...given where he was found I'd say he rather was buried under the wheels of a dodgy Rover.
Sounds like a good premises for a sequel. They could have Ian McKellen again for it.
Richard IV: This time he's pissed!
They could also make the prequels of the Richard people.
I'm torn between making Eddie Izzard quotes and rummaging through Blackadder. There's bound to be some League of Gentlemen in there aswell.
Yes, possibly. But if the portrait had been painted during Richard the III's life then they will have romanticized it. Painted him like he wanted to look. ...I hear art critics had very pointy daggers in those days.
So it is quite possible they omitted his deformity and somebody put the hunchback back on.
Mind you, the Tudors were quite good at propaganda. They had to be since their legitimacy was a bit sketchy at best. But so was Henry Bolingbrokes, so the only lesson to be taken away from that s:
FOR GODS SAKE! IF YOU INSIST ON BEING KING(or queen as a matter of fact) OF ENGLAND MAKE SURE YOUR NAME ISN'T RICHARD. It's bound to end poorly.
This day has been- a mighty stew in which the beef of
victory was mixed with the vile turnip of sweet Richard slain, and
the grisly dumpling of his killer fled. But we must eat the
yellow wobbly parts the good Lord serves. In life each man gets
what he deserves...
Yup. We've got very strong customer rights in Germany. They have a very strong lobby. Multiple of them in fact. Its own fairly powerful ministry on a federal level even.
Everybody still marvels why we haven't yet gone bankrupt. Quality products and quality service might actually be a good idea. Who knows?
Also note the use of the word "customer". Being called a consumer is a bit... insulting.
Companies do NOT get to supersede national law. That's what congress is for.
There is such a thing as an illegal contract. That's why contracts usually contain a boileplate clause that even if one clause of the contract may be illegal, the rest does still apply. And a TOS isn't even that.
So suing to find out if this can actually be considered legal is an absolutely valid course of action. In fact, it is the only one.
Also his convictions for embezzlement during the dot.com era.
The man is a megalomaniac, snitch, pushover, fraudster and frankly bad news. At least he has been consistent over the last twenty years.
There is a reason why he left Germany. He has built up so much bad reputation in tech and business circles he wouldn't even get a burger flipping job let alone run a business with him at the helm.
That man is a toad.
You have to understand the desparation of a chronically ill person after his doctor told him there's nothing he can do. Trust me, you'd sacrifice a goat in the off chance that there may be a god who would be willing to help you and is into that kind of thing.
Homeopathy has had the chance to fend off debunking approaches in what sounds reasonable to a layman. And unfortunately placebo effects are in some cases real. A lot of problems have mental causes and in these cases homeopathy is a good way as any to go about it. Problem is that a layman(especially with mental health issues) is easily deluded.
Homeopathy is a hypochondriacs crack cocaine. At least it does not do too much damage unless he has a real problem and doesn't seek treatment for that.
How does one go about to debunk a claim that is considered unlikely? It is easy for frauds because you can uncover their methods, but some things like homeopathy are harder to debunk.
Homeopathy, while most of its claims are ludicrous, has merits since our current approach to medicine is also not perfect. How do you debunk something that goes beyond accepted and proven knowledge, when that in itsself is flawed? Do you really have to take wild claims apart bit for bit? Isn't that a losing fight since it is easier to come up with bullshit than to solidly disprove it?
Also, how often have you encountered utter BS that had some grain of gold in it that would be worth pursuing any further? Even risking spending a lot of time on fools gold? How often has debunking a thing led to changing what is accepted knowledge?
For instance in modern medicine we have been saying that our methods are not entirely solid. Out with the appendix, onto the next doctor about that viral infection, onto a therapist about your nervous breakdown springs to mind. We've been talking about how that conveyor belt approach to medicine instead of looking at the whole patient with the sum of his problems in mind propably is the wrong approach. In part this is due to how we tried to fend off homeopathy, eastern methods, fait healing and so forth.
That's the problem with franchises like Warhammer 40k, Forgotten Realms, Cthulhu Mythos, Warcraft,...
They attract a lot of writers. Some are comissioned x books which they churn out like burgers. Some are outright brilliant.
To me, some authors are on my "won't touch that one with a 10' pole" list.
August Derleth
RA Salvatore ...Raymond Feist is -sadly- a candidate for my "ugh" list...
And since I'm a hypocrite, Terry Prachett never will be. Even if he also is becoming formularic. It's still brilliant. He still is a master wordsmith.
All of which is propably nothing we should ask James Randi...
A lot of writers were considered important in their time and were rightfully forgotten to but a select audience a hundred years or even more later. One name especially springs to mind: August von Kotzebue was a popular German writer in the early 19th century. Very popular. And yet all he is remebered for today is being murdered and his unfortunate name. Nobody seriously will perform his plays and outside select circles he will propably not be read. If it weren't for Project Guttenberg, his works propably wouldn't be available anymore due to lack of demand. I could name other once popular writers that now are forgotten but I have forgotten about them. Circular reasoning: the last refuge of the intellectually lazy.
Your assessment od snobbery is of course correct. While I do read high-brow stuff, I also go for what by no means can be considered high literature. We need both. Anne Rice is not as popular as she was in the 90ies and those Twilight novels and their imitators will also be forgotten. The genere is very VERY old. But it hardly needed its own bookshelf.
Which makes getting your phone from the carrier a bad idea to begin with.
They use it as a ball&chain to bind you to them. And if you find a better deal/a carrier that's not crappy then you will have to pay for the phone anyway.
Since I often find that carriers don't have the specific phone I want and I won't switch carriers just to get a new mobe I usually buy them myself. And snce they are jolly expensive, I only get a new phone every 3 years or when mine breaks. Since my Moto Defy still is happily chugging along I will stick to it for another year or so. Warts'n all.
Just remember that there isn't such a thing as a free lunch. If somebody who is in the business of making money wants to give something to you, always ask what it's going to cost.
Which of course doesn't explain new legislation. Unlocking a phone when you aren't supposed to surely is a breach of contract? We have legislation for that for ages. Including what kind of damages the other party can ask for. Unless of course the intention is to criminalize the act so thoroughly that they can stick you with a lot of thing. Breach of contract, fraud, wire tapping, unauthorized use of services, molesting an apple...that would amount to about 5 counts of 10 years prison(subsequently served) and a bajillion in damages. For a breach of contract. Unless you make a plea bargain for 5 years in prison and destitution for the rest of your life.
Cloudstuff only works when you are constantly and cheaply and well connected to the internet. If you are on the move then your iClouded stuff might be aswell on the moon.
Android isn't crap. Dalvik is. A bit.
Yep, let's add insult to injury. And let's do so by using numbers.
I've got a 64GB Transformer Prime. I put a 64GB microSD into the tablet. That's 128GB.
And just to hammer the point home I've also got a 128GB full sized SD card in the keydock. That makes 256GB.
Once somebody tries to sell me a 128GB microSD I will up that figure to 320GB. Most of it being hot-swappable. Without any iSurgery needed.
Who knows? Some day I may even have enough storage to install WindowsRT(if insanity strikes me, that is).
My point being that the Jesus iFondleslab iApple tries to desperately flog at me is somewhat lacking even if they try to make it look huge.
128GB in a tablet is like a very small cat going all fuzzy to make itself look like the mighty, mighty tiger. Only fools get fooled by that.
It is. Gas is also used for heating. Amongst other things.
Europe is also highly dependant on Gazprom. And they have been known to throttle their pipelines in winter if something wasn't to their liking.
It has to? Wow! What kind of majority is needed to pass it? Is there even a slim chance for that?
Now the question is if the general population will even care why they turn it down. If the vote is "no" and not enough people really care then all this is in vain.
They are the back door how many bad ideas concerning copyright laws have been pushed throughout the world. Most of them came from the US.
Like the insane UK extradiction treaties one has to wonder WHY the national parliaments actually do such an unneccessary thing. The US certainly is not at fault to ask other countries for such thing. But parliaments of these countries certainly are at fault when acting against the interests of their own people.
Depending on your lawgiving constitution it may be that national parliament can void an international treaty. Usually these have punitive clauses for non-compliance. But in my opinion National Law > International Treaty.
If this is even remotely successful then a lot of lobbyists will get their knickers in a twist.
The chances of this being ratified should be rather slim due to:
-international treaties
-legality of the law without having to rewrite other laws
-being watered down in parliament ...
I would guess a lot of lawyers will work on this thing. So chances are this might be the best written piece of legislation never to be signed.
the common democratic illness is that we vote for politians based on how well they look in a suit, how loud they shout their simple truths and how long ago they had their last sex scandal. Should be credibility, competence and merit. Oh well.
But in this case you have no reason whatsoever to trust the end-point.
In fact if as per the chain of trust Verisign or some other CA confirms that the end point is Kim Schmitz it's only one reason more to stay THE HELL AWAY!
Is it just me or is the thought of Kim Jim Tim Vestor sitting on a pile of credit card numbers disturbing?
And that's before visualizing Kim Dotcom wearing giant diapers.
And kimble having a hotline to the Feds just to save his own pudgy skin.
Ayep. That's what we are talking about. Storing your torrented stuff on their servers is the obvious bad move.
Interestingly even if you ripped your own DVD/Blurays, encoded them in a sane way and want ot keep that available to you at all times and store it with them you might be in real hot water. Depends on where you live. In that case you still can get stuck with five infringements per instance amounting to a MEEELion years in prison and a couple of BEEEEllion in damages. Unless you take the plea bargain of 5 years in the slammer and a mere 5megabucks in damages.
You never talk to the cops. And you don't give potentially damaging stuff to people who do. Snitches used to grin a Glasgow smile in the olden days. But since everything nowadays is white-collar "crime" we can only envy our forbears in which turns out were much more enlightened times. Well, maybe not enlightened but definitely straight forward.
Ummmm. Ok.
I remember taking a severe beating when I pointed out that the man is a notorious slimeball just a year ago.
His background is common knowledge.
AND I WOULD FUCKING CHECK ON THE PEOPLE I STORE MY INCRIMINATING EVIDENCE WITH!
Geeez.
I wouldn't trust them with my favourite TV show.
If they get a DMCA takedown notice then them complying is the best case scenario.
If they have any incriminating evidence, expect them to hand it over.
Check with your local authorities if you would be in serious trouble if you ripped your DVDs and stored them on a cloud storage server. They might even cuff you at ripped(copy protection circumvention aka OMGZ TEH TERRORISZ WIN *SAFACE*). I wouldn't even store videos of my latest jaywalking crime spree on their servers.
Kim Schmitz himself(aka Kim Dotcom, aka Kim Jim Tim Vestor, aka kimble...I kid you not) caved in under pressure from the Feds and ratted out on the German hacker/cracker/warez/phreaker scene. In a double twist of irony he cooperated with Günter Freiherr von Gravenreuth who in turn was a bit of a jackal.
The self-styled His Royal Highness King Kimble the First, Ruler of the Kimpire was convicted of embezzlement. Which hardly is a hacktivist crime. More of a sleazebag move.
I wouldn't argue that the Kiwi raid on him wasn't all kinds of wrong. But that doesn't make him trustworthy either. For a cause célèbre I would honestly look elsewhere.
This guy has shady written all over himself and I'd be careful about trusting him. Especially when entrusting him with evidence for things that carry a hefty penalty(justified or no).
In my case it was a train between Derby and London.
On one not so sunny Sunday the train simply didn't arrive. I don't remember if it was a direct connection but I do remember having to book into a hotel and try again on Monday. Had to inform my employer, too that I might be a bit late.
A radio newsman had an interview with somebody who could offer an explanation of some sort.
-So why didn't the train arrive?
-Nobody was driving it?
-So you were on strike?
-No, we were not on strike.
-So why did nobody drive the train.
-Nobody was assigned to it.
-Didn't you notice?
-We noticed.
-So you were on strike?
-No, no strike. ...and so on. I'm not quite sure what happened apart from nobody picked up Sunday duty and nobody really did care. Apart from the passengers, obviously.
Slashdot Mirror
...given where he was found I'd say he rather was buried under the wheels of a dodgy Rover.
Sounds like a good premises for a sequel. They could have Ian McKellen again for it.
Richard IV: This time he's pissed!
They could also make the prequels of the Richard people.
I'm torn between making Eddie Izzard quotes and rummaging through Blackadder. There's bound to be some League of Gentlemen in there aswell.
Yes, possibly. But if the portrait had been painted during Richard the III's life then they will have romanticized it. Painted him like he wanted to look.
...I hear art critics had very pointy daggers in those days.
So it is quite possible they omitted his deformity and somebody put the hunchback back on.
Mind you, the Tudors were quite good at propaganda. They had to be since their legitimacy was a bit sketchy at best. But so was Henry Bolingbrokes, so the only lesson to be taken away from that s:
FOR GODS SAKE! IF YOU INSIST ON BEING KING(or queen as a matter of fact) OF ENGLAND MAKE SURE YOUR NAME ISN'T RICHARD. It's bound to end poorly.
This day has been- a mighty stew in which the beef of victory was mixed with the vile turnip of sweet Richard slain, and the grisly dumpling of his killer fled. But we must eat the yellow wobbly parts the good Lord serves. In life each man gets what he deserves...
Yup. We've got very strong customer rights in Germany. They have a very strong lobby. Multiple of them in fact. Its own fairly powerful ministry on a federal level even.
... insulting.
Everybody still marvels why we haven't yet gone bankrupt. Quality products and quality service might actually be a good idea. Who knows?
Also note the use of the word "customer". Being called a consumer is a bit
Companies do NOT get to supersede national law. That's what congress is for.
There is such a thing as an illegal contract. That's why contracts usually contain a boileplate clause that even if one clause of the contract may be illegal, the rest does still apply. And a TOS isn't even that.
So suing to find out if this can actually be considered legal is an absolutely valid course of action. In fact, it is the only one.
Also his convictions for embezzlement during the dot.com era.
The man is a megalomaniac, snitch, pushover, fraudster and frankly bad news. At least he has been consistent over the last twenty years.
There is a reason why he left Germany. He has built up so much bad reputation in tech and business circles he wouldn't even get a burger flipping job let alone run a business with him at the helm.
That man is a toad.
You have to understand the desparation of a chronically ill person after his doctor told him there's nothing he can do. Trust me, you'd sacrifice a goat in the off chance that there may be a god who would be willing to help you and is into that kind of thing.
Homeopathy has had the chance to fend off debunking approaches in what sounds reasonable to a layman. And unfortunately placebo effects are in some cases real. A lot of problems have mental causes and in these cases homeopathy is a good way as any to go about it. Problem is that a layman(especially with mental health issues) is easily deluded.
Homeopathy is a hypochondriacs crack cocaine. At least it does not do too much damage unless he has a real problem and doesn't seek treatment for that.
I was thinking of something similar.
How does one go about to debunk a claim that is considered unlikely? It is easy for frauds because you can uncover their methods, but some things like homeopathy are harder to debunk.
Homeopathy, while most of its claims are ludicrous, has merits since our current approach to medicine is also not perfect. How do you debunk something that goes beyond accepted and proven knowledge, when that in itsself is flawed? Do you really have to take wild claims apart bit for bit? Isn't that a losing fight since it is easier to come up with bullshit than to solidly disprove it?
Also, how often have you encountered utter BS that had some grain of gold in it that would be worth pursuing any further? Even risking spending a lot of time on fools gold? How often has debunking a thing led to changing what is accepted knowledge?
For instance in modern medicine we have been saying that our methods are not entirely solid. Out with the appendix, onto the next doctor about that viral infection, onto a therapist about your nervous breakdown springs to mind. We've been talking about how that conveyor belt approach to medicine instead of looking at the whole patient with the sum of his problems in mind propably is the wrong approach. In part this is due to how we tried to fend off homeopathy, eastern methods, fait healing and so forth.
about as sci fi as fucking martha stewart living.
Yeah - because if she was dead, like a zombie or vampire, then fucking Martha Stewart would at least be kinky fantasy!
Umm... alive or no, that still is a weird crush...
That's the problem with franchises like Warhammer 40k, Forgotten Realms, Cthulhu Mythos, Warcraft,...
...Raymond Feist is -sadly- a candidate for my "ugh" list...
..
They attract a lot of writers. Some are comissioned x books which they churn out like burgers. Some are outright brilliant.
To me, some authors are on my "won't touch that one with a 10' pole" list.
August Derleth
RA Salvatore
And since I'm a hypocrite, Terry Prachett never will be. Even if he also is becoming formularic. It's still brilliant. He still is a master wordsmith.
All of which is propably nothing we should ask James Randi.
A lot of writers were considered important in their time and were rightfully forgotten to but a select audience a hundred years or even more later. One name especially springs to mind: August von Kotzebue was a popular German writer in the early 19th century. Very popular. And yet all he is remebered for today is being murdered and his unfortunate name. Nobody seriously will perform his plays and outside select circles he will propably not be read. If it weren't for Project Guttenberg, his works propably wouldn't be available anymore due to lack of demand. I could name other once popular writers that now are forgotten but I have forgotten about them. Circular reasoning: the last refuge of the intellectually lazy.
Your assessment od snobbery is of course correct. While I do read high-brow stuff, I also go for what by no means can be considered high literature. We need both. Anne Rice is not as popular as she was in the 90ies and those Twilight novels and their imitators will also be forgotten. The genere is very VERY old. But it hardly needed its own bookshelf.
Which makes getting your phone from the carrier a bad idea to begin with.
They use it as a ball&chain to bind you to them. And if you find a better deal/a carrier that's not crappy then you will have to pay for the phone anyway.
Since I often find that carriers don't have the specific phone I want and I won't switch carriers just to get a new mobe I usually buy them myself. And snce they are jolly expensive, I only get a new phone every 3 years or when mine breaks. Since my Moto Defy still is happily chugging along I will stick to it for another year or so. Warts'n all.
Just remember that there isn't such a thing as a free lunch. If somebody who is in the business of making money wants to give something to you, always ask what it's going to cost.
Which of course doesn't explain new legislation. Unlocking a phone when you aren't supposed to surely is a breach of contract? We have legislation for that for ages. Including what kind of damages the other party can ask for. Unless of course the intention is to criminalize the act so thoroughly that they can stick you with a lot of thing. Breach of contract, fraud, wire tapping, unauthorized use of services, molesting an apple...that would amount to about 5 counts of 10 years prison(subsequently served) and a bajillion in damages. For a breach of contract. Unless you make a plea bargain for 5 years in prison and destitution for the rest of your life.
Sounds reasonable.
How is this law even legal?
Cloudstuff only works when you are constantly and cheaply and well connected to the internet. If you are on the move then your iClouded stuff might be aswell on the moon.
Android isn't crap. Dalvik is. A bit.
Yep, let's add insult to injury. And let's do so by using numbers.
I've got a 64GB Transformer Prime. I put a 64GB microSD into the tablet. That's 128GB.
And just to hammer the point home I've also got a 128GB full sized SD card in the keydock. That makes 256GB.
Once somebody tries to sell me a 128GB microSD I will up that figure to 320GB. Most of it being hot-swappable. Without any iSurgery needed.
Who knows? Some day I may even have enough storage to install WindowsRT(if insanity strikes me, that is).
My point being that the Jesus iFondleslab iApple tries to desperately flog at me is somewhat lacking even if they try to make it look huge.
128GB in a tablet is like a very small cat going all fuzzy to make itself look like the mighty, mighty tiger. Only fools get fooled by that.
I really hope this has at least some sort of result. That should send at least some ripples through the EU.
It is. Gas is also used for heating. Amongst other things.
Europe is also highly dependant on Gazprom. And they have been known to throttle their pipelines in winter if something wasn't to their liking.
It has to? Wow! What kind of majority is needed to pass it? Is there even a slim chance for that?
Now the question is if the general population will even care why they turn it down. If the vote is "no" and not enough people really care then all this is in vain.
They are the back door how many bad ideas concerning copyright laws have been pushed throughout the world. Most of them came from the US.
Like the insane UK extradiction treaties one has to wonder WHY the national parliaments actually do such an unneccessary thing. The US certainly is not at fault to ask other countries for such thing. But parliaments of these countries certainly are at fault when acting against the interests of their own people.
Depending on your lawgiving constitution it may be that national parliament can void an international treaty. Usually these have punitive clauses for non-compliance.
But in my opinion National Law > International Treaty.
If this is even remotely successful then a lot of lobbyists will get their knickers in a twist.
...
The chances of this being ratified should be rather slim due to:
-international treaties
-legality of the law without having to rewrite other laws
-being watered down in parliament
I would guess a lot of lawyers will work on this thing. So chances are this might be the best written piece of legislation never to be signed.
the common democratic illness is that we vote for politians based on how well they look in a suit, how loud they shout their simple truths and how long ago they had their last sex scandal. Should be credibility, competence and merit. Oh well.
But in this case you have no reason whatsoever to trust the end-point.
In fact if as per the chain of trust Verisign or some other CA confirms that the end point is Kim Schmitz it's only one reason more to stay THE HELL AWAY!
Is it just me or is the thought of Kim Jim Tim Vestor sitting on a pile of credit card numbers disturbing?
And that's before visualizing Kim Dotcom wearing giant diapers.
And kimble having a hotline to the Feds just to save his own pudgy skin.
Ayep. That's what we are talking about. Storing your torrented stuff on their servers is the obvious bad move.
Interestingly even if you ripped your own DVD/Blurays, encoded them in a sane way and want ot keep that available to you at all times and store it with them you might be in real hot water. Depends on where you live. In that case you still can get stuck with five infringements per instance amounting to a MEEELion years in prison and a couple of BEEEEllion in damages. Unless you take the plea bargain of 5 years in the slammer and a mere 5megabucks in damages.
You never talk to the cops. And you don't give potentially damaging stuff to people who do. Snitches used to grin a Glasgow smile in the olden days. But since everything nowadays is white-collar "crime" we can only envy our forbears in which turns out were much more enlightened times. Well, maybe not enlightened but definitely straight forward.
Ummmm. Ok.
I remember taking a severe beating when I pointed out that the man is a notorious slimeball just a year ago.
His background is common knowledge.
AND I WOULD FUCKING CHECK ON THE PEOPLE I STORE MY INCRIMINATING EVIDENCE WITH!
Geeez.
I wouldn't trust them with my favourite TV show.
If they get a DMCA takedown notice then them complying is the best case scenario.
If they have any incriminating evidence, expect them to hand it over.
Check with your local authorities if you would be in serious trouble if you ripped your DVDs and stored them on a cloud storage server. They might even cuff you at ripped(copy protection circumvention aka OMGZ TEH TERRORISZ WIN *SAFACE*). I wouldn't even store videos of my latest jaywalking crime spree on their servers.
The biggest security hole is the company itsself.
They have complied in the past and they will so again.
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/11/megaupload-investigation-roots/
Kim Schmitz himself(aka Kim Dotcom, aka Kim Jim Tim Vestor, aka kimble...I kid you not) caved in under pressure from the Feds and ratted out on the German hacker/cracker/warez/phreaker scene. In a double twist of irony he cooperated with Günter Freiherr von Gravenreuth who in turn was a bit of a jackal.
The self-styled His Royal Highness King Kimble the First, Ruler of the Kimpire was convicted of embezzlement. Which hardly is a hacktivist crime. More of a sleazebag move.
I wouldn't argue that the Kiwi raid on him wasn't all kinds of wrong. But that doesn't make him trustworthy either. For a cause célèbre I would honestly look elsewhere.
This guy has shady written all over himself and I'd be careful about trusting him. Especially when entrusting him with evidence for things that carry a hefty penalty(justified or no).
In my case it was a train between Derby and London.
...and so on. I'm not quite sure what happened apart from nobody picked up Sunday duty and nobody really did care. Apart from the passengers, obviously.
On one not so sunny Sunday the train simply didn't arrive. I don't remember if it was a direct connection but I do remember having to book into a hotel and try again on Monday. Had to inform my employer, too that I might be a bit late.
A radio newsman had an interview with somebody who could offer an explanation of some sort.
-So why didn't the train arrive?
-Nobody was driving it?
-So you were on strike?
-No, we were not on strike.
-So why did nobody drive the train.
-Nobody was assigned to it.
-Didn't you notice?
-We noticed.
-So you were on strike?
-No, no strike.