Again, the reaction to the lawsuits is not a improvement in the quality of life (or coffee) it's the appearance of "Caution: Hot" labels and their ilk. Our life is so cluttered with the legal trappings like the "Air Bags can Kill" stickers on my visor that the real dangers and real liabilities are lost in the storm.
This, including the other statements you make, are the result of a misunderstanding of how all of these events really turned out (thanks mostly in part to popular media pushing their view that all lawyers are scum).
Huh? Coffee cups DO have "Attention: Hot" written on them. And not just McDonalds cups. How this came about is not my "misunderstanding", it's all the coffee sellers in the world trying to protect themselves.
If, on the other hand, you were correct and this was just media FUD -- McDonalds would have just turned down the temperature in their coffee machines and everybody else would have checked their temperatures and made sure they were reasonable.
But the system is not reasonable. So companies need disclaimers.
That's my point -- the initial lawsuit may not have been unreasonable but the after math and the continuing chilling effect is the problem.
The legal system which has always been somewhat parasitic, has now reached the point where it is killing the host. The amount of effort the legal system consumes is reaching an unviable level.
Schools have to tear down playgrounds because of fears of lawsuits. My kids can't go on field trips without a 4 page medical release. My kids can't attend GYM CLASS without a
waiver where we acknowledge that gym includes strenous
physical activity.
OB GYNs can't sneeze without ending up in court. People injured in car accidents get millions in settlements.
Coffee cups have "Attention: Hot" printed down the sides of
them. Radio ads include a "high speed small print" ramble at
the end of them. There is an asterix and small print on everything around me. Half the price of football helmets
is to pay for the companies lawsuits and insurance.
The patent system is just another example. The copyright system is just another example.
As a society we need a rework.
Thanks! Now my wife's iMac is safe ...
on
iMac G5 Porn Roundup
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Thanks for posting this!
Now when ours arrives tomorrow I'll be able to resist the urge to open it up and see what's inside.
This article is not a troll. This is a very cleverly written ad for Barracuda.
Re:It ends when they get some tech folks in there
on
More Microsoft Patents
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· Score: 2, Interesting
What do the major American CEOs care? They're moving it overseas anyway! Maybe that's what they want. They don't even have to worry if it costs them a few hundred million USD every now and then, they're still richer than the whole rest of the world combined(possibly an exaggeration, but maybe not...).
There is some hope -- the current generation of young people can't get jobs except at Walmart or McDonalds -- they're just not out there. People are starting to clue into this.
The problem is that the US (and Canada to some extent) is shipping all the blue collar jobs to 3rd world countries, good for CEO's etc. Bad for the lower middle class.
Next election I think this will be the biggest issue in both Canada and the US.
Interesting timing -- I just spent a few hours this weekend bouncing around Wikipedia and was asking myself these exact same questions.
However, I read several dozen articles yesterday, mostly for topics I know a fair amount about, and found the site surprisingly accurate and informative and well written.
I wouldn't want to trust anything that is too far off the beaten path though...
SPF was not, by itself, intended to stop spam. It was intended to stop spoofing and phishing (ie. somebody claiming to be from Citi Bank asking you to update your info).
However, once SPF is adopted it allows several things:
Whitelisting of well known domains that use spf (eg. ge.com, ibm.com, etc)
Blacklisting of well known spammers who use spf (ie. workable rbls)
More aggressive spam content filtering of everybody who isn't using SPF -- after all you've whitelisted a LOT of the important people already.
I fully expect the anti-spam vendors to eventually come up with reliable whitelists based upon SPF eventually.
Mail Firewalls are an entire business sector with many companies competing in this space. This space is tracked by Gartner and Meta Group. How in the hell is this revolutionary?
Just a reminder folks, Lake Ontario is one of the Great Lakes, it's REALLY big. Like you can't see the other side of it from the shore line. Big. Really big. Like it's huge. Average depth of 86 meters, surface area of almost 19000 km2. Big.
Did I mention it's big?
Plus water turns over automatically at 4C (that's the temperature when water is it's coldest). Lake Ontario is not meromictic and has a natural turnover anyways.
There is a significant difference between the judiciary choosing not to observe a right and that right not existing. As you say it's illegal and hence civil disobedience but not necessarily not within your rights to do. Thanks for clarifying.
In poor countries an entire village will save up to buy a radio or tv. Entertainment is something you're willing to eat less for a few weeks for.
Also, a lot of poor people are poor because they are poor decision makers. This extends into buying food at the corner store for much more than at the grocery store further down the street and to buying prepared foods that are much more expensive then buying the ingredients separately and freezing the leftovers for another day.
So, these people need lots of help with their decision making abilities AND they probably skimped and saved for a used PC or Nintendo for their kids. This sounds like a great idea.
FUD? If there wasn't smog the serious condition wouldn't be aggravated to "fatal".
I'm a "don't care about smokers with lung cancer" type of guy but some of those poor bastards with an "already-serious" medical condition are just elderly people who don't deserve to die even a couple of years earlier.
Considering that it is estimated that smog kills 1000-1500 people a year here in Toronto alone, concern about how this may set back alternative transportation options is less callous than you seem to believe.
I'm not sure how much I trust a spam solution from somebody who doesn't have the mathematical ability to understand the Slashdot effect but here goes anyway...
From a life form analogy perspective Spam is not evolutionary, it's more an example of intelligent design.
The problem with the proposed method of detecting spam is that spam changes often. It is mutated to get by Spam Assassin, Brightmail and Spam Bayes. This is just another attempt to get ahead of the spammer on the treadmill.
You need to change the tokenizer regularily, you need to handle invisible ink, etc. etc.
This solution has the added difficulty of the training of the neural network -- how long does that take? Something like Spam Bayes starts recognizing new spam after a few messages of the new type.
I think the biggest thing the could do is eliminate obvious solutions to obvious problems.
The one-click patent is such a good example because it's the first solution you would come up with if asked "How do I make it easy for customers to buy product?" and that is an obvious question for marketing guys to ask...
You should only be able to patent something that
Is a non-obvious solution to a common or known problem.
Is a solution to an non-obvious problem.
This would elminate the bulk of the problems with patents.
MS is acknowledging that they have been leap frogged only so they can announce that they are back in the lead with SP2!
Their reputation is so bad right now that without a clear
admission of how bad it is nobody will believe them when they announce SP2 "fixes everything".
I notice the timing is really close to SP2 coming out...
Look for QA/Test/Support roles at medium to small companies. Our company often moves ambitious, smart and hard working people out of QA/Test/Support into Development, Product Marketing or Sales Engineering.
The key is once you get into these roles work yourself out of them and into better positions. If you try to whine, complain, or brag yourself out of them it won't work.
It's also important these be small companies or small departments -- large companies usually don't care if Junior Support Technician #2679 is performing in the 98th percentile this week.
Slashdot Mirror
Wow, even my rednecked father has stop using this particular turn of phrase ...
Again, the reaction to the lawsuits is not a improvement in the quality of life (or coffee) it's the appearance of "Caution: Hot" labels and their ilk. Our life is so cluttered with the legal trappings like the "Air Bags can Kill" stickers on my visor that the real dangers and real liabilities are lost in the storm.
Huh? Coffee cups DO have "Attention: Hot" written on them. And not just McDonalds cups. How this came about is not my "misunderstanding", it's all the coffee sellers in the world trying to protect themselves.
If, on the other hand, you were correct and this was just media FUD -- McDonalds would have just turned down the temperature in their coffee machines and everybody else would have checked their temperatures and made sure they were reasonable.
But the system is not reasonable. So companies need disclaimers.
That's my point -- the initial lawsuit may not have been unreasonable but the after math and the continuing chilling effect is the problem.
Speaking of which -- I just heard there is a new video game Asterix & Obelix: Kick Buttix that makes me want to buy a playstation.
Schools have to tear down playgrounds because of fears of lawsuits. My kids can't go on field trips without a 4 page medical release. My kids can't attend GYM CLASS without a waiver where we acknowledge that gym includes strenous physical activity.
OB GYNs can't sneeze without ending up in court. People injured in car accidents get millions in settlements.
Coffee cups have "Attention: Hot" printed down the sides of them. Radio ads include a "high speed small print" ramble at the end of them. There is an asterix and small print on everything around me. Half the price of football helmets is to pay for the companies lawsuits and insurance.
The patent system is just another example. The copyright system is just another example.
As a society we need a rework.
Now when ours arrives tomorrow I'll be able to resist the urge to open it up and see what's inside.
Well, hopefully.
I pointed out that if MY software screwed up, somebodies brain surgery could go terribly, tragically wrong.
That shut him up :-)
This article is not a troll. This is a very cleverly written ad for Barracuda.
There is some hope -- the current generation of young people can't get jobs except at Walmart or McDonalds -- they're just not out there. People are starting to clue into this.
The problem is that the US (and Canada to some extent) is shipping all the blue collar jobs to 3rd world countries, good for CEO's etc. Bad for the lower middle class.
Next election I think this will be the biggest issue in both Canada and the US.
However, I read several dozen articles yesterday, mostly for topics I know a fair amount about, and found the site surprisingly accurate and informative and well written.
I wouldn't want to trust anything that is too far off the beaten path though ...
However, once SPF is adopted it allows several things:
I fully expect the anti-spam vendors to eventually come up with reliable whitelists based upon SPF eventually.
Hell, there's even a product called the Mail Firewall that pops up if you google for mail firewall.
Yep, highest denisty is at 4C, that's why lakes turnover as the temp drops -- Doh!
Doh! That's the temperature when water is it's DENSEST :-)
Did I mention it's big?
Plus water turns over automatically at 4C (that's the temperature when water is it's coldest). Lake Ontario is not meromictic and has a natural turnover anyways.
There is a significant difference between the judiciary choosing not to observe a right and that right not existing. As you say it's illegal and hence civil disobedience but not necessarily not within your rights to do. Thanks for clarifying.
Are you implying that if there is a law requiring you to identify yourself you lose the right not to not have to identify yourself?
Also, a lot of poor people are poor because they are poor decision makers. This extends into buying food at the corner store for much more than at the grocery store further down the street and to buying prepared foods that are much more expensive then buying the ingredients separately and freezing the leftovers for another day.
So, these people need lots of help with their decision making abilities AND they probably skimped and saved for a used PC or Nintendo for their kids. This sounds like a great idea.
I must apologize -- I forgot Slashdot was peer reviewed :-/
I'm a "don't care about smokers with lung cancer" type of guy but some of those poor bastards with an "already-serious" medical condition are just elderly people who don't deserve to die even a couple of years earlier.
Needs of the few etc. etc.
From a life form analogy perspective Spam is not evolutionary, it's more an example of intelligent design.
The problem with the proposed method of detecting spam is that spam changes often. It is mutated to get by Spam Assassin, Brightmail and Spam Bayes. This is just another attempt to get ahead of the spammer on the treadmill.
You need to change the tokenizer regularily, you need to handle invisible ink, etc. etc.
This solution has the added difficulty of the training of the neural network -- how long does that take? Something like Spam Bayes starts recognizing new spam after a few messages of the new type.
The one-click patent is such a good example because it's the first solution you would come up with if asked "How do I make it easy for customers to buy product?" and that is an obvious question for marketing guys to ask ...
You should only be able to patent something that
This would elminate the bulk of the problems with patents.
Their reputation is so bad right now that without a clear admission of how bad it is nobody will believe them when they announce SP2 "fixes everything".
I notice the timing is really close to SP2 coming out ...
Or, maybe I've been reading /. too long ...
The key is once you get into these roles work yourself out of them and into better positions. If you try to whine, complain, or brag yourself out of them it won't work.
It's also important these be small companies or small departments -- large companies usually don't care if Junior Support Technician #2679 is performing in the 98th percentile this week.