Maybe not 1% of the annual income, that would be too burdensome (and hence a violation of due process), but maybe a surety bond worth 10% of the stated value of the copyright being claimed. That would still be a significant amount for some of these claims.
5) Providing an easy way for non-technical people to access sites which are otherwise blocked for them. Millions of people use Facebook everyday, but far fewer than that know how to use either SSL, proxies, or tunneling to get access to it from work even if their bosses don't want them to.
To be fair, the US didn't declare war against Japan before trying to prevent supplies of oil and steel from reaching your shores or supporting mercenaries in China against the Japanese invasion there. Anyone who thought the Japanese would just sit around without going to war over that wasn't paying much attention.
It's an ecommerce company. The only way they sell products is using computers, network, and software. It is beyond comprehension that they have a single person to do all of these tasks.
I think Government Experts Stopping Threats Against Political Organizations might work better. Granted, it's longer, but GESTAPO just rolls off the tongue easier.
What's lost in all the sturm und drang around this is, this used to be the norm. Companies like Netcom would offer per kilobyte (yes, kilobyte, not megabyte) plans and they made a fortune doing so.
Until EarthLink came along and offered all you can eat Internet for $19.95 a month. That was 16 years ago, and tiered and per-byte pricing died when they did that. The same thing would happen here: customers would immediately jump ship to competitors offering unmetered pricing.
Of course, this is all assuming the existing telcos don't manage to use regulatory capture to prevent them from doing so. But that can't happen in a market with low barriers to entry and few regulatory burdens. Start trying to regulate how much telcos can charge for Internet and you'll end up with exactly the problem you deride.
tl;dr: the market will solve this problem, keep government out of it.
The rate of suicides at Foxconn (14 in a year and a half out of 920,000) was lower than the country as a whole by an order of magnitude (19.5 per 100,000). The whole thing was blown way out of proportion by the media.
Can't force you to use them? Sure, OK. Can't make you use a unique identifier that's then used by other orgs? Bullshit. How many websites use Facebook, Google, or Yahoo login services for their users?
Seriously, where is Mexico going to find the sheer number of skilled construction workers they'll need to build this thing? All of the good ones have already moved to the US and Canada.
One of the line items I have on my monthly metrics scorecard is an entry for time spent collecting metrics. It's never been lower than 5% and has reached 15% of total time at least twice that I can recall off the top of my head.
First off - If someone's only interest is programming, why the hell would they care about social skills?
If someone has only one interest, that's a pretty shallow life. I don't care if it rock collecting, bird watching, or writing zombie fanfic, you need more than one solitary interest to have a full life.
If you're so lucky that you can get a 128 random number duplicated on the first try you really ought to cash out your 401k and buy some lottery tickets.
So we can help a theocratic aristocracy who had serfs until the 1950s, or we can work with a "socialist" nation with a strong capitalist inclination. Hmm, decisions, decisions.
Anyone care to speculate whether Rob Malda has been offered a job and whether he would continue using the CmdrTaco handle? Is the posting of this story an across-the-bow shot from Geeknet to subtly remind him not to do so, as the "value" of that handle was built up over 15 years at Slashdot?
And on a completely different subject, can someone recommend a better brand of aluminum foil? Reynold's makes my scalp itch.
Now I'm not saying that anonymous internet nerds are going to be a threat to these guys. But, the more news reporting there is of how completely evil they are, the more outraged people get at their behavior, the more likely it becomes that either the Mexican or American authorities take them more seriously and launch an all-out war against them. If/When that happens, they'll wish they had learned the lessons of the Mafia: stay hidden, stay quiet, and don't call any attention to yourself.
I'm a Navy vet and can say that your experience is very close to mine. Sure, there are vets who are good with IT work, but usually those are the people who would've been good at it without their military training.
The military values conformity and obedience over any other traits; neither of those are good traits to have in programmers or admins, who often need to exercise their own initiative and be able (and willing) to tell management they're wrong (and back up that assertion). Someone who's spent their whole career in the military is not the type of person who will do those things.
So while I've hired vets in the past and would not hold someone's military experience against them, I'm not going to count it as a positive, either (except in the rare case of two otherwise-equally qualified applicants, in which case I'll hire the person with the more interesting sea stories).
Slashdot Mirror
Better yet, with a child's intestines?
I dare anyone to read that post and not read it in Tyler Durden's voice.
Maybe not 1% of the annual income, that would be too burdensome (and hence a violation of due process), but maybe a surety bond worth 10% of the stated value of the copyright being claimed. That would still be a significant amount for some of these claims.
I'd like to add to your list:
5) Providing an easy way for non-technical people to access sites which are otherwise blocked for them. Millions of people use Facebook everyday, but far fewer than that know how to use either SSL, proxies, or tunneling to get access to it from work even if their bosses don't want them to.
Thank gods you translated that, I thought he was saying something Perry Como and his friend Amos having tea together.
To be fair, the US didn't declare war against Japan before trying to prevent supplies of oil and steel from reaching your shores or supporting mercenaries in China against the Japanese invasion there. Anyone who thought the Japanese would just sit around without going to war over that wasn't paying much attention.
It's an ecommerce company. The only way they sell products is using computers, network, and software. It is beyond comprehension that they have a single person to do all of these tasks.
I think Government Experts Stopping Threats Against Political Organizations might work better. Granted, it's longer, but GESTAPO just rolls off the tongue easier.
What's lost in all the sturm und drang around this is, this used to be the norm. Companies like Netcom would offer per kilobyte (yes, kilobyte, not megabyte) plans and they made a fortune doing so.
Until EarthLink came along and offered all you can eat Internet for $19.95 a month. That was 16 years ago, and tiered and per-byte pricing died when they did that. The same thing would happen here: customers would immediately jump ship to competitors offering unmetered pricing.
Of course, this is all assuming the existing telcos don't manage to use regulatory capture to prevent them from doing so. But that can't happen in a market with low barriers to entry and few regulatory burdens. Start trying to regulate how much telcos can charge for Internet and you'll end up with exactly the problem you deride.
tl;dr: the market will solve this problem, keep government out of it.
Well that explains why none of the astronauts and cosmonauts who have stayed on the ISS for months at a time have come back with super powers.
You (and the mods) apparently have no grasp of ironic humor.
What we need is small, independent, companies competing directly in the same way Linux distros compete with each other.
Aggressive flamewars on slashdot and mailing lists? I'm not seeing that work.
That's because you're either an idiot or a Microsoft shill.
The rate of suicides at Foxconn (14 in a year and a half out of 920,000) was lower than the country as a whole by an order of magnitude (19.5 per 100,000). The whole thing was blown way out of proportion by the media.
You have to stand in line for hours just waiting to get the CD with the data on it. And don't get me started on all the forms you have to fill out!
Can't force you to use them? Sure, OK. Can't make you use a unique identifier that's then used by other orgs? Bullshit. How many websites use Facebook, Google, or Yahoo login services for their users?
Seriously, where is Mexico going to find the sheer number of skilled construction workers they'll need to build this thing? All of the good ones have already moved to the US and Canada.
Most studies (such as http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7910075.stm) have shown that texting actually increases skillz.
FTFY, HTH, HAND, LOL
One of the line items I have on my monthly metrics scorecard is an entry for time spent collecting metrics. It's never been lower than 5% and has reached 15% of total time at least twice that I can recall off the top of my head.
First off - If someone's only interest is programming, why the hell would they care about social skills?
If someone has only one interest, that's a pretty shallow life. I don't care if it rock collecting, bird watching, or writing zombie fanfic, you need more than one solitary interest to have a full life.
If you're so lucky that you can get a 128 random number duplicated on the first try you really ought to cash out your 401k and buy some lottery tickets.
So we can help a theocratic aristocracy who had serfs until the 1950s, or we can work with a "socialist" nation with a strong capitalist inclination. Hmm, decisions, decisions.
And if you see Dominic Monaghan, run.
Well that's just common sense, really. I mean, the guy smells really weird.
Anyone care to speculate whether Rob Malda has been offered a job and whether he would continue using the CmdrTaco handle? Is the posting of this story an across-the-bow shot from Geeknet to subtly remind him not to do so, as the "value" of that handle was built up over 15 years at Slashdot?
And on a completely different subject, can someone recommend a better brand of aluminum foil? Reynold's makes my scalp itch.
Now I'm not saying that anonymous internet nerds are going to be a threat to these guys. But, the more news reporting there is of how completely evil they are, the more outraged people get at their behavior, the more likely it becomes that either the Mexican or American authorities take them more seriously and launch an all-out war against them. If/When that happens, they'll wish they had learned the lessons of the Mafia: stay hidden, stay quiet, and don't call any attention to yourself.
I'm a Navy vet and can say that your experience is very close to mine. Sure, there are vets who are good with IT work, but usually those are the people who would've been good at it without their military training.
The military values conformity and obedience over any other traits; neither of those are good traits to have in programmers or admins, who often need to exercise their own initiative and be able (and willing) to tell management they're wrong (and back up that assertion). Someone who's spent their whole career in the military is not the type of person who will do those things.
So while I've hired vets in the past and would not hold someone's military experience against them, I'm not going to count it as a positive, either (except in the rare case of two otherwise-equally qualified applicants, in which case I'll hire the person with the more interesting sea stories).