If we didn't arbitrarily consider Luna a moon, it would be a lot more correct to say that the Earth-Moon system was a dual planetoid system and not a planet-moon system
Two things. First, the designation "moon" is, itself, arbitrary, and is defined in terms of a body's similarity to Luna. So to say Luna is not a "moon" is to remove the definition of "moon." Second, I would think that to consider two bodies as a "dual planetoid system," you would need a situation where neither of the bodies was completely dominant (i.e., they orbit each other), where in the case of the Earth-Moon system, the Moon is clearly a satellite of the Earth.
It is one thing to say that we have a right to fair use by implication, based on other constitutionally guaranteed rights. It is another thing entirely to say that we have a constitutionally guaranteed right to fair use. The constitution contains no such explicit language. I believe that the parent was mistakenly confusing provisions for fair use in the existing copyright laws with constitutional doctrines. These laws are important, but they are much easier to change than the constitution, which means that we are fighting an entirely different battle than somebody who is, for example, arguing against a practice that is perceived as an affront to some right explicitly called out in the Bill of Rights.
none of the things you mentioned are constitutional rights, whereas fair use is
I'm curious what country you live in that has constitutionally mandated fair-use rights. I'd really like to read your constitution, and maybe we could fashion an amendment for the U.S. Constitution after that clause.
[NOTE MINUS THE SARCASM: I'm all for fair use. I'm an engineer, and to me, the right to take stuff apart and mess with it is sacred. However, if we go around arguing for our Constitutional "fair use" rights, nobody will even take us seriously. Let's at least fight the right battle.]
People usually vote based on whether someone is Republican or Democratic - the stance the candidate takes on important issues is (depressingly) unimportant to most people
I'm not a professional political scientist, but from the politics classes I've had to take, my understanding is that the percentage of voters who are strict ideologues -- straight party voters -- is quite small. Most people tend to vote for whoever has the pitch line that appeals to them best at the time. That's why you see, for example, states that have Republican governors but Democratic senators. That's also why you see stuff like the Democrat in New Jersey who pulled out after the last minute when he saw that he was losing and changed the whole status of the race. If people were voting along party lines, replacing one Democrat with another Democrat would not make a bit of difference. The truth is, many voters are not smart enough to be ideologues. They don't have any real opinions. They vote for somebody either because he makes them feel good, is pushing a program that personally appeals to them, or just because they know his face. People may not care about a candidate's stance on all of the issues, but most of them will care a great deal about the candidate's stance on a very few select issues that are personally important. Like you said, this issue won't sway many votes, but not because people don't care about issues. It's because people don't care about this issue. Maybe they should, but they don't.
Netzero is still free for a whopping 10 hours/month (since they got bought out by Juno). However, they are great for a free POP e-mail address, which is what I use them for, since I primarily use the connections at work and at school to do anything serious. If I'm at home and really need to do something small over the dial-up, my wife has an *UGH* AOL account, which at least gets me a PPP connection to use Mozilla through and check my e-mail.
DISCLAIMER: I did not RTFA (and I don't care to) and I am not intimately familiar with the workings of the WCS or any other such society (like the WWF or the Granola Society at my University).
That being said...
I am assuming that the WCS does not, in fact, plan to buy up the "unused" 17% of the Earth's surface and privately conserve it. I am betting that their plan has more to do with spending their precious privately donated money to lobby governments to spend taxpayer dollars to conserve publicly owned lands. In which case, agree or disagree, the "stupid socialist dweebs" are, in fact, looking for ways to spend my tax dollars.
I just couldn't let such a crass insult against the man who coined such a delicious gem as "stupid socialist dweebs" go unchallenged.
P.S. -- I absolutely love the sound of "stupid socialist dweeb." I'm going to use it at every convenient opportunity from now on.
Hmmm, you've never actually BEEN to Texas, have you? Apparently, neither has Clinton, because if he had ever put his pants back on long enough to come here, I promise you, he would have been right scared.
MY tickets are up to... oh, wait. I have younger siblings who get paid minimum wage at the movie theater. I never pay to see a movie in the theater. OTOH, I always pay FULL PRICE for the drinks/popcorn/candy, even when my sister is working at the counter. This means that if I want to take my wife to a "free" movie, I still end up paying $10 for us to share a bag of popcorn and get one drink each. As someone mentioned above, they don't make squat on the tickets, but they make a killing on the junk food. Since the seat I am sitting in would be empty otherwise, it costs them basically nothing to let me into the theater for free and then milk the wallet when I get hungry.
Somebody modded this moron "Insightful"? Check some facts. Jose Padilla, the "poor bastard," did not just "boast about being a bad-ass in a bar." He met with Al-Qaeda leaders in Pakistan and organized a plan to detonate a "dirty bomb" inside of the United States. Perhaps this Anonymous Coward (if you're going to troll the government, at least log in, so we all know who the moron is) would like to be one of Mr. Padilla's targets once he is released. Mr. Padilla's treatment is neither illegal nor unprecedented.
Comparing Pres. Bush to Hitler? Not even the left wingers in congress have gone that far. At least try to make credible accusations.
Where do you live in Texas and who is doing this? Where I live (Spring Branch, north of San Antonio), the only internet access is either $50 DSL from the local telephone cooperative, or their extremely unreliable and slow dial-up for $20. I want to know who your provider is so I can start a campaign of flooding them with phone calls begging them to set up camp in my area.
Re:I guess Egyptians can't patent mummification
on
Dinosaur Mummy Found
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· Score: 1
I think that patent was about to expire anyway... Unless Congress approves yet another extension.
(For the anal retentive, I do understand the difference between Copyright and Patents. It's just a joke. Relax)
The "co-conspirator" problem was also addressed in the article. I'm not much into online auctioning, but if I remember correctly, one is called "shilling" and the other is "phantoming" (I can't remember which is which, and I don't feel like reading the article again). If you're worried about this kind of stuff, your best bet is not to use E-bay. If you do use E-bay and end up getting a better price on something than if you bought it elsewhere (say a computer that retails for $800 and you got it for $650), shady practices notwithstanding, chances are you will not make a federal case out of the collusion issue. However, if it's a unique or nearly unique item without a common market value (one of the items that had been subjected to a fake bidding war was a collection of baseball cards from the 1950s), you may be more inclined to complain.
Finally, someone who read the article. I do have to say, though, that the evidence against the stamp fraud ring seemed to be quite compelling and well-researched (yes, I know I can't say for sure from just reading a description, but you cannot be any more sure that it was merely "stongly suggestive"). Since the article suggests that E-bay retaliated against the whistle blowers rather than the fraud ring, I would think this could be seen as impropriety on the part of E-bay. Also, the local Classifieds are not a good analogy, because you can actually see the item in person before you buy it. You do not usually have that option with E-bay.
Use An Escrow Agent If You Don't Want To Get Ripped Off
Tsk, tsk. You didn't read the article, did you?
An escrow agent would have done absolutely nothing to stop the four cases of fraud cited in the article. Three of the cases were "phantom" bidding, where the seller used an alter-ego to drive the prices up (one even admitted to it, saying how ashamed he was, and how he only did it to avoid taking a huge loss on the item). In those cases, the buyers knowingly offered a certain price for some goods, and got the goods they expected. The problem was that they spent $200 - $500 more than they had to because the phantom bids drove the price up. These transactions would have occurred with or without an escrow service (in fact, since some of the items were worth thousands of dollars, it is quite likely an escrow service actually was employed). The fourth case was a stamp collection ring that was buying stamps on e-bay, altering them to make them appear to be in a better condition or appear to be different, more valuable stamps, and then selling them for a huge profit (with something approximating a 10:1 return). The buyers all thought they were getting what they paid for, so, again, an escrow service would not have helped any. An stamp collectors' organization called SCADS discovered the fraud and notified E-bay, which did not so much as suspend the ring leaders' accounts. When SCADS saw the abuse continue, they flooded the E-bay stamp collection message board with warnings against these auctions. In response, e-bay closed the message board. They then started sending e-mails of warning to those who were bidding on the stamps. In response, E-bay suspended their (i.e., the SCADS members') accounts, citing auction interference. The implication was that E-bay was protecting the stamp fraud ring because it was a profit-generating Power Seller, while lashing out against those who tried to warn potential suspects. To support this claim, MSNBC interviewed "Ron," who claims to have worked for the E-bay fraud department. He says he discovered a Power Seller who was phantom bidding and shut down his response. He got a call from higher up telling him not to do that again.
The apparent conclusion is that if you don't want to get ripped off, an escrow agent is insufficient. If you don't want to get ripped off, just don't use E-bay.
Please. It makes it easier to know whom to shun at parties.
Incidentally, grammar nazis don't do well at parties, either. Fortunately, I'm already married and the only parties I attend include a (compnay-sponsored) summer barbecue and a (company-sponsored) christmas party.
I think you have a good point, except for one thing. This is not the result of "too much love." This is really the result of spinelessness and apathy on the part of the parents. Parents who spoil their kids are often doing it to get them out of their hair becuase they're just too busy to deal with the little brats and/or as a weak attempt to make up for a lack of real, quality, personal face time (which is what the kids really want as a token of parental love). The two are very closely related, and usually it's both. The parents just have so much to do, the easiest thing is to toss Johnny a new video game console and let him vege out while the parents get on with life. It takes lots more time, love and attention to say "No" to a child, and then explain why and then discipline the child (I'm not talking about beating, that's another problem entirely) when he doesn't obey than to just give him what he wants and get back to business.
From a New York Times article, dated February, 2003:
"The Verizon subscriber, who was sentenced to 20 years in prison today, frequented an online technical new site called "Slashdot" under the pseudonym 'Boone^.' One RIAA laywer commented, "Anybody who reads that commie-leftist-anti-coporate-America web page and parades under an obvious hacker name like that is just asking to be nailed." In reaction to the verdict, the defendant sobbed, "It's like I just got modded to (-1, Music Pirate)." NYT internet analysts are still trying to decipher the comment."
the reasons behind Fortran's (relatively) enormous success
Complex numbers as a primitive. I'm not sure about early Fortran, but in Fortran90, you can even use primitive addition and subtraction on matrices. For example, if a, b and c are all matrices of complex variables, "c = a + b" performs the correct matrix addition. Fortran was built with science and engineering in mind. Newer languages seem to be targeted towards Computer Science problems, which is why all of the old tried-and-true physics modeling and simulation codes are written in Fortran.
Newer stuff like C, C++, Java and even Pascal have their uses, but for raw scientific calculations, Fortran is DA BOMB!
Installing the alternative spark plug doesn't cheat the original manufacturer out of any profit.
I don't even play video games other than maybe solitaire on my Visor, so I don't care much about game consoles, but I am an engineer, so I care a great deal about the right of the end use to modify hardware. The fact that MS knowingly sells the XBox at a loss, counting on sales of games to make up the difference, does not mean you are somehow cheating them if you do not buy those games. When they offer the console at a certain price, your only obligation in procuring the console is to pay that price. Once you have paid that price, you do not owe them anything. If they find that the business model of selling the consoles at a loss is not working, they have no legal recourse against those consumers who did not decide to buy additional games. A company that profits from selling hardware modification kits is likewise not in the wrong, unless they are doing something illegal at the same time (like selling pirated games). If Microsoft finds that people are pirating games, then they are welcome to seek judgements against those pirating the gams. But under no circumstances should it be illegal to modify or facilitate the modification of purchased hardware. If Microsoft cannot offer the XBox at a competitive price and still turn a profit, then they need to get out of the console business.
By the way, one of the major sources of income for auto manufacturers is parts. Parts are manufactured to fail at certain intervals and they intentionally make it difficult for third parties to make replacement parts so that they can sell their own spares at artificially inflated prices. If you buy a part from an Authorized Dealer, expect to pay LOTS more than the part is actually worth. Example: I needed a computer module for a little Mitsubishi truck. I knew that it was probably something like a $0.10 or $1 IC that was bad, and if I had a schematic, I could have fixed it for a couple of bucks. Mitsubishi, on the other hand, wanted $900 for a replacement module. I found a guy who repaired them, and he sold me one for $350 with a trade-in of my old module. This guy was costing Mitsubishi plenty of money (money that they figure in and count on as part of their business model), but he was doing absolutely nothing wrong or illegal.
So, they have the ENTIRE market (for popular music). That's force.
The correct term is "monopoly." A monopoly on a low quality luxury item is far removed from exertion of "force." If they had a monopoly on the bread market and people were starving because they artificially inflated the price, you might have a leg to stand on, and I might agree with the people who were getting the bread however they could to feed their families. As it is, I'm not aware of anybody who ever died of 'NSync-deprivation.
You need to go back and read the parent post more carefully. "Johnny doesn't live in his mother's basement" is a fact? It's a flat-out lie and you know it! Johhny hasn't seen the light of day since the last Star Trek convention, and since those are going online soon, he won't even leave for that next time. The RIAA doesn't even pay him in cash. The specific terms of the agreement say something about a never-ending supply of pizza and Mountain Dew delivered directly beside his chair so he doesn't have to roll across the room to open the door. Every six months, as a bonus, he gets a whole truckload of both so he can host a monstrous LAN party.
Slashdot Mirror
It is one thing to say that we have a right to fair use by implication, based on other constitutionally guaranteed rights. It is another thing entirely to say that we have a constitutionally guaranteed right to fair use. The constitution contains no such explicit language. I believe that the parent was mistakenly confusing provisions for fair use in the existing copyright laws with constitutional doctrines. These laws are important, but they are much easier to change than the constitution, which means that we are fighting an entirely different battle than somebody who is, for example, arguing against a practice that is perceived as an affront to some right explicitly called out in the Bill of Rights.
[NOTE MINUS THE SARCASM: I'm all for fair use. I'm an engineer, and to me, the right to take stuff apart and mess with it is sacred. However, if we go around arguing for our Constitutional "fair use" rights, nobody will even take us seriously. Let's at least fight the right battle.]
Netzero is still free for a whopping 10 hours/month (since they got bought out by Juno). However, they are great for a free POP e-mail address, which is what I use them for, since I primarily use the connections at work and at school to do anything serious. If I'm at home and really need to do something small over the dial-up, my wife has an *UGH* AOL account, which at least gets me a PPP connection to use Mozilla through and check my e-mail.
That being said...
I am assuming that the WCS does not, in fact, plan to buy up the "unused" 17% of the Earth's surface and privately conserve it. I am betting that their plan has more to do with spending their precious privately donated money to lobby governments to spend taxpayer dollars to conserve publicly owned lands. In which case, agree or disagree, the "stupid socialist dweebs" are, in fact, looking for ways to spend my tax dollars.
I just couldn't let such a crass insult against the man who coined such a delicious gem as "stupid socialist dweebs" go unchallenged.
P.S. -- I absolutely love the sound of "stupid socialist dweeb." I'm going to use it at every convenient opportunity from now on.
No, it was super-intelligent weasels (and by "super-intelligent," I mean, "geniuses of the art of deception").
MY tickets are up to... oh, wait. I have younger siblings who get paid minimum wage at the movie theater. I never pay to see a movie in the theater. OTOH, I always pay FULL PRICE for the drinks/popcorn/candy, even when my sister is working at the counter. This means that if I want to take my wife to a "free" movie, I still end up paying $10 for us to share a bag of popcorn and get one drink each. As someone mentioned above, they don't make squat on the tickets, but they make a killing on the junk food. Since the seat I am sitting in would be empty otherwise, it costs them basically nothing to let me into the theater for free and then milk the wallet when I get hungry.
Comparing Pres. Bush to Hitler? Not even the left wingers in congress have gone that far. At least try to make credible accusations.
Where do you live in Texas and who is doing this? Where I live (Spring Branch, north of San Antonio), the only internet access is either $50 DSL from the local telephone cooperative, or their extremely unreliable and slow dial-up for $20. I want to know who your provider is so I can start a campaign of flooding them with phone calls begging them to set up camp in my area.
(For the anal retentive, I do understand the difference between Copyright and Patents. It's just a joke. Relax)
The "co-conspirator" problem was also addressed in the article. I'm not much into online auctioning, but if I remember correctly, one is called "shilling" and the other is "phantoming" (I can't remember which is which, and I don't feel like reading the article again). If you're worried about this kind of stuff, your best bet is not to use E-bay. If you do use E-bay and end up getting a better price on something than if you bought it elsewhere (say a computer that retails for $800 and you got it for $650), shady practices notwithstanding, chances are you will not make a federal case out of the collusion issue. However, if it's a unique or nearly unique item without a common market value (one of the items that had been subjected to a fake bidding war was a collection of baseball cards from the 1950s), you may be more inclined to complain.
I guess I need to sleep more at night.
Finally, someone who read the article. I do have to say, though, that the evidence against the stamp fraud ring seemed to be quite compelling and well-researched (yes, I know I can't say for sure from just reading a description, but you cannot be any more sure that it was merely "stongly suggestive"). Since the article suggests that E-bay retaliated against the whistle blowers rather than the fraud ring, I would think this could be seen as impropriety on the part of E-bay. Also, the local Classifieds are not a good analogy, because you can actually see the item in person before you buy it. You do not usually have that option with E-bay.
An escrow agent would have done absolutely nothing to stop the four cases of fraud cited in the article. Three of the cases were "phantom" bidding, where the seller used an alter-ego to drive the prices up (one even admitted to it, saying how ashamed he was, and how he only did it to avoid taking a huge loss on the item). In those cases, the buyers knowingly offered a certain price for some goods, and got the goods they expected. The problem was that they spent $200 - $500 more than they had to because the phantom bids drove the price up. These transactions would have occurred with or without an escrow service (in fact, since some of the items were worth thousands of dollars, it is quite likely an escrow service actually was employed). The fourth case was a stamp collection ring that was buying stamps on e-bay, altering them to make them appear to be in a better condition or appear to be different, more valuable stamps, and then selling them for a huge profit (with something approximating a 10:1 return). The buyers all thought they were getting what they paid for, so, again, an escrow service would not have helped any. An stamp collectors' organization called SCADS discovered the fraud and notified E-bay, which did not so much as suspend the ring leaders' accounts. When SCADS saw the abuse continue, they flooded the E-bay stamp collection message board with warnings against these auctions. In response, e-bay closed the message board. They then started sending e-mails of warning to those who were bidding on the stamps. In response, E-bay suspended their (i.e., the SCADS members') accounts, citing auction interference. The implication was that E-bay was protecting the stamp fraud ring because it was a profit-generating Power Seller, while lashing out against those who tried to warn potential suspects. To support this claim, MSNBC interviewed "Ron," who claims to have worked for the E-bay fraud department. He says he discovered a Power Seller who was phantom bidding and shut down his response. He got a call from higher up telling him not to do that again.
The apparent conclusion is that if you don't want to get ripped off, an escrow agent is insufficient. If you don't want to get ripped off, just don't use E-bay.
Incidentally, grammar nazis don't do well at parties, either. Fortunately, I'm already married and the only parties I attend include a (compnay-sponsored) summer barbecue and a (company-sponsored) christmas party.
I think you have a good point, except for one thing. This is not the result of "too much love." This is really the result of spinelessness and apathy on the part of the parents. Parents who spoil their kids are often doing it to get them out of their hair becuase they're just too busy to deal with the little brats and/or as a weak attempt to make up for a lack of real, quality, personal face time (which is what the kids really want as a token of parental love). The two are very closely related, and usually it's both. The parents just have so much to do, the easiest thing is to toss Johnny a new video game console and let him vege out while the parents get on with life. It takes lots more time, love and attention to say "No" to a child, and then explain why and then discipline the child (I'm not talking about beating, that's another problem entirely) when he doesn't obey than to just give him what he wants and get back to business.
"The Verizon subscriber, who was sentenced to 20 years in prison today, frequented an online technical new site called "Slashdot" under the pseudonym 'Boone^.' One RIAA laywer commented, "Anybody who reads that commie-leftist-anti-coporate-America web page and parades under an obvious hacker name like that is just asking to be nailed." In reaction to the verdict, the defendant sobbed, "It's like I just got modded to (-1, Music Pirate)." NYT internet analysts are still trying to decipher the comment."
Obviously, they used a Field Programmable Valve Array.
Newer stuff like C, C++, Java and even Pascal have their uses, but for raw scientific calculations, Fortran is DA BOMB!
By the way, one of the major sources of income for auto manufacturers is parts. Parts are manufactured to fail at certain intervals and they intentionally make it difficult for third parties to make replacement parts so that they can sell their own spares at artificially inflated prices. If you buy a part from an Authorized Dealer, expect to pay LOTS more than the part is actually worth. Example: I needed a computer module for a little Mitsubishi truck. I knew that it was probably something like a $0.10 or $1 IC that was bad, and if I had a schematic, I could have fixed it for a couple of bucks. Mitsubishi, on the other hand, wanted $900 for a replacement module. I found a guy who repaired them, and he sold me one for $350 with a trade-in of my old module. This guy was costing Mitsubishi plenty of money (money that they figure in and count on as part of their business model), but he was doing absolutely nothing wrong or illegal.
Hey, that sounds like the a great plot for a novel... Oh, wait. Nevermind.