I wish KDE would get over its annoying obsession with the letter K. I love KDE, but honestly, naming a theme "Keramic" is just stupid. It makes me want to switch to CDE just to get that stupid letter out of my head.
And that's just their opinion, which though it is not easily appealable, it is far from indisputable. And, if I remember correctly, the court's opinion in this case was that the term was indeed too long, but it was the prerogative of Congress to make that decision officially. A real cop-out in my opinion. They basically said, "Yeah, it's an Unconstitutional law, but we don't have the nerve to strike it down because we Fear the Mouse or something."
I would just like to point out that I too am a fan of Jackie Chan, and me citing those films was nothing against him. He is probably my favorite Kung Fu actor. But nothing he has done out of Hollywood comes close to his classics like The Drunken Master
Well, "Jennifer", you've got the wrong quote. The passage made famous when Dr. Oppenheimer was purported to have quoted it after the Trinity shot ended with "I am becom Death; The shatterer of Worlds." Read all about it here along with lots of other interesting tidbits about nuclear history.
The U.S. does not have a "First Strike" doctrine for its nuclear weapons. If Al Qaeda were a sovereign nation and carried out even a low-level nuclear attack against the U.S., then it might get the favor returned, but it isn't. In fact, while serving the very important purpose of deterring strikes from other nuclear-capable nations, our nuclear arsenal is a really lousy deterrant for terrorist organizations precisely because they know we will not use them. The highest priority right now is protecting our nuclear arsenal from potential terrorists who might like to get their hands on the material (though even if they did, the safety mechanisms would damage the fissile core beyond usefulness anyway). If we want a credible threat against terrorists, we need to deploy an arsenal of non-nuclear strategic weapons. For example, take the decomissioned Peacekeepers and deploy them on either coast, except instead of putting 10 300-kT warheads on the top, put 10 non-nuclear vehicles. Then we have the ability to hit any target on the planet within 30 minutes with what amounts to basically 10 small meteors with some conventional explosives for a little extra punch. We wouldn't be so hesitant to launch these, so when we find an Al-Qaeda training camp and learn the Osama is hiding out in it, 30 minutes later it's been pounded to dust, everybody in it is dead, and there's no fallout to worry about. That's the strategic weapon of the future.
First they came for the big ass rockets and I did not speak out because I don't use them Then they came for the bla bla bla, you know the rest.
First, they came for the big rockets, and I didn't speak out because, you know, I think maybe it's a good think that some of the morons who live in my neighborhood can't just go buy a 30-foot rocket with lots of fuel and launch it any time, any place and possibly land it on my 3-year-old while she's splashing in her kiddie pool or burn down my house or something. Then, some politicians did something that actually mattered, and that I actually felt was damaging to my rights as a citizen, and I decided to vote them out, and I used my free speech right to encourage my neighbors to vote them out, and realized that maybe there were much more important things to be worried about than the "right" of any idiot to randomly launch explosives at his leisure.
Maybe the real intent of patent law is to enable unscrupulous entities (corporate and individual) to keep the maximum amount of dollars and control for themselves.
Actually, according to the U.S. Constitution, the purpose of patents is to promote the progress of useful arts and sciences. Any patent or copyright law that does not further that end should be ruled unconstitutional. They aren't, but they should be.
Don't we have an organization whose job it is to tell us what the writers of those laws intended?
Again, we have the Constitution to tell us what the intent of the law is or should be. If you are an American citizen, the "organization" responsible for upholding the Constitution is you. Get involved with local politics or grassroots movements that you agree with. Nobody can "buy you out" if you don't let them.
I personally don't think they are going to make the 30 day deadline for filing the special damages request.
Of course they're not going to make the deadline. Judge Kimball may as well have ordered them to submit evidence of a magnetic monopole within 30 days.
Finally, if you're going to cite a comment on a web site, as reliable as that is, please give a reference to it that is more then the URL to the whole site...
Old SCO (now Tarantella) and Caldera (now New SCO) were both decent companies with decent reputations at one point. They played nice with the Open Source community and sponsored some useful initiatives. However, since McBride took over, the name SCO has become synonymous with desparate, baseless litigaiton. So, I'd say Darl actually ruined two good companies.
But what happens if you didn't, in fact, murder 'n' people, but have just been accused of it? Does that mean you should have to prove your innocence 'n' times?
You should not and do not have to prove anything. The burden of proof is on the prosecution. You may have to show reasonable doubt n times, but if you're truly innocent, that should be possible, and once you've been acquitted n times for a crime you didn't commit, you will have a killer civil case against the DA/court/city for multiple wrongful prosecutions and a load of ammunition for the political enemies of whoever was involved. Also, the cards are intentionally stacked in favor of the accused. The prosecution can't appeal an acquittal, but if you're convicted, you will have lots of opportunities to appeal your conviction. Plus, as before, if you have a "preponderance of evidence" that you really were innocent, you'll have an even more killer civil case, as in this case, you were actually convicted of and served time for a crime you didn't commit. I'm not saying the system is 100% perfect. No system is. But I haven't seen a better system. Also, I don't know of any historical instance of an innocent person being prosecuted multiple times for a mass murder, so the system appears to have worked so far.
Wonderful. "Look, instead of paying an extra 50 cents for a higher quality quiet fan, you can use cheap fans and spend $25.00 in additional parts to make the computer quiet!"
If you're an engineer, of course you do. I thought that was a given. So what was your point?
Re:It has become the best studio because...
on
Welcome To Planet Pixar
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· Score: 4, Insightful
Michael Eisner definitely belongs near the top of the List of Stupid CEOs Who Royally Screwed Once Good Companies. Right up there with Carly Fiorina and Darl McBride. One of those three has got to be Satan himself. I just can't decide which one it is.
The 5th Amendment was NOT written for this kind of case. It was to protect the innocent from retrial. Asserting that these LAPD detectives were innocent doesn't even pass the giggle test.
See, that's the catch. Who gets to decide guilt or innocence? The courts do, with the help of a jury. If a defendant is acquitted, then for all legal purposes, he is innocent. If we start drawing lines, saying, "As a society, we don't normally allow double jeapordy, but this guy is so totally obviously guilty, we'll make an exception," then we are tossing out the constitutional intent. If double jeapordy is to mean anything, it has to apply to people that you think are guilty as well as those you think are innocent. Otherwise, it means nothing, since it is really illogical to try someobody twice when everybody agrees he is innocent. I'm not saying that those cops were innocent or that they didn't deserve to be punished, I'm just saying that throwing out the constitution is the wrong way to go about doing it.
Then you miss the point. A trial is about determining guilt, you can't presume to make that determination when discussing the arena where guilt is determined.
This makes no sense as a response to my statement. I was saying that if you murder n people, it is totally fair for you to be tried up to n times, provided each trial is for the murder of a unique victim or group of victims. The fact that they all died together is immaterial. The feds tried Nichols for the murder of 8 federal agents, since the murder of a federal agent is a federal offense. Oklahoma didn't like the outcome, so they decided to try him for the murder of 161 citizens of the State of Oklahoma (which do not include the 8 federal agents). My contention was that this was appropriate, not because the venues were different, but because the second trial was for the murders of different people than the first. If Oklahoma had decided to re-classify the first 8 as citizens of Oklahoma and try Nichols on a state level for those, it would have been inappropriate, because it would have consituted double jeapordy.
But that case is so complex. One could argue that with the first trial the Officers were never in Jeopardy because the Simi Valley jury were never going to convict white cops for beating a black motorist.
I think that argument is constitutionally unsound, and is exactly the kind of thing the Double Jeapordy clause is meant to guard against. If the prosecution doesn't like the venue, they can argue for a change of venue, but they don't get to go for a second round by just going to a different level of government. That being said, I think that there are times when it is appropriate to prosecute the same defendant at two levels, and I think Terry Nichols is a prime example. He was prosecuted by the Feds for the murder of (6? I forget) federal agents. Oklahoma state did not like the result, so they prosecuted him for the murder of 161 citizens of that state. Each victim deserves his or her day in court. If you kill lots of people, then you deserve to be in jeapordy for every one of those people you killed. IANAL, but I believe that Oklahoma could have theoretically opted to prosecute each of those 161 counts one at a time (or possibly 2-3 at a time to make it a capital offense), which would mean they would have many chances to convict him. If you kill a lot of people and that makes it harder for you to get away with it, well, sucks to be you.
Umm, I wouldn't exactly say that OJ got screwed. He got acquitted for murder in a criminal trial brought by the State despite an overwhelming mound of evidence. Nicole Brown's family, as private citizens, still had a constitutional right to petition the State for a redress of grievances, and were able to convince that civil court that OJ was responsible for her wrongful death. He was not in jeapordy of going to prison or receiving a death sentence. The only thing at stake was money. Considering the brutality of the murders, I'd say the end consequences were pretty light.
Umm, hating your enemy is important. You need that killer instinct to really go for the throat.
Actually, the GP post is one of the most insightful things I have ever read on Slashdot, and is totally true. Hate has the ability to blind people to all logic and reason, replacing those with blind passion (it is, in many ways, similar to amorous infatuation). Do you really think Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban do what they do because of their immense religious devotion? Those guys are no more "real" Muslims than the Inquisitors were "real" Christians. They preach hatred because it's an easy way to prey on the weak-minded and build a power base. If you can get your minions to hate the Western Satan and Zionists, they'll be willing to do things for you that you would never do for yourself, like fly planes into buildings and strap bombs to themselves. But, like the big Drug Lords, never indulge in the stuff yourself. You need to keep a clear head. You need to be cold and calculating because you need to make important strategic decisions. The leader who indulges in hatred is bound to fail, because it will blind him the way it does his followers, and will lead to the same kind of self-destructive behavior.
If you have an enemy to conquer, rather than hating him, ask yourself why you want to conquer him. If you have good reasons, they will be all the motivation you will need to "go for the throat." A DA doesn't need hatred to vigorously prosecute a murderer or rapist. He needs a sense of justice. Then he has the presence of mind to lay careful plans and make effective maneuvers. If all you have is hate, you will generally be impulsive and opt for that which causes the most immediate pain, which usually turns out to be a poor long-term strategy.
First, you really should stop shouting (use the "em" tag sparingly). It makes you sound crazed and fanatical when it appears in every single one of your posts, and several times in most.
Second, the Bush administration does not constitute the "ringleaders of the right wing." Bush is just like most presidential candidates: too moderate for the hardliners of his own party, too far to the other side for the tastes of the opposition party, but very electable to the moderate masses who are inconsistent in support of one party or the other.
Third, your posts in this thread consist of vague accusations, generalizations and strawman arguments. If you're going to say that the Bush administration is in bed with the Saudis (as the parent seems to imply), or that we should panic right now because the oil reserves will last no longer than 24, or that energy corporations will resist all alternative forms of energy, at least provide some kind of reference (even a "study" by the Cato institute would be more reputable than absolutely nothing). Just saying that it is so on your own authority does not so make it.
Fourth, you really should consider that energy corporations are in the business of making money. The premise of your arguments would seem to be that they are in the business of destroying the environment and depleting the fossil fuel reserves at all costs, as you ascribe no logical economic attitudes to them. What self-respecting capitalist would not prefer to grow cheap algae in his own back yard and sell it at increased margin instead of importing oil at the whim of a foreign cartel? Andrew Carnegie figured it out more than a century ago: if you can make it cheaper, you can sell it cheaper and you can undersell your competition. If this technology works out (you should note the 'if' -- it's not a given yet, though that seems to be another false premise you operate from), you can bet that the energy MegaCorps will be stumbling over each other in a mad dash to the USPTO to be the first to get a 20-year lock-in on this thing.
Fifth, if you put together that little Unix utility, kudos to you. It looks like a good quick-and-dirty alternative when you don't have Cygwin handy.
According to the Geneva convention you're not supposed to use a 50-caliber machine gun on personell.
Actually, as a Marine once explained to a group I was in, you don't even have to break the Geneva convention to do this. The canteen strapped to the other guy's belt qualifies as "equipment."
Criminals beware: you can no longer hide behind the figleaf of foreign national sovereignty!
I'm certainly no fan of the DMCA (in fact, as an engineer, I feel it is one of the most dangerous laws to my profession), and Adobe using the FBI as their stooge to arrest Dmitri for "cracking" their weak encryption was simply wrong. It should be Adobe's burden to come up with good encryption. They shouldn't be allowed to enforce weak encryption in the courts.
That being said, it bugs me to see posts about "you are not safe from US criminal law just because you live in a different sovereign nation." Dmitri was arrested on US soil. It's not like the FBI raided his home in Russia and dragged him out at gunpoint in front of his family. If you are breaking the laws of another country, even if those laws are wrong, DON'T GO THERE. The FBI has both the right and the responsibility to enforce US laws in US jurisdiction. The FBI doesn't get to decide which laws are right and which are wrong. That's up to the voters. This is a good thing. It means that even if a spammer physically moves himself offshore, all he has to do is come home to visit to subject himself to prosecution.
And then they sell telemarketers the privilege of having that software block selectively reinstated, and THEN (get ready to really feel used), they recently introduced a new "service" that identifies all callers (i.e., removes the selective blocking), which you can purchase for a nominal monthly fee. I hear the internal codename for this "service" is "Guido." Don't you feel safer with all this "Protection" they're offering you?
That is the only good "Beowulf cluster" joke I am likely to read in this thread (that includes the "We're going to see so many Beowulf cluster jokes" posts). You actually made me laugh out loud.
Slashdot Mirror
Two words: Term Limits
I wish KDE would get over its annoying obsession with the letter K. I love KDE, but honestly, naming a theme "Keramic" is just stupid. It makes me want to switch to CDE just to get that stupid letter out of my head.
And that's just their opinion, which though it is not easily appealable, it is far from indisputable. And, if I remember correctly, the court's opinion in this case was that the term was indeed too long, but it was the prerogative of Congress to make that decision officially. A real cop-out in my opinion. They basically said, "Yeah, it's an Unconstitutional law, but we don't have the nerve to strike it down because we Fear the Mouse or something."
I would just like to point out that I too am a fan of Jackie Chan, and me citing those films was nothing against him. He is probably my favorite Kung Fu actor. But nothing he has done out of Hollywood comes close to his classics like The Drunken Master
Well, "Jennifer", you've got the wrong quote. The passage made famous when Dr. Oppenheimer was purported to have quoted it after the Trinity shot ended with "I am becom Death; The shatterer of Worlds." Read all about it here along with lots of other interesting tidbits about nuclear history.
The U.S. does not have a "First Strike" doctrine for its nuclear weapons. If Al Qaeda were a sovereign nation and carried out even a low-level nuclear attack against the U.S., then it might get the favor returned, but it isn't. In fact, while serving the very important purpose of deterring strikes from other nuclear-capable nations, our nuclear arsenal is a really lousy deterrant for terrorist organizations precisely because they know we will not use them. The highest priority right now is protecting our nuclear arsenal from potential terrorists who might like to get their hands on the material (though even if they did, the safety mechanisms would damage the fissile core beyond usefulness anyway). If we want a credible threat against terrorists, we need to deploy an arsenal of non-nuclear strategic weapons. For example, take the decomissioned Peacekeepers and deploy them on either coast, except instead of putting 10 300-kT warheads on the top, put 10 non-nuclear vehicles. Then we have the ability to hit any target on the planet within 30 minutes with what amounts to basically 10 small meteors with some conventional explosives for a little extra punch. We wouldn't be so hesitant to launch these, so when we find an Al-Qaeda training camp and learn the Osama is hiding out in it, 30 minutes later it's been pounded to dust, everybody in it is dead, and there's no fallout to worry about. That's the strategic weapon of the future.
Old SCO (now Tarantella) and Caldera (now New SCO) were both decent companies with decent reputations at one point. They played nice with the Open Source community and sponsored some useful initiatives. However, since McBride took over, the name SCO has become synonymous with desparate, baseless litigaiton. So, I'd say Darl actually ruined two good companies.
Michael Eisner definitely belongs near the top of the List of Stupid CEOs Who Royally Screwed Once Good Companies. Right up there with Carly Fiorina and Darl McBride. One of those three has got to be Satan himself. I just can't decide which one it is.
Umm, I wouldn't exactly say that OJ got screwed. He got acquitted for murder in a criminal trial brought by the State despite an overwhelming mound of evidence. Nicole Brown's family, as private citizens, still had a constitutional right to petition the State for a redress of grievances, and were able to convince that civil court that OJ was responsible for her wrongful death. He was not in jeapordy of going to prison or receiving a death sentence. The only thing at stake was money. Considering the brutality of the murders, I'd say the end consequences were pretty light.
It goes back further than that. President Clinton issued an exemption in 1998. So much for Democrats being environmentalist heroes.
If you have an enemy to conquer, rather than hating him, ask yourself why you want to conquer him. If you have good reasons, they will be all the motivation you will need to "go for the throat." A DA doesn't need hatred to vigorously prosecute a murderer or rapist. He needs a sense of justice. Then he has the presence of mind to lay careful plans and make effective maneuvers. If all you have is hate, you will generally be impulsive and opt for that which causes the most immediate pain, which usually turns out to be a poor long-term strategy.
Second, the Bush administration does not constitute the "ringleaders of the right wing." Bush is just like most presidential candidates: too moderate for the hardliners of his own party, too far to the other side for the tastes of the opposition party, but very electable to the moderate masses who are inconsistent in support of one party or the other.
Third, your posts in this thread consist of vague accusations, generalizations and strawman arguments. If you're going to say that the Bush administration is in bed with the Saudis (as the parent seems to imply), or that we should panic right now because the oil reserves will last no longer than 24, or that energy corporations will resist all alternative forms of energy, at least provide some kind of reference (even a "study" by the Cato institute would be more reputable than absolutely nothing). Just saying that it is so on your own authority does not so make it.
Fourth, you really should consider that energy corporations are in the business of making money. The premise of your arguments would seem to be that they are in the business of destroying the environment and depleting the fossil fuel reserves at all costs, as you ascribe no logical economic attitudes to them. What self-respecting capitalist would not prefer to grow cheap algae in his own back yard and sell it at increased margin instead of importing oil at the whim of a foreign cartel? Andrew Carnegie figured it out more than a century ago: if you can make it cheaper, you can sell it cheaper and you can undersell your competition. If this technology works out (you should note the 'if' -- it's not a given yet, though that seems to be another false premise you operate from), you can bet that the energy MegaCorps will be stumbling over each other in a mad dash to the USPTO to be the first to get a 20-year lock-in on this thing.
Fifth, if you put together that little Unix utility, kudos to you. It looks like a good quick-and-dirty alternative when you don't have Cygwin handy.
That being said, it bugs me to see posts about "you are not safe from US criminal law just because you live in a different sovereign nation." Dmitri was arrested on US soil. It's not like the FBI raided his home in Russia and dragged him out at gunpoint in front of his family. If you are breaking the laws of another country, even if those laws are wrong, DON'T GO THERE. The FBI has both the right and the responsibility to enforce US laws in US jurisdiction. The FBI doesn't get to decide which laws are right and which are wrong. That's up to the voters. This is a good thing. It means that even if a spammer physically moves himself offshore, all he has to do is come home to visit to subject himself to prosecution.
And then they sell telemarketers the privilege of having that software block selectively reinstated, and THEN (get ready to really feel used), they recently introduced a new "service" that identifies all callers (i.e., removes the selective blocking), which you can purchase for a nominal monthly fee. I hear the internal codename for this "service" is "Guido." Don't you feel safer with all this "Protection" they're offering you?
Given the quality of the first two prequels, maybe the subtitle should have been "Death of the Empire."
That is the only good "Beowulf cluster" joke I am likely to read in this thread (that includes the "We're going to see so many Beowulf cluster jokes" posts). You actually made me laugh out loud.