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Comment Re:Index it to inflation (Score 3, Interesting) 619

how about a bike and feet tax instead, they should pay their side of things...

Places for people to cycle and walk are so incredibly cheap compared to roads (and railways) that is really isn't worth bothering with a special tax to fund them.

I can't find the Dutch document I read recently, which said the highest quality cycle+pedestrian paths at the side of a new road added less than 10% to the cost.

Comment Re:Reasons to use Snail Mail (Score 2) 113

When my father died, I reset the password on his email account (it was running on the family domain, which I administer) which made it easy to discover and close various online accounts, find contact details for people we thought should be invited to the funeral, and generally find out more about things we knew existed, but didn't know much about.

We didn't go through gigabytes of data, but searched (it's GMail).

I haven't thought to close the account, and I don't know if my mum still has reason to access it, but since it's costing me nothing and I never notice it it will probably be around for a while.

Comment Re:The cloud (Score 1) 387

Safest of all, a different geological area.

A different geological area? Does the type of rock under the building really impact backup safety? Safer still might be a different geographical area.

Maybe he's reminding us it would be unwise to put it elsewhere on the same floodplain, same faultline or under the same volcano?

Comment Re:Customers in the east (Score 1) 141

I don't disagree with you. I'd rather go out of my way than inconvenience someone else. However, could it be that the bulk of the workforce was stationed around the pacific rim, thus it would be rude and arrogant to expect them all to change their habits for the handful of people off in the UK?

I understand that to a point, but it doesn't seem unreasonable to ask that the staff in California (no matter how many there are in each location) are present at work at the normal American time of 9am.

Comment Re:Overreach as a bug, not a feature (Score 4, Informative) 248

She continues (I'll quote a lot, my emphasis at the end):

[141] Google gives as an example of such jurisdictional difficulties the case of Yahoo! Inc. v. La Ligue Contre Le Racism et L’Antisemitisme [Yahoo]. In 2000 two French anti-racism groups filed a suit in France against Yahoo alleging that Yahoo violated a French law prohibiting the display of Nazi paraphernalia by permitting users of its internet auction services to display and sell such artifacts. The plaintiffs demanded that Yahoo’s French subsidiary, Yahoo.fr, remove all hyperlinks to the parent website (Yahoo.com) containing the offending content. As in this case, Yahoo argued that the French Court lacked jurisdiction over the matter because its servers were located in the United States. The French Court held that it could properly assert jurisdiction because the damage was suffered in France and required Yahoo to “take all necessary measures” to “dissuade and render impossible” all access via yahoo.com by internet users in France to the Yahoo! internet auction service displaying Nazi artifacts, as well as to block internet users in France from accessing other online Nazi material: 145 F Supp 2d 1168 (ND Cal 2001) at 1172.

[142] Yahoo claimed that implementing the order would violate its First Amendment rights to freedom of expression and therefore could not be enforced in the United States. The French Court did not accept that submission. Yahoo initiated a suit in California against the French plaintiffs, and obtained a declaratory judgment that the French orders were constitutionally unenforceable in the United States, contrary to the first amendment. Addressing the issue of international comity, the Court reasoned that United States Courts will generally recognize and enforce foreign judgments but could not do so on the facts of that case because enforcement of the French orders would violate Yahoo’s constitutional rights to free speech: 169 F Supp 2d 1181 (ND Cal 2001) at 1192-1193. This decision was ultimately reversed on different grounds: 379 F 3d 1120 (9th Cir 2004), reheard in 433 F 3d 1199 (9th Cir 2006).

[143] Yahoo provides a cautionary note. As with Mareva injunctions, courts must be cognizant of potentially compelling a non-party to take action in a foreign jurisdiction that would breach the law in that jurisdiction. That concern can be addressed in appropriate cases, as it is for Mareva injunctions, by inserting a Baltic type proviso, which would excuse the non-party from compliance with the order if to do so would breach local laws.

[144] In the present case, Google is before this Court and does not suggest that an order requiring it to block the defendants’ websites would offend California law, or indeed the law of any state or country from which a search could be conducted. Google acknowledges that most countries will likely recognize intellectual property rights and view the selling of pirated products as a legal wrong.

Comment Re:Doesn't this already happen? (Score 2) 248

That's the point the judge made.

He noted that an order from a French court to remove Nazi symbols from Yahoo.com failed, as the California court overturned it. But, he granted this order because he considers removing links to these websites (infringing "intellectual property", it doesn't say what kind) would be valid in most countries.

Comment Re:Customers in the east (Score 1) 141

I have a few friends working at multinationals here in the UK, who sometimes have to stay at work very late because developers in California refuse to come in to work before 10:00, or to have meetings before 12:00 (20:00 here). I thought it was rude and arrogant, and couldn't understand why it was tolerated.

Comment Re:Peter Gibbons (Score 1) 141

Well, I generally come in at least fifteen minutes late. I use the side door, that way Lumbergh can't see me. Uh, and after that, I just sorta space out for about an hour.

I tried that. Then my manager scheduled a meeting for 9:07, "because that's when you come in". Ah.

Comment Re:Trains? (Score 1) 437

I strongly suspect that Child Protective Services would be more willing to allow parents to let their children use "private" autonomous cars than public transportation. (I recall a story a few years ago about some parents getting in deep trouble because they allowed their son to use public transportation on his own.)

Then they should look to other countries. At the appropriate time more than half a local bus or train carriage here can be children. I used to live near a large, private religious school. The train I got to work would disgorge ~300 children, as young as 5, at the time I used to get on. For the first week or so of the school year the youngest children would be accompanied by a parent.

In London, travel by bus is free for 5-16 year olds, whether accompanied or not. (Under 5s must be accompanied; travel by train isn't free.)

Comment Re:Well, of course. (Score 1) 437

No, the equivalent is how old does a child have to be before they can take a taxi alone to school.

In which case, the age in the UK is 4, when a special needs child would start school and could be taken alone in a taxi. (Though it's likely to pick up more than one child along the way, and if the area is large enough be a minibus.)

Don't young children in the US use school buses? (In the UK they also use school buses, but are as likely to use normal public buses and trains.)

Comment Re:IDE autocommit? (Score 1) 521

If using Git (or similar), perhaps the IDE can commit regularly, and afterwards the many commits can be turned into a single commit, with a commit message.

(I don't know if this exists or not.)

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