Posts by ratfox 3465 posts • joined 3 Sep 2007
The way we think is: You want a collection of high-level characters, you have to earn it the hard way. It's boring? Tough. Essentially, we think you are being lazy.
Actually, I would mind less if it was used in instances. At least, it would not interfere with my gameplay. But then, I was not in the race to have the coolest weapons on the server. (Not playing at all anymore, actually)
It doesn't look so far as if they can touch it in any jurisdiction except United States...
So far, France has rejected to close down the website hosted there, and for all the "persecution" of Assange by Sweden, the site is still hosted there, loud and clear.
By the way, Spamhaus is based in UK.
The whole world can now read these cables, yet the people in charge are unable to make the necessary changes in security protocols so that the people who were originally most likely to have access to it are allowed to read them from the web. This is truly an example of a bureaucracy that cannot get a clue: "The rules say that every evening, we must do a headcount of the barn, and close the door. I know the barn is empty, but the rules still apply."
Nah nah naaaah, can't hear you, can't hear you...
Well, imagine that Visa and MasterCard suddenly refused to take payments for, say, the iTunes store... I don't care what their T&C are, they would have a hell of a lawsuit coming their way.
They would not do that with Apple, of course, but when you think of it, few business can survive on the web once Visa, MasterCard and PayPal refuse to work with them. That is a lot of power they wield.
Objectively, neither WikiLeaks nor DataCell have been charged with anything.
Of course, Visa certainly has a shitload of provisions in their T&C to allow them to terminate an account whenever they want, without needing to justify themselves. Now, the question is, since they have such a stronghold on the market, is this abuse of monopoly?
The way I see it, it is. I believe any organization should be allowed to get paid by credit cards, like about anybody else, as long as it has not been declared guilty of something by the legal system. In that, I approve completely of the position of OVH, which is hosting WikiLeaks in France as long as the French justice says they cannot.
Yes, some other sites have mentioned that if an unclassified computer gets infected with classified data, it is a big problem because then the whole hard drive has to be shredded, as a standard security procedure. Imagine that happening to the mail server because somebody sent an e-mail about a cable he just read...
So, because nobody is willing to either declassify the lot, or create an exception to the security procedure, official unclassified computers must be kept clean by staying away from the bad stuff... This is actually a fairly valid explanation for a bureaucracy with many layers of rules.
However, this does not explain why university students have been warned to not talk of the cables on social networks, in case they ever want to work for the government. This may be paranoia, but it is fairly bone-chilling.
Boston University warned its students that posting about the leaks on social networks may look poorly when they apply to US government jobs. Getting these jobs entails a security check, which might just entail a google check for their name+wikileaks...
That I understand, this was not an official statement, just a warning to the students to be careful. What does it say about a government that merely commenting on the news may bar you from getting a government job?
"White House Tells All Federal Agencies To Prohibit Unauthorized Employees From Wikileaks Site"
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2010/12/why-not-just-stamp-secret-across-the-front-page-of-the-ny-times/67310/
Now, this is comedy material. "Yes, we know that everybody in the world can read these leaks. But YOU are our F**ING EMPLOYEES and YOU will only read what we ALLOW you to read!"
A law school has also warned its students that talking about the leaks on social networks could possibly give them trouble if they apply for US gov positions. You never know.
There is an IT angle: this could be due to Standard Security Procedures(TM). Apparently, any unclassified hard disk that is found containing classified information has to be shredded and replaced. Talk about an IT support nightmare!
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2010/12/more-about-secret-info-on-the-front-page/67423
Quite honestly, the circus around the leaks is way more entertaining than the leaks themselves.
Will Joe Lieberman retract his claim that Amazon booted Wikileaks thanks to his intervention? Don't answer that. Ha ha.
Still, all this is probably the biggest concerted international effort to close down a website that the internet has known so far. It actually seems to give quite a lot of work to the people in Wikileaks, more than I would have thought. Still, it obviously will not work. Duh.
I am wondering at which point Wikileaks will just say: "screw that" and distribute a huge file with the remaining cables in one go, rather than the daily spoon feeding they did so far.
I can't think of anybody else who must regret so much listening to his lower brain since Bill Clinton in the Monica Lewinsky affair.
By the way, this is from the Wikipedia entry on Interpol:
"In order to maintain as politically neutral a role as possible, Interpol's constitution forbids its involvement in crimes that do not overlap several member countries,[3] or in any political, military, religious, or racial crimes.[4] Its work focuses primarily on public safety, terrorism, organized crime, crimes against humanity, environmental crime, genocide, war crimes, piracy, illicit drug production, drug trafficking, weapons smuggling, human trafficking, money laundering, child pornography, white-collar crime, computer crime, intellectual property crime and corruption."
I don't usually follow what Interpol actually does, but it looks like they are a bit out of their usual tracks, this time.
...Oh, Ecuador have apparently rescinded their offer, condemning the leaks. Apparently, diplomatic cables are still going from US to the Ecuador.
PH for the honey trap, of course
Usually, I am looking for a very particular question. Either the Google Scholar results are about the right problem, or they are not. There is no "better" or "worse", just "yes" or "no".
If I am looking for new papers, I usually find them by searching which papers cite the papers that I already know.
Wouldn't you actually make more money by working at McDonald's? What is more, in a truly risk-free way? From my point of view, it would even be less boring.
There are quite a few things that can go wrong in such a scheme, from the bookie going bust to your connection lagging at the wrong time to a simple mistake in the betting. If anything happens, you are likely to lose everything... and eve if you win every time, the margins are small.
Go ahead if you have nothing better to do with your time. As for me, I do have.
Why are people complaining so much about the price of eBooks? Just buy a real book, then.
...Or could it be that you find eBooks so much more practical, because you can keep a whole library in a single device? Well, THAT advantage is something you should, obviously, pay for.
Honestly, I feel that people are complaining that the thing they find so much better and more useful and easier to use and easier to buy, actually costs more money.
From the New York Times:
Amy Wax, president of the International Association of Color Consultants North America, said the use of “childish” primary colors like red, yellow and blue might have diluted the impact. “Purple, orange and magenta might create a sense of something that would get attention".
CLEARLY, this is an expert consultant.
Some comment imply that on a cheap low-end android, you should not expect high performance. But the article seems to imply that if it was just programmed in Flash, everything would work everywhere.
So which is it? If Android has low-end models that cannot run computation-intensive programs, that is understandable. If all models are powerful enough, but so different that is is a pain to code something that will work everywhere, that is a point against Android. On the other hand, if Flash really makes it simple to code for all models, then that is a point FOR android: "Just code it in Flash. Not that big of a deal."
Whenever I look for something that looks like a place, e.g. "san diego ca", I always get a Google Maps link in top position, never a Mapquest link or whatever equivalent Bing has.
My assumption always has been that the Google engine forcibly adds a Google Maps link, not that by some incredible chance, the best link was always that one...
> First, in the US you can't sue anyone over anything. It has to pass a sniff test otherwise the lawyer > bringing the lawsuit can be disbarred.
WA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA ...
Good to know you cannot sue for improper reasons in US... And that only cases that are legitimate are brought to court... *pffffrt* WA HA HA HA HA HA... sniff...
And you owe me a new keyboard!
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