Mr. Syfert may make a motion to change the venue of this action to a federal court that is nearer to his home base. If successful, this would mean that the lawyer trolls would have to fly to Mr. Syfert's state to litigate their action against him.
The trolls appear to be low-budget operators. A change of venue (along with a counterclaim) would take a real bite out of the trolls' glutes!
The lawyer trolls are going to lose. That's for sure. The only question is whether Mr. Syfert will get sanctions against them, and if so, how much those sanctions will be. Assuming that there is nothing defamatory in Mr. Syfert's materials, all Syfert did is sell information to third parties. There's no law against that (and the First Amendment supports it).
The whole thing is now a free targeted promotional event on Mr. Syfert's behalf.
Just a little bit of careful thought would have dissuaded the lawyer trolls from filing an action against Mr. Syfert. It will be fun to watch this circus as it unfolds its tents.
Widespread breaking of the law does not mean that democracy is being circumvented.
In a democracy, the laws are established by the majority. This gives the majority great power to oppress the minority. If there is widespread breaking of the law by a significant minority, then it is a sign that democracy is WORKING.
In the US, we have the Bill of Rights to ameliorate the harsh effects of democracy.
Good citizens follow the laws. Bad citizens break them.
Unless there is a grave moral principle involved, WORK lawfully to change the law.
People who advocate selectively following the law are destructive social PARASITES.
The movie people will have a hard time squaring this with the First Amendment.
You can't shut down a speaker in the future for unlawful speech acts committed in the past--unless you convict the speaker of a crime. Even then, the First Amendment and the Due Process Clause imposes limitations. This idea comes from Nesson's (self-promoting) arguments in the Tenenbaum case.
You also can't have speech laws that selectively target movies and music.
If I was a file sharer, I would add a meaningful political message (relating to reform of the copyright laws, maybe) to every single file I shared. Let the fascist SOBs try to shut me down in total, after that.
I've got no sympathies for people who share pirated material, but I have less sympathy for corporations who want to shut down ALL file sharing (including legal sharing).
Don't forget that some of our best antitrust cases resulted from the movie studios' attempts to tightly control their product--all the way from film studio to local movie house. Those pricks would dominate all distro channels in a heartbeat unless government regulation keeps them from it.
Out of the billions of people on Earth, only a tiny fraction make movies. Of that tiny fraction, only a tiny fraction make movies. Of that tiny fraction, only a tiny fraction make movies that are seen by a lot of people. Great creativity among that tiny fraction out of a tiny fraction is rare. On top of that, many moviemakers are constrained by pre-existing idioms (largely because of audience expectation--what sells). Lastly, movies are still a very new medium. Only in the last few years has the technology reached the masses.
CGI is being used now in a manner that will be considered crude in the near future. Single-shot scenes will be much easier to create/simulate with the aid of CGI. That can only give filmmakers more pacing alternatives. We're just not seeing the fruit of all those CGI-generated possibilities yet because the creatiive filmmakers haven't discovered them yet.
Jump cutting is SO overused, but it's overused because (for so many people) it works. You see it all the time on TV, where it is used to jazz up cheap to produce "reality" shows. This overuse feeds the idiomatic excessive use of jump cuts because audiences expect them.
I'm hopeful because of the influx of new talent promoted by new means of production and distribution.
You have identified the driving force. People, for a wide variety of reasons, often act like sheep. They track with musical trends, political trends, philosophies, brand loyalties, etc. The Internet won't change that, but it does shape many fads, trends, belief pathways.
Open source progs can help small bands create a self sufficient monetized presence on the internet. "Let a gazillion flowers bloom" (really)! Like making a Linux distro just for a band to sell tunes on the internet and a server to facilitate it.
Local cops generally don't care about contractual fraud unless you deliver a complete evidence package all tied up with a nice blue ribbon. They'll call it "civil" and blow you off.
Our elected officials are too afraid to take a stand against anything proposed in the name of "security," especially if security translates to political patronage controlled by them.
Hyperfast trading is a window into the future (a few milliseconds into the future, but a window into the future nonetheless). Imagine you could go back in time and pick stocks . ... That's what those sons of bitches are doing--completely lawfully thanks to elected officials who believe in "deregulation" . . .
The effect is a tax--a Wall Street tax--on every transaction they involve themselves in. They get to drive the price up before you buy--and take a little slice for themselves.
Yeah, small government is going to protect us from predatory monsters like Goldman Sachs. Yeah, whatever.
Sorry, I neglected to fully read your hypothetical. If you ask for free lemonade and Lucy gives it to you, then you and Lucy are acting pursuant to the gift understanding--Lucy has modified the terms of her original deal.
When your kid brings home a permission slip with all the groovy waiver language you can cross out all the one sided stuff, sign it, and have your kid give it to the teacher. If the teacher proceeds . . . . well . . .
Their approach appears to be consistent with contract law.
IF you understand their terms, and IF your understanding of their terms matches their understanding of their terms, and IF their terms are not illegal. and IF you click on the 'next page' icon, THEN you ought to be liable under general contract law.
It's like a lemonade stand that's operated on trust. You can't just steal the lemonade, you have to pay for it.
But just because you can do it, doesn't mean that you should. For some reason, I find the newspaper's conduct disgusting. I'm having a hard time expressing the reasons behind that feeling, though Probably because most newspapers just recycle news service stories anyway.
In fingerprint analysis, the computer spits out a possible match. It's up to the human to determine whether or not that match is valid. It's the same with this stuff.
Knowing tank concentration is NOT vastly more important than knowing the rate of tank production.
Adapting to tank concentrations invokes relatively short term planning concerns. This information is needed to help you decide your counter-concentrations. You know what they have and where they have it, and then you move your stuff in response.
But tank production is HUGELY important. You're talking about EXTREMELY complicated logistical problems there. How many tanks are you going to manufacture in response (lag time)? How many bombers are you going to allocate / train for heavy industry attacks (lag time)? Are they making so many that you've got to come up with a replacement for the Ronson Tank (big lag time)?
World War 2 took a long time. Long range planning was super-important. They didn't have computers. Anything that could make the strategic position clearer was very important. The other poster is right: You shouldn't be dismissive. This was a big deal and some geek's idea helped win the war.
Your point is well taken. Elections are all about transparency of process. Computer programming (both hardware and software) is all about levels of abstraction. That abstraction, as we have seen, can easily be manipulated.
It's gonna get UGLY. The pigs are gonna want to dump the Fourth Amendment, and the ever-courageous courts are going to pull another Hirabayashi / Dred Scott on us. Christian fascism, here we come. All in the name of public safety.
I just pray that it can be held off for another 40-50 years!
Maybe he said "nuclear due process" and the interviewer mistakenly wrote down "nuclear deterrence." He'd certainly never advocate destroying a US Citizen's computer without any due process! That would be just wrong! Chertoff's a former Assistant U.S. Attorney! I'm sure he respects the Constitution and would never advocate something so awful.
Slashdot Mirror
Mr. Syfert may make a motion to change the venue of this action to a federal court that is nearer to his home base. If successful, this would mean that the lawyer trolls would have to fly to Mr. Syfert's state to litigate their action against him.
The trolls appear to be low-budget operators. A change of venue (along with a counterclaim) would take a real bite out of the trolls' glutes!
The lawyer trolls are going to lose. That's for sure. The only question is whether Mr. Syfert will get sanctions against them, and if so, how much those sanctions will be. Assuming that there is nothing defamatory in Mr. Syfert's materials, all Syfert did is sell information to third parties. There's no law against that (and the First Amendment supports it).
The whole thing is now a free targeted promotional event on Mr. Syfert's behalf.
Just a little bit of careful thought would have dissuaded the lawyer trolls from filing an action against Mr. Syfert. It will be fun to watch this circus as it unfolds its tents.
Homeland Security isn't just about protecting us, that's for sure.
You can change the law. You're just too damn lazy.
Widespread breaking of the law does not mean that democracy is being circumvented.
In a democracy, the laws are established by the majority. This gives the majority great power to oppress the minority. If there is widespread breaking of the law by a significant minority, then it is a sign that democracy is WORKING.
In the US, we have the Bill of Rights to ameliorate the harsh effects of democracy.
Good citizens follow the laws. Bad citizens break them.
Unless there is a grave moral principle involved, WORK lawfully to change the law.
People who advocate selectively following the law are destructive social PARASITES.
The movie people will have a hard time squaring this with the First Amendment.
You can't shut down a speaker in the future for unlawful speech acts committed in the past--unless you convict the speaker of a crime. Even then, the First Amendment and the Due Process Clause imposes limitations. This idea comes from Nesson's (self-promoting) arguments in the Tenenbaum case.
You also can't have speech laws that selectively target movies and music.
If I was a file sharer, I would add a meaningful political message (relating to reform of the copyright laws, maybe) to every single file I shared. Let the fascist SOBs try to shut me down in total, after that.
I've got no sympathies for people who share pirated material, but I have less sympathy for corporations who want to shut down ALL file sharing (including legal sharing).
Don't forget that some of our best antitrust cases resulted from the movie studios' attempts to tightly control their product--all the way from film studio to local movie house. Those pricks would dominate all distro channels in a heartbeat unless government regulation keeps them from it.
Out of the billions of people on Earth, only a tiny fraction make movies. Of that tiny fraction, only a tiny fraction make movies. Of that tiny fraction, only a tiny fraction make movies that are seen by a lot of people. Great creativity among that tiny fraction out of a tiny fraction is rare. On top of that, many moviemakers are constrained by pre-existing idioms (largely because of audience expectation--what sells). Lastly, movies are still a very new medium. Only in the last few years has the technology reached the masses.
CGI is being used now in a manner that will be considered crude in the near future. Single-shot scenes will be much easier to create/simulate with the aid of CGI. That can only give filmmakers more pacing alternatives. We're just not seeing the fruit of all those CGI-generated possibilities yet because the creatiive filmmakers haven't discovered them yet.
Jump cutting is SO overused, but it's overused because (for so many people) it works. You see it all the time on TV, where it is used to jazz up cheap to produce "reality" shows. This overuse feeds the idiomatic excessive use of jump cuts because audiences expect them.
I'm hopeful because of the influx of new talent promoted by new means of production and distribution.
You have identified the driving force. People, for a wide variety of reasons, often act like sheep. They track with musical trends, political trends, philosophies, brand loyalties, etc. The Internet won't change that, but it does shape many fads, trends, belief pathways.
Open source progs can help small bands create a self sufficient monetized presence on the internet. "Let a gazillion flowers bloom" (really)! Like making a Linux distro just for a band to sell tunes on the internet and a server to facilitate it.
It pains ME to see an ideologue debase a basic free speech issue iinto another stupid liberal/conservative diatribe..
Those MORONS think the whole world revolves around their artificial bullshit dichotomy.
Reduce the world to liberal/conservative and you reduce choices. Reduce choices and you reduce freedom.
It is ALL about the power of Big Capital. It frames the dialog, and the lemmings folllow.
Local cops generally don't care about contractual fraud unless you deliver a complete evidence package all tied up with a nice blue ribbon. They'll call it "civil" and blow you off.
Only big cases get any attention.
There is enough violence to keep the cops busy.
Our elected officials are too afraid to take a stand against anything proposed in the name of "security," especially if security translates to political patronage controlled by them.
Hyperfast trading is a window into the future (a few milliseconds into the future, but a window into the future nonetheless). Imagine you could go back in time and pick stocks . . .. That's what those sons of bitches are doing--completely lawfully thanks to elected officials who believe in "deregulation" . . .
The effect is a tax--a Wall Street tax--on every transaction they involve themselves in. They get to drive the price up before you buy--and take a little slice for themselves.
Yeah, small government is going to protect us from predatory monsters like Goldman Sachs. Yeah, whatever.
Sorry, I neglected to fully read your hypothetical. If you ask for free lemonade and Lucy gives it to you, then you and Lucy are acting pursuant to the gift understanding--Lucy has modified the terms of her original deal.
When your kid brings home a permission slip with all the groovy waiver language you can cross out all the one sided stuff, sign it, and have your kid give it to the teacher. If the teacher proceeds . . . . well . . .
I see quite a lot of that kind of crap from constitutionalist weirdos. It gets really old really fast.
You and Lucy don't have a contract. You just took what Lucy had to offer without permission.
Lucy could prevail against you for conversion of her advice/lemonade.
The interesting question to me isn't whether Lucy should prevail, the interesting question is what kind of damages would Lucy be entitled to?
Their approach appears to be consistent with contract law.
IF you understand their terms, and
IF your understanding of their terms matches their understanding of their terms, and
IF their terms are not illegal. and
IF you click on the 'next page' icon,
THEN you ought to be liable under general contract law.
It's like a lemonade stand that's operated on trust. You can't just steal the lemonade, you have to pay for it.
But just because you can do it, doesn't mean that you should. For some reason, I find the newspaper's conduct disgusting. I'm having a hard time expressing the reasons behind that feeling, though Probably because most newspapers just recycle news service stories anyway.
I'm sure that all Presidents would use such provisions wisely.
In fingerprint analysis, the computer spits out a possible match. It's up to the human to determine whether or not that match is valid. It's the same with this stuff.
Knowing tank concentration is NOT vastly more important than knowing the rate of tank production.
Adapting to tank concentrations invokes relatively short term planning concerns. This information is needed to help you decide your counter-concentrations. You know what they have and where they have it, and then you move your stuff in response.
But tank production is HUGELY important. You're talking about EXTREMELY complicated logistical problems there. How many tanks are you going to manufacture in response (lag time)? How many bombers are you going to allocate / train for heavy industry attacks (lag time)? Are they making so many that you've got to come up with a replacement for the Ronson Tank (big lag time)?
World War 2 took a long time. Long range planning was super-important. They didn't have computers. Anything that could make the strategic position clearer was very important. The other poster is right: You shouldn't be dismissive. This was a big deal and some geek's idea helped win the war.
Aw, bit by a stupidass kdawson story again. Your post kept me from reading on. Thanks.
I'm on my way to a cold fusion seminar given by Professor Ponzi. Please respond ASAP.
Your point is well taken. Elections are all about transparency of process. Computer programming (both hardware and software) is all about levels of abstraction. That abstraction, as we have seen, can easily be manipulated.
Electronic voting is bullshit.
Jobs likes to make his profits through tight control over software applications. Other people go other directions.
Apple's eternal struggle for control (and its markup) turn me off.
It's gonna get UGLY. The pigs are gonna want to dump the Fourth Amendment, and the ever-courageous courts are going to pull another Hirabayashi / Dred Scott on us. Christian fascism, here we come. All in the name of public safety.
I just pray that it can be held off for another 40-50 years!
This brings me wayyy down.
Maybe he said "nuclear due process" and the interviewer mistakenly wrote down "nuclear deterrence." He'd certainly never advocate destroying a US Citizen's computer without any due process! That would be just wrong! Chertoff's a former Assistant U.S. Attorney! I'm sure he respects the Constitution and would never advocate something so awful.