Their argument seems to be: if we make it difficult for you to lend our e-books, you will instead 'buy' them (license them).
They have apparently failed to anticipate the real alternative to lending, which is 'acquiring via unauthorised distribution'.
If you don't have the money to 'buy', you might lend. If lending is made deliberately difficult, that difficulty won't create the money needed to 'buy', but it might just just increase the desire for acquisition through unauthorised channels
Such a strategy is stupid, short-sighted and ham-fisted; its sole rationale is the preservation of the status quo.
>Traditional media, with a few exceptions, have also gone this route of going with sensational hot news without fact checking and then burying corrections later.
^^Absolutely^^.
The point completely renders irrelevant the uninformed front page story.
The real problems with GM food for me are twofold:
One: the effect of these genes in the environment: you have artificially mutated organisms - mutated in ways that normal cross-breeding could not create - which then - as life has a tendency to do - spreads those genes throughout the rest of the enrironment, to related organisms - with no real understanding of the consequences. This issue cannot and hasn't been addressed by any testing in labs. It's massively reckless, in that potentially, it could cause huge damage to the food supply and WILL forevermore contaminate life on earth as we know it.
There is NO science in operation here, the only principle in operation is that of PROFIT and greed.
Which brings me onto the second point:
The legal framework in which these patented genetic mutations exist, where the 'owning' company can sue people for growning crops contaminated with these patented sequences. Since DNA wants to be free, respects no man-made boundaries, the idea that people can have their crops contaminated with such patented genetic material (like the natural world will get contaminated) and that people can be victimised by such companies, means that the ethical framework for such matters has not been adequately addressed.
This is aside from point 2.5 which is about a corporation OWNING the very means of food production and potentially holding everyone to ransom for it.
Feeding some altered stuff to some animals, and having them not die, is the least and most obvious of worries associated with this technology.
(sorry, if that's a bit rushed, but my non-GMO pizza is ready...)
A custom HOSTS file is all well and good, but doesn't take into account the type of censorship that's currently happening in the UK, with BT and SKY, with the Great British Firewall.
Both ISPs have instituted a blockade on Newzbin using BT's Cleanfeed, which acts as a transparent proxy between the user and the server. Typing in the IP address results in a timeout. Using OnpenDNS or Google's DNS results in the same issue.
If and when the US pro-censorship copyright cabals lobby for such a technological measure, a custom HOSTS file won't work.
>Here in the UK Methadone has been used as a heroin substitute for some years. It's considered to be more addictive than heroin but of predictable quality and supply
Actually I don't think that's the issue - the predictable quality and supply - that's only an issue with illegal drugs - because of the dealers cutting them and drug prohibition endangering supply. If you gave the patient medical grade heroin or another opioid - they would also have predictable quality and supply.
I think the real reason they give methadone instead of heroin to addicts is that it doesn't give the user the same euphoric effect - it's a psychological-political issue - about the state of mind a government will allow people to experience - and this 'high' is seen as dangerous and forbidden.
Studies have proven elsewhere that regualr controlled presribing of heroin - under supervision- allows an addict the stability they need to sort their life out and return to a regualr family & work life - giving them the confidence to ditch the drug in their own time.
Methadone use for drug addicts is a perverse symptom of prohibition and polidical ideology that does more harm than good.
Installing the IE update (whatever one of the last ones was) glitched it's ability to display properly. Uninstalling that update to IE fixed the problem.
>Do we want to call MS Big Brother over this, when they're following the example of Firefox?
Sure. Firefox isn't integrated into the OS in the way IE is, for starters. And what this means is that I haven't upgraded IE for some time now because it broke one of the widgets I use on my Win7 desktop. Firefox doesn't do that sort of thing, because it can't, so there's not an issue with beaking stuff outside of itself.
I guess I might as well mention while I'm here that I haven't upgraded to the latest Firefox either: it breaks one of the addons that I use all the time.
Just don't update it unless there's a real need. Most of the updates are irrelevant. Turn off the auto-update option, and it tells you there's an update in the lower right, but it lets you ignore it. Once in a while check the change log and see it's worth the bother of updating.
But you're right about bloated. I'm not short of Ram these days, but Calibre seems unnecessarily weighty.
So you don't have to wade through the bullshit in the article or the outraged incredulity of the comments:
Gamers worried their actions on the virtual battlefield could land them at the Hague war crimes tribunal can relax.
The International Committee of the Red Cross says media reports that it is investigating whether the Geneva Conventions apply to video games are false.
The Swiss-based humanitarian group assured gamers Thursday that “serious violations of the laws of war can only be committed in real-life situations.”
The ICRC says it is nevertheless interested in working with video game makers to promote a better understanding of international humanitarian law because some companies also develop war simulations for armed forces.
Best way to aerate a red wine is to open the bottle, and instead of letting it sit there "breathing" (like the poncey wine buffs tell you) just put your thumb (securely) over the top and shake the fucker. Take your thumb off, then put it back on and shake it again.
Also, pouring it so it bubbles, rather than pouring it smoothly, helps.
The relevant sentence on this would appear to invalidate RIPA and any jail term or punishment or fine resulting form a refusal to hand over one's encryption keys (IANAL etc)
"Requiring the accused to testify was not incompatible with the ECHR, although it would be if any conviction were based solely or mainly on a refusal to testify."
Reasons that spring to mind for such a flimsy case:
Is someone getting a future payoff (going to work for these 'rightsholders')?
Is someone just so crap at negotiating, they can't even understand that these US rightsholders don't use DRM in their own countries and so have no real leverage to insist on it elsewhere - admittedly, this would require incompetence of the highest order, but we are talking about BBC management, which has proven both spineless and ineffectual in any number of areas.
Regardless of the reasons, whoever negotiated this should be sacked for selling out every license fee payer and for no good reason.
>This is a good example of how raising prices works to distribute whatever resources in efficient manner, allowing those, who truly need whatever the resource (HDDs in this case) to come up with the largest bid on it,
Um... since when does having the greatest need equate to having the most money?
>his company is the peddler of some of the worst DRM on the planet.
Worst? No.
DRM may screw the customer in terms of freedom - portability, re-saleability, etc, but whilst all the other forms of DRM tear you a new one, Steam uses plenty of lube and whispers just the right amount of sweet nothings into your ear, that you're satisfied and come back for more.
>but we don't betray our own principles over an extended period of time in a calculated conscious manner[.] [T]hat's not being human, that's being a scumbag[.]
It *is* human; you just need to expand your understanding of the breadth of humanity and the human condition a bit.
Also, labels don't help you do that, in fact they do the opposite. You can't sum up any human being with a label and only increase your ignorance by taking that label to be true.
"Initially marketed as a premium, ever-so-stylish French lager (even if it was actually Belgian) aimed at the upmarket drinker, it rapidly became "a success story beyond anything the beer trade had seen", says Graham Holter, editor of Off Licence News.
The advertising campaign was hugely successful in increasing awareness of the brand. And this was soon coupled with huge price promotions. Despite the "reassuringly expensive" tagline, Stella Artois is very often anything but.
Says one advertising executive who used to work on the brand: "Stella Artois soon became widely available in supermarkets and off licences, where it was - and still is - often discounted."
While the advertising sought to position the brand upmarket, the discounting had the opposite effect and attracted the sort of customer who was good for sales but certainly didn't fit the profile for a high quality product.
And so Stella began to acquire a reputation as a drink for those whose stated mission was to get blind drunk.
"It has become a victim of its own success," says brand expert James Osmond, a director at consultancy Clear. "This often happens when a brand gets so enormous that it tries to appeal to everyone. Either it becomes ubiquitous and begins to lose credibility. Or it's bought by the wrong type of customer."
It was the relatively high 5.2 per cent alcohol content that encouraged the binge-drinkers and led to lager becoming something you'd order "if you were really out on the lash", as one drinker, estate agent Martin Abel, puts it."
Quote from the Daily Mail [this link left intentionally blank]
Slashdot Mirror
Their argument seems to be: if we make it difficult for you to lend our e-books, you will instead 'buy' them (license them).
They have apparently failed to anticipate the real alternative to lending, which is 'acquiring via unauthorised distribution'.
If you don't have the money to 'buy', you might lend. If lending is made deliberately difficult, that difficulty won't create the money needed to 'buy', but it might just just increase the desire for acquisition through unauthorised channels
Such a strategy is stupid, short-sighted and ham-fisted; its sole rationale is the preservation of the status quo.
>Traditional media, with a few exceptions, have also gone this route of going with sensational hot news without fact checking and then burying corrections later.
^^Absolutely^^.
The point completely renders irrelevant the uninformed front page story.
Thread/discussion over.
The real problems with GM food for me are twofold:
One: the effect of these genes in the environment: you have artificially mutated organisms - mutated in ways that normal cross-breeding could not create - which then - as life has a tendency to do - spreads those genes throughout the rest of the enrironment, to related organisms - with no real understanding of the consequences. This issue cannot and hasn't been addressed by any testing in labs. It's massively reckless, in that potentially, it could cause huge damage to the food supply and WILL forevermore contaminate life on earth as we know it.
There is NO science in operation here, the only principle in operation is that of PROFIT and greed.
Which brings me onto the second point:
The legal framework in which these patented genetic mutations exist, where the 'owning' company can sue people for growning crops contaminated with these patented sequences. Since DNA wants to be free, respects no man-made boundaries, the idea that people can have their crops contaminated with such patented genetic material (like the natural world will get contaminated) and that people can be victimised by such companies, means that the ethical framework for such matters has not been adequately addressed.
This is aside from point 2.5 which is about a corporation OWNING the very means of food production and potentially holding everyone to ransom for it.
Feeding some altered stuff to some animals, and having them not die, is the least and most obvious of worries associated with this technology.
(sorry, if that's a bit rushed, but my non-GMO pizza is ready...)
A custom HOSTS file is all well and good, but doesn't take into account the type of censorship that's currently happening in the UK, with BT and SKY, with the Great British Firewall.
Both ISPs have instituted a blockade on Newzbin using BT's Cleanfeed, which acts as a transparent proxy between the user and the server. Typing in the IP address results in a timeout. Using OnpenDNS or Google's DNS results in the same issue.
If and when the US pro-censorship copyright cabals lobby for such a technological measure, a custom HOSTS file won't work.
>Here in the UK Methadone has been used as a heroin substitute for some years. It's considered to be more addictive than heroin but of predictable quality and supply
Actually I don't think that's the issue - the predictable quality and supply - that's only an issue with illegal drugs - because of the dealers cutting them and drug prohibition endangering supply. If you gave the patient medical grade heroin or another opioid - they would also have predictable quality and supply.
I think the real reason they give methadone instead of heroin to addicts is that it doesn't give the user the same euphoric effect - it's a psychological-political issue - about the state of mind a government will allow people to experience - and this 'high' is seen as dangerous and forbidden.
Studies have proven elsewhere that regualr controlled presribing of heroin - under supervision- allows an addict the stability they need to sort their life out and return to a regualr family & work life - giving them the confidence to ditch the drug in their own time.
Methadone use for drug addicts is a perverse symptom of prohibition and polidical ideology that does more harm than good.
The widget came with Windows itself.
It's the mini-desktop calendar.
Installing the IE update (whatever one of the last ones was) glitched it's ability to display properly. Uninstalling that update to IE fixed the problem.
>Do we want to call MS Big Brother over this, when they're following the example of Firefox?
Sure. Firefox isn't integrated into the OS in the way IE is, for starters. And what this means is that I haven't upgraded IE for some time now because it broke one of the widgets I use on my Win7 desktop. Firefox doesn't do that sort of thing, because it can't, so there's not an issue with beaking stuff outside of itself.
I guess I might as well mention while I'm here that I haven't upgraded to the latest Firefox either: it breaks one of the addons that I use all the time.
Calibre is written in Python.
Just don't update it unless there's a real need. Most of the updates are irrelevant. Turn off the auto-update option, and it tells you there's an update in the lower right, but it lets you ignore it. Once in a while check the change log and see it's worth the bother of updating.
But you're right about bloated. I'm not short of Ram these days, but Calibre seems unnecessarily weighty.
People in Fashion are vapid morons
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42BD5aD28VM&hd=1
So you don't have to wade through the bullshit in the article or the outraged incredulity of the comments:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/game-on-red-cross-says-players-of-combat-simulations-wont-face-war-crimes-prosecution/2011/12/08/gIQAivwAfO_story.html
>are so often used wrong
Oh the irony. :)
(grammar: "... are so often used incorrectly, ...")
You just need some Septus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transition_(novel)
Best way to aerate a red wine is to open the bottle, and instead of letting it sit there "breathing" (like the poncey wine buffs tell you) just put your thumb (securely) over the top and shake the fucker. Take your thumb off, then put it back on and shake it again.
Also, pouring it so it bubbles, rather than pouring it smoothly, helps.
No need to wait.
The relevant sentence on this would appear to invalidate RIPA and any jail term or punishment or fine resulting form a refusal to hand over one's encryption keys (IANAL etc)
"Requiring the accused to testify was not incompatible with the ECHR, although it would be if any conviction were based solely or mainly on a refusal to testify."
Reasons that spring to mind for such a flimsy case:
Is someone getting a future payoff (going to work for these 'rightsholders')?
Is someone just so crap at negotiating, they can't even understand that these US rightsholders don't use DRM in their own countries and so have no real leverage to insist on it elsewhere - admittedly, this would require incompetence of the highest order, but we are talking about BBC management, which has proven both spineless and ineffectual in any number of areas.
Regardless of the reasons, whoever negotiated this should be sacked for selling out every license fee payer and for no good reason.
There is NO case for this DRM.
>don't upgrade your OS to the version that locks you out
Yeah, it's not like they'd exclusively bundle super-essential security updates in with that "you're all now our bitches" update.
>This is a good example of how raising prices works to distribute whatever resources in efficient manner, allowing those, who truly need whatever the resource (HDDs in this case) to come up with the largest bid on it,
Um ... since when does having the greatest need equate to having the most money?
Worse yet - giving the Daily Fail hits.
Here's the music so you don't make the Daily Mail money from their advertisers to spew out more hate:
http://soundcloud.com/justmusiclabel/marconi-union-weightless/s-kttxT
Personally I found the artificial synth sound annoying, not relaxing, but my system is calibrated to the Eno scale.
>his company is the peddler of some of the worst DRM on the planet.
Worst? No.
DRM may screw the customer in terms of freedom - portability, re-saleability, etc, but whilst all the other forms of DRM tear you a new one, Steam uses plenty of lube and whispers just the right amount of sweet nothings into your ear, that you're satisfied and come back for more.
>but we don't betray our own principles over an extended period of time in a calculated conscious manner[.] [T]hat's not being human, that's being a scumbag[.]
It *is* human; you just need to expand your understanding of the breadth of humanity and the human condition a bit.
Also, labels don't help you do that, in fact they do the opposite. You can't sum up any human being with a label and only increase your ignorance by taking that label to be true.
>"47 percent of adults over 50 reported feeling 'sharper'".
In other words, no different from tossing a coin.
What a worthless "study" and an even more worthless /. posting.
Come back Cmdr Taco!
"Initially marketed as a premium, ever-so-stylish French lager (even if it was actually Belgian) aimed at the upmarket drinker, it rapidly became "a success story beyond anything the beer trade had seen", says Graham Holter, editor of Off Licence News.
The advertising campaign was hugely successful in increasing awareness of the brand. And this was soon coupled with huge price promotions. Despite the "reassuringly expensive" tagline, Stella Artois is very often anything but.
Says one advertising executive who used to work on the brand: "Stella Artois soon became widely available in supermarkets and off licences, where it was - and still is - often discounted."
While the advertising sought to position the brand upmarket, the discounting had the opposite effect and attracted the sort of customer who was good for sales but certainly didn't fit the profile for a high quality product.
And so Stella began to acquire a reputation as a drink for those whose stated mission was to get blind drunk.
"It has become a victim of its own success," says brand expert James Osmond, a director at consultancy Clear. "This often happens when a brand gets so enormous that it tries to appeal to everyone. Either it becomes ubiquitous and begins to lose credibility. Or it's bought by the wrong type of customer."
It was the relatively high 5.2 per cent alcohol content that encouraged the binge-drinkers and led to lager becoming something you'd order "if you were really out on the lash", as one drinker, estate agent Martin Abel, puts it."
Quote from the Daily Mail [this link left intentionally blank]
Really? If anything, it sounds like he's making money out of his hobby.
There's a name for this sort of thing: extrajudicial punishment.
I hear in civilized parts of the world, it's highly frowned upon.