there. If you're buying used CDs then someone bought those CDs. When they sold them they likely bought more new CDs. By buying new CDs you're helping maintain demand and thus pricing for the market, ergo you are funding new CD sales. A car analogy fits nicely. When someone buys a 4 year old car, they are putting money into a pot that is very likely going to be used to buy a new car.
Either the used game market in the US is way less competitive than the UK or those figures are nonsense. It's common for trade-in prices in the UK to be ~£5-8 below new (as part of an exchange). There are even forums dedicated to finding places you can trade in games for more than they cost to buy elsewhere.
There is some seriously ignorant point of view that treats every 2nd hand game sale as the loss of a full price game sale. It's bollocks; in fact, it's extremely obviously bollocks:
Buyer #1 buys Blockbuster A for $60
Buyer #1 trades in Blockbuster A for Blockbuster B and pays $10
Buyer #2 buys the traded in Blockbuster A for $50
In total 2 new games have been sold.
The only way the market is being hurt is if Buyer #1 would have spent $120 dollars on two games (rather than $70) and Buyer #2 would have bought the game new as well. I have seen no evidence, let alone any that is compelling, that the people trading in games would spend nearly 200% as much (to be able to buy all games without trading in) if the 2nd hand market stopped.
Ultimately the 2nd hand games market is dead. The game makers have decided to kill it and I think they're causing themselves more pain than the 'problem' they are solving but that is there decision.
I know 3 different people who buy games on release, play the hell out of them and then trade them in for the next big thing within 2-3 weeks. Typically they can trade in for ~£5-8 less than the game cost. Obviously that anecdotal doesn't prove much, but game stores in the UK often emphasise deals to support this kind of buying behaviour so I doubt it's that rare.
I typically get ~12 games a year. 3-4 of them I'll buy near release (or get as gifts near release). I buy about the same number of older games for ~£15-20 new. I also buy 3-4 used games stupid cheap. Generally these are either titles I missed first time round or that I'd like to try but am not sure I'd like.
I don't complete the vast majority of games that I buy. Skyrim, my current time-sink, will get me through to at least the Mass Effect 3 launch. Unless that turns out to be a complete dud that will get me through to the middle of the year. I haven't played a Gears of War game since the first, haven't got the latest Forza and god knows if I'll ever get time to enjoy Arkham City. If the 2nd hand market died I'd just stop buying the risky cheap 2nd hand games. In return people will be a lot more cautious about buying a game new if they know they can't sell it on for a more manageable loss.
You act like anonymous is an organized group, they're not. In fact they have no leader and no members list.
It is a self-selected group of individuals; many of whom are part of formal or informal groups. Just because they don't have an official rank of 'Grand Imperial Poobah' it doesn't mean that there aren't de facto 'leaders'.
Because that's cost effective for normal users. Use an online backup service (personally we use carbonite) or just update a SD card / external hard drive with the files you care about every couple of weeks and leave it at a friend, neighbour or family members house. I'm not worried about the government trying to take them from me, I just want to know we get to keep a decade of photos if the house burns down or the computers stolen.
Don't ask the government to force me to conform to what works for you.
It's government intervention that has put HFCS into so many different products. Corn growing in the US can be done below cost because of government support, this keeps the cost down and that means that it gets stuffed into almost anything. Just about anywhere outside the US the idea of using corn syrup instead of sugar (cane or beat) would be crazy. If the government intervened less in farming then you'd see HFCS (and corn farming in general) decrease considerably in less than 5 years.
Sharing is not theft and it is godly in that sharing is wat allows humans to express humanity.
How about you do some real sharing and express a little humanity by donating some cash/time to a charity that helps feed starving children? What, no? You'd rather pretend that being a tight ass and downloading a film does that... get a sense of perspective.
Maybe I am naive, but I think the majority of people DONT want to steal movies and music
Yes you are. People want to get movies and music free. They'd rather keep the money for things they can't take for free like food/housing. I know dozens of people who pirate, not one couldn't afford to pay, they just don't want to pay for things they can 'steal' for free.
Slashdot Mirror
How do so many people getting moderated up on Slashdot for posting lists full of BS issues that are trivial to solve or don't even exist. Your entire post is a waste of fucking time, we've had these cameras for a decade in the UK. Guess what, we can still fill up our cars perfectly well thank you. Sometimes I think if someone posted about an idea that included walking to a local shop you'd get a dozen responses on here pointing out 'insightful' issues like 'what if you get mugged?', 'they might not stock it?', 'how do you know they accept your currency?'.
Secondly we're talking about insurance not tax dumb ass and we do put stickers in our windows for road tax like everywhere else. Try and having something of value to share if you must share at all rather than just wasting peoples time. As to whichever cretins moderated your ignorance up, FOAD.
There's a couple of flaws with your points. I'm going to assume you're not from the UK rather than just completely oblivious to what goes on it your own country. Firstly, we already have ANPR at stations to stop drive away theft and while we have seend petrol/diesel theft increase it hasn't rocketed and most of it could be explained by the increase in the value (cost). Secondly, good luck trying to get a garage to allow you to fill a 25 ltr container. Garages will only allow you to use certain containers and I believe the limit on size is 10 ltrs. Most garages would quickly catch on to someone constantly coming in to fill up a container.
There are a lot of people driving without insurance in the UK. A notable proportion of them are also driving without a license, with a revoked license, while banned, without tax or without an MOT. If you can stop this you make the roads safer and make insurance more affordable (at the moment your insurance has to cover accidents with an uninsured vehicle in most cases). Perhaps the solution isn't perfect, but I think it is a considerable improvement on the current situation and isn't really more invasive. Number plates are already being tracked now.
Number plate recognition at fuel pumps already works well. Issues like dodgy records and foriegn plates will need addressing but they're not stupid. I'm not worried about whether they can make it work or not.
One of the directors at work had a really annoying habit of leaving his phone at his desk when he went to meetings for the entire day. The rest of the open plan office then had to put up with it going off dozens of times. He stopped, or started putting it on silent, after we started removing the battery.
How about we wait and see what the result is here before we make wide generalisations. The guy isn't under arrest. The ban on being alone with his daughter seems overly harsh but I can appreciate why. The guy does have child pornography on his laptop; it's not like a reasonably likely cause of that isn't himself. There is a chance, I couldn't guess on odds, that the guy had looked at child pornography and was concerned his details may have gotten to the police. I think it is pretty reasonable for the police to want to make sure that isn't the case and I can see why they are concerned about him being left alone with a child in the meanwhile.
The other option he had, assuming he is innocent, is to delete it and hope that the police don't come knocking about the fact his laptop was used to download some child porn. Having deleted it isn't exactly in his favour if that came before a jury. Obviously the odds are small. Finally, clearly the child pornography was there because someone put it there. Either he did it by accident (which may be possible if he was downloading something else shady) or someone else is using his laptop to do it. They might do it again and they won't get caught if he didn't report it.
It costs the government more than 2.5x the cost of the penny to make and distribute it at the moment. Even if you ignore any of the other benefits of losing it, and you ignore that rounding in countries that do this normally works to nearest value not one above, the saving to the government budget would more than justify the change (either via more spending or less tax).
There's an entire generation of gamers out there who all share the same shocked and dismayed face every time that comes up. I spent the next 20+ hours playing the game refusing to believe they'd actually killed her off and that she was blatantly going to be revived somehow. Story games can be fantastic, gameplay games (pacman, tetris, forza) can be great. I'd actually argue that Skyrim has pretty poor gameplay. The combat is low skill, the interface is clunky and the crafts are collect goods & combine. You know what? I don't care, the gameplay is good enough to allow you to be immersed in this incredible world Bethesda created. Mass Effect 3 will never match it for expansiveness, and will certainly allow less freedom, so what? It will almost certainly have strong compelling characters, well voiced and a strong combat mechanic (even if it may not be KotR good). Variety is the spice of life and all.
I have no intention of defending the USA's often excessive intrusions; however, as with many other issues, trying to make out that they are operating on the same level as China is misleading and counter-productive. Unless you actually have, or can provide links to a credible source showing, evidence that the US is routinely compromising the electronic devices of a vast number of foriegn visitors then you're just spreading FUD.
For a guy who thinks pedophilia should be legal it seems strange that he then thinks prostitutes should be licensed and must have regular check ups. Seems like an aweful lot of government enforced requirements.
You're absolutely right that much of what happens is blown out or proportion. It's also true that this isn't a case of government acting secretly (secret courts etc) which limits just how terrible it is. However, when the government asks two groups to get together to discuss how to control citizens, without anyone speaking for them, and to do so in secret it is still dissapointing. Obviously we don't know what is said in there, but for all we know this could be a government sanctioned exercise in controlling use of the internet and how to manipulate people into accepting it.
I'd expect an 'intelligent technical user' to be aware that a major part of the problem with Google results is that people game the algorithms, which is why Google updates them. Chances are you'd get even less worthwhile content if you use older versions of the algorithm.
That is exactly what this is. I can sympathise with the reasoning; after all, if a police officer saw documents strongly linking someone to a murder but was later unable to access them due to encryption then letting the person go would not be desired solution. At the same time allowing an indefinite period of detention until the provide the password, or effectively saying that not providing a password is proof that evidence does exist and thus find them guilty are not great solutions either.
Probably my largest concern is that by creating this 2nd best option we haven't put more pressure onto the police to find evidence before arresting the criminal (obviously not always possible). Now any criminal who is given the option of remembering the password can weigh up the 2 years for 'forgetting it' vs whatever the sentence would be for disclosing it.
I'm not entirely comfortable with the legal precedent of detaining people for refusing to disclose a password. At the same time I can appreciate that providing a password is not, in and of itself, providing witness against himself. The password is in all senses bar existing as a physical object analogous to a key. If a court can require someone to provide a key then it should be able to require them to provide a password. Obviously in practice both of these bring about a quandry when the person cannot find the key or remember the password.
Ultimately, the only satisfactory solution to this problem is for law enforcement to get better at collecting evidence prior to arrest.
You're either a troll or an idiot. 'Legally speaking' the judge can hold you in civil contempt if they believe you know the password and refuse to disclose it. Given that there is no point encrypting a file using the method you describe they're unlikely to believe you're telling the truth, and as you can't PROVE (for future reference it isn't proof) you don't know it you're pretty well fucked. Just because you created a file with 'instructions' doesn't mean that the judge is going to believe that is actually how you created the password.
Oh come on. Even the example included with your 'definition' makes clear that this is using religion as an approximation for behaviour not its inherent meaning. Just because I can say his morning work out is like a religion to him does not mean his workout is a religion nor that anyone else would accept it as such. To accept that definition as truly defining what religion means would be to accept anything as a religion, virtually without exception.
Got another one?
I hate to burst your bubble, but if you're as clever as you think you are and you're buying best price and not likely to be distracted by the in-store *NEW SHINY* then they probably don't give a fuck whether you go to there store or not.
If the sale isn't made by your company then you generate no revenue or profit; I think most businesses are clued to realise that is no 'good thing'. I don't think anyone has an issue with a physical store driving sales through the companies own website, so if that is what you meant then it's hardly insightful.
How exactly are you going to compete on service when you run a computer game store for example? How are you going to differentiate your service enough that people will use you even though they need to pay a significant amount more than Amazon etc (who dodge sales tax, minimise staffing cost, don't have to pay for a retail presence)? It's easy to say that companies should focus on service to survive but for a lot of markets the idea hasn't been effective so far.
I expect that this is true across a wide range of shoppers. The end result is that many traditional retail stores will close. Some will survive because they exist in a sector where physically being able to interact with the product is key, or because they offer service that justifies the cost (only practical for certain markets).
Ignorance is bliss proven nicely there. If you're buying used CDs then someone bought those CDs. When they sold them they likely bought more new CDs. By buying new CDs you're helping maintain demand and thus pricing for the market, ergo you are funding new CD sales. A car analogy fits nicely. When someone buys a 4 year old car, they are putting money into a pot that is very likely going to be used to buy a new car.
Either the used game market in the US is way less competitive than the UK or those figures are nonsense. It's common for trade-in prices in the UK to be ~£5-8 below new (as part of an exchange). There are even forums dedicated to finding places you can trade in games for more than they cost to buy elsewhere.
There is some seriously ignorant point of view that treats every 2nd hand game sale as the loss of a full price game sale. It's bollocks; in fact, it's extremely obviously bollocks:
Buyer #1 buys Blockbuster A for $60
Buyer #1 trades in Blockbuster A for Blockbuster B and pays $10
Buyer #2 buys the traded in Blockbuster A for $50
In total 2 new games have been sold.
The only way the market is being hurt is if Buyer #1 would have spent $120 dollars on two games (rather than $70) and Buyer #2 would have bought the game new as well. I have seen no evidence, let alone any that is compelling, that the people trading in games would spend nearly 200% as much (to be able to buy all games without trading in) if the 2nd hand market stopped.
Ultimately the 2nd hand games market is dead. The game makers have decided to kill it and I think they're causing themselves more pain than the 'problem' they are solving but that is there decision.
I know 3 different people who buy games on release, play the hell out of them and then trade them in for the next big thing within 2-3 weeks. Typically they can trade in for ~£5-8 less than the game cost. Obviously that anecdotal doesn't prove much, but game stores in the UK often emphasise deals to support this kind of buying behaviour so I doubt it's that rare.
I typically get ~12 games a year. 3-4 of them I'll buy near release (or get as gifts near release). I buy about the same number of older games for ~£15-20 new. I also buy 3-4 used games stupid cheap. Generally these are either titles I missed first time round or that I'd like to try but am not sure I'd like.
I don't complete the vast majority of games that I buy. Skyrim, my current time-sink, will get me through to at least the Mass Effect 3 launch. Unless that turns out to be a complete dud that will get me through to the middle of the year. I haven't played a Gears of War game since the first, haven't got the latest Forza and god knows if I'll ever get time to enjoy Arkham City. If the 2nd hand market died I'd just stop buying the risky cheap 2nd hand games. In return people will be a lot more cautious about buying a game new if they know they can't sell it on for a more manageable loss.
It is a self-selected group of individuals; many of whom are part of formal or informal groups. Just because they don't have an official rank of 'Grand Imperial Poobah' it doesn't mean that there aren't de facto 'leaders'.
Because that's cost effective for normal users. Use an online backup service (personally we use carbonite) or just update a SD card / external hard drive with the files you care about every couple of weeks and leave it at a friend, neighbour or family members house. I'm not worried about the government trying to take them from me, I just want to know we get to keep a decade of photos if the house burns down or the computers stolen.
It's government intervention that has put HFCS into so many different products. Corn growing in the US can be done below cost because of government support, this keeps the cost down and that means that it gets stuffed into almost anything. Just about anywhere outside the US the idea of using corn syrup instead of sugar (cane or beat) would be crazy. If the government intervened less in farming then you'd see HFCS (and corn farming in general) decrease considerably in less than 5 years.
How about you do some real sharing and express a little humanity by donating some cash/time to a charity that helps feed starving children? What, no? You'd rather pretend that being a tight ass and downloading a film does that... get a sense of perspective.
Yes you are. People want to get movies and music free. They'd rather keep the money for things they can't take for free like food/housing. I know dozens of people who pirate, not one couldn't afford to pay, they just don't want to pay for things they can 'steal' for free.