Don't have any current mod points, so I'll just comment: quite so. Disagreeing with someone is not insulting; *insulting* someone is insulting. Dawkins does plenty of the latter. Calling theists "ignorant" is indeed insulting when said theists are well-educated (even in evolution, which I learned as an accepted fact - in Catholic school), and quite well aware of your arguments. For what it's worth, I did read "The God Delusion," and found it trite: his arguments have been answered many times over. Certainly, to an atheist, the answers are not persuasive, but it is foolish to act as though theists are ignorant of the questions posed.
I'm quite sympathetic to the atheistic worldview, but it seems to me that a true atheist would accept the "God Delusion" as as much a product of evolution as tribal instincts, and focus on the advantages of moving past such a delusion, as opposed to characterizing those subject to the "delusion" as ignorant hillbillies. Rationally speaking, that mode of argument only appeals to those who agree with you already. Dawkins is more of an antitheist, or perhaps a "theophobe."
Yes, it's the X64 version. I have that on my laptop; I have XP on my desktop. Sure, I only have about a year left of MS tech support, but I've always been my own tech support anyway and have never relied on MS. I already have a migration path mostly set for what is necessary, and am preparing for the day my desktop croaks. But I'm not in a screaming rush to replace it, either.
I still use XP on my business desktop because I have a few very old 16-bit programs (e.g., Corel InfoCentral) that I find very useful. Under Windows 7, these have to be run under a Windows XP virtual machine (either using VMWare of Windows 7 Pro's native facility). Although the virtual machine can work fairly seamlessly, it (1) is much slower to access these programs and (2) the does not integrate well with other programs. I do have 7 on my laptop, and it runs quite well, but my desktop machine, customized as it is with Windows PowerPro and Everything search, works just fine as is.
"Greed" is defined as "excessive or rapacious desire, especially for wealth or possessions." Personally, I would define it as "wanting more than one deserves or is entitled to."
The trouble with this: who defines what is "excessive," or what a person "deserves" or "is entitled to?" Under professedly Communist regimes, that has always wound up being the government.
In reality, "greed" is simply the flip side of envy: a person who is "greedy" is someone who has a lot more stuff than I do, which is perceived as unfair. It is not an objective standard by any means.
Communism is fundamentally flawed not because people are "greedy," but because they naturally act in their own self interest,
Since you said "seriously," I'll answer. Because otherwise no one would invest in any business that they were not personally operating. Suppose you own some shares in a mutual fund. Is it reasonable to hold you personally responsible for actions of businesses whose stock you hold? Exxon has millions of shareholders. Is it reasonable to track down each one of them and shake them down for the costs of the Exxon Valdez cleanup? How many of them had any *control* over Exxon's corporate policies?
Limited liability is an essential component of having any sort of industry beyond the cottage level. How likely would you be to invest $10,000 in a startup business if you knew you would be personally liable for all the business's debts if it failed?
What I cannot understand: how exactly does anyone expect Thunderbird to compete with Outlook as a contact manager? Sure, I use it for e-mail, and I can see how calendaring and task management could be integrated nicely, but no one seems to be addressing Thunderbird's address book, which has zero usefulness outside of e-mail. Does anyone do anything useful with the Thunderbird address book?
All you have to do is set up a one-time account number for one transaction. I can set up a temporary number authorized for a limit of, say, $25, that is only valid for a week. Pay with that, your credit card company transfers it to your regular card, then the number expires.
Unless their contracts specifically required that an OEM be someone building a system *for resale*, it's their own fault. I may not be in the business of selling computers, but if I build my own I *am* an OEM.
Yes, that's the theory: a lawyer's authority to issue a subpoena derives from his or her status as an officer of the court. That is why one has to seek a Motion to Quash when served with one, as opposed to filing a Motion for Protective Order.
That is also why they are more subject to abuse, as in the referenced case: issuing a subpoena to appear the next day for a deposition is considered a "Rambo litigation" tactic, and will not endear one to the court, since it is abusing one's authority as an officer of the court.
The person I was replying to was under the impression that the subpoena was issued *by the court* (generally after application from an attorney), like a citation or a writ. Subpoenas are different.
Sorry: the subpoena is issued by the lawyer, not the court. Perhaps you were thinking of a citation. IAATL (the "T" there stands for "Texas," since it's relevant).
I just got my daughter an LG "Chocolate" phone for Christmas, adding it to my Verizon account. Bought a data cable for it on eBay for $10, including shipping, and can transfer all the MP3s (and wallpaper, and movies, and ringtones) she wants to it using BitPim. Easy as pie. She now has an MP3 of the song "Linus and Lucy" as her ringtone. No problem.
That's a nice comment with which I agree. But I'm starting to wonder if there is some sort of code on Slashdot that turns every instance of the word "lose" into "loose," like the way Fark changes "naughty" words.
I mean, I can live with people who do not know that "I could care less" means the opposite of what they intend, and can understand misspellings of complicated words. But "loose" for "lose?" I cannot imagine it's a common typo, like "teh," since it's not all that easy to do an inadvertent double tap with the right ring finger. Those sorts of things introduce jarring bits of error which compromise the message. Especially from someone in the publishing industry, who ought to know better.
Yeah, yeah, I know this has been discussed ad nauseam. But unless you're deliberately going for humor (and I can just see responses to this like "I think you should loose your attitude"), please stop.
You're probably correct, and you certainly have far more expertise in the area than I do. I just think that establishing attorneys' fees as a counterclaim, to the RIAA attorneys, is seen as yet another arrow in the defense quiver. Much like the substantive due process defense, these arrows are slowly accumulating, and the more of them that exist, the harder their blanket lawsuit strategy becomes. When the probability of each one of these lawsuits being defended vigorously by lawyers like you rises enough, the lawsuits will no longer be profitable and the overall strategy will fail. The more boilerplate defenses than can be raised (i.e., other defense attorneys don't have to reinvent the wheel every time), the more attorneys will take on these cases.
The alternative is that there is no rational reason for them to oppose your approach, and they are just being jerks because (1) that's the way they practice law in general and/or (2) they're cranking up their billable hours. That's certainly a possibility, but I tend to think that doing this would be killing the goose that laid the golden egg, and they should be smarter than that. They're making a bundle on these thousands of lawsuits, and *should* have some overall strategy for this ride to continue.
Perhaps I'm missing something, but what the RIAA is afraid of seems quite obvious to me: whenever they run into a spirited defense with some merit in one of their lawsuits, they nonsuit, which allows them to avoid running up legal fees on potential losers, which is not cost-effective. If there is a pending counterclaim, they cannot just nonsuit, but still have to defend the counterclaim, and defend a question of fact, too, meaning actually go to trial. They don't want to have to go to trial because they know very well that even if they win, they won't be able to collect enough damages to cover their attorneys' fees. Once the precedent's out there, every defendant will be filing a counterclaim as a matter of course, and their entire cost calculation will change - perhaps the lawsuits will no longer be profitable, taken as a whole.
(I am a lawyer - but mainly business, estate planning, & probate, so do not claim to be an authority on Federal litigation.) Best wishes for Mr. Beckerman's success.
The framers of the Constitution *did* think the Second Amendment was clear when written. And no one much questioned it for nearly 150 years: that's pretty darned good. 220 years of hindsight and court decisions have added an unbelievable amount of nuance and interpretation to what is simply the most carefully and expertly drafted political document in human history. How many other such documents have stayed around and had to be altered so little for such a long time? (Other than Germany's Rheinheitsgebot, that is.)
Ah. Yes, I'd heard of that, but it didn't register as a major issue, as I'm afraid I'm still stuck in the Windows world (I'm a lawyer, and there are various commercial software products I use which aren't available for Linux).
As long as I'm being modded down for being offtopic: it *is* tempting to switch from Firefox to IceWeasel, just because it's such a cool name. ("Yeah, I'm using IceWeasel to browse nowadays. Firefox is *so* yesterday.")
I use the "No" all the time, when I'm accessing a site where (a) I don't know if I will be using repeatedly or not, or (b) I don't know if the user name / password combo is correct. That is, I don't want *anything* about this site to be stored, whether "don't ask to save a password here" or "save the password for this site." I want a limited number of sites stored in my preferences, and don't want to have to go through and purge the list more often than I have to.
Since I'm only a geek by avocation, rather than by vocation, um... I don't get it. What's so funny about "An open source logo," other than the general idea that that would be a pointless mission-statement-ish waste of energy?
Probably, for correct French (which I don't speak). The signature refers to a Rene Magritte painting, and I was going from memory. Having looked it up now:
Reminds me of a wonderful quote from a book I have somewhere: "Our adversarial system is founded upon the curious premise that, from the clash of lies, truth will emerge."
By the way, your opinion is not shared by the ABA's Model Code of Professional Responsibility or my own state (Texas) code. Springing something on opposing counsel when you have been notified of his vacation is not only unethical, but sanctionable.
What everyone here is describing is true of ANY group of people acting collectively. Leftist idiots think "corporations" are evil; rightist idiots think "government" is evil. Both act as if these associations of people have some inherent depravity. Fuzzy thinking. Yes, groups of people can collectively do immoral things that individuals might not participate in by themselves. Ever hear of a lynch mob? It is exceptionally naive to hold the view that only associations of people *formed for the purpose of doing business* are somehow inherently evil. Of course, I am operating under my own premise that doing business and seeking a profit, in and of itself, is not inherently immoral. This may be a distinctly minority opinion on Slashdot.
Slashdot Mirror
Don't have any current mod points, so I'll just comment: quite so. Disagreeing with someone is not insulting; *insulting* someone is insulting. Dawkins does plenty of the latter. Calling theists "ignorant" is indeed insulting when said theists are well-educated (even in evolution, which I learned as an accepted fact - in Catholic school), and quite well aware of your arguments. For what it's worth, I did read "The God Delusion," and found it trite: his arguments have been answered many times over. Certainly, to an atheist, the answers are not persuasive, but it is foolish to act as though theists are ignorant of the questions posed.
I'm quite sympathetic to the atheistic worldview, but it seems to me that a true atheist would accept the "God Delusion" as as much a product of evolution as tribal instincts, and focus on the advantages of moving past such a delusion, as opposed to characterizing those subject to the "delusion" as ignorant hillbillies. Rationally speaking, that mode of argument only appeals to those who agree with you already. Dawkins is more of an antitheist, or perhaps a "theophobe."
Yes, it's the X64 version. I have that on my laptop; I have XP on my desktop. Sure, I only have about a year left of MS tech support, but I've always been my own tech support anyway and have never relied on MS. I already have a migration path mostly set for what is necessary, and am preparing for the day my desktop croaks. But I'm not in a screaming rush to replace it, either.
I still use XP on my business desktop because I have a few very old 16-bit programs (e.g., Corel InfoCentral) that I find very useful. Under Windows 7, these have to be run under a Windows XP virtual machine (either using VMWare of Windows 7 Pro's native facility). Although the virtual machine can work fairly seamlessly, it (1) is much slower to access these programs and (2) the does not integrate well with other programs. I do have 7 on my laptop, and it runs quite well, but my desktop machine, customized as it is with Windows PowerPro and Everything search, works just fine as is.
Re: "Gasoline is not priced by supply and demand, it is priced by what the market will bear."
Ah. Controlled by the Trilateral Commission, no doubt. Or perhaps the Illuminati.
"Greed" is defined as "excessive or rapacious desire, especially for wealth or possessions." Personally, I would define it as "wanting more than one deserves or is entitled to."
The trouble with this: who defines what is "excessive," or what a person "deserves" or "is entitled to?" Under professedly Communist regimes, that has always wound up being the government.
In reality, "greed" is simply the flip side of envy: a person who is "greedy" is someone who has a lot more stuff than I do, which is perceived as unfair. It is not an objective standard by any means.
Communism is fundamentally flawed not because people are "greedy," but because they naturally act in their own self interest,
Is it only me who is wondering just what this has to do with Aeronautics and/or Space?
Since you said "seriously," I'll answer. Because otherwise no one would invest in any business that they were not personally operating. Suppose you own some shares in a mutual fund. Is it reasonable to hold you personally responsible for actions of businesses whose stock you hold? Exxon has millions of shareholders. Is it reasonable to track down each one of them and shake them down for the costs of the Exxon Valdez cleanup? How many of them had any *control* over Exxon's corporate policies?
Limited liability is an essential component of having any sort of industry beyond the cottage level. How likely would you be to invest $10,000 in a startup business if you knew you would be personally liable for all the business's debts if it failed?
"Federal rental law?" Chuckle.
What I cannot understand: how exactly does anyone expect Thunderbird to compete with Outlook as a contact manager? Sure, I use it for e-mail, and I can see how calendaring and task management could be integrated nicely, but no one seems to be addressing Thunderbird's address book, which has zero usefulness outside of e-mail. Does anyone do anything useful with the Thunderbird address book?
All you have to do is set up a one-time account number for one transaction. I can set up a temporary number authorized for a limit of, say, $25, that is only valid for a week. Pay with that, your credit card company transfers it to your regular card, then the number expires.
Unless their contracts specifically required that an OEM be someone building a system *for resale*, it's their own fault. I may not be in the business of selling computers, but if I build my own I *am* an OEM.
Yes, that's the theory: a lawyer's authority to issue a subpoena derives from his or her status as an officer of the court. That is why one has to seek a Motion to Quash when served with one, as opposed to filing a Motion for Protective Order.
That is also why they are more subject to abuse, as in the referenced case: issuing a subpoena to appear the next day for a deposition is considered a "Rambo litigation" tactic, and will not endear one to the court, since it is abusing one's authority as an officer of the court.
The person I was replying to was under the impression that the subpoena was issued *by the court* (generally after application from an attorney), like a citation or a writ. Subpoenas are different.
Sorry: the subpoena is issued by the lawyer, not the court. Perhaps you were thinking of a citation. IAATL (the "T" there stands for "Texas," since it's relevant).
Yep, filing for that trademark in 1996 was a really desperate, last-ditch move, wasn't it?
I just got my daughter an LG "Chocolate" phone for Christmas, adding it to my Verizon account. Bought a data cable for it on eBay for $10, including shipping, and can transfer all the MP3s (and wallpaper, and movies, and ringtones) she wants to it using BitPim. Easy as pie. She now has an MP3 of the song "Linus and Lucy" as her ringtone. No problem.
That's a nice comment with which I agree. But I'm starting to wonder if there is some sort of code on Slashdot that turns every instance of the word "lose" into "loose," like the way Fark changes "naughty" words.
I mean, I can live with people who do not know that "I could care less" means the opposite of what they intend, and can understand misspellings of complicated words. But "loose" for "lose?" I cannot imagine it's a common typo, like "teh," since it's not all that easy to do an inadvertent double tap with the right ring finger. Those sorts of things introduce jarring bits of error which compromise the message. Especially from someone in the publishing industry, who ought to know better.
Yeah, yeah, I know this has been discussed ad nauseam. But unless you're deliberately going for humor (and I can just see responses to this like "I think you should loose your attitude"), please stop.
You're probably correct, and you certainly have far more expertise in the area than I do. I just think that establishing attorneys' fees as a counterclaim, to the RIAA attorneys, is seen as yet another arrow in the defense quiver. Much like the substantive due process defense, these arrows are slowly accumulating, and the more of them that exist, the harder their blanket lawsuit strategy becomes. When the probability of each one of these lawsuits being defended vigorously by lawyers like you rises enough, the lawsuits will no longer be profitable and the overall strategy will fail. The more boilerplate defenses than can be raised (i.e., other defense attorneys don't have to reinvent the wheel every time), the more attorneys will take on these cases.
The alternative is that there is no rational reason for them to oppose your approach, and they are just being jerks because (1) that's the way they practice law in general and/or (2) they're cranking up their billable hours. That's certainly a possibility, but I tend to think that doing this would be killing the goose that laid the golden egg, and they should be smarter than that. They're making a bundle on these thousands of lawsuits, and *should* have some overall strategy for this ride to continue.
Just some thoughts.
Perhaps I'm missing something, but what the RIAA is afraid of seems quite obvious to me: whenever they run into a spirited defense with some merit in one of their lawsuits, they nonsuit, which allows them to avoid running up legal fees on potential losers, which is not cost-effective. If there is a pending counterclaim, they cannot just nonsuit, but still have to defend the counterclaim, and defend a question of fact, too, meaning actually go to trial. They don't want to have to go to trial because they know very well that even if they win, they won't be able to collect enough damages to cover their attorneys' fees. Once the precedent's out there, every defendant will be filing a counterclaim as a matter of course, and their entire cost calculation will change - perhaps the lawsuits will no longer be profitable, taken as a whole.
(I am a lawyer - but mainly business, estate planning, & probate, so do not claim to be an authority on Federal litigation.) Best wishes for Mr. Beckerman's success.
The framers of the Constitution *did* think the Second Amendment was clear when written. And no one much questioned it for nearly 150 years: that's pretty darned good. 220 years of hindsight and court decisions have added an unbelievable amount of nuance and interpretation to what is simply the most carefully and expertly drafted political document in human history. How many other such documents have stayed around and had to be altered so little for such a long time? (Other than Germany's Rheinheitsgebot, that is.)
Ah. Yes, I'd heard of that, but it didn't register as a major issue, as I'm afraid I'm still stuck in the Windows world (I'm a lawyer, and there are various commercial software products I use which aren't available for Linux).
As long as I'm being modded down for being offtopic: it *is* tempting to switch from Firefox to IceWeasel, just because it's such a cool name. ("Yeah, I'm using IceWeasel to browse nowadays. Firefox is *so* yesterday.")
I use the "No" all the time, when I'm accessing a site where (a) I don't know if I will be using repeatedly or not, or (b) I don't know if the user name / password combo is correct. That is, I don't want *anything* about this site to be stored, whether "don't ask to save a password here" or "save the password for this site." I want a limited number of sites stored in my preferences, and don't want to have to go through and purge the list more often than I have to.
Since I'm only a geek by avocation, rather than by vocation, um... I don't get it. What's so funny about "An open source logo," other than the general idea that that would be a pointless mission-statement-ish waste of energy?
Probably, for correct French (which I don't speak). The signature refers to a Rene Magritte painting, and I was going from memory. Having looked it up now:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_Magritte
I actually need to change it to "Ceci n'est pas un sig." I like self-referential stuff: not that this matters.
Reminds me of a wonderful quote from a book I have somewhere: "Our adversarial system is founded upon the curious premise that, from the clash of lies, truth will emerge."
By the way, your opinion is not shared by the ABA's Model Code of Professional Responsibility or my own state (Texas) code. Springing something on opposing counsel when you have been notified of his vacation is not only unethical, but sanctionable.
What everyone here is describing is true of ANY group of people acting collectively. Leftist idiots think "corporations" are evil; rightist idiots think "government" is evil. Both act as if these associations of people have some inherent depravity. Fuzzy thinking. Yes, groups of people can collectively do immoral things that individuals might not participate in by themselves. Ever hear of a lynch mob? It is exceptionally naive to hold the view that only associations of people *formed for the purpose of doing business* are somehow inherently evil. Of course, I am operating under my own premise that doing business and seeking a profit, in and of itself, is not inherently immoral. This may be a distinctly minority opinion on Slashdot.