Here's one of my pet peeves in full operation. A learning curve has two axes: the x axis is time, and the y axis is amount learned. A steep learning curve is one where the amount of learning goes up quickly in a short amount of time; that is, it represents ease of learning. Conversely, a shallow learning curve means the rate of increase is less over the same amount of time--learning is more difficult. The OP/FA gets this exactly backward.
I guess the correct usage of this phrase has a shallow learning curve. {Prof. Jonathan}
Just got this for my laptop, but it's domestic only. You'd need a voltage converter, not just a plug adapter, to use outside of the US. I'm about to travel to Denmark from the U.S., and happily, both my laptop and my Palm T|X have multivoltage chargers. I just need the plug adapters and I'll be all set. (I have a brain-dead Verizon cellphone that doesn't work overseas, so I'm not even bringing it). {Prof. Jonathan}
Even as cynical as I am about Karl Rove and the Bush Administration's disdain for the intelligence of the American people, Rumsfeld's resignation, and more specifically the timing of it, represents a new low for that crew. What, they think we can't figure out that they are trying (in vain) to distract the American people from the taking of both houses of Congress by Democrats, by placing a new news item at the top of CNN's Web page?
Rumsfeld was incompetent, and could very well face investigation and even charges, as could other senior members of the Administration. But don't read any more into today's announcement than crass political strategy. If Rumsfeld was unacceptable as Secretary of Defense today, he was at least as unacceptable last week, last month, and last year. Having this happen today is blatant and insulting. {Prof. Jonathan}
I agree with the person who posted that downloading and uploading are very different potential offenses; consider the difference between drug use and drug sales (or distribution). Another point to consider is that the law in Spain may not consider copyright infringement criminal if no money is earned. This used to be the situation in the U.S., which is why an MIT student named David LaMacchia was found not guilty of wire fraud in 1994. At that time, even massive distribution of copyrighted material was not a crime, if no money was made, and U.S. District Judge Richard Stearns said what had happened wasn't wire fraud but non-criminal copyright infringement. As Judge Stearns wrote in his opinion,
This is not, of course, to suggest that there is anything edifying about what LaMacchia is alleged to have done. If the indictment is to be believed, one might at best describe his actions as heedlessly irresponsible. and at worst as nihilistic, self-indulgent, and lacking in any fundamental sense of values. Criminal as well as civil penalties should probably attach to willful, multiple infringements of copyrighted software even absent a commercial motive on the part of the infringer. One can envision ways that the copyright law could be modified to permit such prosecution. But, "'[i]t is the legislature, not the Court which is to define a crime, and ordain its punishment.'" Dowling, supra at 214 (quoting United States v. Wiltberger, 5 Wheat. 76, 95 (1820)).
In fact, the U.S. Congress took Judge Stearns up on his suggestion, adding the concept of commercial value and intent to profit to the criminal portion of the U.S. Copyright Law in the No Electronic Theft Act.
If anyone wants to learn more about the technology, it can be helpful to look at the patents themselves. A quick search on Antek and Anil (the company and one of the inventors' names respectively) turned up these three patents, which likely cover the technology in question.
May be a useful thing to read. {Prof. Jonathan Ezor, Touro Law Center}
Of course, if Spamhaus ever wanted to do a deal to be acquired by a U.S.-operating company, this could become a very big issue. Imagine the acquisition agreement: "Spamhaus hereby represents and warrants to Acquiror that it has no outstanding unpaid judgments, liabilities, claims, debts or obligations." Umm......?
Pacer's pretty cheap, but anyway, if you want to see the judge's current order, here it is:
"This matter comes before the court on the motion of Plaintiff e360 Insight, LLC ("e360"), for a rule to show cause why Defendant The Spamhaus Project ("Spamhaus") should not be held in contempt for failure to comply with the injunction issued by this court on September 13, 2006.
Spamhaus has not appeared to defend the allegations against it in this case, but on October 13, 2006, it filed a notice of appeal in the Seventh Circuit seeking review of the default judgment entered on the same date as the injunction. Ordinarily, the filing of a notice of appeal divests a district court of jurisdiction to consider further matters in a case before it. See Griggs v. Provident Consumer Discount Co., 459 U.S. 56, 58, 103 S. Ct. 400, 402 (1982). However, this rule does not extend to questions regarding compliance with an injunction whose effect has not been stayed. See Union Oil Co. of California v. Leavell, 220 F.3d 562, 565-66 (7th Cir. 2000). Thus, we retain jurisdiction to consider the instant motion.
In its moving papers, e360 requested three forms of relief for the claimed noncompliance: first, suspension of Spamhaus's domain name until it complies with the terms of the injunction; second, steps to prevent third parties from accessing Spamhaus's technology or permission to add them as defendants to this suit if they continue to do so; and third, a monetary sanction against Spamhaus for each day that it fails to comply with the injunction. When e360 appeared in court to present the motion, we noted the breadth of the requested relief and directed e360 to submit a draft order that was more tailored.
The proposed order is limited to only the first remedy, suspension of the domain name by The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers ("ICANN"), the entity responsible for coordinating unique identifiers used for Internet communication, or Tucows, Inc., the registrar through which Spamhaus obtained its domain name. Neither of these outfits are parties to this case. Though more circumscribed than the preceding request, this relief is still too broad to be warranted in this case. First, there has been no indication that ICANN or Tucows are not independent entities, thus preventing a conclusion that either is acting in concert with Spamhaus to such a level that they could be brought within the ambit of Fed. R. Civ. P. 65(d). Though our ability to enforce an injunction is not necessarily coterminous with the rule, the limitations on its scope inform an exercise of our power to address contempt. See, e.g., Rockwell Graphic Systems, Inc. v. DEV Industries, Inc., 91 F.3d 914, 920 (7th Cir. 1996). Second, the suspension would cut off all lawful online activities of Spamhaus via its existing domain name, not just those that are in contravention of this court's order. While we will not condone or tolerate noncompliance with a valid order of this court, neither will we impose a sanction that does not correspond to the gravity of the offending conduct.
Accordingly, the motion for a rule to show cause is denied without prejudice.
Dated: October 19, 2006 CHARLES P. KOCORAS U.S. District Court Judge"
The issue with assuming all of the new cases (and it is an explosion) are due to better diagnoses is that you would then expect to see the same number of adults who had not been diagnosed as children. We just don't see it, or anywhere close to it, even counting in the Aspies out there. Even the biggest skeptics of some of the causation theories agree that there has been a tremendous increase in kids on the autism spectrum; they just don't agree on why it's happened. {Jonathan}
Regarding the above--if the medical establishment were willing to generate more doses of individual vaccines (that is, M, M, and R instead of bombarding children with three at once), many of us who are parents of older autistic children (and therefore have at least some legitimate concern about genetic predisposition to overwhelmed immune systems and neurological damages) would be more willing to vaccinate their younger siblings. We worked with our pediatrician to get individual vaccines for our younger children, but many doctors won't make the effort (and the individual doses are hard to come by). As for the "refrigerator mother" nonsense, anyone who has seen how the mothers (and fathers) of autistic children fight for the kids instantly knows that's a lot of bullcrap.
The problem with research into issues like mercury/heavy metal toxicity, vaccine oversenstivity and other anecdotally-supported autism triggers is that there are likely multiple causes, subtle genetic predispositions and *most* children will not be affected. Instead of trying to disprove legitimate ideas in support of the pharmaceutical establishment, perhaps researchers should instead look for commonalities among autistic kids and try to work from there.
As for the original story, it is important to remember that "correlation does not imply causality." Perhaps there is a statistical correlation between cable television availability and autism diagnoses, but it doesn't mean that the first caused the second. Perhaps those parents with pre-diagnosis kids, who tended to be calmer and happier being visually stimulated, gravitated toward areas with cable (although the authors tend to disagree with that interpretation). Perhaps the growth of cable television paralleled the expansion of other environmental changes which might have neurological impact, such as transformers, industrialization, or the increase in knowledge about autism which might lead to more parents obtaining services (and therefore diagnoses) for the kids. Perhaps cable did cause autism, although it does seem unlikely. Whether or not I think the conclusion makes sense, though, I'm pleased with more scientific research taking atypical directions, in the hopes that somewhere down the line, we will have a better handle on the multiple causes of autism, and will maybe as a society be willing to move in the direction of reducing the impact of those causes. {Jonathan}
"In order to terminate some persistent spam operations the SBL team occasionally needs to escalate a listing and it is in the application of an escalation that 'collateral damage' can occur. Once a known spam operation is blocked, the SBL team then attempts to open dialogue with the ISP providing service to the spammer and assists the ISP with collating evidence to terminate the spammer. In rare instances the ISP turns out to be knowingly assisting the spam operation for profit. In these cases the SBL Team may deem the ISP itself to be the 'Spam Support Service' and may escalate by listing the ISPs corporate resources (such as corporate mail servers), determined on a case-by-case basis to focus action on the ISPs executives and always with the primary objective of avoiding blocking legitimate customers."
I've seen this been threatened with clients, who were not themselves spammers. Beyond that, even the mere notion that "the SBL Team may deem the ISP" to be a "Spam Support Service" and the concept that blocking the ISP's other customers is to "focus action on the ISPs executives and always with the primary objective of avoiding blocking legitimate customers." (my emphasis added) smacks of non-accountability. These aren't objective standards; they are tactics.
I much prefer the Cloudmark collaborative model to Spamhaus' "We're right, you're wrong, and we're judgment proof" approach. {Prof. Jonathan}
And what if this wasn't spamming? Spamhaus is completely unaccountable, and I have seen them make mistakes. I have also seen them threaten hosting companies with listing all of the host's customers as spammers if one particular one doesn't stopped spamming.
Spam is a plague, but overzealous filtering can be a major problem as well. More to the point, if Spamhaus isn't willing to comply with U.S. law and its legal system, perhaps those ISPs and mail server operators who use Spamhaus' block lists might want to find a more reputable source for their spam filters. {Prof. Jonathan}
I'd strongly recommend what I use, which is a Palm T|X with a 4GB SD card. The T|X itself has great features: 320x480 screen, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, stereo with standard headphone jack, solid battery life, 128 MB of NVRAM, in-box compatibility with not only popular PIMs but MS Office files in native format. Add to that a 4 GB SD card (available for about $65 or less after rebate at Newegg.com--I use the Transcend one), and you've got enough add-on storage (which supports hierarchical folders) to store a whole bunch of multimedia as well as documents. The PalmOS isn't the most sophisticated, but it makes up for that with speed, simplicity, stability, and thousands of apps. Mac compatibility comes through apps like MarkSpace's Missing Sync, and the Palm user community is tremendously supportive, including sites like PalmAddict (for which I'm a volunteer Associate Writer). Add a Bluetooth keyboard like the compact ThinkOutside model, and you've got a serious laptop replacement that will play well with campus wireless networks.
If you need any other info., feel free to e-mail me. {Prof. Jonathan}
Copyright isn't only about copying; as a general matter, the owner of a copyright controls many different uses of the copyrighted works, including use, public performance, transmission, etc. Just check out Section 106 of the U.S. Copyright law, aka 17 USC 106. {Prof. Jonathan}
Dan C. played a theme park character walkarounder actor who overheated in the big headed suit, then removed his head (traumatizing a child) to throw up. He was fired, and sued for wrongful discharge. The in-joke in the episode was that the character "he" was playing was Homer Simpson. {Prof. Jonathan}
It's not something I can update there, given that the site belongs to BusinessWeek. I'm aware how much has changed (most notably the leap from a single registrar to many of them) but the concepts (research the procedure; document the process; consider the followup) remain fairly valid, I think. I appreciate the offer
I won't comment on the business issue (if it's worth it for you to have that name, the price is actually fairly reasonable), but make sure you document the deal properly. Sign an agreement for the sale that requires the seller to go through the appropriate registrar's process, and make sure you don't pay until the process is moving along. Make sure the seller says it has the rights to the name, and that it will cover your costs (i.e. indemnify you) if someone comes to sue you because the seller was actually an illegal cybersquatter. Also, make sure that, as soon as the name is switched, the seller takes all reference to it out of its print and digital materials.
You can see a really old article I wrote about the process on the BusinessWeek Web site. I hope it's helpful. {Jonathan}
There is actually a model prototype warp core, blue lights a-flashing, along with a picture of the Enterprise-D at Long Island's Cradle of Aviation Museum. It's the final exhibit in the History of Aviation, perched on the wall near the exit to the hall. I always appreciate the joke. {Jonathan}
Because there's a little thing called trademark law, which allows people to build brands within particular industry segments and (more to the point) allows consumers to know that if they bought Brand X photocopiers last week and had a good experience, Brand X photocopiers this week probably come from the same company and may result in the same experience. As I tell my law students, "trademark law is about identifying the source of goods or services in commerce." You can also see the information on the USPTO Web site.
Trademark law is about consumer confusion, and in fact, trademark cases often hinge on surveys of actual consumers.
One little hook about trademark law--the industry segments thing is crucial. A few years ago, a restaurant in New York City opened, calling itself Godzilla Sushi. Unfortunately, Toho, the Japanese company that made the Godzilla movies and owns the trademark, had a registration (now expired) for the mark in the same international category of goods that included restaurants. Today, Godzilla Sushi is Monster Sushi.
"You asshats lobbied and bribed to get laws in most states to threaten and scare average people off from trying to understand the law without paying your exhorbitant fees."
Nonsense. There isn't a law around that prohibits anyone from from "trying to understand the law." You want to understand the law? There's likely a public law library near your home or office--feel free to drop in and read a bunch. Or check out the many collections of law on this here Internet thingy. The issue is whether you can represent other people without a license from your state and (*not* incidentally) without being on the hook for things like legal malpractice and ethical violations.
I'm not about to defend all lawyers, and I am one (and teach at a law school to boot). There are scummy lawyers out there, just as there are scummy doctors and software engineers and postal workers. (I have a particular disrespect for those class action lawyers who advertise for cases, win a $.30 coupon in a settlement for each of their millions of aggrieved clients, and pocket 1/3 of the total coupon payout as actual dollars themselves.) And yes, many laws are written as jobs programs for lawyers, and many laws are written poorly (but then again, so are many software programs, and they often require high-paid experts to make them work right again). But don't ignore the fact that you always can represent yourself in court (it's called pro se), whether or not it's a good idea strategically, and that courts often have offices set up to help you do so.
Maybe I'm just responding to trollbait in the parent post, but I am also 110% certain that if the parent poster ever was injured by someone, particularly someone with deep pockets, he'd swallow his hatred for lawyers quickly enough and run to hire one to bring a lawsuit. {Prof. Jonathan}
I'm a big PalmOS user (going on 10 years) and supporter; the fact is that, for everything short of full computing, and especially for basic PIM apps, the PalmOS is still faster and more stable (most of the time, but I'll get to that in a second) than PocketPC. The one major exception to the foregoing is the LifeDrive. Great idea, but one design flaw big enough to drive an Edsel through: main system RAM is disk-based. Yep, that's right, while the LifeDrive supposedly has 64 MB of RAM (which is plenty, given how efficient and small most apps are), that's actually a partition on the built-in hard drive; there's a limited amount of high-speed cache RAM in the LifeDrive, and apps keep having to move chunks of program and data back and forth. It's a kludge, a bad kludge, and it's likely responsible for the LifeDrive's ongoing stability issues. I have no idea what the geniuses at Palm were thinking when they decided to leave physical RAM out of the unit. Maybe somebody just forgot?
I'm awaiting a Palm T|X (128 MB of non-volatile RAM, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, 320x480 screen) to replace my LifeDrive, and I'm sure it'll do me just fine. My Palm PDAs serve me as e-mail devices, video players, word processors, organizers...basically everything that doesn't need a full-sized screen. They're light, have decent battery life, are inexpensive (LifeDrive excepted), stable (ditto), and have a tremendously large user base.
Would I like some more sophistication in the PalmOS, particularly multitasking? Sure! But I don't want to substitute speed and stability for it. The PalmOS has, over its 10-year life span, done a decent job of balancing new features with continued speed of use, and I hope there's a future where this continues. {Prof. Jonathan}
Slashdot Mirror
Here's one of my pet peeves in full operation. A learning curve has two axes: the x axis is time, and the y axis is amount learned. A steep learning curve is one where the amount of learning goes up quickly in a short amount of time; that is, it represents ease of learning. Conversely, a shallow learning curve means the rate of increase is less over the same amount of time--learning is more difficult. The OP/FA gets this exactly backward.
I guess the correct usage of this phrase has a shallow learning curve. {Prof. Jonathan}
Just got this for my laptop, but it's domestic only. You'd need a voltage converter, not just a plug adapter, to use outside of the US. I'm about to travel to Denmark from the U.S., and happily, both my laptop and my Palm T|X have multivoltage chargers. I just need the plug adapters and I'll be all set. (I have a brain-dead Verizon cellphone that doesn't work overseas, so I'm not even bringing it). {Prof. Jonathan}
There's always "TV Pow" (or Pix, as it was on WPIX in NY). No hands needed, if you're using a speakerphone! :) {Prof. Jonathan}
Even as cynical as I am about Karl Rove and the Bush Administration's disdain for the intelligence of the American people, Rumsfeld's resignation, and more specifically the timing of it, represents a new low for that crew. What, they think we can't figure out that they are trying (in vain) to distract the American people from the taking of both houses of Congress by Democrats, by placing a new news item at the top of CNN's Web page?
Rumsfeld was incompetent, and could very well face investigation and even charges, as could other senior members of the Administration. But don't read any more into today's announcement than crass political strategy. If Rumsfeld was unacceptable as Secretary of Defense today, he was at least as unacceptable last week, last month, and last year. Having this happen today is blatant and insulting. {Prof. Jonathan}
In fact, the U.S. Congress took Judge Stearns up on his suggestion, adding the concept of commercial value and intent to profit to the criminal portion of the U.S. Copyright Law in the No Electronic Theft Act.
I would not be surprised to see the Spanish law changed to close this loophole as well. {Prof. Jonathan Ezor, Touro Law Center Institute for Business, Law and Technology}
If anyone wants to learn more about the technology, it can be helpful to look at the patents themselves. A quick search on Antek and Anil (the company and one of the inventors' names respectively) turned up these three patents, which likely cover the technology in question.
May be a useful thing to read. {Prof. Jonathan Ezor, Touro Law Center}
Here's my first offering:
The cow spoke.
I went vegetarian. {Prof. Jonathan}
Of course, if Spamhaus ever wanted to do a deal to be acquired by a U.S.-operating company, this could become a very big issue. Imagine the acquisition agreement: "Spamhaus hereby represents and warrants to Acquiror that it has no outstanding unpaid judgments, liabilities, claims, debts or obligations." Umm......?
Pacer's pretty cheap, but anyway, if you want to see the judge's current order, here it is:
"This matter comes before the court on the motion of Plaintiff e360 Insight, LLC ("e360"), for a rule to show cause why Defendant The Spamhaus Project ("Spamhaus") should not be held in contempt for failure to comply with the injunction issued by this court on September 13, 2006.
Spamhaus has not appeared to defend the allegations against it in this case, but on October 13, 2006, it filed a notice of appeal in the Seventh Circuit seeking review of the default judgment entered on the same date as the injunction. Ordinarily, the filing of a notice of appeal divests a district court of jurisdiction to consider further matters in a case before it. See Griggs v. Provident Consumer Discount Co., 459 U.S. 56, 58, 103 S. Ct. 400, 402 (1982). However, this rule does not extend to questions regarding compliance with an injunction whose effect has not been stayed. See Union Oil Co. of California v. Leavell, 220 F.3d 562, 565-66 (7th Cir. 2000). Thus, we retain jurisdiction to consider the instant motion.
In its moving papers, e360 requested three forms of relief for the claimed noncompliance: first, suspension of Spamhaus's domain name until it complies with the terms of the injunction; second, steps to prevent third parties from accessing Spamhaus's technology or permission to add them as defendants to this suit if they continue to do so; and third, a monetary sanction against Spamhaus for each day that it fails to comply with the injunction. When e360 appeared in court to present the motion, we noted the breadth of the requested relief and directed e360 to submit a draft order that was more tailored.
The proposed order is limited to only the first remedy, suspension of the domain name by The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers ("ICANN"), the entity responsible for coordinating unique identifiers used for Internet communication, or Tucows, Inc., the registrar through which Spamhaus obtained its domain name. Neither of these outfits are parties to this case. Though more circumscribed than the preceding request, this relief is still too broad to be warranted in this case. First, there has been no indication that ICANN or Tucows are not independent entities, thus preventing a conclusion that either is acting in concert with Spamhaus to such a level that they could be brought within the ambit of Fed. R. Civ. P. 65(d). Though our ability to enforce an injunction is not necessarily coterminous with the rule, the limitations on its scope inform an exercise of our power to address contempt. See, e.g., Rockwell Graphic Systems, Inc. v. DEV Industries, Inc., 91 F.3d 914, 920 (7th Cir. 1996). Second, the suspension would cut off all lawful online activities of Spamhaus via its existing domain name, not just those that are in contravention of this court's order. While we will not condone or tolerate noncompliance with a valid order of this court, neither will we impose a sanction that does not correspond to the gravity of the offending conduct.
Accordingly, the motion for a rule to show cause is denied without prejudice.
Dated: October 19, 2006 CHARLES P. KOCORAS U.S. District Court Judge"
{Prof. Jonathan Ezor, Touro Law Center}
The issue with assuming all of the new cases (and it is an explosion) are due to better diagnoses is that you would then expect to see the same number of adults who had not been diagnosed as children. We just don't see it, or anywhere close to it, even counting in the Aspies out there. Even the biggest skeptics of some of the causation theories agree that there has been a tremendous increase in kids on the autism spectrum; they just don't agree on why it's happened. {Jonathan}
Regarding the above--if the medical establishment were willing to generate more doses of individual vaccines (that is, M, M, and R instead of bombarding children with three at once), many of us who are parents of older autistic children (and therefore have at least some legitimate concern about genetic predisposition to overwhelmed immune systems and neurological damages) would be more willing to vaccinate their younger siblings. We worked with our pediatrician to get individual vaccines for our younger children, but many doctors won't make the effort (and the individual doses are hard to come by). As for the "refrigerator mother" nonsense, anyone who has seen how the mothers (and fathers) of autistic children fight for the kids instantly knows that's a lot of bullcrap.
The problem with research into issues like mercury/heavy metal toxicity, vaccine oversenstivity and other anecdotally-supported autism triggers is that there are likely multiple causes, subtle genetic predispositions and *most* children will not be affected. Instead of trying to disprove legitimate ideas in support of the pharmaceutical establishment, perhaps researchers should instead look for commonalities among autistic kids and try to work from there.
As for the original story, it is important to remember that "correlation does not imply causality." Perhaps there is a statistical correlation between cable television availability and autism diagnoses, but it doesn't mean that the first caused the second. Perhaps those parents with pre-diagnosis kids, who tended to be calmer and happier being visually stimulated, gravitated toward areas with cable (although the authors tend to disagree with that interpretation). Perhaps the growth of cable television paralleled the expansion of other environmental changes which might have neurological impact, such as transformers, industrialization, or the increase in knowledge about autism which might lead to more parents obtaining services (and therefore diagnoses) for the kids. Perhaps cable did cause autism, although it does seem unlikely. Whether or not I think the conclusion makes sense, though, I'm pleased with more scientific research taking atypical directions, in the hopes that somewhere down the line, we will have a better handle on the multiple causes of autism, and will maybe as a society be willing to move in the direction of reducing the impact of those causes. {Jonathan}
From this on Spamhaus' own site:
"In order to terminate some persistent spam operations the SBL team occasionally needs to escalate a listing and it is in the application of an escalation that 'collateral damage' can occur. Once a known spam operation is blocked, the SBL team then attempts to open dialogue with the ISP providing service to the spammer and assists the ISP with collating evidence to terminate the spammer. In rare instances the ISP turns out to be knowingly assisting the spam operation for profit. In these cases the SBL Team may deem the ISP itself to be the 'Spam Support Service' and may escalate by listing the ISPs corporate resources (such as corporate mail servers), determined on a case-by-case basis to focus action on the ISPs executives and always with the primary objective of avoiding blocking legitimate customers."
I've seen this been threatened with clients, who were not themselves spammers. Beyond that, even the mere notion that "the SBL Team may deem the ISP" to be a "Spam Support Service" and the concept that blocking the ISP's other customers is to "focus action on the ISPs executives and always with the primary objective of avoiding blocking legitimate customers." (my emphasis added) smacks of non-accountability. These aren't objective standards; they are tactics.
I much prefer the Cloudmark collaborative model to Spamhaus' "We're right, you're wrong, and we're judgment proof" approach. {Prof. Jonathan}
And what if this wasn't spamming? Spamhaus is completely unaccountable, and I have seen them make mistakes. I have also seen them threaten hosting companies with listing all of the host's customers as spammers if one particular one doesn't stopped spamming.
Spam is a plague, but overzealous filtering can be a major problem as well. More to the point, if Spamhaus isn't willing to comply with U.S. law and its legal system, perhaps those ISPs and mail server operators who use Spamhaus' block lists might want to find a more reputable source for their spam filters. {Prof. Jonathan}
I'd strongly recommend what I use, which is a Palm T|X with a 4GB SD card. The T|X itself has great features: 320x480 screen, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, stereo with standard headphone jack, solid battery life, 128 MB of NVRAM, in-box compatibility with not only popular PIMs but MS Office files in native format. Add to that a 4 GB SD card (available for about $65 or less after rebate at Newegg.com--I use the Transcend one), and you've got enough add-on storage (which supports hierarchical folders) to store a whole bunch of multimedia as well as documents. The PalmOS isn't the most sophisticated, but it makes up for that with speed, simplicity, stability, and thousands of apps. Mac compatibility comes through apps like MarkSpace's Missing Sync, and the Palm user community is tremendously supportive, including sites like PalmAddict (for which I'm a volunteer Associate Writer). Add a Bluetooth keyboard like the compact ThinkOutside model, and you've got a serious laptop replacement that will play well with campus wireless networks.
If you need any other info., feel free to e-mail me. {Prof. Jonathan}
Copyright isn't only about copying; as a general matter, the owner of a copyright controls many different uses of the copyrighted works, including use, public performance, transmission, etc. Just check out Section 106 of the U.S. Copyright law, aka 17 USC 106. {Prof. Jonathan}
Like the Gigantor remote control box? :) {Prof. Jonathan}
Close but no Slushee.
Dan C. played a theme park character walkarounder actor who overheated in the big headed suit, then removed his head (traumatizing a child) to throw up. He was fired, and sued for wrongful discharge. The in-joke in the episode was that the character "he" was playing was Homer Simpson. {Prof. Jonathan}
It's not something I can update there, given that the site belongs to BusinessWeek. I'm aware how much has changed (most notably the leap from a single registrar to many of them) but the concepts (research the procedure; document the process; consider the followup) remain fairly valid, I think. I appreciate the offer
I won't comment on the business issue (if it's worth it for you to have that name, the price is actually fairly reasonable), but make sure you document the deal properly. Sign an agreement for the sale that requires the seller to go through the appropriate registrar's process, and make sure you don't pay until the process is moving along. Make sure the seller says it has the rights to the name, and that it will cover your costs (i.e. indemnify you) if someone comes to sue you because the seller was actually an illegal cybersquatter. Also, make sure that, as soon as the name is switched, the seller takes all reference to it out of its print and digital materials.
You can see a really old article I wrote about the process on the BusinessWeek Web site. I hope it's helpful. {Jonathan}
There is actually a model prototype warp core, blue lights a-flashing, along with a picture of the Enterprise-D at Long Island's Cradle of Aviation Museum. It's the final exhibit in the History of Aviation, perched on the wall near the exit to the hall. I always appreciate the joke. {Jonathan}
I appreciate your comments. Please forward my query to anyone else whom you think might have some insight. {Jonathan}
Because there's a little thing called trademark law, which allows people to build brands within particular industry segments and (more to the point) allows consumers to know that if they bought Brand X photocopiers last week and had a good experience, Brand X photocopiers this week probably come from the same company and may result in the same experience. As I tell my law students, "trademark law is about identifying the source of goods or services in commerce." You can also see the information on the USPTO Web site.
Trademark law is about consumer confusion, and in fact, trademark cases often hinge on surveys of actual consumers.
One little hook about trademark law--the industry segments thing is crucial. A few years ago, a restaurant in New York City opened, calling itself Godzilla Sushi. Unfortunately, Toho, the Japanese company that made the Godzilla movies and owns the trademark, had a registration (now expired) for the mark in the same international category of goods that included restaurants. Today, Godzilla Sushi is Monster Sushi.
"You asshats lobbied and bribed to get laws in most states to threaten and scare average people off from trying to understand the law without paying your exhorbitant fees."
Nonsense. There isn't a law around that prohibits anyone from from "trying to understand the law." You want to understand the law? There's likely a public law library near your home or office--feel free to drop in and read a bunch. Or check out the many collections of law on this here Internet thingy. The issue is whether you can represent other people without a license from your state and (*not* incidentally) without being on the hook for things like legal malpractice and ethical violations.
I'm not about to defend all lawyers, and I am one (and teach at a law school to boot). There are scummy lawyers out there, just as there are scummy doctors and software engineers and postal workers. (I have a particular disrespect for those class action lawyers who advertise for cases, win a $.30 coupon in a settlement for each of their millions of aggrieved clients, and pocket 1/3 of the total coupon payout as actual dollars themselves.) And yes, many laws are written as jobs programs for lawyers, and many laws are written poorly (but then again, so are many software programs, and they often require high-paid experts to make them work right again). But don't ignore the fact that you always can represent yourself in court (it's called pro se), whether or not it's a good idea strategically, and that courts often have offices set up to help you do so.
Maybe I'm just responding to trollbait in the parent post, but I am also 110% certain that if the parent poster ever was injured by someone, particularly someone with deep pockets, he'd swallow his hatred for lawyers quickly enough and run to hire one to bring a lawsuit. {Prof. Jonathan}
Don't forget the grandpappy of the genre, Stowaway to the Moon! {Prof. Jonathan}
I'm a big PalmOS user (going on 10 years) and supporter; the fact is that, for everything short of full computing, and especially for basic PIM apps, the PalmOS is still faster and more stable (most of the time, but I'll get to that in a second) than PocketPC. The one major exception to the foregoing is the LifeDrive. Great idea, but one design flaw big enough to drive an Edsel through: main system RAM is disk-based. Yep, that's right, while the LifeDrive supposedly has 64 MB of RAM (which is plenty, given how efficient and small most apps are), that's actually a partition on the built-in hard drive; there's a limited amount of high-speed cache RAM in the LifeDrive, and apps keep having to move chunks of program and data back and forth. It's a kludge, a bad kludge, and it's likely responsible for the LifeDrive's ongoing stability issues. I have no idea what the geniuses at Palm were thinking when they decided to leave physical RAM out of the unit. Maybe somebody just forgot?
I'm awaiting a Palm T|X (128 MB of non-volatile RAM, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, 320x480 screen) to replace my LifeDrive, and I'm sure it'll do me just fine. My Palm PDAs serve me as e-mail devices, video players, word processors, organizers...basically everything that doesn't need a full-sized screen. They're light, have decent battery life, are inexpensive (LifeDrive excepted), stable (ditto), and have a tremendously large user base.
Would I like some more sophistication in the PalmOS, particularly multitasking? Sure! But I don't want to substitute speed and stability for it. The PalmOS has, over its 10-year life span, done a decent job of balancing new features with continued speed of use, and I hope there's a future where this continues. {Prof. Jonathan}