Cloud

I really like it. It's nice, it's clean, easy to read...suits me

thats fair, and i can respect that, but take a band like, lets say Aereogramme who broke up because they were tired of touring all the time and never getting anything back. When it leads to great bands breaking up, surely there is a problem yes?

Isn't it partially their fault for not making money from the band? the music industry is a business after all - if they were touring constantly and not getting a just reward, then they were doing *something* wrong.

but if you download music...the creators get no money whatsoever...

Why do they get no money whatsoever?

If you actually read the thread, you'd see that people were talking about legal downloads. Stripey's comment (that you've quoted) actually talks about people taking control of their own content, making 100% of the revenues from the downloads of the product.

it's perfectly legal to take photos of children in a public place. in practice it's best to ask permission from parents or guardians before taking their photo though or expect some hassle. even that would be frowned upon in the current paranoid climate.

we're in the odd situation where in the future people will look back at our generation and have virtually no visual record(aside from family photos at birthday parties or something) of how western children played or went about their daily lives despite almost everyone owning digital cameras.

The thing I find personally horrific is the way that many council owned places now have blanket bans on photography because of "child protection" issues, yet the advice from anyone who is actually properly trained in these issues is that there isn't a problem. It's particularly ridiculous when you have a coach load of international students (all 19+) turning up at an evening disco session, who were all subsequently banned from taking photographs under the misguided policy.

Yet it remains entirely acceptable for a male skating coach to teach 3-4 year old girls in short skirts?

Something isn't right....

The problem is, people seem unable to trust others to apply common sense in these situations - if someone turns up, alone, and starts photographing children with a decent camera, then sure, they should be asked what they're doing. But common sense should be used, instead of these blanket bans.

The current mania for CRB checks for everything isn't doing much good either - a good situation is that I'm a warden of my university halls next year. I have to be CRB checked twice next term - once for the halls, and once for a part time job as a tour guide for the uni, despite the fact that these checks just reflect a snapshot in time and don't cover anything that might happen afterwards.

Trust me, I don't think it's funny at all. It amazes me that he hasn't been sectioned.

Why should he be, though? He has some crazy beliefs, but it's his right to believe that we live in a "fascist loyalist state".

Filming the kids through the window should be dealt with by the police (wasn't it mentioned that his CCTV equipment was confiscated, anyway?) - not by the mental health authorities.

because i like to see what an artists output is as well as hear it. when i get a cd or a record, i like to have the whole package, i like to sit in my room, and listen to the record/cd, read the lyric book, learn the words, and look at the artwork. Its nice to appreciate the amount of time/money that a band/label have put in to their releases. And lets not forget that downloading generally is shitter sound quality.

So why does that make someone a dick if they download? I know a few people that don't have the time to sit around in a room, looking at artwork and learning the words - for them, music is a form of entertainment that can be used to accompany the daily commute. Does that make them dicks? Nope.

Choose your words more wisely, eh?

Above the Lorne Bar, I think?

I stumbled in there one night earlier this year..fun times

I'm doing absolutely nothing. Done my knee in at work, signed off until it gets better (which it appears not to be doing so) and so...forced to do absolutely nothing

yes. he was.

Are you sure?

I didn't think much of Knots and Crosses/Hide and Seek compared to the sheer brilliance that was Fleshmarket Close..but that's my opinion and I'm sticking to it.

Please...?

I like his books, they scream EVENING EXPRESS/DAILY RECORD at me and that's what makes them readable - I think they're actually intentionally written to be sensationalistic, as reflected in the hack character (forgotten his name and can't find the books to check).

Having said this, I didn't walk through Seaton Park again at night after reading his first book :/

Granted, he's no Rankin - but was Rankin even Rankin after his first few books?

Yes, if Trump had been slated to pay anything approaching a market value for the land, then there would have been little left to argue over & the paucity of evidence given about certain aspects of the scheme at the enquiry suggests that there may well be more things they do not want out in the open.

Agree about the "championship" aspect as well - There is simply no way that can be decided straight off the drawing board.

I actually think this may become the real story - as to how Aberdeenshire Council are subsidising the development, as opposed to any issues with the actual planning process. It would certainly explain why the Trump organisation were talking about NE Scotland (and then Northern Ireland ) so much. Angus or Fife councils wouldn't have entertained them if they were asking for subsidies, at least.

The anti-Trump camp made a lot of noise about how he couldn't afford it - and it has to be said, it's starting to look like it's coming true.

I think the money now has to be on the development not happening.

Just been reading about this elsewhere.

You would think they might realise that the ferocity of their reaction only serves to confirm that there is something they want to keep hidden?

Even speaking as a supporter of the development, if there is *any* hint of land being given to Trump, then heads need to roll. I'm all for a championship course (the term used loosely, as anyone that's studied golf course design will understand) being built - but not if it's subsidised to the tune of 5 million.

The big question, at least to me - what else is being hushed up about this?

I fail to see your point. Why do a couple of bad examples make all protesters bad?

I could go on, if you'd like. History is littered, and still being littered, with examples where trade unions have persued their own self interested path, to the detriment of the ordinary man and woman.

As for protesting - sure, there's good and bad protestors. But generally, when you get protestors interested in their own agenda rather than being genuinely passionate about their cause, then all you get is trouble.

For example - the protests over the M3 motorway past the Hill of Tara in Ireland. It was/is a pretty widely held view that these protestors were actually coming in from Britain to cause trouble, as opposed to being Irish. Is that good? Of course it's not.

Good protests in history can arguably include the Northern Ireland Civil Rights marches and the Monday night protests in Leipzig - but is there really any need to smash up McDonalds?

And workers unions are pointless too? Lumping all protesters in as stereotypical hippies is plain ignorant.

Workers unions? What, those unions like the RMT, ran by a certain Bob Crow, that under his stewardship has managed to reduce to practically zero any sympathy for railwaymen?

Or let's not forget Scargill, that great working class hero, who through sheer stupidity managed to inflict a huge defeat upon unionism as a whole. He didn't even bother to ballot the members of the NUM - and he's spoken in defence of Stalin before. Is that a hero? Is it fuck.

Just like your opinions?

People keep listening to them and replying to them...must be doing something right

It's possible - but a bot that tries to give out reputation to a handful of random users? Bot's exist normally to just spam forums.

The first four users on this thread...how absolutely bizzare :s

Anyone with a Hi5 account able to send her a message to ask? Surely someone wouldn't create such an irritating profile on there as a front to spam reputation comments..I mean, weirder things have happened, but this is just strange.

I've had an idea. Maybe when I take the site offline on Friday I just won't bring it back up?

Come on Neil, we all know this site is paying for your retirement

So a perfectly valid response to someone querying whether others like Flight of the Conchords is to state that anyone who does is a simpleton? That's not an opinion on the subject matter. Anyway I'm done arguing the point, you are clearly unable to understand.

Well, think about it...if someone called you a simpleton, you'd just laugh. But if someone called them a fucking bloody cunt for liking them, you'd be pretty offended, wouldn't you?

It's all in the language, and the use of it. Cunt is generally considered by society to be worse than simpleton - rightfully or wrongly, I don't know.

Yep, unfortunately some people go to the effort of accessing the web site through proxy servers hosted in exotic countries in order to hide their identify (yes, some people are actually that sad on here) so the IP address can often be no use.

I've found this particular user's Hi5 profile page though: hi5 - xxXxxXxxEmoSkaterGirl16xxXxxXxx

Fake or not fake? It's a lot of effort to go if it's fake.

An awful lot of effort to go to, indeed!

I'm sure you've already checked this, but does the IP address used to sign up resolve to Belize? Though I'm well aware that some IP addresses will show up a completely different location, even when no proxy servers are being used.

Could it just be a coincidence with the username?

It's not a matter of disagreeing with you or necessarily agreeing with the actions of others who have been banned, I just find the moderation of the site to be totally hypocritical. For instance, I tend to be pretty amaible on the whole, I expressed my opinion that Cloud is a cunt once and i'm getting the stock warning alerts going off.

But what's hypocritical about it? To call someone a cunt is a pretty bad thing - if I went upto some random in the street who was talking to his mate and said "Oi, mate, I don't know you, but you appear to be a bit of a cunt", I'd be expecting a swift punch in the face, if not worse. It's generally not acceptable to do so, unless you know the person, and even then, plenty of people will draw the line at 'cunt' being used in speech.

Thing is, there's plenty of ways of expressing an opinion that someone is full of shit without actually saying it in a way that devalues your own posts as well as the site. If someone's opinion (in your mind) is bullshit, then either use mature language, or don't say anything at all. It's really not hard to do. And, as far as I can see, the moderation is perfectly fine with that, as long as it doesn't get out of hand.

Despite Neil's predictable speech, it doesn't matter at all what the level of insult is, an insult is an insult and you get away with blatantly insulting and ridiculing a large number of users on a regular basis and it's getting tired. The so-called 'rules' don't define what is and isn't acceptable, they use bland guidance to carry out bland moderation which has no bottle to live by the self appointed rule system.

But it does matter, as I've said above. Politely disagreeing with someone's opinion is fine - no-one in their right mind should get upset and everyone's happy with a good discussion. But to turn round and call them all sorts of names because they dared to express an opinion that you (not you personally!) think is horseshit - then...come on, human decency should tell you that there's no need for it.

I can attest to the moderation being fair - if it wasn't fair, then surely I would've been banned ages ago for some of the opinions and comments made? I'm pretty sure (though I have no proof ) that Neil would've happily banned me a while back, and I'm positive that if I was to start abusing members, then I'd be banned. It's not like i'm friends with any of the moderators, two of them have actively told me that I'm full of shit (though in far politer terms)...so how could it be unfair?

Do you think someone should be banned for expressing an opinion?

Sorry for the off-topic response, but if I was in Aberdeen, I'd be along like a shot. This sounds really interesting, and I hope the workshop is a great success

Don't know if you remeber, but a guy was promoting gigs under the banner of Chaos Creations (and maybe still is? dunno...haven't checked the myspace in a while), with the profits going to open the store. It's a shop in the market I believe, I think there's a thread elsewhere on here about it..

Okey doke, here's one for a start off the top of my head:

The Queens Hall :: the HQ of live music in Edinburgh

You really should have asked before you typed out all that bollocks about European competition law and Caledonian Macbrayne.

I've just had a look, and they don't appear to be doing much in the way that would compete with (say) the Liquid Rooms. A quick google tells me that the Liquid Rooms is 800 capacity - so it's a fair comparison...but you can hardly compare the musical offerings at The Queens Hall with the Liquid Rooms, can you?

What I'm after is a situation where two venues are in one city, in close proximity to each other, with a similar offering live music wise. This means commercial, modern music - not "Dougie and his bagpipes" against "IndieHype2008".

And I'm still waiting for someone to tell me *why* it's bollocks. So far, no-one appears actually able to tell me that there's no competition/state aid issues involved.

Well, whoever it was must have known what you were thinking, as that poster registered the day before the post in question.

Maybe you're even pissing off the newbies as well as everyone else...

I'd love to know how many "emo skater girls" would register on a forum and bother to look at the Web Site Announcements forum, without making any posts. I don't know any, do you?

If they have just signed up then they won't be able to leave you any positive or negative reputation as they will have 0 influence. They can still leave you reputation comments, but they can't affect your reputation score.

Speaking of the influence scores, any chance you could tell us how influence scores are gained/lost?