Got it, so I'm safe working for Dropbox as long as they don't store any copyright protected motion pictures on their system - ie I'm not safe working for them.

If you become rather aware of it (like that guy) and that they're not doing anything much about it (like megaupload) and you then continue to work for them (like that guy) - you're right, you wouldn't be safe working for them. Up until that point, though, I'm not sure what they'd have on you.

Proactive facilitation of copyright infringement? Does that mean that when you sign up for an account with them they go ahead and load copyrighted material on it before you even get a chance to do it yourself?

It means that they encouraged people to upload copyrighted material (to which they had not acquired the appropriate licenses for distribution etc.etc.) and even did so themselves (iirc).

Or does it just mean that they comply with the DMCA and take stuff down when they're asked to?

As far as I know, both (MegaUpload and Dropbox) comply with DMCA requests. One was just a little more 'meh' about it than the other.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...

I didn't realize that the court and/or the programmer read the minds of the people behind MegaUpload. That's utterly fascinating - please, do tell me more about this aspect of the legal process.

Nomm further admitted that, through his work as a computer programmer, he was aware that copyright-infringing content was stored on the websites, including copyright protected motion pictures and television programs, some of which contained the âoeFBI Anti-Piracyâ warning. [...] Despite his knowledge in this regard, Nomm continued to participate in the Mega Conspiracy.

Aw, turns out he didn't need to read minds after all.

Besides, remember that thing where some Dropbox user couldn't share something publicly because it was flagged by Dropbox's DMCA filters?
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/...

Weird. Seems like Dropbox is even taking a proactive stance to prevent the very thing that MegaUpload proactively facilitated.

I feel like this keeps coming back up, though - along with "TPB and Google are functionally equivalent!". Maybe just read previous arguments:
http://hardware.slashdot.org/s...

So, uh, guess I shouldn't get a drop working for Dropbox or Google, right? You do realize they let people share arbitrary files for download by anybody on the internet.

Yes, but he wasn't arguing that letting people share arbitrary files for download was a problem.

What he said was:

A) That the purpose (or at least one purpose of the site) was to aid copyright infringement (or other illegal thing)

So you'd have to argue that at least one purpose of Dropbox and/or Google Drive is to aid copyright infringement.

Now here's the difficult bit. 'purpose'. The courts have established (uhhh... I think they have anyway, the MegaUpload case is a clusterf*ck) that piracy was one of the purposes of MegaUpload. I don't think anybody has established that one of the purposes of DropBox is piracy. It's one of its uses - in that some people use it for that - but not a purpose.

I don't think I have any DVDs that have that feature - but last time I saw it demonstrated, there was no feedback for the various angles in the current view. Couple that with the delay before it would start showing that angle, and it was just not very impressive.

The YouTube demo seems a lot better (minor skipping aside) because it puts the various views on the screen so you can see what's happening on other views, and decide to change the view if you so desire.

I also think the subject matter works for this - concerts, maybe sports events, etc. I have no idea how this would play out for narrative media like a full length film. Why would I event want to watch an angle in which a punch can be clearly seen to miss, when the director-chosen angle looks somewhat convincing as long as I don't look too closely or start frame-by-framing the thing.

Sorry, device charging doesn't work that way. If it did, you'd just hook your mobile device up directly to your car battery and have it charged in minutes.

The device itself determines how fast it gets charged by drawing a certain amount of current. Based on passive or active measures, it might draw more current (say, 2A max) from e.g. a wall charger than from a computer USB port (say 500mA max), but if you decided to just wire two wall chargers together, the device isn't magically going to draw 4A.

As for your Kindle, depending on the model you have (Kindle Paperwhite or Kindle Fire? big difference), it really should charge in just a few hours to the point where it decides it's charged (based on LiPo voltage levels). Sounds to me like the internal battery in your unit may be worn and either the charge controller is dropping charging current way too early, or the battery's voltage level takes too long to reach the 'charged' state during the voltage phase. If it's within its warranty period, try exchanging it.

Of course the other possibility is that your nights are very short :)

When things hit the fan, at least it will be relatively easy to clean out.

Kudos to them for making the fan semi-easily accessible. You have to remove the entire back panel - but that seems to apply for access to HDD and RAM as well anyway. Hopefully it tilts and slides right away from the fins as well and you don't have to unscrew and lift those off (potentially putting stress on the CPU/GPU).

( Also yay for keeping the speakers away from the top / not using a fine mesh grille that just gets gunked up with dust. )

I'm more partial to Tabs Outliner. It's also a separate window, but it's modeless so it just lives to the left of my browser window.

It's still an ugly work-around, but when stuck with Chrome it's better than nothing.

Seems it's easypeasy for Canucks. I wonder, how easy would it be for you to open a French bank/cc account in order to sign up for Netflix France (under my suggestion of tying the service to the billing address)?

If they're on holiday somewhere they should get the content for where they are

Why?

As I said in the above response, I'd suppose it depends on the actual agreements made with their content partners. Do you have a different argument that makes the case for content having to be tied to physical location, rather than subscription paid for?

How did that process compare to using one of the technological solutions to get around Netflix's IP geolocation?

And then a subscriber goes on holiday with their tablet, and are getting the incorrect content, and breaking licencing agreements

I guess that would depend on the agreement - but if content gets tied to the billing address, they would actually be getting the correct content, no matter where they're on holiday.

Or a pool of people from different countries pay for an account each, and share the details.

Sharing accounts is already against the terms. I don't know if Netflix bothers to police that, though.

Or someone pays for an account on behalf of someone else in a different country...

In that case, under my suggestion, there really wouldn't be a problem - as long as said 'someone' doesn't also use that account.
Of course it would be a bit peculiar if said 'someone' ends up paying for 20 accounts from the same billing address. But that should be a lot easier to deal with than the ip geolocation cat/mouse game.

Change the card's billing address to that address

Have you tried? Which mailbox/scanning service did you use?

People willing to go through ridiculous hoops and pay extra money in order to view content they are paying for are pirates?

Arguments over copyright infringement 'pirates' vs somali thug pirates aside: Yes.

The problem with your question is in the "in order to view content they are paying for" part. They're not paying for that content. They're paying for the content in the country in which they got the subscription. I.e. if you're a Netflix U.K. subscriber, you're paying for content A, B, and C - not for D, and E. If you're a Netflix U.S. subscriber, you're paying for content A, B, D, and E, but not C.
Sure, the U.S. subscriber is probably paying less and getting more content - but that doesn't somehow mean that the U.K. subscriber is 'entitled' to content D and E as well, any more than that the U.S. subscriber is entitled to content B.

If you opened a Netflix U.S. account, traveled to Ireland, and then had to pay for a VPN or whatever in order to get the Netflix U.S. content that you indeed paid for, rather than Netflix Ireland content based on your IP address at that time, then I'd have a hard time suggesting that to be 'piracy' as well. Then again, see other comment on using the address used for payment to solve this particular scenario.

It might always be a cat and mouse game - but there's a relatively simple way to make it a lot harder for the mice; tie content to the address used for payments, rather than tying it to IP geolocation.

DNS trickery, proxies, VPN, etc. are all very easy to set up, technologically. Try opening a U.S. bank account tied to a U.S. address as somebody who is not a U.S. resident. Good luck.
Even if you manage to do so - at least you're now 'stuck' with the U.S. library. No vast French movie library for French subscribers, Belgian TV series for Belgian subscribers, etc. Admittedly, that may have been the primary goal for subscribers all along, but it's worth noting that there's no more library-hopping either which way.

o/t re: pink - hasn't it been pink for a very, very long time?

his workplace was harassed until he was fired:

This is an increasingly common tactic used by people who disagree with other people.

You're a racist? Let's get you fired:
http://gettingracistsfired.com...

You're a scumbag who doesn't deliver on a kickstarter? Let's bother your parents:
https://www.kickstarter.com/pr...

Sure, this isn't new - the latter is just an extension of small-town "you come around here doing that again and I'll be talking to your mama". But the motive and intent are different. It's not about the parents being the authority figure instilling some sense into the kid, but about harassing the parents so that they, too, will blame the 'kid' for woes.

In the former case, it hinges on when things you say are personal, and when they are things you say as a representative of a company.
Post on company blog - company.
Post on facebook with place of employ listed - apparently, company.
Post on twitter with no place of employ listed but people find out through your name and location anyway - according to that blog, company.
Post on a random forum under a pseudonym but given enough searching around have your place of employ found - if you're thinking this should be personal, you're disagreeing with that site.

Increasingly, "what you do in your personal time is your own business" no longer flies, because whatever you do in your personal time can - thanks to the pressure power of social media - very much become your employer's business... even if they have no issue with you personally, but get negative attention for employing you.

Any outside activity must not interfere with your ability to properly perform your job duties

- From one employee manual, in context about outside employment but easily interpreted to also apply to these cases.