Posts by Vladimir Plouzhnikov

BBC

That was the BBC News this morning. Mind you, the presenters in general sounded and looked more boisterous and euphoric than usual - must have had a busy night after the TV Awards ceremony...

Well...

Don't disagree with any of what you are saying.

But it does not change the fact that what they are doing to Manning is not meant to keep him from self-harm but to show him the degree of displeasure of the organisation he worked for with his behaviour.

Interestingly, I am now reading memoirs of an RAF officer shot down over Germany and captured in 1941 and he describes a very similar procedure applied to the POW who did not behave themselves in the German camps. The only difference is that the Nazis did not try to pretend it was some sort of "suicide watch".

Re: on the other hand

"I have no books on my Kindle that cost more than £0.00."

Actually, you don't have any books on "your" Kindle - Amazon has. And it can and will remove them as it sees fit. And you cannot do anything about it.

And if that is not a lock-in, then what is?

And as far as I remember, to read even your own PDFs the Kindle must phone Adobe for their kind permission first. How can you put up with this all, people?

And then...

Who pulled the barbs out !? Who, who, who?!!?!??

No prospect of conviction

They have a cogent and undisputed defence argument: the "music" they are manufacturing and distributing is so bad that it is incapable of causing any dopamine releasing effect.

Ideals v intentions

"quicken the coming of the apocalypse in order to hasten the return of the Mahdi, the prophesied future redeemer of Islam"

It may come as a surprise to you but the official Soviet ideology called for world-wide violent revolution to overthrow the yoke of capitalism and convert every country to one true communist way of life where there will be no exploited and exploiters, no money, no trade, no rich and poor divide.

Sometime. Eventually. In the far away future.

For the more practical immediate future, though, the Politbureau members and the Party elite enjoyed the spoils of the capitalist industry and preferred to keep their personal money in Western banks, which they were in no rush to destroy.

Virtual City

Of course it is not a virtual city! It's a series of tubes.

Dangers of mercury

"yet I'm still sufficiently compos mentis to write this"

Er, but how do you know? :-)

@Matt

So many things here - don't know where to start...

Your example with US-Saudi discussions, for instance. OK, US is embarrassed, Saudis are embarrassed. But how am *I* harmed by learning about what they talk about? And how is that different from, say, French journos finding out about it and printing it in Le Monde?

Also, why do you think that the US long term interests are harmed by this? Maybe this particular leak will force them to adjust their stance on the Saudis and on Israel and in future there will be one less terrorist attack on the US soil? If anything, they will improve their security procedures as the result of the whole thing. The truth is: if you don't know what your Govt is doing - how do you know they are doing it right (or wrong)?

Another thing - that espionage investigation. So the US Govt is basically saying - "we know this Assange guy is no spy, of course, but he has embarassed us and we will now fiddle with our legal system and find a way to charge him with espionage anyway and we don't care that everybody would know that this is what we've done". So, of course, this is damaging the US reputation. It, in fact, begins to look like that Khodorkovsky (who is not a fracking saint either) process in Russia - "we don't care whether he did anything wrong or not, probably not, but we don't like him, so we'll say he did and get him that way".

And this brings me to another point - whether you or I like Assange or his motives or not is irrelevant. I think he is an arrogant bugger with acute narcissism but I really don't care. Neither do I care whether WL is doing this for money or out of love for freedom and universal happiness.

They found a piece of information which someone careless has dropped - they published it. They've done me (and other members of public) a service - if only of entertaining value.

The thing about the death penalty - here I agree with you, who do they think he is? Mata Hari?.

re: I take it...

FPS and some flight sims. Hate WOW and MMORPGs.

Even so, I used to buy PC games on impulse - just walk into an HMV, look at the pictures, buy a bunch of games, most of them I would never probably even install later on...

Now - I can't buy anything without having to research first what kind of DRM is on it, and if there is an online activation and similar restrictions I will not touch it. So, the loss to the industry is ... great, as I used to buy a lot of games and am now buying bugger all.

Fairness.

Firstly, you are not their employer. Just because you pay tax it does not make you some kind of shareholder of the Government, so don't deceive yourself.

Secondly, even shareholders of commercial enterprises, while they may be entitled to some information (usually a narrowly defined list of documentation prepared for shareholder meetings) cannot arbitrarily demand any and all kind of information from the business they have a share in. They will have to go through proper procedures - with the Shareholder Meeting or through the BOD if they control any directors. In any case, unless you are a controlling shareholder the company may refuse to provide you the information and/or charge for it and may impose non-compete restrictions etc.

Finally, FOI was designed as an instrument to make govt officials and organisations accountable. Primarily it was meant to make it easier to catch civil servants spending public funds on personal lifestyle and to check where the speed cameras were.

Here the guy wants to have *operational* data for his own commercial purposes - why the hell should you and I pay our taxes to finance him getting that data for free through a government accountability channel? He should ask nicely and, I'd say, pay a fee, at least to cover the admin costs of collating the information for him.

Buttock traumatology

"I've never heard of anyone suffering from buttock trauma?"

I used to have a lot of these - caused by my father's belt, usually. But any suffering was short lasting and there is a body of opinion that these traumas actually do you a lot of good (though illegal now in this country).

DLNA?

Oh, you mean this?

http://www.reghardware.com/2010/10/18/wtf_is_dlna/

Seems like yet more DRMed anal treatment.

If only it was that simple

"tax the spending of the money - whether in the shops or online and strangely you will encourage saving for old age as well"

Even more strangely, you will find out you have encouraged all your economy to switch to cash and move to the black market.

Of course, this can be avoided by forcing everyone to pay electronically... only that would need identity checks, so you will have to register your house address... which will encourage the Government to come and look at it to see if the size of the house is commensurate with your taxable spendings... which will encourage you to keep track of your earnings so that you could defend against Government's claim that you spend less than you earn (hence evade tax)... until some bright head suggests that, maybe, it would be a good idea to tax people's earnings instead of what they spend...

OK, but

Except Waterstones' shop assistant won't break into your house to take back a previously sold book from your shelf because his manager decided that it is no longer appropriate, licensed, politically correct etc.

Kindle = BD player = Internet-connected TV = iPhone = Steam = any other DRMed crap and those who use it are either ignorant or not very bright or just like to be abused.

@AC

Check your own prescription first, mate, before you touch the keyboard.

Not so simple

"then they should put a million dollars and a US passport on his head, in return for his head at any US embassy."

Why would anyone want a US passport for such peanuts - there are plenty of people willing to pay more than that just to give it back (but they can't). You see, it comes with lifelong worldwide tax attached + complimentary beheading, free kidnapping and general derision in a large part of the world.

You are right

Yes, legalisation is clearly the only way to protect the women engaged in that profession.

It is however notable that most of those individuals and organisations who wring their wrists about the plight of the victims of prostitution are lobbying for tightening the screws, banning, prosecuting and punishing the prostitutes themselves and/or their clients.

I lived long enough to come to my own conclusions on why is that so, here they are:

- men objecting to legalisation of prostitution are either opportunists latching on to what they think is a failsafe banwagon or hypocrites who say one thing (perhaps to deflect any suspicion from themselves) and do exactly the opposite (like Spitzer of NYC fame).

- women objecting to legalisation of prostitution are those who consider every woman (including themselves) a prostitute anyway and are afraid of being undercut by the "streetwalkers". These women sell themselves (in their own minds) for career advancement, impregnation, marriage certificate, divorce settlement etc., and they are of such a low opinion of themselves and of men that they think men will automatically prefer the cheapest possible sex with a professional prostitute to them. Maybe they are right too...

Grey areas

"Personally I see myself as quite a lot of things, only a few of which pertain to my gender."

Well, yes, balance, sure. And part of the balance is that women (like men) are sexual beings (and therefore objects) and that is no bad thing. The word "object" does not imply "inanimate" or "soulless" or "lacking free will", at least as far as I understand that word.

But what people using the "sex object" argument imply is that men would normally prefer sex with a blow-up doll (which happened to have the right skin temperature) to one it with a real person and that the only thing that (barely) stops them is lack of exposure to porn. Oh, and that sex is bad and should only be used for procreation.

I've heard this so many times:

"If you watch porn you will see women as sex toys"

"If you watch anal porn you will become obsessed with anal sex"

"If you watch gay porn you will become gay"

"If you watch any porn you will become addicted (but the Priory Clinics will cure you in no time for a small fee and a conversion to Scientology)"

If that were true all birdwatchers would have long since become magpies. And I fear to think of what could happen to trainspotters...

Re: Really?

"Like the Goth guy and his girlfriend who stood up to their bullies, one of whom is now dead the other was very closely beaten to death?"

That was not bullying - it was assault, which is a transient situation. Can happen to anyone in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Bullying is a long-term process and the only effective method of counter-bullying is fighting back.