That's a very insightful perspective, and I think it is important. There has always been a common connection between wealth and the luxury of environmental protection. Without wealth, one cannot afford to care for the environment.
However, I don't take that argument as an excuse to pillage the environment of today for the sake of short term wealth with incidental environmental responsibility. I think there ought to be a balance between economic growth and environmental protection, namely to have economic growth with a view to the costs to and effects upon future generations. I think this is as valuable for the cultural effect as any other, namely the demonstration of state responsibility, which is of profound but rarely recognized importance (see, e.g.: David Landes - Wealth and Poverty of Nations).
This bill should really be called "A Tax Increase For All Americans."
Sir:
Responsible energy use is only a tax on the current generation. Future generations will have the benefit of this tax, including more oil, less pollution, less natural catastrophes, better environmental technology, and a more responsible culture. Indeed, the "free" oil we're burning today is a tax on future generations, who will pay the price for our selfish, short-sighted behaviour. I call the existing scheme of state-environment relations as the "fuck the kids" model.
As a technical note, it's not strictly a tax because it is simply the assignment of a property value to a currently hidden cost (i.e. on future generations), it permits valuation and bartering of that now hidden cost (i.e. it's "property", somewhat like intellectual property), and it can be avoided through technological innovation. The brilliance is that it is creating the facade of a marketplace, where the costs to the participants in the marketplace are designed to coincide with the harms to the environment. It's actually quite fascinating and brilliant, in my humble opinion. Let's hope it proves valuable.
If Panasonic was concerned about 3rd party suppliers selling unsafe batteries, it could sell licenses with strict requirements or set up a certification program to test the safety of the batteries sold by these suppliers.
Locking out competition to create an artificial tie-in between the camera and the battery is anti-competitive, in my opinion. There are ways to ensure the safety of customers without a tie-in that undermines market-based competition.
Mind you, I only read the blurb- I don't know the details of what Panasonic is proposing. But the summary seems telling.
Defining species based on whether animals can breed is not a perfect definition. Fin and Blue whales have been known to breed, to form hybrid species, for example.
Why doesn't Ms. Thomas set up a legal fund donation page via PayPal, for example? I'd contribute some funds to this cause. It deserves attention.
Has she sought legal aid? Or the support of the ACLU, EFF or a law school? Her time is running short. This is an unfortunate situation because the likelihood of setting an important precedent very favourable to the RIAA is quite high, now.
Does society collapse when a hooker gets beaten up by a weirdo? Does society collapse when a bunch of Chinese girls get brought over in a shipping crate to work in a brothel? Does society collapse when a college girl's boyfriend tells her that if she wants to keep the coke coming she needs to turn a few tricks, and it will only be just once or twice? Or, when these things happen, does society just keep on humming the way it always has and nobody needs to give a damn, yet alone raise a finger?
The happening of the hypotheticals offered above are signs that civil society has already collapsed, not that it will. Our best hope to attain fundamental human rights is to offer empathy and compassion for the victims of a system of justice that goes to great lengths to exclude them from access to justice, and counter the prevailing public opinion and mass media that holds victims culpable for their unavoidable misfortunes.
The problem I have is not with prostitution per se, but with half-assed attempts to decriminalize prostitution that contribute to making the situation worse. There's a lot of human misery involved in the sex trade right now. Maybe legalizing prostitution will do away with all of it -- for the sake of argument, let's assume that it will. But until prostitution is really and honestly legalized, for Craigslist to allow posting of prostitution ads now is to support the sex trade as it exists right now, and I can't say I'm really for that.
Flouting the law undermines the integrity of the law - people will question whether the law is an authority. However, enforcing immoral laws also undermine the integrity of the law - people will question whether the law creates justice. Flouting an immoral law in certain circumstances could lead to less harm to the integrity of the law.
Incidentally, prostitution is legal in a number of states where Craigslist operates, including Canada.
So forget about the solar panel aspect (that's probably just there to get the tax breaks & incentives in the new budget). The train tech itself is not going to go that fast. Something tells me they also don't account for emabrkment/disembarkment of passengers & luggage in that 30 minute time estimate.
I agree that solar panel estimates are unlikely to power this train, at least with present-day solar panel technology. I don't see any evidence that the train technology isn't available, and I don't think train stop-time is an enormous consideration (though I doubt it was not a factor when they said "30 minutes" to from departure to arrival).
As the link you provided indicates, the biggest complaint about train speed in Japan is the noise generated. This noise is generated predominantly when the trains exit the tunnels. There are no mountains in Arizona on this route (as far as I can see), and certainly none with habitation around them, ergo no tunnel-exit noise.
A TGV test train set the record for the fastest wheeled train, reaching 574.8 km/h (357 mph) on 3 April 2007,[1][2] and a TGV service holds the record for the fastest scheduled rail journey with a start to stop average speed of 279.4 km/h.
In my experiences traveling by train in both Japan and France, neither generally has wait times of over 30 minutes at the major terminals. Alighting and boarding rarely take more than a couple minutes each, even if the train empties - there are many doors. I suppose the obesity in the southern USA is a relevant factor in considering stop times for the trains. Japan and France don't have anything even remotely close to the same number of morbidly obese potential passengers as the southern USA has. Even so, how much would that affect the time to get on and off of a train? I couldn't say.
I'd say the train technology is certainly available, and the alighting and board time really isn't an enormous concern. I agree with concerns about the efficacy of solar panels, though. A secondary concern is the availability of local transit upon arrival, either "per diem" cars or public transit. Hopefully train terminals would spur high density destinations with good public transit.
I whole-heartedly agree. OpenBSD is an answer to many-a-question of security, in my humble opinion. Using off-mainstream platforms (like Alpha) is also valuable against those pesky low level vectors.
You might be interested in reading Ronald Dworkin's Law's Empire, the definitive treatise of law as integrity, Amazon's blurb being:
"In this first full-length exposition of his theory of law, Dworkin, who teaches jurisprudence at Oxford University and New York University, maintains that society should ensure for all its members a legal system that functions in a coherent and principled manner. In prose accessible to the lay reader, he discusses at length several views of American constitutional law such as "passivism" and "framers' intention." Rejecting both conventionalism and pragmatism, he advocates law as integrity which holds that propositions of law are true if they derive from justice, fairness and procedural due process in accordance with the community's legal practice. Citing examples, he further argues that law should be more than a collection of formal guidelines and that it should uphold more abstract moral principles, distinguishing between issues of policy and matters of principle affecting rights of the individual. Uniting jurisprudence with adjudication, Dworkin sees each judge as a link in a chain of law of which his or her judgment becomes a part."
You will be well armed to have an informed discussion of law as integrity after reading Professor Dworkin's book. It aptly describes (or perhaps in no small part constituted) one of the prevailing "modern" approach to judicial reasoning.
Another blurb:
"Dworkin (Jurisprudence, Oxford; and Law, NYU) sets out a theory of how judges determine what the law is and its application in hard cases where no settled or clear rule of law disposes of a matter, testing his theory in common law cases turning on statutes and constitutional cases. He posits that propositions of law are correctly established not because they represent a consensus or an efficient means to social goals, but because they answer the requirement that a political community act in a coherent, just, and principled manner toward all of its members. An exceedingly complex work which echoes certain of his previous writings, this volume will be of primary interest to scholars with an intense disciplinary interest. For subject collections. Merlin Whiteman, Dann Pecar Newman Ta lesnick & Kleiman, Indianapolis"
Would you prefer having to explain why some random IE-based China-made shareware/adware browser that's called "Firefox Pro" isn't really Firefox at all?
That's a great example, highlighting the rationale behind trademarks. The purpose of trademark law is consumer protection: reducing consumer confusion when equivalent products have confusingly similar marks. The creation of goodwill by companies in the form of production recognition is incidental.
Incidentally, I can say from direct first-hand knowledge (i.e. reading the insurance policies) that insurers often (if not always, nowadays) dictate the maximum temperature permitted for coffee and tea at the time it is sold in restaurants.
That's not to say anything about the brewing temperature-- just the temperature at the time of serving.
For 150 dollars an hour, a lawyer will never tell you any idea of yours is bad, even if it's suing McDonalds because your hot coffee is (gasp!) HOT, and should not have been poured all over your crotch.
Lawyers have an obligation to advise their clients of the good and bad of the client's case. In addition to duties under their respective governing society and regulations, the practical reason is rather simple: Where a lawyer is negligent in failing to properly advise their client of the risks in a litigation, that lawyer could be liable to their client in negligence.
In addition to the immediate and obvious costs to the individuals who own and drive cars to work, one ought to factor in the price subsequent generations will be forced to pay in harm to the environment (carbon emissions, disposal of metals and plastics, oil and fluids, toxic paints)? Let us not also forget the harm to downtown city cores which are butchered of walking-distance services for the sake of downtown automotive access, the cost to the healthcare system and insurance providers who pay billions of dollars every year to accident victims (and the lost productivity of those victims who are unable to contribute to society by way of employment for the remainder of their life), and the billion of dollars taxpayers dole out every year for roads and bridges that are forced to handle millions of daily commuters.
In my opinion, our "education system" is really a system of judgment: the possibility of success in return for effort to receive a high mark on artificial examinations. However, it's deeply flawed because it fails to take into account original and useful ideas, potential real-world capacity of the individual, the incompetence of those making the tests, the challenges of those without money who cannot afford to study full time, and the impotence of the rich who have no incentive to study. Fall outside any of the mainstream parameters of a "successful student" and one is condemned to mediocrity, even though in the right set of circumstances the same person could have incredible intellectual output that reforms the way the world works in a useful way.
To call it an "education" system ignores the ultimate purpose of education: to control people by giving them the illusion of possible success in exchange for hard but useless academic judgment. Actual education (i.e. learning) is incidental to judgment that permits potential employers to determine the suitability of individuals for employment.
History has taught us that genius reveals itself before the age of 25. The system of judgment we know as education that is in place in the Western world inadvertently undermines the ability for genius to be recognized and utilized in any valuable way.
The inability to fire teachers is merely incidental to, and entirely compatible with, the system of judgment that employs them. If the purpose of the system was the learning of students, it'd be a different story. Sadly, I've observed that it's not even a consideration in the discourse.
As a general rule you are not bound to contracts to which you did not agree. In this case, you likely wouldn't be bound to the contract because you didn't give your little brother authority to make the contract. Contracts are simply enforceable promises, a meeting of the mind, a quid-pro-quo as between two capable individuals.
However, even if there is no contrat there are extra-contractual remedies available through the law in certain cases. For example, if the person on the other side was under the impression that the avatar was being run by you, and it was reasonable for them to believe that you were entering into the contract in good faith, and he relied upon it, he may have an equitable claim for some form of restitution. This would be especially true if you benefited from the contract, but then you decided to renege on the basis that your agent didn't have authority-- the other person may make a claim to get back the benefit you received.
As a general rule, the law will not force you to compensate for damages (or worse, "specifically enforce" you to complete the contract- a variation on slavery) for something which you or an authorized agent of yours have not entered into an agreement for, and where you have not benefited, and where the other side has not suffered detriment.
This is a mix of first principles of contract law and agency, and in particular the formation of the contract, but there's a flavour of equity in there too (viz. unjust enrichment).
It's not a simple question because balancing the questions of fairness requires a rather erudite consideration of the policy rationale behind the promises we wish to uphold or otherwise provide compensation for when broken.
There are two possibilities, that I can think of to posit:
1. The Judge has serious concerns with the RIAA's behaviour, has advised them in chambers that such behaviour won't work with her (i.e. privately, so as to not embarrass them or make them defensive, or lock them into a particular position), and she has given them some lee-way to govern themselves accordingly;
2. The Judge is not mindful of the RIAA's pattern of behaviour, and is having the wool pulled over her eyes.
I'm doubtful of #2. It is typically the tendency of the bench to assign higher calibre Judges to class actions. As well, the risk of some form of judicial review or appeal on the basis of bias or impropriety given ex parte in camera discussions (not to mention the appearance of impropriety among the Judge's peers), strikes me as something the Judge would be mindful of.
Only two types of experiences come to mind where Judges take counsel ex parte into chambers. One is getting statements without influence (i.e. getting statements of a child where potentially dominating or threatening people are otherwise present), which isn't the case here (is the RIAA showing up in Court to watch their lawyers?). The other is the Judge is talking at counsel.
Knowing the grounds for the RIAA's motion to dismiss the action would lend assistance to any analysis. I'd imagine they're claiming that the proposed representative plaintiffs are unsuitable, there's a lack of jurisdiction, there is a preferable procedure for resolving the dispute, there's no cause of action, the class can't be identified, or the issues aren't common to all members of the proposed class. None of these give rise to the need for ex parte discussions.
I'm sure plaintiff's counsel has their heart in their throat, but based on virtually no information whatsoever, I'm hopeful for a positive outcome.
After this, the RIAA will have to go to court only with proper, scientifically verifiable, legally obtained evidence showing that the person they're suing actually committed copyright infringement, and will have to have proper legal theories and pleadings.
What decision of the Circuit Court would affect RIAA and its principals in terms of preventing this behaviour in the future?
Where their litigation within the law fails, they shall no doubt "rent seek" (to borrow the term from Ann Krueger).
Because their taxes are so high, it had better be cheap!
When one factors in the cost of exorbitant privilege (i.e. the eventual realization of the cost of printing money as a reserve currency) to the United States citizens, the ultimate cost to taxpayers in the United States is probably significantly higher than any day-to-day taxes anywhere else in the world.
To put this latent tax in perspective, the United States federal government has well over $52 trillion in outstanding obligations (over $12 trillion to foreign countries). That's $189,000 in present-day value U.S. dollars (i.e. relative to the basket of world currencies) that the federal government has spent on behalf of each citizen in the United States above and beyond what the U.S. federal government was taking in as taxes (i.e. they printed the money). When it comes time to pay this off, the amount will be significantly higher relative to the present-day purchasing power of the dollar, given the near certainty of exceptional inflation of prices or alternatively (or equivalently) depreciation of the value of the dollar inherent to paying off such a volume of debt. The "real cost" of this debt when realized is probably four times the amount I've stated there (based on observable data and projections from the fifty or so other countries that have become insolvent since World War 2).
It's worth noting that AT&T and others were "gifted" $500 billion dollars in the late 1990's to upgrade telecommunications infrastructure, with virtually no results whatsoever, I understand. Why this half-a-trillion didn't result in the same or similar subsidized infrastructure when compared to Sweden boggles the mind.
So to say Sweden has oppressive taxes is folly. Sweden does have day-to-day higher taxes per capita, but they have leaps and bounds better services (cheap and fast internet access among them, but also better, cheaper policing, health care, high speed rail, and education), and they have not burdened future generations with oppressive or odious amounts of debt.
High taxes do not give rise to cheap internet. The United States has exposed its citizens impossibly high obligations, way beyond what Sweden or virtually any other country does, but internet in the U.S. can be described as backwards in price and quality compared to other countries. Following David Lande's hypothesis, I'd say the reason Sweden has cheap, fast internet and the United States does not is culture: Sweden has educated people who elect a progressive government that spends money with accountability and forward-thinking reason; the United States has something different.
Default judgment occurs when a defendant fails to deliver some statement of defence (which procedurally occurs quite some time prior to trial, over the usual course). Failure to show for trial is a delinquency further to a failure to defend. In many jurisdictions you don't even have to give notice of a pending trial to a defendant noted in default.
As a construction (fiction) of law, a defendant noted in default is deemed to have admitted everything in the plaintiff's claim.
While it varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, there is a general rule that if a defendant can show (1) that he didn't have notice, and (2) that he has a plausible defence on the merits, the default judgment may be set aside. The setting aside of default judgment may not result in rescission of the Judge's decision on costs (which are compensation for legal fees incurred), though that may depend on the manner and effectiveness of the notice of the plaintiff's claim.
When a plaintiff fails to participate properly the claim may be deemed abandoned.
IAAL and using any of these services is suicide. Store your documents IN A FIREPROOF SAFE or VAULT ON PAPER. Use a document scanner for retrieving them if you lose the electronic originals. Disclosure to a 3rd party is suicide as your atty-client confidentiality could be lost (what happens if the 3rd party gets subpoenas?). Losing data is suicide because it shows a lack of due diligence. Use paper. It works. or burn to 2X archival CDR and THEN use paper. whatever floats your boat.
I call bullshit - no self-respecting lawyer would ever say something as sweeping and ignorant as this. Nor would one be at all likely to write with such irrelevant technical details ("2X archival CDR?" - most lawyers have no idea what CDR is), without paragraphs, with ALL CAPS, with such imprecision, or with such strong language ("suicide"? Intentionally killing oneself? Honestly?).
I am a lawyer in a few countries, and I use Google Docs for collaboration on documents over which my clients and I would hold privilege if these documents were ever disclosed, and we use JungleDisk for backup of documents we produce solely in our office. Both of these solutions have been endorsed by one of the largest and oldest law societies in the world: the Law Society of Upper Canada. See: http://rc.lsuc.on.ca/pdf/kt/legalSoftware.pdf
With respect, at least in a civil litigation practice a giant safe would be an preposterous idea. Most practices would need safe the size of a U-haul, every year, and a safe that size would cost tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars, and for the following reasons it is pointless. Regardless of cost, such a safe is entirely unnecessary in any civilized state, as client solicitor privilege is not contingent upon some hyperbolic diligence of physical or digital security, but rather a notion enforced by the Courts as a rule of the admissibility of evidence.
We're not talking about public disclosure, or even negligent disclosure, and we're not talking about trade secrets, as lawyers we're talking about client-solicitor privilege: that 1,500 year old principle of the common law that communications with an advisor remain secret in order to encourage full disclosure so that sound advice may then be available. It is a rule of law, so even if information is subpoenaed by a third party, if that subpoena dragnets or (worse) is directed at information possessed by a solicitor then it will almost certainly run afoul of client-solicitor privilege rules of evidence and therefore be inadmissible as evidence in any Court proceeding. As well, I'd suspect the party that subpoenaed the information without notice to an affected solicitor will likely run afoul of directions by their law society and be sanctioned as such. Motions for disclosure of privileged information without notice to the affected solicitor is the sort of thing law societies disbar people for, and depending on the intent and statements to the third party it can be the sort of thing people go to jail for.
Nevertheless, each state may have particular directions from their governing body, of course, and lawyers ought to be mindful of those.
In the event that the information contained on these online services is disclosed in breach of confidentiality and there are damages, then the lawyer could be sued for breach of confidentiality by their client. Unlike client-solicitor privilege, this analysis isn't specific to lawyers but to any breach of confidentiality. (Arguably the lawyer may have run afoul of their law society guidelines, too, but the remedy there is sanctions by the law society, not lawsuits between clients and their lawyers) Where there is a technical fault giving rise to the breach of confidentiality, which fault is at least in part that of the provider, the lawyer may indemnify herself by suing that provider for their negligence. Where a third party has subpoenaed information without notice (and hence the possibility of argument on the merits to give due course to the process of justice), that third party may also be liable for improper disclosure.
The parent post is not informative. It is intentionally misleading at worst, ignorant at best.
As I understand it, the deadline for filing comments on the UBB passed on midnight April 14th, 2009.
If you nevertheness wish to file (and high volume of comments, albeit late, may nevertheless be of interest to the CRTC), the commentary ought to fall under "Tariff", and an appropriate subject might be File Number #8740-B2-200904989 - Bell Canada - TN7181.
Keep in mind that this is DSLAM bandwidth (i.e. the "last mile" copper wire) that Bell proposes to impose this tariff on. It is not network bandwidth from an ISP to the backbone. Bell is obliged to sell DSLAM access on a wholesale basis to competitor ISPs. For interesting statistics, consider reading this: http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r20690166-The-Bell-Disclosure -- the statistics read, if I understand it (and there's a pretty decent chance I don't) the risk to a customer of having less than 100% bandwidth available at any one point is exceedingly low (i.e. less than 1% of it occurring for less than five minutes on any given day).
Interestingly, Bell has not disclosed how much money it has paid for Arbour Networks' deep packet inspection and bandwidth limiting hardware. I understand, informally and anecdotally (and, again, there's a decent chance I'm wrong), that the amount spent on the bandwidth limiting hardware greatly exceeds the cost of upgrading the DSLAMs to eliminate any risk of the above mentioned rare less-than-complete bandwidth. I would quite like to see more information on the cost of Arbour Networks' bandwidth limiting hardware, and the cost of upgrading DSLAMS. Hopefully the CRTC board does, too.
Slashdot Mirror
That's a very insightful perspective, and I think it is important. There has always been a common connection between wealth and the luxury of environmental protection. Without wealth, one cannot afford to care for the environment.
However, I don't take that argument as an excuse to pillage the environment of today for the sake of short term wealth with incidental environmental responsibility. I think there ought to be a balance between economic growth and environmental protection, namely to have economic growth with a view to the costs to and effects upon future generations. I think this is as valuable for the cultural effect as any other, namely the demonstration of state responsibility, which is of profound but rarely recognized importance (see, e.g.: David Landes - Wealth and Poverty of Nations).
This bill should really be called "A Tax Increase For All Americans."
Sir:
Responsible energy use is only a tax on the current generation. Future generations will have the benefit of this tax, including more oil, less pollution, less natural catastrophes, better environmental technology, and a more responsible culture. Indeed, the "free" oil we're burning today is a tax on future generations, who will pay the price for our selfish, short-sighted behaviour. I call the existing scheme of state-environment relations as the "fuck the kids" model.
As a technical note, it's not strictly a tax because it is simply the assignment of a property value to a currently hidden cost (i.e. on future generations), it permits valuation and bartering of that now hidden cost (i.e. it's "property", somewhat like intellectual property), and it can be avoided through technological innovation. The brilliance is that it is creating the facade of a marketplace, where the costs to the participants in the marketplace are designed to coincide with the harms to the environment. It's actually quite fascinating and brilliant, in my humble opinion. Let's hope it proves valuable.
But probably in the legal opinion of more than one lawyer, at least in certain jurisdictions.
Ironically, IAAL.
If Panasonic was concerned about 3rd party suppliers selling unsafe batteries, it could sell licenses with strict requirements or set up a certification program to test the safety of the batteries sold by these suppliers.
Locking out competition to create an artificial tie-in between the camera and the battery is anti-competitive, in my opinion. There are ways to ensure the safety of customers without a tie-in that undermines market-based competition.
Mind you, I only read the blurb- I don't know the details of what Panasonic is proposing. But the summary seems telling.
Defining species based on whether animals can breed is not a perfect definition. Fin and Blue whales have been known to breed, to form hybrid species, for example.
repeat after us, "We the people"
Just a random anecdote, Canada's constitution starts with (paraphrasing) "We, the provinces ...".
Why doesn't Ms. Thomas set up a legal fund donation page via PayPal, for example? I'd contribute some funds to this cause. It deserves attention.
Has she sought legal aid? Or the support of the ACLU, EFF or a law school? Her time is running short. This is an unfortunate situation because the likelihood of setting an important precedent very favourable to the RIAA is quite high, now.
Does society collapse when a hooker gets beaten up by a weirdo? Does society collapse when a bunch of Chinese girls get brought over in a shipping crate to work in a brothel? Does society collapse when a college girl's boyfriend tells her that if she wants to keep the coke coming she needs to turn a few tricks, and it will only be just once or twice? Or, when these things happen, does society just keep on humming the way it always has and nobody needs to give a damn, yet alone raise a finger?
The happening of the hypotheticals offered above are signs that civil society has already collapsed, not that it will. Our best hope to attain fundamental human rights is to offer empathy and compassion for the victims of a system of justice that goes to great lengths to exclude them from access to justice, and counter the prevailing public opinion and mass media that holds victims culpable for their unavoidable misfortunes.
The problem I have is not with prostitution per se, but with half-assed attempts to decriminalize prostitution that contribute to making the situation worse. There's a lot of human misery involved in the sex trade right now. Maybe legalizing prostitution will do away with all of it -- for the sake of argument, let's assume that it will. But until prostitution is really and honestly legalized, for Craigslist to allow posting of prostitution ads now is to support the sex trade as it exists right now, and I can't say I'm really for that.
Flouting the law undermines the integrity of the law - people will question whether the law is an authority. However, enforcing immoral laws also undermine the integrity of the law - people will question whether the law creates justice. Flouting an immoral law in certain circumstances could lead to less harm to the integrity of the law.
Incidentally, prostitution is legal in a number of states where Craigslist operates, including Canada.
So forget about the solar panel aspect (that's probably just there to get the tax breaks & incentives in the new budget). The train tech itself is not going to go that fast. Something tells me they also don't account for emabrkment/disembarkment of passengers & luggage in that 30 minute time estimate.
I agree that solar panel estimates are unlikely to power this train, at least with present-day solar panel technology. I don't see any evidence that the train technology isn't available, and I don't think train stop-time is an enormous consideration (though I doubt it was not a factor when they said "30 minutes" to from departure to arrival).
As the link you provided indicates, the biggest complaint about train speed in Japan is the noise generated. This noise is generated predominantly when the trains exit the tunnels. There are no mountains in Arizona on this route (as far as I can see), and certainly none with habitation around them, ergo no tunnel-exit noise.
A better comparison may be the TGV. From Wikipedia: TGV
In my experiences traveling by train in both Japan and France, neither generally has wait times of over 30 minutes at the major terminals. Alighting and boarding rarely take more than a couple minutes each, even if the train empties - there are many doors. I suppose the obesity in the southern USA is a relevant factor in considering stop times for the trains. Japan and France don't have anything even remotely close to the same number of morbidly obese potential passengers as the southern USA has. Even so, how much would that affect the time to get on and off of a train? I couldn't say.
I'd say the train technology is certainly available, and the alighting and board time really isn't an enormous concern. I agree with concerns about the efficacy of solar panels, though. A secondary concern is the availability of local transit upon arrival, either "per diem" cars or public transit. Hopefully train terminals would spur high density destinations with good public transit.
I whole-heartedly agree. OpenBSD is an answer to many-a-question of security, in my humble opinion. Using off-mainstream platforms (like Alpha) is also valuable against those pesky low level vectors.
Parent should be modded up.
You might be interested in reading Ronald Dworkin's Law's Empire, the definitive treatise of law as integrity, Amazon's blurb being:
"In this first full-length exposition of his theory of law, Dworkin, who teaches jurisprudence at Oxford University and New York University, maintains that society should ensure for all its members a legal system that functions in a coherent and principled manner. In prose accessible to the lay reader, he discusses at length several views of American constitutional law such as "passivism" and "framers' intention." Rejecting both conventionalism and pragmatism, he advocates law as integrity which holds that propositions of law are true if they derive from justice, fairness and procedural due process in accordance with the community's legal practice. Citing examples, he further argues that law should be more than a collection of formal guidelines and that it should uphold more abstract moral principles, distinguishing between issues of policy and matters of principle affecting rights of the individual. Uniting jurisprudence with adjudication, Dworkin sees each judge as a link in a chain of law of which his or her judgment becomes a part."
You will be well armed to have an informed discussion of law as integrity after reading Professor Dworkin's book. It aptly describes (or perhaps in no small part constituted) one of the prevailing "modern" approach to judicial reasoning.
Another blurb:
"Dworkin (Jurisprudence, Oxford; and Law, NYU) sets out a theory of how judges determine what the law is and its application in hard cases where no settled or clear rule of law disposes of a matter, testing his theory in common law cases turning on statutes and constitutional cases. He posits that propositions of law are correctly established not because they represent a consensus or an efficient means to social goals, but because they answer the requirement that a political community act in a coherent, just, and principled manner toward all of its members. An exceedingly complex work which echoes certain of his previous writings, this volume will be of primary interest to scholars with an intense disciplinary interest. For subject collections. Merlin Whiteman, Dann Pecar Newman Ta lesnick & Kleiman, Indianapolis"
Would you prefer having to explain why some random IE-based China-made shareware/adware browser that's called "Firefox Pro" isn't really Firefox at all?
That's a great example, highlighting the rationale behind trademarks. The purpose of trademark law is consumer protection: reducing consumer confusion when equivalent products have confusingly similar marks. The creation of goodwill by companies in the form of production recognition is incidental.
That's really interesting.
Incidentally, I can say from direct first-hand knowledge (i.e. reading the insurance policies) that insurers often (if not always, nowadays) dictate the maximum temperature permitted for coffee and tea at the time it is sold in restaurants.
That's not to say anything about the brewing temperature-- just the temperature at the time of serving.
For 150 dollars an hour, a lawyer will never tell you any idea of yours is bad, even if it's suing McDonalds because your hot coffee is (gasp!) HOT, and should not have been poured all over your crotch.
Lawyers have an obligation to advise their clients of the good and bad of the client's case. In addition to duties under their respective governing society and regulations, the practical reason is rather simple: Where a lawyer is negligent in failing to properly advise their client of the risks in a litigation, that lawyer could be liable to their client in negligence.
In addition to the immediate and obvious costs to the individuals who own and drive cars to work, one ought to factor in the price subsequent generations will be forced to pay in harm to the environment (carbon emissions, disposal of metals and plastics, oil and fluids, toxic paints)? Let us not also forget the harm to downtown city cores which are butchered of walking-distance services for the sake of downtown automotive access, the cost to the healthcare system and insurance providers who pay billions of dollars every year to accident victims (and the lost productivity of those victims who are unable to contribute to society by way of employment for the remainder of their life), and the billion of dollars taxpayers dole out every year for roads and bridges that are forced to handle millions of daily commuters.
Food for thought.
In my opinion, our "education system" is really a system of judgment: the possibility of success in return for effort to receive a high mark on artificial examinations. However, it's deeply flawed because it fails to take into account original and useful ideas, potential real-world capacity of the individual, the incompetence of those making the tests, the challenges of those without money who cannot afford to study full time, and the impotence of the rich who have no incentive to study. Fall outside any of the mainstream parameters of a "successful student" and one is condemned to mediocrity, even though in the right set of circumstances the same person could have incredible intellectual output that reforms the way the world works in a useful way.
To call it an "education" system ignores the ultimate purpose of education: to control people by giving them the illusion of possible success in exchange for hard but useless academic judgment. Actual education (i.e. learning) is incidental to judgment that permits potential employers to determine the suitability of individuals for employment.
History has taught us that genius reveals itself before the age of 25. The system of judgment we know as education that is in place in the Western world inadvertently undermines the ability for genius to be recognized and utilized in any valuable way.
The inability to fire teachers is merely incidental to, and entirely compatible with, the system of judgment that employs them. If the purpose of the system was the learning of students, it'd be a different story. Sadly, I've observed that it's not even a consideration in the discourse.
As a general rule you are not bound to contracts to which you did not agree. In this case, you likely wouldn't be bound to the contract because you didn't give your little brother authority to make the contract. Contracts are simply enforceable promises, a meeting of the mind, a quid-pro-quo as between two capable individuals.
However, even if there is no contrat there are extra-contractual remedies available through the law in certain cases. For example, if the person on the other side was under the impression that the avatar was being run by you, and it was reasonable for them to believe that you were entering into the contract in good faith, and he relied upon it, he may have an equitable claim for some form of restitution. This would be especially true if you benefited from the contract, but then you decided to renege on the basis that your agent didn't have authority-- the other person may make a claim to get back the benefit you received.
As a general rule, the law will not force you to compensate for damages (or worse, "specifically enforce" you to complete the contract- a variation on slavery) for something which you or an authorized agent of yours have not entered into an agreement for, and where you have not benefited, and where the other side has not suffered detriment.
This is a mix of first principles of contract law and agency, and in particular the formation of the contract, but there's a flavour of equity in there too (viz. unjust enrichment).
It's not a simple question because balancing the questions of fairness requires a rather erudite consideration of the policy rationale behind the promises we wish to uphold or otherwise provide compensation for when broken.
There are two possibilities, that I can think of to posit:
1. The Judge has serious concerns with the RIAA's behaviour, has advised them in chambers that such behaviour won't work with her (i.e. privately, so as to not embarrass them or make them defensive, or lock them into a particular position), and she has given them some lee-way to govern themselves accordingly;
2. The Judge is not mindful of the RIAA's pattern of behaviour, and is having the wool pulled over her eyes.
I'm doubtful of #2. It is typically the tendency of the bench to assign higher calibre Judges to class actions. As well, the risk of some form of judicial review or appeal on the basis of bias or impropriety given ex parte in camera discussions (not to mention the appearance of impropriety among the Judge's peers), strikes me as something the Judge would be mindful of.
Only two types of experiences come to mind where Judges take counsel ex parte into chambers. One is getting statements without influence (i.e. getting statements of a child where potentially dominating or threatening people are otherwise present), which isn't the case here (is the RIAA showing up in Court to watch their lawyers?). The other is the Judge is talking at counsel.
Knowing the grounds for the RIAA's motion to dismiss the action would lend assistance to any analysis. I'd imagine they're claiming that the proposed representative plaintiffs are unsuitable, there's a lack of jurisdiction, there is a preferable procedure for resolving the dispute, there's no cause of action, the class can't be identified, or the issues aren't common to all members of the proposed class. None of these give rise to the need for ex parte discussions.
I'm sure plaintiff's counsel has their heart in their throat, but based on virtually no information whatsoever, I'm hopeful for a positive outcome.
After this, the RIAA will have to go to court only with proper, scientifically verifiable, legally obtained evidence showing that the person they're suing actually committed copyright infringement, and will have to have proper legal theories and pleadings.
What decision of the Circuit Court would affect RIAA and its principals in terms of preventing this behaviour in the future?
Where their litigation within the law fails, they shall no doubt "rent seek" (to borrow the term from Ann Krueger).
Debian has encountered trademark concerns, before: Iceweasel. It's a tale worth reading, if you're interested.
Because their taxes are so high, it had better be cheap!
When one factors in the cost of exorbitant privilege (i.e. the eventual realization of the cost of printing money as a reserve currency) to the United States citizens, the ultimate cost to taxpayers in the United States is probably significantly higher than any day-to-day taxes anywhere else in the world.
To put this latent tax in perspective, the United States federal government has well over $52 trillion in outstanding obligations (over $12 trillion to foreign countries). That's $189,000 in present-day value U.S. dollars (i.e. relative to the basket of world currencies) that the federal government has spent on behalf of each citizen in the United States above and beyond what the U.S. federal government was taking in as taxes (i.e. they printed the money). When it comes time to pay this off, the amount will be significantly higher relative to the present-day purchasing power of the dollar, given the near certainty of exceptional inflation of prices or alternatively (or equivalently) depreciation of the value of the dollar inherent to paying off such a volume of debt. The "real cost" of this debt when realized is probably four times the amount I've stated there (based on observable data and projections from the fifty or so other countries that have become insolvent since World War 2).
It's worth noting that AT&T and others were "gifted" $500 billion dollars in the late 1990's to upgrade telecommunications infrastructure, with virtually no results whatsoever, I understand. Why this half-a-trillion didn't result in the same or similar subsidized infrastructure when compared to Sweden boggles the mind.
So to say Sweden has oppressive taxes is folly. Sweden does have day-to-day higher taxes per capita, but they have leaps and bounds better services (cheap and fast internet access among them, but also better, cheaper policing, health care, high speed rail, and education), and they have not burdened future generations with oppressive or odious amounts of debt.
High taxes do not give rise to cheap internet. The United States has exposed its citizens impossibly high obligations, way beyond what Sweden or virtually any other country does, but internet in the U.S. can be described as backwards in price and quality compared to other countries. Following David Lande's hypothesis, I'd say the reason Sweden has cheap, fast internet and the United States does not is culture: Sweden has educated people who elect a progressive government that spends money with accountability and forward-thinking reason; the United States has something different.
Default judgment occurs when a defendant fails to deliver some statement of defence (which procedurally occurs quite some time prior to trial, over the usual course). Failure to show for trial is a delinquency further to a failure to defend. In many jurisdictions you don't even have to give notice of a pending trial to a defendant noted in default.
As a construction (fiction) of law, a defendant noted in default is deemed to have admitted everything in the plaintiff's claim.
While it varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, there is a general rule that if a defendant can show (1) that he didn't have notice, and (2) that he has a plausible defence on the merits, the default judgment may be set aside. The setting aside of default judgment may not result in rescission of the Judge's decision on costs (which are compensation for legal fees incurred), though that may depend on the manner and effectiveness of the notice of the plaintiff's claim.
When a plaintiff fails to participate properly the claim may be deemed abandoned.
YMMV by jurisdiction.
IAAL and using any of these services is suicide.
Store your documents IN A FIREPROOF SAFE or VAULT ON PAPER.
Use a document scanner for retrieving them if you lose the electronic originals.
Disclosure to a 3rd party is suicide as your atty-client confidentiality could be lost (what happens if the 3rd party gets subpoenas?). Losing data is suicide because it shows a lack of due diligence.
Use paper. It works. or burn to 2X archival CDR and THEN use paper. whatever floats your boat.
I call bullshit - no self-respecting lawyer would ever say something as sweeping and ignorant as this. Nor would one be at all likely to write with such irrelevant technical details ("2X archival CDR?" - most lawyers have no idea what CDR is), without paragraphs, with ALL CAPS, with such imprecision, or with such strong language ("suicide"? Intentionally killing oneself? Honestly?).
I am a lawyer in a few countries, and I use Google Docs for collaboration on documents over which my clients and I would hold privilege if these documents were ever disclosed, and we use JungleDisk for backup of documents we produce solely in our office. Both of these solutions have been endorsed by one of the largest and oldest law societies in the world: the Law Society of Upper Canada. See: http://rc.lsuc.on.ca/pdf/kt/legalSoftware.pdf
With respect, at least in a civil litigation practice a giant safe would be an preposterous idea. Most practices would need safe the size of a U-haul, every year, and a safe that size would cost tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars, and for the following reasons it is pointless. Regardless of cost, such a safe is entirely unnecessary in any civilized state, as client solicitor privilege is not contingent upon some hyperbolic diligence of physical or digital security, but rather a notion enforced by the Courts as a rule of the admissibility of evidence.
We're not talking about public disclosure, or even negligent disclosure, and we're not talking about trade secrets, as lawyers we're talking about client-solicitor privilege: that 1,500 year old principle of the common law that communications with an advisor remain secret in order to encourage full disclosure so that sound advice may then be available. It is a rule of law, so even if information is subpoenaed by a third party, if that subpoena dragnets or (worse) is directed at information possessed by a solicitor then it will almost certainly run afoul of client-solicitor privilege rules of evidence and therefore be inadmissible as evidence in any Court proceeding. As well, I'd suspect the party that subpoenaed the information without notice to an affected solicitor will likely run afoul of directions by their law society and be sanctioned as such. Motions for disclosure of privileged information without notice to the affected solicitor is the sort of thing law societies disbar people for, and depending on the intent and statements to the third party it can be the sort of thing people go to jail for.
Nevertheless, each state may have particular directions from their governing body, of course, and lawyers ought to be mindful of those.
In the event that the information contained on these online services is disclosed in breach of confidentiality and there are damages, then the lawyer could be sued for breach of confidentiality by their client. Unlike client-solicitor privilege, this analysis isn't specific to lawyers but to any breach of confidentiality. (Arguably the lawyer may have run afoul of their law society guidelines, too, but the remedy there is sanctions by the law society, not lawsuits between clients and their lawyers) Where there is a technical fault giving rise to the breach of confidentiality, which fault is at least in part that of the provider, the lawyer may indemnify herself by suing that provider for their negligence. Where a third party has subpoenaed information without notice (and hence the possibility of argument on the merits to give due course to the process of justice), that third party may also be liable for improper disclosure.
The parent post is not informative. It is intentionally misleading at worst, ignorant at best.
As I understand it, the deadline for filing comments on the UBB passed on midnight April 14th, 2009.
If you nevertheness wish to file (and high volume of comments, albeit late, may nevertheless be of interest to the CRTC), the commentary ought to fall under "Tariff", and an appropriate subject might be File Number #8740-B2-200904989 - Bell Canada - TN7181.
Keep in mind that this is DSLAM bandwidth (i.e. the "last mile" copper wire) that Bell proposes to impose this tariff on. It is not network bandwidth from an ISP to the backbone. Bell is obliged to sell DSLAM access on a wholesale basis to competitor ISPs. For interesting statistics, consider reading this: http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r20690166-The-Bell-Disclosure -- the statistics read, if I understand it (and there's a pretty decent chance I don't) the risk to a customer of having less than 100% bandwidth available at any one point is exceedingly low (i.e. less than 1% of it occurring for less than five minutes on any given day).
Interestingly, Bell has not disclosed how much money it has paid for Arbour Networks' deep packet inspection and bandwidth limiting hardware. I understand, informally and anecdotally (and, again, there's a decent chance I'm wrong), that the amount spent on the bandwidth limiting hardware greatly exceeds the cost of upgrading the DSLAMs to eliminate any risk of the above mentioned rare less-than-complete bandwidth. I would quite like to see more information on the cost of Arbour Networks' bandwidth limiting hardware, and the cost of upgrading DSLAMS. Hopefully the CRTC board does, too.
Climate impacts mood, mood impacts culture, culture impacts economics.
That this isn't a universally known theory causes some concern.