Comment Re:This was the goal of BREXIT (Score 1) 54
You clearly have no idea how the EU works.
You clearly have no idea how the EU works.
Yeah even though the EU itself admits it has a 'democratic deficit' good luck getting anyone to understand that the quango that runs the EU isn't democratic. People like the EU so much that they go into full delusion mode or have a complete lack of understanding of what 'democracy' really means.
If we're going to talk about "democratic deficit" let's talk about the UK where the first-past-the-post electoral system means that a party can (and often does) have an overwhelming majority in the House of Commons with 40% or less of the vote; i.e. a government that 60%+ of the people did not vote for. The current disastrous Tory government is a classic example of this.
And then there's the House of Lords, the wholly unelected upper chamber, where wealthy people can literally buy a seat (assuming they don't inherit one when their father dies). There is no fixed number of seats; the government of the day can create as many new members as they like.
The EU may not be perfect but, with a directly elected Parliament (via proportional representation) and the Commission which is comprised of representatives appointed by the elected governments each of the member states, it's a hell a lot more democratic than that.
The BBC recently aired a documentary about the persecution of LGBT people in Chechnya. Instead of pixelating the faces of victims to protect their identities, the film makers used deepfake technology to give each victim a "digital ‘face-double’". The result was impressively seamless.
The code can still be free speech, and the action of using it for particular acts can be regulated at the same time.
Exactly. This is like what Phil Zimmermann did with PGP. Exporting strong encryption software (in binary form) was illegal. So Zimmerman published the source code in a book - which was covered by the 1st Amendment - so people could export the book and then OCR the text to create their own binaries.
I travel in Europe occasionally, and the web is close to unusable there. Every freaking site puts a pop-up in your face demanding that you answer its questions three...
Well I live in Europe. I block cookies (and Javascript) on most web sites by default. I couldn't tell you when I last saw one of these pop-ups (or any other kind of pop-up for that matter), and the usability of the web is just fine.
The more politically savvy of the British public have known for a couple of generations that you can't take the Tories at their word, least of all the current clown cabinet. They're corrupt as f**k & only looking out for their own interests. Don't believe them unless it's in the form of a legally binding document & the language isn't in that garbled nonsense they spout out in press conferences.
Exactly this. Some of the biggest donors to the Tory party are wealthy Russians. This is just more of the usual "do as I say, and not as I do" from Boris Johnson and his entourage.
...must be working frantically behind the scenes to make sure that all that dirty Russian oligarch money keeps flowing through possibly the world's biggest money laundrette. My bet is that if the UK does actually impose sanctions, Boris, his cabinet & their sponsors will make sure it's leakier than a teabag.
They just announced their "toughest ever" legal powers target Russian money. But one immediately obvious loophole is that the new powers do not cover the Russian funds buying up high-end properties in London and the south-east.
Credit carts are actually great for responsible consumers compared to alternatives. If I go to a mom & pop store, I try to use cash (less now after the covid thing, but I digress), but in any case I will never give my debit card to anyone. It is not that hard to steal a credit or debit card details, but in the case of the former no money leaves my account when a fraudulent charge is made and, crucially, my bank has not paid any money, so they have nothing to lose by reversing the transaction. Plus, I do get perks like extra warranty and other kinds of protection, plus, 0.5-5% cash back is not bad.
This cannot be overstated. I'm not going to expose my bank account online. I use a credit card for online purchases (and also for physical "contactless" payments) because, in the event of fraud, I'm never out of pocket. And if the merchant doesn't deliver the goods, or they are not fit for purpose, I can simply do a charge-back.
In addition compared to smartphone-based options, the physical card is not subject to malware, and doesn't require an Apple/Google/other online identity to function.
Here in the Netherlands we buy self tests for about 3 euro a piece...
Same here. Depending on where you buy, it works out at 2.50 to 3 euro per test.
And if you are a close contact of a confirmed Covid-19 case, the health service will give you free antigen testing kits.
The problem here is Usbisoft, not GDPR.
Maybe, but the reality is that the GDPR wasn't thought through very well (shocking for government, I know) and it's still open to interpretation (shocking for a law, I know).
Actually, no. GDPR is well thought through, and the responsibilities of organisations who want to hold personal data are abundantly clear. I'm a European developer and systems implementer and there's no confusion about how personal data must be handled.
It's just as likely that other companies simply aren't complying with GDPR properly, and what Ubisoft did was the correct interpretation.
If any company is not compliant at this stage, then they only have themselves to blame. And in this case, as others here have already pointed out, GDPR does not mandate the deletion of inactive accounts. Many online companies do have a policy of nuking accounts after a period of inactivity, but that has nothing to do with GDPR.
I kind of get the idea that rapid technological advance makes quality documentation expensive and perhaps slows the pace of advance. Or at least I get that Microsoft, et al, can get away with thin documentation.
It's true that delivering a palette-load of manuals is not practical these days; it would be too expensive and they would be rapidly out of date. But there's no reason why quality documentation couldn't be delivered in hypertext format; the cost would be low and updates would be easy to deliver.
But the "move fast and break stuff" ethos seems to consider documentation an afterthought.
But remember how lucky we were. The systems were so much simpler then and they officially documented EVERYTHING.
I remember being in a Control Data office in the 1980s and they had a room with the entire fucking Cyber documentation in 3 ring binders. It took up most of the wall of the room, but if what you wanted wasn't in there, it wasn't part of the system.
Yeah, back in the day DEC VMS was the same. The VMS 5 documentation arrived on a palette and was known as the Big Gray Wall because the ring binders were gray. There was also an Orange Wall for VMS 4, and a Blue Wall for VMS 3.
it gets you the "most fit" for a given environment. Not "best". Those are not the same thing.
Sadly, this is nothing new. Nobel prize winner Peter Higgs (of Higgs boson fame) has said that he probably wouldn't get a job in modern academia, because faculties care more about media profile and the volume of research papers published than the quality of the science being done.
I think Australians are going to find out that there are more search engines.
This is not just about Google, or just about money. You can read a good analysis here. A couple of highlights:
Google, and Facebook (and other search/social media) would be required to give Australian media companies insider information on their search/promotion algorithms, including giving them 28 days notice of upcoming algorithm changes.
Australian media companies would be able to control how social media users post or comment on their news stories including:
Basically this legislation is the result of lobbying by a small number of media barons, notably Rupert Murdoch, and plays to their agenda.
You knew the job was dangerous when you took it, Fred. -- Superchicken
