Additionally, if I think that *AA studies vastly overstate the effects of 'piracy' or that the awards given by some lawsuits are excessive and well beyond the damage done, it doesn't mean that I condone infringement.

I do... or rather, I don't recognize the concept of infringement. Copyright is *For Limited Times*, a balance between my interests and the interest of the creators. What we've got isn't balanced and isn't limited, and I haven't signed on to it. I could still be robbed or imprisoned if I'm caught violating it, but it doesn't merit the respect or deference a *law* does, merely the wary acknowledgement that a tool of your enemies can harm you.

If you don't like that, go come up with some real laws instead of jawing about "theft". I was guaranteed created works would enter the public domain -- what we have is theft from *me*.

(I suppose that in a country with sensible copyrights what this guy did was pretty douchey. But that isn't here.)

Quite easily. All you need is one simple change -- decouple enforcement from revenue.

If I get a ticket because some worthless hamlet dropped the speed limit 10mph to rake in the dough? That's... that's just not acceptable. If I get a ticket because the officer feels that writing me a ticket is the best possible use of his limited time, that's sort of a different story, now innit? And if that municipality is running the cameras as an expense, I'd be more inclined to think that maybe the cameras are doing something useful if they feel that strongly about it.

I'd have a lot more respect for local governments if they just burned whatever fines they collected. Don't turn it over to the state or federal level, that still puts you in quota-land. Just erase it.

(Some people would say that this would mean higher taxes. This is of course incorrect; you would simple pay more money when your taxes are due and less money at all the other times cash is extracted from you for the municipality's profit.)

I might, actually. It's not the sort of thing I'd notice -- one or two feeds dropping one or two entries isn't something I could detect -- but I've had trouble with Pipes not giving new data before, especially while I was developing my filters.

Well, I just use Google Reader, and Yahoo Pipes to massage the feed a little. Google Reader can't really filter the way I'd like -- Pipes is a really innovative interface.

Oh, never mind. Huh.

I'll leave the filter up anyways.

If it started with "Roland Whatshisface writes" I missed it for a very good reason. I don't suppose you've got a link to that article handy?

I use a Yahoo Pipe to filter the Slashdot RSS feed -- Idle and the amazing Roland are stripped. If I'm reading this, it wasn't in Idle.

I can't really complain if I clicked on the link and posted a comment... that said, I want this Cracked list off my lawn.

... of doing a goddamn crossword again. My *shortcuts* have shortcuts to Google. How the hell am I supposed to resist the sum total of all human knowledge when I'm stuck with "42D: 1972 Red Sox shortstop (8 letters)" and all I've got is a tentative P crossing through the second space?

ever serviced a discovery litigation from google?

No. Have you?

A young man?

I've never used AdBlock — I just use NoScript. I'm not blocking based on content, I'm just enforcing tighter security on my computer.

It cleanly kneecaps admonger arguments — static ads (I also disable animated gifs) and text ads display just fine, but you don't have my permission to run Flash, Java, or JavaScript on my system. And strangely enough, NoScript's control is finely-grained enough to give a site general permission to execute content without also granting access to skeevyads.cx and other bastions of consumer rights.

(And I'd use NoScript even if it did none of those things, because the act of *not loading a PDF by default* has saved me hours and hours of dodging lockups and crashes.)

ACs, as a general rule, should not attempt to dictate fact without citeable proof.

Thanks.

Alright, you. I use this phrase vary sparingly -- but, I did indeed Laugh Out Loud. So there you go.