Then you're understanding of UK defamation law is poor, and a simple Google search would have taken you to various resources that would have better informed you. In the UK proof that a statement is true is absolute defense against a defamation charge.

Amazon don't think that buying it from amazon or not automatically makes the review different. What they do think is that knowing the account has bought the item decreases the likelihood of it being a fake review. I'm sure if they could easily tell who had really bought the item by another method they'd be happy to use it.

Point is, presume any review has ulterior motives unless you have evidence to think otherwise.

This is a logic I just don't get, but seems extremely common amongst /. readers. I use reviews on things like Amazon/Tripadvisor as a part of decision making process. I've made hundreds of purchases on-line over the years and am very satisfied with the results. If I'm looking to drop £10k on a car, or £500 on a TV then reviews site reviews are just a small art of my process, however if I'm buying a £10 ironing board cover then it becomes the major determinant. Some things just aren't worth the time it would take to come to a good decision without using reviews, and using reviews (with a pinch of salt) has worked consistently.

Not everyone does however. Cars are priced and negotiated on in order to determine a customers willingness to pay. Some customers are willing to pay more, either because they are happy to or because they don't understand the process they are entering into) and this methodology allows them to make additional profit there, while selling at lower prices to other customers.

I think the mistake with the change they are making is that they are throwing away potentially useful information when making a hiring decision. If you make me an offer, and you've incorrectly valued a skill I have, then not hiring me because you won't amend that offer is inefficient. It's naive to assume that companies are good at accurately and rationally valuing potential employees.

I'm sure they do. I hate negotiating on personal purchases, but that doesn't mean that negotiating on major purchases is almost universally the norm.

When is the last time you negotiated prices at the grocery store?

When was the last time you didn't negotiate prices on a house or car? And which is selecting an employer more like, buying you milk and bread for the week or a major purchasing decision?

Rather, what actually happened is that the spy agencies watched everybody, and by and large didn't care about people who weren't throwing up red flags. If it weren't for Snowden and the Internet-fueled rage he spurred, you'd never know that you'd been investigated at all.

And if you never found the camera your neighbour installed in your bathroom you'd never know he'd been watching you and your family naked, but that probably wouldn't stop you being pretty pissed about it when you found out.

When your government begins using mass surveillance on the entire population, and does so in secret and against the protections your government tells you that you have, it should be a pretty obvious sign that you can't trust them.

So, you've come back to respond and highlight how your use case is even less appropriate for on-line storage providers than it already seemed... somewhat emphasising my point about it being stupid to compare what you're doing to online storage solutions like this when they are entirely different.

Exactly. It sounds incredibly stupid.

What he's doing isn't stupid if he is willing to pay the ~$1k+ premium of running & maintaining that set up + viable backup for the benefits he feels it provides.

It is however incredibly stupid to compare it to online solutions like Google Drive and this Amazon service. It's like comparing buying chopped tomatoes with having your own tomato farm and processing plant because you want to know the origin and factory conditions.

that could make sense if the addition was 3 million / 30 guys - not 1 billion. 1 billion extra needs some manufacturing contracting price to rise.

Not at all. You're confusing the cost of staff (which he didn't talk about) with the cost impact on the project of a drop in staff quality. When you're making decisions about things that cost millions, or billions, then losing a top talent with experience could lead to gigantic cost increases. The difference in shock resistance between a $200 million design that can withstand launch and one that can't will be small, but get it wrong and the worst case could be throwing it out and starting over.

Will I look back on my life and consider it a success if I watched these shows?

No, but you're spending your time on /. attacking an innocuous measure of how seriously female characters are taken in film so I imagine this is way down on the list of things you'll have to deal with to be able to say yes.

This point can't be made often enough. We're already seeing any meaningful discussion drowned out by claims even checking for sexism is sexist, that they should have something better to do etc, and they're hiding an underlying issue.

Checking whether two functions coded by different women interact is a really poor proxy for the lack of gender issues at a firm. It would comically easy to game, and I can't see what it offers that simply looking at the proportion of women employed in coding roles doesn't do better.

If you can substitute the term "white male" into your premise and suddenly find it offensive, then was actually racist/sexist all along.

Why on earth would you find this offensive if you made the swap? Because you're a white male and it would highlight how virtually no software fails the white male test, but a huge amount fails the female test?

No it isn't, though it does happen. I don't think anyone is suggesting that their aren't raids anywhere else in the world than America, what they are saying, and for some reason you're trying to re-direct away from, is that using armed raids as often as they do in the US is probably not a good idea.

Where the calls originate doesn't really change the discussion of whether police in one country are too heavy handed or not.