With the possible exception of #3, I think voicemail has this covered.
A.
That is definitely not true for #1. I ran in a marathon event and I had my cell phone with me. At the end of the event, some woman who was not feeling very well at all was desperately trying to get a hold of her boyfriend. I called him 10 times in a row from my cell phone and, after he ran into her by chance, he admitted that he ignored my calls and voicemails. I suspect his girlfriend was not happy with him after that.
Wouldn't it be easier to go Uruguay or Venezuela?
I've lived in Venezuela. It is not a poor country. The people are poor, but they have huge oil reserves, diamonds, gold and many other natural resources. They used to be the largest oil exporter to the US until Hugo Chavez started diverting that oil to Cuba for free. Venezuela also charges import duties on all products (with some exception in the state of Nueva Esparta, which is mostly duty free). They also charge an income tax that most people do their best to avoid ever paying.
The real problem with Venezuela is corruption. When I lived there, I did not keep an ID on me at all times, even though it was required by law. I kept my passport in a safety deposit box because it was cheaper to pay the fines for not having proper ID than it was to pay the bribes to get my passport back from the National Guard when they would do one of their regular shakedowns. If you were a mere janitor for the state-run oil company (PDVSA), you were probably set for life. If you didn't have some important friends or family, you probably couldn't get a job for PDVSA.
...while "automatic", it does not install automatically unless you've enabled automatic software updates. If you haven't, it takes the same form regular updates do: a little dialog pops up in the corner of the desktop alerting you about the update, asking what you want to do.
You are incorrect. It automatically installed on three different macs that I own, and I never enable automatic update.
big binary blobs (my term, BBBs)
They prefer to be called big beautiful blobs, and some people really like them that way.
Maybe I'm just a terrible person whose sense of childlike wonder and love of lasers has shriveled; but isn't 'clearing leaves' the sort of job where a simple nozzle blowing compressed air(turned on and off based on sensor input if it turns out that you can implement a sensor system at lower cost than just running the compressor a bit more often) at the track immediately in front of the wheels would be more than adequate for the purpose?
You're missing the damage that compressed air / water does to the substrate of the track. It undermines the foundations of the line. They already do this, but it costs them more money to repair the line than it would if the leaves were just burnt on the spot.
If that's really all true and you're not exaggerating or bending anything, that's flat out mega-corruption - how do you UNcondemn a house, if no changes whatsoever were made to the structure? Have you considered getting a lawyer, or at least giving this story to a newspaper? I know it was only "$800", but if they get away with that today, then tomorrow, who knows.
Watch the TV show Hoarders. Cities condemn houses for trash violations from time to time. They even have demoed the house after the homeowner refused to clean it up because it was cheaper for the city to tear it down and cell the land than to try and clean it up.
The FBI's problem is that, soon, even warrants won't be sufficient to pry open the encryption protecting consumer level devices.
Yep, that's the FBI's problem. Tough cookies. If FBI agents want an easy job, they should become software developers or managers or something. Law enforcement has these restrictions put upon them to make it difficult. Not because we support crime, but because it's the agents are in a position of power and need to be kept under control.
They could have probably achieved the same thing by just having people use their wifi service? No GPS needed. The bonus is devices such as tablets could be used too. Sure it would mean needing to sign into wifi, but maybe giving people choice between wifi and GPS?
Maybe as an extension, they could even have someone walk the line, in busy locations, taking orders on a tablet, equipped with a card reader?
The wait in most coffee shops isn't the time to place your order, but to fill your order. Unless you're having just a straight pre-brewed cup of coffee, they aren't going to speed things up by using an iPad to take your order in line. If they do order favorites, for instance, you might be able to one tap your coffee order when you know you're about 5 minutes out from the store and walk right in and pick it up. If I'm already in the store, I'd rather just go to the front of the line and flirt with the cute baristas that seem to work in every coffee place in the world.
Well the second paragraph of the summary makes it pretty clear it isn't just a database of "people who look like they could be criminals". They are repeat offenders of serious crimes. I don't really even get what you mean by "biased slice of the population". Yeah it's biased, because they have to include bad guys in the list. Otherwise what do you mean? Data isn't racist, which was my original point. I'm assuming unless they are the most bigotted people on the planet and somehow programmed that into their algorithm, their lists include a pretty fair percentage of each race, according to their relative rates of committing the crimes they are singling out as important.
His point is that the police may be racially profiling to begin with. If they are more suspicious of black people, more likely to arrest a black person to begin with, then the data base is going to be artificially skewed towards information about black people. There may be plenty of white people that are doing the exact same thing without ever being caught because they aren't getting stop and frisked and found to be in possession of drugs, for instance.
250 km of seabed, with 50 miles between islands...i suppose consistency of units would be a lot to ask for...
The Brits are confused about units. They can't decide whether to use SI, Imperial, or Ancient Hebrew measurements. Just be thankful they didn't measure the distance in palms or spans.
There's this thing called RADIO, invented by a rather clever chap called MARCONI. It allows untethered communication between two points. It doesn't, therefore, rely on cables. It's also potentially much faster than any cable-based system and not prone to submarines colliding with it. Which happens a LOT up Scapa way.
Sounds like those sub captains need more training... The sub should never touch the floor.
You are aware that the Zune Marketplace music (PlaysForSure v2) would only work on a Zune right? And that PlaysForSure v1 would not work.
Good thing for Microsoft there is no one with a Zune to sue them.
The German Autobahns are unrestricted.
That is incorrect. There are only certain stretches of various autobahns that have unrestricted speed laws. When you're driving through busy areas they have speed limits as low as 90 km/h. They also have electronic signs that can vary the speed limit based on traffic. My cousins who are from Germany say that, in some areas, they have sensors in the road that will detect when you are speeding and take a photo of you and they mail you a citation. I know that I was hit with a speed camera on the autobahn near Hannover, but the rental company never billed me for the speeding ticket.
Function reject.