If a newspaper or anybody else makes baseless accusations of serious crimes against somebody and refuses to retract them, surely that's illegal not only in Canada but anywhere?
No, it's not. Complicating the matter further is that the lens of "truth" is often defined by those with means/money/power to do so. Need I bring up the evolution/intelligent design to emphasize my point?
It would be much easier to know whom to side with after reading what the newspaper wrote.
From the linked article:
The UN fired Mr. Bangoura in 1997 after two articles in The Washington Post accused him of sexual harassment and financial improprieties. A UN tribunal later found the allegations baseless and said he should be compensated and reinstated.
Mr. Bangoura, a Canadian citizen, sued the Post for libel and argued that because the newspaper posted the story on its website, his reputation had been damaged in Ontario.
The newspaper moved to have the case dismissed and argued that if it were allowed to proceed in Ontario, any news organization could be sued anywhere over material posted on its website.
In a decision issued last year, Mr. Justice Romain Pitt of the Ontario Superior Court said the case could go ahead in Ontario. "Those who publish via the Internet are aware of the global reach of their publications, and must consider the legal consequences in the jurisdiction of the subjects of their articles," he wrote.
The Post appealed the decision, and in a hearing before the Court of Appeal yesterday, it was joined by the media coalition in arguing that Judge Pitt's ruling went too far. The ruling "will discourage and inhibit a free flow of information," Paul Schabas, a Toronto lawyer representing the Post, told the court. "It will have a chilling effect on speech."
He added that the Post had seven subscribers in Ontario when the article appeared and only one person paid to access the story through the newspaper's on-line archive service. He also said Mr. Bangoura didn't move to Ontario until 2000, long after the story appeared.
Some of the most important piece of info:
a) The WP accused Mr. Bangoura in 1997 of sexual & financial improprieties which caused him to lose his job. b) A UN tribunal later found that what the WP said was baseless and they shouldn't have canned him(Oops!). They also said he should be compensated & reinstated. c) Mr. Bangoura moved to Ontario in 2000 where he then sued the WP on the basis that they are ruining his reputation d) The WP has 7 subscribers in Ontario and only 1 has paid to read the article.
It seems to me that Mr. Bangoura should have gone after the WP in Washington, DC not Ontario, Canada. It also strikes me as odd that he would wait this long before going after the WP, but that is immaterial. The central point being that anything written true or not should be bound only by the laws in whatever country the article was published in.
To be perfectly honest, do you really think that the average consumer has the ability or the desire to decide what is "best" for themselves?
This question is irrelivant. People should be allowed to make their own decisions, no matter how poor. If you're concerned that decisions are bad, you invest in education rather than making decisions for people.
Yes, people should be allowed to make their own decisions and they do. People (in the macro sense) decide with their wallets what's in their best interest. This does not make his question irrelevant, though. In this context he is presenting it, he is absolutely correct. Most people do view computers the same way they view their television & microwave; as an appliance. And why shouldn't they? One of the main driving forces behind the PC's exceptional growth is that it's "easy enough for anyone" to use. This is not to minimize the value of OSS and the contributions that so many have made, only to highlight that to gain acceptance en masse is going to require catering to how the people who buy computers view them, not as we want them to view computers.
OMG! I have an old Comapq laptop that got donated to me b/c the HDD needed to be replaced. Since replacing the drive, I've run into the same difficulties you're having. I really don't want to put 98 on there but there's a severe lack of w2k drivers for it. I've got Debian on there, but I'd like to put w2k on there as well. What model is yours? Mine's the Presario 1794 (I think, but I'm at work right now...so I may be mistaken).
...have always been an issue with Linux as PC users have gotten spoiled with Windows driver support...
It's not called being spoiled, it's called progress. Why don't we go back to the days of ISA while we're at it & having to remember every IRQ and minute detail about every piece of hardware? Linux driver support and the community's ability to demand drivers and actually get them has gotten exponentially better since I began using it in '96.
I disagree that an intense advertising campaign will get people to switch. The early adopters (us) spread things by word of mouth/blog/forums. If a search engine is updated & suddenly gives exactly what you're looking for everytime as the first result, word will spread like wildfire. If it sucks...well, that'll spread to like wildfire too. The bottom line is, if they want more people to use their search engine, then make it better (better results, less obtrusive/pervasive ads, etc.) than the alternatives.
Or it could be.....they really like working for Google. I can't think of a better group of people to ask if they're happy with their jobs than the people that actually work in them, can you?
I think the reason that EULAs get away with that nonsense is that people are used to just clicking on them and the general impression is that they aren't terribly legally binding.
I disagree. I don't think that most people quantify what the consequences (positive or negative) are of the EULA when they click. They just want the damn thing to work. I'm not an expert on the subject, but my understanding is that click-thru EULA's are still instruments that haven't been tested as thoroughly as other areas.
Contracts are great for their intended purpose - outlining rights and responsiblities in major transactions (your house, your car). They work best when you're talking about tangible things, or clearly defined services.
I agree with you completely.
Perhaps there should be a law that all contracts are reviewed for fairness by a state attourney.
I hope you're joking. The AG's office would be overloaded with a backlog of contracts to "be reviewed" because company XYZ just modified the terms of Widget X. I take offense to the fact that you don't believe people aren't able to determine what is or is not "fair". Wouldn't you agree that a more pragmatic approach is to say a the parties involved decide what or is not fair? You don't like the terms, don't buy it. Don't bitch about how you don't like the terms AFTER you sign it. Another post hit the mark when they said "consent & informed consent are two completly different things". We need more informed consent, which means we need a smarter consumer. That's not likely to happen until they understand and can see just why they should be informed.
I don't know if they use a fixed list of sites. I copied the addresses from the netcraft page stating they were targeted by Lycos & were experiencing outages.
I had similar issues with my disk. My solution was to burn an image w/ Alcohol 120% & use that. I continue to use the image instead of the CD. I do this with all my games if I can. I'm not saying this is the "best" solution, but it is an effective one.
It's not about the people who just "hit delete". It's about the.0001% that actually reply to the email. In this case, most of the spam sent were "make money from home" schemes in addition to other schemes requiring the victim to shell out thousands of dollars. The internet just allowed this individual to do it on a MASSIVE scale. I personally believe 9 years is harsh, but not cruel & unusual. As this is the first case to be prosecuted, the goal is also to send a message to other spammers. I have faith the sentence will be reduced somewhere in the appeals court(s).
While this may not be news to/. community, I can assure you that this *is* news to the PHB & corporate executive types. I haven't found any "studies" showing your assertion, only a bunch of no-name anonymous people on the internet. Having someone as respected in the business community back up your assertion will give you clout when dealing with the non-slashdot (Joe Six-Pack & Granny) community. To put it bluntly:
It's one thing to run your mouth on a tech related web site claiming something. It's an entirely different (and more credible) thing to have a major business publication say you're right.
Viewing the other posts on the keyhole forums 40k/s seems to be the magic number that keeps popping up. This sugggests capping (for whatever reason). My hope is that google can bring some performance improvements to keyhole.
You're right, ver2 does seem slower. What pisses me off more though is the damn nVidia logo that's always there. I understand for the trial version, but I paid for the subscription. Don't make me stare at nVidia's logo (esp. when I have an ATI card).
You mean you have better network performance being on the same provider as Keyhole? Gee, imagine that. My average speed to the rest of the world hovers around 300KB/s. My original comment was meant to be critical of their database, not necessarily their pipeline. Serving a multi TB database of image data to a large number of people is bound to cause slowdowns during "peak" hours. However, there are *many* posts in the keyhole forums regarding average speeds of around 40K/s which suggests either capping or database lag.
I have a subscription for Keyhole. It was $35 for a year subscription, so a drop in price is welcome. The max speed I've EVER gotten off their server is 36k. Lag is especially horrible during the day. Hopefully this will mean an increase in speed & responsiveness.
No, this wouldn't be a good news story to skip. This is very much a newsworthy story (at least for tech related news). A good portion of the population depends on AV companies to protect, prevent and/or repair their computers from viruses, worms & other malware. If a credible(?) threat is made against them then keeping those most likely to get asked "Why won't my virus program update?" in the loop is better than keeping them in the dark.
I agree. I remember reading an article about a horrible murder in (I believe) Scotland. Local police there asked all males fitting a certain profile to "volunteer" dna samples. Those who didn't were automatically suspect. THAT scares me. I've been trying to find the article for the past 20 minutes but I can't (sorry).
Slashdot Mirror
No, it's not. Complicating the matter further is that the lens of "truth" is often defined by those with means/money/power to do so. Need I bring up the evolution/intelligent design to emphasize my point?
It would be much easier to know whom to side with after reading what the newspaper wrote.
From the linked article:
Some of the most important piece of info:
a) The WP accused Mr. Bangoura in 1997 of sexual & financial improprieties which caused him to lose his job.
b) A UN tribunal later found that what the WP said was baseless and they shouldn't have canned him(Oops!). They also said he should be compensated & reinstated.
c) Mr. Bangoura moved to Ontario in 2000 where he then sued the WP on the basis that they are ruining his reputation
d) The WP has 7 subscribers in Ontario and only 1 has paid to read the article.
It seems to me that Mr. Bangoura should have gone after the WP in Washington, DC not Ontario, Canada. It also strikes me as odd that he would wait this long before going after the WP, but that is immaterial. The central point being that anything written true or not should be bound only by the laws in whatever country the article was published in.
To be perfectly honest, do you really think that the average consumer has the ability or the desire to decide what is "best" for themselves?
This question is irrelivant. People should be allowed to make their own decisions, no matter how poor. If you're concerned that decisions are bad, you invest in education rather than making decisions for people.
Yes, people should be allowed to make their own decisions and they do. People (in the macro sense) decide with their wallets what's in their best interest. This does not make his question irrelevant, though. In this context he is presenting it, he is absolutely correct. Most people do view computers the same way they view their television & microwave; as an appliance. And why shouldn't they? One of the main driving forces behind the PC's exceptional growth is that it's "easy enough for anyone" to use. This is not to minimize the value of OSS and the contributions that so many have made, only to highlight that to gain acceptance en masse is going to require catering to how the people who buy computers view them, not as we want them to view computers.
OMG! I have an old Comapq laptop that got donated to me b/c the HDD needed to be replaced. Since replacing the drive, I've run into the same difficulties you're having. I really don't want to put 98 on there but there's a severe lack of w2k drivers for it. I've got Debian on there, but I'd like to put w2k on there as well. What model is yours? Mine's the Presario 1794 (I think, but I'm at work right now...so I may be mistaken).
...have always been an issue with Linux as PC users have gotten spoiled with Windows driver support...
It's not called being spoiled, it's called progress. Why don't we go back to the days of ISA while we're at it & having to remember every IRQ and minute detail about every piece of hardware? Linux driver support and the community's ability to demand drivers and actually get them has gotten exponentially better since I began using it in '96.
I disagree that an intense advertising campaign will get people to switch. The early adopters (us) spread things by word of mouth/blog/forums. If a search engine is updated & suddenly gives exactly what you're looking for everytime as the first result, word will spread like wildfire. If it sucks...well, that'll spread to like wildfire too. The bottom line is, if they want more people to use their search engine, then make it better (better results, less obtrusive/pervasive ads, etc.) than the alternatives.
Or it could be.....they really like working for Google. I can't think of a better group of people to ask if they're happy with their jobs than the people that actually work in them, can you?
I disagree. I don't think that most people quantify what the consequences (positive or negative) are of the EULA when they click. They just want the damn thing to work. I'm not an expert on the subject, but my understanding is that click-thru EULA's are still instruments that haven't been tested as thoroughly as other areas.
I agree with you completely.
I hope you're joking. The AG's office would be overloaded with a backlog of contracts to "be reviewed" because company XYZ just modified the terms of Widget X. I take offense to the fact that you don't believe people aren't able to determine what is or is not "fair". Wouldn't you agree that a more pragmatic approach is to say a the parties involved decide what or is not fair? You don't like the terms, don't buy it. Don't bitch about how you don't like the terms AFTER you sign it. Another post hit the mark when they said "consent & informed consent are two completly different things". We need more informed consent, which means we need a smarter consumer. That's not likely to happen until they understand and can see just why they should be informed.
In politics & life one can not choose the motivations behind people's actions. Therefore the next best thing is is to evaluate their actions.
Why Russia or other nations rafitied the Kyoto protocol is irrelevant. What is important though is that they faithfully execute the protocol.
I don't know if they use a fixed list of sites. I copied the addresses from the netcraft page stating they were targeted by Lycos & were experiencing outages.
www.bokwhdok.com
rxmedherbals.info
blundering.subbvbvf.com
http://m39.computergearplus.com
www.artofsense.com
printmediaprofits.biz
I had similar issues with my disk. My solution was to burn an image w/ Alcohol 120% & use that. I continue to use the image instead of the CD. I do this with all my games if I can. I'm not saying this is the "best" solution, but it is an effective one.
It's not about the people who just "hit delete". It's about the .0001% that actually reply to the email. In this case, most of the spam sent were "make money from home" schemes in addition to other schemes requiring the victim to shell out thousands of dollars. The internet just allowed this individual to do it on a MASSIVE scale. I personally believe 9 years is harsh, but not cruel & unusual. As this is the first case to be prosecuted, the goal is also to send a message to other spammers. I have faith the sentence will be reduced somewhere in the appeals court(s).
While this may not be news to /. community, I can assure you that this *is* news to the PHB & corporate executive types. I haven't found any "studies" showing your assertion, only a bunch of no-name anonymous people on the internet. Having someone as respected in the business community back up your assertion will give you clout when dealing with the non-slashdot (Joe Six-Pack & Granny) community. To put it bluntly:
It's one thing to run your mouth on a tech related web site claiming something. It's an entirely different (and more credible) thing to have a major business publication say you're right.
People may hate the MPAA (for good reason), but it's better to have somebody like Glickman at their helm than Valenti.
His actions would seem to discredit your statement. I think most people would rather have the harsh rhetoric w/o the lawyers backing it up.
Viewing the other posts on the keyhole forums 40k/s seems to be the magic number that keeps popping up. This sugggests capping (for whatever reason). My hope is that google can bring some performance improvements to keyhole.
You're right, ver2 does seem slower. What pisses me off more though is the damn nVidia logo that's always there. I understand for the trial version, but I paid for the subscription. Don't make me stare at nVidia's logo (esp. when I have an ATI card).
You mean you have better network performance being on the same provider as Keyhole? Gee, imagine that. My average speed to the rest of the world hovers around 300KB/s. My original comment was meant to be critical of their database, not necessarily their pipeline. Serving a multi TB database of image data to a large number of people is bound to cause slowdowns during "peak" hours. However, there are *many* posts in the keyhole forums regarding average speeds of around 40K/s which suggests either capping or database lag.
I have a subscription for Keyhole. It was $35 for a year subscription, so a drop in price is welcome. The max speed I've EVER gotten off their server is 36k. Lag is especially horrible during the day. Hopefully this will mean an increase in speed & responsiveness.
No, this wouldn't be a good news story to skip. This is very much a newsworthy story (at least for tech related news). A good portion of the population depends on AV companies to protect, prevent and/or repair their computers from viruses, worms & other malware. If a credible(?) threat is made against them then keeping those most likely to get asked "Why won't my virus program update?" in the loop is better than keeping them in the dark.
I agree. They're not charging for it. People around here find anything to complain about.
]
When an official response is posted, please let us know. Thank you!
You have $200 I can borrow then?
It only makes sense if you accept the guilty till proven innocent mindset.
I agree. I remember reading an article about a horrible murder in (I believe) Scotland. Local police there asked all males fitting a certain profile to "volunteer" dna samples. Those who didn't were automatically suspect. THAT scares me. I've been trying to find the article for the past 20 minutes but I can't (sorry).
Done & done. :p