Very true.. the only thing we can to is Streisand Effect it as much as possible to help slap Facebook in the face. Maybe even set up a dedicated group resenting this move. Who knows, they might get the point. But it looks like we're seeing Microsoft's grubby little fingers in FB policy again.

People are worried it's another one-two by the record companies (and it probably is). This is great news and comes down to a bitchslap to the pencil pushers trying to get away with it.

Btw, if you want to rally more support: join our facebook group: We Need 5m people to prevent the labels killing internet freedom with ACTA. http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=213704134963

Look around, there's plenty of things to do. Write your MP's. Join our "We need 5m people to prevent the labels killing internet freedom with ACTA" Facebook group. (http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=213704134963) Join your local political party and yell at the town meeting that it pisses you off. Tell your friends. Only by sitting on your ass do you achieve your aforementioned goal.

We SHOULD be against any form of copyright protection on principle. It goes against nature (copying is natural) and hence will require LOADS of energy to enforce - from policy makers, judges, and cops to sysadmins and users. Get rid of it; there's plenty of better ways to get this done. Open source collaboration is one, alternate business models are another. The record companies have already been made superfluous by these developments and they know it, but they're doing their damnedest to become tyrants rather than adjust to life's flux.

Good point. I certainly hope not. Copyright is already problematic in that copying is built into nature, so going against it is swimming upriver - they're better off going with either a pledge-money-for-band-X's-new-album system or else lowering prices so far that downloading illegally just doesn't make sense anymore (especially if you can get it automatically sorted into the right folders with ID3 tags just they way you want 'em). Lower prices to 10c / song and I'll immediately spend $200. Add the right to re-download whenever you want and you've got a business model. Although on a practical note, there's no reason bands can't do tat themselves. There's plenty of platforms available for it.

On the side: There's a Facebook group I started in the hope to raise awareness, with the ultimate goal being to petition / lobby governments. Feel free to join, it's called We need 5m people to prevent the labels killing internet freedom with ACTA.

There's a group on Facebook for it, we're trying to get a lot of people so we can set up petitions and start lobbying. It's called:

We need 5m people to prevent the labels killing internet freedom with ACTA.

Feel free to join.

If it really bothers you, either start looking for another job - or join them in slacking. But be prepared to log all your hours - and those of your colleagues - so that when the inevitable gripe comes you can show that you're more productive than your colleagues, as endorsed by management. That's no way to really run a company (normal for governments though). I'm guessing they're in a segment where there isn't much competition. Once that heats up they won't know how to get into gear on time, and will either need an interim manager that wipes away the crusty crap or they'll go belly up.

It's an annoying fix to be in (although on the positive side, people in those types of organisations are usually far less stressed out, and having been burned out myself I know that's a BIG plus) and I guess you just have to choose what you want from your work and out of life in general. Some focus on career, others work for money and get enjoyment from family or sports or hobbies or whatever.

True enough. Also, doesn't Google frown on that sort of thing? Give it a little publicity and one of Google's engineers might just decide to get medieval on their portly rotund segments.

Heh.. did everyone have such high expectations of it then? We played AvP2 over our LAN quite a bit, for the simple fun of running over walls and dropping on unsuspecting marines. There was also an Survivor variant where you all start as marines and have to shoot each other, then after that you have to team up since everyone who dies becomes a (conistently respawning) alien. Sitting in the end of a box tunnel with aliens running towards you in dim lighting and ever-increasing numbers with the radar's beep-beep really sets an atmosphere. Longest survivor wins :P

But, indeed, the alien and pred single player campaigns were trash. It was only ever fun in multiplayer / online. I don't expect it to get an 8/1- rating or higher, 6/10 is fine by me as long as they don't screw it up. I know what I'm getting.

You know, that's a VERY strong point. I've been planning the same thing. We currently manage several server farms in Europe, so it would be ideal to live in N-Z and manage them remotely - work hours there are nighttime here, so server management doesn't bug users - but I'm not going to move down there if there's a chance some employee fucknut decides to download a few seasons of House and snowballs our internet connection. This is NOT a good idea for their economy.

Translation of the poll into actual english:

"Where do I live?"

Many people never leave the continent they live on, so the answer is hardly likely to be different. I know the polls are hardly scientific but this is just plain silly.

By all means, let's get writing, mailing, whatever. Set up a petition, a FB group and spam our MP's silly. I'm just a little vague on who to reach. Anyone with experience got some contact info for the various member states (EU, Canada, NZ, etc etc)?

My mom switched to Mac. Result: I only have to really do something semi-serious (i.e. more than 30 mins work) once every 2 years. My (mentally handicapped!) brother uses a Mac. Aside from an occasional correction of his mail settings via ARD Admin I'm hassle-free.

My brother and his g/f still use Windows. I just spent four f***ing days reinstalling Windows XP because Vista figured Autocad was either already installed, couldn't be installed, or shouldn't be installed. I told them it was the last time and I would only support them if they bought Macs. Microsoft is a group of clueless arrogant monopolists as far as I'm concerned. Apple is also arrogant but at least they make something decent. Vista scared me into fits and out of family tech support for life unless they pay me $ 75,- an hour. That got their attention, I can tell you. After some "but what will we do then?" comments of disbelief I explained my motivations to them and told them the truth: Windows is a bloated platform with no vision designed by a company that is run more by lawyers than by true genius and I've given up on them completely. Sorry if this is a bit rantish (I suppose it is a rant) but I really want to underline it for you in simple terms: M$ is your problem.

I think Apple has several ups over Windows:
- it's designed to be learned by playing with it
- it gets out of your way instead of in your face
- it has a much, much, much clearer structure; people can find the things / settings they need more easily, and with less actions. Try setting up a dual monitor and occasionally attaching e.g. a beamer. It only costs 1 or 2 clicks after the 5 whole clicks you need to configure it the first time around. Try doing that in Windows and you're at least 20 clicks farther, and of course something or other b0rks along the way every f***ing time
- supporting it remotely is pretty much hassle-free aside from opening a port here and there (or else you could use something like Teamviewer)
- if you ever DO need to reinstall, the migration assistant will keep your settings whole, and you can drag/drop the software from the old installation; it's MUCH easier than reinstalling everything from scratch.

If you're in doubt, download it and stuff it into a VM and play with it. See how long it takes you to get mail etc set up. Now don't get me wrong - no OS is perfect, and OSX has its idiosyncrasies like any other - but it has a lot less of them, and any issues are usually fairly well documented. Just stay away from newest releases until the 10.x.1 update is out, at the least, and you will do fine.

Heh. Nice. But the problem is as old as humanity itself: forbidding is one thing, preventing is quite another. I agree, jailtime is the only way to go for a recidivist like that. And he's just abusing international law and such: just because you go bust in one country doesn't mean you can't have $500m tucked away in another. Until treaties are formed which address these problems - and thankfully, tax havens have come under heavy fire of late - this type of crap is just going to continue.

What I don't get is why a joker like that - who is obviously intelligent - doesn't just find a legal way to get rich. It can't be that hard.

Why, is Google asking that because they're running out of addressable memory space again?