And every freight train has a number of empty or partially-empty boxcars and flatbeds. No one would notice if they magically gain a load, or if part of another load was replaced. Yeah, it would require a lot of manpower, but... some freight cars are privately owned, and are picked up at private sidings. Unless every boxcar is inspected at every stop, who would notice one full of explosives?? add a radio control, and someone at the destination with the other half of the trigger, and there ya go.
Interesting theory, but I have to wonder about the competence of a security team that DIDN'T bother to get the flight schedules for any nearby airports. See, if you have the flight schedule, then you not only know which planes NOT to bring down, you also know which are off course, and can then contact the airport control tower and ask what's going on (frex, in the event of a rerouting to another runway). And then you don't have to panic when a plane unexpectedly passes overhead, either.
That's the thing. People are basically lazy, even terrorists. If there are really so many terrorists, why is it none of them are lazy enough to attack the low-hanging targets? A few that leap to mind:
Use a light aircraft to bomb a shopping mall (make sure the gas-filled cars in the parking lot ignite, cuz once the asphalt starts burning they'll be days getting it under control).
Drive down the freeway, pitching incindiary grenades out the window into busy traffic. For that matter, stand on an overpass and drop grenades into open trucks as they pass below. (Kids already do this with rocks, some places.)
Throw a few hundred dead rats or a dozen dead sheep into a public water tank (the kind that provides water pressure to a neighbourhood).
Contrive a large mobile bomb involving a propane delivery truck and a case of liquid ammonia. Its sheer mass will take it through most public buildings' front wall.
Etc, etc, etc. I'm sure I've barely scratched the surface of the available EASY targets.
Trouble is, gasoline (like gunpowder) generally has to be under pressure to burn explosively. If you just set an open container on fire, you have a fire in an open container, and maybe in the surrounding flammables, but you don't have an explosion.
Propane, OTOH, since it's stored under pressure, would work better -- just have to figure out how to rupture/ignite the tank. A slow leak adjacent to ammonia, plus a spark, would do it. Ammonia + propane makes a compound akin to TNT.
My neighbour in Montana had one go up -- starting from the fumes from a mere 5 gallon tank on his travel trailer, mixed with the ammonia leaking from its fridge. The blast stripped the trailer down to the frame and reduced his adjacent big garage and long row of mature pines to very small matchsticks.
Also excellent, and unlikely to draw attention, a propane delivery truck. I don't know how you'd set one off, but I *do* know it would make one hell of a crater.
And if the transponder is too difficult to target from the ground, just send your suicide-mission operative aboard, with 100% legit ID and ticket, armed with what *looks* like a normal cellphone or pocket radio.....
Not only that, but why bother with all that when foreign-built/foreign-registered craft won't have any such tech??
Well, that's the thing. You've got to make a living too, which means you've got to charge for your work. But most workin' class people can't afford a lawyer for a long drawn-out case. And that's why I noted "pro bono" -- because realistically, even if everyone attacked by the RIAA's minions lived in New York, most of the victims just don't make that kind of money and couldn't afford to hire you for the duration of the case. Which means that even when good defense attorneys with the proper experience *are* available, most RIAA victims are just plain screwed.
NYCL responded to that -- apparently the plaintiff can get it dismissed if the other side hasn't answered yet, and that's what happened in this case.
I agree, this crap won't end until one of the RIAA cases comes to a proper and ignomious conclusion. And that probably won't happen until some judge insists that the trial go on, because as you say, the RIAA always bails, knowing damn well that their cases have no legal merit (even when there probably IS actual copyright infringement, their cases depend on glorified hearsay, not on genuine evidence).
But the downside of the judge refusing to dismiss is that you never really know how one of these civil cases is going to fall out, especially if a jury is involved rather than just a judge. Allowing the dismissal does protect *that* defendant, even tho it does nothing for future defendants. But the judge has to go by what's in front of him, not what might be; and allowing a bogus case to go forward, even with the probability that it'll go badly for the plaintiff, could be interpreted as irresponsible jurisprudence.
If you were the defendant, would you care to take that risk? If you had a lawyer like NYCL or Capt.Kangarooski defending you pro bono, you'd probably feel secure in the outcome, and you'd still get to eat regularly in the meantime. If you're on your own and/or scraping the attorney's fees out of your own wallet (and the RIAA cases are never brought against people who can really afford to mount a defense), probably not.
(I don't like any of these thoughts. I much prefer the thought of the RIAA being bitchslapped into bankruptcy.)
[grin] Slashdot does have a formatting mind of its own sometimes, eh?
Thanks for the info. I gather the converse applies, that if an answer had already been filed, the RIAA could have been prevented from withdrawing -- by the judge or by the defendant?
Wouldn't THAT be entertaining...
RIAA: "No, no, we didn't really mean it! let's all be friends again!"
Judge: "No, you stand right there and let the defendant hit you, since you hit them first."
("He was going to hit me, so I hit him back first." -- Billy Martin, explaining how a fight started)
Your post gave me a strange thought, and I know it's a stretch, but I'll air it anyway:
Public performance royalties are due when a work is performed in public. So far so good.
What if, in a public venue, a bunch of random people sing all the words to a given song, but each person only sings a few words, and they do so not only in no particular order, but also scattered over the course of several hours -- does this require a royalty payment?? and if so, paid by whom??
The parallel being that with P2P, the "listener" similarly receives random chunks of the material in question, from random parties, in no particular order and scattered over some extended timeframe.
Conversely, CA licenses mini-pickups under the same weight/fee schedule as 18 wheelers.**
This is why in CA, a mini-pickup costs 3x as much to license as a big SUV.
** Idiot voters said "Let's stick it to truckers, since they tear up the roads more", not realising that every pickup truck in the state was under the same fee schedule as big rigs. Hurt small business and farmers a lot, didn't affect big rigs much, since they already paid weight fees.
My aunt had a 1960ish VW Bug. It regularly got 50mpg. Of course, she did have to get out and push on big hills... not a wimp for its size, tho.. she used it to herd cattle on the open range, I shit you not.
Dunno about manuals, but my truck ('78 Ford, V-8, auto) does best if I just let it ease up to speed at its own pace. It wants to idle along at 35mph, and it'll gear up to 3rd by then. If I could stand to drive everywhere at 35mph and never touch the gas pedal, it would get great mileage, since it can idle for about an hour on one gallon of gas. Gets 12 to 15 at 50-55mph, tho I'm usually carrying a load (that's why I have a truck, d'oh!) Gets around 20 when it's buck-naked and with a tailwind.
Also, it gets better mileage when the thermostat is stuck open and the engine is running on the cold side (temp gauge not even up in the "normal" range). My mechanic told me there was a good reason for that, which I've since forgotten, but I've noticed that concurrently, the spark plugs stay clean forever.
Yeah, back in the era of showboat cars. But most cars now don't have enough frame to tow much of anything.
As to the multiple vehicles thing... been there, done that, turned out the gas-economical car was costing me more in tags and insurance than it was saving over the cost of driving my truck. And I wound up making more trips in the car to accomplish the same thing, because it just doesn't have the load-hauling capacity (which I need *regularly*), so the gas savings wasn't as much as one would think either. So I'm back to one vehicle -- a fullsized pickup.
An AC says, =============== The TSOs are NOT law enforcement so your analogy does not hold. The TSA has no legitimate reason to know my name. Their job is to prevent weapons from entering aircraft. This is an attempt by the TSA to become a dragnet agency. The TSA is upgrading their IT to the tune of 2 billion dollars in order to link to law enforcement databases. It is a numbers game, with 2 million passengers a day you are sure to find a few people with warrants. When those few are found with warrants the TSA will show off the captures like a little boy with a pretty rock. ========
That's my point. They're behaving like cops trolling for arrest prospects, even tho they aren't (quite) legally cops. And even if they were legally cops, my identity is none of their damned business unless I'm arrested for a crime.
But since we're being required to present ID, I'm arguing that what's really happening is that we're being arrested at the airport, even tho most of us are turned loose again (since no crime was committed).
Guilty until proven innocent, simply because we don't wish to provide ID papers to a trolling pseudo-cop.
An AC says, ========= Except that they're not safe at all. You can't bring a goddamn pair of nail clippers, but you can bring a screwdriver if the blade is less than 4 inches. More than enough to stab someone in a vital organ. This isn't security, it's a bad soap opera. ==========
Oh, that explains it... and as everyone knows, elves have an aversion to technology. Which means the story was bogus. Clearly, that woman wasn't attacked by a band of elves; she was attacked by a pack of coyotes!!
I think you're partly right -- flying will cease to be something the unwashed masses can reasonably afford to do. But it won't go away entirely; it'll go back to being something only rich businessmen can afford, or justify (since business deals seldom give a damn about preserving personal rights). The rest of us will go back to driving... until the freeway entries all have ID checkpoints (not unlikely as toll roads become more prevalent) -- and assuming we can afford the gas. At the rate that's going up, we'll soon be back to a village lifestyle, where no one ever ventures further than walking distance from where they were born.
While I presently have no reason to fly, I bristle at the idea that I'm to be treated as a high-risk perp, and if I have to make the choice, it's easy: I won't fly.
Slashdot Mirror
And every freight train has a number of empty or partially-empty boxcars and flatbeds. No one would notice if they magically gain a load, or if part of another load was replaced. Yeah, it would require a lot of manpower, but... some freight cars are privately owned, and are picked up at private sidings. Unless every boxcar is inspected at every stop, who would notice one full of explosives?? add a radio control, and someone at the destination with the other half of the trigger, and there ya go.
Interesting theory, but I have to wonder about the competence of a security team that DIDN'T bother to get the flight schedules for any nearby airports. See, if you have the flight schedule, then you not only know which planes NOT to bring down, you also know which are off course, and can then contact the airport control tower and ask what's going on (frex, in the event of a rerouting to another runway). And then you don't have to panic when a plane unexpectedly passes overhead, either.
Press to test.
*click*
Release to detonate.
That's the thing. People are basically lazy, even terrorists. If there are really so many terrorists, why is it none of them are lazy enough to attack the low-hanging targets? A few that leap to mind:
Use a light aircraft to bomb a shopping mall (make sure the gas-filled cars in the parking lot ignite, cuz once the asphalt starts burning they'll be days getting it under control).
Drive down the freeway, pitching incindiary grenades out the window into busy traffic. For that matter, stand on an overpass and drop grenades into open trucks as they pass below. (Kids already do this with rocks, some places.)
Throw a few hundred dead rats or a dozen dead sheep into a public water tank (the kind that provides water pressure to a neighbourhood).
Contrive a large mobile bomb involving a propane delivery truck and a case of liquid ammonia. Its sheer mass will take it through most public buildings' front wall.
Etc, etc, etc. I'm sure I've barely scratched the surface of the available EASY targets.
So... where the hell are all the terrorists?
Trouble is, gasoline (like gunpowder) generally has to be under pressure to burn explosively. If you just set an open container on fire, you have a fire in an open container, and maybe in the surrounding flammables, but you don't have an explosion.
Propane, OTOH, since it's stored under pressure, would work better -- just have to figure out how to rupture/ignite the tank. A slow leak adjacent to ammonia, plus a spark, would do it. Ammonia + propane makes a compound akin to TNT.
My neighbour in Montana had one go up -- starting from the fumes from a mere 5 gallon tank on his travel trailer, mixed with the ammonia leaking from its fridge. The blast stripped the trailer down to the frame and reduced his adjacent big garage and long row of mature pines to very small matchsticks.
Also excellent, and unlikely to draw attention, a propane delivery truck. I don't know how you'd set one off, but I *do* know it would make one hell of a crater.
And if the transponder is too difficult to target from the ground, just send your suicide-mission operative aboard, with 100% legit ID and ticket, armed with what *looks* like a normal cellphone or pocket radio.....
Not only that, but why bother with all that when foreign-built/foreign-registered craft won't have any such tech??
Well, that's the thing. You've got to make a living too, which means you've got to charge for your work. But most workin' class people can't afford a lawyer for a long drawn-out case. And that's why I noted "pro bono" -- because realistically, even if everyone attacked by the RIAA's minions lived in New York, most of the victims just don't make that kind of money and couldn't afford to hire you for the duration of the case. Which means that even when good defense attorneys with the proper experience *are* available, most RIAA victims are just plain screwed.
NYCL responded to that -- apparently the plaintiff can get it dismissed if the other side hasn't answered yet, and that's what happened in this case.
I agree, this crap won't end until one of the RIAA cases comes to a proper and ignomious conclusion. And that probably won't happen until some judge insists that the trial go on, because as you say, the RIAA always bails, knowing damn well that their cases have no legal merit (even when there probably IS actual copyright infringement, their cases depend on glorified hearsay, not on genuine evidence).
But the downside of the judge refusing to dismiss is that you never really know how one of these civil cases is going to fall out, especially if a jury is involved rather than just a judge. Allowing the dismissal does protect *that* defendant, even tho it does nothing for future defendants. But the judge has to go by what's in front of him, not what might be; and allowing a bogus case to go forward, even with the probability that it'll go badly for the plaintiff, could be interpreted as irresponsible jurisprudence.
If you were the defendant, would you care to take that risk? If you had a lawyer like NYCL or Capt.Kangarooski defending you pro bono, you'd probably feel secure in the outcome, and you'd still get to eat regularly in the meantime. If you're on your own and/or scraping the attorney's fees out of your own wallet (and the RIAA cases are never brought against people who can really afford to mount a defense), probably not.
(I don't like any of these thoughts. I much prefer the thought of the RIAA being bitchslapped into bankruptcy.)
Hmm. Maybe next time we should pick a song that doesn't violate the lameness filter!
;)
Of course, since this one is so repetitive, it'll be hard to determine who sang what
[grin] Slashdot does have a formatting mind of its own sometimes, eh?
Thanks for the info. I gather the converse applies, that if an answer had already been filed, the RIAA could have been prevented from withdrawing -- by the judge or by the defendant?
Wouldn't THAT be entertaining...
RIAA: "No, no, we didn't really mean it! let's all be friends again!"
Judge: "No, you stand right there and let the defendant hit you, since you hit them first."
("He was going to hit me, so I hit him back first." -- Billy Martin, explaining how a fight started)
Your post gave me a strange thought, and I know it's a stretch, but I'll air it anyway:
Public performance royalties are due when a work is performed in public. So far so good.
What if, in a public venue, a bunch of random people sing all the words to a given song, but each person only sings a few words, and they do so not only in no particular order, but also scattered over the course of several hours -- does this require a royalty payment?? and if so, paid by whom??
The parallel being that with P2P, the "listener" similarly receives random chunks of the material in question, from random parties, in no particular order and scattered over some extended timeframe.
TFA says:
'...so that the dismissal in this case "operates as an adjudication on the merits".'
Um, can we have that in English, please?
Second, can the court opt that no, "we aren't going to dismiss it just because you think you're going to lose" ??
It's a redirect from InformationWeek, a perfectly legit publication, to http://www.darkreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=156139&WT.svl=news1_1
Admittedly it's annoying; in fact the first attempt to go there crashed my browser.
Good points. Where did these adults who preach this stuff learn such intolerance, such superficiality, such greed -- in church, as children?? Hmmm....
Religion often preys on the weak-minded that way...
California licenses SUVs as passenger cars.
Conversely, CA licenses mini-pickups under the same weight/fee schedule as 18 wheelers.**
This is why in CA, a mini-pickup costs 3x as much to license as a big SUV.
** Idiot voters said "Let's stick it to truckers, since they tear up the roads more", not realising that every pickup truck in the state was under the same fee schedule as big rigs. Hurt small business and farmers a lot, didn't affect big rigs much, since they already paid weight fees.
My aunt had a 1960ish VW Bug. It regularly got 50mpg. Of course, she did have to get out and push on big hills... not a wimp for its size, tho.. she used it to herd cattle on the open range, I shit you not.
Dunno about manuals, but my truck ('78 Ford, V-8, auto) does best if I just let it ease up to speed at its own pace. It wants to idle along at 35mph, and it'll gear up to 3rd by then. If I could stand to drive everywhere at 35mph and never touch the gas pedal, it would get great mileage, since it can idle for about an hour on one gallon of gas. Gets 12 to 15 at 50-55mph, tho I'm usually carrying a load (that's why I have a truck, d'oh!) Gets around 20 when it's buck-naked and with a tailwind.
Also, it gets better mileage when the thermostat is stuck open and the engine is running on the cold side (temp gauge not even up in the "normal" range). My mechanic told me there was a good reason for that, which I've since forgotten, but I've noticed that concurrently, the spark plugs stay clean forever.
Yeah, back in the era of showboat cars. But most cars now don't have enough frame to tow much of anything.
As to the multiple vehicles thing... been there, done that, turned out the gas-economical car was costing me more in tags and insurance than it was saving over the cost of driving my truck. And I wound up making more trips in the car to accomplish the same thing, because it just doesn't have the load-hauling capacity (which I need *regularly*), so the gas savings wasn't as much as one would think either. So I'm back to one vehicle -- a fullsized pickup.
An AC says,
===============
The TSOs are NOT law enforcement so your analogy does not hold. The TSA has no legitimate reason to know my name. Their job is to prevent weapons from entering aircraft. This is an attempt by the TSA to become a dragnet agency. The TSA is upgrading their IT to the tune of 2 billion dollars in order to link to law enforcement databases. It is a numbers game, with 2 million passengers a day you are sure to find a few people with warrants. When those few are found with warrants the TSA will show off the captures like a little boy with a pretty rock.
========
That's my point. They're behaving like cops trolling for arrest prospects, even tho they aren't (quite) legally cops. And even if they were legally cops, my identity is none of their damned business unless I'm arrested for a crime.
But since we're being required to present ID, I'm arguing that what's really happening is that we're being arrested at the airport, even tho most of us are turned loose again (since no crime was committed).
Guilty until proven innocent, simply because we don't wish to provide ID papers to a trolling pseudo-cop.
An AC says,
=========
Except that they're not safe at all. You can't bring a goddamn pair of nail clippers, but you can bring a screwdriver if the blade is less than 4 inches. More than enough to stab someone in a vital organ. This isn't security, it's a bad soap
opera.
==========
'Nuf said.
Oh, that explains it... and as everyone knows, elves have an aversion to technology. Which means the story was bogus. Clearly, that woman wasn't attacked by a band of elves; she was attacked by a pack of coyotes!!
Hmmm... [all the terrorists invest in green tunics, pointed ears, magic bows, and (reading another comment) portable windows]
An AC protests,
;)
"Security's treatment of passengers? Have you seen the meals and the cramped quarters? And the washrooms?"
Okay, let me rephrase that: "...admit that planes are now airborne maximum security prisons a la third world countries." Better?
I think you're partly right -- flying will cease to be something the unwashed masses can reasonably afford to do. But it won't go away entirely; it'll go back to being something only rich businessmen can afford, or justify (since business deals seldom give a damn about preserving personal rights). The rest of us will go back to driving... until the freeway entries all have ID checkpoints (not unlikely as toll roads become more prevalent) -- and assuming we can afford the gas. At the rate that's going up, we'll soon be back to a village lifestyle, where no one ever ventures further than walking distance from where they were born.
While I presently have no reason to fly, I bristle at the idea that I'm to be treated as a high-risk perp, and if I have to make the choice, it's easy: I won't fly.