Honestly at first I liked 'yurik's explanation, room to grow Mono. But yours makes a lot of sense...
- Linux and OSS proponents have been howling about making Linux take over the desktop / retail / home market for some time. It hasn't happened. And honestly, it probably won't, not while maintaining it's technical lustre.
- Microsoft has been howling about Linux for some time. It hasn't changed anything either.
The only flaw in this theory is that SuSE Linux is used extensively in enterprise shops as a server platform. Hmm. Dunno. Maybe you're right.:)
This is a very very broad HOWTO, and does not take into account the special requirements in some courts that can get you into very real trouble.
IANAL, but I have sued in small claims court, and lived to tell about it. I found out the day I arrived in court that I was totally unprepared because I did not understand the process, and I was lucky that the defendant didn't understand how unprepared I was, so I managed to get a 50% settlement.
Some courts (for instance, Cook County court in Illinois) give defendants the absolute right to a jury trial and an attorney. So this means, even though you file pro-se, the defendant is well within his or her rights to hire a lawyer. A smart lawyer. For those keeping track, you are representing yourself, thus you are a dumb lawyer. Just guess how that turns out.
The jury trial part is especially tricky, and what almost killed my case. In a normal small claims bench trial, a judge listens to your argument and makes a decision. In in jury trial, you must present evidence is certain acceptable ways, and if you do not, your testimony will be surpressed. If you try to "get some testimony past" the rules of evidence, you might go to jail for contempt. And if you arrive in court without Jury Instructions (a legal document that you must write prior to your court date) it is entirely likely that your case will be dismissed before you even raise your right hand, and a judgement entered against you for wasting the court's (and defendants) time.
Don't know how to write jury instructions? Neither do 90% of the attorneys out there. Only litigators know this valuable information. Good luck getting free advice from them. Hint: They don't post these instructions on websites.
> Are you seriously planning to use responses here as "data" for a graduate-level academic thesis?
A splendid idea.
Divorce isn't caused by the IT industry.
It's because you've run afoul of the Flying Spagetti Monster.
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There is another angle, though. Maybe you dismiss it, but to some India is one of the hottest technical development centers in the world. And this is a country that highly values education and generally does a better job of providing it to even it's poorest constituents than the "Developed Countries". Having just returned from Hyderabad, I witnessed kids crawling out of what could only be described by a Westerner as a mud hut, with a sparkling clean and pressed school uniform on, ready to go to school. In America, these kids would probably not qualify for most public schools because they don't have an address.
Then, they go on to higher education... and guess what schools are being built fast in India? Technical schools. Lots of them.
My point is, your "backwater" country is doing a better job of educating it's masses than most western countries, and the tools that these kids learn today will shape technology tomorrow.
If by "You bought the monitor ANONYMOUSLY" you mean I gave them my name, shipping and billing address, and credit card number, then yes, I guess it was anonymous. But the CSR I called to resolve the issue certainly did not give me ONE of those pieces of information about her or her company.
In my opinion, I've never seen a rebate that wasn't a scam. Even if I got a check. Examples:
- Dell advertises a notebook computer the weekend after Black Friday last year, matching Wal-Mart's in-store price. Mysteriously, after the order is placed, the system that is automatically supposed to give you links to rebate forms says it can't find a qualifying rebate for this product. Instructions: Wait until you get your receipt (2-3 weeks, with shipment of product), send that with the *generic* rebate form (which you have to go dig up yourself), hope that someone bright enough to remember 3 weeks ago recognizes that, indeed, a rebate was offered, and if all the stars align correctly, you'll get a check. Amazingly, I did. Four months later.
- Micro Center offers a rebate if you buy Product X and Product Y together, you buy the stuff on Tuesday and stuff all the receipts and forms into your to-do pile for Saturday, only to find in small print on Saturday that your rebate forms had to be submitted within three business days of the receipt date.
- Compusa offers a rebate on online purchases of a flat=panel monitor; you order it and your order is queued and credit card charged. You download the rebate form and it says you need to include the bar code from the box. The shipment is, naturally delayed due to unforseen circumstances (who knew all these people would want a flat panel monitor at this price????) Then when you get it, the rebate is expired. Spend several months with some anonymous outsourced third party non-english-speaking CSR's and eventually after threats of legal action they begrudgingly send you a check, which still takes six to eight weeks to arrive.
I've got many stories like this, which is why I stopped buying rebate items, usually someone is willing to match the rebate price without a rebate, and they get my business. Now Office Max will be off my black list. Congrats to Office Max.
Umm, I'm sorry but there is some level of customer retention attempt that is appropriate. Certainly not to the extent that Vincent Ferrari got, but a lot more than what the AOL CSR who got fired for cancelling an account gave. (and by the way, I do not in any way shape or form believe that that is the only reason he got fired).
A valid CSR retention attempt might go something like this:
Customer: I want to cancel my account
CSR: OK, can I ask why>
Customer: Because I never use it anymore
CSR: Oh, do you have DSL or Cable?
Customer: No, my phone charges are too high
CSR:: Ok, well before I cancel it, would you allow me to try to find you a better dial-up access number to try, which should reduce or eliminate your local phone charges?
...
Then from here, either the customer says "No, I've had it" and the CSR complies, or maybe the customer says "You can do that? Sure..."
A little context here. No sense in including the rest of that quote when it doesn't suit your needs, eh?
Good. You should have been fired.
When a customer calls to cancel, it is the company's duty to find out why. Perhaps there does exist a solution the customer was not aware of. Perhaps its just frustration that can be mitigated with some service discounts. However, if these don't work, the customer shouldn't have to argue with the Sphinx to get the service stopped.
This isn't about whistleblower protection, it's about 1st Amendment protection. Who here thinks they have the constitutional right to go spout off about your employer to the press, regardless of whether they are right or wrong? Eh? Do you really understand the first amendment at all?
No. Whistleblower protection laws != 1st Amendment. We can chase the whistleblower protections at other levels but lets not lose sight of the constitution while doing it.
Showing up with a little baggy with some hair and fingernail clippings and expecting them to accept it as "your" dna sample is just stupid.
Actually, showing up with a little baggy with some hair and fingernail clippings is just legal maneouvering, likely orchestrated by his attorney. It will be used by his attorney at the hearing to show his interest in adhering to the spirit of the requirement. The details, like pulling a hair follicle or swabbing his mouth, would still be done by an officer of the court after the judge makes his or her decision.
Let's not jump to conclusions here, he may be playing games but we won't know unless the Judge in the matter sides with him but orders him to submit to a hair follicle or oral swabbing.
As has already been mentioned several times, those "basic freedoms" you speak of apply to law-abiding citizens; there is no such protection for convicted felons. And, indeed, he plead guilty.
There is plenty of freedom at work here. His freedom to refuse. Note that they are not tying him down and forcing a needle into his arm. His freedom to choose more court proceedings and possibly a five year prison sentence over violating his religious beliefs.
The law is the law, but in this case the law is probably pretty weak, since he did offer up his DNA in another form. I am willing to bet that a judge might very well order the probation department to accept his alternate DNA, if he behaves himself.
First of all, shame on BA for letting anyone with a FF number access personal data without a password. That certainly is the root of the problem. AA requires a password. So does every other carrier I use.
Second, and you can quote me on this,
DUH.
You've got a piece of paper with your name and potentially a receipt (some airlines print their receipts on the tickets, which sometimes also form the boarding pass). You should destroy any piece of paper with your name on it. If you don't understand that, then you don't understand how to protect yourself against identity theft. Smart people have been shredding their used boarding passes for years.
A long time ago, you actually were issued a Social Security Card in the US (maybe still are) but it actually meant something. The bearer could actually use it as ID. Over time, the physical card itself lost significance but the number became a very hot topic and the use of this card as ID is waning.
Back then, some people got SSN's (and cards), and some people... who wanted anonymity... did not. If you wanted to get government services, you had to have an SSN. If you wanted anonymity, you had to give up the dole.
My first point is, that's not so bad. As a taxpayer, I don't think it's fair to hand out free money and services from my tax dollars to anyone who shows up and asks for it. If you want my tax dollars, you need to give something up for it. Boo hoo.
So in that context, a system like Australia's really all that bad. The militia nuts who want to stay completely off the government's radar are free to do so. They just won't get any government services, that's a fair price for their anonymity. The converse is true... the price for a free handout is their anonymity.
Speaking of which, how does this impact MythTV? I know that it's probably easy to get commercial products like TiVO to go along with this, but what about the free choices out there? Will they just easily work around it and we'll go on not paying to not see ads?
The guy who posted that "tip" sounds like a Dell stooge. When my employer was a buying Dells, my Dell rep used to send me "tips" like that - sometimes their information led to no actual content, other times they actually sent links to internal Dell websites that didn't resolve externally. Yeah, they're a hoot. I can't tell you how glad I am that we don't buy Dells anymore.
Actually, it was Bill Gates who raised the publicity flag first, by mocking the project. http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060316/tc_nm/microsof t_gates_dc.
But if you're talking about MIT announcing the project, and daring to keep working on the project after Bill Gates mocked it, and responding to his criticism, I guess those soulless bastards are guilty.
Frankly, I think Gates feels threatened in two ways: someone is out-tech'ing him, and someone is out-charitying him. Poor guy. He must feel like such an insensitive clod. Too bad he's clueless, this isn't about someone paying $100 bucks for a PC, a poor African child can no more afford that than a $3000 PC. It's about making a PC cheap enough that an NGO can afford to give them away. And that's a far cry from anything even the holy Bill and Melinda Foundation are trying to accomplish.
As an American, this doesn't surprise me. Coat-tail provisions to new proposed laws commonly have little to do with the original law. It's probably the same in Australia.
I guess this might be construed as off-topic, so we'll rectify that now. Spam sucks, and spam prevention laws don't work. There.
Before we write it off as another example of Bush administration surveillance, how much do we know about this program? There is already military aircraft flying sorties over U.S. Airspace to deter another 9/11 style attack, this is in response to everyone whining about the prior lack of protection of the U.S. mainland that allowed attackers to launch an attack on our own soil (well, airspace).
So if the military is already keeping a watch on US airspace, what's the problem with increasing that protection by using cheap drones to augment human sorties?
I agree that the current administration has taken inappropriate liberties with our liberties. But I don't use that as an excuse to knock down every attempt to protect US soil, regardless of it's value.
Now the issue of sharing airspace with commercial traffic is another one altogether, and I think that the US would be wise to keep their drones out of the way of commercial traffic if they don't want a major disaster.
Yes, as we learned with Interferon. In the early 80's Interferon was touted as a cure-all for cancer. While it is still used to treat some cancers, it has fallen far flat of a cure and it's main FDA-approved purpose is treating Hepatitis.
Certainly some good will come of this, but I have learned not to get my hopes up.
Also, as we've learned from "curing" Smallpox, once we beat the disease, we become less immune to a flare-up because the Government has declared the disease dead, stopped production of immunizations, and now everyone who got the smallpox vax in the 70's are possibly no longer immune.
That is a great idea, really it is. The challenge it presents is, everyone has to "buy in" to the idea of being mirrors for the stream. That's fairly straitforward in bittorrent, everyone's there for the same purpose... but webcast viewers are not there to share, they are there to watch. I suspect some people (I'm not saying they aren't selfish people) would have a problem with sharing their own bandwidth, if they knew that's what it entailed. Especially casual webcast users.
But, again, a really, really great idea to produce a torrent-like video streaming system.
Slashdot Mirror
Honestly at first I liked 'yurik's explanation, room to grow Mono. But yours makes a lot of sense...
:)
- Linux and OSS proponents have been howling about making Linux take over the desktop / retail / home market for some time. It hasn't happened. And honestly, it probably won't, not while maintaining it's technical lustre.
- Microsoft has been howling about Linux for some time. It hasn't changed anything either.
The only flaw in this theory is that SuSE Linux is used extensively in enterprise shops as a server platform. Hmm. Dunno. Maybe you're right.
This is a very very broad HOWTO, and does not take into account the special requirements in some courts that can get you into very real trouble.
IANAL, but I have sued in small claims court, and lived to tell about it. I found out the day I arrived in court that I was totally unprepared because I did not understand the process, and I was lucky that the defendant didn't understand how unprepared I was, so I managed to get a 50% settlement.
Some courts (for instance, Cook County court in Illinois) give defendants the absolute right to a jury trial and an attorney. So this means, even though you file pro-se, the defendant is well within his or her rights to hire a lawyer. A smart lawyer. For those keeping track, you are representing yourself, thus you are a dumb lawyer. Just guess how that turns out.
The jury trial part is especially tricky, and what almost killed my case. In a normal small claims bench trial, a judge listens to your argument and makes a decision. In in jury trial, you must present evidence is certain acceptable ways, and if you do not, your testimony will be surpressed. If you try to "get some testimony past" the rules of evidence, you might go to jail for contempt. And if you arrive in court without Jury Instructions (a legal document that you must write prior to your court date) it is entirely likely that your case will be dismissed before you even raise your right hand, and a judgement entered against you for wasting the court's (and defendants) time.
Don't know how to write jury instructions? Neither do 90% of the attorneys out there. Only litigators know this valuable information. Good luck getting free advice from them. Hint: They don't post these instructions on websites.
> Are you seriously planning to use responses here as "data" for a graduate-level academic thesis?
A splendid idea.
Divorce isn't caused by the IT industry.
It's because you've run afoul of the Flying Spagetti Monster.
Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire comment are permitted worldwide, without royalty, in any medium, provided this notice, and the copyright notice, are preserved.
There is another angle, though. Maybe you dismiss it, but to some India is one of the hottest technical development centers in the world. And this is a country that highly values education and generally does a better job of providing it to even it's poorest constituents than the "Developed Countries". Having just returned from Hyderabad, I witnessed kids crawling out of what could only be described by a Westerner as a mud hut, with a sparkling clean and pressed school uniform on, ready to go to school. In America, these kids would probably not qualify for most public schools because they don't have an address.
Then, they go on to higher education... and guess what schools are being built fast in India? Technical schools. Lots of them.
My point is, your "backwater" country is doing a better job of educating it's masses than most western countries, and the tools that these kids learn today will shape technology tomorrow.
They might ask you the URL, mighten they? http://www.footmouse.com/
If by "You bought the monitor ANONYMOUSLY" you mean I gave them my name, shipping and billing address, and credit card number, then yes, I guess it was anonymous. But the CSR I called to resolve the issue certainly did not give me ONE of those pieces of information about her or her company.
In my opinion, I've never seen a rebate that wasn't a scam. Even if I got a check. Examples:
- Dell advertises a notebook computer the weekend after Black Friday last year, matching Wal-Mart's in-store price. Mysteriously, after the order is placed, the system that is automatically supposed to give you links to rebate forms says it can't find a qualifying rebate for this product. Instructions: Wait until you get your receipt (2-3 weeks, with shipment of product), send that with the *generic* rebate form (which you have to go dig up yourself), hope that someone bright enough to remember 3 weeks ago recognizes that, indeed, a rebate was offered, and if all the stars align correctly, you'll get a check. Amazingly, I did. Four months later.
- Micro Center offers a rebate if you buy Product X and Product Y together, you buy the stuff on Tuesday and stuff all the receipts and forms into your to-do pile for Saturday, only to find in small print on Saturday that your rebate forms had to be submitted within three business days of the receipt date.
- Compusa offers a rebate on online purchases of a flat=panel monitor; you order it and your order is queued and credit card charged. You download the rebate form and it says you need to include the bar code from the box. The shipment is, naturally delayed due to unforseen circumstances (who knew all these people would want a flat panel monitor at this price????) Then when you get it, the rebate is expired. Spend several months with some anonymous outsourced third party non-english-speaking CSR's and eventually after threats of legal action they begrudgingly send you a check, which still takes six to eight weeks to arrive.
I've got many stories like this, which is why I stopped buying rebate items, usually someone is willing to match the rebate price without a rebate, and they get my business. Now Office Max will be off my black list. Congrats to Office Max.
Today, I did not clean the dust out of my power supply. Nor did I unplug my computer during an electrical storm. I'm livin' La Vida Loca!!!
Honestly, some guy doesn't run a back-up and it gets on Slashdot? Must be a really slow news day...
A valid CSR retention attempt might go something like this:
Customer: I want to cancel my account
CSR: OK, can I ask why>
Customer: Because I never use it anymore
CSR: Oh, do you have DSL or Cable?
Customer: No, my phone charges are too high
CSR:: Ok, well before I cancel it, would you allow me to try to find you a better dial-up access number to try, which should reduce or eliminate your local phone charges?
...
Then from here, either the customer says "No, I've had it" and the CSR complies, or maybe the customer says "You can do that? Sure..."
Not every CSR conversation has to go like this:
Customer: I want to cancel
CSR: Done. Thanks. bye.
This isn't about whistleblower protection, it's about 1st Amendment protection. Who here thinks they have the constitutional right to go spout off about your employer to the press, regardless of whether they are right or wrong? Eh? Do you really understand the first amendment at all?
No. Whistleblower protection laws != 1st Amendment. We can chase the whistleblower protections at other levels but lets not lose sight of the constitution while doing it.
Showing up with a little baggy with some hair and fingernail clippings and expecting them to accept it as "your" dna sample is just stupid. Actually, showing up with a little baggy with some hair and fingernail clippings is just legal maneouvering, likely orchestrated by his attorney. It will be used by his attorney at the hearing to show his interest in adhering to the spirit of the requirement. The details, like pulling a hair follicle or swabbing his mouth, would still be done by an officer of the court after the judge makes his or her decision.
Let's not jump to conclusions here, he may be playing games but we won't know unless the Judge in the matter sides with him but orders him to submit to a hair follicle or oral swabbing.
As has already been mentioned several times, those "basic freedoms" you speak of apply to law-abiding citizens; there is no such protection for convicted felons. And, indeed, he plead guilty.
There is plenty of freedom at work here. His freedom to refuse. Note that they are not tying him down and forcing a needle into his arm. His freedom to choose more court proceedings and possibly a five year prison sentence over violating his religious beliefs.
The law is the law, but in this case the law is probably pretty weak, since he did offer up his DNA in another form. I am willing to bet that a judge might very well order the probation department to accept his alternate DNA, if he behaves himself.
Second, and you can quote me on this,
DUH.
You've got a piece of paper with your name and potentially a receipt (some airlines print their receipts on the tickets, which sometimes also form the boarding pass). You should destroy any piece of paper with your name on it. If you don't understand that, then you don't understand how to protect yourself against identity theft. Smart people have been shredding their used boarding passes for years.
A long time ago, you actually were issued a Social Security Card in the US (maybe still are) but it actually meant something. The bearer could actually use it as ID. Over time, the physical card itself lost significance but the number became a very hot topic and the use of this card as ID is waning.
... who wanted anonymity ... did not. If you wanted to get government services, you had to have an SSN. If you wanted anonymity, you had to give up the dole.
Back then, some people got SSN's (and cards), and some people
My first point is, that's not so bad. As a taxpayer, I don't think it's fair to hand out free money and services from my tax dollars to anyone who shows up and asks for it. If you want my tax dollars, you need to give something up for it. Boo hoo.
So in that context, a system like Australia's really all that bad. The militia nuts who want to stay completely off the government's radar are free to do so. They just won't get any government services, that's a fair price for their anonymity. The converse is true... the price for a free handout is their anonymity.
Well my point was will MythTV be forced to implement it. But I think the previous poster got that and covered it.
Speaking of which, how does this impact MythTV? I know that it's probably easy to get commercial products like TiVO to go along with this, but what about the free choices out there? Will they just easily work around it and we'll go on not paying to not see ads?
No.
The guy who posted that "tip" sounds like a Dell stooge. When my employer was a buying Dells, my Dell rep used to send me "tips" like that - sometimes their information led to no actual content, other times they actually sent links to internal Dell websites that didn't resolve externally. Yeah, they're a hoot. I can't tell you how glad I am that we don't buy Dells anymore.
Actually, it was Bill Gates who raised the publicity flag first, by mocking the project. http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060316/tc_nm/microsof t_gates_dc.
But if you're talking about MIT announcing the project, and daring to keep working on the project after Bill Gates mocked it, and responding to his criticism, I guess those soulless bastards are guilty.
Frankly, I think Gates feels threatened in two ways: someone is out-tech'ing him, and someone is out-charitying him. Poor guy. He must feel like such an insensitive clod. Too bad he's clueless, this isn't about someone paying $100 bucks for a PC, a poor African child can no more afford that than a $3000 PC. It's about making a PC cheap enough that an NGO can afford to give them away. And that's a far cry from anything even the holy Bill and Melinda Foundation are trying to accomplish.
As an American, this doesn't surprise me. Coat-tail provisions to new proposed laws commonly have little to do with the original law. It's probably the same in Australia.
I guess this might be construed as off-topic, so we'll rectify that now. Spam sucks, and spam prevention laws don't work. There.
Before we write it off as another example of Bush administration surveillance, how much do we know about this program? There is already military aircraft flying sorties over U.S. Airspace to deter another 9/11 style attack, this is in response to everyone whining about the prior lack of protection of the U.S. mainland that allowed attackers to launch an attack on our own soil (well, airspace).
So if the military is already keeping a watch on US airspace, what's the problem with increasing that protection by using cheap drones to augment human sorties?
I agree that the current administration has taken inappropriate liberties with our liberties. But I don't use that as an excuse to knock down every attempt to protect US soil, regardless of it's value.
Now the issue of sharing airspace with commercial traffic is another one altogether, and I think that the US would be wise to keep their drones out of the way of commercial traffic if they don't want a major disaster.
Yes, as we learned with Interferon. In the early 80's Interferon was touted as a cure-all for cancer. While it is still used to treat some cancers, it has fallen far flat of a cure and it's main FDA-approved purpose is treating Hepatitis. Certainly some good will come of this, but I have learned not to get my hopes up. Also, as we've learned from "curing" Smallpox, once we beat the disease, we become less immune to a flare-up because the Government has declared the disease dead, stopped production of immunizations, and now everyone who got the smallpox vax in the 70's are possibly no longer immune.
I so rarely get to actually recommend this book on-topic in a conversation... http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0394750799/103-05 21598-0730242?v=glance&n=283155
But, again, a really, really great idea to produce a torrent-like video streaming system.