Posts by Adriaan Brink 9 publicly visible posts • joined 21 May 2007
UK has had iris recognition on entry for about 4 years now at the major airports. It costs nothing, rarely has a queue and works fine. Faster and better than that ridiculous scanning thing for these near-field contactless (so why scan???) passports. Tried that at Gatwick last week - will go back to good old iris recognition.
The whole global warming thing is too political and emotive. I read something recently that stated that the amount of deforestation in the Amazon alone over the past 2 years caused more CO2 emmissions that all cars, planes etc over all of time. Why doesnt the government send some money to buy the forests and stop trying to prevent me flying?
Under European law a state may restrict access to foreign services where they are not deemed appropriate. Your arguments that the states monopolise lottery etc in order to protect "innocent civilians" are nonsense - if that was the concern the state monopoly would not be dishing out the same vices and advertising as freely as they do.
Fact is that across Europe gambling is accepted and often protected for state monopolies - this falls foul of the EU free trade agreements. If you think gambling is a bad thing then you should argue for abolition, not protectionism.
Be happy that with fair competition at least you will get a more competitive option for the consumer.
If you think using stats programs will make you win at Poker you have a way to go. Yes - the stats programs help. But in no way do they define a winning player! I used them for some time - and learnt the odds of the various hands. I dont use them any more (if you go for conspiracy theories what about the one that says the stats program knows your hand and could be sending it back to a server?).
As for online poker being rigged - I see very little evidence of it. No doubt there are bots, and no doubt there is collusion. These are inevitable but the big operators are aware of the risks and have in place solutions. The AP thing certainly looks dodgy and I would say shows up a blatant security breach at AP. But I do think this is an isolated (and stupid) thing. In general when a poker network is taking in vast amounts in rake and tourney fees every day there is really no incentive to cheat. They make money anyway!
Enjoy the game and gamble with what you can afford to lose.
I totally disagree with you Matthew. If they have figured out the connections etc with Kinkos it would surely be a relatively small step to publish the interface and at the very least make it possible for users to 4replace fedex with "their favourite printer". Printers could be given a spec for the format of a file which they could send to their clients to morph the reader into "theirs".
Where there is a will there is a way - Adobe has enough software guys on staff to sort this out pronto.
I have in my drawer the most annoying mobile phone I ever owned - the Samsung SGH D900. I can live with the less than impressive battery life, and the 3 Mp camera is quite nice, but the operating system for all its bells and whistles drives me nuts! It is just not intuitive once you have become used to the excellent Sony Ericsson OS. It just doesnt do what you would think it should, and there are always a few more keystrokes than there should be.
Pity - I liked the size and the camera and the synch is really good. But I got so frustrated I started throwing it at the wall!!
Having used IRIS for some time now (the one at Gatwick has been there at least 6 months), I have never had a problem with it except when it has been closed or some idiot who hasn't registered tried to use it ahead of me. It is a fantastic time saver for frequent travellers and I am happy if noone else uses it (let's keep the queues small)!
As long as the registration office is suitably hidden...
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