DL2 Media

The word ‘crime’ is used a lot in modern times, but what exactly constitutes a crime? The legal definition is ‘acts which break or contravene the letter of the law’. This is what most people to believe a crime to be. The normative definition of a crime is ‘acts which break or contravene a set of formal or informal norms or codes’. Although the latter definition is correct, it doesn’t really represent what the average person thinks of as a crime.

The view that society is both fearful of and fascinated by crime is a fairly subjective question. It may be quantified by statistics and surveys, but they depend entirely on people’s points of view. The main evidence will be anecdotal but it does not mean it isn’t accurate. There is quantative evidence available from recent times, but this can only accurately show trends from the last 30 years or so.

The fear of crime relies on the public’s belief that it is steadily getting worse. Robert Reiner said ‘in the last 40 years, we have got used to thinking of crime, like the weather and pop music, as something that is always getting worse’.

Evidence gained since modern recording began does indicate a growth in crime in many areas so it isn’t all down to perception. The reality as far as statistics tell it, is that there has been a steady growth in some types of crime.

‘Prior to the 1930s fewer than 100,000 offences were recorded annually, whereas is 1992, over five million offences were recorded.’.

Not only is crime better reported, but there are more crimes to report in modern times. Crimes like computer fraud and hacking are relatively new ones and wouldn’t have even existed twenty years ago.

The explosion of available information exacerbates the feeling that crime is steadily increasing. The advent of 24/7 news channels, the internet and the ease of sharing news, can give you the feeling that we are sinking into increased criminality. In essence all of this available information gives people something to worry about. Before this kind of information was readily available society had a generally local viewpoint. This meant that we were only really aware of what was going on around our area, from word of mouth or the local paper. The national papers would have reported crime, but only the high profile or horrific ones. As more and more information became available, and the media was able to report crime in more depth and more accurately, it seemed like there was an explosion in crime and not an explosion in the reporting of it.

All these things alter the perception, but not necessarily the fact that crime is steadily increasing. This is why most of the evidence collected by asking people their opinions is anecdotal.

The view that we are fascinated by crime is borne out by the myriad of crime media available today. Go to any book shop and see row upon row of True Crime novels, crime fiction and drama. Crime shows, documentaries and programmes where the police have cameras are dominant on our television schedules today. There is even a Crime and Punishment channel on satellite television. Murder Mystery weekend breaks are also popular where members of the public can act out a ‘Cluedoesque’ style crime and solve it.

This fascination may be related to the attractiveness of being seen as someone dangerous, or the thrill of breaking the rules. It may be that we like the thought of people doing what we are too afraid to try ourselves. The reasons will be many and varied.

We seem fearful of both the increase in crime, and the possibility of being a victim. The increase in actual crimes reported is not in proportion to our perception that the crime rate is growing. Our fascination with crime manifests itself in a voyeuristic way. We seem to devour news stories and crime fiction in abundance, whether it is in television, newspapers or books. Modern media is responsible for both feeding our fear and sating our appetite for crime.

If there was one thing among many that annoyed Windows Vista users it was the User Account Control. Constant warning messages asking for permission to continue many tasks was no joy to any user trying to even basic tasks on their PC. The tweaking channels were soon inundated with requests for tips on how to stop it nagging you every time you wanted to do something. Fortunately UAC has been improved quite a bit in Windows 7 so that it isn’t quite as annoying as it was in Vista. You can, as ever, tweak it more if you like.

To get started navigate to the Control Panel, User Accounts and Family Safety. Click User Accounts, then Change User Account Control settings. From the next screen move the slider to select the level of protection you want.

Ensure you have a backup or restore Point on your machine before making any changes. If you follow these instructions to the letter you should have no problems, but we can’t be held responsible if things go wrong.

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Here are the four levels, and what they mean:

Always notify on every system change. Works like Vista. A nannying prompt pops up whenever you make changes to your system.

Notify me only when programs try to make changes to my computer. This is the default setting Make a change while logged in as an Administrator and it stays quiet. When a program makes a change, a prompt appears to check what’s going on.

Notify me only when programs try to make changes to my computer, without using the Secure Desktop. This setting is identical to the default setting, with one difference: It won’t dim your desktop so that you only see the UAC prompt asking you to take action. This presents a slightly higher security risk over the default settings, as a program could allow another malicious program or code to interfere with the UAC prompt.

Never notify. UAC is turned off. This is an insecure option and not recommended for most users. However if you have a good firewall and anti-virus, you can turn it off if you like.

After you choose your level, click OK.

You can also disable UAC with a registry hack if you have the skills.

Open the registry editor (regedit) and find;

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System

And find the entry EnableLUA, and modify the value to 0 (zero). The find the ConsentPromptBehaviourAdmin value and change that to 0 (zero) too.

The next time you restart your machine the UAC will be turned off and you will never be bugged by it again.

As always with Windows, there is a downside and that is that you can no longer use Windows Gadgets and MS think that the system is too open to attack with UAC off and gadgets running in the background. I personally never used the gadgets anyway…

SAN FRANCISCO - Internet video leader YouTube Inc.’s losses have been overblown by some analysts, but corporate parent Google Inc. doesn’t mind the misperception, according to a study being released Wednesday.

Technology consultants at RampRate Inc. project YouTube’s operating losses this year at $174.2 million — far below the $470.6 million estimated by Credit Suisse analysts Spencer Wang and Kenneth Sena in an April research report that became a hot topic on Wall Street and the Internet.

The dueling forecasts are the latest twist in a guessing game that has intrigued investors since Google bought YouTube for $1.76 billion in late 2006.
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Although YouTube has become an even more popular diversion since the Google deal, it still hasn’t proven it can make money.

Google has acknowledged YouTube isn’t profitable, but has refused to provide any specifics, leaving it to outsiders to figure out.

And the number crunching usually leads to inaccurate conclusions, according to Google’s chief financial officer, Patrick Pichette.

“Most people build outside views of what it costs us to do things, and often they exaggerate,” Pichette said in an interview with the Canadian magazine Maclean’s shortly after Credit Suisse released its YouTube report.

But Google has little incentive to set the record straight about YouTube’s actual losses, according to RampRate, which specializes in managing technology costs.

RampRate reasons the perception of large losses at YouTube helps Google negotiate more favorable contracts with movie, TV and music studios licensing their video. What’s more, copyright owners also are less likely to go to court in pursuit of unpaid royalties and damages if they believe YouTube is a big money loser, according to RampRate’s thesis.

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“Google is no doubt thrilled to let YouTube be known as a financial folly,” RampRate’s report said.

YouTube spokesman Aaron Zamost wouldn’t comment directly on RampRate’s report, but he stressed that Google has been running ads near or in millions of videos in an effort to curb YouTube’s losses. He also said Google had little incentive to magnify its losses because YouTube shares revenue with its business partners.

“We want our partners to do well, because when they succeed, we succeed,” Zamost said.

Although it has been cutting costs to cope with the U.S. recession, Google can still afford to subsidize YouTube with the money it makes through its search engine. Google earned $4.2 billion last year and started this year with a first-quarter profit of $1.4 billion.

Analysts generally concur with Credit Suisse’s $241 million estimate for YouTube’s revenue this year. RampRate adopted Credit Suisse’s revenue projections in its calculations, as well as Credit Suisse’s estimate that YouTube will spend about $332 million on video acquisition, advertising commissions and general overhead this year.

The big mystery is how much it costs Google to store and distribute the 20 hours of video that are sent to YouTube every minute.

After conferring with industry experts, Wang and Sena concluded Google will spend nearly $380 million on Internet bandwith, computer hardware, software and data centers for YouTube. RampRate believes the figure is about $83 million.

That lower estimate presumes Google has negotiated moneysaving deals with broadband providers and other behind-the-scenes players that move data through the Internet. RampRate also believes Google’s own propriety technology has helped hold down YouTube’s costs, an idea that Pichette endorsed in his Maclean’s interview.

“When people run models, they generally use standard industry pricing for bandwidth, storage, but we build everything from scratch,” Pichette said at the time. “So we know our cost position but nobody else does.”

Credit Suisse stands by its April estimates, said Sena, one of the analysts who wrote the April report. “We feel very comfortable with what we came up with,” he said Tuesday.

Nothing could take all of the hassle out of home buying, otherwise everyone would do it. There are steps that can ease the pain a bit though. Buying a Naples or Florida condo or home is an exciting experience, ensuring the bases are covered will ensure the feeling of excitement isn’t marred by disappointment.

Prepare your home for sale. Ensure it is in good repair, tidy and always clean. Look at it with the eyes of a buyer and asses it critically. Remedy anything that gives you concern before any prospective buyers see it.

Choosing a real estate agent is key in the whole process. Don’t just choose the cheapest unless you are confident they have the skills and aptitude to do the job properly. A skilled agent will ease the process immeasurably and its worth investing a little more in ensuring you get one that serves you well.

Don’t spend too much time studying the market and second guessing yourself, your agent or buyers. Do your research by all means, then try and relax and let the process unfold. Thinking too much and changing your mind or planning to specifically will make you hesitant and unhappy. There is no such thing as a perfect time to buy or sell a home. There are good times and bad times for each person, property and area. Concentrating on property values and choosing a home for its potential appreciation isn’t the best idea. As the last year has shown, the market is volatile and can’t really be counted on to do what you want it to do. Choose a home because you love it, not just because it may make you some money. Naples and Florida homes currently for sale are still slowly increasing in value but this is never guaranteed.

Ensure you have a mortgage in principle before you start your own home search. This is an agreement whereby a lender will agree to lend you a certain amount depending on the information you have provided them. It gives you an idea of how much you can borrow, and therefore the price bracket of your purchase. It also shows a real estate agent that you are serious about buying and/or selling. Having an agreement in place can also speed up the lending process as some checks will already have been done.

When you find the house of your dreams, try not to get too excited. It’s a natural and enjoyable part of the process but you need to study your purchase in the cold light of day. You might love the house itself, but is the area right for you? Are there any other considerations you need to take into account before closing the deal? Noise? Crime? Running costs?

Bearing all of this in mind will only help you make process easier and avoid any buyer’s remorse once the deal has been done.

You know it really drives me crazy, I worked so hard getting this stupid site ranked for “naples real estate” on Google. I basically got NO change what so ever for months and gave up. I ended up redirecting / 301′ing this entire domain over to NaplesWebDesign.net

So a few nights ago I decided this domain was too good to just waste on a 301. The 301 redirect was removed and all the sudden the stupid site jumps all the way to the bottom of page one and the top of page two for terms like naples real estate and naples florida real estate.

I guess I’m going to finally go ahead and turn this into a legit naples real estate site. I think the local real estate agents are going to be very pleased with what I have planned. It’s one of the few times the competition will be happy with what I do ;D

If last Friday’s Release Candidate for Mozilla’s Firefox 3.5 is truly indicative of the final release (last week’s was not, unfortunately), then how much faster performance will Firefox users expect to see the moment they install it? When the organization first started seriously ramping up the development of its TraceMonkey JavaScript engine last year, we said that speed boost would have to be in the triple-digit range to keep up with competition, as well as to meet the high expectations Mozilla set.

Today, Betanews tests have a preliminary answer, and it’s exactly what developers have been looking for: A full speed 253% increase in Windows 7 RC, and 222% increase in Windows Vista SP2, in tests conducted with the “Beta 99″ release candidate build posted last Friday, versus version 3.0.10, the current stable Firefox release. The general public may get a chance to see that performance improvement later this week, assuming this time Mozilla releases Firefox 3.5 RC to the general public as planned.

This morning’s tests give Beta 99 a 9.23 Betanews performance index score in Win7 RC, and 7.44 in Vista SP2, once again demonstrating the much-needed agility in the underlying Win7 platform compared to its predecessor. (Our index compares speeds to a relative 1.00 for Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 in Vista SP2.) In speed tests alone, Beta 99 on Win7 was 32% faster than Beta 99 on Vista.

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A word about our Windows Web browser test suite

Where is Firefox finding the speed? It’s not in the rendering department, which we’ve noticed has actually ticked downward, perhaps in pursuit of better standards compliance (the RC still scores 93% on the Acid3 test). Our tests reveal that the latest 3.5 handles array objects twice as fast as the stable, and recovers from errors 10 times as fast. The RC accesses data in memory three times as fast, handles math operations five times as fast, processes textual strings over three times as fast, and processes bitwise logic 753% faster than version 3.0.10.

Still, it will not be the fastest Windows Web browser available. Our performance index score for the latest stable release of Google Chrome (2.0.177.1) in Win7 RC is 13.43, reflecting nearly 56% better speed over Beta 99. But the Firefox speed boost will put version 3.5 in a league with Chrome and Apple Safari 4 (still in testing) in the speed department; and with a fuller slate of add-ons and more developed outside support, there’s good reason to believe it will continue to be the preferred alternative browser to Internet Explorer in the coming months.

Of course, the Back button will need to work. During what was supposed to have been Mozilla’s final “crunch time” testing two weeks ago, testers found a handful of blockers that were bad enough to delay final release by at least a week. We saw one ourselves: In one of the previous daily builds for Firefox 3.5 last week, the Back button was inoperative in Windows 7 RC. Not in Vista, however; and the latest daily “Minefield” build of Firefox 3.6 didn’t have that problem. We were relieved not to find it in last weekend’s Beta 99 post.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

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NEW YORK – A survey of dozens of women who fled violence in Darfur found that a third of them reported or showed signs of rape, and revealed a widespread fear of sexual violence in their refugee camp in Chad, a human rights group reported Sunday.

About half the rapes were carried out in Darfur by janjaweed militiamen allied to the Arab-dominated government in Khartoum, and half were assaults by Chadian villagers near the U.N. refugee camp, usually when the women left to search for firewood or herd livestock, according to the report by the U.S.-based group Physicians for Human Rights.

The group reached the 88 women included in the survey through camp leaders and by word-of-mouth — a sampling method the report said hinders drawing general conclusions about the prevalence of rape in Darfur or in the Farchana refugee camp in Chad.

Recording rape or interviewing victims of sexual violence is problematic in Darfur’s Muslim culture, where women fear social stigma or further trauma and sometimes recant their allegations out of shame. Further complicating the effort, women displaced inside Darfur live mostly in government-controlled areas and fear reprisal.

The issue is highly contentious for the Sudanese government, which denies any systematic rape or violence against women.

The PHR survey supported widespread claims of rape often told by Darfuri refugees, and recounted by human rights and relief officials. U.N. officials said documenting the violence has become even more difficult following the Sudanese government’s decision to expel 13 foreign aid groups, working mostly in Darfur.

The Darfur rapes fell into a common pattern, with a village overwhelmed by turbaned gunmen wearing green or khaki uniforms, often arriving on horse- or camel-back. Air strikes by the Sudanese military usually followed.

One woman from the Masalit tribe recounted how when she was 13, four Arab gunmen on horseback attacked her family’s farm in a Darfur village, shot and killed her father, and raped her.

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“When they shot my father, they saw I was a little girl. I did not have any energy or force against them,” said the woman, now 19. “They used me. I started bleeding. It was so painful. … I was sick for seven days. I could not stand up.”

Physicians for Human Rights called for the prosecution of rape as a war crime and urged the International Criminal Court to issue warrants against Sudanese suspects. They also sought better protection for refugees in the Chad camps by Chadian police and international peacekeepers, including firewood-gathering patrols.

PHR said three doctors and a human rights researcher interviewed 88 women in November at the refugee camp in Farchana, Chad, where more than 20,000 Darfuris are watched over by some 2,000 Chadian soldiers, about 34 miles (55 kilometers) from Sudan’s border.

Among the 88 women, 29 suffered “confirmed or highly probable rape,” PHR found. Three women were assaulted twice, the group said.

The Darfur conflict began in 2003 when mostly ethnic African rebels in the western Sudanese province took up arms against the northern government in Khartoum, complaining of discrimination and neglect. The conflict has since claimed up to 300,000 lives and displaced 2.7 million people. About 250,000 have fled into Chad, where they live in refugee camps.

____

Associated Press Writer Sarah El Deeb in Cairo contributed to this report.

June 02, 2009 14:06

I am a divorced woman.

I am not here to wave the female activists’ banner, because much to their dismay I cannot in good conscience refer to myself as “the victim”.

My first trip to the lawyer after getting separated was like a trip to a first class financial buffet. Behind closed doors the plan was laid out at my fee. On the menu was child support, spousal support, pensions, extraordinary expenses, education costs and the list went on. It was all there and ripe for the picking.

“This is what you can get”, I was told. It was horrible. I had the ultimate power and control over my ex-husband’s future in the palm of my hand.

My ex-husband and I never stepped foot inside a family courtroom. We divorced, we agreed to put the best interest of our children first and life went on. My ex-husband re-married a wonderful woman that loved and nurtured my children and I loved her for loving my children.

My children are now wonderful, loving adults. I have four beautiful grandchildren with number five on the way.

I met my partner in 2005, two years after his family breakup. And that was when I was introduced to the “flawed” family law system. Sadly, this system of ours is greatly affecting our future with the emotional turmoil it has forced upon our innocent children of divorce.

This family law system is a joke. It should have been called the Flawed Family Law System. In my opinion, this is a predatory system in which women use the divorce laws as a legalized vehicle for harassment against men.  What gives me the right to have total power and control over his life until our children are no longer considered “children of marriage?”

The judges, lawyers and courts can’t save my partner. I know that his fate has already been sealed. He has lost before he begins. The only question left to answer within our legal system is how much and for how long?

Will this man be shown any leniency by the system?

The real judge, jury and executioner here is the ex-wife. The choice is hers. Will she want to see him financially destroyed, alienated from his children and left with only God to comfort him? Don’t kid yourself ladies.

I have been in touch with several men’s groups in Canada and I am a proud member of Fathers 4 Justice Canada. I have read literally hundreds of e-mails from men reaching their hands out of the gutters of life to simply come up to a living standard that you and your other female activists would call hell on earth.

Where are the politicians? They fund women’s rights groups but what about men’s rights? This abuse of justice against men in Canada and around the world makes a mockery of everyone. How sad for our children.

Once a society knows that an injustice is being done, we have a moral, ethical and spiritual obligation to address the problem. I ask you why are we ignoring men’s rights in Canada?

The media and government should be ashamed. You know that this problem exists. Please do what’s right rather than what’s easy. Be a voice for fathers and their children.

As for all you divorced women out there, take your anger, bitterness and control issues out on your therapist and not your ex-husband. Before your first trip to the lawyer ask yourself these questions: Do I have a have a conscience and can I accept the repercussions of my actions?

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The Feminist Library is looking for support as well as wishing to continue welcoming visitors.

A unique collection of over 10,000 books, 700 sets of magazines and over two thousand pamphlets can be found in the building at St George’s Circus.

Although the library holds some original suffragette pamphlets, it is largely devoted to the second-wave materials from late 1960s to 1970s.

The collection has been built up over more than thirty years mainly by volunteers who have had to face a recurring financial crisis.

Despite these difficulties it remains the largest library of contemporary feminist material in the UK.

Much of the material is not available elsewhere but, say supporters, by keeping it together future researchers will be able to have a coherent picture of the women’s movement in the second half of the 20th-century.

The library’s beginning can be traced back to 1976 when the Women’s Research and Resources Centre was formed. Its succession of addresses included one in Clerkenwell next to Spare Rib. The library moved from the Embankment to the present Southwark building following the abolition of the GLC in 1987.

“From just stepping into that special, unique collection of books, periodicals, poetry, pamphlets and much more I could feel every inch of the buzz, history, knowledge and energy that keeps me returning,” says Natasha Cock who discovered the library in 2007.

“I feel alive and full of purpose and conviction that I’m working to further a set of issues and movements that I believe in.”

Supporter Sarah O’Mahoney, who was a librarian, describes the library as “an amazing fiction and non-fiction collection with every key feminist book you could think of”.

In 2006 the Feminist Library was instrumental in seeing that the Women’s Health Library was saved from being disposed of at a rubbish tip.

In addition to welcoming visitors and readers, the library is looking for more volunteers to help with fundraising and cataloguing.

The Feminist Library has a unique classification system. The current cataloguing project aims not only at preserving the system based on feminist scholarship but also making the catalogue searchable on line. It is intended that eventually rare pamphlets, journals and posters will also be available online.