'It doesn't surprise me. I'm from the UK, and "Visiting the US" was always one of those things on my life's "to-do" list - seeing New York, going to the West Coast, visiting friends in Washington state, maybe even driving Route 66 one day if I had money enough and time...I'm afraid it ain't on my "to-do" list any more.'
If you've crossed these off your list then you're really missing out. New York alone, even to someone used to big cities like London, is an extraordinary place to visit, and the West Coast has some absolutely spectacular scenery and great cities. I'm sure that bad things occasionally happen (I've also read a few horror stories) but frankly US Immigration (usually polite enough, or at least efficient) has so far ranked pretty low on my list of annoyances. The airlines, with their unexplained multi-hour delays, double booked seats, arbitrary baggage charges, lost luggage, broken entertainment systems, and strange and terrible food, I'd rank much higher. Airport security (everywhere) isn't much fun either, while even returning to the UK as a citizen can be a bit of a pain (particularly the interminable queues at Heathrow). But none of these should put you off travelling. Getting to the US is no longer a 6 week ordeal in a sailing ship with a 1% mortality rate, after all.
'Besides, GE has no link that I'm aware of to the DeLorean Motor Company that I'm aware of.'
Can't see it on the company chart, but I think it fits in somewhere between the Sheinhardt Wig Company ('Not Poisoning Rivers Since 1997') and AHP Chanagi Party Meats of Pyongyang, N. Korea:
No need to frost. Just bake the cake, insert the microSD, and _eat_ the cake. Then if they start searching people thoroughly enough to detect the card, they _really_ deserve to find it.
'Indeed, the problem has gotten to be so bad that it has given rise to so called "libel tourism" where people who want to sue for libel go out of their way to find some connection, no matter how tenuous to Great Britain, so that they can justify suing in British courts'
Tom Cruise: [approaches Stan] 'So you're NOT the prophet, huh?! You made me look stupid! I'm gonna sue you too!' Stan: 'Well fine! Go ahead and sue me!' Tom Cruise: 'I will! I'll sue you in England!' Scientology President: 'You are so sued, kid!'
One of the consequences of working for a truly global conspiracy is that many of us are based in countries where, despite our malign influence on the mass media, US television is sadly unavailable. Our sources inform us that 'Colbert' can only be accessed in our current location by a subscription to News Corporation's FX channel, and there some things even we are not prepared to stoop to. We humbly suggest that your cultural assumptions are even wider of the mark than your beliefs about infectious disease, though it is of course perfectly understandable that anyone immersed in the American mass media would attribute all use of ironic language to one of the few sources they are likely to be familiar with.
We do not, of course, encourage critical thinking. Anyone wishing to follow this dangerous route would probably start by consulting one of the providers of 'reliable' information we have not yet managed to suppress or discredit, such as:
and applying some common sense and a modicum of scientific training. We would much prefer that everyone else receives their information from (e.g.) self-publicising osteopaths citing scare stories from UK tabloids with similar credibility to Fox News, including the memorable article that turns a sensible precaution about a possible rare complication of vaccination into a Deadly Nerve Disease Warning. Otherwise we might get people reading things like this:
"Several studies have been done to evaluate if other flu vaccines since 1976 were associated with GBS. Only one of the studies showed an association. That study suggested that one person out of 1 million vaccinated persons may be at risk of GBS associated with the vaccine."
and comparing any possible risk with the real case fatality rate of swine flu, which would never do.
Well of course we are True Believers, we're a CONSPIRACY, remember?
Thank you for your kind support of Dr Mercola - he continues to serve our interests well. As a token of our appreciation, you may give the code '322' at any vaccination centre. This will ensure that you receive the genuine, unmodified vaccine, and is valid for a $4.99 discount in all future sinister 'vaccination' campaigns!
Speaking as an agent of the Global Swine Flu Plot, I am pleased to report that we are, as usual, several steps ahead of the conspiracy theorists. When we first became aware of the virus, we seeded several internet forums with the suggestion that the 'pandemic' was a pretext to disseminate a 'vaccine' of unknown but definitely evil properties.
Our real purpose, of course, was to ensure that the conspiracy theorists (already a thorn in our side since they revealed our role in faking the moon landings, assassinating JFK, and concealing the Truth about 9/11) would convince themselves not to be vaccinated, and therefore remain unprotected when the deadlier second wave of the pandemic strikes later in the year. So far, everything has gone exactly according to plan, and the conspiracy theories have continued to evolve more rapidly than the genome of the virus.
Our efforts have been aided by our minions in the entertainment industry, who have been preparing for this eventuality for some time (note, for example, the sinister 'vaccination' programs in 'Torchwood: Children of Earth' and Nicole Kidman's 'The Invasion'). Meanwhile, our agents in the education system have ensured that the general public remains largely ignorant about basic virology, immunology, and the mathematics of probability, to the extent that a standard vaccine can be made to appear more risky than the virus it protects against.
The real beauty of our strategy, of course, is that it can be discussed perfectly openly in forums like this without tipping off the conspiracy theorists, who will naturally interpret it as pure fantasy, or an elaborate double bluff...
- The Global Pandemic Influenza Conspiracy: Immantenizing the Eschaton since 1510!
"Last Wednesday a defence lawyer thought she caught a glimpse of a wire under the woman's head covering. On several occasions the judge had thought he could hear the faintest "tinny music", but dismissed it as his imagination. Finally, a woman juror sent him a note, claiming her colleague had been listening to her MP3 player during the defendant's evidence."
"Attorney General Baroness Patricia Scotland had "carefully" considered the case and decided not to press criminal charges, saying it would be too difficult to prove if the woman was guilty, a spokeswoman for her office said...The Crown Prosecution Service said there had been contempt cases where people had taken pictures using mobile phones in court, but it was believed to be the first of its kind involving a juror suspected of listening to music."
Maybe, but speaking as an agent of the Global Pandemic Influenza Conspiracy, our chief weapon is surprise. Surprise and fear. Fear and surprise. Our *two* weapons are fear and surprise and ruthless efficiency. Our *three* weapons are fear, surprise, ruthless efficiency, and an almost fanatical dedication to the World Health Organization...
The Global Pandemic Influenza Conspiracy - Immanentizing the Eschaton since 1510!
'I have a classic 160GB purchased around late 2007. Is this something else, or did they decrease the Classic's capacity at some point?'
Yes, they killed the fat (double drive platter) 160Gb Classic and upped the thin 80Gb version to 120Gb, when higher capacity single platter drives became available. Now we have a thin 160Gb Classic, but the double platter version remains dead (so no 240Gb or 320Gb in the immediate future, unfortunately).
The UK, of course, used to be home to another interesting idea - free university education for everyone who could handle it, all the way up to PhD level if you qualified. But a few years ago our enlightened government realised that the money would be much better spent on exciting new concepts like the invasion of random countries that our US friends didn't like the look of, and this silly idea was consigned to the dustbin of history (except, obviously, in backward places like Scotland).
'Everything is just a matter of time. After all Watson, Crick, Wilkins and Franklin got, or should of gotten, Nobel prizes for extracting DNA. Now you can do that at home.'
'"Who discovered DNA ?" "Watson and Crick, of course !" most students will answer. However, DNA was isolated, analyzed and recognized as a unique macromolecule in 1869 by Friedrich Miescher, an eminent physiological chemist from Basel, Switzerland.'
The Nobel prize, of course, was for the discovery of the _structure_ of DNA. Speaking of Watson, we can now frame him for any crime using his publicly available complete genome sequence:
Looks like Microsoft have already taken pre-emptive action. A fully-functional version of Word, lacking XML support but including all the features that anyone actually uses, is now available for (free!) download:
The UK has a Coastguard as well, of course - these are the people you'll talk to when making a 999 emergency call. They have helicopters of their own, though their major role is the co-ordination of other rescue services, calling on RNLI, independent lifeboat, RAF, and Royal Navy resources as required.
Sounds like both Apple and the Major Labels are infringing on my patented Digital Album Format. The working project title is 'Directory', but it looks like I'll now need a TLA to compete with Big Media - 'DIR'? DIR can hold any reasonable number of 'tracks', or even multiple albums and movies, each of which is 'tagged' with all the relevant data and album artwork, and all of which are already compatible with iTunes! Recently I've also implemented 'a brand new look, with a launch page and all the different options.' Like CMX, 'When you click on it you're not just going to get the 10 tracks, you're going to get the artwork, the video and mobile products'. Obviously I can't give away too many details at this point, but I can tell you that I'm thinking of calling the DIR launch page 'index.html'.
'This is an actual, verbatim representation of Orwell's vision for the future (today's present). There isn't any needed for interpretation, it's literally 1984. Wow.'
There's also a pretty strong theme in Nineteen Eighty-Four about not necessarily believing what you read in newspapers. I'd suggest that a story backed up only by an article in the Sunday Express (which is not far off one of the 'rubbishy newspapers containing almost nothing except sport, crime and astrology' produced in 1984 'at a lower level for the benefit of the proletariat') should be taken with a Siberian mine full of salt. Does anyone have a reliable source for these claims? The announcement about 'family intervention' on the dcsf site doesn't seem to bear any relationship to the Sunday Express's story:
'Remember when TiVo went by the letter of the GPL (v2) but not the apparent spirit? A new section of GPL v3 was born.'
This is actually the most relevant point in the entire discussion. The iPhone app store falls foul of exactly this clause in GPL3, created to address a very similar issue. John Sullivan at the FSF addresses the problem here:
"Apple's approach runs headlong into an important part of the GPL's copyleft approach -- the principle that anytime someone shares a copy of a GPL-covered program with another person, she also needs to provide that person with the installable, human-readable source code for that program. This ensures that everyone who gets a copy of a program also gets the raw material needed for any study and modification. This freedom is not meaningful if the computer on which the software is meant to run arbitrarily rejects any potentially changed version installed by the user simply because it has not been signed or approved by a "higher" authority. The latest version of the GPL (GPLv3) includes a provision to address the threat posed by this tivoization and put a stop to this method of depriving users of freedom."
So the problem is not that the app is being charged for (this is fine), but that it's on the app store at all. This violates the spirit of the GPL in general (as it makes one of its fundamental freedoms 'not meaningful') and the letter of GPL3. The letter of GPL2 would not be violated (it's a situation the original GPL authors had simply not considered), provided that the app is accompanied by its source code or a written offer to supply it (presumably the source is not included in the app store download, but is the written offer? - it's not enough just to have the source on the personal site of the iPhone version's authors).
'Exactly, this is what already happens in other markets.'
This is what already happens in the music industry. The zeropaid author has misinterpreted the original waynerosso article (which itself seems to be over-hyping the situation - see some of the replies to the post):
This only states that EMI wants the independents to purchase from 'one stops' rather than directly from EMI. These 'one stops' are one stop wholesale distributors, not one stop retail stores like Walmart.
From a post by 'chpthrlls' in the zeropaid thread:
"this really isn't such a big deal. First of all "One Stops" DOES NOT mean Wal-mart and Best Buy. A one stop is a distributor that buys from the labels and sells to retailers. Most indie stores get their product from one stops anyway. Some labels do sell directly to larger indie stores that have a large volume, but this, and only this, is what EMI is halting. I should know, as I am an indie retailer. We have always used a one stop distributor, and will continue to do so. And F*CK Wal-mart!"
From Jason Hughes in the waynerosso thread:
"This is sort of a false story. EMI closed a few accounts that were doing minimal orders. No stores in Seattle, or in our coalition for that matter, were closed. The ones that were closed got 3 months written notice. I'm not sure where Wayne is getting his info but he should fact check it."
From 'jack' in the waynerosso thread:
"Wayne's post is inaccurate. Every year, all the labels take a look at their accounts and make changes. I know people at EMI and know EMI sent letters (back in February) to a handful of small physical retailers -- we're talking a fraction of a percent of their physical accounts -- and informed them they'd need to go through one-stops for product. They gave them months and months of notice and a list of options for one stops. They didn't just call them last minute as Wayne claims."
'Windows is used on British Nuclear submarines - but not as part of the command and control system and certainly not the nuclear missile systems. Nuclear submarines have crews, and require stores control and admin systems for their food and other needs. These are standard Windows systems, but have nothing to do with the military side of the system.'
In any case, the Royal Navy has a full-tested emergency procedure for dealing with all computer-related malfunctions aboard nuclear submarines, helpfully illustrated in this official video (about 18 seconds in):
Slashdot Mirror
Not landing. Harvesting.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quatermass_(TV_serial)
'It doesn't surprise me. I'm from the UK, and "Visiting the US" was always one of those things on my life's "to-do" list - seeing New York, going to the West Coast, visiting friends in Washington state, maybe even driving Route 66 one day if I had money enough and time...I'm afraid it ain't on my "to-do" list any more.'
If you've crossed these off your list then you're really missing out. New York alone, even to someone used to big cities like London, is an extraordinary place to visit, and the West Coast has some absolutely spectacular scenery and great cities. I'm sure that bad things occasionally happen (I've also read a few horror stories) but frankly US Immigration (usually polite enough, or at least efficient) has so far ranked pretty low on my list of annoyances. The airlines, with their unexplained multi-hour delays, double booked seats, arbitrary baggage charges, lost luggage, broken entertainment systems, and strange and terrible food, I'd rank much higher. Airport security (everywhere) isn't much fun either, while even returning to the UK as a citizen can be a bit of a pain (particularly the interminable queues at Heathrow). But none of these should put you off travelling. Getting to the US is no longer a 6 week ordeal in a sailing ship with a 1% mortality rate, after all.
'Besides, GE has no link that I'm aware of to the DeLorean Motor Company that I'm aware of.'
Can't see it on the company chart, but I think it fits in somewhere between the Sheinhardt Wig Company ('Not Poisoning Rivers Since 1997') and AHP Chanagi Party Meats of Pyongyang, N. Korea:
http://www.nbc.com/30_Rock/images/placeholder/GE_OrgChart.jpg
http://www.nbc.com/30_Rock/exclusives/30R_GEWigChart.pdf
'Any human can tell that it lacks any meaning at all.'
Hopefully:
http://www.physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/transgress_v2/transgress_v2_singlefile.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair
No need to frost. Just bake the cake, insert the microSD, and _eat_ the cake. Then if they start searching people thoroughly enough to detect the card, they _really_ deserve to find it.
'Indeed, the problem has gotten to be so bad that it has given rise to so called "libel tourism" where people who want to sue for libel go out of their way to find some connection, no matter how tenuous to Great Britain, so that they can justify suing in British courts'
Tom Cruise: [approaches Stan] 'So you're NOT the prophet, huh?! You made me look stupid! I'm gonna sue you too!'
Stan: 'Well fine! Go ahead and sue me!'
Tom Cruise: 'I will! I'll sue you in England!'
Scientology President: 'You are so sued, kid!'
South Park, 'Trapped in the Closet'.
One of the consequences of working for a truly global conspiracy is that many of us are based in countries where, despite our malign influence on the mass media, US television is sadly unavailable. Our sources inform us that 'Colbert' can only be accessed in our current location by a subscription to News Corporation's FX channel, and there some things even we are not prepared to stoop to. We humbly suggest that your cultural assumptions are even wider of the mark than your beliefs about infectious disease, though it is of course perfectly understandable that anyone immersed in the American mass media would attribute all use of ironic language to one of the few sources they are likely to be familiar with.
We do not, of course, encourage critical thinking. Anyone wishing to follow this dangerous route would probably start by consulting one of the providers of 'reliable' information we have not yet managed to suppress or discredit, such as:
http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/cidrap/content/influenza/panflu/index.html
http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/
http://www.euro.who.int/influenza/ah1n1
and applying some common sense and a modicum of scientific training. We would much prefer that everyone else receives their information from (e.g.) self-publicising osteopaths citing scare stories from UK tabloids with similar credibility to Fox News, including the memorable article that turns a sensible precaution about a possible rare complication of vaccination into a Deadly Nerve Disease Warning. Otherwise we might get people reading things like this:
http://www.cdc.gov/FLU/about/qa/gbs.htm
"Several studies have been done to evaluate if other flu vaccines since 1976 were associated with GBS. Only one of the studies showed an association. That study suggested that one person out of 1 million vaccinated persons may be at risk of GBS associated with the vaccine."
and comparing any possible risk with the real case fatality rate of swine flu, which would never do.
Well of course we are True Believers, we're a CONSPIRACY, remember?
Thank you for your kind support of Dr Mercola - he continues to serve our interests well. As a token of our appreciation, you may give the code '322' at any vaccination centre. This will ensure that you receive the genuine, unmodified vaccine, and is valid for a $4.99 discount in all future sinister 'vaccination' campaigns!
'I just got woken up by a guy with construction boots who needed to fix the walls outside my apartment window.'
Sorry about that - there was a problem with the monitoring system. Should be fixed now :-)
'Did you read those two linked articles?'
Yes, Dr Mercola is one of our most valued assets, though there are still a few critics we need to silence:
http://scienceblogs.com/denialism/2008/03/more_flu_woo_from_mercola.php
'And why would they promote such a thing. . ?'
Speaking as an agent of the Global Swine Flu Plot, I am pleased to report that we are, as usual, several steps ahead of the conspiracy theorists. When we first became aware of the virus, we seeded several internet forums with the suggestion that the 'pandemic' was a pretext to disseminate a 'vaccine' of unknown but definitely evil properties.
Our real purpose, of course, was to ensure that the conspiracy theorists (already a thorn in our side since they revealed our role in faking the moon landings, assassinating JFK, and concealing the Truth about 9/11) would convince themselves not to be vaccinated, and therefore remain unprotected when the deadlier second wave of the pandemic strikes later in the year. So far, everything has gone exactly according to plan, and the conspiracy theories have continued to evolve more rapidly than the genome of the virus.
Our efforts have been aided by our minions in the entertainment industry, who have been preparing for this eventuality for some time (note, for example, the sinister 'vaccination' programs in 'Torchwood: Children of Earth' and Nicole Kidman's 'The Invasion'). Meanwhile, our agents in the education system have ensured that the general public remains largely ignorant about basic virology, immunology, and the mathematics of probability, to the extent that a standard vaccine can be made to appear more risky than the virus it protects against.
The real beauty of our strategy, of course, is that it can be discussed perfectly openly in forums like this without tipping off the conspiracy theorists, who will naturally interpret it as pure fantasy, or an elaborate double bluff...
- The Global Pandemic Influenza Conspiracy: Immantenizing the Eschaton since 1510!
'If you have jury duty, you would be listening to the case being discussed, not your iPod.'
Well, usually:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2007/jul/10/claredyer.uknews4
"Last Wednesday a defence lawyer thought she caught a glimpse of a wire under the woman's head covering. On several occasions the judge had thought he could hear the faintest "tinny music", but dismissed it as his imagination. Finally, a woman juror sent him a note, claiming her colleague had been listening to her MP3 player during the defendant's evidence."
http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKL1689542720070816
"Attorney General Baroness Patricia Scotland had "carefully" considered the case and decided not to press criminal charges, saying it would be too difficult to prove if the woman was guilty, a spokeswoman for her office said...The Crown Prosecution Service said there had been contempt cases where people had taken pictures using mobile phones in court, but it was believed to be the first of its kind involving a juror suspected of listening to music."
'You are being controlled through fear.'
Maybe, but speaking as an agent of the Global Pandemic Influenza Conspiracy, our chief weapon is surprise. Surprise and fear. Fear and surprise. Our *two* weapons are fear and surprise and ruthless efficiency. Our *three* weapons are fear, surprise, ruthless efficiency, and an almost fanatical dedication to the World Health Organization...
The Global Pandemic Influenza Conspiracy - Immanentizing the Eschaton since 1510!
'I have a classic 160GB purchased around late 2007. Is this something else, or did they decrease the Classic's capacity at some point?'
Yes, they killed the fat (double drive platter) 160Gb Classic and upped the thin 80Gb version to 120Gb, when higher capacity single platter drives became available. Now we have a thin 160Gb Classic, but the double platter version remains dead (so no 240Gb or 320Gb in the immediate future, unfortunately).
The UK, of course, used to be home to another interesting idea - free university education for everyone who could handle it, all the way up to PhD level if you qualified. But a few years ago our enlightened government realised that the money would be much better spent on exciting new concepts like the invasion of random countries that our US friends didn't like the look of, and this silly idea was consigned to the dustbin of history (except, obviously, in backward places like Scotland).
Oops, broken link. See:
http://www.bizgraphic.ch/miescheriana/html/the_man_who_dicovered_dna.html
'Everything is just a matter of time. After all Watson, Crick, Wilkins and Franklin got, or should of gotten, Nobel prizes for extracting DNA. Now you can do that at home.'
Not quite! DNA was a 19th century discovery:
http://www.bizgraphic.ch/miescherian/html/the_man_who_dicovered_dna.html
'"Who discovered DNA ?" "Watson and Crick, of course !" most students will answer. However, DNA was isolated, analyzed and recognized as a unique macromolecule in 1869 by Friedrich Miescher, an eminent physiological chemist from Basel, Switzerland.'
The Nobel prize, of course, was for the discovery of the _structure_ of DNA. Speaking of Watson, we can now frame him for any crime using his publicly available complete genome sequence:
http://jimwatsonsequence.cshl.edu/
Looks like Microsoft have already taken pre-emptive action. A fully-functional version of Word, lacking XML support but including all the features that anyone actually uses, is now available for (free!) download:
http://www.downloadsquad.com/2005/11/25/free-file/
The UK has a Coastguard as well, of course - these are the people you'll talk to when making a 999 emergency call. They have helicopters of their own, though their major role is the co-ordination of other rescue services, calling on RNLI, independent lifeboat, RAF, and Royal Navy resources as required.
This just in: exclusive footage of BSG's Ron Moore commenting on the movie announcement at a recent SF convention:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I876imp3R1Q
Sounds like both Apple and the Major Labels are infringing on my patented Digital Album Format. The working project title is 'Directory', but it looks like I'll now need a TLA to compete with Big Media - 'DIR'? DIR can hold any reasonable number of 'tracks', or even multiple albums and movies, each of which is 'tagged' with all the relevant data and album artwork, and all of which are already compatible with iTunes! Recently I've also implemented 'a brand new look, with a launch page and all the different options.' Like CMX, 'When you click on it you're not just going to get the 10 tracks, you're going to get the artwork, the video and mobile products'. Obviously I can't give away too many details at this point, but I can tell you that I'm thinking of calling the DIR launch page 'index.html'.
'This is an actual, verbatim representation of Orwell's vision for the future (today's present). There isn't any needed for interpretation, it's literally 1984. Wow.'
There's also a pretty strong theme in Nineteen Eighty-Four about not necessarily believing what you read in newspapers. I'd suggest that a story backed up only by an article in the Sunday Express (which is not far off one of the 'rubbishy newspapers containing almost nothing except sport, crime and astrology' produced in 1984 'at a lower level for the benefit of the proletariat') should be taken with a Siberian mine full of salt. Does anyone have a reliable source for these claims? The announcement about 'family intervention' on the dcsf site doesn't seem to bear any relationship to the Sunday Express's story:
http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/pns/DisplayPN.cgi?pn_id=2009_0138
But perhaps the Thought Police have already edited it...
'Remember when TiVo went by the letter of the GPL (v2) but not the apparent spirit? A new section of GPL v3 was born.'
This is actually the most relevant point in the entire discussion. The iPhone app store falls foul of exactly this clause in GPL3, created to address a very similar issue. John Sullivan at the FSF addresses the problem here:
http://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/why-free-software-and-apples-iphone-dont-mix
"Apple's approach runs headlong into an important part of the GPL's copyleft approach -- the principle that anytime someone shares a copy of a GPL-covered program with another person, she also needs to provide that person with the installable, human-readable source code for that program. This ensures that everyone who gets a copy of a program also gets the raw material needed for any study and modification. This freedom is not meaningful if the computer on which the software is meant to run arbitrarily rejects any potentially changed version installed by the user simply because it has not been signed or approved by a "higher" authority. The latest version of the GPL (GPLv3) includes a provision to address the threat posed by this tivoization and put a stop to this method of depriving users of freedom."
So the problem is not that the app is being charged for (this is fine), but that it's on the app store at all. This violates the spirit of the GPL in general (as it makes one of its fundamental freedoms 'not meaningful') and the letter of GPL3. The letter of GPL2 would not be violated (it's a situation the original GPL authors had simply not considered), provided that the app is accompanied by its source code or a written offer to supply it (presumably the source is not included in the app store download, but is the written offer? - it's not enough just to have the source on the personal site of the iPhone version's authors).
'Exactly, this is what already happens in other markets.'
This is what already happens in the music industry. The zeropaid author has misinterpreted the original waynerosso article (which itself seems to be over-hyping the situation - see some of the replies to the post):
http://www.waynerosso.com/2009/06/30/emi-to-mom-pops-eat-cake/
This only states that EMI wants the independents to purchase from 'one stops' rather than directly from EMI. These 'one stops' are one stop wholesale distributors, not one stop retail stores like Walmart.
From a post by 'chpthrlls' in the zeropaid thread:
"this really isn't such a big deal. First of all "One Stops" DOES NOT mean Wal-mart and Best Buy. A one stop is a distributor that buys from the labels and sells to retailers. Most indie stores get their product from one stops anyway. Some labels do sell directly to larger indie stores that have a large volume, but this, and only this, is what EMI is halting. I should know, as I am an indie retailer. We have always used a one stop distributor, and will continue to do so. And F*CK Wal-mart!"
From Jason Hughes in the waynerosso thread:
"This is sort of a false story. EMI closed a few accounts that were doing minimal orders. No stores in Seattle, or in our coalition for that matter, were closed. The ones that were closed got 3 months written notice. I'm not sure where Wayne is getting his info but he should fact check it."
From 'jack' in the waynerosso thread:
"Wayne's post is inaccurate. Every year, all the labels take a look at their accounts and make changes. I know people at EMI and know EMI sent letters (back in February) to a handful of small physical retailers -- we're talking a fraction of a percent of their physical accounts -- and informed them they'd need to go through one-stops for product. They gave them months and months of notice and a list of options for one stops. They didn't just call them last minute as Wayne claims."
'It's just a guess, but "Even the Germans make some bad choices" does not exactly bring out the best memories from the World's History'
Indeed:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUHomRLop7I
'Windows is used on British Nuclear submarines - but not as part of the command and control system and certainly not the nuclear missile systems. Nuclear submarines have crews, and require stores control and admin systems for their food and other needs. These are standard Windows systems, but have nothing to do with the military side of the system.'
In any case, the Royal Navy has a full-tested emergency procedure for dealing with all computer-related malfunctions aboard nuclear submarines, helpfully illustrated in this official video (about 18 seconds in):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDHPCr5m4ko