At least in the local cases I've heard of, most of the anger results from the government being really cheap. The government has amazingly (ha!) not figured out that if it would not piss people off by actually respecting the appraised value of properties it takes, people wouldn't be so angry.
But it insults people and threatens to take away their livelihoods or savings (or both) so people are getting pissed off.
I'm surprised it took this long for it to go where it has.
In that case, I'm surprised. The tobacco companies put up enough of a spoiled-brat fit when the food and DRUG administration wants to regulate their DRUG, I would have expected them to whine more about this.
"Fair market value" does vary widely from person to person, but really, what gives you the "right" to take something from someone who doesn't think your "compensation" is "just"? You bet I'd scream and fight if someone threatened to take my house away and only give me, say, $20,000 for it. That's not "just compensation" to me.
I would not be surprised if, once there's a better understanding of how the virus works (in this case, how it enters cells) that might not be used in some way in the future. Certainly, if you can block the smallpox virus from entering cells, you can block it from ever infecting a host. But there's still a lot of work left to do...
We are funded through NIH, mostly, which gets its funding from taxation. So in effect, you are helping fund my VW's mods.;)
I believe the ban on cigarette ads on TV dates from the 1950s. Apparently, it hasn't been successfully challenged in all that time -- at least, I have never seen a cigarette ad on TV, and I'm 29. Have I missed something? (entirely likely -- I skip ads with my Tivo!;))
I agree that it's great -- I help out in a lab doing image processing and computer-fixing and I, too, love it. We're studying the organism used in the smallpox vaccine, trying to learn more about its structure and how it works. I'm at a major US medical school/university, and so far, while I don't make a ton of money, I don't find myself motivated to look for a higher-paying job.
And yet, you still can't advertise cigarettes on TV. Obviously, it's already been argued successfully that yes, the government CAN regulate what can and can't be shown in TV advertising.
Banning drug ads would probably be done using the same premises used for this ban.
Fair market value is what someone is willing to pay for the property. Professional appraisers know this when setting the appraised/market value. Offering less than fair marker value is therefore not just compensation.
Try to buy my car for $100 and I laugh in your face. A professional appraiser will tell you that it's worth 80 times that. That's not "just compensation" to me for giving you the car. If you don't like it, buy your own cheapass $100 car, but don't expect anything close to something usable.
Just can quite often mean the same thing as fair, and in nearly all such cases (including a local one I've heard of in my area), it is felt that anything less than fair market value as appraised by a professional appraiser.
Thus, yes, the amendment DOES require fair market value... and hence when the government tries to get cheap, people get upset.
"Your perception of "minimum quality you'll accept" has been influenced by marketing. That "5 star test" result is marketing. Honda having plants in the US is partly marketing."
Crash testing is performed by the government and by a private testing facility, using a standard which is published on each tester's website or in brochures or other forms of information which you can view. The criteria are the same for each class of vehicle, and each crash test report includes descriptions stating why the given rating was granted. Now, while those results are certainly used by marketers, assumptions are made that many buyers will not verify them; but you are still perfectly free to do so and not take the marketers' word for it.
It also makes economic sense to source parts from many different places and then assemble your final product close to where it will be sold. The benefits of hiring local workers and thus creating jobs in local economies don't hurt, either. That's partly marketing... but a lot of common sense is there, too.
I know a guy who works at a Wal-Mart in WA State as a greeter (he says he hates it...)
He is usually not allowed to chase anyone, even when he knows they stole something.
It's annoying for him because they smirk at him, but he knows, and I did remind him, it covers his ass as well as the store's. (The store, I don't care if they get screwed friends are another matter.)
Heh. I'm a Mac user and a VW driver and I love them both -- and am very happy with both, and yes, I tend to rip them apart and happily play with their innards, then cram it all back in and go on my merry way -- but if something different is right for you (linux, or a Honda, or whatnot) I'll recommend that for you instead of that Mac and that Golf.
It's when somebody starts telling me what I shouldn't be using/driving that I get annoyed. I'm not you; you're not me. Ask me for advice but don't imperiously tell me I made the wrong choice; how do you know what I need? That's why I couldn't believe the gall of that old guy... I happen to LIKE German/Japanese cars. They've earned my respect by being good vehicles. Unlike American cars, which have earned my disdain by being pieces of crap every time my family owned one (we won't ever buy one again). And this guy thinks I should buy something that my own family has had horrible experiences with in the past just because of the badge on it? OK, fine; gonna pay for the repeated maintenance it's going to need? (don't get me started on that Oldsmobile!)
Oh, and he probably never pays attention to the fact that a lot of "foreign" cars are built right here in the USA, by US workers, if he plans to rant about job losses. I think that's a great idea, and I hope it keeps up.
the car manufacturers don't have to disclose the codes
That's because the lawsuits/legislation mandating this is still in progress. It's being argued that it's unfair business practices and unfair to buyers to prevent anyone from being able to do maintenance without paying the seller, or an agent of the seller, over and over against their will when the buyer would rather do the work themselves or pay someone THEY choose to do it (who knows more, who is better at it, who charges less, who is closer to their home/work, whatever). As it stands now, often they can't. And that's not fair.
Given that servicing is one of the major costs of owning a car, I think a lot of people would like to pay a bit more when they buy a car so that they know they won't have to pay as much to keep it running. Lexus, for instance, has been at the top of the satisfaction rankings for a few years now, or if they aren't at the top anymore, they're real close. I see their vehicles on the roads all the time, along with Acura, Toyota, and Honda (all known for being excellent, all made by two carmakers known for quality). I think there's plenty of support out there for the "pay a bit more now for less hassle later" philosophy.
Besides, forcing buyers to have things repaired at specific places is an effort to monopolize an industry and is unfairly denying other business owners the chance to win customers -- customers don't like being denied choices. Do you think the customers like getting turned away from their friendly neighborhood mechanic any more than the mechanic likes it?
It sounds like they were using the check engine light, before it became part of the OBDI/II standards, as a maintenance-required light of some sort... what turned out to actually be wrong with your truck? (nothing, I suppose, beyond it wanting routine service?)
In some countries, but not the US (unless it's since changed) VW has a "service soon" reminder pop up briefly in the odometer, but it's not the same as the light that actually indicates a malfunction. Some US carmakers do it, and Audi (VW's lux/sport division) may.
I am having a new gauge cluster retrofitted in that will have this feature as part of the trip computer, an option that 4-door Golfs don't have available in the biggest car market in the world, the USA.
The decision includes the phrase "If we were to adopt Lexmark's reading of the statute, manufacturers could potentially create monopolies for replacement parts simply by using similar, but more creative, lock-out codes.". This is interesting.
Just this past weekend, I had a check-engine light in my 2000 VW Golf diagnosed by a fellow VW club member via the use of a scanner made by ROSS-Tech Inc (which is also working on generic OBDII and BMW scanners) via the use of reverse engineering, similar to the way the BIOS of the original IBM PC was reverse-engineered.
As discussed in the article Wired News: Drivers Want Code to Their Cars, automakers don't release all of the diagnostic codes to vehicles, claiming that releasing the codes "would allow independent parts manufacturers to copy components that cost millions of dollars to develop".
However, the way I read the Lexmark article is that doing exactly that is legitimate -- by purchasing the car/printer, the consumer is granted access to the proprietary software inside the item that allows it to function, and can use third-party equipment to service it and keep it in a workable condition.
Perhaps a third-party manufacturer of automotive parts needs to sue an automaker to force release of the diagnostic codes. Or, maybe even the maker of the scanner that was used to reveal why my check-engine light triggered. But even if not, I don't think VW would, say, be able to bring a case against the scanner maker under the DMCA.
(The code was "fuel mixture too lean" and turned out to have been caused by a snapped vacuum hose; fixed in five minutes at no cost by pulling another hose off a soon-to-be-junked parts car.) Oh... and the Ars Technica guy was right: the DMCA DOES need to go away.
It WAS the Dodge Intrepid, for a while, at least, if it isn't still. I'm not sure, though.
For a while, you could buy Honda Odysseys rebadged as Isuzus, and Isuzu Rodeos rebadged as Hondas. A friend of mine has a Chevy Aveo hatchback, which is really a Daewoo.
I'd still like to know what was with that guy, though. I'd probably have yelled right back at him for having a crappy domestic car (bad family experience with domestics) and asked him how the heck he felt he could justify being able to tell me what to drive.
Have all the morals you want, asshole, but if you flap your lips at me for having different ones, yes I will call you an idiot.
And Japanese cars don't have stellar reputations for nothing, either. Has he lived in a box all these years?
(I drive a VW, I'm sure some idiot out there will scream at me for having a German car...)
I've been thinking about your comment that "The slashdot crowd goes bloody balistic any time any one violates the GPL by shipping a GPL derrived product without access to the source. They however seem to have a soft spot for violations of Microsoft's (et al) copyrights" (though actually not just now, but for a while before).
I think the general explanation is simple enough: that we were all taught as kids (or learned on our own) that we want to be able to do what we want with the stuff we have and give it away as we want to other people if we want to do that. So if we're stopped from sharing, we complain -- and the GPL encourages sharing while Microsoft does not.
I think it may be that simple. Occam's Razor strikes again.
Photoshop 8 doesn't NEED the network to work -- its built-in updating (Adobe Online) does, but you don't have to use that in order for it to function. And you can manually download the patches from adobe.com, so you can get by without Adobe Online entirely. I never install it (both windows and mac installers allow you to select components and uncheck them) and never have trouble.
"Is a personal firewall really needed on every secretary's desk? I would hope not."
I insist on them on every computer. I actually get relatively few help requests (and when I do get them I send a howto link with an offer to visit in person if they still need help, and that works -- but we're a university, so we have fewer idiots. In any case, the firewalls are very useful for getting rid of those annoying viruses, etc. that try to scan the network to infect other machines. Saves me more headaches later.
Try downloading the full package, not the one the updater thinks you need, and installing from that. I've had to install it twice on a machine or two.
The rollback mechanism is simply the built-in system restore point mechanism -- that "last known good configuration" boot menu item occasionally comes in really handy.
Slashdot Mirror
I used to use that sig. I'm gonna sue. ;)
(seriously, I'm hearing-impaired myself, and I still use it for one of my e-mail accounts!)
While true, note the past tense to this. It does not suck now. In fact, while I used to hate it, now I like it.
Networks are stupid. Anything actually good gets run, it dies. It's like a law or something.
At least in the local cases I've heard of, most of the anger results from the government being really cheap. The government has amazingly (ha!) not figured out that if it would not piss people off by actually respecting the appraised value of properties it takes, people wouldn't be so angry.
But it insults people and threatens to take away their livelihoods or savings (or both) so people are getting pissed off.
I'm surprised it took this long for it to go where it has.
In that case, I'm surprised. The tobacco companies put up enough of a spoiled-brat fit when the food and DRUG administration wants to regulate their DRUG, I would have expected them to whine more about this.
"Fair market value" does vary widely from person to person, but really, what gives you the "right" to take something from someone who doesn't think your "compensation" is "just"? You bet I'd scream and fight if someone threatened to take my house away and only give me, say, $20,000 for it. That's not "just compensation" to me.
I would not be surprised if, once there's a better understanding of how the virus works (in this case, how it enters cells) that might not be used in some way in the future. Certainly, if you can block the smallpox virus from entering cells, you can block it from ever infecting a host. But there's still a lot of work left to do...
;)
We are funded through NIH, mostly, which gets its funding from taxation. So in effect, you are helping fund my VW's mods.
I believe the ban on cigarette ads on TV dates from the 1950s. Apparently, it hasn't been successfully challenged in all that time -- at least, I have never seen a cigarette ad on TV, and I'm 29. Have I missed something? (entirely likely -- I skip ads with my Tivo! ;))
I agree that it's great -- I help out in a lab doing image processing and computer-fixing and I, too, love it. We're studying the organism used in the smallpox vaccine, trying to learn more about its structure and how it works. I'm at a major US medical school/university, and so far, while I don't make a ton of money, I don't find myself motivated to look for a higher-paying job.
And yet, you still can't advertise cigarettes on TV. Obviously, it's already been argued successfully that yes, the government CAN regulate what can and can't be shown in TV advertising.
Banning drug ads would probably be done using the same premises used for this ban.
Fair market value is what someone is willing to pay for the property. Professional appraisers know this when setting the appraised/market value. Offering less than fair marker value is therefore not just compensation.
Try to buy my car for $100 and I laugh in your face. A professional appraiser will tell you that it's worth 80 times that. That's not "just compensation" to me for giving you the car. If you don't like it, buy your own cheapass $100 car, but don't expect anything close to something usable.
Just can quite often mean the same thing as fair, and in nearly all such cases (including a local one I've heard of in my area), it is felt that anything less than fair market value as appraised by a professional appraiser.
... and hence when the government tries to get cheap, people get upset.
Thus, yes, the amendment DOES require fair market value
"Your perception of "minimum quality you'll accept" has been influenced by marketing. That "5 star test" result is marketing. Honda having plants in the US is partly marketing."
Crash testing is performed by the government and by a private testing facility, using a standard which is published on each tester's website or in brochures or other forms of information which you can view. The criteria are the same for each class of vehicle, and each crash test report includes descriptions stating why the given rating was granted. Now, while those results are certainly used by marketers, assumptions are made that many buyers will not verify them; but you are still perfectly free to do so and not take the marketers' word for it.
It also makes economic sense to source parts from many different places and then assemble your final product close to where it will be sold. The benefits of hiring local workers and thus creating jobs in local economies don't hurt, either. That's partly marketing... but a lot of common sense is there, too.
Get your cursor off me, you damn dirty human!
I know a guy who works at a Wal-Mart in WA State as a greeter (he says he hates it...)
He is usually not allowed to chase anyone, even when he knows they stole something.
It's annoying for him because they smirk at him, but he knows, and I did remind him, it covers his ass as well as the store's. (The store, I don't care if they get screwed friends are another matter.)
Heh. I'm a Mac user and a VW driver and I love them both -- and am very happy with both, and yes, I tend to rip them apart and happily play with their innards, then cram it all back in and go on my merry way -- but if something different is right for you (linux, or a Honda, or whatnot) I'll recommend that for you instead of that Mac and that Golf.
:)
It's when somebody starts telling me what I shouldn't be using/driving that I get annoyed. I'm not you; you're not me. Ask me for advice but don't imperiously tell me I made the wrong choice; how do you know what I need? That's why I couldn't believe the gall of that old guy... I happen to LIKE German/Japanese cars. They've earned my respect by being good vehicles. Unlike American cars, which have earned my disdain by being pieces of crap every time my family owned one (we won't ever buy one again). And this guy thinks I should buy something that my own family has had horrible experiences with in the past just because of the badge on it? OK, fine; gonna pay for the repeated maintenance it's going to need? (don't get me started on that Oldsmobile!)
Oh, and he probably never pays attention to the fact that a lot of "foreign" cars are built right here in the USA, by US workers, if he plans to rant about job losses. I think that's a great idea, and I hope it keeps up.
Thanks for the sig compliment.
the car manufacturers don't have to disclose the codes
That's because the lawsuits/legislation mandating this is still in progress. It's being argued that it's unfair business practices and unfair to buyers to prevent anyone from being able to do maintenance without paying the seller, or an agent of the seller, over and over against their will when the buyer would rather do the work themselves or pay someone THEY choose to do it (who knows more, who is better at it, who charges less, who is closer to their home/work, whatever). As it stands now, often they can't. And that's not fair.
Given that servicing is one of the major costs of owning a car, I think a lot of people would like to pay a bit more when they buy a car so that they know they won't have to pay as much to keep it running. Lexus, for instance, has been at the top of the satisfaction rankings for a few years now, or if they aren't at the top anymore, they're real close. I see their vehicles on the roads all the time, along with Acura, Toyota, and Honda (all known for being excellent, all made by two carmakers known for quality). I think there's plenty of support out there for the "pay a bit more now for less hassle later" philosophy.
Besides, forcing buyers to have things repaired at specific places is an effort to monopolize an industry and is unfairly denying other business owners the chance to win customers -- customers don't like being denied choices. Do you think the customers like getting turned away from their friendly neighborhood mechanic any more than the mechanic likes it?
It sounds like they were using the check engine light, before it became part of the OBDI/II standards, as a maintenance-required light of some sort... what turned out to actually be wrong with your truck? (nothing, I suppose, beyond it wanting routine service?)
In some countries, but not the US (unless it's since changed) VW has a "service soon" reminder pop up briefly in the odometer, but it's not the same as the light that actually indicates a malfunction. Some US carmakers do it, and Audi (VW's lux/sport division) may.
I am having a new gauge cluster retrofitted in that will have this feature as part of the trip computer, an option that 4-door Golfs don't have available in the biggest car market in the world, the USA.
Go figure.
The decision includes the phrase "If we were to adopt Lexmark's reading of the statute, manufacturers could potentially create monopolies for replacement parts simply by using similar, but more creative, lock-out codes.". This is interesting.
Just this past weekend, I had a check-engine light in my 2000 VW Golf diagnosed by a fellow VW club member via the use of a scanner made by ROSS-Tech Inc (which is also working on generic OBDII and BMW scanners) via the use of reverse engineering, similar to the way the BIOS of the original IBM PC was reverse-engineered.
As discussed in the article Wired News: Drivers Want Code to Their Cars, automakers don't release all of the diagnostic codes to vehicles, claiming that releasing the codes "would allow independent parts manufacturers to copy components that cost millions of dollars to develop".
However, the way I read the Lexmark article is that doing exactly that is legitimate -- by purchasing the car/printer, the consumer is granted access to the proprietary software inside the item that allows it to function, and can use third-party equipment to service it and keep it in a workable condition.
Perhaps a third-party manufacturer of automotive parts needs to sue an automaker to force release of the diagnostic codes. Or, maybe even the maker of the scanner that was used to reveal why my check-engine light triggered. But even if not, I don't think VW would, say, be able to bring a case against the scanner maker under the DMCA.
(The code was "fuel mixture too lean" and turned out to have been caused by a snapped vacuum hose; fixed in five minutes at no cost by pulling another hose off a soon-to-be-junked parts car.)
Oh... and the Ars Technica guy was right: the DMCA DOES need to go away.
It WAS the Dodge Intrepid, for a while, at least, if it isn't still. I'm not sure, though.
For a while, you could buy Honda Odysseys rebadged as Isuzus, and Isuzu Rodeos rebadged as Hondas. A friend of mine has a Chevy Aveo hatchback, which is really a Daewoo.
I'd still like to know what was with that guy, though. I'd probably have yelled right back at him for having a crappy domestic car (bad family experience with domestics) and asked him how the heck he felt he could justify being able to tell me what to drive.
Have all the morals you want, asshole, but if you flap your lips at me for having different ones, yes I will call you an idiot.
And Japanese cars don't have stellar reputations for nothing, either. Has he lived in a box all these years?
(I drive a VW, I'm sure some idiot out there will scream at me for having a German car...)
I think it's time to write up a bookmarklet or something that posts this in cases like this. ;)
I've been thinking about your comment that "The slashdot crowd goes bloody balistic any time any one violates the GPL by shipping a GPL derrived product without access to the source. They however seem to have a soft spot for violations of Microsoft's (et al) copyrights" (though actually not just now, but for a while before).
I think the general explanation is simple enough: that we were all taught as kids (or learned on our own) that we want to be able to do what we want with the stuff we have and give it away as we want to other people if we want to do that. So if we're stopped from sharing, we complain -- and the GPL encourages sharing while Microsoft does not.
I think it may be that simple. Occam's Razor strikes again.
Photoshop 8 doesn't NEED the network to work -- its built-in updating (Adobe Online) does, but you don't have to use that in order for it to function. And you can manually download the patches from adobe.com, so you can get by without Adobe Online entirely. I never install it (both windows and mac installers allow you to select components and uncheck them) and never have trouble.
"Is a personal firewall really needed on every secretary's desk? I would hope not."
I insist on them on every computer. I actually get relatively few help requests (and when I do get them I send a howto link with an offer to visit in person if they still need help, and that works -- but we're a university, so we have fewer idiots. In any case, the firewalls are very useful for getting rid of those annoying viruses, etc. that try to scan the network to infect other machines. Saves me more headaches later.
Try downloading the full package, not the one the updater thinks you need, and installing from that. I've had to install it twice on a machine or two.
The rollback mechanism is simply the built-in system restore point mechanism -- that "last known good configuration" boot menu item occasionally comes in really handy.