If you are wondering where my website has been for the last 3-4 days it’s been at the mercy of my atrocious web hosting service, Hostcolor Europe. I haven’t been able to access my mail, let alone my site. It’s been very frustrating, all the more so trying to get information out of them about what is wrong, when it will be fixed and whether they think this an adequate way to run a service provider. I’m waiting to hear back on compensation, and it better have the word "gold" somewhere in it. Just check out these forum posts:
http://forum.hostcolor.com/viewtopic.php?t=1119
http://forum.hostcolor.com/viewtopic.php?t=1149
http://forum.hostcolor.com/viewtopic.php?t=1132
And among other things they were supposed to roll out a new control panel which their American arm has already rolled out (6 months ago).
I am not a happy puppy. If anyone knows of decent European (UK preferably) hosting. Must be Linux based, all the usuals etc. 3-5gb space, 20-50gb monthly transfer; 20+ MYSQL db, php, cgi etc etc.
Another thing that’s been fucking me around, firewalls. I’ve used Zone Alarm for years and on the whole it’s been ok, I’ll emphasize that, ok. It ain’t the golden goose. Recent problems with MSN and making my system hang has made me uninstall it and try out alternatives. I am currently testing Agnitum Outpost Firewall. So far I’ve not slammed my head into any brickwalls, so here’s hoping.
Stansted Airport has released a list of dangerous and non-dangerous items allowed on it’s flights.
Food
- Any liquid-based food products in packets, tubes, plastic or tin containers
- Pasta or any other foodstuffs in sauces, gravies or other liquids
- Jams and syrups
- Sauces
- Pastes
- Yoghurt
- Soups (carton or otherwise)
- Stews
- Curry
Yes that’s right, no stew! Another example of just how out of proportions this idiotic thing has become, please you fucking sheeple get your heads out of your ass and think for a moment, how the flying (or no-flying as it may be) FUCK am I going to terrorise you with a stew?
OK, another person seems to be confused about basic simple principles of common decency, but that’s hardly surprising. What the hell is the matter with people, can’t they think beyond their selves?
I’ll say this simple and clear so you can understand me, Wear a Cycle Helmet. If you don’t, you are a selfish, selfish person. If you don’t wear a cycle helmet and get hit by a car, then it’s not just you that lose out it’s your family, it’s your friends, it’s even me. If you are someone I know who is selfish enough as to not wear a helmet, then you better not bloody bring it up with me, because there is no way in hell I will be reasonable or kind about it.
Interestingly, I posted a question on ask.metafilter.com asking why cyclists don’t wear helmets. Interesting replies. A lot of angry non-helmet cyclists asking me what right I have to question their personal life-choice.
OK I just deleted a whole fucking post by accident so I am gonna try again. Basically, this is the log of a discussion on slashdot which shows how blinkered geeks become when it comes down to anything regarding privacy. Don’t get me wrong, I am for privacy, for encryption and the ability to protect ourselves from the Government but some of this commentary just irritated the fuck out of me.
Original comment that got me going:
Does somebody posessing some bits on a computer equal somebody who posses plans to blow me up? Obviously a crime went into the making of the file. But it’s quite easy to have stuff on your hard disk that you didn’t knowingly download. Should a nasty video that happen to got downloaded with something else make you a criminal? So certain bit patterns make one a felon?
I took issue with that
I’m sorry, did someone compare the two because if they did I missed it.
Also, are you saying that if found possessing child pornography on your computer you shouldn’t be prosecuted. The whole point of bringing a case where someone has been found to have child porn on or about them is to prove their guilt or innocence. Maybe you didn’t realize what you downloaded, but I have just your word to go on, unless other proof supports your assertions. What choice would I have?
"So certain bit patterns make one a felon?" Yes, unless you want to make the data we store on our computers completely ungovernable. People seem to think that they have the right to store anything they want to on their computers, even though it might be highly illegal, just because it’s "bits". Well wake up call, those bits are a photograph of a young child who had no choice in the matter. What gives you the right?
People take issue with what I say
Also, are you saying that if found possessing child pornography on your computer you shouldn’t be prosecuted.
Considering the ease of how most computers are compromised through a Trojan horse, its a nice way to send someone you don’t like to jail. I’m surprised it hasn’t been used more often.
One would wonder if the defense team could get access to the computer afterwards to prove there was a back door installed or would the prosecution not allow "tampering" with the evidence and not let the defense use it as evidence.
Of course that could lead to a plausible deniability if you were harboring such images and were guilty but left an inactive copy of back orifice on your computer so you could blame a so called "hacker" when you were caught.
a good point, not the comments that annoyed me
those bits are a photograph of a young child who had no choice in the matter. What gives you the right?
I’ve never heard of an infant give consent to pictures being taken in the hospital. You better start hunting down all the people with evil baby pictures.
What about mainstream child actors? Isn’t that even more exploitative? Most of those people turn out pretty fucked up too.
You have to admit there’s a ton of hypocrisy and overreaction when it comes to this. It goes way deeper than dealing with the social harm caused by these acts.
This is the one that got me. It seems to be a wilful attempt to ignore certain truths. I reply
you are comparing photographs of children forced to do sexual acts to people taking pictures of their children in hospital or child actors?!
There is a massive amount of poorly written press when it comes to serious taboo issues like this, however comparing paedophilia to baby pictures is just plain stupid and I can’t be bothered to be more polite about it then that.
It’s true that some child actors grow up with problems, but if you hadn’t noticed some adult actors seem to make up for lost time if they weren’t famous as a child and develop their own sets. I think this is a symptom of stardom as much as anything else.
If you were wandering about the difference between baby pics and paedophile photographs, it’s to do with intent. work it out.
Someone replies to me
If you were wandering about the difference between baby pics and paedophile photographs, it’s to do with intent. work it out.
I’m confused. Intent of the photographer, or intent of the viewer of the photograph?
Should pictures of naked babies be illegal? How about if a paedophile took a picture of a naked baby? What about a picture of a naked baby sitting on the lap of a naked man?
I couldn’t be bothered to answer this one, it’s an age old debate and I think all I need to say is that it all has to do with your intent. People seem to want to draw a line in the sand which best suits them, without thinking of the greater repercussions. Back to the main convo
And if the persons possesing the bits had anything to do with producing them in the first place — either directly or even just by creating a demand — then there’s a crime a related to the act of producing or obtaining the information.
But frankly I don’t see how the information itself can be either illegal (I know that technically it is illegal, but that doesn’t mean it makes any sense). If I’ve seen a bit of child porn, perhaps as a result of prosecuting its producers, is it illegal to metally recall that image? If not, how is the memory different than the file on a disk? What if I had a really good memory and drawing skills and repoduced the image faithfully on paper? Possession of information should never constitute a crime; the only sensible crimes are related to the production, distribution, and possibly the use of data, but never to the mere fact that it exists in some reproducable form.
Can you see where this is going folks?
unless you want to make the data we store on our computers completely ungovernable.
I imagine most readers here, myself included, would like to make the data stored on our computers ungovernable by any but us. That’s why in most countries, strong encryption is legal with no requirement to turn over the keys.
I agree that child pornography is a serious problem, but I think we should distinguish between those who produce it and in the process abuse children, and those who simply download a picture, intentionally or otherwise. It is perfectly legal to possess footage and images of other crimes (robberies and sometimes worse are frequently broadcast on the evening news), yet we want to toss someone into jail just for possessing pictures of kids being abused. Given how easy it is to transfer files to an unsuspecting user through e-mail attachments (which even if the user deletes without opening can still leave "evidence" on their hard drive), or web pages which can leave images in their cache, I think the lesser of two evils would be to abolish laws which criminalize possession of kiddie porn.
OK, this is something else I take umbridge to, that the people who consume child porn are not as bad as those who make it
that’s absolutely ridiculous.
OK, we can assume that as many registered sex offenders as there are, there are still more who have never been caught. There are also people who haven’t offended yet, but might do. Now, is it really such a clever idea to make child porn available to those who might commit an offence if pushed to it by readily available imagery like that. If you make the possession of child porn legal then the knock on effect would be beyond imaginations of horror.
You sir, are part of the problem if you don’t think that the person who downloads child pornography is as responsible as the person who took the photo in the first place. You simply cannot passs the buck like that.
I suggest that anyone who feels that owning such a kind of porn should be legal is part of the problem. I really do feel that. It’s this total disassociation from the subject that bothers me. A bunch of geeks arguing for the legitimization of child porn so as they feel that viewing it is OK because it’s just a reproduction. If anyone else says anything but ‘aye, tis true’ then you get accused of being the Thought Police.
If you make the possession of child porn legal then the knock on effect would be beyond imaginations of horror.
Yes, great columns of fire would shoot out of the earth and the rivers would flow with blood. Children would be openly raped in the street. Politicians would have to find another boogeyman to use to cut back on our civil liberties and get easy votes… erm wait…
You sir, are part of the problem if you don’t think that the person who downloads child pornography is as responsible as the person who took the photo in the first place. You simply cannot passs the buck like that.
How is he part of the problem? Is voicing his opinion a problem?
not much to say on this, except it leads to my reply
because he assumes that simply downloading child porn doesn’t make him culpable. To put it another way, most post people are aware of the tenets of a free market, the one I would focus on in this case is supply and demand. If people demand a certain type of media (say child pornography) than the supply will increase to meet the demand.
If it were not illegal to own child porn then the demand for it would go up. I can’t prove this, but I can make basic assumptions based on how supply and demand work.
So i meant to suggest 1) that the incidence of creation of child pornography would increase to meet demand because of the legalization of ownership of said pornography and 2) that people who think that they can absolve responsibility from their actions by passing it to a third party by saying that they did not create it, are as bad as the originator of the porn.
I think that pretty much summarizes it. someone suggests
Well, just to play devils advocate…what about making it perfectly legal to have computer generated porn of your choice? If this was indeed kiddie porn, making this legal might satisfy those pervs. that get off on this stuff, they could get their ‘fix’ at home, and might prevent a real child from being molested. If no child is harmed in the creation of this content…and it might keep even one real child safe, why not make that perfectly legal to own and produce?
and anon coward is back
because he assumes that simply downloading child porn doesn’t make him culpable
Ahh… so he’s part of the problem because he’s making assumptions you don’t agree with? Nowhere did he imply that he personally downloads kiddie porn, he was just offering his opinion on the matter. You sir, are getting dangerously close to acting like anyone who doesn’t agree with the kiddie porn laws must be some sort of a pedophile themselves.
While the material is certainly reprehensible, I personally think the kiddie porn possession laws amount to little more than thought-crime persecution. Does that make me part of the problem too?
Oh look, this was what I was waiting for. The Thought Crime finger. A thousand pale faced geeks gushing foam from their mouthes as they gnash their teeth and wail. My reply
From my point of view, yes. In the end it does come down to my view against his, and I do think in this case that I am right and he is wrong. What is slashdot but a stomping ground for people with strong opinions.
You are putting words into my mouth by suggesting that I said if someone disagrees with me that they are a paedophile. I certainly don’t think that. However I do feel that if people think it shouldn’t be illegal to own child porn it is a tacit recognition that its creation is ok too.
Personally I don’t think that writing or CGI that contains paedophilic elements should be illegal. I realize there needs to be line drawn somewhere between freedom of expression and going too far.
Its all very well bringing up ‘thought crime’, a very potent image to a bunch of geeks but what people seem to be doing here is not connecting thought and intent. People find thought to be sacrosanct, in much the same way as the data on our computers - but thought with malicious intent can be a terrible thing, and a lot of our thoughts do lead to actions.
and yes, it does make you part of the problem in my opinion.
anon cowards response
However I do feel that if people think it shouldn’t be illegal to own child porn it is a tacit recognition that its creation is ok too.
The difference here is that some people are able to make the distinction between actual child molestation and kiddie porn. For you, they seem to be one and the same. You seem to believe that a man that possesses a photograph of a naked child is just as guilty as a man who actively molests a child.
but thought with malicious intent can be a terrible thing, and a lot of our thoughts do lead to actions.
Fascinating. So you support there being criminal penalties based solely on a person’s thoughts?
and yes, it does make you part of the problem in my opinion.
Do you think, since I am "part of the problem" due to my opinion on certain legal issues, I should be criminally liable for that opinion?
and my final response
Technically you are correct, child molestation and child porn are different ‘things’, but they are both bad. They seem to be frequently linked too, i.e. someone who molests a child might also look at child porn. For me, that puts them in the same ballpark in terms of the actual horror of what they are. And yes, I do think that a man/woman who possesses child porn is as guilty as the one who molests a child, I find someone who enjoys looking at child porn for their enjoyment equally horrific as someone who commits sexual offences against a child.
Now, if someone is found to have child porn on their computer then the reason for that porn being there needs to be established in a court of law. It could be that some malicious computer virus has placed it there.
"Fascinating. So you support there being criminal penalties based solely on a person’s thoughts?"
Er no, you have again done what I suggested people have been doing, which is not linking thoughts and acts. If someone were to merely think of committing an act, of course that isn’t punishable, it shouldn’t be. However it they *act* on those thoughts then well, you could hardly disagree that that is another matter. You seem to put pictures of childs being graphically abused in the same realm as that of fantasy, when in-fact that happened somewhere, sometime. It’s hardly surprising that people remove their selves so much from what they see around them, in our minds when we see something as a bunch of fluorescent pixels on the screen it takes on an aspect of unreality, Computers and the Internet are extremely bad for this and it is something i deeply dislike about them.
"Do you think, since I am "part of the problem" due to my opinion on certain legal issues, I should be criminally liable for that opinion?"
If it’s your opinion that child porn is OK, then as I have pointed out that is fine (as far as I can say finding child porn to be acceptable in any way is ‘fine’), however if you decide to act on that and either acquire or create child porn. what the hell do you think?
Hmm… Well you can read it all for yourselves to decide. I just get sick of geeks living in their worlds of idealism. Idealism is great but it only gets you so far, and when you can’t look beyond your own needs for privacy to other peoples need for safety then there is something wrong. The trick of course is to strike a balance between privacy and safety, which a thousand tracts have been written about, and an infinite number more wait to be written.
I find it galling that people don’t agree with me - I like to be right. I’ll say that right now. A friend once gave me a book called "The art of always being right" because I am well known for being an argumentative chap. However sometimes I have good reason.
More than anything else I see a terrible gap widening between the world and us, it’s people. We find more and more ways to absolve ourselves of the horrors in the world, our favourite one by far is to place a screen or window between us and what we have done. Windows are powerful, powerful symbols. They are used to separate and contain their subjects. Anyone who has ever seen video footage of missiles killing hundreds of people will know what I mean when I say how very unreal and even boring they are, they don’t illustrate anything except what we want to see.
I read comments on /. that suggested to me that people are comfortable ignoring the link between producing child porn and consuming it. Someone even suggested that it should be legalized so as to lure more people into making it, and then catch them. I guess that these people could have been baiting me, but I suspect not. I’ve read enough commentary on /. and other similar sites to recognise that people really do believe what they are typing.
When did people become such fucking selfish, thoughtless dreadful morons?
I will be the first to admit I am an irritable old man. I am crotchety, growl and will bite if prodded, so take what I say with salt; However I ask you what is FUCKING wrong with the world these days? Have people suddenly morphed into super x2 fuckin’ morons. I am sick of peoples fucking stupidity, idiocy and self centred-ness.
Here is a perfect example, online dating. I don’t think per-say that there is anything wrong with it, or socializing through social networking websites with the possibility of romance/fuck buddies etc. etc. However a lifehacker happens to ask:
I’ m just curious if any lifehackers out there have any tips on making a better online profile, or any tips to the whole online dating process itself. I mean, we’re all good guys here, what can we do to make sure the ladies will notice??
I happened to reply that:
I have a myspace profile, myspace.com/nemof. I did it completely for fun, and the only tweaking that went on was CSS/Photoshopping, as it was a little project for fun (displays better in Firefox as FF handles pngs better).
I’m not sure what the point of this question is really. If you want to find a partner go to a dating site, it you want an encounter go to somewhere like adult friend finder, it you want to meet like minded people then google for web-forums and sites on a particular thing that interests you to find like minded people.
Whats the point of tweaking your profile till it no-longer says who you are, it’s reflects what you want people to think you are?
And seriously, if you’re gonna spend 3-4 hours tweaking your profile on a dating site, why not turn off your computer. Get up, put your hat on, go down your local pub/club meet some people and socialize, you’re more likely to meet mr/mrs right there than on a 1inch thick 19" wide TFT.
To which someone decided to reply:
Nemo,
A person’s Mr./Mrs. will not necessarily be spending their time at a pub or a club. For some people, the internet is a wonderful place to meet people and socialize.
You, of course, are welcome to continue hitting on the girl at the bar who looks great through your beer goggles.
Now of course this reply is true in saying that Mr/Mrs Right might not be in a pub or club, but he is also being a pedantic fuck. Of course I didn’t just mean fucking pubs, I mean get the fuck out of the house and away from that fucking computer where you are spending so much of your day that you go a strange pink colour. YOU FUCKING MORON. It doesn’t matter where the fuck you go, go for a walk. Go to an Ice-rink, cinema, gig, what-FUCKING-ever YOU PEDANTIC FUCKHEAD.
I’m sick of people not realizing how fucking disconnected the Internet makes them. People talk about it like it’s shit cakes from God’s ass, well it fuckin’ isn’t.
The latest fad - OK they’ve been around for a while, but are still going strong - are social networking sites. We’ve all heard of myspace, beebo, facebook and so on. The thing they have in common is your talking to a screen, not a real person. There is no deep socializing going on there, but people are becoming more and more dependent on these services as their communication mediums.
There is some irony in me writing this in a blog, another form of communicating. However I don’t expect any fucking heart felt comments of understanding, I don’t want your fucking opinion and I don’t give a shit if you read it. I write for me, so you may as well fuck off your cunt.
someone hasn’t had a nice day.
OK, next subject.
Cycle helmets - AKA wear a fucking helmet you FUCKING moron
OK this is something has been bothering me for years, and I know for all the years I have been worrying about it people have dying because of it, WEAR A FUCKING HELMET YOU FUCK-WIT-DEAD-END-SPERM-SHIT-OF-AN-WHORE MORON.
There is no fucking middle ground on this people, if you put your fucking feet on the peddles of a bike then make the fuck sure you have a helmet on because if you don’t then if you happen to see me I will make you sorry you didn’t have the simple common sense to care about your own health or the welfare of your family, friends and loved ones.
More than anything not wearing a helmet is fucking selfish. Every single cyclist who thinks too good for a helmet, you better rethink your life buddy. When you are lying in a fucking heap of red oozing flesh, pieces of fucking brain pouring out of your head where you staved it in on a car window that side swiped, be happy that your fucking hair looks great, and that you don’t look a twat in one of those silly cycle helmets. Be thankful that when they have your fucking funeral and your Mum is crying over coffin she can take FUCKING solace in your hair looking so FUCKING good. Be fucking happy that you didn’t spend those few fucking minutes wasted buying a cycle helmet for £20 that you could spend on fucking blow and booze instead. Well done, well done indeed. I Applaud you for caring about everyone and putting everyone before your own vanity. You F.U.C.K.
To put this in perspective. My sister had a friend some years ago who came to visit us on his bike. He cycled out, saw my sister and then after visiting cycled back to his house. On the way he was hit by a car and put into a Coma. He’s been in that ever since. He’s never come out. He’s a fucking vegetable in a Hospital. He’ll never be anything else. Now I’m sure he wouldn’t want to be like that if he could speak for himself now. But he can’t.
The thing that really, really gets me is this. When you talk to a cyclist who doesn’t wear a helmet, and in Bristol which is a cycling City I would estimate the majority or around 50% of cyclists don’t wear helmets - When you talk to them, they look at you as if you said something offensive. They don’t want to fucking know, they don’t want to be reminded of their mortality. However the problem is, this isn’t making a cup of tea and some slices of toast, this is cycling a fucking two wheeled tin fucking contraption on a tarmac inches away from steel monsters speeding down the road at 50 miles an hour.
Put it like this, when a bloke fucks his girlfriend he has fucking common sense to put a helmet on his cock (a condom) to catch any accidents. After all it only needs to go wrong once. So you got the common sense to stick a helmet on your dick, protect the brain that does the thinking downstairs, but you refuse to fucking have the common decency to wear a fucking helmet upstairs?
YOU PIECE OF SHIT FUCK, WEAR A FUCKING HELMET THEN MAYBE, JUST FUCKING MAYBE I’ll HAVE SOME FUCKING RESPECT FOR YOU.
Why is child pornography as bad as terrorism?
(Score:5, Insightful)