In the news

Is the payout subject to the people who funded it getting their fees first? Or is the £400 projected already taking that into account?

Merricks’s action was initially financed by Chicago-based litigation funder Gerchen Keller Capital, which the Law Society Gazette said would make whatever was the greater of £135m or 30% of the proceeds of the case up to £1bn, plus 20% of the proceeds over £1bn.

A new funder, Innsworth Litigation Funding, has taken on the case. It is understood it will receive a share of whatever is left if not every person in the class action lawsuit makes a claim.

I don't know I'm afraid.

Usually the fees order and the payout would be separated. I think.

Surely American Express is even worse when it comes to fees etc.

Yes but they didn't dominate the market in such a way that MC did. It was that domination and power that led to all retailers increasing prices. (Goes the claim)

Interesting reflections on the London Fire Brigade (in relation to Notre Dame)

https://stevedude68.wordpress.com/2019/04/16/the-notre-dame-fire/amp/

I think we know who'd get the blame?

Yeah, immigrants.

"UK to introduce porn age-checks in July"

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-47960775

Who even asked for this?

Young people will learn to use VPNs, become more tech savvy and get around the age check, while old people will be blocked from looking at porn.

how about "be better parents by spending more time talking to your kids and policing what they get up to on the internet"

probably too much of a ballache tho.

old people will be blocked from looking at porn.

I have no problem with this. Let’s call it pay-back for Br*xit.

Putting aside the porn issue, the privacy concerns here are enough to make any sensible government set this policy aside. Giving porn companies a large database of the personal data of a substantial portion of the UK population is not going to end well. There’s also the issue of effectively restricting access to something that is legal for adults, and the fact that any site that has content that is below a threshold of 33% is exempt. It’s just such a poorly thought out policy.

The idea that this will protect children is laughable.

But my favourite bit of today’s announcement is that the department responsible for this broke GPDR rules by sending out an email with the recipients email addresses visible to all.

All you need to know

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/porn-block-uk-wired-explains

What about all those people stocking up on porn before the deadline and accidentally overdosing? There is a very real, credible risk of a wankdeath epidemic.

First Brexit, now XXXit

any site that has content that is below a threshold of 33% is exempt. It’s just such a poorly thought out policy.

Notwithstanding that it is so loosely drafted that any porn site could exempt themselves trivially.

(4) Subject to paragraph (5), paragraph (3) does not apply in a case where it is reasonable for the age-verification regulator to assume that pornographic material makes up less than one-third of the content of the material made available on or via the internet site or other means (such as an application program) of accessing the internet by means of which the pornographic material is made available.

A site could make available (i.e. just link to) a couple of petabyte sized files, or link to a few billion small files, or non-porn material, and suddenly they don't have to do the whole registration thing.

Storage is cheap & links are free...

This shit was supposed to come into effect in April 2018, then April 2019, now July. It keeps getting pushed back because it's going to be an absolute nightmare to implement. It'll never happen IMO.

Journalist shot dead in Derry after rioting in the city https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-47985469

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/apr/18/concreteberg-weighing-105-tonnes-blocks-london-sewer-concrete-drain

Roughly 50 cubic metres of conrete?
Over zealous concrete pump operator caused a breakthrough into the sewer?

:(
Poor woman.

Derry seems to have regressed the past year, it's always been tense but lots of murders / attacks lately.

It’s not just Derry. Waiting to see how someone blames Brexit on this mindless murder.

Seems those dissident idiots of Soaradh are linked to it the BBC reported they wrote a post on Facebook excusing violence. You can image how that went down...

blames Brexit on this mindless murder.

Do you mean "blames Brexit for this mindless murder"?

What you wrote violates causality. Quite the week for general relativity, if true.

I’m not exactly sure what you mean. But I discovered after I typed the previous message that a PSNI ACC has connected this with Brexit. I better add, I have not read it heard it directly but have seen this mentioned.

Edit. I see now. I really must start wearing my gleeks when typing

FWIW, I have no trouble at all believing that huge, ongoing uncertainty about the border and the Union is fuelling and fanning any flames of chaotic discontent in the region.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2019/apr/19/wayne-hennessey-is-desperate-to-learn-about-the-nazis-roy-hodgson-crystal-palace

Doubtful that this has anything to be with Brexit, the border or anything other than the ‘usual’ recreational rioting accompanied by some lunatic with a gun
The gunman was shooting at the police and the journalist was incredibly unfortunate to be in the vicinity. I doubt this would have made the news in England has it been a police officer who had been killed. That is the sad situation in Northern Ireland.
Interesting to see a lot of comment about how far this has set the country back following Game of Thrones etc. The violence has always been a strong undercurrent since the ‘peace’ began.

I’d be surprised if any of the English readers are aware of Ian Ogle.