What the judge did today was table IBM's Motion for Summary Judgment. The judge could have granted it, ending the case. Instead, the judge (1) let things go on, (2) chastized SCO along the way, and (3) invited IBM to renew its motion later. Could we maybe season our SCO-bashing with a little actual information every once in a while?
Today's news is: IBM Suffers Encouraging Setback in SCO Case.
Why are civil suits allowed to proceed at all without any evidence from the [plaintiff]?
Answer: Because sometimes the defendant is holding all the cards.
Example1: Suppose you're a woman and your male coworker gets promoted, but you don't. Did the company pass you over because of your sex? There's no way to prove it before hand, since all the witnesses and documents belong to the company.
Example2: Suppose your daughter has leukemia. Was it the drinking water? If so, where did the pollutant come from? The factory nearby surely isn't going to let you go through its records unless forced.
Area codes becoming arbitrary is only the beginning of the end. The real "end of an era" will come when callers no longer need phone numbers to place calls.
Think about it. It was never a good idea to force callers to memorize a partly-random 10+ digit number to make contact with the person they wanted (much less extra numbers for work, cell, pager, etc). That practice is merely an artifact of the users having to directly interface with the hardware of an unintelligent network. Those days are ending. Well within our lifetimes, the network will become smart enough that it will find your party for you. A lot of problems have to be solved before this "just works", but it will happen.
Remember how the Emotion Engine worked us all into a lather five years ago?
Ginger will "sweep over the world and change lives, cities, and ways of thinking." - Steve Kemper
"The Cell processor-based workstation will totally change the digital content creation environment. Its overwhelming power will be demonstrated in every aspect of the development of all kinds of digital entertainment content, from movies, broadcast programs to next generation PlayStation games." - Sony
I went looking for some cities I know of in the US, and the coverage is spotty, to say the least. . . . Pretty shakey all round. Not impressed.
Likewise, there are errors in the data for my metro area, as well as for some areas I know to be misrepresented on previous map services. They have a gorgeous interface, but they need better data. It's not OK to display beautiful maps that are 95% correct.
Re:Original NASA Article from Feb/2001 with more i
on
NASA Proposes Warming Mars
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
For an entertaining discussion of methods of terraforming Mars and the politics that go with them, see Red Mars (1992), Green Mars (1993) and Blue Mars (1996) Kim Stanley Robinson, which scored a Nebula and two Hugos.
Google could easily make it a policy that if you sue them, they blacklist you. They have NO obligation (other than to their shareholders) to index your site. It's their servers and their software, so they can do whatever they want with it.
Google has such an obligation. Not to Louis Veiton, but to us. The very minute Google starts messing with the accuracy and usefulness of its results, we will leave. No eyeballs = no business.
'We use these accounts to communicate with you folks, view internet sites, and conduct other non-sensitive bureau business such as sending out press releases,' Special Agent... Lazarus said...
We'll be seeing the first article any time now about classified material having been sent over this server. Some one start a pool.
1. Anything you publish will be considered by people considering hiring you. Therefore, publish only what you would be proud of.
2. Companies expect that their employees will not disclose confidential company information. Doing so can get you disciplined or fired. Never mind whether they could get a court order stopping you -- your job will end long before anything like that happens.
3. Companies expect that their employees will publicly support the company, or at least not publicly embarrass it. Doing so can get you disciplined or fired.
4. Materials written on company time or hosted on company equipment may be the property of your employer.
None of this is new. The only thing blogs add to this picture is that more of us now have the opportunity to publish.
Yes, that is a form of risk taking. To be sure, if the question is "who will have more accidents per 6-month premium period?" The answer is men. Insurance prices are per unit time, so there's no need even to control for number of miles driven.
However, if the question is, "who has less skill at operating a vehicle?" The answer is . . . possibly still men, but it's a closer call than the other question.
People are making jokes about this, but this idea could change some of the methods of online/webbased stores.
Two things:
1. That means Amazon has probably patented this business method.
2. Corps will do anything to get you to subscribe to a service you may or may not actually use. They know that if a large population signs up, they'll make out. It's like selling insurance. Guaranteed, predictable cash flow makes them happy.
Men... accidents are usually associated with excess speed which has a higher percentage of fatalities.
The most interesting part of this particular study is on page 6, where they control for number of miles driven. Their data show that per mile driven, men produce fatalities at a 3:2 ratio to women. (It would be interesting to further control for the tendency in harsh driving conditions to select the man to drive.)
Because the AARP is one of the most powerful lobbying groups there is, and they fight tooth and nail against anything that even resembles competency testing.
Kind of reminds you of the baseball players' union, doesn't it?
Please don't blame patents for the excesses of copyright. One major difference: patents expire every day, copyright keeps getting extended.
For instance, the GIF patent recently expired. So did the basic patent on ziplock bags (though many of the patents on upgrades remain in force). Whatever sins patents may have, immortality isn't one of them.
Not to pick nits, but Von Braun's space-related achievements are part of the U.S. space program, not the German one. The regime in Germany had the man working on weapons systems while he lived there.
I'm still amazed that the people in charge of companies like Sharman, etc. think that chocking their software full of crap programs that infect and make peoples' pcs run poorly (to say the least) is the correct way to go.
Why be amazed? The adware/spyware is about making money fast. It really is that simple.
They're not trying to go the "correct way", no matter what they claim.
I understand that from the court's point of view such memos and letters are an important evidence that would allow them to judge not only the actions but also the intentions.
Contemporaneous evidence (i.e. written at the time) is great since the writer often reveals at that time what he will later want to conceal from his opponent. This is true whether we are looking for evidence of intentions or evidence of actions.
(It's just that these intentions documents make for good reading.)
...both the original poster and you assume that other fellow's lawyers' right to read anything that you've written is natural and obvious. But shouldn't there be a limit?
Perhaps there should be a limit, but there is not, at least not any limit that is helpful at hiding anything. Getting your opponent's documents during a lawsuit is part of a process called "discovery." The sooner people learn this, the safer they'll be. Lobby the legislature for a change if you want to, but this is the way it is in many countries.
(Never mind that you can't run a business if you don't communicate with your people.)
The point being that ignorance (not to mention ignoring) of the constituion isn't limited to high school students. That failing goes all the way to the top.
Slashdot Mirror
What the judge did today was table IBM's Motion for Summary Judgment. The judge could have granted it, ending the case. Instead, the judge (1) let things go on, (2) chastized SCO along the way, and (3) invited IBM to renew its motion later. Could we maybe season our SCO-bashing with a little actual information every once in a while?
Today's news is: IBM Suffers Encouraging Setback in SCO Case.
Why are civil suits allowed to proceed at all without any evidence from the [plaintiff]?
Answer: Because sometimes the defendant is holding all the cards.
Example1: Suppose you're a woman and your male coworker gets promoted, but you don't. Did the company pass you over because of your sex? There's no way to prove it before hand, since all the witnesses and documents belong to the company.
Example2: Suppose your daughter has leukemia. Was it the drinking water? If so, where did the pollutant come from? The factory nearby surely isn't going to let you go through its records unless forced.
I have never felt more unhealthy than when I was living within two miles of a COAL burning plant. Why the fuck are we still burning COAL for energy?
Yes, coal is so "safe" that in 2002, American Electric Power (AEP) had to buy an entire town in Ohio that was downwind of its plant.
Area codes becoming arbitrary is only the beginning of the end. The real "end of an era" will come when callers no longer need phone numbers to place calls.
Think about it. It was never a good idea to force callers to memorize a partly-random 10+ digit number to make contact with the person they wanted (much less extra numbers for work, cell, pager, etc). That practice is merely an artifact of the users having to directly interface with the hardware of an unintelligent network. Those days are ending. Well within our lifetimes, the network will become smart enough that it will find your party for you. A lot of problems have to be solved before this "just works", but it will happen.
Remember how the Emotion Engine worked us all into a lather five years ago?
Ginger will "sweep over the world and change lives, cities, and ways of thinking." - Steve Kemper
"The Cell processor-based workstation will totally change the digital content creation environment. Its overwhelming power will be demonstrated in every aspect of the development of all kinds of digital entertainment content, from movies, broadcast programs to next generation PlayStation games." - Sony
But wait! Now coming, the NEXT BIG THING!
THE REAL treasure here is knowing the brain can adapt. ... It demonstrates how our wetware is more adaptable than any hardware.
Yeah, just wait until we're able to reflash the firmware directly.
I went looking for some cities I know of in the US, and the coverage is spotty, to say the least. . . . Pretty shakey all round. Not impressed.
Likewise, there are errors in the data for my metro area, as well as for some areas I know to be misrepresented on previous map services. They have a gorgeous interface, but they need better data. It's not OK to display beautiful maps that are 95% correct.
For an entertaining discussion of methods of terraforming Mars and the politics that go with them, see Red Mars (1992), Green Mars (1993) and Blue Mars (1996) Kim Stanley Robinson, which scored a Nebula and two Hugos.
Mod this guy up. No one else has had the sense to mention the patent number.
Google could easily make it a policy that if you sue them, they blacklist you. They have NO obligation (other than to their shareholders) to index your site. It's their servers and their software, so they can do whatever they want with it.
Google has such an obligation. Not to Louis Veiton, but to us. The very minute Google starts messing with the accuracy and usefulness of its results, we will leave. No eyeballs = no business.
'We use these accounts to communicate with you folks, view internet sites, and conduct other non-sensitive bureau business such as sending out press releases,' Special Agent ... Lazarus said ...
We'll be seeing the first article any time now about classified material having been sent over this server. Some one start a pool.
Microsoft will never live up to HURD. Everybody knows it takes many Longhorns to make one HURD.
1. Longhorns always follow the HURD.
2. The HURD is led by longhorns.
3. Cannot . . . compute . . . para . . . dox. [fzzzzzt]
4. ???
5. Profit.
This is all obvious, isn't it?
1. Anything you publish will be considered by people considering hiring you. Therefore, publish only what you would be proud of.
2. Companies expect that their employees will not disclose confidential company information. Doing so can get you disciplined or fired. Never mind whether they could get a court order stopping you -- your job will end long before anything like that happens.
3. Companies expect that their employees will publicly support the company, or at least not publicly embarrass it. Doing so can get you disciplined or fired.
4. Materials written on company time or hosted on company equipment may be the property of your employer.
None of this is new. The only thing blogs add to this picture is that more of us now have the opportunity to publish.
Yes, that is a form of risk taking. To be sure, if the question is "who will have more accidents per 6-month premium period?" The answer is men. Insurance prices are per unit time, so there's no need even to control for number of miles driven.
However, if the question is, "who has less skill at operating a vehicle?" The answer is . . . possibly still men, but it's a closer call than the other question.
Two things:
1. That means Amazon has probably patented this business method.
2. Corps will do anything to get you to subscribe to a service you may or may not actually use. They know that if a large population signs up, they'll make out. It's like selling insurance. Guaranteed, predictable cash flow makes them happy.
Men ... accidents are usually associated with excess speed which has a higher percentage of fatalities.
The most interesting part of this particular study is on page 6, where they control for number of miles driven. Their data show that per mile driven, men produce fatalities at a 3:2 ratio to women. (It would be interesting to further control for the tendency in harsh driving conditions to select the man to drive.)
Because the AARP is one of the most powerful lobbying groups there is, and they fight tooth and nail against anything that even resembles competency testing.
Kind of reminds you of the baseball players' union, doesn't it?
Please don't blame patents for the excesses of copyright. One major difference: patents expire every day, copyright keeps getting extended.
For instance, the GIF patent recently expired. So did the basic patent on ziplock bags (though many of the patents on upgrades remain in force). Whatever sins patents may have, immortality isn't one of them.
Examples, no. Guidelines, yes.
You know, there are actual data on this. We could just fit a curve.
(But the simple answer is that patents cost about $10000 each to acquire, while spam is somewhat cheaper.)
Not to pick nits, but Von Braun's space-related achievements are part of the U.S. space program, not the German one. The regime in Germany had the man working on weapons systems while he lived there.
I'm still amazed that the people in charge of companies like Sharman, etc. think that chocking their software full of crap programs that infect and make peoples' pcs run poorly (to say the least) is the correct way to go.
Why be amazed? The adware/spyware is about making money fast. It really is that simple.
They're not trying to go the "correct way", no matter what they claim.
I understand that from the court's point of view such memos and letters are an important evidence that would allow them to judge not only the actions but also the intentions.
Contemporaneous evidence (i.e. written at the time) is great since the writer often reveals at that time what he will later want to conceal from his opponent. This is true whether we are looking for evidence of intentions or evidence of actions.
(It's just that these intentions documents make for good reading.)
...both the original poster and you assume that other fellow's lawyers' right to read anything that you've written is natural and obvious. But shouldn't there be a limit?
Perhaps there should be a limit, but there is not, at least not any limit that is helpful at hiding anything. Getting your opponent's documents during a lawsuit is part of a process called "discovery." The sooner people learn this, the safer they'll be. Lobby the legislature for a change if you want to, but this is the way it is in many countries.
(Never mind that you can't run a business if you don't communicate with your people.)
The point being that ignorance (not to mention ignoring) of the constituion isn't limited to high school students. That failing goes all the way to the top.