Comment: Re:"Expectation of privacy" (Score 1) 190
agree, but it's difficult to argue that it's Orwellian to monitor that which could be visually monitored if only you were a savant.
Red herring. It's not difficult to argue at all, because it's the aggregation that's Orwellian, not the mere monitoring. Even savants are not omniscient.
Comment: Re:Ironically, the first Highway Robbery committed (Score 1) 176
incidentally, you can by cnc machines and cnc lathes for making it for cheaper than the metal printer used for this.
I'd like to see a subtractive-manufacturing machine that's FOSS in the same way that a RepRap is. Does such a thing exist?
Comment: Re:Why bother? (Score 4, Insightful) 336
The folks killed by the I-35W bridge collapse beg to differ.
And before you object that anecdotes are not data, the ASCE thinks that America is barely passing overall.
Comment: Re:"Hey, we'll take it," said Africa (Score 1) 195
With that much corn, you could build a palace!
Comment: Re:I've been having this conversation lately (Score 1) 5
That's where borders on the kingdom come in handy.
Comment: Re:Huh? (Score 3, Interesting) 144
The pharmacy billing software company I work for hires people like you to be product owners.
Comment: "Expectation of privacy" (Score 5, Insightful) 190
You know what? Fuck all this "no expectation of privacy" bullshit!
Sure, anything people do in public could be observed. But those are the keywords: "anything could." Not "everything will." And certainly not "everything will be observed and then get stored forever in an instantly-searchable government database!"
This Orwellian shit needs to stop.
Comment: Re:"Truly free", but with Intel inside(tm) (Score 1) 337
But then you'd just end up with the keylogger in the PS2->USB converter instead.
Plus, you'd be missing the meta key. (Oooh, maybe the Open Keyboard Alliance should produce a modern version of the Space Cadet keyboard...!)
Comment: Re:Level of AI (Artificial Intelligence) (Score 1) 245
I fail to understand how that is different than just about every human being I know.
Comment: Re:I've been having this conversation lately (Score 1) 5
We don't just need term limits, we need influence limits. But that comes back to distributism- that given Original Sin, it is far better to have 1000 small governments than one big large one, 1000 small businesses than one big large one.
Comment: Of course, this will be abused (Score 1) 248
As usual, under the guise of "protecting consumers" or "it's for our own safety," government is giving itself a bit more power over the peasant class.
Proposed California Law Would Mandate Smartphone Kill Switch 248
Posted
by
timothy
from the kill-kill-kill dept.
from the kill-kill-kill dept.
alphadogg writes "Kill-switch technology that can render a lost or stolen smartphone useless would become mandatory in California under a new bill that will be proposed to the state legislature in January. The bill will be introduced by Senator Mark Leno, a Democrat representing San Francisco and neighboring towns, and George Gascón, the district attorney for San Francisco. Gascón has been spearheading a push by major law-enforcement agencies across the U.S. for more to be done to prevent smartphone theft. The proposed law could reach well beyond the borders of California. Because of the difficulty and added cost of producing handsets solely for sale in California, it could serve to make kill-switch technology a standard feature on phones sold across the U.S."
Comment: Re:"Truly free", but with Intel inside(tm) (Score 1) 337
So what you're saying is that it's time to found the Open Keyboard Alliance?
(Actually it probably is, considering the fact that you could fit an entire SoC, complete with wireless connection to the NSA, in a keyboard these days.)
Comment: Re:FSF does free; they do step one, others step tw (Score 3, Insightful) 337
"Asshole?" No. "Extremist?" I'd say so. (But that's a feature, not a bug!)