I'm not entirely sure what you're being sarcastic about or what point you were actually trying to make with your quote?
Newspapers have long been deemed to be public record, and so of course it shouldn't be censored. Public record can comfortably sit behind the public interest defence. But Google is a business that makes money providing services based on public record, that does not in itself make it public record, and so it becomes difficult for it to make a case for public interest - it's tried to make this case and failed, hence the ruling.
See my comments elsewhere - this is the same thing that credit reference agencies have had to deal with for years, long before this law existed (because they're one of the few industries that had data protection exemptions giving them access to people's data without having to get permission first). If you have a bankruptcy filing against you then that sits in public record until the end of time, but credit reference agencies can't use this information past a certain period because whilst there is a clear public interest defence in maintaining public record, there is no such public interest defence in allowing corporations to profit off now out of date irrelevant mistakes from long ago.
Your name by itself isn't classed as personally sensitive information.
Besides, if you post it then you're implicitly giving permission for them to hold that information so it's obviously not then held by them without your permission is it? So even if you extend your idea of posting some of your personal details along with your name in a comments section then that's still your own fault.
Really, it doesn't require much thought. You're either stupid or... no nevermind, you're just stupid.
You're being pedantic about a bit of slang and Slashdot isn't a graded English language MOOC. It's not uncommon to treat copy and take as interchangeable as take in this context is just read as shorthand for "take a copy of".
Slashdot has always supported the idea that information wants to be free, but it's also supported the idea that privacy matters.
It's also true that not all information should be free, most people don't want their password, debit card pin, or private conversations to be "free".
I mean, what is your argument, that everything the NSA and GCHQ did is fine, and of course they should be able to follow your every conversation, because of course, information wants to be free? I mean why shouldn't GCHQ and the NSA hold all your information, information wants to be free, it wants them to know everything about us!
Should Slashdot remove Anonymous Coward and make everyone post with their real names, because we should all get to know who exactly they are, because information wants to be free? Maybe you should have to publicly post your address and telephone number and e-mail and workplace details and salary too. Are you willing to put your money where you mouth is and make a start?
Yes information wants to be free, except when we're talking about privacy, and privacy concerns should trump that.
I think when he referred to CP he wasn't talking about filter, but the fact that sites like Google already remove links to such sites from their indexes as soon as it's been pointed out to them.
And that does work 100% of the time. Because it's not hard to check an index is what someone is claiming it is and hit 'remove' on it once that confirmation has occured.
This is not the same thing as filtering, which I agree is a broken non-workable idea.
I don't think they are, but it achieves the goal for all intents and purposes.
Though the fact that it would be a breach of the law if they didn't actually delete is probably enough of a deterrent in most cases. One leak or whistleblower and they're on the hook for damages.
It can just be a manual process, that's how it works in most companies that already adhere to data protection laws.
God only knows it's not as if Google doesn't have the resources to staff an operation like this or invest in research into trying to automate it if it doesn't want to staff it.
It's entirely upto Google how it wants to go about it but ultimately it's got the resources and the talent.
Google already do much of this with DMCA notices, child porn sites and so forth anyway so it's not exactly a new problem contrary to your claims that it can't work. Obviously it can, because it does. Google can already prevent re-indexing.
But regardless it's a manual process, Google just have to remove it when you request, that's all, nothing more, nothing less. I suspect if they keep reindexing it in the exact same way after it's been removed then sure they may face a contempt of court charge then, but fundamentally it really doesn't put any greater burden on them than they already suffer through existing issues.
This isn't a new issue anyway though, if you go bankrupt it's in the public record for all eternity, and the public record is clearly the public record.
But credit reference agencies farm this data and use it in their credit references, because they're not simple public record they can only store them for a certain number of years. So whilst they stay in the clear public record, they can only be used for processing purposes for a certain period of time.
It's already pretty well established what public record is - public court archives, newspapers and so forth. Google takes data and makes it searchable - that's not public record, as soon as you take data from public record and make it searchable then it's not public record any more. That's why Google lost this case, and quite rightly so. Companies like credit reference agencies have had to live to these standards for a long long time already, companies on the internet shouldn't get some exception.
"so by the wave of legislator's arms, all information about us online is simply going to disappear?"
No, but upon receipt of a formal request it's not unreasonable to expect that companies have control of the data they display on the internet and can hence delete it from their services. Because this is what it's actually about, not some fanciful idea of being able to declare in some unspecified place that all information about you on the internet should vanish, an idea that seems to have been magicked up in the minds of some Slashdotters but bears no resemblance to what this law actually says and does.
Honestly, if companies can make a profit off of harvesting and displaying personal details, often against the will of the person in question, then it's really not too much to ask that when the subject asks for it to be removed that they do so. If someone breaks into your house and steals your personal photos, financial records, and whatever else and posts it all online and Google harvests it up with it's automated systems and makes a bit of money from ad impressions for people that stumble across it I don't think it's really a lot to ask that you also have the right to tell them to delete it the fuck off their servers when you find it too.
There's only a spurious argument that they had any legal basis to harvest this data in the first place given that doing so is a breach of most nation's data protection laws, so it's even less to ask that they implement procedures to make themselves compliant with long established existing data protection law.
Which is really all this does. So no, these people don't use the same web you do. They use the web where they actually read TFA, understand the issues, know what's practical, fair, and possible, and know what they're on about.
There's been a lot of FUD and confusion about this particular law on Slashdot, some people seem to think you can just somehow use your bat signal to say "I want to be forgotten on everything online ever!" but it's more simplistic than that.
What it does, is gives you the right to go to a company, that is storing information on you, and ask that they remove it. Nothing more, nothing less. That means if Google has indexed search results and their index includes information on you they simply have to remove that from their index - they do not have to go to the sites they indexed and asked them to remove the information too or any such thing, it's up to you to contact each specific company and the company must oblige.
This isn't really as big a deal as often made out, there was an argument you already had this right to an extent in many jurisdictions such as under the data protection act in the UK, which states that companies may not be passed information on you without your consent, so unless you gave it to them in the first place or consented to someone else giving it to them then they shouldn't be holding it regardless.
This law just formalises that and makes it clear that that remains true even in the age of user generated content, it simply makes it clear that companies can't shirk their data protection rules by saying "but a user gave us that content!" or "but a machine gathered that information!".
I don't believe this creates the hardship that it's claimed it creates, if companies were adhering to the likes of the UK's data protection act in the first place (which stems back to 1998) then they should've had procedures in place for over a decade and a half now to delete personal details that they had no legal right to hold.
If there are concerns about other content being deleted at the same time then that's not a problem with the law, but entirely a problem with how companies choose to go about eliminating data that should no longer be held.
If I have entered no agreement with a company, if a company is not acting as a data processor for a data controller I do have an agreement, and if I have not myself passed personal data to a company, then they never had a legal right (apart from under a handful of very specific exceptions) to hold it in the first place. The only extension this adds is that it makes it clear that you can also retroactively have information removed even if they did have the right to hold it in the past - even this existed in the likes of the DPA though, that companies shouldn't hold it for longer than necessary for the agreed purpose or when a data subject has ceased their relationship with the firm. The problem with that part it was never explicit as to exactly how long a company could hold data on you after that point so it was down to a fairly arbitrary decision by a court.
Honestly, I don't see the problem, if a company doesn't have control of the data it owns to be able to delete data it shouldn't hold on request then it's not fit to be holding any kind of data in the first place.
"Windows 8/8.1 blows on Nvidia with the latest drivers if you do not have the latest cards. Ask any owner as the majority of the 8.1 update 1 failures were NVidia related."
I know it's an anecdote, but you said ask anyone, so hey, I have 8.1 update 1 and saw no failures with a not the latest card using the latest drivers. Not had the slightest problem, everything worked fine and smooth (well, apart from generally just being Windows 8 - but hey, I like to try before I judge).
It's not having or not having the rules that's the problem, it's enforcement of them. If people aren't following the rules then that creates problems. Pedestrians rarely interact with other road users and where they do the setup is such that it's either blindingly obvious what you do or it's the traffic that has to act, not the pedestrian so the onus is on the traffic to know what it's doing.
Besides, everyone's a pedestrian by default so that sort of thing is taught in school universally, but the same isn't true of cycling - training cyclists is spotty and often optional and the net result is you have these road users interacting with traffic without understanding the rules traffic works by, and that's just plain dangerous.
So no it's not okay to have a few rules for cyclists with no formal training (even if there's no test or licensing) because that's just asking for there to be accidents. The alternative is that we stick with the status quo and put blame for accidents onto cyclists by default - because they're the untrained road users so they're much more likely to be at fault because they have no clue what the rules of the road are to ensure drivers are aware of each other (i.e. never undertake because blindspot, which cyclists ignore routinely then wonder why they get hit).
It's worse here in the UK because cyclists not only want to have no obligation to know the rules of the road but want the motorist to be at fault by default, which is nonsense because the motorist has to pass a pretty rigorous test, and the cyclist has no such obligation so the idea that the motorist is somehow in the wrong by default is absurdly stupid. Thankfully that's not been put into law yet, and hopefully it never will be.
But either way we can't maintain the status quo where cyclists can interact with other road users whilst having no idea how they should do so safely.
I agree a lot of road signs are specific to vehicles (but keep in mind there are some specific to bikes - bike lane markings for starters, even on bike paths where pedestrians have to cross). Fundamentally though the point is that there is a cost to supporting cyclists on the road which they don't pay for - they only pay general taxation which is the same as pedestrians pay, and less than what motorists pay.
The problem is that they occupy this middle ground where any argument that can be made about cyclists being better than motor vehicle users can be made again about pedestrians being better than cyclists.
So it's easy to come up with arguments like "but cyclists don't cost much so there's no point taxing them!" - sure but pedestrians cost even less, so maybe they should get a tax rebate if the view is that cyclist costs should be zero?
This is the problem - the fact is that whilst there's no doubt that motor vehicles cost the most, cyclists do bring costs on top of pedestrians and it's silly to pretend they don't. The current status quo is unfair on pedestrians, and unfair on motor vehicle users - both are effectively subsidising cyclists and it's not like cyclists even give them respect in general - I think it would be less of a hot issue if there weren't so many cyclists with bad attitudes to both of them but as there is then of course they feel aggrieved by them.
Yes, when you say "For the desktop market, you're likely targeting Windows first if you're going.Net" it means you're talking about Windows. I probably shouldn't have to explain basic English from your own hand to yourself, but it seems I apparently do.
"You won't code in Mono, you code in.Net (e.g. C#), and I would have sounded like an idiot implying otherwise, which is what you seem to be doing right now.".NET and C# are different things. You don't seem to grasp that. It's not my fault if you don't even grasp the basic terminology of what you're discussing.
"So, then, it stands to reason that 4.5 should supersede 4.0; in fact, by the same logic, 4.5 and 4.5.2 shouldn't coexist on the same system, either. Yet here I am, looking at it on two different Windows installations, one Win7 and one Win8."
Look, you don't grasp the basic facts about how the.NET framework is packaged and deployed. The.NET framework is the set of libraries that are used to build applications, each framework version requires a runtime to execute. Versions 2.0, 3.0, and 3.5 are framework versions that run on the 2.0 runtime, and 4.0 and 4.5 run on the 4.0 runtime. Saying 4.0 applications wont run if you have 4.5 installed is a complete nonsense, because 4.5 is based on 4.0 so you can't have 4.5 without having 4.0 and if you have 4.0 then of course you can run 4.0 applications. When you see 4.5 and 4.5.2 on the same system it simply means you have the libraries that correspond to those versions on the system, but the runtime is still the same for both of them (and 4.5.1 and 4.0). Of course they co-exist because you have installed the different library versions, but you still only have one runtime which supports all those framework versions equally, there were only a handful of fixes between these versions, most were outright improvements such as implementation of PLINQ style queries as standard where possible.
"Honestly, I'm just stating facts, but you seem to think you're important enough that your opinion of me can change those."
You're not because you have no idea what you're talking about. Your "I've been programming Windows since WFW 3.11 when I was 5" or whatever means jack shit if you're still completely clueless about.NET, which you really are. You can't even get basic terminology right for crying out loud. Stop pretending you know what you're on about and stick to what you do know, because this is very obviously something you don't. Christ, if you were doing WFW programming when you were 5 then you're at most what, 27 years old? You're still an inexperienced kid for crying out loud. You couldn't have fit as many years in if you tried - you weren't even of legal full time employment age when.NET came out which in itself makes a farce of the idea that you think you're a.NET know it all when you're obviously not.
But I'll give you some advice kid, you'll ignore it, because you're obviously stubborn, but it's worth a try as it's the one thing that separates the wheat from the chaff. You want to know what makes a great programmer? Humility. Knowing when you know you don't know. If you're not capable of introspection then you'll never be particularly great, you have to know when you're out of your depth and saying things that come across like "BUT.NET MONO SHARP 7 ISN'T COMPATIBLE WITH 4.0.012.5!!!!111" shows you don't have this quality, you'd rather talk nonsense and not even get basic terminology right than actually stop and try and learn something. It's not like I was even having a go at or arguing with you originally, just pointing out a slight inaccuracy in what you said and what? you then jump straight into a full fledged argument rather than do the rational thing of stopping and accepting that maybe there is actually someone that knows more than you about a particular topic.
"Mono. I'm talking about Mono. This whole discussion was about Mono."
Then don't mix and match terminology, because in that case your argument makes even less sense. Why would Windows users even have mono? Because you were talking about Windows.
"a.Net application written against version 4.0 of the API will refuse to run if you only have version 4.5 installed, even though 4.5 is newer. Why? Because 4.5 isn't just newer, it's different."
This is just out and out false. 4.5 is based on 4.0, it's just an in place upgrade for it. 3.5 and 3.0 are based on the 2.0 runtime, so you generally have both runtimes, and then the subsequent API versions.
Honestly, I was just making an observation, but now you're just digging deeper and confirming that you really are out of your depth.
I think your lack of understanding of Windows /.NET is beginning to show at this point. Saying you have to bundle the.NET run time or hope that the user has the correct version install, but that you can count on JDK 6 is complete nonsense.
Far more Windows users have uptodate.NET installations than Java, and each version automatically contains support for the older versions.
This is even more the case since the countless recent Java vulnerabilities that have had people uninstalling it in droves.
Whether a user has.NET install on a Windows system is a complete non-issue nearly all the time. Unless you want to do something obscure like target ancient Windows 2000 PCs or something then you really don't need to worry..NET 4 is more than sufficient and available as an automatic update for every version of Windows that matters.
Yeah, the EU ban is only temporary by default anyway precisely so they can measure the effects. If they see a noticeable reduction in CCD they'll legislate to make it permanent.
I think they've gone about it the right way - it's a serious enough problem that a ban for a few years to allow the facts to be better established isn't exactly going to be the end of the world, and if it works, good make it permanent, if not, make it legal again.
Does it? Tell that to the mealy bugs I can't get rid of with it.
Honestly, it seems useless anyway, at least the systemic element of it, everything I've tried it on seems immune to it already. It's okay as a contact insecticide but that's not even the imidacloprid itself but more the butane from the aerosol, and besides, a squirty bottle of water and fairy liquid solution does just as good a job as a contact insecticide.
Can't say I'd miss it at all. It's no more effective than Thiacloprid and Acetamiprid, though that's all mostly crap too.
"Turns out most people may actually like these changes."
They do? So why in the past 6 or 7 years has Firefox gone from just over 50% market share to less than 20%? Are you aware of some poll that has a fuck load of people saying "I like the changes in Firefox, I just wont use it because I'm scared of Foxes" or something?
Otherwise I don't think "most" means what you think it means, at under 20% marketshare, coupled with a loss of 30% the overwhelming majority of people obviously don't like Firefox much and a large amount that used to use it have actively decided they wont use it any more.
When I think privacy I certainly don't think Mozilla. These are the guys that support the advertising industry by parroting their bullshit excuses in refusing to let people opt in to do not track instead of defaulting them to opt out, or giving them a choice on install.
Does it for me too, given that he said Linux and I use Windows I'd wager it's everything to do with Firefox and nothing to do with his system - we're not even using the same OS.
Problem in this case is that people can play it together and there are game features relating to being married.
So two people with a male/female avatar get additional content, that means a male/male couple one has to make a female avatar, and the avatars are based on your Nintendo Mii which is meant to represent you.
So you get a gay couple playing the game and they're like "Hey, let's use the relationships feature so we can do the relationship stuff" - no you can't do that because you're gay, one of you has to change to become a girl. I can see why that might come across as a bit of a kick in the teeth.
I don't think there'd really be many complaints if you weren't supposed to use an avatar that represents you, or if you couldn't play with friends, but as it effectively encourages you to be yourself and then basically shits on you if you try and have a gay relationship like you may have in real life then there's certainly a problem IMO. If you've already bought it, unwrapped it and played it, then it's probably too late to even return it.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm not entirely sure what you're being sarcastic about or what point you were actually trying to make with your quote?
Newspapers have long been deemed to be public record, and so of course it shouldn't be censored. Public record can comfortably sit behind the public interest defence. But Google is a business that makes money providing services based on public record, that does not in itself make it public record, and so it becomes difficult for it to make a case for public interest - it's tried to make this case and failed, hence the ruling.
See my comments elsewhere - this is the same thing that credit reference agencies have had to deal with for years, long before this law existed (because they're one of the few industries that had data protection exemptions giving them access to people's data without having to get permission first). If you have a bankruptcy filing against you then that sits in public record until the end of time, but credit reference agencies can't use this information past a certain period because whilst there is a clear public interest defence in maintaining public record, there is no such public interest defence in allowing corporations to profit off now out of date irrelevant mistakes from long ago.
Your name by itself isn't classed as personally sensitive information.
Besides, if you post it then you're implicitly giving permission for them to hold that information so it's obviously not then held by them without your permission is it? So even if you extend your idea of posting some of your personal details along with your name in a comments section then that's still your own fault.
Really, it doesn't require much thought. You're either stupid or... no nevermind, you're just stupid.
You're being pedantic about a bit of slang and Slashdot isn't a graded English language MOOC. It's not uncommon to treat copy and take as interchangeable as take in this context is just read as shorthand for "take a copy of".
Slashdot has always supported the idea that information wants to be free, but it's also supported the idea that privacy matters.
It's also true that not all information should be free, most people don't want their password, debit card pin, or private conversations to be "free".
I mean, what is your argument, that everything the NSA and GCHQ did is fine, and of course they should be able to follow your every conversation, because of course, information wants to be free? I mean why shouldn't GCHQ and the NSA hold all your information, information wants to be free, it wants them to know everything about us!
Should Slashdot remove Anonymous Coward and make everyone post with their real names, because we should all get to know who exactly they are, because information wants to be free? Maybe you should have to publicly post your address and telephone number and e-mail and workplace details and salary too. Are you willing to put your money where you mouth is and make a start?
Yes information wants to be free, except when we're talking about privacy, and privacy concerns should trump that.
I think when he referred to CP he wasn't talking about filter, but the fact that sites like Google already remove links to such sites from their indexes as soon as it's been pointed out to them.
And that does work 100% of the time. Because it's not hard to check an index is what someone is claiming it is and hit 'remove' on it once that confirmation has occured.
This is not the same thing as filtering, which I agree is a broken non-workable idea.
I don't think they are, but it achieves the goal for all intents and purposes.
Though the fact that it would be a breach of the law if they didn't actually delete is probably enough of a deterrent in most cases. One leak or whistleblower and they're on the hook for damages.
It can just be a manual process, that's how it works in most companies that already adhere to data protection laws.
God only knows it's not as if Google doesn't have the resources to staff an operation like this or invest in research into trying to automate it if it doesn't want to staff it.
It's entirely upto Google how it wants to go about it but ultimately it's got the resources and the talent.
Google already do much of this with DMCA notices, child porn sites and so forth anyway so it's not exactly a new problem contrary to your claims that it can't work. Obviously it can, because it does. Google can already prevent re-indexing.
But regardless it's a manual process, Google just have to remove it when you request, that's all, nothing more, nothing less. I suspect if they keep reindexing it in the exact same way after it's been removed then sure they may face a contempt of court charge then, but fundamentally it really doesn't put any greater burden on them than they already suffer through existing issues.
The wayback machine could reasonably argue the public interest exception.
Search engines don't have to do anything fanciful other than adhere to take down requests when they receive them.
No, not correct. It's about personal data. This is already something that's well defined and well understood.
Your argument amounts to the idea that nothing should ever be private, which is an even more stupid idea.
This isn't a new issue anyway though, if you go bankrupt it's in the public record for all eternity, and the public record is clearly the public record.
But credit reference agencies farm this data and use it in their credit references, because they're not simple public record they can only store them for a certain number of years. So whilst they stay in the clear public record, they can only be used for processing purposes for a certain period of time.
It's already pretty well established what public record is - public court archives, newspapers and so forth. Google takes data and makes it searchable - that's not public record, as soon as you take data from public record and make it searchable then it's not public record any more. That's why Google lost this case, and quite rightly so. Companies like credit reference agencies have had to live to these standards for a long long time already, companies on the internet shouldn't get some exception.
"so by the wave of legislator's arms, all information about us online is simply going to disappear?"
No, but upon receipt of a formal request it's not unreasonable to expect that companies have control of the data they display on the internet and can hence delete it from their services. Because this is what it's actually about, not some fanciful idea of being able to declare in some unspecified place that all information about you on the internet should vanish, an idea that seems to have been magicked up in the minds of some Slashdotters but bears no resemblance to what this law actually says and does.
Honestly, if companies can make a profit off of harvesting and displaying personal details, often against the will of the person in question, then it's really not too much to ask that when the subject asks for it to be removed that they do so. If someone breaks into your house and steals your personal photos, financial records, and whatever else and posts it all online and Google harvests it up with it's automated systems and makes a bit of money from ad impressions for people that stumble across it I don't think it's really a lot to ask that you also have the right to tell them to delete it the fuck off their servers when you find it too.
There's only a spurious argument that they had any legal basis to harvest this data in the first place given that doing so is a breach of most nation's data protection laws, so it's even less to ask that they implement procedures to make themselves compliant with long established existing data protection law.
Which is really all this does. So no, these people don't use the same web you do. They use the web where they actually read TFA, understand the issues, know what's practical, fair, and possible, and know what they're on about.
There's been a lot of FUD and confusion about this particular law on Slashdot, some people seem to think you can just somehow use your bat signal to say "I want to be forgotten on everything online ever!" but it's more simplistic than that.
What it does, is gives you the right to go to a company, that is storing information on you, and ask that they remove it. Nothing more, nothing less. That means if Google has indexed search results and their index includes information on you they simply have to remove that from their index - they do not have to go to the sites they indexed and asked them to remove the information too or any such thing, it's up to you to contact each specific company and the company must oblige.
This isn't really as big a deal as often made out, there was an argument you already had this right to an extent in many jurisdictions such as under the data protection act in the UK, which states that companies may not be passed information on you without your consent, so unless you gave it to them in the first place or consented to someone else giving it to them then they shouldn't be holding it regardless.
This law just formalises that and makes it clear that that remains true even in the age of user generated content, it simply makes it clear that companies can't shirk their data protection rules by saying "but a user gave us that content!" or "but a machine gathered that information!".
I don't believe this creates the hardship that it's claimed it creates, if companies were adhering to the likes of the UK's data protection act in the first place (which stems back to 1998) then they should've had procedures in place for over a decade and a half now to delete personal details that they had no legal right to hold.
If there are concerns about other content being deleted at the same time then that's not a problem with the law, but entirely a problem with how companies choose to go about eliminating data that should no longer be held.
If I have entered no agreement with a company, if a company is not acting as a data processor for a data controller I do have an agreement, and if I have not myself passed personal data to a company, then they never had a legal right (apart from under a handful of very specific exceptions) to hold it in the first place. The only extension this adds is that it makes it clear that you can also retroactively have information removed even if they did have the right to hold it in the past - even this existed in the likes of the DPA though, that companies shouldn't hold it for longer than necessary for the agreed purpose or when a data subject has ceased their relationship with the firm. The problem with that part it was never explicit as to exactly how long a company could hold data on you after that point so it was down to a fairly arbitrary decision by a court.
Honestly, I don't see the problem, if a company doesn't have control of the data it owns to be able to delete data it shouldn't hold on request then it's not fit to be holding any kind of data in the first place.
"Windows 8/8.1 blows on Nvidia with the latest drivers if you do not have the latest cards. Ask any owner as the majority of the 8.1 update 1 failures were NVidia related."
I know it's an anecdote, but you said ask anyone, so hey, I have 8.1 update 1 and saw no failures with a not the latest card using the latest drivers. Not had the slightest problem, everything worked fine and smooth (well, apart from generally just being Windows 8 - but hey, I like to try before I judge).
It's not having or not having the rules that's the problem, it's enforcement of them. If people aren't following the rules then that creates problems. Pedestrians rarely interact with other road users and where they do the setup is such that it's either blindingly obvious what you do or it's the traffic that has to act, not the pedestrian so the onus is on the traffic to know what it's doing.
Besides, everyone's a pedestrian by default so that sort of thing is taught in school universally, but the same isn't true of cycling - training cyclists is spotty and often optional and the net result is you have these road users interacting with traffic without understanding the rules traffic works by, and that's just plain dangerous.
So no it's not okay to have a few rules for cyclists with no formal training (even if there's no test or licensing) because that's just asking for there to be accidents. The alternative is that we stick with the status quo and put blame for accidents onto cyclists by default - because they're the untrained road users so they're much more likely to be at fault because they have no clue what the rules of the road are to ensure drivers are aware of each other (i.e. never undertake because blindspot, which cyclists ignore routinely then wonder why they get hit).
It's worse here in the UK because cyclists not only want to have no obligation to know the rules of the road but want the motorist to be at fault by default, which is nonsense because the motorist has to pass a pretty rigorous test, and the cyclist has no such obligation so the idea that the motorist is somehow in the wrong by default is absurdly stupid. Thankfully that's not been put into law yet, and hopefully it never will be.
But either way we can't maintain the status quo where cyclists can interact with other road users whilst having no idea how they should do so safely.
I agree a lot of road signs are specific to vehicles (but keep in mind there are some specific to bikes - bike lane markings for starters, even on bike paths where pedestrians have to cross). Fundamentally though the point is that there is a cost to supporting cyclists on the road which they don't pay for - they only pay general taxation which is the same as pedestrians pay, and less than what motorists pay.
The problem is that they occupy this middle ground where any argument that can be made about cyclists being better than motor vehicle users can be made again about pedestrians being better than cyclists.
So it's easy to come up with arguments like "but cyclists don't cost much so there's no point taxing them!" - sure but pedestrians cost even less, so maybe they should get a tax rebate if the view is that cyclist costs should be zero?
This is the problem - the fact is that whilst there's no doubt that motor vehicles cost the most, cyclists do bring costs on top of pedestrians and it's silly to pretend they don't. The current status quo is unfair on pedestrians, and unfair on motor vehicle users - both are effectively subsidising cyclists and it's not like cyclists even give them respect in general - I think it would be less of a hot issue if there weren't so many cyclists with bad attitudes to both of them but as there is then of course they feel aggrieved by them.
"Or, really now?"
Yes, when you say "For the desktop market, you're likely targeting Windows first if you're going .Net" it means you're talking about Windows. I probably shouldn't have to explain basic English from your own hand to yourself, but it seems I apparently do.
"You won't code in Mono, you code in .Net (e.g. C#), and I would have sounded like an idiot implying otherwise, which is what you seem to be doing right now." .NET and C# are different things. You don't seem to grasp that. It's not my fault if you don't even grasp the basic terminology of what you're discussing.
"So, then, it stands to reason that 4.5 should supersede 4.0; in fact, by the same logic, 4.5 and 4.5.2 shouldn't coexist on the same system, either. Yet here I am, looking at it on two different Windows installations, one Win7 and one Win8."
Look, you don't grasp the basic facts about how the .NET framework is packaged and deployed. The .NET framework is the set of libraries that are used to build applications, each framework version requires a runtime to execute. Versions 2.0, 3.0, and 3.5 are framework versions that run on the 2.0 runtime, and 4.0 and 4.5 run on the 4.0 runtime. Saying 4.0 applications wont run if you have 4.5 installed is a complete nonsense, because 4.5 is based on 4.0 so you can't have 4.5 without having 4.0 and if you have 4.0 then of course you can run 4.0 applications. When you see 4.5 and 4.5.2 on the same system it simply means you have the libraries that correspond to those versions on the system, but the runtime is still the same for both of them (and 4.5.1 and 4.0). Of course they co-exist because you have installed the different library versions, but you still only have one runtime which supports all those framework versions equally, there were only a handful of fixes between these versions, most were outright improvements such as implementation of PLINQ style queries as standard where possible.
"Honestly, I'm just stating facts, but you seem to think you're important enough that your opinion of me can change those."
You're not because you have no idea what you're talking about. Your "I've been programming Windows since WFW 3.11 when I was 5" or whatever means jack shit if you're still completely clueless about .NET, which you really are. You can't even get basic terminology right for crying out loud. Stop pretending you know what you're on about and stick to what you do know, because this is very obviously something you don't. Christ, if you were doing WFW programming when you were 5 then you're at most what, 27 years old? You're still an inexperienced kid for crying out loud. You couldn't have fit as many years in if you tried - you weren't even of legal full time employment age when .NET came out which in itself makes a farce of the idea that you think you're a .NET know it all when you're obviously not.
But I'll give you some advice kid, you'll ignore it, because you're obviously stubborn, but it's worth a try as it's the one thing that separates the wheat from the chaff. You want to know what makes a great programmer? Humility. Knowing when you know you don't know. If you're not capable of introspection then you'll never be particularly great, you have to know when you're out of your depth and saying things that come across like "BUT .NET MONO SHARP 7 ISN'T COMPATIBLE WITH 4.0.012.5!!!!111" shows you don't have this quality, you'd rather talk nonsense and not even get basic terminology right than actually stop and try and learn something. It's not like I was even having a go at or arguing with you originally, just pointing out a slight inaccuracy in what you said and what? you then jump straight into a full fledged argument rather than do the rational thing of stopping and accepting that maybe there is actually someone that knows more than you about a particular topic.
"Mono. I'm talking about Mono. This whole discussion was about Mono."
Then don't mix and match terminology, because in that case your argument makes even less sense. Why would Windows users even have mono? Because you were talking about Windows.
"a .Net application written against version 4.0 of the API will refuse to run if you only have version 4.5 installed, even though 4.5 is newer. Why? Because 4.5 isn't just newer, it's different."
This is just out and out false. 4.5 is based on 4.0, it's just an in place upgrade for it. 3.5 and 3.0 are based on the 2.0 runtime, so you generally have both runtimes, and then the subsequent API versions.
Honestly, I was just making an observation, but now you're just digging deeper and confirming that you really are out of your depth.
I think your lack of understanding of Windows / .NET is beginning to show at this point. Saying you have to bundle the .NET run time or hope that the user has the correct version install, but that you can count on JDK 6 is complete nonsense.
Far more Windows users have uptodate .NET installations than Java, and each version automatically contains support for the older versions.
This is even more the case since the countless recent Java vulnerabilities that have had people uninstalling it in droves.
Whether a user has .NET install on a Windows system is a complete non-issue nearly all the time. Unless you want to do something obscure like target ancient Windows 2000 PCs or something then you really don't need to worry. .NET 4 is more than sufficient and available as an automatic update for every version of Windows that matters.
Yeah, the EU ban is only temporary by default anyway precisely so they can measure the effects. If they see a noticeable reduction in CCD they'll legislate to make it permanent.
I think they've gone about it the right way - it's a serious enough problem that a ban for a few years to allow the facts to be better established isn't exactly going to be the end of the world, and if it works, good make it permanent, if not, make it legal again.
"It works perfectly in greenhouses and indoors."
Does it? Tell that to the mealy bugs I can't get rid of with it.
Honestly, it seems useless anyway, at least the systemic element of it, everything I've tried it on seems immune to it already. It's okay as a contact insecticide but that's not even the imidacloprid itself but more the butane from the aerosol, and besides, a squirty bottle of water and fairy liquid solution does just as good a job as a contact insecticide.
Can't say I'd miss it at all. It's no more effective than Thiacloprid and Acetamiprid, though that's all mostly crap too.
"Turns out most people may actually like these changes."
They do? So why in the past 6 or 7 years has Firefox gone from just over 50% market share to less than 20%? Are you aware of some poll that has a fuck load of people saying "I like the changes in Firefox, I just wont use it because I'm scared of Foxes" or something?
Otherwise I don't think "most" means what you think it means, at under 20% marketshare, coupled with a loss of 30% the overwhelming majority of people obviously don't like Firefox much and a large amount that used to use it have actively decided they wont use it any more.
When I think privacy I certainly don't think Mozilla. These are the guys that support the advertising industry by parroting their bullshit excuses in refusing to let people opt in to do not track instead of defaulting them to opt out, or giving them a choice on install.
Does it for me too, given that he said Linux and I use Windows I'd wager it's everything to do with Firefox and nothing to do with his system - we're not even using the same OS.
Problem in this case is that people can play it together and there are game features relating to being married.
So two people with a male/female avatar get additional content, that means a male/male couple one has to make a female avatar, and the avatars are based on your Nintendo Mii which is meant to represent you.
So you get a gay couple playing the game and they're like "Hey, let's use the relationships feature so we can do the relationship stuff" - no you can't do that because you're gay, one of you has to change to become a girl. I can see why that might come across as a bit of a kick in the teeth.
I don't think there'd really be many complaints if you weren't supposed to use an avatar that represents you, or if you couldn't play with friends, but as it effectively encourages you to be yourself and then basically shits on you if you try and have a gay relationship like you may have in real life then there's certainly a problem IMO. If you've already bought it, unwrapped it and played it, then it's probably too late to even return it.