Ugh, that is what I get for drinking and typing. Line 10 should be: on full CCTV camera and has the DNA to prove it?

Huh, really? So the camera is just gonna grow arms and legs and stop the crime. Damn I want that camera because I'm gonna get rich quick! Cameras are way more worthless than cops. Cops peek just over cameras since they on occasion do stop a crime before it happens. But usually its to pick up the pieces or to harass you.

Personally the latter portion is where I hate cops the most. Some cops can be complete anal asshats but I think those are the young ones who seem to think their cock is bigger than yours and want to prove it with the power they wield; those same cops should be fired and put on an island to rot. I know some good people who are officers and they wear the uniform respectfully.

Also, wouldn't you just love to be the poor sap that gets screwed by some political stooge that knows you know something about him so he stages a crime on full CCTV camera and hast he DNA to prove it? Seeing as its now proved to be pretty "easy" to fake DNA. Which I'm sure has been used at some stage before the public knew about it. It would be very surprising to find that none of the major government agencies (CIA, FBI, Interpol) didn't know about any of this before hand. I'm just saying.

It may be patched, but if someone used the flaw around the time it was originally created (2001) then that is an awful long time for someone to have created another method into the machine after they've gotten in. Ever read The Cuckoo's Egg? Simply put if a hacker got into a system you'd think the first thing they do after escalating their privileges is to create a backdoor in case the one they came in was closed. Now...try to find that backdoor and any other apps the hacker put on the system. 8 years of residing on a system is a looong time, assuming they weren't found out beforehand.

Ugh.. 2nd line: should be *proven 4th line: should read: issues crop up around the planet

Well by the standards shared by this particular judge I would think this would/should hold up against an RIAA legal battle, unless of course your ISP "finds" the IP address "assigned" to your modem/router. Which technically is a total farce since its been prove that both MAC spoofing and IP address spoofing is very simple.

BUT...wtf does EU law have to do with US law?! NO JUDGE should be using another countries laws/case law in the US court system. I realize that simliar issues crop around the planet, but our judges should be following what laws we have not another. They should be applying US law and the US Constitution and if it doesn't exist in either law or the Constitution I'd have to check on what should be done. My suggestion would be for them to drop the case until something is legislated and/or notify the stated/federal legislature of this gap to actually utilize our freak'n system that is in place. This legislating from the bench pisses me off; although I didn't read the article (per procedure for posting) so I don't know.

well...I suppose it is working...odd. For some reason the preview mode didn't display the markup properly.

The courts understand this very well. That is why we are in the state we are in now with the justice system. While we have the "3 ring circus" [emphasis is mine] whom is to regulate the courts? One of the biggest issues is that once something is decided in the court system (mainly the Supreme Court) it is very hard to over turn later down the road and slowly allots more power to the judiciary (depending on the decision) or the federal government.

I'm reading a book now, while it may be slanted towards a certain political view, the view cites some very interesting case law which has shaped much of this country in the last 4-5 decades. Unfortunately this will near impossible to reverse and erodes what power the states may have had in making their own decisions (without the interference from the federal government). One of the biggest problems right now is that you've got people who believe that the federal government should do everything for us. Then others that believe in states' rights and the federal government should go f* off.

I suppose with my viewpoints of the Constitution and the our judiciary I'd be labeled as an "originalist." One of the problems that I've seen is that people go about their business non the wiser on what is going on in the government and in the courts. Thus both have been gaining power that was never theirs in the first place. This garbage of "reading between the lines" is utter crap. This is where the legalese comes into play and someone whips out Webster's dictionary and tries re-define what specific words in the Constitution or in the Bill of Rights mean. People seem to forget that, as stated above, judges at the end of the day are just other normal people with baggage and/or side agendas. This leads to the crap we've seen getting past the court systems which boggles the mind since if they were following the letter of the law (both federal and local) most of these crap RIAA/MPAA law suits would be dealt with pretty quickly. However, IANAL so I don't know law in every 50 states; let alone every code in my state although I have read several sections when needed. Most law is not extremely hard to understand, but the interpretations seem to take on a life of their own once a lawyer or judge starts to review it. Personally I think they start seeing things that aren't there...this is usually done to get to whatever ends that person is looking for in the law.

Hell, look at the first Supreme Court judges appointed...several of them were quiet crazy and rambled, but a few still managed to vote and make decisions on several issues that affected our country.

note: I tried to separate the paragraphs...apparently the paragraph markup isn't working.

I was just talking to my fiance about this yesterday. I'm of the belief we would be in a much more technological society if we didn't have so much greed or worry about money in general. Its a radical idea, having no finances/money. But its an interesting one. Where does it say you have to have money in order to survive? Where does it say you have make money, exchange it for goods, etc etc. The point is it was an institution put in place a long long time ago and in my opinion only progresses because people put a value to a piece of paper or a precious metal...which when you think about it are metals that could be melted down and put to use in building other stuff. I do realize that money gives a balance to being able to provide for most peoples. It regulates the numbers of people being able to feed. Which in turn is a form of population control, as those unable to feed themselves most likely die. I'm not sure how one would feed an entire planet by mandating certain people do jobs for the greater good of the people. Seeing as someone would have to farm, someone would have to provide the food to the people, etc. A dramatic shift in the way stuff is delivered would have be devised. And from there I suppose the idea falls apart.

Keep in mind the above is a "what if" scenario...I'm of course going to work on Monday to make a living and in order to get my paycheck, but I'm just saying.

We're mining this planet pretty hard afaik not all of these metals generate fast enough for us to replace them. Granted I most likely won't be alive for this, but there will be generations of others that will be.

Sometimes I wonder if humanity will go through something similar from Star Trek (all the wars, etc then dumping money for a barter/free system). I doubt this since greed seems to be an inherent trait that is passed on from generation to generation. Which when I think about it greed is just selfishness molded into another form.

At any rate I think we'd have a lot more going for the space exploration and/or computer technology if this were swept away. Although I do realize that one of two things would most likely happen. Either a) people would get along and share as a community or b) everyone would be in the mindset of kill or be killed to survive mentality.

That is actually a decent idea and I would say that Christians should do the same. However, many do not fully understand what is written in the Bible. Heck I know I don't know everything in the Bible..no one does. Personally I don't know anyone who goes around preaching to people they know everything in the Bible.

I don't know about you, but most of our decent laws came more or less from the Bible. I'm sure there are plenty of people that would disagree with wanting to be married to multiple people, etc. That is probably the only big example I can think of off the top of my head. Heck, I don't know maybe I have you wrong, maybe you think its OK to randomly kill people, but I know most people would object to that. But I would pose the idea that there are probably more people that would not nor was it common in society that the founding fathers drew up the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

I'm not quiet sure where you're pulling things from as "morally reprehensible" but you know everyone believes their own things. What you find morally reprehensible could be worlds apart from another. I know a friend whom is agnostic and would probably disagree in some areas and then agree in others with you in this matter.

There is also a certain way the Bible is setup and if you just read it like any other book certain understandings of various sections will probably go right past you. I'm not saying you have to be a theologian to read it, but usually having a discussion with someone that actually practices the religion might give you better insight.

But...from the sound of it you're just probing the book to find fallacies and other ammunition to prove a point in some argument. Which really is a poor reason to read a book. If that is the case sure you'll probably hate reading it and just find some reason to disgust you more about Christians, which is sad. Christians are just like any other person with their beliefs. I think some are mis-guided about how to go about speaking to people about their beliefs. Jesus didn't force his ideals on people that didn't care to listen. He did disrupt a few places and made scenes, but ultimately more or less had conferences with people in areas where people came if they wanted.

I don't know what state you live in, but its not 30min of training in my state. It was several weeks of in class education with very much outdated material (videos from the 70s/80s). Then it was several classes of behind-the-wheel.

Unfortunately this still isn't enough. Here is the problem. The US allows any idiot who is smart enough to pass the easy ass test that is given and can cough up the $25 bucks or whatever it is now for a license.

In my state you don't have to do jack to re-new the license other than cough up more money to pay the driving tax so the local coffers are filled with more $$. Its a system put in place by the government to get low amounts of cash that add up for the sheer numbers of people applying for a license all the time. Its a cash cow the government milks and could car less about safety in cars until their voters got all pissed off.

After watching a show on the Auto Baun I immediately wanted to switch to how some European countries do their license structure. You have to pay around 1k for a license and pass some pretty difficult tests from what I understand. Again not the greatest limitation to the rich idiots among us. But it still cuts out half the population too poor to pay for a license, this elevates some cars off the road. This would also get the tards who can't afford to maintain their car and are in an inherent danger to the rest due to said poor maintenance.

But what it really comes down to is people don't actually follow the driving laws/rules. Left lane is for passing /speedier cars, get your slow ass in the far right lane, not the middle (on highways). Its not hard. Then you have the people who think it is a race and go 90-100 on highways of 65MPH...and not cops around to pull them over. If you're going to have highway police at least have enough for the stretch of highway unless their using some sort of satellite tracking to give out tickets now.

If you're going to cite something like that at least provide a link to the court case or brief that states this.

This bill is infuriating. What is the most upsetting is that Congress (as much as we have joked about it here) has finally taken it seriously and is trying to get their hands on all this data under the guise of "save the innocent children".

First off, the children don't need saving. Parents need to f'king watch their kids more closely, its not societies job to do it for them. While a neighborhood that looks out for each other is great, its not a right.

Secondly, this is not going to catch the vast majority of the crooks they purport to be after because most aren't even in the US, their in other countries like China, Malaysia, etc. Apparently Congress doesn't understand that just because the cam or pictures make it look like the US doesn't mean it is. They're just assuming that there are mass pervs here in the US trying to steal children. This has been going on for decades we hear more about it because we now have an ease of communication that is unprecedented.

Thirdly, it is not my job to foot the FBI's bills for them before they are granted their 30 million which is provided in this bill (section 10 line a), which imo at this point is an utter waste of cash considering the predicament we're in.

It is obvious this is a political magic trick to get access or get a foothold (nice military strategy) on the logs of all US citizens who've done nothing wrong in the first place. What happened to probable cause? If the government wants records of suspected pedophiles, then they better have something to back up that claim otherwise they're just talking out their ass and any request should be ignored. If the request is warranted at that point the logging of the individual should be started and any pertinent information should be shared to the proper authorities, but never before. There is a reason we have the Bill of Rights. As a side story when I was in DC a few years ago I had visited the National Archives and wanted a copy of either the Constitution or the Bill of Rights. In the end I picked the Bill of Rights due mainly to the climate we are in. It is a reminder to what our rights are and that we should not need to scream and shout to get them from our own government....however the founding fathers apparently knew this would likely happen and several stated openly that if necessary we the people should take back the government, by force if necessary. Not to sound like a dissident, but Jefferson's words are something I strive never to forget in this age.

Jefferson once said/wrote:

Hopefully its not a problem. This was one of the first things I wondered about after reading the article. I then found: this link which explains the process much better.

"With this technique, the researchers were able to achieve defect-free arrays of nanoscopic elements with feature sizes as small as 3 nanometers, translating into densities of 10 terabits per square inch. One terabit is equal to 1 trillion bits, or 125 gigabytes." (from the site) - so about 125 gigabytes per square inch. That is quiet a bit of space, however I still think its a far cry from what they make it out to seem like.

I mean 125 gigabytes per square inch? How many of those would fit on something the size of your pocket..that is maybe, say 5 square inches? It would only fit maybe 1.2 terabytes... (please by all means create a grid using square inches to see how many would fit on an object roughly the size of a "normal" pocket..don't forget to round it as it'll be a platter not a complete rectangle) At this point its not worth the press release they put out unless they can get disk compression or shrink the amount they can fit per square inch even more. Otherwise the normal disk platters we have at >1 terabytes are going to trounce this and are already probably cheaper. Don't get me wrong I could see this as another step to downsize platter size, but unless they're putting multiple platters of these things in a disk then the idea of fitting the library of congress is still a far reach. And even if they do it won't fit in your pocket well...

Yes I do realize that the library of congress thing was a stretch and concocted here, but that should be their endeavor imo. Not only would it make a good marketing move, but imagine what else you could fit besides the library of congress on a single disk...although it does bring up a relative question of how reliable over time the drive would be.

This just one of the many loop holes that needs to be fixed in our judicial system.

From your explanation I can understand the situations where the need for something similar would arise for this, however the exact use as its described for the RIAA needs to be completely removed from ever being used again. There is no reason to ever need to that for ethical legal reasons...and no I don't mean they should be settling out of court either. I mean the idea of court should not even crop in their minds for something so trivial.

Granted I also understand that most uses of the law at this juncture in society are for the sole purpose of gaining money, which disgusts me and imo paints a poor self image for law and lawyers in general. I mean no disrespect to you of course. I just feel the law has been corrupted at this point and should be gone thru with a fine tooth comb and cleaned up.

Get rid of all the litigious lawyers who's only purpose is to stir up trouble and find people to get them to sue another person that they had not originally intend to sue, just so they can make a quick buck. The law has so many other better purposes than to find someone to sue because of a car fender bender which was obviously an accident. Now if it were due to negligence or an attempted run down then yeah I understand that, but because someone steps on your foot (yes I saw this go to court) is utter crap. Judges should be throwing this shit out of court and fining the dumb bastards who try to take it to court in the first place.

Begin rant

Perhaps my idea of a decent society is too far gone at this point. I'll probably be modded down or mocked for actually wanting a decent society that doesn't try to screw the next person. What the hell is wrong with being happy with what you have, not like you can bring all this shit with you when you die. Sure I can understand wanting cool stuff, but trying to steal, cheat, and lie to get all? Come on really there is more to life then that. But I'm probably preaching to the wrong crowd, since most /.'ers are pretty bright.

/ end rant

I've also got a '98 sunfire and thing kicks. I currently have 240k miles on it and all I do is get the oil changed every 3k-5k miles , put high mile oil in it and it serves its purpose. My fiance has an Oldsmobile Alero and the thing is falling apart albeit slowly but it doesn't get as near as good gas mileage as my car. I also get close to 33MPG highway, not sure on City I do mostly highway driving.

But I was going to bring up that argument of the newer cars mileage vs. older cars is ridiculous depending when and what car is used to compare. I compared my car to a '09 Camry and these are the results: link I do have to admit that on paper the Ford does get 24/35, but the last time I drove a Focus was in drivers Ed and you had to floor the car to get up any hills. Not sure if its that way any more, but it turned me off on ever getting a Focus...I like acceleration in cars some old grandma car.

My issue is if they had great mileage in '98 why aren't we seeing even better mileage now? As fast as technology is moving along we should easily be at 100MPG now. The only issue is this...if the auto manufacturers create a car that is better than anything we've ever known and it does get 100MPG and has parts that are easily replaceable doesn't that hurt their bottom line in the end? It would mean people wouldn't be buying cars as much or wouldn't need a new one as the one they have could be fixed indefinitely and I would certainly think that in a business sense they would work every possible angle not to let that happen.

I would think the Japanese diet and their way of life is what keeps the Japanese going.

I highly doubt it has much to do with health care since centuries ago and they were still living long lifespans. And this is before "health care for everyone" sprouted up in peoples minds.