You're assuming that the art is solely the product of the sculptor but it's not. The piece is a collaboration between Scott and Van Hoeydonck. Without Scott to commission (in whatever sense), transport, and arrange the installation, then neither the sculpture or the the plaque (Van Hoeydonck's sense of artistic fulfillment notwithstanding) would have had a lot of significance.

If you want to get all classical greek about it, Van Hoeydonck, controlled the material and formal causes of the installation but Scott controlled the effective cause and, without Scott, there could not have been a teleological cause for the piece. So Scott definitely gets equal standing weighing in on "what it was meant for".

So he broke into a secure environment, serruptitiously obtained confidential and/or classified information, and used his take to successfully gain a competive advantage over his peers? And somehow this makes him unsuitable for employment at the NSA? If he'd just 'fessed up he'd be the first new guy to start his job with an employee of the month award.

Cochineal. That lovely red colour.

On a trip from Delhi to Agra in 2010, I saw so much scary driving. Entire families on the backs of motorbikes. A tractor popping wheelies cos the tow bar was grossly overloaded. Bus passengers jumping on and off the buses in the middle of the road, in traffic going 10-20mph. Another bus driving straight at us when we were on the inside lane of a dual carriageway.

Every car journey in India was like a roller-coaster squared worth of white knuckles.

My mistake - GP is right. Just as long as he never, ever accidentally clicks on the Listen Live button he'll be fine. But if he does it, even once, then a ravening horde of TV Licencing inspectors will descend on his demise and commit inventive mayhem on him and his housemates. And he'll be liable for the licence fee.

I don't know where you're hearing that from. I've gone round with a TV Licencing officer on his rounds through Watford and I've witnessed first-hand how they operate. He never entered a home without permission, he just asked politely and all but one person said yes (the one that said no actually threatened to punch our teeth out - pity we could see the TV tuned to BBC2 from the doorstep...) As far as I'm aware, about 50% of the visits resulted in no follow-up action due to compassionate reasons. The only ones that were referred for further action were people who could pay, but thought they should be allowed to get away with it.

i.e. people like you.

Reaction time is how long it takes you to process a stimulus and initiate a physical action in response - it's not how long it takes you to notice something. Joe Human's sitting there wondering wondering why he's letting this site steal the precious moments of his life away from him loading ads for stuff he doesn't care about. He might not have time to hit the Cancel control before the page finishes loading but he knows his time's been wasted.

I loved how Notes couldn't handle daylight savings (especially when a meeting request came from Outlook). Try explaining to your manager that you missed a meeting because the reminder was automagically set an hour late. God-awful POS.

Only the Crown can assert absolute ownership of the land in England (and the seabed of territorial waters). "Landowners" in England only own estates (the estate in fee simple and the estate in land) and have tenure on the land.

Of course, it'd really kick off if Liz Windsor sent her army round to clear the peasants off her nice patch of dirt (she is Commander-in-Chief of the British Armed Forces after all). Something tells me she can't be bothered with the hassle.

This seems like a poll from yesterdecade. I use all of OS X, Linux and Windows on a regular basis - often on the same computer at the same time. What is the task you are trying to accomplish? What is/are the best available tools to accomplish that task? Use them.

Seconded. I loved how well-realised it all was. Favourite thing was the progress bar for interplanetary video chat to let you know when you could expect a response.

...Developers aren't the only software engineers on the team. Everyone forgets the test analysts. Input from the test team can improve design for testability considerably, making everything from unit tests to migrations and BI much more straightforward. A lot of developers tend to see testing as a sleight on their prowess and completed documentation as a tedious imposition. I have a tendency to believe that developers with that attitude typically have no prowess worth mentioning.

Yes, I'm fully aware that my discipline is infested with scammers, charlatans, and the completely inept. But there are also good testers out there who know their way practically every type of system an enterprise will deploy.

Then make some movies of your own and release them to the world DRM-free. That's the FOSS way. RMS couldn't find an OS he could trust so he started working on his own. Linus came along and tied it all together and now we've got Linux. The point is they didn't just bitch about things they didn't like on message boards, they solved a problem they were having and made the world a better and wealthier place for it.

The content that's getting DRM protection - that's other people's stuff. What they do with their stuff is their business. There's nothing wrong with them asking for web standards (that no-one's forcing you to use) to implement their protection. It's also their problem if they implement a DRM solution that prevents them from selling content to you. That's sales they'll never make and an audience they'll never reach.

I think DRM is self-defeating - content companies will prevent more sales than they'll gain - but there's a world of content out there that's never been protected by DRM. You could spend your whole life being entertained and enthralled by it and never once wonder what the fuck is going on on Game of Thrones or Piranha 4DDD. Or maybe you could add to that trove of free wealth for humanity. You know, contribute on your terms. Just sayin'...