What and When are you planning to to do about the frauds being perpetuated on Google Answers (http://answers.google.com) with questioners paying their own alias instead of the expert poster who deserves to be paid. They are destroying the cedibility of what has the potential to be an absolutely brilliant service.
I think you need to be a much more strigent about suspending and banning these abusers if you wish this service to take off.
I well aware that Sheffield is nearer, so is Halifax, Leeds, Bradford, Wakefield, Doncaster, Scunthorpe and my home city Hull. However experience has taught me that international/Internet people know the locations of London and York, probably because they are tourist traps. Since Rotherham is no where near london I used York.:) I've nothing against Sheffield, I used to got boozing at the Fat Cat and a Rock Club Roxies(?) pretty regularly.
The Magna Centre (www.magnatrust.org.uk ) is a science museum in Rotterham, south Yorkshire, UK (approx 40 miles southwest of York). It is well worth a visit.
Living Robot exhibition http://magna.livewwware.com/acg/acgsmg 01.dll/gen/t / ews/ptxt/magna/ptxt2/e32133
This is unsolicited bulk/commercial/junk email, it is not Spam and these are not Spamer's, Spamer is a proper surname, my surname.
Now experience has told some will not believe this and think it's a troll so 1) check my posting history, I don't troll and 2) here is my entry in the UK online phone directory.
http://ukphonebook.lycos.co.uk/servlet/Search?sk in =lycos&type=residential&pagesize=10&name=Spamer&lo cation=Hull&initial1=&initial2=
Yes, my name really is Martin SPAMER; Yes, it really p!$$ me off when people abuse my name; Yes, it does cause me no end of grief; Yes, I've heard all the wise cracks before; No, I don't find them funny. No, I refuse to be bullied into using an alias, how would you feel if I equated your name with thieving scumbags.
So if you wish to get on my bright side, do not use the term Spam or its derivatives use the term(s) unsolicited [ commercial | bulk | junk ] email.
How can you be sure you are 'Properly Testing Your Code'?
Actually you can do this by adding more bugs, yes adding them, The technique is called bebugging and the is basicly:
1) Produce code, it contains an unknown number (N) of bugs. 2) Programmer (or bebugger) seeds the code with a number (B) of known new bugs, the number and type of bugs should be determined from bugs found in previous debugging cycles. 3) Code is submitted to testing and some bugs are found (F). 3) The bugs found are examined and categorised as either real bugs (FN) or bebugs (FB). 4) Number of real bugs (N) can be found as the ratio of found bebugs (FB) to unfound bebugs (F). 5) Don't forget to remove all the bebugs.
You simply cannot have the expectation that software will *NEVER* crash.
Wrong, formals method can ensure that it is possible to claim that software will always fail in a predictable provable way.
If they can't solve a problem with an existing, proven solution (or a mild derivation of such), they probably wouldn't take on the job. Programmers do not have this luxury.
Wrong, Design Patterns are designed to make Software Engineering predictable in the same way that other Engineering is.
We are inventing these solutions on the fly and we will make mistakes.
Wrong, the Capability Maturity Model is designed to avoid, or catch mistakes and prevent the need to 'invent on the fly'.
The Capability Maturity Model (http://www.sei.cmu.edu/cmm/cmm.html) from the Carnegie Mellon Software Engineering Inst (http://www.sei.cmu.edu/sei-home.html) has been developed to aid this transition from a craft disipline (hacking) to an Software Engineering displine.
This is the letter I sent my MP to help you decide on what are the important points. As other have pointed out If you really care about this issue please take the time to rewrite it, rather than use it as a form letter.
Martin
---
Dear Mr Alan Johnson,
I write as a Computing Professional and life long Labour supporter/voter who strongly opposes the pending RIPE Statutory Instrument and who is greatly concerned by government policy in the fields of Information Technology and Digital Communications.
The RIPE Act, the pending RIPE statutory instrument and pending Software Patent legislation are doubly damaging to this country; firstly by eroding the basic freedoms and fundamental rights; and secondly are at the expense of the competitiveness of the UK IT sector. A sector set to be a driving force in the world trade and where the UK currently competes on a world stage and leads in many specialised sub-sectors.
The RIPE Act and pending RIPE SI represent a gross invasion of individual rights to privacy and is completely counter to the principals of the Data Protection Act which can be rightly held up as a World Class example of good IT legislation. The Data Protection Act protects both individual rights and competitiveness of UK IT businesses.
If legislation similar to RIPE where proposed for traditional/analogue communications systems such as letters or phone calls, it would be deemed to be completely unacceptable without a second though. There is no requirement on the Post Office to photocopy every letter it carries or BT to record all telephone calls and then store these copies for seven years. However this burden has been placed on service providers who operate in the digital communications sector.
The only difference between analogue and digital communications is the perception that blanket surveillance is possible with digital communication, whereas previously with analogue communication this was simply impossible. However RIPE's requirement to store all '[digital] communications data' for 7 years is also impossible both in practice and theory. The requirement to store transient data that exists for only a few moments and potentially changes thousands (or millions) of times a second actually confounds the laws of physics in some circumstances. The amount of storage space required simply does not exist, and is unlikely to ever exist.
This cost implications of RIPE to Digital Communications service providers are massive, in some circumstances increasing the cost base by several orders of magnitude and are consequently extremely damaging to the competitiveness of whole IT sector.
The massive expansion proposed by the RIPE SI in scope to cover essentially ever Government Department and Agency and not just law enforcement draws obvious parallels between RIPE and the Ministry of Information from George Orwell's 1984. This worries me greatly because it is the thin end of a wedge towards an authoritarian state.
The pending expansion of the patents system to cover computer software is also potentially extremely damaging to the UK IT sector. US companies have been allowed by a poorly managed patent system to accumulate large number of patents on everyday practices, many actually invented in the UK.
Consider the Internet, which is built using a technology called a 'packet switched network' which was invented at Cambridge University but patented in the US. Public key encryption, the mainstay of secure ecommerce was invented in the UK at GCHQ but was also patented in the US.
The acceptance of patents on computer software will force UK companies to honour 30 years of US software patents. Without a corresponding library of patents for reciprocal agreements UK IT will be forced to pay patent fees to US corporations placing them at a considerable commercial disadvantage.
1) represents an erosion of civil liberties and basic human rights. 2) reduces the competativeness of UK IT Businesses in the International arena. 3) digital communications should treated consistently with traditional/analogue communications such as letters and phone calls, intercepts should require a warrent issued by a judge.
When coupled with other Government policies such as position on Software Patents, Government position is anti-IT. Point out that this anti-IT position is so significant to you it WILL effect you voting intentions.
Is it wrong to accept an employment counter-offer?
No, it is not wrong, do what is best for YOU. They don't employ you out of good wishes, they do it because you have skills/knowledge/experience they NEED. If not you wouldn't be working for them in the first place.
However remember you almost certainly have a contract with the new employer or agent, even if only verbal. You are never likely to be able to use them again.
The linked 10 reasons are all b******t.
I have to agree, these reasons are from a job site it's in their interests for you to change positions and feed the jobs merry go round.
You have now made your employer aware that you are unhappy. From this day on, your loyalty will always be in question.
Where unhappy, past tense, your manager may be a miffed when you first announce, and have personalised feels about it, however it is almost certainly they who have driven the counter offer.
When promotion time comes around, your employer will remember who is loyal and who is not. When times get tough, your employer will begin the cutbacks with you.
If anything you've probably gained some respect. They are less likely to take you for granted in the future.
Accepting a counteroffer is an insult to your intelligence and a blow to your personal pride; you were bought.
If that is what motivates you, fair does.
Where is the money for the counteroffer coming from? All companies have wage and salary guidelines which must be followed. Is it your next raise early?
Perhaps but unlikely; if they try you can always leave and you are better off you've gained six months of extra money.
Your company will immediately start looking for a new person at a cheaper price.
Unlikely, it is actually more expensive to recruit somebody and get them upto speed and there is also more demand than supply, particularly in our sector,
The same circumstances that now cause you to consider a change will repeat themselves in the future, even if you accept a counteroffer.
Statistics show that if you accept a counteroffer, the probability of voluntarily leaving in six months or being let go in one year is extremely high.
This seems to be an argument in favour of not MAKING a counter offer rather than in favour of not accepting one. Worse case scenario, you leave for yet another pay increase, after six months.
Once the word gets out, the relationship that you now enjoy with your co-workers will never be the same. You will lose the personal satisfaction of peer group acceptance.
In my first job we had a guy that used a similar technique, we had annual salary reviews and six months later he would go and get a new job offer and use it to negotiate a counter offer thereby gaining two salary reviews a year. He was mostly respected for his b*lls, by the other employees, until our employer called his bluff and he left, though it took them 3-4 years to catch on.
What type of company do you work for if you have to threaten to resign before they will give you what you are worth
I have to agree, this is the only valid reason in this list (probably why it was left until last) 'why did they wait to make the counter offer?' However this is obvious, basic supply/demand economics, because they thought they though they COULD. I would say do they make a habit of it ? or was there a specific issue such as temporary tight budgets ?
Always remember employers need employees as much as employees need employers.
I think the people that do like it are the same people that watch Soap-Operas on TV, Briggs-Meyers F types, feelers not thinkers. They have been convinced join the computer revolution but are content to be passibe consumers, of emotional content, rather than knowledge.
Perhaps this Guy should have read this months (May 15, 2002) CRYPTO-GRAM by Bruce Schneier. The headline article is 'Secrecy, Security' and Obscurity' and covers the work of Auguste Kerckhoff, who in 1883, Yes 1883! demonstrated what has become know as Kerckhoffs' Principle, security by Obscurity is no security at all.
To quote Schneier: "Any system that tries to keep its algorithms secret for security reasons is quickly dismissed by the [cryptographic] community, and referred to as "snake oil" or even worse."
Fluorescent lights cause RF [interference], I would suspect that is raising a rail in you network cable.
We use large numbers of ADSL modems pushed towards there upper bandwidth limits to serve a digital TV project. As you can expect some of our hardware enginners have become real experts in the field of RFI and crosstalk. We had a particular set of problems that could not be tracked down, crosstalk was supected and test gear indicated RF interference on the lines.
However further tests revealled crosstalk was not the cause, the RFI spikes occured in exchanges that had not even been xDSL upgraded and somebody noticed when the engineers entered the exchanges, the situation deteriorated and QoS problems got worse. The network management systems reported thoughput and packets dropped. This was before the networking had been touched the, after much head scratching the problem was discovered as the Fluorescent lights, they had to ve removed from every one of our exchanges because of the RFI problems they cause.
Make no mistake, as emperor, Palpatine is a dictator--but a relatively benign one, like Pinochet. It's a dictatorship people can do business with. They collect taxes and patrol the skies. They try to stop organized crime (in the form of the smuggling rings run by the Hutts). The Empire has virtually no effect on the daily life of the average, law-abiding citizen.
Much as I disapprove of Pinochet; and agree that on an absolute scale he is a pretty despicable character, he was relatively benign when compared to dictators. He killed thousands of people and not millions like, Pol-Pot, Stalin, Hitler, Mao.
Further more, nature is entirely dictatorial, kills millions of people a year, and to quote my Physics teacher 'nothing kills like the laws of physics'. Does that make Nature or Physics evil or immoral ? I would suggest that dictatorship is actually amoral, neither good or evil, it simply is.
The Digital Animations Group (http://www.digital-animations.com/) have been doing computer generated characters very well for a couple of years. They are responsible for Ananova, the Talking Head and their latest creation the singing and dancing virtual pop star Tmmy (http://www.tmmy.co.uk), which BTW I submitted to slashdot but it was refused.
In the UK we dream of only 6months retention, a UK ISP must keep a copy of the Network Traffic they carry for a period of not less than 7 years, just incase of investigation. Failure to do so is a criminal offense.
The Home Office seems to be dilligently ignorant of the fact that is actually impossible in practice to comply with this law and the directors of every UK ISP are breaking the law.
Apple are *not* responsible. The CD producers are.
I'd suggest making a claim in the small claims court against the retailer. Apple have supplied the basic evidence you need. If you keep the claim relatively low, repair costs plus *minimal* damage for your time/distress and below the cost of a lawyer for the day, they will not even defend it. You get an automatic win.
Targeting the retailer also applies strong market pressure not to stock the CD.
When I arrived at University they had just installed the latest VAX 8800, this was over 10 year ago and this first one allowed outside the states, it was officially a super computer and covered by ITAR. This replaced some ICL big iron, that was about five times the size. IT Services decided to portion-off half of the old Computer Suite to be reused as a PC suite. They got in a local builder, and left he to it. The Builder promptly installed very modern and stylish aluminium & glass screens. That looked great, we could see the machines and boy where they small (for the day).
However this New VAX started to play up started crashing, core dummping and stopped working, so DEC engineers where called out and when the cabinet was opened and aluminium fillings where attached to everything, it was a wonder the thing worked at all. It traspired the Builder had cut the the Panels inside the Clean Computer Suite and electrostatic had done the rest.
Slashdot Mirror
What and When are you planning to to do about the frauds being perpetuated on Google Answers (http://answers.google.com) with questioners paying their own alias instead of the expert poster who deserves to be paid. They are destroying the cedibility of what has the potential to be an absolutely brilliant service.
I think you need to be a much more strigent about suspending and banning these abusers if you wish this service to take off.
The nearest major city is Sheffield
:) I've nothing against Sheffield, I used to got boozing at the Fat Cat and a Rock Club Roxies(?) pretty regularly.
I well aware that Sheffield is nearer, so is Halifax, Leeds, Bradford, Wakefield, Doncaster, Scunthorpe and my home city Hull. However experience has taught me that international/Internet people know the locations of London and York, probably because they are tourist traps. Since Rotherham is no where near london I used York.
The Magna Centre (www.magnatrust.org.uk ) is a science museum in Rotterham, south Yorkshire, UK (approx 40 miles southwest of York). It is well worth a visit.
Living Robot exhibition
http://magna.livewwware.com/acg/acgsm
Look at the e-mail address and tell me I am not the only person to find this ironic.
Slashdot address munging is responsible. Though I can appeciate the irony.
This is unsolicited bulk/commercial/junk email, it is not Spam and these are not Spamer's, Spamer is a proper surname, my surname.
k in =lycos&type=residential&pagesize=10&name=Spamer&lo cation=Hull&initial1=&initial2=
Now experience has told some will not believe this and think it's a troll so 1) check my posting history, I don't troll and 2) here is my entry in the UK online phone directory.
http://ukphonebook.lycos.co.uk/servlet/Search?s
Yes, my name really is Martin SPAMER;
Yes, it really p!$$ me off when people abuse my name;
Yes, it does cause me no end of grief;
Yes, I've heard all the wise cracks before;
No, I don't find them funny.
No, I refuse to be bullied into using an alias, how would you feel if I equated your name with thieving scumbags.
So if you wish to get on my bright side, do not use the term Spam or its derivatives use the term(s) unsolicited [ commercial | bulk | junk ] email.
thank you.
Martin Spamer
How can you be sure you are 'Properly Testing Your Code'?
Actually you can do this by adding more bugs, yes adding them, The technique is called bebugging and the is basicly:
1) Produce code, it contains an unknown number (N) of bugs.
2) Programmer (or bebugger) seeds the code with a number (B) of known new bugs, the number and type of bugs should be determined from bugs found in previous debugging cycles.
3) Code is submitted to testing and some bugs are found (F).
3) The bugs found are examined and categorised as either real bugs (FN) or bebugs (FB).
4) Number of real bugs (N) can be found as the ratio of found bebugs (FB) to unfound bebugs (F).
5) Don't forget to remove all the bebugs.
Wrong, formals method can ensure that it is possible to claim that software will always fail in a predictable provable way.
If they can't solve a problem with an existing, proven solution (or a mild derivation of such), they probably wouldn't take on the job. Programmers do not have this luxury.
Wrong, Design Patterns are designed to make Software Engineering predictable in the same way that other Engineering is.
We are inventing these solutions on the fly and we will make mistakes.
Wrong, the Capability Maturity Model is designed to avoid, or catch mistakes and prevent the need to 'invent on the fly'.
The Capability Maturity Model (http://www.sei.cmu.edu/cmm/cmm.html) from the Carnegie Mellon Software Engineering Inst (http://www.sei.cmu.edu/sei-home.html) has been developed to aid this transition from a craft disipline (hacking) to an Software Engineering displine.
Applied Cryptography (http://www.counterpane.com/applied.html)
Numerical Reciepes
http://books.cambridge.org/0521750342.h
Knuth's Art of Computer Computer Programming
http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~
I must add a canny way of earning refer credit with amazon
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/15561548
This is the letter I sent my MP to help you decide on what are the important points. As other have pointed out If you really care about this issue please take the time to rewrite it, rather than use it as a form letter.
Martin
---
Dear Mr Alan Johnson,
I write as a Computing Professional and life long Labour supporter/voter who strongly opposes the pending RIPE Statutory Instrument and who is greatly concerned by government policy in the fields of Information Technology and Digital Communications.
The RIPE Act, the pending RIPE statutory instrument and pending Software Patent legislation are doubly damaging to this country; firstly by eroding the basic freedoms and fundamental rights; and secondly are at the expense of the competitiveness of the UK IT sector. A sector set to be a driving force in the world trade and where the UK currently competes on a world stage and leads in many specialised sub-sectors.
The RIPE Act and pending RIPE SI represent a gross invasion of individual rights to privacy and is completely counter to the principals of the Data Protection Act which can be rightly held up as a World Class example of good IT legislation. The Data Protection Act protects both individual rights and competitiveness of UK IT businesses.
If legislation similar to RIPE where proposed for traditional/analogue communications systems such as letters or phone calls, it would be deemed to be completely unacceptable without a second though. There is no requirement on the Post Office to photocopy every letter it carries or BT to record all telephone calls and then store these copies for seven years. However this burden has been placed on service providers who operate in the digital communications sector.
The only difference between analogue and digital communications is the perception that blanket surveillance is possible with digital communication, whereas previously with analogue communication this was simply impossible. However RIPE's requirement to store all '[digital] communications data' for 7 years is also impossible both in practice and theory. The requirement to store transient data that exists for only a few moments and potentially changes thousands (or millions) of times a second actually confounds the laws of physics in some circumstances. The amount of storage space required simply does not exist, and is unlikely to ever exist.
This cost implications of RIPE to Digital Communications service providers are massive, in some circumstances increasing the cost base by several orders of magnitude and are consequently extremely damaging to the competitiveness of whole IT sector.
The massive expansion proposed by the RIPE SI in scope to cover essentially ever Government Department and Agency and not just law enforcement draws obvious parallels between RIPE and the Ministry of Information from George Orwell's 1984. This worries me greatly because it is the thin end of a wedge towards an authoritarian state.
The pending expansion of the patents system to cover computer software is also potentially extremely damaging to the UK IT sector. US companies have been allowed by a poorly managed patent system to accumulate large number of patents on everyday practices, many actually invented in the UK.
Consider the Internet, which is built using a technology called a 'packet switched network' which was invented at Cambridge University but patented in the US. Public key encryption, the mainstay of secure ecommerce was invented in the UK at GCHQ but was also patented in the US.
The acceptance of patents on computer software will force UK companies to honour 30 years of US software patents. Without a corresponding library of patents for reciprocal agreements UK IT will be forced to pay patent fees to US corporations placing them at a considerable commercial disadvantage.
Martin Spamer
---
http://www.faxyourmp.com/
Issues to cover when:
1) represents an erosion of civil liberties and basic human rights.
2) reduces the competativeness of UK IT Businesses in the International arena.
3) digital communications should treated consistently with traditional/analogue communications such as letters and phone calls, intercepts should require a warrent issued by a judge.
When coupled with other Government policies such as position on Software Patents, Government position is anti-IT.
Point out that this anti-IT position is so significant to you it WILL effect you voting intentions.
Is it wrong to accept an employment counter-offer?
No, it is not wrong, do what is best for YOU. They don't employ you out of good wishes, they do it because you have skills/knowledge/experience they NEED. If not you wouldn't be working for them in the first place.
However remember you almost certainly have a contract with the new employer or agent, even if only verbal. You are never likely to be able to use them again.
The linked 10 reasons are all b******t.
I have to agree, these reasons are from a job site it's in their interests for you to change positions and feed the jobs merry go round.
You have now made your employer aware that you are unhappy. From this day on, your loyalty will always be in question.
Where unhappy, past tense, your manager may be a miffed when you first announce, and have personalised feels about it, however it is almost certainly they who have driven the counter offer.
When promotion time comes around, your employer will remember who is loyal and who is not. When times get tough, your employer will begin the cutbacks with you.
If anything you've probably gained some respect. They are less likely to take you for granted in the future.
Accepting a counteroffer is an insult to your intelligence and a blow to your personal pride; you were bought.
If that is what motivates you, fair does.
Where is the money for the counteroffer coming from? All companies have wage and salary guidelines which must be followed. Is it your next raise early?
Perhaps but unlikely; if they try you can always leave and you are better off you've gained six months of extra money.
Your company will immediately start looking for a new person at a cheaper price.
Unlikely, it is actually more expensive to recruit somebody and get them upto speed and there is also more demand than supply, particularly in our sector,
The same circumstances that now cause you to consider a change will repeat themselves in the future, even if you accept a counteroffer.
Statistics show that if you accept a counteroffer, the probability of voluntarily leaving in six months or being let go in one year is extremely high.
This seems to be an argument in favour of not MAKING a counter offer rather than in favour of not accepting one. Worse case scenario, you leave for yet another pay increase, after six months.
Once the word gets out, the relationship that you now enjoy with your co-workers will never be the same. You will lose the personal satisfaction of peer group acceptance.
In my first job we had a guy that used a similar technique, we had annual salary reviews and six months later he would go and get a new job offer and use it to negotiate a counter offer thereby gaining two salary reviews a year. He was mostly respected for his b*lls, by the other employees, until our employer called his bluff and he left, though it took them 3-4 years to catch on.
What type of company do you work for if you have to threaten to resign before they will give you what you are worth
I have to agree, this is the only valid reason in this list (probably why it was left until last) 'why did they wait to make the counter offer?' However this is obvious, basic supply/demand economics, because they thought they though they COULD. I would say do they make a habit of it ? or was there a specific issue such as temporary tight budgets ?
Always remember employers need employees as much as employees need employers.
http://jakarta.apache.org/tomcat/
http://jakarta.apache.org/tomcat/tomcat-3.2-
d
http://jakarta.apache.org/tomcat/to
You could using one of the free (as in beer) community editions of the IDE's. CE editions of JBuilder and Forte come pre-configured with TOMCAT.
I agree, I cannot see the attraction.
I think the people that do like it are the same people that watch Soap-Operas on TV, Briggs-Meyers F types, feelers not thinkers. They have been convinced join the computer revolution but are content to be passibe consumers, of emotional content, rather than knowledge.
Perhaps this Guy should have read this months (May 15, 2002) CRYPTO-GRAM by Bruce Schneier. The headline article is 'Secrecy, Security' and Obscurity' and covers the work of Auguste Kerckhoff, who in 1883, Yes 1883! demonstrated what has become know as Kerckhoffs' Principle, security by Obscurity is no security at all.
To quote Schneier: "Any system that tries to keep its algorithms secret for security reasons is quickly dismissed by the [cryptographic] community, and referred to as "snake oil" or even worse."
http://www.counterpane.com/crypto-gram.html
Have you conducted a traffic analysis, connected packet sniffer ? What type of traffic ?
Are you certain the modems have not been compromised ? Are they all the same type?
I'd suspect a DOS attack by one of you customers pissed at being capped.
Fluorescent Lights Magically Activates iMac
Fluorescent lights cause RF [interference], I would suspect that is raising a rail in you network cable.
We use large numbers of ADSL modems pushed towards there upper bandwidth limits to serve a digital TV project. As you can expect some of our hardware enginners have become real experts in the field of RFI and crosstalk. We had a particular set of problems that could not be tracked down, crosstalk was supected and test gear indicated RF interference on the lines.
However further tests revealled crosstalk was not the cause, the RFI spikes occured in exchanges that had not even been xDSL upgraded and somebody noticed when the engineers entered the exchanges, the situation deteriorated and QoS problems got worse. The network management systems reported thoughput and packets dropped. This was before the networking had been touched the, after much head scratching the problem was discovered as the Fluorescent lights, they had to ve removed from every one of our exchanges because of the RFI problems they cause.
Make no mistake, as emperor, Palpatine is a dictator--but a relatively benign one, like Pinochet. It's a dictatorship people can do business with. They collect taxes and patrol the skies. They try to stop organized crime (in the form of the smuggling rings run by the Hutts). The Empire has virtually no effect on the daily life of the average, law-abiding citizen.
Much as I disapprove of Pinochet; and agree that on an absolute scale he is a pretty despicable character, he was relatively benign when compared to dictators. He killed thousands of people and not millions like, Pol-Pot, Stalin, Hitler, Mao.
Further more, nature is entirely dictatorial, kills millions of people a year, and to quote my Physics teacher 'nothing kills like the laws of physics'. Does that make Nature or Physics evil or immoral ? I would suggest that dictatorship is actually amoral, neither good or evil, it simply is.
The Digital Animations Group (http://www.digital-animations.com/) have been doing computer generated characters very well for a couple of years. They are responsible for Ananova, the Talking Head and their latest creation the singing and dancing virtual pop star Tmmy (http://www.tmmy.co.uk), which BTW I submitted to slashdot but it was refused.
MHP (Multimedia Home Platform) is essentially a system for encoding and displaying HTML pages extracted from a DVB/MPEG stream.
In the UK we dream of only 6months retention, a UK ISP must keep a copy of the Network Traffic they carry for a period of not less than 7 years, just incase of investigation. Failure to do so is a criminal offense.
The Home Office seems to be dilligently ignorant of the fact that is actually impossible in practice to comply with this law and the directors of every UK ISP are breaking the law.
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/ripa/ripact.htm
Apple are *not* responsible. The CD producers are.
I'd suggest making a claim in the small claims court against the retailer. Apple have supplied the basic evidence you need. If you keep the claim relatively low, repair costs plus *minimal* damage for your time/distress and below the cost of a lawyer for the day, they will not even defend it. You get an automatic win.
Targeting the retailer also applies strong market pressure not to stock the CD.
When I arrived at University they had just installed the latest VAX 8800, this was over 10 year ago and this first one allowed outside the states, it was officially a super computer and covered by ITAR. This replaced some ICL big iron, that was about five times the size. IT Services decided to portion-off half of the old Computer Suite to be reused as a PC suite. They got in a local builder, and left he to it. The Builder promptly installed very modern and stylish aluminium & glass screens. That looked great, we could see the machines and boy where they small (for the day).
However this New VAX started to play up started crashing, core dummping and stopped working, so DEC engineers where called out and when the cabinet was opened and aluminium fillings where attached to everything, it was a wonder the thing worked at all. It traspired the Builder had cut the the Panels inside the Clean Computer Suite and electrostatic had done the rest.
The British Board of Film Classification website
This is the ruling on AoC.
here the Guidlines for PG
And these the Guidlines for 12