I've driven the entire length of Germany a couple of times, usually over 250 km/h, and did not find it any more stressful than driving anywhere else in Europe. In fact it is FAR less stressful as you can watch the road instead of for speed cameras. And in France and UK all the lanes are going different speeds even with a set speed limit.
Accidents have far less to do with speed than the respect that drivers have for other road users.
Winning the lottery is a sure-fire way of suddenly getting lots of Facebook friends with low credit scores.
In France the system is very sensible. You take your monthly net income after tax, remove monthly debt repayments such as credit cards and any other mortgages, and divide by 3. You can take out any mortgage as long as the monthly repayment does not exceed this figure. Credit scores are irrelevant. Of course it sucks if you are self-employed.
kestaskj is correct though, not giving you money at that cannot afford to pay back is in the best interest of both parties (not really relevant to the story but he makes an important point).
Much like the UN, the ITU is a joke and an amusing waste money. The ITU would love to have controlled Internet standards but the world ignored them and went with the IETF. They would love to have controlled mobile phone standards but the world ignored them and went with the ETSI. They would love to control domain TLDs, but the world ignored them and went with ICANN.
Both Tory and Labour governments had their butt kicked when they tried first banning, and then introducing key escrow, encryption legislation in the UK. France had all encryption banned until they found the NSA were passing industrial secrets to their US rivals such as Boeing, and changed their legislation so fast their politicians almost got whiplash watching it pass.
I'm not sure it is relevant, but Toure is from Mali which has been a dictatorship for centuries and only recently gained democratic elections less than 20 years ago, from which he then went and studied his degrees at Moscow University. Maybe government intervention and control into people's personal lives seems more normal for him?
So if somebody is not able or does not wish to turn up to defend themselves, then the judge doesn't have to examine the evidence before finding guilty and imposing punishment? Sorry but that IS messed up. And this case proves it. The points about frivolous lawsuits have been made in comments below.
Even though in theory people should keep an open mind until they have heard the evidence, there is often an instinctive presumption of innocence or guilt. If I heard in the papers that Mike Tyson has been held for assault in a nightclub, then even though I shouldn't I will pretty much think he is probably guilty due to his track record.
The reverse is true with Assange. American law enforcement say that unless he closes Wikileaks then they will exact some form of revenge. He doesn't close Wikileaks and suddenly he is arrested by the Swedish law enforcement for 'rape'. Even if it hadn't spectacularly backfired by the charges being dropped a day later I still would have presumed him innocent due to the threat and the arrest being too coincidental.
I have to admit I wasn't convinced the documents were authentic until the charges against Assange, but this now gives him a lot more credibility.
British Telecom was a regressive behemoth stifling innovation. Since privatization (which raised £5bn when the country was struggling) BT is still crap but at least it's self-supporting and we now have competition.
Also, British Leyland was draining taxpayer's money and the government is well shot of that one. British Airways went from making a loss at the taxpayer's expense to being one of the world's most profitable airlines. Rolls Royce has also done ok.
Apart from a couple of blips, British Rail being one, privatisation has done a lot of good.
The Coalition is cutting back on the social welfare state because there is so much waste. The Labour gravy train was all on borrowed money, and now we have to pay it back. I think parent poster just made up the privatisation of the NHS.
As for blaming the Tories for the war in Vietnam, definitely la la land.
Deja vu. I remember Labour supporters similar to Dominic lamenting the beginning of the end of the NHS when the Conservatives won back in the 80's. The supposed destruction never happened. And Thatcher makes Cameron like a bleeding heart liberal.As for PCT, from Wikipedia:
"In 2005 the [Labour] Government announced that the number of strategic health authorities and primary care trusts would be reduced, the latter by about 50%. The result is that, as of 1 October 2006, there are 152 PCTs (reduced from 303) in England, with an average population of just under 330,000 per trust. After these changes, about 70% of PCTs are coterminous with local authorities having social service responsibilities, which it is hoped will facilitate joint planning. It is also hoped that the mergers will release about £250m in annual savings for the NHS.[3]
On 12th July 2010, Andrew Lansley unveiled a new health White Paper describing significant structural changes to the NHS under the Conservative/Liberal coalition government. Among the changes announced, PCTs are to be wholly abolished by 2013 with GPs assuming the commissioning responsibilities they formerly held.[4] The public health aspects of PCT business will be taken on by local councils. Strategic health authorities will also be abolished under these plans."
I don't see how you get from images in your cache not being classed as downloaded to surfing child pornography being legal. There are plenty of spam emails and links than can send you to a site that may have child pornography, or you may simply come across a site mentioned often on Slashdot beginning with a number. Having them in your browser cache does not necessarily prove intent. You can confess to buying drugs, but the police finding traces on your bathroom sink is going to be a harder prosecution than finding you in possession.
Next time, get a warrant to monitor him then convict him with evidence.
I had a boss like that once. She came in as a touchy-feely Technical Director, and disliked me because I told off some girl for forwarding spam around the company (not in a rude way). She tried to fire me on all kinds of flimsy grounds. Tried accusing me of resisting any kind of QA (I forced the company to set up the QA department), of sometimes arriving after 9am (er I did every day as I cleared it with my line manager to do 10-6 rather than 9-5 to avoid rush hour), and random other things in the hope something would stick. She even suspended all work going to me, so I was 'forced' to spend months sitting around doing whatever I wanted (awesome). It worked out well for me in the end.
Don't worry comm64, for every one of you that gets pushed around by bullies, there is somebody like me to give them grey hairs:-). As for the motel guy, he would have a crowd, the police, and myself all camped there going mad in short order. I've caused a scene in a bar because their clock was a couple of minutes fast and they tried charging me a non-happy hour price!
It's not a bad thing being a nice guy, you just need to have a good friend that has a complimentary character. He can stand up for you when you are being too nice, and you can reign him back when he is being a dick.
Maybe there are less bank robberies there because there are less banks there BECAUSE they get robbed all the time? This could become a seriously circular argument.
The English press are famous for this. They are quite happy to scream sensationalist headlines of "X is a rapist" or "Y is a paedophile", along with a nicely selective photo that makes them look like a serial killer, then maybe give a mention of a not guilty verdict in small print on page 10 in the future. The truth isn't important, selling papers is. There is the attitude that as long as you throw in the word 'allegedly' it is ok.
Of course they don't hold all the blame, some has to go to the idiots who actually believe this drivel (key phrase to spot a complete moron: "there is no smoke without fire").
The individual artist should be able to profit from their work for the rest of their life.
Why? I can invent something that saves people's lives and get protection for 20 years under patent law, but some crappy pop song should get protection for the rest of that person's life? Something is wrong there. Why not make it a fixed length of 20 years also?
When you say "should be able to profit" you mean of course be granted a legal monopoly. An artist can profit from their work without any legal protection.
So the US pay officials to spend hours poring over Google maps to find violations, whereas India sets up a Facebook page to report violations and instantly rakes in the dough. Knowing suburban neighbours, I'll give good odds as to which method will yield better results for pool violations...
Much as I like geek girls, I was pretty pissed off when she said at the end that the clip made it "easier to explain to boys what they do". I found it blatantly sexist and demand an immediate apology.
Reminds me of the street poster in Red Dwarf ("Back to Reality"), where they enter a Stasi-like society, which says "INFORM ON YOUR FRIENDS AND FAMILY" and then underneath in smaller letters "win great prizes".
Informing on your neighbours is not how the ideal society works. Talking to your neighbours is how the ideal society works.
Indeed. The Volt is just a petrol car with Green cred tacked on (though not as bad as the stupid Prius, which you can't even plug in without invalidating your warranty). These hacks will die out soon enough.
I am surprised to see the Guardian plunge to the depths of New of the World. I personally am shocked at soldiers killing other soldiers without trial, the use of 'deadly' surface to air missiles rather than the fluffy kind, and the carnage that is being caused by the Taliban to... er 2000 civilians (eh, I thought they were stronger than any time since 2001 so why target civilians, and why is it the fault of the US?). As for the supposedly massive collateral damage by the Allies, 195 people over 10 years is tragic but not huge. Even then it's a mix of French, Polish, British, etc that are at fault so it's not a targetted campaign. Worth quoting a paragraph not unsurprisingly near the end:
"Most of the material, though classified "secret" at the time, is no longer militarily sensitive. A small amount of information has been withheld from publication because it might endanger local informants or give away genuine military secrets. Wikileaks, whose founder, Julian Assange, obtained the material in circumstances he will not discuss, said it would redact harmful material before posting the bulk of the data on its "uncensorable" servers."
That it not a good analogy. Does a PHP file operating a Wordpress theme require Wordpress to work? Yes. Does a css file dropped into a Wordpress directory require Wordpress to run? No. Therefore there is an argument for the former being a derivative work but not the latter.
I have to admit, I really don't see the point of Windows. If you want to run Windows apps for free and without the hassle or rebooting, why not use Wine?
From an article I read, even then often people aren't really paying for it. For many the FT and Economist can be written off as a legitimate business expense.
Slashdot Mirror
I've driven the entire length of Germany a couple of times, usually over 250 km/h, and did not find it any more stressful than driving anywhere else in Europe. In fact it is FAR less stressful as you can watch the road instead of for speed cameras. And in France and UK all the lanes are going different speeds even with a set speed limit.
Accidents have far less to do with speed than the respect that drivers have for other road users.
Phillip.
grep -v "facebook group (.*) [emacs|ruby|vb]" crawler.txt > recruitment.txt
Phillip.
Winning the lottery is a sure-fire way of suddenly getting lots of Facebook friends with low credit scores.
In France the system is very sensible. You take your monthly net income after tax, remove monthly debt repayments such as credit cards and any other mortgages, and divide by 3. You can take out any mortgage as long as the monthly repayment does not exceed this figure. Credit scores are irrelevant. Of course it sucks if you are self-employed.
kestaskj is correct though, not giving you money at that cannot afford to pay back is in the best interest of both parties (not really relevant to the story but he makes an important point).
Phillip.
Much like the UN, the ITU is a joke and an amusing waste money. The ITU would love to have controlled Internet standards but the world ignored them and went with the IETF. They would love to have controlled mobile phone standards but the world ignored them and went with the ETSI. They would love to control domain TLDs, but the world ignored them and went with ICANN.
Both Tory and Labour governments had their butt kicked when they tried first banning, and then introducing key escrow, encryption legislation in the UK. France had all encryption banned until they found the NSA were passing industrial secrets to their US rivals such as Boeing, and changed their legislation so fast their politicians almost got whiplash watching it pass.
I'm not sure it is relevant, but Toure is from Mali which has been a dictatorship for centuries and only recently gained democratic elections less than 20 years ago, from which he then went and studied his degrees at Moscow University. Maybe government intervention and control into people's personal lives seems more normal for him?
Phillip.
So if somebody is not able or does not wish to turn up to defend themselves, then the judge doesn't have to examine the evidence before finding guilty and imposing punishment? Sorry but that IS messed up. And this case proves it. The points about frivolous lawsuits have been made in comments below.
Phillip.
Sometimes an atheist can make themselves look like a psycho, as well as often religious people are able to put on the appearance of looking sane.
Phillip.
Even though in theory people should keep an open mind until they have heard the evidence, there is often an instinctive presumption of innocence or guilt. If I heard in the papers that Mike Tyson has been held for assault in a nightclub, then even though I shouldn't I will pretty much think he is probably guilty due to his track record.
The reverse is true with Assange. American law enforcement say that unless he closes Wikileaks then they will exact some form of revenge. He doesn't close Wikileaks and suddenly he is arrested by the Swedish law enforcement for 'rape'. Even if it hadn't spectacularly backfired by the charges being dropped a day later I still would have presumed him innocent due to the threat and the arrest being too coincidental.
I have to admit I wasn't convinced the documents were authentic until the charges against Assange, but this now gives him a lot more credibility.
Phillip.
British Telecom was a regressive behemoth stifling innovation. Since privatization (which raised £5bn when the country was struggling) BT is still crap but at least it's self-supporting and we now have competition.
Also, British Leyland was draining taxpayer's money and the government is well shot of that one. British Airways went from making a loss at the taxpayer's expense to being one of the world's most profitable airlines. Rolls Royce has also done ok.
Apart from a couple of blips, British Rail being one, privatisation has done a lot of good.
The Coalition is cutting back on the social welfare state because there is so much waste. The Labour gravy train was all on borrowed money, and now we have to pay it back. I think parent poster just made up the privatisation of the NHS.
As for blaming the Tories for the war in Vietnam, definitely la la land.
Phillip.
Deja vu. I remember Labour supporters similar to Dominic lamenting the beginning of the end of the NHS when the Conservatives won back in the 80's. The supposed destruction never happened. And Thatcher makes Cameron like a bleeding heart liberal.As for PCT, from Wikipedia:
"In 2005 the [Labour] Government announced that the number of strategic health authorities and primary care trusts would be reduced, the latter by about 50%. The result is that, as of 1 October 2006, there are 152 PCTs (reduced from 303) in England, with an average population of just under 330,000 per trust. After these changes, about 70% of PCTs are coterminous with local authorities having social service responsibilities, which it is hoped will facilitate joint planning. It is also hoped that the mergers will release about £250m in annual savings for the NHS.[3]
On 12th July 2010, Andrew Lansley unveiled a new health White Paper describing significant structural changes to the NHS under the Conservative/Liberal coalition government. Among the changes announced, PCTs are to be wholly abolished by 2013 with GPs assuming the commissioning responsibilities they formerly held.[4] The public health aspects of PCT business will be taken on by local councils. Strategic health authorities will also be abolished under these plans."
Sounds good to me.
Phillip.
I don't see how you get from images in your cache not being classed as downloaded to surfing child pornography being legal. There are plenty of spam emails and links than can send you to a site that may have child pornography, or you may simply come across a site mentioned often on Slashdot beginning with a number. Having them in your browser cache does not necessarily prove intent. You can confess to buying drugs, but the police finding traces on your bathroom sink is going to be a harder prosecution than finding you in possession.
Next time, get a warrant to monitor him then convict him with evidence.
Phillip.
I had a boss like that once. She came in as a touchy-feely Technical Director, and disliked me because I told off some girl for forwarding spam around the company (not in a rude way). She tried to fire me on all kinds of flimsy grounds. Tried accusing me of resisting any kind of QA (I forced the company to set up the QA department), of sometimes arriving after 9am (er I did every day as I cleared it with my line manager to do 10-6 rather than 9-5 to avoid rush hour), and random other things in the hope something would stick. She even suspended all work going to me, so I was 'forced' to spend months sitting around doing whatever I wanted (awesome). It worked out well for me in the end.
Don't worry comm64, for every one of you that gets pushed around by bullies, there is somebody like me to give them grey hairs :-). As for the motel guy, he would have a crowd, the police, and myself all camped there going mad in short order. I've caused a scene in a bar because their clock was a couple of minutes fast and they tried charging me a non-happy hour price!
It's not a bad thing being a nice guy, you just need to have a good friend that has a complimentary character. He can stand up for you when you are being too nice, and you can reign him back when he is being a dick.
Phillip.
Maybe there are less bank robberies there because there are less banks there BECAUSE they get robbed all the time? This could become a seriously circular argument.
Phillip.
The English press are famous for this. They are quite happy to scream sensationalist headlines of "X is a rapist" or "Y is a paedophile", along with a nicely selective photo that makes them look like a serial killer, then maybe give a mention of a not guilty verdict in small print on page 10 in the future. The truth isn't important, selling papers is. There is the attitude that as long as you throw in the word 'allegedly' it is ok.
Of course they don't hold all the blame, some has to go to the idiots who actually believe this drivel (key phrase to spot a complete moron: "there is no smoke without fire").
Phillip.
Heh that's pretty good, even invoking Godwin's law. Though you should have put </sarcasm> at the end as some might not get the joke.
Phillip.
The individual artist should be able to profit from their work for the rest of their life.
Why? I can invent something that saves people's lives and get protection for 20 years under patent law, but some crappy pop song should get protection for the rest of that person's life? Something is wrong there. Why not make it a fixed length of 20 years also?
When you say "should be able to profit" you mean of course be granted a legal monopoly. An artist can profit from their work without any legal protection.
Phillip.
So the US pay officials to spend hours poring over Google maps to find violations, whereas India sets up a Facebook page to report violations and instantly rakes in the dough. Knowing suburban neighbours, I'll give good odds as to which method will yield better results for pool violations...
Phillip.
Much as I like geek girls, I was pretty pissed off when she said at the end that the clip made it "easier to explain to boys what they do". I found it blatantly sexist and demand an immediate apology.
Phillip.
Reminds me of the street poster in Red Dwarf ("Back to Reality"), where they enter a Stasi-like society, which says "INFORM ON YOUR FRIENDS AND FAMILY" and then underneath in smaller letters "win great prizes".
Informing on your neighbours is not how the ideal society works. Talking to your neighbours is how the ideal society works.
Phillip.
Indeed. The US officials were quite happy to pat him on the back when his software enabled pro-democracy Iranians to leak details of protests there.
Phillip.
Indeed. The Volt is just a petrol car with Green cred tacked on (though not as bad as the stupid Prius, which you can't even plug in without invalidating your warranty). These hacks will die out soon enough.
Phillip.
I am surprised to see the Guardian plunge to the depths of New of the World. I personally am shocked at soldiers killing other soldiers without trial, the use of 'deadly' surface to air missiles rather than the fluffy kind, and the carnage that is being caused by the Taliban to... er 2000 civilians (eh, I thought they were stronger than any time since 2001 so why target civilians, and why is it the fault of the US?). As for the supposedly massive collateral damage by the Allies, 195 people over 10 years is tragic but not huge. Even then it's a mix of French, Polish, British, etc that are at fault so it's not a targetted campaign. Worth quoting a paragraph not unsurprisingly near the end:
"Most of the material, though classified "secret" at the time, is no longer militarily sensitive. A small amount of information has been withheld from publication because it might endanger local informants or give away genuine military secrets. Wikileaks, whose founder, Julian Assange, obtained the material in circumstances he will not discuss, said it would redact harmful material before posting the bulk of the data on its "uncensorable" servers."
Phillip.
That it not a good analogy. Does a PHP file operating a Wordpress theme require Wordpress to work? Yes. Does a css file dropped into a Wordpress directory require Wordpress to run? No. Therefore there is an argument for the former being a derivative work but not the latter.
Phillip.
How about:
wget <posted-page> | wc "bump" | echo "Page: <posted-page>\tDepravity level: $1\n" > filter.txt
Phillip.
I have to admit, I really don't see the point of Windows. If you want to run Windows apps for free and without the hassle or rebooting, why not use Wine?
Phillip.
From an article I read, even then often people aren't really paying for it. For many the FT and Economist can be written off as a legitimate business expense.
Phillip.