I love when things like this come out after the guilty party has passed on. Holding up a scam with your very last breath takes dedication, and the mental image of Ms Hatto laughing pleasantly and flipping sweary fingwer gestures from the great beyond comforts me immensely.
I might be wrong, but 'can be used in court' != 'can be used by police in the course of their investigations'. A phone intercept might, for example, lead to a raid on a premises, which would then reveal evidence that could be used in court.
That does make a certain kind of sense. However, doesn't this pretty much suggest that the powers that be are actually more interested in gathering and hoarding massive amounts of data than actually using the data they have to catch criminals? It seems to me a bit like becoming a dentist for the explicit goal of collecting infected teeth to fill your infected tooth jar, rather than any desire to actually treat the people connected to said teeth.
But Sir Swinton rejected the suggestion of allowing intercept material on terrorists and organised criminals to be used in evidence in trials. "If terrorists and criminals, most particularly those high up in the chain of command, know that interception would be used in evidence against them, they will do everything possible to stop providing the material which is so very valuable as intelligence."
a single unified gaming platform, ala the music and movie businesses.
These would be the same "unified" music and movie businesses that have been the cause of every audio and video format war in history, each of which left owners of the losing format with an expensive paperweight and a shelf full of table-leg-dewobblers?
What would it take me to move to this over MythTV? Let's see... it'd have to be FOSS by people who aren't entangled in various dealings with all the media companies, it'd have to run on Linux, and it'd have to be something I could tweak to my needs and system specs without too much trouble.
Immediately after booting, the Quantum Computer disappeared in a flash of light and noise. It resurfaced in 1985, where it briefly took over a Commodore 64 and corrected some mistakes it made the first time around, before moving onto a UNIVAC in 1955...
Because it's easy enough to be idiot-proof. YouTube is full of pirated TV shows and even full movies (chopped into 9:59 segments) put there by Average Joe Sixpack who finds creating, uploading, and seeding a.torrent or posting to a newsgroup just too gosh-darn computer-nerdy. Anyone can chop up an ill-gotten DIVX clip with the barebones movie-maker that comes with Windows, and Youtube pretty much holds your hand for the uploading process.
Ultimately any such decisions are in the hands of the Wikimedia foundation, and I don't pretend to speak for them. I do believe when your entire catalogue of products is produced by a set of volunteers, you do have to consider the opinions of said volunteers on matters like this. The users who declare their stance either for or against ads on Wikipedia are ensuring that the Foundation knows their feelings on the matter, leading hopefully to an informed decision. I don't see why people "need to grow up" for contributing what they can to this process.
Really, it helps consumers in that the RIAA is less likely to sue innocent people, and only sue those people who are actually violating the law.
Let's say for the sake of argument, hypothetically speaking, I'm not violating the law. Should I be okay with my ISP's logs being an open book to some agency whos only source of authority comes from having a shitload of money? All they need to do is scribble my IP address on a form letter and they get all my online activities. Yours too, for that matter.
Now let's look at it another way, and say I'm in a related business. Let's make me a writer, musician, or other professional independent artist, self-publishing my own work out of my basement for burger money. I'm slightly suspicious that all of you people are illegally trading my copyrighted work, and depriving me of my burgers. I want to investigate this. Can I have the underlying logs from all of your ISPs as well, or is the shitload of money a requirement?
At what point would a "pirate" not really be guilty of much if they're only sharing a small portion of a particular songfile, say 0.01%?
We at the **AA have identified your recent post as containing both zeros and ones, which are concidentally found in illegal MP3 files ripped from the latest Dave Matthews CD, scanned PDFs of every book on Oprah's list, and illicit DivX copies of all the "Lord of the Rings" films (including the crap one with the cartoons.) Please come with us, sir.
Clicking through the politics wikimag I was surprised to see (announced as breaking news, no less) the story Anna Nicole Smith 1967-2007 DEAD. And that's politics?
You're obviously blissfully unaware of the fact that Anna Nicole's implants were actually a pair of manifestations of a gestalt alien intelligence which was secretly running the world through a complex network of shadow governments and puppet regimes for a complex reality show called "Earth" which was a big hit with the unwashed masses on their own planet. Anna Nicole herself was humanity's bravest freedom fighter, as she had figured out that the creatures' only weakness was massive amounts of alcohol ingested slowly over time.
The Politics Community ( http://politics.wikia.com/ ), which features national, state and local sections where users are able to search and contribute by state and/or zip code. Contributors can share and discuss their political opinions, build out historical resources and voter guides, or simply just read and comment on the others thoughts and learn about political issues.
And as we all know, user-postable websites are the absolute best, most pristine resource for calm, mature, intelligent political discourse.
Slashdot Mirror
The hammer in my house is helpfully labelled "Emergency Repair Procedure #1" in sharpie on the handle.
I love when things like this come out after the guilty party has passed on. Holding up a scam with your very last breath takes dedication, and the mental image of Ms Hatto laughing pleasantly and flipping sweary fingwer gestures from the great beyond comforts me immensely.
I'm in favor of surgeons gaming in their spare time, so long as my surgeon is fully aware that I don't have a reset button or a save state.
you can't trust anyone with "fly" in their name.
...oh, wait.
What would it take me to move to this over MythTV? Let's see... it'd have to be FOSS by people who aren't entangled in various dealings with all the media companies, it'd have to run on Linux, and it'd have to be something I could tweak to my needs and system specs without too much trouble.
Basically, it'd have to be MythTV.
Is that the Apu school of threats? "Hey! I have asked you nicely not to mangle my merchandise. You leave me no choice but to... ask you nicely again."
They'll find some other way to crap the buffet.
Immediately after booting, the Quantum Computer disappeared in a flash of light and noise. It resurfaced in 1985, where it briefly took over a Commodore 64 and corrected some mistakes it made the first time around, before moving onto a UNIVAC in 1955...
Because it's easy enough to be idiot-proof. YouTube is full of pirated TV shows and even full movies (chopped into 9:59 segments) put there by Average Joe Sixpack who finds creating, uploading, and seeding a .torrent or posting to a newsgroup just too gosh-darn computer-nerdy. Anyone can chop up an ill-gotten DIVX clip with the barebones movie-maker that comes with Windows, and Youtube pretty much holds your hand for the uploading process.
Because Goatse guy isn't a multi-billion dollar corporation with squadrons of rabid lawyers waiting to strike.
At least, as far as I know he isn't.
I for one was hugely offended and disgusted when the mayor told me "My dear Mr. Firefly, we are at war with the SPANISH."
Good point. Perhaps "contributor base" would be a better distinction.
Ultimately any such decisions are in the hands of the Wikimedia foundation, and I don't pretend to speak for them. I do believe when your entire catalogue of products is produced by a set of volunteers, you do have to consider the opinions of said volunteers on matters like this. The users who declare their stance either for or against ads on Wikipedia are ensuring that the Foundation knows their feelings on the matter, leading hopefully to an informed decision. I don't see why people "need to grow up" for contributing what they can to this process.
However, doing so would piss off a significant portion of their user base.
So what you're saying is, "Shomeone shtole the mod pointsh!" </bogart>
You brag now, but it's only a matter of time until the Saturnians figure out credit card fraud.
Thanks for that! That tag made me laugh for a good five minutes straight, and totally brightened an otherwise unremarkable evening.
Now let's look at it another way, and say I'm in a related business. Let's make me a writer, musician, or other professional independent artist, self-publishing my own work out of my basement for burger money. I'm slightly suspicious that all of you people are illegally trading my copyrighted work, and depriving me of my burgers. I want to investigate this. Can I have the underlying logs from all of your ISPs as well, or is the shitload of money a requirement?
That's bad, right?