Looks like it. According to the video on the BBC page, the ICO claims that if someone can prove they suffered as a result of this database, they can claim compensation.
The Data protection act has been around for about 10 years already in the UK, and from what I can understand, the electronic database has been around for 15 years. They didn't recently digitize it. Of course, before then, it's anybody's guess, but these guys could have been prosecuted 10 years ago.
Just to point out that the original BBC article (when I submitted the story to/.) had a quote from the notes in the illegal database stating that someone was a member of the Communist Party, hence why I mentioned it contained political affiliations. Not sure why the BBC removed this, but just thought I'd mention it in case someone wonders why.
"When was the last time you went to the cinema to watch a major release that didn't end with a blatant hook for a sequel?"
The only films this statement really applies to are the "Blockbuster" style of films. I would say that the majority of films don't end in this fashion (then again, I am rather choosy regarding the films I watch these days, so perhaps I just don't notice).
What's perhaps worse are those films that are not expected to have sequels, but because they're successful, you end up getting a bright spark claiming it's time for a sequel.
That small gripe aside, you're spot on. I remember an interview with Dominic Monaghan (from Lost) who was saying (around Season two or three) that the original script for Lost was intended to end after Season Three or Four, but the studio executives objected and told them to stretch it out much further. Funnily enough, this was around the same time I lost interest in the show.
I find this approach alienating. It decreases the chance of new viewers being attracted to a show (how many people want to play catchup with a weeks' worth of viewing just to figure out what's going on), not to mention that the "indefinite" approach is likely to encourage a high fall-out rate as people either get bored, annoyed at the never-ending and increasingly more unbelievable plot twists, or simply fatigued.
Don't fall for the trap of trying to "explain how the recent warming trend has also been detected on Mars", and treat it as a valid question/argument. It's bogus, and the moment anyone sprouts it, it should send alarm bells that they're simply trying to muddy the waters and have no interest in science at all.
On the one hand, a common claim is that we don't understand enough about what's going on with the science, so we can't make conclusions that man is creating global warming.
But in the same breath, a sceptic will also say that it's perfectly acceptable to point to the weather systems of Mars and other planets - planets we don't live on, haven't been studying for the same length of time as earth, and that we hardly know anything about their weather patterns in comparison - as evidence that the Sun is behind it all.
Hell, we've only just confirmed there's water on Mars, but if Mars is warming it's an indicator that man's influence on global warming is bogus!
"The 2008 incarnation of the poem consists of custom-built software that, when/. readers try to read the poem, it is encrypted in a weird Web-based algorithm that transforms the text into a message saying 'Error establishing a database connection'.
"We need a shitload more of US taxpayer's money in order to achieve US dominance and superiority in the virtual space combat arena."
This reminds me of how, during the Cold War, the vague accusations that the Soviets had such incredible weapons capabilities - capabilities that were so secret that the US didn't know what they were, and didn't have any intelligence on what they were - justified massive investment into the Military Industrial Complex.
Nothing like a bogeyman to make Santa deliver your Christmas wish list.
Except that the Conservative stance of promoting capitalism and the "free market" has its own mechanisms of censorship that are actually a lot more effective than what you're talking about. At least most people can look at a hate-speech tribunal and realise that it is censorship, and see it for what it is, but try telling someone who lives in a free market society that they're being censored through the mechanisms of the market, and they'll think you're crazy.
For example, during the mid to late 1800's the free market brought about the industrialization of the press and media, and the costs of setting up a new daily (in the UK) went up from about £1000 to well over £50,000. The same mechanisms took place in the free market with other mediums as well. Your comment about there not being enough voices is a direct result of the free market. You'd hope that the internet would've changed things (lower costs, for example), and it has to an extent, but in the majority of cases the free market of ideas has ensured that alternative voices are effectively excluded from the mainstream, and rarely, if ever, have any type of reach comparable to all the stations you've mentioned.
The so called "free market" has given rise to massive media centralisation, large corporations owned by extremely wealthy individuals whose primary motive is profit, its primary responsibility are its shareholders - in other words, they are under the sway of market forces. Integration into the market has meant that media companies are increasingly owned by non-media corporations, and rules and regulations governing media concentration, cross-ownership and the like have been watered down to such an extent that they are virtually non existent. This is important, because it now means that the media are losing their autonomy to bankers, increasingly making the bottom line ever more important, which becomes an incredibly powerful censorship tool in its own right. You are unlikely to find a media company publishing anything that will hurt its parent company, cost its shareholders money through a loss of revenue because they published an article critical of an advertiser... you get the general idea.
Thanks to the free market, we now have a situation where newspapers are not in the business of selling news. They're in the business of selling its readership to advertising companies, which means that if you want to compete in the marketplace of ideas, you're beholden to the whims of advertisers. Cases abound of advertisers putting the squeeze on the media when they do something they don't like.
Thanks to the free market of ideas, it means that these media companies will now regurgitate the government and corporate agenda without question because it's quick, easy, doesn't induce any pressure from the market - in short, it's much easier to accept self-censorship than it is to actually investigate.
There are many other mechanisms of censorship in the marketplace, and most of these indicate that the very structure of the media in the free market is an inherently conservative one, not liberal. The liberal media in the US is very much a myth.
All the individuals who became the mass movement behind Obama believing there would be real change should read a book called The True Believer by Eric Hoffer.
One of the most potent attractions of a mass movement is its offering of a substitute for individual hope. This attraction is particularly effective in a society imbued with the idea of progress. For in the conception of progress, "tomorrow" looms large, and the frustration resulting from having nothing to look forward to is the more poignant.... A rising mass movement preaches the immediate hope. It is intent on stirring its followers to action, and it is the around-the-corner brand of hope that prompts people to act.... Later, as the movement comes to power, the emphasis is shifted to the distant hope - the dream and the vision."
If you thank that says a lot about him, what does defending Chiquita, which paid some $1.7 million to death squads in Columbia (death squads which just happened to play nice, be pro-business, and just target Leftists and unionists), say about him?
Don't read Genesis, read elsewhere. For example, the following indicate that it was the sun that moved in the heavens, and that it was the earth that stood still, implying its position in the centre of the universe.
Joshua 10:12-13
Then spoke Joshua to the Lord in the day when the Lord gave the Amorites over to the men of Israel; and he said in the sight of Israel, "Sun, stand thou still at Gibeon, and thou Moon in the valley of Aijalon." And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the nation took vengeance on their enemies. Is this not written in the Book of Jashar? The sun stayed in the midst of heaven, and did not hasten to go down for about a whole day.
Habakkuk 3:11 The sun and moon stood still in their habitation at the light of thine arrows as they sped, at the flash of thy glittering spear.
Psalms 19:4-6
yet their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them he has set a tent for the sun, which comes forth like a bridegroom leaving his chamber, and like a strong man runs his course with joy. Its rising is from the end of the heavens, and its circuit to the end of them; and there is nothing hid from its heat.
Ecclesiastes 1:5 The sun rises and the sun goes down, and hastens to the place where it rises.
The following all indicate that the earth did not move:
1 Chronicles 16:30
tremble before him, all earth; yea, the world stands firm, never to be moved.
Psalms 93:1
The Lord reigns; he is robbed in majesty; the lord is robbed, he is girded with strength. Yea, the world is established; it shall never be moved.
Psalms 96:10
Say among the nations, "The Lord reigns! Yea, the world is established, it shall never be moved; he will judge the peoples with equity."
These were taken from here, where there are a few more references.
... then you also believe in the freedom of people to say distasteful things. Can't say I like Steyn much myself, or what he says, but the way to combat things like hate speech - if that's what it is - is by having more speech, not less of it.
I'm not entirely sure that's correct at all. There's been fairly good research into this. For example, see Robert Pape's "The Logic of Suicide Terrorism" (interview here):
The central fact is that overwhelmingly suicide-terrorist attacks are not driven by religion as much as they are by a clear strategic objective: to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from the territory that the terrorists view as their homeland. From Lebanon to Sri Lanka to Chechnya to Kashmir to the West Bank, every major suicide-terrorist campaign--over 95 percent of all the incidents--has had as its central objective to compel a democratic state to withdraw.
...
If Islamic fundamentalism were the pivotal factor, then we should see some of the largest Islamic fundamentalist countries in the world, like Iran, which has 70 million people--three times the population of Iraq and three times the population of Saudi Arabia--with some of the most active groups in suicide terrorism against the United States. However, there has never been an al-Qaeda suicide terrorist from Iran, and we have no evidence that there are any suicide terrorists in Iraq from Iran.
Sudan is a country of 21 million people. Its government is extremely Islamic fundamentalist. The ideology of Sudan was so congenial to Osama bin Laden that he spent three years in Sudan in the 1990s. Yet there has never been an al-Qaeda suicide terrorist from Sudan.
I have the first complete set of data on every al-Qaeda suicide terrorist from 1995 to early 2004, and they are not from some of the largest Islamic fundamentalist countries in the world. Two thirds are from the countries where the United States has stationed heavy combat troops since 1990.
Another point in this regard is Iraq itself. Before our invasion, Iraq never had a suicide-terrorist attack in its history. Never. Since our invasion, suicide terrorism has been escalating rapidly with 20 attacks in 2003, 48 in 2004, and over 50 in just the first five months of 2005. Every year that the United States has stationed 150,000 combat troops in Iraq, suicide terrorism has doubled.
That's not to say that some very vocal minority groups may be saying what you describe, but the reality seem to be very different for the majority.
I know full well it's a left-wing website. The article I referenced was written by Chomsky, in fact. I don't particularly care. If there is evidence to say the message is wrong, rather than trying to discredit the messenger, then I'd pay attention.
Yes, different countries with different people's and cultures. However, if you RTFA, Sen also notes that when development planning started, both countries had "similarities that were quite striking" in terms of death rates and so on. According to Sen, he claims that the differences in outcomes are to do with "ideological predispositions", where China had more equitable distribution of resources in comparison to India.
I had a look through JSTOR, and read some of the reviews from others there. The book itself appears to have been well received, and I find little to suggest Sen is way off the mark.
You're right, success and failure are more complex than just looking at the economic systems, but they do play a vitally important role.
"Worse"? Both capitalism and communism can be, and often are, terrible.
For example, economist Amartya Sen, who won a Noble Prize, did a comparison of India's democratic capitalist experiment with that of the Chinese famine, and the Chinese communist experiment. His work "Hunger and Public Action" estimated the deaths caused by the famines in China to be around 16.5 to 29.5 million. Most estimates regarding the total deaths from the Chinese communist experiment are said to be around 100 million.
Although India didn't have a famine similar to China, Sen notes that "as far as morbidity, mortality and longevity are concerned, China has a large and decisive lead over India", and that "India seems to manage to fill its cupboard with more skeletons every eight years than China put there in its years of shame".
In other words, the democratic capitalist experiment in India from 1947 resulted in more deaths that the entire Communist track record since 1917. By 1979, there were an estimated 100 million deaths in India already.
And before we forget, the Russian capitalist experiment that was prescribed by advisers such as the IMF and World Bank resulted in approximately 3.4 million Russian deaths until about 1998, while others put the figure up to about 15 million premature deaths, with a projected decline of 30% in the population over the coming decades.
The fact is, both systems have had terrible track records.
Many Iraqis are afraid to see us leave because they suspect that the entire country will explode into open warfare once we are gone.
That's not entirely true. The last poll done that I've seen that actually asked Iraqis this very question (available from the Brookings Institute) was carried out in March 2007, and showed that a majority (53%) believed the security situation would improve if US troops left. 26% said it would get worse, the rest said they didn't know.
In fact, polls in Iraq have consistently shown this attitude for quite some time.
Slashdot Mirror
Looks like it. According to the video on the BBC page, the ICO claims that if someone can prove they suffered as a result of this database, they can claim compensation.
The Data protection act has been around for about 10 years already in the UK, and from what I can understand, the electronic database has been around for 15 years. They didn't recently digitize it. Of course, before then, it's anybody's guess, but these guys could have been prosecuted 10 years ago.
Just to point out that the original BBC article (when I submitted the story to /.) had a quote from the notes in the illegal database stating that someone was a member of the Communist Party, hence why I mentioned it contained political affiliations. Not sure why the BBC removed this, but just thought I'd mention it in case someone wonders why.
"When was the last time you went to the cinema to watch a major release that didn't end with a blatant hook for a sequel?"
The only films this statement really applies to are the "Blockbuster" style of films. I would say that the majority of films don't end in this fashion (then again, I am rather choosy regarding the films I watch these days, so perhaps I just don't notice).
What's perhaps worse are those films that are not expected to have sequels, but because they're successful, you end up getting a bright spark claiming it's time for a sequel.
That small gripe aside, you're spot on. I remember an interview with Dominic Monaghan (from Lost) who was saying (around Season two or three) that the original script for Lost was intended to end after Season Three or Four, but the studio executives objected and told them to stretch it out much further. Funnily enough, this was around the same time I lost interest in the show.
I find this approach alienating. It decreases the chance of new viewers being attracted to a show (how many people want to play catchup with a weeks' worth of viewing just to figure out what's going on), not to mention that the "indefinite" approach is likely to encourage a high fall-out rate as people either get bored, annoyed at the never-ending and increasingly more unbelievable plot twists, or simply fatigued.
Oh, and yeah, kids, get off my lawn!
Indeed, one user on the forum even said "I'm sure that clear usability suggestions with ideas for implementation would be welcomed!"
Feel the rage!
Don't fall for the trap of trying to "explain how the recent warming trend has also been detected on Mars", and treat it as a valid question/argument. It's bogus, and the moment anyone sprouts it, it should send alarm bells that they're simply trying to muddy the waters and have no interest in science at all.
On the one hand, a common claim is that we don't understand enough about what's going on with the science, so we can't make conclusions that man is creating global warming.
But in the same breath, a sceptic will also say that it's perfectly acceptable to point to the weather systems of Mars and other planets - planets we don't live on, haven't been studying for the same length of time as earth, and that we hardly know anything about their weather patterns in comparison - as evidence that the Sun is behind it all.
Hell, we've only just confirmed there's water on Mars, but if Mars is warming it's an indicator that man's influence on global warming is bogus!
Got to love their determination.
"The 2008 incarnation of the poem consists of custom-built software that, when /. readers try to read the poem, it is encrypted in a weird Web-based algorithm that transforms the text into a message saying 'Error establishing a database connection'.
"We need a shitload more of US taxpayer's money in order to achieve US dominance and superiority in the virtual space combat arena."
This reminds me of how, during the Cold War, the vague accusations that the Soviets had such incredible weapons capabilities - capabilities that were so secret that the US didn't know what they were, and didn't have any intelligence on what they were - justified massive investment into the Military Industrial Complex.
Nothing like a bogeyman to make Santa deliver your Christmas wish list.
The third option is if Yahoo and Microsoft team up, in which case there is a slim chance that it could counter Google's search monopoly.
Except that the Conservative stance of promoting capitalism and the "free market" has its own mechanisms of censorship that are actually a lot more effective than what you're talking about. At least most people can look at a hate-speech tribunal and realise that it is censorship, and see it for what it is, but try telling someone who lives in a free market society that they're being censored through the mechanisms of the market, and they'll think you're crazy.
For example, during the mid to late 1800's the free market brought about the industrialization of the press and media, and the costs of setting up a new daily (in the UK) went up from about £1000 to well over £50,000. The same mechanisms took place in the free market with other mediums as well. Your comment about there not being enough voices is a direct result of the free market. You'd hope that the internet would've changed things (lower costs, for example), and it has to an extent, but in the majority of cases the free market of ideas has ensured that alternative voices are effectively excluded from the mainstream, and rarely, if ever, have any type of reach comparable to all the stations you've mentioned.
The so called "free market" has given rise to massive media centralisation, large corporations owned by extremely wealthy individuals whose primary motive is profit, its primary responsibility are its shareholders - in other words, they are under the sway of market forces. Integration into the market has meant that media companies are increasingly owned by non-media corporations, and rules and regulations governing media concentration, cross-ownership and the like have been watered down to such an extent that they are virtually non existent. This is important, because it now means that the media are losing their autonomy to bankers, increasingly making the bottom line ever more important, which becomes an incredibly powerful censorship tool in its own right. You are unlikely to find a media company publishing anything that will hurt its parent company, cost its shareholders money through a loss of revenue because they published an article critical of an advertiser ... you get the general idea.
Thanks to the free market, we now have a situation where newspapers are not in the business of selling news. They're in the business of selling its readership to advertising companies, which means that if you want to compete in the marketplace of ideas, you're beholden to the whims of advertisers. Cases abound of advertisers putting the squeeze on the media when they do something they don't like.
Thanks to the free market of ideas, it means that these media companies will now regurgitate the government and corporate agenda without question because it's quick, easy, doesn't induce any pressure from the market - in short, it's much easier to accept self-censorship than it is to actually investigate.
There are many other mechanisms of censorship in the marketplace, and most of these indicate that the very structure of the media in the free market is an inherently conservative one, not liberal. The liberal media in the US is very much a myth.
Their list of games to be concerned about looks like the best "Top 10 Games for Christmas" list I've seen yet.
.. he could start a hip-hop group could Wu Clang Clan.
.... oh, never mind. I'm groaning, too.
See, it's funny, because his robots go clang, and
Beijing's investment in rocket technology is also accelerating the militarisation of outer space
Funny, I thought it was the US stance of space dominance that was accelerating militarisation of space.
All the individuals who became the mass movement behind Obama believing there would be real change should read a book called The True Believer by Eric Hoffer.
If you thank that says a lot about him, what does defending Chiquita, which paid some $1.7 million to death squads in Columbia (death squads which just happened to play nice, be pro-business, and just target Leftists and unionists), say about him?
Don't read Genesis, read elsewhere. For example, the following indicate that it was the sun that moved in the heavens, and that it was the earth that stood still, implying its position in the centre of the universe.
Joshua 10:12-13
Then spoke Joshua to the Lord in the day when the Lord gave the Amorites over to the men of Israel; and he said in the sight of Israel, "Sun, stand thou still at Gibeon, and thou Moon in the valley of Aijalon." And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the nation took vengeance on their enemies. Is this not written in the Book of Jashar? The sun stayed in the midst of heaven, and did not hasten to go down for about a whole day.
Habakkuk 3:11
The sun and moon stood still in their habitation at the light of thine arrows as they sped, at the flash of thy glittering spear.
Psalms 19:4-6
yet their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them he has set a tent for the sun, which comes forth like a bridegroom leaving his chamber, and like a strong man runs his course with joy. Its rising is from the end of the heavens, and its circuit to the end of them; and there is nothing hid from its heat.
Ecclesiastes 1:5
The sun rises and the sun goes down, and hastens to the place where it rises.
The following all indicate that the earth did not move:
1 Chronicles 16:30
tremble before him, all earth; yea, the world stands firm, never to be moved.
Psalms 93:1
The Lord reigns; he is robbed in majesty; the lord is robbed, he is girded with strength. Yea, the world is established; it shall never be moved.
Psalms 96:10
Say among the nations, "The Lord reigns! Yea, the world is established, it shall never be moved; he will judge the peoples with equity."
These were taken from here, where there are a few more references.
You like mammoth?
I guess Google Analytics must be more powerful than we thought.
I especially liked the fact that there was an image of "Powered by Google" on that link :)
... then you also believe in the freedom of people to say distasteful things. Can't say I like Steyn much myself, or what he says, but the way to combat things like hate speech - if that's what it is - is by having more speech, not less of it.
I know full well it's a left-wing website. The article I referenced was written by Chomsky, in fact. I don't particularly care. If there is evidence to say the message is wrong, rather than trying to discredit the messenger, then I'd pay attention. Yes, different countries with different people's and cultures. However, if you RTFA, Sen also notes that when development planning started, both countries had "similarities that were quite striking" in terms of death rates and so on. According to Sen, he claims that the differences in outcomes are to do with "ideological predispositions", where China had more equitable distribution of resources in comparison to India. I had a look through JSTOR, and read some of the reviews from others there. The book itself appears to have been well received, and I find little to suggest Sen is way off the mark. You're right, success and failure are more complex than just looking at the economic systems, but they do play a vitally important role.
"Worse"? Both capitalism and communism can be, and often are, terrible.
For example, economist Amartya Sen, who won a Noble Prize, did a comparison of India's democratic capitalist experiment with that of the Chinese famine, and the Chinese communist experiment. His work "Hunger and Public Action" estimated the deaths caused by the famines in China to be around 16.5 to 29.5 million. Most estimates regarding the total deaths from the Chinese communist experiment are said to be around 100 million.
Although India didn't have a famine similar to China, Sen notes that "as far as morbidity, mortality and longevity are concerned, China has a large and decisive lead over India", and that "India seems to manage to fill its cupboard with more skeletons every eight years than China put there in its years of shame".
In other words, the democratic capitalist experiment in India from 1947 resulted in more deaths that the entire Communist track record since 1917. By 1979, there were an estimated 100 million deaths in India already.
And before we forget, the Russian capitalist experiment that was prescribed by advisers such as the IMF and World Bank resulted in approximately 3.4 million Russian deaths until about 1998, while others put the figure up to about 15 million premature deaths, with a projected decline of 30% in the population over the coming decades.
The fact is, both systems have had terrible track records.
That's not entirely true. The last poll done that I've seen that actually asked Iraqis this very question (available from the Brookings Institute) was carried out in March 2007, and showed that a majority (53%) believed the security situation would improve if US troops left. 26% said it would get worse, the rest said they didn't know.
In fact, polls in Iraq have consistently shown this attitude for quite some time.
Actually, ignore that, totally misread the previous post, I think :P