Your likelihood of winning might be high, but your chances of getting off with little court time isn't. The OP talks about getting a check for $1000. [...] The only way small suits like this are possible against large companies is via class action.
Not if you have a slam-dunk. In that case you file it in small claims court - small claims courts often expect you to represent yourself since it is for small amounts of money, and expect the court time taken to be proportionately small. The odds of the other company even spending the money to send out a lawyer for something they're sure to lose is minimal, and if a lawyer tried to drag a small claims fight out with trivial crap the judge would typically bitch-slap them for it, especially when you've got the court transcript of them losing a near-identical case under a near-identical situation.
In retail environments your breaks are timed (I've even heard they are even unpaid in the US)
That depends on what state you're in, how long you work, how long you are allowed for a break, and if you're allowed to leave during your break.
I once got a large extra paycheck from a job I worked at because they were found to be violating this (we got one 30 minute break when working 7+ hour shifts - the state law said anything under 1 hour of breaktime in such a shift requires the breaks to be paid). AFAIK nobody actually sued them over it - it got brought to their attention and they sent out the checks to head off any litigation.
though mind that if it is indeed illegal to file a class action suit if prohibited by your corporate overlord, it is still legal to file a complaint, compile evidence to demonstrate the problem persists, and file your own lawsuit. someone had to go through those steps for the class action suit, its not unreasonable (though admittedly a huge PITA) to do it oneself.
Actually it'll be much easier for you to bring your suit in that case - you simply look up the records of the previous suit and copy/paste into your own. Make sure you bring up that the company was ruled against in the previous, near-identical case, and the court time will be pretty low - courts base most of their decisions on previous court cases, so you're about 99% likely to win.
Because of this, if a company loses a case like this, you can just send them a letter telling them you were screwed over the exact same way, and are willing to settle for the same terms as the previous case, and most companies will accept it in exchange for a waiver and an NDA.
Why don't they just ban the bags from the stores in the first place?
Because 90% of women carry purses. Most women's clothing don't have usable pockets, so they need the purses. A ban would unfairly affect women more than men, and would result in another lawsuit.
Also, if the store has any kind of dress code or uniforms, there's a good chance that many of the employees bring a change of clothes with them so they don't have to go straight home after work to change (and, to a lesser degree, go straight to work from home in the morning). Bringing your change of clothes in a bag is both vastly more convenient, and also required to protect said clothes from any bad weather.
My father had a well paying job with great benefits doing repair work for a public utility. Every couple of years they were buying new hand tools, wrenches and such. Did the old tools wear out or break? No, they simply disappeared.
I work doing repairs, and have to replace missing tools all the time - but not because of theft. Occasionally you drive off after forgetting your screwdriver sitting next to whatever you were working on.
$200 million on a movie that 30 years ago would have cost about 5, THAT'S were the problems with Hollywood are.
I really wish Hollywood would take a lead from the BBC model; instead of giving one movie $200m, give 70 movies $2-5m each. You'll get some good, and some bad, but while you're less likely to end up with a massive summer blockbuster, you're also less likely to end up with a massive flop. Odds are, you'll have some good, some bad, and make a good profit overall. Additionally, any bombs in those 70 movies will simply be forgotten (a $5m movie bombing doesn't make big news), while the successes will be noticed (a $5m movie that makes $100m will get attention).
DVD sales and rentals have cratered in the last 10 years. Netflix has killed them.
Netflix only killed rentals (and not completely - RedBox seems to be doing OK, and there's still some actual rental stores in town, too). It may have hurt DVD sales, but the bad economy (and lack of compelling titles) hurt them a lot more. Most people I know who bought a lot of DVDs are still buying (although they've moved to BluRay), they're just not buying as many.
I'll say - I loved Moonraker when it came out, and it's still one of my favorite Bond movies. You've got ski lifts, space shuttles, laser battles, and Jaws not only shows up but also gets a love interest! It's totally like what Hollywood is putting out now... wait, that wasn't your point, was it?
Give a somewhat unproven director $100 million to make "his vision" that he sold you on storyboards? That can be a hell of a risk.
Except they don't do that. They give $100m to a director who made $1m on a $100k budget and then expect the same sort of ROI. Even then, the studio has its hands in the mix for most of the production - how many blockbuster movies only go through one writer (or writing team) before they come out? How many of them have the editing the director wanted, and not the editing the studio decided would sell best?
Hollywood would probably do better if it actually took risks, but it doesn't.
I dropped one at the base of the Garrison Dam in ND - it said there'd only be 220 fatalities. In reality the destruction of a dam holding back that much water would wipe several cities off the map as the wave + flood took out city after city that was downstream...
Who cares about blast radius estimates? We did that sort of thing when talking about nuclear weapons in 7th grade civics classes. I want something that takes secondary chain-reaction sort of damage into account, such as hitting dams, nuclear power plants, etc.
My brain vaguely recalls a Sherlock Holmes reference (father? brother?), but I've only read a few of the stories....
Mycroft Holmes is Sherlock's brother, but that's not the reference he's alluding to here - it's a reference to the computer named Mycroft Holmes in Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.
That's the point. If you have low tech, script kiddie type malware, which you found, it means that you were very, very vulnerable to uncommon, highly targeted malware. The stealthy kind that even nuclear physicists don't notice.
I hate to tell you, but nuclear physicists generally don't notice malware better than anyone else outside the IT field, either. This isn't rocket science, after all...
Kind of like the way a President's fear-mongering reaction to a handful of terrorists with 19 box cutters and 19 one-way airline tickets brought down the most powerful country on the planet.
It seems to be a symptom of some underlying pathology in a democracy when so much effort is put into protecting the head of government. At least in the ideal it doesn't matter who is president;
You're completely missing the point of protecting the Head of State - it's not because an assassination would cause a change in policies, but to keep extremists from using threat of assassination to to blackmail a Head of State into changing those policies.
In other words, if the POTUS has to fear for his life as a result of every decision he makes, he is going to be pressured to cater to the most radical and violent groups.
Very few people like the music they hear first time in their fifties and sixties.
That's usually because people in their 50s and 60s have been listening almost exclusively to the same music for 30-40 years. How many people who continue to listen to new music on a regular basis end up hating it?
In my experience, most people who continue to listen to contemporary music on a regular basis find about as much new music to like each year as they did when they were in their 20s.
Sorry, it's been pretty well used up by a combination of Bush/Obama and the Roberts Court. It'd be like trying to wipe your ass with Swiss cheese at this point.
What happened to the spirit of the law vs. letter of the law? Isn't it why there are judges?
No. Judges will usually side with the law, either because that's their job, or because that's what keeps Big Legal in business (depending on who you ask). (IMHO it's because Judges often worry about being seen as "soft on crime" and losing re-election.)
Spirit vs. letter of the law is what juries are there for. Judges and lawyers often suppress this information from jurors, though.
But the ones who buy GMO seed are having no difficulties, it is ones who do not that go bankrupt.
Except that large parts of the world will not accept GMO imports, and the US exports a large amount of grain. How are non-GMO farmers going to go bankrupt when they have multiple large markets (including Japan and Europe) that GMO farmers cannot edge them out of?
Japan's reaction is ridiculous, and blatant protectionism. A tiny amount of GMO contamination in 2 billion bushels isn't a crisis.
TFA stated that Japan blocked imports of some wheat - specifically, wheat from the area the GMO infection was found in. They're not halting all imports, just those that are most likely to be contaminated - and will likely increase orders from other parts of the US to make up for it.
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Your likelihood of winning might be high, but your chances of getting off with little court time isn't. The OP talks about getting a check for $1000.
[...]
The only way small suits like this are possible against large companies is via class action.
Not if you have a slam-dunk. In that case you file it in small claims court - small claims courts often expect you to represent yourself since it is for small amounts of money, and expect the court time taken to be proportionately small. The odds of the other company even spending the money to send out a lawyer for something they're sure to lose is minimal, and if a lawyer tried to drag a small claims fight out with trivial crap the judge would typically bitch-slap them for it, especially when you've got the court transcript of them losing a near-identical case under a near-identical situation.
So we're not exactly comparing apples to apples here
I see what you did there.
In retail environments your breaks are timed (I've even heard they are even unpaid in the US)
That depends on what state you're in, how long you work, how long you are allowed for a break, and if you're allowed to leave during your break.
I once got a large extra paycheck from a job I worked at because they were found to be violating this (we got one 30 minute break when working 7+ hour shifts - the state law said anything under 1 hour of breaktime in such a shift requires the breaks to be paid). AFAIK nobody actually sued them over it - it got brought to their attention and they sent out the checks to head off any litigation.
though mind that if it is indeed illegal to file a class action suit if prohibited by your corporate overlord, it is still legal to file a complaint, compile evidence to demonstrate the problem persists, and file your own lawsuit. someone had to go through those steps for the class action suit, its not unreasonable (though admittedly a huge PITA) to do it oneself.
Actually it'll be much easier for you to bring your suit in that case - you simply look up the records of the previous suit and copy/paste into your own. Make sure you bring up that the company was ruled against in the previous, near-identical case, and the court time will be pretty low - courts base most of their decisions on previous court cases, so you're about 99% likely to win.
Because of this, if a company loses a case like this, you can just send them a letter telling them you were screwed over the exact same way, and are willing to settle for the same terms as the previous case, and most companies will accept it in exchange for a waiver and an NDA.
Why don't they just ban the bags from the stores in the first place?
Because 90% of women carry purses. Most women's clothing don't have usable pockets, so they need the purses. A ban would unfairly affect women more than men, and would result in another lawsuit.
Also, if the store has any kind of dress code or uniforms, there's a good chance that many of the employees bring a change of clothes with them so they don't have to go straight home after work to change (and, to a lesser degree, go straight to work from home in the morning). Bringing your change of clothes in a bag is both vastly more convenient, and also required to protect said clothes from any bad weather.
My father had a well paying job with great benefits doing repair work for a public utility. Every couple of years they were buying new hand tools, wrenches and such. Did the old tools wear out or break? No, they simply disappeared.
I work doing repairs, and have to replace missing tools all the time - but not because of theft. Occasionally you drive off after forgetting your screwdriver sitting next to whatever you were working on.
$200 million on a movie that 30 years ago would have cost about 5, THAT'S were the problems with Hollywood are.
I really wish Hollywood would take a lead from the BBC model; instead of giving one movie $200m, give 70 movies $2-5m each. You'll get some good, and some bad, but while you're less likely to end up with a massive summer blockbuster, you're also less likely to end up with a massive flop. Odds are, you'll have some good, some bad, and make a good profit overall. Additionally, any bombs in those 70 movies will simply be forgotten (a $5m movie bombing doesn't make big news), while the successes will be noticed (a $5m movie that makes $100m will get attention).
DVD sales and rentals have cratered in the last 10 years. Netflix has killed them.
Netflix only killed rentals (and not completely - RedBox seems to be doing OK, and there's still some actual rental stores in town, too). It may have hurt DVD sales, but the bad economy (and lack of compelling titles) hurt them a lot more. Most people I know who bought a lot of DVDs are still buying (although they've moved to BluRay), they're just not buying as many.
I'll say - I loved Moonraker when it came out, and it's still one of my favorite Bond movies. You've got ski lifts, space shuttles, laser battles, and Jaws not only shows up but also gets a love interest! It's totally like what Hollywood is putting out now... wait, that wasn't your point, was it?
Give a somewhat unproven director $100 million to make "his vision" that he sold you on storyboards? That can be a hell of a risk.
Except they don't do that. They give $100m to a director who made $1m on a $100k budget and then expect the same sort of ROI. Even then, the studio has its hands in the mix for most of the production - how many blockbuster movies only go through one writer (or writing team) before they come out? How many of them have the editing the director wanted, and not the editing the studio decided would sell best?
Hollywood would probably do better if it actually took risks, but it doesn't.
I dropped one at the base of the Garrison Dam in ND - it said there'd only be 220 fatalities. In reality the destruction of a dam holding back that much water would wipe several cities off the map as the wave + flood took out city after city that was downstream...
Who cares about blast radius estimates? We did that sort of thing when talking about nuclear weapons in 7th grade civics classes. I want something that takes secondary chain-reaction sort of damage into account, such as hitting dams, nuclear power plants, etc.
Why is that a bad pass rate?
I took plenty of college classes with such rates, they were designed to filter out people who did not belong there.
Because these weren't "weeding out" types of courses. TFS even says it: They were remedial and entry-level courses.
My brain vaguely recalls a Sherlock Holmes reference (father? brother?), but I've only read a few of the stories....
Mycroft Holmes is Sherlock's brother, but that's not the reference he's alluding to here - it's a reference to the computer named Mycroft Holmes in Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.
What could POSSIBLY go wrong?
You could get HIV pregnant.
That's the point. If you have low tech, script kiddie type malware, which you found, it means that you were very, very vulnerable to uncommon, highly targeted malware. The stealthy kind that even nuclear physicists don't notice.
I hate to tell you, but nuclear physicists generally don't notice malware better than anyone else outside the IT field, either. This isn't rocket science, after all...
Kind of like the way a President's fear-mongering reaction to a handful of terrorists with 19 box cutters and 19 one-way airline tickets brought down the most powerful country on the planet.
FTFY.
FDR vs. GWB, indeed.
besides FEMA under Bush, name a government agency that's showed any incompetence?
Congress? It is the defined as the opposite of progress, after all.
It seems to be a symptom of some underlying pathology in a democracy when so much effort is put into protecting the head of government. At least in the ideal it doesn't matter who is president;
You're completely missing the point of protecting the Head of State - it's not because an assassination would cause a change in policies, but to keep extremists from using threat of assassination to to blackmail a Head of State into changing those policies.
In other words, if the POTUS has to fear for his life as a result of every decision he makes, he is going to be pressured to cater to the most radical and violent groups.
Very few people like the music they hear first time in their fifties and sixties.
That's usually because people in their 50s and 60s have been listening almost exclusively to the same music for 30-40 years. How many people who continue to listen to new music on a regular basis end up hating it?
In my experience, most people who continue to listen to contemporary music on a regular basis find about as much new music to like each year as they did when they were in their 20s.
Hey now, keep the liberal side of the Court represented in that list.
A) They are covered in the blanket "Roberts Court" designation; and
B) You mean "less conservative", not "liberal".
Sorry, it's been pretty well used up by a combination of Bush/Obama and the Roberts Court. It'd be like trying to wipe your ass with Swiss cheese at this point.
What happened to the spirit of the law vs. letter of the law? Isn't it why there are judges?
No. Judges will usually side with the law, either because that's their job, or because that's what keeps Big Legal in business (depending on who you ask). (IMHO it's because Judges often worry about being seen as "soft on crime" and losing re-election.)
Spirit vs. letter of the law is what juries are there for. Judges and lawyers often suppress this information from jurors, though.
Be realistic in calculating risks. Often a way more convenient attack vector exists.
I dunno ... "from any computer anywhere in the world" seems pretty damn convenient.
But the ones who buy GMO seed are having no difficulties, it is ones who do not that go bankrupt.
Except that large parts of the world will not accept GMO imports, and the US exports a large amount of grain. How are non-GMO farmers going to go bankrupt when they have multiple large markets (including Japan and Europe) that GMO farmers cannot edge them out of?
Japan's reaction is ridiculous, and blatant protectionism. A tiny amount of GMO contamination in 2 billion bushels isn't a crisis.
TFA stated that Japan blocked imports of some wheat - specifically, wheat from the area the GMO infection was found in. They're not halting all imports, just those that are most likely to be contaminated - and will likely increase orders from other parts of the US to make up for it.