You know what the cause of most fatal accidents is? Not alcohol, not drugs, not inattentiveness, but speed. Plain old speed.
Hence, laws against speeding. You know what we do in our county to folks who do over 90 miles per hour? They go to jail for a weekend... so, we SPEND MONEY on them (i.e. housing, food). Real revenue generator there!
As somebody who frequently works with law enforcement, they get blamed for a lot of ridiculous (and completely false) stuff - I've seen officers get accused of assaults (and then exonerated when surveillance footage from a building shows they didn't even touch the suspect). A lot of our officers just recently got uniform-mounted cameras and the footage always shows that the complaints are completely unfounded.
When I was a poor college student, I sold my copy of "Star Fox Weekend Competition Edition" for beaucoup bucks... like close to $500. I also sold my copy of EarthBound for a considerable amount of money (I want to say like $200).
I recently wanted to purchase Metroid Prime Trilogy for the Wii, but found out I can't, because it's like $300 for a used copy. I can't do a pirated copy using an ISO image on the Wii because the game is apparently a dual layer disc and the Wii freaks out over that.
So, yes, some games will be (and are) worth money.
Mail can't be opened without a warrant because it is against federal law to open mail without a warrant (unless it looks suspicious or dangerous), not because of the 4th amendment. Different animal entirely.
Again, email is a business record in the possession of a third party. You have no reasonable expectation of privacy in it.
Email, phone records, bank statements, etc. are all business records in the possession of a third party (i.e. your provider). Anybody can lawfully subpoena those records...
Maybe it's just because I'm a lawyer, but you have no right to privacy in something that you don't control and that other folks (read: employees of your provider) have access to.
That one asshole developer claims on his blog that it is "uncertain" whether or not the terms of the Windows Store are compatible with the GPLv2 and then goes on an incomprehensible rant about the App Store and Applidium (the developers of the short-lived iOS VLC app), all in the name of 'freedom'. As in beer.
On a non-violent crime like this, even as a prior and persistent felony offender, he will likely only serve a small percentage of his sentence and be paroled. Just sayin.
Your right to a speedy trial only kicks in when the prosecution isn't ready, generally speaking. There's nothing that can be done if the Court isn't ready or isn't able to handle the case load. And on top of that, good luck getting the circuit judge to rule in favor of your motion to dismiss for lack of a speedy trial - the appeals court won't help you, either.
And speaking of unfair prejudice, what about prejudice to the State and the victims? Victims generally get tired of waiting around for justice... They move on, they get over it, and in some cases, they even DIE. I can't tell you how many times I've gotten a victim who has told me, "I don't care anymore, just get rid of it." That's not fair to the victim or the State (but it's sure as hell beneficial for the defendant, who has been out on bond for 2 years waiting for his trial).
As for the State being ready, we're set for 40-60 jury trials a month and we can generally go on almost all of them. I'm pretty sure any challenge on speedy trial grounds in our circuit would not survive, as it would pass the speedy trial balancing test.
I'm an Assistant Prosecutor in one of the busiest (and understaffed) circuits in Missouri. We have two associate judges (who generally hear misdemeanor cases, one more than the other) and one circuit judge (who generally hears felony cases and most civil cases). We share our circuit judge with the other county in the circuit.
We get about one jury a month. Yes, ONE JURY A MONTH. In the third or forth busiest circuit in Missouri. How many jury trials do we have set in any given month? 40-60. We can only try one of those a month because the legislature won't give us another circuit judge. As a consequence, some of these cases are several years old -- some people remain in custody that entire time. And if a civil case is ready to try, forget it - unless you're accused of murder, you're gonna have to wait.
And you know what? The vast majority of them don't need to be jury trials. For instance, our ONE jury trial this month was an Assault 1st, Burglary 1st, and Armed Criminal Action. The defendant confessed on video tape to detectives - the confession was good and was not coerced in any way. We offered him a deal two years ago that would've resulted in probation along with drug treatment. The defendant demanded his trial (along with jury sentencing), was found guilty within an hour, and sentenced to 6 years in prison within another hour. While he got his trial, somebody in custody had to sit downstairs another month while this guy had his trial that wasn't needed (or could have been handled in a bench trial).
What's the solution? It ain't bogging the court system down, I can tell you that, because it's already bogged down enough!
I work in a prosecutor's office that has gone "paper less" (because, unfortunately, law enforcement and the courts haven't gotten rid of their paper requirements) and we use Kodak Scanmate scanners to scan in thousands of sheets of paper everyday. They're excellent, moderately priced ($400ish), and I've never seen any of our ladies really have any problems with 'em.
Or you could manufacture hundreds of thousands, or perhaps even millions of them, ship them to stores, and not sell more than a few hundred or thousand (Samsung? HP?).
There's a difference between buying a phone off contract, which is what Apple (U.S.) previously offered and buying an unlocked phone off contract. One allows you to get your own service through AT&T without a commitment. The other allows you to get service through ANY GSM carrier without a contract.
I watched the Nightline report on this book last night. Ms. Jacobsen claims that Josef Mengele was working with Stalin and the Soviets, developing these alien-looking children.
Josef Mengele, after WW2, was captured by the United States while he was FLEEING the Soviets. He used a fake name and was in a POW camp for a while, was released, and then escaped to Buenos Aires care of the ODESSA network, where he remained until the 1980s.
So, historically speaking, her story makes no sense.
Don't compete on specs -- compete on quality, usability, and features. You can slap all the hardware in the world into a sleek case and if it looks like crap and operates like crap, nobody's going to buy it.
It can be used in some foreign countries (those that support the CDMA standard)... however, most of the world uses the GSM standard, which includes most of Europe and Asia.
I type about 120wpm... with two fingers (and the occasional use of a thumb). My previous job was providing real-time closed captioning for deaf students in college lectures. Obviously, such a job requires fast typing, and the use of shorthand (which, with the software being used, usually bumped a typist up about 50wpm... I was hitting 140-150wpm frequently with the use of shorthand).
My boss heard from some co-workers about my typing techniques, and she didn't like it one bit... I'm guessing she might've been concerned with a worker's compensation claim. Anyhow, she ordered me to do this ridiculous "typing rehabilitation" program - basically, I was required to go through the basic "Mavis Bacon Typing" lessons and tests. Although I started to type in the proper way, my speed went from 120wpm to 30wpm!
After doing this for a couple of weeks to make my boss happy, I gave it up, and resumed typing the way I normally typed. 3 years later, no carpal tunnel, no problems, and all of the students that I worked with over those three years loved me and requested me all of the time.
Unfortuantely, that difference is usually bad. Take, for example, The Price is Right article, and its accompanying articles. The game show is a legend, and has had over 100 different pricing games, all with unique rules, and many of them are very well known and notable.
However, it's impossible to find books or websites explaining the rules or discussing the games' histories. Sure, there are thousands of clips on Youtube, but who in there right mind is going to take the time to use those as citations? As a result, one flamboyantly gay user has been able to single handedly destroy most of the somewhat well written articles (yeah, some of them are full of "fancruft", but the vast majority are not).
It always boggled me until I heard that my state (MA) does exactly this. The mandate of the police is to keep the traffic moving and safe. NOT to arbitrarily enforce the law for any reason at all times. Since they don't get the ticket money, there is no reason to exceede that mandate.
MA isn't exactly rural and poor. Drive through places like Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas - you see cops arbitrarily enforcing outrageous speed limits (e.g. 30 on a divided highway in a 'rural' area) all of the time. Why? The city usually gets most of the money, or they charge ridiculous "court fees" if they can't get the fine.
Unfortunately, in a lot of places in the country, speeding tickets are a city's only form of income. Completely wrong, but that's the way it is, and most state legislatures don't have the balls to stop it.
Most U.S. corporations are not multi-million dollar Fortune 500 corporations - it is apparent to me, based on many of the comments here, that many of you have this ignorant perception that they are. Well, it doesn't help that the defendant in this case is the big bad death star - AT&T.
The fact is, about 98% of the corporations in the United States are closely held corporations - this simply means there's no public market readily available to sell those shares, and in all likelihood, the shares are closely held by a few people, sometimes just one person. In most instances, they're small, family owned businesses, though there are some very successful closely held corporations (e.g. Mars, Inc. - the candy maker).
The rights to ST:TOS originally belonged to Desilu Productions, which was bought by Paramount. Paramunt was later bought by Viacom, which also owned CBS. Viacom spun off CBS into "CBS Corporation", which maintained their TV library. They would later become "CBS Paramount Television".
Just because it was shown on NBC doesn't mean they have the rights to it...
Slashdot Mirror
You know what the cause of most fatal accidents is? Not alcohol, not drugs, not inattentiveness, but speed. Plain old speed.
Hence, laws against speeding. You know what we do in our county to folks who do over 90 miles per hour? They go to jail for a weekend... so, we SPEND MONEY on them (i.e. housing, food). Real revenue generator there!
As somebody who frequently works with law enforcement, they get blamed for a lot of ridiculous (and completely false) stuff - I've seen officers get accused of assaults (and then exonerated when surveillance footage from a building shows they didn't even touch the suspect). A lot of our officers just recently got uniform-mounted cameras and the footage always shows that the complaints are completely unfounded.
When I was a poor college student, I sold my copy of "Star Fox Weekend Competition Edition" for beaucoup bucks... like close to $500. I also sold my copy of EarthBound for a considerable amount of money (I want to say like $200).
I recently wanted to purchase Metroid Prime Trilogy for the Wii, but found out I can't, because it's like $300 for a used copy. I can't do a pirated copy using an ISO image on the Wii because the game is apparently a dual layer disc and the Wii freaks out over that.
So, yes, some games will be (and are) worth money.
Mail can't be opened without a warrant because it is against federal law to open mail without a warrant (unless it looks suspicious or dangerous), not because of the 4th amendment. Different animal entirely.
Again, email is a business record in the possession of a third party. You have no reasonable expectation of privacy in it.
Email, phone records, bank statements, etc. are all business records in the possession of a third party (i.e. your provider). Anybody can lawfully subpoena those records...
Maybe it's just because I'm a lawyer, but you have no right to privacy in something that you don't control and that other folks (read: employees of your provider) have access to.
That one asshole developer claims on his blog that it is "uncertain" whether or not the terms of the Windows Store are compatible with the GPLv2 and then goes on an incomprehensible rant about the App Store and Applidium (the developers of the short-lived iOS VLC app), all in the name of 'freedom'. As in beer.
So, yes, in short, he's still an asshole.
On a non-violent crime like this, even as a prior and persistent felony offender, he will likely only serve a small percentage of his sentence and be paroled. Just sayin.
Somebody from Slashdot ought to read these comments and update the story... it's totally a hoax according to his wife.
Your right to a speedy trial only kicks in when the prosecution isn't ready, generally speaking. There's nothing that can be done if the Court isn't ready or isn't able to handle the case load. And on top of that, good luck getting the circuit judge to rule in favor of your motion to dismiss for lack of a speedy trial - the appeals court won't help you, either.
And speaking of unfair prejudice, what about prejudice to the State and the victims? Victims generally get tired of waiting around for justice... They move on, they get over it, and in some cases, they even DIE. I can't tell you how many times I've gotten a victim who has told me, "I don't care anymore, just get rid of it." That's not fair to the victim or the State (but it's sure as hell beneficial for the defendant, who has been out on bond for 2 years waiting for his trial).
As for the State being ready, we're set for 40-60 jury trials a month and we can generally go on almost all of them. I'm pretty sure any challenge on speedy trial grounds in our circuit would not survive, as it would pass the speedy trial balancing test.
I'm an Assistant Prosecutor in one of the busiest (and understaffed) circuits in Missouri. We have two associate judges (who generally hear misdemeanor cases, one more than the other) and one circuit judge (who generally hears felony cases and most civil cases). We share our circuit judge with the other county in the circuit.
We get about one jury a month. Yes, ONE JURY A MONTH. In the third or forth busiest circuit in Missouri. How many jury trials do we have set in any given month? 40-60. We can only try one of those a month because the legislature won't give us another circuit judge. As a consequence, some of these cases are several years old -- some people remain in custody that entire time. And if a civil case is ready to try, forget it - unless you're accused of murder, you're gonna have to wait.
And you know what? The vast majority of them don't need to be jury trials. For instance, our ONE jury trial this month was an Assault 1st, Burglary 1st, and Armed Criminal Action. The defendant confessed on video tape to detectives - the confession was good and was not coerced in any way. We offered him a deal two years ago that would've resulted in probation along with drug treatment. The defendant demanded his trial (along with jury sentencing), was found guilty within an hour, and sentenced to 6 years in prison within another hour. While he got his trial, somebody in custody had to sit downstairs another month while this guy had his trial that wasn't needed (or could have been handled in a bench trial).
What's the solution? It ain't bogging the court system down, I can tell you that, because it's already bogged down enough!
I work in a prosecutor's office that has gone "paper less" (because, unfortunately, law enforcement and the courts haven't gotten rid of their paper requirements) and we use Kodak Scanmate scanners to scan in thousands of sheets of paper everyday. They're excellent, moderately priced ($400ish), and I've never seen any of our ladies really have any problems with 'em.
Or you could manufacture hundreds of thousands, or perhaps even millions of them, ship them to stores, and not sell more than a few hundred or thousand (Samsung? HP?).
Most engineers don't have the social skills necessary to even ask for a higher wage... that's part of the problem!
Wrong.
There's a difference between buying a phone off contract, which is what Apple (U.S.) previously offered and buying an unlocked phone off contract. One allows you to get your own service through AT&T without a commitment. The other allows you to get service through ANY GSM carrier without a contract.
To be late is to be dead, I suppose.
I watched the Nightline report on this book last night. Ms. Jacobsen claims that Josef Mengele was working with Stalin and the Soviets, developing these alien-looking children.
Josef Mengele, after WW2, was captured by the United States while he was FLEEING the Soviets. He used a fake name and was in a POW camp for a while, was released, and then escaped to Buenos Aires care of the ODESSA network, where he remained until the 1980s.
So, historically speaking, her story makes no sense.
Don't compete on specs -- compete on quality, usability, and features. You can slap all the hardware in the world into a sleek case and if it looks like crap and operates like crap, nobody's going to buy it.
Apple realizes this. Motorola and Samsung do not.
It can be used in some foreign countries (those that support the CDMA standard)... however, most of the world uses the GSM standard, which includes most of Europe and Asia.
Two words: cheese grater (or is it one word?).
That is the G5's secondary purpose, you know... why else would they design it with all of those little holes?! ;-)
I type about 120wpm... with two fingers (and the occasional use of a thumb). My previous job was providing real-time closed captioning for deaf students in college lectures. Obviously, such a job requires fast typing, and the use of shorthand (which, with the software being used, usually bumped a typist up about 50wpm... I was hitting 140-150wpm frequently with the use of shorthand).
My boss heard from some co-workers about my typing techniques, and she didn't like it one bit... I'm guessing she might've been concerned with a worker's compensation claim. Anyhow, she ordered me to do this ridiculous "typing rehabilitation" program - basically, I was required to go through the basic "Mavis Bacon Typing" lessons and tests. Although I started to type in the proper way, my speed went from 120wpm to 30wpm!
After doing this for a couple of weeks to make my boss happy, I gave it up, and resumed typing the way I normally typed. 3 years later, no carpal tunnel, no problems, and all of the students that I worked with over those three years loved me and requested me all of the time.
Unfortuantely, that difference is usually bad. Take, for example, The Price is Right article, and its accompanying articles. The game show is a legend, and has had over 100 different pricing games, all with unique rules, and many of them are very well known and notable.
However, it's impossible to find books or websites explaining the rules or discussing the games' histories. Sure, there are thousands of clips on Youtube, but who in there right mind is going to take the time to use those as citations? As a result, one flamboyantly gay user has been able to single handedly destroy most of the somewhat well written articles (yeah, some of them are full of "fancruft", but the vast majority are not).
That's just wrong.
It always boggled me until I heard that my state (MA) does exactly this. The mandate of the police is to keep the traffic moving and safe. NOT to arbitrarily enforce the law for any reason at all times. Since they don't get the ticket money, there is no reason to exceede that mandate.
MA isn't exactly rural and poor. Drive through places like Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas - you see cops arbitrarily enforcing outrageous speed limits (e.g. 30 on a divided highway in a 'rural' area) all of the time. Why? The city usually gets most of the money, or they charge ridiculous "court fees" if they can't get the fine.
Unfortunately, in a lot of places in the country, speeding tickets are a city's only form of income. Completely wrong, but that's the way it is, and most state legislatures don't have the balls to stop it.
Most U.S. corporations are not multi-million dollar Fortune 500 corporations - it is apparent to me, based on many of the comments here, that many of you have this ignorant perception that they are. Well, it doesn't help that the defendant in this case is the big bad death star - AT&T.
The fact is, about 98% of the corporations in the United States are closely held corporations - this simply means there's no public market readily available to sell those shares, and in all likelihood, the shares are closely held by a few people, sometimes just one person. In most instances, they're small, family owned businesses, though there are some very successful closely held corporations (e.g. Mars, Inc. - the candy maker).
But the doubt provided by the cop's facebook and myspace accounts is by no means reasonable.
The rights to ST:TOS originally belonged to Desilu Productions, which was bought by Paramount. Paramunt was later bought by Viacom, which also owned CBS. Viacom spun off CBS into "CBS Corporation", which maintained their TV library. They would later become "CBS Paramount Television".
Just because it was shown on NBC doesn't mean they have the rights to it...