It's hard to believe that such a law would pass, but let me point out that the Act is not exactly what it seems. (Yes, I'm Irish)
The Law Reform Commission - the people who are charged with updating legislation in Ireland, recommended that a law had to be put in place for blasphemy because it was provided for in the constitution.
They also said it didn't have to be done any time soon, and that a referendum would remove the requirement. The Irish government is very touchy at the moment about holding any additional referenda (especially in light of an upcoming referendum that affects all 27 EU members), so it decided to pass a law.
People - from the left, the right and the centre - all let out a collective 'gasp!' of surprise. The man responsible probably thinks he has been clever.
You see, what has actually transpired is not so much a 'blasphemy law' but a law that is unenforceable. The law, as written, cannot be used in the courts.... and deliberately so.
It's an Irish solution to an Irish problem: We need a law if the article remains in the constitution. The constitution won't be changed, so the article will remain. However, the crime is outdated and we actually do not want anybody to be charged under this law. Therefore, the only remaining choice is to draft a law that is unworkable.
Is it's a silly, high-cost manoeuvre? Yes.
But it's a tried and tested method.
Why it was rushed through is anyones guess - a mixture of pandering to a far-right that may not currently exist in Ireland (but one suspects is probably going to gain ground in recession times), a particular individual trying to score a quick victory or just an ill thought out move.
Some of our politicians are quite slow to recognise the obvious and will latch on to an idea.
So the reason is to ignore huge safety issues (which are patched and patched and patched, instead of doing it right from the beginning, because of the greed of bangs), for comfort?
Hmm... Not my thing. There are places, where comfort is just mis-placed.
Nice interpretation, but that's not quite what I meant. It is not comfort, it is active protection.
If you follow this argument: have you ever bought anything online? If you bought it from inside the EU you have a lot of protection under the Distance Selling Regulations. This covers all sorts of things, like if your product is faulty, not as described and so on. The EU is brilliant for Consumer Protection.
However, if you intend to buy from outside the EU, the Distance Selling Regs do not apply. You have to resort to local law. No offence to non-EU citizens, but consumer protection is pretty lack-luster in most other jurisdictions, and sometimes overly complex. However, using a credit card, if something is wrong with an item or service, if it turns out that what you signed up to is a scam, if goods never arrive etc... the credit card company is obliged to help out/refund the cash.
This is a protection that doesn't exist if I use bank transfer or debit card without escrow.
And "point systems" is another thing, that I never "got". To me is it like being frauded (is that a word?), because when you calculate it, always costs more in investment, than it saves you in money. Or in other words: It is there, to animate you, to buy more, so you can "save" money. Yeah. Right. How stupid do they think I am??
I understand where you are coming from. Points systems are a red herring if you think they are there for the benefit of the consumer.
As already established, because of the protections afforded to me under the Sale of Goods Act by using a credit card (it counts as a proof of purchase for warranty purposes), I tend to buy all my goods bought in local physical shops on my credit card. Is that hifi I bought broken after 3 years? No problem, credit card records are proof of purchase to retailer, they have to repair item. Is that milk I bought today sour, but I didn't get a till receipt? No problem - back to the supermarket with my credit card and ask for refund.
For years I had a credit card without a points system, using it for most things for my own protection. Then I realised my card issuer gave points on certain cards. The main drawback is if you overspent or couldn't pay your bill you were charged a higher rate of interest. As I pay off on time each month, this was not an issue. I got the card but didn't change my spending habits. After three years I finally have enough points to get something I want from their catalogue. Something I would not have purchased if I had to pay. It's a nice gimmick. It's an incentive to have this card over an ordinary card.
The perfect payments system does not exist. There are a lot of reasons consumers may choose to pay via credit card - being theoretically perfect or technologically impressive may not be as important as practical protection.
I'm not American - and I wonder about the op's premise as I thought most countries had moved (or were moving) to PIN-numbers rather than signatures to verify in-store transactions.
Regardless, credit cards are very safe for Europeans because of the extra protection they provide to consumers.
In Ireland as well as the UK - and most other European countries - there is a version of the Consumer Credit Act. It treats all purchases on the card as, unsurprisingly, a type of credit agreement. This is a very powerful and pro-Consumer thing, providing lots of protection for any who cares to look into it, e.g. chargeback.
True, a lot of these 'safeties' was introduced in an attempt to make the cards more secure - don't forget the premise of credit cards has been around for many, many decades and, during that time, the type of fraud perpetrated against credit card users has become more and more complex.
It's also well documented that Germans (culturally/in general) have an aversion to credit cards for a number of reasons; from 'all credit is borrowing - and borrowing is bad' (note the low rate of borrowing in Germany) to a series of pre-existing methods of paying for goods and services easily at a distance (e.g. in Germany, there is the long standing inter-bank transfer system; very cheap and secure to use inside the borders of Germany but, until very recently, was astronomically expensive for anyone in another country to transfer money to).
So why do I use a credit card? A large number of international traders accept credit cards, doesn't cost me any extra and I get points on my Sony card for every purchase I make. I am not liable for any fraud/misuse of my card. I suspect it's the same for Americans and most people who use credit card. Having the advantage of being European, I also have a lot of legally enforceable extra protections that I'm not sure Americans have in the Consumer Credit Act.
I also do use bank transfers to pay for stuff. Usually only to Germany because Germany is one country where their banks are pretty secure. And only in recent years - because, thanks to an EU Directive, the astronomical cost of transferring money across borders to another member state of the Eurozone has plummeted (note: UK not member of Eurozone, so a UK consumer could still face high charges).
I also have the protections of the Distance Selling Regulations when buying from Germany, but I would never transfer money via bank account outside of Europe.
As for 'reloadable' cards, for me they are slightly more expensive and don't offer me any incentive or attractiveness to use, and are not universally accepted.
Debit cards don't seem to be standarised internationally - or even across the EU - so are not really viable as a payment method.
Well, I'm Irish and I work for the Irish Government (Civil Servant, minor role).
To my mind, it looks like that Garda Commissioner has tried to be very smart, but ended up looking very stupid. People on Slashdot probably don't know, but the Irish government decided recently to 'merge' the Data Protection Commissioner (DPC) - the independent body that made sure noone, including the government and police, misused people's private data or were overly invasive - with a whole host of other, barely related organisations. Thankfully, they were made climb down and back away from their original plans which looked - from an outsider's point of view - like they were using the 'merger' to scrap some of the more thorny Agencies that regularly complain about government policy and the police altogether. (When the Secretary General of the UN called to make 'observations' on the plan, I think they realised they had overstretched themselves a bit!) However, they are still in a position where they can't lose too much face, and a 'merger' is still on the cards - except this time, it probably is a merger along the lines of sharing buildings and stationery orders. What the guard probably saw that the DPC was still on the cards for a merger without realising that is wasn't screwed over as badly as was initially intended. Or else he realised that he couldn't now just wait a year and then be able to force through his agenda without a State Agency that could effectively oppose him. Whatever the reason, he decided to rush in there to stick his oar into the operators.
He probably wasn't expecting the operators to go public, nor did he realise that the DPC is still operating effectively.
He deserves it, though. The Irish police (the 'guards') are notoriously weak on a technical level. They are so technophobic, they even call their computer people 'gits'! (Garda Information Technology section.)
As an example, many guards use Google or Yahoo email address as their official email addresses. Despite having set aside time and money for it years ago, most guards and, indeed, some police stations do not have email addresses. These free email addresses are used to communicate information about serious crimes, crime-scene photos etc. How's that for 'web-based email security'??? (For god's sake, nobody tell them about 'Flicker'!!!)
I also have occasion to know that many case records still exist only in the little black notebooks of individual guards. No such thing as entering a current investigation on a secure system or even having a typed version of ongoing case notes. This is after investing millions in a police system called 'PULSE'. This was supposed to be a secure system for recording all aspects of a case. You can't even upload a picture to the system, logs people out after five minutes of inactivity - even though it takes more then two minutes to log in and so on. It cost millions, yet the police still sometimes have to fall back to typewriters!
Even extends to basic tech like radios. A lot of them have to bring their own mobile phones to work. Either their radio system doesn't work in some areas or was never installed properly or their handsets have been broken and out of commission for a long time. And so on.
This, despite all our brilliant legislation about electronic signatures, eCommerce and so on.
(I'll also ad the disclaimer that this is not the area of the Service that I work in).
I've been with them years. Cheap domain names and ultra-cheap and user-friendly email plans that work with standalone programs or with a web interface.
Reliable, fast (enough) and with all the features op is looking for.
I notice that their sales page now implies there's no calendar with their standard email packages - yet I have such a package and there is an online calendar app.
I remember back on the ST and the Amiga there were lots of demos around in the late 80s and early 90s. I'm fairly certain there was one that looked like a flyby of part of the city at the start of Blade Runner - it was mentioned in one of the monthly mags, probably either ST Format or Amiga Format, because it was so unique at the time.
That could have led to the confusion.
Or it could be far more simply people are getting confused by the fantastic Blade Runner PC game.
I know this isn't new news, but here in Europe such practices are illegal and are in the process of being clamped down on. It's a breach of EU Consumer Regulations(Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts) to have limits on usage/download caps without explicitly stating what they are.
A few lines in terms and conditions talking vaguely about 'fair use' policies without specifically outlining what those policies are just don't cut it.
I know France has gone after a few, and am aware that a good few other jurisdictions are starting to move on the issue.
He-he.... that's good, I can climb down off my high-horse now.
Irish have the highest per head consumption of Tea in the world (according to news reports about two or three years ago). We consume about 3kg of Tea each a year(1996-1998 period).
Oh...and when pouring it's tea first, then milk. Any expert who talks about chemical bonding when coming to tea are either talking out of their South of England hole, using very delicate cups or using milk at the wrong temperature.
(yes...I like tea, and am talking about Assam-based blends mostly.)
When talking about a date here in Ireland at least, it's more common to read and say dates '2nd of August 2006' - fitting in perfectly with the dd/mm/yyyy scheme.
Yes - and I intended to imply that both Microsoft and American representatives in Europe are more-or-less immune to geek-inspired outrage. The vast majority of people won't care enough to take action directly, and those that do won't make a huge impression.
Plus, it was also a musing on our American Embassy here in Ireland. I pass the American Embassy in Dublin every day - I'm sure their security is more lax then elsewhere - but to describe it as 'fortress-like' would not be wrong - surrounded by high railings, guarded by Marines with regular police patrols and situated well back from the road...and it's well ugly - think 1970's concrete-meets-turret-with-1970's-oversized-window s.
I mean...you'd understand the British Embassy being a bit wary - yet their building is just plain ugly(according to Prince Charles). It's patrolled by one of our police, though, and doesn't seem too bad.
(don't get me wrong, by-the-by, staff in American Embassy are fine - really accomodating when I was dewaling with them for work. Just design is a bit foreboding)
I doubt it........but only because American embassies have a habit of being behind really high railings, guarded by Marines and situated far enough away from their perimeters to make the throwing distance too far.
No, it's a Sky One remake, so is far more likely to be 'It's [insert some random terrorist's name here]'
Sky One sure as hell can't be seen as anti-American (unless they're doing some 'Britian is best'-exposé) and their TV shows aren't known for their complex, intelligent plots. (Not to be confused with films funded by the parent company, BSkyB( see http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0228488/ for a very good movie they funded.)
(O/T) As a native English speaker, I was delighted to see you use the term milliard simply because I was always taught by school teachers and 'educated' people that a billion should be defined as 10^12(1,000,000,000,000) but that, as a sop to the overwhelming influence of the American economy and cultural might, billion should be regarded as 10^9(1,000,000,000).
So, for instance, in Business Studies class, we strictly meant 10^9 if we used the word billion, but in English class, the meaning was much more ambiguous.
Since the mid-seventies, officially a billion has meant 10^9 in government documents in Britain, Ireland and elsewhere, but its old meaning as 10^12 has remained colloquially. (I left secondary school in 1999, which is fairly recent and it was still possible to use the 10^12 form then).
My point? Long-scale convention for naming numbers is just as valid as short-scale(see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_and_short_scales ) but if you want the vast majority of people to understand, use the word 'Billion'
Hmmm.... I wonder if you've confused Korea and Vietnam.
Vietnam is a crumbling vestige of bastardised communism - with all the highs and lows points that go with that. There's only one Vietnam, unless you're talking about special trade areas within Vietnam.
Korea is...well...screwed. Partitioned (wow, isn't that always an instant remedy for success for an occupying power), the North is a type of Monarchy in the trappings of Communism, reputed to be very corrupt while the South seems to be mired in an endless string of corruption cases.
Better off with American influence? Plenty of people would disagree, considering with how much respect Vietnam and both Koreas have been treated with by America.
I wonder if they've thought this through.Effectively they are saying that the present dictates the possible past that a person may travel to.
Remember the bit in Big Brother where they state: "Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past"
It's an endless loop - a deterministic past leads, inevitably, towards a deterministic future. If both of those are a given, then time travel is most definitely possible since such travel has been predetermined. And while it might feel all spontaneous and new, there is no action that is not predetermined.
In fact, if the future is predetermined, the last moment in time may be the important one, not the first, since it's the state of the universe in the last moment of time that determines the state of the universe in all preceeding time.
Or not. All I can say is "Fear of Quatum Mechanics profits a man nothing!"
Whoops....the one time I decide to extoll a deep-rooted belief of both myself and my friends without checking facts and I'm so totally(and I mean 180 degress here) wrong! I bow in humility and beg forgiveness.
Okay, I know I deserve to lose karma for being a twanny, but I honestly thought that ours was the correct definition. It's times like this I wish I'd posted anonymously....
At the risk of drifting off-topic, I disagree with your comment. That's a reinterpretation of definitions based on 'geek-chic' and all those 'cool' people who decided it was okay to be a bit of an individual - with uniform thick-rimmed glasses, stupid tee-shirts and a cocky attitude that made them feel smarter then they actually were.
Geek -> comes from 'Genius' and 'freak'. It means a smart social outcast, an intelligent person who is eccentric, etc...
Nerd -> is a social outcast, usually obsessive in some way. They can be smart, but the word is also associated with dull people. They can be addicted to sex, puzzles, television, computers...anything as long as it's too an unhealthy degree.
Hmmmm....have to agree....HMOs are really just an American thing.
The National Health Service in Britain(mentioned in the article) isn't an HMO - it's a...err...national health service.... you know...the idea that people without private health insurance have a right to treament.....
Mind you, I'm Irish....so what we have doesn't even pass for a health service (HMO, nationalised or otherwise!) - in Ireland you won't be refused entry to a hospital based on your insurance plan...so you have the comfort of expiring on a trolley in some hallway after waiting six days for an examination!
(Bombay is Mumbai? So is Bombay an archaic usage(like Bangkok is for the capital of Thailand) or is it just an Anglicised version of the word?)
I bought into the Alien vs. Predator hype right from the pre-release Jaguar blurb... so this is great news (two months ago it would have been brilliant news but then I saw the above movie. Now I can only say the big screen version has been truely pipped at the post and unless it has a great story line(unlikely) then it already been surpassed by a three way tie-in actioner)
The piece itself is about nothing : the term irrevocable doesn't mean it can't be revoked, it usually just means it can't be revoked for no reason - i.e. there has to be a breach of the terms of the license. (That's assuming there isn't a clause somewhere that says 'This license can never be revoked.')
There is one worrying thing, and I quote:
{Villain fingers pussycat}
If that's an accurate description of what Mr. Stowell was doing, shouldn't somebody call the RSPCA???
Slashdot Mirror
It's hard to believe that such a law would pass, but let me point out that the Act is not exactly what it seems. (Yes, I'm Irish)
The Law Reform Commission - the people who are charged with updating legislation in Ireland, recommended that a law had to be put in place for blasphemy because it was provided for in the constitution.
They also said it didn't have to be done any time soon, and that a referendum would remove the requirement. The Irish government is very touchy at the moment about holding any additional referenda (especially in light of an upcoming referendum that affects all 27 EU members), so it decided to pass a law.
People - from the left, the right and the centre - all let out a collective 'gasp!' of surprise. The man responsible probably thinks he has been clever.
You see, what has actually transpired is not so much a 'blasphemy law' but a law that is unenforceable. The law, as written, cannot be used in the courts.... and deliberately so.
It's an Irish solution to an Irish problem: We need a law if the article remains in the constitution. The constitution won't be changed, so the article will remain. However, the crime is outdated and we actually do not want anybody to be charged under this law. Therefore, the only remaining choice is to draft a law that is unworkable.
Is it's a silly, high-cost manoeuvre? Yes.
But it's a tried and tested method.
Why it was rushed through is anyones guess - a mixture of pandering to a far-right that may not currently exist in Ireland (but one suspects is probably going to gain ground in recession times), a particular individual trying to score a quick victory or just an ill thought out move.
Some of our politicians are quite slow to recognise the obvious and will latch on to an idea.
So the reason is to ignore huge safety issues (which are patched and patched and patched, instead of doing it right from the beginning, because of the greed of bangs), for comfort?
Hmm... Not my thing. There are places, where comfort is just mis-placed.
Nice interpretation, but that's not quite what I meant. It is not comfort, it is active protection.
If you follow this argument: have you ever bought anything online? If you bought it from inside the EU you have a lot of protection under the Distance Selling Regulations. This covers all sorts of things, like if your product is faulty, not as described and so on. The EU is brilliant for Consumer Protection.
However, if you intend to buy from outside the EU, the Distance Selling Regs do not apply. You have to resort to local law. No offence to non-EU citizens, but consumer protection is pretty lack-luster in most other jurisdictions, and sometimes overly complex. However, using a credit card, if something is wrong with an item or service, if it turns out that what you signed up to is a scam, if goods never arrive etc... the credit card company is obliged to help out/refund the cash.
This is a protection that doesn't exist if I use bank transfer or debit card without escrow.
And "point systems" is another thing, that I never "got". To me is it like being frauded (is that a word?), because when you calculate it, always costs more in investment, than it saves you in money. Or in other words: It is there, to animate you, to buy more, so you can "save" money. Yeah. Right. How stupid do they think I am??
I understand where you are coming from. Points systems are a red herring if you think they are there for the benefit of the consumer.
As already established, because of the protections afforded to me under the Sale of Goods Act by using a credit card (it counts as a proof of purchase for warranty purposes), I tend to buy all my goods bought in local physical shops on my credit card. Is that hifi I bought broken after 3 years? No problem, credit card records are proof of purchase to retailer, they have to repair item. Is that milk I bought today sour, but I didn't get a till receipt? No problem - back to the supermarket with my credit card and ask for refund.
For years I had a credit card without a points system, using it for most things for my own protection. Then I realised my card issuer gave points on certain cards. The main drawback is if you overspent or couldn't pay your bill you were charged a higher rate of interest. As I pay off on time each month, this was not an issue. I got the card but didn't change my spending habits. After three years I finally have enough points to get something I want from their catalogue. Something I would not have purchased if I had to pay. It's a nice gimmick. It's an incentive to have this card over an ordinary card.
The perfect payments system does not exist. There are a lot of reasons consumers may choose to pay via credit card - being theoretically perfect or technologically impressive may not be as important as practical protection.
I'm not American - and I wonder about the op's premise as I thought most countries had moved (or were moving) to PIN-numbers rather than signatures to verify in-store transactions.
Regardless, credit cards are very safe for Europeans because of the extra protection they provide to consumers.
In Ireland as well as the UK - and most other European countries - there is a version of the Consumer Credit Act. It treats all purchases on the card as, unsurprisingly, a type of credit agreement. This is a very powerful and pro-Consumer thing, providing lots of protection for any who cares to look into it, e.g. chargeback.
True, a lot of these 'safeties' was introduced in an attempt to make the cards more secure - don't forget the premise of credit cards has been around for many, many decades and, during that time, the type of fraud perpetrated against credit card users has become more and more complex.
It's also well documented that Germans (culturally/in general) have an aversion to credit cards for a number of reasons; from 'all credit is borrowing - and borrowing is bad' (note the low rate of borrowing in Germany) to a series of pre-existing methods of paying for goods and services easily at a distance (e.g. in Germany, there is the long standing inter-bank transfer system; very cheap and secure to use inside the borders of Germany but, until very recently, was astronomically expensive for anyone in another country to transfer money to).
So why do I use a credit card? A large number of international traders accept credit cards, doesn't cost me any extra and I get points on my Sony card for every purchase I make. I am not liable for any fraud/misuse of my card. I suspect it's the same for Americans and most people who use credit card. Having the advantage of being European, I also have a lot of legally enforceable extra protections that I'm not sure Americans have in the Consumer Credit Act.
I also do use bank transfers to pay for stuff. Usually only to Germany because Germany is one country where their banks are pretty secure. And only in recent years - because, thanks to an EU Directive, the astronomical cost of transferring money across borders to another member state of the Eurozone has plummeted (note: UK not member of Eurozone, so a UK consumer could still face high charges).
I also have the protections of the Distance Selling Regulations when buying from Germany, but I would never transfer money via bank account outside of Europe.
As for 'reloadable' cards, for me they are slightly more expensive and don't offer me any incentive or attractiveness to use, and are not universally accepted.
Debit cards don't seem to be standarised internationally - or even across the EU - so are not really viable as a payment method.
Well, I'm Irish and I work for the Irish Government (Civil Servant, minor role).
To my mind, it looks like that Garda Commissioner has tried to be very smart, but ended up looking very stupid. People on Slashdot probably don't know, but the Irish government decided recently to 'merge' the Data Protection Commissioner (DPC) - the independent body that made sure noone, including the government and police, misused people's private data or were overly invasive - with a whole host of other, barely related organisations.
Thankfully, they were made climb down and back away from their original plans which looked - from an outsider's point of view - like they were using the 'merger' to scrap some of the more thorny Agencies that regularly complain about government policy and the police altogether. (When the Secretary General of the UN called to make 'observations' on the plan, I think they realised they had overstretched themselves a bit!)
However, they are still in a position where they can't lose too much face, and a 'merger' is still on the cards - except this time, it probably is a merger along the lines of sharing buildings and stationery orders. What the guard probably saw that the DPC was still on the cards for a merger without realising that is wasn't screwed over as badly as was initially intended. Or else he realised that he couldn't now just wait a year and then be able to force through his agenda without a State Agency that could effectively oppose him. Whatever the reason, he decided to rush in there to stick his oar into the operators.
He probably wasn't expecting the operators to go public, nor did he realise that the DPC is still operating effectively.
He deserves it, though. The Irish police (the 'guards') are notoriously weak on a technical level. They are so technophobic, they even call their computer people 'gits'! (Garda Information Technology section.)
As an example, many guards use Google or Yahoo email address as their official email addresses. Despite having set aside time and money for it years ago, most guards and, indeed, some police stations do not have email addresses. These free email addresses are used to communicate information about serious crimes, crime-scene photos etc. How's that for 'web-based email security'??? (For god's sake, nobody tell them about 'Flicker'!!!)
I also have occasion to know that many case records still exist only in the little black notebooks of individual guards. No such thing as entering a current investigation on a secure system or even having a typed version of ongoing case notes. This is after investing millions in a police system called 'PULSE'. This was supposed to be a secure system for recording all aspects of a case. You can't even upload a picture to the system, logs people out after five minutes of inactivity - even though it takes more then two minutes to log in and so on. It cost millions, yet the police still sometimes have to fall back to typewriters!
Even extends to basic tech like radios. A lot of them have to bring their own mobile phones to work. Either their radio system doesn't work in some areas or was never installed properly or their handsets have been broken and out of commission for a long time. And so on.
This, despite all our brilliant legislation about electronic signatures, eCommerce and so on.
(I'll also ad the disclaimer that this is not the area of the Service that I work in).
Simple recommendation for op from my experience, use http://www.hostingdude.com/
I've been with them years. Cheap domain names and ultra-cheap and user-friendly email plans that work with standalone programs or with a web interface.
Have a quick look at this page that gives a quick overview of accounts available: https://www.securepaynet.net/gdshop/email/personal.asp?prog_id=register_cheap_domain_names_cheap_web_hosting&app_hdr=&ci=12931
Reliable, fast (enough) and with all the features op is looking for.
I notice that their sales page now implies there's no calendar with their standard email packages - yet I have such a package and there is an online calendar app.
Just remember, no matter what else, one still "unleashes the beast"
I remember back on the ST and the Amiga there were lots of demos around in the late 80s and early 90s. I'm fairly certain there was one that looked like a flyby of part of the city at the start of Blade Runner - it was mentioned in one of the monthly mags, probably either ST Format or Amiga Format, because it was so unique at the time.
That could have led to the confusion.
Or it could be far more simply people are getting confused by the fantastic Blade Runner PC game.
There are FIVE lights.
I know this isn't new news, but here in Europe such practices are illegal and are in the process of being clamped down on. It's a breach of EU Consumer Regulations(Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts) to have limits on usage/download caps without explicitly stating what they are.
A few lines in terms and conditions talking vaguely about 'fair use' policies without specifically outlining what those policies are just don't cut it.
I know France has gone after a few, and am aware that a good few other jurisdictions are starting to move on the issue.
Eventually?!?
What are you talking about?
We've always been at war with the pirat...terroris...er...EastAsia
He-he.... that's good, I can climb down off my high-horse now.
Irish have the highest per head consumption of Tea in the world (according to news reports about two or three years ago). We consume about 3kg of Tea each a year(1996-1998 period).
Here are some stats for those who are interested: http://www.tea.org.au/world/sub2.html
Oh...and when pouring it's tea first, then milk. Any expert who talks about chemical bonding when coming to tea are either talking out of their South of England hole, using very delicate cups or using milk at the wrong temperature.
(yes...I like tea, and am talking about Assam-based blends mostly.)
I still think the £125 I spent for an extra 512k of RAM for my ST was good value!!!
I suppose that's where our nations differ again.
When talking about a date here in Ireland at least, it's more common to read and say dates '2nd of August 2006' - fitting in perfectly with the dd/mm/yyyy scheme.
Yes - and I intended to imply that both Microsoft and American representatives in Europe are more-or-less immune to geek-inspired outrage. The vast majority of people won't care enough to take action directly, and those that do won't make a huge impression.
w s.
Plus, it was also a musing on our American Embassy here in Ireland. I pass the American Embassy in Dublin every day - I'm sure their security is more lax then elsewhere - but to describe it as 'fortress-like' would not be wrong - surrounded by high railings, guarded by Marines with regular police patrols and situated well back from the road...and it's well ugly - think 1970's concrete-meets-turret-with-1970's-oversized-windo
I mean...you'd understand the British Embassy being a bit wary - yet their building is just plain ugly(according to Prince Charles). It's patrolled by one of our police, though, and doesn't seem too bad.
(don't get me wrong, by-the-by, staff in American Embassy are fine - really accomodating when I was dewaling with them for work. Just design is a bit foreboding)
I doubt it.... ....but only because American embassies have a habit of being behind really high railings, guarded by Marines and situated far enough away from their perimeters to make the throwing distance too far.
No, it's a Sky One remake, so is far more likely to be 'It's [insert some random terrorist's name here]'
Sky One sure as hell can't be seen as anti-American (unless they're doing some 'Britian is best'-exposé) and their TV shows aren't known for their complex, intelligent plots. (Not to be confused with films funded by the parent company, BSkyB( see http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0228488/ for a very good movie they funded.)
(O/T) As a native English speaker, I was delighted to see you use the term milliard simply because I was always taught by school teachers and 'educated' people that a billion should be defined as 10^12(1,000,000,000,000) but that, as a sop to the overwhelming influence of the American economy and cultural might, billion should be regarded as 10^9(1,000,000,000).
s ) but if you want the vast majority of people to understand, use the word 'Billion'
So, for instance, in Business Studies class, we strictly meant 10^9 if we used the word billion, but in English class, the meaning was much more ambiguous.
Since the mid-seventies, officially a billion has meant 10^9 in government documents in Britain, Ireland and elsewhere, but its old meaning as 10^12 has remained colloquially. (I left secondary school in 1999, which is fairly recent and it was still possible to use the 10^12 form then).
My point? Long-scale convention for naming numbers is just as valid as short-scale(see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_and_short_scale
Hmmm.... I wonder if you've confused Korea and Vietnam.
Vietnam is a crumbling vestige of bastardised communism - with all the highs and lows points that go with that. There's only one Vietnam, unless you're talking about special trade areas within Vietnam.
Korea is...well...screwed. Partitioned (wow, isn't that always an instant remedy for success for an occupying power), the North is a type of Monarchy in the trappings of Communism, reputed to be very corrupt while the South seems to be mired in an endless string of corruption cases.
Better off with American influence? Plenty of people would disagree, considering with how much respect Vietnam and both Koreas have been treated with by America.
I wonder if they've thought this through.Effectively they are saying that the present dictates the possible past that a person may travel to.
Remember the bit in Big Brother where they state: "Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past"
It's an endless loop - a deterministic past leads, inevitably, towards a deterministic future. If both of those are a given, then time travel is most definitely possible since such travel has been predetermined. And while it might feel all spontaneous and new, there is no action that is not predetermined.
In fact, if the future is predetermined, the last moment in time may be the important one, not the first, since it's the state of the universe in the last moment of time that determines the state of the universe in all preceeding time.
Or not. All I can say is "Fear of Quatum Mechanics profits a man nothing!"
Whoops....the one time I decide to extoll a deep-rooted belief of both myself and my friends without checking facts and I'm so totally(and I mean 180 degress here) wrong! I bow in humility and beg forgiveness.
Okay, I know I deserve to lose karma for being a twanny, but I honestly thought that ours was the correct definition. It's times like this I wish I'd posted anonymously....
At the risk of drifting off-topic, I disagree with your comment. That's a reinterpretation of definitions based on 'geek-chic' and all those 'cool' people who decided it was okay to be a bit of an individual - with uniform thick-rimmed glasses, stupid tee-shirts and a cocky attitude that made them feel smarter then they actually were.
Geek -> comes from 'Genius' and 'freak'. It means a smart social outcast, an intelligent person who is eccentric, etc...
Nerd -> is a social outcast, usually obsessive in some way. They can be smart, but the word is also associated with dull people. They can be addicted to sex, puzzles, television, computers...anything as long as it's too an unhealthy degree.
3. Release Mouse
Is that a euphemism?
(Which brings us on to what exactly you mean in point 4 when you say 'Peek-a-boo'!!)
Hmmmm....have to agree....HMOs are really just an American thing.
The National Health Service in Britain(mentioned in the article) isn't an HMO - it's a...err...national health service.... you know...the idea that people without private health insurance have a right to treament.....
Mind you, I'm Irish....so what we have doesn't even pass for a health service (HMO, nationalised or otherwise!) - in Ireland you won't be refused entry to a hospital based on your insurance plan...so you have the comfort of expiring on a trolley in some hallway after waiting six days for an examination!
(Bombay is Mumbai? So is Bombay an archaic usage(like Bangkok is for the capital of Thailand) or is it just an Anglicised version of the word?)
If you think an Alien vs. Predator film is a good idea, watch the movie at
_ deadend/index.shtml
http://www.theforce.net/theater/shortfilms/batman
(not off-topic if you watch the whole movie)
I bought into the Alien vs. Predator hype right from the pre-release Jaguar blurb... so this is great news (two months ago it would have been brilliant news but then I saw the above movie. Now I can only say the big screen version has been truely pipped at the post and unless it has a great story line(unlikely) then it already been surpassed by a three way tie-in actioner)
The piece itself is about nothing : the term irrevocable doesn't mean it can't be revoked, it usually just means it can't be revoked for no reason - i.e. there has to be a breach of the terms of the license. (That's assuming there isn't a clause somewhere that says 'This license can never be revoked.')
There is one worrying thing, and I quote:
{Villain fingers pussycat}
If that's an accurate description of what Mr. Stowell was doing, shouldn't somebody call the RSPCA???