It's a worrying facet of law in the US, that it doesn't in general recognise territorial limits to its jurisdiction** (and that when the matter has been challenged in court, extraterritorial application of law has found to be perfectly legal). Whether a law is limited is down to a case-by-case examination. So - do anything, anywhere in the world, that's illegal in US criminal law, and the US will, in principle, charge you with it if it gets its hands on you - and will, and has on many occasions, do whatever it can "legally" get away with to get hold of "criminals" in order to bring them to trial (where "legally" is conveniently defined by the US, rather than some tin-pot, third-world country of no consequence, such as, say, China or Russia). Doesn't matter if what you did was perfectly legal in the country in question; US law doesn't care. Which comes down far too often of late to a US "might is right" approach - the US will do whatever it feels it can get away with. But then, no-one needed me to tell them that.

**Read, for example, the following Congressional research document: "Extraterritorial Application of American Criminal Law".

Oh, and spending too much time on line, reading slashDot, playing MMOs and generally chilling.

Two and a half years retired, and it's great. My employer wanted to change my pension plan in ways that would have made me work years longer just to get my money back; I had to retire 6 years earlier than I planned. The money I lost out on by having to go early would have been useful, but I manage OK on what I have, and the lack of stress is wonderful. I potter around keeping physically and mentally active doing what takes my fancy (worthy or frivolous stuff, such as improving my juggling, learning languages and getting to grips with T'ai Chi competition sword form), and generally not giving a toss for what anyone else thinks. I'm healthier and fitter than I was in decades, as well - stopped drinking, got more on top of my diet, and dropped 50 pounds on my work weight. Although like lots of other retirees I know - I have NO idea how I ever found time for work. I'm still FAR too busy now, doing nothing much in particular. It's a hard life.

You missed out the RM "Leave it on the doorstep in plain sight of passers-by, rather than spend 30 seconds finding out whether anyone's in" delivery option. Round here we get that one all the time.

Well, yes. So what? That 's how language changes and grows. By well-educated 17th century standards, your "correct" English is appallingly bad. Presumably you'll go change the whole way you speak, now that I've pointed that out?

Because you really need your kid to spend his or her critical years getting bad education and lousy social interactions at a failing dump while YOU fight to make it better.

Part of the court's job (here in the UK, at least, and undoubtedly therefore in NZ as well) is to decide what the legislators intended when they drew up the instrument in question - not just what the words can be argued to say. So here we have, on the one hand, a clear, unambiguous and unqualified statement that computer programs are NOT patentable, and on the other a very literal reading of part of the detailed wording that would mean that almost all programs WERE patentable (i.e. not excluded by virtue, of having already been previously implemented wholly in hardware**.

I know where my money is. This act bans software patents. Don't go betting the farm on any weasel arguments to the contrary.

**Whatever, indeed, THAT means in legal terms, given that a good argument could be made that even the cards controlling a Jacquard loom are "software".

I have to take issue with the article. It may make for a good Slashdot headline to say "Galileo wrong", but it's factually inaccurate. In the core of the argument, Galileo was 100% correct, and Colombe was 100% wrong.

Almost always, when trying to explain why something in the real world happens, there are multiple effects involved, and prising them apart is not always easy at first. When it comes to whether something something floats or not, that's overwhelmingly about density, not shape. Colombe's demonstration with his ebony sliver was, as the report effectively points out, actually a demonstration that there is another effect at the surface of water (surface tension) that is normally miniscule but which can become significant in extreme cases (when the mass per unit area on the surface is sufficiently low). Colombe's massive (if you'll pardon the unintended pun) error was to take one small experiment as evidence for all cases, and conclude not only that shape can have a role but that it is all that matters. Galileo, by contrast was correct in following Archimedes as the primary effect and saying that something else was going on in Colombe's demonstration. His auxiliary hypothesis may have been incorrect, but it wasn't a bad stab on the spur of the moment, and his gut feeling and faith in his understanding of the fundamentals was correct.

Whilst the ability of American circuit courts to come up with decisions contrary to obvious and established law never ceases to amaze me, you have things back to front. Except where the intent to do something is itself explicitly an offence (intent to kill, for example), it's NOT normally an offence to simply be aware that you MAY be doing something illegal. The overriding issue is whether an offence actually took place - and that's purely a question of law. Prenda had authority to make the file available, and they made it available with the (undeniable) intent that it be shared. Further, they actively assisted in that sharing. A court might find otherwise - but, in my book at least, that's permission.

I would very much like to see it tried in court. Over here in the UK, I believe that Prenda's position is unsustainable. If they claim that putting the files up conveyed no implicit permission to download them, then their behaviour could well be judged to amount to "entrapment", which is a serious criminal offence in its own right (deliberately setting out to entice people who might otherwise not do so to commit an offence, with the intent of then prosecuting them for it). And if by contrast permission was indeed implicit (and it's not easy to see why a court would find otherwise if Prenda deny entrapment), no offence took place. And, yes, I know courts sometimes hand down contrary decisions based on, or even conflicting with, precedent (and non-legal "logic"). IANAL, but I do take an interest in the law and read quite a bit.

"Partner" has been the term of choice for a good couple of decades in the UK for a significant other to whom one is not married. It doesn't normally require clarification over here, and it seems unsurprising that Glenn Greenwald chose to use it; I presume it's simply the normal way in which he refers to David Miranda.

In my experience, signing up to something in the intent of cancelling at some point in the future is far more trouble than it's worth. I'm with the OP on this. Time-shifting has, historically, been my primary reason for downloading torrents of stuff that's been aired. Demonoid (excellent and much lamented) was brilliant for that.

Yeesss... you'll still have it provided you buy hardbacks. Far too many paperbacks made since about 1960 have been printed on paper high in acidity, resulting in the glue failing after a few years.

I still have many, many books I've bought over the years. Sadly, far too many of my favourites are pretty much just loose piles of paper now. But I agree with your general point; I don't entirely trust my ebooks to still be available, with confidence, in even 5 years, let alone in 20. And for books I expect to keep and reread, I'd rather have hard-copy.

"computer system design services and the modification, integration, enhancement, installation or configuration of standardized software".

"No problem; we only did one of those, not both..."

Indeed. I don't want anyone collecting anything about what I do or don't decide to look at, and I certainly don't want them then going further by analysing it, sharing it and generally helping people I don't know and don't want to know to "tailor" my experience - however well-meaning the intent. When I'm on the net, I'm there because I want to be, for my reasons - not for the convenience of anyone else. Get off my lawn, Mozilla - stay out of my computer experience, and let me decide what I want to see, and when.