October 2005 – Page 5 – Gavinsblog.com

Consumer question

I bought a game in Game yesterday for my PC. On going to the counter I was asked to make sure that my computer met the minimum specifications (it did), and that if I bought the game there would be no refund, no exchange, and no comeback whatsoever. I know that by warning me in advance they might be covering themselves, but it still sounds rather illegal to me.

Of course I asked why there was no refund or exchange:

“You could take it home and copy it and then exchange it, or take the serial key and use it making the cd useless for the next person who buys it”. Or something to that effect is what I was told.

“What happens if it doesn’t work?” I ask.

[Worker shrugs shoulders]

I looked up legislation related to this and couldn’t find anything specifically making this kind of behaviour illegal. Any thoughts?

US 'intercepts al-Qaeda letter'

A very curious letter, if it proves to be authentic.

In the missive, Zawahiri apparently warns tactics such as the killing of hostages and bombings of mosques may alienate the “Muslim masses,” Mr Whitman said.

“In this letter, he talks about believing that the eventual governance of Iraq must include the Muslim masses, and that they are at risk of alienating those,” he told reporters.

The letter was also said to detail the strategy of Muslim extremists to create an Islamic state centred on Iraq that could expand into neighbouring countries.

Zawahiri included a plea for financial support, Reuters news agency quoted Mr Whitman as saying.

The New York Times quoted a senior official as saying that the 6,000-word letter was dated early in July, and was obtained by US forces involved in counterterrorism operations in Iraq.

The letter also noted that they were losing in Afghanistan and they had lost many of their key leaders. Zawahiri is also badly in need of money apparently.

AOL to buy leading blog company

Or as the BBC site said:

Ok ok, we all make mistakes. Anyway this is a very interesting development. Jeff Jarvis has alot more.

I think in the marketplace that we are in, these things are bound to happen. Market forces (real or imagined) will drive this kind of investment. Bloggers can make moral judgements, or say that they are betraying the idea of blogging, but at the end of the day people will go where they want to go, and if the product of Weblogs Inc is a good product, people will continue reading them.

SMS Bible launched in Australia

I hate SMS type language, I use predictive text, which is what all smart people do. Obviously. 🙂

George Bush: God Made Me Do It. . .

I know that some people on the right in America forget that Bush is a fundamentalist Christian, and some even argue that having a devout Christian in the White House is a good thing. I have my doubts. Especially when you are waste high in Islamic countries. But the White House has denied he ever said anything of the sort. I doubt that too. Of course it is based on the accounts of Palestinian politicians so the whole story is not exactly on solid ground.

Are you a bored web techie? Join al-Qaeda

Tongue in cheek el Reg reports on news that Islamic websites are advertising for jobs:

According to Reuters, the fun-loving organisation has published web adverts “asking for supporters to help put together its Web statements and video montages”, or more precisely, it has “vacant positions for video production and editing statements, footage and international media coverage about militants in Iraq, the Palestinian territories, Chechnya and other conflict zones where militants are active.”

The advert was spotted by London-based Arabic publication Asharq al-Awsat which notes that al-Qaeda-linked web presence the Global Islamic Media Front promises to “follow up with members interested in joining and contact them via email”. It does not, though, specify how wannabes should make their applications, nor does it state a salary.

With regard to the latter, Asharq al-Awsat notes: “Every Muslim knows his life is not his, since it belongs to this violated Islamic nation whose blood is being spilt. Nothing should take precedence over this.” We take this to mean that successful applicants should not expect a six-figure salary, 28 days paid leave, a company car or health insurance, although you probably get a company AK-47 thrown in as part of the package.

HBO Attacking BitTorrent

HBO are trying to poison the biggest filesharing tool on the Internet:

HBO is actively poisoning the BitTorrent downloads of the new show Rome. In addition to an older tactic of offering bogus downloads that never complete, HBO is now obstructing the downloads offered by other people. BitTorrent downloads are peer-to-peer, but the peers are introduced to each other by a tracker (“you’re looking for Rome Season 1 Episode 2, talk to 127.0.0.1”).

“Because the trial judge applied a standard insufficiently protective of Doe’s First Amendment right to speak anonymously, we reverse that judgment,” Chief Justice Myron Steele wrote.

Steele described the Internet as a “unique democratizing medium unlike anything that has come before,” and said anonymous speech in blogs and chat rooms in some instances can become the modern equivalent of political pamphleteering. Accordingly, a plaintiff claiming defamation should be required to provide sufficient evidence to overcome a defendant’s motion for summary judgment before a court orders the disclosure of a blogger’s identity.

“We are concerned that setting the standard too low will chill potential posters from exercising their First Amendment right to speak anonymously,” Steele wrote. “The possibility of losing anonymity in a future lawsuit could intimidate anonymous posters into self-censoring their comments or simply not commenting at all.”

The standard adopted by the court, the first state Supreme Court in the country to consider the issue, is based on a 2000 New Jersey court ruling.

Month: October 2005