Posts made by MrMazda

What is this world coming to? Are people seriously that intolerant of human rights?

Source: hxxp://chicago.gopride.com/news/article.cfm/articleid/17957529/103

Sun. April 17, 2011  11:39:11 PM CDT
Britain — A blogger is asking gay supporters to post an innocuous photo of two men kissing on their Facebook pages after Facebook removed the same photo from his own page.

Niall O'Conghaile, a blogger on DangerousMinds.net, posted the photo along with an article about a Facebook-driven protest against a British pub that had kicked out two men who were kissing.

He said that the next day, the photo was gone, and an email was waiting for him:

Hello,

Content that you shared on Facebook has been removed because it violated Facebook's Statement of Rights and Responsibilities. Shares that contain nudity, or any kind of graphic or sexually suggestive content, are not permitted on Facebook.

This message serves as a warning. Additional violations may result in the termination of your account. Please read the Statement of Rights and Responsibilities carefully and refrain from posting abusive material in the future. Thanks in advance for your understanding and cooperation.

The Facebook Team

A continuation from a second sourced article:
Source: hxxp://www.dangerousminds.net/comments/protesters_to_stage_gay_kiss-in_in_london_pub_tonight/

Protesters to stage gay ‘kiss-in’ in London pub tonight

Jonathan Williams, 26, and Jamie Bull, 23, were on a first date in the [John Snow] pub on Wednesday night when a woman claiming to be the landlady allegedly ordered them to leave.

The couple say they were kicked out for quietly kissing in a corner and witnesses backed up their claims. Mr Williams vented his frustration on Twitter and supporters quickly began to organise a protest.

More than 400 people have pledged to join tonight’s demonstration, while 600 say they will attend a similar protest at the pub next Wednesday,

Actually, the Facebook event page now has over 750 people attending.

Update: Apparently the John Snow pub has closed its doors and is not letting any more customers in.

Update: The John Snow is still closed, but after nearly reaching 1,000 attendees on Facebook the event has made the BBC national news.

UPDATE: Written by Richard Metzger 04/16/11 Hey Facebook: What’s SO wrong about a pic of two men kissing?

This is perplexing. And annoying. And infuriating.

I woke up this morning to an email from Facebook with the subject “Facebook Warning”:

Hello,

Content that you shared on Facebook has been removed because it violated Facebook’s Statement of Rights and Responsibilities. Shares that contain nudity, or any kind of graphic or sexually suggestive content, are not permitted on Facebook.

This message serves as a warning. Additional violations may result in the termination of your account. Please read the Statement of Rights and Responsibilities carefully and refrain from posting abusive material in the future. Thanks in advance for your understanding and cooperation.

The Facebook Team

Ah…yeah… it seems that the sight of two fully-clothed men kissing was too much for Facebook, or too much for some closet-case asshole (Hi Jerry! Remind me why you and I are “friends” again? I sure didn’t ask to be yours, pal…) who complained about it. The photo appeared here on Dangerous Minds in the context of Niall’s post about the “kiss in” demonstration that was cooked up, ironically ON FACEBOOK ITSELF, in London to protest against the rude treatment two gay patrons experienced at a pub called The John Snow. The two men, Jonathan Williams, 26, and Jamie Bull, 23 were sitting in a corner kissing when the owner asked them to leave. Over 750 people signed up for the protest.

Oh, WAIT A MINUTE, I went to check on the Facebook page that organized The John Snow pub protest… and it’s gone, too.

WTF, FB?

I’ve written to Facebook asking them why this content was removed, but have at this point received no reply. I’ll update this post when I do. In the meantime, why not share this photo on FB as much as you can? I’m hoping they’ll restore the post as it was so everyone can pile on the jerk who wrote all the homophobic stuff on my FB wall. I think that’s the best outcome here, Jerry getting a taste of his own medicine…

In any case, the protest went off last night against The John Snow pub, with protesters chanting “We’re here, we’re queer and we won’t buy your beer.” You can see the BBC News report at hxxp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13103599 .

By James Vicini – Mon Apr 18, 3:44 pm ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Microsoft Corp urged the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday to make it easier to challenge some patents as part of its appeal of a record $290 million jury verdict for infringing a small Canadian software firm's patent.

An attorney for the world's largest software company argued that the court should reject the long-held requirement that a defendant in a patent infringement case must prove by clear and convincing evidence that a plaintiff's patent is invalid.

Thomas Hungar, an attorney for Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft, said a lower standard should be used, which could make some patents more vulnerable to legal challenge while promoting innovation and competition.

An Obama administration lawyer and Seth Waxman, an attorney for the Toronto-based i4i, said Congress has accepted the standard in effect for at least the past 28 years, that it was correct and that it was based on long-settled precedent.

The Supreme Court justices questioned all three attorneys closely and gave no clear indication during arguments of how they would rule. A decision is expected by the end of June.

The legal battle stemmed from a federal jury's award of $290 million to i4i after finding Microsoft had infringed its patent relating to text manipulation software in 2003 and 2007 versions of Word, Microsoft's word processing application.

A U.S. appeals court upheld the award and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office upheld the validity of the i4i patent. Microsoft continued to dispute those decisions, but removed the contested features from its current software.

In appealing to the Supreme Court, Microsoft said it wanted a new trial.

After the arguments, Loudon Owen, i4i's chairman, expressed confidence his company will prevail. "We thought it went very well," he said.

"Microsoft did not present either policy or legal reasons that would justify any changes to the law, particularly the sweeping change they now apparently seek," Owen said.

Several justices asked about a Supreme Court precedent from 1934 that could cast doubt on Microsoft's argument. "What do we do?" Justice Elena Kagan asked. "One answer to that question is we go with our prior precedent."

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg also cited the 1934 ruling and asked whether Congress had ever introduced legislation to change the standard. Hungar replied it had not.

Justice Stephen Breyer asked whether the current system protected not only inventions that deserve protection, but also those that may not deserve it. "We're trying to get a better tool if possible to separate the sheep from the goats," he said.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor asked whether the dispute could have been resolved with different jury instructions.

The case was heard by eight of the nine Supreme Court members. Chief Justice John Roberts, who owns Microsoft stock, recused himself from the case. If the justices split by a 4-4 vote, then the ruling against Microsoft would be upheld.

The Supreme Court case is Microsoft Corp v. i4i Limited Partnership and Infrastructures for Information Inc, No. 10-290.

(Additional reporting by Bill Rigby in Seattle; Editing by Tim Dobbyn)

talk about getting caught with your hand in the cookie jar and having it come back to kick you in the ass :lolp:

The scary thing is that depending on how your computer is configured, it can also occur as a result of something that happens from an external source (such as a hacker). This isn't "common" per say, but its not unheard of. Other ways that it can occur is depending on your internet connection, if you use an internet connection that requires a login authentication system (such as PPP or PPPoE), if your ISP has been affected in the right way with a virus, the update script that gets run after the hardware handshake and the credentials have been verified can actually give you a virus. That type of case however is rare, and I've only ever personally witnessed it once by an ISP that soon thereafter went belly up.

In either case listed above, the most common thing that it will produce is what I like to call a pornato. A pornato is defined as the sudden continuous pop up of windows of porn sites. These sites typically range anywhere from fake porn listings with pictures to fool you (sometimes banner ads) to sites like "My Jizz Diaries". The only reason I know that site and know that it is a source for getting a pornato was when my 8 year old cousin accidentally opened the wrong email, had it pop up, and asked me "What is this?"….. Talk about ACKWARD! :lolp:

Depending on your email provider, it is also possible that whatever malicious software that may have created this problem may have logged your email account password. For this reason, I strongly recommend that you change your password for your email after having scanned your computer very thoroughly with a well known virus scanner as well as a spyware/malware remover.

That's the thing… I'd kind of be my own studio. I already have the backing of a power house production company in Toronto if I were to ever make a film of any kind. I've been working with them for the last several years on many different projects (mostly technical).... Needless to say, I've got the resources to produce such a thing if someone were to want to "perform".

Depending on where you are, I have the equipment and resources to be able to make such a thing happen.

Hell YES!! I like what I see

Did you know that the videos that you've posted on XTube of yourself can be posted on GT.ru in the "Members" category? It would be a better way to make the content accessible to everyone on the site (including the ones that don't read the forum) and get your ratio up… Just a thought.

Therein lies the problem… In a lot of cases, there is no such thing as "separation of church and state"

Seriously, I'll be the first to admit to it… Ever since the days that I had my own computer (a the time a top of the line Pentium 90 with 64MB RAM running Windows 95) running on a 33.6k dial-up internet connection I've found ways of accessing porn. I can understand parents not wanting their children to be exposed to such content because they don't want their children to be exposed to something they don't understand. The part of the whole situation that I don't really understand is the part where my situation comes into play. Even though I was seriously under age at the time I started searching for porn, I was determined enough to find ways around it.

The above situation and statements leads me to believe that pornography is something that we have just placed a societal taboo around. If the person is old enough to understand what it is, what they like, and they really want it, trust me when I say that they will get their hands on what they're looking for. My only news flash for the parents in these cases is that if their children have started to reach puberty, they probably already know what porn is and in most cases, they'll gain access to it one way or another, whether you want them to or not.

Also, with regards to the whole internet "censorship" issue, these places fail to take into account that although they have control over the content that can pass through in their own country, restricting access to websites in the end is ultimately useless. Tor is one example of a way of getting around such blockades, without being noticed. Other methods include the use of a VPN, newsgroups, and other proxy services. For instance, your ISP could try to block connections to 65.95.35.115 (random IP I made up), but if your internet connection is being routed to 67.69.95.25 (another random IP I made up) to forward that signal through either as a Proxy or VPN to connect to the original 65.95.35.115, the only thing your provider is going to see is that you're connecting to 67.69.95.25, which isn't blocked and therefore allow the traffic because your ISP cannot tell that the actual end destination of that packet is actually the banned IP of 65.95.35.115... See why I think that this kind of censorship is an absolute hysterical joke?

I don't know about the way that things are in your country, but I know within North America, ISP's generally aren't willing to reveal such information for fear that it could be used to reverse-engineer a workaround, similar to the nature of when the government of Italy tried to shut down The Pirate Bay. I would imagine your best bet would be to try and research it with Google and perhaps any other resources you may have available.

Aside from that, the other way you may be able to get around this problem is with the use of a VPN of some sort. There are a plethora of them available, so they shouldn't be too hard to find.

@gahram:

I guess this means that we wont see it unless we pay… :blownose:

I don't mean to sound rude but, we're a torrent site… It'll get posted eventually  :lolp:

The only other thing I could think of in such a case is perhaps an ISP ban?

Me likie what I see

HOT DAMN!

I don't know about in your country, but at least here, society has really become a lot more accepting. Even in smaller "redneck" farmer communities where such a thing is more commonly considered "blasphemy", the worst that you'll generally ever get is a feeling that you can tell the person is uncomfortable about it for whatever the reason, but won't say or do anything about it.

I don't know about you, but for me, trying to deny who I was to anyone (well for the longest time everyone) was one of the hardest things I could possibly do. It really does make things much easier in the end when you come out openly and honestly. You might actually find that you may create a situation where the guys will wish they could be you because often times I've found that once your female friends know, it kind of takes things to a whole new level because they have that comfort zone of knowing they could be smokin' hot and dressed to the nine, but don't have to worry about YOU having any sexual intentions.

If you're not in an area where you'd get beheaded or anything like that, I really do suggest that you honestly tell them. It really can go a long way.

I've never heard of the site. It's possible the site may have been taken down? Either for maintenance, or possibly because it closed?

Not the entire healthcare system. There are definitely advantages to having universal healthcare when you've suddenly found yourself trapped in your car on the highway pinned between a concrete cross-over barrier and a transport truck. The only "issue" that I have with the Canadian healthcare system is the healthcare within my region of the province that I'm in. Once I step outside the region into another county, I've always had excellent experiences… It just seems to be within the general area that I live where it sucks donkey balls.

I know of a few that are still in existence.

I wonder what would happen with such things if they created "The United States of Canada" by merging the better things about each country into one country and eliminate a whole lot issues in the process?