This law wouldn't affect the rich much... the wealthy boozer can pay someone else to drive him about. But what about all of the poor boozers? You want to make the poor walk to the pub?

S' not fair. It never is. What did you expect? Shut up and dance!

What is it about tweets and blog posts that makes the cops think they're true? If I tweet that I killed Princess Di will the Paris plod come crashing through my door?

Conversely, if I tweet that I'm not a serial killer, will that keep law enforcement off my back long enough for me to get rid of all the body parts in my freezer?

So do terrorists generally issue bomb warnings over Twitter? I don't think so; the police (in their saner moments) don't think so; and the judge in question probably doesn't even know what Twitter is.

This "cannabis is a gateway drug" crap really annoys me. Go look at somewhere that has decriminalized cannabis and you'll find that the majority of cannabis users have never used an illegal drug.

There is some truth in the fact that some people who use cannabis buy it from dealers who sell other stuff, which the customer might end up buying out of curiosity, because it's there. That adds more weight to the argument for decriminalizing/legalizing cannabis: then the customer would go to a proper shop or bar to buy his cannabis, and there wouldn't be any illegal drugs on offer there.

You clearly know nothing about drugs and should refrain from writing about the subject. In other words: STFU!

When "chip & pin" credit cards and debit cards were introduced in the UK, all the shops had to install machines so the customer can swipe his card through it then input his PIN. Soon after, criminals devised ways to grab card details and PINs from the machines, and use these details to make up forged cards. So you'd go to the local store to buy your cigarettes or washing powder, pay with your card, then a few days later your card would be maxed out by somebody somewhere else. A lot of people have had to go to a lot of trouble to prove that the details were stolen and the person hadn't used the card himself.

They have to plan their operation first. If you just blow yourself up to make a point, you're not considered a martyr, just an idiot. Killing himself is not the point of the "suicide bomber".

Damn! Trolled again!

People often say how cool it will be when all the boring jobs are automated and we can spend our time doing something more interesting. Unfortunately, we all need to eat, pay rent, etc. Until the money system is abandoned, Auomated Utopia is on hold.

Unless you refute the idea of "theft of service". His "victims" claim he cost them $1.4 million. How did they lose out? Because he sold bandwidth that they weren't even using at the time?

And this $1 million "restitution" he's supposed to pay. WTF? Sad world, people. Sad world.

In the last local authorities election in England, I voted for the local Pirate Party candidate. Unfortunately I was almost alone in doing so: he got just 16 votes IIRC. That's pretty much the party's own fault though: I saw *no* publicity for them, and I didn't even know a PP candidate was standing until I was in the voting booth and read the ballot paper. Idiots. Who's going to vote for someone who calls himself a pirate if they don't know what he stands for? He might be campaigning for the legalisation of piracy on the high seas or something... @FlorianMueller: on that blog page have you transposed the photo or is the flag-maker/bearer an idiot? I thought the PP's symbol was supposed to resemble a letter "p" (you know, cos "pirate" begins with a "p" and all that).

Of course there's a way to make meaningful estimates of losses. Just ask the copyright holder how much he thinks he deserves.

This method has been used very successfully by courts all round the world. Why mess with a thing of beauty?

I disagree. Wikileaks do vital work and all that, but what they do isn't journalism.

Oh come on! The GP obviously didn't bother reading the prize-winning articles, he just jumped in straight away with the defamation. Which is reasonable, I think - unless you're suggesting it is now all of a sudden necessary to have some justification for random denigration of others' success?

So now all would-be players should be advised to give false personal info and a throwaway gmail address when signing up to join the game. Which is a wise SOP anyway IMO.

I know that isn't an ideal solution. But it is a solution that allows for free gameplay without the risk of compromise. An alternative, and more sensible course of action is to avoid playing these games in the first place. But that's the killjoy's solution.

"Disappointing", yes. "Shocking"? Nah.