Of course... and as we all know, ad hominems are much simpler to invoke than actually constructing a reasoned argument. That this may or may not reflect on the intelligence of a person who would utilize such a technique is an exercise left for the reader.
They don't arrest them on the spot, they wait until there's enough dots to connect to charge them with something and THEN they arrest them
You almost seem to say that like you would rather that they actually *DO* go and arrest people who haven't done anything illegal. Obviously that's absurd.
You clearly can't suggest that it is somehow wrong for them to not arrest somebody who hasn't actually done anything wrong, even if they may expecting them to do so eventually.
Are you suggesting, then, that it should be wrong for them to expect anyone to possibly break the law when they haven't actually done so?
Because that treads dangerously close to suggesting that certain thoughts should be criminal.
Who suggested that I needed anybody here to defend what I'm saying? if NFL's lawyers actually came down on me for daring to describing a game that they had televised to somebody else (they probably wouldn't even ever do that, but let's say just assume that they did), I would expediently point out those facts to them, at which point they would promptly drop any intention of pursing it further, since I would have shown that I won't be backing down,and would only be costing them money to try and make a case they couldn't actually prove in court.
You would only go bankrupt if you are paying a lawyer. You don't need a lawyer to state what is simple objective truth, that is, that facts are not actually copyrightable. The NFL is perfectly welcome to claim that they prohibit it, but they have precisely zero ability to actually enforce that except against people who either can't be bothered to stand up for themselves, or are too fearful to because they believe that the NFL might have such jurisdiction. They do not. I know that. And I know beyond any shadow of doubt, to the point that I would willfully stake even my very life on it, that it would cost me precisely zero dollars to educate their lawyers of this fact. Of course, it won't come down to that, because they know that they really don't have that ability, and the instant that anybody actually ever tried to point this out to them, they would back down in heartbeat to avoid the legal expense it would incur.
It should be criminal to sue somebody over a matter that you actually have no lawfully recognized jurisdiction in, but it often isn't... and so the NFL can continue to get away with such tactics for as long as people are either too ignorant to realize that they do not have such authority or are too indifferent to bother to try to defend themselves.
How does a claim form being served on you cost you any money if you haven't hired a lawyer? And why should you require a lawyer to simply say what is genuinely factual, that is, that facts and historical events are not copyrightable property, and the NFL can only claim ownership over their presentation of those facts, they have absolutely no jurisdiction over the facts themselves?
Maybe not.... but is plainly calling someone by a derogatory and racist term suspension worthy? In many jurisdictions it is.
Like witchcraft, words do not have any power themselves to do harm, but the notions can nonetheless be hurtful to those that it may be used against, even if the person who is being spoken does not believe that there is any credibility to it. It is that potential to do harm that the school is trying to address... not that they suggest they should take such threats as being remotely credible.
Again, this has nothing to do whether the threat is credible or not... this is first and finally about bullying, plain and simple. Name-calling is no more of a credible threat to a person's actual safety or security than a threat of invoking witchcraft may be, but when spoken in anger, or to be deliberately hurtful, there is no reason why the two should not be treated with equal severity. You can get suspended for calling a classmate by certain derogatory and highly racist terms, for example, It is treated with such severity because even though the act of speaking itself is not directly harmful, the fact is that the words themselves can still be psychologically hurtful to the person they are spoken to... not because the person necessarily believes them but because the individual is being treated as being somehow less of a person than they actually deserve. So what makes calling somebody by such a derogatory term any more "real" than threatening to use witchcraft against them? Of course, if you are advocating that we should allow children to "harmlessly" bully eachother around with such words so they might ultimately develop some callousness towards actually caring what anyone who might be a jerk thinks, then that's another matter.
You're putting words in my mouth.... I believe the correct term for what you have done above is called "strawman".
Specifically, I did not say that anything that might be inappropriate ought to mean that it should also be outlawed. There's no law against being rude to people either... but that's inappropriate as well, and not entirely unreasonable to prohibit such behavior in certain environments, such as school.
Also, the point is not to suggest that what the kid was threatening to do could ever actually be carried out, the point is that he still said it... and he did so to in anger, to be hurtful, and overall just trying to be a bully.
Of course, you might also argue that it's unreasonable for a school to ever try to deal with bullying using such extreme measures, and I don't want to get into the merits or problems that such tactics may bring, I am only suggesting that contrary to the above assertion, the school is *not* trying to teach kids to fear things that cannot actually harm them.
Names don't actually hurt anyone either, but in some places, you can still get suspended for calling someone a sufficiently rude and offensive term.
This isn't teaching kids to fear imaginary threats, it is teaching that threatening people, whether the threat is credible or not, is highly inappropriate, and won't be tolerated.
It genuinely seems unreasonable to me to simultaneously both be in a public place and while still having any expectation of privacy. Unless they are turning around and arresting the people whose plates they found at such lawful meetings without charging them with a crime beyond the fact that they were there in the first place (which is not illegal) then there'd be something wrong. That's not what's happening, so I don't see the problem.
How would they bankrupt a person who they haven't got any successful ruling against yet? To get a successful ruling, they would still need to convince a judge that events from history, or mere facts, could actually ever be considered a form of intellectual property. They cannot be.... and this point is even explicitly stated in copyright law.
They are, of course, perfectly welcome to claim that they will prohibit it all they want to... the fact of the matter is, however, that they have precisely zero ability to actually enforce that prohibition except against people who believe that they ever had such power in the first place.
They can "prohibit" it all they want... them saying something does not make it true.
History cannot be copyrighted. Accounts of those historical events can be, but the events themselves are facts, and facts cannot be considered property, intellectual or otherwise.
To successfully sue somebody, you still have to actually show how that party had actually done some sort of wrong by you... and them simply saying that it is wrong doesn't actually make it so. They would still need to convince a judge of that.
Browsing tends to imply a cursory style of reading, while I would characterize what I do more like detailed studying, which can sometimes require me to look back or forward one page or so because the text may be describing something that is illustrated or presented on the preceding or following page. But I do not read books cover to cover, any more than STEM students generally read their class textbooks from cover to cover. One typically advances directly to the chapter of interest, and reads the relevant material to whatever they wish to study.
Linux on the desktop is a failure because of its own lack of innovation and imagination.
Really? Because other than the availability of applications for it, can you name even one thing that Linux itself actually lacks? I'm betting that you can't. Can you further explain how the lack of applications being developed for Linux is anything other than a reflection of the fact that not many people use it in the first place, which itself is a direct consequence of the fact that the applications that people want aren't found on it? Of course, it's a vicious cycle... but that's not the operating system's fault. Before Visicalc came out, for instance, there was almost no practical reason whatsoever for any non hobbyist or professional computer programmer or computer scientist to ever own one of these new-fangled home computers. Visicalc's success was not because of any technical merits of the computing platform it was developed for, it was because it was software that did what people actually wanted, and so people went and bought it.
I would challenge you to find a study which backs the alternative. The human tendency to prefer choices that positively benefit oneself is almost axiomatic, and I would suspect you would actually need to give ample evidence that this is actually *not* the case. Practically every commercial game ever made, killer productivity appliications like spreadsheets and paint software, and even operating systems like Windows itself... the single greatest driving force behind them is nothing more or less than simple greed.
Of course, it's also greed that makes most of us get up every morning and go to work.... since we have to keep a roof over our heads. My point being that this is such a primal and instinctive characteristic of human nature that to thing that merely being a disruptive technology could overcome it is extremely naive. As was already said above, on technical merits alone, Linux easily meets the criteria of being such a disruptive technology, but because not enough people use it, there isn't an abundance of commercial application development for it, which in turn leaves the OS as feeling less useful to people who necessarily need or expect such applications to be available on their computer.
Linux desktop distributions in any usable form most certainly were late to the game.
No [application development] is driven by making something disruptive and useful,
I'm going to assume that you genuinely believe that and are not deliberately trolling... your assumption, however, is mistaken. The number one motivating factor in application development, by far, is the human instinct of selfishness and greed. I would challenge you to find any study which shows that this is *not* the case. While certainly there is no lack of applications developed with more altruistic motivations, mainstream application development is almost invariably motivated by some sort of commercial incentive... which does not necessarily mean that the software itself will cost any money, but that in some way the development of the application will provide an increase in revenue.
Except that by the aforementioned definition, what makes something "good enough" is an availability of applications in the first place.
The technical merits of an operating system are not sufficient to drive mainstream application creation.... what ultimately drives it is nothing more or less than human greed, and the desire to get a piece of the action.
Linux was not late to the game at all... it actually predates Windows 95.
Eink update displays are too slow... I tend to flip pages back and forth a lot, and with lcd, there is no perceptible delay as I drag my finger across the page and the next or previous page is revealed, while all epaper displays that I've tried have a psychologically disruptive delay associated with every page flip as the screen visible updates. It would probably be fine if I were just reading a book from cover to cover, but because of the nature of the type of content that I generally read, and how I tend to read it, that sort of experience is unacceptable.
Also, no color. Another big downfall. Much of the stuff that I read has often full color illustrations or is accompanied by slides from a related university lecture or something similar.
But if anybody ever comes out with a tablet that uses a non-emissive display with an effectively instantaneous update time and full color, believe me, I'll be all over that like Tide on dirty laundry.
Slashdot Mirror
Of course... and as we all know, ad hominems are much simpler to invoke than actually constructing a reasoned argument. That this may or may not reflect on the intelligence of a person who would utilize such a technique is an exercise left for the reader.
You almost seem to say that like you would rather that they actually *DO* go and arrest people who haven't done anything illegal. Obviously that's absurd.
You clearly can't suggest that it is somehow wrong for them to not arrest somebody who hasn't actually done anything wrong, even if they may expecting them to do so eventually.
Are you suggesting, then, that it should be wrong for them to expect anyone to possibly break the law when they haven't actually done so?
Because that treads dangerously close to suggesting that certain thoughts should be criminal.
Who suggested that I needed anybody here to defend what I'm saying? if NFL's lawyers actually came down on me for daring to describing a game that they had televised to somebody else (they probably wouldn't even ever do that, but let's say just assume that they did), I would expediently point out those facts to them, at which point they would promptly drop any intention of pursing it further, since I would have shown that I won't be backing down,and would only be costing them money to try and make a case they couldn't actually prove in court.
Their cost = lawyers fees. My cost = $0.
You would only go bankrupt if you are paying a lawyer. You don't need a lawyer to state what is simple objective truth, that is, that facts are not actually copyrightable. The NFL is perfectly welcome to claim that they prohibit it, but they have precisely zero ability to actually enforce that except against people who either can't be bothered to stand up for themselves, or are too fearful to because they believe that the NFL might have such jurisdiction. They do not. I know that. And I know beyond any shadow of doubt, to the point that I would willfully stake even my very life on it, that it would cost me precisely zero dollars to educate their lawyers of this fact. Of course, it won't come down to that, because they know that they really don't have that ability, and the instant that anybody actually ever tried to point this out to them, they would back down in heartbeat to avoid the legal expense it would incur.
It should be criminal to sue somebody over a matter that you actually have no lawfully recognized jurisdiction in, but it often isn't... and so the NFL can continue to get away with such tactics for as long as people are either too ignorant to realize that they do not have such authority or are too indifferent to bother to try to defend themselves.
They would not get with it with me, however.
How does a claim form being served on you cost you any money if you haven't hired a lawyer? And why should you require a lawyer to simply say what is genuinely factual, that is, that facts and historical events are not copyrightable property, and the NFL can only claim ownership over their presentation of those facts, they have absolutely no jurisdiction over the facts themselves?
I inferred it from the use of the word "threaten". If it was not spoken in such a manner, why would the term have ever even been used?
Maybe not.... but is plainly calling someone by a derogatory and racist term suspension worthy? In many jurisdictions it is.
Like witchcraft, words do not have any power themselves to do harm, but the notions can nonetheless be hurtful to those that it may be used against, even if the person who is being spoken does not believe that there is any credibility to it. It is that potential to do harm that the school is trying to address... not that they suggest they should take such threats as being remotely credible.
Again, this has nothing to do whether the threat is credible or not... this is first and finally about bullying, plain and simple. Name-calling is no more of a credible threat to a person's actual safety or security than a threat of invoking witchcraft may be, but when spoken in anger, or to be deliberately hurtful, there is no reason why the two should not be treated with equal severity. You can get suspended for calling a classmate by certain derogatory and highly racist terms, for example, It is treated with such severity because even though the act of speaking itself is not directly harmful, the fact is that the words themselves can still be psychologically hurtful to the person they are spoken to... not because the person necessarily believes them but because the individual is being treated as being somehow less of a person than they actually deserve. So what makes calling somebody by such a derogatory term any more "real" than threatening to use witchcraft against them? Of course, if you are advocating that we should allow children to "harmlessly" bully eachother around with such words so they might ultimately develop some callousness towards actually caring what anyone who might be a jerk thinks, then that's another matter.
You're putting words in my mouth.... I believe the correct term for what you have done above is called "strawman".
Specifically, I did not say that anything that might be inappropriate ought to mean that it should also be outlawed. There's no law against being rude to people either... but that's inappropriate as well, and not entirely unreasonable to prohibit such behavior in certain environments, such as school.
Also, the point is not to suggest that what the kid was threatening to do could ever actually be carried out, the point is that he still said it... and he did so to in anger, to be hurtful, and overall just trying to be a bully.
Of course, you might also argue that it's unreasonable for a school to ever try to deal with bullying using such extreme measures, and I don't want to get into the merits or problems that such tactics may bring, I am only suggesting that contrary to the above assertion, the school is *not* trying to teach kids to fear things that cannot actually harm them. Names don't actually hurt anyone either, but in some places, you can still get suspended for calling someone a sufficiently rude and offensive term.
This isn't teaching kids to fear imaginary threats, it is teaching that threatening people, whether the threat is credible or not, is highly inappropriate, and won't be tolerated.
It genuinely seems unreasonable to me to simultaneously both be in a public place and while still having any expectation of privacy. Unless they are turning around and arresting the people whose plates they found at such lawful meetings without charging them with a crime beyond the fact that they were there in the first place (which is not illegal) then there'd be something wrong. That's not what's happening, so I don't see the problem.
Bleed you dry how, exactly? At what point does stating the truth, that is specifically, that facts are not copyrightable, require paying a lawyer?
How would they bankrupt a person who they haven't got any successful ruling against yet? To get a successful ruling, they would still need to convince a judge that events from history, or mere facts, could actually ever be considered a form of intellectual property. They cannot be.... and this point is even explicitly stated in copyright law.
They are, of course, perfectly welcome to claim that they will prohibit it all they want to... the fact of the matter is, however, that they have precisely zero ability to actually enforce that prohibition except against people who believe that they ever had such power in the first place.
I would. I would hope I should not have to ever remind a judge of the point, since they should be more versed in such matters.
How do you get bankrupted without a judge making a ruling against you in the first place?
They can "prohibit" it all they want... them saying something does not make it true.
History cannot be copyrighted. Accounts of those historical events can be, but the events themselves are facts, and facts cannot be considered property, intellectual or otherwise.
To successfully sue somebody, you still have to actually show how that party had actually done some sort of wrong by you... and them simply saying that it is wrong doesn't actually make it so. They would still need to convince a judge of that.
I would not have thought that information and intelligence were synonyms....
Says who?
And we will end up with super-mosquitos that are even more resistant to anything we try to throw at them.
Browsing tends to imply a cursory style of reading, while I would characterize what I do more like detailed studying, which can sometimes require me to look back or forward one page or so because the text may be describing something that is illustrated or presented on the preceding or following page. But I do not read books cover to cover, any more than STEM students generally read their class textbooks from cover to cover. One typically advances directly to the chapter of interest, and reads the relevant material to whatever they wish to study.
Really? Because other than the availability of applications for it, can you name even one thing that Linux itself actually lacks? I'm betting that you can't. Can you further explain how the lack of applications being developed for Linux is anything other than a reflection of the fact that not many people use it in the first place, which itself is a direct consequence of the fact that the applications that people want aren't found on it? Of course, it's a vicious cycle... but that's not the operating system's fault. Before Visicalc came out, for instance, there was almost no practical reason whatsoever for any non hobbyist or professional computer programmer or computer scientist to ever own one of these new-fangled home computers. Visicalc's success was not because of any technical merits of the computing platform it was developed for, it was because it was software that did what people actually wanted, and so people went and bought it.
I would challenge you to find a study which backs the alternative. The human tendency to prefer choices that positively benefit oneself is almost axiomatic, and I would suspect you would actually need to give ample evidence that this is actually *not* the case. Practically every commercial game ever made, killer productivity appliications like spreadsheets and paint software, and even operating systems like Windows itself... the single greatest driving force behind them is nothing more or less than simple greed.
Of course, it's also greed that makes most of us get up every morning and go to work.... since we have to keep a roof over our heads. My point being that this is such a primal and instinctive characteristic of human nature that to thing that merely being a disruptive technology could overcome it is extremely naive. As was already said above, on technical merits alone, Linux easily meets the criteria of being such a disruptive technology, but because not enough people use it, there isn't an abundance of commercial application development for it, which in turn leaves the OS as feeling less useful to people who necessarily need or expect such applications to be available on their computer.
No [application development] is driven by making something disruptive and useful,
I'm going to assume that you genuinely believe that and are not deliberately trolling... your assumption, however, is mistaken. The number one motivating factor in application development, by far, is the human instinct of selfishness and greed. I would challenge you to find any study which shows that this is *not* the case. While certainly there is no lack of applications developed with more altruistic motivations, mainstream application development is almost invariably motivated by some sort of commercial incentive... which does not necessarily mean that the software itself will cost any money, but that in some way the development of the application will provide an increase in revenue.
Except that by the aforementioned definition, what makes something "good enough" is an availability of applications in the first place.
The technical merits of an operating system are not sufficient to drive mainstream application creation.... what ultimately drives it is nothing more or less than human greed, and the desire to get a piece of the action.
Linux was not late to the game at all... it actually predates Windows 95.
Eink update displays are too slow... I tend to flip pages back and forth a lot, and with lcd, there is no perceptible delay as I drag my finger across the page and the next or previous page is revealed, while all epaper displays that I've tried have a psychologically disruptive delay associated with every page flip as the screen visible updates. It would probably be fine if I were just reading a book from cover to cover, but because of the nature of the type of content that I generally read, and how I tend to read it, that sort of experience is unacceptable.
Also, no color. Another big downfall. Much of the stuff that I read has often full color illustrations or is accompanied by slides from a related university lecture or something similar.
But if anybody ever comes out with a tablet that uses a non-emissive display with an effectively instantaneous update time and full color, believe me, I'll be all over that like Tide on dirty laundry.