You've been subjected to a frivolous suit and you can't afford a lawyer
The lawsuit is only "frivolous" if you didn't commit the alleged unlawful acts and there is no evidence suggesting you might have. I'd gesture to say this is not the case in 99% of the suits the RIAA has filed against suspected file sharers.
You've bartered some useful systems support for some potentially dangerous new-age quackery.
If chiropracty is "potentially dangerous new-age quackery", why does my (major, well-known) health insurance provider offer discounted rates on chiropractic care?
Xerox invented. Apple copied Xerox, and Microsoft copied Apple.
And then KDE copied Microsoft... (/flamebait)
Part of the problem is that "innovation" is too often defined as "doing something that no one has ever done before." It's equally as innovative to build upon something that already exists, but with a new twist.
These morons (leaders) need to figure out that IT isn't something that helps them do business.
It's worse than that. Many pointy-haired bozos seem to believe that IT's goal is to HINDER their attempts to do business. "Those assholes in Tech are dragging their feet again! I want this project done FAST, why are they insisting on doing it RIGHT instead?"
Humans are uniquely vulnerable to radioactivity. Most(all?) other species are not.
On its face, this statement is ludicrous. Exactly what biological differences exist between homo sapiens and any other species that makes us susceptible to radioactive materials and not them?
Any animal in Creation can get sick and die from radiation poisoning, most of them just do us the favor of crawling away to some secluded spot to do their dying.
Does this guy know how much energy that goes (sic) into growing plant crops for their oils, or building and maintaining water and wind turbines? (Clue: Quite alot)...
What makes spam such a big industry must be the companies who pays for it, go get them!
How do you prove that the manufacturer of a product mentioned in a spam message actually had anything to do with the spamming?
Can you prove that Pfizer paid for the multitudes of "Viagra" ads deluging your inbox? What if the spammers aren't selling actual Viagra, but rather small bottles of breath mints? What if it was actually Bristol-Myers Squibb that paid the spammers to spam for Viagra, hoping the ensuing backlash would damage their competitor's business?
By doing this, they are technically taxing Internet traffic.
Technically (and by that I mean TECHNOLOGICALLY), yes. But legally, they're taxing telephone service. The ramification of NY's decision is that the underlying infrastructure isn't relevant -- it's the type of service provided.
what prevents New York from saying IM's or email's should be taxed as long distance communication?
Presumably, the New York tax codes which are written about telephone service, and not about long-distance text-based communication.
Who do you think owns the network lines those VoIP packets are coursing through? The telecoms industry is still going to get its cut.
And cell phones will be replaced by WiFi phones, with the gentle propagation of free WiFi hot spots in Cafes etc
I don't know about you, but perhaps 1% of the cell phone calls I make or receive, if that, take place anywhere near a cafe. I want my portable phone to work reliably over a wide coverage area, and not be subject to the whims of a dozen different schmoes running wi-fi hotspots off their DSL connections over the course of a single city block.
When was the last time a Government Agency applied "only minimal regulations" to anything?
Environmental protection, mental health care, the Microsoft antitrust case, food safety inspections, just about anything where megacorporations are involved...
"Don't try to provide innovative service in a heavily regulated industry."..."or if you do, don't expect to get away with not following any of the rules that govern that industry."
The only reason they aren't already gone is because we're here
Your idea that Slashdot posters make up an important faction in the defense of civil liberties intrigues me, and I would like to subscribe to your web journal.
Got Gestapo?
No. No we don't. But you'd never know it based on the writings of reactionaries such as yourself, eager to cite a legitimate FBI investigation into a legitimate criminal act as proof that we're on an inevitable slippery slope towards totalitarianism.
The only reason [hardware vendors] are interested in making Windows drivers at all is because the environment is already so popular.
And even then, they're not very enthusiastic about it -- every other program on my XP Pro box either runs stably or fails gracefully, but my nVidia graphics drivers will still cause a BSOD once or twice a month.
He bought a product. It didn't work as advertised. It could not be fixed by the support. He has every right to complain
IDNRTA, but from the summary, it appears that the solution he's proposing is for Linux sellers to slash prices.
Okay, great, now we can buy a product that still doesn't work as advertised, still cannot be fixed by support, only now it costs less to buy. How does that help anything?
Further, anyone who has ever done anything with style sheets would never feed that -30px declaration and expect anything productive to be done with it.
Maybe it was a typo, and was supposed to read -3px?
You still haven't convinced me that Microsoft's act was malicious, and not just negligent.
You NEVER get back in a car when fueling. This lady suffered because of it.
Gee, it sure would be nice if gas stations would put up signs alerting drivers to this important safety risk. Or even better, they could teach people in driver's education classes that getting back in the car while refueling is unsafe. Ounce of prevention!
Unfortunately, none of that is being done. In fact, I had never even heard of the "sliding in and out of the car builds up static electricity that ignites gas fumes" explanation until I started reading this Slashdot thread...
They pretty much concluded that the static you build up from getting in or our of the car during a fill-up can cause a spark if you touch the car.
Suddenly, the full-serve only laws in New Jersey and Oregon make a lot more sense. Don't turn yourself into a human fireball, when you can get a low-paid unskilled laborer to do it for you!
Slashdot Mirror
You've been subjected to a frivolous suit and you can't afford a lawyer
The lawsuit is only "frivolous" if you didn't commit the alleged unlawful acts and there is no evidence suggesting you might have. I'd gesture to say this is not the case in 99% of the suits the RIAA has filed against suspected file sharers.
Or are Microsoft going to "mandate" that we use x86 processors for all our cluster needs in the future?
If you're foolish enough to choose Microsoft as your clustering solution, then yes.
You've bartered some useful systems support for some potentially dangerous new-age quackery.
If chiropracty is "potentially dangerous new-age quackery", why does my (major, well-known) health insurance provider offer discounted rates on chiropractic care?
Xerox invented. Apple copied Xerox, and Microsoft copied Apple.
And then KDE copied Microsoft... (/flamebait)
Part of the problem is that "innovation" is too often defined as "doing something that no one has ever done before." It's equally as innovative to build upon something that already exists, but with a new twist.
These morons (leaders) need to figure out that IT isn't something that helps them do business.
It's worse than that. Many pointy-haired bozos seem to believe that IT's goal is to HINDER their attempts to do business. "Those assholes in Tech are dragging their feet again! I want this project done FAST, why are they insisting on doing it RIGHT instead?"
Humans are uniquely vulnerable to radioactivity. Most(all?) other species are not.
On its face, this statement is ludicrous. Exactly what biological differences exist between homo sapiens and any other species that makes us susceptible to radioactive materials and not them?
Any animal in Creation can get sick and die from radiation poisoning, most of them just do us the favor of crawling away to some secluded spot to do their dying.
Does this guy know how much energy that goes (sic) into growing plant crops for their oils, or building and maintaining water and wind turbines? (Clue: Quite alot)...
It's set in a dystopian future where everything is run by machines, and there is very little interpersonal dialogue or human interaction.
So it's kind of like the Star Wars prequel trilogy, excape that it takes place in the future rather than long ago?
120,000 people could be arrested this week-simply for being in a database.
Um... on what charges?
So much for Innocent until Proven Guilty.
So much for being smart enough to understand the difference between investigation and imprisonment...
Tell that to Unisys. Their mainframes (at least the ones I have to use) still have their 36 bit architecture, hence a 9 bit byte.
Do you think that the DSL infrastructure in the submitter's story involved a Unisys mainframe at any point along the line, though?
What makes spam such a big industry must be the companies who pays for it, go get them!
How do you prove that the manufacturer of a product mentioned in a spam message actually had anything to do with the spamming?
Can you prove that Pfizer paid for the multitudes of "Viagra" ads deluging your inbox? What if the spammers aren't selling actual Viagra, but rather small bottles of breath mints? What if it was actually Bristol-Myers Squibb that paid the spammers to spam for Viagra, hoping the ensuing backlash would damage their competitor's business?
By doing this, they are technically taxing Internet traffic.
Technically (and by that I mean TECHNOLOGICALLY), yes. But legally, they're taxing telephone service. The ramification of NY's decision is that the underlying infrastructure isn't relevant -- it's the type of service provided.
what prevents New York from saying IM's or email's should be taxed as long distance communication?
Presumably, the New York tax codes which are written about telephone service, and not about long-distance text-based communication.
if its VoIP to VoIP they dont stand a chance
Who do you think owns the network lines those VoIP packets are coursing through? The telecoms industry is still going to get its cut.
And cell phones will be replaced by WiFi phones, with the gentle propagation of free WiFi hot spots in Cafes etc
I don't know about you, but perhaps 1% of the cell phone calls I make or receive, if that, take place anywhere near a cafe. I want my portable phone to work reliably over a wide coverage area, and not be subject to the whims of a dozen different schmoes running wi-fi hotspots off their DSL connections over the course of a single city block.
When was the last time a Government Agency applied "only minimal regulations" to anything?
Environmental protection, mental health care, the Microsoft antitrust case, food safety inspections, just about anything where megacorporations are involved...
"Don't try to provide innovative service in a heavily regulated industry." ..."or if you do, don't expect to get away with not following any of the rules that govern that industry."
You are not a special snowflake.
The vast majority of prisoners copped a plea rather than risk going to trial on a more serious charge represented by a public defender.
Do you have a citation for that statistic? It sounds an awful like a "it sounds about right to me, therefore it's probably true" kind of assertion.
The only reason they aren't already gone is because we're here
Your idea that Slashdot posters make up an important faction in the defense of civil liberties intrigues me, and I would like to subscribe to your web journal.
Got Gestapo?
No. No we don't. But you'd never know it based on the writings of reactionaries such as yourself, eager to cite a legitimate FBI investigation into a legitimate criminal act as proof that we're on an inevitable slippery slope towards totalitarianism.
It would take Fred less space to Name That Hardware than it took to write that paragraph.
The specifics about what hardware it was the didn't work are Not The Point.
The fact that something was advertised to work, and then didn't, is The Point.
The only reason [hardware vendors] are interested in making Windows drivers at all is because the environment is already so popular.
And even then, they're not very enthusiastic about it -- every other program on my XP Pro box either runs stably or fails gracefully, but my nVidia graphics drivers will still cause a BSOD once or twice a month.
He bought a product. It didn't work as advertised. It could not be fixed by the support. He has every right to complain
IDNRTA, but from the summary, it appears that the solution he's proposing is for Linux sellers to slash prices.
Okay, great, now we can buy a product that still doesn't work as advertised, still cannot be fixed by support, only now it costs less to buy. How does that help anything?
Further, anyone who has ever done anything with style sheets would never feed that -30px declaration and expect anything productive to be done with it.
Maybe it was a typo, and was supposed to read -3px?
You still haven't convinced me that Microsoft's act was malicious, and not just negligent.
You NEVER get back in a car when fueling. This lady suffered because of it.
Gee, it sure would be nice if gas stations would put up signs alerting drivers to this important safety risk. Or even better, they could teach people in driver's education classes that getting back in the car while refueling is unsafe. Ounce of prevention!
Unfortunately, none of that is being done. In fact, I had never even heard of the "sliding in and out of the car builds up static electricity that ignites gas fumes" explanation until I started reading this Slashdot thread...
Yeah, but that's petrol, not gasoline!
They pretty much concluded that the static you build up from getting in or our of the car during a fill-up can cause a spark if you touch the car.
Suddenly, the full-serve only laws in New Jersey and Oregon make a lot more sense. Don't turn yourself into a human fireball, when you can get a low-paid unskilled laborer to do it for you!