Get your facts from the court documents and findings. There was clear evidence of contributory negligence on the part of McDonald's, and the court punished them for it. Note also that the court found both parties responsible (that is, both Stella Liebeck and McDonald's), so your "no personal responsibility" spiel can go suck it, as far as this case is concerned.
but most organizations have been sluggish in their understanding and adoption of the regulations.
I can only speak to my experience in the field, which involved working at a health-insurance company. I was given pretty thorough HIPAA training when I was first hired, and then updated training as different bits of it took effect for us. We were instructed to always err on the side of caution with HIPAA, and in situations where it was uncertain how to proceed we could refer back to people whose full-time job was to know and interpret HIPAA.
HIPAA definitely has teeth, and there have already been successful civil and criminal prosecutions for violations. I'm not sure what you mean about the lack of an "enforcement mechanism"; if your protected health information is illegally disclosed (damages or no damages), you have the right to bring suit against the person or persons responsible. Depending on the violation, there may also be applicable federal criminal charges. None of that requires the designation of special "enforcement mechanisms" aside from the existing federal court infrastructure.
And HIPAA does not, AFAIK, require you to periodically show compliance; federal officials can spot audit you if you work with PHI, but there are no regular reports or paperwork to be sent in (of which I'm aware; when I worked in health insurance I had a lot of dealings with our HIPAA people, but of a different sort).
In a SLAPP suit, a large, wealthy entity files a frivolous lawsuit against a smaller entity, solely for the purpose of discouraging some course of action. The choice then is to spend exorbitant amounts of money (which the smaller entity typically does not possess) defending against the suit, or give up the course of action the larger entity dislikes. It is, in effect, a form of protection racket whereby a large company says "play by our rules and we'll leave you alone", and in many places it is illegal.
What happened here was apparently the equivalent, just with slightly different methods -- if the professor doesn't resign, the full pressure of a large, wealthy organization will be brought to bear against the university (e.g., repeated audits and inspections of software licenses, copyright use, etc. and of course steep fines if/when any infringement is found), which can't afford to be targeted in such a way. Thus the university, for its own protection, is forced to apply pressure to the professor who, in turn, decides that it is better to resign and publicize the story than bring down his university while fighting the media cartel.
Although the Gecko browsers (pick your choice) perform excellent on OS X, Safari is still a bit better in most regards, especially in rendering and standards compliance (Acid test passed).
As far as support for CSS and the W3C DOM, Gecko is still rather far ahead. I don't mean to disparage the work the WebCore guys, particularly Hyatt, have done, but their Acid2 compliance doesn't mean they do a better job of following standards. It just means that Hyatt took some time and fixed the specific set of bugs which prevented Safari from rendering the test properly.
It's as if a high-school student got a copy of the SAT questions and only studied those questions; sure, he'll do well on the test, but does that mean he's smarter overall than other students?
Actually, the checkpoint in question was one of a number of two-stage roadblocks which have been set up in Iraq. For various reasons, these roadblocks consist of a checkpoint manned by Iraqis who wave you through, and then just a little ways down the road another checkpoint manned by Americans. The driver in question mistakenly assumed that, because they'd been waved through by the Iraqi forces, it was OK to go, and accelerated back up to full speed after passing through. Result: car approaching the American checkpoint at high speed.
The Iraqi checkpoints, oddly enough, provide no notice of whether there's an American checkpoint lurking just beyond, and the Iraqi guards on duty do not tell drivers that they'll need to stop again in a moment.
Conclusion: nobody's in the right here. The driver probably could have averted some of the trouble by paying a bit more attention to the road ahead, but at the same time it's ludicrous to have a checkpoint where you're waved through and then suddenly have to stop again; once you're waved through, you should be able to go on without having to play guessing games about how many different times you'll need to stop.
Shortly after this happened, the Christian Science Monitor had a report looking at this from both sides, which pointed out some interesting facts. For example, the author of the piece was herself nearly shot because, after being waved through a roadblock by Iraqi forces, she resumed a normal driving speed without realizing that there was another, less clearly-marked roadblock just beyond, manned by American forces. Apparently a number of people have had problems with these two-stage roadblocks, because after being waved through by Iraqi guards they mistakenly assume it's OK to drive on. The Americans at the second roadblock, meanwhile, simply see a car coming at them which shows no signs of stopping, and the rest is history.
Also, many reporters have native Iraqi drivers who still have an overwhelming instinct, left over from the days of Saddam, to fear the security forces. As a result, when they're waved through a checkpoint they want to get away as soon as possible; under Saddam, lingering around an army checkpoint would get you 'disappeared'. So once they're waved through by Iraqi forces, they immediately accelerate to get away from the checkpoint as fast as possible. Which, of course, results in them accelerating into the American checkpoint just beyond. And the rest is history.
A lot of these problems could be avoided if the two-stage roadblocks were consolidated (so that once you're waved through the roadblock it's OK to go and keep going), but for various reasons the American forces have been averse to doing so.
Yes, because typing in "apt-get" or "emerge" makes so much more sense to new users than double-clicking an icon that says "setup"."
On Fedora there's a menu item called "Add and Remove Programs", and another called "Update Agent". You know when updates are waiting because a red exclamation mark starts flashing in the top right of the screen.
On Ubuntu there's a menu item called "Ubuntu Update Manager".
So yes, Linux is definitely too complicated for average users. What average person could be expected to understand dense, cryptic technical jargon like "update" or "add"?
Vast swathes of corporate America is still powered by NT4.
At my previous job (Fortune 500 company), I worked mostly on NT4; when I left last fall they were in the middle of an upgrade to Win2k. They'd also done about the only possible thing to guarantee compatibility: all the important code ran on heavy-duty UNIX servers, and was accessed by easily-rewritten client software on the Windows boxes.
'About' dialog says Adobe Reader Version 7.0.0. I didn't get it from Adobe directly (installed via apt-get), but that shouldn't make a difference because it's the same binary. Filling in form fields and saving the information works like a charm.
umm...Nope. Hitting save will not work in the free edition of the reader. You cannot Save forms with this one, you have to get the full version.
Well that's awful funny, considering that I hit the 'Save' button, and later on when I opened up the PDF again all the stuff I'd entered was still there. Perhaps you'd like to try again?
Yeah, a moving platform. With countless widget sets, multiple clipboards, different directory structures, an infinite number of combinations and permutations of shared libraries, and just as many sources of outdated, incorrect, misleading or utterly superb documentation, and crap vendors like Redhat which drop version support in a third the time of Microsoft.
This is as opposed to the superb stability and compatibility one gets between OS versions from Redmond. Take Windows XP and Windows XP Service Pack 2, for example; anything which runs on one runs on the other, right?
Editable forms. I just did my taxes by clicking on the appropriate fields in the PDF, filling in the numbers, and hitting 'Save'. If I goof, I can just clear the field instead of needing to start over on another copy of the tax form.
Wouldn't this be a great example of where the new ICANN registrar transfer policy is useful? If they really are the registrar (instead of just a reseller frontend for eNom or someone else), initiate a transfer to a new registrar and it should go through in five days.
No. It doesn't. If I'm looking at/home/user/Desktop/somefolder, there's no easy way to get to/mnt/foo/bar. / isn't open, because it never was.
Let me try this... I'm looking at my/home/user/Desktop. Hm. There's this button in the bottom left of the window, that if I click it, shows the entire path of the folder all the way up to/. And if I click on the '/' option, it opens the root of the filesystem! And from there I'm a coupld clicks away from/mnt/whatever! Amazing! And here I was told you couldn't navigate up the filesystem in spatial Nautilus!
Seriously, what you want is not a file manager. You want a web browser that navigates the local filesystem, and you're going to whine and spread FUD until you get it. Never mind that the setting is three clicks away. Hell, the Ubuntu folks proposed adding a 'Browser' option to the 'View' menu, but even then you wouldn't let yourself be happy. Why not try KDE? Or start a fork that completely eradicates spatial mode? Given the number of geeks I've seen bitching and moaning about it, you could get to the top of Distrowatch in about a week that way.
You know how, in browser mode, you'd click on the little folder thingies to open a different folder? Guess what? It works that way in spatial mode, too! And if you need to go back "up" the filesystem hierarchy, the folders you've been in already are still open! Can you believe it?
Bzzzzt.. The reason for spacial nautilus was apparently for the noobs. There should be sane default preferences for them.
Not exactly. But apparently you recognize that sane defaults are a good thing. You also recognize that there's an easy and visible option in the Nautilus UI for changing to browser mode. Now, what was your actual complaint again?
If the Google guys are only getting $1/yr, does that mean that Google doesn't offer employee health insurance (BAD!), does it mean that Google pays ALL of the costs of employee health insurance (GOOD!), or does it mean that Google is separately ponying up for their insurance (legally very questionable)?
Or do they figure that with a few billion apiece in the bank, they can simply buy a hospital when they get sick?
Actually, I later found the text of the Coinage Act of 1965, which does declare all currency of the United States, coin or paper, to be legal tender for all debts. It allows merchants to state up-front which denominations they will accept for purchases, but for debt-repayment purposes there is no limitation whatsoever.
It seems to me that if a debt exists between myself and another party within the US, then I may pay that debt using any combination of legal tender of the US; if a regulation exists saying "debts above amount x may not be paid with tender of a denomination less than y", then I don't see how the denomination in question can be called "legal tender for all debts, public and private" (of course, that wording only appears on dollar bills, not on coins). So I'd also like to see the regulations which restrict this.
It's nice. I installed a Hoary prerelease on my local testing server to play with, and I like it a lot; there's a 'server' option in the installer which sets up a basic system (under 500MB total install size), and then you can install and configure whatever services you want.
Slashdot Mirror
Ah, I see you've learned the Chewbacca defense!
Get your facts from the court documents and findings. There was clear evidence of contributory negligence on the part of McDonald's, and the court punished them for it. Note also that the court found both parties responsible (that is, both Stella Liebeck and McDonald's), so your "no personal responsibility" spiel can go suck it, as far as this case is concerned.
I can only speak to my experience in the field, which involved working at a health-insurance company. I was given pretty thorough HIPAA training when I was first hired, and then updated training as different bits of it took effect for us. We were instructed to always err on the side of caution with HIPAA, and in situations where it was uncertain how to proceed we could refer back to people whose full-time job was to know and interpret HIPAA.
HIPAA definitely has teeth, and there have already been successful civil and criminal prosecutions for violations. I'm not sure what you mean about the lack of an "enforcement mechanism"; if your protected health information is illegally disclosed (damages or no damages), you have the right to bring suit against the person or persons responsible. Depending on the violation, there may also be applicable federal criminal charges. None of that requires the designation of special "enforcement mechanisms" aside from the existing federal court infrastructure.
And HIPAA does not, AFAIK, require you to periodically show compliance; federal officials can spot audit you if you work with PHI, but there are no regular reports or paperwork to be sent in (of which I'm aware; when I worked in health insurance I had a lot of dealings with our HIPAA people, but of a different sort).
In a SLAPP suit, a large, wealthy entity files a frivolous lawsuit against a smaller entity, solely for the purpose of discouraging some course of action. The choice then is to spend exorbitant amounts of money (which the smaller entity typically does not possess) defending against the suit, or give up the course of action the larger entity dislikes. It is, in effect, a form of protection racket whereby a large company says "play by our rules and we'll leave you alone", and in many places it is illegal.
What happened here was apparently the equivalent, just with slightly different methods -- if the professor doesn't resign, the full pressure of a large, wealthy organization will be brought to bear against the university (e.g., repeated audits and inspections of software licenses, copyright use, etc. and of course steep fines if/when any infringement is found), which can't afford to be targeted in such a way. Thus the university, for its own protection, is forced to apply pressure to the professor who, in turn, decides that it is better to resign and publicize the story than bring down his university while fighting the media cartel.
Just that it's very far from being grounds to say "Safari has the best support of any browser for W3C standards".
As far as support for CSS and the W3C DOM, Gecko is still rather far ahead. I don't mean to disparage the work the WebCore guys, particularly Hyatt, have done, but their Acid2 compliance doesn't mean they do a better job of following standards. It just means that Hyatt took some time and fixed the specific set of bugs which prevented Safari from rendering the test properly.
It's as if a high-school student got a copy of the SAT questions and only studied those questions; sure, he'll do well on the test, but does that mean he's smarter overall than other students?
Actually, the checkpoint in question was one of a number of two-stage roadblocks which have been set up in Iraq. For various reasons, these roadblocks consist of a checkpoint manned by Iraqis who wave you through, and then just a little ways down the road another checkpoint manned by Americans. The driver in question mistakenly assumed that, because they'd been waved through by the Iraqi forces, it was OK to go, and accelerated back up to full speed after passing through. Result: car approaching the American checkpoint at high speed.
The Iraqi checkpoints, oddly enough, provide no notice of whether there's an American checkpoint lurking just beyond, and the Iraqi guards on duty do not tell drivers that they'll need to stop again in a moment.
Conclusion: nobody's in the right here. The driver probably could have averted some of the trouble by paying a bit more attention to the road ahead, but at the same time it's ludicrous to have a checkpoint where you're waved through and then suddenly have to stop again; once you're waved through, you should be able to go on without having to play guessing games about how many different times you'll need to stop.
Shortly after this happened, the Christian Science Monitor had a report looking at this from both sides, which pointed out some interesting facts. For example, the author of the piece was herself nearly shot because, after being waved through a roadblock by Iraqi forces, she resumed a normal driving speed without realizing that there was another, less clearly-marked roadblock just beyond, manned by American forces. Apparently a number of people have had problems with these two-stage roadblocks, because after being waved through by Iraqi guards they mistakenly assume it's OK to drive on. The Americans at the second roadblock, meanwhile, simply see a car coming at them which shows no signs of stopping, and the rest is history.
Also, many reporters have native Iraqi drivers who still have an overwhelming instinct, left over from the days of Saddam, to fear the security forces. As a result, when they're waved through a checkpoint they want to get away as soon as possible; under Saddam, lingering around an army checkpoint would get you 'disappeared'. So once they're waved through by Iraqi forces, they immediately accelerate to get away from the checkpoint as fast as possible. Which, of course, results in them accelerating into the American checkpoint just beyond. And the rest is history.
A lot of these problems could be avoided if the two-stage roadblocks were consolidated (so that once you're waved through the roadblock it's OK to go and keep going), but for various reasons the American forces have been averse to doing so.
On Fedora there's a menu item called "Add and Remove Programs", and another called "Update Agent". You know when updates are waiting because a red exclamation mark starts flashing in the top right of the screen.
On Ubuntu there's a menu item called "Ubuntu Update Manager".
So yes, Linux is definitely too complicated for average users. What average person could be expected to understand dense, cryptic technical jargon like "update" or "add"?
At my previous job (Fortune 500 company), I worked mostly on NT4; when I left last fall they were in the middle of an upgrade to Win2k. They'd also done about the only possible thing to guarantee compatibility: all the important code ran on heavy-duty UNIX servers, and was accessed by easily-rewritten client software on the Windows boxes.
'About' dialog says Adobe Reader Version 7.0.0. I didn't get it from Adobe directly (installed via apt-get), but that shouldn't make a difference because it's the same binary. Filling in form fields and saving the information works like a charm.
Well that's awful funny, considering that I hit the 'Save' button, and later on when I opened up the PDF again all the stuff I'd entered was still there. Perhaps you'd like to try again?
This is as opposed to the superb stability and compatibility one gets between OS versions from Redmond. Take Windows XP and Windows XP Service Pack 2, for example; anything which runs on one runs on the other, right?
Is there really a need to add the source repository when there's no source available?
Editable forms. I just did my taxes by clicking on the appropriate fields in the PDF, filling in the numbers, and hitting 'Save'. If I goof, I can just clear the field instead of needing to start over on another copy of the tax form.
But the only people I've ever seen complaining about spatial mode are geeks at places like Slashdot. And WTF does bash have to do with Nautilus?
Wouldn't this be a great example of where the new ICANN registrar transfer policy is useful? If they really are the registrar (instead of just a reseller frontend for eNom or someone else), initiate a transfer to a new registrar and it should go through in five days.
Let me try this... I'm looking at my /home/user/Desktop. Hm. There's this button in the bottom left of the window, that if I click it, shows the entire path of the folder all the way up to /. And if I click on the '/' option, it opens the root of the filesystem! And from there I'm a coupld clicks away from /mnt/whatever! Amazing! And here I was told you couldn't navigate up the filesystem in spatial Nautilus!
Seriously, what you want is not a file manager. You want a web browser that navigates the local filesystem, and you're going to whine and spread FUD until you get it. Never mind that the setting is three clicks away. Hell, the Ubuntu folks proposed adding a 'Browser' option to the 'View' menu, but even then you wouldn't let yourself be happy. Why not try KDE? Or start a fork that completely eradicates spatial mode? Given the number of geeks I've seen bitching and moaning about it, you could get to the top of Distrowatch in about a week that way.
You know how, in browser mode, you'd click on the little folder thingies to open a different folder? Guess what? It works that way in spatial mode, too! And if you need to go back "up" the filesystem hierarchy, the folders you've been in already are still open! Can you believe it?
Not exactly. But apparently you recognize that sane defaults are a good thing. You also recognize that there's an easy and visible option in the Nautilus UI for changing to browser mode. Now, what was your actual complaint again?
"Back"? The folder you were just in is still open. Why do you need a "Back" button?
Navigate to it. Which, incidentally, is the same response you'd get to that question in browser mode.
Edit -> Preferences -> Always open in browser windows. Now quit yer whining.
Or do they figure that with a few billion apiece in the bank, they can simply buy a hospital when they get sick?
Actually, I later found the text of the Coinage Act of 1965, which does declare all currency of the United States, coin or paper, to be legal tender for all debts. It allows merchants to state up-front which denominations they will accept for purchases, but for debt-repayment purposes there is no limitation whatsoever.
It seems to me that if a debt exists between myself and another party within the US, then I may pay that debt using any combination of legal tender of the US; if a regulation exists saying "debts above amount x may not be paid with tender of a denomination less than y", then I don't see how the denomination in question can be called "legal tender for all debts, public and private" (of course, that wording only appears on dollar bills, not on coins). So I'd also like to see the regulations which restrict this.
It's nice. I installed a Hoary prerelease on my local testing server to play with, and I like it a lot; there's a 'server' option in the installer which sets up a basic system (under 500MB total install size), and then you can install and configure whatever services you want.