Metal detectors slow things up because a large portion of the people passing through them fail to realize that keys, coins, and belt buckles are in fact made of metal.
Sure. They'll call it ALD (Active Load Distribution) and charge $500 for the upgrade. Someone will point out that this isn't an innovation, but mirroring by another name. Someone else will point out that there's some subtle difference, arguably an improvement, that makes it different from that "archaic" tech.
If you want 4" wide columns, why not make your browser window 4" wide, instead of forcing the rest of us to waste screen space on useless margins? Or write yourself a stylesheet.
My guess is that (at least for news sites) readers (viewers?) tend to assume that graphics are ads, or don't help much. Honestly, most news photos, while interesting, don't actually add to the story (then again, my mind is more verbal than visual). This is reversed if I know I'm going to a site like UserFriendly or Fluble, where the primary interest is a graphics file.
"...on a music sharing service..." Are we talking something like Napster, or something like MP3.com? The way Napster is set up (simple search for filename), the chances of finding a song you don't know by a band you don't know is virtually zero. What do you search for?
Let's say I am walking down the street, and see a Ming vase next to a dumpster. It's late, no one is around, and I pick that sucker up and take it home. In many states, the police can arrest (and prosecute!) me for theft.
Not under the law they can't. The U.S. Supreme Court decided a case called Morissette v. United States, 342 U.S. 246 (1952), on this very issue. The case dealt with bomb casings on an Air Force range rather than a Ming vase by a dumpster, but the principle applies: if there's no mens rea, there's no crime (there might be liability, but not criminal sanction). The court rights that "[s]tate courts of last resort, on whom fall the heaviest burden of interpreting criminal law in this country, have consistently retained the requirement of intent in larceny-type offenses." Id. If you thought the property was abandoned, you didn't intend to steal it.
I'm not saying it doesn't happen; I'm just saying the legal authority for such a decision is sketchy at best.
Before we leave this matter I wish to comment on the theory implied by [the insurance trust lawyer], when you claimed damage to your client. There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary public interest. This strange doctrine is not supported by statute nor common law. Neither individuals nor corporations have any right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped or turned back, for their private benefit. That is all.
Same today as it was 61 years ago.
The cynics among us would point out that that's what the legislature is for.
Slashdot Mirror
Metal detectors slow things up because a large portion of the people passing through them fail to realize that keys, coins, and belt buckles are in fact made of metal.
See today's UserFriendly for a comic on this very point.
(BTW, the Courtney Love comment shorted out my irony meter. You owe me a new irony meter.)
I don't think you can count both Bob and Clippy as separate innovations.
Sure. They'll call it ALD (Active Load Distribution) and charge $500 for the upgrade. Someone will point out that this isn't an innovation, but mirroring by another name. Someone else will point out that there's some subtle difference, arguably an improvement, that makes it different from that "archaic" tech.
I'm sure I'm not the only person who's learned to tune out any image that's set off from the page and wider than it is high.
If you want 4" wide columns, why not make your browser window 4" wide, instead of forcing the rest of us to waste screen space on useless margins? Or write yourself a stylesheet.
My guess is that (at least for news sites) readers (viewers?) tend to assume that graphics are ads, or don't help much. Honestly, most news photos, while interesting, don't actually add to the story (then again, my mind is more verbal than visual). This is reversed if I know I'm going to a site like UserFriendly or Fluble, where the primary interest is a graphics file.
"...on a music sharing service..." Are we talking something like Napster, or something like MP3.com? The way Napster is set up (simple search for filename), the chances of finding a song you don't know by a band you don't know is virtually zero. What do you search for?
Not under the law they can't. The U.S. Supreme Court decided a case called Morissette v. United States, 342 U.S. 246 (1952), on this very issue. The case dealt with bomb casings on an Air Force range rather than a Ming vase by a dumpster, but the principle applies: if there's no mens rea, there's no crime (there might be liability, but not criminal sanction). The court rights that "[s]tate courts of last resort, on whom fall the heaviest burden of interpreting criminal law in this country, have consistently retained the requirement of intent in larceny-type offenses." Id. If you thought the property was abandoned, you didn't intend to steal it.
I'm not saying it doesn't happen; I'm just saying the legal authority for such a decision is sketchy at best.
Those of use who use laptops.
Perhaps Slashdot should change the Microsoft icon to Ballmer of Borg...