Exactly which court do you believe will allow you to sue for lost wages incurred while attending court? As far as I can tell - none.
Search around and reply back.
You typically do not get to be reimbursed for expenses incurred with court costs including time off and time that you spent preparing your case. Besides this, of course, what reasonable person would think that the average joe could in any fashion claim 400/hour and 2k per day for court even if they did allow it? At the median household income of 40k usd a year, and 260 working days assuming no vacation time, that would make the average persons entire day worth only 153 and his two hours only a total of 40.
As I stated, though, no small claims court is going to award any damages based on you having to sue someone.
I think, still though, you are missing the point. You are not going to go to court - or really even an arbiter - for 12 dollars. You are going to call and complain, maybe tweet about it, or just eat it. No reasonable person is going to think that going to court for 12 dollars is something that sounds like a good idea. The end result will be that there is little oversight for the companies in this case and little to no ability for the consumer to stop these blatant abuses.
I have bought a few videos with google and got the "You are not getting a refund, you are getting store credit at these OTHER stores" message. How is it that I can purchase a video from them, and then I find out I can not have the video and I can not get a refund - only store credit.
Forget that - American Express will refund my money and I hope everyone who 'lost video access' from this does the same thing. Google is a big company but credit card issuers will refuse to do business with places who have a higher than k% chargeback rate.. and come on - how many people besides google video users are actually PAYING google.
Our way is not the best way, nor is it the only way... it is just a way...
I grew up playing on 8088's and specialized computer. I use google and (insert_other_geek_indicator_here). This doesnt make me better than anyone else (except, perhaps, in the computer world).
Example: I recently bought a house. My father in law and brother in law are not the computer elite. They are electrical engineers, HVAC, plumbing, etc. They also took time off their work to come up to our new house to help us fix tons of things that I just didn't know how to do.
Just saying - don't start feeling as though we are better than others because of our choice of computers. Keep thinking how good we are and try to hold onto that feeling when your plumbing backs up, you dont know how to fix it, and you need to do the necessaries.
Sigh... someone at their fulfillment center decided they needed the money more than I did and entered my rebate information to get sent to them. Lovely.
Had to end up filing a complaint with the better business bureau to get it fixed. They finally are going to resend it to me - just last week in fact.
For the sake of argument - lets say Slashdot is a virtual websites (on same box as, say, 30 other web sites). If you know the ip address is 54.14.54.163 you might have trouble getting to it... but....
In windows you can add a listing in the HOSTS file such that slashdot automatically resolves (regardless of what dns says) to 54.14.54.163 - so it will send the correct GET string to the IP address in order to view the site.
You can use this in times when you have a new webhost and your dns hasnt moved over yet, and you cannot access it via ip only (virtual websites) - lets you modify it for a few days before dns fully propogates (sp).... If you can do this in windows, I am -sure- you can in linux.
How much longer until we have nationwide wireless internet access?
I am not talking about "Wow, my cell phone can view lynx web pages" but rather portable computing with a dedicated hookup to the net 24 hours a day everywhere you go. And no, pointing to hobbling along with a GPRS enabled palm and a cell phone plan is not what I am asking.
Perhaps we as humans NEED to disconnect from the net completely every so often. I sure as heck dont want to though. I go to the gym, go to work, forced to go shopping with wifey, have to see family etc. I want a pair of glasses hooked up to some unit about the size of a cigarette box that will allow me to get a netfeed, highspeed, anywhere. Or, barring that, cybernetic implants in the ol' eye to display them woulnd't be that bad (barring popups, or attacks by hackers).
Yeah, I am an anime junkie but I want the world promised to us by Lain. Its just - I have gotten so used to having any information available at a whim, that to be disconnected whenever I leave the confines of a computer room is kinda.. sad. And that is kinda sad I know, but its the way I am - I cant be the only one.
How much longer do I have to wait? Anyone? Bueler?
I have one of the tungsten e series of palms that my wife got me for christmas to replace my "outdated palm" I was using.
Its very pretty.
I use it for the same thing I use my old palm (the battery powered one that I loved so much that lasted days) - I read ebooks nonstop. The current palm has to be charged every 4-5 hours, which kinda makes using it for reading suck.
Honestly, I dont really do anything else with it. Certainly not enough to warrant the price that was payed...
Thought that myself... but, like any highschool class, there are periods where they have free time. She figures the games will be there for that -- besides, it will be obvious if people arnt putting forth effort in their work as it should be turned in (their disks) every day.
Now the INTERNET applications it has -- huge amount of them but not the kind the school probably wants students playing with -- just gotta make sure they dont start firing up the wrong internet apps heh..
AFAIK their choices come from 2 parts 1) They dont want to frigg up their systems with apps like AIM, ICQ, etc so they dont allow anything to be ran... zero tolerance for software it seems =) 2) I believe they had an incident a few years ago when they still allowed students to write to hard drives. Without going into any details, lets just say that the admin strongly believes that students should not be ablet o change the hard drive in any way.
Excellent question... I will hope you still read this but its a bit after this was posted so shrug...
Students each have a disk that they have their source code on (they write the code to the disk). We compile onto the disk and the executable remains on the disk. Students turn in their disks (along with algorithms (ie their funny little flowcharts)) to be graded.
It was a good question... we STILL have to have a disk even though now we dont have to put the development apps on there... I say it was a very good trade. =)
Read the knoppix documentation... it does not, by default, install ANYTHING to ANY hard drive.. you have the option to put a swap file ont he hard drive but you have to select it =)
Look down the page http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/index-en.html and you will see about what it does and does not do. NO installation or modifying of the hard drives are necessary -- with computers without necessary ram it will run SLOWER but it will still run.
Besides, its a worthless argument =) Their computers most definately have 128 mb ram...
Knoppix is a livecd that autodetects and sets up most devices automatically upon boot, it includes open office, mozilla (konquorer [sp?] as well), OODLES of games, graphics programs, utilities, fun programs, and just plain "cool" things. It doesnt contain Flash nor Realplayer (at least I never got them to work), but it does play most of my multimedia content I had on my hard drive (divx, mpegs, avi, etc).
It autoconnects to internet if you have the ability to use DHCP so thats a big plus. You can access the hard drive from the desktop, open papers/etc from there...
Best thing -- it doesnt change ANY files on the harddrive! No worries about a "livecd" turning into a "pseudo installation" to run. There IS a way to put a swap file on your hard drive but its buried in menus and I wouldnt even bother with it... Knoppix runs fast, reliable, and just looks nice.
(And the desktop? You can change it of course.. but I am sure you knew that =)
Just my own little story how Knoppix helped me.. =)
My fiancee was volunteered to teach a class in algorithm design and c++ programming at the highschool she teaches at (for honors credit) -- the problems, though, were numerous.
She had to deal with: 1) NO funds available for purchasing of any programming utilities 2) Computer ADMIN not allowing her to install ANY programming software (borland freeware, DJGPP, etc) to disk 3) NOT allowing students to write (even temporary files) to the hard drive...
We looked at a LOT of different ways to handle these problems. Finally we decided that maybe using a linux livecd and having a disk with gcc/g++ for each student. Looked at a few different types that were mentioned on slashdot but NONE seemed to work well... until we saw a VERY old article that some user mentioned Knoppix.. went to it, d/l'ed it, burned to disk, popped it in and rebooted...
*WOW*
Knoppix comes fully loaded with office utilities, games (PLENTY of games), graphics software, but most importantly DEVELOPMENT software already on it. We were in love with it (in truth, my other box is still running it from cd just bc we liked it =) -- even more important was that it ran without the need for ANY files or ANY changes to the hard drive.
It discovered all devices hooked to my computer and actually had them working (AS WELL as the internet connection from "straight to cable modem" or "over network using ICS" setups we have at my house).
She took it to her school, popped it in, rebooted the computers (after fidgeting with bios to allow boot from cd, laugh) and QUICKLY came up with the Knoppix desktop. It certainly didnt take more than a min or so to bootup...
Most surprising thing was that for a "ran from cd" linux it was REMARKEBLY fast. Lets just say I was VERY impressed with Knoppix and recommend it for ANY new person. Without the threat of "ruining their computer," they can just pop in knoppix to try out linux... if they hate it, pop it out and its finished.
So in the end, fiancee's school didnt have to shell out money, didnt "screw up the computers" (sigh), have a setup for students to write and compile programs, and exposed students (and teachers) to Linux. I would say the entire situation was a big WIN =)
Your not the only person that has thought of doing that even before this site hit slashdot. ..
Important thing before taking the plunge: What do you do if you dont like the most current license of windows? Ya dont buy that windows thus not accepting the license...
And if the professor says "Thats ok, I don't accept the license" and you say "Ok, well you don't get to see my work" and they say "Fine." . ..
The theory with open source is that the everyone can look over it, find bugs, fix bugs, submit fixes, and the world is a happier place...
Imagine this in place in a system where the government uses/makes opensource software.
Mind you I am for this... but imagine
1) Make good application
2) Make code public
3) Person A. finds bug, reports it
4) Person B. finds a way to fix it
5) Gvnt thinks its a good idea to look over the fix first
6) rootkit released
7) (5-6 months later patch is accepted)...
Sure Linux is rock solid stable, and has an almost totally customizable GUI, but dammit, if my hardware won't work, what's the point?
I set up a windows xp box for someone the other day. It was QUITE an upgrade from their old 133 mhz computer -- they were excited that all their programs will run SUPER FAST and that their printers/scanners/etc will be OH SO nice...
... and then we find out that most of their software WILL NOT RUN under XP (yes even by using compatibility mode) and that they will have had to have gotten a new scanner and printer because they wont work either.
Now I'm sure that windows xp has changed QUITE a few things but come on... they have used winxp for a bit now to see if they can put up with it.. they now want me to install windows 98 on there... quite an upgrade (if you ask me)...
Now before you say "Put them on Linux!" -- get real.. would you put your mother-in-law on linux --> knowing you dont want to put up with her "Whats this? BASH? Is this a joke??"... feh on them all..
As a @home customer (comcast if you must know) that was REALLY watching out for new developments during the showdown, I used the DSLREPORTS forums for new developments. They even tossed ATT out of the @home forums and created their own cable forum for att users seperate from @home (so they can bish in piece it seems).
This was a problem we had when the Quake1 and Quakeworld source code was released.
A "group" released the cheat "Quake World Radar Edition" that put autoaim and a radar into a standard client. It was done actually very nce. They released no source code for anything that they did.
It was even "better" when, a year later, that same group came forward and told everyone "Hey, remember that QWRE we put out? It was trojaned. It has been reporting your ip, name, (other info), and even your WINDOWS CD KEY to us!" -- and they released logs to prove that it was true (pas the cdkey).
Hmm.. it was a huge uproar because EVERYONE and their mother demanded the source code for this from them.
This let me know something in particular... while the GPL "should" be valid -- it can ONLY be enforced by the copyright owner. Lemme tell you: Carmack didn't feel it was necessary to go after these people.
Anyways. . . you say that you can get the cheats from them and fix them. I am guessing thats not true. They will have closed source cheats that somehow make it around the net, and if you are lucky enough to find out who made it they will say "We wont give you the source code" or (my favorite) "we GAVE the source code out. Its not OUR fault that the people YOU got it from didnt give it to you" -- and since it would be snaking its way across the net who can be sure that it wasnt true?
Ah well, huh?
(And I am sure I stated SOMETHING wrong with the GPL and people are going to say "nuh-uh" -- thats fine. End of the matter is that cheat mods for these games will be closed source.. that just wont change...)
was where the guy gave a link to someone that shows others how to do this exact same thing. Try http://www.wa-state-resident.com/tugpayup.htm (unlinked for the goat weary).
He gave a form letter, even step by step directions on how to do this. Only thing was that you would have to be living in oregon unless your own state has fun laws like this. That does definately sound like fun.
Yes, you may not get to see all the uber-leet newest flash funnies that you may want without re-enabling it for a few mins, but its better this way.
I had mine enabled until a site I go to has started using flash up the wazoo... Lets say its enough to drive my machine into making it act badly... flash graphics..:P
Slashdot Mirror
Exactly which court do you believe will allow you to sue for lost wages incurred while attending court? As far as I can tell - none.
Search around and reply back.
You typically do not get to be reimbursed for expenses incurred with court costs including time off and time that you spent preparing your case. Besides this, of course, what reasonable person would think that the average joe could in any fashion claim 400/hour and 2k per day for court even if they did allow it? At the median household income of 40k usd a year, and 260 working days assuming no vacation time, that would make the average persons entire day worth only 153 and his two hours only a total of 40.
As I stated, though, no small claims court is going to award any damages based on you having to sue someone.
I think, still though, you are missing the point. You are not going to go to court - or really even an arbiter - for 12 dollars. You are going to call and complain, maybe tweet about it, or just eat it. No reasonable person is going to think that going to court for 12 dollars is something that sounds like a good idea. The end result will be that there is little oversight for the companies in this case and little to no ability for the consumer to stop these blatant abuses.
I have bought a few videos with google and got the "You are not getting a refund, you are getting store credit at these OTHER stores" message. How is it that I can purchase a video from them, and then I find out I can not have the video and I can not get a refund - only store credit.
Forget that - American Express will refund my money and I hope everyone who 'lost video access' from this does the same thing. Google is a big company but credit card issuers will refuse to do business with places who have a higher than k% chargeback rate.. and come on - how many people besides google video users are actually PAYING google.
Our way is not the best way, nor is it the only way... it is just a way...
I grew up playing on 8088's and specialized computer. I use google and (insert_other_geek_indicator_here). This doesnt make me better than anyone else (except, perhaps, in the computer world).
Example: I recently bought a house. My father in law and brother in law are not the computer elite. They are electrical engineers, HVAC, plumbing, etc. They also took time off their work to come up to our new house to help us fix tons of things that I just didn't know how to do.
Just saying - don't start feeling as though we are better than others because of our choice of computers. Keep thinking how good we are and try to hold onto that feeling when your plumbing backs up, you dont know how to fix it, and you need to do the necessaries.
Sigh... someone at their fulfillment center decided they needed the money more than I did and entered my rebate information to get sent to them. Lovely.
Had to end up filing a complaint with the better business bureau to get it fixed. They finally are going to resend it to me - just last week in fact.
This couldnt happen sooner (rebates ending).
Just as a note about virtual web sites...
... If you can do this in windows, I am -sure- you can in linux.
For the sake of argument - lets say Slashdot is a virtual websites (on same box as, say, 30 other web sites). If you know the ip address is 54.14.54.163 you might have trouble getting to it... but....
In windows you can add a listing in the HOSTS file such that slashdot automatically resolves (regardless of what dns says) to 54.14.54.163 - so it will send the correct GET string to the IP address in order to view the site.
You can use this in times when you have a new webhost and your dns hasnt moved over yet, and you cannot access it via ip only (virtual websites) - lets you modify it for a few days before dns fully propogates (sp).
How much longer until we have nationwide wireless internet access?
I am not talking about "Wow, my cell phone can view lynx web pages" but rather portable computing with a dedicated hookup to the net 24 hours a day everywhere you go. And no, pointing to hobbling along with a GPRS enabled palm and a cell phone plan is not what I am asking.
Perhaps we as humans NEED to disconnect from the net completely every so often. I sure as heck dont want to though. I go to the gym, go to work, forced to go shopping with wifey, have to see family etc. I want a pair of glasses hooked up to some unit about the size of a cigarette box that will allow me to get a netfeed, highspeed, anywhere. Or, barring that, cybernetic implants in the ol' eye to display them woulnd't be that bad (barring popups, or attacks by hackers).
Yeah, I am an anime junkie but I want the world promised to us by Lain. Its just - I have gotten so used to having any information available at a whim, that to be disconnected whenever I leave the confines of a computer room is kinda.. sad. And that is kinda sad I know, but its the way I am - I cant be the only one.
How much longer do I have to wait? Anyone? Bueler?
I have one of the tungsten e series of palms that my wife got me for christmas to replace my "outdated palm" I was using.
Its very pretty.
I use it for the same thing I use my old palm (the battery powered one that I loved so much that lasted days) - I read ebooks nonstop. The current palm has to be charged every 4-5 hours, which kinda makes using it for reading suck.
Honestly, I dont really do anything else with it. Certainly not enough to warrant the price that was payed...
I graduated with a double major in both computer science and mathematics last june.
My Major GPA was 4.0
Total gpa was 3.96
I have YET to get a job offer for a computer programming position. Any position. Even database work.
I am qualified.
I cant find work. I am even willing to move anywhere. In this time, take what you can wherever you can and hope some better times come along.
Noone will probably mod you up and that is a shame -- just wanted to let you know that I enjoyed it. It made me smile.
When I read what is possible under this act...
.
I just get very very scared...
It seems as if the moment you elect an official, they join the government in order to stop the rights of its citizens.
Surely there is a reason why I should not be this scared-out-my-ass. .
Please. If you can say "They are just blowing it out of proportion because..." please do. I need to feel a bit more safe at the moment.
I dont care about moderation, just please reply. This has unnerved me quite a bit.
Thought that myself... but, like any highschool class, there are periods where they have free time. She figures the games will be there for that -- besides, it will be obvious if people arnt putting forth effort in their work as it should be turned in (their disks) every day.
Now the INTERNET applications it has -- huge amount of them but not the kind the school probably wants students playing with -- just gotta make sure they dont start firing up the wrong internet apps heh..
AFAIK their choices come from 2 parts
1) They dont want to frigg up their systems with apps like AIM, ICQ, etc so they dont allow anything to be ran... zero tolerance for software it seems =)
2) I believe they had an incident a few years ago when they still allowed students to write to hard drives. Without going into any details, lets just say that the admin strongly believes that students should not be ablet o change the hard drive in any way.
Excellent question... I will hope you still read this but its a bit after this was posted so shrug...
Students each have a disk that they have their source code on (they write the code to the disk). We compile onto the disk and the executable remains on the disk. Students turn in their disks (along with algorithms (ie their funny little flowcharts)) to be graded.
It was a good question... we STILL have to have a disk even though now we dont have to put the development apps on there... I say it was a very good trade. =)
Wrongo buckaroo!
Read the knoppix documentation... it does not, by default, install ANYTHING to ANY hard drive.. you have the option to put a swap file ont he hard drive but you have to select it =)
Look down the page http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/index-en.html and you will see about what it does and does not do. NO installation or modifying of the hard drives are necessary -- with computers without necessary ram it will run SLOWER but it will still run.
Besides, its a worthless argument =) Their computers most definately have 128 mb ram...
Perhaps you should try Knoppix eh?
Knoppix is a livecd that autodetects and sets up most devices automatically upon boot, it includes open office, mozilla (konquorer [sp?] as well), OODLES of games, graphics programs, utilities, fun programs, and just plain "cool" things. It doesnt contain Flash nor Realplayer (at least I never got them to work), but it does play most of my multimedia content I had on my hard drive (divx, mpegs, avi, etc).
It autoconnects to internet if you have the ability to use DHCP so thats a big plus. You can access the hard drive from the desktop, open papers/etc from there...
Best thing -- it doesnt change ANY files on the harddrive! No worries about a "livecd" turning into a "pseudo installation" to run. There IS a way to put a swap file on your hard drive but its buried in menus and I wouldnt even bother with it... Knoppix runs fast, reliable, and just looks nice.
(And the desktop? You can change it of course.. but I am sure you knew that =)
Just my own little story how Knoppix helped me.. =)
My fiancee was volunteered to teach a class in algorithm design and c++ programming at the highschool she teaches at (for honors credit) -- the problems, though, were numerous.
She had to deal with:
1) NO funds available for purchasing of any programming utilities
2) Computer ADMIN not allowing her to install ANY programming software (borland freeware, DJGPP, etc) to disk
3) NOT allowing students to write (even temporary files) to the hard drive...
We looked at a LOT of different ways to handle these problems. Finally we decided that maybe using a linux livecd and having a disk with gcc/g++ for each student. Looked at a few different types that were mentioned on slashdot but NONE seemed to work well... until we saw a VERY old article that some user mentioned Knoppix.. went to it, d/l'ed it, burned to disk, popped it in and rebooted...
*WOW*
Knoppix comes fully loaded with office utilities, games (PLENTY of games), graphics software, but most importantly DEVELOPMENT software already on it. We were in love with it (in truth, my other box is still running it from cd just bc we liked it =) -- even more important was that it ran without the need for ANY files or ANY changes to the hard drive.
It discovered all devices hooked to my computer and actually had them working (AS WELL as the internet connection from "straight to cable modem" or "over network using ICS" setups we have at my house).
She took it to her school, popped it in, rebooted the computers (after fidgeting with bios to allow boot from cd, laugh) and QUICKLY came up with the Knoppix desktop. It certainly didnt take more than a min or so to bootup...
Most surprising thing was that for a "ran from cd" linux it was REMARKEBLY fast. Lets just say I was VERY impressed with Knoppix and recommend it for ANY new person. Without the threat of "ruining their computer," they can just pop in knoppix to try out linux... if they hate it, pop it out and its finished.
So in the end, fiancee's school didnt have to shell out money, didnt "screw up the computers" (sigh), have a setup for students to write and compile programs, and exposed students (and teachers) to Linux. I would say the entire situation was a big WIN =)
Your not the only person that has thought of doing that even before this site hit slashdot. . .
.
Important thing before taking the plunge: What do you do if you dont like the most current license of windows? Ya dont buy that windows thus not accepting the license...
And if the professor says "Thats ok, I don't accept the license" and you say "Ok, well you don't get to see my work" and they say "Fine."
. .
You get the gist of it I hope...
The theory with open source is that the everyone can look over it, find bugs, fix bugs, submit fixes, and the world is a happier place...
Imagine this in place in a system where the government uses/makes opensource software.
Mind you I am for this... but imagine
1) Make good application
2) Make code public
3) Person A. finds bug, reports it
4) Person B. finds a way to fix it
5) Gvnt thinks its a good idea to look over the fix first
6) rootkit released
7) (5-6 months later patch is accepted)...
Thats not being very nice you know...
and how was I supposed to do this? Go back in time to before they bought a computer preloaded with winxp and check those lists?
At least make your trolling less obvious please.
Sure Linux is rock solid stable, and has an almost totally customizable GUI, but dammit, if my hardware won't work, what's the point?
... and then we find out that most of their software WILL NOT RUN under XP (yes even by using compatibility mode) and that they will have had to have gotten a new scanner and printer because they wont work either.
I set up a windows xp box for someone the other day. It was QUITE an upgrade from their old 133 mhz computer -- they were excited that all their programs will run SUPER FAST and that their printers/scanners/etc will be OH SO nice...
Now I'm sure that windows xp has changed QUITE a few things but come on... they have used winxp for a bit now to see if they can put up with it.. they now want me to install windows 98 on there... quite an upgrade (if you ask me)...
Now before you say "Put them on Linux!" -- get real.. would you put your mother-in-law on linux --> knowing you dont want to put up with her "Whats this? BASH? Is this a joke??"... feh on them all..
As a @home customer (comcast if you must know) that was REALLY watching out for new developments during the showdown, I used the DSLREPORTS forums for new developments. They even tossed ATT out of the @home forums and created their own cable forum for att users seperate from @home (so they can bish in piece it seems).
Linked here
From the look of it, the ATT users are none to pleased about the goings on... even talking about something worse than SPEED caps -- a download limit.
The forum goers seem ALL OVER THIS... for real information its a good bet to get it directly from them, so to speak.
This was a problem we had when the Quake1 and Quakeworld source code was released.
A "group" released the cheat "Quake World Radar Edition" that put autoaim and a radar into a standard client. It was done actually very nce. They released no source code for anything that they did.
It was even "better" when, a year later, that same group came forward and told everyone "Hey, remember that QWRE we put out? It was trojaned. It has been reporting your ip, name, (other info), and even your WINDOWS CD KEY to us!" -- and they released logs to prove that it was true (pas the cdkey).
Hmm.. it was a huge uproar because EVERYONE and their mother demanded the source code for this from them.
This let me know something in particular... while the GPL "should" be valid -- it can ONLY be enforced by the copyright owner. Lemme tell you: Carmack didn't feel it was necessary to go after these people.
Anyways. . . you say that you can get the cheats from them and fix them. I am guessing thats not true. They will have closed source cheats that somehow make it around the net, and if you are lucky enough to find out who made it they will say "We wont give you the source code" or (my favorite) "we GAVE the source code out. Its not OUR fault that the people YOU got it from didnt give it to you" -- and since it would be snaking its way across the net who can be sure that it wasnt true?
Ah well, huh?
(And I am sure I stated SOMETHING wrong with the GPL and people are going to say "nuh-uh" -- thats fine. End of the matter is that cheat mods for these games will be closed source.. that just wont change...)
I swear.. ssssooo many amateurs are trying to get into the "biz" without having the knowledge that they really should for such a sensitive topic.
Has the movie Enemy of the State taught you nothing??
"Don't look up."
was where the guy gave a link to someone that shows others how to do this exact same thing. Try http://www.wa-state-resident.com/tugpayup.htm (unlinked for the goat weary).
He gave a form letter, even step by step directions on how to do this. Only thing was that you would have to be living in oregon unless your own state has fun laws like this. That does definately sound like fun.
Easy enough: turn off flash graphics.
:P
Yes, you may not get to see all the uber-leet newest flash funnies that you may want without re-enabling it for a few mins, but its better this way.
I had mine enabled until a site I go to has started using flash up the wazoo... Lets say its enough to drive my machine into making it act badly... flash graphics..