USB TV tuners are liable to import duty rather than ordinary boring components.

Usenet binary group search site Newzbin does infringe copyrights:

I have found that the defendant well knows that it is making available to its premium members infringing copies of films, including the films of the claimants. In summary, the defendant operates a site which is designed and intended to make infringing copies of films readily available to its premium members; the site is structured in such a way as to promote such infringement by guiding the premium members to infringing copies of their choice and then providing them with the means to download those infringing copies by using the NZB facility; the activation of the NZB facility in relation to one of the claimants' copyright films will inevitably result in the production of an infringing copy; the defendant has encouraged and induced its editors to make reports of films protected by copyright, including those of the claimants; the defendant has further assisted its premium members to engage in infringement by giving advice through the sharing forums; the defendant has profited from the infringement; and finally, the claimants are not able to identify particular infringements by particular members only because the defendant keeps no records of the NZB files they have downloaded.

If your holiday of a lifetime is ruined, you will not get much in damages.

A shop selling seeds, hydroponics kit, smoking equipment etc may be inciting people to produce cannabis, even if they'll only talk about growing 'tomatoes'. I suspect calling their site 'weedcity' didn't help…

The BBC's story on this is on their news front page, probably because it combines a Christian, gay sex, and the former Archbishop of Canterbury (who submitted a witness statement warning of "future civil unrest" if judges did not rule in favour of Christian belief).

What it misses out is made clear in the actual judgement: the therapist signed up to a non-discrimination policy which explicitly included sexual orientation on starting the job in 2003 and only announced that he would not "endorse" "sinful" same sex sexual activity in 2007.

The judges' polite 'fuck off' to the former Archbishop and his call for, effectively, a religious court ("a specialist Panel of Judges designated to hear cases engaging religious rights") is particularly good:

The promulgation of law for the protection of a position held purely on religious grounds cannot therefore be justified. It is irrational, as preferring the subjective over the objective. But it is also divisive, capricious and arbitrary. We do not live in a society where all the people share uniform religious beliefs. The precepts of any one religion – any belief system – cannot, by force of their religious origins, sound any louder in the general law than the precepts of any other. If they did, those out in the cold would be less than citizens; and our constitution would be on the way to a theocracy, which is of necessity autocratic. The law of a theocracy is dictated without option to the people, not made by their judges and governments. The individual conscience is free to accept such dictated law; but the State, if its people are to be free, has the burdensome duty of thinking for itself.

Lewisham has a separate mayoral election, thanks to a very narrow win (51%-49% on something like a 25% turnout, so about one in eight voting for) in a 2001 referendum. What this means is that one person (it's been the Labour candidate since 2002) runs the borough. The council can pass motions, but the mayor – who has chosen not to have a 'cabinet' with any responsibility – can ignore them.

When a petition was submitted in 2007 to have a vote on getting rid of the system, it turned out that the rules had been 'misunderstood' by the local government department and that, in fact, a council vote was necessary. Lewisham has been a balanced / 'no overall control' / 'hung' council since 2006 and the only Tory to turn up to the vote was the council chair who voted against another referendum. Since then, the rules have been changed again, and you need to wait ten years to have a referendum to abolish the system after the one to introduce it. As, typically, the first election will happen about a year after the first one, that means you'll have three mayoral elections in that time: in years one, five and nine. And, incredibly, the sitting mayor can veto the decision to have the second referendum!

The contrast with the recent rush from parties to offer 'recall' votes for naughty MPs is incredible. With a directly elected mayor, you are stuck with them, no matter what, for four years. This means in Lewisham we have had eight years of broken promises relating to a new school (there are hundreds of places too few, particularly in the north of the borough, but partly because the catchment area there would include bits of Southwark and Greenwich, the sites the mayor has proposed are elsewhere), leisure facilities, and more… and there is nothing councillors can do.

I see that Tower Hamlets is having a first referendum this time – if you have a vote there, or anywhere else considering this system, vote against.

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.. having arranged a postal vote.

I bet Gordon Brown wished a lot more people had done so.

At some point between last year's snooker world championships and this year's, did the BBC lose / give up one of their two 'red button' channels on Freeview? Why? I am sure both tables were covered on them last year, but it's always been only one throughout this time.

Given that there's only one, whoever picks the table to be shown needs shooting too, because some very odd decisions have been made, including this morning.

Still, it does mean I can be amused that the volume on the BBC website's coverage goes up to 11.

I suspect I am late to this particular party, but I bought Death List recently.

It is staring, written, directed, filmed, edited, produced, dubbed, and most other things by Ara Paiaya. On one level, it is pretty awful: I'm going to skip lightly over the plot and some of the acting. But with a budget of a thousand pounds or so, it is funnier, shows more imagination and takes more risks than TB's AiW.

Physical risks, certainly, because this is a home-made tribute to the Hong Kong films of the 70s (that, plus not being able to afford decent sound equipment is why everyone is dubbed). Not even the glass being broken is stunt glass – they used real glass, and they break a lot of it.

He's done a series of these micro nano budget films, and I want to see more of them.

Kick-Ass.

Best (and funniest) superhero film since Robocop, and with a similar sense of humour and attitude to violence.

People may remember that I am a fan of the author Christopher Priest. (The Prestige is a particular favourite, and much better than the film adaptation of a couple of years ago.)

Many years ago, he told the story of how at one SF con, Larry Niven was being a very boring 'guest of honour' so Brian Aldiss (someone else who's career has suffered by being pigeon-holed as 'just' a SF writer) pretended to have a nosebleed in order to escape. A few years later, Christopher is guest of honour and sees that the front three rows all have handkerchiefs at the ready!

Anyway, I've never needed to have a 'Niven nosebleed'.. until last night. I was very pleased to see that they do work, especially when the alternative is interrupting something that doesn't want to be told it's a complete load of crap.

I'm feeling rather better. Read more

Using a 'one ring means x, two rings means y' code doesn't work on nearly every mobile. You don't know what their ring tone is. Try one/two quick missed calls instead.