happy_tentacles's comments

You are absolutely right, that the European Parliament (EP), does not write legislation alone.

Though the "nothing will happen" is at best pessimistic outlook, at worst obfuscates the relationship dynamics in between the European Parliament and the Commission.

EP's resolution are a strong signal taken by the European Commission in the legislative framework. The stronger the margin of the vote at the EP with more Political Groups, the more likely the item enters legislative drafting/amending queue at the Commission.

Your problem: - you are a part of a self organising body, - the body pays to all staff a daily allowance based on presence and attendance, - on work days everybody signs in, - majority of you agree that there must be some accountability, - everybody wants to avoid embarrassment and losing face, - most agree that there must not be a physical presence that would authenticate people at the sign-in, so no individuals delegated to make the assessment on the spot (see the previous point).

You have already tired (a) paper forms and determined that they are fraudulently sign in, (b) named RFID badges and determined that individuals with other names check in.

Next step - hide the security authenticating people inside a small machine that would do the work of a paid security official at the sign-in desk.

Brings to mind a dark dystopian corner where this could take us - as imagined by Stanislaw Lem in his 1971 "The Futurological Congress" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Futurological_Congress

It is a short and highly recommended read.

Based my first hand account - there are very timid attempts to open source some libraries - mostly used in between the EU institutions. Code given as a zip, no access to a repo.

There is plenty of anxieties around the subject still, so work does not take place in the open.

Supporting Open Source projects that are used internally are still deep in the woods, ironically thought one could find reference in documentation to “helping out the community” as a stated benefit of using Open Source...

Portuguese are following a path of decriminalisation, which in a legal sense if a long shot away from the legalisation that the state of Luxembourg has just announced...

Production and sale are still criminalised in Portugal, and possession is still considered illegal, but with no penalties to first time offenders and considered a health issue for repeated offenders.

The major difference - Decriminalisation complies with their international obligations as per signed international treaties, Legalisation does not.

State of Luxembourg thinks they will get away with that, and I would bet this has been thoroughly vetted with their international partners.

Truth be told, the press release is somewhat misleading. European Parliament is calling on European Commission to take a closer look at own Directive from 2001 (3 years before the countries in question joined the club).

The European Parliament has run this file through a non-legislative procedure, which explains why the press release says "urge the Commission" and places the time limit for action in quotes.

While it is a clear indication of what Members of the European Parliament stand for, there is no immediate legal implications of it - political yes... The European Parliament is a curious legal construct.

There is a plenty of wiggle room to avoid any direct action by the European Commission.

Sad faith - get super bloated, kill all the live in vicinity, then shrink to a shadow of former self for the remainder of the life time of the universe.

NO, supernova would be so much more spectacular. At least it might give a standard candle for others observing this galaxy, become a measuring stick for the universe, and spill some heavier elements for whatever comes next.

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Should privacy laws end where atmosphere of our planet ends? If the Outer Space take of Bundesnachrichtendienst is true, we would be for an overhaul of quite few laws once more humans get beyond law earth orbit.

Tax unification - would in fact start with Fiscal Harmonisation.. That is to say - tax rates can be different, but the underlying calculations how to calculate income and expenses would be harmonised across the Member States of EU.

We are generations away from Tax Unification, if it ever happens...

Fiscal Harmonisation - more like it, though save some global seismic event - still a generation into the future.

Agreed - the title is bombastic fluff, however, some interesting points are made. Though the strongest one just paraphrases of the opening paragraph of the EC press release (http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-16-2923_en.htm).

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The biggest problem I have with Tim Cook's position is the sovereignty argument. I would stay away from it for now, and let the interested parties pick it up.

Tim Cook: "This would strike a devastating blow to the sovereignty of EU member states over their own tax matters, and to the principle of certainty of law in Europe".

Yeap, in case of Tasmanian Devils you are right.

I made a a large swooping statement and had this in mind -> http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/v17/n1/full/nn.3594.html

When I read it the first time if blew my mind. In principle - traumatic memories developed in presence of a particular scent triggered responses in subsequent generations - without the generations entering into social contact (a case of a female mouse to its offspring). Don't know how well established is statistics in this study though and how well replicated was the study. It suggests a storage of the information beyond central nervous system - in mammalian sperm.

While it is a feel good story - that's also a remarkable reminder of how little do we know. Sure, we most likely have few full instances of Tasmanian Devil's DNA (accounting for reading errors that is). This just tells me how far off we are from actual understanding how this machinery adjusted to the external threat.

Drawing a parallel with software stack -> we invented it and there are very few of us (sure as hell not me) that would understand a full stack of the browser and its environment I am currently using. Now faced with a large trove of DNA data - we know it works. Stationary we could show how a particular part affects a particular protein production. The full on rolling in-vivo interactions are way beyond the reach - reverse engineering them proves quite a challenge.

Would life be akin to running a code that keeps data and states in the code itself, continuing running itself though the changed code?

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Anybody here is cracking an interesting biotechnological problem with a fancy software stack - one that could be shared for a good story?

The two arguments presented - to keep a legal path for a higher priority routing - during late 2015 Trilogue Negotiations that framed the directive the way it is:

Driverless cars Medical applications (remote operations rooms were mentioned)

You have to give to telecoms - they built the infrastructure and are desperate to design some services that could become additional source of revenues. For now, it seems, the door is shut - maybe with the new automation coming they could dig it up - akin to "you don't want your house to send fire warning to city grid too slow, do you?".

That's a very interesting point you are making. Would seem true if one establishes that any off-the-personal-baseline analysis by a human-wetware cost more, the further off the analysed position is.

Your idea would to be to sneak in notions that are outside of a personal, or group, bubble. Do it gently and slowly. It would work if the positions would be presented with known and familiar analogies. In some setup that could work, we think in analogies.

One could argue, that that's what we do all the time - convincing ourselves and others of value of existing or new positions while ever-slightly changing our own positions. Do we want to dress that process up with machine learning, though?