I'm over 40 and already have reading glasses,

Similar for me, but I am finding my first pair of bi-focals to be a bit of a WOMBAT, and will probably revert to separate distance and reading glasses on the next iteration.

but I'd need to get special phone-only glasses to see any more detail or smaller type.

I got a 7in tablet instead. Surfing on a phone needs both magnifying glasses (a binocular microscope, or jeweller's hands-free binocular loupe ; I use both routinely) and probes to activate the touch screen.

It must be almost heretical to some of the younger developers to hear mantras such as "smaller is better" shrugged off as self evidently stupid. Oh dear. What a pity. Never mind.

Not really, because all you have to do is your best driving once in your life and you're good for the next 50 years.

Now, change the law so everyone has to recertify every time they get their driver's license and then you might have a point.

[OP here]

I've actually been arguing this point for the last 20 years, since about 5 years after I got my driving license (at age 24 or 25 ; I'd have to check my diary).

Get a driving license tomorrow, and read it's expiry date of (say) 2023-08-04, on which date you no longer have a driving license. Put a different date in there for "earliest possible driving test re-sit" of (say) 2022-08-04, so that you can manage the transition reasonably.

It sounds eminently sensible to me, and without too much stress on the training-examination system, I think that we could get there in 15 years from the current (UK) situation. But I'm used to people ignoring my suggestions ; it only gets annoying if they've asked me for advice and then try to avoid the bill when they don't like what they get.

Watching a client burn $40 million this year ; very sad, but I did tell them "don't do that" ; and they did. I got my consultants fee though.

The real point being that if you want to introduce 'new' technology to a functional environment, it should be mandatory to be TRAINED

and then assessed

on the new technology.

And if you fail the assessment, and are subsequently found to be driving and using the new technology, then you lose you license to drive.

Pain as a method of motivation?

Do people still believe, or at least pretend to believe, that crock of shit? All that inflicting pain does is motivate the victim to find some way of stopping the pain - telling the waterboarders what you think they want to hear in a modern pro-democratic example ; punching the games master in the face when he flogged me in examples from my own history. Since the games master was attempting to motivate me to give a shit about sport, and what he gained was a bloody nose, then that was really successful, wasn't it?

Which examples of causing pain can you think of that aren't cruel? Or are you one of these people who believes in beating up your own children? Or are you the BDSM auto-flagellant who was around in this thread earlier - I didn't note his/ it's/ their user name.

Hey McGrew, ever watch James Bond? :)

Seriously though, I agree with what your saying, we have the same problem in Oz on some issues (dope is a great example), right now we heading into a federal election, both major parties are competing with each other to see who can capture the xenophobe vote. Contrary to what some people think, the parties are not conspiring with each other. They are responding to what is (shamefully) a popular sentiment amoungst Aussie voters, that ugly sentiment is reflected by the system because political parties tend to shift their policies toward the "middle". In otherwords bipatisan inhumanity is the democratic reflection of an ignorant public, not a corruption of the system by people in black helicopters.

It looks like your post was intended to show the prior commenter was "not in touch with reality", however what you actually did was confirm that he was right. Your conclusion states "Secure Boot wouldn't be a problem ...if...", which pretty explicitly states that Secure Boot is a problem. Your conclusion is actually confirming that lock in problem of Secure Boot, regardless of what anyone claims the intent was, and regardless of any arguments over whether the system is otherwise noble or malicious.

And yeah, TrustedComputing&Secureboot are a truckload of extremely malignant problems even if Linux were a majority share of desktops.

-

Why would you want to reward energy consumption, particular when the social benifits of the infrastructure in question is widely disputed?

Besides the fact that the DoD already incorporates climate change in their threat assessments (see http://www.acq.osd.mil/ie/download/green_energy/dod_sustainability/2012/Appendix%20A%20-%20DoD%20Climate%20Change%20Adaption%20Roadmap_20120918.pdf and http://www.acq.osd.mil/ie/download/green_energy/dod_sustainability/2012/Appendix%20A%20-%20DoD%20Climate%20Change%20Adaption%20Roadmap_20120918.pdf), there's the bleedingly obvious conclusion that if an area goes through enough environmental changes that mass migration is better than staying put, conflict with the surrounding areas is guaranteed.

I mean, when New Orleans was evacuated during Katrina, that already sparked enough conflict. Now imagine that the change is permanent and that it's not just a major city evacuating, but an entire geographical area. We'll find out just how far we have evolved from chimps (hint: not very much).

"Cruel" is fairly subjective (though the concept of "causes pain" isn't terribly subjective, which is a major component), but "unusual" is just a matter of statistics ; if you're the 300th person to be flogged to death in your country this year, and it's only August, then it may well be cruel, but it's hardly unusual.

Two points.
1, Science is a matter of evidence, not a matter of belief.
2. To have an opposing view, one must first agree there is such a thing as 'reality'.

That comment is in editorial text, written by a blogger and therefore dismissed as likely to be crap. The relevant quoted speech from the "Michael" person is :

"I asked if it was for sale, as more of a joke than anything, and I was surprised to have the woman behind the counter tell me it was for sale for just US$200,"

Which doesn't claim that he actually purchased it. Or indeed, if he did purchase it, it isn't at all clear if he'd have got an export license for it. I wouldn't assume that he'd have been allowed to leave the country with such equipment - and I'm decidedly unlikely to spring $200 on a casual temporary purchase. (I'm also quite annoyed at fucking politicians getting in the way of one of my clients sending me to work in DPRK ; would have been marvellous for the CV. But ... Fucking politicians!)

All of the tests described could have been done in a few minutes with a modern smart phone set up as a WiFi hotspot (even if it had no mobile phone service connection), you'd expect an internet-capable device to be able to connect, even if it couldn't resolve anything off it's local (WiFi) network.

ensures (usually) that everything is kept fair for the multiple cab companies with contracts to serve the airport

I don't understand this concept of "multiple cab companies" at an airport. What happened to the good old monopoly as a tool for gouging customers? Good enough for Julius Caesar and Crassus ; good enough for me!

... liberal gay rights homopooftahs.

What did I forget ... bodily fluid poisoning ... vaccine-thought-controlling ... irreligious ... gun control ... aw fuck it, the list is tedious, if not literally endless.

signed : A typical American Tea Party nutjob.

Distant past" would be 140 years ago in 1881 for flogging with a cat of nine tails and 77 years ago in 1936 for caning in the British navy.

... and about 55 years for flogging in British prisons.

When one was last carried out, I'm not so sure. Probably not long before then. They used to use a wonderful whipping horse with a leather sheet to control the victim's vision so that they could not see either the identity of the prison officer administering the lash, or see when the hit was going to come.