Don't act like your taxes are some sort of carbon offset that absolves you from helping others.
"Absolves"? No one has any duty to help anyone else, thus there can be no absolution.
Freely giving to charity is a beautiful thing, and it would be great if more people did it, but claiming that people are just doing their "duty" by giving denigrates a selfless act. Don't do that.
Based on thousands of years of civilization it doesn't seem that socially undesirable people have a particularly hard time procreating.
There's more to it than that. Organisms compete for the related goals of 1) survival, 2) procreation, and 3) access to scarce resources. But our postindustrial civilization has solved the scarcity problem for the resources that enable 1 and 2. So we're left to compete for things that aren't critical to survival, such as desirable real estate, fancy cars and toys, gourmet food, legislative power, etc. Money is the abstraction for all of these things.
Also realize that while anybody in our society can procreate, the choice of whom to procreate with is not allocated equally. Poor people have lots of children, but usually not with supermodels.
It is one of the "rules of that world": the game doesn't have gold+=500000
Just like Washington Mutual doesn't have a money+=$500000 button on their ATMs. Does anyone really think their bank balance in real life is more "real" than their gold balance in WoW? They're both just rows in a database somewhere.
There are rules in real life, too: they're called norms.
"Unconscionable" in contract terms is not about morality -- it simply means that the clause doesn't belong there by any stretch of the imagination. In other words, if party A drafted the contract, then it's totally unreasonable to expect party B to have foreseen that clause appearing in it, or to have signed the contract had they known the clause was there. The New York venue clause is an example because, when you're buying a CD, you simply don't expect to have to go to another state for justice if it blows up your computer. In other words, if a reasonable person knew about that little detail in advance, they would never buy the CD. (For the sake of argument, I'm making the rather large assumption that purchasing a CD constitutes acceptance of any sort of contract other than a simple sale.)
Courts generally will not enforce unconscionable terms. But note that this doesn't excuse you from reading what you sign, or from being held to what you sign (given that the other side can show that you gave willing and informed consent). Generally, the more of a clue you seem to have, the less likely a judge will be to let you use this kind of defense. And if you're a lawyer yourself, forget it! This aspect of contract law can seem really unfair to smart people, but there you go.
... patent attack/defense companies that don't *make* anything. They are just storehouses for intellectual property, not with the idea of protecting of the inventors or even their investors, but simply for profit. They act as leghold traps on innovation, rather than incentives. This is the surest sign that the system is broken.
Couldn't you say the same thing about banks? Does that mean we should abandon money, or that the economic system is broken?
Free speech has never meant that you have a right to be heard.
Perhaps not, but freedom of speech combined with freedom of assembly suggest to most reasonable people that you can't be kept off of public property by those who don't like what you're saying.
they can levee fines against anyone they deam fit for any reason they see fit and don't even have to tell you why. You can't complain, you can't do anything about it
Yes you can. You can exercise your Fifth Amendment right not to be deprived of property without due process, your Sixth Amendment right to be informed of the nature of your accusation and confront your accuser, and above all, your First Amendment right to petition your government for a redress of grievances.
Of course, it may take five years and a Supreme Court decision, but that's why we have a judicial branch. The executive and legislature are not all-powerful. You have rights. Knowing them is step one.
No. There's no negative padding -- you can't start a recording later than the scheduled time.
What you can do is set a manual recording for 9:05, and pad it to start 4 minutes early. But manual recordings are not at all an adequate substitute for Season Passes. They don't skip reruns or follow lineup/schedule changes, for example.
I know this comment is probably not going to get much notice, since there are already about 572 replies in this subthread, but here goes.
If innovation is what TiVo is bringing to market, then it had better start innovating. I've been a subscriber for going on three years, and I'm
still waiting for "soft padding" (or whatever you want to call the solution to the problem that I can't record The West Wingat
all when Lost runs until 9:01).
I could go on and whine about other features that are poorly implemented or entirely lacking, but the padding issue is killer. That's how the
networks are getting their revenge on DVRs, and the only ones that will survive are the ones that can cope with this problem. TiVo users have
been screaming about this for years, and from TiVo we get only silence.
I'm not disputing that TiVo is the best DVR on the market. But it needs to stay that way, because (as has been observed) it sure ain't competing on price. So where is the innovation?
I can't moderate the parent any higher, since it's already at 5. But folks, this is the only question on the page that's actually worth asking.
Real is one of the few companies left that controls a common file format and doesn't also publish an OS. And they're everywhere, from Amazon to NPR. Spyware? DRM? Distractions. This is the ball game. Nothing else matters.
There's another problem: you never know what you're getting when you buy street drugs. Unless you have a degree in organic chemistry and are making your own (which can be done), it pays to be cautious.
That's actually the same problem your parent post was complaining of, not a different one. Do you know what you're getting when you buy Prozac, or aspirin, or a bottle of scotch? Yes, because they're LEGAL, and can therefore be regulated.
i've not seen any court cases where people sued a cell phone provider because they did not work adequately in a time of emergency.
Is there any reason you would have seen such a court case? Did you look? That article is at least FIVE years old, and it's the first hit on Google for "cellular 911 lawsuit".
It amazes me how many people assume nothing happens without magical dancing gnomes appearing in front of them to announce it. Your world is changing all the time, and most often in ways you can't even use Google to find out about. In fact, an entire profession called "legal research" exists to help people avoid making assumptions like yours. Of course, it helped your argument, so why should you bother to find out the truth?
Or as a preamble to a bill introducing a foreign labor tariff:
It should by now be clear to everyone that in the past we relied far too much on secrecy. We arrogantly assumed that we were the only ones who could develop information technology goods and services, and that therefore we could retain our monopoly. That kept us from pursuing international arrangements that might have held the mass exportation of IT jobs in U.S. companies under some sort of control.
Besides, how in the name of the gods do you implement such a tax?
This part is easy. Reporting is voluntary. For each email message you send, fill out one copy of IRS Form 1040-EM for the current tax year. Attach all Forms 1040-EM to the front of your return when you mail it in April. Don't forget to deduct the extra postage. Residents of all foreign countries are now required to begin filing U.S. tax returns.
No one will spam anymore due to the sheer amount of paperwork.
Slashdot Mirror
It's also been part of Mac OS since 2005, except there it's called the "Dashboard" and "Widgets."
Also realize that while anybody in our society can procreate, the choice of whom to procreate with is not allocated equally. Poor people have lots of children, but usually not with supermodels.
There are rules in real life, too: they're called norms.
"Unconscionable" in contract terms is not about morality -- it simply means that the clause doesn't belong there by any stretch of the imagination. In other words, if party A drafted the contract, then it's totally unreasonable to expect party B to have foreseen that clause appearing in it, or to have signed the contract had they known the clause was there. The New York venue clause is an example because, when you're buying a CD, you simply don't expect to have to go to another state for justice if it blows up your computer. In other words, if a reasonable person knew about that little detail in advance, they would never buy the CD. (For the sake of argument, I'm making the rather large assumption that purchasing a CD constitutes acceptance of any sort of contract other than a simple sale.)
Courts generally will not enforce unconscionable terms. But note that this doesn't excuse you from reading what you sign, or from being held to what you sign (given that the other side can show that you gave willing and informed consent). Generally, the more of a clue you seem to have, the less likely a judge will be to let you use this kind of defense. And if you're a lawyer yourself, forget it! This aspect of contract law can seem really unfair to smart people, but there you go.
What kind of words are not meant "to make us feel in the way the author wants us to"?
Perhaps not, but freedom of speech combined with freedom of assembly suggest to most reasonable people that you can't be kept off of public property by those who don't like what you're saying.
Of course, it may take five years and a Supreme Court decision, but that's why we have a judicial branch. The executive and legislature are not all-powerful. You have rights. Knowing them is step one.
What you can do is set a manual recording for 9:05, and pad it to start 4 minutes early. But manual recordings are not at all an adequate substitute for Season Passes. They don't skip reruns or follow lineup/schedule changes, for example.
If innovation is what TiVo is bringing to market, then it had better start innovating. I've been a subscriber for going on three years, and I'm still waiting for "soft padding" (or whatever you want to call the solution to the problem that I can't record The West Wing at all when Lost runs until 9:01).
I could go on and whine about other features that are poorly implemented or entirely lacking, but the padding issue is killer. That's how the networks are getting their revenge on DVRs, and the only ones that will survive are the ones that can cope with this problem. TiVo users have been screaming about this for years, and from TiVo we get only silence.
I'm not disputing that TiVo is the best DVR on the market. But it needs to stay that way, because (as has been observed) it sure ain't competing on price. So where is the innovation?
And he did it in Spanish just to show off.
Every organization attempts to expand until it has an online music service. Those organizations which cannot so expand are members of the RIAA.
Real is one of the few companies left that controls a common file format and doesn't also publish an OS. And they're everywhere, from Amazon to NPR. Spyware? DRM? Distractions. This is the ball game. Nothing else matters.
I notice you posted anonymously. Afraid of something?
Oh come on, can't we have both?
Or, indeed, the difference between homonyms and homophones. :)
It amazes me how many people assume nothing happens without magical dancing gnomes appearing in front of them to announce it. Your world is changing all the time, and most often in ways you can't even use Google to find out about. In fact, an entire profession called "legal research" exists to help people avoid making assumptions like yours. Of course, it helped your argument, so why should you bother to find out the truth?
It should by now be clear to everyone that in the past we relied far too much on secrecy. We arrogantly assumed that we were the only ones who could develop information technology goods and services, and that therefore we could retain our monopoly. That kept us from pursuing international arrangements that might have held the mass exportation of IT jobs in U.S. companies under some sort of control.
No one will spam anymore due to the sheer amount of paperwork.