What the guy texting deserved was to be kicked out of the theater without a refund. What the guy who decided to shoot him for what he did deserves at least 2 decades behind bars.
It doesn't matter if they did mean nationality... the laws prohibiting racial discrimination prohibit such for any of race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin.
The "big fucking deal" is that those words ("for an Indian") were allegedly used in a context where it is positively forbidden by law. Even if demographically true, it's not something that a person can legally use to justify any kind of employment decision. Race, color, country of origin, ethnicity, or heritage are all factors that are expressly forbidden under the law prohibiting racial discrimination in the workplace. The fact that somebody at Oracle evidently actually said this out loud is going to make this colossally bad for the employee at Oracle that was stupid enough to let such a remark slip out.
Ultimately, it's going to come down to whether it can be objectively determined that the questionable phrase was ever used.
Fair use equally applies to copying from GPL projects as well. The GPL does not trump copyright law. If you wouldn't have needed permission to copy something from a non-GPL'd work (because it fell under fair use), you wouldn't need to include or adhere to the GPL license when copying the same amount from a GPL'd work, since you never a actually needed any permission to copy that amount in the first place.
The laws which prohibit racial discrimination clarify it to mean discrimination based on any of race, color, descent, or national or ethnic origin. They all fall under the same umbrella of "racial discrimination".
Had Oracle just said that $50k was goody money for someone, and left the issue of Spandow's race unmentioned, they'd certainly have been fine. The problem was, however, that the person didn't just say that.
This was a person who was already working within Oracle... this was not a new hire. I'd dare say that most people in America who already work for Oracle make more than $50k.
Google probably would have made a better offer initially if they had reason to suspect how things were going to play out with oracle. Although I'm sure that everybody realized as soon as Oracle had made an offer for Sun that Google would have been a far better choice than Oracle for Sun's IP, I don't think anyone else expected just how colossally bad Oracle was going to be with it.
I have mixed feelings about the idea of MS being a better choice.
The problem, as I have stated above, is in how the teacher responded to the student's answer... without evidently knowing anything else about the student, she was sumarily recommended for humanities beecause it should be "easier", only because "some guys going for computer science are very good". Even ignoring the gender bias, how good other people may be is entirely immaterial to how good another person could become at the subject, as long as they are given equal opportunity to try and succeed. The fact that the remark contained a strong gender bias that was implied makes the remark doubly inappropriate.
My point is that other vehicles with permission to speed or otherwise violate traffic regulations have sirens which alert other people of their presence or approach, and people will have additional time to accommodate the speeding vehicle.
The problem is not with the question, really... it's with how the teacher responded when the student answered the question, that is, the teacher suggested that humanities would be eaiser for the student on the basis that "some of the guys who are in computer science are very good". Even if you exclude gender from his response, how good other people are in a subject is immaterial to how good that particular student could become, and it was entirely inappropriate to be discouraging a high school student (not college or university student) from studying a subject that they are interested in so that they *CAN* get good at it. The fact that his remark contained a not-so-subtle gender biased reference makes it doubly inappropriate.
I know that JW's oppose vaccinations, but I can't think of any other sect that does, which still calls itself "christian". Would you really consider JW's extreme fundamentalists, though? When I think of fundamentalists, I always tend to think of baptist, pentecostal, and Lutheran. Although I can only say based on personal experience, since I know quite a few people of all of those denominations, I'd dare say that there are no more detractors against vaccination among those with a fundamentalist baptist background, for instance, than there are among atheists. In fact, I've met several in the latter category, but I can't think of any I've ever met in the former. Nonetheless, almost all0 of the people that I've ever met who are opposed to vaccination are JW's.
Sarcasm noted... But copyright, reasonably, should be neutral to the size of a company or power of the individual that owns it. In such a case as what I commented on, it would only offer the most protection to those with the resources to do so. At least right now we *do* have plenty of independent content makers who get recognized for their contributions, under that kind of scenario, there would be dramatically fewer.
Under the general concept of license to kill, it only immunizes a possessor from prosecution for manslaughter if such action was intentionally deemed as necessary for the agent to complete their mission. It does not offer the same level of protection from prosecution for killing someone who they did not have any prior intention of killing.
Unlikely... they'd get stopped and pulled over just like anyone else. Under this law, however, I do not think they would be ticketed... after showing their credentials, presumably they would just be sent on their way. Failing to pull over and stop for a police car that is on your tail is also a crime... one that is entirely independent of speeding. If the officer did give them a speeding ticket, it would not have to be paid.(although the person would probably still have to make a report that they were given a ticket).
Sure, the spy may have a license to speed, but if he doesn't have to follow the speed limit, another driver on the same road is going to be correspondingly less able to anticipate how to react safely to another driver who may be cruising at over double the speed limit.
What about construction zones? What about school zones?
This kind of thing is so utterly likely to get completely innocent people killed that I expect to see it being discontinued within a week of implementation.
Revamp copyright laws so its NOT illegal for non-profit sharing to occur.
This idea keeps coming up, but is fundamentally broken, since it is always possible to make profit indirectly by trying to damage your competition. If copyright were revamped as you propose, a larger company that may want to do financial damage to a smaller competitor could resort to distributing that competitor's work entirely on a non-profit basis, relying on their much larger distribution network to effectively circumvent the smaller competitor's revenue stream they might have otherwise wanted to obtain through it. This would effectively mean that only very large conglomerates could effectively have any real control over their copyrights.
We could, if you want... just get rid of the whole concept of copyright entirely, but this carries a baggage of other issues that are also problematic... We are already seeing only glimmers of what would happen as content makers are starting to lose faith in copyright to protect their interests, relying on techniques such as DRM, for example. In utter absence of copyright, such measures are but the tip of a monolithic iceberg that only the very wealthiest people in our society would tend to have the means to actually deal with... and by the time the rest of the public have reasonable access to the same content, it would tend to be the case that it was old enough to no longer be relevant or useful to most.
The problem wasn't with the question, per se... Lots of people might be asked why they want to take a course. The main problem was with his response to her claim that she wanted to take it because she liked it more than humanities*, that is "some guys going for computer science are very good. It would be easier for you in humanities."
What was fundamentally inappropriate about the teacher's comment was that, if this person's story is an accurate assessment of the incident, he was discouraging the girl from even bothering to try before they evidently had any information to suggest that it would not really be worth the student's time. If they *DID* have such information, then the teacher should have framed his response in that context, not suggesting that it wouldn't be a good idea just because others in the program are very good at it, because leaving gender outside of the issue entirely, how good others may be is superfluous to how good she might become, if she were permitted to pursue it. The fact that his response included a heavily implied reference to gender strongly suggests unprofessional sexual discrimination, and made his remark doubly inappropriate.
*And to be perfectly frank, liking a course more than another is an entirely rational justification for wanting to take that course... it still might turn out that a person isn't very good at it, but that's not generally likely to be the case that they realize this yet until they've at least actually given it a try. Remember, this is about the first day of classes in high school... not at a college or university where they are more likely to have a clearer picture of where a student stands academically in the first place, and where they are likely to succeed or fail.
My point is that how good other people might be at a subject should not be a factor for discouraging them from studying it at a high school level.... pay attention to what the teacher said in his response.
But in such a case, a teacher is discouraging a student from pursuing that choice based on actual academic history... not how well somebody else is liable to do at it. Look again at the teacher's response. It reads as total sexual discrimination.
Sure... when a teacher actually has a record of previous academic history that indicates such. The above poster said that the teacher who said this to her did not have any such information...And really, if the teacher *DID* have such information, then why the girl wanted to take computer science would have been irrelevant, and that information should have been cited as the basis for such discouragement instead of "some guys going for computer science are very good". Even at best, and ignoring the gender biased nature of the comment, how good other people are is going to be immaterial to how good she was going to be. If he had a better reason, he should have used it instead of spouting data that only suggests he was discriminating against her based on the fact that the student was not male.
What "reality"? This proclamation was made by a teacher who did not yet have any reason to think that student would not be any good at the subject. It was high school, for chrissake. And of course, even if the teacher *DID* have a reason for thinking that, then the teacher would not have had any reason to ask her why she wanted to take the course in the first place, he just would have pointed out that given her record, it wasn't the wisest use of her time, and why she might happen to want to take the course is irrelevant, only leading to the justly deserved speculation that the teacher was showing gender-based discrimination.
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Uh.... what?
What the guy texting deserved was to be kicked out of the theater without a refund. What the guy who decided to shoot him for what he did deserves at least 2 decades behind bars.
I saw what you did there...
It doesn't matter if they did mean nationality... the laws prohibiting racial discrimination prohibit such for any of race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin.
The "big fucking deal" is that those words ("for an Indian") were allegedly used in a context where it is positively forbidden by law. Even if demographically true, it's not something that a person can legally use to justify any kind of employment decision. Race, color, country of origin, ethnicity, or heritage are all factors that are expressly forbidden under the law prohibiting racial discrimination in the workplace. The fact that somebody at Oracle evidently actually said this out loud is going to make this colossally bad for the employee at Oracle that was stupid enough to let such a remark slip out.
Ultimately, it's going to come down to whether it can be objectively determined that the questionable phrase was ever used.
Fair use equally applies to copying from GPL projects as well. The GPL does not trump copyright law. If you wouldn't have needed permission to copy something from a non-GPL'd work (because it fell under fair use), you wouldn't need to include or adhere to the GPL license when copying the same amount from a GPL'd work, since you never a actually needed any permission to copy that amount in the first place.
The laws which prohibit racial discrimination clarify it to mean discrimination based on any of race, color, descent, or national or ethnic origin. They all fall under the same umbrella of "racial discrimination".
Had Oracle just said that $50k was goody money for someone, and left the issue of Spandow's race unmentioned, they'd certainly have been fine. The problem was, however, that the person didn't just say that.
This was a person who was already working within Oracle... this was not a new hire. I'd dare say that most people in America who already work for Oracle make more than $50k.
To be fair, C# is also used in Unity3D development, which is multi-platform.
Google probably would have made a better offer initially if they had reason to suspect how things were going to play out with oracle. Although I'm sure that everybody realized as soon as Oracle had made an offer for Sun that Google would have been a far better choice than Oracle for Sun's IP, I don't think anyone else expected just how colossally bad Oracle was going to be with it.
I have mixed feelings about the idea of MS being a better choice.
The problem, as I have stated above, is in how the teacher responded to the student's answer... without evidently knowing anything else about the student, she was sumarily recommended for humanities beecause it should be "easier", only because "some guys going for computer science are very good". Even ignoring the gender bias, how good other people may be is entirely immaterial to how good another person could become at the subject, as long as they are given equal opportunity to try and succeed. The fact that the remark contained a strong gender bias that was implied makes the remark doubly inappropriate.
My point is that other vehicles with permission to speed or otherwise violate traffic regulations have sirens which alert other people of their presence or approach, and people will have additional time to accommodate the speeding vehicle.
The problem is not with the question, really... it's with how the teacher responded when the student answered the question, that is, the teacher suggested that humanities would be eaiser for the student on the basis that "some of the guys who are in computer science are very good". Even if you exclude gender from his response, how good other people are in a subject is immaterial to how good that particular student could become, and it was entirely inappropriate to be discouraging a high school student (not college or university student) from studying a subject that they are interested in so that they *CAN* get good at it. The fact that his remark contained a not-so-subtle gender biased reference makes it doubly inappropriate.
I know that JW's oppose vaccinations, but I can't think of any other sect that does, which still calls itself "christian". Would you really consider JW's extreme fundamentalists, though? When I think of fundamentalists, I always tend to think of baptist, pentecostal, and Lutheran. Although I can only say based on personal experience, since I know quite a few people of all of those denominations, I'd dare say that there are no more detractors against vaccination among those with a fundamentalist baptist background, for instance, than there are among atheists. In fact, I've met several in the latter category, but I can't think of any I've ever met in the former. Nonetheless, almost all0 of the people that I've ever met who are opposed to vaccination are JW's.
Sarcasm noted... But copyright, reasonably, should be neutral to the size of a company or power of the individual that owns it. In such a case as what I commented on, it would only offer the most protection to those with the resources to do so. At least right now we *do* have plenty of independent content makers who get recognized for their contributions, under that kind of scenario, there would be dramatically fewer.
Under the general concept of license to kill, it only immunizes a possessor from prosecution for manslaughter if such action was intentionally deemed as necessary for the agent to complete their mission. It does not offer the same level of protection from prosecution for killing someone who they did not have any prior intention of killing.
Unlikely... they'd get stopped and pulled over just like anyone else. Under this law, however, I do not think they would be ticketed... after showing their credentials, presumably they would just be sent on their way. Failing to pull over and stop for a police car that is on your tail is also a crime... one that is entirely independent of speeding. If the officer did give them a speeding ticket, it would not have to be paid.(although the person would probably still have to make a report that they were given a ticket).
What about construction zones? What about school zones?
This kind of thing is so utterly likely to get completely innocent people killed that I expect to see it being discontinued within a week of implementation.
This idea keeps coming up, but is fundamentally broken, since it is always possible to make profit indirectly by trying to damage your competition. If copyright were revamped as you propose, a larger company that may want to do financial damage to a smaller competitor could resort to distributing that competitor's work entirely on a non-profit basis, relying on their much larger distribution network to effectively circumvent the smaller competitor's revenue stream they might have otherwise wanted to obtain through it. This would effectively mean that only very large conglomerates could effectively have any real control over their copyrights.
We could, if you want... just get rid of the whole concept of copyright entirely, but this carries a baggage of other issues that are also problematic... We are already seeing only glimmers of what would happen as content makers are starting to lose faith in copyright to protect their interests, relying on techniques such as DRM, for example. In utter absence of copyright, such measures are but the tip of a monolithic iceberg that only the very wealthiest people in our society would tend to have the means to actually deal with... and by the time the rest of the public have reasonable access to the same content, it would tend to be the case that it was old enough to no longer be relevant or useful to most.
So... Got any better ideas?
The problem wasn't with the question, per se... Lots of people might be asked why they want to take a course. The main problem was with his response to her claim that she wanted to take it because she liked it more than humanities*, that is "some guys going for computer science are very good. It would be easier for you in humanities."
What was fundamentally inappropriate about the teacher's comment was that, if this person's story is an accurate assessment of the incident, he was discouraging the girl from even bothering to try before they evidently had any information to suggest that it would not really be worth the student's time. If they *DID* have such information, then the teacher should have framed his response in that context, not suggesting that it wouldn't be a good idea just because others in the program are very good at it, because leaving gender outside of the issue entirely, how good others may be is superfluous to how good she might become, if she were permitted to pursue it. The fact that his response included a heavily implied reference to gender strongly suggests unprofessional sexual discrimination, and made his remark doubly inappropriate.
*And to be perfectly frank, liking a course more than another is an entirely rational justification for wanting to take that course... it still might turn out that a person isn't very good at it, but that's not generally likely to be the case that they realize this yet until they've at least actually given it a try. Remember, this is about the first day of classes in high school... not at a college or university where they are more likely to have a clearer picture of where a student stands academically in the first place, and where they are likely to succeed or fail.
My point is that how good other people might be at a subject should not be a factor for discouraging them from studying it at a high school level.... pay attention to what the teacher said in his response.
But in such a case, a teacher is discouraging a student from pursuing that choice based on actual academic history... not how well somebody else is liable to do at it. Look again at the teacher's response. It reads as total sexual discrimination.
Sure... when a teacher actually has a record of previous academic history that indicates such. The above poster said that the teacher who said this to her did not have any such information...And really, if the teacher *DID* have such information, then why the girl wanted to take computer science would have been irrelevant, and that information should have been cited as the basis for such discouragement instead of "some guys going for computer science are very good". Even at best, and ignoring the gender biased nature of the comment, how good other people are is going to be immaterial to how good she was going to be. If he had a better reason, he should have used it instead of spouting data that only suggests he was discriminating against her based on the fact that the student was not male.
What "reality"? This proclamation was made by a teacher who did not yet have any reason to think that student would not be any good at the subject. It was high school, for chrissake. And of course, even if the teacher *DID* have a reason for thinking that, then the teacher would not have had any reason to ask her why she wanted to take the course in the first place, he just would have pointed out that given her record, it wasn't the wisest use of her time, and why she might happen to want to take the course is irrelevant, only leading to the justly deserved speculation that the teacher was showing gender-based discrimination.