cynicalbastard

Got a couple of emails about ‘lost’ comments. Currently I’m getting around 200-250 spam comments every day. Anything held in the spam queue gets wiped without checking. If you comment with any links in the comment, you get treated as spam.

BoingBoing has a post about the new Pipes service from Yahoo. which looks well interesting in a web 2.0/social network/what the hell is this really for? type way (see flickr/delicious, etc).

First thing I think? Cool, I can get BoingBoing without Xeni Jardin (which would be ironic considering she wrote the pipes post). But seems someone’s beaten me to it. Xeni, another waste of that second X chromosome.

Still getting huge amounts of comment spam (thanks nice girl lesbian, but no thanks). It’s getting ever more poetic. One, for health care, really caught my eye–

“infringing foresters.sweating comrades regrouped Anatolian Berman miscarriage”

Isn’t that a Mars Volta lyric? And if it isn’t, shouldn’t it be? Followed by thirty minute cucaracha track, of course.

Yup, once again, we have murder committed by the interweb. Uhhr, no, hang on a moment. Surely a man murdered a woman here? Something that is, of course, sadly all too common. But, no, apparently, the interweb was to blame. Must be all those tubes.

Be interesting how they try and enforce this one–

“acts that appear to be life threatening or are likely to result in serious, disabling injury

Remove that ‘disabling’ and most piercing sites would come under scrutiny. Actually, bme would anyway.

That ‘appear’ leaves open the application of the law (as currently with kiddie porn legislation) to completely fake images. Ie. you make an animation of someone murdering someone, its just as criminal as if you film someone murdering someone.

Oh, and ‘likely to result in…’ Hmm, the jackass boys better not be filming round here.

File under ‘completely unenforceable pandering to the tabloids.”

If any of you want to talk about the famous novel, I’m afraid you’ll be blacklisted. The amount of spam I get that references Harper Lee is astonishing. So Harper Lee disappears into negative space. Which is a shame. Though I preferred the film.

Somebody needs to do a version of this for the pinko-loving, Israel-hating BBC. (From Boingboing obviously—do you need another website?)

I used to do this sort of crap all day. Now I’m a boss, of course, I have to frown upon such activity. Enjoy the ‘gentleman’s code of wind-up’.

Most amusing.

I did not, repeat not make a page with Keane on it. Or anywhere near it. I now have to hope that no-one is looking over my shoulder next time I log in.

If only we did this with everything that irritated us…

I don’t actually understand why anyone would buy a Peugeot (yes, now I have passed my test I am officially ‘interested’ in cars) anyway, but seems the logical way to respond.

Perhaps we could respond the same way to GNER, Orange, MBNA, in fact any and all banks, NPower, the TV licensing people.

Lots of little cubes then.

I’ve complained before of the tactics of the TV licensing people.

This morning the press was full of the news that watching the world cup on your home or work computer means you have to buy a TV licence. The story from The Sun is straight-forward (with the note that you don’t need a license to listen to their audio coverage).

The Guardian typically tries to follow what has always been the previous understanding of the law regarding the need for a licence–that TV receiving equipment is needed (ie. a decoder card), and no licence would be required if one is simply watching TV over broadband.

However, and this is where it gets interesting, others have actually asked. Out-law.com carry the story and have a quote from a rep of the licensing authority making clear that a special card isn’t needed:

“We make no distinction between those watching TV via PC-TV, broadband or any other way,” said the spokeswoman. “If you are watching TV at the same time as it is being broadcast in the UK you need to be covered by a valid licence

This is based on a statutory instrument issued by the secretary of state in 2004–

“‘television receiver’ means any apparatus installed or used for the purpose of receiving (whether by means of wireless telegraphy or otherwise) any television programme service, whether or not it is installed or used for any other purpose.”

Out-law suggests that the law would probably accept that a computer would be included in that definition. Not that this is a new story—TV licensing made the same announcement back in February when TV on mobiles was the target.

However, OFCOM has, in the past, said that the law does not apply to broadband connections. And the DCMS (the government department responsible for TV licensing) has said likewise. TV licensing’s own webpage still only mentions PCs with a broadcast card (presumably they don’t care about Macs).

With regard to mobiles, the TV licensing site is also explicit that TV sets using their own internal batteries do not require a license. Presumably a mobile could be so defined?

Basically, the authorities are trying it on. TV licensing have expanded the definition of TV equipment to include ‘virtually live’ thanks to government support, which gets round the time lag on streaming, but the regulations still await testing in court. When OFCOM believes there’s a loophole, you’ve got to wonder who to believe.

Of course, they also have no way of knowing who is using broadband to watch TV (unless BT hands over their subscriber list), so the whole thing is rather moot.

Luckily, they have a solution in the long term: a tax on computer equipment itself. Now there’s a way to end the digital divide. .

Elsewhere Jonathan Miller (no, not the Beyond the Fringe guy) is challenging licensing in court using the Human Rights Act, which guarantees individuals the right to receive and impart information and only allows the state to license the broadcasters rather than individuals receiving the broadcasts.

If the inspectors do come to call, some information on your rights may help. They can’t enter your home without a search warrant, and they can’t get one of those without evidence.

I’m having to assume that someone at Wordpress is having a laugh, or that ‘merkins don’t know what a nonce is.

Yes, yes, I understand that illegal downloads are costing rhe record industry millions. £1.1bn over three years in fact. It says so in The Times and Reuters and the Evening Standard.

There’s also the same story here, here, here and here. And I mean exactly the same story.

But where’s the methodology? How on earth were these figures arrived at? No one seems interested in any consideration, certainly in challenging the figures.

Only the good old BBC seems to have done any further analysis (though Monsters and Critics mysteriously carries the same quotes). But, hey, if you’re a hack just print the press release, right?

to that feckwit bogger for getting sued. I’ve now got someone threatening libel action against ilkleyrocks. It’s amazing the effect the meejah has innit?

Sorry, just avoiding finishing off the great work. And it appears I’ve missed stories about prostitution (and the opportunity to give Bindel a fisking), equal pay and all sorts of other nonsense which I usually like to blog about.

What I didn’t miss was the story about Google refusing to submit to a subpoena from the US government. Garry, amongst others, has suggested this is a matter of privacy, and praises Google for doing the right thing.

John Battelle, who has probably forgotten more about the mighty Russian search machine than most of us could ever know, begs to differ. He points out it’s rather a matter of commercial confidentiality. The subpoena actually asks for..

” asks Google to produce an electronic file containing ‘[a]ll URL’s that are available to be located through a query on your company’s search engine as of July 31 2005…

“all queries that have been entered on your company’ search engine between June 1, 2005 and July 31, 2005.”

Giving over that information would give a rather large helping to understand how much of the net Google indexes, how it goes about it, etc. Battelle doesn’t go this far, but that information could potentially be of substantial use to other companies seeking to, say, launch their own search engines or improve the ones they currently have.

(entertaining that Google also has to PAY to collect this information–and excellent use of the legal device of ‘we can’t prove you’re guilty of anything, but by forcing you to gather your defence, we’re hoping to bankrupt you anyway.’)