Re: Mam test
"We posts have been discriminated against for too long!"
eh?
5770 publicly visible posts • joined 29 May 2007
"They - contrary to some people's beliefs - are not absolute morons."
"They" might not be, as a collective, but a chain is only as strong as it's weakest link. It only takes one low level code monkey to slip up and all your eggs are on the floor, never to be stuffed back up the arse of a chicken.
The calculation of damages.
If one were referring to a single track, the absolute maximum amount that should be entertained by a court of law should be based (imho) on the following..
i) Maximum revenue generated by a single track for the artist, after deductions (X)
ii) Median of X based on number of tracks sold and revenue received (mX)
ii) Total number of cases of unlawful distribution (aka copyright infringement) (Y)
Therefore the maximum damages per party could be described as mX/Y
Obviously this is a simplification, but I can't see that coming to more than about £3.50 in this particular case. Hardly worth the expense of a court case is it?
The only way a guaranteed income could work (without de-motivating) is if the basic requirements for life are fixed in price, and the income matches the requirement for buying aforementioned basics.
Everything else, by definition, would be a luxury and you would have to actually do something in order to obtain it.
Deciding what is a requirement for life is also likely going to cause arguments.
For me, it would be something like, clean water, 2 portions of veg, 1 portion meat, some bread and butter, a warm dry place to sleep, basic clothes/shoes etc.
If I had all of the above without having to do anything for it, I could choose whether or not to contribute to society and my own bank balance in order to afford other things I might consider essential, but not necessary to life.
However, I do see a lot of people consider things like Sky TV to be an essential. I earn good money, but I've given up Sky because it's a money pit - but I see a sky dish* and wacking great flat-screen tv's in many living rooms of people who are supposedly poor.
*the dish is usually on the outside of the house of course, not inside the living room.
No system is perfect, but anything that could simplify the process and reduce the costs to taxpayers is a good thing, as long as the repercussions are thought through.
The phrase 'common-sense' needs to be renamed in the modern era, since it seems to be increasingly rare and unfashionable.
Which is why I invested in two gamepads when they came out.
Since they had carbon pads for connections, you could rub back and forth over the top with the end of a hairbrush to completely max out the speed bar,
Although pausing to throw a fucking javelin was a much harder prospect :)
That's a good point - if they already had the password (just not used it) then how can they convict him of not giving it to them?
Plotting to blow up the TA deserves jail-time, but let's make it based on something that doesn't call into question the relationship between the police and the people.
I've never played twitter. I heard a review from my wife once and she said it was mostly people telling the world that they'd had a shit and that it stank, and then loads of other people would come on and say 'me too - and mine was full of peanuts'.
I'm not sure I get the point, but these are apparently the same people that used to take the piss out of me for playing computer games such as Elite, or LCP (tough MF who went green and took ages to die!).
Life is a funny old place.
The powers that be either don't know, care or were ever aware that the internet was designed with the concept of being able to route around problems built in to it, and everyone who makes it what it is also has that mindset.
The internet elevated whack-a-mole to intergalactic proportions it seems, and stole Barbara Striesands knickers at the same time.
Hmm, checklist required...
1. Interplanetary craft capable of travelling vast distances and sustaining life in the process
Check.
2. Desire to visit new worlds, conquer and pillage to hearts content
Check
3. Vastly superior technology base than the target species
Check
4. Inability to understand that non-homeworld fauna could be inimical to our species
Check
Yep, looks like we're ok.
I've been looking at building a htpc with freeview and it's gets pretty awkward once you start juggling with being able to add a hdd for timeshifting/recording etc.
I priced up a decent spec box, using a fanless case, 4Tb hdd, dual freeview hd mPCIe etc. and it came back at around £900,
This can come down by about £300 if I scrimp and save in certain areas, but that's still a lot of money. I've decided to stick with my NAS for now and ordered a dual usb freeview tuner for an old laptop and stuck OpenOLEC on it - I will need to up the internal hdd from 80Gb to something useable, say a 1Tb, and I've got pretty much the same functionality for about £80 extra.
Coming from one who left BT because of Phorm, I'd be surprised if this was down to Bruce's comments.
Bruce has always taken a pragmatic approach to comments that involve BT, everyone knows he was working for them and had to toe the line up to a point - but, BUT - he would always make a personal comment about this stuff in general and you could usually take what he says to the bank.
I have no idea what kind of NDA he might still be under after leaving BT, but I am *really* looking forward to hearing from him.
If you're reading this Bruce, have a great Christmas, and get busy writing!! (Any old pseudonym will do!)
"Alistair Dabbs is a freelance technology tart, juggling IT journalism, editorial training and digital publishing. He wonders whether gravity – not the Sandra Bullock film, the big mass planety attracty thing – could be the future of free power generation"
If there is any possibility of sending mass upwards on a laser after reducing its' mass temporarily (not sure if it's actually possible, but I can imagine it so it might be) you could then let it drop and run the dynamo.
Rinse and repeat as long as the energy in vs. out match up.
Is it possible that there is some middle ground?
I've always been a firm believer in the fact that our local star contributed pretty much 100% of our heat, but I'm also concerned that the increased amount of Co2 etc. could magnify it's effect?
A reduction in the sun-cycle would then correspond with a leveling off of heat increase, but when the cycle switches back up a gear we could be heading for trouble?
It's hard to get straight info on this, it's like JFK. Information about the security service guy possibly accidentally making the final headshot that killed him is widely known (backed up by the secret service falsifying evidence and losing the rest) - but movies still get made that only mention Oswald.
Facts are easy to come by, working out how they are linked is manipulated to hell and it's hard to work it out for yourself if you aren't a scientist.
Hey Jake, how do you know there was nicotine in the vapour?
When I used one to give up (13 years ago now) I ended up making my own refills from glycerol because the cartridges were so damned expensive (even the ones without nicotine).
I don't think I was mixing it right either coz I got a couple of wicked headaches from it - it was all a bit trial and error back then.
" ..someone will realise that blocking freetards access simply makes the freetard more determined to find pirateble material."
I think the end result will be people just not bothering full stop.
I know I don't buy anywhere near as much these days, and I download almost nothing. Once upon a time I bought around 5 DVD's a month on average, and because I was interested in stuff I would download some stuff that was hard to find.
The correlation (for me at least) is fairly direct. Piss me off, I download less, but I also buy less. Disenfranchised I think they call it. Saving a shed load of money is what I call it.
I may be a bit out of touch, but wouldn't it be cheaper for the miners to invest in multiplexing cheaper rigs together to number crunch?
Didn't someone mananage to do this with a bunch of PS3's a while back? Admittedly it would be more costly power-wise, but you could probably more than offset the cost with the increased processing ability.
I'm prepared for a rapid re-assessment of my knowledge (just don't shoot me in the face)