Either the government doesn't have the right to force you to divulge something or they do.
Well, under our laws they do. If you have material knowledge of a crime, the government can force you to divulge it (unless by doing so you would incriminate yourself). This is making a narrow exception for the press.
Here's what Paul Graham had to say about Great Hackers:
Because you can't tell a great hacker except by working with him, hackers themselves can't tell how good they are. This is true to a degree in most fields. I've found that people who are great at something are not so much convinced of their own greatness as mystified at why everyone else seems so incompetent.
I've got to disagree; in my experience hackers tend to be pretty damn egotistical. Average hackers think they're good. Good hackers think they're great. Great hackers think they're on a higher plane of existence.
Give me a break, actually go to the inner city sometime and see how "rampant" the crime is. And do you think any crime that does happen is because the police were raiding mod chippers? You're probably just another middle-class, suburban slashdotter who thinks watching cop shows gives him insight into the "streets".
It's all about priorities you shithead. Copyright infringement is a civil matter. Can't you understand that?
Go read what I wrote again, this time read every word you illiterate cretin. I said I sympathized with what the poster was saying, but that the GENERAL argument he was using wasn't a good one.
This marks a huge influx of old classics as well as opening up the possibility of bringing some of the newest, most anticipated id games
Great, the variety of Id's library is amazing. Futuristic/Horror Shooter 1, Futuristic/Horror Shooter 2, Futuristic/Horror Shooter 3, and of course the legendary Futuristic/Horror Shooter 4.
"Are you kidding me? With drug dealers everywhere, murder, porous borders, terrorism the Feds are concerned about game mods?? Holy crap. Next I supposed they will be cracking heads over unlocked phones. Great."
Because people can't be concerned about more than one thing at once. While I can sympathize with the thought behind this, the argument "they shouldn't enforce crime X until they've completely eradicated crime Y" is a ridiculous one.
I'm absolutely certain anyone on death row that is innocent, would not agree with you.
There is a serious issue about wrongful convictions, especially on death row. However, this is something that can be improved, and is not a necessary part of the system itself. A lot of it is political; people like to vote in self-professed "law and order" types. This is something that has to be fixed in the political and cultural spheres, though.
And judging by your faith in the system I don't think you have the slightest clue about what goes on in the real Legal system. (too much CSI maybe?)
CSI doesn't have much to do with the legal system...
Have you EVER been to court without a lawyer for anything more than a traffic ticket?
Well since I am a lawyer, it's kind of hard to me to go anywhere without one. Because I'm usually with myself.
Here's a tip: if you're ever in big trouble, mortgage your house and give half to your lawyer, you want him working really hard from the very first second . If you're poor move into your car, park it next to the courthouse and visit the law library every day.
I don't have a house so I guess I'm out of luck.
It's kinda like driving a car without breaks, yea the complex system still works, but it is very considerably broken too.
A better analogy would be a working car with a lousy driver. Just because someone in the driver's seat does a dangerous job, doesn't mean there's anything wrong with the car.
Most complex systems have failure rates. Would you say a software application that had bugs was "broken"? That's a term that should be used for something that is basically nonfunctioning; not something with an error rate. The majority of frivolous lawsuits get thrown out. The majority of people convicted of a crime are actually guilty. Not that the system doesn't need serious improvement on both issues, but that doesn't mean the system is nonfunctioning.
Um, doesn't it go without saying that a bunch of patent lawyers, who are undoubtedly extremely well paid for working and exploiting the existing convoluted patent system, wouldn't want anything to change? If software patents go away, a certain percentage of patent lawyers go away. If the patent system was better designed, easier to understand, simpler for individuals to work with, then another percentage of patent lawyers would go away.
So most oncologists don't want a cure for cancer to be found? I've talked with a lawyer who works on patents on several occasions about this, approaching it from a slashdot-centric the-system-is-broken kind of viewpoint, but after hearing her talk about it I've come to the realization that the system isn't quite as bad as we make it out to be here. It is not easy to get a patent; patent applications are frequently denied, or revisions are demanded, and just because we've seen some dumb patents get granted doesn't mean that the whole system is somehow irredeemably broken.
It's like the people who argue the legal system is broken because they cherry-pick instances where frivolous lawsuits succeeded (usually completely fabricated instances).
I can think of no surer way to incite riotous demand for your linux-loaded hypothetical product.
"Riotous" demand? Do you really think that's going to happen? According to the people who hang out around here, consumer demand for Linux has been about to explode for the past 12 years. The demand isn't there on the hardware retailer side. There's no Microsoft conspiracy. The people who want Linux are going to install it themselves. A lot of them are going to build the computers themselves, too. The slight savings you're seeing on computers released with Linux isn't worth the lesser selection for a lot of the rest of the people still interested in buying a Linux-based computer.
You do realise that everybody blames the networks/ Nielsen's rating systems whenever there show gets canceled.
I believe in Futurama's case, Matt Groening blamed network executives who sabotaged the show out of spite, because he refused to allow them creative input into the show.
I am stupid for coming to slashdot and thinking I could have a civil discussion with folks and not be moderated as flamebait for being happy with my PS3 and the general state of gaming right now.
Get Deus Ex immediately. Later move on to Half-Life 1 and 2. And there are probably other ones that I don't remember.
Thief 1 and 2, and even 3 is decent, though not as good as the others. Extremely well-written fantasy, far better than most of the stuff that makes it to the fantasy section in the bookstores.
Infocom games were amazing; it would be great if they released the old games again, but Activision (the current IP owner) hasn't shown any signs lately of doing so. I emailed them a while ago asking them about rereleasing them, but didn't get a response. I can't have been the only one to try that, and I'm wondering just how many people have to ask for it before they actually think about releasing them again.
So anybody reading this, feel free to shoot them off an email...
They are asking the court to order Gutierrez to dismiss Peterlin immediately and establish rules to assess what qualifies as a professional background and experience in patent or trademark law.
It would have been so much easier if Congress had just made the law say "must have been a registered U.S. patent attorney for at least 5 years before appointment."
If you don't regret this statement yet, you should. It's dumb.
That's quite a convincing argument. You don't think we haven't seen that sort of thing before, again and again and again? Atari's dominance in the late 70's/early 80's and their subsequent implosion set the video game industry back several years. Nintendo's dominance in the mid-to-late 80's created a situation where for a long time game developers concentrated on platformers. Doom in the early 90s gave us a decade of way too many FPSes. How on earth can you deny that the game industry is obsessed with fads and spends most of their energy trying to copy each others successes?
The hardcore gamers STILL don't understand that the Wii, with all of its perceived warts (to them, anyway), is outselling EVERYONE. By the end of the summer there will be more Wiis out there than 360s (the next largest market). And Nintendo still can't keep these things in stock. All with "no good games" to buy.
I think they understand that the Wii is outselling everyone; if they don't understand the popularity, that's not necessarily some intellectual flaw, but rather just represents a different taste.
Like a quick glance at the neilsen ratings website reveals the top three most watched TV shows last week were a baseball game, a game show, and a reality TV show. I, personally, don't understand how anyone could enjoy any of those things. Does this mean that I don't know that they're popular, or refuse to believe that people will continue to like them? Of course not.
If the Wii comes to completely dominate the industry, there's a good chance a lot of really first-rate, complicated, serious games will never be released, in favor of hundreds of Wii sports clones.
And speaking of understanding, I continue to not really understand the long-standing slashdot rhetorical device of creating hypothetical critics. Isn't enough to make a point without also going into a detailed description of the people who you think will inevitably attack your post? This practice seems most common when people take an extremely popular viewpoint, it's like they're so nervous about being in the majority, that they try to paint themselves as brave underdogs attacking the status quo.
95% of the people on slashdot seem to be rabid Nintendo-can-do-now-wrong Wii supporters, yet that 95% continues to insist that there's this huge horde of pro-Sony/MS fanboys, who never seem to actually show up.
I don't know why the OLPC project is giving internet access anyway. If I were them I'd create a closed network with educational sites alone. They don't need access to the internet universe.
We do, a lot of them just don't want to apply that talent.
I remember back during the IT boom slashdot was FILLED with people who boasted of their intelligence and their technical expertise. They were even smarter than their professors, which is why they dropped out of college yet still were making great salaries!
How many of you reading this got an 800 on your math SATs, breezed through every math and science course you took, but either dropped out of college, or didn't go on to graduate school? That's what happened, a lot of the people who could have become first-rate scientists decided that it was more important to make a lot of money, and who can blame them for getting indoctrinated by our current culture, where salary is everything?
...since it was such a simple and straightforward case: If it was simple, shouldn't it be reflected in the number of hours rather than cost per hour?
It's like medicine; a neurosurgeon can charge more for his or her time than a general practitioner can. In law certain cases require specialized knowledge and experience (well, unless you want to lose). Representing someone in a slip and fall case is different than managing a $2 billion class action securities case, for example.
...since it was such a simple and straightforward case: If it was so simple to disprove, shouldn't the people who brought it be detered from bringing extranous lawsuits?
You can have a simple and straightforward case where there's no way to know for sure who the victor is going to be. If it all comes down to an iffy question (like was a stop sign visible or not), the case is simple but either side might have had a legitimate, non-frivolous claim.
Slashdot Mirror
Either the government doesn't have the right to force you to divulge something or they do.
Well, under our laws they do. If you have material knowledge of a crime, the government can force you to divulge it (unless by doing so you would incriminate yourself). This is making a narrow exception for the press.
There's such a thing as a patient, kind, humble or scrupulous lawyer?
Mohandas Gandhi? Abraham Lincoln? Thurgood Marshall?
Here's what Paul Graham had to say about Great Hackers:
Because you can't tell a great hacker except by working with him, hackers themselves can't tell how good they are. This is true to a degree in most fields. I've found that people who are great at something are not so much convinced of their own greatness as mystified at why everyone else seems so incompetent.
I've got to disagree; in my experience hackers tend to be pretty damn egotistical. Average hackers think they're good. Good hackers think they're great. Great hackers think they're on a higher plane of existence.
Give me a break, actually go to the inner city sometime and see how "rampant" the crime is. And do you think any crime that does happen is because the police were raiding mod chippers? You're probably just another middle-class, suburban slashdotter who thinks watching cop shows gives him insight into the "streets".
It's all about priorities you shithead. Copyright infringement is a civil matter. Can't you understand that?
Go read what I wrote again, this time read every word you illiterate cretin. I said I sympathized with what the poster was saying, but that the GENERAL argument he was using wasn't a good one.
Here in the US, if you don't sign something, it isn't a contract (yes, dramatically simplified).
That's absolutely wrong. A contract means, basically, a legally enforceable agreement. It can be oral or written, express or implied.
This marks a huge influx of old classics as well as opening up the possibility of bringing some of the newest, most anticipated id games
Great, the variety of Id's library is amazing. Futuristic/Horror Shooter 1, Futuristic/Horror Shooter 2, Futuristic/Horror Shooter 3, and of course the legendary Futuristic/Horror Shooter 4.
"Are you kidding me? With drug dealers everywhere, murder, porous borders, terrorism the Feds are concerned about game mods?? Holy crap. Next I supposed they will be cracking heads over unlocked phones. Great."
Because people can't be concerned about more than one thing at once. While I can sympathize with the thought behind this, the argument "they shouldn't enforce crime X until they've completely eradicated crime Y" is a ridiculous one.
I'm absolutely certain anyone on death row that is innocent, would not agree with you.
There is a serious issue about wrongful convictions, especially on death row. However, this is something that can be improved, and is not a necessary part of the system itself. A lot of it is political; people like to vote in self-professed "law and order" types. This is something that has to be fixed in the political and cultural spheres, though.
And judging by your faith in the system I don't think you have the slightest clue about what goes on in the real Legal system. (too much CSI maybe?)
CSI doesn't have much to do with the legal system...
Have you EVER been to court without a lawyer for anything more than a traffic ticket?
Well since I am a lawyer, it's kind of hard to me to go anywhere without one. Because I'm usually with myself.
Here's a tip: if you're ever in big trouble, mortgage your house and give half to your lawyer, you want him working really hard from the very first second . If you're poor move into your car, park it next to the courthouse and visit the law library every day.
I don't have a house so I guess I'm out of luck.
It's kinda like driving a car without breaks, yea the complex system still works, but it is very considerably broken too.
A better analogy would be a working car with a lousy driver. Just because someone in the driver's seat does a dangerous job, doesn't mean there's anything wrong with the car.
Most complex systems have failure rates. Would you say a software application that had bugs was "broken"? That's a term that should be used for something that is basically nonfunctioning; not something with an error rate. The majority of frivolous lawsuits get thrown out. The majority of people convicted of a crime are actually guilty. Not that the system doesn't need serious improvement on both issues, but that doesn't mean the system is nonfunctioning.
Um, doesn't it go without saying that a bunch of patent lawyers, who are undoubtedly extremely well paid for working and exploiting the existing convoluted patent system, wouldn't want anything to change? If software patents go away, a certain percentage of patent lawyers go away. If the patent system was better designed, easier to understand, simpler for individuals to work with, then another percentage of patent lawyers would go away.
So most oncologists don't want a cure for cancer to be found? I've talked with a lawyer who works on patents on several occasions about this, approaching it from a slashdot-centric the-system-is-broken kind of viewpoint, but after hearing her talk about it I've come to the realization that the system isn't quite as bad as we make it out to be here. It is not easy to get a patent; patent applications are frequently denied, or revisions are demanded, and just because we've seen some dumb patents get granted doesn't mean that the whole system is somehow irredeemably broken.
It's like the people who argue the legal system is broken because they cherry-pick instances where frivolous lawsuits succeeded (usually completely fabricated instances).
I couldn't believe that people were discounting his music abilities because they didn't like his opinion.
I could. It's standard operating procedure around here.
I can think of no surer way to incite riotous demand for your linux-loaded hypothetical product.
"Riotous" demand? Do you really think that's going to happen? According to the people who hang out around here, consumer demand for Linux has been about to explode for the past 12 years. The demand isn't there on the hardware retailer side. There's no Microsoft conspiracy. The people who want Linux are going to install it themselves. A lot of them are going to build the computers themselves, too. The slight savings you're seeing on computers released with Linux isn't worth the lesser selection for a lot of the rest of the people still interested in buying a Linux-based computer.
You do realise that everybody blames the networks/ Nielsen's rating systems whenever there show gets canceled.
I believe in Futurama's case, Matt Groening blamed network executives who sabotaged the show out of spite, because he refused to allow them creative input into the show.
So if the bank overcharges me or pays out less money than I got debited at the ATM, I can charge them with a crime, right?
If they knew it was happening and still did it, then yes you can.
I am stupid for coming to slashdot and thinking I could have a civil discussion with folks and not be moderated as flamebait for being happy with my PS3 and the general state of gaming right now.
Yeah, you really dropped the ball there.
Get Deus Ex immediately. Later move on to Half-Life 1 and 2. And there are probably other ones that I don't remember.
Thief 1 and 2, and even 3 is decent, though not as good as the others. Extremely well-written fantasy, far better than most of the stuff that makes it to the fantasy section in the bookstores.
Infocom games were amazing; it would be great if they released the old games again, but Activision (the current IP owner) hasn't shown any signs lately of doing so. I emailed them a while ago asking them about rereleasing them, but didn't get a response. I can't have been the only one to try that, and I'm wondering just how many people have to ask for it before they actually think about releasing them again.
So anybody reading this, feel free to shoot them off an email...
I nearly wept in at least two of their games.
Ok, let me think, let me think...
Planetfall? And Trinity?
They are asking the court to order Gutierrez to dismiss Peterlin immediately and establish rules to assess what qualifies as a professional background and experience in patent or trademark law.
It would have been so much easier if Congress had just made the law say "must have been a registered U.S. patent attorney for at least 5 years before appointment."
If you don't regret this statement yet, you should. It's dumb.
That's quite a convincing argument. You don't think we haven't seen that sort of thing before, again and again and again? Atari's dominance in the late 70's/early 80's and their subsequent implosion set the video game industry back several years. Nintendo's dominance in the mid-to-late 80's created a situation where for a long time game developers concentrated on platformers. Doom in the early 90s gave us a decade of way too many FPSes. How on earth can you deny that the game industry is obsessed with fads and spends most of their energy trying to copy each others successes?
The hardcore gamers STILL don't understand that the Wii, with all of its perceived warts (to them, anyway), is outselling EVERYONE. By the end of the summer there will be more Wiis out there than 360s (the next largest market). And Nintendo still can't keep these things in stock. All with "no good games" to buy.
I think they understand that the Wii is outselling everyone; if they don't understand the popularity, that's not necessarily some intellectual flaw, but rather just represents a different taste.
Like a quick glance at the neilsen ratings website reveals the top three most watched TV shows last week were a baseball game, a game show, and a reality TV show. I, personally, don't understand how anyone could enjoy any of those things. Does this mean that I don't know that they're popular, or refuse to believe that people will continue to like them? Of course not.
If the Wii comes to completely dominate the industry, there's a good chance a lot of really first-rate, complicated, serious games will never be released, in favor of hundreds of Wii sports clones.
And speaking of understanding, I continue to not really understand the long-standing slashdot rhetorical device of creating hypothetical critics. Isn't enough to make a point without also going into a detailed description of the people who you think will inevitably attack your post? This practice seems most common when people take an extremely popular viewpoint, it's like they're so nervous about being in the majority, that they try to paint themselves as brave underdogs attacking the status quo.
95% of the people on slashdot seem to be rabid Nintendo-can-do-now-wrong Wii supporters, yet that 95% continues to insist that there's this huge horde of pro-Sony/MS fanboys, who never seem to actually show up.
I don't know why the OLPC project is giving internet access anyway. If I were them I'd create a closed network with educational sites alone. They don't need access to the internet universe.
How about change schools? THAT would hit them in the pocketbook.
It's a public university, so every student is basically subsidized by the taxpayers. Getting rid of a student theoretically saves the state money.
We just don't have the homegrown talent any more.
We do, a lot of them just don't want to apply that talent.
I remember back during the IT boom slashdot was FILLED with people who boasted of their intelligence and their technical expertise. They were even smarter than their professors, which is why they dropped out of college yet still were making great salaries!
How many of you reading this got an 800 on your math SATs, breezed through every math and science course you took, but either dropped out of college, or didn't go on to graduate school? That's what happened, a lot of the people who could have become first-rate scientists decided that it was more important to make a lot of money, and who can blame them for getting indoctrinated by our current culture, where salary is everything?
...since it was such a simple and straightforward case: If it was simple, shouldn't it be reflected in the number of hours rather than cost per hour?
...since it was such a simple and straightforward case: If it was so simple to disprove, shouldn't the people who brought it be detered from bringing extranous lawsuits?
It's like medicine; a neurosurgeon can charge more for his or her time than a general practitioner can. In law certain cases require specialized knowledge and experience (well, unless you want to lose). Representing someone in a slip and fall case is different than managing a $2 billion class action securities case, for example.
You can have a simple and straightforward case where there's no way to know for sure who the victor is going to be. If it all comes down to an iffy question (like was a stop sign visible or not), the case is simple but either side might have had a legitimate, non-frivolous claim.