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The only thing keeping me on Firefox is AdBlock Plus. The second that's in Chrome (or Chromium), I'm gone.

Google sell ads. Why would they block them? Cory Doctorow has an excellent take on this.

In real world gasoline will burn yes but rarely explode as it need pretty exact amount of gasoline and oxygen to explode.

Perhaps the overriding point is that car fires are deadly, even without an explosion. (Granted, the huge inferno in my link was also fueled by cargo and tires, as well as gasoline and diesel).

I am posting this again because I believe the world needs to see this.

This is what living conditions look like for the migrant workers in the middle-east:

http://www.qatarliving.com/node/14416

Article in the Guardian about this:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/oct/08/middleeast.construction

Before the middle-easterners start complaining about things like racial profiling, they will need to address the mess in their own backyard.

You have touched upon a topic which is very rarely discussed.

The conditions that the Indian migrant workers endure in the middle-east is beyond believable. It is true slave labour in more ways than one.

Most people who travel to the middle-east from India and the neighbouring nations come from poor backgrounds - they are the construction workers, clerks and so on. They are quite different from those who travel to the west (IT professionals, doctors etc).

Also, they aren't adequately represented by the Indian (Pakistani/Bangladeshi/Afghani) government. And the employers (called "sponsors") in the middle-east exploit this to the hilt.

* The employers will normally confiscate the passport of the employees as soon as they arrive. Women who come into these countries as nurses, maids etc are very regularly sexually exploited once their passports have been taken from them.

* If the employee tries to go back home without getting the permission of their employer, they can and most likely will be arrested. This happens not just to the labourers but also to some white collar professionals.

* The living conditions in the middle-east are absolutely deplorable. I have heard of cases where over a dozen labourers were squeezed into a small approx. 24x24 ft living quarters with just a small air-conditioner which is woefully inadequate in the desert climate.

* Many labourers get under $100 a month.. this is in a place where the cost of living is really high.

* Also, it is very difficult to change employers. The Arab employers completely subjugate them and the employees have no option but to endure these conditions till the time that they can leave the nation and since their travel papers are with their employers, they will need to wait out their contract terms.

Those who travel from India and the neighbouring nations are quite often aware of these extreme conditions but nonetheless choose to endure them because of extreme poverty.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/oct/08/middleeast.construction

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2000/aug/09/martinkettle1

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2007/oct/02/digitalmedia.musicnews

http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1666973,00.html

Or look at iTunes. Don't tell me that the stuff there isn't available via bittorent elsewher. People still end up buying from iTunes, despite the "free altrnatives".

If there were any attempts from China at shaping the judges' selection, why does it have to mean that they were trying to GET an award? Couldn't it be possible that they were trying to PREVENT one? If that's the case, it seems they could have been successful. (that is, if Hu Jia would have been a contender against Martti Ahtisaari)

I've been amazed by the extent to which this issue has permeated the mainstream media - here in the UK it's been home page material for the BBC, The Guardian, The Times and a number of others.

One - this is really terrible PR for Microsoft. Two - this is really good news for the web as a whole (obviously not including anyone affected by the exploit), as anything that increases public awareness of security issues and alternative browsers has to be a good thing. I just hope it makes a difference.

An article everybody should read: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/apr/24/usa.comment

I'm afraid it could be too late already.

This event was a slip up, we were not supposed to know about the censorship and filtering going on

The ISPs involved have generally been very honest and upfront about their relationship to IWF. To anyone paying attention, this shouldn't have come as a surprise. See, e.g. this article from 2000 about IWF's activities, or this parliamentary comment. Just because you're not aware of something doesn't mean it's a secret.

In the case of Rwandan genocide, the French government and its troops were accused of assisting in the genocide, not stopping it. Just because a country is bigger and richer doesn't necessarily mean it actually cares about innocent people getting killed.

This example is one good reason to (at least) make the blacklist completely public and transparent. Well, I wouldn't be so sure about that. You see, IWF's filtering system, originally called CleanFeed and introduced initially by BT (British Telecom), was reverse-engineered in 2005. By reverse-engineered, I mean a guy from Cambridge ran a scan outside of the UK and inside the UK and because CleanFeed would serve a fake "not found" page if on the list. This way, he was able to essentially discover the list without it being disclosed. The point here is that this essentially creates (in IWF's own words) "an oracle to locate illegal child abuse websites". I'm not saying that makes censorship conducted by big businesses or government okay, I'm just saying that transparency of the censored list, in today's age of automation (just google for example for all the one-click flash-baed movie downloading apps), it won't even take "specialist knowledge" to access the stuff, once the URLs are known. Disclaimer: I am not advocating for censorship and in fact think that IWF should be put out of existence by passing laws that make it illegal to censor internet traffic by ISPs.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/dec/08/wikipedia-censorship

Under UK law, an image of a naked child is usually considered child pornography; context is irrelevant.

I would suggest otherwise and so would Sir Elton John, Nan Goldin and the CPS, who were all involved with an image that was seized by police, who considered it obscene, but which was later returned, despite showing a young naked girl doing the splits in front of the camera:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2007/oct/26/artnews.art

If that wasn't obscene, then it raises the question of what criteria the IWF are using to censor the internet.

You should just read the text at the link GP posted. It's some really scary stuff, and if all the citations there are correct, he is right. It's up to the jury to decide, individually in every particular case, whether a given image is indecent:

"The decency of an image is an objective test; that is, it is decided by the jury. Indecency is considered to be a question of fact"

"In 2003, the Sentencing Advisory Panel provided guidance for Judges considering sentences for people convicted of an offence under the Protection of Children Act. The lowest level of indecency was described as "images depicting erotic posing with no sexual activity", which would suggest that naturist images without posing are not indecent. Despite this, a number of people have been convicted of an offence for making and possessing naturist images. In 2003, Tom O'Carroll was convicted of "evading the prohibition on the importation of indecent material", for importing photographs of "young naked children engaging in normal outdoor activity such as playing on a beach". One should never assume that an image must be pornographic for it to be indecent."

"The levels of indecency are as follows:

Level 1 - Images depicting erotic posing with no sexual activity ..."

"Images which are below the threshhold for Level 1 - but which are judged to be indecent by a jury - will be treated as Level 1 images during sentencing; therefore a naturist image with no erotic posing will be treated as a Level 1 indecent image of a child, if judged to be indecent."

>Under UK law, an image of a naked child is usually considered child pornography; context is irrelevant.

I would suggest otherwise and so would Sir Elton John, Nan Goldin and the CPS, who were all involved with an image that was seized by police, who considered it obscene, but which was later returned, despite showing a young naked girl doing the splits in front of the camera:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2007/oct/26/artnews.art

If that wasn't obscene, then it raises the question of what criteria the IWF are using to censor the internet.

Their own, arbitrary one, perhaps?

>Looking at the picture in question, I have little doubt that it would be considered child porn under the modern laws of at least US and UK.

Interesting, because recently there was something of a 'storm'/'furore'/[insert tabloid adjective of choice here] over some photographs being shown in a UK gallery. It caused a big stink not least among photographers and artists concerned about freedom of expression.

The photo was called 'Klara And Edda Belly-Dancing' by photographer Nan Goldin and was part of a collection being lent out by Sir Elton John; at that point in time being shown at the Baltic gallery in Gateshead. It showed two girls messing about, one of whom was doing a sort of splits, she was, if I remember correctly, not completely naked but was at least without pants and her va-jay-jay was pointed directly at the camera, for all to see.

It was seized by the local cops and the media had a big to-do about it.

And then it was returned; considered not obscene:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2007/oct/26/artnews.art

We may have a great deal of empty-headed reactionary hysteria about the whole issue of children/nudity/sex here in the UK, but we're not at the point where they have to walk about in full niqab like wahabi women in Saudi Arabia, lest some stray paedophile get aroused. Well, not yet.

And if the Nan Golwin image is considered OK for the proles to view, it strikes me as entirely indefensible that the image we're all talking about now is being censored for being obscene considering its decorum when compared to the Goldwin image.

It would seem, comparing the two cases that the IWF are using criteria for judging images that goes against current standards that have been tested and reviewed, which would, in turn seem to suggest that they can't be trusted to censor what the British people see on their internets without credible oversight of their actions.

Their decisions clearly need to be opened up to (credible) scrutiny.

Under this same logical framework, we should be able to resell legally purchased MP3s, if you certify that you are not retaining a copy for yourself. I'm not holding my breath on it though.

Your remark is oddly (perhaps not coincidentally) timely. There is now -- for the time being -- an online second-hand MP3 shop, hosted in the US. News item here. As far as I'm aware it's very new. It's still online at the time of writing.

Bush still has a month to push an incentive plan through. To hell with Detroit. Besideds, we know he's a fan.

Don't know. Maybe a big company is funding the lawsuit, but Psystar is a company consisting of two kids in their mid-20s, Roberto and Randolfo Pedraza, who are most likely operating out of their parents' basement. No, really. Check it out for yourself.

So i doubt the company itself is backed by anyone. I think they just picked themselves up a 'guardian angel' so-to-speak.

Oh god, I hate replying to myself but I forgot to include the source of the second quote: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2008/oct/08/linux.windows

Sorry about that.

#4 is wrong - private school teachers generally get paid less than those in state schools in the UK. See Private school teachers complain about pay. In particular "The motions follow the recent case of Barbara White, assistant housemistress at Malvern College, who was contracted to work for 121.5 hours a week for less than the minimum wage."

Also private schools are allowed to employ people with no teaching qualifications - this opens the field to essentially anyone with a degree (or even A-level in some cases), thus increasing competition for jobs and lowering salaries.

Yes, seriously. In your initial post you stated that Stallman blasts companies for opening up, you are wrong and I asked for citations and the information you in turn provide doesn't support your previous statement (more anecdotes and still no citations). You, and many others, are trying to paint Stallman as a raving lunatic even though in actuality the statements he makes are rather balanced. Note how in your little anecdote you didn't even mention Microsoft, though in your original post you stated that Stallman blasted Microsoft for opening up documentation, standards and protocols.

In reality Stallman does tend to commend companies that open up, but he will not turn a blind eye when that company engages in hypocricy or activities that blatantly go against the Free Software ideology (which is not only entirely logical, but essential for preserving the ideals he cherishes). For an example of where he commended a company for opening up see his statements regarding Sun Microsystems decision to open up Java in 2006, he stated:

I think Sun has, well with this contribution, have contributed more than any other company to the free software community, in the form of software. And it shows leadership - it's an example I hope others will follow.

So, I've taken the liberty (read: did the actual hard work you refused to do) to Google around and see what Stallman has really said regarding the matter you've brought up:

Regarding Google Chrome. Stallman in an interview taken on 17 September 2008 stated that:

The license for those binaries is unacceptable for several reasons. For instance, it says you give Google the right to change your software and requires you to accept whatever changes they decide to impose. It purports to forbid reverse engineering. It also uses the confusing and biased propaganda term "intellectual property". [...] You should not agree to those terms.

Note that I believe he is referring to the EULA that one has to accept when downloading or using the Google Chrome binaries from Google, which at this time still states:

10.2 You may not (and you may not permit anyone else to) copy, modify, create a derivative work of, reverse engineer, decompile or otherwise attempt to extract the source code of the Software or any part thereof, unless this is expressly permitted or required by law, or unless you have been specifically told that you may do so by Google, in writing.

Regarding cloud computing. Hold on, even though Google embraces open standards you do understand that by using their proprietary services (Google Search, GMail, Google Apps) you certainly run the risk of becoming dependent (locked in) on functionality offered?

In what I believe to be a short conversation with a reporter from the Guardian (here's the Slashdot discussion) that's the point Stallman was trying to make regarding the concept of SaaS/cloud computing/whatchamacallit (taking into account that Stallman personally just isn't very interested, to put it lightly, in web applications):

If you use a proprietary program or somebody else's web server, you're defenceless. You're putty in the hands of whoever developed that software.

I'm looking forward to your response.

It doesn't take propaganda to show you that Russia's run by a bunch of corrupt jerks. Their premier is making a big deal about being a big macho tough guy, like shooting tigers and playing at being USSR version II, invading Georgia, (funny how people around here are all "US imperialism in Iraq! evil! bad!" and won't say a thing about "Russian imperialism in Georgia!"), sending big boats down to Cuba to show off, et cetera. Blah. Whatever. Saber-rattling, at worst, for now, and they're hurting a bit at the moment with the drop in the price of oil.

Grandparent is also right that this is overstated; if it comes to deterioration of relations and war it won't be over some silly little cybersomething; it'll be over something in eastern Europe. And China is an entirely different matter altogether.... but you don't need propaganda to tell they're run by a bunch of jerks, either. :)

Boris (don't look at the hands, look at the eyes) Johnson, has scrapped the western extension to the London Congestion charge. He asked a survey of 28000 what they wanted and apparently between 67 % and 86% of businesses wanted it scrapped. Sounds democratic, but I think that mob rule better fits the bill. Since the extension was introduced, roughly 30,000 fewer vehicles a day have passed through that zone. That's a line of cars over 55 miles (90km) long that haven't been clogging the streets on their way somewhere else. If you take into account the reduction caused by the original zone (70,000 vehicles), and you can add 131 miles (210km) to that figure. 186 miles of traffic NOT entering an area roughly 10 miles in diameter every day. I would have thought that was a good thing, but apparently not. What about the other 250,000 vehicles who still enter the area daily ?

Still, as long as he's popular ...

I worked the distances out using 1 car = 3 metres long. If some of those were trucks, then the line gets longer, and most cars are longer than 3m anyway.
Yes this is relevant to the Olympics. Efficient transportation is kind of essential at large events.

Then you either don't live in the UK or don't pay much attention. Adverts must be "legal, decent, honest and truthful", and failure to meet any of these requirements is grounds for the advert to be banned:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4353055.stm
    - Marmite ad banned from being show during children's programs because it "terrified children"

And there's plenty more examples:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/09/21/crazy_frog_off_air/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2003/dec/10/advertising.media2

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/mar/12/asa.advertising

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/kate-moss-mascara-advert-was-misleading-asa-rules-395805.html

Then you either don't live in the UK or don't pay much attention. Adverts must be "legal, decent, honest and truthful", and failure to meet any of these requirements is grounds for the advert to be banned:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4353055.stm
    - Marmite ad banned from being show during children's programs because it "terrified children"

And there's plenty more examples:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/09/21/crazy_frog_off_air/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2003/dec/10/advertising.media2

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/mar/12/asa.advertising

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/kate-moss-mascara-advert-was-misleading-asa-rules-395805.html

The Grauniad has an item which gives some insight into how the ad came to be banned: Here

Seems to me Apple didn't really defend this one very appropriately, but then again, who cares?

It seems to be in various places over the interwebs

@jester:

"Was it because CNN doesn't show that kind of thing as policy, or was it just because it was too close to home and they didn't want to upset people further?"

I'd say you pretty much answered your own question. For a more balanced perspective than U.S. corporate MSM I'd recommend:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/ (center left by European standards hard left by American standards)

http://antiwar.com/ (Libertarian anti imperialist excellent tracking of conflict around the world)

http://commondreams.org/ (Liberal/left compilation of news from around the world)

http://counterpunch.org/ (Hard left with occasional Libertarianesque essays)

http://www.lewrockwell.com/ ("anti state, anti war, pro market" essays)

Yeah this list is slanted to the left if you go to all these sites and balance it with the BBC and our center right to hard right corporate MSM, you can ALMOST figure out what's going on in the world. Good luck having a life though. :(

Patents are good and necessary in general

How do we know that? No, really. I have seen exactly zero studies that come to this conclusion while there is at least circumstantial evidence to the contrary.

No its worse than that. They are using "evolved" to mean changed. Its like saying that spring evolves into summer, or a newspaper of paper mache.

Exactly. The modern use of evolution to describe the biological process of descent with modification is in fact a rather poor use of language. Dictionary.com defines 'evolution' as "any process of formation or growth," which is clearly an appropriate description in this case. Furthermore, Darwin himself avoided using the word 'evolution' to describe his theory, because it was such a poor description.

Of course the Slashdot headline is, as usual, meant to deceive, but then what would we have to talk about if the headlines and summaries were reasonable and accurate?

But I can get 2kbps downstream (yup, that's right) through my 2.5 or 3G connection. Yay. I think I was getting better than that on dialup in about 1995.

You need to get an iPhone. Apparently they are really fast.

Most transmission happens while the victims are healthy and unaware of their status. The Guardian quotes this and other concerns for treating patients like criminals. Get your RFID guardian today. The industry does not care for your complaints!

This is Erris, posting anonymous because persistent modbombs mean I can only post once or twice a day,

and in some co-ed prisons apparently sex by climbing through the ceiling, see http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/feedarticle/8056440

The point of it is, they cannot control easily what gets in because the punishment for doing so or being caught isn't severe enough to stop it. This trial in Atlanta http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/atlanta/stories/2008/11/17/nichols_trial_atlanta.html shows all the sorts of things even prisoners can set into motion while locked up!

The harsh fact is that prisons are anything but locked down. Too many "rights" give prisoners many opportunities to get around some of the rules. Don't bring up prison rape and such like that, that is not something the government sponsors or supports.

Prison should be annoying and entirely scripted. Every moment of your day should be doing a required activity, from prison work, reading, education, and more. They should have only limited visitation - its prison.

Yeah, never been to one and won't ever either because I am not stupid, thank you.

The low tech masks the team was wearing was for the
output of the numerous coal plants in China.

The particulate matter in the air is very high.

So high in fact that they had a massive algae bloom
mess they had to clean up in the waters right before
the olympics that was quite embarrassing to them.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jun/30/pollution.olympicgames2008?gusrc=rss&feed=networkfront

This has been linked to the coal:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/green/detail?blogid=49&entry_id=27705

The air quality in China at times has been hideous.

Some style-guides' guidance on apostrophes: The Economist, The Times, The American Heritage Book of English Usage.

The Guardian and the Emory Writing Center are more tolerant and admit your way of doing it, albeit as a less common alternative.

And that's just the links on the relevant Wikipedia article. Please inform yourself before dictating dogma.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/tvandradioblog/2008/nov/12/barack-obama-south-park

They did sue. Good thing you thought of it 9 months later, though, right? Maybe you should be Yahoo's CEO.

There was certainly a lot of blogospheric noise about some British agency finding Prozac in drinking water. The only problem: it never happened. Someone hypothesised (wrongly) that this could happen, someone misquoted, and the nonsense took off from there. The actual agency which "found" the Prozac has never actually run such a test. Of course, only the sensational claim is remembered...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2004/aug/12/thisweekssciencequestions3

Same thing happened in France in 2005: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/jul/11/france

The CIA doesn't need to pull strings to get at Facebook's data, according to this article they were involved in the funding of it:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/jan/14/facebook

Facebook's most recent round of funding was led by a company called Greylock Venture Capital, who put in the sum of $27.5m. One of Greylock's senior partners is called Howard Cox, another former chairman of the NVCA, who is also on the board of In-Q-Tel. What's In-Q-Tel? Well, believe it or not (and check out their website), this is the venture-capital wing of the CIA.

In-q-tel's site is http://www.iqt.org./
I think the CIA is even bigger and better funded than you thought!

Yeah, I was just reading about a much uglier incident. The criminals at Novell are not wo well organized, but those who own them are and are not afraid to show the same contempt for your body as they show your work. The police in India look less militarized than those in either the US or Italy.

Most Americans can get by with anything or only face laughable charges (and be acquitted for most of them) for stuff they would be executed for in the US if the victims were Americans.

Reminds me of this.

I refer you to Einstein's quote, "The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish." - Einstein's Letter to Eric Gutkind in 1954.

My mistake, you're absolutely right. It was actually 1997 when Saddam started denying them access to inspection sites and expelled all the US inspectors:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/dec/09/qanda.iraq

Indeed, the post you replied to was greatly exaggerated: the italian government will not censor youtube.
What is happening is that the parliament is planning legislation [italian language] to stop youtube from infringing copyright by hosting clips of tv shows recorded from the head of the government’s private tv networks.

Yet, it is to be noted that democratically elected members of senate [italian language] belonging to the currently ruling party, and even the head of the government himself, are often heard praising fascism, which, as we know, was quite far from democracy.

And just for precision’s sake, even if Italy’s legal system is not based on common law, precedents do have importance, and a well-behaving judge will not ignore them.

Trick question. If you stop calling the people participating in the act "criminals," then the criminal influence disappears. The behavior does not, however.

Not at all - the criminal behaviour referred to is rape and sex slavery, and that would still be criminal. So the question of whether people would still participate in criminal behaviour if prostitution was legal is fair, because no one is claiming that rape should be legalised(!)

Now if you're now switching the debate to saying that prostitution is bad even if it's legal, then you should say so - without conflating the issue with acts that would still be illegal, like rape, as you did in your earlier post.

Cuz just not calling the people criminals anymore ain't going to work.

You are the one doing the labelling trick - labelling them as "criminals", and then concluding that it's criminal behaviour.

I'm sorry, but you Slashdotters are talking like typical men.

Ah yes, what a great argument. You're the one who wants to tell women what they are allowed to do - you're the typical man. Perhaps you should ask people who work in that industry what they want, rather than telling them?

The happy-go-lucky, sex-positive female who chose the sex industry as a fun, hot way to make a living is the minority.

Firstly, your evidence? Secondly, that doesn't justify criminalising innocent people, when the illegal things would still be illegal.

The basic premise of Jurassic Park wasn't dumb.

You mean the idea that you could extract DNA from a long dead creature and use it to reanimate that line?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2008/nov/04/cloning-frozen-mice
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7707498.stm

The links are for recently reported research in which clones of mice, that have been dead and frozen for 16 years, have been made and brought to maturity.

Does that premise sound dumb now?

As for the Chaos thing that was an entertaining attempt to capture the Zeitgeist - James Gleick's "Chaos" came out a couple of years before Jurassic park was issued and "Chaos theory" was pretty hot back then.

Umm, STOP and THINK about what choices they have, and get back with me. And go ahead, think the unthinkable.

NURK!!! Time's up. They have a choice. They can keep the keys. Constitutionally? Hellzno. but that was the whole reason for the question.

If Bush/Cheney are as evil as people think (and I'm not saying they are, or they are not)... WHY WOULD THEY LET THE ELECTION RUN ITS COURSE TO INAUGURATION OF OBAMA?

If they are, as some say, 9/10ths of the way to Fascism, why not take the next step? And if they don't, then the first 9 steps were a waste. Course, "the winner" could step in. They probably wouldn't want that to be O'Baughmagh. That infers a "McCain Miracle". By fair means, or foul. That means "fix" the election, or vacate the results. Which would you prefer?

--
I expect to have my 1st and 2nd Amendment rights to the day I die, but I can prolly kiss my karma goodbye.

...when they made a similar mistake back in July.

(For non-UK readers, the Guardian is a well-known s*cialist newspaper; the Daily Mail emphatically isn't, and there's a long-running difference of option between those two papers; so there was a strong sense of Schadenfreude in the Guardian article)