It doesn't have to be called a constitution nor have "constitution" written at the top in big letters in order to be a constitution.

Correct. But a constitution does have to provide a foundation for the law of the land. A whole bunch of disparate court rulings and royal edicts do not meet the definition. There is no legal definition or agreement for what is or is not part of the UK constitution. These components of the "constitution" can be easily overridden.

You are arguing that the amorphous legal traditions of the UK are its constitution. This is silly. You might as well argue that English common law is a "constitution" as well. It's equally as silly.

Of course, arguing definitional semantics is pretty silly in and of itself... :)

A constitution is the foundation that provides the law of the land.

Protip: If not everybody agrees which documents are and which documents are not part of the constitution, your country doesn't have one.

What a silly comment you've made. The UK has no constitution. The Wikipedia article you link points out that the power vacuum created by the lack of a constitution is partially filled by various court rulings and decrees put in place by the ruling body.

You might as well argue that a blind man has "sight" because he has memorized the layout of his house. This semantic argument doesn't change the fact that he'll be bumbling around for a while if you rearrange the furniture.

And neither does your argument change the fact that without a constitution, UK citizens' individual rights and freedoms are worse for wear.

You're kidding, right? Paypal didn't send a mass e-mail to all its users saying "Dear Customers, We're jacking up our fees!". Instead, they sent out a mass mail that said "Dear Customers, We updated our Terms of Service. By doing nothing, you agree that you accept the changes."

Take a look at Paypal's legal page. The Paypal "Terms of Service" are actually 14 different agreements, all written in legalese, all saying that they can be changed at any time for any reason by Paypal. All together, the agreements add up 4000 lines, give or take. Not every user is subject to every agreement (some are for specific services), but many are.

So can you really say with a straight face that you believe it is reasonable to expect Paypal users to reread 4000 lines of legalese every time Paypal announces that they've made some change to the agreement? It's not like they're providing diffs. They do not want their customers to understand these agreements or how they have changed because they are dishonest. That's the crux of the issue - Paypal is acting in bad faith to screw their own customers and hiding behind legalese when called out on it.

They could allow installing on any number of machines, but disallow more than one copy from connecting to Battle.net at once.

Sure, they could do that, but they won't. I personally guarantee you that they will have an arbitrarily small number of installs allowed per game copy. It's too attractive an option for game publishers not to pursue. Just wait for it.

It's a little premature to assume Blizzard will be using Microsoft-level DRM tactics on SC2.

I disagree. First, "Blizzard", the company that gives us all warm tinglies because we loved their early games so much no longer exists. We're talking about Activision, who is no stranger to this kind of nonsense. The WoW Glider and bnetd incidents taught us all we need to know about Activision's feelings about control. They want it for themselves and they don't want users to have it.

Sounds like someone is bitter about not having much choice in their life. You probably don't have any hobbies, either, since your employer wouldn't approve. Have fun tilling the land for your lord. The rest of us will be making real money for ourselves, out-competing your boss because of productivity gains from using decent tools, as opposed to whatever tools your boss thinks are the cheapest to teach monkeys to use.

Enjoy your job. Maybe if you're a good, your employer will give you a 1% raise next year? As long as it doesn't cut into executive bonuses, that is.

It goes without saying, though, that this "phone home" feature will be used to enforce an inevitable lifetime install limit. It also goes without saying that this limit will be arbitrarily small.

What I find more troubling, however, is that this DRM is a vehicle to violate the privacy of the user and otherwise subvert the operation of the computer it is running on against the interests of its owner. I have no interest in joining Blizzard's organization (Battle.net) or being subjected to its terms of service, which Blizzard considers legally binding and may change at any time. I have no interests in my personal information being stored indefinitely in Blizzard's marketing database - ready to be sold to the highest bidder, should the company ever become desperate enough for the cash.

If I play this game, it will be a pirated and cracked version that does not have these defects.

It's not like the PS3 has an exclusive I particularly want anyway.

Wipeout HD? Despite the advertising controversy, it is, IMHO, the best racing game of this console generation.

I agree that Chrome and Firefox will support anything they can legally, but I do not think that Safari will implement Theora. Here's my rationale:

Right now, Apple sees Google as a threat, as evidenced by the recent hostility Apple is showing toward Google. Specifically, Apple's blocking of Google Voice and Lattitude on the iPhone. They are "partners" in name only.

This is because the smart people at Apple realize that Google's philosophy of inexpensive lowest bidder open platforms is the antithesis of Apple's closed, locked down, and tightly controlled vision for the future. Internally, Apple attributes their closed platform philosophy for their current successes. They realize also that trouble for Google is good for Apple.

The backdrop for all this is the entire telecommunications industry on the verge of a paradigm shift. A growing number of people are foregoing landlines for owning cell phones only. Cell phones themselves have become ubiquitous. Cell phone lag, audio compression artifacts, and frequent drop outs have reduced the phone service expectations of the general public to a point that modern voice over IP, with a modern internet connection is a valid competitor in the phone service arena.

Today's smart phones are basically VOIP clients on a proprietary, closed network (the phone carrier's network), with access to a larger, also closed, network (the international telephone system). Carriers profit tremendously from the closed nature of the network. Byte for byte, a data feed to the moon is cheaper than the text messages on most phone carrier networks. Apple also profits from this closed arrangement via its iPhone exclusivity deal with AT&T, who pays them handsomely for the privilege.

Google aims to open the phone network by implementing its functionality using open Internet based protocols. Google Talk will replace SMS messages and traditional phone calls. Other Google services will be tied in for a richer communications experience than what the telephone networks can provide on their own. Eventually, any phone with Internet connectivity will be able to use Google's services. Once this happens, the phone networks will be mere data providers for an open network, instead of gatekeepers of a closed network. This will drive down prices, telco profits, and the cost of accessing Google's services. Apple will have lost a source of revenue, as networks will not be able to afford to pay them for exclusivity.

Apple pays lip service to open source philosophies when it benefits them, but have no intentions to further these philosophies or their influence. By this, I mean that they love being able to use the work of others, and will contribute back to open source projects they've used (BSD, KHTML, etc.), but it will be a cold day in hell before we ever see an open source version of iTunes because they do not believe in the ideology. Apple is committed internally to the closed platform vision of the future, where they are the sole gatekeeper. Open formats and standards are a threat to the dominance of the gatekeeper model that Apple is committed to. This is also why we'll never see official support for FLAC, Ogg, Theora, Matroska, or any other open codec in iTunes, Safari, or iPhoneOS.

Why do these OpenDNS posts keep getting modded up? OpenDNS utilizes the very practices this article bemoans! If you query a domain that does not exist, your browser is redirected to OpenDNS's ad-laden spam site.

Despite their claims to the contrary, OpenDNS's servers are likely farther away from you than your local ISP's. They also keep permanent logs of all queries, which could be subpoenaed by a government entity. Their joke of a privacy policy allows them to sell your logs to "Affiliated Businesses", which pretty much means anybody. Not that it really matters - they could amend their privacy policy tomorrow morning and be selling your info by the afternoon.

I think many people read the "Open" part of the OpenDNS name and turn their brains off.

I fail to see how the context changes, in any way, the implications of her statement. Here's my translation:

I disagree with the commonly held notion that a wise man and wise woman will reach the same conclusion when presented with the same facts. Instead, I think that a Latina woman will reach a "better" conclusion.

As evidence of my claim, just look at these well respected white male judges who in the past ruled against gender and race equality.

That being said, I really, really try hard not to let my background negatively influence my decisions, unlike those other judges I mentioned.

Your post is worded as if it is self-evident that her statements are not racist. From my reading, even with context, this is totally racist. She implies that Latina women render better verdicts than white men. How is that not racist?

Please break down her argument if you disagree.

I know this will hard for you US'ians to accept but it's a proper role for Government to regulate what you can eat when your obesity rates are driving up the cost of medicine.

Yes, you're right. The government should not allow its property to do anything dangerous. After all, that might drive up the cost of medicine.

Let's ban fatty foods, soft drinks, alcohol, driving, boating, motorcycling, sky diving, marathon running, and playing music too loud. What's that, random special interest group? You're experiencing censorship envy? Ok, we'll ban computer monitors, too, since they cause eye strain. Anyone else need anything banned?

You are just being silly, right? Ubuntu 8.10 has had 5 kernel security updates in the 6 months since its release. Each one requires a reboot to be activated. Keeping a Linux installation secure requires frequent reboots.

I prefer running Linux instead of other operating systems, but I find it disheartening to read silly statements like this. Let Linux stand on its own merits; there is no need to lie on its behalf.

Here's that list in case you're curious:
http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/usn-751-1
http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/usn-715-1
http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/usn-679-1
http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/usn-662-1
http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/usn-661-1

"Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." - Winston Churchill

You cannot purchase whole albums on Amazon if you run Linux, only individual tracks. As a result, Linux users must pay extra, both in money, and in the amount of time it takes to individually purchase and download each track.