Well, next step is to physically restrain and drug passengers as they take their seats - all in the interests of safety.
I wouldn't mind at all if they pumped me full of tranquilizers for the 25-35 hours flight from Australia. If not for the accompanied risks of DVT and the like, I'd very much prefer it!
With all due respect on the aisle thing, if I'm on a long-ish flight, fall asleep after eating whatever, and I have to pee badly enough, stand aside and let me use the lav, or I'll just piss in my paints in the aisle and let the cleaning crew on the ground deal with it...
I can understand where you're coming from but it's neither the fault of the flight attendants nor the cleaning crew that your country has such shitty regulations, but they're the only people who will suffer from your protest...
If it works, why not? Are you going to claim some kind of Bacon allergy?
Surely people on Slashdot won't dismiss a functional idea because it makes you laugh?
No, people are dismissing that "functional idea" because it's born out of the most disgusting type of xenophobia.
Let me fix that for you:
Satire of a political figure that we don't like is legitimate use of a domain.
What would happen if the domain in question was called "Obama: Fascist President" or some such? I mean, disregarding the obvious racism aspect for a moment.
My thinking wouldn't change (& thank you very much for you false assumption about me).
Of course I've changed my mind someone bothered to lookup auDA requirements for
I'm no fan of Stephen Conroy's Great Wall of Australia, but the owners of the site in question can't have any claim to legitimacy if they fraudulently use someone else's name to register it.
Normally I'd agree with you but a satire of a political figure is, imo, legitimate use of a domain.
Why is everyone referring to this as a copyright? It sounds more like the Vatican is protecting their trademark (the Pope).
I actually agree with their reasoning too -- they don't want people leveraging their symbols for politcal, social or economical reasons unless they really do have the support of the church. Sounds fair enough to me...
I have a laptop and I've only used my optical drive to load software. How do people normally get around that with netbooks that come without optical drives?
With a usb stick, a lot of spare time and a load of pain...
That was until I got sick of trying to transmute the Ubuntu ISO to a bootable USB stick and purchased a $40 external dvd-writer
Sounds like a typical college twit with a chip on their shoulder who saw nothing wrong with purposely baiting authorities. We only have her side so of course she wants to come off as clean and pristine, yet the items and such on her point to either someone incredibly stupid or someone intentionally trying to cause a scene.
The problem is, you don't cause scenes where people put their lives on the line every day. I don't care what stupid tripe you think you know or learned at home. The real world is a whole different place and it don't care what you think. In some areas of the world the last thing you want to do is bring notice to yourself. Check points are the last place in the world I would want to screw up.
I'm sorry but since when is written Arabic "purposely baiting authorities"? It's the most populous language of that region, has been for hundreds of years, and is still spoken by a large minority of Israel. Sure bigots like yourself might find that particular foreign language somehow offensive, but just having written Arabic doesn't mean you're doing anything wrong.
Furthermore, she just came from Egypt, at an Egypt border crossing nonetheless. I'd be surprised if she didn't have Arabic stamps in her passport & some kind of Arabic text somewhere on her person. The worst thing she had on her was some anti-war photos criticising Israel & yes, that could raise some flags. Of course I'm sure all terrorists go in to battle carrying photos condemning Israeli military action in Gaza -- they like to draw attention to themselves like that!
Evidence, please.
The empirical evidence from the current regime is that where a game is refused classification, the publisher will almost always make the necessary alterations (toning down certain amounts of gore etc) in order to achieve an MA15+ rating. The current system has thus been reasonably effective -- ensuring that games are made suitable for a 15+ audience, and given that anyone in the 15-18 category is unlikely to be prevented from accessing a title simply by its having a higher rating that is a defensible approach (by which I mean "there is an argument for it" not "it is the correct approach").
To respond to your specific comments -
Children in Australia are very easily able to afford to purchase computer games -- at current prices, a game is likely to be around one to two months' pocket money (not counting additional money from a part-time job, which many 15-18 year olds have).
Regarding BitTorrent, the speed with which a title can be downloaded (ie, the number of active downloaders) isn't actually relevant to availability. There's no part of classification law that says "it's better if you have to leave the download going overnight". The speed of the download isn't difficulty-to-obtain, it's just latency-to-obtain, and I doubt anyone would consider a few extra hours of waiting significant.
In reality, the vast majority of items made illegally available to minors are purchased from shops in defiance of 18+ ratings: cigarettes and alcohol. The number of 16 year-olds who can get a PS3 to play an illegally downloaded game, while large, is much fewer than the number who can get cigarettes illegally from the local store. From an evidence-based perspective, if you want to prevent illegal access by minors, it really is physical availability from shops that should be targeted.
Unfortunately you're spot on: The current system has stopped the most people I know obtaining the types of games that jerk Michael Atkinson doesn't approve of. In terms of his objectives, his policy is completely effective.
The problem is that it's also stopped me playing many games (Left 4 Dead 2 comes to mind -- There's no way I'm spending my money on a second rate version). Why should I, as an adult, be told what I can and cannot do with my free time?
Basically we have to decide:
a) Whether we believe the rating system works & if it doesn't, why we have it at all?
b) What makes games different than any other type of media, such as movies.
c) Whether we accept having our rights restricted for the sake of someone else's kids
(notwithstanding the fact that it's hardly proven that these games create social problems).
I hate to come off as a jerk but I couldn't give a rat's ass about nannying someone else's child. If parents don't want their children to have access to a game I'm playing then they can watch their own children. Furthermore, even if games are detrimental to children, the damage done by games is substantially less than by alcohol or cigarettes so comparisons between the two are mostly nonsense.
I would avoid making any ultimatums. The problem with ultimatums is that you have to follow through, and that puts the other party in charge of your actions.
It's not very often that I read something which, as simple and obvious as it may be, makes me feel wiser for having read it. Thank you.
And most matters should -not- be confidential. If we are going to waste our tax dollars on a court case all records kept from it should be public. Don't take it to court if it is confidential, otherwise we have press manipulating facts that should be public.
So the only alternative would be vigilante justice? How pragmatic of you!
Frankly, I find it amazing that Usenet is still on anyone's radar. Even the alt.binaries groups. It's been a long time since I've found an ISP that includes a free usenet server. The reliable ones are the ones that you have to pay for, and honestly, if you're going to pay to pirate things, you're probably doing it wrong.
Here in Australia most of the major ISPs provide a free Usenet account. My current ISP has a link straight to Giganews with 300+ days retention. TBH I'm surprised people still use torrents when Usenet is so much faster, easier and safer.
That's like saying it is ok for me to shit in my roommates bed because he hardly ever cleans.
hahaha insightful, informative and funny!
"Don't try to outweird me, three-eyes. I get stranger things than you free with my breakfast cereal." - Zaphod Beeblebrox in "Hithiker's Guide to the Galaxy"
