He does explicitly mention the ink, however, as well as the signatures. I agree that he didn't explicitly say "oh yeah please don't erase the case art" in the letter but, depending on what the phone conversation was like, the letter shouldn't technically have been necessary at all.
At best, that's a loophole.
Whilke it may be a loophole;, this whole episode points out several key things about repairs:
1. Just becasue you think the other person understood what you said doesn't mean they did; so you need to be very explicit about what it is you want (or don't want done). The agent may have honestly ensured him he will get the case back without ever realizing that he also didn't want it cleaned during the repair.
2. Anytime you send in something for repair there is a chance you will get a replacement, not the original, item; if only because it is often cheaper to replace now and refurb the old one later as needed, which is why most warranties say the item may be replaced with another unit for a warrany repair. In addition, repairs are done via a process that doesn't accomodate special requests; the cost of that would drive up warranty costs for no good reason.
The bottom line is there is no good way to track a specific peice of inexpenensive electronics through the repair process; you simply verify it came in and that a unit went out. To do more would be a logistics nightmare.
No, it's easy to condemn MS in general, even without the unknowns.
Someone asked a specific question of a customer service representative. That representative gave a clear and unambiguous answer. Either that answer was incorrect, or a serious mistake was made internally.
It doesn't matter which of those was the case. If you bring a car to an auto shop, and they rip out your engine, do you let them get away with "oh well someone made a mistake"? "Our customer service representative wasn't authorized to make that promise"? "Our company's just too big man, there's nothing you can do about it! These things just happen."
Fuck that.
Microsoft support screwed up. I don't know what section they screwed it up in, but I honestly don't care. The details don't matter. Microsoft support screwed up and should take responsibility - figuring out where the mistake was made is their problem.
Actually, MS appeared to do excatly what he requested - return the original case. No where in the letter did he specifically ask for the case art not to be removed. The agent may have assumed they wouldn't clean the case and the owner may have assumed that "return the original case" meant do not remove the artwork, but that was only implied in the letter.
Yeh, it sucks, but points out why it is important to specifically stae what you want, in writting, and get an email in advance from the agent stating excatly what will be done with the unit. If they can't email you then that's a sign that what they say may not happen and it's up to you to decide if it's worth the risk to mail in the unit.
That said, from a PR perspective it would be nice for MS to do something; and to clarify when setting up a return that returned units will be cleaned any any customization may be removed in the process.
What company have you ever used that provides public records for free? Every one I know charges you out the a?? for it. That's why I only get it from government sources, at least the ones that aren't trying to gouge you for it.
According to the article the company that got the assessor records intends to make the files available for free for download; and charge for analysis / data mining.
So, since that company basically sued the state of West Virginia to get all of its data for $20, can I turn sue the company and get all of its data for, say, $20?
Minor point - the company is giving the info from the state away. That's what is pissing off one tax assessor.
You should be able to get the whole set, from the state, for $20 under the FOIA.
That's where I'm coming from. If the information was so important, and so valuable, that you can make a billion dollar business with it, then, why is it so wrong for the state from which that information came from get a piece of the pie?
Because the state adds no value to the data - we've already, as taxpayers, paid for the compilation of that data. We should have access to, for what it actually costs to reproduce it. The data, in and of itself, is worth $20 - that's what it costs for anyone to get a copy (or free if Seneca wins); what's valuable is what you do with the data after words.
If someone has an idea on how to make it more valuable, then they should feel free to do it. If WVA wants a cut of the action, start a VC fund, invest in the company and shoulder the risk of failure to get a shot at the rewards.
This sounds like some tax assessor looked at their budget, realized they may lose some of it and is trying to use the courts to protect them.
Everyone here seems to be jumping on the state of West Virginia because they had the gall to go and create a work, with tax dollars and try to recoup some of that investment.
The key is with tax dollars - which means taxpayers already paid for the information and now are getting charged a second time for something they could 9and by WVA law should) make available electronically for free or nearly free.
Look at the company that is actually suing to get government records for free!
RTFA - it sued to only pay a reasonable copying cost, not what the state demanded. Winning that is a win for all taxpayers seeking public records. WVA wants to prevent them from making the data available in order to protect their revenue stream.
They are creating a system using publicly funded tax records, that is for profit, and even worse, ultimately going to be used to enable corporate spying on the American people. While you think the government should just hand over all of its digital data for $20, I think it is absurd that a well financed and well capitalized corporation cannot pay a few hundred thousand dollars for data that it is going to make millions on.
Because anyone else can get the same data for the same price; making money by adding value is no sin; it's a good thing.
We - the citizens - paid for that information through taxes, individual and corporate, and ought to have access to it to use as we see fit. If tax assessments were private records it would be a different story, but they aren't.
Nah. I was looking at some numbers the other day comparing tower numbers in Asia, Europe, and Nth America. About 1 in 5 towers in Asia is 3G, nearly one in two in Europe, but only 1 in 6 in Nth America. (total tower numbers are roughly, 1.1M, 600k, 235k, respectively, incidently). The problems in Nth America are historical, to do with the weird shit business models that have operated there since early days in mobile phones (seems to be obsessed with lock in). Large parts of the US have the same population density as Europe and Asia, but far fewer 3G towers..
While I agree a lot of forces are in play, including lockin and other historical issues; raw tower percentages are not a good indicator for several reasons:
Nearly half of the continental US has a population density of less than 10/sm; virtually none of western Europe has that low of a population density except for interior regions of the nordic countries. Yet, much of the sparsely populated areas in the US have GSM coverage (and hence towers); where in Europe most of the towers are in denser populated areas and therefore probably have enough users to warrant adding 3G and getting the revenue.
If all you did was divide towers with 3g by total towers then the towers in areas of very low density would skew the numbers since Europe has very little similar demographics; a more interesting comparison would be 3G coverage in areas of similar density. I do believe the US will lag there as well; at least for UTSM.
In addition, unless you exclude towers that are not GSM the numbers will also skew (although probably not much).
Which brings up a second point - we have two competing systems - GSM and CDMA; so areas without 3G may have EVDO high speed coverage. (while I'm willing to bet that is small and probably 90% of the coverage overlaps).
AIR, it's much less prevalent to get free Europe wide roaming; whereas in the US I can roam virtually anywhere without additional cost; so European carriers may find it profitable to build out more infrastructure to capture more roaming fees, including those for data.
In the end, I do agree that historical reasons are behind our build out; and much of that was driven by economics.
The news for me is that the 3G network isn't already all over United States. Here in there city I live (Porto Alegre) in Brazil there is already a 3G network on 800Mhz and another in 1.2Ghz is expected to start this year, so I was expecting US would be already much more advanced. This and the e-voting makes me wonder if those news about US being beaten technology by other countries isn't only for Japan/Asia/Europe, seems like in many areas even in-development countries are starting to be better.
It's really a question of cost - I'm pretty sure if you look at actual 3G coverage in Brazil (or Europe for that matter) you'd find a number of areas that lack 3G - but the concentration of population is such that say 80% of the population have it even with the holes. I'd further guess that if you hit Brasilia, then move along the coast (Rio, San Paulo, Belem, etc) with 3.5 you'd get most of Brazil's population of cell phone users who'd want 3G.
In the US, the population density is such that partial coverage by 3G will also get a significant percentage of users so they rollout has been focused there. Given the cost of new antennas, negotiating new leases on towers, ensuring there aren't interference problems it makes sense to go where you get the highest potential return and build out the rest as funds allow. Yes, that means the poor user in The Middle of Nowhere, Iowa will not have 3G for a while; simply because the cost of servicing that user is too high.
is give companies certantity over their monthly costs while ensuring they can grow without hitting limits and needing to move their sites or pay much higher fees; as well as ensure acess to their sites without hitting monthly limits and paying more or getting cut off. For many smaller businesses that's a good deal - they aren't going to "grow too fast" or violate the TOS by using it as a data backup site or hosting massive files for download. Yahoo gets to attract more businesses to their services, spreading their large fixed costs over more customers and possibly migrating them to more expensive services as their needs grow beyond the small business model. They may even find a way to host adds preferentialy over say Google and others.
Despite the/. viewpoint; Yahoo probably doesn't care about the handful of customers that will try to game their offer by hosting large amounts of files, etc - they'll just cut them off under the TOS and be done with them.
So rather then a firebomb you have a nice broken bottle type knife to bring on the plane? Or are they shipping everything in Plastic these days?
Those represent two very differnt types of dangers - someone armed with a knife would be a lot easier for passengers and flight crews to subdue, even with makeshift weapons such as pens, laptops, and fire extinguishers etc. Given today's climate I doubt passengers would be passive anymore in the face of such a threat - witness what happened to the guy who tried to get in a cockpit a while back.
The following expression of the officer, along with his mixed reactions as to what to do next, were pure Kodak moments. I really, really would have paid good money to get a copy of the surveillance camera video!! He first tried to close it and just return it to me, then he realized that he better check it out since he was the one that said it had to be done. I think he took about 0.8 seconds of a "thorough" inspection, then closed the bag. However, that wouldn't turn the dildos off, and they were still buzzing away, quite audibly. I gave him the "turn them off. All of them." look, and he fumbled again attempting to get all 3 turned off. Next Monday I fly out again. I can't wait to see what they'll do this time.
You must be an American... what is *with* you people always reaching for the lawyer every time some little conflict with another person comes up. Stop being a pussy and fight your own battles.
You must be an idiot. People recommended a lawyer for the same reason comapnies all around the world use lawyers when drafting agreements - to make sure they are correct and will withstand any future legal challenges. There's no conflict here, just soemone trying to do what is right. Sure he should talk to is employeer first, and drop it if they say no, but if they say sure then it's time to get a lwayer involved; even if it is the companies. That way it's all tied up nicely in a bow; ratehr than just an OK from someone who may or may not have the authority to assign rights for the company.
I believe that many/all undersea cables are mapped.
Ships/captains plying international waters must have up-to-date info. If they damage a cable that is on the maps, they are responsible.
They may be responsible; but that is seperate from limiting liability which maritime law does for steamship owners. In addition, the owners are often only liable for gross negligence - and that may not include a captain acting recklessly. Most of this law was made when sailing was a dangerous activity and shippers needed to limit their potential losses to teh cargo / ship or else no one would engage in overseas commerce.
Perhaps a lawyer familar with maritime law can weigh in here...
They should follow the example of the telephone company. Find the owners of the ships and send them a bill for the repair costs. That will get their attention.
Actually, ships are governed by maritime law, which is designed to protect and encourage commerce; I'm not sure if they even would be responsible for damage from an anchor to a cable lying on the seafloor. From my limited recollection, vessel owners liability is generally the value of the vessel (not including the cargo).
The problem is that it's not an efficient market that has an artificially high barrier to entry. Few people can just go start a cell phone network. Even if they had the money, in many markets the government restricts placement of towers and cables so the ones already there have near complete control.
Not really, in the US at least. First, many towers are not owned by the telco, they are owned by a tower company that leases space to them for antennas. If you want to build out a network you can lease space for your antennas; but why bother. You can buy airtime from a telco and resell it yourself; there are several companies that do just that; Earthlink, for example, used to sell handsets and airtime that ran on VZW/Sprint's CDMA network. They are called MVNO - mobile virtual network operators and there are quite a few in the US, Virgin, Disney, Helio spring to mind. Amp'd was one until it went out of business. As long as the major players have excess bandwidth it makes sense to sell the excess. In fact, it probably makes mores ense to sell teh excess and let a third party company offer cheaper rates than to do it yourself; that way you don't drive down your prices but still get marginal revenue from your investment. If you are a major you want to protect your tiered rate structure; you don't want to offer a nationwide unlimited plan for a fixed price; like some companies do; because all you higher paying customers would migrate to that plan while thos ethat use less minutes would stick with cheaper capped plans; or if you offered on size fits all you either lose a lot of money fromyour best customers or lose a lot of customers at the low end who go elsewhere if the fixed rate is too high.
In most states if your employer cuts your pay and you quit, you get unemployment. A cut in pay is considered breach of contract on the employer's part and your rejection of the new terms is tantamount to you being fired. Hopefully enough IBM employees know of or learn of this and walk out, causing IBM to pay out substantial unemployment compensation.
That would be a rather short sighted and stupid thing to do, because:
1- unemployment doesn't make up for all of your salary and is often limited in duration; you have to be actively looking for a job as well. Why not do that with a salary? 2- you lose your benfits - medical; disability, retirement, etc - things many people cannot do without 3- what do you say when you're asked why you left - if I were interviewing someone who did that I'd wonder about their decision making ability - why not just milk IBM until you found a new job? Will you walk the first time something you don't like happens where I work? 4 - unemployment is an insurance system - companies pay premiums based on claims history - with a cap on the total cost. That's why some comapnies offer packages - to avoid premium increases and keep a low claims rate; where companies taht hire and layoff alot (seasonal work, for example) use it as "paid vacation" since they are already maxed out in premium costs so lying off seasonal workers (and then rehiring them later) has no added cost but saves them salary costs when work is slow. I don't know where IBM is on the premium scale but I doubt a lot of workers leaving would even be felt by them - the cost of hiring replacements would be more obvious. Of course, those that stay would get more OT and make more money - so the incentive is to wait out the exodus.
Of course, it also means the really good workers who can easily find jobs that will pay more will start looking - the cut is an added incentive to start exploring the market. That's the challenge companies face - the people most likely to leave ar ethe ones who are most employable - and are often teh very ones you want to stay while those that are less productive and valuable hang around becasue they have a good deal and don't wnat to lose it. If someone said to me - "I'm looking beacsue my base was just cut and even though I'll probably make it up on OT there's no assurance I will; and I don't mind working unpaid OT as an exempt employee because I like the steady paycheck and the slow times make up for the heavcy work periods so it all comes out in the wash..." I'd think that was a good reason for leaving.
However, knowing IBM, this is what they planned--with the current economic downturn, they probably want to decrease their payroll anyway and in so doing bolster their stock price. Still, it's critical (IMHO) that employees who quit know they can file for benefits so they don't get double-shafted by IBM.
The amount of moeny at stake here is small for IBM (and even they say it probably will result in no net change in what they pay out for salaries); but the potential liability is large so they needed to protect themselves going forward. So ratehr than give everyone overtime at their current salry; they adjusted salaries to match anticipated overtime costs. No surprise there. What it does mean is employees now lose during down time - you can save salary costs by cutting back on hours for non-exmept employees during slow periods; and some may run the risk of winding up as part-timers which, if the benefits structure is different, has a greater impact as well.
If you are reglarly working OT and feel underpaid then find another job. I worked for a comany that expected 1600 billable hours a year - they didn't care how i reached that number; and if I worked 4 80 hour weeks and then had 4 weeks with no work they still paid me the same salary every month - a deal I thought was fair - beach time in exchaneg for crazy hours when working.
A removable battery is not required for a manual power down. For you to think so only reveals that you don't know enough about how the machine works. You just hold down the power button for a few seconds until it's forced to power off in hardware. I can't think of a software situation that would stop that from working. I shake my head every time I hear about someone removing the battery or unplugging their desktop for an emergency power off. Not necessary.
I have had laptops and desktops hang so badly that no amount of holding the power switch in would solve the problem; physically removing the power source did solve the problem.
I'm not sure what caused teh failure but it *does* happen.
It doesn't really matter that it takes five minutes to open it with a screwdriver and switch the battery. The point is that people want to carry two or more batteries with them and be able to switch them when one goes dead, without requiring tools (or having to void the warrenty).
Exactly, or for those of us that travel a lot have a repalcement fedEx'd to your location when the one you have dies.
Plus, a removal batteyr means that if you get a really bad system hang you can do a manual "power down" and restart. Not that Macs ever have any problems...
The constitution enumerates rights. It says as much in the 9th amendment I believe. Your right in conceptual context though, but the enumeration extends these rights to people who don't believe they have them. This is significant because if I am educated in a way that I believe the government can limit my speech and then comes along the first amendment, it was given a right I didn't know I had.
I believe we are in agreement here, my concern was with the parent's "government granting..." statement. Enumerating some of them made them clear and I believe the founders wanted to ensure people we aware of tehm in order to avoid government abuse; but it does not mean other rights are non-existant.
This is a big cause of the confusion between the constitution giving rights and you having them with the constitution limiting the government's ability to do anything about it. But in all seriousness, if something is an inherent right, then why is it acceptable to only limit the Government from treading on it? It seems perfectly fine for a private company to fire you for attending a political rally or taking advantage of some other right you hold like owning a firearm. Treating rights like this seems counter intuitive and seems that it could easily fall prey to abuse.
Primarly because government is a tool of the people to, well, govern and has powers to enforce beyond a company; it embodies the state and its authority.
A private company has a different relationship - a contractual one that you and the company are free to define and end at will; within certain limits. In addition, there are property rights at play as well - a private entity has the right to decide not to allow firearms or limit speech on its property - whether a company or person.
The right was granted in the age of muzzle loaders.
Uhm, in the US, neither the Constitution nor government "grant" rights; they eixst and are the people's independent of either. The people give the government certain powers; and we can argue what those are and how broad they are, but that's different than teh people's rights.
On third party keyboards that were not, specifically, made for Macs, holding down "F12" does the trick.
Interestingly enough, that's not in the Finder help when you look for ejecting a disk. I wonder if it works when a disk has disappeared from the desktop but is still physically in the drive, as has occured to me on occasion.
From a UI standpoint, howeve, I thin it is poor design - it's not very obvious how to eject a disk if you are having problems, a situation that arises enough that a better solution, for example, wouyld have been a menu item to eject a disk (given Apple's penchant for putting things in menus).
You didn't first try to reboot your Mac Mini with the mouse button pressed down?
Which, in tha annuals of stupid design, is hall of fame material.
Rebooting the computer to eject a disk if for some reason it can't be dragged from the desktop? Certainly the designers could have at leat put in a key combination to avoid a reboot.
As much as I like my Mac, soemtimes I wonder what the designers are smoking.
My argument still stands, you do not profit from using their IP and they did not loose anything. It might impose that the person will not buy the IP or it might pay for it, why pay for a product that you don't know i worth the money
Don't buy it; but that is not a rational for pirating it either - simply don't use it at all. If you pirate it - tehn accept the fact you have benefited from it - even if it is only to tets it - without paying the owner anything.
You said taking it and pointing to that it was not with permission which is stealing per definition. If I take something the original is being taken, if I copy something, I haven't taken anything from you, I have copied it.
You can rationalize all you want but the bottom line is that you took, without paying, what was valuable - the IP - even if you didn't take the physical disk it was on.
Firstly the MAFIAA is claiming otherwise, that all distributed copies are a loss to them. Secondly I could also argue that it seems perfectly logic that some percentage of those illegally copying IP would buy them because they have found a new favorite artist. That is why you can argue this forth and back, but it seems like all the scientific reports show the latter being more true, while does sponsored by the MAFIAA shows my first argument.
And the truth is probably somewhere in between.
No but you can for your own use take a song and add it to a video, then if you alter it to have another meaning then it is not the original work any more. If you do that next argument is how alike are they, and what is it that is the real infringement, similar lyrics, similar instrumentals, or the just the reference?
It's called a derivative work then, and infringement then is for the courts to decide.
No they are profiting by providing a service which the users appreciate. To be able to locate files through this index easy and fast is their service. Just like Google [google.com], MSN Live [msn.com] and Yahoo Search [yahoo.com]. But hey, they are the good guys since they are big economic companies that brings a big cash flow like the MAFIAA. I wounder how much their traffic would be lowered, or the Internet providers, or the hosting companies, or the hardware makers/resellers and so on...
The only reason people like their service is because it enables them to get copyrighted works for free - take away that and their service is no longer valuable. Hence, they are profiting primarily from the pirating of others works.
Not having the money to buy something you want is no excuse for taking it; it's not like not having the latest game is going to cause you to starve to death. Most of the software pirates I've known are really somewhat pathetic - they simply want to amass a large software collection simply to sya they have a large one and never run or use most of the software they've collected.
Wait, what, who is stealing money? I don't know which world you live in but here on Earth, there still is no proof of copying of intellectual property equals even a loss of income. What you are saying, stealing money, is way down the ladder.
Considering I never said anything about stealing money, your arguement makes no sense.
While the amount of lost sales is debatable and I don't buy the every copy is a lost sale arguement; it's not too hard to understand taht some percentage of those illegally copying IP would buy them if they could not get it for free. So there is a loss to teh owner; the only question is how much.
The arguement that is OK to steal from people you view as rich is exactly what a 411 or other third world scammer would view themselves doing - taking money from someone who has way too much and giving it to someone with much less (themselves).
Well if people who scam people in a third world country sees themselfs as Robin Hood is no good comparasment to people who don't steal, scam or hurt but simple helps make available something that cannot be a loss.
Othe rtahn their is a loss, wether or not the owner suffers one is irrelevant to wether or not it is morally right. As a side note, your arguement would mean anyone that violates the GPL and sells a product based on improved GPL code and doesn't release source code is OK beacuse no one has suffered a loss - since they would not have access to any enhancements if the person was forced to follow the GPL since that means they would not have modified the code or released the product and everyone else still has teh same unmodified code.
First of all, you really don't believe in coipyrights if you feel it is OK for someone to use copyrighted material without the owner's permission.
Well it is not all black or white, but what you are saying in black or white is that I'm not allowed to use my legally purchased CD as I wish. Not even copy it to my computer for self use, because the owner of the original product does not want me to, but he has no say in what I do with a product he/she has sold me. It would be a crime to actually sell the product and gain an income of it, because you are making a profit of something that is not yours to sell.
Copyright law grants certain rights to the creator and purchasers of the product; you can resell the physical disk (assuming you don't keep any copys of teh material once you do) but you can't for example, take a song and add it to a video and tehn distribute that without first clearing the rights.
I do agree that the law has a lot of gray areas.
Second, piratebay may not make money by selling the programs, but they're getting money to host the material only becaus ethey have the material - if there were no pirated goods on piratebay no one would be interested in them - so they are profiting from the material.
Here too, wtf, how can you respond to an argument when you are incompetent on the subject? The Pirate Bay does not host any copyrighted material at all, period. But they host indexed files which point to users how may or may not have copyrighted files.
My premise stands - piratebay only is valuable becasue it enables people to locate and download copyrighted material for free - if they took off all such links their traffic would go to zero so they are profitting from others copyrighted works. Not hosting them in my view does not make them any less moral.
But for the argument sake, would you say Google, Microsoft, Yahoo is also criminals and thieves?
No; although many on/. would disagree, at least about MS.
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He does explicitly mention the ink, however, as well as the signatures. I agree that he didn't explicitly say "oh yeah please don't erase the case art" in the letter but, depending on what the phone conversation was like, the letter shouldn't technically have been necessary at all.
At best, that's a loophole.
Whilke it may be a loophole;, this whole episode points out several key things about repairs:
1. Just becasue you think the other person understood what you said doesn't mean they did; so you need to be very explicit about what it is you want (or don't want done). The agent may have honestly ensured him he will get the case back without ever realizing that he also didn't want it cleaned during the repair.
2. Anytime you send in something for repair there is a chance you will get a replacement, not the original, item; if only because it is often cheaper to replace now and refurb the old one later as needed, which is why most warranties say the item may be replaced with another unit for a warrany repair. In addition, repairs are done via a process that doesn't accomodate special requests; the cost of that would drive up warranty costs for no good reason.
The bottom line is there is no good way to track a specific peice of inexpenensive electronics through the repair process; you simply verify it came in and that a unit went out. To do more would be a logistics nightmare.
No, it's easy to condemn MS in general, even without the unknowns.
Someone asked a specific question of a customer service representative. That representative gave a clear and unambiguous answer. Either that answer was incorrect, or a serious mistake was made internally.
It doesn't matter which of those was the case. If you bring a car to an auto shop, and they rip out your engine, do you let them get away with "oh well someone made a mistake"? "Our customer service representative wasn't authorized to make that promise"? "Our company's just too big man, there's nothing you can do about it! These things just happen."
Fuck that.
Microsoft support screwed up. I don't know what section they screwed it up in, but I honestly don't care. The details don't matter. Microsoft support screwed up and should take responsibility - figuring out where the mistake was made is their problem.
Actually, MS appeared to do excatly what he requested - return the original case. No where in the letter did he specifically ask for the case art not to be removed. The agent may have assumed they wouldn't clean the case and the owner may have assumed that "return the original case" meant do not remove the artwork, but that was only implied in the letter.
Yeh, it sucks, but points out why it is important to specifically stae what you want, in writting, and get an email in advance from the agent stating excatly what will be done with the unit. If they can't email you then that's a sign that what they say may not happen and it's up to you to decide if it's worth the risk to mail in the unit.
That said, from a PR perspective it would be nice for MS to do something; and to clarify when setting up a return that returned units will be cleaned any any customization may be removed in the process.
What company have you ever used that provides public records for free? Every one I know charges you out the a?? for it. That's why I only get it from government sources, at least the ones that aren't trying to gouge you for it.
According to the article the company that got the assessor records intends to make the files available for free for download; and charge for analysis / data mining.
So, since that company basically sued the state of West Virginia to get all of its data for $20, can I turn sue the company and get all of its data for, say, $20?
Minor point - the company is giving the info from the state away. That's what is pissing off one tax assessor.
You should be able to get the whole set, from the state, for $20 under the FOIA.
That's where I'm coming from. If the information was so important, and so valuable, that you can make a billion dollar business with it, then, why is it so wrong for the state from which that information came from get a piece of the pie?
Because the state adds no value to the data - we've already, as taxpayers, paid for the compilation of that data. We should have access to, for what it actually costs to reproduce it. The data, in and of itself, is worth $20 - that's what it costs for anyone to get a copy (or free if Seneca wins); what's valuable is what you do with the data after words.
If someone has an idea on how to make it more valuable, then they should feel free to do it. If WVA wants a cut of the action, start a VC fund, invest in the company and shoulder the risk of failure to get a shot at the rewards.
This sounds like some tax assessor looked at their budget, realized they may lose some of it and is trying to use the courts to protect them.
Everyone here seems to be jumping on the state of West Virginia because they had the gall to go and create a work, with tax dollars and try to recoup some of that investment.
The key is with tax dollars - which means taxpayers already paid for the information and now are getting charged a second time for something they could 9and by WVA law should) make available electronically for free or nearly free.
Look at the company that is actually suing to get government records for free!
RTFA - it sued to only pay a reasonable copying cost, not what the state demanded. Winning that is a win for all taxpayers seeking public records. WVA wants to prevent them from making the data available in order to protect their revenue stream.
They are creating a system using publicly funded tax records, that is for profit, and even worse, ultimately going to be used to enable corporate spying on the American people. While you think the government should just hand over all of its digital data for $20, I think it is absurd that a well financed and well capitalized corporation cannot pay a few hundred thousand dollars for data that it is going to make millions on.
Because anyone else can get the same data for the same price; making money by adding value is no sin; it's a good thing.
We - the citizens - paid for that information through taxes, individual and corporate, and ought to have access to it to use as we see fit. If tax assessments were private records it would be a different story, but they aren't.
Nah. I was looking at some numbers the other day comparing tower numbers in Asia, Europe, and Nth America. About 1 in 5 towers in Asia is 3G, nearly one in two in Europe, but only 1 in 6 in Nth America. (total tower numbers are roughly, 1.1M, 600k, 235k, respectively, incidently). The problems in Nth America are historical, to do with the weird shit business models that have operated there since early days in mobile phones (seems to be obsessed with lock in). Large parts of the US have the same population density as Europe and Asia, but far fewer 3G towers..
While I agree a lot of forces are in play, including lockin and other historical issues; raw tower percentages are not a good indicator for several reasons:
Nearly half of the continental US has a population density of less than 10/sm; virtually none of western Europe has that low of a population density except for interior regions of the nordic countries. Yet, much of the sparsely populated areas in the US have GSM coverage (and hence towers); where in Europe most of the towers are in denser populated areas and therefore probably have enough users to warrant adding 3G and getting the revenue.
If all you did was divide towers with 3g by total towers then the towers in areas of very low density would skew the numbers since Europe has very little similar demographics; a more interesting comparison would be 3G coverage in areas of similar density. I do believe the US will lag there as well; at least for UTSM.
In addition, unless you exclude towers that are not GSM the numbers will also skew (although probably not much).
Which brings up a second point - we have two competing systems - GSM and CDMA; so areas without 3G may have EVDO high speed coverage. (while I'm willing to bet that is small and probably 90% of the coverage overlaps).
AIR, it's much less prevalent to get free Europe wide roaming; whereas in the US I can roam virtually anywhere without additional cost; so European carriers may find it profitable to build out more infrastructure to capture more roaming fees, including those for data.
In the end, I do agree that historical reasons are behind our build out; and much of that was driven by economics.
The news for me is that the 3G network isn't already all over United States. Here in there city I live (Porto Alegre) in Brazil there is already a 3G network on 800Mhz and another in 1.2Ghz is expected to start this year, so I was expecting US would be already much more advanced.
This and the e-voting makes me wonder if those news about US being beaten technology by other countries isn't only for Japan/Asia/Europe, seems like in many areas even in-development countries are starting to be better.
It's really a question of cost - I'm pretty sure if you look at actual 3G coverage in Brazil (or Europe for that matter) you'd find a number of areas that lack 3G - but the concentration of population is such that say 80% of the population have it even with the holes. I'd further guess that if you hit Brasilia, then move along the coast (Rio, San Paulo, Belem, etc) with 3.5 you'd get most of Brazil's population of cell phone users who'd want 3G.
In the US, the population density is such that partial coverage by 3G will also get a significant percentage of users so they rollout has been focused there. Given the cost of new antennas, negotiating new leases on towers, ensuring there aren't interference problems it makes sense to go where you get the highest potential return and build out the rest as funds allow. Yes, that means the poor user in The Middle of Nowhere, Iowa will not have 3G for a while; simply because the cost of servicing that user is too high.
is give companies certantity over their monthly costs while ensuring they can grow without hitting limits and needing to move their sites or pay much higher fees; as well as ensure acess to their sites without hitting monthly limits and paying more or getting cut off. For many smaller businesses that's a good deal - they aren't going to "grow too fast" or violate the TOS by using it as a data backup site or hosting massive files for download. Yahoo gets to attract more businesses to their services, spreading their large fixed costs over more customers and possibly migrating them to more expensive services as their needs grow beyond the small business model. They may even find a way to host adds preferentialy over say Google and others.
/. viewpoint; Yahoo probably doesn't care about the handful of customers that will try to game their offer by hosting large amounts of files, etc - they'll just cut them off under the TOS and be done with them.
Despite the
So rather then a firebomb you have a nice broken bottle type knife to bring on the plane? Or are they shipping everything in Plastic these days?
Those represent two very differnt types of dangers - someone armed with a knife would be a lot easier for passengers and flight crews to subdue, even with makeshift weapons such as pens, laptops, and fire extinguishers etc. Given today's climate I doubt passengers would be passive anymore in the face of such a threat - witness what happened to the guy who tried to get in a cockpit a while back.
The following expression of the officer, along with his mixed reactions as to what to do next, were pure Kodak moments. I really, really would have paid good money to get a copy of the surveillance camera video!! He first tried to close it and just return it to me, then he realized that he better check it out since he was the one that said it had to be done. I think he took about 0.8 seconds of a "thorough" inspection, then closed the bag. However, that wouldn't turn the dildos off, and they were still buzzing away, quite audibly. I gave him the "turn them off. All of them." look, and he fumbled again attempting to get all 3 turned off. Next Monday I fly out again. I can't wait to see what they'll do this time.
Ask you for a date?
You must be an American... what is *with* you people always reaching for the lawyer every time some little conflict with another person comes up. Stop being a pussy and fight your own battles.
You must be an idiot. People recommended a lawyer for the same reason comapnies all around the world use lawyers when drafting agreements - to make sure they are correct and will withstand any future legal challenges. There's no conflict here, just soemone trying to do what is right. Sure he should talk to is employeer first, and drop it if they say no, but if they say sure then it's time to get a lwayer involved; even if it is the companies. That way it's all tied up nicely in a bow; ratehr than just an OK from someone who may or may not have the authority to assign rights for the company.
I believe that many/all undersea cables are mapped.
Ships/captains plying international waters must have up-to-date info. If they damage a cable that is on the maps, they are responsible.
They may be responsible; but that is seperate from limiting liability which maritime law does for steamship owners. In addition, the owners are often only liable for gross negligence - and that may not include a captain acting recklessly. Most of this law was made when sailing was a dangerous activity and shippers needed to limit their potential losses to teh cargo / ship or else no one would engage in overseas commerce.
Perhaps a lawyer familar with maritime law can weigh in here...
They should follow the example of the telephone company. Find the owners of the ships and send them a bill for the repair costs. That will get their attention.
Actually, ships are governed by maritime law, which is designed to protect and encourage commerce; I'm not sure if they even would be responsible for damage from an anchor to a cable lying on the seafloor. From my limited recollection, vessel owners liability is generally the value of the vessel (not including the cargo).
The problem is that it's not an efficient market that has an artificially high barrier to entry. Few people can just go start a cell phone network. Even if they had the money, in many markets the government restricts placement of towers and cables so the ones already there have near complete control.
Not really, in the US at least. First, many towers are not owned by the telco, they are owned by a tower company that leases space to them for antennas. If you want to build out a network you can lease space for your antennas; but why bother. You can buy airtime from a telco and resell it yourself; there are several companies that do just that; Earthlink, for example, used to sell handsets and airtime that ran on VZW/Sprint's CDMA network. They are called MVNO - mobile virtual network operators and there are quite a few in the US, Virgin, Disney, Helio spring to mind. Amp'd was one until it went out of business. As long as the major players have excess bandwidth it makes sense to sell the excess. In fact, it probably makes mores ense to sell teh excess and let a third party company offer cheaper rates than to do it yourself; that way you don't drive down your prices but still get marginal revenue from your investment. If you are a major you want to protect your tiered rate structure; you don't want to offer a nationwide unlimited plan for a fixed price; like some companies do; because all you higher paying customers would migrate to that plan while thos ethat use less minutes would stick with cheaper capped plans; or if you offered on size fits all you either lose a lot of money fromyour best customers or lose a lot of customers at the low end who go elsewhere if the fixed rate is too high.
In most states if your employer cuts your pay and you quit, you get unemployment. A cut in pay is considered breach of contract on the employer's part and your rejection of the new terms is tantamount to you being fired. Hopefully enough IBM employees know of or learn of this and walk out, causing IBM to pay out substantial unemployment compensation.
That would be a rather short sighted and stupid thing to do, because:
1- unemployment doesn't make up for all of your salary and is often limited in duration; you have to be actively looking for a job as well. Why not do that with a salary?
2- you lose your benfits - medical; disability, retirement, etc - things many people cannot do without
3- what do you say when you're asked why you left - if I were interviewing someone who did that I'd wonder about their decision making ability - why not just milk IBM until you found a new job? Will you walk the first time something you don't like happens where I work?
4 - unemployment is an insurance system - companies pay premiums based on claims history - with a cap on the total cost. That's why some comapnies offer packages - to avoid premium increases and keep a low claims rate; where companies taht hire and layoff alot (seasonal work, for example) use it as "paid vacation" since they are already maxed out in premium costs so lying off seasonal workers (and then rehiring them later) has no added cost but saves them salary costs when work is slow. I don't know where IBM is on the premium scale but I doubt a lot of workers leaving would even be felt by them - the cost of hiring replacements would be more obvious. Of course, those that stay would get more OT and make more money - so the incentive is to wait out the exodus.
Of course, it also means the really good workers who can easily find jobs that will pay more will start looking - the cut is an added incentive to start exploring the market. That's the challenge companies face - the people most likely to leave ar ethe ones who are most employable - and are often teh very ones you want to stay while those that are less productive and valuable hang around becasue they have a good deal and don't wnat to lose it. If someone said to me - "I'm looking beacsue my base was just cut and even though I'll probably make it up on OT there's no assurance I will; and I don't mind working unpaid OT as an exempt employee because I like the steady paycheck and the slow times make up for the heavcy work periods so it all comes out in the wash..." I'd think that was a good reason for leaving.
However, knowing IBM, this is what they planned--with the current economic downturn, they probably want to decrease their payroll anyway and in so doing bolster their stock price. Still, it's critical (IMHO) that employees who quit know they can file for benefits so they don't get double-shafted by IBM.
The amount of moeny at stake here is small for IBM (and even they say it probably will result in no net change in what they pay out for salaries); but the potential liability is large so they needed to protect themselves going forward. So ratehr than give everyone overtime at their current salry; they adjusted salaries to match anticipated overtime costs. No surprise there. What it does mean is employees now lose during down time - you can save salary costs by cutting back on hours for non-exmept employees during slow periods; and some may run the risk of winding up as part-timers which, if the benefits structure is different, has a greater impact as well.
If you are reglarly working OT and feel underpaid then find another job. I worked for a comany that expected 1600 billable hours a year - they didn't care how i reached that number; and if I worked 4 80 hour weeks and then had 4 weeks with no work they still paid me the same salary every month - a deal I thought was fair - beach time in exchaneg for crazy hours when working.
A removable battery is not required for a manual power down. For you to think so only reveals that you don't know enough about how the machine works. You just hold down the power button for a few seconds until it's forced to power off in hardware. I can't think of a software situation that would stop that from working. I shake my head every time I hear about someone removing the battery or unplugging their desktop for an emergency power off. Not necessary.
I have had laptops and desktops hang so badly that no amount of holding the power switch in would solve the problem; physically removing the power source did solve the problem.
I'm not sure what caused teh failure but it *does* happen.
...you could, uh, just charge it.
Not if it, uh, fails to hold a charge.
It doesn't really matter that it takes five minutes to open it with a screwdriver and switch the battery. The point is that people want to carry two or more batteries with them and be able to switch them when one goes dead, without requiring tools (or having to void the warrenty).
Exactly, or for those of us that travel a lot have a repalcement fedEx'd to your location when the one you have dies.
Plus, a removal batteyr means that if you get a really bad system hang you can do a manual "power down" and restart. Not that Macs ever have any problems...
The constitution enumerates rights. It says as much in the 9th amendment I believe. Your right in conceptual context though, but the enumeration extends these rights to people who don't believe they have them. This is significant because if I am educated in a way that I believe the government can limit my speech and then comes along the first amendment, it was given a right I didn't know I had.
I believe we are in agreement here, my concern was with the parent's "government granting..." statement. Enumerating some of them made them clear and I believe the founders wanted to ensure people we aware of tehm in order to avoid government abuse; but it does not mean other rights are non-existant.
This is a big cause of the confusion between the constitution giving rights and you having them with the constitution limiting the government's ability to do anything about it. But in all seriousness, if something is an inherent right, then why is it acceptable to only limit the Government from treading on it? It seems perfectly fine for a private company to fire you for attending a political rally or taking advantage of some other right you hold like owning a firearm. Treating rights like this seems counter intuitive and seems that it could easily fall prey to abuse.
Primarly because government is a tool of the people to, well, govern and has powers to enforce beyond a company; it embodies the state and its authority.
A private company has a different relationship - a contractual one that you and the company are free to define and end at will; within certain limits. In addition, there are property rights at play as well - a private entity has the right to decide not to allow firearms or limit speech on its property - whether a company or person.
The right was granted in the age of muzzle loaders.
Uhm, in the US, neither the Constitution nor government "grant" rights; they eixst and are the people's independent of either. The people give the government certain powers; and we can argue what those are and how broad they are, but that's different than teh people's rights.
On third party keyboards that were not, specifically, made for Macs, holding down "F12" does the trick.
Interestingly enough, that's not in the Finder help when you look for ejecting a disk. I wonder if it works when a disk has disappeared from the desktop but is still physically in the drive, as has occured to me on occasion.
From a UI standpoint, howeve, I thin it is poor design - it's not very obvious how to eject a disk if you are having problems, a situation that arises enough that a better solution, for example, wouyld have been a menu item to eject a disk (given Apple's penchant for putting things in menus).
You didn't first try to reboot your Mac Mini with the mouse button pressed down?
Which, in tha annuals of stupid design, is hall of fame material.
Rebooting the computer to eject a disk if for some reason it can't be dragged from the desktop? Certainly the designers could have at leat put in a key combination to avoid a reboot.
As much as I like my Mac, soemtimes I wonder what the designers are smoking.
My argument still stands, you do not profit from using their IP and they did not loose anything. It might impose that the person will not buy the IP or it might pay for it, why pay for a product that you don't know i worth the money
Don't buy it; but that is not a rational for pirating it either - simply don't use it at all. If you pirate it - tehn accept the fact you have benefited from it - even if it is only to tets it - without paying the owner anything.
You said taking it and pointing to that it was not with permission which is stealing per definition. If I take something the original is being taken, if I copy something, I haven't taken anything from you, I have copied it.
You can rationalize all you want but the bottom line is that you took, without paying, what was valuable - the IP - even if you didn't take the physical disk it was on.
Firstly the MAFIAA is claiming otherwise, that all distributed copies are a loss to them. Secondly I could also argue that it seems perfectly logic that some percentage of those illegally copying IP would buy them because they have found a new favorite artist. That is why you can argue this forth and back, but it seems like all the scientific reports show the latter being more true, while does sponsored by the MAFIAA shows my first argument.
And the truth is probably somewhere in between.
No but you can for your own use take a song and add it to a video, then if you alter it to have another meaning then it is not the original work any more. If you do that next argument is how alike are they, and what is it that is the real infringement, similar lyrics, similar instrumentals, or the just the reference?
It's called a derivative work then, and infringement then is for the courts to decide.
No they are profiting by providing a service which the users appreciate. To be able to locate files through this index easy and fast is their service. Just like Google [google.com], MSN Live [msn.com] and Yahoo Search [yahoo.com]. But hey, they are the good guys since they are big economic companies that brings a big cash flow like the MAFIAA. I wounder how much their traffic would be lowered, or the Internet providers, or the hosting companies, or the hardware makers/resellers and so on...
The only reason people like their service is because it enables them to get copyrighted works for free - take away that and their service is no longer valuable. Hence, they are profiting primarily from the pirating of others works.
Not having the money to buy something you want is no excuse for taking it; it's not like not having the latest game is going to cause you to starve to death. Most of the software pirates I've known are really somewhat pathetic - they simply want to amass a large software collection simply to sya they have a large one and never run or use most of the software they've collected.
/. would disagree, at least about MS.
Wait, what, who is stealing money? I don't know which world you live in but here on Earth, there still is no proof of copying of intellectual property equals even a loss of income. What you are saying, stealing money, is way down the ladder.
Considering I never said anything about stealing money, your arguement makes no sense.
While the amount of lost sales is debatable and I don't buy the every copy is a lost sale arguement; it's not too hard to understand taht some percentage of those illegally copying IP would buy them if they could not get it for free. So there is a loss to teh owner; the only question is how much.
The arguement that is OK to steal from people you view as rich is exactly what a 411 or other third world scammer would view themselves doing - taking money from someone who has way too much and giving it to someone with much less (themselves).
Well if people who scam people in a third world country sees themselfs as Robin Hood is no good comparasment to people who don't steal, scam or hurt but simple helps make available something that cannot be a loss.
Othe rtahn their is a loss, wether or not the owner suffers one is irrelevant to wether or not it is morally right. As a side note, your arguement would mean anyone that violates the GPL and sells a product based on improved GPL code and doesn't release source code is OK beacuse no one has suffered a loss - since they would not have access to any enhancements if the person was forced to follow the GPL since that means they would not have modified the code or released the product and everyone else still has teh same unmodified code.
First of all, you really don't believe in coipyrights if you feel it is OK for someone to use copyrighted material without the owner's permission.
Well it is not all black or white, but what you are saying in black or white is that I'm not allowed to use my legally purchased CD as I wish. Not even copy it to my computer for self use, because the owner of the original product does not want me to, but he has no say in what I do with a product he/she has sold me. It would be a crime to actually sell the product and gain an income of it, because you are making a profit of something that is not yours to sell.
Copyright law grants certain rights to the creator and purchasers of the product; you can resell the physical disk (assuming you don't keep any copys of teh material once you do) but you can't for example, take a song and add it to a video and tehn distribute that without first clearing the rights.
I do agree that the law has a lot of gray areas.
Second, piratebay may not make money by selling the programs, but they're getting money to host the material only becaus ethey have the material - if there were no pirated goods on piratebay no one would be interested in them - so they are profiting from the material.
Here too, wtf, how can you respond to an argument when you are incompetent on the subject? The Pirate Bay does not host any copyrighted material at all, period. But they host indexed files which point to users how may or may not have copyrighted files.
My premise stands - piratebay only is valuable becasue it enables people to locate and download copyrighted material for free - if they took off all such links their traffic would go to zero so they are profitting from others copyrighted works. Not hosting them in my view does not make them any less moral.
But for the argument sake, would you say Google, Microsoft, Yahoo is also criminals and thieves?
No; although many on