If that were the case, I can see how it would promote the introduction of invasive species. That is, if you have a fishing lodge on Lake Somechamacallit, and you have to pay for a license to fish native species, why not then just import a breeding pair of invasive species, let nature run its course for a few years, and then fish all you like?

However, what's particularly weird, when I hear about software-based automotive recalls like the Toyota accelerator stack overflow bug, is that automotive companies don't seem to have to be certified to anything near the machine safeguarding standards we use to certify factory-floor automation. Nowadays a piece of equipment on the plant floor is pretty much provably safe to operate assuming you don't start disassembling it with a screwdriver. I don't see any such methodology being applied to vehicle control systems.

Agreed, if Google wants to do this, maybe they should also become a free Certificate Authority. Wouldn't that tick off the Verisigns of the world...

HTTPS isn't about logging in, it's about encrypting the data between the server and the client with a one-time key. So it isn't about proving you're a cat, it's about preventing an eavesdropper from knowing which cat pictures you looked at (they still know you went to a cat picture blog).

My significant other deals with teenagers all the time in schools, and it's amazing how many of them get irate when parents/teachers/police start to question them about stuff they posted on Facebook. The content usually comes to light because one of their "friends" have showed the authorities the content, or in some cases the teen actually friends the teacher/police officer. Their typical response is, "that's my private Facebook page!"

Pullleeeze. To even suggest that is to suggest that the persecution of nerds is equivalent to the persecution of African American minorities in the United States. Certainly nerds are persecuted, particularly in high school, but they are in no way equivalent. Besides, it's not like the show doesn't make fun of people who are "smart and good looking".

Just because I'm sure that *somebody* is talented enough to do that and get away with it doesn't mean I think that *I'm* talented enough to do it. :) If I were, why would I be worried about online voting?

Which is why I don't understand how you could go on to making your 3rd comment after your 2nd comment calls it a fallacy.

You define productivity in a weird way if you think that walking into all the factories and breaking all the equipment makes all the people there more productive.

Just remember that the people who had the surgery and went blind probably aren't reading or posting on /. anymore.

Why is anyone complaining about this? It's a well-known problem, even in smaller cars but especially in minivans, that the people in the rear seat can't easily hear the people in the front seat, so the people in front typically have to raise their voice. This is simply because they're facing forwards. People in the front have no problem hearing the people in the back. So this new feature certainly makes sense as it amplifies the front seated person's voice but not the people in the back. This will actually prevent people from shouting. The parents don't start by shouting... it's more like:

Child: why do they paint road signs yellow?

Mother: so they stand out better and you can see...

Child: Mommy, why do they paint road signs yellow?

Mother: SO YOU CAN SEE THEM EASIER!

If the movie publisher insists that their movie costs $25 to view on my shitty little screen at home, then they should damn well expect me to look for a more economical way to view that movie - possibly including piracy if I'm sufficiently motivated.

I don't understand this rationalization. I agree that $25 is certainly wayyy too much money for most movies released to DVD. However that doesn't mean you automatically have a right to get it for free. It just means that you should control your urges and not watch it. Seriously, if you don't want to pay the asking price, just vote with your wallet and go do something else. The sheer entitlement is staggering.

That, right there, is the key to our disagreement. You want everybody, who wish to fly a drone, to prove, they've "taken precautions".

I don't think this is as black and white as you seem to indicate. Nobody's stopping me from building a drone in my garage and even flying it out in a field, as long as I follow some reasonable restrictions that were setup based on experience with model airplanes. The restrictions are on commercial use, and the FAA is basically saying: these things are dangerous when you fly them over a population, and we need rules in place with proper safety procedures before it's allowed. That seems pretty reasonable to me. Yes, I wish they would hurry up. However, what are the chances that these drones are designed such that in the event of a failure, the likelihood of hurting someone on the ground is mitigated? Does every system have 1 or 2 backup systems? Doubtful. Has anyone done an analysis of how dangerous the impact will be? What's the likelihood of surviving a direct hit? What's the likelihood of it happening? Is there a safe reference design? Are there regulated auditors who can certify these designs against a published specification to certify them for flying over a population? Certainly when I build an industrial machine there are published standards regarding machine safety that I have to adhere to, and I must have the design stamped by a P.Eng. before the machine can be used in a production environment.

I'm all for this technology, but I know human nature when it comes to people willing to put other people in harm's way to make money. The FAA is right to ban these, for the moment. Amazon should be working with the FAA and other stakeholders to draft a proper set of rules to allow flying these things over a residential neighborhood. This is hardly unreasonable. The "anything goes" mentality is just BS.

I thought the idea was that you had that right, but only up to the point where it infringes on someone else's right to the same. So, for instance, you being an idiot and driving your car over a pedestrian infringes on their right to the pursuit of happiness. You see, when it comes to behaviors that put others at significant risk, why only punish the ones who were unlucky enough to have the negative outcome actually happen, when the act of performing the risky behavior was what you had control over, and what you should be prevented from doing in the first place? Similarly, Amazon flying drones over residential neighborhoods sounds pretty risky to me, even though I do appreciate the coolness of being able to have something delivered in 30 minutes. Therefore I'm not sure this ban is such a bad thing until we can prove suitable precautions are being taken.

Wouldn't it be cheaper if all the people buying hamburgers just paid those people to sit on their ass?