I was looking at facial recognition algorithms some while back, the problem is you get too many false positives.

The problem with all of these algorithms is that it doesn't matter how accurate they are, they are only ever going to be a way to reduce the search space - you should never base a decision solely on the algorithm telling you "this is person X".

For example, some sales person says "Hey I've got this great facial recognition software it is 99.99% accurate!" (that's better than most facial algorithms out there) sounds pretty good right! - Wrong!. Suppose you set it up to look for one terrorist at Heathrow airport. The system is likely to flag up 650 000 people a year (based on 65 million passengers a year); of course it gets even worse if you start looking for more people.

This is one of my pet hates too - it should really be GPM (Gallons per Mile); probably some conspiracy with the motor manufacturers. On another slightly related note: My car gives me an average MPG for each trip. If I do a regular trip (say to work), and I want to figure out the 'cheapest' route, I want to know the 'total fuel used' per trip. If I go for the route with the lowest average MPG figure, it might be a longer route with less stopping and starting, which actually uses more fuel overall. Of course, it gives me the distance too so I can work it out, but why not give me the 'total fuel used' information too?

The point I was making is that people are driving are driving slowly because it is confusing. People could be driving slowly for a number of other reasons: i) They have to stop to give way. ii) There are speed restrictions. iii) ...

That roundabout is genius - it's so confusing that everyone drives really carefully and there are probably less serious accidents there than 'normal' roundabout.

++weather might be better - it's pretty expensive to copy.

“Against Intellectual Property” first appeared as part of the symposium Applications of Libertarian Legal Theory, published in the Journal of Libertarian Studies 15, no. 2 (Spring 2001). Copyright © 2008 Ludwig von Mises Institute

No, but they have banned paintbrushes... A sad story, but really, why not wrap our kids up in cotton wool and let them do nothing?...

What, like a sphere you mean?

Just looked at that. I particularly like the line:
Bribes. If you receive a bribe include it in your income.

Aren't bribes like illegal in the US?? on the other hand could be a typo - perhaps they meant brides?

The only problems is lack of choice of hardware and paying a premium for another OS:

From Dell (in the UK) if you want Linux, you are limited to exactly 1 laptop; and if you spec it the same as the equivalent Windows offering it works out exactly the same price (£249).

Which kind of begs the question:
Are Dell making more money on the Linux version? Or do they have to pay Microsoft for this laptop anyway?

I totally agree with your comment.

And why can't they sort something out about the bigger problem, namely that it is near impossible to buy a computer without any OS installed at all; so you get to choose whatever OS you want.

According to truecrypt (and my limited understanding). What you do is this:

1) Setup an encrypted volume (password=dummy)
2) Put some plausible files in the volume (secrets.txt - full of information you don't mind others seeing)
3) Create a hidden volume (within the first encrypted volume) (password=secret)
4) Put your real secret stuff in here.

When you use the partition you use the (password=secret) and get access to the hidden volume, should the police turn up tell them that the password is dummy, and all they see is "secrets.txt"

The clever part is that it is impossible to tell whether there is a hidden volume or not as the space that it occupies is normally full of random data anyway.

More details here:
http://www.truecrypt.org/docs/?s=security-precautions

I unfortunately read the article...

He then created a cloned card, and with help from another technology expert, changed all the data on the new card. This included the physical details of the bearer, name, fingerprints and other information.

Lets hope this puts the final nail in the coffin for this stupid idea.