helm is not a verb

I got as far as this bit of nonsense (Q2):

> The term “patent troll” has emerged in recent years, and to the extent that words matter, this phrase has served as an effective piece of negative branding for those who want to reduce the rights of patent holders.

before stopping reading. I presume the rest of his answers were just as silly.

Why is this on the front page and not in slashBI?

I'm willing to admit I was taken in by this.

Or was I?

Compare : http://slashdot.org/topic/bi/ and this poll.

I'm not seeing much difference, yet one is (according to many posts here) a joke and one is serious.

I walked for an hour in London yesterday and saw absolutely hundreds.

Everywhere I looked there was another Policeman staring at me. To tell you the truth, it began to worry me after a while.

Citizen: "Ossifer, I've looked at this website and it is terism"
Plod: "So you admit to looking at terism? Go directly to Belmarsh. Do not pass go"

What on earth has this got to do with TFA?

Yes there are a large number of reasons to be depressed about British law.

This is *not* one of them.

In this case a twat broke a sensible, reasonable, well-thought-out law and is paying the price.

Case closed.

I wholeheartedly agree. In this case exactly the right thing happened. The Police acted appropriately, and everything is OK with the world.

What is sad is that the parent post (currently) isn't top-rated, instead it's some off-topic nonsense. WTF?

By all means have a go when stupid laws shaft innocent people, but when sensible laws shaft idiots, then there is nothing to complain about.

"a testiment to the organisational power of social networking sites like Facebook"

I think that might be going a bit far. What it is testament to is that we're all fed up of shitty pop.

Previously, we've all been too fragmented, "I don't like shitty pop, but I do like cool jazz" (etc.) so (as with many democratic systems) the thing that the largest people like (which also happens to be the thing the largest number of people also dislike) ends up getting branded "good".

What happened here was that, pretty much by accident, someone found something that everyone sort-of likes (Killing in the name of) and were able to use as a banner behind which to mass to express how much we dislike bloody x-factor. I, myself, have been not buying X-factor records for many years and have had absolutely zero effect on anything, This year I bought two copies of Killing in the name of (I song I like) (and the second one was a mistake, bloody iTunes) and now can delude myself into thinking I might have had some small influence on Simon Cowell.

Next time he's putting together an identikit pop star perhaps he'll pause for a moment and think "Should I make this one staggeringly hopelessly bland? No, I'll raise my game and just make it very bland". Which is, at least, a step in the right direction.

And (back to the point I started with), they tried this game last year, but chose Rick Astley. And even with the "organisational power of social networking sites like Facebook", they failed.

I think Facebook was probably fairly low down the list of causes for this. I think the real things that helped here are:

1) Wide spread public anger
2) Choosing the right song
3) The BBC (where I heard about it)

Or Ireland or America (McVey, Unabomber, Weathermen, Manson Family, etc, etc.)?

This isn't too much of a surprise, GW are notorious for not really understanding all this crazy new "internet" crap. Indeed, they've only recently put up a website that isn't total rubbish (although it is close).

"What, people are talking about our products, unshackled by our munificent control? Sue them to buggery!"

Yet another staggering own goal that further tarnishes a once great company. Bankruptcy cannot be far away unless they hire at least one person who actually uses the internet.

My top tip is "Stay at home", London is a dump (much like the rest of England) and is not even slightly worth visiting.

If you really want the experience of traveling to England:

1) Get your hoover bag, open it, inhale deeply
2) Go outside, roll around in the mud for a bit
3) Empty your wallet onto the floor
4) Get your neighbour to punch you in the face.

Voila, same outcome, but you've saved yourself some time and an airfare.