Sorry if I wasn't clear. I meant "Turnout across Great Britain was 15,136,932, representing 34% of the electorate" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Parliament_election,_2009_(United_Kingdom)). The point is that people here do not care about who makes the laws in Brussels.

Correction it is a semi democratic institution representing the desires and best interests of its electorate on one issue. The rest of the time we get laws that are never publicised and are poorly written, micromanaging or plain not in our interest. The media focus is on the national government, which has shipped lots of its power to Brussels. Turnout in the last election in the UK was 34%. I hardly call that a democratic mandate.

It's worth noting that this "UK DMCA" will require a court injunction. I.e. not just a take-down notice. There are also lines in there for facilitating legal access. Does this mean abandonware etc can't be locked up by copyright years after production ends? I also fail to see why national security should affect copyright - we have the official secrets act for that.

Have you ever thought what motivates a church to have community and good works and so on?

If the government is driving the removal of cheques, then the government is creating the replacement. The thing is that the UK government has proved time and time again that it is technologically incompetent (eg the various databases and top secret documents that are lost or left on trains) so this won't be properly implemented.

If exams really pose a problem, hardwire the OS and add a reset button. It's one of those situations where doing it properly and not by obscurity works best.

As I have learned on other patent threads on /. A patent must be applied for within a year of first deployment in the US. I think therefore http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b7/Google1998.png counts as prior art. Even if this fails, I can firmly say I have been using Google for years (who hasn't).

By false Christians I mean people who are not saved by faith in the death of Jesus Christ alone. That is the only way to be saved according to the Bible, which is where we must all get our authority on the subject from - see Acts 4:12 "And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved." (ESV) I say Catholics are in the majority not real Christians because they don't believe this. They believe that people must confess to a priest and then do a penance or punishment that he tells them to do. This is being saved by works, which is impossible - see Ephesians 2:8-9 "For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast." They also believe that they can pray to saints. While it is right to respect Christians of the past, the idea that you can pray to Mary for protection or something is on the side of idol worship (see exodus 20 the ten commandments) we should rely on God alone for such things. It is this Catholic church that, along with the governments of the day, locked up and executed reformers, such as William Tyndale for translating the Bible so that People could see for themselves what it is all about. They persecuted the people of the Czech reformation who followed Jan Hus. he spoke out against the Idea of indulgences or being able to buy your way into heaven. Did you know that the Bible is noticeably different to all other books. It contains a lot of prophecies and predictions of the future. For example Micah 5:2 predicts that a ruler from ancient days will be born in Bethlehem - "But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days." This was predicted hundreds of years before Jesus was born. The Bible is also the best preserved Historical document from those times. It has been proved right on many details that only one living at the time could have known and the gospels were written within a generation of Jesus' death and so are considered very reliable. The Christian message is that everyone has rebelled against God - including me - that we are all corrupt and evil. It says that we are completely helpless to avoid hell. The Bible says that Jesus Christ, who is God, became a human being and was crucified to pay the price for our rebellion. Please remember that we are not good upstanding religious folks but fallen people who need Jesus, just as you do.

No Christian would be able to take advantage of such a law. If such a law is supposed to stop people speaking out against religion, this would mean that Christians would be banned from speaking out against muslims, hindus, false christians etc. Which is precisely what all Christians must do. The Christian message is that ALL religion apart from Jesus Christ is morally corrupt as it is rebellion against God - and thus leads to Hell, which is a real and terrible place. Thus people need to trust in Jesus who died for our wrongs in order to rescue us. This message is called hatred by society. Christians have been locked up and killed for this message by Jews, Romans, Catholics, Communists and Muslims. This is where such a law will undoubtedly lead.

I use Sage Mathematics mostly, but any of the free stuff (maxima, genius, R, scilab) will do fine. So long as I don't have to pay - especially not the ridiculous licence fees you get on matlab and so on.