Posts made by raphjd

Bite the bullet

You often see in period dramas that they have women bite on wooden spoons while giving birth.  Well, it's claimed that in war time they had soldiers bite on a bullet to take their mind away from the pain of their surgery; ie amputating a limb.

Kick the bucket

When someone would commit suicide by hanging, they often used a bucket which they would kick to hang them self.

Face the music

The expression “face the music” comes from the military “drumming out” ceremony for disgraced soldiers.  This ritual called for only drums to accompany the dishonored as he was stripped of his rank and colors in front of his assembled unit.  For cavalrymen, this humiliation was enhanced by having the offender sit backwards on his horse so that while leaving he could still see, as well as hear, the drums and the band.

Drunker than a skunk

This appears to be a fairly modern phrase.  Despite what you see in the movies, it seems that the earliest use of the phrase didn't start until the 20th century.

The best that anyone can guess, it seems to be based on the fact that it rhymes and that skunks and drunks stink.

Caught red handed

This is being caught with the blood of your victim on your hands.

Got up on the wrong side of the bed

This is a Roman superstition.  It's bad luck to to get out of bed on the left side.  Doing so will make you grumpy all day long.

If you notice, day beds are made so you can't get out on the left due to it having a back on that side.  You can only get out on the right side.

Under the weather

It was believed that weather can make you sick, so you were under the influence of the weather or more commonly "under the weather".

Dead as a doornail

This is based on 2 things.  Doors were often used to carry the dead and when they got to the funeral parlor, they dismantled the door and used the nails for the coffin.

Fit as a fiddle

A violin was considered extremely delicate, while a fiddle {technically both are the same instrument} is considered robust.

As poor as dirt

Poor people used to have dirt floors

As right as rain

It's meaning is similar to "fit as a fiddle".  During the 19th century and on into the 1930s, there were many droughts and rain fixed the problems and made the crops grow. So rain made everything "right".

Sick as a dog

Dogs tend to be energetic, but when they get sick they really get sick and lethargic.

Brits tend to use "sick as a cat".

It's raining cats and dogs

There are several theories for this one.  The most gruesome is that in bygone eras, drainage was so poor that stray animals, usually cats and dogs, would get drown in hard rains.  When the rains were over, people would see all the dead cats and dogs and think they came with the rain.

Colder than a witch's tit

Supposedly, this is from the witch hunting days of old.  People believed that witches had no maternal nature and therefore a baby couldn't suckle from her tit.

A stitch in time saves nine

This refers to needle point.  Supposedly on average, you have to undo 9 stitches to repair a mistake.  So if you see your mistake right away, you were saved from having to redo 9 other stitches as well.

Sleeping like a baby

During the Victorian era, many baby "sleep aids" contained opiates, so babies sleep very quietly.

Clean as a whistle

Refers to cleaning ship and train whistles during the steam engine's reign.

Cute as a button

This refers back to the days when only the wealthy had buttons on their clothes.  And of course, the clothes of the wealthy were considered the height of fashion.

I was beside myself in disbelief

The Greeks believed that the body and soul were 2 separate being that made up humans. Under great emotional stress, the 2 could separate.

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush

This is a hunting based saying.  Having 1 bird already caught is worth more than twice as many uncaught.

It had nothing to do with sex, but hospitality or the lack thereof.

I don't know about Russia's rules for internal adoptions {Russians adopting Russian kids}, but they have don't allow single people outside of Russia to adopt the kids.

I don't know if this true of all 50 states, as they all have different rules, but Prop 8 started as a petition.  Once it got enough signatures, it was placed on the ballot. The people of California then voted on it and 52% voted in favor of hate.

If you live in a council house or flat, then YES, they have to approve ANY pet you may wish to have.

However, if you live in Scotland and live in your own private house, flat or whatever, you do not need council permission to own/keep a "pet".  Prior to 2002, every property deed in Scotland was very strict and heavily controlled by the local council and local land laird {"lord" in the rest of the UK}.  In 2000, the Scottish Parliament passed a law that abandoned most of the Nazi'ish deed restrictions placed by the local councils on private property.

If you live in a private flat, you will probably have deed restrictions placed there by the home owner association or the building management/owners.

Actually, "sodomite" has not been applied properly here or in virtually every case for centuries.

The sins of Sodom and Gomorrah were that they didn't treat their "guests" well.

The UK and US court systems are very much alike in many aspects.  You must have standing in the case.  In other words, you can't bring a suit unless it directly affects you, someone you have guardianship over or have power of attorney over.

There are some major differences, like in the UK you can be forbidden from appealing by the trial judge, there is no rule against double jeopardy, there is no 5th Amendment or anything like it in the UK.

All Lucas Entertainment videos from 2009 and later are banned.

Is there a GTRU policy against VPN or Proxy in order to protect from this problem?  If not, will that create problems with multiple IPs logging in if the VPN servers are commercial?

We don't allow Proxies, but I have no idea about VPN.  I'll leave that for one of our more tech savvy moderators.

The situation is being discussed in the staff section.

Well, I have been totally smoke free for 1 year as of today. 

The mental cravings are still there, but they passes much quicker now.  I for several months I haven't reached for cigarettes that aren't there.

No regular user will get punished for uploading banned pictures, as the list is not available to them.

Auto Approval uploaders will get punished since they have full access to the list.

With the exception of Titan Media which we fully ban, the picture ban for some studios only applies to stuff posted on the site and in the forums. You can include them in a torrent without issue.

I like "Swimmer" builds, but I didn't need this to tell me what it was called.

hXXp://extratorrent.com/article/681/closure+of+73+000+blogs+discussed+on+aussie+radio+show.html

Closure of 73,000 Blogs Discussed on Aussie Radio Show

Of course, it couldn’t remain unnoticed that 73,000 blogs got shut down. The news were everywhere, making international headlines, and recently Australia’s radio show “The Fourth Estate” introduced an interview with Drew Wilson on this issue.

The host of the show approached Wilson to discuss the situation after the reason of closing blogs was confirmed by Burst.net, which said it was terrorist related activity. During 17 minutes appearance he expressed his opinion on the question why the closure of 73,000 individual blogs had such a significant impact all over the globe.

The main issue he highlighted was that because it had happened in the US, there were already some implications when it came to hampering free speech, as it’s a highly valued freedom in the country. In addition, when combined with censorship online, it made a storm of controversy, as free speech is the very core basic freedom making the Internet tick.

Drew Wilson was also asked if this story could set a kind of precedent for the future of the digital world and he argued that it really hadn’t been given that Burst.net was the one pulling the plug on the operations of Blogetery. If it was the FBI that ordered the closure of the website in the first place, it could set a precedent, but it was more an administrative thing than anything else.

It doesn’t mean that Burst.net had been incompetent in any way. Imagine yourself a website admin or a host in the United States, facing the FBI saying that somebody or something under your watch seems to be fueling terrorist activities. What would you do in such stressful situation hearing your government knocking on the door?

On the other hand, it doesn’t justify the threat of censorship online, if you recall the recent news from Italy there the local government is clamping down on bloggers and journalists. And that one does have a chance to set a very bad precedent.

However, the rest of the hosting services and other discussion forums in the country should think over this case and decide what they would do if this happens to them. The incident should be edificatory in some way, and the companies are recommended to take the decisions in its light. Of course, it’s great to consider yourself an advocate of free speech, but it’s worth keeping in mind that the US entities have to operate within the frames of US laws.

hXXp://extratorrent.com/article/683/eff+launches+new+webpage+to+help+mass+lawsuit+targets.html

EFF Launches New Webpage to Help Mass Lawsuit Targets

EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) launched a new webpage titled “US Copyright Group vs. The People” which is aimed to help people understand the claims made against them more clearly and view possible ways out. The major intention of the source is to help the targets find legal counsel to help them.

The EFF has always represented public interest groups willing to help thousands of BitTorrent users who have appeared to be targets of a mass P2P lawsuit filed by the US Copyright Group.

To remind you, the USCG, a DC-based law firm, targeted initially over twenty thousand users, accusing them of illegally uploading the indie films “Far Cry,” “Gray Man,” “Uncross the Stars,” or “Call of the Wild 3D,” with adding the Academy Award-winning picture “The Hurt Locker” later, after convincing its producers to join the mass litigation. The law firm offered the targets quick $2500 settlements if they wanted to avoid trial.

Right after the start of the litigation, the EFF issued a call for arms looking for the lawyers willing to help people defend themselves. It later teamed up with Public Citizen and the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) in order to file briefs with DC court, asking the judges to quash subpoenas sent by the USCG. Their main argument was that the US Copyright Group had yet to prove that DC court had jurisdiction over the unidentified defendants.

Now the Electronic Frontier Foundation takes another step in its effort to help those accused by setting up a resource page intended to help people understand what they are being accused of and explore possible ways out. The page “USCG vs. the People” answers many questions asked by the users supposing they are listed in the USCG’s lawsuit or receiving the warning letters from the law firm. The list of lawyers interested in assisting is also posted on the page.

The EFF insists that the law firm is abusing copyright legislation trying to get quick paydays from users with scanty financial resources. The outfit has been concerned about this mass P2P lawsuit since it first emerged this spring, noticing at once that the USCG prefers to ignore or sidestep the fundamental legal protections all the defendants are supposed to be granted. As the copyright legislation is intended to be used largely against commercial infringers, it’s clearly not fair to shake out settlements from common users having few resources to defend themselves.

hXXp://extratorrent.com/article/685/riaa+justifies+spending+millions+to+collect+thousands.html

RIAA Justifies Spending Millions to Collect Thousands

The Record Industry Association of America (RIAA) insists that tax returns make a wrong and misleading conclusion on its strategy of “suing-them-all,” as its major intent of defending the rights of musicians and making people to acquire the content legally is very successful.

Couple of weeks ago it was revealed that the industry has been spending millions of dollars every year to target file-sharers, while the fines they manage to recoup rarely exceed 2% of the total expenses.

The statistics say that the entertainment industry spent about $20 million annually recouping $400,000, and these are only figures from 2006 to 2008, so it’s unknown how much it spent in the previous decade, within the heydays of peer-to-peer networks.

After the public became aware of the figures and couldn’t praise the RIAA for spending so much money to gain so little success (considering that sales of legal content are still declining and peer-to-peer is still rampant), the Record Industry Association of America understood it’s time to defend the expenses.

The outfit argues that the figures revealed are misleading, because the cost of legal fees covers a wide range of costs, such as royalty litigation, DMCA warnings, and lawsuits against unauthorized file-sharing services. Moreover, very often the legal fees span over years, with any resulting victory being calculated later on.

The RIAA explains that drawing any larger conclusions about the efficiency of its anti-piracy attempts would be inaccurate and misleading if based on the single line in its tax documents. Their main goal is not to earn money for the rights owners, but to foster a respect for them and to increase awareness, forcing fans to buy the content legally. Looking from this point, the RIAA thinks its efforts make a real difference.

This explanation sounds rather reasonable, but the RIAA’s expenditures are still very high compared to the amount it recoups, and that is the reason why critics say the astronomically high penalties the industry usually seeks in the legal battle have nothing to do with real damages, but are rather targeted at sending a message to similar infringers.

The only conclusion both the industry and the file-sharers can draw out of this is that the RIAA spends too much on legal fees while recouping so little because it just scares tactics.

That's pretty cool for him to do that.

Well, just because they lean a certain way before they become a Supreme Court justice, doesn't mean they will continue that.

I saw this on the news in the UK and the guy from Google was to slimy for words.

The Google "spokesman" was more interested in doing a Google info-mercial than answering the reporter's questions.