If fines are not geared to wealth they are likewise much less of an issue if you're rich.
I'd go further: a criminal system that uses fines for minor offenses tacitly legalizes lesser crimes for the wealthy and persecutes the poor (to the point of imprisonment when they can't pay -- eg. cash bail).
Is the Finnish solution, of scaling fines to the offender's income, acceptable? https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/06/finnish-businessman-hit-with-121000-speeding-fine
]]>Re: not apple
My only android thing is unusable just now. But the share icon seems to be very universal. I’m sure there’s an android phone user here with the Amazon app who can verify.
https://imgur.com/gallery/Q81Yn5m shows what the share button looks like in Chrome for Android - look for the orange outlines with rounded corners.
https://imgur.com/a/fH4m856 also shows what it looks like in Firefox for Windows.
]]>I was expecting this particular piece of shit - which means that I am never, ever, going to use a QR code.
A QR code is just a 2-D barcode that lets anyone with a phone with a built-in camera scan it without having to think about whether they scanned it right way up.
Maybe in the Apple world, but all four of my Android OS phones have required a QR code app.
What's in the QR code is simply a web URL.
If you fill out your bank details on a payment web page WITHOUT CHECKING THE ADDRESS TO SEE IF IT LOOKS LIKE SOMEONE YOU WANT TO HAND MONEY TO RATHER THAN A SCAMMER ... all I can say is, the woman in the story was played for a fool.
(QR codes are perfectly safe. Web browsers that don't show you the raw web address they're directing you to are the unsafe thing here. And so are dodgy advertising companies who take cash to display a phishing site's address -- in this case they deserve to be held criminally liable.)
However, web URLs can use Unicode instead of normal text to fool users. See https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/apr/19/phishing-url-trick-hackers
]]>@ 10:
a belief in psi powers implicitly supports an ideology of racial supremacy,I either missed this over the years or just forgot it. Can someone point me to details on this path?
See also PsiCorp in Babylon 5, which explores this in some detail.
A telepath is assumed to be superior to a mundane, because obviously having a superpower is better than not having it. Also telepathy is a tool of control and coercion: if you can read someones mind then you can blackmail them into doing your bidding. So if telepaths existed they would a) feel superior to mundanes and b) have power over the mundanes. Add a genetic component to telepathy and the rest of the script pretty much writes itself.
Not necessarily. The MacGuffin of Lois McMaster Bujold's ETHAN OF ATHOS was a telepath who had to be temporarily enabled with dietary imbalance, and who had blinding headaches afterwards. But, then, the title character was a gay obstetrician; LMB never is afraid to innovate.
]]>"Wilson noted that while his pistol was not registered in Hong Kong, it is properly registered in Washington state, and that he holds a concealed pistol license."
It is, apparently, legal for him to carry a pistol concealed in his briefcase in Washington, which is where he comes from. Maybe not in an airport, but his defense seems to be "I forgot I was carrying this pistol which is totally legal for me to have in my state".
Ah, but Portland International Airport, from which he departed, is in Portland, Oregon. Oregon's gun laws do not recognize the civilian concealed weapon permits of Washington or any other state, and does not grant permits to Washingtonians. Therefore, when Wilson crossed the Columbia River on his way to fly from PDX, he was committing a felony before he even reached the airport.
As to how, when Wilson committed felony #2, carrying a weapon through TSA 'security', I can only point to this Forbes article indicating a 70% failure rate at identifying contraband. https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelgoldstein/2017/11/09/tsa-misses-70-of-fake-weapons-but-thats-an-improvement
]]>There are folks who "strap on" when they leave the house in open and concealed carry states. It is almost muscle memory. So to them NOT carrying the gun is the thing they tend to remember. I think they are total nuts. As most of them think they can "make a difference" for the good guys if they get in spat. A few times I've tried to have a rational conversation with them they just don't get it. A paper target on a shooting range is just not the same as a combat situation with your adrenaline pumping and the bad guys not clearly marked with a big sign on their chest and back.
I thought so, too, until I took the FEMA IS-360 course on Active Shooters at Congregation Shaarie Torah in Portland. Then, I learned, from the FEMA instructors, that active shooters change their behavior at the first sign of opposition; when they hear another gunshot that's not theirs, they stop killing and go on the defensive.
So, even a small caliber pistol with a minimal ammunition capacity is useful in defending against wannabee mass murderers as per FEMA's Emergency Management Institute.
]]>Sorry I never found you at Pemmi-Con, whitroth.
]]>]]>Three Dutch security analysts discovered vulnerabilities—five in total—in a European radio standard called TETRA (Terrestrial Trunked Radio), which is used in radios made by Motorola, Damm, Hytera, and others. The standard has been used in radios since the ’90s, but the flaws remained unknown because encryption algorithms used in TETRA were kept secret until now.
OPPENHEIMER & other IMAX movies' projection controlled by emulated Palm https://slashdot.org/story/416976
]]>"Some articles have said that it will become farmable, but I smelled uninformed optimism"
Whether its Canadian or Siberian, when tundra melts you get unfarmable marshland.
Well, I was born in the 'unfarmable' Great Black Swamp of NW Ohio, as my da was an oil company lawyer. But, well before he arrived in Findlay to work for Marathon, that all got dredged, drained, and is now very productive, very rich farmland. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Black_Swamp
Maybe with Canada, we can avoid toxic algal blooms by not overfertilizing in the first place.
]]>However, it is very close to MIA (367 klicks), and it would be rather easy to divert to José Martí International on any flight out of MIA or PBI if the flight deck were provided with a large satchel of engraved portraits of dead presidents. Tell me, with a straight face, TFG doesn't have many such satchels in his bathroom of choice.
Would Celtic launch the F-15Cs on strip alert at HST to, if need be, splash Trump Force One? Doubtful.
So, TFG surveys the three golf courses in Cuba, and finds Havana and Varadero wanting; the third, at Gitmo, is unlikely to even be considered, as even TFG would understand its his Roach Motel of outdoor entertainment ('He goes in, but he don't come out!')
However, it's likely TFG could manage to get his good buddy Vlad to send for him, and Vlad's well known for his sense of humor. Why not add TFG to his collection of expats? How much could another golf course at Sochi cost? https://www.leadingcourses.com/region/europe+russia/clubs
]]>