The problem is the word "profiling", which has become a "taboo" (pejorative) word. In the minds of most people, there is no distinction between criminal profiling, behavioral profiling, or racial profiling. The moment you say "profile", people substitute "racism" even when it isn't at all appropriate. This is probably what scares the TSA the most (and seems to be the root cause of why they think only grandmas and children should be searched, because they are the least likely to be offended)...but they need to get past this otherwise they will continue to be a joke.
I'm allowed to go through security in less than a minute if on orders, even for international flights.
Recently? You've been extremely lucky, I guess.
I fly on orders and have to deal with security. The last time I flew on orders I was sent through the rapiscan machine.
And I know military folks serving as honor guard (those escorting soldiers/marines who gave their lives for this country,) who have had to deal with secondary inspection (and had to remove their class A jackets, shoes, and submit to a grope check.) I guess it may depend on the airport, but the ones in the US I've gone through have pretty much the same policy.
Now the government and/or entertainment industries won't have to bother going through those pesky courts that require evidence and what-not. They can just apply carrot/stick techniques to get service terminated.
By service termination, I wonder if they will mean physical termination (your phone company disconnects you,) or logical termination (as in, your ISP removes access to their network.)
I figure, if it is the later, what stops us from just starting Internet 2.0 and just not invite the government (or at least the part that kowtows to the entertainment industry,) and the entertainment industry to our new one? Of course, I am all for moving backwards to the internet we had pre-1994, where no commercial organizations were allowed to join. Seems like we came off the rail around that point.
Refusing to be scanned by these new machines will result in full body cavity examinations (except for govt officials and certain others).
Being a govt official, or even a member of the US Armed Forces in uniform travelling on official business (though most members of the military do not travel in uniform any more unless they are on honor-guard duty,) does not mean anything to the TSA, nor does being a pilot who has direct control of the airplane and can crash it into a building themselves instead of bringing weapons on the plane. TSA even scans their own people on a regular basis. And sometimes, they use these scans to belittle their own employees who are accidently scanned during the course of their jobs. No one is immune to getting scanned by the TSA, except, apparently until recently, those who have religious objections.
If I didn't have to fly for work, I'd be right there with you. Unfortunately, my paycheck is dependent on my occasional travel to exotic locales, and thus, if I wish to continue eating, I have to fly. Or find another job, or take up permanent residence on a street corner...
However, this incident broke just before a recent trip to Nevada I had to take for business, and when they pushed all of us through the porno-machine, I thought the same thing (to opt-out,) but then decided against it because of the problems she was having. I just hope that the person examining my nekked body got an eye-full. If I had been on personal travel, I'd probably would have drove or at least protested, but if I missed my flight, my boss wouldn't have been so happy if I missed the flight. (Ok, maybe I am just a conformist/closet rebel.) I noticed two people who went through after me had both opt'd out, and they yelled "opt-out" and made it absolutely painful and miserable for both of these people too. Neither got out of the checkpoint earlier than 15 minutes later (and one of them had to wait in line for the other to finish getting violated.) Luckily, the airport in Nevada didn't have these new fangled machines, so I didn't get radiated on the way back.
TSA is a joke, plain and simple. But it is a joke that will never seem to go away.
The moon is already slowing us down...just need to bring the moon a little closer to the Earth and we'll slow down drastically due to tidal friction. It is why we have to add a second to our clocks every once in a while...but as the moon moves further out, tidal friction lessons and we slow down slower.
When the Earth didn't have a moon, the planet spun around its axis at a dizzying 13 hours a day...but the moon slowed us down to the current 24 hours a day. The trick is to bring the moon closer, but not too close...it would kill everything if it got too close.
Kirk "died" while visiting Enterprise-B during it's maiden voyage captained by John Harriman, Tasha Yar was on Enterprise C.
Heh, Chronno. I was thinking the same thing reading this. While the whole "Kirk died" part leads to an interesting paradox within Star Trek canon, they could have spent a few seconds on wikipedia checking their facts since there is no dispute that it happened during the maiden voyage of Enterprise-B. Of course, it wasn't just their retraction, but the fact that they used the comment from a user without verification...they said that user "Your Mum's Lunch" reported that Enterprise B was given to Kirk as a stopgap for Enterprise-A (after the original Enterprise was "lost to the Klingons".) Anyone who actually watched the third movie would know that the Enterprise was lost because Kirk blew it up in order to keep it out of the hands of the Klingons, and Kirk was given Enterprise-A at the end of the fourth movie...all of which is easily found in Wikipedia as well as on Memory Alpha and could easily be verified by news.com.au.
Take heart Mike, at least 50% of our folks here in California voted for Barbara Boxer (D-MPAA.) Apparently, as technically oriented as California is, we still keep voting in the bastards responsible for the DMCA and half of the other anti-technology laws out there. But then again, she was facing the person who had a hand in the (illegal) pretexting madness at HP, so the options were a little thin.
Boucher unfortunately really never had a chance to fix the DMCA...because there is just too much money coming from the Copyright Industry. I am just waiting for the pendulum to swing the other way, because it is desperately needed. I just want a little sanity in Copyright, is that too much to ask?
She has been kowtow'ng to the music industry for a while now. Her latest songs aren't even close to the original music, and this was almost expected. She was messing around with the music, making it similar to, but not exactly identical to the original, and has not been singing like the original recording artists. Listen to some of her original songs, and she was pretty close to dead on with the original, while listening to "Accident Prone" she almost parodies Lady GaGa's singing style to the extreme without sounding like Lady GaGa.
I like her parodies, but the moment she allowed the music industry a foot, they pushed for a mile. It's sad, but I cannot blame her for the problem since if it was me, I'd likely do the same. The sad thing is that she is quite talented, and could easily be "the next Weird Al." Sadly, like every other business run just for the sake of business, and not for the sake of the artists or love of producing, the music industry will continue until they have stifled everything for the purpose of short term gains, and then there will be nothing left. Either that, or the revolution will occur and they will find themselves under the guillotine trying to figure out how they got there (not realizing that "Let them eat cake" hasn't worked ever, and it only serves to piss everyone else off.)
Parody and satire should be protected (more than just a positive defense, but an outright law that prevents companies from taking action against parody...not just this type of parody, but www.fordsucks.com parody too,) and it is sad that society has allowed large, multinational organizations put short-term profit above the long-term arguably "American" past-time of parody. Could you imagine what the US would be like if our forefather's decided to outlaw parody? I suggest that we'd all be saluting a different flag while singing "God Save the Queen" (since parody was used quite masterfully for getting out information to the populace under the heads of the English before and during the American Revolution.)
Actually, there are a bunch that he "didn't" but Amish Paradise isn't one of them. He asked Coolio's record company to ask Coolio if he could use the music, and somehow (though Coolio and Weird Al's stories differ here,) either Coolio or Coolio's record company gave Weird Al the go ahead, only to have Coolio later object. Weird Al didn't have to send any of the proceeds to Coolio, but he normally sends out royalty checks to the original artist, and Coolio didn't get any more money than any of the other artists get.
Weird Al plays a lot of songs at his concerts that do not appear on any of his albums. Apparently the reason is that those artists (Eminem, Paul McCartney, Jason Mraz, and James Blunt) have denied him producing parodies of their songs.
Everyone should arrive at the airport clad only in the Tyvek suit they were sent, sans undies. No luggage!
Actually, I've been thinking about this for a while, and I think what they need to do is have all travelers arrive at the airport and enter into "sleeping containers", where each individual takes a sleeping pill and enters an area no larger than a coffin (those with claustrophobia can be knocked out before entering sleeping capsule,) and then nitrous oxide or some other sort of agent is used to knock out the whole group of travelers. Then everyone is loaded like luggage into the plane. Flight attendants become trained anesthesiologists, and remain on board to monitor all travelers. Flight gets where it is going, and then travelers are revived at the destination. I see three big benefits for the airlines: no additional sundries required (no food, in flight newspapers/entertainment, and no bathrooms,) no difficulties arising from travelers having problems with rules, and if the plane crashes, no worry about any traveler being awake during the crash (families know their loved one was asleep when they died.)
For the travelers, they will be fully rested and ready when they are revived...I cannot sleep on a plane anyway, and those 23 hour flights would be great for me since I wouldn't need two days to recover afterwards.
Re: Re: Re: Re: And, it really is about the safety of the Planes not People
Bottle of Dr Pepper that contains liquid explosives from home = Terror Death Device
I know you are trolling, but as others have mentioned, the bottle of Dr. Pepper from home is placed in a trash can within a couple feet of a long and busy security line, where the resulting explosion will kill more than would on an airplane at 30,000 feet.
Also, the same unopened bottle of Dr. Pepper which is turned over to security, which then takes it into the secure zone down to the employee's lunch area and any employee who wants can then take it and drink it. You may think I am kidding, but I travel a lot as part of my job, and on more than a few occasions I've heard travelers tell the TSA folks that they have an unopened bottle of water that they do not want to throw away, and have watched TSA employees tell them that they would take the bottle down to the lunch room so that it wasn't wasted.
What TSA practices is Security Theater...there is no point to their rules except to make the general public who doesn't know any better feel safe. And taking an unopened bottle past the security zone to the employees lunch area is not a good idea...if you consider it to be dangerous, then the correct place to put it is in a bomb/hazardous material disposal system located far away from the general public.
That is a good idea, then there would be no traffic problems as most of the folks out there wouldn't be driving. Depending on how high you set the bar (do you include even smart people that occasionally do stupid things?) that may include just about everyone. Of course, how do you enforce the ban? Many police officers (at least 50%, if we are talking about putting the bar at 51% on an IQ scale,) may not fall into the smart category and thus aren't able to drive either. Then again, people who drive and text/drive and phone despite there being a ban, will likely continue driving even though they are banned because of being stupid.
I think the problem is usually that 99% of the drivers out there think they are good drivers, and can deal with distractions. Sadly, most drivers who think they are good drivers, aren't. Most folks that have taken advanced driving courses (for driving emergency vehicles,) know that the problem isn't just speed or distractions, but a combination of all sorts of problems: speed, driving too close (not giving yourself enough distance to avoid an accident,) not giving yourself a way out or having a backup plan, being distracted (day dreaming, shaving, reading, eating/drinking, fiddling with the radio, etc.,) not watching for threats further down the road (how many people only pay attention to the car or two in front of them,) and not being familiar with your location/how to get to your destination. The best drivers account for all of these...but then again, the best drivers don't tailgate, don't go faster than the normal flow of traffic, have a plan, try to remove as much distraction as possible, watch for problems far down the road, and know before they start driving how to get to their destination via multiple paths.
I don't claim to be a good driver, nor do I think I am stupid, but I try my hardest to live by defensive driving techniques I've been taught, and part of those rules is not to talk on the cell phone and not to text.
The phones are locked here because it costs $400-500 to buy a non-locked phone (if you can find one,) but you can go to any phone company and get a no frills cell phone for free (plus a $70 processing fee.)
I'd prefer to buy an unlocked phone (except my phone company won't support it if I do,) but most folks don't want to if it means that they have to spend a lot of money to buy the phone. You can find unlocked phones online, but it is often hard to get a US provider to give you the SIM to go into the phone and they will sometimes lock the phone to their service even if you bought it unlocked, unlike providers in just about any other country I've been to. Verizon does not use GSM, so they don't use SIMs either (they use memory cards similar to SIMs for some reason, but those do not work with GSM phones.)
It is really dumb...but with the crappy system we have here, it doesn't look like it will change any time soon since they have effectively lobbied congress to stay out of it (even though what they do is the very definition of anti-trust.)
If a union is trying to lift up just a couple of its members and not everyone equally, then I am all for removing their rights as well (since they are no different than a corporation).
Agreed, especially since many unions are run like corporations. However, corporations are groups of people who align themselves to a common goal, too (to make money, deliver a product, and so on.) Neither should have legal rights that individuals within those group enjoy. Corporations were originally set up to shield their members, not to act as a Frankenstein (an inanimate object given life, though in this case a purely legal fabrication of life.
If I am a member of a corporation, I should be able to vote as I see fit, even if my vote is similar to everyone else in the corporation. My problem is that corporations often (though it is illegal to do so directly,) "motivate" their employees to vote a particular way just like unions often do. I should be able to vote without having to worry about the corporation I work for firing me because I voted a particular way, or chose to donate to a particular politician (or not donate to a particular politician.) It should be my right to vote/donate exactly as I see fit, without fear of repercussion for voting a way my company does not agree with. If I choose to go the same way that the others in the corporation choose to go, then so be it. In order for this to work though, the individuals need privacy, but the organization as a whole should not get a chance to donate/vote, just its members individually. Why Microsoft or the RIAA can donate out of its profits or operating funds, money to a political party or politician is what I have real problems with. If the company pays the employee a salary, and the employee decides on their own to donate that money to a political party, I have no problem with it (because the employee could just keep the money or spend it on something else.)
Of course, this can be abused too, but there are ways to keep the abuse to a minimum (such as actually enforcing the election laws that already exist.)
IANAL, however, I have spent some time studying the law when it comes to the Fourth Amendment, and technically he is right (though what follows from him gets really hard to follow.) Probable cause only is required when it is unreasonable search and seizure (keep reading before you jump at me, and yes, that is very close to what he said, even though he did a really bad job of explaining it, which I'll try to do below.)
Reasonable is defined so narrowly by the courts that just about all searches are unreasonable and thus require probable cause and a search warrant. An example of a legal and reasonable search and seizure which wouldn't require probable cause/search warrant is if a police officer can see, in plain sight and where he/she is lawfully allowed to be, either a prohibited item or evidence of a crime.
Thus, if a police officer is walking down the street, and a small vial of cocaine (a prohibited item) pops out of someone's pocket and lands on the street, the police officer has every right to seize that vial once determining that it is cocaine. The search and seizure was entirely lawful because it was reasonable.
Same is true if the cop pulls you over and there is a bloody baseball bat or bloody knife in the passenger seat of your car, and it is visible to all who look into the passenger compartment (under a blanket or other object doesn't count.) A police officer can most certainly seize the evidence at that point, and detain and question you about who's blood is on the bat or knife. Sure, there may be a perfectly good explanation for it (such as you hit or cut yourself,) and they may choose to let you go, but the seizure, even if temporary, was perfectly legal without probable cause. However, if the police finds a bloody knife in the car, that doesn't automatically give them the right to open the trunk or go to your house and break in looking for a body, as they'd need probable cause and a search warrant to do that (which likely wouldn't be hard to obtain fairly quickly given that there is evidence of a crime.)
However, if it is not visible, it would be unreasonable for a cop to see it, and thus they better have probable cause and a search warrant to search for it.
(Won't get into exigent circumstances, search incident to arrest, or Terry-Patdowns, as those were gifts to law enforcement by the Supreme Court, but they are extremely narrow in their application and we could go on for hours discussing them.)
Or TMDB or thetvdb, if you absolutely have to use an online DB (though I also prefer just going to wikipedia.)
IMDB lost a lot of respect when they took the work of a large population of their users and sold it off to the highest bidder (Amazon.) It may have been costing them a lot of money, and they may have really fought hard to keep it open, a lot of people stopped participating when they "sold-out." (I never had a problem with them selling out myself.) While they were legally in their right to do so; they certainly made a lot of enemies in the process.
The biggest problem most people had wasn't the fact that they needed the money, but the fact that there was no real attribution (beside emails and usenet posts,) for the data which appears on IMDB, and while they claimed that those who submitted the data owned the copyright to that data, and only the website format itself was owned by IMDB, there is really no way to know who to blame/praise for the data on the site.
Over the years, there has been a lot of stuff posted to IMDB which has been factually inaccurate (I pointed a mistake out to them once which included quotes directly from the director's commentary that invalidated information on their site, and yet that error persisted for years,) and their editors often ignored reports of these errors despite receiving ample evidence to the contrary (so much so that several projects popped up to record all of the errors on the site.)
If anyone really is interested in an interesting sci-fi story here, rent the 13th floor. It may be a little cheezy, but after listening to some of the physicists, it could actually be a reality that we already exist in some sort of grand computer simulation. If we are building grand computer simulations ourselves, could it possibly be some sort of infinite recursion that we are part of too?
Did he or did he not film these town council meetings himself? Granted I am in the US not the UK but does that not give HIM the copyright to the video?
They are likely trying to spin this the same way the Major League Baseball (MLB) in the US wants to claim copyright on every baseball game. Sure, they can legally copyright their original broadcast, but if I happen to sneak a camera into the game and record it myself and put it online for others to view or send out a summary of the game in my own words, there isn't anything MLB can legally do to me (except maybe tell me never to come back to the baseball field, and in doing so I'd be trespassing.)
It is misleading and wrong, but copyright maximalists, greedy bastards, and censors still use it despite the fact that it is wrong as it is an exaggeration of claim. And those who don't have the money or the knowledge of the law to fight it usually back down. I wonder if there has been a study yet on the raw numbers of takedown notices sent to youtube for videos which could have been counter-claimed because of fair-use grounds or because they are original content, and yet not counter-claimed. It would be interesting to see how many of those were not fought because the person who received them was not aware they had good reasons to counter-claim or weren't interested in fighting it because they didn't want to spend money on a lawyer if the claimant ended up suing them.
Not true. Appy for my job and you have to disclose any arrest/detainment/encounter with law enforcement you've ever had.
And most agencies want a listing of every crime you have committed above traffic tickets that you didn't get caught for (such as prostitution, drug use/possession, theft, etc.) and most agencies perform some sort of validation (polygraph/VSA) to try to detect someone lying.
In my opinion, this is a good thing, as the police officer is an extreme example of public trust as they have powers that can be abused more-so than any other public worker can. If a potential police officer isn't willing to come clean on crimes they got away with, they are probably going to continue doing them after they are sworn in. However, if there is one thing most cops don't like, it is a dirty cop; but unfortunately, like you said earlier, without proof that a cop is a dirty, they cannot really act on it.
Now if only we could have our politicians subjected to the same process, since I see them as an example of public trust that can be abused more-so than other public workers can. The old adage, "How do you know a politician is lying? ...his mouth is moving!" seems far more accurate now-a-days with crooked senators getting caught taking bribes or committing other crimes and lying through their teeth for the sake of their paymasters.
On the post: Just Because 'National Opt-Out Day' Didn't Do Much, Does It Mean People Don't Care About TSA Searches?
Re: Re: Re: Re: Profiling?
On the post: Why Congress Isn't So Concerned With TSA Nude Scans & Gropes: They Get To Skip Them
Re: I understand
Recently? You've been extremely lucky, I guess.
I fly on orders and have to deal with security. The last time I flew on orders I was sent through the rapiscan machine.
And I know military folks serving as honor guard (those escorting soldiers/marines who gave their lives for this country,) who have had to deal with secondary inspection (and had to remove their class A jackets, shoes, and submit to a grope check.) I guess it may depend on the airport, but the ones in the US I've gone through have pretty much the same policy.
On the post: The 19 Senators Who Voted To Censor The Internet
Re: Furthermore
By service termination, I wonder if they will mean physical termination (your phone company disconnects you,) or logical termination (as in, your ISP removes access to their network.)
I figure, if it is the later, what stops us from just starting Internet 2.0 and just not invite the government (or at least the part that kowtows to the entertainment industry,) and the entertainment industry to our new one? Of course, I am all for moving backwards to the internet we had pre-1994, where no commercial organizations were allowed to join. Seems like we came off the rail around that point.
On the post: TSA Defending Its Groin Grabbing Or Naked Image Security Techniques
Re: Re: Re: Abdulmutallab
Being a govt official, or even a member of the US Armed Forces in uniform travelling on official business (though most members of the military do not travel in uniform any more unless they are on honor-guard duty,) does not mean anything to the TSA, nor does being a pilot who has direct control of the airplane and can crash it into a building themselves instead of bringing weapons on the plane. TSA even scans their own people on a regular basis. And sometimes, they use these scans to belittle their own employees who are accidently scanned during the course of their jobs. No one is immune to getting scanned by the TSA, except, apparently until recently, those who have religious objections.
On the post: If You Don't Get Every Detail Of Your TSA Detention Exactly Right, The TSA May Publicly Shame You
Re: Re: Accusing the victim...
If I didn't have to fly for work, I'd be right there with you. Unfortunately, my paycheck is dependent on my occasional travel to exotic locales, and thus, if I wish to continue eating, I have to fly. Or find another job, or take up permanent residence on a street corner...
However, this incident broke just before a recent trip to Nevada I had to take for business, and when they pushed all of us through the porno-machine, I thought the same thing (to opt-out,) but then decided against it because of the problems she was having. I just hope that the person examining my nekked body got an eye-full. If I had been on personal travel, I'd probably would have drove or at least protested, but if I missed my flight, my boss wouldn't have been so happy if I missed the flight. (Ok, maybe I am just a conformist/closet rebel.) I noticed two people who went through after me had both opt'd out, and they yelled "opt-out" and made it absolutely painful and miserable for both of these people too. Neither got out of the checkpoint earlier than 15 minutes later (and one of them had to wait in line for the other to finish getting violated.) Luckily, the airport in Nevada didn't have these new fangled machines, so I didn't get radiated on the way back.
TSA is a joke, plain and simple. But it is a joke that will never seem to go away.
On the post: Hollywood's Strategy For The Future: Pretending The Government Can Save Them
Re: Re: Re: Re:
When the Earth didn't have a moon, the planet spun around its axis at a dizzying 13 hours a day...but the moon slowed us down to the current 24 hours a day. The trick is to bring the moon closer, but not too close...it would kill everything if it got too close.
On the post: If Only Newspapers Put As Much Effort Into Correcting Errors That Didn't Involve Captain Kirk & Captain Picard
Re: Time to get my Geek on.
Heh, Chronno. I was thinking the same thing reading this. While the whole "Kirk died" part leads to an interesting paradox within Star Trek canon, they could have spent a few seconds on wikipedia checking their facts since there is no dispute that it happened during the maiden voyage of Enterprise-B. Of course, it wasn't just their retraction, but the fact that they used the comment from a user without verification...they said that user "Your Mum's Lunch" reported that Enterprise B was given to Kirk as a stopgap for Enterprise-A (after the original Enterprise was "lost to the Klingons".) Anyone who actually watched the third movie would know that the Enterprise was lost because Kirk blew it up in order to keep it out of the hands of the Klingons, and Kirk was given Enterprise-A at the end of the fourth movie...all of which is easily found in Wikipedia as well as on Memory Alpha and could easily be verified by news.com.au.
On the post: One Congressional Loss That Hurts: Rick Boucher
Re: Re: Boucher
Boucher unfortunately really never had a chance to fix the DMCA...because there is just too much money coming from the Copyright Industry. I am just waiting for the pendulum to swing the other way, because it is desperately needed. I just want a little sanity in Copyright, is that too much to ask?
On the post: YouTube Star VenetianPrincess Silenced By Music Publishers Claiming Parody Isn't Fair Use
Been listening to her for a while now
I like her parodies, but the moment she allowed the music industry a foot, they pushed for a mile. It's sad, but I cannot blame her for the problem since if it was me, I'd likely do the same. The sad thing is that she is quite talented, and could easily be "the next Weird Al." Sadly, like every other business run just for the sake of business, and not for the sake of the artists or love of producing, the music industry will continue until they have stifled everything for the purpose of short term gains, and then there will be nothing left. Either that, or the revolution will occur and they will find themselves under the guillotine trying to figure out how they got there (not realizing that "Let them eat cake" hasn't worked ever, and it only serves to piss everyone else off.)
Parody and satire should be protected (more than just a positive defense, but an outright law that prevents companies from taking action against parody...not just this type of parody, but www.fordsucks.com parody too,) and it is sad that society has allowed large, multinational organizations put short-term profit above the long-term arguably "American" past-time of parody. Could you imagine what the US would be like if our forefather's decided to outlaw parody? I suggest that we'd all be saluting a different flag while singing "God Save the Queen" (since parody was used quite masterfully for getting out information to the populace under the heads of the English before and during the American Revolution.)
On the post: YouTube Star VenetianPrincess Silenced By Music Publishers Claiming Parody Isn't Fair Use
Re: Re:
Actually, there are a bunch that he "didn't" but Amish Paradise isn't one of them. He asked Coolio's record company to ask Coolio if he could use the music, and somehow (though Coolio and Weird Al's stories differ here,) either Coolio or Coolio's record company gave Weird Al the go ahead, only to have Coolio later object. Weird Al didn't have to send any of the proceeds to Coolio, but he normally sends out royalty checks to the original artist, and Coolio didn't get any more money than any of the other artists get.
Weird Al plays a lot of songs at his concerts that do not appear on any of his albums. Apparently the reason is that those artists (Eminem, Paul McCartney, Jason Mraz, and James Blunt) have denied him producing parodies of their songs.
On the post: British Air Boss Points Out That Removing Your Shoes At Airport Security Is Silly
Re: Shoes
Actually, I've been thinking about this for a while, and I think what they need to do is have all travelers arrive at the airport and enter into "sleeping containers", where each individual takes a sleeping pill and enters an area no larger than a coffin (those with claustrophobia can be knocked out before entering sleeping capsule,) and then nitrous oxide or some other sort of agent is used to knock out the whole group of travelers. Then everyone is loaded like luggage into the plane. Flight attendants become trained anesthesiologists, and remain on board to monitor all travelers. Flight gets where it is going, and then travelers are revived at the destination. I see three big benefits for the airlines: no additional sundries required (no food, in flight newspapers/entertainment, and no bathrooms,) no difficulties arising from travelers having problems with rules, and if the plane crashes, no worry about any traveler being awake during the crash (families know their loved one was asleep when they died.)
For the travelers, they will be fully rested and ready when they are revived...I cannot sleep on a plane anyway, and those 23 hour flights would be great for me since I wouldn't need two days to recover afterwards.
On the post: British Air Boss Points Out That Removing Your Shoes At Airport Security Is Silly
Re: Re: Re: Re: And, it really is about the safety of the Planes not People
I know you are trolling, but as others have mentioned, the bottle of Dr. Pepper from home is placed in a trash can within a couple feet of a long and busy security line, where the resulting explosion will kill more than would on an airplane at 30,000 feet.
Also, the same unopened bottle of Dr. Pepper which is turned over to security, which then takes it into the secure zone down to the employee's lunch area and any employee who wants can then take it and drink it. You may think I am kidding, but I travel a lot as part of my job, and on more than a few occasions I've heard travelers tell the TSA folks that they have an unopened bottle of water that they do not want to throw away, and have watched TSA employees tell them that they would take the bottle down to the lunch room so that it wasn't wasted.
What TSA practices is Security Theater...there is no point to their rules except to make the general public who doesn't know any better feel safe. And taking an unopened bottle past the security zone to the employees lunch area is not a good idea...if you consider it to be dangerous, then the correct place to put it is in a bomb/hazardous material disposal system located far away from the general public.
On the post: Transportation Secretary Wants To Ban All Driver Talking (Except To Other Passengers)
Re: There is a problem....
That is a good idea, then there would be no traffic problems as most of the folks out there wouldn't be driving. Depending on how high you set the bar (do you include even smart people that occasionally do stupid things?) that may include just about everyone. Of course, how do you enforce the ban? Many police officers (at least 50%, if we are talking about putting the bar at 51% on an IQ scale,) may not fall into the smart category and thus aren't able to drive either. Then again, people who drive and text/drive and phone despite there being a ban, will likely continue driving even though they are banned because of being stupid.
I think the problem is usually that 99% of the drivers out there think they are good drivers, and can deal with distractions. Sadly, most drivers who think they are good drivers, aren't. Most folks that have taken advanced driving courses (for driving emergency vehicles,) know that the problem isn't just speed or distractions, but a combination of all sorts of problems: speed, driving too close (not giving yourself enough distance to avoid an accident,) not giving yourself a way out or having a backup plan, being distracted (day dreaming, shaving, reading, eating/drinking, fiddling with the radio, etc.,) not watching for threats further down the road (how many people only pay attention to the car or two in front of them,) and not being familiar with your location/how to get to your destination. The best drivers account for all of these...but then again, the best drivers don't tailgate, don't go faster than the normal flow of traffic, have a plan, try to remove as much distraction as possible, watch for problems far down the road, and know before they start driving how to get to their destination via multiple paths.
I don't claim to be a good driver, nor do I think I am stupid, but I try my hardest to live by defensive driving techniques I've been taught, and part of those rules is not to talk on the cell phone and not to text.
On the post: Verizon Wireless To Pay $90 Million Back To Users For $1.99 Data Fees It Insisted It Never Wrongly Charged
Re: Anti consumer corporate america
I'd prefer to buy an unlocked phone (except my phone company won't support it if I do,) but most folks don't want to if it means that they have to spend a lot of money to buy the phone. You can find unlocked phones online, but it is often hard to get a US provider to give you the SIM to go into the phone and they will sometimes lock the phone to their service even if you bought it unlocked, unlike providers in just about any other country I've been to. Verizon does not use GSM, so they don't use SIMs either (they use memory cards similar to SIMs for some reason, but those do not work with GSM phones.)
It is really dumb...but with the crappy system we have here, it doesn't look like it will change any time soon since they have effectively lobbied congress to stay out of it (even though what they do is the very definition of anti-trust.)
On the post: Supreme Court Agrees To See Whether Or Not AT&T Has 'Personal Privacy' Rights
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Agreed, especially since many unions are run like corporations. However, corporations are groups of people who align themselves to a common goal, too (to make money, deliver a product, and so on.) Neither should have legal rights that individuals within those group enjoy. Corporations were originally set up to shield their members, not to act as a Frankenstein (an inanimate object given life, though in this case a purely legal fabrication of life.
If I am a member of a corporation, I should be able to vote as I see fit, even if my vote is similar to everyone else in the corporation. My problem is that corporations often (though it is illegal to do so directly,) "motivate" their employees to vote a particular way just like unions often do. I should be able to vote without having to worry about the corporation I work for firing me because I voted a particular way, or chose to donate to a particular politician (or not donate to a particular politician.) It should be my right to vote/donate exactly as I see fit, without fear of repercussion for voting a way my company does not agree with. If I choose to go the same way that the others in the corporation choose to go, then so be it. In order for this to work though, the individuals need privacy, but the organization as a whole should not get a chance to donate/vote, just its members individually. Why Microsoft or the RIAA can donate out of its profits or operating funds, money to a political party or politician is what I have real problems with. If the company pays the employee a salary, and the employee decides on their own to donate that money to a political party, I have no problem with it (because the employee could just keep the money or spend it on something else.)
Of course, this can be abused too, but there are ways to keep the abuse to a minimum (such as actually enforcing the election laws that already exist.)
On the post: Ex-CIA Chief Says US Gov't Should Be Able To Shut Down The Internet
Re: Here it is
Reasonable is defined so narrowly by the courts that just about all searches are unreasonable and thus require probable cause and a search warrant. An example of a legal and reasonable search and seizure which wouldn't require probable cause/search warrant is if a police officer can see, in plain sight and where he/she is lawfully allowed to be, either a prohibited item or evidence of a crime.
Thus, if a police officer is walking down the street, and a small vial of cocaine (a prohibited item) pops out of someone's pocket and lands on the street, the police officer has every right to seize that vial once determining that it is cocaine. The search and seizure was entirely lawful because it was reasonable.
Same is true if the cop pulls you over and there is a bloody baseball bat or bloody knife in the passenger seat of your car, and it is visible to all who look into the passenger compartment (under a blanket or other object doesn't count.) A police officer can most certainly seize the evidence at that point, and detain and question you about who's blood is on the bat or knife. Sure, there may be a perfectly good explanation for it (such as you hit or cut yourself,) and they may choose to let you go, but the seizure, even if temporary, was perfectly legal without probable cause. However, if the police finds a bloody knife in the car, that doesn't automatically give them the right to open the trunk or go to your house and break in looking for a body, as they'd need probable cause and a search warrant to do that (which likely wouldn't be hard to obtain fairly quickly given that there is evidence of a crime.)
However, if it is not visible, it would be unreasonable for a cop to see it, and thus they better have probable cause and a search warrant to search for it.
(Won't get into exigent circumstances, search incident to arrest, or Terry-Patdowns, as those were gifts to law enforcement by the Supreme Court, but they are extremely narrow in their application and we could go on for hours discussing them.)
On the post: Would IMDB Really Not List A Film Because It Was Distributed Via BitTorrent?
Re:
IMDB lost a lot of respect when they took the work of a large population of their users and sold it off to the highest bidder (Amazon.) It may have been costing them a lot of money, and they may have really fought hard to keep it open, a lot of people stopped participating when they "sold-out." (I never had a problem with them selling out myself.) While they were legally in their right to do so; they certainly made a lot of enemies in the process.
The biggest problem most people had wasn't the fact that they needed the money, but the fact that there was no real attribution (beside emails and usenet posts,) for the data which appears on IMDB, and while they claimed that those who submitted the data owned the copyright to that data, and only the website format itself was owned by IMDB, there is really no way to know who to blame/praise for the data on the site.
Over the years, there has been a lot of stuff posted to IMDB which has been factually inaccurate (I pointed a mistake out to them once which included quotes directly from the director's commentary that invalidated information on their site, and yet that error persisted for years,) and their editors often ignored reports of these errors despite receiving ample evidence to the contrary (so much so that several projects popped up to record all of the errors on the site.)
On the post: Guy Building A Working (Yes, Working) Computer Inside A Video Game
Re: Re: yo dawg, i heard you like computers...
If anyone really is interested in an interesting sci-fi story here, rent the 13th floor. It may be a little cheezy, but after listening to some of the physicists, it could actually be a reality that we already exist in some sort of grand computer simulation. If we are building grand computer simulations ourselves, could it possibly be some sort of infinite recursion that we are part of too?
On the post: City Council Claims Copyright Infringement Over One Councillor Posting YouTube Clips Of Council Meetings
Re: Huh?
They are likely trying to spin this the same way the Major League Baseball (MLB) in the US wants to claim copyright on every baseball game. Sure, they can legally copyright their original broadcast, but if I happen to sneak a camera into the game and record it myself and put it online for others to view or send out a summary of the game in my own words, there isn't anything MLB can legally do to me (except maybe tell me never to come back to the baseball field, and in doing so I'd be trespassing.)
It is misleading and wrong, but copyright maximalists, greedy bastards, and censors still use it despite the fact that it is wrong as it is an exaggeration of claim. And those who don't have the money or the knowledge of the law to fight it usually back down. I wonder if there has been a study yet on the raw numbers of takedown notices sent to youtube for videos which could have been counter-claimed because of fair-use grounds or because they are original content, and yet not counter-claimed. It would be interesting to see how many of those were not fought because the person who received them was not aware they had good reasons to counter-claim or weren't interested in fighting it because they didn't want to spend money on a lawyer if the claimant ended up suing them.
On the post: Judge Tosses Out Wiretapping Charges Against Motorcyclist Who Filmed Cop With Helmet Cam
Re: Re: Re: Job was already done.
And most agencies want a listing of every crime you have committed above traffic tickets that you didn't get caught for (such as prostitution, drug use/possession, theft, etc.) and most agencies perform some sort of validation (polygraph/VSA) to try to detect someone lying.
In my opinion, this is a good thing, as the police officer is an extreme example of public trust as they have powers that can be abused more-so than any other public worker can. If a potential police officer isn't willing to come clean on crimes they got away with, they are probably going to continue doing them after they are sworn in. However, if there is one thing most cops don't like, it is a dirty cop; but unfortunately, like you said earlier, without proof that a cop is a dirty, they cannot really act on it.
Now if only we could have our politicians subjected to the same process, since I see them as an example of public trust that can be abused more-so than other public workers can. The old adage, "How do you know a politician is lying? ...his mouth is moving!" seems far more accurate now-a-days with crooked senators getting caught taking bribes or committing other crimes and lying through their teeth for the sake of their paymasters.
Next >>