The judge meant expectation in the sense of "if you don't get it, come talk to me"

--dave

Michael Geist's descriptiption: http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/6689/135/

And a law firm's description: http://www.mcinnescooper.com/publications/scc-finds-limited-reasonable-expectation-of-privacy-in-work-computer-but-evidence-still-admissible/

My leaky/biased memory says these machines were a speed disappointment. Is this doubling going to make them faster or slower than an x86?

--dave

The Supreme Court of Canada recently ruled that employees have an "expectation of privacy" in emails and files on computers owned by their employers, meaning that private emails and files are

• not the property of the company
• cannot be snooped without a warrant
• are not considered to be "in plain sight"

There are limitations: material from a company computer obtained by a warrant issued based on evidence from the company, if the company acted properly.

--dave

Yes: we used to use RSA cards with numeric pads to do mutual authentication at (the late, lamented) Sun Microsystems. This is basically the minimum functionality one needs to be able to do financial transactions without having to maintain (and pay out!) huge reserves against fraud.

--dave

I know of at least two companies who have gone looking for people who are either retired or semi-retired for full-time positions. The companies aren't rich, and so can only pay normal wages, and so get turned down a lot and/or have terrible turnover as people in mid-career go looking for more money elsewhere.

They find that older engineers more reliable, and that their depth of experience makes them as effective as more junior people, even where the juniors try to work too many hours. Sometimes because the juniors are working too many hours (:-))

It's hard to find semi-retired people, though. The people I know about were found by the employer via word of mouth, but I suspect one can ask for 'enough experience that age and treachery beat youth and enthusiasm' in an ad without actually getting arrested...

--dave

O'Reilly discovered that people will pay real money for a printed copy even when they get an electronic copy of the book free. "Using Samba" was and is distributed free with the "Samba" SMB server program, through the initiative of my editor, Andy Oram, and the book went from a distant third on the subject to one of the company's top sellers of the year.

--dave

There's a (beta) app for that: Toronto crimestoppers. See also http://www.222tips.com/about

--dave

It's in beta in Toronto, and submits photos, videos and messages as tips to a non-profit that is trusted by the cops, but still provides reasonable privacy. See http://www.222tips.com/about

Of course, while using it, it's wise to be screaming "someone call the police" at the top of your voice and waving your other arm enthusiastically, so that when the real police arrive, they'll either see you acting like a "good citizen", or other people will tell them "he shouted for the police and the mall cops beat him up".

--dave

In fact, the most interesting question here is "what question is the court trying?"

Because of precedent, most questions have already been answered in part, and what will be decided is a particular, typically smaller, part that was not properly addressed by the first "answer". This means that justice has to be achieved by squeezing in between the existing judgments and distinguishing the case in some way.

If, instead, the original answer was wrong, the defendant has to attempt to overturn the whole of the law and precedent. This is exceedingly hard, as no court wishes to make wholesale changes in the law of the land. Dred Scot followed precedent, and found slavery legal. That was only overturned by the Emancipation Proclamation, the War Between the States and the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments to the American Constitution.

Roe vs Wade was very nearly an overturning of the existing system of law, as it made abortion part of the constitutional question of privacy, and caused great concern among observers of the courts, including jurists on either side of the question. It is notable that only a very vexed question, that of abortion, resulted in such a major change.

This is one of the weaknesses of systems of precedent, with or without an overarching constitution: all too many questions will be decided on a minor point, as the major decisions are considered unchangeable.

Consider, now, Wikipedias' explanation of pilpul, as "conceptual extrapolation from texts in efforts to reconcile various texts or to explain fundamental differences of approach between various earlier authorities, ... " which is followed by te comment "Many leading rabbinic authorities harshly criticized this method as being unreliable and a waste of time, and it is regarded by some as having been discredited by the time of the Vilna Gaon." [i.e., circa 1797]

Anyone see a parallel here, and a concomitant risk of deciding the case on a nearly unrelated point?

--dave (:-)) c-b

That's the 1837 Upper Canada revolution, you understand!

We revolted against an oligarchic government of the rich and connected, known as the "family compact", and eventually gained "responsible government", in which the rulers were required to obey the law and could be thrown out for malfeasance. Heck, we could even defeat them in an election!

The similarities to the parent poster's state of arbitrary, unaccountable rule are striking, so much so that one of the regular discussion groups sponsored by our city councillor is known as "1837".

--dave (who was at 1837 last week) c-b

Joke ends, you can laugh now.

--dave

Generally, countries in the British (common law) tradition do not allow rights to be

• - advertised away ("this cup contains hot coffee, caveat emptyor")
• - contracted away ("the party will deliver her first-born child")

This was not always true: you could once sell your rights for money and become an "indentured servant", but those laws were overturned and/or changed when slavery was prohibited in the then British Empire.

--dave

This is a classic misunderstanding of what school is for, made by at least one person in every town on the planet, at least once per generation.

School teaches you how to learn stuff, by making you learn a really broad collection of occasionally-useful information. The process of learning how to do X different things is how you get practised at learning new things. The important part is that you're taught wildly different kinds of things, like chemistry and public speaking, so you get lots of practice doing different variations of "learn how".

It's mildly helpful if what you learn is something you will use later, but high-school chemistry is not really going to help you make wine. It will help you learn to make wine, though.

--dave

[sign back on and...] They need to spin off their commercial offerings, so they can be subjected to the pressures of a market containing human beings. I just cancelled a trial of their for-money services for a customer of mine, because the for-money services were poorer than their free ones, and the sales support team was startlingly unmotivated. That's got to tell you something (:-))

--dave