Re:Whoa, doesn't the US protect its citizens ?
on
Loki Aftermath Looks Bad
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· Score: 4, Informative
Well, not quite as simple as that.
Basically (and highly simplified), creditors are placed in various groups (no, amount owed isn't a criteria - other factors are). These groups are then paid off in a set priority. If you are a creditor with an unsecured debt, you're not getting much. Within the group, the money is usually distributed in a level manner - x percent per dollar owed.
Usually, everyone in bankruptcy gets screwed, especially chapter 9.
What the courts CAN do is examine past transactions from the company, and compel the reversal of those transactions.
A capital gain occurs when something you own is sold. Pretty basic, I think you've got that part down.
Now, a mutual fund (note that was what I was talking about) is a group of investors owning a group of stocks (or other investment items). Hopefully, I haven't lost you yet.
When a mutual fund sells an investment, a capital gain is potentially created. These are passed on to each investor in the mutual fund as a transparent event. Most people have their accounts set up to automatically reinvest these capital gain distributions, but I digress.
So what this means is that when a mutual fund creates capital gaines/losses, those are passed on to the investors of the mutual fund.
The price of the mutual fund itself does not directly relate to these events (but often is reflective of the activity of the fund), but the performance of the investments of the mutual fund. When a mutual fund investor sells their shares, they compare the selling price to the basis of their investment to determine if they have a capital gain or loss.
You missed something there - capital gains. Most mutual funds can be classified as either growth or income type funds. Income funds generate dividends which is considered ordinary income.
Growth type funds generate capital gains. These are transfered to you (the share owner) periodically. Sometime in January, you should be getting a tax form from the mutual fund company, and you have to pay taxes on those mutual fund capital gains.
Great example - me last year. My mutual funds went down, but generated capital gains trying to get out of the tech stocks in time. My portfolio took a hit, and I ended up paying capital gains taxes.
Sorry, but there is a way for you to take a paper loss, and pay taxes on it!
Simple - most users of Word don't know and don't care that it can save in different formats. They save the document. Period. They don't change the format, they don't WANT to change the format. It's something trivial to them that they don't understand and don't care to.
Word has quite a few functions that people never use, this is another. How often do you save a document in something other than the default?
This was an interesting editorial, but the thought that kept going through my head was why?
Why ask people to change away from something THEY are comfortable with? Why ask a casual user to use a feature in Word that they probably don't know how to use? (The Save As option - most people don't know it's there, or what it does).
What is the normal tool used for creating text documents - Word. Right or wrong, it's there. A sophisticated user probably understands the optiosn available, and the audience of their message and chooses an appropriate format. A casual user, which is the majority of users, doesn't care, doesn't WANT to care, and more importantly, SHOULDN'T care about the format.
These people want to share something they have. They don't want to have to learn a new program or feature to do it - they just want it to happen.
If I send something out in a Word document, there's probably a good reason for it. Getting a reply back from someone that says "Please send this in another format" is not going to endear that person to me. I don't really worry about whether that person PREFERS a certain format or not - after all, if they sent that reply to me, they don't care what I might prefer.
Ahh, but that's probably not their concern! The clients, who are using the machines, should be responsible for the electronic security of the machines. This facility covers the physical security of the machines.
I would point out that these changes in accounting standards and practices do not happen over-night. Months and sometimes years of notice are given prior to adoption.
On ANY project you've got to have a subject matter expert, if you want to produce a high-quality product. That expert can be a discussion group, or a single person, but you've got to have one.
BUT... the contract itself does seem to be legal. He is giving up something (money) for a service (internet connection). As part of that arrangement, certain restrictions on the usage have been set, in the contract. When he signed the contract (or agreed via a website or by placing an order), he has agreed to all terms of the contract.
There's no monopoly there - there are alternatives to this service. Maybe not as attractive, but there are alternatives.
As for restraint of trade - huh? I'm not seeing this here. VPN is generally (key word there) used by businesses, or by individuals wanting to telecommute. These tend to use higher amounts of bandwidth during peak periods. In general, business-level services tend to be more expensive than residential services. It doesn't really matter why - they just tend to be. A business-level service IS being offered, without the restrictions a residential service has.
Someone using the residential service must weigh the risks of termination of service for violiting the terms of service vs. paying for the business-level service.
Hopefully, the company won't cut someone off for using a VPN, but only using minimal bandwidth.
How would you argue this case to a normal person? If you told me that you are suing person A to let you do something that they initially forbade you to do, but subsequently (and publicly) gave you explicit consent for, I'd fall over laughing.
WHY would you want to add ANOTHER lawsuit to this world over something that didn't happen? Yes, it would have been nice if this HAD gone farther, but the threat of the lawsuit HAD THE INTENDED EFFECT. They backed off, the good guys won this round.
Bah, you need a lawyer to protect you from your own ignorance. Quite a few people believe that they totally understand exactly what they are signing, those big words don't really mean much, do they?
A great deal of the English language has fairly precise legal definitions attached, mostly due to hundreds of years of case law. Many "boilerplate" contracts are written to ensure the author of the contract has the maximum rights possible. Sometimes, you can't change those (ever read a car rental contract? Not a pleasant sight, and I work for one of those companies!).
Like the grandparent post said - UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU ARE SIGNING! Period. If you don't - TOO BAD. You've got the chance to do it - so what if it delays the deal a day or two. YOU are limiting YOUR rights, you'd best understand exactly what you are doing.
No offense to the guy, but he got into this naive, and left battered, but educated. It sucks it happened, but I'm not sympathetic about something he should have known better than to do.
2.) The "theory" (or one of the reasons) the terrorists hate us is our aid to the Israelis.
Now if we are a dictatorship, we'd choose a side and help them win. Not only that, but the bombing of afghanastan would escalate into a much bloodier war, probably involving the death of many more innocents, to prove our new power.
Errr, not exactly.
A primary reason that many groups quote is NOT the support of Israel, but the spread of western civilization from various countries that are changing the way of life in many middle-east countries.
We are changing their society - and that's what they don't like. As the most successful economy in the world (measured by size), our way of life spreads to many parts of the world. We firmly believe that free trade cures all ills, and that our society is the best form possible.
We tend to ignore that we are a mature society, with large resources and economies of scale. Our knowledge of marketing, manufacturing and distribution overwhelm many other countries. Free trade is great - when it's between two equals. Many western civilizations completely overwhelm the newer, smaller and less mature economies, resulting in a wider disparity in lifestyle and far too much suffering.
We don't kill people, we kill societies. Which is worse?
So you're willing to let a target know when they get wiretapped or traced, right? Surely such a person would of course ignore the summons to the court, and simply carry on business as usual.
Give me a break. Yes, you need something like this. You sometimes need the ability to get a secret court order. You've got to have people at the court who are extremely skeptical, and intentionally make it difficult to get the orders.
Define "success". From a longevity view, the English monarchy was highly successful. As a society, it really started to grow as the power of the monarchy became more and more limited.
I don't consider the length of rule a definition of success.
Why would this be strange? Most agents know pretty well what they can, and cannot get away with. The FBI, given some of the problems of the past, is doing what they can to NOT lose a case over a technicality. So creating a tool that allows them to capture only the information they have a court order for is an excellent idea from the FBI. If they got everything, found some new evidence from that illegally acquired information, it would probably get tossed out of court, along with the case (fruit of a poisoned tree).
A law enforcement agency, creating a tool that is designed to operate within a limited court order - shouldn't we be at least somewhat positive of this?
I don't think they should be specific, just define the category better.
Our society is changing rapidly, resulting in laws that reflect an different society. Supposedly, they are trying to create these new laws in a technology neutral manner to prevent this.
If you were given the person advice/instruction, and knew that they were going to use for an illegal purpose, you've become an accessory to that crime.
If you were giving advice/instruction on a subject that has bonafide uses, and had no reason to decide this person was going to use this knowledge in an illegal manner, you've done no wrong. Example - the flight instructors.
Well, it's really because they can't, not because they didn't.
Accounting tracks what happened, what is happening, and what probably will happen (reserves for future events). Anyone that tries to put sales lost due to event X in their statements will get laughed out by any auditor. Why - because it doesn't matter to a snapshot of the financial health of the company.
These statements are made to make the execs feel better and to establish a starting point for damages in a lawsuit. Making such statements to investors is usually a bad idea - smart investors look at that as whining. They don't want complaints or excuses, just results.
The judicial system very rarely changes quickly - it tends to make slow, methodical progress. This is usually to the benefit of large entities who depend on a stable legal environment.
The legal system doesn't change for those with lots of money, but rather those with money benefit from the slow rate of change more than those without money.
That won't change unless the legal system is replaced with one where change is rapid. And I don't think anyone wants that. Change is good. Continual, rapid change in a society - bad. Very bad.
I think you're going a bit far with this statement.
The civil law exists to provide a consistent means to resolve disputes. By its very nature, interpretation of law is slow to change. This is NOT a bad thing, but it does have consequences. People make decisions based on how the law is interpreted, imagine the chaos if interpretations changed radically every 5 years or so.
Any society where the laws are created by elected people will have laws that reflect both the majority and vocal minorities. Having said that, the past 10 years or so have been ruled by those vocal minorities with lots of money - problem there.
These laws are indeed being written by people who don't completely understand in impact of the growth of the internet and in information exchange. Most copyright/patent laws were originally created to protect the rights of the creator. Not to guarantee profit, or income, but to guarantee that the creator can control what they have created.
I don't see a problem with this general goal. Some people will be foolish, and try to maintain complete control - let them. Someone will create an alternative. I DO have a problem with people creating means to circumvent an attempt at control. Thats just my view.
Others will take their creations, and let everyone use them or modify them. Over time, these creations will evolve faster and better fulfill the needs of consumers.
When we as members of society hold the juidicial system in contempt, we are only hurting ourselves. Whether we like it or not, this is the system we live in, and this is the system that defines the legal structure we deal with. It is to our benefit that we continue to educate these people as to the impact of new technolgy. We CANNOT tell them that this or that is wrong.
I personally believe that from the appellate level up, judges tend to be highly educated people who think quite a bit about the overall impact of their rulings. If we can help them to understand the issues involves, and the impact of new technologies, I firmly believe that they will begin to alter their decisions.
American society is always changing, but it has always been done in a fairly slow manner. Rapid changes in our society (60's and 70's) have resulted in conflict and chaos. We are now seeing that on the internet and will continue to do so for a few years at least.
Okay, long ramble, and somewhere along the line my thoughts shifted - sorry. We're in a period of change - it's gonna be ugly. You can fight the system two ways - Directly, and get rejected, or Indirectly, with education and persuasion.
You are right, but AFAIK, not complete. IIRC, he was a regular renter at Acme, and this was a new contract term.
That doesn't matter. When you sign a contract, you have acknowledged that you have read and agree to the terms of the contract. Except for rare circumstances, you are now bound by those terms.
From a business perspective, this was foolish. Frequent renters are the best thing for a car rental company - regular revenue.
And if you're dumb enough to sign the contract with that in there, you deserve to pay the fine.
I work for a car rental company in IS, so I tend to rent fairly often. I ALWAYS read the contract, even though I usually know it better than the person at the counter. Anyone who signs a contract without reading it first is extremely foolish.
I have no sympathy for people like that.
Shrinkwrap licenses are generally considered binding. There mere fact that you did not read what was made available to you is not a defense. It's like signing a contract without reading it - your mistake.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, not quite as simple as that.
Basically (and highly simplified), creditors are placed in various groups (no, amount owed isn't a criteria - other factors are). These groups are then paid off in a set priority. If you are a creditor with an unsecured debt, you're not getting much. Within the group, the money is usually distributed in a level manner - x percent per dollar owed.
Usually, everyone in bankruptcy gets screwed, especially chapter 9.
What the courts CAN do is examine past transactions from the company, and compel the reversal of those transactions.
A capital gain occurs when something you own is sold. Pretty basic, I think you've got that part down.
Now, a mutual fund (note that was what I was talking about) is a group of investors owning a group of stocks (or other investment items). Hopefully, I haven't lost you yet.
When a mutual fund sells an investment, a capital gain is potentially created. These are passed on to each investor in the mutual fund as a transparent event. Most people have their accounts set up to automatically reinvest these capital gain distributions, but I digress.
So what this means is that when a mutual fund creates capital gaines/losses, those are passed on to the investors of the mutual fund.
The price of the mutual fund itself does not directly relate to these events (but often is reflective of the activity of the fund), but the performance of the investments of the mutual fund. When a mutual fund investor sells their shares, they compare the selling price to the basis of their investment to determine if they have a capital gain or loss.
Hopefully you learned something from this.
Off-topic, but gotta make a correction.
You missed something there - capital gains. Most mutual funds can be classified as either growth or income type funds. Income funds generate dividends which is considered ordinary income.
Growth type funds generate capital gains. These are transfered to you (the share owner) periodically. Sometime in January, you should be getting a tax form from the mutual fund company, and you have to pay taxes on those mutual fund capital gains.
Great example - me last year. My mutual funds went down, but generated capital gains trying to get out of the tech stocks in time. My portfolio took a hit, and I ended up paying capital gains taxes.
Sorry, but there is a way for you to take a paper loss, and pay taxes on it!
-- Ravensfire
Simple - most users of Word don't know and don't care that it can save in different formats. They save the document. Period. They don't change the format, they don't WANT to change the format. It's something trivial to them that they don't understand and don't care to.
Word has quite a few functions that people never use, this is another. How often do you save a document in something other than the default?
Ahh, so instead you want to force a choice on the sender, by requiring them to NOT use Word.
....
That's fair. Sure it is
This was an interesting editorial, but the thought that kept going through my head was why?
Why ask people to change away from something THEY are comfortable with? Why ask a casual user to use a feature in Word that they probably don't know how to use? (The Save As option - most people don't know it's there, or what it does).
What is the normal tool used for creating text documents - Word. Right or wrong, it's there. A sophisticated user probably understands the optiosn available, and the audience of their message and chooses an appropriate format. A casual user, which is the majority of users, doesn't care, doesn't WANT to care, and more importantly, SHOULDN'T care about the format.
These people want to share something they have. They don't want to have to learn a new program or feature to do it - they just want it to happen.
If I send something out in a Word document, there's probably a good reason for it. Getting a reply back from someone that says "Please send this in another format" is not going to endear that person to me. I don't really worry about whether that person PREFERS a certain format or not - after all, if they sent that reply to me, they don't care what I might prefer.
-- Ravensre
Ahh, but that's probably not their concern! The clients, who are using the machines, should be responsible for the electronic security of the machines. This facility covers the physical security of the machines.
I would point out that these changes in accounting standards and practices do not happen over-night. Months and sometimes years of notice are given prior to adoption.
On ANY project you've got to have a subject matter expert, if you want to produce a high-quality product. That expert can be a discussion group, or a single person, but you've got to have one.
Usual preface - IANAL.
... the contract itself does seem to be legal. He is giving up something (money) for a service (internet connection). As part of that arrangement, certain restrictions on the usage have been set, in the contract. When he signed the contract (or agreed via a website or by placing an order), he has agreed to all terms of the contract.
BUT
There's no monopoly there - there are alternatives to this service. Maybe not as attractive, but there are alternatives.
As for restraint of trade - huh? I'm not seeing this here. VPN is generally (key word there) used by businesses, or by individuals wanting to telecommute. These tend to use higher amounts of bandwidth during peak periods. In general, business-level services tend to be more expensive than residential services. It doesn't really matter why - they just tend to be. A business-level service IS being offered, without the restrictions a residential service has.
Someone using the residential service must weigh the risks of termination of service for violiting the terms of service vs. paying for the business-level service.
Hopefully, the company won't cut someone off for using a VPN, but only using minimal bandwidth.
Errr, isn't that just a bit elitist of you?
How would you argue this case to a normal person? If you told me that you are suing person A to let you do something that they initially forbade you to do, but subsequently (and publicly) gave you explicit consent for, I'd fall over laughing.
WHY would you want to add ANOTHER lawsuit to this world over something that didn't happen? Yes, it would have been nice if this HAD gone farther, but the threat of the lawsuit HAD THE INTENDED EFFECT. They backed off, the good guys won this round.
Let's put your comment in context.
At the time of the demo (several years ago), the xbox was pretty new and Bungie was still owned by, well, Bungie.
There were NOT planning on the xbox - it was a PC and Mac game ONLY.
Sheesh - turn on YOUR brain.
Bah, you need a lawyer to protect you from your own ignorance. Quite a few people believe that they totally understand exactly what they are signing, those big words don't really mean much, do they?
A great deal of the English language has fairly precise legal definitions attached, mostly due to hundreds of years of case law. Many "boilerplate" contracts are written to ensure the author of the contract has the maximum rights possible. Sometimes, you can't change those (ever read a car rental contract? Not a pleasant sight, and I work for one of those companies!).
Like the grandparent post said - UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU ARE SIGNING! Period. If you don't - TOO BAD. You've got the chance to do it - so what if it delays the deal a day or two. YOU are limiting YOUR rights, you'd best understand exactly what you are doing.
No offense to the guy, but he got into this naive, and left battered, but educated. It sucks it happened, but I'm not sympathetic about something he should have known better than to do.
2.) The "theory" (or one of the reasons) the terrorists hate us is our aid to the Israelis.
Now if we are a dictatorship, we'd choose a side and help them win. Not only that, but the bombing of afghanastan would escalate into a much bloodier war, probably involving the death of many more innocents, to prove our new power.
Errr, not exactly.
A primary reason that many groups quote is NOT the support of Israel, but the spread of western civilization from various countries that are changing the way of life in many middle-east countries.
We are changing their society - and that's what they don't like. As the most successful economy in the world (measured by size), our way of life spreads to many parts of the world. We firmly believe that free trade cures all ills, and that our society is the best form possible.
We tend to ignore that we are a mature society, with large resources and economies of scale. Our knowledge of marketing, manufacturing and distribution overwhelm many other countries. Free trade is great - when it's between two equals. Many western civilizations completely overwhelm the newer, smaller and less mature economies, resulting in a wider disparity in lifestyle and far too much suffering.
We don't kill people, we kill societies. Which is worse?
So you're willing to let a target know when they get wiretapped or traced, right? Surely such a person would of course ignore the summons to the court, and simply carry on business as usual.
Give me a break. Yes, you need something like this. You sometimes need the ability to get a secret court order. You've got to have people at the court who are extremely skeptical, and intentionally make it difficult to get the orders.
Define "success". From a longevity view, the English monarchy was highly successful. As a society, it really started to grow as the power of the monarchy became more and more limited.
I don't consider the length of rule a definition of success.
Why would this be strange? Most agents know pretty well what they can, and cannot get away with. The FBI, given some of the problems of the past, is doing what they can to NOT lose a case over a technicality. So creating a tool that allows them to capture only the information they have a court order for is an excellent idea from the FBI. If they got everything, found some new evidence from that illegally acquired information, it would probably get tossed out of court, along with the case (fruit of a poisoned tree).
A law enforcement agency, creating a tool that is designed to operate within a limited court order - shouldn't we be at least somewhat positive of this?
I don't think they should be specific, just define the category better.
Our society is changing rapidly, resulting in laws that reflect an different society. Supposedly, they are trying to create these new laws in a technology neutral manner to prevent this.
No, that would not be illegal, probably.
If you were given the person advice/instruction, and knew that they were going to use for an illegal purpose, you've become an accessory to that crime.
If you were giving advice/instruction on a subject that has bonafide uses, and had no reason to decide this person was going to use this knowledge in an illegal manner, you've done no wrong. Example - the flight instructors.
Well, it's really because they can't, not because they didn't.
Accounting tracks what happened, what is happening, and what probably will happen (reserves for future events). Anyone that tries to put sales lost due to event X in their statements will get laughed out by any auditor. Why - because it doesn't matter to a snapshot of the financial health of the company.
These statements are made to make the execs feel better and to establish a starting point for damages in a lawsuit. Making such statements to investors is usually a bad idea - smart investors look at that as whining. They don't want complaints or excuses, just results.
Not exactly.
The judicial system very rarely changes quickly - it tends to make slow, methodical progress. This is usually to the benefit of large entities who depend on a stable legal environment.
The legal system doesn't change for those with lots of money, but rather those with money benefit from the slow rate of change more than those without money.
That won't change unless the legal system is replaced with one where change is rapid. And I don't think anyone wants that. Change is good. Continual, rapid change in a society - bad. Very bad.
-- Ravensfire
I think you're going a bit far with this statement.
The civil law exists to provide a consistent means to resolve disputes. By its very nature, interpretation of law is slow to change. This is NOT a bad thing, but it does have consequences. People make decisions based on how the law is interpreted, imagine the chaos if interpretations changed radically every 5 years or so.
Any society where the laws are created by elected people will have laws that reflect both the majority and vocal minorities. Having said that, the past 10 years or so have been ruled by those vocal minorities with lots of money - problem there.
These laws are indeed being written by people who don't completely understand in impact of the growth of the internet and in information exchange. Most copyright/patent laws were originally created to protect the rights of the creator. Not to guarantee profit, or income, but to guarantee that the creator can control what they have created.
I don't see a problem with this general goal. Some people will be foolish, and try to maintain complete control - let them. Someone will create an alternative. I DO have a problem with people creating means to circumvent an attempt at control. Thats just my view.
Others will take their creations, and let everyone use them or modify them. Over time, these creations will evolve faster and better fulfill the needs of consumers.
When we as members of society hold the juidicial system in contempt, we are only hurting ourselves. Whether we like it or not, this is the system we live in, and this is the system that defines the legal structure we deal with. It is to our benefit that we continue to educate these people as to the impact of new technolgy. We CANNOT tell them that this or that is wrong.
I personally believe that from the appellate level up, judges tend to be highly educated people who think quite a bit about the overall impact of their rulings. If we can help them to understand the issues involves, and the impact of new technologies, I firmly believe that they will begin to alter their decisions.
American society is always changing, but it has always been done in a fairly slow manner. Rapid changes in our society (60's and 70's) have resulted in conflict and chaos. We are now seeing that on the internet and will continue to do so for a few years at least.
Okay, long ramble, and somewhere along the line my thoughts shifted - sorry. We're in a period of change - it's gonna be ugly. You can fight the system two ways - Directly, and get rejected, or Indirectly, with education and persuasion.
Decide soon.
-- Ravensfire
And if you're dumb enough to sign the contract with that in there, you deserve to pay the fine. I work for a car rental company in IS, so I tend to rent fairly often. I ALWAYS read the contract, even though I usually know it better than the person at the counter. Anyone who signs a contract without reading it first is extremely foolish. I have no sympathy for people like that.
Shrinkwrap licenses are generally considered binding. There mere fact that you did not read what was made available to you is not a defense. It's like signing a contract without reading it - your mistake.
Actually, if it was done well, I'd love to see DirectX for Linux. A standard set of API's used across multiple platforms. How is this bad?