Posts by EvilGav 108 publicly visible posts • joined 24 Jun 2008
They used the symbols to illustarte their focus on China, yet the Sinologist didn't even point out that the writing was from Hong Kong (where I believe they use the ancient chinese language), as opposed to mainland China where the official dialect is Mandarin.
Anyway, anyone who's been to Hong Kong will be well aware that the "hot, young housewives" are from Mongolia.
. . . and one the IWF keep trotting out as their reasoning, that it's "potentially illegal" is what should really be under the micro-scope.
You cant ban something because it's "potentially illegal", it's either illegal or it isn't, if it's illegal, then the police can pass all these people on to the CPS and find out how far they get (my thinking would be no-where).
It's "innocent *unless* proven guilty" not, as our NuLab overlords seem to think "innocent *until* proven guilty". One of these means you can be found not guilty, one of them doesn't.
Thankfully, here in Scotland, the police service (note, it's a service, not a force) don't have the right to keep DNA from innocents, so the number of unconvicted people on the DB is much much lower.
Anyone who has bothered will have a seperate audio decoder, being fed by the HDMI cable. In-built decoders in the players are largely redundant and have been since they were put in DVD players.
Wrt the reviews, whilst in theory they all output a standard digital picture, you should still have calibrated the player/screen for each set-up, if this wasn't done, all you've done is prove which player that you reviewed was closest to reference. Pointless.
Most people will either have an all singing multi-speaker system or will have the sound coming out the speakers on the TV. Either way, the in-built decoder is pointless.
. . . if Jaqui is so smug about why people who are members of the BNP should want to remain anonymous, would she be so good as to post a full and complete list of those people who donated money to NuLab ?
No ?? What, you mean that because that money has bought votes in government, thats fine, but heaven forbid that a person joins a party of their choice and doesn't want their name dragged through the mud.
Remember, we live in a country where a Paediatrician has been beaten up and had their house damaged, due to the lack of education and where someone else was beaten up due to having the same name as a leaked paedophile.
Note how they are compulsory for air-side workers, but will also speed up pre-employment checks for air-side workers.
So anyone wanting to work at an airport is being compelled to "volunteer" for one, as it will speed up their checks with their potential new employer.
Can we vote these fuckers out with a Howitzer ?
. . . the citizens of Mancunia are getting a vote on trams.
We here in Edinburgh weren't given a vote, as far as I can tell not one person wants them here, they aren't going to run any more regularly or on more routes than the existing buses and pretty much wont benefit the people in Edinburgh at all.
For this we are having the roads dug up all over the place over a 3 year period, firstly to move all the services (gas, water, electric - so they all get subsidies to upgrade their own equipment) and then closed at a later date to put the rails in (no-one has yet said why they couldn't just do it all in one go).
Trams can work, in Amsterdam they work fantasticaly well, but they disappeared from British cities for a reason.
Was with VM for years, always on the top package and was always happy, until a year or two back, when the bandwidth mysteriously started disappearing.
Always use Speedtest.net as my tester of choice and my 20Mb line went down to a consistent 12Mb on the tester, regardless of time of day, what I was or had been doing and so on. Same speed was gained from the VM FTP site as well. VM refused to look into it because I run a home network.
After the Phorm debacle and VM's involvement, finally decided to move to Be* - on cancellation VM phone-drone told me that it was impossible to get more than 8Mb on a phone-line. Interestingly I get a rock-solid 20Mb down and 2.3Mb up through my phone-line, close enough to the maximum possible that i'll not be complaining.
Also, as per previous poster "anything more than 10% out was ignored" - so they went with the assumption that the line was actually getting the full band-width and assumed the fault was at the site itself ? We have people in our IT areas that react in the same way and are constantly surprised when you prove them wrong. I believe the same will be true of the VM engineers.
. . . I understand that Apple *use* processors, but I wasn't aware that they actually made the things.
The whole Mac range these days is powered by Intel, the iPod and iPhone do, to the best of my knowledge, rely on some other companies processor.
Apple put together someone elses kit, badge it as Apple, put a nice friendly UI on it and then charge a fortune for their expertise in putting together someone elses kit.
Whereas Big Blue makes all or most of the bits inside it's very expensive kit.
Not sure where the "compete" comes in.
I don't hate Linux, I use Linux and have done for years, it suits the purpose I wish to use it for.
The reason I wont suggest it to most people, is that outside of technical circles (as in all the people I work with), it's simply too much hassle. Most people use a version of Windows at their place of work and are therefore comfortable with it - in many cases it's taken me a number of years to wean them off of IE and onto something better, let alone changing the entire interface.
Most people want to play games, they don't want the PC for "productive" purposes, therefore they want to download demos and such-like and be able to play them, something they cant do with a Linux distro (no, I don't want to have to explain to them how to run XP in VM).
As for security, whilst it's true that Linux is much more secure than Windows, it still ha the same basic problem that Windows does and indeed the same one that all OS's have in common - most users are stupid, will click anything, install anything and by and large are their own worst enemy, following the most obvious of phishing attacks etc etc.
I've yet to meet someone that got a virus or trojan without visiting a dodgy site link or installing a file they shouldn't have (paris_hilton_naked_video.exe and the like).
Vista works fine and if you bother to configure it like you know how to do with XP, is faster and more stable. I've had Vista running for a couple of months at a time without needing a restart, XP grinds to a halt after about 10 days.
Yes, I also know that Linux can run for even longer without needing a restart, which is why my home file server runs Ubuntu.
Linux is fne for a lot of things, but anyone who complains that they need to configure Vista to run in a better manner and should therefore switch to Linux needs to get their head our their arse. I quite like Linux, but I wouldn't recommend it for most of the people I know, they'd wonder why no games worked on it.
As for pricing, a quick check - OS X £80, Vista Home Basic 64-bit £65 or £83 for Home Permium. So Apple software costs the same, but the hardware is somewhat different in it's pricing.
You should probably remember that not everyone lives in London. 1000km gets me about half-way across France and a trip to the south coast of Spain (should I ever choose to visit) is just shy of a 4 hour flight, almost as long as it takes me to fly to Newark (if I should ever choose to revisit the USA).
How many of the 108,000 flights were beyond or near the arbitrary limits you set ?
As for all the other complainers, how come all anti-this-that-or-the-next-thing campaigners feel that no-one should have the ability to leave this green and pleasant land and see the world ? I've seen large amounts of it and would advocate that everyone should visit foreign lands, especially the more far flung places. I found it makes a profound difference in the way you think of this blue and white marble and it's inhabitants.
I remember back in my school days spending quite some time re-writing a maths programme. At the time it was on BBC B's, so lots of disks with the relevant programme on. Some were re-coded to give the wrong results, some had altered start-up screens, some had hidden routines and so on.
My name lived on in infamy for years after i'd left - random students knew me in my home town, though i'd never been at school with them and had no idea who they were.
Still keep in touch with both the Computing teacher and the Maths teacher and they both still think it was funny.
"Jacqui Smith said last week that she wants an open, reasoned debate to build consensus around the Bill. "
Too many peolpe are stopping at "open, reasoned debate" and forgetting the rest of that statement. She's stating that she wants a debate, but only insofar as it make you agree with the bill being proposed, not to change the bill, not to blow this comlpetely out of the water, but to agree with whats already written.
In itself, she doesn't want a debate, she wants to spend lots of time talking until everyone gets bored and cant be bothered arguing anymore.
As for whether Nu Labour are communist or fascist, it doesn't really matter, any dictatorship is a bad thing and the differences between com and fasc dictatorships are few and far between.
You, sir, are an idiot.
Console sales of the 360 and PS3, world-wide, are broadly the same - MS sells most of it's stock in North America and Sony in Japan, in Europe both formats have sold broadly the same amount. Both formats pale into insignificance compared to the unit sales that Nintendo have with the Wii.
According to data released regarding sales of both BD players and media, they are both better than at the same point in DVD's life-span and increasing.
@everyone complaining about the price
I can only assume none of you were involved in DVD in the early days. I was, I paid ~£500 for a multi-region DVD player, at a time when most had never even heard of the format. Disks were typically £15-20, even imported from the US when we had $2 to the pound.
10 years on and BD players are now sub £200 (there are two that can be got for ~£160) for profile 2.0 players and you can get disks for under £10 (admittedly, a lot of the films in question are utter shite) and new releases can be bought for a not very significant premium over their DVD counter-part.
Finally, as another has pointed out, HD-DVD was no more open than the DVD format, it was even owned/run by the same DVD Forum. BD is owned/run by the BD Association. It's for this very reason that China has come up with it's own HD format, as they didn't want to pay the licensing fee's involved.
It should always also be remembered that regional coding and HDCP DRM are both in existence because of the movie studios - do you honestly believe that a hardware manufacturer wants the additional hassle of adding in chips for all this stuff ? If you want to point your ire and vitriol at someone, at least make it the right group of people.
Have a long way to go before anyone serious about their home cinema will take notice. You still cant download a film in 1080p with a True HD soundtrack, the "best" so far is 720p with a stereo soundtrack.
Add to that that the number of people who are willing to have media centre type equipment in their lounge is even lower than the number who would be willing to have a second disc player and it makes downloads even less appealing.
And yes, before anyone suggests anything, I do have a BD player, I also have a media centre for streaming films and the former is far and away better than the latter.
When I was, I always had the top BB package, so was on the 20Mb connection before jumping ship. Always used speedtest.net, as I wanted to not only know the speed I was getting, but get a historic comparison of the speeds. When it first went to 20Mb, I could get a reading around that mark, however over time this diminished to between 11 and 12Mb. This sort of dl speed was also mirrored in the speed for any actual file download.
Switched to Be* on the pro package and get close to 20Mb down and 2.2Mb up on the speedetst and on the modem sync rates, which is also mirrored in the actual speeds I get.
You couldn't pay me to go back to VM.
Anyone who thinks that DVD was an instant success obviously wasn't there at the early adoption stage. To get the format off the ground, it was actually launched *twice*, about a year apart, as the first launch was almsot completely missed.
The vast majority of people didn't buy into DVD's till 1999-2000 or later, some 3 years after the formats launch. BD as a format isn't 3 years old yet and has sold more *stand-alone* players than DVD had at this point in it's life-cycle.
As for picture quality, a 1080p is truly noticably better than 720p or SD, even when upscaled through a Faroudja upscaler (it's good, but it isn't as good as native 1080) rather than just using the TV's internal upscaler. Anyone who says they cant notice any difference should either get their eyes checked or actually spend time calibrating the TV for the signal (something that should be done on any TV, done properly takes around an hour).
The other element of the format is, of course, sound. The number of comments regarding 720p downloads always fail to mention that this entails reverting back to a stereo soundtrack, the likes of which we haven't seen since VHS died. Both DVD and BD use discrete multi-channel audio, both better than downloads, but playing back a True HD BD in comparison to a DD or DTS DVD is staggering, I didn't think there would be as much of a difference as there is.
Then you get to the biggest mis-conception, that the price of films on BD is astronomical compared to DVD. Really ? The Dark Knight, due for release before christmas, can be picked up, pre-order, for around £12. The same film on BD can be had for around £15. Comparing films that have been around on DVD for years with what amounts to a new release on BD is mis-guided at best and just plain stupid at worst. Besides which, i've heard all these arguments before : in 1986 I was told that CD's would never catch on as they were expensive, in 1997 I was told DVD's wouldn't catch on as they were expensive and now in 2008 BD wont catch on because it's expensive.
As for the 360 getting a BD add-on, I can quite believe that they wont be making one, but then I also fully expect them to announce the 360 replacement next year, probably for a christmas 2010 release (it would fit the replacement cycle MS has been quoted as wanting for it's consoles). So why go through the trouble of creating an add-on for a machine you only expect to be around for less than 2 years ??
@ Darren Tuffs - 5 or more meters from the screen ?? Around 16ft. Unless it's changed significantly in the last 5 years, the average distance from the screen (in the UK at least) was between 8 and 12ft. I would suggest that *most* people sit less than 5 meters away from the screen.
. . . we can find £12billion for a database no-one wants, £25billion for ID cards no-one wants, piss away £12.4billion on an NHS IT project with no end in sight, bail out private companies to the tune of £200billion, but heaven forbid we find less than 1% of that total to replace 50 odd year-old military aircraft.
Fucking useless government. Which cunt voted them in ?? I know I fucking didn't.
The difference being that modern mp3's play louder and use inner-ear or noise-cancelling head-phones, as opposed to the foam-sit-on-ear type that were common in the 80's.
As for cyclists (and indeed motor-cyclists) who wear head-phones - idiots, the lot of 'em. I cycle in a city every day and every day some twat tries to kill me (I might take it personally soon), i've never understood the idea that blocking out hearing is a good idea.
"That said, unless plod happens to be at your house, spots a copied disc and chooses to make something of it, the chances of you being nabbed by the copyright holder is microscopic."
Except that copyright infringement is a civil matter, not a criminal act, AFAIK IANAL.
Which *should* mean that plod could tell MPAA, RIAA, BPI etc etc and leave it to them to bring a prosecution, he cant arrest you, because the crime is against another person and the other person needs to make the move to create a case.
At least, thats my understanding of copy-right law in the UK, it's all far to complicated.
A previous US court dropped a case where a US citizen wanted the LHC to be stopped from starting, it was dropped as out-with their jurisdiction.
A US judge should not be able to transfer the ownership of property that resides, essentially, outwith the bounds of the US - which is what has been done here.
What China does is very different, they block sites from being viewed within their borders, which is their right as a soverign nation, whether you agree with it or not (hell, we do the same in the UK, but it's mostly kiddie fiddler sites, so everyones ok with that censorship). If Kentucky don't want the ganmbling sites available, they should be prosecuting ISP's as the enabler.
Fucking septics.
. . . simply aren't. 720p and stereo sound is not hi-def and I wouldn't pay a penny for it.
Assuming they get some better compression than for BD or HD DVD, your still looking at needing 16GB cards at least for the data - which will cost more to manufacture than current optical discs.
Which means that even the early adopters, who they need to win over first of all, will more than likely baulk at the media cost.
Einstein did an awful lot of his theoretical physics work whilst he was a patent clerk, but I suppose since he wasn't a scientist employed in the field, we should ignore everything he said until he was officially a scientist.
People should also really learn the difference between people who haven't been convinced that climate change is happening and people that haven't been convinced anthropogenic climate change is happening. It is possible to accept that climate change is happening, but not be convinced that it is due to a man-made effect.
I thoroughly agree with all the money now being funnelled into science, but why is it going to centres to give more weight to the climate change argument and not to, say, the theoretical energy creation ideas or the renewable energy development centres ?? Why are we pouring money into something that, even if it does prove without any doubt that man caused the problem, wont go any way to actually fixing it ??
Too true, spent 4 years telling the company (along with the rest of my team) to implement a proper data warehouse solution, which got ignored. Then they hired some consultants to do it for £4M.
Irritating, especially when the database spec's and the ETL jobs were all written by the team that had been trying to get this done for years.
As others have said, though, good coding takes time and effort - I remember going 50% over-budget on a project many years ago. Lots of complaints from management, got shat on for my performance review and bonus. That same code is still running today, 12 years laterand hasn't required any maintenance or adjustments due to changes elsewhere, as it was written to cope initially. Don't get any fucking thanks for that, though.
I like your style!!
But, think of this, we have 3 million or something unemployed, we're paying for them anyway, lets get them to dig the ditches.
Now, this wouldn't be pratical in cities, where it generally involved using ruddy great cutting machines, but in rural areas this would be much easier (less to fuck up). So we get the best of everything - the unemployed actually start working, rural areas get fibre that they want, the whole thing done in double-quick time and BT save 30% on running costs.
Given our current recession-wood movement in the economy, a big civil engineering project is just what we need!!
How else can we continue to extol the virtues of a superior intellect by simple grammar nazi-ism in forums such as this ??
I don't see any other country simplifying their language due to the inadequacies of their education system. More to the point, what happens in the sciences, where a simlpe mis-spelling could spell (sic) doom for an experiment ??
Here's an idea, stop the stupid method of teaching children to read phonetically at all (modern phonics, i think it's called) and instead teach them to read properly from day one. Worked for me and the many generations before, is our education system such a shambles that they now find it too difficult ??
Why would an MP's child even be on the database ?? The database is for children likely to be excluded socially, so why should the children of a well paid public figure be excluded from society ?? The same for the children of famous people.
More importantly, of course, is why the government think it's their job to ensure that every child is included in society. I thought that was the job of the childs parents (initially and continuously), followed by the school system.
Therefore the only children on this should be those from "damaged" homes (e.g. drug abusing parents) or those side-lined through bullying at school*
More than anything, why should this information be kept beyond the age of maturity and why should such a wide range of people have access to this information ?? Outside social services, no access is required, especially not the police to be able to go on a fishing expedition.
* N.B. I hate this attitude. Bullying has always happened at school (happened to me) and it will happen in their adult life. The younger you laern to deal with it, the more able you'll be to cope when it happens later - and it will.
What a lot of bile and vitriol!!
The sheer quantity of people claiming to hate Neo-Nazism and then wanting to cause harm to those who indulge is shocking.
There is only one cure for *all* extremist views - education.
Someone said further up, talking to people and using logic works far better than pushing any group underground.
As for the Mosley march, it was done for the same reason as every single march, to gain publicity for the position of the people involved in the march. It's the reason for Gay pride marches, for peace marches, for anything - they have a view and want everyone to know what it is.
And contrary to some comments, we do have freedom of exression, it's enshrined in the ECHR (article 10, IIRC).
You refuse to call mobiles and if that otherperson doesn't want to go to the expense of £130 (for land-line rental, lets not forget the £50-£125 installation fee if they need one put in), you'll no longer keep in contact with them.
With friends like that . . .
Surely if you have a mobile (and it's a minority now that don't), you'll have free minutes/texts included (again, it's rare for a contract not to have them, even some PAYG do too), so use that to keep in "free" contact.
Frankly, if you're such a cheap bastard that you'd rather stop speaking to friends/relatives/aquaintances than pay for a phone-call, then i'd be glad to stop speaking to you too.
I have all the kit, a Samsung 1080p screen, a Samsung BD player, Denon amp and Mission 6.1 speaker set-up. Yes, it cost a fortune (well, around £3,000), but then the previousn set-up of imported Pioneer DVD, Sony amp and Sony speakers equally cost a fortune (around £2,000) and that was some 10 years ago.
The cost of the equipment today, to a comparable time in the previous generations life-span, is lower in real terms. DVD players were still costing close to £500 for a decent one a couple of years after release, BD players can now be had for around £200 (and yes, they are profile 2 compliant, with a firm-ware upgrade).
Anyone who cant see the difference between an SD signal, upscaled DVD, 720p and 1080p should either get their eyes examined or actually set the TV up correctly (this takes a calibration disk and about an hour of your time). There is a huge difference.
As for DRM, i'm assuming people actually mean HDCP. This and the regional coding can be blamed on the same group of people - the studios. Nobody actually wants this crap, not the users, as it's irritating; nor the manufacturers, as it puts up their costs; but the studios do and it's them you should be blaming.
Regional coding has only universally been embraced by Fox on BD, some studios don't use it at all and some use it sporadically. Your best bet is to check www.bluray.com which helpfully tells you whether the disk is region locked or not and you can therefore make a choice about which version to buy. For example, Blade Runner is more cost effective on the US version than the UK - US 5 disk version (only released on DVD in the UK) £21, UK 2 disk version £18.
Finally, I do agree that the prices (at least the RRP) of disks has been silly, but it is coming down and the more you keep buying from e-tailers (where the prices are more around the £15 or so that people can stomach), the more the high-street will drop theirs. The reason for bargains on DVD's is the same as the reason we got outrageous bargains in the dying days of VHS - shops make more money on "luxury" items. One BD will make as much for the shop as 5 or more DVD's, so financially it makes more sense for them to stock and sell them.
But it's not sorting the problem, simply trying to control a consequence.
My uncle lives in Texas, just outside Houston and a couple of years back they had a new house built, quite a large place and in a state that sits in 100 plus degree temeratures for a large part of the year, the AC cost was going to be ridiculous.
So they asked for solar panels to be installed, as the cost of those would be massively off-set by the reduction in bills. The builders refused to have anything to do with them, claiming that no solar panles were available that were efficient enough to warrant installation.
With that sort of attitude, what hope is there ??
Since the game itself is only a tenner or so, couldn't you take the "give us £300 or else" letter to the police and demand it be investigated as extortion ??
Last time I checked, that would make it a criminal case, the letter being correctly headed from the solicitors and indeed post stamped would give you dates as well for evidenciary purposes.
"must respect morality and public order"
But whose morality and public order ?? The Japanese will be quite happy with what the rest of the world call kiddie porn (I know it's not strictly true), but not pubic hair. The US will be quite happy for guns and pictures of gun crime, but heaven forbid porn should feature. The UK wont want anything, unless they can make a database and track everyone using it.
You get the idea . . .
"Road pricing is long overdue and has been advocated by transport experts for decades. The problem is that the government won't accept their advice because it's politically difficult. When combined with hypothecation of revenues (as is the case in London), and replacement of fuel tax, it ought to be politically acceptable - alternatives to the car will become better funded, leading to more use, more revenue and thus a beneficial cycle. The current fuel tax 'solution' leads to the ridiculous situation that someone driving through an uncluttered country road pays the same tax as someone driving through the centre of a congested city - with all the externalities that causes."
No, it doesn't.
If the country road is clear, then the driver will be doing around 60mph, the almost perfectly fuel efficient speed (IIRC, that is 56mph). However the person in the congested town will be driving slower, sometimes be stopped, be involved in stop/start driving and lots of gear changes, all of which will use more fuel and so they will be comesurately taxed.
Similarly, if the drive into town is done earlier/later, when the roads are less congested, you'd use less fuel and be taxed less.
As for the school run, as many have said, have dedicated buses (a la the USA), which negates that need. Personally, I walked to school for my entire primary school years, with my older brother from the age of 6/7, which was in Surrey and involved crossing a major A road - however, we used the pedestrian crossing, which made it safe to do so.
The reason the roads around school are so dangerous is because of the number of parents who cant trust their children to get to school on their own - you yourselves cause the problem you are seeking to avoid by driving. Here in central Edinburgh, the most prevalent school kids on the buses are from the private schools, the ones going to the state schools get driven by parents; makes you think.
Yes, roads are dangerous, so why don't we teach children not to walk on them ?? I seem to remember that that was the thrust of advertising when I was a kid (Darth Vader as the green cross code man, Tufty club etc etc).
Increase the price of petrol and remove Road Fund Licence (TAX).
As has been said, no need for expensive ANPRsystems on roads to check tax payers and the database already exists to tell if a car is insured/MOT'd - just nip round to the last known address and nick the fucker's.
As for how much to tax to put on a litre, back of fag packet time :
Average UK mileage : 12,000
Assumed average MPG : 35
Assumed average gallons required : 343 (rounded)
Assumed average litres needed : 1,544 (rounded)
Average Road Fund Licence £250
Increase required to cover average price : 16p per litre
Remove VAT (since we get it back anyway) : 13.8p
Thats some basic numbers and for those who know their mileage, you'd know if you were better/worse off instantly. Plus, there would be more savings due to no longer needing the same number of staff at the DVLA and consequently no longer needing the same number of buildings to house the DVLA. Those savings could be used to reduce the actual amount needed even more. Indeed, there would be savings on the lack of need for the secure printing needed for the RFL, the forms needed, the postage reminding people they need to pay etc etc etc.
It should always be remembered that if the eCRB check had existed before Soham - nothing would have changed.
The children weren't killed by someone who worked at their school, they were killed by the boyfriend of someone who worked at their school and that person would have passed an eCRB without problem.
<sarcasm>So, obviously the partners/friends/family/significant others/casual aquaintances of anyone who "wants" to work in some way with children should have to under-go an eCRB, just to be on the safe side.</sarcasm>
How do you have a water-shed on a world-wide web - it's open 24 hours a day.
If any of these puritanical arese-holes paid any attention, they'd realise that kids have been looking at porn, from young ages (I remember seeing my first porn mag at the age of 7), for years. They just do't like how easy the internet has made it.
More to the point (as per AC @ 9.53), why the hell aren't they simply educating parents to, you know, parent ?? It's this ban-everything-in-case-one-person-comes-to-harm bull-shit that really grinds my gears.
http://www.biotechnologyonline.gov.au/human/dnaforensic.cfm
"there is only a one in a million chance of 2 people . . . "
So, 6,500 people in the world today have the same DNA profile as me. Given that those people are most likely to be part of my family, that means the odds of lots of people in a single country having the same profile being very high.
Even if that one in a million comment is throw-away, even if it's actually on in a billion, that still means that 6 or 7 people, who more than likely live in the same country as me, have the same profile.
The figure of 20 comes from a book that I don't hav with me, btu i'll look it out when I get hiome and post a reference.
The problem is, a DNA profile *is* fallible, which is why it should be used as an addition too and not the beginning of an investigation. Creating a DNA database will make people lazy and it will become the first place to look, not the last.
It's been said elsewhere, but it's not actually the complete double-helix that is being stored - the scale of the database for doing *that* would be astronomical.
What you get is a DNA profile, DNA is split by putting it in some solution (no idea what, just aware of what happens) and you get that lovely bar-code looking thing on transparencies.
As such, there will at any time be around 20 people with the same DNA profile as you, which within a single country, where most breeding happensm there will be 20 with the same profile.
So, you have a database with everyone on it, you have a crime scene and you have your 20 suspects thanks to the database.
Can you give a viable alibi for every single day of the year, forever ?? Remembering that "I was alone at home reading" isn't viable, as it's no verifiable.
Now, do you really believe that you have nothing to fear from a national DNA database ??
I own neither of the next-gen consoles, my gaming is done on a PC, but this fan-boy bollocks just gets on my tits.
Both companies have yet to make a profit on their next-gen machines.
The previous gen (PS2 and X-Box), Sony made a profit from day one of the console, because the Emotion engine was made at a Sony fab. MS bought everything off the shelf from other people.
MS have yet to make a profit in the console market, ever. They've openly admitted that they are in this for the long haul and are willing to throw money at it to get their market share up, which isn't working outside the continental United States - sales of the 360 and PS3 are broadly similar in Europe and in Japan 360 sales are negligable.
At the end of the day, neither company is altruistic, they are both in it for the money, if anyone thinks different they really need to pull their head out of their arse.
They're blank, presumably awaiting the passport office doing what it needs to do to make them "real" and not blank. Sooo, there will be a process to do this . . . and we're meant to assume crim's wont be able to duplicate a system built by the lowest bidder on a government contract.
Uesless they may be, out of the box, but theres nothing stopping them becoming useful. Unlike our government.
. . . the fees to Sony and Phillips simply for using a disc format ?? Or indeed the fee's to the DVD Forum for using DVD anywhere in it's name etc etc.
China may not want to pay fees to Western (or even Eastern) companies, but they'll struggle to make legal sales outside their own borders.
You keep relevant information. You keep finger-prints and DNA of convicted criminals.
You don't keep finger-prints and DNA from people who are never charged or who gave them voluntarily to help with a single crime or indeed where they were given when the person was a minor.
I do like the fact that, in the face of being told to do as the ICO said, the police-muppet invokes one of the two law creation devices - in this case he went for paedophilia.
The case in question, the Soham murders, I always love when they bring that one up, since Huntley wasn't employed at the school where the kids came from, his partner was. So we could, maybe, have got him stopped from working at a school - still wouldn't have stopped the crime.
We need a clue icon, so we can give them to those "in charge", since they appear to lack them just now.
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