I agree that the defendant's argument that it's fair use to download copyrighted music seems not to be based in natural justice, or indeed first-order logic. As far as I can make out, that's what "copyright" means. But it's really only as arcane an argument as the judge's assertion that (and I paraphrase the article for effect) "well, if it was legal to download copyrighted music, then lots of people who currently don't do it would start doing it. And that seems like it wouldn't be a good thing for the music industry, so I rule against it". It surely shouldn't hinge on what the judge thinks is the *moral* perspective on file sharing.

I think all that has become clear to me about this case so far is why I never went on to become a lawyer!

Modulation and demodulation processes don't necessarily involve conversion to/from analogue or digital. They simply involve placing one signal over the top of another before transmission of the combined signal (as in radio transmissions) and removing the original signal upon reception, in order to retrieve information included in that signal. The modulation method is at the user's prerogative, and will involve considerations such as the required propagation distance and acceptable losses of data. DAC or ADC are optional.

Good point: the "Carry On" films made millions in the 1960s when we had the Lord Chamberlain's Office overseeing everything that went out in any medium for profanity. Everybody except the dear old LC pissed themselves laughing at the double entendres coming thick and fast (as it were).

"A woman walked into a bar and asked the barman for a double entendre. So he gave her one".

It's only dirty if you've got a dirty mind.

Oh, my mistake... I thought that URL said "scathouse".

^%::&++!

Reminds me of some of the fabulously badly-written C++ I used to see at IBM in the nineties, the sort of thing that would give the preprocessor a hernia and anyone bug-fixing a nervous breakdown.

Actually, the interior of a watermelon is both black AND red until it's cut open, according to my local greengrocer, Mr Schrodinger.

And just how DO you get an 'o' with an umlaut on here? I tried Alt-148 and it reproduces in the editor but not in the preview!

In the sense that nobody will buy it when it comes out because it's sluggish, overpriced, heavy on precious resources and takes 5 years to get the proper service done on it when it leaks?

"Zune" as a verb. Nice!

"I was really looking forward to a night on the tiles, but after a few beers and chasers I zuned by 11.30".

"Wow! And we thought Guns 'n' Roses had zuned years ago"... etc.

Animal hides and termite-infested wood? Not quite as funny as it sounds...

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/11/03/anthrax_death/

Moderate +many. Interesting and funny.

Though I haven't had a bank statement in 10 years that inspired any confidence.

I went to University of Teesside for 3 years. Have you ever been to Middlesbrough? It's grey, cold and wet in July, and the rest of the year the weather is *really* depressing. They're not the most optimistic people in the world. Even free money wouldn't improve their stoical disposition, IMHO.

When I was in my first year at college, we were asked to produce a questionnaire about using ATMs, including the question: "If you could change one thing about your bank's ATMs, what would it be?"

The most popular answer I managed to get was "if the machine's running out of money, they should restrict the cash withdrawal function to customers of this branch".

Does anyone see a parallel here?

I just use it generically (handily, most every stoner I've met in the world seems to know of the term, so the humour works).

Perhaps the best use of it that I've heard of is in the Peter Cook and Dudley Moore sketch about (Cook) the naughty public schoolboy who is going to get caned by (Moore) the headmaster until he informs him that (something like) "actually, I'm much bigger than you are, Sir, and if you do I'll have to kick your silly little head in". At which point the headmaster thanks him for pointing this out, tells him not to worry about the original offence and offers him his "nice deck of Acapulco Gold" by way of compensation for his time. Sadly, my headmaster at public school was a big angry bastard with no dope, a good aim with the stick and the overbearing self-confidence that 5 years in the RAF in WW2 gave one, apparently.

They do indeed, and that's what makes it even more mouthwatering a pun if you deliver the coup de grace in a nice rich Bing Crosby baritone (and if possible while wearing golfing slacks and a polo-neck jumper).

OK then. Let's not call it a pun. Just think of it as a "Team America World Police" Kim Jong-Il type of "L/R" consonant swap, followed by a Spoonerism, instead.

Better for you?

And, seasonally, if there's another way to get the beautiful line "Chess nuts boasting by an open foyer" into any kind of a civilised conversation without the corny, contrived references to FIDE and a bulldozer smasing into the front of The Hilton, I'd sure like to hear it.