I did the exact same thing at reusableimages.com a few years back, but gave up due to lack of traffic and a growing sense of being out of my league. The site just uses Yahoo image search now.
Flashing LEDs on bicycles are legal, as of October 2005, providing they are of a sufficent intensity. The actual law (The Road Vehicles Lighting (Amendment) Regulations 2005) can be read online here: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2005/2559/contents/made
I suspect this must be a European thing then. I'm in London and I'd assumed that leaf blowers were a universal thing, and I had to google "supermarket bagger" - it seems like a weird gimmick, is this common?
If anything, older Americans lament the reduction in the level of grocery store service over the years. While most stores (at least around Cleveland) have baggers, there is only one higher-end grocery which still loads one's bags in his car for him. The customer leaves his cart by the exit, drives his car up to the store, and some teenagers load the bags into the trunk ("boot" for those in the UK?).
Well, leaf blowers are sold in South America too, but we have supermarket baggers like in the U.S.
Something odd is that gas stations over here are called "service stations", and we get our cars filled (no filling it yourself), oil checked and other niceties - it's so disconcerting for me going to an European gas station (went to one in Vienna).
Wikipedia once again surprised me with the depth of the article on Filling Stations:
No. It's never reasonable to prevent a record being made of the actions of a police officer.
In the case of undercover officers, it is reasonable in some cases to to hide the fact they are police officers.
I believe there are cases in which police may seek and should probably be granted the ability to obscure their identities, while still acting as uniformed officers, for specific operations. The Mexican police who took down a major drug lord recently all wore balaclavas and helmets in public, for this reason. This needs to be justified on a case by case basis or you will get abuse (like the cop who attacked Ian Tomlinson).
But in every case, their actions should be legal and legitimate. They should having nothing to hide.
While I agree that it should be allowed to tape any interactions you have with an officer, it's a bit of a gray area if you follow one around taping everything they do.
First: they are off duty sometimes (they get breaks too)
Second: They are dealing with other people, and that interaction deserves a level of privacy as well. If I follow a officer up to a car stop, and start recording, that seems intrusive.
So, the question is where the limit of permissible is. Do off duty police officers have normal citizen rights to prevent themselves from being taped? Do on break officers have that? How about on duty officers talking with another person? Can I record that audio? Video?
In my mind it should be more permissible than taking video of normal people, but a blanket "lets tape everything" doesn't work either. Where exactly the correct middle ground lies isn't clear to me.
Remember that police officers are still normal citizens, too, with the attendant rights and protections thereto. If you followed me personally around with a camera 24/7, that would be harassment. If you just followed me around 24/7 without a camera, that would be harassment. By "harassment" I don't mean necessarily that exact legal term but I'm sure there's some legal recourse if such a thing happened.
We don't necessarily need lots of "special" rights to film police, we just need them not to have special rights not to be filmed.
I've also talked to them about requiring so much information up front. They're working on a new registration process that lets you add more information later once you decide you'd like to stick around.
They won't spam you, they actually use your information only to verify you against voter registration databases. This way they can show you YOUR representatives.
You're right. I'm normally first in the Facebook-bashing line, but suggesting that Facebook should pay it's users because they provide network effects is like suggesting the phone companies should pay users for hosting terminals. Or the post office should pay you for having a letterbox.
There's an interesting reversal in that statement. Historically, we host our letterbox or our phone terminal, and we buy equipment and such to do it with. (mailbox and phone).
The post and phone networks provided connectivity, but not the place. Here, facebook is providing the place, but not the connectivity (users do that, by buying their internet connection), and the difference doesn't help the comparison
You've got the nail on the head. Capatcha publishing sites are already weeding out the idiots who will jump through hoops to join and blog comment argument or whatever it is - now they can sell the idiots to the highest bidder. Even if they get more spam, the idiot just earnt them cold hard cash in exchange for the spam, and you can still go back to solving spam the non-capatcha way.
It's evil, but evil in a kind of clinically beautiful way. I'd say it stands a good chance of working in the short term too - like punch they monkey ads made a lot of money for some people back in the day
Also, the android Market is available in far fewer countries, and sometimes apps don't show up in different regions even when they have a Market there.
This is not considering the potential difference in disposable income between purchasers of £45/month iphones and £15-20/month androids
It's not just a U.S. thing. I'm a UK father of 3 small boys, and it's a given over here that you should be very wary of interation with any child unless you have some kind of relationship with their parent. It's somewhat relaxed where parents feel more comfortable; a zoo might qualify for that.
