Re: Bad news?

On planet earth.

*Some* people will do a cost/benefit analysis, and decide that a free service that is 50% as good as a paid service is - for them - a good deal.

Re: JimC

... which is why US courts are *very* protective of the 4th amendment.

Re: Unfortunately, the UK courts are now in a bind

The problem with *your* stance is that it eventually gets morphed into "the end justifies the means".

Presumably, you'd be happy for people to be tortured to get at the truth ? Or are you not willing to go that far ? If so, where's your line.

Mine is where the law is.

They can include a "report this link"

but that would imply a resource dedicated to analysing the reports and assessing the validity of each one. Quite aside from the fact that such a feature would be held up as a tacit admission that RS *is* capable of vetting content.

Amazon ..

"Amazon may be big but it's not big enough to support innovation and experimentation on its own..."

having used Amazon happily since 1997, I would say their innovation has been an exemplar to all online suppliers. No overnight rebrands, organic and intuitive introduction of features, and a steady emphasis on informing the customer as much as possible.

no, but

video killed the radio star.

I think.

given cannabis is non-toxic

what would you die of ? Boredom ?

Common sense and government policy

have never been comfortable bedfellows. Alcohol kills 30,000 a year, tobacco >100,000. Cannabis 0.

Now, place those substances in order of penalties for possession and distribution.

You see ?

Delicous irony

The delicious irony, of the past decades of political snobbery towards any form of technical or scientific learning, is that the current crop of politicians, and their bondsmen civil servants, just simply do not "get" the internet. I suspect some of them think it's just a bigger, better version of the old dial up bulletin boards, from the 80s.

If I were a politician, to be honest, I really wouldn't worry about the dangers of the internet. Like modern day TV and music, there is so much shite out there, you get tired of looking ....

Isn't it about time we taught the people we already have to think?

Depends what you think is going on around you. If you believe that the state acts in a rational manner, for the good of all it's citizens, then you'd be right. If, on the other hand, you believe the state acts to maintain a very self-selected elite in the style to which they have become accustomed, then you'd be wrong.

The powers that be have always been terrified of a populus that has any degree of learning. Because once you realise that most of the world around us can be explained in rational, sensible terms, you start asking why you need politicians (or, in days of yore, priests and shaman) to manage it on our behalf.

The howling irony is that given the tools of instant communication, and sharing of ideas and beliefs that the internet has given us, instead of becoming MORE enlightened, we are, as a nation, becoming LESS so. Those select few have realised the risk that open debate poses to their standing, and have manipulated the public into rejecting anything remotely approaching rational debate. Look at the ChildPornTerroristCopyrightInfringingAdultcontentPublicdisorder "initiatives" that are being tabled right now.

So the roadmap is clear. Dumb down the indigenous population, so they are docile and compliant, and come to heel when the dog-whistle words of "terrorism" or "child abuse" are mentioned. Then exploit (as you have done for hundreds of years) people from less-developed countries into being serfs here.

Re: No precedent for programming language copyright?

BUT, IIRC, the Z80 was completely compatible at the *binary* level with the 8085. So much so, that I was able to take a project I wrote for an 8085 at Uni, and load it into a Spectrum (using a self-written Hex editor) and it worked perfectly.

Depends on Canadian law ...

the UK position would be just because the T&Cs says so, don't necessarily make it so. There are many big companies who have tried to use T&Cs to disadvantage consumers, only to see the Office of Fair Trading shoot them down in court. It's entirely possible a UK court could find one, some, or all of Facebooks T&Cs unfair, and therefore invalid.

Re: What have you missed ...

OK, why the downvotes ?

What have you missed ...

A FALSE NEGATIVE could result in a real atrocity.

Re: "Possible" is not the same as "Possible in my lifetime"

Most succint is:

Works

On time

Within Budget

pick any two.

Re: A useful result

I think you are one the right track, but there is a list of fundamental questions, each connected to the previous:

1) Is the climate changing ?

2) Is it man made ? [*]

3) What will the effects be ?

and

4) What can we do ?

My beef with the AGW brigade, is their answer to question 4 seems to end up with the average joe having to pay a lot more money to everyone, which isn't actually fixing anything. An example is the pathetic provision in the UK of any meaningful public transport ... why is it easier - and cheaper - for me to fly to Glasgow than take a train ? And more importantly, why is it that will not change in the foreseeable future ? Yet I pay more for my electricity, so some chump with a shiny solar panel can rake it in ?

So my point is, that questions (3) and (4) are more important than (2). Because whatever the answer to (2), (3) and (4) won't go away. It's alittle akin to the fire brigade turning up at a fire, but before they deploy hoses and water, they spend 30 minutes trying to work out if it's arson, or accident.

Re: OR

but there is software to scan and block attachments for RegExs, we use it as part of PCI-DSS to prevent credit card details being exported ....

Re: Birmingham QE

well, the department I used moved there this year ...

The problem with the big bang approach is you tend to get big bangs. New systems should be run *alongside* the systems they are replacing, until you are confident they work, and any glitches are ironed out. That way, you have a fallback, and life goes on.

When our son was born, in the Birmingham Womens hospital, it had just undergone a £10,000,000 refit (1996). First appointment at the new facility, my wifes wheelchair would not go through the swing doors. In a fit of rage, I discovered they had spunked £25,000 on a "disablity consultant". They even had the cheek to suggest my wife did a tour of the new facility, but withdrew the offer when I said it would cost them £25,000 ....

And speaking of shit designs (not IT related, but I am sure we can picture the management minds that were responsible) whose idea was it to make the ONLY patient access to the refurbished Good Hope hospital a revolving door ? Try going through that in a wheelchair, or on crutches.

Re: "Charities" acting like business ... Am I the only one

*but* the collectors are not being paid by the charity. So there is no flow of money. What *is* happening, is the collectors are raising £xxxx (using the charities name, logo, and goodwill) and paying £xxxx-£yyyy to the charity, where it appears as a simple coroporate donation. So there is no visibility of how much the collection agency is making.

And I bet the contract between the agency and charity insists that in the event of the DD being cancelled, the agency *still* get their whack.

One name

Stephen Wiltshire