It's just a way for Lucas to make his film more marketable to parents of young children by still having lots of epic battles, but no blood and seeimingly victimless deaths.

That, and it becomes more a war-of-resources than a war-of-blood. Whoever can buy the biggest droid army wins.

In our world, "droids" lack sentience (though are getting better and better at faking it) and to some degree society is viewing them as having rights. At least in the personification sense. In Lucas's world, droids have sentience, but appear to be completely devoid of rights, and in most cases, respect. It's very similar to slavery a century ago. I think that may be the comparison he's making with them?

I think Anakin and Luke's relationship with say, R2D2, is very much the exception to the rule in the Star Wars universe, a bit like how someone in the 1800's treating a slave they owed with any degree of respect was considered inappropriate. Look at how that one guy said "oh, and have the protocol droid's mind wiped." "oh dear..." Very callously said, and very accepting of his fate.

If you are not free to leave, and you are not under arrest, you have been kidnapped.

The last time I saw "kidnapping" defined, there were two requirements. (1) illegally detained and (2) moved more than 50 feet". This may have been for a specific jurisdiction, but I believe it was federal. Unlawful detention is separate from kidnapping, in that kidnapping requires them to force you to come with them.

"Detain" means you will experience a loss of freedom for a bit (can't leave, etc) while the police look into a situation.

also true of arrest.

The police don't need to prove that you did anything to detain you,

also true of arrest. People get arrested on "trumped up charges" all the time. See "officer bubbles" for a good laugh. All they do is drop charges a few hrs later after they're done harassing you. They don't need any proof to arrest you. It's only necessary if they want to keep you there (>24 hrs usually) and successfully prosecute you.

but they also can't detain you indefinitely.

also true of arrest. (without filing charges anyway)

"Arrest" means that they plan on charging you with something.

What anyone means to anyone is irrelevant. It could "mean" they plan on throwing you an aavon party. All that matters are obligations. Anything they "intend" to do but that can change their mind on later is not a defining attribute.

You must be read your Miranda rights

agreed! arrest requires it. but they could probably do it when they are detaining you too. I doubt they do that, since you'd be more likely to clam up, but there's nothing obligating them NOT to for a detention. So that's not as useful as a deciding factor as you might at first expect.

"Unlikely!" you say? I have personal experience here. I was trying to be a helpful citizen many years ago giving a detective information on a theft where I ended up innocently receiving stolen property. I came to the station to give him the details. First thing the prick did was read me my rights. I did not enjoy the experience, and I don't intend on volunteering my assistance to that particular police department again anytime soon. (he apparently marked me as an accomplice and was trying to trick, and I do mean trick, me into incriminating myself) I wasn't under arrest. I wasn't even being detained.

and will have your case tried before a judge

see above on "intent" and "obligation"

You will experience greater restrictions on your freedom

yes and that's what I was hoping someone would actually get specific about instead of repeating "more restrictions" over and over again, which doesn't really tell us anything useful. I see someone else did in another reply though.

but there is more proof that this is justified.

"requires more proof" is no more specific than "more restrictions".

This is the problem that a lot of us are having though, we think we know how to distinguish between "free", "detained", and "arrested", but it's not that simple of a question.

There is a level between being free to go and being arrested: being detained. That is the status of the citizen in your hypothetical. There is a lower burden of proof for an officer to detain you, but the loss of freedom is smaller in scope.

Can you outline the differences in scope / freedom between being detained and under arrest? as far as I'm concerned, they appear to be identical. I lose my right to leave. The only other difference I can foresee is arrest requires specific charges. But are they obligated to tell you? If not, it doesn't matter. They could detain you for an hour, or arrest you for an hour (without specifying charges) and then release you (or drop the unknown charges and release you) - and so what was the difference to you? Either way you spent an hour in custody, having temporarily lost your freedom to leave. What other rights would arrest lose you? Hmmm... search I suppose?

And is this "detention" what is exercised at DUI checkpoints? Sounds like it? "you're not under arrest, but you're not allowed to leave. we haven't decided if we're going to arrest or release you yet. Stay here until we decide."

An earlier comment stated:

"facts and circumstances that would lead a reasonable officer to believe that a crime has been, is being, or will be committed."

I don't see how a DUI checkpoint would meet that criteria. Unless "it's 2:15 am" constitutes a fact and "drunks frequently drive home after the bar closes" constitutes a circumstance?

I recall debating about that in the past. The question arose:

Office: "stay here."
Citizen: "Am I under arrest?"
Office: "you want to be? no you're not under arrest, not yet. but just stay here for right now."
Citizen: "Am I free to go?"
Officer: "What did I just say to you? No, you are not free to go. STAY HERE while we xxxxx"

this actually happens frequently. And I don't recall the issue being settled. If you can't leave, and aren't free to go, what is your legal status? What happens if you try to leave? (almost certainly bad things, resisting arrest, interfere with official acts, obstruction of justice, failure to obey an officer of the law, disturbing the peace, etc etc justifying arrest)

So you're kinda in a pickle when they tell you you're not under arrest AND you're not free to leave. Is there a lawyer in the house that can explore this situation, and maybe even suggest some advice? (I know, fat chance, "yes I am a lawyer, NO I am not YOUR lawyer, and this is not legal advice", but do what you can)

the few of these sorts of systems I've dabbled (cautiously) with usually gave you a fixed AP every day, on a use-it-or-lose-it basis. And that again gets you back to the "punishes you for not playing". Not meaning play as much as you can all the time, but requiring you to make sure to play daily. I stopped one of these cold-turkey when I realized it was more of an obligation to play than an enjoyable experience. ("oh ya, that's right, I forgot to play this morning, I better get in there and play this evening before bed, or I will lose those bonuses for my continuous streaks of playing, and it'll take a week of never missing a day to get my streak bonuses going again")

I remember wasting months of my time there until one day I realized "this is a giant waste of my time!", wished them good luck, and left.

I don't do MMORPGs for exactly this reason. Part of it is it's a waste of time, the other part of it is I don't have the necessary self-discipline to "limit myself" in a game venue that essentially punishes you for not playing.

Programming a solution to a solved problem is overkill.

In this case I believe it's very appropriate. They have a static arrangement, (vendor wants in, someone turns access on, manually) and when they're done, someone's supposed to shut it off. This process has demonstrated a history of being unreliable. So the solution comes down to one of three things. (1) replace or retrain whoever is in charge of the process in the hopes of improving reliability, (2) automate the process that is not being done reliably, or (3) redesign the process so it's more reliable by default.

(1) is often either futile or short-term. Any number of things can go wrong here, immediately, soon, or long down the road. People get replaced, are out sick for a few days, forget, make mistakes, whatever. (3) is usually unnecessarily expensive, or at least difficult and time-consuming.

It's been my experience that (2) is almost always the best solution. I'm a big fan of automation, and "pick the right tool for the job". (where "tool" refers to either evolved monkeys or computer programming) Computers are almost always more reliable than people, never rely on a person to do a job that a computer can do more reliably. Given the OP's description of the problem, a few minutes of bash or crontab to automate the disabling of the remote access is almost certainly the best answer. I do this sort of thing where I work all the time. I get tired of fixing the same problems over and over that people just can't seem to do reliably. I automate it, and the problem disappears, forever. The initial investment of time always pays for itself. Sometimes in a few days, sometimes in a few weeks. Sometimes once or twice over, sometimes a thousandfold.

Sidenote: whenever something around here breaks, I ask myself a lot of questions. Is there a fair chance it will happen again? Could full automation or manually-initiated scripting have prevented it? Should the system have provided better logging before or during the event? Could the system have predicted the failure ahead of time and given us early warning? Could the system have identified and alerted us of the problem after it occurred, before we (or the client...) discovered it ourselves? Could the system have initiated automated damage control when the failure occurred? This is all a part of automation.

the owners, boards, and upper management are mostly a bunch of old, stuffy, cigar-chomping, technology and change-fearing, pointy-haired bosses, just itching to "pull a blackberry" with their company.

Does this surprise anyone? Good luck clearing them out. They're kings in their kingdom.

The most common way to "reorganize" them we see today is when upper management drives the company into the ground like a telephone pole. Problem tends to be though that these companies have a large stash of money in the bank, and are able to flop after flop after flop before they finally run the coffers dry. They've gotten very good over the years at "controlling their shareholders", ie shoveling the BS with a silver tongue and sincere promises, that the shareholders don't revolt until they're already seeing the headlight in the tunnen. But by then, the company has lost so much momentum and market share that they're often in an unrecoverable nose-dive.

Sorta sad to watch, but I think "change is good". When the system has become unfixable, the best thing to happen is for it to break completely and be re-invented from the ground up, based on modern considerations. (nuke 'n pave) "corporate revolutions" I suppose you could call it. Old companies that won't adapt fade away, while new companies come up and take their place. Reminds me of a forrest. Quit trying to save the old trees, let them die and make room for the new saplings to take their place down the road.

First off, the cameras are always hooded, to reduce sun glare and reduce the amount of rainwater that gets on them. Rain contains a surprising amount of dirt the drops pick up as they fall through the atmosphere, and you get the same effect on a camera lens as you do on your house windows.

Now hit that with a paintball and the effect is quite a lot worse. A single shot to any part of the lens or hood area is likely to completely coat the entire lens with a thick enough layer of (water-soluable) paint to make 100% of the photos taken with the camera unusable. (can't get a plate)

The rain hood will protect against rain washing the paint away. Although after a few days, the paint will have dried up enough that it will require a little scrubbing action to remove it - ordinary rain won't do the job at that point.

This method has many advantages and few disadvantages compared to other options. Firstly, it's unlikely to cause physical damage to the camera, which will be useful if you get caught. If you and four other citizens start balling the cameras, and you get caught, you will likely be judged responsible for 100% of the cameras. If you're taking them out with .22's instead of paintballs, that could easily be billed at a grand or more per camera. If it's just paint, they'll probably get you for $70'ish each to send out a guy with cotton balls and a long pole. (or a cherry picker)

Ammo is a lot cheaper. Shots can be a lot quieter. Easier to visually identify already "serviced" cameras. And odds are you'd be charged with vandalism rather than destruction of public property, since nothing permanent was done.

"So we wanted to take content from Google and strip off the revenue-generating part of it and pass it off to our customers, but Google wouldn't roll over on our demands. So we're just going to take it anyway. Oh what's this? It looks like Google is going to sue us for violating the TOS that they refused to change just for us. Well, maybe now they'll be willing to roll over and play by our rules!"

Idiots. Don't you know you can't be a bully and get away with it unless you're bigger than the other guy? I hope Google gives them the bloody nose they so desperately deserve.

I disagree that Outlook.com is all that great. If you want your email to be truly secure, you need to encrypt it at the client

THIS. Once it gets off your LAN, there are SO many ways for you to get tapped into. Not counting the illegal ways, look at all the options the govt has and is well known to use, often ignoring or pencil-whipping judicial oversight. They can subpoena your ISP, whoever is doing your email encryption, whoever is providing them with their SSL keys, or their ISP.

If you are serious about protecting your privacy, make darn sure your data is secured before it leaves your property. At least then, if they want to snoop, you're a lot more likely to at least know it's happening. And that will keep out most of your threats, short of spear-phishing, stray bait flash drives left in your parking lot, and internal threats. (malicious employees)

In the short term, get everyone an email certificate, and USE them to sign and encrypt outgoing email. (any decent email client will support signing and encryption) That data could still be subpoenaed from the group you get them from though. You can roll your own if you want to also, but you won't be easily able to revoke if need be.

But so far the response from Amazon has simply been: it was never supposed to work, and we've fixed it.

In the absence of a clear response from Amazon,

That looks pretty clear to me. You just don't like the answer so you're refusing to listen to / accept it as an answer.

This wasn't supposed to work. You found a loophole and were using it in a way they neither intended you to nor wanted you to. They closed the loophole. You need to deal with it from that angle, not "they broke it and it's their responsibility to fix it", because they didn't, and it's not.

The bill also raises wages for H-1B workers to make them more competitive, although the amount wasn't specified.

So they can encourage foreign outsourcing? Doesn't anyone see this as having a negative impact on domestic unemployment? (as well as a trade deficit effect as they ship their US$ off to India)

Why is this necessary???

Mbps != MBps

Please stop doing that in article summaries. When you start getting up into large numbers like that you can't just expect everyone to "read what you meant to say."