Interestingly enough, if you cross out the text before you send it in, the clauses cease to be part of the contract, and they have no legal leg to stand on. If they receive the card with the text crossed out (which is what they're using as their contract with you), they saw it when they typed your information in their system, which is quite fair. If they don't like your terms, they don't have accept your money, and they certainly don't have to send you a subscription. Of course, accepting your money means that they agree to whatever final terms you submitted to them.
The only problem with that is that when builders hear that joke, the usual response is, "but that's the way builders actually DO build buildings." Those of us who live in houses built in the last 30 years and have done home renovations know exactly this problem: exterior walls are composed of pretty much nothing. The interior drywall is part of what holds the house together!
And people wonder why small tornadoes so easily decimate communities.
Actually, I don't think it matters. While the courts are notoriously difficult to predict, if past actions hold, I think we'll find that once the courts hear that prioritizing the ISP's VOIP traffic effectively de-prioritizes other VOIP packets from competing providers, the courts will at some point strike that prioritization as anticompetitive and illegal.
It doesn't really matter what the technique is; if the effect is that the ISP's VOIP works better than third-party VOIP due to an action taken by the ISP, it's going to be seen as anticompetitive.
As usual, Cringely is splitting hairs to get traffic on his column.
But the major ISPs aren't paying for bandwidth per se. They're paying for the electricity and monitoring of the fat pipe that they have to the backbone. Whether they use 10% or 90% of the capacity of that pipe, it costs the same to them.
The only people who get charged per megabyte are the lowly customers of the ISPs. The ISPs are simply looking for an equitable (well, and profitable) way to divy up bandwidth costs among users, such that users who use larger chunks of bandwidth pay a proportionately larger amount of the total bandwidth cost.
Perhaps it's aimed at the youth market, but it is extremely useful to those of us who need to available to fix servers, even when away from access points. Last weekend, for example, I fixed a customer site from my seat at the Titans football game, by using the installed SSH client.
The point stands, of course. $400 is a "stupid tax" for those who don't plan ahead and just get unlimited data for $30.
I suppose I should have taken a picture of it, but I made a gingerbread Apple IIgs back in '97. The most interesting feature (innovation?) was the use of jolly ranchers as the screen: melted in the oven to form a smooth, consistent screen.
If you were fortunate enough to be attending Vanderbilt University at the time, you could have seen it displayed at the Vanderbilt Computer Store (now out of business).
I'm not denigrating his "contributions". However, if you believe that he has a serious shot at being elected President, you need to sit down and reconsider. I'm not opposed to Badnarik, per se, but this nation badly needs real third party candidates who can prove that in a sea of third party candidates who cannot even win a plurality of votes in their hometown that they can win enough states to win the electoral college. And this is the way to do it: run for and win local, state, and national offices BEFORE running for President.
Washington was elected Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army. So much for that argument.
And in any case, you're arguing against a fallacy. Nowhere did I articulate that we needed a government regulation to prevent people from running for President, only that the third party candidates should (and I mean should in terms of what they ought to do themselves) have been elected on a more local level before running for President.
My argument clearly only applies to modern times, and your reference to colonial-era presidents just shows exactly how nitpicky you have to be not to understand my point. And my point isn't to say that third party candidate ought not to run, period, only that they should have some experience on a more local level. It's a Recipe for Success, if you will.
Obviously, you can't read, "dumbass", since that's precisely the argument I articulated: that candidates running for a national office should (and I mean should in terms of what they ought to do if they expect to be taken seriously, not in terms of an actual government regulation) be elected to a previous political office before running for President.
This isn't a lack of logic. This is an argument to convince people who want to run as third party candidates as to what they must do, if they truly expect to be taken seriously when running for President. While I would personally very much like to see viable third party candidates, none in this cycle qualifies. (And really, what I'm trying to do is to articulate exactly what it means for a candidate to be viable, such that we can attack the viability problem and get some more candidates that actually have a chance of winning.)
Now on to your particular argument: while it's true that some people have succeeded in running for President without prior experience, they are relatively rare. Hoover held a national office, though not elected to it, before he ran for President. Roosevelt held multiple elected offices before he ran for President. Lincoln held office in the Illinois state legislature before running for President. Washington, Grant, and Eisenhower were all generals who had fought successful wars. That leaves Wilson, who had been elected without previously having held political office (or doing something even more impressive that put them into the national psyche). You're making my argument for me.
Perhaps, instead of spewing forth useless opinionated drivel, you should read the actual posting before responding. Nowhere did I say that these candidates should not be allowed to run, only that they should have some experience on a more local level, if they expect to be take seriously when they run for president.
Requirements for office are one thing. Expecting to win (not to mention convincing a plurality of voters to vote for you) is quite another.
So you're saying that people who have held office before are no longer ordinary citizens? That's ridiculous on its face.
And to say that the Founding Fathers didn't want career politicians is also ridiculous, as there simply weren't any career politicians at that time in history (unless you count the King of England, who isn't elected anyway).
This is what really bugs me about any third party candidate who professes they want to run for President: neither of these candidates have EVER been elected to ANY political office. Sure, they've run before, but they haven't ever succeeded. And while that's not required for you to run for President, it at least shows that you have a broad base of support in at least one jurisdiction.
Consider the two major party candidates:
Bush won an election to be the governor of Texas.
Kerry won an election to be a senator from Massachusetts.
I contend that we cannot consider ANY third party candidate to be truly serious about running for President until they have run for AND WON a race wherein the votes cast were made from a statewide race (i.e. senator, governor, state attorney general, etc.). From a standpoint of viability, how can any candidate expect to win multiple states if he or she cannot win even one state first?
And really, the only way for these third parties to be considered serious is for those same third parties to have a base of representatives who have succeeded 1) on the local level, 2) on the statewide level (i.e. state legislature), and 3) on the national level (i.e. Congress). Neither of these parties have done that.
This is the recipe for success for any third party or third party candidate. These are very specific goals that can be attained. By working for these goals, a party or candidate can truly show that they are serious about political office.
You obviously didn't read the thread. Microsoft's patent license is explicitly non-sublicenseable, which means that you may not redistribute to anybody who has not already accepted Microsoft's license (and by accept, I mean, printed it out, signed it, and faxed it back to Microsoft).
While that may not seem like a big deal to you, keep in mind that that's an incredible burden to place on freely distributed software, which would otherwise circulate quickly and freely.
It'd be like your IT dept telling you that YOU have to pay for your new 256 MB RAM card == you need it to do bidness.
Many companies already have this, although it doesn't come out of the employee's salary -- it comes out of their project budget. That's essentially the same thing, although perhaps not so direct. A similar proposal in this case might have the police department budget pay for wiretaps. The nice thing here is that the costs of harrassing people by wiretap is twofold: first, they experience a reduction in their overall budget; second, their inappropriate expenditures become public record -- that's a force to be reckoned with when it could cost the police chief (and through hierarchy, the officer) his job.
evidence planting to increase likelihood of gaining a conviction?
Nothing new there. No, I'm not suggesting that police officers plant evidence on a regular basis, but it does go on, no matter what measures the law has in place to stop it.
Strange partnerings? The prosecutors & police officers are already partnered and interdependent. Police investigate crime; prosecutors take the perpetrators to court.
I haven't found what I think is the optimal solution to this problem of wiretapping. If a police officer or detective wants to have a phone tapped, and a judge agrees, then the money
for hooking up the tap should come directly out of the police officer's salary. If he or she really believes the wiretap will get them that conviction, they'll gladly shoulder the monetary burden. On the other hand, this will prevent abuses of the wiretap system, as an officer of the law who does not believe the wiretap will be useful won't ask for the wiretap.
And if it's too expensive, well, hey, the officer can surely find another way to get that conviction, right? Wiretap becomes a tool of last resort, which really protects the public from abuse of the system.
not to lend credibility to the lawsuit or it's legitimacy but people who want personal pages that are not for commercial use should be using the.us TLD (if you live in the USA or your respective country TLD)..com is for commercial entities.
That may be an appropriate policy today (it's actually not a policy of any domain registrar, so it would be tough to make that case in court), but you're also missing the plain part of the matter, in that.us domain names were not available to the general public back in 1996, which is when katie.com was registered. Getting a.us domain is only a fairly recent development.
Beyond that, it's the position of the administrators of the.net,.com, and.org TLDs that they will NOT police who may obtain and/or use these domains. So your argument that individuals should use.us is not only not correct historically, it has no basis in fact today, either.
What makes you think weather satellite transmissions would remain unencrypted if the weather industry lobbyists succeed in preventing the NWS from providing direct free weather information over the internet?
Because upgrading satellite firmware is not just something you do casually. Not to mention that it would break every existing application out there, which means all the private companies would need to rewrite their applications to use the new format, which is definitely not in their financial interest.
The argument here is not for changing the format to a private encrypted stream; it's for not changing the format at all (something the NWS wants to do to enable more people to read their data).
Slashdot Mirror
I think you mean "A Modest Proposal" by Jonathan Swift. It most certainly can be found on the Internet.
Interestingly enough, if you cross out the text before you send it in, the clauses cease to be part of the contract, and they have no legal leg to stand on. If they receive the card with the text crossed out (which is what they're using as their contract with you), they saw it when they typed your information in their system, which is quite fair. If they don't like your terms, they don't have accept your money, and they certainly don't have to send you a subscription. Of course, accepting your money means that they agree to whatever final terms you submitted to them.
And people wonder why small tornadoes so easily decimate communities.
It doesn't really matter what the technique is; if the effect is that the ISP's VOIP works better than third-party VOIP due to an action taken by the ISP, it's going to be seen as anticompetitive.
As usual, Cringely is splitting hairs to get traffic on his column.
The only people who get charged per megabyte are the lowly customers of the ISPs. The ISPs are simply looking for an equitable (well, and profitable) way to divy up bandwidth costs among users, such that users who use larger chunks of bandwidth pay a proportionately larger amount of the total bandwidth cost.
Except that that was Dvorak, not Cringely. Same FUD, different author.
Not even so. Konqueror isn't vulnerable, either.
And the proper response to this is, of course, "Who you gonna sue? The paperclip? The paperclip?!!. Because obviously, you can't sue Microsoft." ;-)
The point stands, of course. $400 is a "stupid tax" for those who don't plan ahead and just get unlimited data for $30.
If you were fortunate enough to be attending Vanderbilt University at the time, you could have seen it displayed at the Vanderbilt Computer Store (now out of business).
When was senator an executive office?
You're quite simply incorrect. Lincoln held office in the Illinois state legislature before being elected President.
I'm not denigrating his "contributions". However, if you believe that he has a serious shot at being elected President, you need to sit down and reconsider. I'm not opposed to Badnarik, per se, but this nation badly needs real third party candidates who can prove that in a sea of third party candidates who cannot even win a plurality of votes in their hometown that they can win enough states to win the electoral college. And this is the way to do it: run for and win local, state, and national offices BEFORE running for President.
And in any case, you're arguing against a fallacy. Nowhere did I articulate that we needed a government regulation to prevent people from running for President, only that the third party candidates should (and I mean should in terms of what they ought to do themselves) have been elected on a more local level before running for President.
My argument clearly only applies to modern times, and your reference to colonial-era presidents just shows exactly how nitpicky you have to be not to understand my point. And my point isn't to say that third party candidate ought not to run, period, only that they should have some experience on a more local level. It's a Recipe for Success, if you will.
Obviously, you can't read, "dumbass", since that's precisely the argument I articulated: that candidates running for a national office should (and I mean should in terms of what they ought to do if they expect to be taken seriously, not in terms of an actual government regulation) be elected to a previous political office before running for President.
Now on to your particular argument: while it's true that some people have succeeded in running for President without prior experience, they are relatively rare. Hoover held a national office, though not elected to it, before he ran for President. Roosevelt held multiple elected offices before he ran for President. Lincoln held office in the Illinois state legislature before running for President. Washington, Grant, and Eisenhower were all generals who had fought successful wars. That leaves Wilson, who had been elected without previously having held political office (or doing something even more impressive that put them into the national psyche). You're making my argument for me.
Requirements for office are one thing. Expecting to win (not to mention convincing a plurality of voters to vote for you) is quite another.
And to say that the Founding Fathers didn't want career politicians is also ridiculous, as there simply weren't any career politicians at that time in history (unless you count the King of England, who isn't elected anyway).
Consider the two major party candidates:
I contend that we cannot consider ANY third party candidate to be truly serious about running for President until they have run for AND WON a race wherein the votes cast were made from a statewide race (i.e. senator, governor, state attorney general, etc.). From a standpoint of viability, how can any candidate expect to win multiple states if he or she cannot win even one state first?
And really, the only way for these third parties to be considered serious is for those same third parties to have a base of representatives who have succeeded 1) on the local level, 2) on the statewide level (i.e. state legislature), and 3) on the national level (i.e. Congress). Neither of these parties have done that.
This is the recipe for success for any third party or third party candidate. These are very specific goals that can be attained. By working for these goals, a party or candidate can truly show that they are serious about political office.
mailing a signed copy to Microsoft or,
faxing a signed copy to Microsoft.
You obviously didn't read the thread. Microsoft's patent license is explicitly non-sublicenseable, which means that you may not redistribute to anybody who has not already accepted Microsoft's license (and by accept, I mean, printed it out, signed it, and faxed it back to Microsoft).
While that may not seem like a big deal to you, keep in mind that that's an incredible burden to place on freely distributed software, which would otherwise circulate quickly and freely.
Many companies already have this, although it doesn't come out of the employee's salary -- it comes out of their project budget. That's essentially the same thing, although perhaps not so direct. A similar proposal in this case might have the police department budget pay for wiretaps. The nice thing here is that the costs of harrassing people by wiretap is twofold: first, they experience a reduction in their overall budget; second, their inappropriate expenditures become public record -- that's a force to be reckoned with when it could cost the police chief (and through hierarchy, the officer) his job.
evidence planting to increase likelihood of gaining a conviction?
Nothing new there. No, I'm not suggesting that police officers plant evidence on a regular basis, but it does go on, no matter what measures the law has in place to stop it.
strange partnerings b/n prosecutors & police officers?
Strange partnerings? The prosecutors & police officers are already partnered and interdependent. Police investigate crime; prosecutors take the perpetrators to court.
And if it's too expensive, well, hey, the officer can surely find another way to get that conviction, right? Wiretap becomes a tool of last resort, which really protects the public from abuse of the system.
That may be an appropriate policy today (it's actually not a policy of any domain registrar, so it would be tough to make that case in court), but you're also missing the plain part of the matter, in that .us domain names were not available to the general public back in 1996, which is when katie.com was registered. Getting a .us domain is only a fairly recent development.
Beyond that, it's the position of the administrators of the .net, .com, and .org TLDs that they will NOT police who may obtain and/or use these domains. So your argument that individuals should use .us is not only not correct historically, it has no basis in fact today, either.
Because upgrading satellite firmware is not just something you do casually. Not to mention that it would break every existing application out there, which means all the private companies would need to rewrite their applications to use the new format, which is definitely not in their financial interest.
The argument here is not for changing the format to a private encrypted stream; it's for not changing the format at all (something the NWS wants to do to enable more people to read their data).