There was an excellent (BBC?) Documentary Series on Sleep I watched many years ago (on VHS!) It had:
* A story of a Canadian man who found he couldn't sleep. Turned out he had a malfunction in his brain in a part that controlled sleep. No matter how hard or what he tried, he couldn't sleep. It took him six months to die and it was a horrible death.
* A story of a radio announcer who did a stay-awake-athon. He went for something approaching a week without sleep. Pscyhologists watched and said in hindsight they wished they'd stopped him. He got dellusions - spiders - and in the end he would dream while awake. THIS IS THE IMPORTANT PART: After the 'thon was over he took a good long sleep, woke up refreshed and appeared to go back to his old self. But his personality changed, and his old amiable friendly self - as radio announcers tend to be - faded and he became irritable and just didn't get along with people. He lost his job. He was never the same again.
So sleep depravation is dangerous and may be damaging you in ways you don't understand. If you can find the series, highly recommended. BTW pretty clear our Justice Department knows as much about Medicine as it does about Law. I don't mean that as a compliment.
> "That's definitely one of those notoriously dangerous C commands," said Johannes Ullrich, CTO of the SANS Institute, who teaches secure coding classes to developers. He likened memcpy() to other risky functions such as strcpy() and strcat(), which Microsoft has already banned after exacting untold misery over the years.
These sound like the comments of a self-declared teacher rather than an actual programmer. I'm a C++ programmer and use memcpy() when I need to. If you're a decent programmer, it's not a problem. Bad programmers can write bad code regardless of what you give them. They can also write code that doesn't work, regardless of what tools they have. What's he going to do about that? What does he propose as an alternative? He sound re-read "Why Pascal isn't my favorite language", which addresses exactly this point. What else is Ullrich & co. going to "ban"? Pointers? C++ is used for game/system/real-time programming. You can't "ban" memcpy. Tell this guy to get a life and stop shilling his "institute", and someone send him "C++ for Dummies" too.
> The wikipedia link you posted says Wolf Spiders don't grow to more than 3cm... so either those aren't Wolf Spiders running around your house or you're rather prone to exaggeration yourself.
Give me your address and I'll mail you one! The 3cm Wikipedia quotes is *BODY SIZE*. I'm talking toe-to-toe. When someone asks your height, unless you're an amputee you *do* count your legs don't you? "I'm 4 foot. Oh LOL. You mean with my legs too? I always forget those." And BTW as other posters note wolf spiders can get much bigger than 10 cm anyway. Mine do, but you ever tried to measure one? The good news is being Australia I'll accept a years supply of beer as an apology.
Update: The very same papers which carried the stories is now pleading "Web of lies: UK press plays up Queensland spider 'invasion'"
Story sounds like typical Media hype and exaggeration: Tarantulas are venomous in the way all spiders are venomous (and Bee's too! Venomous Bees == normal Bees.) This type of spider venom isn't harmful to humans and they're not aggressive spiders. This is why they let them crawl over kids at Wildlife parks. Oh BTW despite calling them bird-eating spiders it's rare for them to eat birds. Plus if you did into the article you'll see the unlabeled scale of that photo is centimeters and not inches. 5 centmetres. I have wolf spiders > 10 cm running around and often through my home. They're shy of people, never even came close to being bitten and they eat cockroaches.
If they're having a "spider plague" in Bowen then there must be lots of roaches, locusts or other insects. Let them be.
This shock story will get web hits and the reporter will get a pat on the back. But ll note the COUGH COUGH journalist didn't even bother talking to anyone from the local University; Just the local "Pest Controller" who is trying to whip up business. They're probably Wolf spiders anyway, not "Bird Eaters". The media should stop trying to whip this up and go back to what they do best: Reporting false wiki quotes by Jean-Michel Jarre.
> Blizzard... could use that money to create a WoW sequel that would be the most technically complex game ever made, with the best graphics and most sophisticated AI ever put in a computer game.
As Joel Spolsky points out, the worst mistake a software company can make is to rewrite software from scratch. There used to be argument that new code was better code because the programmers were building on what they learned from their first version. But in practice, old code is *tested* *working* code, far superior to new and untested. (Ever debugged? Argh!) Plus writing from scratch risks burning out your experienced developers aka "Boss, it's time for me to find a new challenge". A better idea is to incrementally enhance the code over time. In ten years you wouldn't recognize it anyway, and it'd be far better than any Wow 2 written from scratch could be.
We should troll Microsoft by starting a 'Save Vista' campaign. Imagine the warm glow Steve and Bill would share on hearing it. It's almost too cruel. Almost.
IANAL but in Australia we have laws which among other things makes it a crime to alter data without the owner's consent. There's a similar crime in Britain. I don't know the specific European Laws he'd be prosecuted under, but altering data without consent is one of the first things that cybercrime laws legislated against. Shop around, but this Giorgio Maone is treading on some shaky ground here and he did it with clear forethought. Unlikely Maone will be prosecuted - few people ever are, but if I were him I'd be apologising profusely now and promising never to do it again. Instead he's been pretty obnoxious over the whole affair and pretty much killed the NoScript brandname. He's also violated Mozilla's T&Cs.
...better than all versions that came before it and after it.
Surely it makes more sense to have Windows 7 running inside a virtual machine on XP.
Seriously: If Microsoft had a brain they'd give up trying to force people to upgrade to versions of Windows that nobody wants. It's an OS for crying out loud. The important thing is the Applications it runs. Trying to hoosegowl (sp?) users into changing from a product you're already selling them they like to another they don't because some idiot trying to justify his job came up convinced other suits with a nice powerpoint is sheer stupidity.
When was the last time anyone had to pick a criminal from a football stadium? Is it better (and cheaper) than the police at seeing past false moustaches and haircuts? This is creating technology for a problem that doesn't exist (unless you want to sell it en masse for a surveillance society like China or Britain). And if you want to do it on a smaller scale, there are many things you can do more economically with humans. At least the spammers displayed some ingenuity employing Indians to type in Captcha codes. They could have wasted bazillions inventing some quatum OCR R&D superstring DNA genetic programming project. A good researcher solves problems worth solving, and there are plenty of those.
As for the Moron who modded my post down for saying that you can hire someone in India for cheaper: Yeah mate, I remember my first modpoints too.
Biden has a comfy senate job with all the perks which is reward enough. Compared to most Americans, this makes him RICH. The RIAA and his donors keep him in his comfy job, in exchange for which they get to buy legislation. The man is corrupt, and the only thing he can offer in his defense is he (1) doesn't spend this money _directly_, and (2) as evidenced by his foot-in-mouth disease the man is a complete idiot. I doubt he's aware what Hollywood accounting even is. QED. MORON.
> Time Warner technician called me back and lectured me for using 44 gigabytes in one week," Howard wrote. Howard was then "educated" about his usage. "According to her, that is more than most people use in a year," Howard said.'"
Here in Australia we're a technological backwater with an antiquated phone system run by monopoly. Our ISPs charge far too much and have been capping us for years.
Yet even in a backwater here ISPs like TPG offer 150Gb a month plan and Supernerd a 200Gb a month plan. There are many people on these plans. I find it hard to believe America, largely uncapped, would be using less. So 44Gb a week sounds pretty normal. I'd say the Time Warner technician (who, let me guess, didn't give their real name despite knowing Ryan Howard's) was full of sh*t and hiding behind that wonderful thuggish corporate anonymity.
It's a fair bet when Biden cries for the artists, this isn't the sort of artist he cries for. More examples of artists (real artists, not corporations posing as artists) being ripped off here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting
The Investment Theory of Politics says the best predictor of government policy is who the donors are. The RIAA donated both to the Dems and the Republicans. Whoever wins, we lose. They're getting the laws they paid for. Not anyone else you can vote for. Obama's campaign made a big deal about how he was funded by small donors, but 2/3rds of his income was from corporate interests.
Here's another example, the one of congress taking rights away from the public and giving them to corporations. In compensation for this you get NOTHING. YOU GET NOTHING! GOOD DAY TO YOU SIR!:
These guys have been stealing your rights for ages, thanks to cash hungry congressmen and presidential candidates. Make that presidents. Obama has stacked the Justice department with his RIAA donors. And as Orson Scott Card points out, these guys suck.
So as the plane was about to fly into the WTC, it miraculously swerves and avoids it. The hijackers voice comes over the PA system: "Passengers, We have just realized that the act we were about to perform would violate our iPod EULA. We may be foaming at the mouth islamofacists, but we're passionate about quality as well. We will return you to the airport and hijack a bus to the nearest Apple store."
> To paraphrase what someone once told me... {wisdom}
Hey, thanks. I was tossing up doing a demanding degree in a new field and wondered if it'd be worth it, but that's sagely advice: The choice isn't between doing and it and traveling back in time and doing it. It's what I'll be doing in five years with it or without it. LOL My human mind.
It's easier for the Government to crack down on Games than it is to face up to the Tobacco Lobby: Consider when Tony Blair was UK PM he was caught with a donation from Formula One motor Racing boss Bernie Ecklestone, generously given after Blair changed his mind and decided to allow tobacco sponsorship of the Formula One Grand Prix after all.
Tobacco is the #1 cause of preventable death in Europe. The World Health Organisation said there have been 40 million tobacco-related deaths since 1999. So how does the British Government Respond? ATTACK GAMES! At least they're consistent with that brilliant Iraq/Afganistan Strategy...
This is business as usual in Australia: The Federal Government uses the old archaic copyright practiced by *GREAT BRITAIN* (emphasis is theirs, not mine) where the government holds copyright on everything, and charge like a bull:
* Australian Maps are copyrighted by the federal government's mapping agency AUSLIG.
* Real Estate Data is copyrighted by e.g. Department of Natural Resources. They in turn make exclusive deals to data companies who sling wads of cash their way in exchange for special access. If you a citizen want access you're forced to go through these resellers. The famously greedy Macquarie Bank owns one of these.
* Tide tables are copyright.
* Even Aeronatical data is copyright. The US Department of Defense used to distribute a worldwide database of Aeronautical data, but they had to stop because "Air Services" (a branch of the Australian Government) hated the idea of the public getting for free what they were trying to sell. Instead of doing a worldwide edition without the Australian data, the US Department of Defense simply ended public access.
* Anything and everything. From simple forms to photos taken by government (e.g. a nice photo of that billion dollar aircraft paid for by your taxes) are copyrighted by the government.
* Even *THE WEATHER* is copyright. Print the weather in your local paper or stick it on the website, and you'll get an earful from the Weather Bureau who insists you "purchase a product license".
In all cases the people who run these departments like to think of themselves a private businessmen, but they're not: their capital is provided by the taxpayer and they've got all the protection of being part of the government. They're a monopoly. They can charge what they want. Not like you can go to the government down the road instead. Pigs at the trough.
This is different from the US where under the constitution the US Government does not copyright what it produces, reasoning your taxes paid to collect the data, so why should you be forced to pay again.
In the Sydney case here is the worst part: Their railway system is known as being beyond terrible. Trains don't show up, break down, disappear, bypass stations, ticketing doesn't work, there's bugger all security. There's a real culture of sloth, laziness and corruption there. And here's a guy selling something to help commuters (and offered to give it to the railways department for free) and they threaten him instead.
> I think TV has it worst. The push to wring as many seasons as possible out of a particular intellectual property has destroyed the capability of a generation of screenwriters to actually write an ending for a story.
Anime may have leaned towards no ending series goes on as long as it can, but many still stop at one season. Berserk. Fruits Basket.
Japanese Live Action dramas usually only go for one season. Stories are so much better with a beginning, a middle and an end.
c.f. The X-files. a beginning, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz....
> If you have sex in your front window, it's legal for people to stand on the sidewalk and watch you.
And if they're standing there, you could see them. But if they're trying past unannounced with videocameras running, or flying overhead and enlarging aerial/satellite photos, how would you even know? We've got a skylight at the top of the stairs in our house. It lets light in, but it also means, at just the right angle some aerial Googlecam could see into our bathroom.
Windows are on houses to let light in and sometimes you see out. Houses were designed before Google turned spying into an artform.
The founding fathers never thought of this. Sergei may have, but he doesn't give a toss.
Slashdot Mirror
There was an excellent (BBC?) Documentary Series on Sleep I watched many years ago (on VHS!) It had:
* A story of a Canadian man who found he couldn't sleep. Turned out he had a malfunction in his brain in a part that controlled sleep. No matter how hard or what he tried, he couldn't sleep. It took him six months to die and it was a horrible death.
* A story of a radio announcer who did a stay-awake-athon. He went for something approaching a week without sleep. Pscyhologists watched and said in hindsight they wished they'd stopped him. He got dellusions - spiders - and in the end he would dream while awake. THIS IS THE IMPORTANT PART: After the 'thon was over he took a good long sleep, woke up refreshed and appeared to go back to his old self. But his personality changed, and his old amiable friendly self - as radio announcers tend to be - faded and he became irritable and just didn't get along with people. He lost his job. He was never the same again.
So sleep depravation is dangerous and may be damaging you in ways you don't understand. If you can find the series, highly recommended. BTW pretty clear our Justice Department knows as much about Medicine as it does about Law. I don't mean that as a compliment.
> "That's definitely one of those notoriously dangerous C commands," said Johannes Ullrich, CTO of the SANS Institute, who teaches secure coding classes to developers. He likened memcpy() to other risky functions such as strcpy() and strcat(), which Microsoft has already banned after exacting untold misery over the years.
These sound like the comments of a self-declared teacher rather than an actual programmer. I'm a C++ programmer and use memcpy() when I need to. If you're a decent programmer, it's not a problem. Bad programmers can write bad code regardless of what you give them. They can also write code that doesn't work, regardless of what tools they have. What's he going to do about that? What does he propose as an alternative? He sound re-read "Why Pascal isn't my favorite language", which addresses exactly this point. What else is Ullrich & co. going to "ban"? Pointers? C++ is used for game/system/real-time programming. You can't "ban" memcpy. Tell this guy to get a life and stop shilling his "institute", and someone send him "C++ for Dummies" too.
Yes. I think Officer GE Abed (#6270) is going to be putting Mr. Becker's children through college.
> The wikipedia link you posted says Wolf Spiders don't grow to more than 3cm... so either those aren't Wolf Spiders running around your house or you're rather prone to exaggeration yourself.
Give me your address and I'll mail you one! The 3cm Wikipedia quotes is *BODY SIZE*. I'm talking toe-to-toe. When someone asks your height, unless you're an amputee you *do* count your legs don't you? "I'm 4 foot. Oh LOL. You mean with my legs too? I always forget those." And BTW as other posters note wolf spiders can get much bigger than 10 cm anyway. Mine do, but you ever tried to measure one? The good news is being Australia I'll accept a years supply of beer as an apology.
Update: The very same papers which carried the stories is now pleading "Web of lies: UK press plays up Queensland spider 'invasion'"
> Mr Geiszler laughed off the coverage this morning, telling brisbanetimes.com.au it had been "blown out of all proportion and massively sensationalised." "There have been no more than 10 sightings of these spiders here," Mr Geiszler said. "There is definitely not an invasion or a plague or anything like that.
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/qld-news/web-of-lies-uk-press-plays-up-queensland-spider-invasion-20090508-ax58.html
Good thing we don't trust the main stream media for anything important, like when to go to war... Yes, I'm looking at you, Rupert.
Story sounds like typical Media hype and exaggeration: Tarantulas are venomous in the way all spiders are venomous (and Bee's too! Venomous Bees == normal Bees.) This type of spider venom isn't harmful to humans and they're not aggressive spiders. This is why they let them crawl over kids at Wildlife parks. Oh BTW despite calling them bird-eating spiders it's rare for them to eat birds. Plus if you did into the article you'll see the unlabeled scale of that photo is centimeters and not inches. 5 centmetres. I have wolf spiders > 10 cm running around and often through my home. They're shy of people, never even came close to being bitten and they eat cockroaches.
If they're having a "spider plague" in Bowen then there must be lots of roaches, locusts or other insects. Let them be.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarantula
This shock story will get web hits and the reporter will get a pat on the back. But ll note the COUGH COUGH journalist didn't even bother talking to anyone from the local University; Just the local "Pest Controller" who is trying to whip up business. They're probably Wolf spiders anyway, not "Bird Eaters". The media should stop trying to whip this up and go back to what they do best: Reporting false wiki quotes by Jean-Michel Jarre.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_spider
> Blizzard ... could use that money to create a WoW sequel that would be the most technically complex game ever made, with the best graphics and most sophisticated AI ever put in a computer game.
As Joel Spolsky points out, the worst mistake a software company can make is to rewrite software from scratch. There used to be argument that new code was better code because the programmers were building on what they learned from their first version. But in practice, old code is *tested* *working* code, far superior to new and untested. (Ever debugged? Argh!) Plus writing from scratch risks burning out your experienced developers aka "Boss, it's time for me to find a new challenge". A better idea is to incrementally enhance the code over time. In ten years you wouldn't recognize it anyway, and it'd be far better than any Wow 2 written from scratch could be.
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html
We should troll Microsoft by starting a 'Save Vista' campaign. Imagine the warm glow Steve and Bill would share on hearing it. It's almost too cruel. Almost.
IANAL but in Australia we have laws which among other things makes it a crime to alter data without the owner's consent. There's a similar crime in Britain. I don't know the specific European Laws he'd be prosecuted under, but altering data without consent is one of the first things that cybercrime laws legislated against. Shop around, but this Giorgio Maone is treading on some shaky ground here and he did it with clear forethought. Unlikely Maone will be prosecuted - few people ever are, but if I were him I'd be apologising profusely now and promising never to do it again. Instead he's been pretty obnoxious over the whole affair and pretty much killed the NoScript brandname. He's also violated Mozilla's T&Cs.
http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/htcb/htcb006.html
http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/htcb/htcb005.html
http://www.saflii.org/za/other/zalc/dp/99/99-CHAPTER-3.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Misuse_Act
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noscript#NoScript_exceptions_and_AdBlock_Plus
> MattHawk (215818): It's not actually illegal.
Well, yes it is. Either state IAAL and/or give links to support what you are saying.
...better than all versions that came before it and after it.
Surely it makes more sense to have Windows 7 running inside a virtual machine on XP.
Seriously: If Microsoft had a brain they'd give up trying to force people to upgrade to versions of Windows that nobody wants. It's an OS for crying out loud. The important thing is the Applications it runs. Trying to hoosegowl (sp?) users into changing from a product you're already selling them they like to another they don't because some idiot trying to justify his job came up convinced other suits with a nice powerpoint is sheer stupidity.
When was the last time anyone had to pick a criminal from a football stadium? Is it better (and cheaper) than the police at seeing past false moustaches and haircuts? This is creating technology for a problem that doesn't exist (unless you want to sell it en masse for a surveillance society like China or Britain). And if you want to do it on a smaller scale, there are many things you can do more economically with humans. At least the spammers displayed some ingenuity employing Indians to type in Captcha codes. They could have wasted bazillions inventing some quatum OCR R&D superstring DNA genetic programming project. A good researcher solves problems worth solving, and there are plenty of those.
As for the Moron who modded my post down for saying that you can hire someone in India for cheaper: Yeah mate, I remember my first modpoints too.
I know many people say the same thing, but just why should someone be "proud" of coming from a particular area?
Us versus them-ism?
I can still hire a guy in India to do this for a fraction of the cost.
Biden has a comfy senate job with all the perks which is reward enough. Compared to most Americans, this makes him RICH. The RIAA and his donors keep him in his comfy job, in exchange for which they get to buy legislation. The man is corrupt, and the only thing he can offer in his defense is he (1) doesn't spend this money _directly_, and (2) as evidenced by his foot-in-mouth disease the man is a complete idiot. I doubt he's aware what Hollywood accounting even is. QED. MORON.
> Time Warner technician called me back and lectured me for using 44 gigabytes in one week," Howard wrote. Howard was then "educated" about his usage. "According to her, that is more than most people use in a year," Howard said.'"
Here in Australia we're a technological backwater with an antiquated phone system run by monopoly. Our ISPs charge far too much and have been capping us for years.
Yet even in a backwater here ISPs like TPG offer 150Gb a month plan and Supernerd a 200Gb a month plan. There are many people on these plans. I find it hard to believe America, largely uncapped, would be using less. So 44Gb a week sounds pretty normal. I'd say the Time Warner technician (who, let me guess, didn't give their real name despite knowing Ryan Howard's) was full of sh*t and hiding behind that wonderful thuggish corporate anonymity.
It's a fair bet when Biden cries for the artists, this isn't the sort of artist he cries for. More examples of artists (real artists, not corporations posing as artists) being ripped off here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting
The Investment Theory of Politics says the best predictor of government policy is who the donors are. The RIAA donated both to the Dems and the Republicans. Whoever wins, we lose. They're getting the laws they paid for. Not anyone else you can vote for. Obama's campaign made a big deal about how he was funded by small donors, but 2/3rds of his income was from corporate interests.
Here's another example, the one of congress taking rights away from the public and giving them to corporations. In compensation for this you get NOTHING. YOU GET NOTHING! GOOD DAY TO YOU SIR!:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act
Biden makes me sick.
And I think the verdict stinks and here's why...
Standard reading list:
http://www.ornery.org/essays/warwatch/2003-09-07-1.html "MP3s are not the Devil"
http://www.ornery.org/essays/warwatch/2003-09-14-1.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting "Hollywood Accounting"
http://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/1999/01/17327 "Mickey Mouse Copyright Extension Act"
These guys have been stealing your rights for ages, thanks to cash hungry congressmen and presidential candidates. Make that presidents. Obama has stacked the Justice department with his RIAA donors. And as Orson Scott Card points out, these guys suck.
http://www.google.com.au/search?q="the+mummy+returns"+avi+torrent
Is Judge Tomas Norström going to go after google now? Does he understand links? Does he understand the law? Dumb ass.
So as the plane was about to fly into the WTC, it miraculously swerves and avoids it. The hijackers voice comes over the PA system: "Passengers, We have just realized that the act we were about to perform would violate our iPod EULA. We may be foaming at the mouth islamofacists, but we're passionate about quality as well. We will return you to the airport and hijack a bus to the nearest Apple store."
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/13/iphone_taliban/
> To paraphrase what someone once told me ... {wisdom}
Hey, thanks. I was tossing up doing a demanding degree in a new field and wondered if it'd be worth it, but that's sagely advice: The choice isn't between doing and it and traveling back in time and doing it. It's what I'll be doing in five years with it or without it. LOL My human mind.
As I looked at the photo in the article of this brave warrior-engineer, I thought "So this is the man who keeps the porn flowing."
And I couldn't help but notice his underwater robot seems to have a mech penis. He even calls it "The Beast".
> the inventors (here's an abstract of their paper) claim it's accurate to within 44 centimeters.
It was someone at the grassy knoll.
CASE CLOSED!
I can also tell you the location of the inventor's brain plus or minus 44 centimeters.
It's easier for the Government to crack down on Games than it is to face up to the Tobacco Lobby: Consider when Tony Blair was UK PM he was caught with a donation from Formula One motor Racing boss Bernie Ecklestone, generously given after Blair changed his mind and decided to allow tobacco sponsorship of the Formula One Grand Prix after all.
Tobacco is the #1 cause of preventable death in Europe. The World Health Organisation said there have been 40 million tobacco-related deaths since 1999. So how does the British Government Respond? ATTACK GAMES! At least they're consistent with that brilliant Iraq/Afganistan Strategy...
http://www.ashaust.org.au/mediareleases/081104.htm
This is business as usual in Australia: The Federal Government uses the old archaic copyright practiced by *GREAT BRITAIN* (emphasis is theirs, not mine) where the government holds copyright on everything, and charge like a bull:
* Australian Maps are copyrighted by the federal government's mapping agency AUSLIG.
* Real Estate Data is copyrighted by e.g. Department of Natural Resources. They in turn make exclusive deals to data companies who sling wads of cash their way in exchange for special access. If you a citizen want access you're forced to go through these resellers. The famously greedy Macquarie Bank owns one of these.
* Tide tables are copyright.
* Even Aeronatical data is copyright. The US Department of Defense used to distribute a worldwide database of Aeronautical data, but they had to stop because "Air Services" (a branch of the Australian Government) hated the idea of the public getting for free what they were trying to sell. Instead of doing a worldwide edition without the Australian data, the US Department of Defense simply ended public access.
* Anything and everything. From simple forms to photos taken by government (e.g. a nice photo of that billion dollar aircraft paid for by your taxes) are copyrighted by the government.
* Even *THE WEATHER* is copyright. Print the weather in your local paper or stick it on the website, and you'll get an earful from the Weather Bureau who insists you "purchase a product license".
In all cases the people who run these departments like to think of themselves a private businessmen, but they're not: their capital is provided by the taxpayer and they've got all the protection of being part of the government. They're a monopoly. They can charge what they want. Not like you can go to the government down the road instead. Pigs at the trough.
This is different from the US where under the constitution the US Government does not copyright what it produces, reasoning your taxes paid to collect the data, so why should you be forced to pay again.
In the Sydney case here is the worst part: Their railway system is known as being beyond terrible. Trains don't show up, break down, disappear, bypass stations, ticketing doesn't work, there's bugger all security. There's a real culture of sloth, laziness and corruption there. And here's a guy selling something to help commuters (and offered to give it to the railways department for free) and they threaten him instead.
> I think TV has it worst. The push to wring as many seasons as possible out of a particular intellectual property has destroyed the capability of a generation of screenwriters to actually write an ending for a story.
Anime may have leaned towards no ending series goes on as long as it can, but many still stop at one season. Berserk. Fruits Basket.
Japanese Live Action dramas usually only go for one season. Stories are so much better with a beginning, a middle and an end.
c.f. The X-files. a beginning, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, middle, zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz....
> If you have sex in your front window, it's legal for people to stand on the sidewalk and watch you.
And if they're standing there, you could see them. But if they're trying past unannounced with videocameras running, or flying overhead and enlarging aerial/satellite photos, how would you even know? We've got a skylight at the top of the stairs in our house. It lets light in, but it also means, at just the right angle some aerial Googlecam could see into our bathroom.
Windows are on houses to let light in and sometimes you see out. Houses were designed before Google turned spying into an artform.
The founding fathers never thought of this. Sergei may have, but he doesn't give a toss.