Isn't it nice to see Lucas as lawsuit-happy as ever some 33 years after the launch of his massively successful franchise? The amounts of legal disputes, some so petty as to beggar belief, that George Lucas has launched over the decades illustrate more about the man himself than about any significant precedent or legal milestone. Yes he's won lawsuits; but there's a difference between legally sound and ethically sound.
Great White Snark has a short list of five of Lucas's most silly qualms which in the final analysis basically attack inspiration itself. Despite the fact there's a still-debated laundry list of inspiration for Star Wars, much of which he's acknowledged in straight-faced affable fashion in interviews over the years.
I'd have thought by now he'd started to mellow with age, or perhaps devoted more time to helping the world in general like certain other elder-geeks on the globe. Apparently not.
An elderly relative of mine is with HSBC. Being quite savvy she liked to browse the Internet for bargains, and inevitably her search took her to eBay. Long story short a scammer sent a faulty item, lifting about £65/$100 from her debit card as payed through Paypal. Obviously the cardinal rule of debit card use is to avoid using one online as much as possible...never use one on eBay.
With what is certainly an anomaly in Paypal's so expertly rendered services that we now expect of a caring quasi-bank, she found herself delayed from getting her money back. Meanwhile our scammer had apparently left or been banned from Fleabay. So she called HSBC, citing the 'debit protection' they'd included with her current account.
Explaining the incident to the first man somewhere on the subcontinent was a nightmare. To his credit he seemed very pleased to help, but his listening skills and speaking style were out of touch with a native British English speaker. Simply put my relative couldn't understand half of what he was saying...and the calls degenerated into his profuse apologizing and her asking him to speak slower, politely.
This went on for a few more calls, two more foreign customer service people abroad went on - until eventually the lodged claim had enough clarity that it warranted getting a person who spoke better. Eventually an employee with English much closer to that of a typical Briton got on the phone, and despite being strenuously nagged over this seventy quid refused to pay because it was against the bank's policy to refund debit transactions.
But it all ended well as my relation had a cash ISA with the bank - it took a politely worded threat of changing accounts and ISA to a competitor before firmly requesting a superior a few times before an apparant manager reneged on HSBC's refusal and refunded the account in full. A whole lot of headaching for all concerned bar our scammer who apparently did a bunk with a nice chunk of change.
Moral of the story is to casually check with older/quite naive people who have the Internet but are not as experienced with the world of online shopping. Use credit cards not debit cards; if they are suspicious of credit explain it to them. Else they might have to talk to 'John or 'Richard' or 'Hannah' over at the other end of the commonwealth for hours chasing up. My family member was lucky judging by all the horror stories of 'debit protection' floating around.
Get inspired from places with mature attitudes on drug abuse; those with safe injecting sites.
Youtube feels like a drug to me at times...I'd elaborate on this viewpoint but a vid of a cat and a dog chasing their own tails at the same time interests me more.
Well that's one hell of a frogmarch through the false dicthomy isn't it? Following your logic, any third party in the UK is destined to have most of its principles either ignored or diluted by the larger one in a coalition - I could just as easily state 'what's the point?' when the endgame is that scenario!
Some 'golden' opportunity...
Conservatives had enough seats for a minority government. There was an option to sit it out for the Lib Dems. Biggest obstacle to this was that the Lib Dems had little money left to stage a second election campaign. They should have left the Conservatives hanging, making speeches to the effect that 'a disproportionate amount of our manifesto has been ignored' etc etc - drum it up that both other major parties had lodged poor offers.
Remember there was the option not to form a coalition, but enter a more informal agreement that had the Tories as a minority government? That comprimise would have served the Lib Dems better, as they'd be (at least in theory) freer to vote having not ingratiated or cosied up to the extent that they now have.
You call it 'walking away' - I would have called it 'sticking to one's guns': That's my opinion, nothing more.
Like I said - we can't be certain of the outcome. It could have paid off...it could have been disasterous. Since you're so enlightened and conceited as to speak for every single Lib Dem voter in the country perhaps you'd like to elaborate a bit more on your garish prediction?
Lots of assumptions in your assessment AC. Have you read Nick's contributions to the Orange Book?
You also seem to conflate 'socialist' with 'social democratic' - there is a difference.
The Lib Dem policy was to wait for some time before effecting cuts. They did not advocate further spending, and were against Trident - a nuclear deterrant which several of our own Generals and top MOD officials have called unnecessary.
They also advocated taxes to relieve burden on the poor. That a mere fraction of these made it through in the form of a petty income tax threshold rise is hardly a sign that Clegg feels for those down at trod in the real world; else he'd at least kicked up a fuss about it. Oh and that threshold rise will be diminished for those who benefit by it when VAT rises to 20%, plus of course the aggressive benefits cuts.
Nice one summing up the electorate as 'fickle and shortsighted' - I haven't seen a generalization as moronic as that in quite a long time. The majority of the electorate are located in 'safe' seats - they are likely to go for the same party over and over. The battlegrounds are the swing seats which are only a portion of the entire electorate's votes: The majority were as set in their voting ways as ever.
I feel had the Lib Dems allied with nobody after the election, they'd have gained more long-term respect for sticking to their manifesto. But since that never happened, we can't ever be certain.
The AC above was my response to your post; I must have accidentally checked the 'Post Anonymously' box. Here's a thought to give this post a point:
This year, the UK is closer in political climate to the USA and Australia in the sense that all major parties occupy a much narrower spectrum than say...the parties of Germany, Netherlands, some Scandinavian nations. On the continent there's a nice left-right spectrum often expressed between 4 and 10 major parties!
All three of our major parties are quite authoritarian, and right-wing; the question is not whether the neoliberal ideas are the correct ones, but exactly how these concepts should be implemented to reality. (This is paraphrased from politicalcompass.org ).
It's rather odd that Nick Clegg (having taken to the Conservative-Liberal coalition like a duck to water) has had to set up this consultation with the public. Prior to May's election his party, the Liberal Democrats, had a fairly comprehensive list of laws they'd like to repeal - as well as supposedly stalwart opposition to illiberal laws proposed by the previous authoritarian government. My thinking was that Clegg could simply re-read his manifesto from a whole 3 months ago, and gain a laundry list of repeals from that.
However it isn't that simple; despite his party being a vital component of the coalition most of the LibDem policies haven't been integrated convincingly to the workings of the government. This has become a much-sneered at point here in Britain; those who voted for Clegg at the election believed in his constant optimistic tone. He struck this same tone to a greater or lesser extent at all the TV debates we had; saying that Britain could become a fine nation, recapture its liberal values which it founded so long ago etc etc. He presented himself as a charismatic leader, with his second-in-command Vince Cable present to provide a sound economic policy; Cable had warned multiple times of an impending recession and was ignored. So we liked the combination; supposedly good leader and less-charismatic but wise economy-guru.
Clegg back in 2003 had partly authored a neoliberal tract named 'The Orange Book' - this basically cast aside most of the social-democratic principles which held quite some sway in the Lib Dems, and proposed a shift to the right for continued economic prosperity. Once the election and post-election negotiation ended, Clegg's deal was revealed. Most were surprised that he'd sold himself short, and abandoned a lot of the socially liberal principles native to his party...there are no signs of the Lib Dem proposals to 'recapture the values' of the past; Clegg has thusfar toed the Tory line - dragging his party into a place quite far from their liberal values. This has caused derision amongst LibDem voters; the Guardian recently had an article which claimed half of them would consider voting for another party next time round.
Basically the Clegg phenomena should have been seen a mile away, and was seen by a minority of individuals. The press went along with "Cleggmania", and the more vitriolic gutter press went with smear campaigns. It all seemed rather refreshing at the time; this liberal guy enraging all the nanny-state, corporate Murdoch press etc. But the truth wasn't investigated in the flurry, perhaps wilfully cast aside - the truth that Clegg, economically and socially, had a heck of a lot in common with our now-Prime Minister Dave Cameron. As I said in a topic on British laws against photographing police a couple of days ago...the new coalition government will not tackle the majority of New Labour's authority intensive legislation. That the Terrorism Act is so broad and vague means its use amongst rank-and-file constables doesn't belong in any democratic nation. The best we can hope for is a moderating of the law, with the formerly positive Clegg now a stooge (or be it, lapdog) of one of our most negative governments in quite some time. Clegg never put up much hardball negotiation, because he saw little worth bargaining for in keeping with his ideology.
That's completely correct; apologies for my error. Given that one can purchase a cheap SD card of at least 2GB to insert to the front slot, it seems the actual size limit of about 40MB for Wiiware indie titles is restrictive.
Towards the end of the Nintendo 64's life cycle, Nintendo promoted a chip that allowed more demanding games (Donkey Kong 64 etc) to work. Things like the MotionPlus are sort of echoing this, being designed for a later and somewhat narrow group of titles (thusfar).
Why they can't push SD cards more, whether in bundles or through somewhat more obvious methods in the menus/websites I do not know. I'd hazard a guess that those who buy many titles from virtual console or whatever end up being clued in anyway. But that doesn't make the limit for indie games go away.
From the game's website, screenshots, and hardware requirements it seems possible that this game could be ported to the Wii. The simplistic control scheme (mouse only, keyboard can just be used for starting/exiting game) could easily have it work on pretty much any gamepad for any system. The technical hurdles the dev went through just to get it to the PSP (a platform of much less popularity than several others) suggests he possesses the resolution to get Aquaria on other systems.
The size (200MB) is within Wiiware limits, although I've become skeptical of Wiiware because of the massive price discrepancy between that store and the prices indie developers charge online. Obviously Nintendo wants a worthwhile profit, but when one can get PC versions for a tiny fraction of the Wiiware cost which are largely fixed for a long time, sometimes not going down ever...tends to make you wonder if Nintendo would even be willing to sacrifice anything at all for a much higher exposure of indie titles. But, that's expected of most corporations obviously.
Twenty years ago, games were not far off what many indie titles are today - made by between one and five people with the costs minescule compared to the development houses of today, and involving simple but entertaining and addictive concepts. The difference is that these games circa 1990 sold for $30-50, even some simpler titles that required much less work than certain more elaborate games of the day (Monkey Island, Mercenary series etc) . Considering one can pick up some of the best indie titles for under $5, and get much more hours of entertainment than if that 5 bucks went on a movie ticket or an exorbitant hour using Starbucks wifi...it's pretty damn good value.
It's no secret that the job market in the UK is abysmal at the moment; In the end either through shame, or sheer financial stress, or pride, people will take whatever is on offer - relevant or not. Being unemployed here makes you utterly ashamed; the bureaucratic rigmarole and being looked on as a dole-sponger hardly helps morale when one mails off those resumes. Sucks since you get an absolute pittance to live on and pay it back in taxation in no time: Unemployment is to rise to well over 10% within a few years, in line with massive cuts to public services or private firms who profit from government investment. One simply cannot afford to pick and choose, and even those skeptical in the massive marketing propaganda so common to university campuses across Britain are often surprised by just how grindingly hard it is out there.
I think it's less of a question whether CS grads find a job than it is whether they find a job relevant to their degree. I never studied CS, but from the guys I know who did I gathered it's one of the more vocational, concentrated degrees. Thus, the few jobs that there are out there in the British market have absolutely no relevance to 98%+ of what they've learned. Bit of a downer when you consider how doing the course requires a lot more passion than 'Media Studies' or 'American Studies' or countless other subjects which, whilst nice as a hobby, rarely translate to a job relevant. CS grads (justifiably) expect something to do with computers for the years of graft they put in. Outsourcing and other issues aside; having to do much more actual work and much less partying than Mr. Arts/Humanities, these geeks count on a true career.
A lot of people do a subject they 'like' in university here, and its the same across the West. Unfortunately what is liked sometimes translates to low employability and relevance in the job market - the smorgasbord of subjects (hundreds beyond the 'traditional' body of sci/eng/math topics) offered in our universities is testament to how people see education as more of an end than a means, or simply want what they think will be a better/easier time in higher education. But very, very few people go into CS for fun like this; most undergrads are at least somewhat aware of the big bad math skills required to get past the first year of the course; and for this reason most non-geeks avoid it like the bubonic.
It's the same story for other hard subjects like physics; plenty of grads, no jobs for said grads. A shame because talent gets neglected, as do research proposals which might hold promise - UK science funding is finicky as hell. The issues as to why under-25s have such a hard time getting work are much discussed in the broadsheets of this country; beyond all this endless talk by comfortable journalists in their offices one thing is certain: Along with the disabled the young be the ones feeling most the next 5 years of unrelenting neoliberalism embodied by our Conservative/Liberal Democrat government.
I never said the left-wing refrained from this; my post used right/left wing as a contextual thing, as what some call the 'usurption' of the Labour party played a massive part in modern British politics. It was relevant, so it was mentioned; so get over it.
You'll notice my post alluded to 'Old' Labour rather than certain authoritarian leftists foreign governments have been made up of over the past century or so. British society being the topic this was deemed reasonable by my then not-yet-lunched mind: While a far-cry from (for instance) a modern day Green party, Old Labour were pretty liberal on lots of things. Read some of Benn's old speeches to get a flavour of it; as a top old-left figure his talks on 'how to control people' condemn unnecessary authoritarian methodology to the point where he almost seems to view authority as a whole as an evil, albeit a necessary one...hardly USSR-stock really.
To answer your question (I'll assume you aren't trolling AC), Britain has a disproportionate amount of surveillance. Yes CCTV solves crimes, but much CCTV is utterly superfluous - I think it's a reasonable assertion that we could do away with well over half with only a miniscule drop in security and a miniscule rise in crime. But as most CCTV is on private premises this will not happen; infact lessening the massive surveillance in this country is a hell of a lofty goal. A 'good' society wouldn't be particularly worse off without a lot of what we have by way of cameras and urine-poor legislation.
It was obviously just a matter of time before this occurred. I took a photo of some mounted police months before this ban came into play; neither spoke or so much as batted an eyelid. I'm confident a subsection of the force ignore this law; but obviously some don't, and the odds of one of those being photographed and coming into contact with a young man clued-in to his rights approaches certain.
Police are fallible and human, and whether or not they're uppity over crap laws such as these is an individual thing. They could get an easy caution thereby adding points to their 'target score' and potential for promotion and bonuses, just as they do so frequently with things like cannabis possession - even though possession alone technically can lead to jail. But just as not playing ball when accepting a caution for a joint in your pocket riles them (paperwork and interview; odds of CPS climbing on board over this being quite low etc) so too do anomalys like this lad for stepping in one of the turds Labour shat whilst in government.
Oh yeah, I used to read your comments on Nightjack's blog Rogerborg; sensible stuff.
Britain has recently elected a new government, one which (on a few issues) is less authoritarian than the previous Labour government. Thirteen years of Labour led to some unwarranted laws coming into being, ranging from making it illegal to photograph a police officer - technically a video filmed by an American at a G8 summits' protests in London is illegal and should not have been shown...despite the fact it showed an officer shoving a man to the ground having not even been provoked; the assaulted man died minutes later of a heart attack.
So yeah, Labour (a right-wing party whose swing towards that direction began in the Thatcher years) brought all sorts of unpleasent socially restrictive policy, implemented gradually to the point where - ironically for those who saw it once as a permissive, left-wing outfit - they became more authoritarian than our traditiional right-wing party (Conservatives) ever have been. One of the early Labour architects, Lord Mandelson, has among the most poignent views on Internet restriction; ranging from prosecuting people with cartoons for 'possession of child porn' to much tougher sentencing for those who infringe copyright.
But to stay on topic; two things are probably most disturbing (yet predictably New Labour) about laws like forbidding photographing police is that they are justified as 'stopping terrorism'. Ridiculous as photographs of British plod are all over the Net. The other disturbing point is how easily most of the population rolls over and takes this like some apathetic whore. Two people close to me, a friend and a family member, both have no qualms with providing samples for the proposed 'DNA database' that our government pondered bringing in, and I know even more individuals with absolutely no qualms with the (now scrapped) identity cards. Want to encrypt your hard drive but get charged of a crime that requires computer access for the police? Not giving up your password can get you years in jail; and no freedom-loving geek has yet set a precedent against this.
Yes we're the most watched people in the world, yes you can be detained and not charged for weeks if suspected of 'terror offences', and yes our local governments have enthusiastically used some of New Labour's reforms to enforce their own supposed justice (think monitoring people suspected of avoiding tax or claiming welfare wrongly etc). What's worst is that much of Labour's work along these lines won't even be done away with by the imcumbent coalition; which has our most liberal major party as a component.
I updated the Wii Shop yesterday evening (I'm located in the UK) and the final part of the message ran something along the lines of "If you install this update and have third party modifications to your system, it may render your console inoperable."
The store part is not even necessary to use - one can own a Wii and never need to access it, however for those who enjoy classic games and aren't keen on PC emulation the shop is fairly useful, and a gamecube pad works well with most (all?) of the old console titles.
I was thinking about the implications for homebrew as Nintendo rolls out these updates periodically just as it prompted me to install; a lot of people fond of old games will no doubt be more inclined to use USB-compatable old-style pads on a computer using emulation software and adapted games; the software is easy to find via Google. If anything Nintendo is cutting off a subsection of trade here; but causing inconvenience for a small minority is apparently okay as long as their interface and channels are updated every so often. But one thing that homebrewers may have to do without are the independent 'Wiiware' titles that aren't as widely emulated as the console games of the past. A few of these titles are pretty good; would it be possible to mail the creators of these titles to request a release for PC and Mac?
I know of one game (World of Goo) that has had a Windows release for awhile now priced a lot cheaper than it is on the Wii shop.
How the fuck can there be theft in a world where the game administrators can reinstitute the accounts WITH THE PUSH OF A BUTTON? It's not like these people "deprived" anybody of anything that can't be instantly recreated. Hell, applying the word "create" is even too generous.
The lunatics who spent €1000 on "virtual furniture" needs to be committed to small, padded cells until they can get a grip on reality. And if the game admins refuse to give the furniture back to them, toss them in jail for fraud.
This isn't cute. It's fucking nuts, and it scares the crap out of me that people are losing their grip on reality and people might go to prison for it.
Yeah, cause it worked so well the last time a few Chinese peasants tried to revolt by gumming up the army's tanks' treads with their corpses.
Sort of brings a whole new meaning to the phrase "Chinks in the armor" doesn't it? . . . . Disclaimer: The word "chink" is in the summary tags - nobody complained/mentioned it yet. If you find it racist then feel free to type some vitriol or mod this down. Thank you.
Many posters here seem to be unaware of the actual history behind this fellow's arrest and trial. The guy was eventually tried in Germany during 2006.
From Wikipedia's Half Life 2 article:
"He was to be offered a flight to the USA and was to be arrested on arrival by the FBI. When the German government became aware of the plan, Gembe was arrested in Germany instead, and put on trial for the leak as well as other computer crimes in November 2006, such as the creation of Agobot, a highly successful trojan which harvested users' data.
"At the trial in November 2006 in Germany, Gembe was sentenced to two years' probation. In imposing the sentence, the judge took into account such factors as Gembe's difficult childhood and the fact that he was taking steps to improve his situation."
Considering he walked, that's pretty light as he was involved in authoring a hard hitting trojan and intruded on networks amongst other things. But still there we are, and I guess we enter the argument that punishments don't often fit crimes.
There's no escaping here, I'm gonna beat you out of shape, like a fucking black hole even light can't escape. Got the mind to bust a rhyme to make your brain bleed, other rappers talk shit, but they gotta concede that I'm a three sandwich eatin', super-model meetin'; step to me punk and you're gonna get a beatin'.
With Slashdot celebrating its ten year anneversary, Rob Malda (a college student at the time of his creating the Dot) has granted an interview. Malda is your rather typically bright sort, hence the interview being modest and reasoned. A fairly sincere geek, the fellow was eventually working on Slashdot for 20 hours per day, but still managed to graduate and not develop any addiction to stimulants apart from the usual caffeine/taurine drinks. Thus he is well respected.
---
But it wasn't the case for everyone in the deal! Slashdot was acquired in a big cash offer by VA Linux in early 2000. This firm is a good representation of the hope and hopelessness of boom and bust economics - and here is what the subject title refers to: The VA executive Eric S. Raymond's personal wealth rocketed to about $36 million after a stock offering.
However investors simply weren't hard-headed enough to accept a software firm with about 100 employees, chairs and desks as one of the big boys; the lack of assets further encouraged the stock to bomb hilariously over a period of a few months. This interview is a typical megalomaniac boss's thinly veiled attempt at flaunting himself. I point to this, laugh at it (and it is very funny to read), and like many know there's a quiet lesson to be learnt. Something like an ultra-modern "pride before the fall".
Here's a gem from the classically notorious 1999 post:
---- "Assuming the economy does not in fact crater, how is wealth going to affect my life in six months? Honestly, I think the answer is "not much". I haven't spent the last fifteen years doing the open-source for the money. I'm already living pretty much exactly the way I want to, doing the work that matters to me. The biggest difference the money will make to me personally is that now I should be able to keep doing what I love for the rest of my life without worrying about money ever again.
So I expect I'll just keep on as I've been doing. Hacking code. Thinking and spreading subversive thoughts. Traveling and giving talks. Writing papers. Poking various evil empires a good one in the eye whenever I get a chance. Working for freedom." ----
The man is a walking mishmash of contradictions. He implores others to keep wealth quiet to avoid sycophants and cadgers; and makes a public post about his newfound millions made from...er...what was it again that merited all those millions? The fellow is brazen, ignorant, boastful, and a laughing stock - now more than ever. The post was sneered at by people either too wise or too jealous to see things from his end properly, and he rightly gained an economic comeuppance. On the one hand he wants to be seen as a glorious crusader "working for freedom" - he comes across as a prissy egoist quietly planning how to secrete his tenuous wealth. To sum up - a wanker. Classic.
With the anneversary of Slashdot just celebrated and an entire decade having passed since you created the site, do you ever wonder what Slashdot will be like in another decade; specifically whether after twenty years you'll possess an active role?
I was thinking what with a family on the horizon plus a lot of other side projects you may bow out after a time; but then again it was kind of inevitable as there's a lot to life besides Slashdot. But nonetheless your insight over tenure is appreciated.
Anyway, thanks for this site Rob; the amount of laughs and great reads it has given in the four years I've browsed here is beyond measure and a lot of people here would agree that despite flaws this place is unique.
Slashdot Mirror
A class action suit by people suffering from thyroid tumours was filed today:
Sufferers allege that George Lucas's neck imitates the ailment too closely.
Isn't it nice to see Lucas as lawsuit-happy as ever some 33 years after the launch of his massively successful franchise? The amounts of legal disputes, some so petty as to beggar belief, that George Lucas has launched over the decades illustrate more about the man himself than about any significant precedent or legal milestone. Yes he's won lawsuits; but there's a difference between legally sound and ethically sound.
Great White Snark has a short list of five of Lucas's most silly qualms which in the final analysis basically attack inspiration itself. Despite the fact there's a still-debated laundry list of inspiration for Star Wars, much of which he's acknowledged in straight-faced affable fashion in interviews over the years.
I'd have thought by now he'd started to mellow with age, or perhaps devoted more time to helping the world in general like certain other elder-geeks on the globe. Apparently not.
An elderly relative of mine is with HSBC. Being quite savvy she liked to browse the Internet for bargains, and inevitably her search took her to eBay. Long story short a scammer sent a faulty item, lifting about £65/$100 from her debit card as payed through Paypal. Obviously the cardinal rule of debit card use is to avoid using one online as much as possible...never use one on eBay.
With what is certainly an anomaly in Paypal's so expertly rendered services that we now expect of a caring quasi-bank, she found herself delayed from getting her money back. Meanwhile our scammer had apparently left or been banned from Fleabay. So she called HSBC, citing the 'debit protection' they'd included with her current account.
Explaining the incident to the first man somewhere on the subcontinent was a nightmare. To his credit he seemed very pleased to help, but his listening skills and speaking style were out of touch with a native British English speaker. Simply put my relative couldn't understand half of what he was saying...and the calls degenerated into his profuse apologizing and her asking him to speak slower, politely.
This went on for a few more calls, two more foreign customer service people abroad went on - until eventually the lodged claim had enough clarity that it warranted getting a person who spoke better. Eventually an employee with English much closer to that of a typical Briton got on the phone, and despite being strenuously nagged over this seventy quid refused to pay because it was against the bank's policy to refund debit transactions.
But it all ended well as my relation had a cash ISA with the bank - it took a politely worded threat of changing accounts and ISA to a competitor before firmly requesting a superior a few times before an apparant manager reneged on HSBC's refusal and refunded the account in full. A whole lot of headaching for all concerned bar our scammer who apparently did a bunk with a nice chunk of change.
Moral of the story is to casually check with older/quite naive people who have the Internet but are not as experienced with the world of online shopping. Use credit cards not debit cards; if they are suspicious of credit explain it to them. Else they might have to talk to 'John or 'Richard' or 'Hannah' over at the other end of the commonwealth for hours chasing up. My family member was lucky judging by all the horror stories of 'debit protection' floating around.
Thuat chance of these rankings being legit. Nguyen piss off if you believe they are.
Faster this appspam is removed faster we can Wok on Bai. Sheesh.
Get inspired from places with mature attitudes on drug abuse; those with safe injecting sites.
Youtube feels like a drug to me at times...I'd elaborate on this viewpoint but a vid of a cat and a dog chasing their own tails at the same time interests me more.
James Pond has prior art on this - and his first appearance showed him extremely cod at fixing undersea oil-leaking holes.
Well that's one hell of a frogmarch through the false dicthomy isn't it? Following your logic, any third party in the UK is destined to have most of its principles either ignored or diluted by the larger one in a coalition - I could just as easily state 'what's the point?' when the endgame is that scenario!
Some 'golden' opportunity...
Conservatives had enough seats for a minority government. There was an option to sit it out for the Lib Dems. Biggest obstacle to this was that the Lib Dems had little money left to stage a second election campaign. They should have left the Conservatives hanging, making speeches to the effect that 'a disproportionate amount of our manifesto has been ignored' etc etc - drum it up that both other major parties had lodged poor offers.
Remember there was the option not to form a coalition, but enter a more informal agreement that had the Tories as a minority government? That comprimise would have served the Lib Dems better, as they'd be (at least in theory) freer to vote having not ingratiated or cosied up to the extent that they now have.
You call it 'walking away' - I would have called it 'sticking to one's guns': That's my opinion, nothing more.
Like I said - we can't be certain of the outcome. It could have paid off...it could have been disasterous. Since you're so enlightened and conceited as to speak for every single Lib Dem voter in the country perhaps you'd like to elaborate a bit more on your garish prediction?
Lots of assumptions in your assessment AC. Have you read Nick's contributions to the Orange Book?
You also seem to conflate 'socialist' with 'social democratic' - there is a difference.
The Lib Dem policy was to wait for some time before effecting cuts. They did not advocate further spending, and were against Trident - a nuclear deterrant which several of our own Generals and top MOD officials have called unnecessary.
They also advocated taxes to relieve burden on the poor. That a mere fraction of these made it through in the form of a petty income tax threshold rise is hardly a sign that Clegg feels for those down at trod in the real world; else he'd at least kicked up a fuss about it. Oh and that threshold rise will be diminished for those who benefit by it when VAT rises to 20%, plus of course the aggressive benefits cuts.
Nice one summing up the electorate as 'fickle and shortsighted' - I haven't seen a generalization as moronic as that in quite a long time. The majority of the electorate are located in 'safe' seats - they are likely to go for the same party over and over. The battlegrounds are the swing seats which are only a portion of the entire electorate's votes: The majority were as set in their voting ways as ever.
I feel had the Lib Dems allied with nobody after the election, they'd have gained more long-term respect for sticking to their manifesto. But since that never happened, we can't ever be certain.
The AC above was my response to your post; I must have accidentally checked the 'Post Anonymously' box. Here's a thought to give this post a point:
This year, the UK is closer in political climate to the USA and Australia in the sense that all major parties occupy a much narrower spectrum than say...the parties of Germany, Netherlands, some Scandinavian nations. On the continent there's a nice left-right spectrum often expressed between 4 and 10 major parties!
All three of our major parties are quite authoritarian, and right-wing; the question is not whether the neoliberal ideas are the correct ones, but exactly how these concepts should be implemented to reality. (This is paraphrased from politicalcompass.org ).
It's rather odd that Nick Clegg (having taken to the Conservative-Liberal coalition like a duck to water) has had to set up this consultation with the public. Prior to May's election his party, the Liberal Democrats, had a fairly comprehensive list of laws they'd like to repeal - as well as supposedly stalwart opposition to illiberal laws proposed by the previous authoritarian government. My thinking was that Clegg could simply re-read his manifesto from a whole 3 months ago, and gain a laundry list of repeals from that.
However it isn't that simple; despite his party being a vital component of the coalition most of the LibDem policies haven't been integrated convincingly to the workings of the government. This has become a much-sneered at point here in Britain; those who voted for Clegg at the election believed in his constant optimistic tone. He struck this same tone to a greater or lesser extent at all the TV debates we had; saying that Britain could become a fine nation, recapture its liberal values which it founded so long ago etc etc. He presented himself as a charismatic leader, with his second-in-command Vince Cable present to provide a sound economic policy; Cable had warned multiple times of an impending recession and was ignored. So we liked the combination; supposedly good leader and less-charismatic but wise economy-guru.
Clegg back in 2003 had partly authored a neoliberal tract named 'The Orange Book' - this basically cast aside most of the social-democratic principles which held quite some sway in the Lib Dems, and proposed a shift to the right for continued economic prosperity. Once the election and post-election negotiation ended, Clegg's deal was revealed. Most were surprised that he'd sold himself short, and abandoned a lot of the socially liberal principles native to his party...there are no signs of the Lib Dem proposals to 'recapture the values' of the past; Clegg has thusfar toed the Tory line - dragging his party into a place quite far from their liberal values. This has caused derision amongst LibDem voters; the Guardian recently had an article which claimed half of them would consider voting for another party next time round.
Basically the Clegg phenomena should have been seen a mile away, and was seen by a minority of individuals. The press went along with "Cleggmania", and the more vitriolic gutter press went with smear campaigns. It all seemed rather refreshing at the time; this liberal guy enraging all the nanny-state, corporate Murdoch press etc. But the truth wasn't investigated in the flurry, perhaps wilfully cast aside - the truth that Clegg, economically and socially, had a heck of a lot in common with our now-Prime Minister Dave Cameron. As I said in a topic on British laws against photographing police a couple of days ago...the new coalition government will not tackle the majority of New Labour's authority intensive legislation. That the Terrorism Act is so broad and vague means its use amongst rank-and-file constables doesn't belong in any democratic nation. The best we can hope for is a moderating of the law, with the formerly positive Clegg now a stooge (or be it, lapdog) of one of our most negative governments in quite some time. Clegg never put up much hardball negotiation, because he saw little worth bargaining for in keeping with his ideology.
That's completely correct; apologies for my error. Given that one can purchase a cheap SD card of at least 2GB to insert to the front slot, it seems the actual size limit of about 40MB for Wiiware indie titles is restrictive.
Towards the end of the Nintendo 64's life cycle, Nintendo promoted a chip that allowed more demanding games (Donkey Kong 64 etc) to work. Things like the MotionPlus are sort of echoing this, being designed for a later and somewhat narrow group of titles (thusfar).
Why they can't push SD cards more, whether in bundles or through somewhat more obvious methods in the menus/websites I do not know. I'd hazard a guess that those who buy many titles from virtual console or whatever end up being clued in anyway. But that doesn't make the limit for indie games go away.
From the game's website, screenshots, and hardware requirements it seems possible that this game could be ported to the Wii. The simplistic control scheme (mouse only, keyboard can just be used for starting/exiting game) could easily have it work on pretty much any gamepad for any system. The technical hurdles the dev went through just to get it to the PSP (a platform of much less popularity than several others) suggests he possesses the resolution to get Aquaria on other systems.
The size (200MB) is within Wiiware limits, although I've become skeptical of Wiiware because of the massive price discrepancy between that store and the prices indie developers charge online. Obviously Nintendo wants a worthwhile profit, but when one can get PC versions for a tiny fraction of the Wiiware cost which are largely fixed for a long time, sometimes not going down ever...tends to make you wonder if Nintendo would even be willing to sacrifice anything at all for a much higher exposure of indie titles. But, that's expected of most corporations obviously.
Twenty years ago, games were not far off what many indie titles are today - made by between one and five people with the costs minescule compared to the development houses of today, and involving simple but entertaining and addictive concepts. The difference is that these games circa 1990 sold for $30-50, even some simpler titles that required much less work than certain more elaborate games of the day (Monkey Island, Mercenary series etc) . Considering one can pick up some of the best indie titles for under $5, and get much more hours of entertainment than if that 5 bucks went on a movie ticket or an exorbitant hour using Starbucks wifi...it's pretty damn good value.
It's no secret that the job market in the UK is abysmal at the moment; In the end either through shame, or sheer financial stress, or pride, people will take whatever is on offer - relevant or not. Being unemployed here makes you utterly ashamed; the bureaucratic rigmarole and being looked on as a dole-sponger hardly helps morale when one mails off those resumes. Sucks since you get an absolute pittance to live on and pay it back in taxation in no time: Unemployment is to rise to well over 10% within a few years, in line with massive cuts to public services or private firms who profit from government investment. One simply cannot afford to pick and choose, and even those skeptical in the massive marketing propaganda so common to university campuses across Britain are often surprised by just how grindingly hard it is out there.
I think it's less of a question whether CS grads find a job than it is whether they find a job relevant to their degree. I never studied CS, but from the guys I know who did I gathered it's one of the more vocational, concentrated degrees. Thus, the few jobs that there are out there in the British market have absolutely no relevance to 98%+ of what they've learned. Bit of a downer when you consider how doing the course requires a lot more passion than 'Media Studies' or 'American Studies' or countless other subjects which, whilst nice as a hobby, rarely translate to a job relevant. CS grads (justifiably) expect something to do with computers for the years of graft they put in. Outsourcing and other issues aside; having to do much more actual work and much less partying than Mr. Arts/Humanities, these geeks count on a true career.
A lot of people do a subject they 'like' in university here, and its the same across the West. Unfortunately what is liked sometimes translates to low employability and relevance in the job market - the smorgasbord of subjects (hundreds beyond the 'traditional' body of sci/eng/math topics) offered in our universities is testament to how people see education as more of an end than a means, or simply want what they think will be a better/easier time in higher education. But very, very few people go into CS for fun like this; most undergrads are at least somewhat aware of the big bad math skills required to get past the first year of the course; and for this reason most non-geeks avoid it like the bubonic.
It's the same story for other hard subjects like physics; plenty of grads, no jobs for said grads. A shame because talent gets neglected, as do research proposals which might hold promise - UK science funding is finicky as hell. The issues as to why under-25s have such a hard time getting work are much discussed in the broadsheets of this country; beyond all this endless talk by comfortable journalists in their offices one thing is certain: Along with the disabled the young be the ones feeling most the next 5 years of unrelenting neoliberalism embodied by our Conservative/Liberal Democrat government.
I never said the left-wing refrained from this; my post used right/left wing as a contextual thing, as what some call the 'usurption' of the Labour party played a massive part in modern British politics. It was relevant, so it was mentioned; so get over it.
You'll notice my post alluded to 'Old' Labour rather than certain authoritarian leftists foreign governments have been made up of over the past century or so. British society being the topic this was deemed reasonable by my then not-yet-lunched mind: While a far-cry from (for instance) a modern day Green party, Old Labour were pretty liberal on lots of things. Read some of Benn's old speeches to get a flavour of it; as a top old-left figure his talks on 'how to control people' condemn unnecessary authoritarian methodology to the point where he almost seems to view authority as a whole as an evil, albeit a necessary one...hardly USSR-stock really.
To answer your question (I'll assume you aren't trolling AC), Britain has a disproportionate amount of surveillance. Yes CCTV solves crimes, but much CCTV is utterly superfluous - I think it's a reasonable assertion that we could do away with well over half with only a miniscule drop in security and a miniscule rise in crime. But as most CCTV is on private premises this will not happen; infact lessening the massive surveillance in this country is a hell of a lofty goal. A 'good' society wouldn't be particularly worse off without a lot of what we have by way of cameras and urine-poor legislation.
I daresay there'd be an improvement, actually.
It was obviously just a matter of time before this occurred. I took a photo of some mounted police months before this ban came into play; neither spoke or so much as batted an eyelid. I'm confident a subsection of the force ignore this law; but obviously some don't, and the odds of one of those being photographed and coming into contact with a young man clued-in to his rights approaches certain.
Police are fallible and human, and whether or not they're uppity over crap laws such as these is an individual thing. They could get an easy caution thereby adding points to their 'target score' and potential for promotion and bonuses, just as they do so frequently with things like cannabis possession - even though possession alone technically can lead to jail. But just as not playing ball when accepting a caution for a joint in your pocket riles them (paperwork and interview; odds of CPS climbing on board over this being quite low etc) so too do anomalys like this lad for stepping in one of the turds Labour shat whilst in government.
Oh yeah, I used to read your comments on Nightjack's blog Rogerborg; sensible stuff.
Britain has recently elected a new government, one which (on a few issues) is less authoritarian than the previous Labour government. Thirteen years of Labour led to some unwarranted laws coming into being, ranging from making it illegal to photograph a police officer - technically a video filmed by an American at a G8 summits' protests in London is illegal and should not have been shown...despite the fact it showed an officer shoving a man to the ground having not even been provoked; the assaulted man died minutes later of a heart attack.
So yeah, Labour (a right-wing party whose swing towards that direction began in the Thatcher years) brought all sorts of unpleasent socially restrictive policy, implemented gradually to the point where - ironically for those who saw it once as a permissive, left-wing outfit - they became more authoritarian than our traditiional right-wing party (Conservatives) ever have been. One of the early Labour architects, Lord Mandelson, has among the most poignent views on Internet restriction; ranging from prosecuting people with cartoons for 'possession of child porn' to much tougher sentencing for those who infringe copyright.
But to stay on topic; two things are probably most disturbing (yet predictably New Labour) about laws like forbidding photographing police is that they are justified as 'stopping terrorism'. Ridiculous as photographs of British plod are all over the Net. The other disturbing point is how easily most of the population rolls over and takes this like some apathetic whore. Two people close to me, a friend and a family member, both have no qualms with providing samples for the proposed 'DNA database' that our government pondered bringing in, and I know even more individuals with absolutely no qualms with the (now scrapped) identity cards. Want to encrypt your hard drive but get charged of a crime that requires computer access for the police? Not giving up your password can get you years in jail; and no freedom-loving geek has yet set a precedent against this.
Yes we're the most watched people in the world, yes you can be detained and not charged for weeks if suspected of 'terror offences', and yes our local governments have enthusiastically used some of New Labour's reforms to enforce their own supposed justice (think monitoring people suspected of avoiding tax or claiming welfare wrongly etc). What's worst is that much of Labour's work along these lines won't even be done away with by the imcumbent coalition; which has our most liberal major party as a component.
I updated the Wii Shop yesterday evening (I'm located in the UK) and the final part of the message ran something along the lines of "If you install this update and have third party modifications to your system, it may render your console inoperable."
The store part is not even necessary to use - one can own a Wii and never need to access it, however for those who enjoy classic games and aren't keen on PC emulation the shop is fairly useful, and a gamecube pad works well with most (all?) of the old console titles.
I was thinking about the implications for homebrew as Nintendo rolls out these updates periodically just as it prompted me to install; a lot of people fond of old games will no doubt be more inclined to use USB-compatable old-style pads on a computer using emulation software and adapted games; the software is easy to find via Google. If anything Nintendo is cutting off a subsection of trade here; but causing inconvenience for a small minority is apparently okay as long as their interface and channels are updated every so often. But one thing that homebrewers may have to do without are the independent 'Wiiware' titles that aren't as widely emulated as the console games of the past. A few of these titles are pretty good; would it be possible to mail the creators of these titles to request a release for PC and Mac?
I know of one game (World of Goo) that has had a Windows release for awhile now priced a lot cheaper than it is on the Wii shop.
for porn sites. They'd know we weren't just passing through.
How the fuck can there be theft in a world where the game administrators can reinstitute the accounts WITH THE PUSH OF A BUTTON? It's not like these people "deprived" anybody of anything that can't be instantly recreated. Hell, applying the word "create" is even too generous.
The lunatics who spent €1000 on "virtual furniture" needs to be committed to small, padded cells until they can get a grip on reality. And if the game admins refuse to give the furniture back to them, toss them in jail for fraud.
This isn't cute. It's fucking nuts, and it scares the crap out of me that people are losing their grip on reality and people might go to prison for it.
Yeah, cause it worked so well the last time a few Chinese peasants tried to revolt by gumming up the army's tanks' treads with their corpses.
Sort of brings a whole new meaning to the phrase "Chinks in the armor" doesn't it?
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Disclaimer: The word "chink" is in the summary tags - nobody complained/mentioned it yet. If you find it racist then feel free to type some vitriol or mod this down. Thank you.
Many posters here seem to be unaware of the actual history behind this fellow's arrest and trial. The guy was eventually tried in Germany during 2006.
From Wikipedia's Half Life 2 article:
"He was to be offered a flight to the USA and was to be arrested on arrival by the FBI. When the German government became aware of the plan, Gembe was arrested in Germany instead, and put on trial for the leak as well as other computer crimes in November 2006, such as the creation of Agobot, a highly successful trojan which harvested users' data.
"At the trial in November 2006 in Germany, Gembe was sentenced to two years' probation. In imposing the sentence, the judge took into account such factors as Gembe's difficult childhood and the fact that he was taking steps to improve his situation."
Considering he walked, that's pretty light as he was involved in authoring a hard hitting trojan and intruded on networks amongst other things. But still there we are, and I guess we enter the argument that punishments don't often fit crimes.
There's no escaping here, I'm gonna beat you out of shape,
like a fucking black hole even light can't escape.
Got the mind to bust a rhyme to make your brain bleed,
other rappers talk shit, but they gotta concede
that I'm a three sandwich eatin', super-model meetin';
step to me punk and you're gonna get a beatin'.
With Slashdot celebrating its ten year anneversary, Rob Malda (a college student at the time of his creating the Dot) has granted an interview. Malda is your rather typically bright sort, hence the interview being modest and reasoned. A fairly sincere geek, the fellow was eventually working on Slashdot for 20 hours per day, but still managed to graduate and not develop any addiction to stimulants apart from the usual caffeine/taurine drinks. Thus he is well respected.
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But it wasn't the case for everyone in the deal! Slashdot was acquired in a big cash offer by VA Linux in early 2000. This firm is a good representation of the hope and hopelessness of boom and bust economics - and here is what the subject title refers to: The VA executive Eric S. Raymond's personal wealth rocketed to about $36 million after a stock offering.
However investors simply weren't hard-headed enough to accept a software firm with about 100 employees, chairs and desks as one of the big boys; the lack of assets further encouraged the stock to bomb hilariously over a period of a few months. This interview is a typical megalomaniac boss's thinly veiled attempt at flaunting himself. I point to this, laugh at it (and it is very funny to read), and like many know there's a quiet lesson to be learnt. Something like an ultra-modern "pride before the fall".
Here's a gem from the classically notorious 1999 post:
---- "Assuming the economy does not in fact crater, how is wealth going to affect my life in six months? Honestly, I think the answer is "not much". I haven't spent the last fifteen years doing the open-source for the money. I'm already living pretty much exactly the way I want to, doing the work that matters to me. The biggest difference the money will make to me personally is that now I should be able to keep doing what I love for the rest of my life without worrying about money ever again.
So I expect I'll just keep on as I've been doing. Hacking code. Thinking and spreading subversive thoughts. Traveling and giving talks. Writing papers. Poking various evil empires a good one in the eye whenever I get a chance. Working for freedom." ----
The man is a walking mishmash of contradictions. He implores others to keep wealth quiet to avoid sycophants and cadgers; and makes a public post about his newfound millions made from...er...what was it again that merited all those millions? The fellow is brazen, ignorant, boastful, and a laughing stock - now more than ever. The post was sneered at by people either too wise or too jealous to see things from his end properly, and he rightly gained an economic comeuppance. On the one hand he wants to be seen as a glorious crusader "working for freedom" - he comes across as a prissy egoist quietly planning how to secrete his tenuous wealth. To sum up - a wanker. Classic.
With the anneversary of Slashdot just celebrated and an entire decade having passed since you created the site, do you ever wonder what Slashdot will be like in another decade; specifically whether after twenty years you'll possess an active role?
I was thinking what with a family on the horizon plus a lot of other side projects you may bow out after a time; but then again it was kind of inevitable as there's a lot to life besides Slashdot. But nonetheless your insight over tenure is appreciated.
Anyway, thanks for this site Rob; the amount of laughs and great reads it has given in the four years I've browsed here is beyond measure and a lot of people here would agree that despite flaws this place is unique.
I used this to give myself a Dutch rudder, it was pretty good.