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Comment Re:Voluntary... when the chip breaks. (Score 1) 161

We have a system in the UAE called Salik. There is a partial toll road in Dubai... it has 4 gates (that you can go arround if you plan your trip) on a long stretch of road that runs along the coast connecting the western emirates. It works via a passive RFID sticker. If you go through a gate without a working sticker, it is ~$60 fine. Crossing of the gates are ~$1 for the entire trip (ie, if you cross more then one gate, in order, you are not billed more). The gates are crossed at highway speed (120km/h) and are not known to fail even when crossed at high speed. The RFID sticker is available cheaply so EVERY car in the UAE seems to have one. The sticker is linked to the vehicle registration. It appears there are RFID readers various places in the city which are not toll roads. I do not know of anyone getting any speeding tickets calculated from average speed between gates or RFID readers, but I would be surprised if the data isn't used by national security or police. They do not seem to fail.

Comment Re:Authors still attacking their Facebook page (Score 5, Interesting) 288

The facebook page is quite entertaining, here are some of the comment threads

Some are not only stupid and ignorant, but incomprehsibly so:
Linda Gillard - TAKE MY 6 E-BOOKS OFF YOUR SITE IMMEDIATELY. THIS IS BOOK PIRACY AND THEFT! I receive nothing for these loans & you haven't even asked for my permission to give away my books. (And you wouldn't get it.) I have informed Amazon, my agent and The Society of Authors of your illegal activities.
Linda Gillard - It looks as if the whole thing is a scam. You can't download the books. Borrowers are referred to Amazon to buy them. Whoever runs the site is probably just collecting referral fees from Amazon. Neat racket.
Jenny Woodall - Linda, have you tried registering and 'borrowing' a book?
Linda Gillard - No, but someone else has. I think their post is on this page if you look back.
(previous referenced comment: Philip Catshill Hang on hang on.... I have just registered and tried to download my own book, But the site tells me the Book CANNOT BE BORROWED - ONLY BOUGHT : Click on BUY and you go to the Amazon sell page. Its just a referal site - I have similar links for "friends" novels on my Website so I reckon this guy is just out to collect referal fees from Amazon.)
Jenny Woodall - Thanks, will do.
Jenny Woodall - Did a 'Who is" search and have now contacted the Domain host with a cease and desist letter as well.
Linda Gillard - I've just heard back from the SoA who think what they are doing is not illegal but is probably misleading to both borrowers & authors.
TLDR; Even after understanding site is reffering customers to buy her books through legit channels, Jenny Woodall decides to bother the hosting company.

And then there are some clearly out for blood money:
Jeanette Baird Vaughan - EVERYONE ON THIS SITE!!! EMAIL ME YOUR ADDYS AND WE WILL FILE A CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT!
Rosalind Smith-Nazilli - I have mailed them also and commented here..
Philip Catshill - ?"Hang on hang on.... I have just registered and tried to download my own book, But the site tells me the Book CANNOT BE BORROWED - ONLY BOUGHT : Click on BUY and you go to the Amazon sell page. Its just a referal site - I have similar links for "friends" novels on my Website so I reckon this guy is just out to collect referal fees from Amazon."
Miranda Stork - This 'guy' is not a member of the Amazon Associate Program, and so is not collecting referrals. We currently have a lawyer looking into all of this for us, as even if the site WAS legit, he has books there that are DRM protected. These should not even be SHOWING up. On top of that, if he is legit, why has he answered no emails, or removed any books?
Jeanette Baird Vaughan - Please keep me in contact with you about the lawyer. My book is on Kindle Select and he should not have access to it a all!
Miranda Stork - We will do, as I mentioned in the message to you, we are just sorting out things before we make a lot of statements, as we don't want too much information floating around panicking people until we have compiled everything, but this guy will NOT get away with this.
Dawn Sinclair - If this action goes ahead, could you inform me as I have 2 books on Amazon Kindle and they are both on Lendink's lists illegally...Theresa Dawn Sinclair...my email address is dawnspen@gmail.com...thank?s very much
Jeanette Baird Vaughan - He has taken down the site for now. Wish we could still get him financially!
Miranda Stork - That's what we are still looking into, we're still talking to our legal counsel.
Miranda Stork - Also, he didn't take the site down, it was taken down by the server after several lawyers got in touch :)
Jeanette Baird Vaughan - Awesome! Who are these lawyers...let's join forces!!
Miranda Stork - I heard about it from a friend, Maxi Shelton, so if you ask her, she can tell you the full details.
TLDR; even after understanding he is not making money and no piracy is taking place, greedy bastards still want money

It seems the biggest instagator was an OG Tomes and EA Setser - It appears there are some sort of Anti-Piracy mobs involved here.
You can see in the facebook comments evidence in this:

OG likes all posts which are negative, and calls other authors fools who recognize no wrong is taking place:

Michele Poet - If you are running your business exactly as is described on your website (and I really really hope you are because I've been defending you all over the place and don't want to look a fool) - then I would like to say I fully suppurt your endeavour and wish you well. I am pleased to see my books are on your site. You seem to be a very honourable individual and it is a shame you have been tarred with the same brush as other less professional individuals.
OG Tomes - Looking like a real big fool lady!
TLDR; He's looking like the big fool

Seumas Gallacher - I see my two novels are on your site WITHOUT MY PERMISSION ... As far as I'm aware, This is tantamount to PIRACY and COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT . Please remove my books immediately from your site ..
Seumas Gallacher - OG ,, do you have any means through your networks to get this viral ?? this is an amazing usurping of copyright ...
Jacqueline Wood - Good luck getting these fraudsters, your hard work went into writing these books you should be paid for them
Seumas Gallacher - The author community is railing hard right now against this... it's lousy
EA Setser - Seumas I'm part of an Anti-Ebook-Piracy Group here on Facebook. We assembled to deal with "The Ultimate E-Book Library" but have branched out into others. I sent you an invitation, in case you're interested.
Seumas Gallacher - Where did you send it please . I'm sure every author would want to join up ..
EA Setser - I added you to the group, it's just awaiting Admin approval. You should get a notification once they clear you.
Theresa 'tish' Webb - bloody hell, hope that you get it sorted Seumas, what a cheek!!! x
EA Setser - From what I've learned so far, they may be legit. The questions are whether the Borrow links work for books that aren't part of the Kindle Lending Library and whether they take a cut from sales made through the Buy links.
Rosalind Smith-Nazilli - mm.. curious.. I will go look tomorrow when I have the energy..xx
OG Tomes - Phillip I have to ask.... did you sign a release for your work to be displayed on this site so that said site can earn from the sale of any of your books? Yet another cut comes from our pockets......This goes deeper than a referral. This site is not listed in any of the channels I approved for my sales distribution.
OG Tomes - Also it is a misrepresentation..... lending for free..?
TLDR; Tomes is an idiot and doesn't realize how Amazon works. Setser is part of a secret lobiest mob, probably responsible for all of this.

There are many posts by multiple people that are basically "Burn the witch" accusations of piracy - some complete copy and pastes from multiple accounts, like:
Maxi Shelton-This is a PIRATE SITE with no rights to any of the books they list. They seem to have just harvested details from Amazon regardless of the book ... so they probably don't have them available anyway. And the creators will see no money from any of this activity. As with all pirate sites, use with extreme caution, and remember that most often, pirated books come with additional nasty extras like viruses and whatever which may screw up your PC ...
David J Howe-This is a pirate site with no rights to any of the books they list. They seem to have just harvested details from Amazon regardless of the book ... so they probably don't have them available anyway. And the creators will see no money from any of this activity. As with all pirate sites, use with extreme caution, and remember that most often, pirated books come with additional nasty extras like viruses and whatever which may screw up your PC ...

Overall, very entertaining.

Comment Re:good riddance (Score 1) 190

Does it matter? The guy is the President and CEO of Me Inc. and owns the SCO Mobility intellectual property. I bet the guy puts that on his linked in, personal website, email signature etc. For $100,000 that is some cheap fun designer bragging rights.

Comment Re:Cheap Mission (Score 1) 220

This guy is right. Iraq never had universities - there were no phds, engineers or scientists. Hell, they didn't even have roads or their own infrastructure to drill and refine their oil... at least after it all fell apart in the 80's during the peak of involvement, ignore that detail.

The sad reality is that it seems the middle east shithole is only such as result from giants using it as a place to shit.

Comment Re:Freaking incredible. (Score 1) 220

A 1 megapixel non-color camera that is not sensitive to the background radiation of space, extreme temperatures, and survived re-entry.

How much time do you think it would take to send back a high resolution image? How much CPU power do you think this rover has to be able to scale or process the collision avoidance data from these cameras if the camera were higher resolution??

Clearly you don't have a clue. The probe has a high resolution camera on its mast which was not to be deployed until all systems are checked after landing.

Comment Re:tonight, you shall taste MAN-FLESH! (Score 1) 705

Why clone your own muscle tissue when you could then maybe clone: platypus, elephant/mamoth, sea turtle, rhinoceros, penguin etc.
Hell, maybe even then maybe we can go into dinosaur DNA. There are so many animals that were known to be so tasty, other animals eat them much faster then they reproduce. From what I understand, humans are not one of thoes animals.

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