And yet, apple didnt expand on the graphics tablets and now another company (wacom) holds the industry standard and specialises in input devices for artists and graphic designers. I don't deny apple's innovation here, I just am curious as to how that came about.

My last wacom was 10 years old and still working when I replaced it. 10 years of near constant use as an artist. If you're going to use it for signatures, you can get one of the low end ones and it would probably be cheaper than printing within oh, 4 cartridge changes?

Wait, what? Impossible to use? Firefox and ablock plus, right here, and I can definately use the youtube site.

The trouble with this is they WILL lose supporters for simply making a deal with the conservatives. Its sad, and I wish it wasnt the case because it probably is the only way to bring about a reform right about now. If we let the conservatives get a government in without agreeing to at LEAST a referendum, then thats it. They will do everything to secure their place for the forseeable future. which means reducing the number of MPs and changing constituency sizes - in their favour.

I should learn sarcasm doesn't translate over the internet! I'm a total full-on libdem supporter.

Bang on the mark. The political choices in this country are very close together. The only one who is truly liberal left is the green party.

Because everyone in this country is still hung up on class. The working class would never vote for tories, and the middle/upper class would never vote labour. And only crazy hippies vote libdem. our parents did it, as did our parents parents... Maybe we'll realise we're being left behind before its too late.

Curses. I was thinking small scale. Never sat in a class of 250!

Surely it is easier and cheaper for the teacher to spend 10 minutes taking a roll call? Not to mention, less room for cheating the system. Human interaction is a pretty definate way of confirming wether someone is there or not.

Imminent copyright infringement? Why don't they just take down the sodding internet already.

But we know that after a certain critical period it becomes functionally impossible for a human being to learn language.

We do?? Como sabemos eso? I learned Espanol en la edad de 50. Just how long is this periodo critico anyway? Y'all gonna be hard up if you move to Santiago, dood.

(disclaimer: I still can't understand Mexican)

Sorry but what marriage has to do with it ?

Marriage is not a 100% guarantee that the other person will never ever happen to cheat and be at risk at bringing some nasty bug home.
You may make romantic promises of trust and fidelity on the "Big Day", but we're still animals with deeply rooted instincts and you can't guarantee that nothing will ever go wrong over the course of a whole life.

Doing tests for both (non necessarily married/engaged) partners, trusting enough each other that a partner will openly admit cheating and potential risks of bringing bugs home, that is a slightly more efficient strategy.

It's a civil court where these cases are going.

True, this story is about civil court lawsuits being filed. However I would wager that the "settlement offers" do explicitly raise the threat of criminal charges and prison if you don't give them the money they demand.

Having people think something is crime that can be prosecuted in criminal court when it is demonstrably not so

False. The 1997 NET Act in the US did in fact make most copyright infringement into a felony. In particular the NET Act slipped this cute redefinition into law:

101. The term "financial gain" includes receipt, or expectation of receipt, of anything of value, including the receipt of other copyrighted works.

Any use of Bittorrent or any other P2P pretty much by definition "includes receipt, or expectation of receipt, of anything of value, including the receipt of other copyrighted works". It is also quite easy for offline non-commercial infringement to fall under that definition.

The NET Act adds the following criminal law:

506. Criminal offenses
(a) Criminal Infringement.--Any person who infringes a copyright willfully either--
  1. for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain, or
  2. by the reproduction or distribution, including by electronic means, during any 180-day period, of 1 or more copies or phonorecords of 1 or more copyrighted works, which have a total retail value of more than $1,000, shall be punished as provided under section 2319 of title 18. For purposes of this subsection, evidence of reproduction or distribution of a copyrighted work, by itself, shall not be sufficient to establish willful infringement.

Note that that is an "or" situation. Under the first clause, even a single minimal infringement is defined as a criminal act if it falls within that crazy redefinition for "financial gain".

The NET act also defines the criminal penalties:

Criminal infringement of a copyright
(a) Whoever violates section 506(a) (relating to criminal offenses) of title 17 shall be punished as provided in subsections (b) and (c) of this section and such penalties shall be in addition to any other provisions of title 17 or any other law.
(b) Any person who commits an offense under section 506(a)(1) of title 17--
    1. shall be imprisoned not more than 5 years, or fined in the amount set forth in this title, or both, if the offense consists of the reproduction or distribution including by electronic means, during any 180-day period, of at least 10 copies or phonorecords, of 1 or more copyrighted works, which have a total retail value of more than $2,500;
    2. shall be imprisoned not more than 10 years, or fined in the amount set forth in this title, or both, if the offense is a second or subsequent offense under paragraph (1); and
    3. shall be imprisoned not more than 1 year, or fined in the amount set forth in this title, or both, in any other case.

So the penalty is up to FIVE YEARS in prison if you have uploaded or downloaded 10 or more infringing files during a half year. The penalty is up to TEN YEARS for a second offense.

Oh, and if it's only a single act of infringement of a single file, then the law is much more generous with you, the crime is merely a felony with up to ONE YEAR in prison.

If you somehow manage not to fall under the "financial gain" definition, 506(a)(2) still makes infringement a felony if the infringement has a total "retail value" of $1,000 within a half year. In that case the prison terms are merely three years if it was ten or more copies with a total retail value of $2,500, six years on a second offense, or merely up to one year in prison for a non "financial-gain" infringement with total claimed retail value under $2,500.

Probably about a quarter of the entire U.S. population are technically unindicted criminal copyright felons subject to one or more years in prison. We would need to build a prison larger than any state, to hold the close to a hundred million felons.

If this law were actually to be enforced the government would be overthrown overnight. The entire population would take to the streets and just toss the entire government our, as virtually everyone would either be a felon or a close friend/family of a felon.

And for those of you outside the U.S., don't be so quick to smugly laugh at crazy American criminal copyright law. The E.U. and many other countries have passed equivalent criminal law. Outside the U.S. the phrase "commercial scale infringement" is often the code words to criminalize essentially any non-commercial copyright infringement that touches the internet.

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The only reason I have purchased any of the CDs I own is because of downloading them before buying to hear the entire album, to find out if it is worth buying. I have hundreds of CDs because the artists made good albums, albums worth paying for because every track was good. I would not have bought a single album if it wasn't for being able to download the tracks in FLAC before buying.