My wife, who worked as a nurse at a detention center about 2 years ago, saw first hand some of the abuses of police. She'd handle intake assessments and some of the intakes were beaten pretty badly that she had to refuse admittance to jail until cleared by an ER doctor. The police would claim resisting arrest, but she knew that some were obviously well beyond what would be needed to arrest a person. By sending to the ER, she'd create documentation of the abuse and she'd upset the officers that would have to accompany that person while in the ER.

She now works at one of the state prisons and the guards there do film their own actions as protection against claims by inmates. My wife recently had an incident where an inmate was acting up (throwing feces and various other fluids at the guards and other prison staff...fortunately didn't get my wife). The guards then get the riot gear on and film their preparation (stating their roles) and their actions (restraining and clearing out the inmates cell) to ensure no abuse by the officers or false claims of abuse by the inmate. Since this was a psych patient, my wife participated with a doctor ordered sedative, requiring her to be taped as well.

You'd think officers would want their actions to be taped, if only to ensure they couldn't be accused of abusing their position. Since police seem to not want it, it really makes people question the real reason why they don't want it.

Responses:

1 - I don't disagree with the content of movies rather I disagree that seeing those references is a necessity. While I can't claim to have a huge list of employers over my lifetime, I have never encountered a situation where not seeing a movie or knowing a particular cultural reference impacted employment. I have seen where one can feel "outside" a conversation with friends, but that hardly justifies copyright infringement.

2 - Since it wasn't your intent initially, I apologize for taking it that way to start.

3 - Somehow I don't see a judge throwing out a copyright infringement based on your moral imperative, at least not without a long expensive fight. I agree with you on some points, but that doesn't give you a free pass to ignore the law, unless you intend to challenge the copyright law. I may be reading your earlier statements incorrectly, but I gather that you aren't exactly in an economic situation to take on this type of fight yourself. I'd encourage joining or supporting an organization that is challenging the law to change it.

4 - The review sites that I've used in the past generally allow looking at a reviewers history. While no system is perfect, you can often find someone with similar taste and weigh their review more than others.

5 - First Sale Doctrine - "buyers of retail DVDs in the United States are free to sell or exchange them, and rent and lend them to others."

8 - I don't believe income level factors into ability to obtain a library card. My in-laws are on a very limited income (disabled) and they qualify.

9 - You still come off sounding like you are trying to justify your actions, now by claiming a moral justification since movie distributors "eat gold coated ice cream". If you truly disagree with the system, work to change it legally. Using the excuse that the system is corrupt (or whatever other word you want to use) doesn't change the current legality of your actions.

Of course they don't have to, but this is the modern world. If you lack knowledge of popular memes because you can't afford movies, good luck connecting with employers and understanding bizarre aspects of our culture

I have yet to go through an interview process where missing a particular movie lost me a chance at a position.

Also, I didn't say it was a requirement

I read your statement with "had to" as implying that they needed to download it rather than a wanted to download it. Given your follow up trying to say a person would be able to connect with employers, I think I interpreted your intent correctly.

Plus, the current business model is broken.

I agree with you on that. Agreeing doesn't imply that I think it is OK though to illegally download the content though. Just because we think something is wrong, doesn't give us the right to violate current laws, rather we need to work to change them.

Nobody wants to pay 10-20 bucks for a dvd or 50 for a blue-ray of a movie that has a VERY good chance at being worth jack shit. On the other hand, I have bought a number of movie that I once downloaded in high quality so that I can enjoy them in a resolution greater than 800x640. And if I had the money I would see good looking movies in the theater. I managed to see inglorious bastards in the theater and it was worth every penny. Not so much on a 15" screen.

Most movies get numerous reviews, both from professional critics and average viewers. If you aren't sure about the quality of the video, do a little homework. I have purchased a few bad videos myself, but I can either turn around and sell it second hand or just eat the loss and blame myself for not looking at several reviews. Inglorious Bastards was a good movie in my opinion too.

The problem is these companies screw over all of the talent, and give almost all of the profit, at least 95% to some white guy wearing a nice suit that weights 350 pounds and has four mistrisses, a wife and a dozen kids and goes to church every sunday.

Might be true, but is that your problem or the problem of the actors? Does your illegal download change their situation in any way or are you simply trying to make yourself feel better about it?

And the matter of fact is that all I have to do if I want something is get on the webs and borrow a copy of it. The real question is, just because I got something for free, does that mean other people have a right to fuck me up the ass with a mega-dildo made of rusty iron? I don't fucking think so.

Not sure if your local library has videos, but mine does. While they may not be your local NetFlix/Blockbuster, they do have a pretty good selection of current content. If they don't, have you considered a NetFlix subscription? For $7.99, you can stream content or for $9.99 you can get the DVDs mailed. If either of those are too expensive, you may have other budget cuts more worthwhile (like broadband service?).

So get off your self righteous ass, learn english, get out of other peoples business, and stop playing the "poor people deserve nothing but boredom and suffering" bullshit that you think you have a right to pull just because you have the funds to toss around.

Maybe you need to quit playing the victim to justify your actions. While I don't like the current business model any more than you or many here, that doesn't mean you can ignore what is or isn't illegal based on your economic situation.

Really, this is a case of business people profiteering off of the work of others, and making their living solely by destroying lives of people who were too poor to afford a movie and had to download it to watch it, and then threatening to take away what little they have and put them in debt forever, if not in prison.

Nobody "had" to watch a movie or play a song. Lack of ability to pay doesn't grant you a right to something for free.

Not really. If a disaster strikes, family comes first. Might grab a few survival possessions depending on the time available, but data would not be a concern then since it is already remotely backed up. I guess I look at the poll as being "disaster just hit, you have a few minutes to get out, what do you grab".

My unicorn is sad you insensitive clod.

I picked the second option as well. Any important data (important to me, probably not others) has already been, and fairly actively is, stored at a remote location. If disaster strikes that affects Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Illinois I'll be in trouble on the data but I think the problem will be big enough that it should be the least of my concerns at that point.

I had the opportunity to visit Stonehenge a few years ago while on a business trip to the UK. Not entirely sure what I expected from my visit to Stonehenge, but I was fairly disappointed with the content of the audio tour. The implementation wasn't bad with the multi-language support via numeric codes at the points along the walk paths, but I don't feel the content offered all that much on the site. I guess I'm glad to have seen it, but I know that I wouldn't have a reason to go back to it. I'd get just as much value out of a virtual visit along with a historical book.

My wife worked as a nurse at a county detention center. I don't know about how police actions have been the last 40 years, but my wife saw a good number of admissions where the person had injuries related to "resisting arrest". Some were severe enough that my wife refused to let the officers "drop and go". She'd inform them that the person wasn't stable enough (usually head injuries) and that they needed to first get clearance from the hospital before they could be admitted.

Depends what the research covers as to the volume of data. Imagine if you were studying land use over a few years and had aerial, satellite imagery, or numerous vector datasets? You can quickly exceed the 40GB with source and derived data.

Works on my Undulated Triggerfish too. While entertaining a cat with a laser and moving across the fish tank, my fish started attacking the red dot as it moved through the tank.

I'm going to guess that most people are complaining about the RealID implementation for the forums rather than the in game RealID implementation.

Game RealID (Opt In) - After exchanging email addresses with a friend, you can request to add a friend and they'll need to confirm the request. If you don't make or accept request, you won't show up under RealID.

Forum RealID (Required - Not implemented based on negative reaction from the community) - Any forum post made (after the system would have been implemented) would reveal the users RealID.

One feature of the RealID that is a little annoying is that you can see the names of friends of a friend you have. As an example, if I right click my son's RealID entry on the social interface, I can see who his friends are. I only see their name (not the email), but the name is what most of us worry about.

For the forum RealID, I think part of what Blizzard wanted to accomplish was eliminating the "trolling" character post. Blizzard could easily solve that by adding an option to "show characters" link for any posting character. This would only show the character names/realms, not the user login or name, making it easier to figure out who is trolling the forums.

I'm originally from Pennsylvania and I do agree with what you posted. Unfortunately not much that I could do about it when the officer and the insurance say that they can't determine fault.

The other driver didn't "rear end" my vehicle rather they clipped it from the side. Unfortunately they told their insurance they were in the left lane and I hit their vehicle while transitioning from the right lane into the left. The insurance company has no way of knowing which of us was telling the truth. As much as I know I didn't do anything wrong, I couldn't prove it. Ended up paying my deductible and fortunately my insurance rates didn't go up because of it.