I know each time the Assange story comes up you like to jump on it because the whole thing is personal for you (I haven't forgotten the last time you lost the plot on the issue, don't worry), but you seem to be making things up that aren't even there, which is a new low even for you. The story states very clearly that he was convicted in absentia, not simply that he was simply awaiting an appeal when he died, using Swedish translations of common words like "prosecute" doesn't add weight to your case by the way, it just makes you look even more desperate in your argument.

"And the British court system has at every level ruled Assange to be in a state equivalent to charged under the British legal system."

What the British court has ruled is that he can be extradited under the extremely lax checks of the European Arrest Warrant, something which is a major bone of contention in the UK and has been the target of much political preference for removal by MPs and precisely because it's such an utterly stupid piece of law in the first place. Pretending stupid law somehow adds weight to your overriding bias that Assange is a rapist is another example of your further highlighting the stupidity of your argument.

"But do you somehow know more about Swedish and British law..."

What I know is that not all these things are in agreement, so to try and stack them together to add weight to your argument is again, a further example of the weakness of your argument. I know for example that the prosecutor your refer to when stating her case in British court actually admitted that Assange could indeed be interviewed and charged here under the MLA framework (exactly like they did for this guy in Serbia: http://www.expressen.se/nyhete...), but simply insisted that she be able to do so in person in Sweden regardless.

What I also know is that whilst I may not be a professor of Swedish law, that professors of Swedish law also completely disagree with you, so your appeal to authority fallacy fails miserably in the face of a similar but opposite appeal to authority:

http://sverigesradio.se/sida/a...

Another thing I know is that the British courts regularly get such human rights issues wrong, they spent 10 years restricting the liberties of Abu Qatada only for him to be found innocent when he finally got to Jordan, and there have been many other cases where British courts got such issues wrong. The idea you're pushing that they consistently get such issues right, and aren't ever swayed by politics is demonstrable false, again, as in the Abu Qatada case. The British justice system is imperfect and easily manipulated by politics, in fact, the whole reason we have a Supreme Court is because politicians wanted an overriding court with a politically appointed judge panel precisely so that politics could play a part in justice, which is yet one more thing that shows how utterly laughable your appeal to authority fallacy is in this respect.

So Rei, I think you should accept what you accepted last time this discussion came up, that this issue is one that is too personal for you, and that in Rei land a man accused is a man guilty is a man convicted is not how things should work in the real world. In the real world we like justice and due process, if that isn't being followed, which it isn't - because the Swedish prosecution are insisting on avoiding processes that could resolve this issue fairly and objectively, then there's a problem.

I really could not care if Assange is found guilty or not, I have no presumption of innocence unlike your presumption and insistence of guilt, I think there's a fair chance he may well be guilty all the same. I appreciate some of the things he has talked about and some of his goals, but that's by the by, I appreciated some of the things Rolf Harris did but it doesn't change the fact it's all overshadowed by him being a child molester - the same is true of Assange, if he is guilty regardless of what I think of his political views he needs to be dealt with over that. But none of that changes the fact that Sweden isn't interested in charging Assange, they're not interested in trying Assange - they've had options to do this over the last two years based on existing Swedish law and based on the MLA framework if they wish to investigate him or speak to him further, all they're interested in is getting him on Swedish soil, and this is where my problem lies, because they're not just wasting my money as a tax payer as a result, but they're implying that they don't want to solve an alleged sexual assault case due to the artificial barriers they've built.

You may think you can slip your dishonest arguments past people, you may think your obvious bias whilst proclaiming objectivity aren't noticeable, but I'm afraid neither is the case. On the bright side at least you can take solace in the fact that the likes of the British justice system is horribly broken, such that you'll probably get what you want. None of which will however get you the revenge you're seeking for what happened to you - you'll still have to get past that in another way regardless and it's a shame you've decided to let it twist you in this way such that you apparently think that arguing on the internet for subversion of the justice system (even if what you said was true, that procedure was being followed and had been exhausted, it's _still_ an affront to justice all the same) will somehow make it better. Your time would be better spent actually dealing with your problems, rather than wishing for poor implementations of justice to be cast upon people you politically disagree with.

Sure, and we took the same line with Abu Qatada - we watched his family 24/7, we held him in detention without trial, and we did this for 10 years whilst trying to send him to Jordan but requiring Jordan guarantee him a fair trial. We just had to spend millions trying to get him sent there and monitoring his family in the meantime, carrying out defacto punishments and restrictions on his freedom, because he "technically" skipped bail once or twice, we had to do this because he was accused by Jordan.

Luckily we finally were able to get Jordan to guarantee him a fair trial, we finally managed to ship him off after being good to our laws in restriction his freedoms for 10 years. This year Jordan was finally able to bring judgement on this man accused of terrorism and restricted in the UK for so long.

Oh, but turns out, in fair trial, he was found not guilty.

Seriously, UK law is completely broken on this sort of issue, the fact a person can be in and out of jail, can be constantly watched, can have his family tracked and pursued, all without charge because of accusations by a foreign nation only to be found to be not guilty all along is absolutely fucking ridiculous.

Though it's also been the case in the past that people who skipped bail but are found not guilty or have had charges dropped do in fact have punishments for skipping bail dropped because they should never have been held on bail in the first place because they were never guilty of the crime.

So if Sweden did drop the charges, how Assange would be treated for skipping bail would be quite telling - there's no reason a judge couldn't accept his argument that he believed the charges were politically motivated and that in the fact of them being dropped he could be let go without further punishment. If they decide to pursue punishment for skipping bail in light of there being no case to answer though, that'd actually be quite unusual.

Perhaps it wont die because it's not actually a myth? What you quote, and state, states that the prosecution would like to pursue 4 specific charges, but there's the problem, all they're doing is saying they'd like to, they're not actually doing it.

The point is, that if they want to actually press charges then they should just do it. Yes, yes, I know the argument is that they can't because of a magical clause that prevents Sweden charging and trying in absentia. Oh wait, they can do exactly fucking that when it suits:

http://www.thelocal.se/2010052...

All the lies about Sweden having a "different" legal system that prevents them doing things that every other country in the world manages to do are exactly that, lies. Sweden can and does do things exactly like everyone else, they're just making an exception in lying about it in Assange's case.

Actually it happens a lot, Jordan and the UK were involved in years of negotiations to get Abu Qatada extradited to Jordan and it involved Jordan making outright changes to their legal system to accomodate and ensure Qatada would not be held to trial with evidence obtained via torture.

After many tens of millions were spent on the case, and Qatada was extradited to Jordan with a guarantee of a fair trial, he was a few months ago found not guilty.

It's a prime example of a case whereby governments try to bypass fair trials to get the outcome they want but are thwarted by human rights law, only for the individual to be found to be innocent all along when they finally get the fair trial they deserve.

Sweden's actions are out of the ordinary in that they both insist the case is important enough to pursue and not be dropped, but not important enough to focus on public interest reduction of prosecution costs by either questioning Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy which is something Sweden has done in other cases, or to give him a legal guarantee of no onwards extradition to the US. These are both things that contrary to the lies floating round otherwise they can and have done previously in other cases.

In situations like this countries make one of two choices - they decide a case is worth pursuing and do everything in their power, such as the option of giving certain legal guarantees as in the Jordan-UK Abu Qatada case, or they decide the case isn't important enough to pursue and drop it. What is abnormal is to just have the costs continue to rack up indefinitely whilst there are many means available to stop that happening and to resolve the issue.

I've done exactly what you say and have seen no such thing. I have however seen people like Domscheit-Berg carry out strong defamation and sabotage campaigns against him and Wikileaks, and who also seems to have gone oddly quite now that such character assassination is mission complete.

But more importantly I prefer to judge people not on what others say about them, but what they themselves say and do, and having listened to Assange's talks in-context (rather than all the out of context quotes that are often used to defame him) it's pretty fucking clear that that guy is really little different to Snowden - a largely rational well meaning intelligent individual.

But I know this is lost on you cold fjord, given that you love submitting your life and existence to the whims of the US government, whether right or wrong.

Sure but it's not merely violent crime I'm talking about, even things like burglary of empty homes has decreased. The only real increases have been sexual offences and most of these are because of mass revelations of historic abuse in the 70s/80s such that much of the increase is actual down to historic crimes, rather than recent crimes.

"Yes, that means punishing the victim. Whereas the victim here is a facilitator for the culprit. It's like leaving your car unlocked and open on the main road and someone using it for a bank heist. I don't know about yours, in my country, if that's your car you're due for facilitating a crime."

I actually agree that some victims should be left to suffer the consequences - god only knows there's been enough TV and newspaper articles aimed at every age range now that means anyone who is victim of a phishing scam deserves what they get.

But I have to ask, what the fuck kind of backwards country do you live in whereby you're guilty of facilitating a crime just because you did something stupid like left your car wide open? It's one thing to suggest the person not be covered by insurance (which is normally what happens in just about every sane country I'm aware of the laws of) but to hold them partially responsible for a further crime committed with their vehicle? what the fuck? Unless there's proof of intent that they did so with the intention of helping facilitate the crime (but then it's not stupidity is it? it's malice) then I don't think this is the case in just about any western nation.

That's the sort of twisted logic that implies a girl who wears a short skirt and gets raped is guilty of facilitating a rape, and someone who runs a Tor node should sign a sex offenders register if someone transits something dodgy across it. The only places I'm aware of such things happening are nations with really backwards laws like some parts of India, tribal areas of Pakistan, and some African nations.

It's one thing to not compensate someone who suffered financially for their own stupidity to ensure that there's a cost to such stupidity to act as a deterrent, but to hold people liable for other people's crimes just because they were stupid? That's really not a thing I hope to see in any country I ever have to transit through.

Interestingly since the UK changed governments to an austerity oriented government in 2010 and since the police saw large reductions in funding crime in the UK has actually dropped to the lowest point it's ever been in recorded history such that the UK is now one of the lowest crime countries in Europe (just over 10 years on from it being the highest).

Now, it's not that the cuts were the cause of this - it was trending in that direction anyway, but it's pretty clear that the cuts didn't stop or reverse the trend - a reduction in funding did not translate to a reduction in policing effectiveness.

British copyright law really isn't that weird, perhaps the most weird things about it are the desperate attempts by police to take down piracy websites using fraud laws because it's the closest thing they could find - a tactic which has only netted them mixed success at best. British copyright law is actually fairly typical because it's based on the Berne convention like that of most countries. The Premier League is clearly arguing that Fair Dealing does not exist under UK law, which is patently false.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F...

Posting short snippets of a match on Twitter could arguably fall under any of the fair dealing exemptions, though at least 3 of them it seems to clearly fall under - i.e. criticism, review, and reporting of current events. The argument that such posts are for research are tenuous, but not impossible to make, but the argument that they fall under criticism, review, and reporting of current events seem to be pretty bulletproof.

Provided there is no commercial gain in the posting, and provided people stick to small snippets of just the goals then it seems pretty clear that the Premier League is outright lying and should simply be told to go fuck itself. Fair Dealing also requires that the original work already be available to the public in the first place, but that's also a given given that the whole fucking point in such football matches is that they're a public performance - the guys on the pitch aren't playing for shits and giggles like kids in a schoolyard, they're playing to make money and entertain, that is after all why they have stadiums and cameras around them that also then make a fortune broadcasting the event across the globe to millions of people, so the Premier League clearly can't use that argument either.

Given that the reason people post goals in the first place is to say "What an amazing goal!" or "What a shit goal!", given that the performances are clearly available to the public to start with (anyone can pay to see one live or on TV), and providing no commercial motive then I don't see how the Premier League could ever possibly argue that this isn't a legitimate use of the criticism or review clauses against the performance in question.

Sure, but my point is that by the time it's a year into it's lifecycle the X1 will have been patched with all the things it was lacking such that it can do everything the 360 did and then some, whilst being actually less of a pain in terms of DRM.

If all you use your 360 for is offline gaming and viewing media then the X1 will do all that too, so the only real thing that matters about it is whether it has any games you want, if not then there's really no big deal.

Personally I'm a bit of a console whore as I have a PS4 and a Wii U as well (on top of the 2x 360s and my Wii and PS3). I actually like all of them, probably less excited by the PS4's games line up right now - The Order just isn't my thing, and frankly despite the Wii U's deficiency of games the games it does have are actually excellent such that it's still got more excellent games - i.e. those deserving a review ranking of 95%+ than the PS4 and X1 combined even though the PS4 and X1 have more games overall. I've found actually owning the consoles that you get a completely different picture of them than that painted by fanboys and the press.

Well it depends what you class as a technology issue - I'd say that trying to make an application portable but not copyable is quite a technological challenge. That doesn't mean it's politically ideal but I can see why they're going down that route. This isn't really like PCs where companies try to bolt DRM onto an open architecture, this is about an architecture that is explicitly closed, being kept closed, because sometimes that's the intention - no one's pretending consoles are these great open devices, if you're staunchly anti-DRM then consoles never were and never will be for you but that doesn't mean there isn't a market for them and it doesn't change the fact that the market exists in part because of that DRM - there is a market for systems that are closed and fairly cheat free as a result.

"At the end of the day, the Xbone is a very anti-consumer piece of technology, and I simply will not buy one."

I'd argue it's actually less anti-consumer than some of the older consoles, certainly they've done away with things like online passes and shit this generation. I don't really understand why you have so much love for the 360, but so much hate for the X1 when the X1 is an all round improvement in terms of freedoms. The X1's DRM is actually a big improvement for the consumer on the 360s - cross profile content sharing works far better for example.

Microsoft made a lot of mistakes early on with the X1, but there was a complete reversal since the announcements and it's release (hell, you can even buy a Kinectless version now so all the NSA is spying on you through it nonsense is long dead), it's now a much more consumer friendly system than the 360 was and as consoles go, though consoles in general aren't exactly consumer friendly, so it's not exactly a high bar it has to surpass anyway.

"Why DLNA, in this day and age? It's garbage, with a "lowest common denominator" approach to media files, with only 8.3 filenames and very few supported formats."

What the fuck? have you created a DOS 5.0 DLNA server or something? What you describe isn't the reality of any DLNA server or client I've used including that bundled with Windows and the client bundled with even my cheapest TV.

It's not just MS, both MS and Sony decided to race unfinished products to market opting to finish them post-release. Microsoft currently seems to be ahead as it has DLNA support, 3D Bluray and so forth just about ready to go, whilst the PS4 still doesn't even do the most basic things, like play MP3s or audio CDs.

Speak for yourself, I have 4 different DLNA enabled TVs, a DLNA enabled Bluray player, a 360, a PS3 as well as an iPad, Galaxy Nexus, Galaxy S3, and a Nexus 7.

DLNA works fine with all of it, it's always been painless and effortless to get working. I guess if you had problems you must've been doing something very wrong or maybe using some shitty cheap devices that only bothered to implement half assed support as all I ever had to do was give Windows Media player access to the library, enable DLNA streaming and every other device/application then just worked with it. I've even used it on Windows 7 and Windows 8, so it's not like I've found problems with different OS'.

I care about DLNA because it's awesome and effortless - it literally just works without any effort with just about every common device that supports it.

Sigh, what a pathetically ignorant post.

It's not as straightforward as just implementing the ability to read FAT, it's about making sure people can't just copy downloaded games onto a USB drive and make multiple copies and pirate games that trivially whilst making sure they can use USB storage for games if they want to take them to their friends. It's about making sure you can't trivially manipulate a game copied to a USB device to cheat and so on and so forth.

Like it not, the reason there is so much more investment in console games by publishers is because it gives them access to a platform that is much freer from piracy and cheating (yes it exists, but most people don't chip their consoles because it often prevents online access and gets your online profile banned etc. meaning it's far more costly for cheaters/pirates to engage in that meaning there's less of it overall - though that is changing with Steam taking over most of the PC gaming world).

Microsoft has to protect that, else it loses everything that separates the console world from the PC world. Whether you agree with DRM or you're an open source everything hippy it matters not, the point is fundamentally that there's far more that Microsoft has to consider than just implementing the ability to read/write from a USB drive so to just say "Oh all they need to do is implement support for FAT" is completely wrong and shows a painful lack of understanding about the console market.

You seem entirely oblivious to the fact the 360 was in the exact same situation - worse, the 360 even had it's own bespoke memory cards originally. Support for USB devices came far later on on the 360. They haven't removed anything because the X1 is a completely new system with a completely new architecture requiring completely new software, it's not a simple in-place upgrade of the 360.