Forgot your password?

Comment: Re:Eat your own dogfood, jerks (Score 1) 274

by ianturton (#33282294) Attached to: Legislation To Make Web Devices Accessible To Disabled Users

But the DDA doesn't actually say that, so someone screwed your employer. All they have to do to comply is provide an accessible office (or meeting room) for wheelchair bound employees/visitors.

Contrary to what the tabloid press will tell you the DDA is pretty mild, all you have to do is provide a reasonable adjustment not make the whole building accessible to wheelchairs. However it did mean that my mate Frank who was in a wheelchair didn't have to give his debit card number to some one from the bank every time he wanted to get money out of the ATM or risk being dropped by us after an evenings drinking when we tried to carry him back down the pub steps.

Comment: Re:No Free Market in the EU? (Score 2, Informative) 389

by ianturton (#32759924) Attached to: EU Plans To Make Apple, Adobe and Others Open Up

No, more like "I'd like to change GIS systems, can I get my data back, please?" - Currently if you go with the industry leader you are screwed. For example the US Air Force mandates that all it's bases store their maps in a proprietary DCMA protected format (got to love lobbiests) - This means that the US Air Force Academy spent $25 Million in a non compete tender to ESRI each year to licence the software they need to get to their own datasets (https://www.fbo.gov/index?tab=core&s=opportunity&mode=form&id=01da8bda20d8acaa50c7af0bba1f980c&tabmode=list). This is my taxes going down the drain each and every year.


Comment: Re:What about the presumption of innocence? (Score 1) 1590

by ianturton (#32019972) Attached to: Arizona "Papers, Please" Law May Hit Tech Workers

While I can understand your problems with illegal immigration. I'm a legal immigrant I pay taxes, I pay fees to the immigration service (and extra processing fees to try to get my documentation before the current ones expire) and I don't get to vote so I have no say in the way your government functions. If more states pass laws like this one I (and I suspect other immigrants) will vote with our feet and leave taking our taxes with us, if you are really unlucky we will take the jobs we do with us. Remember by definition I am not doing a job an American can do - if even one American (who could do the job) had applied I wouldn't have got my visa.

Comment: Re:Federal law already requires documentation (Score 1) 1590

by ianturton (#32019788) Attached to: Arizona "Papers, Please" Law May Hit Tech Workers

Actually I'm pretty sure I only have to prove my identity (in PA). I certainly don't carry my passport and HI-B visa with me everyday, they are both expensive and fragile documents that I keep in a safe location in my house. I have a PA driver's license (which I had to prove my immigration status to get) which I do carry in my wallet as it is designed for that. The only time I carry my visa (and a letter from my employer saying I really do still work for them) is if I plan to cross the border.

For those who haven't seen one an H1-B visa is a sheet of not quite letter sized paper with very soluble ink (presumably to prevent forgery not just to save money as they cost $600 + $1000 bribe), it would be a real pain in the ass to have to carry it everywhere.

Comment: Re:Seriously flawed logic (Score 1) 650

by ianturton (#31266378) Attached to: Use Open Source? Then You're a Pirate!



Booksellers in the UK are already trying to force charity shops to stop selling second hand books near their stores - http://www.thebookseller.com/news/93224-oxfam-accused-of-damaging-independents.html


Comment: Re:Seems reasonable (Score 1) 505

by ianturton (#31073726) Attached to: Call For Scientific Research Code To Be Released

Particularly if the research is publicly funded.

unless the public requires us to extract the maximum economic return for our research. In the UK and to a lesser extent the USA researchers are required to make as much money as possible from our research. I've had a lot of problems with university managers when trying to release research code under open licenses.


+ - Build your own multi-touch display->

Submitted by


Link to Original Source

Help fight continental drift.