Posts by S4qFBxkFFg 656 publicly visible posts • joined 6 Feb 2012
On the subject of phone manufacturers being evil, Apple certainly aren't alone.
I recently discovered my HTC Sensation XE doesn't actually support GLONASS, even though it's enabled in the chip, the radio firmware (which I'm not about to start messing with) is ignoring the perfectly good signals from 24 satellites (nearly half), for no particular reason I can work out.
Compare to the wife's Samsung which quite happily picks up signals from both sets of satellites.
Not really, they were designed to extend the lethal radius against armoured vehicles for tactical nuclear weapons.
Reason being, a tank is quite a good place to be (in comparison to lots of other alternatives) when nuclear devices are going off nearby, the thick metal armour is good at protecting against the blast and radiation.
The lethality could of course be increased by increasing the TNT-equivalent tonnage - but the engineers involved were already trying that, so the only way of increasing tonnage was to increase the size of the warhead, which meant you'd need bigger missiles, aircraft, artillery etc.
They discovered, however, they could increase the amount of neutrons emitted (this previously hadn't been a design goal, so there was room for improvement). The reason neutrons are dangerous to tank crews is that they make material they hit radioactive as well. The tank would then be a piece of dangerous nuclear waste, even if it had protected its occupants from the blast.
The thing to remember, is that this would still be an honest-to-goodness nuclear weapon, with plenty of explosive power; it certainly wouldn't "leave everything else intact".
It might not be 123D scan, but I heard that that has happened, and has been surreptitiously uploaded after adding a "shell" (in the shape of something innocuous) to the model, where the shell is too thin for any printer to actually produce.
i.e. download what you think is a statuette (for example), get penis.
I'm also feeling evil here - but in a little bit more of a realistic way...
I'm imagining if someone was to arrange a flashmob outside Mr. Firstenberg's house, during which every participant would be making a call on their mobile.
If his head explodes, more research is required.
The assault on Dol Guldur by the White Council is going to be included too; it was referred to in the books, but will be detailed in the film.
(They'll probably do it more dramatically than Elrond, Galadriel, and some wizards walking in the gate while Sauron buggers off down an escape tunnel - think Arwen: Warrior Princess™ decapitating orcs and trolls all over the place.)
Won't stop me seeing it though, somewhat annoyingly.
If this was used voluntarily, it could drastically improve the quality of all sorts of mapping projects.
With a little improvement, the Google Street View cars would be quickly rendered obsolete; another application could be producing maps for attractions such as amusement parks and museums.
I'd be quite happy to have such an app running on my phone as long as I could reliably and automatically turn it off for private locations (e.g. my home and office).
Instead of fines, would the European Commission be able to split the browser business off from the rest of Microsoft, so that Internet Explorer would be the product of an independent company from that day on?
They couldn't favour their own browser if they didn't have one.
This might have the amusing side-effect of Internet Explorer suddenly improving because it needs to be popular. After all, it's probably not necessary to Microsoft's continued existence, but it would be to a company that had no other products.
Now that would be popcorn-worthy.
Another use for some copypasta:
It may or may not be a tax, but the important thing is that it's voluntary.
I have no TV, and no licence (TVL) either (although neither of those facts necessarily implies the other).
Some (possibly) interesting facts:
Most of what is on broadcast TV is available on iplayer, or similar services.
Having a TV without a TVL is perfectly legal.
Only watching or recording TV programmes as they are being broadcast requires a TVL.
Letters demanding purchase of a TVL are full of descriptions of fines, court appearances and make much use of the words "could", "may", "up to", and "possibly"; but very rarely words such as "will", "at least", and "certainly".
The "enforcers" who go door-to-door to addresses without a TVL have no right to force entry to buildings - if they are told to go away, they should. (A better response is probably "No thank you, I don't need one." or something similar.)
Their questions have no legal requirement to be answered.
They receive commission on every TVL they sell.
To actually enter a building without the consent of its owners or residents they need to have the police with them.
They cannot do this without evidence that TV is being watched or recorded as it is being broadcast at that address. This evidence could be as trivial as something stupid admitted by one of the occupants in response to insistent questioning.
In summary, you probably don't need to pay for a TV Licence.
"How the hell is it going to deal with construction zones? Sometimes even I, a human with a lot more vision recognition ability than even Google can muster, has to slow down and think about exactly where the hell the high school dropout who placed the cones and signs is trying to tell me to drive."
Simples, the "high school dropout", and every other human, will be banned from erecting any sort of barrier on the roads. After all, there'll be construction robots that can do it correctly, in a way the robot cars will understand.
"people are prepared to forgive Microsoft for the way they treated customers, suppliers and the industry in the past"
A big gamble, unfairly or not, for many people, Microsoft==bluescreen.
When my wife and I were talking about her next phone, our thoughts were:
iPhone - "If my Macbook is representative of their build quality, it or the charger will fall apart if someone looks at it wrong."
Android - "OK, I guess."
Blackberry - "..." (Aren't they for chavs and suits?)
Windows Phone - pause, then simultaneous burst of laughter from both of us
OK, the British judge was a bit silly actually saying it out loud, due to the BRAVE==GOOD thing lots of people have, but it's essentially true (I presume, I'm not inside his head). I, and lots of others, certainly wouldn't have the balls to go around breaking and entering when there could be a burglar-eating Staffie lurking in the hallway; that's even if I wanted to make burglary my career.
Bravery can be used to enable someone to carry out good AND/OR evil acts, something to remember.
Still, brave or not, he should've been sent down for it.
Trouble is, fibre still gets yanked up on the off chance it might be copper.
The story I heard was that a company installing cable had put notices up saying something along the lines of "OPTICAL FIBRE CABLE - DOES NOT CONTAIN COPPER".
The thieves left a note, next to the yanked fibre, saying "Sorry - we have to check."
Still, a beer for them if it helps get rid of all that copper.
"You know, for a houseful of lawyers, successive governments have made some crap laws."
Indeed, crap laws create a demand for lawyers - it's no more remarkable than if parliament was full of florists and legislated for Mothers' Day to be monthly rather than annually.
"the treaty is explicit in that the bags contain documents"
OK, so Assange can just curl up in a big suitcase with two sheets of A4, one of which has "This is a document." printed on it, and the other has "This is another document."; bag contains documents, job done.
However, if the treaty specifies the bags can contain *only* documents, then your point would stand.
As MrF says, the 2nd Amendment does include the militia statement, the text is:
"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."
BUT
There is no specification that the "bear arms" part depends on the preceding part being true. Indeed, in a legal sense, the "militia" part is *defined* as being true.
To extend it to an absurd degree, if the amendment said:
"The Moon made of green cheese, being necessary to the cheesiness of the heavens, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."
...it would still apply.
The militia part is preamble, it provides background, but does not affect the applicability of the part about bearing arms. If we assume the writers of the 2nd amendment were not fucking morons, then we can assume they would have written something like:
"If a well regulated Militia is necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."
or...
"As long as a well regulated Militia is necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."
I think those writers realised how definite "shall not be infringed" sounds, I also think they would have specified if the right to keep/bear arms only applied to members of militias.
Of course, I am not an American judge, so continue as you were; my, or anyone else's, arguments probably won't change anyone's strong opinions on this matter.
Copy/pasted from another site:
It may or may not be a tax, but the important thing is that it's voluntary.
I have no TV, and no licence (TVL) either (although neither of those facts necessarily implies the other).
Some (possibly) interesting facts:
Most of what is on broadcast TV is available on iplayer, or similar services.
Having a TV without a TVL is perfectly legal.
Watching recorded programmes on a TV without a TVL is perfectly legal.
Only watching TV programmes as they are being broadcast requires a TVL.
Letters demanding purchase of a TVL are full of descriptions of fines, court appearances and make much use of the words "could", "may", "up to", and "possibly"; but very rarely words such as "will", "at least", and "certainly".
The "enforcers" who go door-to-door to addresses without a TVL have no right to force entry to buildings - if they are told to go away, they should. (A better response is probably "No thank you, I don't need one." or something similar.)
Their questions have no legal requirement to be answered.
They receive commission on every TVL they sell.
To actually enter a building without the consent of its owners or residents they need to have the police with them.
They cannot do this without evidence that TV is being watched as it is being broadcast at that address. This evidence could be as trivial as something stupid admitted by one of the occupants in response to insistent questioning.
In summary, you probably don't need to pay for a TV Licence.
There is an easy-ish way to solve this - build the maps using all the Android handsets that are moving around in those buildings.
An option in maps like this:
I want data from my phone (location and camera images) to be used to improve Google Maps. Y/N
Once checked, it could use the images visible whenever the camera is uncovered to build up visualisations street-view style.
Unfortunately, I think that's how it works, sort of, even if they're being technically prosecuted for multiple offences.
Watch out for phrases such as "other offences taken into consideration".
Also, the concept of "concurrent sentencing".
Hmm, it's *possibly* enough time; I recall reading that a particular nuclear explosive device could vapourise a sphere of 100m diameter of rock so maybe 100 of these would be enough to reduce that kind of asteroid to bits small enough to burn up in the atmosphere.
So the question is, how many rockets can be launched in 4 days, and how many nukes can you stuff in each one?
...employ some clever people from the banking and printing industries to study Euro notes, figure out the super-secret tell-tales that only the ECB know about, then run the printing presses until they melt.
Even if they printed their entire debt, would it really inflate the Euro by that much?
"If you use the inter-web/net/trash to watch on-demand services, then you need a licence only if they are being broadcast at the same time as you watch them."
Hmmmmm. If I watched TV this might be something to ponder - given the short delay inherent to digital broadcasts would they even count as being watched "at the same time"?
Claims of this sort could be taken to a possibly ludicrous extreme, given c isn't infinite...
"Your honour, given that my client lives about two hundred miles away from the transmitter, he was watching the programme at least one millisecond after it was being broadcast."
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