But if we want to watch any telly at all we have to pay for the BBC's offering. You can't wait and see if they're going to fabricate stories about the Queen or jump on the bandwagon slagging off MPs or overpay their presenters before you decide it's worth paying for. Even if you like the ITV offering better you're stuck with paying for the BBC News too. That's not right in a commercial environment, surely?
As a UK TV license payer I have no problem whatsoever with how the BBC spends my money. A media network charged with producing quality independent broadcasting is fine in my book.
Are you serious? They're about as nepotistic as it comes - they pay presenters like Jonathan Ross way over the market value, then they don't even employ them. The BBC employs the companies wholly owned by people who are or were at the BBC. That way rather than producing programs they pay Ross's company over the odds to produce the program, he gets paid an inordinate amount and makes a profit from the production company, ie a percentage of all the wages paid to everyone who works on the show. Nice work if all your cronies are deciding which company to go with and how much to pay. How can they do that, they're not having to compete for money - they get the extortionate amount for Ross, run out of money and then just say to the Government "oh yeah we're putting the fees up again".
Radio 4, "Gardeners Question Time" it's been running at least since I was a lad. It's a descriptive title and a standard format - 4 or 5 people take questions from a live audience and record the show. You'd think as there's no intellectual property reason not to that the BBC would just produce this themselves - no way, the producers get more money if they co-opt their own company to hire them as producer to make the show. Is there really a financial reason why the BBC can't make this sort of program themselves?
Then there's the "no advertising" - they spend millions on their trails and funky graphics, which are nice enough video art projects but you know as a public service I'd be happy with a voice over a CC image from Flickr and save the few million to make some TV programs.
Don't get me started on the pseudo-commercialism where they compete to create the drossiest most low quality shows possible that are near enough copies of what the other channels are doing (unknown celebrities being paid too much to be pillocks), program diversity? Ha! Yes they can make great shows, they should stick with them and not pretend they have to go after viewing figures. They could save 10s of millions by not bidding on sports licensing and letting the commercial interests have that, it would lower the market price too. Who couldn't be suspicious about the BBC buying F1 away from ITV, the BBC buying rights to something that is already being shown on British TV free-to-air, bunch of muppets. Football results - ITV are doing it, put something else on, it's OK they have competition from Sky already.
But don't worry the BBC Trust are watching them for us, in between riding in their £25k per year chauffeur driven cars and their £20k hob-nobbing sessions at wimbledon when they're not spending (as the chair Lyons has) £13k in 4 months on expenses paid by license fees.
The BBC has some good left in it but it appears mainly to be one huge gravy train.
Murdoch Jr. has a point - the BBC don't have to compete commercially and so put the rest of the commercial media under a huge pressure if they aren't curtailed in economic down turns when the advantage is hugely magnified. I have no problem with this if the BBC were genuinely being run in our favour and not burning money on poor management and cynical greedy insider deals. Paying presenters 100 times what MPs get is ridiculous and simply shows that the BBC needs commercial pressure to bring it in line.
The BBC should be cut off and learn to fend for itself.
I'm sure those drafting the legislation wouldn't leave such a blatant loophole... lol.
We should have a brainstorm.ubuntu.com but for laws, people could add suggestions, others could comment and vote up/down. The legislators draft up the results.
I think you must mean a professional billboard illustrator? I work normally for the web, so provided the size:quality ratio is approximately right it doesn't matter if I use 8 or 16 bits/ch/px.
I've also used Inkscape + GIMP for advertising and don't notice any difference in the quality of the final print ad versus those created using Corel or Adobe suites.
Mind you nearly every print publication nowadays seems to have ads with JPEG artifacts or un-replaced watermarked stock images or improper resizing of raster images or something. I guess when you're grafting some stars head [at the wrong angle and size] on to a models body for the front image of your international glossy mag then you need to be sure the colours are good...
Extreme quality is rarely needed it seems even for pros.
If you've a lot of people who need to view the artwork couldn't you use a view format rather than an editing one, just output to PNG when you create the AI and bobs-your-uncle??
Who does Mandelson have dirt on he seems to have been running the shop off and on since Blair got in; I wouldn't trust him to wash my car never mind giving him power over the countries affairs.
So, the polish MS group decides to replace one of the images with a native polish image - they just chose one person at random to replace, or possible the central figure.
It is those who interpret this as being a racial slight that are in the wrong, it's just one guy being photo-swapped for another - the colour of the guys is not relevant.
If they'd swapped him for the asian character would everyone still assume it was racist. Would you be up in arms about Polish xenophobia if they'd swapped the pale skinned guy??
You agree that Google may access or disclose your personal information, including the content of your communications, if Google is required to do so in order to comply with any valid legal process or governmental request (such as a search warrant, subpoena, statute or court order) or as otherwise provided in these Terms of Service and the general Google Privacy Policy.
From the Blogger.com terms of service. Seems pretty cut and dried to me.
Unless the legal process was in some way invalid? There's always a crack into which you can fit a few lawyers.
Not strictly the definition of invalid but allowing a person who is not pursuing the case to access the information seems rather close to being an invalid process - why didn't the court demand the release of the information and require the plaintiff to keep it secret or risk contempt of court (which can be cause for imprisonment) pending the result of any trial? The plaintiff has screwed over the court here, not exactly unsurprising, but definitely shouldn't be allowed to happen.
Does this mean that the plaintiff has tacitly endorsed the use of the term "skank" to describe Ms. Cohen?
On a point of law, can they raise the same suit again? How about if Ms. Port gets t-shirts printed...?
[...] some poor girl who (apparently through no fault of her own) has some natural advantage is being punished. That is simply crazy.
I'd be highly surprised to find that a genetic analysis determines this person to be female.
Personally I'd go with presence anywhere (on X or Y) of the SRY gene as the definition of "non-female" to use - it appears that the IOC used to use that definition, I don't really understand why they dropped it; presumably those who wish not to be identified with their biological sex formed a strong lobby? The race groups would then be female sex and other. Ignore notions of gender and physical form.
The closest you'd get then to the line, it seems, is those with a mutated SRY gene - in which case if TDF is produced assume it is SRY, if not (ie the gene is not functional) then assume it is not.
I'm with you that her being a skank or otherwise is simply opinion and obviously so. If something is defamatory and portrayed as objective fact then you may have something to cry about. Eg "she's a skank, she was outside in the trash giving a blowjob to a tramp" - if she wasn't then their is something to complain about.
I didn't miss the part in the summary/article about it being a specific version, no. I was attempting to provide a counterpoint as the title simply says "Windows 7". You might have seen that I said that the usualy price difference makes it more remarkable. People do travel to the US to buy sports gear or electronics, get a cheap flight and you get your holiday for free (based on the saving vs. US price, don't know if this still holds since January).
Re: compairing the Amazon prices wrongly I can't easily check that here - I simply went to Amazon and clicked "Windows Ultimate" in the equivalent place on either site. Oops. Still not half-price however.
The man obviously made an affront to the tech's honor which the tech was obliged to address.
Customer: "Hey techy, I bet you're one of those dorkmeisters who learnt Klingon at college?! You probably dress up in Star Wars [sic] when you're off work." Tech: "Star Wars....?" {explodes in rage}
My spidey-sense is tingling. I'm guessing that there will be an uproar, a lot, a whole lot, of press in the US about how unfair it is and then, tada, the US price actually comes in even lower than the UK price and they throw in a free churro - because USA-ians stick together and MS is just supporting business growth in the US and if only everyone will go out and buy it then democracy will come to the world and...
MS, like many American companies, are fleecing the country.
GB prices for tech are usually close to the same number of pounds as dollars things have eased a bit recently, here are two random examples: * New Apple iPod Touch 8GB 2nd Generation (amazon UK), £152 = $250 * ditto (amazon US), $215 -> UK one is only 16% more
* Dell M17X laptop (UK), £1699 = $2815 * ditto (US), $1799 -> saving $1000 by purchasing in the US vs in the UK where it is 56% more expensive
You were saying...? This would make it even more extraordinary for Win 7 to be cheaper here, but when I look...
* Win 7 ultimate (amazon UK), £170 = $280 * ditto (amazon US), $220 -> so only $60 / 27% more and the UK price is a "discounted" one from an RRP (recommended price) of £230
Ah, the language barrier, thanks for your correction - we call that an [old age] pension. Social security here means monies paid from taxation (National Insurance) to provide for you if you don't have a regular income from other means - housing benefit, unemployment benefit, child benefits.
My, then 3 yo, J asked when we told him that we were having a baby and that it was in Mum's "womb" in her belly - "how did it get in there" which I was prepared for [diverting] "that's where babies grow". The next question I hadn't thought about "how does it get out", which is the logical follow-on. "At the hospital" assuaged him briefly until we could get the "all about childbirth" book we were given to help us understand it all and show him some pictures. The result was a fascination with the umbilical chord = top book request at the time: "can I see the umbilical" (pictures of babies/in utero/).
I do this too, lying to kids... if they don't realise I'm spinning a yarn, I say "do you think that's right?" and then if they don't answer or appear unsure I'll say "nah, not reeeeally".
J: "What's the moon made from" Me: "Hard cheese" J: "?" Me: "do you think that's right" J: "?" Me: "Cheese is made from cows milk [close enough for now] we'd have to fly the cows up in a rocket." J: "I'm going to go to the moon and bring back a sandwich" Me: "How will you get there, are you going on a bus..."
I don't really understand the rationale that says if someone is "only" wanted for shoplifting or theft (writing bad cheques) then they should still be allowed state benefits.
If someone commits a crime and is caught doing it, then fails to present themselves to the police/courts they shouldn't be getting any handouts.
If a known criminal wants to get state benefits they can hand themselves in first.
Seriously that's one of the most messed up social benefit rules ever, surely. You pay money in social benefits to people who have left the country? Sure if they have to leave for medical purposes for a protracted treatment.
I know in the UK people are allowed to be on holiday and receive benefits, paid in the UK, but if one can afford to travel abroad does one really need state support?
Continuing to pay criminals is fine, provided that when they collect their first cheque they're arrested.
Slashdot Mirror
But if we want to watch any telly at all we have to pay for the BBC's offering. You can't wait and see if they're going to fabricate stories about the Queen or jump on the bandwagon slagging off MPs or overpay their presenters before you decide it's worth paying for. Even if you like the ITV offering better you're stuck with paying for the BBC News too. That's not right in a commercial environment, surely?
I heard recently but can't verify that The Sun is the most popular newspaper in the UK! Radio 4 I think it was.
As a UK TV license payer I have no problem whatsoever with how the BBC spends my money. A media network charged with producing quality independent broadcasting is fine in my book.
Are you serious? They're about as nepotistic as it comes - they pay presenters like Jonathan Ross way over the market value, then they don't even employ them. The BBC employs the companies wholly owned by people who are or were at the BBC. That way rather than producing programs they pay Ross's company over the odds to produce the program, he gets paid an inordinate amount and makes a profit from the production company, ie a percentage of all the wages paid to everyone who works on the show. Nice work if all your cronies are deciding which company to go with and how much to pay. How can they do that, they're not having to compete for money - they get the extortionate amount for Ross, run out of money and then just say to the Government "oh yeah we're putting the fees up again".
Radio 4, "Gardeners Question Time" it's been running at least since I was a lad. It's a descriptive title and a standard format - 4 or 5 people take questions from a live audience and record the show. You'd think as there's no intellectual property reason not to that the BBC would just produce this themselves - no way, the producers get more money if they co-opt their own company to hire them as producer to make the show. Is there really a financial reason why the BBC can't make this sort of program themselves?
Then there's the "no advertising" - they spend millions on their trails and funky graphics, which are nice enough video art projects but you know as a public service I'd be happy with a voice over a CC image from Flickr and save the few million to make some TV programs.
Don't get me started on the pseudo-commercialism where they compete to create the drossiest most low quality shows possible that are near enough copies of what the other channels are doing (unknown celebrities being paid too much to be pillocks), program diversity? Ha! Yes they can make great shows, they should stick with them and not pretend they have to go after viewing figures. They could save 10s of millions by not bidding on sports licensing and letting the commercial interests have that, it would lower the market price too. Who couldn't be suspicious about the BBC buying F1 away from ITV, the BBC buying rights to something that is already being shown on British TV free-to-air, bunch of muppets. Football results - ITV are doing it, put something else on, it's OK they have competition from Sky already.
But don't worry the BBC Trust are watching them for us, in between riding in their £25k per year chauffeur driven cars and their £20k hob-nobbing sessions at wimbledon when they're not spending (as the chair Lyons has) £13k in 4 months on expenses paid by license fees.
The BBC has some good left in it but it appears mainly to be one huge gravy train.
Murdoch Jr. has a point - the BBC don't have to compete commercially and so put the rest of the commercial media under a huge pressure if they aren't curtailed in economic down turns when the advantage is hugely magnified. I have no problem with this if the BBC were genuinely being run in our favour and not burning money on poor management and cynical greedy insider deals. Paying presenters 100 times what MPs get is ridiculous and simply shows that the BBC needs commercial pressure to bring it in line.
The BBC should be cut off and learn to fend for itself.
I'm sure those drafting the legislation wouldn't leave such a blatant loophole ... lol.
We should have a brainstorm.ubuntu.com but for laws, people could add suggestions, others could comment and vote up/down. The legislators draft up the results.
I think you must mean a professional billboard illustrator? I work normally for the web, so provided the size:quality ratio is approximately right it doesn't matter if I use 8 or 16 bits/ch/px.
I've also used Inkscape + GIMP for advertising and don't notice any difference in the quality of the final print ad versus those created using Corel or Adobe suites.
Mind you nearly every print publication nowadays seems to have ads with JPEG artifacts or un-replaced watermarked stock images or improper resizing of raster images or something. I guess when you're grafting some stars head [at the wrong angle and size] on to a models body for the front image of your international glossy mag then you need to be sure the colours are good ...
Extreme quality is rarely needed it seems even for pros.
Yes, there are many exceptions.
If you've a lot of people who need to view the artwork couldn't you use a view format rather than an editing one, just output to PNG when you create the AI and bobs-your-uncle??
almost everyone on the planet starts a boycott simultaneously while loudly explaining exactly what they are doing and why.
I'm in!
Who does Mandelson have dirt on he seems to have been running the shop off and on since Blair got in; I wouldn't trust him to wash my car never mind giving him power over the countries affairs.
So, the polish MS group decides to replace one of the images with a native polish image - they just chose one person at random to replace, or possible the central figure.
It is those who interpret this as being a racial slight that are in the wrong, it's just one guy being photo-swapped for another - the colour of the guys is not relevant.
If they'd swapped him for the asian character would everyone still assume it was racist. Would you be up in arms about Polish xenophobia if they'd swapped the pale skinned guy??
From the Blogger.com terms of service. Seems pretty cut and dried to me.
Unless the legal process was in some way invalid? There's always a crack into which you can fit a few lawyers.
Not strictly the definition of invalid but allowing a person who is not pursuing the case to access the information seems rather close to being an invalid process - why didn't the court demand the release of the information and require the plaintiff to keep it secret or risk contempt of court (which can be cause for imprisonment) pending the result of any trial? The plaintiff has screwed over the court here, not exactly unsurprising, but definitely shouldn't be allowed to happen.
Does this mean that the plaintiff has tacitly endorsed the use of the term "skank" to describe Ms. Cohen?
On a point of law, can they raise the same suit again? How about if Ms. Port gets t-shirts printed ...?
I use links2 and don't have flash support .. you insensitive sod.
[...] some poor girl who (apparently through no fault of her own) has some natural advantage is being punished. That is simply crazy.
I'd be highly surprised to find that a genetic analysis determines this person to be female.
Personally I'd go with presence anywhere (on X or Y) of the SRY gene as the definition of "non-female" to use - it appears that the IOC used to use that definition, I don't really understand why they dropped it; presumably those who wish not to be identified with their biological sex formed a strong lobby? The race groups would then be female sex and other. Ignore notions of gender and physical form.
The closest you'd get then to the line, it seems, is those with a mutated SRY gene - in which case if TDF is produced assume it is SRY, if not (ie the gene is not functional) then assume it is not.
You called me a "cad", you sir resemble your very insult.
Being unkind, is, well, unkind. But if I have to visit your website for you to be unkind to me then I'll just not bother, simples.
This is going to be awesome if it goes to court and the court rules that she is, in fact, "a skank".
I can see the T-shirts now ...
I'm with you that her being a skank or otherwise is simply opinion and obviously so. If something is defamatory and portrayed as objective fact then you may have something to cry about. Eg "she's a skank, she was outside in the trash giving a blowjob to a tramp" - if she wasn't then their is something to complain about.
I didn't miss the part in the summary/article about it being a specific version, no. I was attempting to provide a counterpoint as the title simply says "Windows 7". You might have seen that I said that the usualy price difference makes it more remarkable. People do travel to the US to buy sports gear or electronics, get a cheap flight and you get your holiday for free (based on the saving vs. US price, don't know if this still holds since January).
Re: compairing the Amazon prices wrongly I can't easily check that here - I simply went to Amazon and clicked "Windows Ultimate" in the equivalent place on either site. Oops. Still not half-price however.
The man obviously made an affront to the tech's honor which the tech was obliged to address.
Customer: "Hey techy, I bet you're one of those dorkmeisters who learnt Klingon at college?! You probably dress up in Star Wars [sic] when you're off work." ....?" {explodes in rage}
Tech: "Star Wars
My spidey-sense is tingling. I'm guessing that there will be an uproar, a lot, a whole lot, of press in the US about how unfair it is and then, tada, the US price actually comes in even lower than the UK price and they throw in a free churro - because USA-ians stick together and MS is just supporting business growth in the US and if only everyone will go out and buy it then democracy will come to the world and ...
MS, like many American companies, are fleecing the country.
GB prices for tech are usually close to the same number of pounds as dollars things have eased a bit recently, here are two random examples:
* New Apple iPod Touch 8GB 2nd Generation (amazon UK), £152 = $250
* ditto (amazon US), $215 -> UK one is only 16% more
* Dell M17X laptop (UK), £1699 = $2815
* ditto (US), $1799 -> saving $1000 by purchasing in the US vs in the UK where it is 56% more expensive
Last year it was about $2 = £1; http://www.google.co.uk/finance?q=GBPUSD
You were saying ...? This would make it even more extraordinary for Win 7 to be cheaper here, but when I look ...
* Win 7 ultimate (amazon UK), £170 = $280
* ditto (amazon US), $220 -> so only $60 / 27% more and the UK price is a "discounted" one from an RRP (recommended price) of £230
Um?
So, as a web designer I'm thinking that 16 errors from that XHTML transitional homepage, including simply not closing tags, is not boding well ...
Ah, the language barrier, thanks for your correction - we call that an [old age] pension. Social security here means monies paid from taxation (National Insurance) to provide for you if you don't have a regular income from other means - housing benefit, unemployment benefit, child benefits.
Surely it's a biology question?
My, then 3 yo, J asked when we told him that we were having a baby and that it was in Mum's "womb" in her belly - "how did it get in there" which I was prepared for [diverting] "that's where babies grow". The next question I hadn't thought about "how does it get out", which is the logical follow-on. "At the hospital" assuaged him briefly until we could get the "all about childbirth" book we were given to help us understand it all and show him some pictures. The result was a fascination with the umbilical chord = top book request at the time: "can I see the umbilical" (pictures of babies /in utero/).
I do this too, lying to kids ... if they don't realise I'm spinning a yarn, I say "do you think that's right?" and then if they don't answer or appear unsure I'll say "nah, not reeeeally".
J: "What's the moon made from" ..."
Me: "Hard cheese"
J: "?"
Me: "do you think that's right"
J: "?"
Me: "Cheese is made from cows milk [close enough for now] we'd have to fly the cows up in a rocket."
J: "I'm going to go to the moon and bring back a sandwich"
Me: "How will you get there, are you going on a bus
Fun!
I don't really understand the rationale that says if someone is "only" wanted for shoplifting or theft (writing bad cheques) then they should still be allowed state benefits.
If someone commits a crime and is caught doing it, then fails to present themselves to the police/courts they shouldn't be getting any handouts.
If a known criminal wants to get state benefits they can hand themselves in first.
Seriously that's one of the most messed up social benefit rules ever, surely. You pay money in social benefits to people who have left the country? Sure if they have to leave for medical purposes for a protracted treatment.
I know in the UK people are allowed to be on holiday and receive benefits, paid in the UK, but if one can afford to travel abroad does one really need state support?
Continuing to pay criminals is fine, provided that when they collect their first cheque they're arrested.