Or rather...Apple had the APIs for Vista for a while. Had access to the RTM since October. And didn't bother to fix it. Yehp, that would be the apple suits.
Xbox360 has been out for over a year longer than the Wii and has sold less consoles in that span. So.. do you actually smoke the crack.. or just chew it up and rub it all over your tounge?
check it. Yes.. sure.. more wii's are sol.. if 4mil is more than 10mil.
... Microsoft gave some sort of preview of the OS for 3rd parties to test and update their applications. Maybe then Apple could have done something about it. I blame Microsoft. You mean like the many Beta versions they made available? (pst, your preconcieved notion is showing)
Suits are to blame either way.. for thinking that their job was to tie a software app to one OS or the other.
If it turns out that MS is keeping true to form from past abuses - using its control over the OS to submerge and destroy the oposition (see netscape) then Apple should probably start digging for evidence to back a differnet kind of suit right now. This kind of deliberate destruction of property that just happens to be manufactured by the opposition company (OS v Os, and now MP3 player v. MP3 player) is text-book anti-trust case material.
Those who will give you advice here, probably aren't up to snuff on contract law.
Those who are up to snuff on contract law probably won't open themselves to liability by offering advice without the protection of a thorough interview, etc.
The best advice - get a lawyer, read everything twice - and.. just before you sign the contract.. ask the other party to certify that you've talked about and examined everything in the contract in the past - that they haven't added text or hidden anything from you.
Then, if they try to pull out a weird explanation in court, you have their word in front of the wittnesses to the contract to counter that weird interpretation.
1 - to indemnify MS against any harm caused by its software to your business. That frees them from the fear of being expected to come up with a few hundred thousand dollars every time an exchange server crashes and two hundred salesman lose importan e-mails that cost a company money.
2 - to stand in for "rigerous maintenance" of its copyrights and trademarks - so that they need not fear losing control of their trademark by dint of not demanding that anyone anywhere who uses the MS logo or Widows name will put put a color of doubt on their title to the trademarks.
Then the MS corporate legal team puts its wet dreams in writing and attaches that as well.
... where, if part of the contrat is illegal, then the whole contract is made null. In other word for all those country, making statement for example to make user sign up their basic right, or even consumer-protection right, is illegal, would simply nullify the EULA. So... The left over won't do shit in such case. That's an intresting (wrong) interpretation.
Actually courts will usually do what they can to save a contract within interpretation - and will nullfy portions of the contract that cannot be enforced. But no, writing a contract so that it includes clauses which are unenforceable (ie giving up your basic human rights) does not void (the correct term) the contract.
An illegal contract - one that is a contract to commit a crime (ie Rob that bank and I'll help you sell the gold for a 50/50 cut of all proceeds) is - yes - null and void in all states I don't think there are any EULAs out there in the main stream that include contract for crime though - so points for getting one legal principle correct, losses for applying it to the wrong case.
apple: So, if we go to court, we might lose. Cisco: Right. But we might lose too and then get no money out of you. Okay, so if we pay you half the amount we would otherwise pay for our lawyers, then we both win. Only half? We think you can do better. Let's announce that the suit is on hold, and go negotiate. Sounds good, let's set it up for wednesday
Who gives a crap about cell-phones - 20 gigs of storage that I can blue-tooth into unwired glasses and ear phones - add in an input device for the hand (how about a blue tooth wireless controler?) and I could mod up a "cheap" wearable that could play some old games, show me my documents/pictures/videos - the link in the cell phone for internet access and some chat capablility..
Give it 10 years... you'll be using something like that.
Everyone in the country should have filled out a scantron sheet by now. The technology is widespread and decades old. Filling in a little dot next to the one person you want to vote for is as simple as it gets. No. Everyone in the country above a certain age will have filled out a scantron by now. Just to remind you, Florida is the retirement state... they have more older citizens than nerarly any other state (though I hear AZ is catching up). Many of these people may not have ever encountered a scantron.
As for identifying a democrat.. it's really not that hard. Part of the fiasco that was 2000 was the felons list - they used very wide terms (first or last name match + doB, same person) to select large numbers of black (spcifically people with "black" names) voters and eliminate them from the rolls. You average middle class mom may be a mystery, but some groups aren't: most florida cubans are republicans (bay of pigs issues), most florida blacks are democrats -- and so on. They have the numbers broken down by each county, and the data is out there. An enterprising poll worker could examine that and do the selection process all on their own - give the ones you think are republicans a number 2, and the others a differnt one absent the required metal content (carcoal perhaps).
Now, yes, I use republicans as the example - but not without cause. Each party has their own system - the Dems register extra voters and vote a few times, the republicans tend to eliminate oppositional voters. That's why in Chicago our dead vote for us, and occasionally you get a letter informing you that you voted in two distrcits in one day. But by the same margin, in the suburbs of Chicago you have black voters turned away at the polls, ballots accidentally laid to the side and never run through the machine - and now that many of them are going electronic, I'm sure we'll have issues on the backside.
The democrats cheated and won an election for Kennedy, Bush's first term was pulled out of a hat by his brother... so it goes..
Because the same people that tell Democrats to use blue ink might be counting the ballots. Wisdom.. but counting votes by hand is a team activity - one democrat, one republican.. for every ballot (this is how Florida's hand recount laws already work).
Oh right, poll worker says: Democrats use blue ink, Republicans use pencils.
Hmm.. here's a thought - why don't we give out slips of paper with the names of the candidates on them, then you CIRCLE your candidate.. and then (get this) PEOPLE count up the ballots. Woah.. and SOOO much more expensive right?
Not to nit pick - but thousands DID starve to death - mostly in inner mongolia, upper manchuria, middle africa, and the north eastern parts of India. Starvation slowed the population growth of the so-called "explosion," which also failed to predict genetically engineered food. GE foods feed more people on less nutrients, and has helped hold off disaster. So did aggressive AGGRESSIVE chinese population control methods.
Even still, the eath's population IS growing at a disgusting rate. For this wek need factory farms, like the chicken farms that serve as incubators for new flu strains, and the herds of cattle that are producing so much of the methane that is, in turn, responsible for much of the ongoing pollution in the U.S. and the world.
The world has changed much to fix its problems, the U.S. has disavowed change more than others. Europeans put heavy taxes on gasoline, the U.S. subsidizes its import. The chinese put a hammer down on population, the U.S. discourages the use of prophylactics and birth control. The majority of nations on earth signed the Kyoto treaty (granted, of limited value) and did make real sacrafices to live up to it - the U.S., not so much.
What else would you want to compare it to? Rainforset deforistaion? U.S. companies still log heavily, Europe put heavy import taxes on mahogany, teak, and the other woods from there.
So.. let's face up to what we really need to do. The BEST thing for the United States is to master a form of energy production that will allow us to project power around the world indefinitely. The BEST thing for the U.S. is to protect our sources of fresh water and air. The BEST thing for the U.S. is to seek a way to defeat all comers in battle.
Increasingly we're turning toward electricity to do all these things for us (Rail guns on ships, nuke boats and subs, hybrid cars, etc). So, the ideal solution for OUR good, and for the good of the earth line up nicely - we need clean (cleanish) energy. Personally, I'm a BIG fan of distributed nuklear power (small reactors with minimal load distributed where needed). They're basically the energy plants we use on aircraft carriers (3-5 depending on the ship). They're designed so that if they burn out, people on the ship survive.. if we put them 30 or 40 feet under ground, they would be about as safe as the current distibuted power station (those giant capcitors can seriousl EXPLODE).
But.. I'm just a law student without any power. Oh well.
But then where do I host my gigs and gigs of porn, store all my old music I don't like anymore.. what machine would I retrofit into my arcade chasis and set up as my MAME/LAME and SNES9X machine?
Maybe what we really need is a creative linux hacker to buy up old machines, throw some apps on it to do home server functions, and then sell them back to the old users. What could they do? Just as an example, put one in the kitchen with a touch screen that you could use to track inventory, bring up recorded cooking shows, hold a recepie index, address book, and notepad for the family. -- the trick is to do it for less than $300, and maybe this is the time to do it?
Do companies large enough to have HR departments never have any bad employees? Never have communications problems? Never make mistakes? Everybody screws up some time. Don't you think it's worth finding out if it was an abberation? Yeah, I left off the leading "assuming you have verified that they intend to break their agreement."
This kind of bullshit is endemic to a company, if you have to deal with it here, you'll have to deal with it once you get there and start working. This is how you end up stuck in a job you hate, and stuck in the city they moved you to.
From a contract point of view, his claim is utterly false. It dosen't matter if it's not in writing, since you relied on the promise, it was reasonably foreseeable that you would do so, and this has harmed you - but that means suing your employer. That never ends well.
I want to highlight two points, the first an observation about my own circumstances, the second a "law" of beauty.
1) I am currently in grad school in rural Indiana. Prior to that I was in undergrad in downtown Chicago. While I live about the same distance from school here as I did in Chicago, I cannot walk here. My fiance and familly have all taken the time to not just how much weight I've put on in just a year. Still eating about the same.. never went out of my way to exercise in Chicago.. but there you go (No, I was never "thin" but I've gained about 20 lbs.. which is very visible weight).
Treadmill comes Thursday (nope, not kidding.. goodbye gut, hello living to 80).
2) What a friend once positted me as the "Hills of beauty" correlation. The women in cities which are built on hills tend to be more svelt and.. just generally.. better looking. (there are myrriad benefits linked to arobic exercise other than straight weight control - such as clarity of eye-whites, blood flow to the epidermus, etc). Rome proved this one for me.
So, I propose the following.. From now on we require that all towns be constructed with many sidewalks that needlessly go up and down in elevation of at least 15 ft waves. (30 ft from high point to low point, getting off the sidewalk when it hits ground level.
Well?
-Gih (Durr.. making a joke.. but points 1 and 2 are serious.)
Bill S1 (in it's actual TERMS, as opposed to the article that appeared on/. recently) merely requires bloggers who are paid to blog to declare that they are paid, and by whom, if thier blog is read by more than 500 people.
This is focused on political blogs, but it would also stop subversive ad campaigns.
That's not the real problem though, Treason is a Federal crime, but the voting process is run state by state under state law - this presents issues of federalism. (There's also an evidentiary problem, the constitution requires at least two wittnesses who will testify to the act, or an admission of treason in open court.)
It would be better to pass a law which allowed candidates to sue states for damages in some amount, tied to the cost of running ads and maintaining a campaign in their state when there is election fraud. Our legal system is based on the founding concept that all men are evil, and that we will act only in our best interest. That's why the powers of government are split into three competing brancehs, and that's why we settle the outcome of accidents with lawsuits. It's messy, and inefficient, and it seriously discourages abuse (which is the whole idea).
Slashdot Mirror
MUHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAAH!
Thanks.. I needed that.
-GiH
-GiH
check it. Yes.. sure.. more wii's are sol.. if 4mil is more than 10mil.
-GiH
... Microsoft gave some sort of preview of the OS for 3rd parties to test and update their applications. Maybe then Apple could have done something about it. I blame Microsoft. You mean like the many Beta versions they made available? (pst, your preconcieved notion is showing)-GiH
Suits are to blame either way.. for thinking that their job was to tie a software app to one OS or the other.
If it turns out that MS is keeping true to form from past abuses - using its control over the OS to submerge and destroy the oposition (see netscape) then Apple should probably start digging for evidence to back a differnet kind of suit right now. This kind of deliberate destruction of property that just happens to be manufactured by the opposition company (OS v Os, and now MP3 player v. MP3 player) is text-book anti-trust case material.
-GiH
Those who will give you advice here, probably aren't up to snuff on contract law.
Those who are up to snuff on contract law probably won't open themselves to liability by offering advice without the protection of a thorough interview, etc.
The best advice - get a lawyer, read everything twice - and.. just before you sign the contract.. ask the other party to certify that you've talked about and examined everything in the contract in the past - that they haven't added text or hidden anything from you.
Then, if they try to pull out a weird explanation in court, you have their word in front of the wittnesses to the contract to counter that weird interpretation.
-GiH
1 - to indemnify MS against any harm caused by its software to your business. That frees them from the fear of being expected to come up with a few hundred thousand dollars every time an exchange server crashes and two hundred salesman lose importan e-mails that cost a company money.
2 - to stand in for "rigerous maintenance" of its copyrights and trademarks - so that they need not fear losing control of their trademark by dint of not demanding that anyone anywhere who uses the MS logo or Widows name will put put a color of doubt on their title to the trademarks.
Then the MS corporate legal team puts its wet dreams in writing and attaches that as well.
-GiH
... where, if part of the contrat is illegal, then the whole contract is made null. In other word for all those country, making statement for example to make user sign up their basic right, or even consumer-protection right, is illegal, would simply nullify the EULA. So... The left over won't do shit in such case. That's an intresting (wrong) interpretation.Actually courts will usually do what they can to save a contract within interpretation - and will nullfy portions of the contract that cannot be enforced. But no, writing a contract so that it includes clauses which are unenforceable (ie giving up your basic human rights) does not void (the correct term) the contract.
An illegal contract - one that is a contract to commit a crime (ie Rob that bank and I'll help you sell the gold for a 50/50 cut of all proceeds) is - yes - null and void in all states I don't think there are any EULAs out there in the main stream that include contract for crime though - so points for getting one legal principle correct, losses for applying it to the wrong case.
-GiH
(No, not a lawyer, just a law student).
NO WAY! You mean advertisements (like this interview) aren't truthful!?
Crap.. does this mean my penis enlarging cream and weight loss supplements AREN'T making all the fat in my body run into my depending member?
CRAP!
-GiH
apple: So, if we go to court, we might lose.
Cisco: Right. But we might lose too and then get no money out of you.
Okay, so if we pay you half the amount we would otherwise pay for our lawyers, then we both win.
Only half? We think you can do better.
Let's announce that the suit is on hold, and go negotiate.
Sounds good, let's set it up for wednesday
-GiH
Just a law student.
Who gives a crap about cell-phones - 20 gigs of storage that I can blue-tooth into unwired glasses and ear phones - add in an input device for the hand (how about a blue tooth wireless controler?) and I could mod up a "cheap" wearable that could play some old games, show me my documents/pictures/videos - the link in the cell phone for internet access and some chat capablility..
Give it 10 years... you'll be using something like that.
-GiH
As for identifying a democrat.. it's really not that hard. Part of the fiasco that was 2000 was the felons list - they used very wide terms (first or last name match + doB, same person) to select large numbers of black (spcifically people with "black" names) voters and eliminate them from the rolls. You average middle class mom may be a mystery, but some groups aren't: most florida cubans are republicans (bay of pigs issues), most florida blacks are democrats -- and so on. They have the numbers broken down by each county, and the data is out there. An enterprising poll worker could examine that and do the selection process all on their own - give the ones you think are republicans a number 2, and the others a differnt one absent the required metal content (carcoal perhaps).
Now, yes, I use republicans as the example - but not without cause. Each party has their own system - the Dems register extra voters and vote a few times, the republicans tend to eliminate oppositional voters. That's why in Chicago our dead vote for us, and occasionally you get a letter informing you that you voted in two distrcits in one day. But by the same margin, in the suburbs of Chicago you have black voters turned away at the polls, ballots accidentally laid to the side and never run through the machine - and now that many of them are going electronic, I'm sure we'll have issues on the backside.
The democrats cheated and won an election for Kennedy, Bush's first term was pulled out of a hat by his brother... so it goes..
-GiH
-GiH
Most election workers are volunteers - free. Regardless, most recount laws (flordia's included) require hand recounts.
And no, I'm serious - this is how they count votes in canada still.
-GiH
Oh right, poll worker says: Democrats use blue ink, Republicans use pencils.
Hmm.. here's a thought - why don't we give out slips of paper with the names of the candidates on them, then you CIRCLE your candidate.. and then (get this) PEOPLE count up the ballots. Woah.. and SOOO much more expensive right?
-GiH
Not to nit pick - but thousands DID starve to death - mostly in inner mongolia, upper manchuria, middle africa, and the north eastern parts of India. Starvation slowed the population growth of the so-called "explosion," which also failed to predict genetically engineered food. GE foods feed more people on less nutrients, and has helped hold off disaster. So did aggressive AGGRESSIVE chinese population control methods.
Even still, the eath's population IS growing at a disgusting rate. For this wek need factory farms, like the chicken farms that serve as incubators for new flu strains, and the herds of cattle that are producing so much of the methane that is, in turn, responsible for much of the ongoing pollution in the U.S. and the world.
The world has changed much to fix its problems, the U.S. has disavowed change more than others. Europeans put heavy taxes on gasoline, the U.S. subsidizes its import. The chinese put a hammer down on population, the U.S. discourages the use of prophylactics and birth control. The majority of nations on earth signed the Kyoto treaty (granted, of limited value) and did make real sacrafices to live up to it - the U.S., not so much.
What else would you want to compare it to? Rainforset deforistaion? U.S. companies still log heavily, Europe put heavy import taxes on mahogany, teak, and the other woods from there.
So.. let's face up to what we really need to do. The BEST thing for the United States is to master a form of energy production that will allow us to project power around the world indefinitely. The BEST thing for the U.S. is to protect our sources of fresh water and air. The BEST thing for the U.S. is to seek a way to defeat all comers in battle.
Increasingly we're turning toward electricity to do all these things for us (Rail guns on ships, nuke boats and subs, hybrid cars, etc). So, the ideal solution for OUR good, and for the good of the earth line up nicely - we need clean (cleanish) energy. Personally, I'm a BIG fan of distributed nuklear power (small reactors with minimal load distributed where needed). They're basically the energy plants we use on aircraft carriers (3-5 depending on the ship). They're designed so that if they burn out, people on the ship survive.. if we put them 30 or 40 feet under ground, they would be about as safe as the current distibuted power station (those giant capcitors can seriousl EXPLODE).
But.. I'm just a law student without any power. Oh well.
-GiH
Throwing them away...
But then where do I host my gigs and gigs of porn, store all my old music I don't like anymore.. what machine would I retrofit into my arcade chasis and set up as my MAME/LAME and SNES9X machine?
Maybe what we really need is a creative linux hacker to buy up old machines, throw some apps on it to do home server functions, and then sell them back to the old users. What could they do? Just as an example, put one in the kitchen with a touch screen that you could use to track inventory, bring up recorded cooking shows, hold a recepie index, address book, and notepad for the family. -- the trick is to do it for less than $300, and maybe this is the time to do it?
-GiH
... but I didn't kill the dBA
-GiH
-GiH
Run, don't walk, out the door.
This kind of bullshit is endemic to a company, if you have to deal with it here, you'll have to deal with it once you get there and start working. This is how you end up stuck in a job you hate, and stuck in the city they moved you to.
From a contract point of view, his claim is utterly false. It dosen't matter if it's not in writing, since you relied on the promise, it was reasonably foreseeable that you would do so, and this has harmed you - but that means suing your employer. That never ends well.
Seriously, don't work for these people.
-GiH
1) I am currently in grad school in rural Indiana. Prior to that I was in undergrad in downtown Chicago. While I live about the same distance from school here as I did in Chicago, I cannot walk here. My fiance and familly have all taken the time to not just how much weight I've put on in just a year. Still eating about the same.. never went out of my way to exercise in Chicago.. but there you go (No, I was never "thin" but I've gained about 20 lbs.. which is very visible weight).
Treadmill comes Thursday (nope, not kidding.. goodbye gut, hello living to 80).
2) What a friend once positted me as the "Hills of beauty" correlation. The women in cities which are built on hills tend to be more svelt and.. just generally.. better looking. (there are myrriad benefits linked to arobic exercise other than straight weight control - such as clarity of eye-whites, blood flow to the epidermus, etc). Rome proved this one for me.
So, I propose the following.. From now on we require that all towns be constructed with many sidewalks that needlessly go up and down in elevation of at least 15 ft waves. (30 ft from high point to low point, getting off the sidewalk when it hits ground level.
Well?
-Gih
(Durr.. making a joke.. but points 1 and 2 are serious.)
Bill S1 (in it's actual TERMS, as opposed to the article that appeared on /. recently) merely requires bloggers who are paid to blog to declare that they are paid, and by whom, if thier blog is read by more than 500 people.
This is focused on political blogs, but it would also stop subversive ad campaigns.
It's good law.
-GiH
Not a lawyer, just a law student.
... what say you that all but one console shall fall? !!tihslluB -GiH
Treason == death penalty.
That's not the real problem though, Treason is a Federal crime, but the voting process is run state by state under state law - this presents issues of federalism. (There's also an evidentiary problem, the constitution requires at least two wittnesses who will testify to the act, or an admission of treason in open court.)
It would be better to pass a law which allowed candidates to sue states for damages in some amount, tied to the cost of running ads and maintaining a campaign in their state when there is election fraud. Our legal system is based on the founding concept that all men are evil, and that we will act only in our best interest. That's why the powers of government are split into three competing brancehs, and that's why we settle the outcome of accidents with lawsuits. It's messy, and inefficient, and it seriously discourages abuse (which is the whole idea).
-GiH
Brilliant!!
:).
And of course there's also the gobs and gobs of cash to be made
-GiH