They like lending us money, treasury loans are used as a base rate for completely risk-free investment. They'd like us to pay it back, but they really can't afford to stop lending to us as long as their economies grow.
And any Lawyer that nearly gets sanctions for getting caught lying to courts...
I have no problem with someone who's willing to represent Hitler in Hitler v. Cute Puppies, or anyone, we do have a right to representation. But that's going too far.
Disprove the first sentence and my objections to him go away.
This argument is ignoring the fact that most of us/pay/ for college. The agreement I signed said that if I am their employee and it's part of my job they own it, and if I use their resources in a nonincidental manner (eg, dorm wifi doesn't count) then they get a nonexclusive perpetual license.
But the real solution is to read the agreement and if you don't agree, don't sign. If they won't take you without it (and that's a bigger if than you'd think), then don't go.
No, those are just stealing physical property. Pirating media is far worse because it deprives hardworking musicians and other artists of their well-deserved profits, which is far worse, really, than most felonies -- hardly a civil matter.
Clearly we need to realign enforcement priorities to take into account the seriousness of the crime.
They just make up the figures for pirated copies anyway. They count copies that aren't *bought* in the numbers they expect as pirated. Not pirating is better than pirating, but not by much
The universe does not care what most people, or most experts, believe, with respect to natural laws. Just because the majority of people choose to believe something does not make it true when the matter is objective.
Climate change (or lack thereof) is a fact. There is an answer, but no one is *sure* what it is. Opinion on homosexuality is an opinion, and I fail to see any way you can make it objective.
Can we just call it something like climate change already? It would avoid confusing a lot of people, and no one is predicting that -everywhere- on Earth is going to get hotter.
Actually under contract law many contracts require "consideration" be paid.
Case in point: NDAs. An NDA is only legally a binding contract (US-Centric law here) if the signer receives compensation in some form for it. For example, in job interviews the NDA is usually reciprocal: we don't talk about you, you don't talk about us. In others it's a lunch.
In many contracts you get or give $0.01 or $1.00 just to make sure it'll stand up.
In general, it's also probably good business practice to notify people, in terms of making them less angry and giving them a chance to back it up if they didn't. But in the end, I'm extremely leery of legal regulation on things that are given away for free. Short of intentionally poisoning food at a soup kitchen I don't see a whole lot of justification.
Legality and even ethics aside, I am sad as this will poke a lot more holes in our series of tubes, and cause many things that I find useful to go missing. I generally download useful websites just in case, but not reliably, and there are always the useful ones I haven't found yet. Broken links suck.
with the membership fee charged in overpriced hardware.
Huh? I don't follow. Are you trying to say Linux requires beefier hardware than Microsoft?
Hey I'm a FOSS fanboi and all, but my first offer to people who ask me to "fix vista" for them is XP. Quite a few ask about linux though. I actually try to talk them out of it if I don't think they're computery enough, but it usually works out. Of course these are all nerd college students, they're just not all computer nerds.
Sometimes I think it's a direct reflection of management's dislike of the IT staff, and a desire to not be reliant on any specialized skills of theirs that can't be replaced in 24 hours with a Monster.com ad.
This does make good business sense to some degree. Even if SQL Server is worse (I have never used Oracle or MS SQL), a small price gap could easily be justified by such a decision.
Of course it's not that hard to find good Oracle/Linux/MySQL admins, you just will have to pay them more on average, and certification is not as meaningful or centralized as MS's.
Exactly. When your business model is built on intentional incompatibility to prevent competition, you need to be horizontally integrated. People don't want exchange on their servers but they want it on their clients. You want the latter, you have to take the former.
Still, 70% is hardly the same as going out of business [in that division]
As a private enterprise, Comcast has a right to restrict what they want. And they figure that since most of their users don't use bittorrent and it takes up a lot of bandwidth, they should ban it. Capitalism at work. If you don't like it, switch to one of their many competing companies that our free-market economy has ensured exist.
Slashdot Mirror
Sweet, now I can get a job writing better DRM!
*slits wrists*
They like lending us money, treasury loans are used as a base rate for completely risk-free investment. They'd like us to pay it back, but they really can't afford to stop lending to us as long as their economies grow.
Feed it with campaign donations and it will feed you tasty pork for many years to come!
mmmm...pork...
And any Lawyer that nearly gets sanctions for getting caught lying to courts...
I have no problem with someone who's willing to represent Hitler in Hitler v. Cute Puppies, or anyone, we do have a right to representation. But that's going too far.
Disprove the first sentence and my objections to him go away.
Some things were going to happen no matter which way you vote:/ The RIAA has plenty of stool pigeons in both the parties, they're not going anywhere.
This argument is ignoring the fact that most of us /pay/ for college. The agreement I signed said that if I am their employee and it's part of my job they own it, and if I use their resources in a nonincidental manner (eg, dorm wifi doesn't count) then they get a nonexclusive perpetual license.
But the real solution is to read the agreement and if you don't agree, don't sign. If they won't take you without it (and that's a bigger if than you'd think), then don't go.
No, those are just stealing physical property. Pirating media is far worse because it deprives hardworking musicians and other artists of their well-deserved profits, which is far worse, really, than most felonies -- hardly a civil matter.
Clearly we need to realign enforcement priorities to take into account the seriousness of the crime.
Note for the completely oblivious: see sig
They just make up the figures for pirated copies anyway. They count copies that aren't *bought* in the numbers they expect as pirated. Not pirating is better than pirating, but not by much
This will be the year of the Android desktop!
Unilateral reduction in fossil fuel usage and who cares what the rest of the world thinks? That would help a lot.
There is no democracy in physics.
--Luis Alvarez
The universe does not care what most people, or most experts, believe, with respect to natural laws. Just because the majority of people choose to believe something does not make it true when the matter is objective.
Climate change (or lack thereof) is a fact. There is an answer, but no one is *sure* what it is. Opinion on homosexuality is an opinion, and I fail to see any way you can make it objective.
Can we just call it something like climate change already? It would avoid confusing a lot of people, and no one is predicting that -everywhere- on Earth is going to get hotter.
Actually under contract law many contracts require "consideration" be paid.
Case in point: NDAs. An NDA is only legally a binding contract (US-Centric law here) if the signer receives compensation in some form for it. For example, in job interviews the NDA is usually reciprocal: we don't talk about you, you don't talk about us. In others it's a lunch.
In many contracts you get or give $0.01 or $1.00 just to make sure it'll stand up.
Violation of TOS is pretty different than a site closing itself down. Still, I agree, it's kind of silly to require them to keep it up. We'd just see
1) Free hosting services stop because of liability
2) Use of loopholes to circumvent this ill-conceived law
3) Legal challenges (unlikely)
Well if you want to discuss good business strategy, quality, and politeness we can do that, but legal recourse
In general, it's also probably good business practice to notify people, in terms of making them less angry and giving them a chance to back it up if they didn't. But in the end, I'm extremely leery of legal regulation on things that are given away for free. Short of intentionally poisoning food at a soup kitchen I don't see a whole lot of justification.
Legality and even ethics aside, I am sad as this will poke a lot more holes in our series of tubes, and cause many things that I find useful to go missing. I generally download useful websites just in case, but not reliably, and there are always the useful ones I haven't found yet. Broken links suck.
It's kind of interesting how to many people the OS you drive defines who you are. To me it's just the best tool for the job [for me].
I blame all the "I'm a X" commercials
True, but they don't tend to get sued every time a patient dies.
And the other notable requires joining a cult
If the shoe fits...
with the membership fee charged in overpriced hardware.
Huh? I don't follow. Are you trying to say Linux requires beefier hardware than Microsoft?
Hey I'm a FOSS fanboi and all, but my first offer to people who ask me to "fix vista" for them is XP. Quite a few ask about linux though. I actually try to talk them out of it if I don't think they're computery enough, but it usually works out. Of course these are all nerd college students, they're just not all computer nerds.
And if the entire IT industry shrinks...well I guess we're all fucked, to varying degrees.
Sometimes I think it's a direct reflection of management's dislike of the IT staff, and a desire to not be reliant on any specialized skills of theirs that can't be replaced in 24 hours with a Monster.com ad.
This does make good business sense to some degree. Even if SQL Server is worse (I have never used Oracle or MS SQL), a small price gap could easily be justified by such a decision.
Of course it's not that hard to find good Oracle/Linux/MySQL admins, you just will have to pay them more on average, and certification is not as meaningful or centralized as MS's.
They turn running a monopoly into an art:-)
I work for one of the top 5 insurance companies in the U.S. and SQL Server utilized as the back end for at least 50% of the apps currently running.
Thanks for telling me which stocks to sell.
Exactly. When your business model is built on intentional incompatibility to prevent competition, you need to be horizontally integrated. People don't want exchange on their servers but they want it on their clients. You want the latter, you have to take the former.
Still, 70% is hardly the same as going out of business [in that division]
As a private enterprise, Comcast has a right to restrict what they want. And they figure that since most of their users don't use bittorrent and it takes up a lot of bandwidth, they should ban it. Capitalism at work. If you don't like it, switch to one of their many competing companies that our free-market economy has ensured exist.
end strawman argument....now
This is what eventually convinced me that piracy is, on some level, wrong.
Me: "I can't install the game without their virusware" ...
Devil's Advocate: "If you don't like our terms, don't use it, like the GPL"