Qyiet’s Techdirt Profile

qyiet

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  • Mar 29th, 2021 @ 6:07pm

    As a drone pilot for a survey firm in another country

    This sounds nuts. Here you need a licensed land surveyor to check and verify legal plans are correct, and that's pretty much it. They sign their name to it, and are liable if its wrong. (there's a bit more to it than that.. but its the core)

    Some places want a licensed surveyor to do stuff as part of their process but its pretty rare. Doing work like general topo mapping, stockpile volumes etc can be done by anyone, a lot of the field work is done by graduate surveyors who have yet to become fully licensed. Even the field work for legal surveys can be done by technician surveyors, but the licensed surveyor will be checking the work, and that all the math does in fact stack up (its their license on and liability after all).

    In the drone space we get competition from non-surveyor operators. For some tasks they do the job cheaper, and are a better option if what they produce is good enough.. then its fine. Often they don't understand the limitations of of what they are producing, or the accuracy. But that shouldn't stop them from operating.. Like we shouldn't be stopping someone from drawing a map of a place by hand.. it may or may not be fit for the purpose at the end of it. For example a "you are here map" who cares if the dimensions are correct if they are close enough to find your way. If that purpose isn't of legal consequence then its up to the client to choose the quality they want.

  • Jan 29th, 2014 @ 4:21pm

    Easy Solution (as qyiet)

    Just move it all to /dev/null it's surprisingly fast, cheap, and scalable.
  • Nov 11th, 2013 @ 11:40am

    Re: Re: (as qyiet)

    I'm IT for my company, and I will ask you to enter your password. I'll never ask you to tell me your password.

    If for some business reason I need to act as you I'll reset your password, and tell you as soon as you are available. (presumably you are not available). I'd be very suspicious of any IT department that has a different policy.

    Some users are very hard to dissuade from telling you their passwords "It doesn't matter it's just ....". I try very very had to stop them from telling me that.. I don't even want to know HOW they create their passwords.

    I understand how users get confused though. We had one user return from working for another company overseas recently. Apparently their IT dpt wouldn't let them even SET their own passwords because 'Then how would I use your computer if you are not there'. If their IT demands terrible practices like that how are users supposed to know better?
  • Nov 6th, 2013 @ 5:06pm

    This Sucks

    I live in NZ, and I'm damn sad this shit got passed. I literally protested in the streets over this. The Prime Minister is the minister in charge of this and has been trying to cover up the bullshit exposed by the kim dotcom saga all 'under urgency' with a nasty legal patch job.

    The only oversight on the new laws all come down to the PM saying "trust me, I'll never let anyone do anything bad". After cocking up the oversight on a bunch of crap including the dotcom raids I don't trust him as far as I can throw him. He also said that he would resign if there had been mass spying on NZers.. it makes the guardian interesting reading at the moment, but I'd be amazed if he would ever do it.

    The only light at the end of the tunnel is that the opposition parties have said they will repeal these changes, and instigate a wider review of NZs intelligence agencies if they are elected next time. And next time it should at least be close.
  • Jul 16th, 2013 @ 4:52pm

    4Chan Proof? (as qyiet)

    The problem with making something 4Chan proof, is it's like trying to make something idiot proof. They just keep making better idiots.
  • Jul 10th, 2013 @ 6:16pm

    Hobbiton.. good idea!

    Hrm, I live near where the Hobbiton scenes in LoTR were filmed, I wonder if they would hire it out.
  • Jun 4th, 2013 @ 2:57pm

    Re: Re: Re: That sounds familiar... (as qyiet)

    $8 in 1984 is $18 today. So it wasn't that much of a lie http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%248USD++%281984+dollars%29+
  • Apr 1st, 2013 @ 9:02pm

    Poes Law

    It sounds like they've been taking tips from this guy http://twitter.com/NotAPoliceman
  • Feb 6th, 2013 @ 2:24pm

    Re: Not dangerous?

    The difference in energy release from a microwave and the energy by a human body is 10 DBm. So to go from harmful (putting your hand in a microwave) to harmless (touching another person) that's a good baseline on an exponential scale.

    Now the difference between standing in a wifi zone, and a microwave is ~60DBm. To put it another way, the person standing next to you is emitting the same amount of energy as just over 3000 laptops wifi. If you afraid of wifi, you should be deathly afraid of other people.

    Numbers came from here.. any math was my fault :)
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DBm#Unit_conversions
  • Feb 4th, 2013 @ 5:45pm

    Double Encrypt it

  • Feb 3rd, 2013 @ 1:08pm

    Re: brilliant point (as qyiet)

    the problem with the slippery slope is that games don't teach you to slowly pump the brakes until you regain control of the vehicle.
    Actually on a greasy road I did slide my car, and regained control via pumping the brakes. AND I credit this to playing a car game. A few months before the incident I'd been playing a minor track racing game with a wheel controller. When I slid out I reacted the same way I would have in the game, and regained control of the car as fast as was possible. I'd not practiced that before in any way in the real world, but the reaction was natural and learnt from the game.

    While I don't think that computer games saved my life, I do think they saved me a few thousand dollars and a lot of mess.
  • Jan 22nd, 2013 @ 12:42pm

    Re: Re: Cafe's arn't the only ones

    You know who I blame? The assholes who don't obey the law.

    In NZ if you use the internet to do something illegal apart from copyright infringement (lets say child porn) you are held responsible for your actions, not the account holder. This is the way it should be: if you break the law, you are responsible.

    So I don't hold 'the assholes who don't obey the law' responsible. They will always exist. I hold the media execs that can't be bothered tracking down the actual lawbreakers responsible, and the politicians that re-wrote the law on their request.
    I'm more disgusted by the politicians to be honest, throwing away basic principles of law, and adding overhead costs to the entire business sector on the say-so of vested interests like this is sickening.
  • Jan 22nd, 2013 @ 12:11pm

    Cafe's arn't the only ones

    I've had to deal with this.

    My parents are partially retired (one is one isn't), and a fair portion of their income comes from rental properties that they have invested in over time.

    They run short term rentals (a few weeks to a few months) of fully furnished properties. As such you need to provide utilities: Power, phone and internet. I live in NZ so we have a 3 strike law in place already, and it holds the account holder responsible for any infringement by the users.

    Their guests are often international visitors to whom internet access is incredibly important. However there is no way that said guests are able to get an internet account setup for the short time they are staying.

    The liability this poses on the account owner and the costs associated are insane. This should be a matter of 'get a router, get an account'. But instead small business owners are looking at hiring an IT professional, doing complicated setups with expensive routers (filtering won't do the job here), and running VPN pipes overseas just so that your guests can check their mail.

    This is all just working around the law, not working within it. There IS no way for my parents to provide internet to their guests without exposing themselves to significant liability.

    -Qyiet
  • Jan 16th, 2013 @ 12:09pm

    (untitled comment)

    Could you craft a functioning patent system?
    My thoughts on this were to:
    1) limit the number of items that qualify for patent protection
    2) have an exponentially growing fee to renew that protection
    3) Allow that protection to be traded to protect a new idea
    4) Drop time as an expiration reason for patents

    The idea is only the top X innovations would protected by patents. Then allow the protection to be traded, creating a market for that protection.
    I think this would stop trolling as it would make acquiring protection for something that isn't being used too expensive. It might also stop the issues we have with scaling in that people would be able to actually review view all valid patents. Finally assuming that X was a reasonably small number, it should stop the patent bullying (as described by IBM) because no-one would be able to hold so many patents.

    I think a renewal fee that starts small and grows exponentially is also a good idea, as it will encourage patent holders drop even massively profitable monopolies as the exponential growth of costs kick in.

    I hope this would encourage a innovation, as it attempts to allow for the protection that maximalists insist is required for innovation, but at the same time encourages as turnover, and release into the public domain. With the exponentially growing renewal fee stopping the eternal patent from existing.

    So there is my 2c on how to fix the system.. what do you guys think: Would it work, can it be improved upon?
  • Jan 15th, 2013 @ 7:18pm

    Re: It's a conspiracy (as qyiet)

    Actually that works. The 'skynet' law (as written) was obsessed with defining the account holder of the public IP address as liable for any infringement. If you run across a private IP network till you are outside of NZ: No legal problem. Also if you download the same data from a web server, or any system that doesn't use a peer to peer network protocol.. no issue.

    TLDR: Stupid law is stupid.
  • Nov 12th, 2012 @ 12:58pm

    Re: Injuries (as qyiet)

    I got my share of cuts from sharp computer cases, but I can't say it was even close to every time.
  • Oct 22nd, 2012 @ 2:36pm

    Re: Re: Do your job, Zachary (as qyiet)

    4) Claiming Windows 8 won't run anything outside the Windows Store...... Did I make that claim? I don't think so.
    The first line of the story you quoted did. "Because no software can ship on this future platform without it going through the Windows Store" So you put that claim front and centre.

    Who is talking about RT devices?

    Those of use who are technically literate assumed you were talking about RT devices because of the quote above stating that the only way to get software onto the platform was via the store. This is only (mostly) true for WinRT.
  • Oct 22nd, 2012 @ 1:35pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: As i understand it this is all OPTIONAL (as qyiet)

    Well.. the file copy dialogs are much better. The multi-screen environment I use is better supported, It seems* to do everything faster, and I get much better management tools.
  • Aug 2nd, 2012 @ 4:15pm

    I'm lazy (as qyiet)

    So a recap of the week's news that techdirt saw fit to cover, and any followups would be good from my PoV.
  • Apr 12th, 2012 @ 2:27pm

    Re: (as qyiet)

    Given some of the people rumored to be have been selected to play should the Bethesda Q3 trademark settlement have gone ahead, I don't like the odds of anyone but actual paid pro-gamers taking notch.

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