That isn't a reduced right of privacy, the RIGHT is identical

Semantics. They are effectively subject to being monitored by their prosthetics for big brother.

If you wear your Google Glasses or carry a GPS tracker (ie. cell phone) or have medical devices that record logs of some sort, those devices could serve to incriminate or exculpate (great word, eh?) you whereas someone without those types of devices would obviously not be incriminated or exculpated

One has the option to turn them off and/or leave them at home. The guy with a pacemaker doesn't have that luxury. The guy with the prosthetic eyes shouldn't be in a position where he has to choose between privacy or sight.

I guess it would suck to be a eye-implant thief

That's the low hanging fruit.

" I would imagine that since the vast majority of people, in the vast majority of cases, are innocent of the crimes they are suspects of, such implants would tend to provide proof of innocence more often than mistaken evidence of guilt "

That boils down to little more than a restatement of "If your innocent then you have nothing to hide".

I will admit little sympathy for cases where true evidence of guilt is obtained through proper search warrants - that's how it should work.

Then come the day when we can stick a needle in your brain and dump your memories out as video, you would submit to that, as long as they had a warrant?

Lol they'll post the spacing in metric and people in the US will be totally lost. 145mm of room, wow thats a lot!!!

"I'm sorry sir, you can't fly in this seat without a Confined Space Certification from OSHA"

I was of the impression that most of the airlines were all bemoaning the low traffic, driving up the costs of flying because "nobody is flying anymore". If that is the case, why are they not making flight a more appealing option to draw more passengers?

It's easier to just reduce costs by run fewer flights with more people crammed into each flight.

Book your flight based on things like creature comforts. If the airline doesn't offer what you consider a bare minimum, DON'T Use them! Vote with your Money! If enough people did that, the airlines would Have to accommodate, or go broke in a hurry! Be willing to pay for what you want, or Not pay for a bad experience!

Unless you have days to drive or cruise to where you can fly in hours, the airlines are the only game in town.

There is actually precedent for protected communications like that.

That's not really a precedent for implanted electronics. Although its at least tangentially related.

But its more a special case of telecom / wiretap laws as anything to do with medical devices.

Frankly, we don't know anything about how these theoretical brain implants would operate

Your brain implants is futuristic and extreme. What about much more mundane situations that are already a medical reality. The diagnostic/logging capabilities of current implanted medical devices is already something that could potentially be searched with a warrant.

Should that categorically be protected against search?

Spigot mentions "Additionally access to the Spigot source code repository has been forcibly removed from GitHub following a similar DMCA takedown."

There's no way to credibly claim a GPL violation resulting from distribution of the source code.

perhaps not as prestigious as MIT, but more than sufficient for most people.

Sufficient for people who want to become a cog in the machine. Those people who are paying for the application service for top ranked schools want to go to those schools because they don't want to become cogs in the machine, they want to own the machine. It is a completely different mindset from "most people".

Second time I read this sentiment in this thread. It fails on two counts -- one that students at lesser schools want to become cogs in the machine; I knew quite a few from my state school who had founded their own company before graduation, and others who wanted to. Two, that MIT and other elite students don't become cogs -- there sure are a lot of MIT-educated "cogs" where I work; they're not any less a "cog" than me for having gone to MIT.

Plenty of smart people even at large mediocre state universities, though -- and they tend to cluster.

The FAA: Keeping the airspace around tornados safe for the public since 2013.

What, exactly, is controversial about this? The FAA is responsible for the safety of aviation, and a lot of corporations are deliberately, flagrantly breaking the law. Sounds like a good idea that the FAA enforce the law.

The FAA tried to fine one commercial aerial photographer for "deliberately, flagrantly" breaking this law. They lost in court. Not, mind you, a judicial determination: they lost in their own administrative court, where one of their own administrative judges ruled they did not have the authority to regulate these aircraft.

Legally, nothing has changed since then, though appeals are still in progress. The FAA, thus, is attempting to assert an authority that at the present time, they have been told by their own courts that they do not have.

That's what's controversial.

Just because you choose to hide the recorder inside your own body -- whether it's surgically implanted or just up your arse -- doesn't change the legal argument

Perhaps it should change the legal argument.

What if your 'cybernetics' are simple pacemaker that log's diagnostic information, tracking your heart rate over time. That information could be used as evidence of your physical state -- look his heart rate was elevated at the time of the crime, when we allege he shot the victim and then ran.

My heart can't provide testimony against me, no matter how many search warrants the police execute. Why should someone with a bad heart have to submit his pacemakers diagnotic information to police scrutiny, in exchange for life (even if the police need a warrant to get it).

And that's using technology today. 20 years from now, a man with a cybernetic replacement limb -- does he have no privacy? A police warrant pulling the limbs diagnostic logs, could establish that yup at 10:14 on Wednesday the arm was raised, and the index finger exerted force equal to the trigger pull weight of the gun believed to be the murder weapon... the jury will like that.

And you are right the current law, makes that a-ok. But its a good question whether that should be a-ok. Should a person have to choose between being made whole but having a 'bug' installed on them that can queried for information by the police with a warrant; or being disabled (limbless, blind, deaf, ...) or perhaps its no choice at all, perhaps without the enhancement they die (artificial heart, liver, etc).

An implanted cell phone is no different, legally, than any other cell phone.

Here's a far better example:

Suppose your eyes were destroyed, and you had cybernetic eyes implanted. Suppose those eyes logged various operational diagnostic information for the last couple weeks on internal memory, information that can be used to determine things like when you were asleep, when you were awake, when you were indoors vs outside in sunlight, etc.

Should the police be able to get a warrant for that information?

If so, then a blind person with cybernetic eyes has a reduced right to privacy over regular humans. His eyes can essentially testify and provide evidence against him on demand, mine can't, no matter how many warrants the police obtain.

It raises a very interesting question, really.

Muslims, at least not on TV.

"Little Mosque on the Prairie" took the piss out of Muslim's on a regular basis, from the inside.

And shows like 24 etc pretty much setup "Muslims" as a one dimensional stereotypes not really any different than 'dumb vain blond' or 'dumb football jock' stereotypes...they get "dumb terrorist muslim".

All gas-engine cars are quite similar, and thus the same mechanic can work on most of them without much trouble

Parts are not interchangeable, and the more brands you service the wider your parts inventory has to be. Sure they all order in for the major stuff, but at least the most common regular consumables have to be on hand.

And experience is very vehicle specific. If you know how to change a clutch in a VW Jetta that doesn't mean you know how to change a clutch in an Ford Taurus.

The principles are the same, but if you work on VWs all day, you'll almost know by muscle memory what exactly needs to be removed in what order, what bolts are where, what else should be checked while you are "in there", etc. Switch cars, sure you can change a clutch but it will take longer and be less efficient.

But a Tesla has some major differences that would require some significant training, and probably a number of new tools to work with them. This makes me think dealers would be either less willing to service Teslas, or would cut corners in doing so.

Definitely agree. But one would think the same would be true of a dealer servicing the Nissan Leaf etc.

Bet you wouldn't say that if Bennet had posted this story. But the again it would have been a philosophical piece about how while he likes the color blue, its not his favorite color blue, and how he wished that all error display screens should be *his* favorite blue color...

Awesome. Thanks for that. It almost makes having to suffer through Bennet's use of slashdot as his personal blog worth it, just to see it satirized like this. :)

She slept with this guy and "coincidentally" her game floated to the top of his list. At the very least it is a conflict of interest.

Whose conflict of interest? I can see how it would be a conflict of interest for the journalist to single out the game like that. I'm not sure what the developers conflict of interest is though.

So lets jump off the deepend straight to accusations that she is a manipulative woman willing to have sex with a journalist to get exposure. Even if that were true, so what? She's not the one required to maintain journalistic integrity. That's on the journalist.

Or maybe the journalist was using his position in the industry to try and get laid. Why aren't we calling him out as a total creep, with no integrity, selling female indie developers exposure for sex? Perhaps he initiated the offer by hinting he'd plug her work if they hooked up?

Or maybe its neither? Maybe two people got together out of some sort of mutual attraction. And the journalist, clearly holding her and her work in some regard makes a bad judgement call to make favorable mention of her work without disclosing the relationship. End of story? Why do we know its not that?

Is there any evidence this was a deliberate attempt to get a favorable review, as opposed to being merely a deliberate attempt by both parties to get laid with the subsequent favorable mention as nothing more than a poor judgement call by the journalist?