I'll go along with this one, I love my Logi mouse, with the caveat issue that you raise. I'm ambimousterous, but not fully ambidexterous. The Logi is a right hander period.
When taking hand written notes I have to use my right hand to write and left hand for the mouse. The best symetrical mouse I've ever used is the orginal Microsoft optical wheel mouse. It's 98% of the Logi, in either hand, so I can pass it back and forth with ease.
Speaking of writing, another favorite item of mine is my Parker matte black ballpoint pen. The traditional tapered shape (I can't stand the pencil straight barrel of a Cross), and a bit slender for long writing sessions, but something about its feel and finish hits me just right and I don't do long writing sessions anymore. That's why God invented typing.
Oxo kitchen tools. This stuff is truly the bee's knees. They're simply perfect. I've gotten rid of all my "classy" expensive kitchen stuff in favor of these "cheap" plastic tools.
With the exception of my traditional Japanese bamboo rice paddle. Sometimes the traditional tool is honed to perfection.
Snap-On combination wrenches. The Craftsman stuff is just as good, until you have to spend all day every day turning them. The Snap-Ons are caressable. The Craftsmans will leave your hands mildly abraded and sore.
Shimano bicycle brake levers. It took 100 years before someone got that one right. Go figure.
A replica of a 100 year old Adirondack hiking staff pattern made by the Poestenkill Hiking Staff company. They don't seem to have a web presence and for all know have been out of business for a long time. Mine is 20 years old. Simply perfect. In this case 100 years ago they knew a lot better than we do now. Perfectly shaped. Perfectly balanced. Perfect resilience.
Well, what you're talking about there are cases taken on contingency, personal injury and the like where the lawyer is representing the plaintif. The current situation is a bit different.
In the old days though it was considered part of the lawyer's professional ethics to take certain cases pro bono because they needed to be fought. Clarence Darrow is a prime example of someone who took this seriously, using his success in these cases to be able to charge high rates to offset his loss of time and expenses. There are still those lawyers who follow this practice, but their numbers are dwindling.
That said my statement that you fight the fights you can win is meant to be taken as meaning you fight the fights you believe you have a chance of winning. It is always a question of probability, not certitude.
Mr. Templeton's example of the 2600 DeCSS case is a good example of this. I certainly thought they could win. They did not. They did not pursue appeal to the Supreme Court. They felt another future case along the same lines would have a better chance of prevailing.
The recent decision in California supports both the idea that the issue was winable, but that someone else was going to be the one to do so.
Sometimes you give it your best shot, but cut your losses when things do not go as you might have hoped.
Thus the example, ironically I guess, serves to both support Mr. Templton's claim that the EFF fights losing battles and my own that you fight battles you can win.
In court you fight the fights that need fighting that you can win. To do otherwise is pointless.
In the halls of the legislature you fight the good fight, with all your might.
Even civil disobedience is either directed at cases where one feels one can prevail and overturn a law, such as the Scopes trial, or where conviction under the law forces the hand of the legislature to act, such as in the civil rights movement of the 50s and 60s.
The fact that Blizzard is not seeking to charge for the use of their servers is irrelevant to the issue of rights. If a game publisher can force you to specific terms of use after purchase, then charging for such use is inevitable by someone.
If a publisher cannot enforce terms of use after purchase than the whole issue becomes moot. It's your game.
My game is Grand Prix Legends. A game that six years after it's release not only still has a strong community, but is still selling. Since it is now a bargain title there are people who buy it several copies at a time to give them away. In one case someone in England just sent a copy as a gift to a young teen in South America who was complaining that he couldn't buy it locally and couldn't buy it over the net, and was thus constrained to the six year old demo version.
It's a great game, and still considered by many to be state of the art, but what has really played the key role in its longevity is this:
It was released with rock solid net code, but the publisher provided no official servers. Nothing. Here it is guys, you're on your own. Every copy of the game can function as a server. Have at it.
And we have. And continue to. And will probably continue to for many years. And will keep purchasing copies of the game as long as it's even vaguely possible to do so.
During the occupation of France during WWII the French resistence was made up largely of two camps. The young "hot heads" who wanted to "do something," and the older gentlemen who advised a studious caution.
The young hotheads most often got themselves killed while accomplishing nothing.
As I recall there was one group of 40 to 70 year olds, mostly farmers, who managed to tie up an entire division of the German army chasing them for the duration of the war without suffering a single loss on their part.
When one's resources are limited one is perhaps best advised to pursue that resistence in which one is likely to prevail. In fact Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. defined the role of the lawyer as being predictive of success.
The proper place to tilt at legal windmills is in the legislatures, not the courts.
Nor is this case a trivial one with regards to digital rights. At stake is whether a publisher has the right to tell you how you can play a game which you legally have license to play. More and more game publishers seem to be looking to charge you to play a game after you purchase it to further fill their coffers.
Which is why those movies Traci Lords made when she was 16 are such hot sellers down at the video store on the corner, right?
She was over the age of consent. The movies are child pornography.
Check your own facts. Yours are in error as regards to law.
There is no such legal thing as "kiddie" porn. Only child pornography. The age in question is 18. Parent poster also used the term child porn, not "kiddie."
Personally I myself do use the term "kiddie" porn to distinguish between items depicting prepubesent children and the underage, but sexually mature. I think it's a valid distinction.
If the law provides that the penalty for breaking a window is building a deck, then yes, that is the payment you have the right to demand.
You also seem to be laboring under the misconception that the RIAA is suing people for possession, as well as thinking that ownership of the CD with a reciept to back up said ownership would have some relation to the RIAA's legal claims. Such is not the case.
That's easy. A lawsuit is the legally prescribe means of settling a financial dispute. Threating to sue is no different than demanding payment you think is due to you.
Extortion is application of illegal threat or coercion. Or what a lawyer might refer to as "extralegal remedy."
If the RIAA had no cause for action then it would be extortion.
Using the DMCA is simply using the law. It does not make them anymore an officer of the court than you would be if you filed a complaint based on some violation of the law against you. The fault is with the DMCA.
The John Doe subpoenas are deeply disturbing, however, as is the automated procedure with which they were obtained without actual judicial review. That sort of thing simply shouldn't be allowed to happen.
Please note my reference to the RIAA "cops," and the greater chance of one of their victims prevailing with a suit.
I will note, however, that in cases where a penalty might be legitimately due to the plaintif a settlement that includes a penalty is not untoward. As it happens the unlicensed distribution of materials covered by copyright includes such a penalty.
Please also note that I'm not expressing any opinion about the morality of such laws or settlements, or that I don't think the RIAA are scum sucking bastards who are using extortionate methods to settle their claims.
The issue should never have arisen in the first place because the methods used to file in the first place were legally revolting under any theory of American law.
We are not discussing fair, we are discussing law.
If one pleads guilty to a capital crime that one knows one did not commit in order to obtain a sentence of 20 years and avoid the risk of death penalty at trial that is not fair.
You are, nonetheless, a convicted murderer with no presumption of innocence and the Supreme Court has ruled that it is your right to accept such a plea bargain and thus waive your own civil rights in the matter if you think that is a better legal tactic.
That fact has no standing in this case, nor does it have it have any standing in law. Suits are intended to be filed against people who will not settle without one. If they are willing to settle there is no need of a suit.
If I break your window and agree to pay for it what need is there of a suit if you are satisfied?
I offered no such premise, nor did I provide any argument in support of the nonexistant premise, therefore it cannot be refuted, although your thoughts may be different from my own.
I have greater personal knowledge of the history of Java than the link you provided, from its days as C++ minus minus until today. If my memory needed refreshing I could turn to one of the several volumes that reside at my elbow for reference.
In fact, even in today's legal climate I doubt it will survive the priliminary hearing. If the RIAA had any legitimate cause they the right to bring action. They also had the right to settle, as did anyone they brought action against.
If you lend someone ten bucks, they say they can't pay, you sue them, and you both agree to settle the matter for a fiver there is no extortion.
In fact the courts do everything they can to encourage such a resolution and avoid a trial.
If she felt the RIAA did not have grounds she had the opportunity to have her day in court.
Settling and then demanding your day in court, plus damages, well, that's a wee bit of a stretch, even against the RIAA.
The people who have been hustled by the RIAA "cops" would stand a much better chance with this sort of action.
(and hey - that means distributed to anyone but the nearest and dearest of the kid and parents or guardians in a wholesome way).
Here again you have a problem. The law makes no such distinction. It is just as illegal for Uncle Harry to have child porn of his neice as it is for a stranger.
I might point out that child porn and rape are completely disconnected. Some child porn does not depict any actual sexual act, and legal sexual acts may illegal to make images of. In fact, in America, it would be perfectly possible to go to jail for possessing an erotic picture of your own wife.
In Maine, New Jersey, Vermont, Conneticut, in fact in the majority of states, it's perfectly legal to screw that 16 year old cheerleader, you just can't take her picture.
You are consfusing the age of consent with the age of majority, a confusion the laws themselves often promote. Perhaps this is the cause of your being modded as a troll by someone.
P.S. you forgot to include the legal disclaimer that your post is void where advocating changing the law is illegal. The net police shall be arriving with their black helicopters momentarily. Please, do not resist arrest. Maybe you'll get lucky and get to inhabit Thoreau's old cell.
I think that Java and C# both have their genesis in commercial aspirations, rather than technical. They both are, and will continue to grow more so, odd, kludgy and crufty languages that blow with whatever trend is now fasionable, wholely for the benefit of their companies.
Personally I wouldn't hitch too many of my horses to either one of them.
Slashdot Mirror
Ah! But it isn't a quote until they publish the source, with attribution.
Gotcha.
KFG
Hey, you left out the Confucian, Tierra del Fuego Ona, BeOS users, you insensitive clod!
KFG
Hate it all you want, but it is the editor for the pure touch typist. Nothing else even comes close.
Billy boy, ya done good. Bless you.
KFG
I'll go along with this one, I love my Logi mouse, with the caveat issue that you raise. I'm ambimousterous, but not fully ambidexterous. The Logi is a right hander period.
When taking hand written notes I have to use my right hand to write and left hand for the mouse. The best symetrical mouse I've ever used is the orginal Microsoft optical wheel mouse. It's 98% of the Logi, in either hand, so I can pass it back and forth with ease.
Speaking of writing, another favorite item of mine is my Parker matte black ballpoint pen. The traditional tapered shape (I can't stand the pencil straight barrel of a Cross), and a bit slender for long writing sessions, but something about its feel and finish hits me just right and I don't do long writing sessions anymore. That's why God invented typing.
Oxo kitchen tools. This stuff is truly the bee's knees. They're simply perfect. I've gotten rid of all my "classy" expensive kitchen stuff in favor of these "cheap" plastic tools.
With the exception of my traditional Japanese bamboo rice paddle. Sometimes the traditional tool is honed to perfection.
Snap-On combination wrenches. The Craftsman stuff is just as good, until you have to spend all day every day turning them. The Snap-Ons are caressable. The Craftsmans will leave your hands mildly abraded and sore.
Shimano bicycle brake levers. It took 100 years before someone got that one right. Go figure.
A replica of a 100 year old Adirondack hiking staff pattern made by the Poestenkill Hiking Staff company. They don't seem to have a web presence and for all know have been out of business for a long time. Mine is 20 years old. Simply perfect. In this case 100 years ago they knew a lot better than we do now. Perfectly shaped. Perfectly balanced. Perfect resilience.
KFG
Well, what you're talking about there are cases taken on contingency, personal injury and the like where the lawyer is representing the plaintif. The current situation is a bit different.
In the old days though it was considered part of the lawyer's professional ethics to take certain cases pro bono because they needed to be fought. Clarence Darrow is a prime example of someone who took this seriously, using his success in these cases to be able to charge high rates to offset his loss of time and expenses. There are still those lawyers who follow this practice, but their numbers are dwindling.
That said my statement that you fight the fights you can win is meant to be taken as meaning you fight the fights you believe you have a chance of winning. It is always a question of probability, not certitude.
Mr. Templeton's example of the 2600 DeCSS case is a good example of this. I certainly thought they could win. They did not. They did not pursue appeal to the Supreme Court. They felt another future case along the same lines would have a better chance of prevailing.
The recent decision in California supports both the idea that the issue was winable, but that someone else was going to be the one to do so.
Sometimes you give it your best shot, but cut your losses when things do not go as you might have hoped.
Thus the example, ironically I guess, serves to both support Mr. Templton's claim that the EFF fights losing battles and my own that you fight battles you can win.
KFG
To my brother Louie, who said I'd never remember him in my will. Hello Louie.
Sorry. Couldn't resist.
KFG
In court you fight the fights that need fighting that you can win. To do otherwise is pointless.
In the halls of the legislature you fight the good fight, with all your might.
Even civil disobedience is either directed at cases where one feels one can prevail and overturn a law, such as the Scopes trial, or where conviction under the law forces the hand of the legislature to act, such as in the civil rights movement of the 50s and 60s.
The fact that Blizzard is not seeking to charge for the use of their servers is irrelevant to the issue of rights. If a game publisher can force you to specific terms of use after purchase, then charging for such use is inevitable by someone.
If a publisher cannot enforce terms of use after purchase than the whole issue becomes moot. It's your game.
My game is Grand Prix Legends. A game that six years after it's release not only still has a strong community, but is still selling. Since it is now a bargain title there are people who buy it several copies at a time to give them away. In one case someone in England just sent a copy as a gift to a young teen in South America who was complaining that he couldn't buy it locally and couldn't buy it over the net, and was thus constrained to the six year old demo version.
It's a great game, and still considered by many to be state of the art, but what has really played the key role in its longevity is this:
It was released with rock solid net code, but the publisher provided no official servers. Nothing. Here it is guys, you're on your own. Every copy of the game can function as a server. Have at it.
And we have. And continue to. And will probably continue to for many years. And will keep purchasing copies of the game as long as it's even vaguely possible to do so.
All because it's our net game, that we control.
KFG
You think you've got it bad?
I'm an AoE addict.
KFG
In which case I entirely fail to grasp the point of your previous post, which in some regards contradicts this one.
In this one you also confuse issues of 16 and under 16.
I might add that so long as your morals are not in contradiction to the law you are certainly free to apply them as you will.
My own morals, for instance, prevent me from eating meat. I do expect those morals to apply to you, however.
KFG
During the occupation of France during WWII the French resistence was made up largely of two camps. The young "hot heads" who wanted to "do something," and the older gentlemen who advised a studious caution.
The young hotheads most often got themselves killed while accomplishing nothing.
As I recall there was one group of 40 to 70 year olds, mostly farmers, who managed to tie up an entire division of the German army chasing them for the duration of the war without suffering a single loss on their part.
When one's resources are limited one is perhaps best advised to pursue that resistence in which one is likely to prevail. In fact Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. defined the role of the lawyer as being predictive of success.
The proper place to tilt at legal windmills is in the legislatures, not the courts.
Nor is this case a trivial one with regards to digital rights. At stake is whether a publisher has the right to tell you how you can play a game which you legally have license to play. More and more game publishers seem to be looking to charge you to play a game after you purchase it to further fill their coffers.
This could be a legal landmark case.
KFG
Which is why those movies Traci Lords made when she was 16 are such hot sellers down at the video store on the corner, right?
She was over the age of consent. The movies are child pornography.
Check your own facts. Yours are in error as regards to law.
There is no such legal thing as "kiddie" porn. Only child pornography. The age in question is 18. Parent poster also used the term child porn, not "kiddie."
Personally I myself do use the term "kiddie" porn to distinguish between items depicting prepubesent children and the underage, but sexually mature. I think it's a valid distinction.
But that distinction is social, not legal.
KFG
If the law provides that the penalty for breaking a window is building a deck, then yes, that is the payment you have the right to demand.
You also seem to be laboring under the misconception that the RIAA is suing people for possession, as well as thinking that ownership of the CD with a reciept to back up said ownership would have some relation to the RIAA's legal claims. Such is not the case.
KFG
That's easy. A lawsuit is the legally prescribe means of settling a financial dispute. Threating to sue is no different than demanding payment you think is due to you.
Extortion is application of illegal threat or coercion. Or what a lawyer might refer to as "extralegal remedy."
If the RIAA had no cause for action then it would be extortion.
Using the DMCA is simply using the law. It does not make them anymore an officer of the court than you would be if you filed a complaint based on some violation of the law against you. The fault is with the DMCA.
The John Doe subpoenas are deeply disturbing, however, as is the automated procedure with which they were obtained without actual judicial review. That sort of thing simply shouldn't be allowed to happen.
KFG
Please note my reference to the RIAA "cops," and the greater chance of one of their victims prevailing with a suit.
I will note, however, that in cases where a penalty might be legitimately due to the plaintif a settlement that includes a penalty is not untoward. As it happens the unlicensed distribution of materials covered by copyright includes such a penalty.
Please also note that I'm not expressing any opinion about the morality of such laws or settlements, or that I don't think the RIAA are scum sucking bastards who are using extortionate methods to settle their claims.
The issue should never have arisen in the first place because the methods used to file in the first place were legally revolting under any theory of American law.
KFG
We are not discussing fair, we are discussing law.
If one pleads guilty to a capital crime that one knows one did not commit in order to obtain a sentence of 20 years and avoid the risk of death penalty at trial that is not fair.
You are, nonetheless, a convicted murderer with no presumption of innocence and the Supreme Court has ruled that it is your right to accept such a plea bargain and thus waive your own civil rights in the matter if you think that is a better legal tactic.
You are thinking in terms of justice.
Silly boy. That can get you fried.
KFG
That fact has no standing in this case, nor does it have it have any standing in law. Suits are intended to be filed against people who will not settle without one. If they are willing to settle there is no need of a suit.
If I break your window and agree to pay for it what need is there of a suit if you are satisfied?
KFG
I offered no such premise, nor did I provide any argument in support of the nonexistant premise, therefore it cannot be refuted, although your thoughts may be different from my own.
I have greater personal knowledge of the history of Java than the link you provided, from its days as C++ minus minus until today. If my memory needed refreshing I could turn to one of the several volumes that reside at my elbow for reference.
What I think takes into account such history.
KFG
In fact, even in today's legal climate I doubt it will survive the priliminary hearing. If the RIAA had any legitimate cause they the right to bring action. They also had the right to settle, as did anyone they brought action against.
If you lend someone ten bucks, they say they can't pay, you sue them, and you both agree to settle the matter for a fiver there is no extortion.
In fact the courts do everything they can to encourage such a resolution and avoid a trial.
If she felt the RIAA did not have grounds she had the opportunity to have her day in court.
Settling and then demanding your day in court, plus damages, well, that's a wee bit of a stretch, even against the RIAA.
The people who have been hustled by the RIAA "cops" would stand a much better chance with this sort of action.
KFG
Which is why Parenting, Seventeen and the Sears catalog are all illegal child porn.
KFG
(and hey - that means distributed to anyone but the nearest and dearest of the kid and parents or guardians in a wholesome way).
Here again you have a problem. The law makes no such distinction. It is just as illegal for Uncle Harry to have child porn of his neice as it is for a stranger.
KFG
I might point out that child porn and rape are completely disconnected. Some child porn does not depict any actual sexual act, and legal sexual acts may illegal to make images of. In fact, in America, it would be perfectly possible to go to jail for possessing an erotic picture of your own wife.
In Maine, New Jersey, Vermont, Conneticut, in fact in the majority of states, it's perfectly legal to screw that 16 year old cheerleader, you just can't take her picture.
You are consfusing the age of consent with the age of majority, a confusion the laws themselves often promote. Perhaps this is the cause of your being modded as a troll by someone.
P.S. you forgot to include the legal disclaimer that your post is void where advocating changing the law is illegal. The net police shall be arriving with their black helicopters momentarily. Please, do not resist arrest. Maybe you'll get lucky and get to inhabit Thoreau's old cell.
KFG
I responded to a request for my thoughts.
."
I began my post with the premise "I think that. .
My conclusion was "That is what I think."
I'm sorry, but in this particular instance I shall have to fall back on argument by authority, and feel reasonably justified in doing so.
KFG
It seems more like social engineering.
If your only friend is a bottle of Pepsi.
KFG
Whoooooooooooooosh!
Yes, that was the sound of the joke going right over most reader's heads.
Making your parenthetical point I suppose.
KFG
I think that Java and C# both have their genesis in commercial aspirations, rather than technical. They both are, and will continue to grow more so, odd, kludgy and crufty languages that blow with whatever trend is now fasionable, wholely for the benefit of their companies.
Personally I wouldn't hitch too many of my horses to either one of them.
That is what I think.
KFG