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Comment Re:But now (Score 1) 349

Now I'm interested in anyone's explanation on why would someone have to face a legal process that's not of his country.

Someone should be tried for a crime in the country the crime was committed on. That's why the extradition figure exists, otherwise there could be universal impunity to any crime by just running off to the neighboring country.
A hacker doing its thing in the pentagon has committed a crime in US soil no matter where the hacker's physical location was at the time. The object of the hack is physically in the US, thus it's fair for the US to ask for extradition (and for the UK to deny it). On top of that, his actions might be illegal in the country he's committing the crime from, so the hacker could conceivably tried and charged twice.

Submission + - Paypal blocking Haiti fundraising attemp (cosm.co.nz)

c0p0n writes: "Tom Cosm is a big name on the underground electronic music scene, particularly on psychedelic trance, and very popular among live electronic artists due to his tutorials on every aspect of electronic music production and performance. Today I received this newsletter:

A few weeks ago, I worked on a tune with Circuit Bent (below). We were discussing ways that we could distribute this tune, and came to the conclusion that we would try and do a nice thing by offering a high quality download of the tune in exchange for a donation. Once the donation pool reached one thousand dollars, we would give that money to the Doctors Without Borders, a non-religious charitible trust that is currently undergoing medical aid in Haiti.

Using the Chipin widget, and my Paypal account, we quickly started raising money. Everything was going smoothly and everyone was feeling good, until I got an email from Paypal saying I was not eligible to run such a fundraiser, and that I needed to provide various documents (proof of charitible status etc) in order for my account to be restored.

I instantly contacted Paypal's support explaining the situation in detail, showing them that I was not in fact a trust, but was gathering money to give to a trust, as well as asking them what direction I needed to take to resolve the situation. Their automated system told me that it would take up to 72 hours for a reply, so I waited.

After 72 hours I still had not heard, so I contacted them again with the same story, and stating that I still had not yet recieved a reply, something I was concerned about as I understood very well how this could jeopardise my account and business.

Finally I recieved a reply, however I got this reply on the same day as another automated email saying that due to my failure to comply with their request my account was now set to "Limited" status, meaning all funds are frozen and I could not receive any more money into that account.

I quickly removed the fundraiser and refunded everyone who had donated in full. I emailed them explaining that I had done this and that I was waiting for their advice until I could comply with their request, however this waiting time for them to reply had meant my account had been frozen, something I thought was quite unjust.

I received some replies saying that by law, there was now nothing I could do and my account would be frozen for 180 days while under investigation. They were quite firm on the fact that there was nothing I could do.

Over the last 6 years I have been a very loyal customer to Paypal. I have transfered tens of thousands of dollars, always paying their high fees, and have resolved any issues or disputes instantly. This means nothing to them. They have frozen my account and managed to completley fuck up the last 6 hard years of work building a vibrant and popular online subscription service, which is this projects main source of income.

Each day, all of the subscribers that have payments due on that day get defaulted and their subscription gets cancelled. Each day, I am loosing customers, and there is nothing I can do to change this.

I have managed to divert DVD sales to my partners account (which according to the support people, is allowed) however all subscriptions are just going to have to die out, and I am going to have to rebuild the last few years from scratch.

Ouch. I have a lot of loyal subscribers, and I am sure you can imagine that trying to get everyone to resign up again once I find a new system is ultimately going to loose the project a lot of money.

I feel very betrayed by all of this, I know it was my screw up not looking into the fine print when it comes to accepting money for a fundraiser, but I felt that because I was collecting money personally, and then would make a personal donation to a charity, it wouldn't apply. Wrong wrong wrong.

We had nothing but the best intentions for this. All three of us are musicians trying to make it in an industry that keeps on changing, and none of us have much money or help we can offer to the people of Haiti, so this was our idea. Offer our talents and services to try and do some good, and get everyone feeling happy.

So theres the story.

I am asking anyone out there for any advice at all. I have come to the conclusion that it is not worth arguing with Paypal anymore, I get rough emails back which are very impersonal, and they have said straight up that this is the end of the matter, so I am going to move on.

So dear internet, please help me in the comments, please help me get some suggestions to get back on track. Each day I am not only loosing payments I used to get, but I am loosing subscribers for ever (apart from you awomse ones who will sign up again when it's sorted, eh eh?)

What should I do?

Original link: http://www.cosm.co.nz/index.php/News/paypal-troubles-the-full-story.html"

Comment Re:It's over... it's all over (Score 1) 379

Fair play, but you can't subdue a country on submarines or airplanes, you need infantry on the ground, and the obstacles for this to happen in Britain were too big, hundred fold as compared with France with direct ground access - it would've required the anihilation of the RAF and the navy first and not in parallel.

Comment Re:It's over... it's all over (Score 3, Interesting) 379

The difference is that the germans appeared all over france in full strength, that is, by both air and land and from a closer distance to "base" so to speak. The british pretty much had to deflect "just" (as if it was easy anyway) the luftwaffe to defend themselves due to tanks not being that good at swimming. Hardly a fair comparison.

Comment Re:Duh. (Score 1) 103

While you're technically right, you're somewhat wrong. The law allows this by omission. "Copia privada" only applies if you make a copy from legally sourced media. A film downloaded from thepiratebay is not legally sourced media, nor is it illegal either (see my second paragraph). What the law states, on the paragraphs of it you copied, is that in the case of the user making a copy of their bitchney spears CD, the user is not obliged to pay extra to the copyright holders if there's no profit to be made, and within this they can play the copy to their heart's content or pass on the copy to someone else. I believe they call this "fair use" in the US.

Those two paragraphs create a loophole. I can copy my DVD and give that copy to someone else, this person obtained the copy legally so they can make a copy for someone else ad infinitum (eg p2p). Since all copies have to have an origin on an original DVD/CD/whatever their owner made a copy of, the law allows basically people to download with no limits but it does so not explicitly.

The exception seems to be recordings (ie cinema recordings) as in that case the origin copy was made illegally. There're probably a few more cases as well.

Comment Re:Duh. (Score 1) 103

Downloading copyrighted audio/video works is legal in spain, as long as no profit is made

That's not quite true. It's not exactly legal nor illegal, in any case there are no enforceable consequences on doing so. Unfortunately our government is so weak loads of interest groups have lots of leverage on it, including SGAE yes but also independentist political parties. The ministers are notoriously incompetent, especially the newly appointed culture ministry. Worth noting the minister is a movie director and has many ties on different pressure groups linked in one way or another to the SGAE.

Comment Re:Hackers Diet FTW. (Score 1) 978

That's obviously true, what surprised me is they forgot something else which is complementary and equally important when measuring exercise effects: YOU PUT ON MUSCLE. Body weight is totally irrelevant when it comes to slimming down. Body fat percentage is what's all about. As you exercise you damage your muscles, they repair themselves and strengthen by getting bigger and denser. Fat density is very low as compared to muscle density. You get slimmer and lose little weight. It can happen that you actually put on weight, although this happens only as you get closer to your healthy body fat percentage range (which for men, for example, is between 10% and 15%).

Comment Re:The competition is OSX (Score 1) 792

But Windows home users will NEVER use CLI. Let me repeat that: Windows home users will NEVER EVER use CLI. In fact most power users don't care for it either.

I am a power user and use the CLI all the time regardless of the OS.

That's because windows's CLI is shite. I have Bash on all machines I have access to for exactly this same reason.

In all honesty I could get away without using the CLI at all, but it's been far too many years using it... many tasks are far quicker to get done on the CLI in any operating system I've used. The windowed interface allows almost the same level of control over the OS, and it's just easier to grasp for non power users. But not more efficient.

A good environment will cater for both power and non power users. Linux-based machines do exactly that for me, that's why they suit me. Windows + bash through cygwin is almost as good and it's what I use at work.

Comment Re:More geeky (Score 1) 116

Who said you only put the speaker on one blade?

The parent. As I said on another comment, blades are designed with a balance, individually. Plus even if you managed to put the thing on all the blades without altering both their individual balance AND the balance of the whole apparatus (which is what you mentioned), the resulting monster will be heavier thus spinning slower thus generating less power.

The whole idea is laughable. Wanna go ahead with it, put a machine on a shed, end of story. Don't touch the turbines.

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