It's not a mistake, it's just a result of floating point math.
You're assuming it's a mistake because humans aren't brought up to do floating point math, so it's not what you're used to.
I don't disagree that it's still stupid though precisely for this reason, but that makes it a usability failing rather than an invalid calculation IMO. It should make it more clear that it's using floating point math, hence the results you get may not be what you expect.
For what it's worth, most high end maths packages like Maple give you the option as to how certain calculations are performed- computer scientists for example obviously want floating point math for the most part because that's what they're working with. I suspect Windows Calculator was originally developed with precisely this application in mind, and just hasn't changed from a functionality standpoint in the decades since.
So as I say it's not wrong, and not a mistake, it just assumes you want to do floating point math, it's that assumption that's the real problem, because most people don't.
"Stop SOPA is a prime example of what needs to be happening"
Stop SOPA is also a prime example of why the report is largely a load of tosh. For some reason the US got a free ride, despite the fact it's been implementing global censorship of the whole net through ICE domain seizures, attempting to silence sites like Wikileaks by pressuring the likes of Visa, Mastercard, Paypal et. al. to cut off funding routes, and coming a little to close to bringing in things like SOPA et. al.
It's great it brings to light the issues with censorship in Iran etc. but you'll have to excuse me if I'm a little suprised that the US barely got a mention when it's been pushing laws that censor the net for everyone, not just it's own citizens. That strikes me as being a far bigger threat, making it a far bigger enemy of the internet than any other. For the vast majority of the world's population with internet access the US is far and away the biggest threat to free and open access to the internet.
Whilst the points you mention may improve quality, they do absolutely nothing to protect against a determined attacker and that's precisely the problem here. Repetition and so forth is entirely irrelevant, the same features do not equate to the same executable code, and when the executable code is different there is always scope for subtle introduction of an exploit.
Code inspection tools aren't going to highlight any differences as a result of improved code quality though regardless, the fact is that the code still has to compile down to the same byte code to perform certain actions i.e. network access, because that's just how things work, hardware like network cards and so forth have fixed protocols between the software and hardware, a VM similarly does so on top of that so knowing when network access or general hardware usage occurs is something that'll be testable between code verification tools to the exact same degree.
The problem is what is being sent over the network, what is being sent to the CPU, written to the hard disk and so forth and there's really no automated way to check anything other than the most common attacks. Only a manual code audit by someone skilled in reverse engineering is going to give a higher level of confidence and as I say - there's absolutely no way Apple do that because finding the talent and the time is just too unrealistic.
So Apple's checks ARE security theatre, what they do do is allow for higher quality apps, and better control of content so you can keep your store porn free or whatever, so sure they're not without merit, but they're absolutely not a security tool. The only caveat I'd say about this is that filtering app quality can in itself have the side effect of making malicious software harder to get onto the device in that someone actually has to write a useful app to embed their malicious software in for it to pass quality checks, whereas on the Android marketplace no one checks your app even works to do what it's advertised to do. Fundamentally though the point is that you can get malicious software onto the Android marketplace and Apple marketplace equally if you're determined, but when you have to write a working app for the Apple marketplace, and when Apple only hold 15% of the smartphone marketshare anyway compared to Android's 50%+ it's often just not worth it.
You are therefore right if you say Apple's store is less prone to malicious software, certainly it is, but it's no better protected by any kind of security checks Apple does when they vet apps and that's my point here - they are not the factor in protecting the store. Apple's manual vetting is entirely about application quality, and not about security - again, I guarantee they just wont be able to get the staff with the skills in the numbers they need to do proper manual security vetting on apps, and no, the automated checks are not going to be any better at Apple than Google - I'd argue if anything Google's experience in topics like machine learning and detection of malicious websites means it's actually far far better placed to build better automated security checking tools than Apple, but automated tools still only go so far.
"Sorry...but slavery, and the influence of groups like the KKK are ancient history."
The events are, the repercussions aren't.
"Realistically, in the US, "the man" isn't out there keeping blacks down....it is the black community itself that is largely to blame for their plight today."
There you go going on about the "blacks" again. The colour is irrelevant, and not all "blacks" are in the position you cite. As I say there's any number of communities of people of every other race out there in a similar position. The fact you need to generalise something that isn't general is what makes you racist.
"Most white people don't have the time to bother trying to keep a brother down...they're too busy trying to make their own ends meet. And they don't have advantages minorities have like 'affirmative action' or other quotas."
It's not about keeping them down, it's about giving them the same opportunity to rise. The point is that their communities are as they are for historic reasons, and whilst you're indeed right those historic reasons have largely dissapeared it doesn't mean the damage done to their communities has and that's the fundamental problem. Just as with white gangs in the UK and so forth the problem is that these people are being brought up in areas with poor schools, that are untidy, and generally just don't support decent social mobility. I guarantee you right now that if you took one of those black kids you're so scared of and brought them up in the exact circumstances you were brought up in with the exact same attitudes towards him you received he'd grow up to the same standards you were brought up with - the point is his race has absolutely nothing to do with how he has turned out, and this a point you seem to be dodging. If you get this then perhaps you're not racist, if you don't get this then you absolutely are racist, and you're talking from a point of complete ignorance - ignoring the facts.
In the UK we have plenty of mixed deprived areas too, and unsuprisingly the gangs are made up of people of mixed race, no less or no more violent than the others.
So once again the point is this - it's not the race, it's the environment. Just because in your example case the race is all the same does not make it the problem, the problem is the environment surrounding that community. So here's one final thought exercise for you, imagine that community you're so concerned about was all white, what would be your feelings on it? Would you be more inclined to believe it needs help?
Look, I believe in personal responsibility quite a lot, it's done me well, I've always worked hard, I studied for a second degree full time whilst simultaneously working full time and I've gone far as a result. But the reality is I had a great starting point - I was a privileged white kid and I recognise that there are people out there who aren't like this, who aren't like me, that don't/won't/can't help themselves, and whilst this annoys me I prefer to be pragamtic about it - I realise that if I ignore them the problem wont magically go away, it'll still be there, and I may even become a victim of it if one of the people in question robs me, steals my car, or shoots me, so I think that maybe it is better to help them. When you make that initial investment and pull them out of that hole, perhaps then when they realise there is actually hope for a better life for themselves, perhaps then they'll find they too can actually work harder and better themselves. There are any number of examples of programmes that aim to do precisely this working wonders and it's far and away the best solution we have - certainly much better than ignoring it and blaming it on their race which only serves to exacerbate the problem.
That may be so but all it means is that you're admitting to speaking from a position of ignorance, and it's that ignorance that leaves you prime pickings for populist rhetoric of the type that Fox News pedals.
It's not even just the UK, there are any number of places across the world where people of every race have managed to allow their neighbourhoods to descend into pits of violence.
You realise that it's not coincidence that many parts of the US where black crime is a problem also happen to be parts where racism against blacks has historically been at it's worst too right? Those communities you fear are as they are in large part because your white countrymen have spent the last few hundred years beating them into a position where violence is really all they have known. It was ironically white racist violence that created many of these problem communities as the people in question were forced to stick together and use violence to protect themselves from the likes of the KKK, whilst simultaneously being denied equal access to job opportunities to lift themselves out of poverty.
But now it's turned full circle and you're scared of them? Well if nothing else take this lesson from it - at least now when you go into those areas you know exactly how they have been forced to historically feel in much of the US.
As I said I don't disagree there are problem areas, and problem groups but the fundamental problem is when this is generalised to be "Oh well, they must all be like this". That's when it's pretty blatantly racism, and that's when it becomes an argument based on ignorance. It fundamentally doesn't matter if it's different in the UK to the US, the point is simply that the common factor in the issue clearly is not race. The common factor is that these areas are all isolated communities who have been left with with no support, no jobs, and no hope - and often having themselves suffered as victims of violence in the past.
Yes, because we all know that technology never moves forward, and everything that's fine now will be fine for whatever new fad comes around tommorrow.
The whole "it's fine as is!" argument completely ignores the fact that this isn't about what's around now, it's about what's going to be around tommorrow and ensuring the infrastructure is in place to support that. This is how things like improvements to landline based broadband led to the possibility of things like Steam, and Netflix.
In reality Apple's checks wont be much better anyway, there's now over 600,000 apps on the app store, and only 4 years since the app store opened up which means an average of over 400 apps submitted each day.
To do any kind of worthwhile security audit on that you'd need more than a day per app, and you'd need some pretty skilled staff. Factor in weekends, and holidays, and you'll be looking at well over 1,000 staff just to do this. you then have to factor in costs of supporting those staff - premises, electricity, hardware, software. Of course, all this ignores app updates, which would similarly need to be audited to ensure change in functionality doesn't introduce new exploits.
Honestly, I don't buy this- it's not the cost factor, we all know Apple has money, but I'm not convinced they'd even find and retain the numbers of staff they'd need with the relevant skillsets to be able to realiably audit apps to a decent level. I'm not even convinced the cost/benefit ratio really works out.
Realistically Apple itself probably doesn't do much more than automated checks, with perhaps a bunch of low level fairly low paid staff to actually use the app and see what it does, whether it works, whether it has any banned content etc.
Primarily what Apple's system allows is censorship and security theatre - they can pretend everything is vetted, safe, and secure, but that doesn't mean it is.
It falls into racism because you're using an example of a black community being problematic, stating this gives you cause for concern around blacks. I'm amazed at how idiotic the arguments are that have been modded up in response to this article so far. I guess Slashdot really has reached the point where mainstream populism wins out over rational understanding and discussion of the topics at hand.
Here's the problem with your argument - if you go to a deprived white neighbourhood in the UK, you will feel equally threatened, and be equally at risk as if you were in a black neighbourhood, the problem is to do with poor areas with high crime. Like you I keep a very weary eye out when I'm in such a white neighbourhood.
You state that if the people in question were wearing ties that you wouldn't feel threatened, and this precisely proves the point - it's nothing to do with their race, their religion, their belief, it's to do with the fact you can recognise a deprived area, and recognise that it's dangerous. Back to my example of rough white neighbourhoods I can tell you now if they're wearing tracksuits, baseball caps on backwards, often skinheads, looking a bit dirty, rubbish on the street, housing/flats looking worn down, then similarly it's not a place you really want to be if you care for your safety.
It's certainly valid to argue that some groups shouldn't segregate themselves, and I agree, but even there one has to look at reasons for segregation - is it because the host nation isn't offering a nice environment for racial minorities to blend into? It's even then not a black, or muslim only thing - ask the Spaniards in Spain how they feel about British ex-pat communities which have strong criminal and gangland ties turning up on their doorsteps and not respecting the Spanish culture, bringing their own brand of British rowdiness with them.
"But on a larger scale...call it racist or what...but there are stereotypes for reasons. They weren't just made out out of the clear blue sky."
So back to your original statement, you're absolutely right, there are stereotypes for reasons, but you do not understand those reasons. The reasons are more to do with the fact that the general population is too dumb to be able to cope with issues such as this, coupled with the fact politicians and agenda based press like Fox News and The Daily Mail in the UK find this gross oversimplifications (i.e. stereotypes) are useful tool for using populism to appease and control the ignorant. When Joe Lazyfucker loses his job because he was well, a lazy fucker, it's convenient for him to be able to say "It's those damn Polish, taking our jobs". That simply isn't true- if you're brought up in a country like the UK with it's high end education system, the fact you'll have native knowledge of the language and culture then you have every opportunity to be a better candidate to a job than a migrant from a poorer nation- if you lose out to them you only have yourself to blame for not taking advantage of the inherent advantage they have, and if they "took your job" it's because they were a better candidate than you and you should be ashamed of the fact you threw away opportunities available to you to be the better candidate.
Stereotypes are a convenient way for people to absolve themselves of blame, to remove guilt from themselves for certain problems. It's easier to say "Let's kick out those immigrants" as if that'll magically solve the problem of Joe Lazyfucker than it is to examine and deal with the fact there are an awful lot of Joe Lazyfuckers in the country scrounging off the state. Similarly, in your case, it's easier to just pretend there's an inherent problem with the minority you're referring to and that it somehow just can't be fixed and it's just the way it is, than it is to examine the problem of failure to make sure such communities are as successful as others and there are succesful black and other minority communities in the US and the rest of the world, so it's pretty clear race isn't the fundamental pro
"Taiwan has already applied to the UN, n'est pas?"
Yes, it failed largely because the PRC used it's weight, threatening to use military weight to boot if political clout failed.
I suspect Taiwan and Hong Kong will be one of the first to separate, but not until China feels comfortable that the rest of the mainland is stable enough to allow it to happen without them to doing so in a chaotic manner, but not yet.
"Those plugins do not all of a sudden become secure, and the vendors don't all of a sudden start using good security practices, just because the target OS runs on Apple-branded hardware."
To be fair though, Oracle released their patch months ago when this came to light, the Mac OS X version of the patch required Apple's interaction, and they've only just released it in the last couple of weeks or so, so it's hard to absolve Apple entirely of blame and put it on the vendor here.
Apple were far far too slow at patching this exploit which was known to be an issue months back and that has been without question a reason why the trojan has been able to spread and reach the number of infections it has on Macs.
There is a slight hint of irony to it as well, Apple claims it's control of the software ecosystem makes people safer - obviously this whole event puts to rest that myth if Apple can't release patches for known issues in a timely manner. Windows users had this fix in their Java implementation months before Apple users did, so this doesn't bode well for Apple's "Let us control your computer" campaign.
Whilst I'm not much of a FOSS advocate, because frankly I think a lot of FOSS is low quality shit, largely because no effort is put into things like UX for most FOSS software despite the propaganda that it's the best thing ever this does demonstrate where FOSS does excel. The problem with proprietary software is that if an exploit is found, you're often dependent on the vendor to release the patch - if something like IIS becomes vulnerable to something and the only way to fix it is with a patch then you're left with a choice of leave your web server vulnerable, or take it offline until the vendor issues a patch - obviously neither are particularly favourable. In contrast, FOSS allows you to at least have the option of patching it yourself, and this means that at least someone in the community is likely to do it and release a patch even if you don't have the skills to do so yourself. The window of attack on your systems is going to be inherently much smaller as a result.
So whilst Apple hasn't had to much trouble to date in terms of software security I think their model is actually the least preferable in terms of security if their platform continues to gain marketshare. With FOSS software you're going to get the quickest patch times because anyone can fix, with something like Windows where things are proprietary you have to rely on only the vendor for a fix, with Apple in some cases you're going to have to rely on the vendor for a fix, and then rely on Apple to let you have it - this is always going to mean it's the ecosystem with the most prolonged attack window opening and this is precisely what went wrong in this case. Oracle got their arse into gear a couple of months back, Apple has prolonged the issue since then even further.
So the moral of the story is that rather than bin some of that meat that's been in my freezer a little too long I should just leave it in even longer, say, another 30,000 years, and it'll become edible again?
To be fair, you have to look at why the Chinese governments acts the way it does nowadays.
Many of those who comprise China's top leadership do actually support greater freedoms nowadays, but they're a bit more pragmatic than many would like them to be.
The fundamental problem with China is that you have a population of 1.3 billion with gross income disparity, countless opposing religious and cultural backgrounds and differing levels of attachment to the Chinese leadership.
There's this rather naive view in the west that if China just dropped it filters, and allowed free elections, a completely free press and so forth tommorrow that suddenly everything would be okay and China would become a vast bastion of freedom and democracy with modern standards of living that envy rich western nations. In reality though it's not that simple.
The problem is that if China stops controlling information and limiting the freedoms of dissidents then there would indeed be an arab spring like event, but we're not talking about Libya here with it's mere 6 million people, we're again talking about a place with 1.3 billion people. If the government loses it's stranglehold you suddenly have uighur rebellions, you have tibetan rebellions, you have the poor rising up against those who have done well from China's economic growth, you have the Taiwanese separating, Hong-Kong separating, and you have those loyal to the government fighting back against all of them. You lose what little remaining control there is of a nuclear armed North Korea, and Russia, Japan, and all of the other neighbours are given a chance to seize territory which they dispute with China. In other words you have massive regional chaos that has the potential to spill over globally.
If you actually go and visit China, those areas that have really benefited from the boom aren't actually terribly different to many western cities. Effectively the restrictions in China are aimed and prevalent mostly in areas that are poorer and particularly want to split away. You can argue that splitting away is a fair goal, and I'd agree, but if you let say, Tibet go, then other parts are bound to be emboldened by this and follow, and again you're in a position where there's a massive risk of destabilisation through separation running away with itself.
It's pretty clear that whilst the Chinese government wants to change things that to do so over night would almost certainly be much more problematic for the region and possibly the world as a whole. The Chinese government's tactic seems to be to try and spread the benefits of growth as wide and fast as they reasonably can because when a population has nice things it's far less likely to be interested in violent disruption.
China is changing, but it needs to be left to do so at it's own pace, they didn't just start promising freedoms as a result of the arab spring they were doing it before that.
The fundamental challenge China has is in providing freedoms to those Chinese now rich and educated enough to demand and fight for them, against offering too many freedoms such that those who are poor and angry cannot use them as an opportunity to try and gain their freedom violently in a manner that would cause massive scale civil war. I don't envy this pretty high stakes balancing act the Chinese government is being forced to undergo, so whilst it may appear shitty for many Chinese compared to our standards in the West I do actually think modern Chinese leadership is genuinely trying to make the best of a pretty poor situation that they've inherited.
It's worth Googling and reading about some of China's current, and future leaders (they're having a leadership change soon). Many of them are actually quite genuine about reform and do have that as the centrepiece of their policy.
"Well, for one thing, don't model your healthcare on the UK system. It's not exactly a pinnacle of socialized healthcare today."
Care to elaborate? It's always seemed pretty good to me, but then, maybe that's because I've actually used it, rather than read about it on the internet. The only problems with the NHS are that the current government seems to feel the need to fuck around with it despite the fact it's about the only thing the previous government got right. Well, that and sorting out the passport office so you can get a new passport in a couple of days rather than many weeks.
Be aware also that the UK system caters to a far larger and more diverse population than the Scandinavian healthcare systems, and so has to be designed to work on a far larger scale. It's easy to do a lot of things better when your population is as small those of Scandinavian countries, but Finland's entire population is about 25% smaller than that of London alone, let alone the rest of the UK.
A country like the US would be far far better off trying to model a system like the UK's where it's population is only 5 times the size, rather than 60 times the size.
I agree with you about education though, the UK's education system is a shambles. Whether the Finnish model would work for us I'm not really sure, but it needs something. Unfortunately we've been going for the US model where only the rich can afford university education, which is exactly what we don't want.
At very least there's the fact that birth certificates will show place of birth, that at least covers those born in Scotland, which I believe in just about every country in the world would make you a citizen of that country.
My biggest concern though for those voters is what happens if Scotland does go independent. Are they then stuck in the obscure situation of being told they're not Scottish enough to vote but because they were born there, and not say, England, Wales, or Northern Ireland, then they're actually going to have to go back to Scotland due to not having the require permits to work in England? not having a passport? Effectively there's a danger that these people will become citizens of another country and suffer the effects of that without having ever had an opportunity to have a say in it. Presumably the UK government will allow them to retain British citizenship but what if they have property or other assets in Scotland? What if they have family there? are they going to have to cross a border they never voted for to see their family? Will Salmond seize or tax property of Scots living abroad who choose to stick with just UK citizenship?
Scotland does issue a lot of it's own documentation (they even issue their own version of sterling banknotes with Scottish branding), so the vast majority of the 20% or so of Scots living and working abroad could easily be identified as Scots.
The problem is that that proposal assumes the UK cooperates on both fronts. Potentially the UK could veto Scotlands entry into the EU, and make it near impossible to use Sterling. If they do use Sterling they don't have control of their currency.
I wouldn't expect it'd veto EU membership, and I doubt it'd prevent them using the pound, but with the problems the euro has had and with the UK determining policy on the Sterling with them having no say, I think there's a fair chance they could be forced into their own currency.
The Eurozone might not want more nations like Scotland joining the Euro, particularly after seeing what happened to Ireland. The problem for Scotland is that if it gained independance it'd have to inherit a proportional share of the UK's national debt relative to it's population, and this coupled with the fact Scotland is currently subsidised by England means it's not in a good starting place. Salmond has argued they could counteract this with oil revenue, but there's a further problem - many of the islands surrounding Scotland do not want to be a part of Scotland's independence bid and want to stay with the rest of the UK, and as such it may well be that the oil fields continue to remain under UK ownership due to their proximity to these islands that want to stay part of the UK regardless.
Fundamentally the problem is that the proposal seems to be based entirely on ignoring the reality of what independence would mean. Salmond has tried to suggest that the islands wanting to stay part of the UK regardless shouldn't have this choice, but it would seem odd that the UK would defend the right to self determination for the Falkland islanders in the South Atlantic, Gibraltans in Spain, and not those living on islands in the North Sea, particularly when there's oil at stake.
Personally I'm not sure it matters either way what happens, and I'm not sure I really care despite living here. It does irk me a bit though that Salmond seems to be trying to fiddle the referendum a bit by telling Scottish people working/living outside Scotland (i.e. those living in England currently) that they can't vote but European nationals resident in Scotland can. Effectively he's saying all those that have left Scotland, potentially because they don't like the way he's run it the last few years they don't have an opportunity to tell him to fuck off with his nationalism, but those who have moved there to work can. It wouldn't matter if we were talking small numbers, but it's something like 20% of Scotland's voting population that will be prevented from voting because they're not currently living there. This is pretty unprecedented, as even my girlfriend who has dual British/Canadian citizenship living here can still vote in Candian elections and referendums at the high commission.
I think it's probably that he recognises that if he loses this vote the issue will be off the table for likely decades, and that when only 30% at best seem to support independence it makes life difficult for him. Really, he's often spoken off as a genius politician, but frankly, I think he was the one that got played. He pushed and pushed and was really hoping the British government would say no to his referendum so he could play the hard done by nationalists card to stir up further resentment for London, but unfortunately they called his bluff and now he's pushed into a referendum he almost certainly wont win.
Still, the politics, and legalities of a potential split are pretty interesting.
It begs the question as to whether at least some economic growth in recent decades has actually been built off the back of consumers having to purchase replacement products that shouldn't need replacing.
"Pretty fucking much. How else you gonna get home from England? Try to get a ride on a cruise liner or cargo ship?"
Why not? It's a long journey but you do realise you can in fact sail to Canada right? Cargo ships sometimes will indeed take passengers for a fee. It aint comfy, it aint quick, but it's still an option.
To be fair this specific law you're referring too does get blown a bit out of proportion though.
To be jailed for claiming you don't know what the encryption key is on request the police have to have some proof that you do know what it is. They cannot simply ask what it is, then jail you for claiming ignorance, which is what many people imply the law states.
Here are the relevant parts:
(2) In proceedings against any person for an offence under this section, if it is shown that that person was in possession of a key to any protected information at any time before the time of the giving of the section 49 notice, that person shall be taken for the purposes of those proceedings to have continued to be in possession of that key at all subsequent times, unless it is shown that the key was not in his possession after the giving of the notice and before the time by which he was required to disclose it.
(3) For the purposes of this section a person shall be taken to have shown that he was not in possession of a key to protected information at a particular time ifâ" (a)sufficient evidence of that fact is adduced to raise an issue with respect to it; and (b)the contrary is not proved beyond a reasonable doubt.
Note particularly on point 3b - the police have to prove beyond reasonable doubt that you are in possession of the key.
Part the reason these laws keep getting through is because there's no rational debate on them from either side. The arguments for this time of thing are FUD, and the arguments against - like yours, are simply wrong. When the people arguing against it are full of shit, the government just ignore them and do what they want regardless because you're simply demonstrating to them you haven't even bothered to read their proposals.
The fact is that claiming you don't know the key WILL get you off of a section 49 notice, unless the police can somehow prove beyond reasonable doubt that you do in fact have the key.
So in fact, the law clearly states that the assumption is that the person does NOT have the encryption key, and the burden is entirely on the police to prove they do*. Only then, if they prove that they do* and they continue to refuse to disclose, does it become an offence.
RIPA is still pretty bad - especially the parts that for too long allowed councils to stalk people etc., but it's not the law people on Slashdot, The Register etc. pretend it is with regard to encryption keys.
* With the usual beyond reasonable doubt caveat - the same one used when judging whether someone is guilty of murder etc., i.e. a pretty fucking high standard of evidence.
EMTs in the US have to put on makeup to mask any injuries?
Perhaps you've never seen any victims of assault before, but I assure you bruising, swelling, cuts, and so forth are still pretty fucking visible even after medical experts have done their work on them.
"That said, when it comes to determining motive, it's quite relevant when trying to determine if a person is a continuing threat to society. But that has more to do with bail (bond) and sentencing than it does about "what crime was committed.""
But what happens when no crime is committed? Look at Abu Hamza in the UK, he's done nothing wrong theoretically, he's helped fund terrorist networks indirectly, and he's helped recruit people to terrorism by pointing them in the right direction, he's fundamentally not broken any laws, but it's widely acknowledged his actions are a clear danger.
If all he's done is given people some money, or used phrases such as "We must protect our muslims brothers against the oppressors in Afghanistan" which cannot be deemed to be hate speak then should he be allowed to carry on?
Ironically it's at the behest of the US the UK has been holding him without charge for about 8 years now, which the European Court of Human Rights has now deemed unacceptable forcing his release, but also refusing his deportation to Jordan where he would have been tried on evidence collected through torture.
The problem with demanding that law only ever deals with black and white, is that it inevitably fails society when it's faced with grey.
I agree there are similar risks with ambiguity too in terms of them getting misused, but personally I think in the UK between the strong separation between the judiciary and government, coupled with the fact we have a 3rd overseer - the European Court of Justice, and the European Court of Human Rights, the risk of abuse of such laws is quite low.
The whole reason that Europe has the European Court of Human Rights by the way, is because it was setup post World War II to ensure citizens had somewhere they could go even when their own government had turned against them - i.e., as the Jews suffered in World War II. Perhaps this is why Americans are more paranoid about this sort of thing than Europeans; because they simply don't have as healthy a separation between government and the judiciary, and because they certainly don't have a 3rd, completely neutral overseer.
"It is the subjective nature of what is "on the table" that demands that free speech be universal."
But it's not, not even in the US. Even in the US there is recognition that some speech causes problems, and we're not just talking about shouting fire in a crouded theatre here, intimidating speech has been deemed illegal in the US, and that's precisely what we're talking about here.
Prior to 9/11 we were fairly open to speech on numerous issues - including radical islamic preachers preaching against America - oddly America has never had this to a similar degree, if people are so free to talk in the US, then why is this?
The reality is in Europe the limits of freedom of speech are explicitly stated, in the US, limits to freedom of speech are implemented in other ways - such as allowing political opponents to turn up to opposing political rallies to intimidate the opposition into silence.
Your viewpoint of absolute speech is not what the US has, or is close to having. It assumes people are free to speak, or at least feel safe in speaking their viewpoint, but also assumes that speech is always harmless. This is clearly and demonstrably on past events not the case.
Humanity has long decided there must be some limits on speech, I don't think any country allows genuinely free speech, the only difference is the level of explicitness in European laws against some types of speech, and American laws, where much of free speech in the US is actually supressed by intimidation and bullying of opposing groups. You can pretend that's somehow better, but looking at the kind of controversial topics that are discussed in Europe compared to the US, I'd wager that Europe has a healthier position on actual political discussion. What we don't tolerate in European law are jackasses, like Westborough, and this guy, who was just being racist for the sake of being racist and not because he had anything worthwhile to add to public discoures. You don't tolerate them either - you just supress them with financially crippling lawsuits, turning up with guns to intimidate, and that sort of thing.
But you're assuming that every topic should be on the table, and that democratic representation of even the most distasteful viewpoints is a good thing.
Personally, I'm not sure that the health of a country suffers if the likes of the far-right aren't democratically represented. If anything the US demonstrates the problem - the fact it allowed for such open freedom of speech is why it's so backwards on things like equality of race and sexuality compared to many European countries.
So great, the KKK, Westborough and co can preach their hate, is the US really better for it? Is your democracy more healthy? Are minorities better represented? Is equality better achieved? I don't think the answer is yes to any of these things in the US.
Sometimes it's just about being pragmatic, rather than fantasising about a mystical democracy where everyone can think for themselves, no one is influenced by propaganda, and everyone respects everyone else no matter what their physical features or beliefs.
It's hard getting the balance right for sure, and things are far from perfect here in the UK. There's the ever present danger of it swaying too much towards censorship, but I'm not convinced that danger is any worse than the danger of swaying the other way which causes numerous problems in the US with hate groups openly spouting their propaganda. The level of homophobia, xenophobia and even racism, and sexism to a degree deemed acceptable in mainstream US political debate for example is quite sickening and certainly creates an atmosphere less pleasant to minorities who have done nothing wrong, in a similar way restrictions on hate speech create an atmosphere unpleasant to those who wish to preach hate. Personally I know which group I think is more deserving of suffering that unpleasantness, and I'd wager it's much more preferable and beneficial to society in general that it is the hate speakers that suffer that atmosphere, rather than the targets of such hate speak.
Actually the courts are only interpreting the laws they are provided.
Things like super-injunctions have only arisen because parliament enabled them through legislation. In the UK our governments like to play the blame game, they sneak things like this through in legislation to support their friends, or to further their personal political agenda.
The problem is the courts then apply them evenly across society, and when these laws that MPs only ever intended to support their personal agenda start to demonstrate the problems they have they cry out about how it's the courts taking things too far, they then imply that this is a reason to actually weaken the strength of the courts and give them more power.
It's a pattern most prominently repeated with the European Court of Human Rights. The current Conservative led government likes to repeatedly complain about how it overrules them and likes to use this complaint to further it's anti-EU agenda, complaining it's "Europe" overstepping the marking, using the ambiguity of the term "Europe" to make the implication it's a problem stemming from the EU. The problem with their theory is that the ECHR is actually an element of the Council of Europe - a completely separate entity from the EU and nothing to do with it, as it also includes countries as diverse from the EU members as Russia, Israel, and Turkey. A further problem is that the ECHR was set up largely by the Conservative's favourite idol - Winston Churchill, precisely with the goal of ensuring that citizens had somewhere they could go for protection against over-reaching governments.
It's a big problem because our population is by and large simply too dumb to understanding anything other than what the tabloids spout at them, and they're completely ignorant of the history of things such as this, so they just scream "Yeah, fucking Europeans overrulling us! Out of the EU now!" and then go vote for far right parties like the BNP, or UKIP.
Our courts, and courts we adhere to like the ECHR are strong precisely because we learnt the hard way in Europe that without a strong counterbalance to government, things can go horribly wrong.
Which is why it's worrying that our successive governments are trying so hard to weaken the courts, using the very tools they handed to the courts in the first place to do so - turning them back on themselves once they objectively apply them, despite often ignoring judges advice about introducing the idiocy of such new laws in the first place.
When I bought Dawn of War II from them a few years back I complained to them about the fact I had to activate via Steam, and specifically that Steam wasn't letting me activate at first. I pointed out that the whole reason I bought a physical copy was so that I didn't have to deal with stupid online systems restricting what I could do with a product I'd paid for. I complained because whilst there was mention of activation, there was no mention that I'd have to create accounts and give details to both Valve, and Microsoft because it used Steam for DRM, and Games for Windows Live for other features.
I pointed out quite clearly at the time that at very least they should better advertise what the requirements and restrictions would be of not using my product, but importantly questioned why they were allowing companies to get away with it. A key point I made is that it's insane that they're selling a product that forces their customers to go to their competitors digital stores - Steam, and Games for Windows Live.
Their response was the usual games industry blurb about DRM is for my own good, and how it protects me from myself and how it offers me a superior product and all that shit.
So excuse me if I can't help but feel "I told you so". They were complicit and supportive of the rise of DRM, of the rise of systems that block second hand sale of games, and that generally remove consumer rights.
They can't whinge about how they've suffered a tough time from these systems, they were fundamental to their creation. They were fundamental to the transition to these systems because they were selling and defending the tools that made this happen. They literally signed their own death warrant, despite being warned of the future that awaited them.
They decided that the people they pay (publishers) were their customers, rather than the real customers - the people that pay them.
"TPB is infested with torrents that contain malware."
So are Google and Bing.
Out of Google, Bing, and TPB one of these sites has a trusted users flag from whom you can trust that content is unlikely to be infected. Guess which one of these sites it is.
Slashdot Mirror
It's not a mistake, it's just a result of floating point math.
You're assuming it's a mistake because humans aren't brought up to do floating point math, so it's not what you're used to.
I don't disagree that it's still stupid though precisely for this reason, but that makes it a usability failing rather than an invalid calculation IMO. It should make it more clear that it's using floating point math, hence the results you get may not be what you expect.
For what it's worth, most high end maths packages like Maple give you the option as to how certain calculations are performed- computer scientists for example obviously want floating point math for the most part because that's what they're working with. I suspect Windows Calculator was originally developed with precisely this application in mind, and just hasn't changed from a functionality standpoint in the decades since.
So as I say it's not wrong, and not a mistake, it just assumes you want to do floating point math, it's that assumption that's the real problem, because most people don't.
"Stop SOPA is a prime example of what needs to be happening"
Stop SOPA is also a prime example of why the report is largely a load of tosh. For some reason the US got a free ride, despite the fact it's been implementing global censorship of the whole net through ICE domain seizures, attempting to silence sites like Wikileaks by pressuring the likes of Visa, Mastercard, Paypal et. al. to cut off funding routes, and coming a little to close to bringing in things like SOPA et. al.
It's great it brings to light the issues with censorship in Iran etc. but you'll have to excuse me if I'm a little suprised that the US barely got a mention when it's been pushing laws that censor the net for everyone, not just it's own citizens. That strikes me as being a far bigger threat, making it a far bigger enemy of the internet than any other. For the vast majority of the world's population with internet access the US is far and away the biggest threat to free and open access to the internet.
Whilst the points you mention may improve quality, they do absolutely nothing to protect against a determined attacker and that's precisely the problem here. Repetition and so forth is entirely irrelevant, the same features do not equate to the same executable code, and when the executable code is different there is always scope for subtle introduction of an exploit.
Code inspection tools aren't going to highlight any differences as a result of improved code quality though regardless, the fact is that the code still has to compile down to the same byte code to perform certain actions i.e. network access, because that's just how things work, hardware like network cards and so forth have fixed protocols between the software and hardware, a VM similarly does so on top of that so knowing when network access or general hardware usage occurs is something that'll be testable between code verification tools to the exact same degree.
The problem is what is being sent over the network, what is being sent to the CPU, written to the hard disk and so forth and there's really no automated way to check anything other than the most common attacks. Only a manual code audit by someone skilled in reverse engineering is going to give a higher level of confidence and as I say - there's absolutely no way Apple do that because finding the talent and the time is just too unrealistic.
So Apple's checks ARE security theatre, what they do do is allow for higher quality apps, and better control of content so you can keep your store porn free or whatever, so sure they're not without merit, but they're absolutely not a security tool. The only caveat I'd say about this is that filtering app quality can in itself have the side effect of making malicious software harder to get onto the device in that someone actually has to write a useful app to embed their malicious software in for it to pass quality checks, whereas on the Android marketplace no one checks your app even works to do what it's advertised to do. Fundamentally though the point is that you can get malicious software onto the Android marketplace and Apple marketplace equally if you're determined, but when you have to write a working app for the Apple marketplace, and when Apple only hold 15% of the smartphone marketshare anyway compared to Android's 50%+ it's often just not worth it.
You are therefore right if you say Apple's store is less prone to malicious software, certainly it is, but it's no better protected by any kind of security checks Apple does when they vet apps and that's my point here - they are not the factor in protecting the store. Apple's manual vetting is entirely about application quality, and not about security - again, I guarantee they just wont be able to get the staff with the skills in the numbers they need to do proper manual security vetting on apps, and no, the automated checks are not going to be any better at Apple than Google - I'd argue if anything Google's experience in topics like machine learning and detection of malicious websites means it's actually far far better placed to build better automated security checking tools than Apple, but automated tools still only go so far.
"Sorry...but slavery, and the influence of groups like the KKK are ancient history."
The events are, the repercussions aren't.
"Realistically, in the US, "the man" isn't out there keeping blacks down....it is the black community itself that is largely to blame for their plight today."
There you go going on about the "blacks" again. The colour is irrelevant, and not all "blacks" are in the position you cite. As I say there's any number of communities of people of every other race out there in a similar position. The fact you need to generalise something that isn't general is what makes you racist.
"Most white people don't have the time to bother trying to keep a brother down...they're too busy trying to make their own ends meet. And they don't have advantages minorities have like 'affirmative action' or other quotas."
It's not about keeping them down, it's about giving them the same opportunity to rise. The point is that their communities are as they are for historic reasons, and whilst you're indeed right those historic reasons have largely dissapeared it doesn't mean the damage done to their communities has and that's the fundamental problem. Just as with white gangs in the UK and so forth the problem is that these people are being brought up in areas with poor schools, that are untidy, and generally just don't support decent social mobility. I guarantee you right now that if you took one of those black kids you're so scared of and brought them up in the exact circumstances you were brought up in with the exact same attitudes towards him you received he'd grow up to the same standards you were brought up with - the point is his race has absolutely nothing to do with how he has turned out, and this a point you seem to be dodging. If you get this then perhaps you're not racist, if you don't get this then you absolutely are racist, and you're talking from a point of complete ignorance - ignoring the facts.
In the UK we have plenty of mixed deprived areas too, and unsuprisingly the gangs are made up of people of mixed race, no less or no more violent than the others.
So once again the point is this - it's not the race, it's the environment. Just because in your example case the race is all the same does not make it the problem, the problem is the environment surrounding that community. So here's one final thought exercise for you, imagine that community you're so concerned about was all white, what would be your feelings on it? Would you be more inclined to believe it needs help?
Look, I believe in personal responsibility quite a lot, it's done me well, I've always worked hard, I studied for a second degree full time whilst simultaneously working full time and I've gone far as a result. But the reality is I had a great starting point - I was a privileged white kid and I recognise that there are people out there who aren't like this, who aren't like me, that don't/won't/can't help themselves, and whilst this annoys me I prefer to be pragamtic about it - I realise that if I ignore them the problem wont magically go away, it'll still be there, and I may even become a victim of it if one of the people in question robs me, steals my car, or shoots me, so I think that maybe it is better to help them. When you make that initial investment and pull them out of that hole, perhaps then when they realise there is actually hope for a better life for themselves, perhaps then they'll find they too can actually work harder and better themselves. There are any number of examples of programmes that aim to do precisely this working wonders and it's far and away the best solution we have - certainly much better than ignoring it and blaming it on their race which only serves to exacerbate the problem.
That may be so but all it means is that you're admitting to speaking from a position of ignorance, and it's that ignorance that leaves you prime pickings for populist rhetoric of the type that Fox News pedals.
It's not even just the UK, there are any number of places across the world where people of every race have managed to allow their neighbourhoods to descend into pits of violence.
You realise that it's not coincidence that many parts of the US where black crime is a problem also happen to be parts where racism against blacks has historically been at it's worst too right? Those communities you fear are as they are in large part because your white countrymen have spent the last few hundred years beating them into a position where violence is really all they have known. It was ironically white racist violence that created many of these problem communities as the people in question were forced to stick together and use violence to protect themselves from the likes of the KKK, whilst simultaneously being denied equal access to job opportunities to lift themselves out of poverty.
But now it's turned full circle and you're scared of them? Well if nothing else take this lesson from it - at least now when you go into those areas you know exactly how they have been forced to historically feel in much of the US.
As I said I don't disagree there are problem areas, and problem groups but the fundamental problem is when this is generalised to be "Oh well, they must all be like this". That's when it's pretty blatantly racism, and that's when it becomes an argument based on ignorance. It fundamentally doesn't matter if it's different in the UK to the US, the point is simply that the common factor in the issue clearly is not race. The common factor is that these areas are all isolated communities who have been left with with no support, no jobs, and no hope - and often having themselves suffered as victims of violence in the past.
Yes, because we all know that technology never moves forward, and everything that's fine now will be fine for whatever new fad comes around tommorrow.
The whole "it's fine as is!" argument completely ignores the fact that this isn't about what's around now, it's about what's going to be around tommorrow and ensuring the infrastructure is in place to support that. This is how things like improvements to landline based broadband led to the possibility of things like Steam, and Netflix.
In reality Apple's checks wont be much better anyway, there's now over 600,000 apps on the app store, and only 4 years since the app store opened up which means an average of over 400 apps submitted each day.
To do any kind of worthwhile security audit on that you'd need more than a day per app, and you'd need some pretty skilled staff. Factor in weekends, and holidays, and you'll be looking at well over 1,000 staff just to do this. you then have to factor in costs of supporting those staff - premises, electricity, hardware, software. Of course, all this ignores app updates, which would similarly need to be audited to ensure change in functionality doesn't introduce new exploits.
Honestly, I don't buy this- it's not the cost factor, we all know Apple has money, but I'm not convinced they'd even find and retain the numbers of staff they'd need with the relevant skillsets to be able to realiably audit apps to a decent level. I'm not even convinced the cost/benefit ratio really works out.
Realistically Apple itself probably doesn't do much more than automated checks, with perhaps a bunch of low level fairly low paid staff to actually use the app and see what it does, whether it works, whether it has any banned content etc.
Primarily what Apple's system allows is censorship and security theatre - they can pretend everything is vetted, safe, and secure, but that doesn't mean it is.
It falls into racism because you're using an example of a black community being problematic, stating this gives you cause for concern around blacks. I'm amazed at how idiotic the arguments are that have been modded up in response to this article so far. I guess Slashdot really has reached the point where mainstream populism wins out over rational understanding and discussion of the topics at hand.
Here's the problem with your argument - if you go to a deprived white neighbourhood in the UK, you will feel equally threatened, and be equally at risk as if you were in a black neighbourhood, the problem is to do with poor areas with high crime. Like you I keep a very weary eye out when I'm in such a white neighbourhood.
You state that if the people in question were wearing ties that you wouldn't feel threatened, and this precisely proves the point - it's nothing to do with their race, their religion, their belief, it's to do with the fact you can recognise a deprived area, and recognise that it's dangerous. Back to my example of rough white neighbourhoods I can tell you now if they're wearing tracksuits, baseball caps on backwards, often skinheads, looking a bit dirty, rubbish on the street, housing/flats looking worn down, then similarly it's not a place you really want to be if you care for your safety.
It's certainly valid to argue that some groups shouldn't segregate themselves, and I agree, but even there one has to look at reasons for segregation - is it because the host nation isn't offering a nice environment for racial minorities to blend into? It's even then not a black, or muslim only thing - ask the Spaniards in Spain how they feel about British ex-pat communities which have strong criminal and gangland ties turning up on their doorsteps and not respecting the Spanish culture, bringing their own brand of British rowdiness with them.
"But on a larger scale...call it racist or what...but there are stereotypes for reasons. They weren't just made out out of the clear blue sky."
So back to your original statement, you're absolutely right, there are stereotypes for reasons, but you do not understand those reasons. The reasons are more to do with the fact that the general population is too dumb to be able to cope with issues such as this, coupled with the fact politicians and agenda based press like Fox News and The Daily Mail in the UK find this gross oversimplifications (i.e. stereotypes) are useful tool for using populism to appease and control the ignorant. When Joe Lazyfucker loses his job because he was well, a lazy fucker, it's convenient for him to be able to say "It's those damn Polish, taking our jobs". That simply isn't true- if you're brought up in a country like the UK with it's high end education system, the fact you'll have native knowledge of the language and culture then you have every opportunity to be a better candidate to a job than a migrant from a poorer nation- if you lose out to them you only have yourself to blame for not taking advantage of the inherent advantage they have, and if they "took your job" it's because they were a better candidate than you and you should be ashamed of the fact you threw away opportunities available to you to be the better candidate.
Stereotypes are a convenient way for people to absolve themselves of blame, to remove guilt from themselves for certain problems. It's easier to say "Let's kick out those immigrants" as if that'll magically solve the problem of Joe Lazyfucker than it is to examine and deal with the fact there are an awful lot of Joe Lazyfuckers in the country scrounging off the state. Similarly, in your case, it's easier to just pretend there's an inherent problem with the minority you're referring to and that it somehow just can't be fixed and it's just the way it is, than it is to examine the problem of failure to make sure such communities are as successful as others and there are succesful black and other minority communities in the US and the rest of the world, so it's pretty clear race isn't the fundamental pro
"Taiwan has already applied to the UN, n'est pas?"
Yes, it failed largely because the PRC used it's weight, threatening to use military weight to boot if political clout failed.
I suspect Taiwan and Hong Kong will be one of the first to separate, but not until China feels comfortable that the rest of the mainland is stable enough to allow it to happen without them to doing so in a chaotic manner, but not yet.
"Those plugins do not all of a sudden become secure, and the vendors don't all of a sudden start using good security practices, just because the target OS runs on Apple-branded hardware."
To be fair though, Oracle released their patch months ago when this came to light, the Mac OS X version of the patch required Apple's interaction, and they've only just released it in the last couple of weeks or so, so it's hard to absolve Apple entirely of blame and put it on the vendor here.
Apple were far far too slow at patching this exploit which was known to be an issue months back and that has been without question a reason why the trojan has been able to spread and reach the number of infections it has on Macs.
There is a slight hint of irony to it as well, Apple claims it's control of the software ecosystem makes people safer - obviously this whole event puts to rest that myth if Apple can't release patches for known issues in a timely manner. Windows users had this fix in their Java implementation months before Apple users did, so this doesn't bode well for Apple's "Let us control your computer" campaign.
Whilst I'm not much of a FOSS advocate, because frankly I think a lot of FOSS is low quality shit, largely because no effort is put into things like UX for most FOSS software despite the propaganda that it's the best thing ever this does demonstrate where FOSS does excel. The problem with proprietary software is that if an exploit is found, you're often dependent on the vendor to release the patch - if something like IIS becomes vulnerable to something and the only way to fix it is with a patch then you're left with a choice of leave your web server vulnerable, or take it offline until the vendor issues a patch - obviously neither are particularly favourable. In contrast, FOSS allows you to at least have the option of patching it yourself, and this means that at least someone in the community is likely to do it and release a patch even if you don't have the skills to do so yourself. The window of attack on your systems is going to be inherently much smaller as a result.
So whilst Apple hasn't had to much trouble to date in terms of software security I think their model is actually the least preferable in terms of security if their platform continues to gain marketshare. With FOSS software you're going to get the quickest patch times because anyone can fix, with something like Windows where things are proprietary you have to rely on only the vendor for a fix, with Apple in some cases you're going to have to rely on the vendor for a fix, and then rely on Apple to let you have it - this is always going to mean it's the ecosystem with the most prolonged attack window opening and this is precisely what went wrong in this case. Oracle got their arse into gear a couple of months back, Apple has prolonged the issue since then even further.
So the moral of the story is that rather than bin some of that meat that's been in my freezer a little too long I should just leave it in even longer, say, another 30,000 years, and it'll become edible again?
To be fair, you have to look at why the Chinese governments acts the way it does nowadays.
Many of those who comprise China's top leadership do actually support greater freedoms nowadays, but they're a bit more pragmatic than many would like them to be.
The fundamental problem with China is that you have a population of 1.3 billion with gross income disparity, countless opposing religious and cultural backgrounds and differing levels of attachment to the Chinese leadership.
There's this rather naive view in the west that if China just dropped it filters, and allowed free elections, a completely free press and so forth tommorrow that suddenly everything would be okay and China would become a vast bastion of freedom and democracy with modern standards of living that envy rich western nations. In reality though it's not that simple.
The problem is that if China stops controlling information and limiting the freedoms of dissidents then there would indeed be an arab spring like event, but we're not talking about Libya here with it's mere 6 million people, we're again talking about a place with 1.3 billion people. If the government loses it's stranglehold you suddenly have uighur rebellions, you have tibetan rebellions, you have the poor rising up against those who have done well from China's economic growth, you have the Taiwanese separating, Hong-Kong separating, and you have those loyal to the government fighting back against all of them. You lose what little remaining control there is of a nuclear armed North Korea, and Russia, Japan, and all of the other neighbours are given a chance to seize territory which they dispute with China. In other words you have massive regional chaos that has the potential to spill over globally.
If you actually go and visit China, those areas that have really benefited from the boom aren't actually terribly different to many western cities. Effectively the restrictions in China are aimed and prevalent mostly in areas that are poorer and particularly want to split away. You can argue that splitting away is a fair goal, and I'd agree, but if you let say, Tibet go, then other parts are bound to be emboldened by this and follow, and again you're in a position where there's a massive risk of destabilisation through separation running away with itself.
It's pretty clear that whilst the Chinese government wants to change things that to do so over night would almost certainly be much more problematic for the region and possibly the world as a whole. The Chinese government's tactic seems to be to try and spread the benefits of growth as wide and fast as they reasonably can because when a population has nice things it's far less likely to be interested in violent disruption.
China is changing, but it needs to be left to do so at it's own pace, they didn't just start promising freedoms as a result of the arab spring they were doing it before that.
The fundamental challenge China has is in providing freedoms to those Chinese now rich and educated enough to demand and fight for them, against offering too many freedoms such that those who are poor and angry cannot use them as an opportunity to try and gain their freedom violently in a manner that would cause massive scale civil war. I don't envy this pretty high stakes balancing act the Chinese government is being forced to undergo, so whilst it may appear shitty for many Chinese compared to our standards in the West I do actually think modern Chinese leadership is genuinely trying to make the best of a pretty poor situation that they've inherited.
It's worth Googling and reading about some of China's current, and future leaders (they're having a leadership change soon). Many of them are actually quite genuine about reform and do have that as the centrepiece of their policy.
"Well, for one thing, don't model your healthcare on the UK system. It's not exactly a pinnacle of socialized healthcare today."
Care to elaborate? It's always seemed pretty good to me, but then, maybe that's because I've actually used it, rather than read about it on the internet. The only problems with the NHS are that the current government seems to feel the need to fuck around with it despite the fact it's about the only thing the previous government got right. Well, that and sorting out the passport office so you can get a new passport in a couple of days rather than many weeks.
Be aware also that the UK system caters to a far larger and more diverse population than the Scandinavian healthcare systems, and so has to be designed to work on a far larger scale. It's easy to do a lot of things better when your population is as small those of Scandinavian countries, but Finland's entire population is about 25% smaller than that of London alone, let alone the rest of the UK.
A country like the US would be far far better off trying to model a system like the UK's where it's population is only 5 times the size, rather than 60 times the size.
I agree with you about education though, the UK's education system is a shambles. Whether the Finnish model would work for us I'm not really sure, but it needs something. Unfortunately we've been going for the US model where only the rich can afford university education, which is exactly what we don't want.
At very least there's the fact that birth certificates will show place of birth, that at least covers those born in Scotland, which I believe in just about every country in the world would make you a citizen of that country.
My biggest concern though for those voters is what happens if Scotland does go independent. Are they then stuck in the obscure situation of being told they're not Scottish enough to vote but because they were born there, and not say, England, Wales, or Northern Ireland, then they're actually going to have to go back to Scotland due to not having the require permits to work in England? not having a passport? Effectively there's a danger that these people will become citizens of another country and suffer the effects of that without having ever had an opportunity to have a say in it. Presumably the UK government will allow them to retain British citizenship but what if they have property or other assets in Scotland? What if they have family there? are they going to have to cross a border they never voted for to see their family? Will Salmond seize or tax property of Scots living abroad who choose to stick with just UK citizenship?
Scotland does issue a lot of it's own documentation (they even issue their own version of sterling banknotes with Scottish branding), so the vast majority of the 20% or so of Scots living and working abroad could easily be identified as Scots.
The problem is that that proposal assumes the UK cooperates on both fronts. Potentially the UK could veto Scotlands entry into the EU, and make it near impossible to use Sterling. If they do use Sterling they don't have control of their currency.
I wouldn't expect it'd veto EU membership, and I doubt it'd prevent them using the pound, but with the problems the euro has had and with the UK determining policy on the Sterling with them having no say, I think there's a fair chance they could be forced into their own currency.
The Eurozone might not want more nations like Scotland joining the Euro, particularly after seeing what happened to Ireland. The problem for Scotland is that if it gained independance it'd have to inherit a proportional share of the UK's national debt relative to it's population, and this coupled with the fact Scotland is currently subsidised by England means it's not in a good starting place. Salmond has argued they could counteract this with oil revenue, but there's a further problem - many of the islands surrounding Scotland do not want to be a part of Scotland's independence bid and want to stay with the rest of the UK, and as such it may well be that the oil fields continue to remain under UK ownership due to their proximity to these islands that want to stay part of the UK regardless.
Fundamentally the problem is that the proposal seems to be based entirely on ignoring the reality of what independence would mean. Salmond has tried to suggest that the islands wanting to stay part of the UK regardless shouldn't have this choice, but it would seem odd that the UK would defend the right to self determination for the Falkland islanders in the South Atlantic, Gibraltans in Spain, and not those living on islands in the North Sea, particularly when there's oil at stake.
Personally I'm not sure it matters either way what happens, and I'm not sure I really care despite living here. It does irk me a bit though that Salmond seems to be trying to fiddle the referendum a bit by telling Scottish people working/living outside Scotland (i.e. those living in England currently) that they can't vote but European nationals resident in Scotland can. Effectively he's saying all those that have left Scotland, potentially because they don't like the way he's run it the last few years they don't have an opportunity to tell him to fuck off with his nationalism, but those who have moved there to work can. It wouldn't matter if we were talking small numbers, but it's something like 20% of Scotland's voting population that will be prevented from voting because they're not currently living there. This is pretty unprecedented, as even my girlfriend who has dual British/Canadian citizenship living here can still vote in Candian elections and referendums at the high commission.
I think it's probably that he recognises that if he loses this vote the issue will be off the table for likely decades, and that when only 30% at best seem to support independence it makes life difficult for him. Really, he's often spoken off as a genius politician, but frankly, I think he was the one that got played. He pushed and pushed and was really hoping the British government would say no to his referendum so he could play the hard done by nationalists card to stir up further resentment for London, but unfortunately they called his bluff and now he's pushed into a referendum he almost certainly wont win.
Still, the politics, and legalities of a potential split are pretty interesting.
It begs the question as to whether at least some economic growth in recent decades has actually been built off the back of consumers having to purchase replacement products that shouldn't need replacing.
"Pretty fucking much. How else you gonna get home from England? Try to get a ride on a cruise liner or cargo ship?"
Why not? It's a long journey but you do realise you can in fact sail to Canada right? Cargo ships sometimes will indeed take passengers for a fee. It aint comfy, it aint quick, but it's still an option.
To be fair this specific law you're referring too does get blown a bit out of proportion though.
To be jailed for claiming you don't know what the encryption key is on request the police have to have some proof that you do know what it is. They cannot simply ask what it is, then jail you for claiming ignorance, which is what many people imply the law states.
Here are the relevant parts:
(2) In proceedings against any person for an offence under this section, if it is shown that that person was in possession of a key to any protected information at any time before the time of the giving of the section 49 notice, that person shall be taken for the purposes of those proceedings to have continued to be in possession of that key at all subsequent times, unless it is shown that the key was not in his possession after the giving of the notice and before the time by which he was required to disclose it.
(3) For the purposes of this section a person shall be taken to have shown that he was not in possession of a key to protected information at a particular time ifâ"
(a)sufficient evidence of that fact is adduced to raise an issue with respect to it; and
(b)the contrary is not proved beyond a reasonable doubt.
Note particularly on point 3b - the police have to prove beyond reasonable doubt that you are in possession of the key.
Part the reason these laws keep getting through is because there's no rational debate on them from either side. The arguments for this time of thing are FUD, and the arguments against - like yours, are simply wrong. When the people arguing against it are full of shit, the government just ignore them and do what they want regardless because you're simply demonstrating to them you haven't even bothered to read their proposals.
The fact is that claiming you don't know the key WILL get you off of a section 49 notice, unless the police can somehow prove beyond reasonable doubt that you do in fact have the key.
So in fact, the law clearly states that the assumption is that the person does NOT have the encryption key, and the burden is entirely on the police to prove they do*. Only then, if they prove that they do* and they continue to refuse to disclose, does it become an offence.
RIPA is still pretty bad - especially the parts that for too long allowed councils to stalk people etc., but it's not the law people on Slashdot, The Register etc. pretend it is with regard to encryption keys.
* With the usual beyond reasonable doubt caveat - the same one used when judging whether someone is guilty of murder etc., i.e. a pretty fucking high standard of evidence.
EMTs in the US have to put on makeup to mask any injuries?
Perhaps you've never seen any victims of assault before, but I assure you bruising, swelling, cuts, and so forth are still pretty fucking visible even after medical experts have done their work on them.
"That said, when it comes to determining motive, it's quite relevant when trying to determine if a person is a continuing threat to society. But that has more to do with bail (bond) and sentencing than it does about "what crime was committed.""
But what happens when no crime is committed? Look at Abu Hamza in the UK, he's done nothing wrong theoretically, he's helped fund terrorist networks indirectly, and he's helped recruit people to terrorism by pointing them in the right direction, he's fundamentally not broken any laws, but it's widely acknowledged his actions are a clear danger.
If all he's done is given people some money, or used phrases such as "We must protect our muslims brothers against the oppressors in Afghanistan" which cannot be deemed to be hate speak then should he be allowed to carry on?
Ironically it's at the behest of the US the UK has been holding him without charge for about 8 years now, which the European Court of Human Rights has now deemed unacceptable forcing his release, but also refusing his deportation to Jordan where he would have been tried on evidence collected through torture.
The problem with demanding that law only ever deals with black and white, is that it inevitably fails society when it's faced with grey.
I agree there are similar risks with ambiguity too in terms of them getting misused, but personally I think in the UK between the strong separation between the judiciary and government, coupled with the fact we have a 3rd overseer - the European Court of Justice, and the European Court of Human Rights, the risk of abuse of such laws is quite low.
The whole reason that Europe has the European Court of Human Rights by the way, is because it was setup post World War II to ensure citizens had somewhere they could go even when their own government had turned against them - i.e., as the Jews suffered in World War II. Perhaps this is why Americans are more paranoid about this sort of thing than Europeans; because they simply don't have as healthy a separation between government and the judiciary, and because they certainly don't have a 3rd, completely neutral overseer.
"It is the subjective nature of what is "on the table" that demands that free speech be universal."
But it's not, not even in the US. Even in the US there is recognition that some speech causes problems, and we're not just talking about shouting fire in a crouded theatre here, intimidating speech has been deemed illegal in the US, and that's precisely what we're talking about here.
Prior to 9/11 we were fairly open to speech on numerous issues - including radical islamic preachers preaching against America - oddly America has never had this to a similar degree, if people are so free to talk in the US, then why is this?
The reality is in Europe the limits of freedom of speech are explicitly stated, in the US, limits to freedom of speech are implemented in other ways - such as allowing political opponents to turn up to opposing political rallies to intimidate the opposition into silence.
Your viewpoint of absolute speech is not what the US has, or is close to having. It assumes people are free to speak, or at least feel safe in speaking their viewpoint, but also assumes that speech is always harmless. This is clearly and demonstrably on past events not the case.
Humanity has long decided there must be some limits on speech, I don't think any country allows genuinely free speech, the only difference is the level of explicitness in European laws against some types of speech, and American laws, where much of free speech in the US is actually supressed by intimidation and bullying of opposing groups. You can pretend that's somehow better, but looking at the kind of controversial topics that are discussed in Europe compared to the US, I'd wager that Europe has a healthier position on actual political discussion. What we don't tolerate in European law are jackasses, like Westborough, and this guy, who was just being racist for the sake of being racist and not because he had anything worthwhile to add to public discoures. You don't tolerate them either - you just supress them with financially crippling lawsuits, turning up with guns to intimidate, and that sort of thing.
But you're assuming that every topic should be on the table, and that democratic representation of even the most distasteful viewpoints is a good thing.
Personally, I'm not sure that the health of a country suffers if the likes of the far-right aren't democratically represented. If anything the US demonstrates the problem - the fact it allowed for such open freedom of speech is why it's so backwards on things like equality of race and sexuality compared to many European countries.
So great, the KKK, Westborough and co can preach their hate, is the US really better for it? Is your democracy more healthy? Are minorities better represented? Is equality better achieved? I don't think the answer is yes to any of these things in the US.
Sometimes it's just about being pragmatic, rather than fantasising about a mystical democracy where everyone can think for themselves, no one is influenced by propaganda, and everyone respects everyone else no matter what their physical features or beliefs.
It's hard getting the balance right for sure, and things are far from perfect here in the UK. There's the ever present danger of it swaying too much towards censorship, but I'm not convinced that danger is any worse than the danger of swaying the other way which causes numerous problems in the US with hate groups openly spouting their propaganda. The level of homophobia, xenophobia and even racism, and sexism to a degree deemed acceptable in mainstream US political debate for example is quite sickening and certainly creates an atmosphere less pleasant to minorities who have done nothing wrong, in a similar way restrictions on hate speech create an atmosphere unpleasant to those who wish to preach hate. Personally I know which group I think is more deserving of suffering that unpleasantness, and I'd wager it's much more preferable and beneficial to society in general that it is the hate speakers that suffer that atmosphere, rather than the targets of such hate speak.
Actually the courts are only interpreting the laws they are provided.
Things like super-injunctions have only arisen because parliament enabled them through legislation. In the UK our governments like to play the blame game, they sneak things like this through in legislation to support their friends, or to further their personal political agenda.
The problem is the courts then apply them evenly across society, and when these laws that MPs only ever intended to support their personal agenda start to demonstrate the problems they have they cry out about how it's the courts taking things too far, they then imply that this is a reason to actually weaken the strength of the courts and give them more power.
It's a pattern most prominently repeated with the European Court of Human Rights. The current Conservative led government likes to repeatedly complain about how it overrules them and likes to use this complaint to further it's anti-EU agenda, complaining it's "Europe" overstepping the marking, using the ambiguity of the term "Europe" to make the implication it's a problem stemming from the EU. The problem with their theory is that the ECHR is actually an element of the Council of Europe - a completely separate entity from the EU and nothing to do with it, as it also includes countries as diverse from the EU members as Russia, Israel, and Turkey. A further problem is that the ECHR was set up largely by the Conservative's favourite idol - Winston Churchill, precisely with the goal of ensuring that citizens had somewhere they could go for protection against over-reaching governments.
It's a big problem because our population is by and large simply too dumb to understanding anything other than what the tabloids spout at them, and they're completely ignorant of the history of things such as this, so they just scream "Yeah, fucking Europeans overrulling us! Out of the EU now!" and then go vote for far right parties like the BNP, or UKIP.
Our courts, and courts we adhere to like the ECHR are strong precisely because we learnt the hard way in Europe that without a strong counterbalance to government, things can go horribly wrong.
Which is why it's worrying that our successive governments are trying so hard to weaken the courts, using the very tools they handed to the courts in the first place to do so - turning them back on themselves once they objectively apply them, despite often ignoring judges advice about introducing the idiocy of such new laws in the first place.
This WAS part of GAME's own failings.
When I bought Dawn of War II from them a few years back I complained to them about the fact I had to activate via Steam, and specifically that Steam wasn't letting me activate at first. I pointed out that the whole reason I bought a physical copy was so that I didn't have to deal with stupid online systems restricting what I could do with a product I'd paid for. I complained because whilst there was mention of activation, there was no mention that I'd have to create accounts and give details to both Valve, and Microsoft because it used Steam for DRM, and Games for Windows Live for other features.
I pointed out quite clearly at the time that at very least they should better advertise what the requirements and restrictions would be of not using my product, but importantly questioned why they were allowing companies to get away with it. A key point I made is that it's insane that they're selling a product that forces their customers to go to their competitors digital stores - Steam, and Games for Windows Live.
Their response was the usual games industry blurb about DRM is for my own good, and how it protects me from myself and how it offers me a superior product and all that shit.
So excuse me if I can't help but feel "I told you so". They were complicit and supportive of the rise of DRM, of the rise of systems that block second hand sale of games, and that generally remove consumer rights.
They can't whinge about how they've suffered a tough time from these systems, they were fundamental to their creation. They were fundamental to the transition to these systems because they were selling and defending the tools that made this happen. They literally signed their own death warrant, despite being warned of the future that awaited them.
They decided that the people they pay (publishers) were their customers, rather than the real customers - the people that pay them.
"TPB is infested with torrents that contain malware."
So are Google and Bing.
Out of Google, Bing, and TPB one of these sites has a trusted users flag from whom you can trust that content is unlikely to be infected. Guess which one of these sites it is.