Yep. At that time Microsoft were still running Hotmail on FreeBSD because they were struggling to migrate it to Windows.

If the law sees it that way then you need to start selling to businesses and include small print that says "by accepting these goods you sign over all property, goods, chattels and monies under your or the accepting company's ownership, stewardship or control to us without let or hindrance from the date and time noted".

The court then to remain consistent would need to ensure that this small print is held to be equally valid ...

I presume they passed a law against driving while using a cell phone, not against cellphones accross the board?

Ok. You are right. However, its not that simple.

First: The standard for "reckless driving" is quite vague and subject to interpretation. The standard for "driving with a cellphone in hand" is much simpler.

Second: They can enforce "driving with a cellphone" even before it escalates to "reckless driving". They don't have to prove you weren't paying attention. They don't have to WAIT for you to drift over the center line a few times and almost run up on the sidewalk before they can pull you over. They can pull you as soon as they see you "driving with cellphone in hand".

Third: The new law communicates effectively and unequivocally that driving while on the phone is not allowed. Clearly that message was not being effectively transmitted by the existing reckless driving laws -- because epic proportions of otherwise perfectly reasonable people were routinely and obliviously doing stupid and dangerous things while driving on the phone.

And as it is always just a small fraction of the total time they are on the phone; its better ban it outright than to only try and catch people in the middle of heated conversations, or while they are having trouble dialing;... etc. Because by then its too late.

A law against cellphones while driving is a good thing IMO.

As it is, police can and DO pull people over for 'distracted driving' if they see them unfolding a map, reading the paper, or applying eyeshadow with the rearview mirror. If it applying-makeup while driving rose to the epidemic levels that cellular phone usage had then yes.

As for eating... I don't know. Is munching on a chocolate bar that distracting, or eating sunflower seeds, or drinking a cup-o-soup or sipping a coffee from a travel mug? Sure you shouldn't be eating a steak and potatoes with fork and knife with the plate in your lap; and side salad on the dashboard... and the police have discretion to pull people over for that. But an outright ban against all 'eating' seems an over reach to me.

Nobody expects otherwise.

locally i'd hope, and then sync'd online (owncloud in my case). Because getting on a plane or walking into the woods should not lose my access to calendar and contacts (or maps for that matter -- which is why I use a mapping app with local maps). Google maps is great for a lot of things, but too often its stranded me due to not having a fast enough data connection to operate efficiently, or in many cases has no data connection at all.

I want a system where either I have to confirm it can go onto the internet before it does, and/or where I could include specific permission in the initial query.

e.g.
Me "siri ... what movies are playing tonight"
siri : i need to go online for that ok?
Me: ok
siri : searching... The Hobbit... Into the Woods... etc

or:
Me - siri, go online and see what movies are playing tonight
siri : searching... The Hobbit... Into the Woods... etc

I also want all non-online voice processing taking place locally.
And, I want to be able to change the "wake up phrase".

I refuse to say "Ok google"... it gets under my skin that I am being compelled recite their brand name to use my phone ; let me name the phone / set the phrase / whatever. (Can cyanogenmod do this??)

I guess at least its more in your face that anything you say is recorded by Google... so maybe don't change that until we can process it locally.)

I'd also GLADLY trade a simpler natural language processor for local processing. Most commands I would speak to the phone are when driving and amount to answer call, refuse call, sms a canned message to contact... and some simple gps stuff.

I'll never ask it who won the world series in 1995; or to play the top 5 songs of 2002... so I don't need language processing capabilities for that.

Quite the opposite. And THAT was my point. Confession rate is USELESS as an indicator.

Normal sane well-adjusted people admit wrong doing all the time. It's what normal sane well-adjusted people do when they've done something wrong.

Yes, there is a risk they were coerced. But how do you access that risk? The confession rate alone doesn't tell us how many were coerced vs how many were not.

Cite? I'd like to learn more about European states cases wherein the accused can confess, supply the prosecution all the details of the crime... and then the case is thrown out; even though they are sitting in the court room with a guilty plea entered.

Now, if you are suggesting that all the prosecution has is a confession and then the defendant pleads NOT guilty, and recants the confession and THAT is all that the police have as evidence then sure I could see that getting tossed out of court... in any country.

Because in a utopia it would be 100% confession rate; even the spanish inquisition couldn't quite get 100%; a few people died before confessing. So what exactly do you think the rate should be, and why?

You need to SUPPORT your argument, not merely REPEAT the claim.

What about those with a guilty conscious? Who are tired of running, of being paranoid they'll be caught? Perhaps even the gulag would be a relief.

Besides, what percentage of people confessing to crimes ended up with a "lifetime of torture in the gulags"? Suspended sentences, time served, probation, fines, etc, etc... are all pretty common outcomes. And not all prisons are "gulags" either. And few sentences are anywhere near life.

A 97% "confession" rate is something straight out of a Stalinist tyranny.

Normal, healthy, sane, overall good people not only confess without coercion, but even voluntarily will turn themselves in before the police even have them as a suspect. And massive numbers of normal people will confess to something they did actually do if they are accused, especially if they believe they've probably been caught.

  A 97% confession rate tells us NOTHING at all by itself about whether or not its a "Stalinist tyranny".

It just tells us people aren't all sociopaths.

And that is a problem. It turns people who are not judges into judges.

Your presume that it would be better if every dispute was adjudicated by a judge. I disagree.

Facilitating letting people sort things out amongst themselves is usually the best policy. Lots of tribal systems use many of those informal approaches and while its not suitable for every situation, and its good that one can fall back to the courts, it really works a lot better in many situations than our adversarial system with a bunch of lawyers and judge.

The 92% guilty rate is not the interesting part. Rather what strikes me is that 97% of the "guilty" have "confessed".

Again... WHY is that interesting? Is it different in OTHER countries? Is it possible that 97% of guilty cases are along the lines of my example... where the defendant is merely pleading guilty to doing EXACTLY what he or she did; since the evidence is overwhelmingly conclusive.

I mean, I have kids. 97% of the time I bust them for something they confess to it too. Because they know I've busted them; either I've caught them red handed or the evidence is irrefutable. They aren't being coerced into false confessions... they did something wrong, and they got caught.

It is perfectly normal and healthy to just admit it; and then make reparations and seek forgiveness.

It would be better if our justice system was more like that. In Canada (and elsewhere I presume) a lot of the native groups have their own justice systems that are more traditional. They are overseen by a "real judge" and the outcomes need to be approved but they are largely autonomous, and in many respects I think its a better system than our more adversarial one.

There is no such thing as a legitimate coerced confession ("plea bargain"), the very concept is antithetical to most ideas of justice.

Equating "plea bargain" with "coerced confession" is invalid. There are lot of plea bargains where it is not a coerced confession.

If I get into a bar fight, grab a bottle, and hit someone with it. (And when its over, everyone involved is fine, a bit of bruising etc...)

That's still aggravated assault. They've got plenty of evidence and a conviction is all but inevitable. Its not an overcharge, its exactly what I did.

So my lawyer suggests we offer to plea in exchange for a suspended sentence. I've got no record, the prosecution figures there's good odds that'll be the outcome anyway... I get quick closure and to move on, less time is wasted and the tax payer saves a bunch of money.

How exactly is that antithetical to justice? What would be more just exactly?

I am not here asserting what is the "right" conviction rate

That is exactly what you are doing by asserting that 92% is somehow improper. So what do you think a proper rate would be?

Rather I simply assert that our American system of coerced false confession is patently unjust and immoral.

It is. When it happens. But how often does it happen exactly? How do I know how much its going on? You cited the 92% guilt-pleas / found guilt rate as your sole point of evidence. But when I called you on it, you backed away from it meaning anything specific.

If we eliminate the "problem of coerced false confessions" what exactly would that do to the conviction rate exactly? If you can't quantify that meaningfully then why should I be impressed or convinced by the 92% statistic? Why even bring it up?

Consider that "of the 82,092 defendants terminated during Fiscal Year 2013, 75,718, or 92 percent, either pled guilty or were found guilty"

What about the other 8%?

Were those not-guilty? Or does it include defendants whose cases that were dismissed at some point along the way?

At 92% guilty rate might mean what you say, or it might mean that cases against are largely settled and dropped during the pre-trial process.

And what about legitimate plea-bargains? Where the defendant pleads guilty to a lesser version of something ACTUALLY DID for expediency. And not just out of fear of being massively "over-convicted" at trial?

Or its a combination of all of the above. I don't think I disagree with you that "over-charging occurs" but; even without overcharging we'd see very high conviction rates. Its not worth the prosecutions time to prosecute cases until they think they WILL win.

Or to turn the tables on you ... What do you think a reasonable conviction rate SHOULD BE?

putting your full weight on the door is NOT normal treatment

I watched the video. I didn't see him put his full weight on it. I couldn't say how much weight he did put on it .. 10kg, 20kg? Maybe 40kg? Even that seems pretty reasonable for it to endure without being ruined.

I would be concerned if the hinge DIDN'T give way with someone's full weight on it

You mean like nearly every other surface in your home? I mean what if you fell neck first on your tub? Does it give way? What if you fell neck first onto your toilet? Does it give way? What about your coffee table? Filing cabinet? Kitchen table? The railing along your decks, balconies, and stairs? Do all those give way when you do a neck-first-dive on their edges?

Are you In fact, concerned that they don't? Because I could easily crush your throat on all of them if I were so inclined.

I probably wouldn't even think to use the washing machine door.... there's a toilet just a few feet further away, and that lets me combine drowning and humiliation with throat crushing.

Sure sounds like dirty prosecutorial tactics: deny the defendants access to their own income and property so they will have a hard time putting up a defense.

What's the alternative? They don't seize evidence of a crime, defeating their ability to prosecute the case, because the criminals are using evidence in question to make money...??

That's bonkers.

Cellular reception is lousy in my basement, Wifi however is top notch. It would be REALLY nice if my phone switched to wifi even if it only did it when it was at home.

For me its not about saving money, its just about working well.

It could also be a nice feature for traveling etc; I could probably avoid paying for roaming in a lot of situations. (In this case, it would be about saving some money. Roaming is ludicrous.)

As it is, my carrier (Rogers) does have "Rogers One" which is a voip app that you can use with your phone service to send and receive calls and text messages over wifi from smartphones, tablets, and there's even a (usable but not great) browser based version for desktops. Its ~great~ in theory, but its a little klutzy since I basically have two separate phone apps on my phone the real one for 'real calls' and the rogers one for 'wifi calls'. And its bit clumsy handing calls off between them or selecting which one to use receiving a call when i am on wifi and cellular. So I don't actually have the app on my phone (an S5).

But... I DO have it installed it on my old galaxy s3, and turned the cellular radio off. And its become a wifi-only extension of my cell phone which works great anywhere in my house. (Plus with only wifi-on and the cell radio off... battery life of the S3 ... my only real complaint with the phone is quite good.) Its better than call forwarding to a home line or voip because -outgoing- calls are still identified with my number -- this is really valuable to me. It can also send/receive SMS to/from my usual cell number... which is also really handy.

And when I was travelling, I took it with me. And use it where I was staying on wifi... where again it was nice to be able to just make and receive calls to and from my normal number via wifi. Without having to mess around with forwarding, or people screening out my calls because they were coming from some random unknown-to-them-voip number. (I've used free/low-cost voip services in the past with travelling, and that was always a hassle.)

Did you watch the video?

He opened the door, and applied his weight to it. Apparently this damaged the hinges.

I couldn't tell whether he put a reasonable or unreasonable stress on it. A reasonable amount of test would be completely acceptable; and a perfectly valid 'test'. When I shop for cars, its something I look at ... how solid the doors are, do they have any play in them, etc.

Further the video follows the CCTV footage with commercials demonstrating the door, ... " Look how solid it is!" while they push down on it; showing a child sitting on it... etc. Its a selling point that the door isn't flimsy.

So... was the guy attempting to damage it? Or was he just curious how solid it was? Did he push harder than reasonable?

I don't think its cut and dry either way. Let the courts decide.