The mere fact of placing a copy on a shared directory in a computer where that copy can be accessed via a P2P service does not amount to distribution. Before it constitutes distribution, there must be a positive act by the owner of the shared directory, such as sending or the copies or advertising that they are available for copying.

Say...I've noticed that when I have Kazaa running and connected, I receive requests to my computer asking if I have such and such files. 'Britney Spears'. 'XXX'. All that good stuff. But when I don't have Kazaa connected, I don't receive these search queries. So...just how do the searchers know when to ask me? I mean, apparently all I've done is set up a shared directory filled with files. I didn't advertise it at all, telling anyone else on the network know I have stuff to share.

No such evidence was presented by the plaintiffs in this case. They merely presented evidence that the alleged infringers made copies available on their shared drives.

Ah, so the judge isn't saying filesharing copyrighted material on Kazaa is legal. He's just saying the CRIA (RIAA of Canada) didn't bother to mention one I-thought-obvious-but-apparently-needing-explicit-stating detail. Whoops!
(Source: PDF, HTML (The results ('CRIA wrong; ISPs of filesharers right') of the appeal of the famous 'file sharing is legal in Canada' decision.))
(Note that Bill C-60 will fix this stupid ruling and lay down the groundwork for a bunch of worse ones in its stead.)

The appeal decision also mentions the old decision that putting a copier and copyrighted material close together isn't authorising someone to violate copyright.
True. Good decision, that was. However, is he claiming that--if the downloaders copied copyrighted music--they did it without authorisation, and therefore the people sending the music isn't to blame? The file sharers didn't authorise the downloading of this music when they, I don't know, installed a p2p program, configured it to share their music, connected it to the P2P network, and knowingly permitted it to then transfer the music to other people over their connection?

So on one forum I hang out at, a troll, in a trite-but-effective bit of trolling, recently declared himself candidate for forum president. Other people decided to run, and held an election and votes were actually cast. But it was never well organised at all, and certainly unofficial.

Then the troll declared himself winner, ignoring the non-troll election, as any idiot except all the ones on the forum knew he would.

So I explained it to them like this:

Chen Shui-Bian is president of China.

Of course, these idiots won't get it. But I think I'm very clever, and I shall preserve this bit of wit here, even though Google (blog search included) doesn't index archived posts. Even if they get zero results, they won't show old blog entries.

Yeah, that totally handles blog spam, dumbasses.

At the ECU costume contest last year, I realised what I just had to do this time around.

the contest goes like this: We each go up onto stage, say who we are (IRL) and what we're dressed as, and walk across the stage, doing our thing. When it was my turn, I proudly stated 'My name is Luca Masters and I'm a guy wearing a cape'.

Of course, I didn't win, and I didn't expect to. I'm not claiming my constume was the best there, but the point is that it wasn't necessarily the /worst/ one their either. Take that, half-assed-costumed contest enterers!

Anyway, I absolutely must give honourable mention to one hoopy frood. He was there tonight, as well as at the /Rocky Horror Picture Show/ costume contest last week. No, he wasn't Dr. Frank-N-Furter. No, he wasn't Timmeh. He was the Black Knight, from /Monty Python and the Holy Grail/, and he should have won if not tonight, at the /Rocky Horror Picture Show/. He got my cheer. That guy rocks. I took some lame pictures of him at the RHPS, but I then lost my camera. Dang.

Some weeks ago, I was buying some oil, and the register said '$2.56'. And obviously my mind wasn't working normally because I didn't think 2^8 as I normally would.

Anyhoo, I handed her 3USD expecting 4 cents in return. It took me an hour to realise why she gave me 44 instead.

No. Wait. It was 2.54USD, 4 cents, and 46 cents. So my mind was working correctly. Except for the 'we're using base 60, right?' bit.

(Potentially relevant link)

(Link largely unrelated to this post. I ended a forum post about this news story with that line. What a useless headline.)

The United Arab Emirates and Iran and the lot are terrible countries. No nation should ever officially favour one religion (or race) over another. That's just immoral.

Israel, of course, doesn't count. That's different. Because those poor souls were oppressed by Hitler. Hitler didn't mind Muslims though. He thought they were just as good as Christians.

I have a leather-bound, 1928 annotated edition of Dickens' /A Christmas Carol/. 'With marginal notes for salesmen'. From the intro:

The Greatest Sale Ever Made
...
To a salesman, "A Christmas Carol" is especially interesting, because it is the story of a sale. It is the most fascinating story of a sale ever. Only Dickens could have shaped fine-spun strategy used by Marley's Ghost to sell the idea of a Merry Christmas to "hard boiled," cynical old Scrooge. The sale in itself was an achievement, but what makes it especially noteworthy is that in getting Scrooge to see Christmas as he saw it, Marley's Ghost has sold the same idea merry Christmas to millions of readers throughout the English speaking world. ...

Annotations include Scrooge was Not Exactly What You Would Call an "Easy" Man to Sell--He was Too "Cagey". And Playing on the Harp Was the Vogue Then--But Now a Really Artistic Salesman Plays His Tune on the Prospect's Cash Register.

Primetime did an (extremely biased) episode on a couple of young Neo-Nazis. And very poorly done. It's bad when the Neo-Nazis sound more educated than the national reporters. 'Oh, you're just teaching your own kids your own political views! Shocking!' Well, duh! I'm sure normal kids never pick up political beliefs from their kids. Oh, and I especially like how peaceful neo-Nazi protesters were attacked by rioters, so Neo-Nazis are /clearly/ dangerous.

They talk about people refusing white-only Katrina aid, but how about doing something about moronic reporters arguing for our side? Reminds me of the SNL skit where Saddam publically supported...Kerry? Bush? Clinton? McCain? Anyway, yes. Please, 60 Minutes, you're not helping the anti-racism cause..

Of course, it's quite normal for /Primetime/. I once watched part of a pornography thingy they (or /60 Minutes/?) did. The reporter v. pornographers was like Britney Spears v. Stephen Hawking.

/Primetime/ is the prig's /Jerry Springer/.

Because I recentlyish got a Kodak digital camera and have been receiving their newsletter, they sent me an online survey about it and their newsletter.

Some tips for their survey writers:
* Don't mix multiple choice answers. 'I like taking photos and REALLY like editing my pictures' is not true. You need either two distinct questions or include the entire Cartesian product for answers about photo /taking/ and photo /eiditing/ options.
* Same thing for sharing photos and editing phots.
* If the question says '(Enter whole dollar amount. Please enter 0 if none. You do not need to type in the "$" sign.)', it shouldn't prohibit you from entering numbers under 25.
* Don't assume I've read the newsletter and have opinions about it. Yes, I /think/ I've been receiving it, but I certainly didn't /read/ it. But I will happily check the 'Too many images' box.
* Don't make me answer every question. You want random choices for questions that are completely irrelevant, or for me to give you nothing at all?

(Potentially relevant link)

Nearing that time of year again. Several of my friends have been planning for a month or two already. I started something like this many years ago, and was thinking it could make an interesting NanoWriM, but I doubt I'll do it that way. But, you know, when you're short on words for the day, throwing in a H2G2-esque article from time to time could be appealing. Coherence will not be something I demand of my story.

Graham (who alerted me to NaNoWriMo with his blog entry last year) is talking about how much harder it may be for him this time, since he succeded last year. For me, that's no problem. It can't really go much worse.
2004-11-01: Five hours of sleep the night before. Too tired to write much that evening. Why did they have ot make it start the day after Halloween? I wrote under 800 words.
2004-11-02: I wrote under 400 words, as I recall. I just /had/ to go watch the election results come in instead.
2004-11-03: Four more years. Too depressed to write.
2004-11-04: Four more years. Too depressed to write.
2004-11-05: Four more years. Too depressed to write.
2004-11-06: Four more years. Too depressed to write.
2004-11-07: Four more years. Too depressed to write.
2004-11-08: Four more years. Too depressed to write.
...

I wrote a tad more around the twelfth, or so, but by that time it was obviously a failed endeavour. This year, maybe I'll just go ahead and forget all about quality as I had planned. Writing poorly is not the easiest thing for me.

Thursday, a homeless guy was talking to me (or foodless, anyway) and he asked where I was from. I told him I was from Chocowinity, NC (this was in neighboring Washington, NC) and he didn't believe me. Apparently the way I speak is too proper. 'You must be British or something'.

Now, I don't have the southern accent of everyone else in the area, but I'm certainly not British. Of course, this guy had trouble understanding anything I said for some reason.

Anyway, if I wear a blue shirt today and a red shirt tomorrow, no one thinks 'He switched from medical to operations! That's weird.' It's perfectly normal. But if I switch to a Cockney accent for a day, people will think I'm totally bizarre (and annoying). People are stupid that way.