Posts by SoaG

Re: No sympathy.

The conviction stands because the specifics of the case didn't match what was being argued and the online laws aren't as well written as their equivalent meatspace laws (which have been refined by a couple centuries of Common Law precedents)

The police thought they didn't need a warrant to search a folder shared publicly on the internet.

That sounds reasonable to me. To use your analogy, they wouldn't need a warrant if I left an axe embedded in a body on my front lawn.

The court decided they should have had got a warrant anyway. I think that's more restrictive than necessary in this specific case where there's clear probable cause and the evidence is public. The current law for online searches is written more broadly than this case, however, so this is far preferable than not having adequate constraints for searches.

It certainly won't make it worse.

Re: Argument

Supply of Uber drivers is not nearly as fixed as are licensed cabs.

A surge in price only increases profit as an interim step to increasing supply of currently active drivers. Incentive for drivers to make themselves available for extra/longer hours.

Adam Smith rides again.

Didn't we all at that age?

Re: Taking the bus will not help

Don't forget about the bus' video camera(s).

@Irongut

I recently set up an online account over the phone with an institution I'd never dealt with previously. They asked me a number of verification questions, including an either-or for which both options were wrong. Which was actually the point. A fraudster would make a 50-50 bluff and then call back later and try the other option if he got it wrong, whereas the real account holder would know the correct answer and say 'neither'.

I agree that pre-defined verification questions are terrible. The most likely person to attempt to fraudulently access any website under my name is my ex-wife (again) and she knows all the answers to the usual questions. Much better to let me write-in a question with a non-obvious answer.

Re: Uh-oh...

You mean like the phone and cable companies that want to increase profits by charging both the sender and receiver for transferring each packet?

Yes, of course companies are going to argue for whichever rules allow them to maximize their profits. Fortunately in this case, at least some of them are on the same side as consumers and arguing against the big telecoms.

"on the basis that you couldn't actually rely on the user having made the choice."

Your logic is backwards. Consumers should have to opt-in to being tracked.

Re: Compulsory voting

I don't follow you.

Having an up to date list of who can vote seems like a very important step in making sure those who can't, don't.

Otherwise you end up turning into a corrupt 3rd world banana republic of dead people casting ballots at multiple polling stations...like the US for example.

Re: Growing like Topsy

"but they seem better at not getting pwned."

You're kidding, right?

The MIs were practically subsidiaries of the KGB throughout the Cold War and there's absolutely nothing to suggest they're any less thoroughly infiltrated by foreign sympathizers now. Russians, Chinese, Iranians, etc. don't need a UK Snowden because they're already have a better FOI fulfillment rate than the UK public does.

Still, better to be like the UK with a few bad apples in the intelligence agency than what we see here in Canada. Reams of files passed to the Soviets during the cold war? Entrusted to a Hell's Angels groupie in the '08? Having a fling with a Chinese spy in '10? Must be someone in Cabinet.

She wasn't assaulted. People showed great restraint defending against an invasion of their privacy.

Re: Potty time dilema

If you have time for any of those you may want to increase your fibre intake before colon cancer sets in.

Re: Huh?

Marketing people?

They're usually the ones who want to throw away an established, recognized name/logo for no better reason than a vain attempt to justify their own existence.

This looks like a rare case where the grossly overinflated egos of the marketing people were overruled by someone not in marketing with some actual business sense.

Re: Big rubbers

They could probably shift a few novelty ones labeled Colossus

Re: A lie on a lie

If -> When & would -> will.

US debt + unfunded liabilities is up to what? About $125T give or take? And that's just their federal government. If they used the same accounting rules as business they'd have been in bankruptcy court ages ago. They're way past the point of no return. Charles Ponzi was an amateur.

Re: Bwahahahaaaah.

"I almost wonder why The Bastard and his PFY don't just shop the agency"

Then what would they do for fun?

Re: Vociferous @ 14:55 GMT

Don't take my word for it, look up where you're own 90%+ number comes from beyond the mere headline.

People asked those publishing papers on climate what their political opinion was. The majority refused to give one, 90%+ of the minority shared the same opinion. Since that was the narrative the people asking the question wanted to push, that's the number they lead the publication of their results with and what the public media headline writers followed.

Further, not all those publishing papers are in any meaningful way scientists. There's been more than trace amounts of fraud, mostly (but not all) from the believers. Think CRU, Mann's hockey stick, Pachauri's glaciers, Greenpeace and Sierra club as IPCC contributors and on and on.

Less than 30% of total authors of papers (including those such disreputable groups and individuals) is decidedly not 98% of legitimate scientists.

Climate always has and always will change. Whether we can/are influencing that (including whether reversal of any change is possible regardless of whether the original change is man made) is intriguing and worthy of study.

That terms like 'settled science', or 'climate denier' equating temperature swings with mass executions, would even be invented, much less used publicly should be a source of shame. Such Alinskyite terms make it very obvious that the most extreme radical Malthusian left wing of the environmental movement is making a concerted effort to hijack that process of study.

Anyone, therefore, who actually cares even the slightest about scientific process, levels of taxation, state control of individuals or any combination of those, will view such hijacking of science by leftist political interests (and less frequently economic interests on the other side) with greatly hightened suspicion and raise their threshold for the level of evidence they need to support political action on a massively disruptive scale.

This is why the number of agnostics on this issue is growing. Trying to beat people into submission with over-the-top rhetoric and blatantly disingenuous numbers like your 98% is counter-productive as it only arouses their suspicions.

Funny thing about agnostics though. If you stop trying to beat them over the head, and shouting down your opposition, and instead stick to reason and science (not contaminated by being built on the work of the aforementioned charlatans) we can be persuaded.

The more you uncritically bleat regurgitated nonsense like your 98% number, though, the harder that will be. I say that as someone who used to believe AGW was likely rather than merely slightly possible.

Re: It's 6:15am PST

Not sure why M$ would bother paying a forum troll when The Register is already doing bi-weekly DO0OOm!!1! pieces on XP as it is?

A brief monthly update on migration numbers would arguably be newsworthy. The constant stream of Chicken Little BS that the world will end when people can't get updates that El Reg is putting out is ridiculous.

Re: There is an interesting question here

What are you talking about?

They contacted him about finding a buyer for coke

He contacted them about the assault and again to upgrade the assault to murder, no enticement from law enforcement about that whatsoever.

They may also choose not to charge him relating to the coke buy. Instead just use it as evidence that he definitely was well aware of how his website was being used and charge him for facilitating every other deal that went through the site.

Re: I'm sure that there'l be a variety of amusing commentary here ...

"66.4% of abstracts expressed no position on AGW...0.3% were uncertain about the cause of global warming."

The most surprising part of that survey of papers was that, (despite all the vitriol, fraud and grandstanding on both sides) a majority of 66.7% are still possibly interested in science rather than one political agenda or another.

Re: Only the KGB?

Of course not! PRC got their copy first remember, and I wouldn't be surprised if they shared with DPRK. Frankly, I'm a little surprised Snowden isn't sipping an umbrella drink on a beach right outside the wire of Guantanamo.