We're not talking about purely compiling an application but a complex environment for an embedded target that needs to be reproduced in a almost identical manner in order to avoid full system re-testing that presents a massive overhead / cost. (look at build systems such as Yocto for an example). It's easy enough to archive all the tools required to do the build and test installing them on a non-networked machine to check you have everything in the archive.

However, consider how you'll be able to exactly replicate this environment in 25 years time when you don't even know if you'll be able to find a working machine from the same era to run the host OS on and that's the problem in a nutshell.

News item from Leicestershire Police :
    https://www.leics.police.uk/news-appeals/news/2015/06/15/download-success-see-you-in-2016

Interestingly apparently a 0.2% false positive rate. On attendance size of 90,000 that's 180 people mis-identified. This is apparently using NEC's NeoFace Watch system which they started trialling in the middle of 2014.
    http://www.necam.com/Docs/?id=c8a08fd5-e79c-4f00-9f37-9919318cc772

If you don't do what the police ask you to, you will not be able to run your event, it's as simple as that. This is often a financial issue for example. :
    http://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/crime/100-fewer-police-at-hogmanay-over-funding-row-1-3597735

I could name several smaller independent festivals in the UK that have been made financially infeasible by large imposed policing costs and had to be subsequently cancelled. Many would argue that often the policing costs are un-warranted and that the police may use this as leverage to prevent events that they don't approve of but no one has demonstrated this successfully to date. Certainly however it's true that there is wild variation in the level to which different events are burdened by the police but of course this can also be attributed to other factors such as the quality of their pre-event planning / paperwork and the differences in approaches that different regional forces take.

Personally however, as both and event professional and an engineer, I'd like to know whether this was imposed on Download as a condition of their license, and if so what their justification for requiring it was. Secondarily I'd like to know how it is that they have been allowed to do this on the quiet. Certainly I believe that storing images of peoples faces would be covered under the data protection act.

Really? You're implying that slashdot readers are properly technically savvy? Those days are long gone. If that were true, all these arguments would be presenting reproducible and well explained cases (like proper bug reports!) not vague anecdotal stories that can't be proven... Just sayin!

Maybe we have a history of not much over here, but we've got hundreds and hundreds of years more of not much than our american cousins... :-D

...in other news, kim jong un now reportedly threatening verizon customer services with ground attack after being on hold for 90 minutes...

Can someone who understands PV cells properly answer me this - it's my understanding that most standard PV cells get say low 20-something percent efficiencies and that the highest at the mo is around 40% acheived with significant solar amounts of concentration. Is this a genuine like-for-like beating of the best of the current crop or some fudging of the maths?

Ive a lot of time for the usbee - analog and logic analysis and basic decoding of serial protocols too. I also love the fact it can do long term signal capture / recording too. Yes you can buy chinese knock offs but really, have some decency and support small companies making Cool Shit.

For my own money i have an old cathode tek and an old lcd 60mhz tekscope that i bought on fleabay thats damn handy. Also keep an eye out for cheap old fluke scopemeters too...

I call bullshit. Assuming a large team of 100 people spending 5 minutes per document and working 8 hour days that would have taken 16 years if they took no holidays...

Its long been understood that exposing your capabilities isn't a Good Thing. This brings us to the interesting potential scenario that in fact maybe GCHQ *could* quite easily read his files but wouldn't acknowledge this capability. In essence people can legally be jailed for not revealing access to material they can already bypass the encryption on perhaps? A bit worrying...

Of course they forked, they wanted to spend their time and effort developing a product to ship instead of constantly justifying their own decisions to a project gatekeeper. Sounds fair to me, its their time... Democracy is great but dictatorships get things done MUCH faster...

You realise that safaris icon has been a compass ever since it was originally launched right? That's not to do with iOS 7...

I wish I had mod points today, I'd have given you a +1 funny... Do you know any old people well and spend time with them? A tablet would be much more suitable...

Just get an ipad - I got a cheap second hand ipad 1 for my mum (85) and she picked,up using it just fine. I never have to help her much unlike her normal computer.

To the poster who said about CPU / graphics power, potentially don't worry as most older folk are only really looking to use the web and read email, neither of which are intensive.

To the poster who said about full size vs compact : in my mums case she asked me to get her an ipad mini after playing with mine. In her case it wasn't about the screen size but because her arms aren't too strong it's easier for her to hold up and use! The air might be an option these days but it's a lot more money...

In general I think that like children, you shouldn't "dumb down" stuff for old folk unless you absolutely have to. It's not as necessary as many would have you believe. In children having to think more helps them learn and in older folk it helps stop them forget!