A friend of mine, who lives in China, just visited Mongolia. The photographs on Facebook look interesting, but I haven't seen him since he went so I'm not sure what he thought of the trip.
You couldn't drag me to outer Mongolia for less than 10 [mil]
I'd visit if I lived closer. Maybe if a return flight was £500, rather than £1500.
Did you only read the headline? You don't even have to read the article, just the summary at the top of the page. This is about Europe where restrictions have been in place are being relaxed. Transformers was produced in the USA where there has never been any kind of restriction.
It will be used in the US.
Someone making very similar tech showed this off at my university in 2005. He had a product-free drama from the 1990s, which he then showed with 1990s products added. He then showed the same scene again, but with 2005 products, and again with the German version of the products (i.e. labels translated).
People aged 18 or older are going to be able to enter into the necessary contracts to obtain the phones in the first place, but they'd be legally liable as adults for participating in the rioting.
There are plenty of over-18s in the riots, and in any case the age of criminal responsibility in England is 10. Treatment as an adult for crime starts at 17 (not sure why, I'd have expected 16 or 18).
with communications blackouts being threatened
It isn't (official statement that it isn't, which I can't find, but I've been reading updates every couple of hours all day). The only source for it is a suggestion by a single MP. This story is much more informative (lots of law cited) than the article.
A quick look on t-mobile.co.uk suggests that's partly true -- Blackberry phones are probably good value for money (though I've never used one) : there are cheaper Android phones, but they're perhaps disappointing to use..?
"Disaffected urban youth" in England are toting around Blackberries? Thatâ(TM)s not very hip and edgy.
It is if you're youth here. Smartphone brand choice (released a few days ago). 37% of smartphone-owning 13-15 and 37% of 16-24s have a BlackBerry.
(My theory is they're either cast-offs from mum/dad, probably from business, or stolen. BlackBerry Messenger is popular, although I don't understand why, when things like MSN were popular before and work on all phones.)
Apparently, people (shopkeepers etc) have been successfully defending shop and other buildings, (e.g. churches and mosques). They're very unlikely to have guns, but I don't have any information. The looters presumably prefer the weaker, undefended targets. Guns would just up the ante.
I'd assumed the area I live in would be fine, it's relatively wealthy and in the west, but the local food shop has been smashed up, and the nearest high street destroyed (all the shops smashed, all parked cars torched). Fortunately I live on a residential backstreet surrounded by electrified 24/7 railways, so it's not really a good target. (Only very few houses have been targeted, so far.)
So far 45 police have been injured, four seriously (which I think means "remaining in hospital"). No one has died, although a 60 year old man has life-threatening injuries. I don't know the scale of the LA riots, and they seem to have different motivations (race, so targeting people?) but 53 people died there.
The man was shot by police on Thursday, but by the specialist police unit investigating gun crime in London -- I wouldn't be surprised if he'd murdered someone else, though I don't think there's been any information released about that.
Killing someone through arson is not "accidental". It might not be the primary intention, but in a dense city like this fires are really dangerous, and the risks are obvious.
If someone came to torch my home in the US, I would be well within my rights to kill them on the spot and the world would be a better place for their passing.
But the attackers would have guns in the US too, and they have less to lose. Do you risk your life for your home? I wouldn't. (Fortunately I'm 5 minutes cycle from the nearest high street, and 10 minutes cycle from the nearest looting, so I won't have to make any decisions like this.)
As it is, it seems there are no guns on the streets -- so far, I've only read of one shooting since Thursday (when the police shot the man), and that was in Leeds (city in North England).
Also, the burned homes have all been above shops. The shops have been set alight, and the whole building has been ablaze by the time the firefighters can get through -- they're being attacked and have to wait for the police to control the area.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/ is good with reporting facts at times like this in their "live feed" things, if you're interested. (It's the furthest-left of the ~4 major newspapers, which you might not like, but the equivalent quality right-leaning paper is The Times, which is unfortunately paywalled. The live feed is mostly just facts.).
Or maybe [libertarians] would like ot be out on the streets asking the rioters what their problem with society is? They'll probably end up with a bottle in the face.
Almost certainly. Several journalists (not bloggers, "real" press) have been assaulted already.
the article is 'surprisingly' short on details about WHY the workers are on strike.
It's a British newspaper (and not a good quality one). I think "Talks in Philadelphia and New York stalled after Verizon demanded more than 100 concessions from workers regarding health care, pensions and work rules, said the Communications Workers of America" sums it up for me, though I'd expect more detail if it was happening here in the UK.
It's odd to have the Daily Mail as the source for some very American news though.
how much worse does it have to get?
I don't know. The anti-union posts on here are really strange to me. (and this one).
There's nothing that says mass transit needs to be socialized... but non-socialized mass transit has pretty much failed or is failing.
I think Tokyo has private railway lines and services. I've not been, but I've read that this is inconvenient for some people -- there isn't sufficient integration.
Many towns in England have privately run buses -- the local government sets the routes and service frequency, but the company has some influence on the fares. I don't think anyone except the shareholders of the transport companies think this is a good idea.
Here in London, the government company (TfL) decide on the route, frequency, fares and vehicles, and pay one of the transport companies to run the service. If you're going to privatise transport this is the correct way to do it -- otherwise you are effectively granting a monopoly.
People want privacy and freedom. They don't want to be driven to the same spot as everyone else and dropped off in some cattle call.
Ironic, then, that they choose instead to pay to drive in the same direction to almost the same places on congested roads.
The last time I rode on the "L" in Chicago they had hard plastic seats because it's too much of a pain to clean piss and paint off nicer seats.
Most towns and cities in Europe have cloth (or fake leather) -covered, foam filled seats on their public transport. Perhaps if it wasn't just poor people using Chicago's trains the city might put more effort into maintaining the system.
I've read it, and it looks like the US will stay at AA+ if the Bush tax cuts expire and spending is reduced, but if the Bush tax cuts are renewed or spending isn't reduced as much as hoped the rating will fall to AA.
I'm surprised that "Outlook" section suggests the rating will stabilise at AA+, even with the tax cuts expiring. My initial impression from the news here (UK) was that the downgrade was essentially temporary.
[My own country, the UK, is mention a couple of times in the report. I wonder how it UK keeps its AAA rating with an 80% debt/GDP ratio. Possibly because it seems unlikely that the temporary(?) 50% tax for rich people seems unlikely to be removed for a while.]
According to this article, O2 mobile broadband customers already get access to WiFi hotspots run by "The Cloud" (I see these quite often, usually in pubs), and T-Mobile customers to T-Mobile's hotspots. This helps them reduce demand for 3G spectrum in busy places (stations, airports etc).
It seems Virgin rolling out a similar service, and as a Virgin customer I may well find it useful. However, my 3G signal is usually excellent and unmetered.
"But if the encryption prevents things you're allowed to do (so, soon format shifting...?) then there must be a way round that."
Not really. Being "allowed" to do something does not mean you have a right to do so. This is also a common misconception regarding the US Fair Use doctrine. Fair Use is not a right, but it is a defence you can use in a case against you.
I can't really add anything beyond just copying out the bit of the Wikipedia:
The new section 296ZE creates a remedy via complaint to the Secretary of State if a technical device or measure prevents a person or group of people from carrying out a permitted act with relation to the work. The Secretary of State may issue a direction to the owner of the copyright to take such measures as are necessary to enable the permitted act to be carried out. The breach of such a direction is actionable as a breach of statutory duty.
IANAL. It seems to be illegal to break encryption for commercial reasons, I'm not sure about non-commercial reasons. But if the encryption prevents things you're allowed to do (so, soon format shifting...?) then there must be a way round that.
Express it in amount per distance, it's easier to deal with. (It's also easier in daily life. People want to know how much fuel / money it will take to drive a certain distance, rather than how far they can drive with $20 of fuel.)
I'll use L/100km, as that's the normal measurement in metric countries (and what I'm more familiar with).
10 (miles per US gallon) = 24 litres per (100 km) 20 (miles per US gallon) = 12 litres per (100 km) 30 (miles per US gallon) = 8 litres per (100 km) 40 (miles per US gallon) = 6 litres per (100 km)
I think it's now clear. From 20mpg to 40mpg saves 6L, but from 10mpg to 20mpg saved 12L.
The fact that he also broke all traces of the image now kinda makes it suspicious to me. (Not to mention that its prolly copyright infringement too, but that's unrelated).
What about an ancient Greek vase depicting a naked, aroused, male youth? I'm pretty sure they exist (try Wikipedia, I'm not willing to look at work). Some countries would consider that child pornography.
What about a 6 year old girl wearing a padded bra? There were news stories here recently criticising this kind of thing (e.g. here). Wearing something equivalent but flat (e.g. swimming wear) is fine, and there are plenty of pictures on clothes store sites. But is the padded bra sexualisation, and does (should?) that make a photograph CP?
Seriously? I don't see any reason it should ever have been kept confidential. It's gathered data on temperatures and such not matters of national security and it's not ownable IP because it's just facts. I mean I could see an NDA being useful on things like product specs before you've officially released finalized specs but on temperature/humidity/wind speed? Seriously, WTF?
The organisation I work for is partly funded by the UK government, and partly from the income we make selling data (and partly other stuff).
The same data might be sold for £1000s to a big company, and given (with conditions) for free to a university. If the university releases the data then we can't make any money from it, and we'd either not collect the data (and who would? it's probably not worth the full cost of collecting the data for the big companies, so science suffers) or we'd need more government funding.
If that is "building your own", I guess I can say proudly that I built my own washing machine, in that I bought a washing machine, put it in place, plumbed it in and switched it on...
Don't laugh so hard at this... 99.9999% of modern americans who sign a contract with a corporate house builder will go around telling people "I'm building a house!".
That's shows how the choice of language reflects culture.
In Britain I think we'd normally say "I'm having a house built", or "We've had a new fence put up" or "The garage was re-roofed", though the "I built" way is not uncommon. I think it depends on what follows -- "We've had a new fence put up" will probably continue with a complaint about how expensive/slow/unsatisfactory the process or result was:-)
Why is it next to your bed? Why do you leave it on overnight?
I live near to a very busy railway line, and a little further from another. I hear a train about every minute or two in the day, and every five-ten minutes overnight (if I'm awake). The noise isn't annoying -- there are plenty of trees in between, so it's a quiet ssssshhhh-click-clack-click-clack-sssshhh -- but it's nice when I visit somewhere in the countryside and it's completely quiet.
I work underneath the approach path for a major (very major!) airport. There's a flight overhead every 90-120 seconds for most of the day. It's really, really annoying. I certainly notice the rare occasions when the airport is closed (e.g. the Icelandic volcano), it's fantastic.
Slashdot Mirror
A friend of mine, who lives in China, just visited Mongolia. The photographs on Facebook look interesting, but I haven't seen him since he went so I'm not sure what he thought of the trip.
You couldn't drag me to outer Mongolia for less than 10 [mil]
I'd visit if I lived closer. Maybe if a return flight was £500, rather than £1500.
Did you only read the headline? You don't even have to read the article, just the summary at the top of the page. This is about Europe where restrictions have been in place are being relaxed. Transformers was produced in the USA where there has never been any kind of restriction.
It will be used in the US.
Someone making very similar tech showed this off at my university in 2005. He had a product-free drama from the 1990s, which he then showed with 1990s products added. He then showed the same scene again, but with 2005 products, and again with the German version of the products (i.e. labels translated).
Taking bets on how long before a USB powered vacuum cleaner comes out of Asia!
Like this?
People aged 18 or older are going to be able to enter into the necessary contracts to obtain the phones in the first place, but they'd be legally liable as adults for participating in the rioting.
There are plenty of over-18s in the riots, and in any case the age of criminal responsibility in England is 10. Treatment as an adult for crime starts at 17 (not sure why, I'd have expected 16 or 18).
with communications blackouts being threatened
It isn't (official statement that it isn't, which I can't find, but I've been reading updates every couple of hours all day). The only source for it is a suggestion by a single MP. This story is much more informative (lots of law cited) than the article.
A quick look on t-mobile.co.uk suggests that's partly true -- Blackberry phones are probably good value for money (though I've never used one) : there are cheaper Android phones, but they're perhaps disappointing to use..?
http://www.t-mobile.co.uk/shop/pay-as-you-go/mobile-phones/
CCTV pictures of especially wanted people.
"Disaffected urban youth" in England are toting around Blackberries? Thatâ(TM)s not very hip and edgy.
It is if you're youth here. Smartphone brand choice (released a few days ago). 37% of smartphone-owning 13-15 and 37% of 16-24s have a BlackBerry.
(My theory is they're either cast-offs from mum/dad, probably from business, or stolen. BlackBerry Messenger is popular, although I don't understand why, when things like MSN were popular before and work on all phones.)
Apparently, people (shopkeepers etc) have been successfully defending shop and other buildings, (e.g. churches and mosques). They're very unlikely to have guns, but I don't have any information. The looters presumably prefer the weaker, undefended targets. Guns would just up the ante.
I'd assumed the area I live in would be fine, it's relatively wealthy and in the west, but the local food shop has been smashed up, and the nearest high street destroyed (all the shops smashed, all parked cars torched). Fortunately I live on a residential backstreet surrounded by electrified 24/7 railways, so it's not really a good target. (Only very few houses have been targeted, so far.)
So far 45 police have been injured, four seriously (which I think means "remaining in hospital"). No one has died, although a 60 year old man has life-threatening injuries. I don't know the scale of the LA riots, and they seem to have different motivations (race, so targeting people?) but 53 people died there.
The man was shot by police on Thursday, but by the specialist police unit investigating gun crime in London -- I wouldn't be surprised if he'd murdered someone else, though I don't think there's been any information released about that.
Killing someone through arson is not "accidental". It might not be the primary intention, but in a dense city like this fires are really dangerous, and the risks are obvious.
All I can say really, is "What on Earth were those idiots thinking!?"
Unfortunately (i.e., this is something I don't like about my country), they were probably thinking "what do I have to lose?".
If someone came to torch my home in the US, I would be well within my rights to kill them on the spot and the world would be a better place for their passing.
But the attackers would have guns in the US too, and they have less to lose. Do you risk your life for your home? I wouldn't. (Fortunately I'm 5 minutes cycle from the nearest high street, and 10 minutes cycle from the nearest looting, so I won't have to make any decisions like this.)
As it is, it seems there are no guns on the streets -- so far, I've only read of one shooting since Thursday (when the police shot the man), and that was in Leeds (city in North England).
Also, the burned homes have all been above shops. The shops have been set alight, and the whole building has been ablaze by the time the firefighters can get through -- they're being attacked and have to wait for the police to control the area.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/ is good with reporting facts at times like this in their "live feed" things, if you're interested. (It's the furthest-left of the ~4 major newspapers, which you might not like, but the equivalent quality right-leaning paper is The Times, which is unfortunately paywalled. The live feed is mostly just facts.).
Or maybe [libertarians] would like ot be out on the streets asking the rioters what their problem with society is? They'll probably end up with a bottle in the face.
Almost certainly. Several journalists (not bloggers, "real" press) have been assaulted already.
This is amazing. I'm very ashamed of my country.
the article is 'surprisingly' short on details about WHY the workers are on strike.
It's a British newspaper (and not a good quality one). I think "Talks in Philadelphia and New York stalled after Verizon demanded more than 100 concessions from workers regarding health care, pensions and work rules, said the Communications Workers of America" sums it up for me, though I'd expect more detail if it was happening here in the UK.
It's odd to have the Daily Mail as the source for some very American news though.
how much worse does it have to get?
I don't know. The anti-union posts on here are really strange to me. (and this one).
There's nothing that says mass transit needs to be socialized... but non-socialized mass transit has pretty much failed or is failing.
I think Tokyo has private railway lines and services. I've not been, but I've read that this is inconvenient for some people -- there isn't sufficient integration.
Many towns in England have privately run buses -- the local government sets the routes and service frequency, but the company has some influence on the fares. I don't think anyone except the shareholders of the transport companies think this is a good idea.
Here in London, the government company (TfL) decide on the route, frequency, fares and vehicles, and pay one of the transport companies to run the service. If you're going to privatise transport this is the correct way to do it -- otherwise you are effectively granting a monopoly.
People want privacy and freedom. They don't want to be driven to the same spot as everyone else and dropped off in some cattle call.
Ironic, then, that they choose instead to pay to drive in the same direction to almost the same places on congested roads.
The last time I rode on the "L" in Chicago they had hard plastic seats because it's too much of a pain to clean piss and paint off nicer seats.
Most towns and cities in Europe have cloth (or fake leather) -covered, foam filled seats on their public transport. Perhaps if it wasn't just poor people using Chicago's trains the city might put more effort into maintaining the system.
I've read it, and it looks like the US will stay at AA+ if the Bush tax cuts expire and spending is reduced, but if the Bush tax cuts are renewed or spending isn't reduced as much as hoped the rating will fall to AA.
I'm surprised that "Outlook" section suggests the rating will stabilise at AA+, even with the tax cuts expiring. My initial impression from the news here (UK) was that the downgrade was essentially temporary.
[My own country, the UK, is mention a couple of times in the report. I wonder how it UK keeps its AAA rating with an 80% debt/GDP ratio. Possibly because it seems unlikely that the temporary(?) 50% tax for rich people seems unlikely to be removed for a while.]
The article says "The ICO will only enforce a monetary penalty when it believes there has been noticeable damage to affected parties."
According to this article, O2 mobile broadband customers already get access to WiFi hotspots run by "The Cloud" (I see these quite often, usually in pubs), and T-Mobile customers to T-Mobile's hotspots. This helps them reduce demand for 3G spectrum in busy places (stations, airports etc).
It seems Virgin rolling out a similar service, and as a Virgin customer I may well find it useful. However, my 3G signal is usually excellent and unmetered.
"But if the encryption prevents things you're allowed to do (so, soon format shifting...?) then there must be a way round that."
Not really. Being "allowed" to do something does not mean you have a right to do so. This is also a common misconception regarding the US Fair Use doctrine. Fair Use is not a right, but it is a defence you can use in a case against you.
I can't really add anything beyond just copying out the bit of the Wikipedia:
The new section 296ZE creates a remedy via complaint to the Secretary of State if a technical device or measure prevents a person or group of people from carrying out a permitted act with relation to the work. The Secretary of State may issue a direction to the owner of the copyright to take such measures as are necessary to enable the permitted act to be carried out. The breach of such a direction is actionable as a breach of statutory duty.
and the relevant section of the act.
The law itself is far too confusing.
I'm ignorant about UK laws, do you have some kind of breaking-encryption-is-verboten-law?
I didn't know, but Copyright and Related Rights Regulations 2003 seems to be the relevant law.
IANAL. It seems to be illegal to break encryption for commercial reasons, I'm not sure about non-commercial reasons. But if the encryption prevents things you're allowed to do (so, soon format shifting...?) then there must be a way round that.
Express it in amount per distance, it's easier to deal with. (It's also easier in daily life. People want to know how much fuel / money it will take to drive a certain distance, rather than how far they can drive with $20 of fuel.)
I'll use L/100km, as that's the normal measurement in metric countries (and what I'm more familiar with).
10 (miles per US gallon) = 24 litres per (100 km)
20 (miles per US gallon) = 12 litres per (100 km)
30 (miles per US gallon) = 8 litres per (100 km)
40 (miles per US gallon) = 6 litres per (100 km)
I think it's now clear. From 20mpg to 40mpg saves 6L, but from 10mpg to 20mpg saved 12L.
The fact that he also broke all traces of the image now kinda makes it suspicious to me. (Not to mention that its prolly copyright infringement too, but that's unrelated).
What about an ancient Greek vase depicting a naked, aroused, male youth? I'm pretty sure they exist (try Wikipedia, I'm not willing to look at work). Some countries would consider that child pornography.
What about a 6 year old girl wearing a padded bra? There were news stories here recently criticising this kind of thing (e.g. here). Wearing something equivalent but flat (e.g. swimming wear) is fine, and there are plenty of pictures on clothes store sites. But is the padded bra sexualisation, and does (should?) that make a photograph CP?
And I'm surprised it works at work. Normally things like that are blocked by work's filter.
Seriously? I don't see any reason it should ever have been kept confidential. It's gathered data on temperatures and such not matters of national security and it's not ownable IP because it's just facts. I mean I could see an NDA being useful on things like product specs before you've officially released finalized specs but on temperature/humidity/wind speed? Seriously, WTF?
The organisation I work for is partly funded by the UK government, and partly from the income we make selling data (and partly other stuff).
The same data might be sold for £1000s to a big company, and given (with conditions) for free to a university. If the university releases the data then we can't make any money from it, and we'd either not collect the data (and who would? it's probably not worth the full cost of collecting the data for the big companies, so science suffers) or we'd need more government funding.
If that is "building your own", I guess I can say proudly that I built my own washing machine, in that I bought a washing machine, put it in place, plumbed it in and switched it on...
Don't laugh so hard at this... 99.9999% of modern americans who sign a contract with a corporate house builder will go around telling people "I'm building a house!".
That's shows how the choice of language reflects culture.
In Britain I think we'd normally say "I'm having a house built", or "We've had a new fence put up" or "The garage was re-roofed", though the "I built" way is not uncommon. I think it depends on what follows -- "We've had a new fence put up" will probably continue with a complaint about how expensive/slow/unsatisfactory the process or result was :-)
Why is it next to your bed? Why do you leave it on overnight?
I live near to a very busy railway line, and a little further from another. I hear a train about every minute or two in the day, and every five-ten minutes overnight (if I'm awake). The noise isn't annoying -- there are plenty of trees in between, so it's a quiet ssssshhhh-click-clack-click-clack-sssshhh -- but it's nice when I visit somewhere in the countryside and it's completely quiet.
I work underneath the approach path for a major (very major!) airport. There's a flight overhead every 90-120 seconds for most of the day. It's really, really annoying. I certainly notice the rare occasions when the airport is closed (e.g. the Icelandic volcano), it's fantastic.