The US people don't want a war, but the current US president would benefit greatly from a new war with Iran. I the Iranian gov provoked war by sinking a US warship, public opinion in the States would swing toward aggression in a minute, and Obama would be a lock for a second term.
This. As a moderate atheist, I find the more fanatical atheists just as distasteful as fanatical Christians, Muslims, Jews or whoever. We'd all be better off if we could all remember to show to others of different faiths (or no faith) the same basic considerations we'd like shown to ourselves.
Are you implying that a theist who believes in an afterlife would be more cavalier with their physical health since they consider life on Earth as merely a speed bump on the trip to eternal salvation?
This would actually go a long way toward explaining religious suicide prohibitions: no jumping the queue now, or it's off to hell with you!
Perhaps "Christianity" above should read "Abrahamism" to reflect the fact that Pascal would have been familiar with Judaism and probably Islam as well.
Except Pascal's wager was based on a rather Eurocentric premise: That there could be belief in Christianity, or Atheism. He didn't account for multiple religions, each claiming that their own was the true path to salvation at the exclusion of all others. Messes up the calculations quite a bit.
Instead of
Belief = Salvation OR Nothing Non-belief = Nothing OR Damnation
with "belief" being the logical choice (the worst that will happen is that when you die there will be no afterlife, and the best that can happen is salvation).
Instead you really have Belief1 = Salvation OR Damnation OR Nothing Belief2 = Salvation OR Damnation OR Nothing . . . Belief^n = Salvation OR Damnation OR Nothing Non-Belief = Nothing or Damnation.
No particularly good reason to pick one religion over another, and for very large values of N, pretty much any choice you make is most likely to lead to Damnation, as only one value of Belief can lead to Salvation.
Oh, and I forgot this: Ontario's manufacturing took a big hit, but mineral exploitation is on the rise again, so we may be headed back to "have" territory ourselves...at least until the gold runs out.
I have not been following Canadian internal politics lately but if the summary is correct this is at least partly used as a weapon on domestic political battle.
Not really. The government that signed and ratified Kyoto has been long gone for many years, and most of the players in that government have moved along or adjusted to new political realities. That was just a petty dig, and isn't going to go very far with the voters. Chretien is old news.
Strictly speaking, an American is any resident of either North or South America. So while you are technically correct, it makes more sense in this context to specify exactly which American country the original poster./pedant
Another high-priority reason Canada is getting out of Kyoto is pragmatic: we trade more goods and more freely of those goods with the US than with any other nation. If the US doesn't participate, and thus doesn't incur the expense of participation, while Canada does, everything we produce becomes that much less competitive with American products (including bitumen and refined oil products from the tar sands). Basically, we're stuck following whatever the US policy is in this regard.
Except that the US government would also be owed reparations by formerly American and now multinational corporations. The US gov no longer has a hegemony, US corporate interests have bought out the gov's shares in that stock.
Some time ago there was a fellow getting a lot of tv time here in Canada who suggested that the production process could be improved significantly by changing the process from one in which hydrogen is added, instead of carbon dioxide being released*. The catch, of course, is that the best way to produce sufficient amounts of hydrogen involved using nuclear reactors to provide the electricity. Needless to say, that idea didn't fly. Sad, really. Of course, if we weren't so squeamish about updating and exploiting nuclear power, we wouldn't need to process the tar sands at all. But that's another thread and another flamewar.
* This was a few years ago now, so consider this a very vague, likely inaccurate description of a more complicated process.
House of Lords cases haven't been binding precedent in Canada since the 1950's, though they are persuasive. On top of that, Canadian contract law is closely tied to US law, and for that reason tends to come down pretty heavily on the side of protecting contracts between parties. I would say that the Delaware Court of Chancery is probably given more weight by the Supreme Court of Canada than anything coming out of the House of Lords, these days.
EULAs haven't been litigated very far in Canada, the leading case is an Ontario Superior Court decision, Rudder v. Microsoft Corp. [1999] O.J. No. 3778 (Sup. Ct. J.), in which Winkler J. ruled that reading the EULA was no different than reading a contract, and you had every chance to decline the agreement before clicking "I Agree." And that was with the full, nasty, complicated EULA with no summary. If you had a "clear language" summary at the top, binding or not, I don't think it would have helped the plaintiffs in Rudder.
Sorry, I don't recognize your cases. I'm an articling student in Canada, so it may be that your cases don't control here. I would say though that I could still find a way around Curtis, as you've explained it. I'm not suggesting an entire agreement clause as the solution, I know what that is, and know what the weaknesses of it are. What I'm saying is that two parties, if they're determined, can contract out of the situation where a summary would be binding. The best way I can think of would be wording right at the very top of this page saying "This summary is not binding, but for information purposes only." It would be hard for one party to rely on the binding nature of the summary, if that wording were in the summary itself. For added clarity, I'd confirm it as the very first clause of the "binding" part of the agreement. Unless the term itself were unconscionable, by its nature, I don't think a vendor would be estopped from using it. A reasonable person would be expected to understand that if the summary (which is included for simplicity and clarity, mind) stated that the summary existed for convenience only and didn't represent the terms of the contract.
Fantastic. I can write one right now. "All rights reserved by the seller. The buyer acknowledges that he gives up all rights to the software, except for his own personal use on one computer."
As I've argued elsewhere, the real problem with EULAs isn't that they're too long and complicated, it's that they're contracts of adhesion. Everyone knows that a 60 page EULA means "you're fucked", no need to hire a lawyer to tell you that.
A summary would be legally binding, and would have the effect of limiting the contracts terms to those consistent with the summary. [see Curtis v Chemical Cleaning and Dyeing Co] This is why they're generally avoided by lawyers - they don't want to take the risk of any inconsistency.
Unless the agreement contains a clause contracting out of the binding nature of the summary. Which would be what I would do if I didn't want to be bound by the summary but wanted to use one anyway. Which isn't to say that I would.
I think they kept re-running the test for so long specifically because the result was so unbelievable. If you factor in that they may have spent some years refining their technique, I don't think it's unreasonable that the latest runs could be completed in a much shorter time.
Slashdot Mirror
The US people don't want a war, but the current US president would benefit greatly from a new war with Iran. I the Iranian gov provoked war by sinking a US warship, public opinion in the States would swing toward aggression in a minute, and Obama would be a lock for a second term.
This. As a moderate atheist, I find the more fanatical atheists just as distasteful as fanatical Christians, Muslims, Jews or whoever. We'd all be better off if we could all remember to show to others of different faiths (or no faith) the same basic considerations we'd like shown to ourselves.
Are you implying that a theist who believes in an afterlife would be more cavalier with their physical health since they consider life on Earth as merely a speed bump on the trip to eternal salvation?
This would actually go a long way toward explaining religious suicide prohibitions: no jumping the queue now, or it's off to hell with you!
Agreed, those cases had occurred to me after I'd hit submit the second time.
Perhaps "Christianity" above should read "Abrahamism" to reflect the fact that Pascal would have been familiar with Judaism and probably Islam as well.
Except Pascal's wager was based on a rather Eurocentric premise: That there could be belief in Christianity, or Atheism. He didn't account for multiple religions, each claiming that their own was the true path to salvation at the exclusion of all others. Messes up the calculations quite a bit.
Instead of
Belief = Salvation OR Nothing
Non-belief = Nothing OR Damnation
with "belief" being the logical choice (the worst that will happen is that when you die there will be no afterlife, and the best that can happen is salvation).
Instead you really have
Belief1 = Salvation OR Damnation OR Nothing
Belief2 = Salvation OR Damnation OR Nothing
.
.
.
Belief^n = Salvation OR Damnation OR Nothing
Non-Belief = Nothing or Damnation.
No particularly good reason to pick one religion over another, and for very large values of N, pretty much any choice you make is most likely to lead to Damnation, as only one value of Belief can lead to Salvation.
Uh, I wasn't aware that pedants couldn't be mistaken. In fact, my experience from Slashdot is that pedants are rather often mistaken.
I have a friend that works for him in Vancouver. My impression from her posts lately is that yes, he's pretty pissed.
Oh, and I forgot this: Ontario's manufacturing took a big hit, but mineral exploitation is on the rise again, so we may be headed back to "have" territory ourselves...at least until the gold runs out.
Saskatchewan is definitely a "have" province now, as is Newfoundland.
Blame Canada!
I have not been following Canadian internal politics lately but if the summary is correct this is at least partly used as a weapon on domestic political battle.
Not really. The government that signed and ratified Kyoto has been long gone for many years, and most of the players in that government have moved along or adjusted to new political realities. That was just a petty dig, and isn't going to go very far with the voters. Chretien is old news.
Strictly speaking, an American is any resident of either North or South America. So while you are technically correct, it makes more sense in this context to specify exactly which American country the original poster. /pedant
Another high-priority reason Canada is getting out of Kyoto is pragmatic: we trade more goods and more freely of those goods with the US than with any other nation. If the US doesn't participate, and thus doesn't incur the expense of participation, while Canada does, everything we produce becomes that much less competitive with American products (including bitumen and refined oil products from the tar sands). Basically, we're stuck following whatever the US policy is in this regard.
Except that the US government would also be owed reparations by formerly American and now multinational corporations. The US gov no longer has a hegemony, US corporate interests have bought out the gov's shares in that stock.
Some time ago there was a fellow getting a lot of tv time here in Canada who suggested that the production process could be improved significantly by changing the process from one in which hydrogen is added, instead of carbon dioxide being released*. The catch, of course, is that the best way to produce sufficient amounts of hydrogen involved using nuclear reactors to provide the electricity. Needless to say, that idea didn't fly. Sad, really. Of course, if we weren't so squeamish about updating and exploiting nuclear power, we wouldn't need to process the tar sands at all. But that's another thread and another flamewar.
* This was a few years ago now, so consider this a very vague, likely inaccurate description of a more complicated process.
See, I was hoping to avoid acquiring that particular bit of knowledge, alas.
The sad thing is, I don't even know if you're joking.
I still use Wordperfect, you insensitive clod!
House of Lords cases haven't been binding precedent in Canada since the 1950's, though they are persuasive. On top of that, Canadian contract law is closely tied to US law, and for that reason tends to come down pretty heavily on the side of protecting contracts between parties. I would say that the Delaware Court of Chancery is probably given more weight by the Supreme Court of Canada than anything coming out of the House of Lords, these days.
EULAs haven't been litigated very far in Canada, the leading case is an Ontario Superior Court decision, Rudder v. Microsoft Corp. [1999] O.J. No. 3778 (Sup. Ct. J.), in which Winkler J. ruled that reading the EULA was no different than reading a contract, and you had every chance to decline the agreement before clicking "I Agree." And that was with the full, nasty, complicated EULA with no summary. If you had a "clear language" summary at the top, binding or not, I don't think it would have helped the plaintiffs in Rudder.
Sorry, I don't recognize your cases. I'm an articling student in Canada, so it may be that your cases don't control here. I would say though that I could still find a way around Curtis, as you've explained it. I'm not suggesting an entire agreement clause as the solution, I know what that is, and know what the weaknesses of it are. What I'm saying is that two parties, if they're determined, can contract out of the situation where a summary would be binding. The best way I can think of would be wording right at the very top of this page saying "This summary is not binding, but for information purposes only." It would be hard for one party to rely on the binding nature of the summary, if that wording were in the summary itself. For added clarity, I'd confirm it as the very first clause of the "binding" part of the agreement. Unless the term itself were unconscionable, by its nature, I don't think a vendor would be estopped from using it. A reasonable person would be expected to understand that if the summary (which is included for simplicity and clarity, mind) stated that the summary existed for convenience only and didn't represent the terms of the contract.
Fantastic. I can write one right now. "All rights reserved by the seller. The buyer acknowledges that he gives up all rights to the software, except for his own personal use on one computer."
As I've argued elsewhere, the real problem with EULAs isn't that they're too long and complicated, it's that they're contracts of adhesion. Everyone knows that a 60 page EULA means "you're fucked", no need to hire a lawyer to tell you that.
A summary would be legally binding, and would have the effect of limiting the contracts terms to those consistent with the summary. [see Curtis v Chemical Cleaning and Dyeing Co] This is why they're generally avoided by lawyers - they don't want to take the risk of any inconsistency.
Unless the agreement contains a clause contracting out of the binding nature of the summary. Which would be what I would do if I didn't want to be bound by the summary but wanted to use one anyway. Which isn't to say that I would.
Even vlfs might have a hard time getting through a few hundred miles of rock.
I think they kept re-running the test for so long specifically because the result was so unbelievable. If you factor in that they may have spent some years refining their technique, I don't think it's unreasonable that the latest runs could be completed in a much shorter time.