That's enough to pay for 3 hot dog meals at Gray's Papaya and you'll still have enough money to buy a newspaper to use as a blanket as you wait on line!
I remember reading something a few years ago that reported a computer system that was designed to diagnose diseases actually was more successful than doctors on average.
So the actual technical standards and implementations were designed by lawyers? I knew I should have taken more circuit design classes in law school, sounds like I really missed out...
Well I don't really know much about Australian law, but in the US some TOS/EULAs have been found valid. Yes, you could make an argument that you didn't see/hear the contract beforehand, but you'd probably have a hard time convincing a judge or jury of that. And honestly, do you really want to commit perjury over something like this?
Except the story specifically says he checked only about 12,000 of wikipedia's articles, so that would make it about 1% are plagiarized if you extrapolated. Still not horrible, but I'm guessing it's a lot higher than Brittanica.
People shouldn't trust free things in the regular world. Why would it magically be safer on the internet?
There are plenty of pieces of free software you can get online; why should someone with limited experience in distinguishing the good ones from the bad ones face that much punishment?
Is there any more frightening sentence? Ronald Reagan understood this.
Oh please. Reagan increased the size of the federal government and instituted the "war on drugs" (perfect example of "I'm from the government, and I'm hear to help" ideology).
Actually I thought the FDA had been warning about mercury levels in fish for years; they've even gotten some flack from the usual anti-regulatory industry groups who think they go overboard on that.
That earthbox thing looks pretty damn cool though, does it actually work as advertised?
Valid contracts don't need to be signed in every case; it would be ridiculous if they needed to be. You can't walk into a restaurant, order food, then walk out without paying and claim that it's because you never signed a contract.
How is that activism? Activism is when judges take it upon themselves to create what is essentially law.
It's activism when Thomas ignores vast sections of Article I and II, and a couple of amendments.
The only objective way to qualify something as "making law" is if a judge overrules congress. I believe, though I'm not sure, that Scalia has struck down more laws than the more liberal justices slashdotters like to vilify.
That's not true, when I worked in IT I was pro-union, and I think I wasn't alone. The problem is the anti-union libertarian crowd just opens their collective mouths a lot more than everyone else, so they give a skewed view of American IT culture.
Non-elected position having no checks and balances? Gee, where have we heard this before?
a) The judge in this case has been elected.
b) The "check" on this is immediate appeal to an appellate court, which frequently throw out contempt findings.
c) Judges in Florida can be impeached; another check.
allofmp3.com = Beautiful business model. If it is truly not legitimate, this should be a cue for a ligit company to start up stateside using a similar model.
This is a horrible business model if you're a music company; selling your product for next to nothing doesn't really help the bottom line.
It's generally better. For the first hundred years or so of this country's existence we had slavery, and for the next hundred institutionalized racism, and women didn't get the right to vote until the 20th century. Does anyone think that the period before the modern era was "more free"? If you're a white male with money, maybe, but on the whole it's a hell of a lot better now than it used to be for a majority of this country's population.
Uh...huh? Parents aren't allowed to beat their children, it's (rightly) considered a crime of violence. Reasonable corporal punishment is generally allowed. And why are you focusing in on the US? Many countries have laws prohibiting that sort of thing.
You have a good point, I think law firms and legal aid societies should advertise their services more, and I definitely believe the should be more government-funded legal aid groups. Sorry to hear about what you went through, unfortunately in criminal cases you're only guaranteed the right to counsel if there's a chance of imprisonment, so you might not have gotten help anyway. And I do think there's a serious problem with a lot of aspects of this country's legal structure; it just gets to me when every time a case like this comes up someone on slashdot just trots out the tired old "the lawyer got paid" statement and sits back and waits for applause.
But I think in this situation she had little excuse for not even attempting to figure out what was going on. I mean, I just don't understand how you can get served with court documents and not realize that this isn't just junk mail. If she had shown up in court, told the judge she couldn't afford a lawyer, the judge could have put her in touch with any number of people who could have helped her. If she moves fast and gets some real legal help she might be able to get the judgment set aside, but it sounds like she's just going to let it go. Which may mean trouble for her if at some point in the future she actually does start getting some money in.
Oh god, here we go again. A) how do you know the lawyer won anything? If the plaintiff's attorney was working on contingency they don't get a damn thing. B) Do you have any evidence that the defendant now has to go into bankruptcy? People have judgments against them all the time that they can't afford to pay, if they don't have the assets then generally the plaintiff won't go after them, because then they WILL have to go into bankruptcy and the plaintiff will not only not collect but will have to go to the extra expense of seeking an attachment of assets. C) This woman didn't defend herself, which was foolish. If someone's suing you you make it a point of finding out the details; if only one side is willing to come to court, guess who's going to win? D) I work in the legal field in south Florida; Broward county has a perfectly good legal aid service who exists precisely for these types of situations, she should have gone to them. She can even go to them now and they might help her with the appeal. Hell, if she had showed up in court she could have defended herself, judges are obligated to cut pro se litigants a lot of slack because they don't have legal training, but they're supposed to be neutral arbiters so they can't just take over one side's duties. E) Lawyers generally do what their clients tell them; I guarantee you the lawyer didn't see this woman's online postings and run to the plaintiff and offer his services; the plaintiff undoubtedly came to the lawyer instead. F) If someone is libeling you online and adversely affecting your business, what is your recourse going to be if not the legal system? Maybe, just maybe, the judgment was fair. What, exactly, is your problem SPECIFICALLY with the whole process? That the lawyer got paid for doing their job? The implication seems to be that there was a moral lapse on the part of the plaintiff's lawyer; what was it? The only person who I think didn't act properly was defendant's lawyer, but lawyers can't abandon their clients mid-litigation without permission from the judge and a show of cause, so even in that case they might have had a legitimate reason to be released.
Slashdot Mirror
That's $8.68 dollars an hour. In NY city.
That's enough to pay for 3 hot dog meals at Gray's Papaya and you'll still have enough money to buy a newspaper to use as a blanket as you wait on line!
I remember reading something a few years ago that reported a computer system that was designed to diagnose diseases actually was more successful than doctors on average.
So the actual technical standards and implementations were designed by lawyers? I knew I should have taken more circuit design classes in law school, sounds like I really missed out...
While the Christian Aid spokesman makes some good points, he seems to miss totally the idea of open code -- confusing code with data.
Maybe he had more important things to work on?
As a former 2600 game programmer I disagree.
Wow, you guys are still around? What was it like carving circuit boards out of sandstone?
Ahhh I'm just kidding, actually I was part of the Atari generation too...
Well I don't really know much about Australian law, but in the US some TOS/EULAs have been found valid. Yes, you could make an argument that you didn't see/hear the contract beforehand, but you'd probably have a hard time convincing a judge or jury of that. And honestly, do you really want to commit perjury over something like this?
They're both perfectly cromulent words.
Except the story specifically says he checked only about 12,000 of wikipedia's articles, so that would make it about 1% are plagiarized if you extrapolated. Still not horrible, but I'm guessing it's a lot higher than Brittanica.
People shouldn't trust free things in the regular world. Why would it magically be safer on the internet?
There are plenty of pieces of free software you can get online; why should someone with limited experience in distinguishing the good ones from the bad ones face that much punishment?
Is there any more frightening sentence? Ronald Reagan understood this.
Oh please. Reagan increased the size of the federal government and instituted the "war on drugs" (perfect example of "I'm from the government, and I'm hear to help" ideology).
Actually I thought the FDA had been warning about mercury levels in fish for years; they've even gotten some flack from the usual anti-regulatory industry groups who think they go overboard on that.
That earthbox thing looks pretty damn cool though, does it actually work as advertised?
Valid contracts don't need to be signed in every case; it would be ridiculous if they needed to be. You can't walk into a restaurant, order food, then walk out without paying and claim that it's because you never signed a contract.
Umm, where did you hear this? That doesn't sound right, I'm fairly sure it refers to the actual body of person.
And Origin beat Bioware; anyone remember the gypsies in Ultima 6?
You ever see the hair on those European teams? Soccer players aren't exactly symbols of masculinity...
How is that activism? Activism is when judges take it upon themselves to create what is essentially law.
It's activism when Thomas ignores vast sections of Article I and II, and a couple of amendments.
The only objective way to qualify something as "making law" is if a judge overrules congress. I believe, though I'm not sure, that Scalia has struck down more laws than the more liberal justices slashdotters like to vilify.
That's not true, when I worked in IT I was pro-union, and I think I wasn't alone. The problem is the anti-union libertarian crowd just opens their collective mouths a lot more than everyone else, so they give a skewed view of American IT culture.
Non-elected position having no checks and balances? Gee, where have we heard this before?
a) The judge in this case has been elected.
b) The "check" on this is immediate appeal to an appellate court, which frequently throw out contempt findings.
c) Judges in Florida can be impeached; another check.
Glad it's the ACLU and not the EFF, now we might actually win!
allofmp3.com = Beautiful business model. If it is truly not legitimate, this should be a cue for a ligit company to start up stateside using a similar model.
This is a horrible business model if you're a music company; selling your product for next to nothing doesn't really help the bottom line.
Where do I sign up for the free boat???
America today sure isn't what it used to be.
It's generally better. For the first hundred years or so of this country's existence we had slavery, and for the next hundred institutionalized racism, and women didn't get the right to vote until the 20th century. Does anyone think that the period before the modern era was "more free"? If you're a white male with money, maybe, but on the whole it's a hell of a lot better now than it used to be for a majority of this country's population.
Uh...huh? Parents aren't allowed to beat their children, it's (rightly) considered a crime of violence. Reasonable corporal punishment is generally allowed. And why are you focusing in on the US? Many countries have laws prohibiting that sort of thing.
You have a good point, I think law firms and legal aid societies should advertise their services more, and I definitely believe the should be more government-funded legal aid groups. Sorry to hear about what you went through, unfortunately in criminal cases you're only guaranteed the right to counsel if there's a chance of imprisonment, so you might not have gotten help anyway. And I do think there's a serious problem with a lot of aspects of this country's legal structure; it just gets to me when every time a case like this comes up someone on slashdot just trots out the tired old "the lawyer got paid" statement and sits back and waits for applause.
But I think in this situation she had little excuse for not even attempting to figure out what was going on. I mean, I just don't understand how you can get served with court documents and not realize that this isn't just junk mail. If she had shown up in court, told the judge she couldn't afford a lawyer, the judge could have put her in touch with any number of people who could have helped her. If she moves fast and gets some real legal help she might be able to get the judgment set aside, but it sounds like she's just going to let it go. Which may mean trouble for her if at some point in the future she actually does start getting some money in.
Oh god, here we go again. A) how do you know the lawyer won anything? If the plaintiff's attorney was working on contingency they don't get a damn thing. B) Do you have any evidence that the defendant now has to go into bankruptcy? People have judgments against them all the time that they can't afford to pay, if they don't have the assets then generally the plaintiff won't go after them, because then they WILL have to go into bankruptcy and the plaintiff will not only not collect but will have to go to the extra expense of seeking an attachment of assets. C) This woman didn't defend herself, which was foolish. If someone's suing you you make it a point of finding out the details; if only one side is willing to come to court, guess who's going to win? D) I work in the legal field in south Florida; Broward county has a perfectly good legal aid service who exists precisely for these types of situations, she should have gone to them. She can even go to them now and they might help her with the appeal. Hell, if she had showed up in court she could have defended herself, judges are obligated to cut pro se litigants a lot of slack because they don't have legal training, but they're supposed to be neutral arbiters so they can't just take over one side's duties. E) Lawyers generally do what their clients tell them; I guarantee you the lawyer didn't see this woman's online postings and run to the plaintiff and offer his services; the plaintiff undoubtedly came to the lawyer instead. F) If someone is libeling you online and adversely affecting your business, what is your recourse going to be if not the legal system? Maybe, just maybe, the judgment was fair. What, exactly, is your problem SPECIFICALLY with the whole process? That the lawyer got paid for doing their job? The implication seems to be that there was a moral lapse on the part of the plaintiff's lawyer; what was it? The only person who I think didn't act properly was defendant's lawyer, but lawyers can't abandon their clients mid-litigation without permission from the judge and a show of cause, so even in that case they might have had a legitimate reason to be released.