"In order to get access to the State's DNC list we have to purchase it for the entire state. To make matters worse, this state has a very different set of rules."
Making it to difficult to even be a "legitimate" telemarketer (if ever there was an oxymoron...)? Then all I can say is "good." The world doesn't owe you a living. If these people want you to call, perhaps you should set up a "Call Me" white list.
"On a federal level, you are allowed to call customers you formerly did business with for 18 months after the termination of the business relationship. Not so in this other state. Apparently you aren't allowed to call even the day after the relationship ends. The federal system actually allows the people who get called some recourse. The state system I have to deal with makes it very clear in their fine print that you are allowed a certain amount of accidental calls."
It's quite simple, then: in the case of two overlapping laws, the stricter of the two is enforced, because both laws have to be obeyed. In the former "business relationship" example, the stricter state practice would be in force. For the "accidental call," the federal law. It is still possible to obey both laws so there is no need for one to override the other.
"You want to call people of that state, you buy the list, which costs more annually than the entire federal list, for what that's worth."
So the people of that state have put a higher price tag on their privacy than has the aggregate nation as a whole. Deal with it.
"The federal list makes sense, and really does eliminate any reason for states to keep their own lists,"
You're still able to say that after talking about the "existing business relationship" loophole? How do you sleep at night?
"Why? Because almost all telemarketing calls are crossing state or possibly national borders. Thus there's a natural complication when you have different laws in different states with different abilities to enforce those laws on others."
Be that as it may, that in and of itself is not justification for trumping state laws. The states have the right to regulate not only what goes on within its own borders but also what crosses them, and I can point to several parts of the United States Constitution that affirms a state's right to monitor interstate activity.
"Better to have one federal law to simplify things."
"Simple" does not mean "better." "Better" would be having the federal government set a lowest common denominator and letting the states augment that with stricter regulations if they so chose. There is no such thing as "one size fits all" in a nation of 300 million people, not without violating the sensibilities of people, if not their rights.
"The issue revolves around some states whose Do Not Call laws are more strict than Federal law and which prohibit telemarketers from calling anyone on a Do Not Call, regardless of an existing business relationship."
Then there's nothing to worry about. It'll never happen with the GOP in control of both the White House and both houses of Congress, as they've always been friends to states' rights!
"how can a map get someone out of a ticket? did the cop not know where he was?"
Any number of ways, from being clocked on private property to being ticketed for the wrong speed zone.
"my property, its maps, and what it looks like is my business and nobody elses."
First off, if nothing else these maps show where your property ends and the state's (utility company's, etc.) begins.
Secondly, try telling that to your county tax assessor, they'd appreciate the good laugh. What you have on your property, what its worth, how its situated, how its used, anything that could, among other things, affect the value of the property of your neighbors, is inherently the public's business, because your use of that property affects the public directly. Just because you are the only one allowed to use your property doesn't mean you can do with your property whatever you want. This is why both survey information as well as past tax assessments of your property are kept in your county court house, available for inspection to all comers for free.
They'll handle it by learning to get it right the first time. When is DST? When the signal put out by WWV and WWVB says it is. End of problem.
Or you can just ignore it, much like Unix has ignored several decades worth of leap seconds (a far more thorny problem, in my opinion, than periodically being off by an integer hour).
I know it's normal to kharma whore on stories like this with a link to Penny Arcade, but I wasn't really that impressed with the comic side this time around. I know they could have done a better portrayal of bullshitting for panel 3 than they did.
Tycho's write-up, however, seems to really hit the nail on the head by pointing out the only difference in ESRB's description of M and Ao is that the scenes are "prolonged" in Ao. Really, both descriptions make mention of both violence and sex, supposedly meaning that either one or the other could merit an Ao rating, but it seems the ESRB has very different definitions of "prolonged" for violence than for sex. Either GTA:SA shouldn't be kicked up to Ao for this one single disclosure, or it should have been Ao from the start for the amount of violence in it.
"The goal of government is to prevent people from interfering with each other's rights."
Exactly. And here's a right I'd like to see enforced for once:
We, the People of the State of Maryland (...) declare (...) That monopolies are odious, contrary to the spirit of a free government and the principles of commerce, and ought not to be suffered.
Maryland's had that one in its constitution since 1776, but you just don't see anybody anywhere talking much about it any more.
"Called a contract. If you're stupid enough to sign a contract that says you couldn't get another job, then the burden is on you."
Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
Alright, so he's Chinese, but such clauses in contracts seem to run into the Thirteenth Amendment. It eliminated indentured servitude and serfdom as well as slavery, and unless Microsoft would continue to pay the man after he stopped working for them in exchange for "not competing," it seems pretty "involuntary" to me.
" Paintballing is a lot more fun than laser tag in my opinion... "
But it involves a considerable start-up fee, not to mention the money for upkeep (like ammunition) and all but require dedicated acreage to play on. The two games listed in the article are cheap up front, require no upkeep beyond batteries and/or running water, and can be played in somebody's yard without violating anybody's local ordinances.
Depends on the BB/pellet gun. Some mid- to upper-range air rifles can send the projectile at near-sonic speeds. For example, this one can propel a BB at 750 ft/s, roughly 230 m/s, and it's just a multi-pump (no CO2 cartridge involved). There are reasons why there are local ordinances against discharging pneumatic guns near residences, even in rural/"red" states.
BB guns are best against empty Mountain Dew cans, especially indoors.:) In college, we had a backstop involving old newspapers & magzines in a cardboard box, in front of a bedsheet hung from the ceiling. We tended to keep with the "kiddie" line of guns, but even then the ricochets stung a bit made us thankful we wore glasses.
That's not a laser, that's just an LED in the water tank. The surface of the water stream reflects some of the light back in, keeping it in the stream, kinda like a liquid fiber optic.
I dunno. Phantasy Star Online has rampant duping and hacking problems on the GameCube verison (which they can't really fix, since there's no hard drive to update), but its still playable and enjoyable. True, it's not a real "RPG" per se, but right now, with the FFXI update server hosed, I'm discovering it can be a fun alternative.:)
"While the Fed. govt. is bound by the constitution I do not consider the state to be bound by the federal constitution"
This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.
--Article VI, Clause 2, Constitution of the United States of America
Texas is a free and independent State, subject only to the Constitution of the United States, and the maintenance of our free institutions and the perpetuity of the Union depend upon the preservation of the right of local self-government, unimpaired to all the States.
--Article I, Section 1, Texas Constitution
They're your constitutions. You'd think someone as proud of your home state would actually attempt to read these documents once in their life. Unfortunately, you're far from the first Texan I've come across who showed a gross lack of knowledge not only of the US Constitution but also the constitution of their own state that they claim to hold more alliegance to.
Heck, the entire premise of the Tenth Amendment relies on the idea that things were actually denied to the states in the original document to begin with.
Personally, when I'm not using my GB Player and my Hori pad, I tend to play GBA games on the DS simply because it's more comfortable in my hands. The SP's vertial alignment is too cramped for my hands and I'm still tempted to get an original GBA with the AfterBurner in it.
Already I tend to reach for the older GBA for use as a GCN controller.
Every iteration of the Game Boy so far has been backwards compatible. You'll be able to play Super Mario Land on a Game Boy Advance Micro. The Revolution has been stated to have the capability to play games from all previous Nintendo consoles except the Virtual Boy. Nintendo's entire strategy for the next few years rests on the popularity of its back-catalog.
Now you're going to tell me that the DS, which is incapable of playing GBC and GB games, is the successor to the GBA in the middle of this whole old skool love-fest that Nintendo is riding on?
And then what would I play my back-catalog of GBC and 4-color GB games on? In order to fit the GBA and DS hardware into the same shell, they clipped out the GBC hardware, so if my DS were to "replace" my GBA all I could play Final Fantasy Adventure on is my GP Player on my GCN.
IMO, what the GBA Micro will have on the DS is the fact that the GBA Micro will play Super Mario Land.
Slashdot Mirror
Straw man justification. Not all marketing departments use such intrusive and odious tactics such as telemarketing.
"In order to get access to the State's DNC list we have to purchase it for the entire state. To make matters worse, this state has a very different set of rules."
Making it to difficult to even be a "legitimate" telemarketer (if ever there was an oxymoron...)? Then all I can say is "good." The world doesn't owe you a living. If these people want you to call, perhaps you should set up a "Call Me" white list.
"On a federal level, you are allowed to call customers you formerly did business with for 18 months after the termination of the business relationship. Not so in this other state. Apparently you aren't allowed to call even the day after the relationship ends. The federal system actually allows the people who get called some recourse. The state system I have to deal with makes it very clear in their fine print that you are allowed a certain amount of accidental calls."
It's quite simple, then: in the case of two overlapping laws, the stricter of the two is enforced, because both laws have to be obeyed. In the former "business relationship" example, the stricter state practice would be in force. For the "accidental call," the federal law. It is still possible to obey both laws so there is no need for one to override the other.
"You want to call people of that state, you buy the list, which costs more annually than the entire federal list, for what that's worth."
So the people of that state have put a higher price tag on their privacy than has the aggregate nation as a whole. Deal with it.
"The federal list makes sense, and really does eliminate any reason for states to keep their own lists,"
You're still able to say that after talking about the "existing business relationship" loophole? How do you sleep at night?
"Why? Because almost all telemarketing calls are crossing state or possibly national borders. Thus there's a natural complication when you have different laws in different states with different abilities to enforce those laws on others."
Be that as it may, that in and of itself is not justification for trumping state laws. The states have the right to regulate not only what goes on within its own borders but also what crosses them, and I can point to several parts of the United States Constitution that affirms a state's right to monitor interstate activity.
"Better to have one federal law to simplify things."
"Simple" does not mean "better." "Better" would be having the federal government set a lowest common denominator and letting the states augment that with stricter regulations if they so chose. There is no such thing as "one size fits all" in a nation of 300 million people, not without violating the sensibilities of people, if not their rights.
"The issue revolves around some states whose Do Not Call laws are more strict than Federal law and which prohibit telemarketers from calling anyone on a Do Not Call, regardless of an existing business relationship."
Then there's nothing to worry about. It'll never happen with the GOP in control of both the White House and both houses of Congress, as they've always been friends to states' rights!
Kneel before Zot?
"how can a map get someone out of a ticket? did the cop not know where he was?"
Any number of ways, from being clocked on private property to being ticketed for the wrong speed zone.
"my property, its maps, and what it looks like is my business and nobody elses."
First off, if nothing else these maps show where your property ends and the state's (utility company's, etc.) begins.
Secondly, try telling that to your county tax assessor, they'd appreciate the good laugh. What you have on your property, what its worth, how its situated, how its used, anything that could, among other things, affect the value of the property of your neighbors, is inherently the public's business, because your use of that property affects the public directly. Just because you are the only one allowed to use your property doesn't mean you can do with your property whatever you want. This is why both survey information as well as past tax assessments of your property are kept in your county court house, available for inspection to all comers for free.
"how will the IT world handle this change?"
They'll handle it by learning to get it right the first time. When is DST? When the signal put out by WWV and WWVB says it is. End of problem.
Or you can just ignore it, much like Unix has ignored several decades worth of leap seconds (a far more thorny problem, in my opinion, than periodically being off by an integer hour).
"you can have (...) torture sessions but you cant even _think_ about sex."
What about the BDSM crowd?
I know it's normal to kharma whore on stories like this with a link to Penny Arcade, but I wasn't really that impressed with the comic side this time around. I know they could have done a better portrayal of bullshitting for panel 3 than they did.
Tycho's write-up, however, seems to really hit the nail on the head by pointing out the only difference in ESRB's description of M and Ao is that the scenes are "prolonged" in Ao. Really, both descriptions make mention of both violence and sex, supposedly meaning that either one or the other could merit an Ao rating, but it seems the ESRB has very different definitions of "prolonged" for violence than for sex. Either GTA:SA shouldn't be kicked up to Ao for this one single disclosure, or it should have been Ao from the start for the amount of violence in it.
Exactly. And here's a right I'd like to see enforced for once:Maryland's had that one in its constitution since 1776, but you just don't see anybody anywhere talking much about it any more.
"FCC chairman Kevin Martin says 'his top goal is to increase Americans access to high-speed Internet,'"
FCC charimain Kevin Martin says "his top goal is to kiss the asses of the cablecos and the Baby Bells equall."
"a direct Microsoft competitor like Google"
Oh? So when can we expect a Google OS, office suite, web browser, etc? Who the heck isn't a "direct competitor of Microsoft" nowadays?
" Paintballing is a lot more fun than laser tag in my opinion... "
But it involves a considerable start-up fee, not to mention the money for upkeep (like ammunition) and all but require dedicated acreage to play on. The two games listed in the article are cheap up front, require no upkeep beyond batteries and/or running water, and can be played in somebody's yard without violating anybody's local ordinances.
Depends on the BB/pellet gun. Some mid- to upper-range air rifles can send the projectile at near-sonic speeds. For example, this one can propel a BB at 750 ft/s, roughly 230 m/s, and it's just a multi-pump (no CO2 cartridge involved). There are reasons why there are local ordinances against discharging pneumatic guns near residences, even in rural/"red" states.
:) In college, we had a backstop involving old newspapers & magzines in a cardboard box, in front of a bedsheet hung from the ceiling. We tended to keep with the "kiddie" line of guns, but even then the ricochets stung a bit made us thankful we wore glasses.
BB guns are best against empty Mountain Dew cans, especially indoors.
That's not a laser, that's just an LED in the water tank. The surface of the water stream reflects some of the light back in, keeping it in the stream, kinda like a liquid fiber optic.
I dunno. Phantasy Star Online has rampant duping and hacking problems on the GameCube verison (which they can't really fix, since there's no hard drive to update), but its still playable and enjoyable. True, it's not a real "RPG" per se, but right now, with the FFXI update server hosed, I'm discovering it can be a fun alternative. :)
"You can use clean energy to produce the ethanol, such has hydro-electrics or nuclear power"
Cool! Whose backyard will it go in?
I'd wager money that the city of Los Angeles is represented by more members of the House of Representatives than the entire state of Louisiana.
"While the Fed. govt. is bound by the constitution I do not consider the state to be bound by the federal constitution" --Article VI, Clause 2, Constitution of the United States of America
--Article I, Section 1, Texas Constitution
They're your constitutions. You'd think someone as proud of your home state would actually attempt to read these documents once in their life. Unfortunately, you're far from the first Texan I've come across who showed a gross lack of knowledge not only of the US Constitution but also the constitution of their own state that they claim to hold more alliegance to.
Heck, the entire premise of the Tenth Amendment relies on the idea that things were actually denied to the states in the original document to begin with.
New Orleans, on the other hand...
Sources? How would a Micro with a GB game sticking out of it look any worce than an SP or even a GBA with said cart sticking out?
Personally, when I'm not using my GB Player and my Hori pad, I tend to play GBA games on the DS simply because it's more comfortable in my hands. The SP's vertial alignment is too cramped for my hands and I'm still tempted to get an original GBA with the AfterBurner in it.
Already I tend to reach for the older GBA for use as a GCN controller.
Every iteration of the Game Boy so far has been backwards compatible. You'll be able to play Super Mario Land on a Game Boy Advance Micro. The Revolution has been stated to have the capability to play games from all previous Nintendo consoles except the Virtual Boy. Nintendo's entire strategy for the next few years rests on the popularity of its back-catalog.
Now you're going to tell me that the DS, which is incapable of playing GBC and GB games, is the successor to the GBA in the middle of this whole old skool love-fest that Nintendo is riding on?
And then what would I play my back-catalog of GBC and 4-color GB games on? In order to fit the GBA and DS hardware into the same shell, they clipped out the GBC hardware, so if my DS were to "replace" my GBA all I could play Final Fantasy Adventure on is my GP Player on my GCN.
IMO, what the GBA Micro will have on the DS is the fact that the GBA Micro will play Super Mario Land.