Letter: Your View - Bill Blunders
232947
RE the letter from an ex- Scottish Gas customer, I have the same problem.  I pay my son's electricity bill on the internet, and had a message that his payment was to rise by pounds 14 per month, despite the fact that I opted for the capped bill until 2010.
258275
Transcript of Bill OâReillyâs Talking Points Memo regarding the lawsuit filed by Andrea Macklis. âFirst of all, I want to send my best to Captain Luis (Louise?
494010
Tycho: There were some truly unconscionable spelling issues with the 1.0 version of that last post. I think I got them all. But I am afraid to look.(CW)TB
607627
There's been a mostly fantastic discussion about fair use in this neighborhood for the last few days.  It started when a photograph of Lane Hartwell's was used in a video spoof of the Billy Joel song "We Didn't Start the Fire."  The first I heard of this was in a Twitter post of hers where she said she was turning off access to her entire Flickr collection because this picture was used without permission. A series of communications with the people who did the video resulted in the video being taken down. Later Mike Arrington, who is a lawyer, wrote a piece saying she didn't have right on her side, and that the video's use of her picture was probably fair use. I found Mike's piece compelling. Others took offense. It thought it was a useful part of the discussion. I understand Ms Hartwell's point of view. I hate it when people copy a whole post of mine and paste it into theirs. But then I grab bits of images and put them on my blog and people rarely complain. The blogosphere is built on being loose about copyright and fair use.  I'm doing a deal with a content company and all these issues are coming up. We haven't been able to write a contract that covers all the things they want covered and make it possible for me to do what I need to do, and they want my product to work. It's a real mess we're in. Bloggers are supposed to be radicals when it comes to fair use and copyright, but that generalization doesn't work with many creative people. Hartwell's position in some ways is like the RIAA or MPAA, who bloggers often dismiss as clueless. How can we have it both ways? How can some defend her position yet not defend the entertainment industry? There's a lot to discuss here, and a lot of the discussion on the blogs has been informative and respectful. Not all of it, but to an unusually high degree.  So, I am interested in doing an in person "flash conference" on the subject of fair use in a few weeks. I'd say next week if it weren't Christmas. Most conferences are so boring. I want to do a conf on a hot subject when it's still hot in the blogosphere. This may be a good subject for such a quickly organized conference. What do you think of the flash conference idea for this??
456651
Or was that the EU? Letters We'll start with the paranoid and then roll out the black helicopters. How does that sound?â¦
694051
Gabe:  We had our annual Enforcer wrap party on Monday night over at Gameworks. It's a chance for all the Enforcers to get together and relax after the show. It's also a chance for Tycho and I to thank them for all their help. We played a lot of games and heard a ton of great stories. There's so much of the show that Tycho and I miss but the Enforcers see it all and this year they saw some crazy shit.   For example I had no idea that e for all had hired guerrilla marketers to wander the streets in front of PAX with T.V's in their shirts. They were passing out glow sticks and postcards with the e for all logo on them. PAX Enforcers and attendees started a game that involved masking tape and replacing the "for all" with other things the e might stand for.   That's certainly funny but it's not the best story about other exhibitions invading PAX. At one point during the evening a table full of Enforcers told me a tale that was so awesome I just had to pass it along.Late Friday night Amber was called down to the lobby of the convention center to deal with a drunk and belligerent member of the media who was apparently yelling at a couple of our Enforcers. Amber arrived to find the man obviously hammered and harassing our security. She approached him and explained that the show was over (which it wasn't) and that he should just go home and sleep. Upon seeing Amber his behavior changed quite drastically. He stopped arguing with the Enforcers and instead stared hitting on her. He bragged that he'd been out all night drinking with Incubus. Then he suggested the two of them go see a movie, get some drinks and "see where it goes." I think we all know where it goes. Sloppy drunks twice her age really aren't Amber's type so she politely declined the offer while still trying to move him towards the door. He leaned in at this point and said "this Penny Arcade shit is weak!" and then asked her if she wanted to know a secret. He said it would "impress her" and with that he produced his business card.  He pointed at it and slurred "this is where it's at baby."Now we'd seen this guy all weekend taking photos of our game rooms and exhibition hall. Since he was pretending to be media he also interviewed all our Enforcers about how the show was organized and managed. A few of our Exhibitors even complained that he was in the exhibition hall trying to sell them on his convention. Amber took the card and asked him to find her the next day after he had sobered up. She had every right to pull his badge right then but was a little worried about how he might react. The next morning she happened to meet up with him on the escalators in the main hall. "Hey I remember you" he said, "but I don't remember your name." "I'm Amber the event coordinator for PAX and I need you to give me your badge." she replied.He looked around at the group of colleagues around him and laughed. I guess he thought she was joking. Security arrived and she pressed him again for his badge. He tried to apologize for hitting on her but she informed him that while that was certainly inappropriate it was the drunken tirade that we didn't appreciate at PAX. He reluctantly handed over his badge and was escorted out by a group of Enforcers. I was told this story by a dozen or so other Enforcers who witnessed or took part in the event. When they gave me Ed's business card as physical proof of their encounter I couldn't believe it. I was already laughing when I turned the card over and noticed the back.   -Gabe out
717309
When the Fox News Channel&#39;s Bill O&#39;Reilly was recently slapped with a sexual harassment law suit by one of his producers, were you: a) pleased that the bullying right wing television talk
583610
In today's installment, Coach Bill starts with a minimonologue. "OK, how's it going today?" he begins. "Good? Got the holidays over, ready for the new year. Got the game on every network. It will be like the State of the Union address - you can flip to every channel to see it."
511508
You can learn a lot from writing a newspaper column, especially when a reader calls in to say that you're wrong. I've just received a revealing critique that foreshadows a nasty new escalation in the battle over our digital rights.
125951
Tycho: But if you haven't seen it yet, you should - Street View in Google Maps. Holy F-ing S.(CW)TB
591303
I read the March 4 story "Water woes" about Rhode Island's problems with fresh water with great interest. My view on this issue may be oversimplified, but there was no mention of harnessing the state's greatest resource, our proximity to the ocean.
542000
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way. It&#39;s like a free ride when you&#39;ve already paid.
739439
Tycho:  I uploaded the comic early, as many of you noticed.  I entered the wrong number in the update field.  You may also have noticed that the spelling in these posts has really gone to hell.  So, that's numbers and letters.  I hope to one day discover a set of pictograms with which I can manage some baseline fucking proficiency.
687923
PLEASE CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY Good afternoon once again, ladies and gentlemen. I am accompanied by Peter MacKay, the Foreign Affairs Minister, Gordon O'Connor, the Minister of National Defence, and General Rick ...Comment
372755
Tycho:  Did I not tell you?  Did I not suggest that when natural justice fails, another burning energy may deliver that result which is good and proper?  Despair, mine enemies!  Unless you like swamps, in which case you might find my wrath pleasant.
62130
In response to a previous article from the Symfony blog, Paul Jones has pulled together some thoughts to some of the comments they made.   As the author of a relatively popular benchmarking article, I feel compelled to respond to this bit of misguided analysis from the Symfony camp about benchmarks.   Paul talks about the "straw-man arguments" presented in the Symfony article, including some references to Paul's previous benchmarks. He's even broken it down into a point-by-point response to make each point clear.
8713
Before I begin this week's missive, let me just say this: I'm glad to see that the FBI is turning to off-the-shelf software to monitor our conversations rather than spending more money on a proprietary solution. As a taxpayer, I appreciate that.