From TFA: Democrats and Republicans are planning to restore the draft with House Resolution 162 in the House of Representatives.
This bill was killed weeks ago. I think that only 1 representative voted for it. Even the sponsor (Rangel) voted against it.
There were some other interesting comments in the article about staffing up Selective Service, and the "back-door" draft of not letting people leave the military.
I don't think we need more laws, but we do need some enforcement of the existing laws in this area. Existing laws already prohibit companies from requiring SSNs for anything not related to Social Security, but these laws are rarely, if ever, enforced.
What kind of laws would you suggest? I mean, it's just a friggen number.
>Ever heard the term "civil disobedience"? It's where you do
>something illegal (not immoral) for the right reasons, because the law is wrong.
Civil disobedience is when you break the law with the full knowledge of the law enforcement authorities and accept the (risk of) punishment for your actions. Sharing music using anonymous P2P is NOT civil disobedience - it's simply breaking the law and hoping not to get caught, and there's nothing moral about it, your fancy rationalizations notwithstanding. An example of civil disobedience is sending a letter to the FBI, copying the RIAA, telling them that you will be sharing music during such and such a time period. (All this is based on the assumption that such sharing is against the law.)
Dude, you need to get a fraud alert on your credit report today. Call Experian and the other two agencies and explain what happened. Ask them for a fraud alert (I think that's the name, but I'm not sure) to be put on your report, so that any requests for credit will require verification. That is, the prospective lender will call you before they issue credit. I'm not sure if they're legally required to call you or if it's simply in their best interest. If you want this guy caught, then leave an outgoing message on your answering machine like this:
Hi, you've reached $number. To leave a message, press #. If you're calling to verify my number for an application for credit, please note that I have asked for a fraud alert on my credit report because somebody has been using my name to apply for loans. I am 5 feet 9 inches tall with straight brown hair, a goatee, brown eyes, a silver wedding band on my left hand, and wire-frame glasses. If the person who is applying for credit does not meet this description, please call the police immediately.
Of course, this makes it a pain to apply for instant credit (for, say, a Sears card), but it's worth it. One more thing: make sure that changes to your contact information in your credit report must be done in writing.
In 1999, I asked my son's neonatologist about one of these devices. He said that they didn't improve the mortality rate. Basically, the alarm was either false -- and there were a LOT of them, possibly enough to affect your sanity -- or (worst case) let you know that your baby was already dead.
I did some web research on SIDS. It's a diagnosis of exclusion, which means that the pathologist can't figure out what the hell happened, so he calls it SIDS. One theory, that I came to agree with, was that SIDS was caused by rebreathed carbon dioxide. The air doesn't circulate well enough around the child, so the carbon dioxide level in the child's blood goes up and up. What to do about it? For my child, I bought a crib with slats on all sides (no solid ends), a well-fitting mattress with a well-fitting sheet, and put the kid in there with nothing else (except clothing). No toys, blankets, bumper guards, NOTHING. Of course, put the child on his back. Do these measures work? For my sample size (3), they worked.
Re:get in trouble for having a motorized "vehicle"
on
E-bike E-xperiences?
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· Score: 1
>I ride a motorcycle to work and it is the funnest thing! I blow past all of the cars and cut in front of everyone at stop lights.
Please make sure to check the "I will donate my organs" box and sign the back of your license. My brother-in-law needs a new set of lungs. Thanks!
The more complex answer is that today is the 3rd, an odd day, so SCO is claiming that the GPL is invalid, so GPL'd software is in the public domain, so it's OK for them to distribute it. But SCO's code was never released under the GPL, so it's OK for them to claim infringement and extort^H^H^H^H^H be compensated for the use of their code.
Tomorrow is an even day, and the claims will be different. I think they'll be back to "All your code are belong to us", where they claim that all of Linux is a derivative work of something they did at some point in the past (they're not sure what, exactly, but does it matter?), so they should be compensated for that.
However, on days that are a prime number more than 5, SCO claims that IBM violated the contract with AT&T, so IBM owes SCO money. Everybody else does, too, because SCO is such a nice company.
See how easy it is? You just need a calendar and some basic math. Hope this helps.
I think the glider that will photograph the balloon is just as interesting as the balloon. 40 ft wingspan, 30 pound weight (that's about 13 m, 13.6 kg for you SI fans - and why is the BBC using non-SI units?).
And I loved this quote:
It is hoped Zephyr will return to Earth, although it is unlikely it will be recovered intact.
>There's no connection proven yet between the ddos and spammers
I forget the Latin for it, but the phrase is, "Who benefits?". It nicely sums up the proposition that the most likely suspect is the person who benefits from the crime. If a person with a big life insurance policy is murdered, the cops talk to the policy's beneficiary. They don't arrest the beneficiary straightaway, but it's a good place to start asking questions. With the blacklist DDOS, the people who benefit the most are the spammers. We don't know it was them (you're right, there is no connection proven), but they're certainly at the top of the suspect list, especially after the SoBig story.
And I see no reason why anyone would think spammers have a trace of morals.
The defamation claim is highly unlikely to succeed. AOL probably didn't say, "They're a bunch of spammers", but probably more like "They violated our terms of service". Big difference.
The contract claim may have merit, if CI Host had a contract with AOL, but I'd give 100 to 1 they don't.
The "unfair competition" claim, at least as you stated:
>Suppliers to businesses must provide equal opportunity to all competitors.
>For (a simple) example, Cisco can't sell their parts to reseller A at a
>lower cost than they do to reseller B
is completely wrong. Negotiations for discounts to resellers are a perfectly normal business practice.
IAAMBA (I am an MBA), but this is not financial advice. I always wanted to write that.
Shorting stock is not something you want to do on principle. Your're selling something that isn't yours, with the promise to buy it back later. If the stock goes up, you lose money. You might lose a LOT of money. Ordinarily, I'd suggest buying put options on the stock, but those don't seem to be available for SCO right now (I don't know why). With put options, you have limited downside risk, and you have much greater leverage.
I want SCO crushed just as much as the next/. er, but I'd hate to see somebody lose money shorting SCO just to make somebody else's point. Actually, at only 20 shares, you're most likely just helping out your broker, not making a dent in the stock price.
"He who sells what isn't his'n, buys it back or goes to prison" - My favorite quote from all my financial books.
Well, traffic accidents killed about 41,000 people and injured about 3.2 million more. Many of these accidents could have been prevented, and the police are charged with preventing crime, as well as prosecuting it.
So I don't really mind that police spend more time on traffic enforcement than on identity theft investigations. Yes, identity theft costs money, but some things are more important than money.
As the government's lawyer, Boies won the case against Microsoft, and his cross-examination of Microsoft's witnesses was legendary. See here, for example. So, yes, he would be just the lawyer I'd want on my side. It's very unfortunate that he's on SCO's side in this case.
I have not read the DMCA, but it would seem that if the file actually is PacMan, it would violate regular copyright law, not so much the DMCA.
Wrong; it violates both. See here for example. As the text from the link says (in part):
[I]f the service provider has the right and ability to control the infringing activity and if the service provider receives a financial benefit directly attributable to the infringing activity, the service provider will not be protected by Section 512 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
The DMCA does allow prosecution of hosting companies, etc., if they receive a letter such as the one in the article and do not take down the offending material. The DMCA is not limited to cracking encryption! Google for DMCA text safe-harbor for more info.
One thing is for sure: it would cost a lot more than $98 million. As IBM bought the stock, the price would rise, so IBM would have to pay much, much more than the current share price * number of outstanding shares, even if they could buy 51% without anyone noticing.
The second problem is that, once your ownership increases to more than 5%, you have to file a statement that you own 5% (or whatever) of the company. I think you file it with the SEC, though I'm not sure. The 5% may vary by state (if SCO is incorporated in Delaware, I'm pretty sure it's 5%). So you can't buy a company without anyone noticing.
Also, many companies (not sure about SCO) have staggered boards - some board members have terms that expire this year, some the next, etc. - so that makes it hard to take control of the board (and the company) if the board doesn't agree with it. There are other takeover defenses - the poison pill, for example, that make hostile takeovers extremely difficult.
IBM's current strategy - beat the hell out of SCO through the press, and eventually the courts - is the best.
If Broadcom was distributing the modified compiler as part of an SDK to third-party developers using the chip, then Broadcom would have to release their changes.
This is true, but Broadcom would only have to release the changes to the organizations that they (Broadcom) distributed the binaries to. There is no requirement in the GPL that the changes would have to be distributed to anybody who asked.
"HotMail sells your email address to anybody and everybody" is a commonly held belief, but it's simply untrue.
Several months ago, a/. post suggested setting up a HotMail account with the username == the serial number of a dollar bill in your wallet. When you sign up, uncheck all the "send me stuff" offers. Do not give out this email to anyone in any form.
I took the dare. To date, I have only received email from "Hotmail Staff". Most of that has been service information ("Don't give people your password:, etc). One sent June 19 was spam (titled, " Listen to 50 Cent, Avril & Coldplay â" try it... ", I certainly didn't ask for this).
My verdict: HotMail isn't selling your address. The spam in your HotMail InBox is probably coming from dictionary attacks or other forms. I'm not saying that HotMail couldn't do more to prevent spam. I'm simply saying HotMail isn't selling your address.
The NDA is not needed to look at the Linux code, which is freely available (though not public domain). The NDA is needed to look at the SCO code. At least according to SCO, that is. As the ComputerWorld article suggests, though, the real reason for the NDA is so that the analysts can't talk about what a pile of crap this lawsuit is after looking at the code.
If SCO really had a case, they would let the analysts look at the code without an NDA. The analysts would certainly not go out and incorporate the SCO code into Linux. But SCO can't do this, because SCO knows that it's full of crap.
Re:So let me get this straight...
on
Copyright Rumblings
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· Score: 0, Troll
>if the ex-copyright-holders are evil and don't
>release it in the clear
Why do you say this? Why is it evil to not release a work "in the clear" once copyright is expired? I really don't understand this mentality. I can see how it would be nice for a copyright holder to release a work once copyright has expired, but does the holder have an affirmative duty to do so?
In your moral system, what exactly is required of the former holder of an expired copyright? Does he (or she) have to make a computer-readable version available? Does he have to host it on his servers, and pay the bandwidth charges? Does he have to mail a CD to everyone who asks, and anybody who doesn't? What does he have to do so that you can exercise your right to copy this work?
I'm no fan of MS, but BillG is correct here. In 1993, MS Windows was a layer of software between the OS (which was DOS) and an application. You needed DOS to run MS Windows.
That is no longer true (I know, I know, Win 9x/ME is still based on DOS, but you no longer have to install DOS first and run the win command, do you?). MS Windows is the OS and not separate from it. As an aside, I believe that what BillG actually said at the antitrust trial was that IE was an integral part of MS Windows, not that MS Windows and the OS were the same thing.
So BillG is correct if his testimony in the Lindows.com case referred to MS Windows circa 1993. I can't really be sure of this, since the author was paraphrasing BillG, but it seems reasonable to me.
Slashdot Mirror
Next time, please take a look at the Election Map and pick one of the red states to attack. Electing Bush again was their idea, not ours.
Sincerely,
A Citizen of a Blue State
P.S.: Don't bother to tell me that the Pentagon is in a red state - it's practically part of DC, which is blue.
This bill was killed weeks ago. I think that only 1 representative voted for it. Even the sponsor (Rangel) voted against it.
There were some other interesting comments in the article about staffing up Selective Service, and the "back-door" draft of not letting people leave the military.
Um, why? Are people going to sign up to vote under fake names so they can win a lottery? What good would winning a lottery using a fake name do?
What kind of laws would you suggest? I mean, it's just a friggen number.
Oh, OK. Then what's your SSN, Mr. DiPierro?
Seriously, it's not just a friggen number.
>something illegal (not immoral) for the right reasons, because the law is wrong.
Civil disobedience is when you break the law with the full knowledge of the law enforcement authorities and accept the (risk of) punishment for your actions. Sharing music using anonymous P2P is NOT civil disobedience - it's simply breaking the law and hoping not to get caught, and there's nothing moral about it, your fancy rationalizations notwithstanding. An example of civil disobedience is sending a letter to the FBI, copying the RIAA, telling them that you will be sharing music during such and such a time period. (All this is based on the assumption that such sharing is against the law.)
Of course, this makes it a pain to apply for instant credit (for, say, a Sears card), but it's worth it. One more thing: make sure that changes to your contact information in your credit report must be done in writing.
I did some web research on SIDS. It's a diagnosis of exclusion, which means that the pathologist can't figure out what the hell happened, so he calls it SIDS. One theory, that I came to agree with, was that SIDS was caused by rebreathed carbon dioxide. The air doesn't circulate well enough around the child, so the carbon dioxide level in the child's blood goes up and up. What to do about it? For my child, I bought a crib with slats on all sides (no solid ends), a well-fitting mattress with a well-fitting sheet, and put the kid in there with nothing else (except clothing). No toys, blankets, bumper guards, NOTHING. Of course, put the child on his back. Do these measures work? For my sample size (3), they worked.
Please make sure to check the "I will donate my organs" box and sign the back of your license. My brother-in-law needs a new set of lungs. Thanks!
If you can't afford to buy music, then don't buy it.
The more complex answer is that today is the 3rd, an odd day, so SCO is claiming that the GPL is invalid, so GPL'd software is in the public domain, so it's OK for them to distribute it. But SCO's code was never released under the GPL, so it's OK for them to claim infringement and extort^H^H^H^H^H be compensated for the use of their code.
Tomorrow is an even day, and the claims will be different. I think they'll be back to "All your code are belong to us", where they claim that all of Linux is a derivative work of something they did at some point in the past (they're not sure what, exactly, but does it matter?), so they should be compensated for that.
However, on days that are a prime number more than 5, SCO claims that IBM violated the contract with AT&T, so IBM owes SCO money. Everybody else does, too, because SCO is such a nice company.
See how easy it is? You just need a calendar and some basic math. Hope this helps.
And I loved this quote:
Where else would it return to?I forget the Latin for it, but the phrase is, "Who benefits?". It nicely sums up the proposition that the most likely suspect is the person who benefits from the crime. If a person with a big life insurance policy is murdered, the cops talk to the policy's beneficiary. They don't arrest the beneficiary straightaway, but it's a good place to start asking questions. With the blacklist DDOS, the people who benefit the most are the spammers. We don't know it was them (you're right, there is no connection proven), but they're certainly at the top of the suspect list, especially after the SoBig story.
And I see no reason why anyone would think spammers have a trace of morals.
The contract claim may have merit, if CI Host had a contract with AOL, but I'd give 100 to 1 they don't.
The "unfair competition" claim, at least as you stated:
>Suppliers to businesses must provide equal opportunity to all competitors.
>For (a simple) example, Cisco can't sell their parts to reseller A at a
>lower cost than they do to reseller B
is completely wrong. Negotiations for discounts to resellers are a perfectly normal business practice.
Shorting stock is not something you want to do on principle. Your're selling something that isn't yours, with the promise to buy it back later. If the stock goes up, you lose money. You might lose a LOT of money. Ordinarily, I'd suggest buying put options on the stock, but those don't seem to be available for SCO right now (I don't know why). With put options, you have limited downside risk, and you have much greater leverage.
I want SCO crushed just as much as the next /. er, but I'd hate to see somebody lose money shorting SCO just to make somebody else's point. Actually, at only 20 shares, you're most likely just helping out your broker, not making a dent in the stock price.
"He who sells what isn't his'n, buys it back or goes to prison" - My favorite quote from all my financial books.
No, according to the FSF.
Well, traffic accidents killed about 41,000 people and injured about 3.2 million more. Many of these accidents could have been prevented, and the police are charged with preventing crime, as well as prosecuting it.
So I don't really mind that police spend more time on traffic enforcement than on identity theft investigations. Yes, identity theft costs money, but some things are more important than money.
As the government's lawyer, Boies won the case against Microsoft, and his cross-examination of Microsoft's witnesses was legendary. See here, for example. So, yes, he would be just the lawyer I'd want on my side. It's very unfortunate that he's on SCO's side in this case.
The second problem is that, once your ownership increases to more than 5%, you have to file a statement that you own 5% (or whatever) of the company. I think you file it with the SEC, though I'm not sure. The 5% may vary by state (if SCO is incorporated in Delaware, I'm pretty sure it's 5%). So you can't buy a company without anyone noticing.
Also, many companies (not sure about SCO) have staggered boards - some board members have terms that expire this year, some the next, etc. - so that makes it hard to take control of the board (and the company) if the board doesn't agree with it. There are other takeover defenses - the poison pill, for example, that make hostile takeovers extremely difficult.
IBM's current strategy - beat the hell out of SCO through the press, and eventually the courts - is the best.
Several months ago, a /. post suggested setting up a HotMail account with the username == the serial number of a dollar bill in your wallet. When you sign up, uncheck all the "send me stuff" offers. Do not give out this email to anyone in any form.
I took the dare. To date, I have only received email from "Hotmail Staff". Most of that has been service information ("Don't give people your password:, etc). One sent June 19 was spam (titled, " Listen to 50 Cent, Avril & Coldplay â" try it ... ", I certainly didn't ask for this).
My verdict: HotMail isn't selling your address. The spam in your HotMail InBox is probably coming from dictionary attacks or other forms. I'm not saying that HotMail couldn't do more to prevent spam. I'm simply saying HotMail isn't selling your address.
If SCO really had a case, they would let the analysts look at the code without an NDA. The analysts would certainly not go out and incorporate the SCO code into Linux. But SCO can't do this, because SCO knows that it's full of crap.
>release it in the clear
Why do you say this? Why is it evil to not release a work "in the clear" once copyright is expired? I really don't understand this mentality. I can see how it would be nice for a copyright holder to release a work once copyright has expired, but does the holder have an affirmative duty to do so?
In your moral system, what exactly is required of the former holder of an expired copyright? Does he (or she) have to make a computer-readable version available? Does he have to host it on his servers, and pay the bandwidth charges? Does he have to mail a CD to everyone who asks, and anybody who doesn't? What does he have to do so that you can exercise your right to copy this work?
That is no longer true (I know, I know, Win 9x/ME is still based on DOS, but you no longer have to install DOS first and run the win command, do you?). MS Windows is the OS and not separate from it. As an aside, I believe that what BillG actually said at the antitrust trial was that IE was an integral part of MS Windows, not that MS Windows and the OS were the same thing.
So BillG is correct if his testimony in the Lindows.com case referred to MS Windows circa 1993. I can't really be sure of this, since the author was paraphrasing BillG, but it seems reasonable to me.