Maybe not, but if I knew when I bought the phone that I would be legally required to carry a placard around with my current lat/long on it, I wouldn't be shocked if people knew where I was, even if I put the sign down once in a while.
I've got no real issue with being able to cover your plates while parked, but doing so doesn't do much to prevent surveillance or identification - that much is even mentioned in the article.
From my limited research Germany and Australia seem good, though it doesn't seem easy in Germany if you want to become a citizen. With more and more job losses and automation, I think this hysteria against (legal) immigration is only going to grow, justified or not. There would always be a place for people with highly valued skills though.
I wonder if there are smaller countries (like Estonia etc) which might be worth exploring.
On this topic, does anyone know of any resource that can ask a series of questions (age, qualifications etc) and suggest countries they are qualified for?
It is beyond absurd. It is a lose-lose situation for end users - if we read each line of every EULA, thats all we would be doing all day. If we don't, then we accept very unfriendly terms.
Reporters could send in the basic details of a traffic accident and would get in return a complete article to print the next day. These articles, printed widely, shifted the blame for accidents to pedestrians
To me, that is the craziest sentence in the article. Reporters were outsourcing writing to the auto industry? Of course they blamed the pedestrians! In what world is this ethical?
What is next? Sending overdose details to pharma companies for them to blame the drug users?
The auto companies presumably were providing significant advertising to the newspapers. It's reasonable go along with what a significant customer wants. The papers were probably spinning everything for their major advertisers as a matter of course.
Even today it is fun to compare media articles with the original police press release. The media tends to spin such articles against any involved cyclists/pedestrians for free. There doesn't have to be much of a conspiracy, most of the media's consumers are drivers and don't want to hear bad things about that group.
No one's linking to pg's famous article about it the dynamic? [1] He makes the point that that kind of thing happens because reporters are pressed for time and good journalism is hard. And generally, a PR person who feeds them such an article won't lie, they'll just selectively include facts.
I'm just impressed it was going on even then.
I agree that this kind of thing should be disclosed, just as same as if it were "here's $500 and remember where it came from". It's something of value being provided by an interested party that taints the publication. Not so much that it shouldn't be printed, but definitely enough that it should be disclosed ("I'm just parroting what GM told me").
How many people would be willing to let someone else do their job for them when the cost is adding a little extra bias, something that isn't even a big deal in a single case (but which adds up over time)? It feels like ethics will quickly take a back seat for some small boon.
India was a collection of many many smaller kingdoms when the British came to the scene. There was a whole bunch of infighting and backstabbing going on which the British happily encouraged and exploited.
It is definitely amazing that they could do what they did, considering the sheer size of the country.
Spot on. And also to mention, in that struggle they created and brokered alliances and established themselves as the supreme power. That was their biggest contribution to the whole of India.
This is not the first time it has happened. During the medieval period, and battle of fiefdoms, decentralized powers grew into one consolidated power. India was going through the same phase at the time and British, having a leg up on power consolidation, brought what they knew and profited from it.
Anyone that's ever been fortunate enough to visit Hawaii knows how wonderful a place with such regulations is. Even in areas far less dense than Sao Paolo, I got a sense of relaxation from simply driving on the highway that I don't get (even in lovely rural stretches) when my attention is beggared away 10 times per minute by fast food signs. I doubt that society can yet fully quantify what we are trading away to make a few billboard operators wealthy and satisfying a few advertisers.
There are relatively few billboards where I live, sometimes none.
As soon as I cross some boundaries (city? county? not sure) there are TONS. And instead of ‘traditional’ billboards they are bright LED based ones that draw your attention and switch every 5-10s. It’s horrible.
