While I am a lawyer, this is not legal advice.
If you need legal advice, contact an attorney
licensed in your own jurisdiction.
Class actions do not primarily benefit the class,
but the attorneys "for" the class. Coporations
throw money at these to get rid of them, whether
or not they have merit--this is why the attorneys
file them. It is *very* rare for the class
members to get damages that make them whole; they
usually get a pittance while the attorneys are
well paid. Ironically, the only exception that I
can name is the prior Iomega class action over
the rebates wherein we got (albeit two years
late) the rebates promised in the first place,
the "stuff," and an extra disk.
Corporations *like* settling these with
coupons/rebates. It's cheap, and gets you more
business. It doesn't mean that they think
there's a chance a trial. Remember the
"exploding" fuel tanks on GM pickup trucks?
While they were twice as likely to go off as
ford/chrysler tanks, 1) it was still extremely
rare, 2) the placement was how they carried so
bloody much fuel, 3) they were still less than
half as likely to go off as a passenger car fuel
tank in a similar collision. GM happily through
around coupons to get it to go away.
A coupon/rebate settlement doesn't suggest the
corporation was wrong (nor that it was right, but
a class action tends to suggest that:), just
that it was cheaper to "advertise" in this way
than to litigate.
hawk, esq.
p.s. Is the click of death the same thing as
thwacking the partition table of any disk
inserted? I pulled mine out of service when it
started doing that.
>I recall a time when I could drive down I-10 or I-12 and hear nothing
>but Country stations, but now it's very rare for me to find a stretch
>of road where I can't pull in Classic Rock, Hip-Hop, even National
>Public Radio.
The density of solar radiation would be about the same in orbit as on the ground (I assumbe a bit higher, as I doubt any focusing effect of the atmosphere outways the obstruction by the atmosphere). Accordingly, the space mirror would have the same amount of radiation to work with as an earth-based lens of the ame time.
conwstruction of a mirror that effectibely focuses this energy into
the space required is another matter addressed elsewhere . . .
>P>
hawk
Because our own Al Gore invented it, and all youir domains are belong to us.
crimeny. We agree to mix our.com's and stuff with those funny.country domains, and didn't even make you guys buy any. Then we offer and screw up.us just to keep you happy. What's next, should we misprint your money for you?
>The energy density at the focal point is inversely proportional to
> the square of the distance is it not?
No, it is not.
That is the density for a point source that is radiating in three dimensions. For a lossless focused mirror, the density would be the density at the point of the reflector times the ratio of the area of the reflector to the area of the target. This has to be adjusted for losses at the mirror (less than full reflectivity) and through the air (you hit molecules and disperse, and what's left will be ionizing the air near the target).
Americans don't bash french products for not being american, but for being french. We have a long history of mocking the french. I'd say it came from the brits, but we mock them, too (when we can't find any french to mock:). I think it's because they do so much of the work for us (eating snails, the National Commision on Linguistic Purity, the silly notion that french is still the dominant international language [OK, it's currently a step ahead of latin . ..])
hawk, shuddering at the notion that someone might take this seriously
I'm a computational economist, and we're a breed that will go online if the information is there first. One of our major journals is electronic *only*.
Peer review works exactly the same; things are just sent electronically. Most of the cost, and a large chunk of the waiting time get removed.
Still, though, I'd send to a paper journal if it was ranked more highly for tenure purposes. All else being the same, I'll send it as bits, but I'm not risking my chances at tenure and promotion over the issue.
I am a lawyer, but this is not legal advice. If you need legal advice, contact an attorney licensed in your jurisdiction.
Not quite. The ex post facto provision is only in criminal matters; it *is* possible (and occurs with some frequency) to make retroactive changes in civil law.
Nonetheless, there would be federal jurisdictional issues. The pendulum has swung back from the "anything affects interstate commerce" notion. Not to mention the sheer sillyness, ignorance, and political bigotry of the assumption that the republican party would do this just to protect microsft. (or the fact that it would be politically unfeasible, or . ..)
OK, so I can only come up with one exception . . .
when Iomega didn't pay the rebates a few years ago, the settlement provided the full rebate, the "stuff", and an extra zip disk to each member. The attorney fees were on top of that. We came out ok:)
We will not disclose any information about you to
any third party without prior negotiations with
said party on such terms as are transacted. We
will not use information provided or transmitted
by you other than for pecuniary purposes.
Translation:
We won't sell your information unless we are
paid. We won't use it ourselves except for
financial gain.
I was going to toss in a part about impregnationg
your cat and "all your kittens are belong to us,"
but I'm in a hurry . . .
> You know, last year, was the first time I really ran into a newer
> versions removing features that the previous version had.
Word 6.0. Fatal removal.
Word 1.0-5.1 had typesetting commands. The typestting command let you type things such as.\f(3,5) to get a 3/5 fraction (the.\ is a single funny character). You could enter math directly from the keyboard. SOmetime around 5.x, the equation editor showed up. In 6.0 (and in all windows versions) the typesetting commands are gone--but it's worse than that. If you *open* a file that has them, it converts them to equation editor and saves in the new format without asking permission--you have to use your file as read-only to protect it (and that may be at the os level and not "open read only", i forget.)
Word 1.0-5.x had a usable "insert symbol" command. You mapped it to a useful key (command-escape), and the next character you typed would be from the symbol font, and then return to whateveryou were doing. THose of us that use a lot of greek variables find this useful. THere may be a way to remap it, but as it comes, you use that command and get hit with at least two pop-up windows, the first to choose a symbol font, and the second to click a character.
These two features of word were the reasons I stayed with mac as long as they did. Once they were gone, I refused to "upgrade" at a loss of critical functionality. (And then I found lyx, and dumped mac for *nix, as it did those better than word anyway. I had to suggest the second one, but it was in the source within a week . . . and unlike the word typesetting commands, you can maneuver around your displayed equaition in lyx with the keyboard).
additionally, word 6 screwed up mailmerge for all but the most simplistic users. it used to be entered as text, but now you have to use oint-and-click, and rather than displaying the commands, it displays the result from the first object in the feed-file--and you *must* have a feed-file associated rather than specifying it in the document. how bad is this? if you have an "if", and the test is false for that item, the if only includes text when true, it displays the blank as the result. that's *all* it displays: nothing. try to click on nothing to change it . . . how painful is it to use? i used to prepare massive numbers of bankruptcy and divorce pleadings for my law practice with a hypercard front end and word mailmerge. when forced to face word 6 mailmerge to send out a couple of hundred semi-customized applications, i discovered that it would be less work to write a mailmerge module for lyx--and it was less work. what worse can you say about someone's software than that it's so much hassle to use
What worse can you say about someone's software than that it's less hassle to write your own than to use it???
>Personally, I think that SONY is more likely to buy BeInc out
>than Oracle or RedHat.
That would certainly finish off Be once and for all . .
We've been hearing about the next great thing that will come from japanese
computing and become the new standard for twenty years, an it has yet
to happen even once.
New processors, whee! New well engineered systems!
Japan has yet to successfully market a revolutionary product in this
kind of area (Though I think the 8 bit NEC pc had a limited
success in Europe). Improving in an existing industry, yes. Putting
something completely new out? The closes I can think of is the walkman,
which really came down to putting decent small headphones on an
existing product.
> the majority of what constitutes the
> "operating system" for every linux distribution I'm aware of is made
> up of GNU components.
If that were true, there would be at least a weak argument for "GNU/Linux". However, for what we think of as "Linux," GNU isn't the majority, or even close. Yes, just the kernel and GNU components would boot and run, but it wouldn't do the things that we would expect a running system to do. "GNU/Linux" would be somewhere betweent the two uses I point out, and far closer to the first one in usefulnesss.
"Linux" is used in two distinct ways:
A) just the kernel
B) The kernel, the bsd utilities, perl, gnu utilities, apache, X, and the other stuff we normally expect on a running system.
As near as I know, noone actually ships a GNU/Linux combo (which would be close to useless), but instead include the other things we mean in the second definition.
>would you give
> $150 in cash to the $8/hr employee at the airport rental return lot?
I've done that. It throughly confuses them--especially if they have to count it (I had a gaggle of 1's, and he just took my word for how many, iirc). Asking for change from a $50 or $100 also confuses them . . .
>So I'm not sure I get the point... what does selling/giving away their
>browser have to do with selling their server software
Mosaic, lynx, and www at the time didn't support things netscape
wanted to serve. They needed that kind of broser out there in people's
hands, or there was no pointin anyone buying theri servers.
There was a revenue sctream, and netscape did have to adjust to that. I always thought that it was pretty clear that they didn't care about the $30 from end users--they were making their mane money off server software, which needed the brosers out there. However, they *did* get paid by OEM's who included netscape.
Slashdot Mirror
If you need legal advice, contact an attorney
licensed in your own jurisdiction.
Class actions do not primarily benefit the class,
but the attorneys "for" the class. Coporations
throw money at these to get rid of them, whether
or not they have merit--this is why the attorneys
file them. It is *very* rare for the class
members to get damages that make them whole; they
usually get a pittance while the attorneys are
well paid. Ironically, the only exception that I
can name is the prior Iomega class action over
the rebates wherein we got (albeit two years
late) the rebates promised in the first place,
the "stuff," and an extra disk.
Corporations *like* settling these with
coupons/rebates. It's cheap, and gets you more
business. It doesn't mean that they think
there's a chance a trial. Remember the
"exploding" fuel tanks on GM pickup trucks?
While they were twice as likely to go off as
ford/chrysler tanks, 1) it was still extremely
rare, 2) the placement was how they carried so
bloody much fuel, 3) they were still less than
half as likely to go off as a passenger car fuel
tank in a similar collision. GM happily through
around coupons to get it to go away.
A coupon/rebate settlement doesn't suggest the
corporation was wrong (nor that it was right, but
a class action tends to suggest that
that it was cheaper to "advertise" in this way
than to litigate.
hawk, esq.
p.s. Is the click of death the same thing as
thwacking the partition table of any disk
inserted? I pulled mine out of service when it
started doing that.
hawk, let down
hawk, sticking to what he knows . . .
:)
>but Country stations, but now it's very rare for me to find a stretch
>of road where I can't pull in Classic Rock, Hip-Hop, even National
>Public Radio.
Like he said, it's gone to hell
hawk
hawk
conwstruction of a mirror that effectibely focuses this energy into
the space required is another matter addressed elsewhere . . .
>P>
hawk
crimeny. We agree to mix our
:_)
hawk
> the square of the distance is it not?
No, it is not.
That is the density for a point source that is radiating in three dimensions. For a lossless focused mirror, the density would be the density at the point of the reflector times the ratio of the area of the reflector to the area of the target. This has to be adjusted for losses at the mirror (less than full reflectivity) and through the air (you hit molecules and disperse, and what's left will be ionizing the air near the target).
hawk, actually a physicicst among his many hats.
hawk, shuddering at the notion that someone might take this seriously
"All your modems are belong to us" . . .
[duck]
hawk
Peer review works exactly the same; things are just sent electronically. Most of the cost, and a large chunk of the waiting time get removed.
Still, though, I'd send to a paper journal if it was ranked more highly for tenure purposes. All else being the same, I'll send it as bits, but I'm not risking my chances at tenure and promotion over the issue.
hawk
Not quite. The ex post facto provision is only in criminal matters; it *is* possible (and occurs with some frequency) to make retroactive changes in civil law.
Nonetheless, there would be federal jurisdictional issues. The pendulum has swung back from the "anything affects interstate commerce" notion. Not to mention the sheer sillyness, ignorance, and political bigotry of the assumption that the republican party would do this just to protect microsft. (or the fact that it would be politically unfeasible, or . .
hawk, esq
when Iomega didn't pay the rebates a few years ago, the settlement provided the full rebate, the "stuff", and an extra zip disk to each member. The attorney fees were on top of that. We came out ok
hawk
any third party without prior negotiations with
said party on such terms as are transacted. We
will not use information provided or transmitted
by you other than for pecuniary purposes.
Translation:
We won't sell your information unless we are
paid. We won't use it ourselves except for
financial gain.
I was going to toss in a part about impregnationg
your cat and "all your kittens are belong to us,"
but I'm in a hurry . . .
hawk
> versions removing features that the previous version had.
Word 6.0. Fatal removal.
Word 1.0-5.1 had typesetting commands. The typestting command let you type things such as
Word 1.0-5.x had a usable "insert symbol" command. You mapped it to a useful key (command-escape), and the next character you typed would be from the symbol font, and then return to whateveryou were doing. THose of us that use a lot of greek variables find this useful. THere may be a way to remap it, but as it comes, you use that command and get hit with at least two pop-up windows, the first to choose a symbol font, and the second to click a character.
These two features of word were the reasons I stayed with mac as long as they did. Once they were gone, I refused to "upgrade" at a loss of critical functionality. (And then I found lyx, and dumped mac for *nix, as it did those better than word anyway. I had to suggest the second one, but it was in the source within a week . . . and unlike the word typesetting commands, you can maneuver around your displayed equaition in lyx with the keyboard).
additionally, word 6 screwed up mailmerge for all but the most simplistic users. it used to be entered as text, but now you have to use oint-and-click, and rather than displaying the commands, it displays the result from the first object in the feed-file--and you *must* have a feed-file associated rather than specifying it in the document. how bad is this? if you have an "if", and the test is false for that item, the if only includes text when true, it displays the blank as the result. that's *all* it displays: nothing. try to click on nothing to change it . . . how painful is it to use? i used to prepare massive numbers of bankruptcy and divorce pleadings for my law practice with a hypercard front end and word mailmerge. when forced to face word 6 mailmerge to send out a couple of hundred semi-customized applications, i discovered that it would be less work to write a mailmerge module for lyx--and it was less work. what worse can you say about someone's software than that it's so much hassle to use
What worse can you say about someone's software than that it's less hassle to write your own than to use it???
hawk
uhm, the subscription fees? They haven't included lifetime fees in the base price yet, have they?
hawk
>than Oracle or RedHat.
That would certainly finish off Be once and for all . .
We've been hearing about the next great thing that will come from japanese
computing and become the new standard for twenty years, an it has yet
to happen even once.
New processors, whee! New well engineered systems!
Japan has yet to successfully market a revolutionary product in this
kind of area (Though I think the 8 bit NEC pc had a limited
success in Europe). Improving in an existing industry, yes. Putting
something completely new out? The closes I can think of is the walkman,
which really came down to putting decent small headphones on an
existing product.
hawk
> "operating system" for every linux distribution I'm aware of is made
> up of GNU components.
If that were true, there would be at least a weak argument for "GNU/Linux". However, for what we think of as "Linux," GNU isn't the majority, or even close. Yes, just the kernel and GNU components would boot and run, but it wouldn't do the things that we would expect a running system to do. "GNU/Linux" would be somewhere betweent the two uses I point out, and far closer to the first one in usefulnesss.
hawk
"Linux" is used in two distinct ways:
A) just the kernel
B) The kernel, the bsd utilities, perl, gnu utilities, apache, X, and the other stuff we normally expect on a running system.
As near as I know, noone actually ships a GNU/Linux combo (which would be close to useless), but instead include the other things we mean in the second definition.
hawk
yeah, you just keep waiting for that to happen
hawk
> $150 in cash to the $8/hr employee at the airport rental return lot?
I've done that. It throughly confuses them--especially if they have to count it (I had a gaggle of 1's, and he just took my word for how many, iirc). Asking for change from a $50 or $100 also confuses them . . .
hawk
hawk, who just discovered 3 serious errors on his TRW report
>browser have to do with selling their server software
Mosaic, lynx, and www at the time didn't support things netscape
wanted to serve. They needed that kind of broser out there in people's
hands, or there was no pointin anyone buying theri servers.
hawk
There was a revenue sctream, and netscape did have to adjust to that. I always thought that it was pretty clear that they didn't care about the $30 from end users--they were making their mane money off server software, which needed the brosers out there. However, they *did* get paid by OEM's who included netscape.