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Comment Refusal only for the UK? What about US? (Score 5, Interesting) 53

Interesting: Apple refuses to create back doors for the UK. Which I can understand (back doors are dangerous etc etc etc).

What I am missing is: There is no pressure from the US for Apple to create equivalent backdoors... And yet the US security services would have the same needs and wants as the UK ones...

Any security service would surely try to put pressure to _have_ such back doors. But there is no outcry from the US 3-letter-agencies?

Either the US 3-letters-agencies are incompetent. Or they already _have_ backdoors, and thus do not need to put pressure on Apple. I suspect the latter.

Basically: I think the story is that "The US only wants the US have to have backdoors. Not anybody else."

Comment Trump is involved. So there's bound to be a scam.. (Score 4, Interesting) 53

Call me a cynic - and you'd be right....

Next week (or tomorrow by the speed thing change over there) I fully expect Trump to announce that the US governement has "invested" billions in Trump's own cryptocoin. Thereby accidentally giving Trump a lot of money, and making the white house spokesperson come up with some other lie.

Isn't that how he normally operates?

Comment Run the government like a business! (Score 1) 249

Wasn't this entirely predictable?

He has long said that he'd run the government like a business. Because that what Trump thinks the government is.

He has no notion of the government being "of the people, for the people" or anything like that.

To him, it's a business. And businesses need to generate profit. And (to him): the main share holders are himself and the people around him. It is (quite literally) what allows him to think of himself as a King.

(like many of Trump's businesses, it may go bankrupt - but not before he and his "friends" have made a nice chunk of money first. Others can pay the debts. That's why it is so important to increase the debt ceiling)

Comment "could" doesn't mean "will". Nor "likely" (Score 1) 63

"But self-driving cars, if they one day become ubiquitous, could have more cooperative programming"

The word "could" is essential here. It points us in the direction of an ideal world. A utopia.

In reality, there will be some drivers willing to pay to get there faster. And there will be car manufacturers willing to add a (pay-for) option to "overtake whenever slightly possible", "cut-off mode" and middle fingers on rearwards-facing LED displays.

People are people. And some people are idiots.

Comment Re:Blame it on Sweden (Score 3, Interesting) 139

They already sabotaged e.g. the power cable between Finland and Estonia. Officially blamed on a Chinese ship which "accidentally" dropped its anchor and dragged across the power cable, severing it. They claim they didn't notice. Anybody familiar with the procedure for releasing a 6-tonne ship anchor will tell you that it's not something you do by accident.

Strangely enough, a Russian oceanographic "science" ship was zig-zagging over the damaged area in the weeks before the cable was accidentally cut. An interesting ship - with armed guards on board.

The same ship was recently spending a lot of time in the southern baltic between Lolland and Germany, where we also happen to have a number of power cables across the sea floor.

Strange. If only there was a way to put two and two together.

Comment "Finally admitted"... no... (Score 5, Informative) 85

The "finally admitted" part is BS ...

The USSR never questioned that the moon missions were real, since the Soviet (and German, by the way) space scientists closely observed the flights and received the telemetry data and other transmissions from the Apollo spacecraft.

The authorities actually _congratulated_ the USA on the achievement at the time.

It _is_ true that the footage was not shown live in the USSR - but it was 3am in Moscow at the time. It was shown the next day instead.

They were quite graceful in defeat there. So much so that most Americans now believe that the USA got to the moon first. They didn't. The USA was the first to land *a human* on the moon. The USSR was the first to land a spacecraft on the moon - in 1959.

Comment Roundabouts? .. what about pedestrians & cycli (Score 1) 200

It's amazing what they'll do to avoid roundabouts! (not quite the same as the USAsians call "traffic circles")

Looks like this design (and similar ones) only take only cars and motorcycles into account. And possibly busses and HGVs. But what about cyclists? Pedestrians? Pedestrians consigned to wheelchairs? Sight-impaired pedestrians? Elderly pedestrians?

They seem to want lots of big cars over there, and this is the result: lots of cars => lots of traffic. Bigger cars make people feel safer. Cyclists / pedestrians will not feel safe, so they have to get cars too.

This isn't solving the underlying problem of "too much traffic" - for that you will need other measures such as "decent public transport", but that is not the american way...

Next you worry about pollution and obesity and wonder where that came from...

Comment Re:Already? (Score 1) 65

To be fair: IP Infringement cases aren't really about infringement. They're not about some artist wanting to keep control of his creation - e.g. to prevent Mickey Mouse from appearing in toilet paper adverts.

They're about money.

If you have lots of money, and commit copyright infringement: Yep: There will be members of the legal profession salivating at the prospect of going after you.

If you have no money, and commit copyright infringement: You're not safe either - especially if it _looks like_ the copyright owner _could_ have made money if it wasn't for what you did. Expect the legal vultures to be circling again.

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