Even if it is 100% caused by man I don't see what they expect us to do about it.
Simple, in the short term, save energy (remember to turn the lights off, insulate your house etc.) and recycle, this has the added benefits of saving you money and conserving land fill space. In the medium term, society needs to move from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources and build nuclear power plants; this also has added benefits - it lengthens the life of our limited supply of oil and creates jobs in new industries. In short, theses are things we should probably be doing whether man made climate change exists or not; the controversy around the subject is just dumb. Personally I don't know enough about the minutiae of climate change to engage in the scientific debate, but I know that the results of the people asking me to "do my bit" is I get more money in my pocket, and society moves on the results of the people who tell me "don't bother" is I get nothing and society stagnates.
I dont want to get stopped in the street on suspicions of owning an R4
(remembers when copyright was a civil matter)
supply - as far as I can tell possession is still legal although sale in the UK isn't. Of course, there's nothing stopping me importing from another EU country where they are still legal. Free movement of goods and all that.
we're heading to the uk and don't want to be arrested at the airport for possessing an R4i card.
I guess this also means nintendo wins as we'll have to replace the games when she loses them or they end up in the toiletry bag with the leaking shampoo.
In all likelihood, possession still isn't an offence, sale\purchase is - if you bought it in a jurisdiction where sale is legal customs have no reason to stop you unless they think you're going to sell it; besides which, customs have better things to do than confiscate a little girls R4; now including people who are importing hundreds (if not thousands) of R4s.
They won't ban BitTorrent for the same reason. The BBC article linked is particularly unhelpful as it takes that quote out of context. The full quote is "The mere fact that the device can be used for a non-infringing purpose is not a defence, provided one of the conditions in section 296ZD(1)(b) (considered below) is satisfied."
This is a very specific case to a very specific piece of law (Section 296ZD of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988) that covers dealings with some sort of product whose main purpose is to circumvent DRM. This is not directly copyright related. This is only about circumventing DRM.
BitTorrent does not circumvent DRM and so would not fall under this law. It might fall under the Digital Economy Act (Section 17) though, if that ever gets implemented.
Thanks for this; the judgement makes more sense in the light of this info. FWIW, I don't think that the DEA will end up being implemented, there's a lot of both public, commercial and parliamentary opposition to it (even if the MPs don't understand it, they don't like the way it was railroaded through the wash-up). The forthcoming judicial review will be interesting.
Actually, it's the umbrella term for a large number of English dialects; there are actually huge differences in the way I speak (as some one who lives on the South coast) to someone in London, let alone Geordie and Scots is usually held to be literally[sic] a different language.
I would add to your list the petition for judicial review, which BT and TalkTalk have brought jointly to the High Court.
When BT and TalkTalk announced that they were going for judicial review I emailed my (new, Tory) MP the following
...
could you please clarify the Government's stance on BT and TalkTalk's legal challenge to the Digital Economy act? http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/10542400.stm
I note that the statement from BIS in the BBC article just commented on the purpose of the act, not whether the government would actually be defending it. Indeed, given the wiggle room it leaves, it could have been written by Sir Humphrey Appleby himself. ...
In response I've got, on House of Commons headed notepaper dated 12th July 2010 a letter a copy of a letter from her to the Secretary of State.
We've not yet received a response; I don't think that the coalition government has actually decided what it'll do with the act; it knows there's a lot of public pressure, the lib-dems opposed it a lot of Tory back bencher's are\were unhappy with the way it went through in the wash up without proper scrutiny. I'm not 100% convinced that they'll even defend it at the judicial review. Indeed, Nick Clegg is on record as saying that it "badly needs repealing"
I suppose they imagine it will work rather like Sky subscriptions. Nobody needs Sky TV, and its value is questionable to say the least, but many people pay for it anyway. For them, it is worth it. For the rest of us... who cares? A fool and his money are soon parted.
Except Sky has entertainment and Sports that can't be found (legally) anywhere else. People pay for the football (soccer) and on Sky sports & new scifi\drama on Sky one that's "under a week after the USA". The Times has no unique selling point.
The Guardian have been mocking the Times/Murdoch over his business practices. A bit rich coming from a media company that lost something like £230 million last year...
The Grauniad does provide a nice contrast to the right wing tabloids but they're not above printing questionable articles to push an agenda.
BBC is still my top news site, only major news outlet I know of with a strong mandate designed to minimise bias.
The Guardian loses it's money on it's print edition - IIRC they made £40mn online ad revenue last year; that's enough to run an online only news site, but not enough to sustain the huge print & distribution costs of a print paper. IMO eventually they'll drop the print edition - 99% of Guardian readers have web access add an iPhone app and pay-for premium content (e.g no ads), and you've got a strong brand and workable business model. They may have the last laugh yet.
Someone will make "free" (i.e advertisement based) internet news work, just as someone (Google) made "free" internet search work.
It might even be a current player: I don't have a link to hand, but I read that the Guardian website made £40mn in online ad revenue last year - it's their print edition that makes a loss. Although it's not enough to cover huge physical distribution costs, £40mn is more than adequate to run a web only news organisation. IMO they might eventually just stop the print presses and go online only, even if they're forced to, just to save the business. After all, how many Guardian readers don't have web access?
He was lucky to get away with it - if that went to court, he'd probably lose.
Not true - You only need TV Licence if you watch or record TV as it's being broadcast; if you only use it to play XBOX\Wii or just to watch DVDs, then you don't need a licence. TV licensing FAQ:
Yes there is, it comes after "BB"
for all it's faults the BBC the BBC is neither government run, nor greed run, it sits somewhere in the middle and IMO is one of the best broadcasters in the world.
In the USA, you've also got a "C" - PBS is also neither government nor greed run; back here in the UK, channel 4 is publicly owned, but privately (advert) funded. I'm sure there are many more funding models for public service broadcasting. It's not as black and white as you make out.
Indeed; until I came to slashdot, I'd never head anyone call lego "legos", here in the UK we just make it it's own plural as with words like sheep or deer or fish. I think that "legos" is an American thing.
Rather than lose China, I'd comply with the government's wishes and obey the law (i.e. filter). Nice guys who "do no evil" ultimately finish last.
Is there a reason you posted the exact same thing twice? http://search.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1702180&cid=32730756 Normally I'd put it down to a/. bug, but the posts are an hour apart. It surely can't be anything to do with getting modded down to -1 the first time, could it?
It strikes me as ironic that more and more UK resembles the dystopian world of 1984 that described life in London itself.
The UK needs to get a constitution ASAP, so that it's citizens are protected from the state, or else this kind of action will get worst to the point of no return.
??? Because the government is reviewing it's own websites? Take that tin-foil hat off; there's no need for paranoia in this story - it's about getting rid of redundant government websites & reducing costs. Oh, and we have a constitution; it's just not codified in a single document: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_constitution
She was in support of each policy put forward while Rudd was in control, so I don’t see her having a change of heart any time soon.
Westminster systems have collective responsibility, so she may well have disagreed with the policy in private, even if she had to support them in public.
The fact that it is our first female PM is what makes it news.
Why? Because at least you got your first female head of state before the USA? Instead of years after dozens of other countries did? Including at least one Islamic country?
Australia's head of State is the Queen, not the PM; their PM is merely the head of government.
IIRC you mainly can have.22 rifles and very low capacity shotguns. If you are lucky I believe some can get permits for ancient bolt action rifles. On top of that you need ammo permits, and are forced to store the guns locked, broken down and apart from the ammo.
You appear to have a better knowledge of UK gun law than anyone I know who lives here. This should tell you something about the relevance of the gun in American culture compared to it's relevance to British culture.
I have a loaded.357 on my table, and a dozen loaded AK-47 magazines if I wanted to insert them into a rifle. I can buy a semi automatic belt fed.50 caliber if I had the money. Compared to an American, you are disarmed. You effectively can only use your guns for sport, and using them to protect your home, your family or yourself is pretty much impossible.
As I said, it's not the law that has us disarmed, it's our culture - even our police don't carry guns. If the law was changed so that we could have the same arms as you almost no one would buy them - proof is prior to the Dunblane massacre in 1996 the public could get their hands a far larger variety of weapons. Very few people bothered then; the gun is no more desirable now. Whenever I have this discussion with another Brit - advocating more permissive gun laws - I'm met with the same answer "what would you do with them?". The general population don't want the ability to own a wide variety of firearms and wouldn't know what to do with a gun if they were given one.
Slashdot Mirror
How are we being obstructive if we don't even want to participate.
Ever heard the phrase "Passive resistance" ?
Even if it is 100% caused by man I don't see what they expect us to do about it.
Simple, in the short term, save energy (remember to turn the lights off, insulate your house etc.) and recycle, this has the added benefits of saving you money and conserving land fill space. In the medium term, society needs to move from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources and build nuclear power plants; this also has added benefits - it lengthens the life of our limited supply of oil and creates jobs in new industries. In short, theses are things we should probably be doing whether man made climate change exists or not; the controversy around the subject is just dumb. Personally I don't know enough about the minutiae of climate change to engage in the scientific debate, but I know that the results of the people asking me to "do my bit" is I get more money in my pocket, and society moves on the results of the people who tell me "don't bother" is I get nothing and society stagnates.
I dont want to get stopped in the street on suspicions of owning an R4
(remembers when copyright was a civil matter)
supply - as far as I can tell possession is still legal although sale in the UK isn't. Of course, there's nothing stopping me importing from another EU country where they are still legal. Free movement of goods and all that.
we're heading to the uk and don't want to be arrested at the airport for possessing an R4i card. I guess this also means nintendo wins as we'll have to replace the games when she loses them or they end up in the toiletry bag with the leaking shampoo.
In all likelihood, possession still isn't an offence, sale\purchase is - if you bought it in a jurisdiction where sale is legal customs have no reason to stop you unless they think you're going to sell it; besides which, customs have better things to do than confiscate a little girls R4; now including people who are importing hundreds (if not thousands) of R4s.
They won't ban BitTorrent for the same reason. The BBC article linked is particularly unhelpful as it takes that quote out of context. The full quote is "The mere fact that the device can be used for a non-infringing purpose is not a defence, provided one of the conditions in section 296ZD(1)(b) (considered below) is satisfied."
This is a very specific case to a very specific piece of law (Section 296ZD of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988) that covers dealings with some sort of product whose main purpose is to circumvent DRM. This is not directly copyright related. This is only about circumventing DRM.
BitTorrent does not circumvent DRM and so would not fall under this law. It might fall under the Digital Economy Act (Section 17) though, if that ever gets implemented.
I strongly recommend that anyone who wants to know what actually happened read through the judgment, already available online here: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Ch/2010/1932.html
Thanks for this; the judgement makes more sense in the light of this info. FWIW, I don't think that the DEA will end up being implemented, there's a lot of both public, commercial and parliamentary opposition to it (even if the MPs don't understand it, they don't like the way it was railroaded through the wash-up). The forthcoming judicial review will be interesting.
Is that the form of English spoken in England?
Actually, it's the umbrella term for a large number of English dialects; there are actually huge differences in the way I speak (as some one who lives on the South coast) to someone in London, let alone Geordie and Scots is usually held to be literally[sic] a different language.
I would add to your list the petition for judicial review, which BT and TalkTalk have brought jointly to the High Court.
When BT and TalkTalk announced that they were going for judicial review I emailed my (new, Tory) MP the following
...
...
could you please clarify the Government's stance on BT and TalkTalk's legal challenge to the Digital Economy act? http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/10542400.stm I note that the statement from BIS in the BBC article just commented on the purpose of the act, not whether the government would actually be defending it. Indeed, given the wiggle room it leaves, it could have been written by Sir Humphrey Appleby himself.
In response I've got, on House of Commons headed notepaper dated 12th July 2010 a letter a copy of a letter from her to the Secretary of State.
We've not yet received a response; I don't think that the coalition government has actually decided what it'll do with the act; it knows there's a lot of public pressure, the lib-dems opposed it a lot of Tory back bencher's are\were unhappy with the way it went through in the wash up without proper scrutiny. I'm not 100% convinced that they'll even defend it at the judicial review. Indeed, Nick Clegg is on record as saying that it "badly needs repealing"
I suppose they imagine it will work rather like Sky subscriptions. Nobody needs Sky TV, and its value is questionable to say the least, but many people pay for it anyway. For them, it is worth it. For the rest of us... who cares? A fool and his money are soon parted.
Except Sky has entertainment and Sports that can't be found (legally) anywhere else. People pay for the football (soccer) and on Sky sports & new scifi\drama on Sky one that's "under a week after the USA". The Times has no unique selling point.
The Guardian have been mocking the Times/Murdoch over his business practices. A bit rich coming from a media company that lost something like £230 million last year... The Grauniad does provide a nice contrast to the right wing tabloids but they're not above printing questionable articles to push an agenda. BBC is still my top news site, only major news outlet I know of with a strong mandate designed to minimise bias.
The Guardian loses it's money on it's print edition - IIRC they made £40mn online ad revenue last year; that's enough to run an online only news site, but not enough to sustain the huge print & distribution costs of a print paper. IMO eventually they'll drop the print edition - 99% of Guardian readers have web access add an iPhone app and pay-for premium content (e.g no ads), and you've got a strong brand and workable business model. They may have the last laugh yet.
Someone will make "free" (i.e advertisement based) internet news work, just as someone (Google) made "free" internet search work.
It might even be a current player: I don't have a link to hand, but I read that the Guardian website made £40mn in online ad revenue last year - it's their print edition that makes a loss. Although it's not enough to cover huge physical distribution costs, £40mn is more than adequate to run a web only news organisation. IMO they might eventually just stop the print presses and go online only, even if they're forced to, just to save the business. After all, how many Guardian readers don't have web access?
use the html entity "& euro ;" (no spaces or quotes)
He was lucky to get away with it - if that went to court, he'd probably lose.
Not true - You only need TV Licence if you watch or record TV as it's being broadcast; if you only use it to play XBOX\Wii or just to watch DVDs, then you don't need a licence. TV licensing FAQ:
There isn't any 'C'.
Yes there is, it comes after "BB"
for all it's faults the BBC the BBC is neither government run, nor greed run, it sits somewhere in the middle and IMO is one of the best broadcasters in the world.
In the USA, you've also got a "C" - PBS is also neither government nor greed run; back here in the UK, channel 4 is publicly owned, but privately (advert) funded. I'm sure there are many more funding models for public service broadcasting. It's not as black and white as you make out.
The plural is Lego.
Indeed; until I came to slashdot, I'd never head anyone call lego "legos", here in the UK we just make it it's own plural as with words like sheep or deer or fish. I think that "legos" is an American thing.
He's favoring appearance over usefulness,
Have you heard of this thing called art? Because that's the purpose of the "repairs", not structural integrity.
Yep, we should all take up Esperanto.
90% manual, I mean
In the US, it's comparatively rare to see a car (except the very very cheap or the very exotic) that isn't an automatic transmission.
A quick google search suggests that 16 percent of cars in the US are sold with manual transmissions. I'm not convinced this is "comparatively rare."
I can't find stats, but here in the UK it's probably around 90% automatic if not more - 16% sounds comparatively rare to me.
We do it for the chicks.
Quite right; being able to legitimately claim the Karma Sutra as a religious text has it's uses...
Where the government can have cameras, but you can't.
RTFA again - We can; it's just that some cops (mostly MET ones, police are generally better idiotic outside London) don't like it.
Rather than lose China, I'd comply with the government's wishes and obey the law (i.e. filter). Nice guys who "do no evil" ultimately finish last.
Is there a reason you posted the exact same thing twice? http://search.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1702180&cid=32730756 Normally I'd put it down to a /. bug, but the posts are an hour apart. It surely can't be anything to do with getting modded down to -1 the first time, could it?
It strikes me as ironic that more and more UK resembles the dystopian world of 1984 that described life in London itself.
The UK needs to get a constitution ASAP, so that it's citizens are protected from the state, or else this kind of action will get worst to the point of no return.
??? Because the government is reviewing it's own websites? Take that tin-foil hat off; there's no need for paranoia in this story - it's about getting rid of redundant government websites & reducing costs. Oh, and we have a constitution; it's just not codified in a single document: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_constitution
She was in support of each policy put forward while Rudd was in control, so I don’t see her having a change of heart any time soon.
Westminster systems have collective responsibility, so she may well have disagreed with the policy in private, even if she had to support them in public.
The fact that it is our first female PM is what makes it news.
Why? Because at least you got your first female head of state before the USA? Instead of years after dozens of other countries did? Including at least one Islamic country?
Australia's head of State is the Queen, not the PM; their PM is merely the head of government.
IIRC you mainly can have .22 rifles and very low capacity shotguns. If you are lucky I believe some can get permits for ancient bolt action rifles. On top of that you need ammo permits, and are forced to store the guns locked, broken down and apart from the ammo.
You appear to have a better knowledge of UK gun law than anyone I know who lives here. This should tell you something about the relevance of the gun in American culture compared to it's relevance to British culture.
I have a loaded .357 on my table, and a dozen loaded AK-47 magazines if I wanted to insert them into a rifle. I can buy a semi automatic belt fed .50 caliber if I had the money. Compared to an American, you are disarmed. You effectively can only use your guns for sport, and using them to protect your home, your family or yourself is pretty much impossible.
As I said, it's not the law that has us disarmed, it's our culture - even our police don't carry guns. If the law was changed so that we could have the same arms as you almost no one would buy them - proof is prior to the Dunblane massacre in 1996 the public could get their hands a far larger variety of weapons. Very few people bothered then; the gun is no more desirable now. Whenever I have this discussion with another Brit - advocating more permissive gun laws - I'm met with the same answer "what would you do with them?". The general population don't want the ability to own a wide variety of firearms and wouldn't know what to do with a gun if they were given one.