The UK government are planning to significantly reduce public spending. The police receive criticism for being very expensive even though there's a lot of crime.
Posting routine activities on Twitter demonstrates the range of tasks the police have to do, which makes it easier to justify the cost of policing, increases public understanding of the role of the police (thus making it easier for the police to work with the public) and may also help reduce the number of false emergency calls received (which do have a very real cost and distract from the genuine emergencies).
For a couple of days effort it's a reasonable idea - shame they've cocked it up.
The concept of a couple developers pounding out code in a garage is certainly romantic, but it doesn't reflect anything but the least adept and amateurish "game programmers" out there.
The healthy and lucrative Indie games market disagrees with you strongly. Especially if you start to include mobile devices.
I must be weird. I have a speedometer and other instruments on the dash in front of me. Above those is the windscreen, revealing the world around me.
I like a built-in satnav because it's out of the way, it isn't blocking key information sources and I can ignore it easily.
That said, my current car's satnav is built into the top of the dash, which is indeed more sensible than putting it down with the aircon controls.
(The other advantage of built-in satnav is that you also tend to get better electronics with it - it's all fluff, but it makes owning a car nicer. E.g. BMW 1 series with satnav has a decent i-drive; BMW 1 series without satnav has horrible UI)
Shrug, Score: 0 ACs don't appear for me. They also lacked the witty sarcasm inherent to my post, which you may also consider valuable to other people that also cut out the anonymous spam.
Seriously, I don't want to put two 26" monitors on my desk. I don't even want two 22" monitors. Right now I have a 19" CRT and a 17" CRT, and at work I have a 17" LCD and a 15" LCD. In bed I have a 17" widescreen laptop, but you have to slum it at times.
26" monitors need too much head movement to use. Pixel density matters too.
I buy computer monitors approximately once every six years. (I buy laptops more often).
Spending a little more on a monitor that I want to use for six years is worth every penny. Especially when you take into account the current monitor that's 9 years old and still working just fine, and the previous monitor that's 15 years old and working just fine. The older one isn't 1200 high but as a second screen it's sufficient.
Really it's only that first one that was a bit shite..
Saving $400 on something that I reasonably expect to last me a decade is a false economy if it leaves me distressed every time I use it.
I'm confused. Why is this better than 1920x1200, or two 960x1200 areas?
Vertical screen space is precious to me. It minimises my scrolling on web pages, on documents, on code, on those erotic stories I read late at night. Why would losing 120 pixels ever be a good thing?
My laptop has a 17" screen with 1920x1200 pixels. I too am distressed that equivalent desktop monitors just aren't available.
Why the fuck would I want to drop to 1920x1080? It confuses me - and it's purely marketing bullshit based on TV HD, which frankly makes fuck all difference to me either.
what's the chief going to tell the firemen's little girls?
Something along the lines of, "Hi there Sweetie, want to see my puppies? That nasty man's let his burn so you can't see his. By the way, don't worry about the cost of burying Daddy, he's been cremated already.."
Fuck the fireman's little girls. The firemen are more likely to die from the relatives of this bloke exacting their revenge than from the fire so stop playing the little girl card, it doesn't work here.
Yeah, and? That's a reason to lock him indefinitely with no actual evidence?
I think you may have raped my mother. I have no actual evidence of this, and indeed she tells me you paid her for it, but rape is illegal so I've decided to imprison you for a few years because you haven't been able to tell me the name of my first girlfriend.
Even if you think the above scenario is paranoid and unlikely
Although I'll give the police the benefit of doubt and assume they weren't planning to actually plant false evidence, they were clearly intent on prosecuting for any reason at all. This is clear from the comments from the police after the verdict - basically saying that he was an online criminal trying to hide his nefarious deeds.
Well hey there you ignorant fuckwit policeman. Maybe he just has principles.
(Maybe he really is a child raping sadist, but I still believe in the presumption of innocence)
If you want to be taken seriously, it might be time to set aside all that aristocracy and "House of Lords" stuff. I'd say it's "so last-century" but really it was "so last century" last century.
Sure, can you suggest an alternative? One that - protects the tourism revenue generated by the aristocracy - acts as a conscience on the Government, stopping them from passing entirely fascist laws (unless the Parliament Act is used, in which case we're fucked anyway)
The House of Lords is an anachronism, but it functions remarkably well and nobody's yet suggested an alternative that would seem to deliver the same benefits.
The police mostly rely on ensuring people are confused about what the law actually says in the hope of making them waver and admit guilt or at least incriminate themselves
The law says that failing to hand over a key and failing to present a case that you no longer have it is sufficient to cause an offence.
At no point do you need to waver, admit guilt or otherwise incriminate yourself. You just have to be unable to demonstrate that you don't have access to the encrypted material yourself, and proving a negative can be a tad complicated.
When you want a camera and your camera is at home, what do you use?
When you need internet access and there isn't a PC in sight or a LAN port to connect one to, what do you use?
Me, I use my music player. It lets me take pictures, access the internet, play videos (useful for TED Talks) and listen to music, all in one handy pocket-sized device.
I find this convenient. Better yet, it also tells me where I am with its built-in GPS system and lets me participate in converstions with my friends, colleagues and random strangers, through instant messaging, Skype, SMS text messages or through POTS.
Obviously carrying a different piece of equipment for all those uses would fill my pockets so full either they'd split and I'd lose it all or my trousers would be pulled down. That might be embarrassing.
Lucky my phone does everything I need it to do, which (lets face it) is a fuck of a lot more than make phone calls.
if there was, full stop, no discrimination against black people, 'black power' would be just as racist as 'white power'
It is just as racist, irrespective of whether there is discrimination against black people.
What the fuck is with the whole "Black people can't be racist" bullshit? People can be racist, whatever their colour.
Discrimination doesn't justify discrimination. In other words, don't give me shit because Hitler was a cunt, because lets face it, Idi Amin wasn't a Nobel Peace Prize winner either.
Anyway, I've never met a black person. Met many brown ones though, and had a girlfriend that was a lovely milky coffee colour. She was into bondage too, and if you want ethical issues, just start considering whether it's oppressive for a white man to be putting a mullato girl into chains because she gets off on it..
Taxes pay for roads, clearly the constitution assumes a right to travel.
So get on a bus or call a taxi.
Or demonstrate that not only do you have sufficient skill to control a vehicle, but that you're not such a fuckwit that you'll focus all of your attention on a handheld communication device instead of the multi-ton machine you're meant to be controlling.
The way the law is now, I'm concerned about even monkeying with my iPhone to switch playlists, because I hook it up to my car stereo
Good.
Watch the road, not your overpriced fashion item that also plays music. If it had a decent interface you wouldn't have to look at it.
Watch the road.
The law intends to prevent you from killing other people through your sheer stupidity. Complaining that as written it may penalise you for risking killing people through your sheer stupidity is not the answer.
Watch the road.
If you're looking at your iPhone to change your playlist you're not driving your car at the same time. Which part of 'Watch the road' are you struggling with here?
So you don't like banks. Fine. Ignore the fact that your reasons are all bogus, that using a bank in no way prevents you from pro-actively managing your finances, and lets focus on this one:
Incidentally, I refuse to carry a debit card and instead I use credit cards as charge cards.
So instead of using a bank, you use either: - the credit card issued by a bank, or - the credit card issued by a company that doesn't want the overhead of the regulation imposed on a bank
I'm detecting a logic failure here.
. There is one and only one event that can possibly cause an overdraft: spending more money than you have placed in your account.
That's not actually true. See the reply by Abstrackt for an example.
I have multiple bank accounts. I've never gone unintentionally overdrawn (and it would've financially irresponsible to not go overdrawn as a student with a free overdraft facility - by which I mean, no interest and no charges). And yeah, I cleared that overdraft when I left uni.
I also allow the bank to look after my monthly bills, my employer insists on paying my salary into a bank account and I happily use electronic payments regularly. I also keep control of my own finances, and validate the entries in my bank statements. This takes seconds a month and is far easier than manually updating a spreadsheet (or finance package) every time I engage in a financial transaction.
I'm struggling to understand where the hell you're coming from.
Declaration of non-objectivity: I work for a bank. None of which impacts any of the above, as my main accounts are not with my employer.
Nonsense. There are thousands of legal gun owners across the country even now.
the ban has affected almost nobody
It's affected dozens of people I know personally, including myself. None of whom are in the military, none of whom are in the police, none of whom owned (or admit to owning) an illegal weapon.
I've lived in London for 36 years
Ah, yes. London. Home of the hunting ban, the dangerous dogs act and a dozen other knee-jerk over-the-top pointless pieces of legislation the rest of the country didn't fucking want.
Forgive me if I give your sheltered view of the world little credence.
Slashdot Mirror
The UK government are planning to significantly reduce public spending. The police receive criticism for being very expensive even though there's a lot of crime.
Posting routine activities on Twitter demonstrates the range of tasks the police have to do, which makes it easier to justify the cost of policing, increases public understanding of the role of the police (thus making it easier for the police to work with the public) and may also help reduce the number of false emergency calls received (which do have a very real cost and distract from the genuine emergencies).
For a couple of days effort it's a reasonable idea - shame they've cocked it up.
The concept of a couple developers pounding out code in a garage is certainly romantic, but it doesn't reflect anything but the least adept and amateurish "game programmers" out there.
The healthy and lucrative Indie games market disagrees with you strongly. Especially if you start to include mobile devices.
it's hard to guess at the exact reasons they would use one material over another
Nah, it's easy to guess: Form over function.
Exactly what Apple's target market expect and are willing to pay for.
Find something with a titanium case and a titanium and/or rubber strap. Added bonus: It's light too!
I must be weird. I have a speedometer and other instruments on the dash in front of me. Above those is the windscreen, revealing the world around me.
I like a built-in satnav because it's out of the way, it isn't blocking key information sources and I can ignore it easily.
That said, my current car's satnav is built into the top of the dash, which is indeed more sensible than putting it down with the aircon controls.
(The other advantage of built-in satnav is that you also tend to get better electronics with it - it's all fluff, but it makes owning a car nicer. E.g. BMW 1 series with satnav has a decent i-drive; BMW 1 series without satnav has horrible UI)
Amazed you're the only person to suggest this.
Then again, I spent several years of my life checking the car for bombs before getting in - and had people nearby die because they didn't..
Shrug, Score: 0 ACs don't appear for me. They also lacked the witty sarcasm inherent to my post, which you may also consider valuable to other people that also cut out the anonymous spam.
Accredited spam is, naturally, just fine.
Hi, I'm from the UK. Over here we have this amazing concept, it's called sarcasm.
Learn it, love it, use it.
Seriously, I don't want to put two 26" monitors on my desk. I don't even want two 22" monitors. Right now I have a 19" CRT and a 17" CRT, and at work I have a 17" LCD and a 15" LCD. In bed I have a 17" widescreen laptop, but you have to slum it at times.
26" monitors need too much head movement to use. Pixel density matters too.
I buy computer monitors approximately once every six years. (I buy laptops more often).
Spending a little more on a monitor that I want to use for six years is worth every penny. Especially when you take into account the current monitor that's 9 years old and still working just fine, and the previous monitor that's 15 years old and working just fine. The older one isn't 1200 high but as a second screen it's sufficient.
Really it's only that first one that was a bit shite..
Saving $400 on something that I reasonably expect to last me a decade is a false economy if it leaves me distressed every time I use it.
I'm confused. Why is this better than 1920x1200, or two 960x1200 areas?
Vertical screen space is precious to me. It minimises my scrolling on web pages, on documents, on code, on those erotic stories I read late at night. Why would losing 120 pixels ever be a good thing?
My laptop has a 17" screen with 1920x1200 pixels. I too am distressed that equivalent desktop monitors just aren't available.
Why the fuck would I want to drop to 1920x1080? It confuses me - and it's purely marketing bullshit based on TV HD, which frankly makes fuck all difference to me either.
what's the chief going to tell the firemen's little girls?
Something along the lines of, "Hi there Sweetie, want to see my puppies? That nasty man's let his burn so you can't see his. By the way, don't worry about the cost of burying Daddy, he's been cremated already.."
Fuck the fireman's little girls. The firemen are more likely to die from the relatives of this bloke exacting their revenge than from the fire so stop playing the little girl card, it doesn't work here.
Yeah, and? That's a reason to lock him indefinitely with no actual evidence?
I think you may have raped my mother. I have no actual evidence of this, and indeed she tells me you paid her for it, but rape is illegal so I've decided to imprison you for a few years because you haven't been able to tell me the name of my first girlfriend.
Sound contrived? Welcome to RIPA.
Even if you think the above scenario is paranoid and unlikely
Although I'll give the police the benefit of doubt and assume they weren't planning to actually plant false evidence, they were clearly intent on prosecuting for any reason at all. This is clear from the comments from the police after the verdict - basically saying that he was an online criminal trying to hide his nefarious deeds.
Well hey there you ignorant fuckwit policeman. Maybe he just has principles.
(Maybe he really is a child raping sadist, but I still believe in the presumption of innocence)
if the cops had had the common sense to take a few pictures of the laptop screen, then there would be no issue at all
Indeed, 8 years inside for creating child pornography for the cop. Sounds reasonable to me.
If you want to be taken seriously, it might be time to set aside all that aristocracy and "House of Lords" stuff. I'd say it's "so last-century" but really it was "so last century" last century.
Sure, can you suggest an alternative? One that
- protects the tourism revenue generated by the aristocracy
- acts as a conscience on the Government, stopping them from passing entirely fascist laws (unless the Parliament Act is used, in which case we're fucked anyway)
The House of Lords is an anachronism, but it functions remarkably well and nobody's yet suggested an alternative that would seem to deliver the same benefits.
The police mostly rely on ensuring people are confused about what the law actually says in the hope of making them waver and admit guilt or at least incriminate themselves
The law says that failing to hand over a key and failing to present a case that you no longer have it is sufficient to cause an offence.
At no point do you need to waver, admit guilt or otherwise incriminate yourself. You just have to be unable to demonstrate that you don't have access to the encrypted material yourself, and proving a negative can be a tad complicated.
When you want a camera and your camera is at home, what do you use?
When you need internet access and there isn't a PC in sight or a LAN port to connect one to, what do you use?
Me, I use my music player. It lets me take pictures, access the internet, play videos (useful for TED Talks) and listen to music, all in one handy pocket-sized device.
I find this convenient. Better yet, it also tells me where I am with its built-in GPS system and lets me participate in converstions with my friends, colleagues and random strangers, through instant messaging, Skype, SMS text messages or through POTS.
Obviously carrying a different piece of equipment for all those uses would fill my pockets so full either they'd split and I'd lose it all or my trousers would be pulled down. That might be embarrassing.
Lucky my phone does everything I need it to do, which (lets face it) is a fuck of a lot more than make phone calls.
if there was, full stop, no discrimination against black people, 'black power' would be just as racist as 'white power'
It is just as racist, irrespective of whether there is discrimination against black people.
What the fuck is with the whole "Black people can't be racist" bullshit? People can be racist, whatever their colour.
Discrimination doesn't justify discrimination. In other words, don't give me shit because Hitler was a cunt, because lets face it, Idi Amin wasn't a Nobel Peace Prize winner either.
Anyway, I've never met a black person. Met many brown ones though, and had a girlfriend that was a lovely milky coffee colour. She was into bondage too, and if you want ethical issues, just start considering whether it's oppressive for a white man to be putting a mullato girl into chains because she gets off on it..
Taxes pay for roads, clearly the constitution assumes a right to travel.
So get on a bus or call a taxi.
Or demonstrate that not only do you have sufficient skill to control a vehicle, but that you're not such a fuckwit that you'll focus all of your attention on a handheld communication device instead of the multi-ton machine you're meant to be controlling.
The way the law is now, I'm concerned about even monkeying with my iPhone to switch playlists, because I hook it up to my car stereo
Good.
Watch the road, not your overpriced fashion item that also plays music. If it had a decent interface you wouldn't have to look at it.
Watch the road.
The law intends to prevent you from killing other people through your sheer stupidity. Complaining that as written it may penalise you for risking killing people through your sheer stupidity is not the answer.
Watch the road.
If you're looking at your iPhone to change your playlist you're not driving your car at the same time. Which part of 'Watch the road' are you struggling with here?
To reiterate, I don't like banks.
So you don't like banks. Fine. Ignore the fact that your reasons are all bogus, that using a bank in no way prevents you from pro-actively managing your finances, and lets focus on this one:
Incidentally, I refuse to carry a debit card and instead I use credit cards as charge cards.
So instead of using a bank, you use either:
- the credit card issued by a bank, or
- the credit card issued by a company that doesn't want the overhead of the regulation imposed on a bank
I'm detecting a logic failure here.
. There is one and only one event that can possibly cause an overdraft: spending more money than you have placed in your account.
That's not actually true. See the reply by Abstrackt for an example.
I have multiple bank accounts. I've never gone unintentionally overdrawn (and it would've financially irresponsible to not go overdrawn as a student with a free overdraft facility - by which I mean, no interest and no charges). And yeah, I cleared that overdraft when I left uni.
I also allow the bank to look after my monthly bills, my employer insists on paying my salary into a bank account and I happily use electronic payments regularly. I also keep control of my own finances, and validate the entries in my bank statements. This takes seconds a month and is far easier than manually updating a spreadsheet (or finance package) every time I engage in a financial transaction.
I'm struggling to understand where the hell you're coming from.
Declaration of non-objectivity: I work for a bank. None of which impacts any of the above, as my main accounts are not with my employer.
Your post reads like sarcsm, yet a literal interpretation actually makes more sense.
Note the +5 on the post you replied to, and the general disregard by the mods for your post.
Face it, relying on Facebook is stupid. Don't buy into their walled garden, and make sure you can contact the people that matter via other means.
People in the UK have never carried guns
Nonsense. There are thousands of legal gun owners across the country even now.
the ban has affected almost nobody
It's affected dozens of people I know personally, including myself. None of whom are in the military, none of whom are in the police, none of whom owned (or admit to owning) an illegal weapon.
I've lived in London for 36 years
Ah, yes. London. Home of the hunting ban, the dangerous dogs act and a dozen other knee-jerk over-the-top pointless pieces of legislation the rest of the country didn't fucking want.
Forgive me if I give your sheltered view of the world little credence.