I suspect the changes will just strengthen the existing provisions for demanding encryption keys.

It's unlikely that this will work particularly effectively, but to me this seems the most likely plan from the government, in that the law itself could be passed without breaking the internet.

Unless I misunderstand this, surely the contract is with the service shop though, which may be a single mechanic, but might just as easily be a small firm with half a dozen mechanics on a regular salary.

Not quite sure how it works in the US, but there are all sorts of subtle rules in UK legislation that differentiate a "disguised employee" from an independent one-man company. Although the former is still treated differently from an employee with a temporary contract. The nature of Uber would put them into the independent one-man company category though.

Okay, the police were a bit heavy handed. Still, they did arrest this kid legitimately. And he was playing with chemicals and tilt switches. There is at least some reason for reasonable suspicion when combining all these factors. Remember, this is just an investigation; they do not need proof beyond reasonable doubt.

The bomb squad investigated and decided there wasn't a problem, as is right. These guys probably played with chemistry a bit as kids, and recognised this kid was doing the same as they did.

Perhaps there was no need to close off the road, but sometimes police investigate innocent people.

I've actually always hated the explanation in the novels. It feels so contrived.

I prefer the explanation supported by the officially published script. "Ben reacts to Solo's stupid attempt to impress them with obvious misinformation", so Han was just making up random jargon in order to impress the rube.

Obviously Lucas simply had no idea that a parsec was a unit of distance, but the explanation still makes sense.

Really smart people can be naive. Nobody is immune to confirmation bias.

It strikes me as more of a proof of concept. While this sort of ratio is probably not all that useful, it does demonstrate that essentially anything useful is also possible.

Seems to average somewhere around 3

Automated devices can always be dangerous. This is the case with any mechanised factory.

The company has a duty to produce and enforce health and safety rules. The employee has the duty to follow these rules and apply basic common sense. If both of these conditions are met, accidents will still happen, but nobody is really to blame. That's why they're called accidents. We can't predict everything.

Detecting nipples shouldn't be too hard. We could assign a probability based on relative location to the face, colour difference and size. Although a lot of "artistic" nude shots don't show that. The problem here is that they tend to hint at nakedness rather than explicitly show it.You can't detect everything that might be considered rude using a single algorithm.

Religion is declining though. Even in the US, it's more that the religious are getting louder than more numerous. In Europe, and for that matter, the more liberal US cities, people are a lot more laid back about nudity.

A women in a bikini - acceptable for all but the most puritanical of people - will have a lot of skin. A woman flashing her top will have a lot less skin than that.

The algorithm seems to do some stuff with "curves" - whether this looks for breasts or just female body shape is something I'll have to play with when I'm not at work.

Yes, so? If I was using a SPARC I'd be assuming register based passing.

If it was to be used in a calculation, and the architecture doesn't have operations on constants then I'd know it would go into a register. I wouldn't know which register, but that wasn't the point. The point is knowing it will be stored in a register. In the case of a SPARC, and if we're using it as a function parameter, and if there are fewer than 8 parameters, and if the parameters are all simple types, then it will be stored in one of the upper 8 registers in the window, and a competent programmer with low level SPARC experience will be able to tell you exactly which.

I can understand this for the basic author's copyright, but the companies involved here aren't creators. Or consumers. They're middlemen. We don't need them. If we get content from another source, (e.g. Netflix US), the copyright owner still gets money. It comes from Netflix US rather than the local NZ distributor.

The publisher knows full well that some people will be using Netflix US through VPN or DNS spoofing services, and that this represents an increased value fro the company so will charge accordingly.

Companies contend there's little incentive to buy content from other providers if their customers already have access to it online.

So don't then. The customers don't need it. They can access it online.

We don't outlaw bread making machines in order to keep bakers in business either.

so?

Not being under any legal obligation does not mean they are not immune to criticism for behavior that is considered poor form.