Re: Nothing to fear?

"So let me get this right."

Sure: If they want to go to court with it, they could do that. Or they could cut the paperwork and ask the NSA if the NSA have anything... which they will have via interception. Then the NSA hand it over and GCHQ will have harvested from a legitimate and legal source... but of course can't be told where it came from because sources are protected.

Everyone's ass is covered. And once there's enough data to consider prosecution, THEN they can go about getting UK governmental approval for the intercepts.

What's really worse: The fact that our governments happily hoover all of our electronic communication and neglect to mention it... or the fact that as far as they're concerned when it comes to light, it's all legal and above board?

Re: Quandry

"The left-leaning media is caught in something of a brain-fart over how to square this with their love of Obama."

Maybe they'll do it by correctly stating that it was Bush who made this kind of shit legal?

"So hang on, in the past week we've gone from Snowden being a crackpot conspiracy theorist to a 'minor' admin, to now actually admitting that yes, he was right and the NSA does have access to your Facebook and Google data. Funny how the narrative changes isn't it?"

It's hardly been a conspiracy for the last decade. There's bloody great listening stations scattered around which are a bit big to hide, and there have been about a dozen reveals of NSA activities in the last few years:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A

Hell: What do you think they need to store a Yottabyte of data for:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_Data_Center

Re: Waste of Space

"Last year, Apple employees gave $308,081 to Obama's last reelection campaign, and several might be wanting their money back if the ban comes into place."

So one can get a refund on bribes?

Re: New Dr.

"It's a very demanding show to work on."

My heart bleeds.

Giz a job. I can do that.

Re: You can offshore hardware maintenance...

Have you seen the state of India's grid and infrastructure. Any F100 firm that offshores hardware to the region is steered by morons.

Re: hacking required

"Persian Gulf war"

We don't call it the Persian Gulf. That's what those nasty Persians call it. We but our oil from Saudi Arabia, so it's the Arabian Gulf...

Re: Must be on a web-facing machine

"You're all so misguided. Everyone knows that the US military run Windows for Warships, Windows for Warmongerers and Windows for the Terminally Incompetent. Equally everyone knows that Micro$not needs to update at least once a month, virus checkers every two minutes and flash twice a week 'to stay secure' so you *must* necessarily be connected to the internet to mitigate security threats from ... errr ... the internet ... Then, if you were no longer secure when sending the plans for the F18 by email, who knows what might happen ..."

I had to glace to the side to see if Eadon wrote that.

Re: Really?

"Admittedly I've been out of the defence business for 15 years, but back then we knew enough to have physically separate systems and networks for really sensitive stuff. "

This. I find it hard to believe that people are plugging this shit into the Web...

...Unless we're talking private contractors, in which case no piece of security stupidity is beyond belief.

Re: Here's an idea..

"Erm... pretty much the entire space programme? Bearing in mind that most of America's space program was built on Nazi technology which they appropriated from the likes of von Braun after the war. "

Further to your point, I'd argue that even the American space programme was not part of a Capitalist system. It was not tied to capitalist culture or competitive forces. Instead it was developed in essentially a fascist manner: Funded by the government at limitless cost, in secrecy, for propaganda and military reasons.

Re: Here's an idea..

"I'm not sure if it's a form of imported 'western' capitalism"

Yes it is. As brought in by black ships and gunboat diplomacy. We forced capitalism on them, essentially.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Ships

Re: Note that difference *loan* (with interest) versus old car maker (2nd or 3rd) bailout.

There's an ignore list?

Sign me up!

err... Not like that.

Re: "she did stress that her view wasn't final"

"Apple has consistently denied being involved in price-fixing"

Which is odd, considering half a dozen other companies in the alleged cabal have fessed up and settled!

Talk about an absurdly untenable position. It's like all your mates getting caught for their role in a robbery, all of them saying you were involved and being found guilty and then trying to say that you were in fact not guilty.

"I know this is Apple and they are guilty as sin, but aren't they at least supposed to pretend to go through the motions?"

The 'motions' have already been and gone for the most part. Apple is the kid with chocolate on their face, claiming to have not touched the cookie jar.

Re: Change of name required

"The danger of adding thoughts to leaked documents is that the writing style can be used to trace them. Whether that's a good or bad thing I'll leave up to your preference."

So?

Style analysis will point towards someone in Wikileaks adding the notes of rebuttal. How is that a shock... or danger?

And style analysis only goes so far and requires good context and sufficient text to allow natural patterns to emerge.

Re: Note that difference *loan* (with interest) versus old car maker (2nd or 3rd) bailout.

"That's lefty speak that can be fairly translated as "any cause not associated with my economically illiterate, luddite and socialist beliefs".

No it's not.

Learn to recognise your own: He's moaning because it's not of direct benefit to HIM.

Re: Note that difference *loan* (with interest) versus old car maker (2nd or 3rd) bailout.

"Read the article, its not hard to understand!"

It is if the reader is a moron.

Just sayin'...

Re: Note that difference *loan* (with interest) versus old car maker (2nd or 3rd) bailout.

"No, the US taxpayers made a loan for developing a vehicle that does little, if anything, to improve the life of the average American, but is, instead, a plaything for rich folks. "

And so were telephones when first developed. And cars. And CDs. So clearly they weren't worth developing, either.

Let's go sit in a sodding mud-hole because you don't understand technological filter-down, shall we?

Re: Wow

"I didn't realize we taxpayers had funded research into an electric car that most of us can't afford. Toys for rich tree-huggers? Thanks for being good stewards of our tax dollars, Congress."

I'm not hearing you bitch about them buying tanks that you don't drive, nukes that never gets used and rockets launchers that you aren't allowed to fire. You seriously have a problem with your government making a loan which has been repaid early but not with a trillion dollar war, bailing out your banks and bailing out your motor industry? Talk about picking your priorities poorly.

Re: Fixed it.

""Need" is highly dubious in this context."

Have you been to A&E or an inner-city classroom recently?

"So pretending that money earned in the UK using UK infrastructure is actually earned elsewhere and paying taxes in Ireland is the right thing?"

It is if you're an accountant working for the benefit of shareholders.

It's just not the most honest, honourable and morally decent thing to be doing.

I -personally- would not dream of short-changing the society which educated me, treated me when I was sick, supported me when I was impoverished and made my life far better than that of 99% of the planet. But businesses do not see themselves as indebted or bound to a society

"I doubt that that is the case."

Whereas I personally doubt that mega-corps send out legal requests without waving them at their legal department first.

"The resulting video is clearly a composite work (generated imagery on one hand and player input and commentary on the other). Copyright law is clear that each party retains its own copyrights in such cases."

Depends *where*, of course. I suspect that Nintendo have enough wit to have made sure what they are doing is legally correct or at least viable.

Morally a little questionable and a PR shot in the foot, but probably legally viable...

Re: Well

"How many of those 'scientists'..."

They have relevant degrees and are working in the field. They are scientists. Using inverted commas is just pathetic. Before we even get to what you are trying to put across you are already making yourself look pretty ignorant. Don't try to undermine the qualifications of those who are far better qualified than you. Unless you work in the field. Otherwise your opinion on their qualifications is utterly worthless.

"would be out of a job next year if climate change didn't exist? Unbiased? Perhaps the correct title should have been 97% of climate scientists are praying climate change is mans fault because they really want a google glass."

Yeah, How many Physicists would be out of a job too if their work was mooted, so that field must be bullshit too.

That's just weak. And biased. And downright ignorant.

So if I scrawl constructive criticism of the latest Dan Brown book on the front of your house and over your car bonnet with brake fluid, it should be allowed to stay there?

Re: Oh Lewis!

Bet you never made a bow that could kill at twenty paces either did you, killjoy?

Which - if anything - is an argument for controls on ammunition, rather than controls on 3D printers.

Re: Fraid not

"All it proves is that Prenda Law wasn't smart enough and rich enough to bribe the right (AKA cheapest) politicians."

What do politicians have to do with the judgements made under Common Law?

If you're going to slate your legal system, at least try to understand it first.

Re: unintended f*c*i*g consequences.

"My Dad told me he got a severely thick ear off his grandad once when my Dad, being a dopey teenager at the time..."

At Xmas my step-father told me how they used to make a somewhat more dangerous form of devil-bangers from .50 BMG ammunition thrown out of the planes by damaged American bombers coming in to land.

The HEI ammunition was best for it.

It made me pinching 12 gauge ammunition from Barber pockets and making explosives with it as a child look positively safe!

Re: OOPS!

"yes, we have only to look at Mexico, our peaceful neighbor to the south, to see what a total ban on private ownership does for the crime rate. "

Correlation is not causation.

Banning firearms itself didn't 'do' anything to the crime rate in itself in Mexico. You're making a ridiculous argument.

It was the turf wars of psychotic murdering assholes involved in the drug industry that caused the high rate of crime. Which of course was caused by overseas drug demand. And the total failure of law enforcement to enforce the legislation once in place due to corruption and poor quality of policing. And further worsened by the number of firearms being smuggled into Mexico along a porous border from the US.

You can't say 'firearm regulation doesn't work' if it's not enforced, if people are smuggling in weapons as fast as they are taken off the streets, and unless there is a concerted effort to get them off the streets. It's like saying 'dieting doesn't work' while sneaking off for a BigMac every lunchtime.

Re: OOPS!

"But that was then and before things like 9/11, 7/7 and now 4/15 (Boston)."

And yet after The Troubles, Guy Fawkes, and a bunch of airliners getting blown up in the 70s.

Really, 9/11 has zero bearing. It's a kid. And not even technically a real explosive. Policing and Prosecution alike need to apply the law with a degree of common f**king sense, rather than with the obstinate wankery of a recently divorced traffic warden with trapped wind.

Re: Fair Game is a much better expose..

"so you have to spend well over 50% of your time watching your back from treachery by your own people."

Only putting 50% of your effort into the job isn't good enough. You have to put in 100% and take the shafting.

Re: @ Angry Quaker

Plenty of munitions have 'use by' dates.

Why do you think the US tosses so many Tomahawks around after a 'dry' war-free period?

Re: Too much in too small a space

Of course, you know more about the entire project sat in your armchair than all the people with Phds working on it.

Bullets fly so fast because they are dense and fast. They travel much less further than they could because they are fired at a shallow angle. Add a guidance system and you can loft them at a more optimum trajectory like a arrow, overcoming any deficit due to lower mass. Put in some dense material such as tungsten or DU and you can partially overcome any shortfall due to not using lead, anyway.

In short, I'm pretty sure the well-paid people have thought a bit more about it than even you, so I don't see the point of rubbishing a project that we know barely anything about.

Re: "Jackal" eat your heart out.

"Well, given that the record for sniper hits is documented at 2815m, increasing the range to 3km doesn't sound like much of an achievement."

Smug stat; moot point.

It was a highly trained sniper, using a large AMR, and wasn't even a first-round kill. That's of very little comparative value. Whereas a good shooter with a firearm of much more reasonable size and calibre can wax someone 1km away without much fuss. Using extreme examples isn't really of much use to anyone.

I'm pretty sure .50 HMG gunners in SF roles have mowed plenty of people at more than 3km anyway.

Re: "Jackal" eat your heart out.

"and that means there's not a politician in the world will be safe. Has Obama authorised this project?"

That's a stupid-ass comment.

Sniper rifles can already hit people over a Km away and have been able to do so for years, and yet politicians aren't being gunned down by them in droves. What makes you think that increasing that range to maybe 3km will make a lick of difference.

Re: Inertial? no way -"Still, it would be WAY better to have that for a grenade launcher."

"Far more people in history have been killed with small, cheap weapons that with large, complex ones. If you must develop these things, make it so only governments can afford them."

You mean like AK-47s and RPG-7s?

Don't lay the blame at cheap weapons solely on America's doorstep when plenty of other people are selling even cheaper ones. Most of the weapons being used in worldwide conflicts today have never been near CONUS.

Re: Quite

"From the point of view of transactional efficiency, it's actually far more efficient for you to say thank-you beforehand, rather than to say please, and then waste time saying thank-you afterwards..."

Efficiency has nothing to do with manners, though.

If you look at the *entire* transaction, the British way is massively laden with politeness, with there being about 5 exchanges of it. Anthropologically it's due to our culture being very class-based but pretending we're not and hence not wanting serving staff to feel they are less than equals, hence treating them over-politely.

I recommend reading 'Watching the English'.

Re: Little Mss. Manners

"Makes me wonder if it has something to do with the different views on society in the states and the older and more densely populated European/Asian countries. The USAsians divide people into "Me" and "Everybody else" while Europeans have more complicated and graded relationships with persons. The tribe model is still a part of the mindset."

Americans have a class structure and social models, too. It's just you don't notice them because it's second nature to you. In very simple terms, the key determinant in American class is personal wealth and earnings. There's more to it than that, but it's a good starting indicator.

Re: Quite

The first key thing to remember in fitting in with American culture and not looking like a bit of a boorish dick is that a (partially) shared language is NOT carte blanche to assume the etiquette is remotely similar. In the words of Akbar: It's a Trap!