First, I honestly feel bad for ya because you're going to suffer the "Slashdot Death by Disagreement" fate. I disagree with you, but that does not, in of itself, make your post bad. It should be moderated, IMO, merely by how it contributes to good discussion.
To answer, however, I think that the Reuters article covers that question well by quoting the judge:
"'It is an absolute certainty that unless a preliminary injunction is entered, Sun will have lost forever its right to compete, and the opportunity to prevail, in a market undistorted by its competitors' antitrust violations,' Motz wrote in his decision."
javacowbow writes: "Anybody who takes on one of the world's largest corporations (with probably the most high- paid lawyers on its payroll) and attempts to shut down 85% of their product line is very courageous indeed. I wonder what makes them think they can pull it off."
Eventually a person -- the judge -- looks at the issue and decides. And there is not an endless stream of appeals, though it may seem like it sometimes. But I think you can only throw so much money and litigation at something.
I knew of someone -- not a friend, mind you, just knowledge of this person -- who told me personally that at his job as a telephone psychic reader he would often have people call with questions about physical ailments. This individual would ask things like, "do your bowel movements have a sulfur odor to them?" Of course he took a great deal of amusement in contemplating the sight of these poor, credulous wretches bent over the toilet, sniffing.
wheany writes: "Did you know that if you chew on a piece of aluminum foil for couple of minutes, you'll get high? "...what?? Is this simply an attempt to get a lot of really dumb people to chew on foil?
stratjakt writes: "Electing Clinton | During the election, all you/.'ers hated Gore, because he was the one in favor of censoring the media and the 'net. Now everyone puts on this phony 'I told you so' act. When they didn't."
"You"? "You"!?
Where is it written that if I dislike Bush I have to automagically like Clinton? Both are screwing us, one of them was doing a smidge more screwing while in office. I didn't vote for Clinton, Gore or Bush.
Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle Dumber are not the alpha and the omega of political theory, man...
I think this is a no-brainer. If law-enforcement wants this to be taken seriously as a tool (and I'm all for the theoretical good guys having better tools to make sure the bad guys stay out of the general populace despite what they'll tell you about us criminal-loving liberals), then all they need to do is demonstrate through double-blind trials that use of the tool does not lead to an increase in false-positives.
Simple.
As for it's potential for abuse, give me a break. Planting a print at the scene is about a kabillion times easier to do than to digitally forge one. Occams Razor, kids.
From the article:
"'I think it's very suspicious that you have something that is of no value and suddenly you enhance it and it becomes of value,' said [defense attorney] Heyer. 'It is very clear that this type of thing can be manipulated.'"
I dislike it greatly when a person states a truth then follows it up with an obvious untruth in order to give the latter credibility. Yes, evidence can be manipulated. yes, it should be protected against. No, being able to discern something you could not discern before does not invalidate that evidence out of hand. Perhaps she's heard of DNA?
I think just about anyone familiar with Photoshop/gimp and actual photographs will realize that details can be brought out of a picture that aren't immediately obvious. Don't believe me? Take just about any non-perfect picture off the net, open it with gimp, then:
right-click on the image.
Image > Colors > Levels
Tweak settings.
Profit! (just kidding...)
Should it be held under the cold light of courtoom examination? Sure. Is it pseudoscience? Not on it's face.
Contact Yahoo through a reasonable contact (abuse@yahoo.com should be fine, though legal@ wouldn't hurt either), letting them know your efforts to remove your name using their controls.
Inform them that you'll give them a 10-day grace period to correct this.
Also inform them that you have a great new service of your own; proofreading!
Also inform them that if they wish to continue sending you messages, you will be more than happy to proofread them and bill them at a rate of nnn.nn per message. Let them know that your offer is opt-in; if they wish to participate, they can simply send you another message.
Let them know you bill on a net-30 basis.
Find out the names and email contact points for their board of directors.
Each time they opt-in by way of another message, bill them and cc their board of directors. Actually billing them is the crucial point but this can be accomplished fairly easily.
Profit!
Trust me. You won't be on that list for long. If you are, take a trip to your friendly neighborhood court and file for a small claims case. Then you're talking settlement.
Ratface writes: "They're saying that they've invested over 15 million USD in the game already and will continue to invest over 5 million USD/year!... If their investment has been as large as they say it has, I would expect to have heard something about them. (I would also expect them to build a website that *doesn't* crash my browser (IE 6!) every time I visit the site!)."
It took Microsoft a few billion to make a whole OS crash reliably. If these guys are making your browser crash with a lousy 5m/yr, I think they're doing a pretty good job.
From the site: You want to hear news every 10 minutes? Fine. You want to hear only one minute each hour? Also fine. You want to hear the news as soon as possible? Why not. You want news from another country? Who does not. You want news from a specific person? Go ahead. You want to know about a specific topic? Sure. You want news you can trust in? That is our business.
Yeah, it's the last item that bugs me. Trust is still being vested in someone to create the trust model.
Someone has to be holding the keys and the keys here are the weights. For example, the rate of trust decay could be increased to marginalize the "small reporter." I'm not suggesting that these guys are some ill-intentioned neer-do-well's, I'm just suggesting that keys of power are merely being shifted, not eliminated.
Frankly, if I'm wrong, someone PLEASE speak up and tell me why. I've never wanted to be so wrong in my life. =)
speedplane writes: "I'm not sure I fully understand. If there are no guns then how will there be crimes with guns."
Gun crimes will happen when guns are outlawed the same way prostitution will happen when outlawed.
Gun crimes will happen when guns are outlawed the same way drug use will happen when outlawed.
Gun crimes will happen when guns are outlawed the same way racketeering will happen when outlawed.
I offer my sincere, sincere apologies if your post is intended as humor and I just utterly missed it. But if you're serious, by your logic, crime would never occur because...heh. It's illegal. =)
NZKiwi writes: "Why Not? Americans are ALREADY applying (or trying to apply) their laws/standards to the rest of the world; or has everyone forgotten a certain Russian Programmer; and a Norwegian Kid; and the overseas implications of the DMCA already?"
Are you somehow arguing that if I criticize Thing A that Government B is doing, I have to include with it a dossier formally criticizing every country that does it too? How long do they have to stop before I can remove them from the list?
And while I'm asking the questions, who are you and why are you telling me how to go about critiqing and who I must include?
Just because the American government quashes fair use does not mean that Americans have to stop criticizing governments that also quash fair use any more than citizens of countries that piss all over human rights have to remain mute when other contries violate human rights.
vandan writes: "How about that DMCA case with the Russian guy. He broke a US law while in his home country and got in the shit over it. So US jurisdication covers the entire world and everyone elses' jurisdication only covers their own lands' and then only when it doesn't contradict US law?"
To be fair, unless you have another post by this guy where he's cheerleading the US Gov't on that one, I really don't think you can hold it against him. Just because the MPAA gets away with sqwishing fair use doesn't mean I have to forfeit ever arguing fair use again.
From the article: "The landmark judgment means material published on the internet is deemed to have been published in the place it is viewed online, not the country of origin."
I don't know what the legal system is like in Australia but in the states you can generally sue anyone for anything you damn well like, regardless of its merits.
While I doubt our courts will act in a reciprocal manner just to make a point, the tacit argument the Australian government is making is that they can apply our laws to American entities. If this is taken to its logical conclusion, and Americans are allowed to apply American legal standards to Australians, this might forever be known as the Pandora's Box Judgement.
Darth Maul writes: "The problem with finding "unbiased" data is rarely does anyone with an opinion either way just decide to do a study. Think of trying to find "unbiased" studies on Linux vs. Microsoft stuff. Everyone has an agenda."
Or, what if the conclusion you come to happens to lie at one end of the political spectrum? What if you look at the numbers and report them but the conclusion reached is that they are (good|bad).
I have an opinion on the subject. A strong one, in fact, but it is irrelevant. My point is that just because the facts point in one direction does not mean that there is, necessarily, bias. It's a damned good indication and the best reason I know of to look upon interpreted information with a skeptical eye, but you have to at least consider the possibility that the "truth" might look damned near identical to biased data.
Just a thought. It is more directed at the entire Slashdot crowd than you, your post just made me think of it.
cpeterso writes: "If guns were completely abolished, imagine the rap videos on MTV. Snoop and Dre rapping about how their rolled on some suckas with their broadswords and morning stars?"
Good point. Everybody knows the last place you're going to hear about illegal activity is in a rap song. I mean, when was the last time you heard a rapper talk about prostitution??
good america writes: "Look at the NRA. Do you think everyone in the NRA went to the library, carefully and thoughtfully evaluated the statistics, then reluctantly decided to support gun ownership because the facts supported it? No!"
Thank god you spoke up. I couldn't find the place where they keep the statistics on how many violent crimes are averted because of a gun. Where do they keep this in your library? Also, where does the factbook on whether or not we'd still be a democracy without them fit into the Dewey system?
"They decided to support gun ownership because they love guns. Facts, if any, were found afterward to reinforce the position they already had regardless of them."
I think dismissive arguments like this are part of the problem. The NRA thinks that liberals are idiots and would like nothing more than give criminals yet another leg up (but they really do, honestly think that the world is better off with less guns). The liberals think that the NRA is a bunch of violent people who would like nothing better than to shoot another human being (when they really do, honestly believe that the lynchpin of freedom is an armed populace).
Take whatever side you'd like but quit demeaning the other end of the spectrum. Those who commit the crime of disagreeing with you are neither de facto idiots nor liars and everyone suffers when you paint them as one.
I think they don't mind because their computer is probably working a lot faster than they're used to anyway. The customer...well, most customers aren't concerned with the label on the front of the box so much as how long they have to snooze before their Excel doc opens.
I guess I never paid much attention to Lindows but this might be one seriously sneaky way to get Linux in "under the wire." No wonder Redmond is getting hostile to that distro in particular. How dare they do more with less! SUE! SUE!
And lest anyone mod me as a troll for the subject, please be aware that "It's the [insert noun], Stupid" is a fairly common in-joke when something is semi-obvious and is not directed at the writer of the story.
Slashdot Mirror
I can't think of a better way to relate to their experience than to have a satellite image to trace my finger over.
*sigh
First, I honestly feel bad for ya because you're going to suffer the "Slashdot Death by Disagreement" fate. I disagree with you, but that does not, in of itself, make your post bad. It should be moderated, IMO, merely by how it contributes to good discussion.
To answer, however, I think that the Reuters article covers that question well by quoting the judge:
"'It is an absolute certainty that unless a preliminary injunction is entered, Sun will have lost forever its right to compete, and the opportunity to prevail, in a market undistorted by its competitors' antitrust violations,' Motz wrote in his decision."
AOL teamed up with Inktomi in early 2000 to go head-to-head vs. Akamai in the content distribution business. So this might be a bit more than just search engine stuff.
deft writes:
...uh ...hm. Golf.
"wow, he typed a string of commands... the crowd hushes"
This sounds about as exciting as
Hey, maybe this does have some potential...
javacowbow writes:
"Anybody who takes on one of the world's largest corporations (with probably the most high- paid lawyers on its payroll) and attempts to shut down 85% of their product line is very courageous indeed. I wonder what makes them think they can pull it off."
Eventually a person -- the judge -- looks at the issue and decides. And there is not an endless stream of appeals, though it may seem like it sometimes. But I think you can only throw so much money and litigation at something.
Politicians, however, are another story.
I knew of someone -- not a friend, mind you, just knowledge of this person -- who told me personally that at his job as a telephone psychic reader he would often have people call with questions about physical ailments. This individual would ask things like, "do your bowel movements have a sulfur odor to them?" Of course he took a great deal of amusement in contemplating the sight of these poor, credulous wretches bent over the toilet, sniffing.
I think yours is much funnier. =)
wheany writes: ...what?? Is this simply an attempt to get a lot of really dumb people to chew on foil?
"Did you know that if you chew on a piece of aluminum foil for couple of minutes, you'll get high? "
stratjakt writes: /.'ers hated Gore, because he was the one in favor of censoring the media and the 'net. Now everyone puts on this phony 'I told you so' act. When they didn't."
"Electing Clinton | During the election, all you
"You"? "You"!?
Where is it written that if I dislike Bush I have to automagically like Clinton? Both are screwing us, one of them was doing a smidge more screwing while in office. I didn't vote for Clinton, Gore or Bush.
Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle Dumber are not the alpha and the omega of political theory, man...
Electing George W. Bush?
Oh, you meant for the better...
I think this is a no-brainer. If law-enforcement wants this to be taken seriously as a tool (and I'm all for the theoretical good guys having better tools to make sure the bad guys stay out of the general populace despite what they'll tell you about us criminal-loving liberals), then all they need to do is demonstrate through double-blind trials that use of the tool does not lead to an increase in false-positives.
Simple.
As for it's potential for abuse, give me a break. Planting a print at the scene is about a kabillion times easier to do than to digitally forge one. Occams Razor, kids.
"'I think it's very suspicious that you have something that is of no value and suddenly you enhance it and it becomes of value,' said [defense attorney] Heyer. 'It is very clear that this type of thing can be manipulated.'"
I dislike it greatly when a person states a truth then follows it up with an obvious untruth in order to give the latter credibility. Yes, evidence can be manipulated. yes, it should be protected against. No, being able to discern something you could not discern before does not invalidate that evidence out of hand. Perhaps she's heard of DNA?
I think just about anyone familiar with Photoshop/gimp and actual photographs will realize that details can be brought out of a picture that aren't immediately obvious. Don't believe me? Take just about any non-perfect picture off the net, open it with gimp, then:
Should it be held under the cold light of courtoom examination? Sure. Is it pseudoscience? Not on it's face.
Out !@#$ing standing. =) Thanks for your reply.
Trust me. You won't be on that list for long. If you are, take a trip to your friendly neighborhood court and file for a small claims case. Then you're talking settlement.
Ratface writes: ... If their investment has been as large as they say it has, I would expect to have heard something about them. (I would also expect them to build a website that *doesn't* crash my browser (IE 6!) every time I visit the site!)."
"They're saying that they've invested over 15 million USD in the game already and will continue to invest over 5 million USD/year!
It took Microsoft a few billion to make a whole OS crash reliably. If these guys are making your browser crash with a lousy 5m/yr, I think they're doing a pretty good job.
From the site:
You want to hear news every 10 minutes? Fine.
You want to hear only one minute each hour? Also fine.
You want to hear the news as soon as possible? Why not.
You want news from another country? Who does not.
You want news from a specific person? Go ahead.
You want to know about a specific topic? Sure.
You want news you can trust in? That is our business.
Yeah, it's the last item that bugs me. Trust is still being vested in someone to create the trust model.
Someone has to be holding the keys and the keys here are the weights. For example, the rate of trust decay could be increased to marginalize the "small reporter." I'm not suggesting that these guys are some ill-intentioned neer-do-well's, I'm just suggesting that keys of power are merely being shifted, not eliminated.
Frankly, if I'm wrong, someone PLEASE speak up and tell me why. I've never wanted to be so wrong in my life. =)
speedplane writes:
...heh. It's illegal. =)
"I'm not sure I fully understand. If there are no guns then how will there be crimes with guns."
Gun crimes will happen when guns are outlawed the same way prostitution will happen when outlawed.
Gun crimes will happen when guns are outlawed the same way drug use will happen when outlawed.
Gun crimes will happen when guns are outlawed the same way racketeering will happen when outlawed.
I offer my sincere, sincere apologies if your post is intended as humor and I just utterly missed it. But if you're serious, by your logic, crime would never occur because
NZKiwi writes:
"Why Not? Americans are ALREADY applying (or trying to apply) their laws/standards to the rest of the world; or has everyone forgotten a certain Russian Programmer; and a Norwegian Kid; and the overseas implications of the DMCA already?"
Are you somehow arguing that if I criticize Thing A that Government B is doing, I have to include with it a dossier formally criticizing every country that does it too? How long do they have to stop before I can remove them from the list?
And while I'm asking the questions, who are you and why are you telling me how to go about critiqing and who I must include?
Just because the American government quashes fair use does not mean that Americans have to stop criticizing governments that also quash fair use any more than citizens of countries that piss all over human rights have to remain mute when other contries violate human rights.
What an obnoxious, ignorant post.
vandan writes:
"How about that DMCA case with the Russian guy. He broke a US law while in his home country and got in the shit over it. So US jurisdication covers the entire world and everyone elses' jurisdication only covers their own lands' and then only when it doesn't contradict US law?"
To be fair, unless you have another post by this guy where he's cheerleading the US Gov't on that one, I really don't think you can hold it against him. Just because the MPAA gets away with sqwishing fair use doesn't mean I have to forfeit ever arguing fair use again.
From the article:
"The landmark judgment means material published on the internet is deemed to have been published in the place it is viewed online, not the country of origin."
I don't know what the legal system is like in Australia but in the states you can generally sue anyone for anything you damn well like, regardless of its merits.
While I doubt our courts will act in a reciprocal manner just to make a point, the tacit argument the Australian government is making is that they can apply our laws to American entities. If this is taken to its logical conclusion, and Americans are allowed to apply American legal standards to Australians, this might forever be known as the Pandora's Box Judgement.
SEWilco writes:
"It is also at Nature.Com, but that server is already rejecting connects."
The Slashdot Effect is several years old now. It's about !@#$ing time they started to learn how to dive for cover!
SEWilco writes:
"...hot, deep bacteria..."
This sounds suspiciously like some of the bizarre porn spam I get...
Darth Maul writes:
"The problem with finding "unbiased" data is rarely does anyone with an opinion either way just decide to do a study. Think of trying to find "unbiased" studies on Linux vs. Microsoft stuff. Everyone has an agenda."
Or, what if the conclusion you come to happens to lie at one end of the political spectrum? What if you look at the numbers and report them but the conclusion reached is that they are (good|bad).
I have an opinion on the subject. A strong one, in fact, but it is irrelevant. My point is that just because the facts point in one direction does not mean that there is, necessarily, bias. It's a damned good indication and the best reason I know of to look upon interpreted information with a skeptical eye, but you have to at least consider the possibility that the "truth" might look damned near identical to biased data.
Just a thought. It is more directed at the entire Slashdot crowd than you, your post just made me think of it.
cpeterso writes:
"If guns were completely abolished, imagine the rap videos on MTV. Snoop and Dre rapping about how their rolled on some suckas with their broadswords and morning stars?"
Good point. Everybody knows the last place you're going to hear about illegal activity is in a rap song. I mean, when was the last time you heard a rapper talk about prostitution??
good america writes:
"Look at the NRA. Do you think everyone in the NRA went to the library, carefully and thoughtfully evaluated the statistics, then reluctantly decided to support gun ownership because the facts supported it? No!"
Thank god you spoke up. I couldn't find the place where they keep the statistics on how many violent crimes are averted because of a gun. Where do they keep this in your library? Also, where does the factbook on whether or not we'd still be a democracy without them fit into the Dewey system?
"They decided to support gun ownership because they love guns. Facts, if any, were found afterward to reinforce the position they already had regardless of them."
I think dismissive arguments like this are part of the problem. The NRA thinks that liberals are idiots and would like nothing more than give criminals yet another leg up (but they really do, honestly think that the world is better off with less guns). The liberals think that the NRA is a bunch of violent people who would like nothing better than to shoot another human being (when they really do, honestly believe that the lynchpin of freedom is an armed populace).
Take whatever side you'd like but quit demeaning the other end of the spectrum. Those who commit the crime of disagreeing with you are neither de facto idiots nor liars and everyone suffers when you paint them as one.
I think they don't mind because their computer is probably working a lot faster than they're used to anyway. The customer ...well, most customers aren't concerned with the label on the front of the box so much as how long they have to snooze before their Excel doc opens.
I guess I never paid much attention to Lindows but this might be one seriously sneaky way to get Linux in "under the wire." No wonder Redmond is getting hostile to that distro in particular. How dare they do more with less! SUE! SUE!
"Innovation over litigation," my ass.
And lest anyone mod me as a troll for the subject, please be aware that "It's the [insert noun], Stupid" is a fairly common in-joke when something is semi-obvious and is not directed at the writer of the story.