Disclaimer
Terms & Conditions
Etc...

Last updated 8th June 2002

 

 

Introduction

What with the recent cases being brought against US ISPs, inferences to similar situations here, and, of course, the whole question as to whether I, as a website owner, am a 'broadcaster' (in the same sense as the BBC or Channel 5 - get that!!!!), I figure it would be best to write up a way to cover my ass in case anybody decides to pervert the course of justice some rainy Saturday simply 'cos they are bored.

It pains me to have to do this. I think it is bullshit. But, that's where the money is. And we all know that money makes the world go round.
Ah well, let's get it over with...

 

Acceptance

Your access to this site, and your use of this site ( http://www.heyrick.co.uk/ ) is subject to the following conditions. By making use of this site, you indicate that you have read and understood the following conditions, and you agree to be bound by them.

If you do not agree to the conditions, and to be bound by them, please do not use this site. Note that these conditions may, in time, be altered to reflect the current state of world sanity.

 

Changes

I, Richard Murray, or a friend acting on my direct instructions, reserve the right to alter these conditions as necessary. Please check back periodically, to see if anything has been altered. Your continued use of the site will indicate your acceptance of changes.
In order to aid you, changes will be given underlined. This statement is new, for example.

Obviously, if somebody reverse DNS's my host and figures out how to break into the server to replace content with something of their own, that isn't acting on any direct instruction of mine!

 

Contacting me

( this whole section is new )

Some people have mentioned that it is hard to find a contact email for me. This is done firstly to try to prevent spammers getting my email, and secondly to dissuade you from firing off an email if somehow you managed to miss my references to my living in France and not having a phone line - don't laugh, several people have asked me a question and followed it up a week or so later with a snotty 'so you can't be bothered to reply' message.

You can email me as rmurray, and simply put the domain name (the 'heyrick.co.uk' bit) after the at symbol. Okay?
But I may not pick up the email for a long long time.

Also, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE include your email address.

 

Intellectual property

You acknowlege that all content available from this site are protected by copyright, trademarks, or other similar laws. No content shall be copied for public use without my express written permission. If you want to download a section (say, /mynet) for personal reading offline, that's fine with me. Placing it on another site and/or placing it on a commercial CD-ROM or other such media is not fine with me. Ask first.

Provided you keep intact the relevant copyright notices, you may print materials from this site for your personal use.

If you wish to print material for educational use (ie, parts of /assembler), that is fine too but I request that you email me first. It is nice to know where your work is being used, and in some cases the information may exist in a more suitable format. You may assume that it is okay to use the content if I do not reply to the email (ie, I may be in France). But please contact me anyway...

It is not my intention to infringe copyrights or upset people. If you discover something on this site that should not be there, please simply contact me. I'm not out to prove a point by abusing copyright laws - chances are I was unaware and will happily remove any offending material.

Please be aware that while most of this site is copyright Richard Murray, there are some things hosted here either according to licence conditions, or with permission, which is the intellectual property of somebody else. An example is the server software provided by Alan Williams in the Econet area.

Reference content

You may not 'mirror' content on this site on another server without permission. However I am aware of the fact that the world is not yet completely 'wired', and strange as it may be, there are actually people that don't own modems! :-) Therefore, permission is granted for copying the reference materials onto floppy disc or CD-ROM provided the discs/CDs are either given away, sold for media costs and no more, or attached to the front of a magazine.
In addition, permission is granted for minor formatting modifications to be made to fit the content you wish to use into your heirarchy. For example, I use a centralised /images directory but you may prefer to keep images alongside the HTML content. Also, links back to the main index are unlikely to call a php3 script, etc...
Please, however, do not edit the content itself without permission.

The following paths are defined as 'reference content':
Reference content
Name Content path Images path Notes
Assembler area /assembler/* /images/assembler/* Software in /assembler/sw, arm3.gif in /assembler
Bush box hacking /assembler/resources/stb* /images/assembler/stb* Refers to arm3.gif in /assembler
Econet Enthusiasts Area /econet/* /images/econet/* Please delete /econet/misc/buysell.html
Frobnicate /frobnicate/* /images/frobnicate/* You may not want all of /frobnicate/resources
Acorn - PC networking /mynet/* /images/mynet/* Email links will need to be edited

For other content, please email me first.

Please note that some of the programs may be altered (by you) at will (ie, the examples in /assembler are for that very purpose), however some of the software available is shareware or commercial.
Please do not assume that if a program doesn't say what it is, then it's a total freebie. By 'free', software authors usually mean 'you don't pay for it', not 'you can do what you like with it'. A small but very important difference.
Please refer to the writings of the Free Software Foundation (try www.fsf.org ?) if you'd like this in meticulous detail; though be aware none of my software is 'GPL'.

 

Forced content (& pornography)

There are a few subtle redirections on this site to cater for site administration. For example, trying to fetch /index.html will redirect you to the correct URL, /index.php3, and /budgiesoft will take you to /software.
While you may come across opinions and points of view that you may not agree with, you will never find yourself staring at pornographic pictures due to a link which claimed to be something innocuous.
While I am not particularly bothered by electronic porn (I'm a bloke, I would say that...), to hide it behind a seemingly innocent link is not only irresponsible, it is stupid and petty. And besides, if you can imagine your children (or yourself?) getting all hot and steamy over a 640 x 480 JPEG, well... what can I say? Get a life!

Oh, and just in case you are looking for pornography because I have Britney Spears content (it is something the site logs notified me - when you come here from a search engine, I usually get to see what you typed in as your search phrase!), then please note that I am a rather boring geek with odd ideas about life and reality. Pornography does not really interest me. Go someplace else.

If you click on a link and find yourself looking at some unexpected content, please check where you are and how you got there. I have my doubts about MSSmartTags, but never seen it for myself.

And, just to clear up the issue, permission is not granted for any agent to modify the place you are taken to when you click an <a href ...>, nor to arbitrarily modify an image, without obtaining prior permission from myself.
It is assumed that if a link originates from this site to a place that modifies the URLs, that permission has been given implicitly (ie, for the various translation utilities).
A browser is free to interpret URLs and images in any way it wants provided that it does so in a manner roughly according to the HTML 3.2 specification.

Exceptions:

Generally, if you are providing a useful service to my content (ie, translation), then you may munge links. If you are simply embedding link munging in order to trace visitors or other such information which serves no purpose to the end user (then and there, so adveritising demographics do not count), then you should not be munging links.

 

Passwords and restricted downloads

You have permission to access restricted content when I say you can access it. Simply knowing the password and/or the URL is not sufficient. Please be aware that a number of restricted things log when it is downloaded, and by who, and also some may refuse to give it to you unless you are 'known' to the system (like, static IP type 'known').
By restricted, I mean commercial software, beta test software, pre-release content, and the like. If you need a URL that isn't readily available, or if you need a name/password, then chances are the content you are looking for is classed as 'restricted'.

 

Links

The links provided on this site are not constantly reviewed. The content of such sites is the responsibility of the owner/creator of that site, of which I have no control over. If you find a site is potentially unsuitable, then please contact me to warn me of this.

You do not need to obtain permission to link to a document/page/software held at this site, however it is nice if you ask first as I like the idea of reciprocal links (you link to me, I link back to you) as if you feel my content is useful to your readers, then your content may well be of use to my readers.
Please note that you link to this site at your own risk.

Please, if you link to me, test it well. I've seen some horrid things with frames in the past. I do not set any frame targets on my site as frames are not used.

Sometimes I ask Google to provide me with a list of people linking to outdated URLs. When I find one, I send off an email to let the site maintainer know the new URL. Sometimes the maintainer thanks me for the update and is happy to change the URL. But, sadly, by and large my emails go ignored. Which seems silly, but there you go...
Please help me. If you find an outdated link, email the maintainer of the site. Maybe they'll pay attention to you? If enough people complain... :-)

 

Accuracy

This site contains data and other such information (code, tables, etc) that may be of use to you. Such information is provided as guidance, and is given in good faith. It is not, however, to be taken as The Truth, The Authority, or a substitute for your own judgement or advice given to you by competent third parties.
I suggest that you use no information provided until you have evaluated it and concluded it makes sense in your particular circumstances.
While I have made an effort to provide accurate and reliable information, I do not provide any warranty as to its accuracy, adequacy, or usefulness. In some cases, I am literally working blind and trying to make sense of conflicting information. I try my best, but please don't just assume that what I've written is correct. Indeed, it would be wise to assume that nothing on the Internet is valid and correct until you can cross-reference it from two or more seperate locations. Anybody can make a web page and purport to 'know' something. :-)

 

Interactivity

This site may provide access to forums, bug report forms, and other on-line areas where people can leave messages. While I try to monitor this as and when I am able, I refuse to accept liability for undesirable content left by a third party. My current level of internet access makes it practically impossible to monitor all such things, and I refuse to remove all of the interactive parts simply because somebody may write slanderous, libellous, or otherwise undesirable content.
Under UK law, it appears that site maintainers are obliged to monitor the content held on their site. So it comes down to this. I've left various interactive parts. If I get any heat, they'll be removed as soon as I am able, and a full report will be written up in my thoughts section...

You shall not transmit any unlawful, libelous, defamatory, obscene, threatening, or otherwise profane material, including links to where such material may be found.
You agree to defend me legally if I should fall into trouble as a result of something that you submit to this site. This will include all necessary costs such as travel for myself and any representatives, loss of earnings, and so forth.
Please read the above paragraph carefully - while some people have told me I'm out of my mind for making a statement like that, I see it quite simply. It is like the ongoing debate of personal ID cards - if you've nothing to hide, you've nothing to worry about. Likewise, if you have no plan to post, say, kiddie porn links...why are you getting so annoyed? Storm in a tea cup, much?

You may not use this site, or the domain, to transmit any form of unsolicited email, be it hate mail or bulk UCE, etc. I have written a 'thought' on this, look in Rick'sWorld.

You may not attempt to gain access to the workings of this site, or interfere with it, or otherwise compromise it.

 

Downtime

This site may not be continuously available. While reasonable efforts are made by my host, it is impossible to guarantee every piece of equipment between your modem and my host's machine will be in full and total operational condition, forever.
We are already talking something like twelve different companies, dozens of bits of kit, and more copper wire than you can easily conceive of... Rather than complain if something is 'down', you should every time you connect your computer to another, thank the designers and implementors that such a thing is even possible. That you can wander to some obscure website and download, across telephone lines, an entire episode of Buffy in quality that may be superior to your broadcast television reception, before the episode has even aired, from across the Atlantic ocean, to watch on your computer, with sound, and colour, and in only a few hours. I have not personally done this as my machine isn't up to full-screen video streams, but I know of those who have. Tell me that the ability to do such a thing isn't just purely amazing?
So don't complain when it sometimes doesn't work. Simply remain in a state of awe that it does work at all!

 

Providers

Various people provide my internet access. Sadly I'm no longer with Argonet (Freedom2) as I saw little point in paying a subscription for a service I would be unable to use. (I miss them, though, and news:argonet.*)
Coolfactor provides my POP3 and the web site hosting. Glenn Richards (Squirrel) is a friend who knows how to fix stuff when I cock it up.
None of those people/companies are responsible for the data held on my site, the data coming to and from my site or my email mailbox, and and other transient data. In any case of any legal dispute, you agree to hold them harmless and immune from prosecution or any other form of legal proceedings.

My domain name is registered in the name of 'Richard Goodwin' (last I checked). This is due to historical reasons and the fact that nobody ever got around to altering it. You agree also that he is simply not involved in any aspect of the running or use of this site any more. I can't remember what the contact email address in the whois lookup says, but if it is not postmaster <at> heyrick.co.uk then it should be ignored and the postmaster address used.

 

No warranty

You use this site at your own risk (that sounds ominous, doesn't it?). Everything is provided 'as is', without any warranties of any kind express or implied. While we would appreciate it if you do not use anything provided here for illegal or immoral purposes, you should appreciate that once it has left the server and made its way to your computer, we no longer have direct control over what happens with the information.
Under no circumstances (including but not limited to negligence) shall I be liable for losses or other damages for your relying on any of the information provided. This includes if I have been advised of the possibility of such damages.
I had a section about 'my total liability', but considering I've just disclaimed all such liabilities, that was a bit silly - wasn't it? :-)...

 

Indemnity

You agree to indemnify Richard Murray, and the assisters and providers; and to keep 'us' all full indemnified against all actions, proceedings, losses, liabilities, damages, claims, demands, costs, expenses, and psychiatric therapy suffered or incurred by 'us' as a result of or in connection with any negligence on your part, an omission, a breach of these conditions, or a breach of the law by yourself.
'us' refers to Richard Murray, coolfactor and associated suppliers, Glenn, and anybody else who provides help and/or materials used on or provided by this site.

 

Privacy

This site has been developed so that certain things are logged. Where you've come from, what you download, etc. This information is collected and analysed to help create a better site for you. Generalised logs are made available, the more specific logs are not publically available.
In some places, you may be asked to divulge personal information such as an email address. We ask for this only to verify who you are, and from time to time notify you of important updates (though such a thing had not happened yet). Or email lists are not intended to be publically read, nor are they sold.
You are not obliged to provide this information, although please note failure to do so is likely to result in your inability to access and/or download certain content.
While it would be possible to track who you are and exactly what you do, to do so would simply be a huge logistical nightmare that I don't ever plan to get involved with. My interest extends purely to: I also wish to have a valid email address if you are going to download open source or beta test software. Other than that, I don't really care.
There is no facility to examine 'personal information held about you' as, at most, all I'll have is an email address. If you change ISPs, simply email support <at> heyrick.co.uk and let me know your new address.

There is no liability or legality involved with my restricting content upon your refusal to supply a valid email address. I am providing these things as a service to you. Your access to it is not a right, and if I decide to withhold it until you identify yourself, that is my privilege.

 

That 'Article 19'

With regard to written content, please note that if you ask me to remove an opinion I have made simply because you disagree with it, then the chances are that I will provide a note, somewhere around the offending opinion, referring to you and your disagreement.
I do NOT take well to censorship for censorship's sake.
We all have opinions, right or wrong, and in a democratic society we all have the right to express our opinions (yes, even the likes of the British National Party). It is up to the listener to weigh up each opinion and point of view on its merits, and decide if it is just and valid. Simply requesting that which you do not like to be silenced is not in the spirit of democracy.

The best way to answer a bad argument or a fallacy of some sort is a better argument.

Click here to read more on this topic.

I make points, I have thoughts, I write those thoughts and opinions. Just to make life interesting, I sometimes play Devil's Advocate in order to look at something from a different perspective. What I think and feel is written here.

 

Bearing this in mind, please consider Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

The declaration makes interesting reading.
You'll find it at http://www.unhchr.ch/

 

Therefore...

If you agree, then welcome to HeyRick.

If you disagree, then it hurts me to ask you not to access any more of this site; but I would appreciate an email telling me why you disagree.
PLEASE INCLUDE YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS.

 

Phew! Wasn't that a load of pseudo-legal crap?
And now for something different...

 

One final thing

Alyson Hannigan is the most beautiful woman on the planet.
FHM magazine rated her quite well in the recent Top Hundred poll. I cannot remember the exact position, but I'm thinking in or near the top ten.
Of course, I like to think I helped. I filled in my vote card with Alyson in all ten positions (damn, I don't think I could come up with nine other 'beautiful woman'), and posted it back.
:-)

Okay, in response to emails, I'll have a go...

  1. Alyson Hannigan (obviously)

And then...

  1. Kellie Martin
  2. Samantha Mathis
  3. Meredith Bishop
  4. Jennifer Love Hewitt
  5. Charisma Carpenter
  6. Winona Ryder
If you are unsure who any of these are, refer to IMDb.

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Copyright © 2002 Richard Murray