I think you touched on something important here. To steal a line from George Bernard Shaw: liberty means responsibility. Too many people want their rights recognized without recognizing their responsibilities. You have the right to free speech but you have the responsibility to think before you speak. You have the right to bear arms but you have the responsibility to use them only in defense or survival (or target practice, but you get the idea). You have the right to be on the road but you have the responsibility to do so safely.
This idea of rights and responsibilities completely vitiates the rights. You have the right to free speech, and that includes thoughtless speech (and more importantly, speech that others deem thoughtless). You have the right to keep and bear arms; using them indiscriminantly is notably absent among the enumerated rights.
Going back to the war, those people made the ultimate sacrifice so we could live free; I think the bare minimum we can do is sacrifice a few seconds to help someone else feel safe.
Worse than a non sequitur. By sacrificing some part of our freedom for someone else's mere feeling of safety, we are dishonoring their accomplishments.
Do you seriously believe that raising the speed limit will eliminate speeding?
Sure. Set it to 186,000 miles per second. If you still find anyone speeding by a significant amount, and can identify him, hand him a speeding ticket along with his Nobel Prize.
That's the perfect solution. I really hate it when people spend all this time and energy to get around laws, to complain about laws, to fight the lawful punishments for those laws, but nothing on getting the laws changed.
Complaining about laws:
Investment: trivial
Probability of successful result: zero.
Getting around laws
Investment: small (e.g. radar detector, research on speed camera locations, using Mk I eyeball)
Probability of successful result: high (there's always another fish)
Fighting lawful punishment
Investment: moderate (time spend in court)
Probability of successful result: low (judge has heard it all before).
Getting laws changed
Investment: high (buying politicians, running for office, managing petitioning campaign)
Probability of successful result: damn-near-zero (insurance companies and other speed-kills folks can always outbid you)
Now tell again why you think people should spend time and energy on getting laws changed when two of the others provide so much better result for so much less investment?
Oh, and for completeness:
Following speed limit
Investment: high (pain of driving slow)
Probability of successful result: low (cops find people driving the limit suspicious and find excuse to pull them over)
Not having car
In Texas? I think it's against the state Constitution, except maybe in Austin.
Same thing with the kids in schools where the parents get all huffy when their son or daughter gets suspended for a zero tolerance policy because they took aspirin to school without a note from a doctor. Why didn't they hire a lawyer to fight the rule when it was proposed instead of waiting till their kid gets popped for the offense?
Because the legal system doesn't work that way. If they tried to fight the rule proactively, they'd have their case dismissed for lack of standing. There are exceptions but this is the general rule.
Apply dispersants so much of the oil stays underwater.
That's not the purpose of dispersants, nor, I believe, is it the effect thereof. The dispersants are intended to increase the surface area of the oil, allowing chemical and biological processes to break it down more quickly.
But seriously, you want BP to send marketing people down to the Gulf to help shut off an oil well? Or even to help clean up the spill?
Just toss them in the oil-fouled water as entertainment for those doing the cleaning up. Should improve morale tremendously (among the workers, not the marketing people).
They also declared that their members are 63th generation descendants of Gaius Julius Caesar, and therefore entitled to various holdings in egypt and around the mediterranean, in addition to various fiefdoms in Northern europe through Charlemagne.
They're welcome to get them the same way their esteemed ancestors did. Particularly given that Gaius Julius Caesar didn't hold hereditary office...
See, New York and California(those two I know for sure) do not award punitive damages or for "pain and suffering" or anything like that. Just actual damages.
Damages for "pain and suffering" are different from punitive damages; they're actually regarded as compensatory. Neither New York nor California has abolished punitive damages.
The Chinese are in a wonderful and unique position to take over as the number one superpower and number one consumer of goods, turning the USA into a number 2 or 3 within a few years.
No, they aren't, and the reason is the currency. They've been subsidizing the rest of the world on the backs of their own people by keeping their currency undervalued and not freely convertible (by Chinese people). The only way they could "take over" as number one consumer would be to eliminate that policy and allow their citizens to enjoy the fruits of their labors... but doing so would raise the costs of Chinese good enough that the boom could not be sustained.
Since I live here in the US, I'd really like to see a return to the US for manufacturing. We're still teetering on the brink, don't let day to day market-droid speak fool you.
It won't come back to the US in any great quantity. It might go to Mexico and Central America, though (Intel has a large presence in Costa Rica, for instance.. closer than China and more stable than Mexico)
It seems like an odd moral system that allows purchasing stolen property, but avoids participation in marketing.
The property was never stolen in the common use of the term, any more than torrented DVD rips are. It was lost. While the law may have made it "stolen property" (and it isn't at all clear; only the criminal code section applies), it was never deliberately taken from anyone.
No. if the software is to be understood, analyzing it is the only practical thing to do. there are many debugging tools available to analyze and step through machine code... generally they are used by pirate groups to reverse engineer and remove DRM.
I'd be surprised if that was their major market, though I've used them for that purpose (For The Record, before the DMCA took effect). All the tools I used were intended for software development/debugging.
So kiss ass, say "yes sir", and usually they'll let you go. Then go home and write online about you hate f@#ck!ng pigs, or some such comment.
Sure, but then everyone thinks you're a pussy, and you know they're right. Better to argue with the cop, curse him out, take the pepper spray and/or beating which ensures, spend the weekend in jail, and THEN go home and write about how you hate fucking pigs. Of course, everyone will then think you're a LYING pussy, but you'll know better.
Simply replacing "capitalist" with "corporatist" doesn't make the sentence true. You need a total rewrite, like "Last time I checked, we live in a corporatist society where individuals and companies that succeed are taxed to pay for companies that fail, when the latter companies have the ear of the government".
There is not a single example of Apple not bringing out a highly superior model shortly after any new evolution in their product line, not one. Apple II was shortly followed by a number of superior models.
Apple ][, mid 1977 Apple ][+, mid 1979 Apple//e, 1983 Apple IIGS, 1986
That's not really "shortly".
Same goes for the early Macs (the 128K was upgradable to the 512K, BTW), and the Mac II wasn't supplanted by a much superior model until the Quadra series several years later; the IIfx was in a far higher price range and the other models weren't superior. Of course, on a longer timescale, it's true... but do you expect them not to improve their product?
As I understand it, the difference between classic fraud and ID theft is whether or not new credit is established. And the problem isn't so much the money, but the destruction of reputation. Someone steals my credit card number, I just cancel it and don't pay the fraudulent charges. Someone obtains and uses enough information to apply for new credit in my name, I still don't have to pay the bills, but credit reporting agencies list me as a deadbeat; I can challenge the information but the criminals can just keep doing it; I can do little to stop it that doesn't hurt me as well.
A set of rules that are so onerous that the lawyers and accountants are running scared of the paperwork probably is a bad idea all around, not just as applied to certain people and companies.
(note to idiots who have never seen a regulation they don't like: I am not saying that preventing identity theft is a bad idea. I'm saying this particular way of doing so is probably a bad idea)
The "greenness" of a train doesn't come close to the "greenness" of a bike. It's not even within an order of magnitude... probably not even within two.
In practice in most of the US (don't know about Europe), the energy efficiency of passenger rail is on the same order as that of the automobile.
Many states have official 'revenue stamps' that need to be attached to illicit drugs like Marijuana. So, when the big pot dealer gets busted, not only is he busted for posession, but also for tax evasion because each one kilo bag of pot didn't have the "State of Minnesota 1 Kilo Marijuana Tax Stamp" attached.
There's a Supreme Court case shooting that one down on fifth amendment grounds: Timothy Leary v. United States, 395 U.S. 6, 89 S. Ct. 1532 (1969)
People don't want all of the content that is on it. It's not just a group of techies, but people from all walks of life. If they thing that images of Muhammad are as bad a child porn, who is to stop them from blocking it?
We are. Well, not we personally, but techies. The people who come up with anonymous proxies, steganography, encrypted connections, and all the rest. Of course, there's black-hat techies working for The Man trying to undo all that.
This isn't the old Internet. We aren't living in the wild west anymore. Not everyone's sense of ethics line up.
Well, guess what. This ain't one of those situations where we can just agree to disagree and all get along. Someone's "sense of ethics" has to hold sway, and that of the other side has to be violated. I know which side I want to be one... do you?
I blame Sally Struthers. You deluge people for years and years and years with the plight of others and demand they feel bad about it (usually in a cynical attempt to obtain donations), and people grow themselves a nice hard shell.
I'm always amused by how the same geek crowd that will rip a film-maker or author to shreds over re-hashing some common plot device will support to the death a software developer demonstrating the same lack of unoriginality.
Speaking for the Slashdot groupmind: we'd support the film-maker or author who re-hashed the common plot design if someone sued him/her over it as well. Doesn't mean we'd like the movie, and we might well sneer at it too.
Get yourself a lawyer. If you're running a business of almost any kind, you should have a good relationship with a lawyer. If you're running a software business it's even more important because software is a freaking minefield of legal actions these days and you need an expert to help you wade through the crap.
All the lawyer is going to do is tell you it isn't worth the risk or cost to fight it. You're in the right but screwed anyway because the stakes (for you) are high, the stakes (for them) are nonexistent, and the price of just being at the table is high (for you) as well. There ain't no justice.
I'm not so sure about this. No company is ordered by law to provide your goods or services for sale, so Google are perfectly within their rights to pull the game for whatever reason they choose. If they re-instate it on the basis of your counter claim and then the original claimants win, they will be jointly liable for damages
Wrong. If they re-instate on the basis of the counter-claim, they are free and clear until the original claimant notifies them of the lawsuit, at which point it has to be brought down again for safe harbor to apply.
Slashdot Mirror
This idea of rights and responsibilities completely vitiates the rights. You have the right to free speech, and that includes thoughtless speech (and more importantly, speech that others deem thoughtless). You have the right to keep and bear arms; using them indiscriminantly is notably absent among the enumerated rights.
Worse than a non sequitur. By sacrificing some part of our freedom for someone else's mere feeling of safety, we are dishonoring their accomplishments.
Sure. Set it to 186,000 miles per second. If you still find anyone speeding by a significant amount, and can identify him, hand him a speeding ticket along with his Nobel Prize.
Complaining about laws:
Investment: trivial
Probability of successful result: zero.
Getting around laws
Investment: small (e.g. radar detector, research on speed camera locations, using Mk I eyeball)
Probability of successful result: high (there's always another fish)
Fighting lawful punishment
Investment: moderate (time spend in court)
Probability of successful result: low (judge has heard it all before).
Getting laws changed
Investment: high (buying politicians, running for office, managing petitioning campaign)
Probability of successful result: damn-near-zero (insurance companies and other speed-kills folks can always outbid you)
Now tell again why you think people should spend time and energy on getting laws changed when two of the others provide so much better result for so much less investment?
Oh, and for completeness:
Following speed limit
Investment: high (pain of driving slow)
Probability of successful result: low (cops find people driving the limit suspicious and find excuse to pull them over)
Not having car
In Texas? I think it's against the state Constitution, except maybe in Austin.
Because the legal system doesn't work that way. If they tried to fight the rule proactively, they'd have their case dismissed for lack of standing. There are exceptions but this is the general rule.
That's not the purpose of dispersants, nor, I believe, is it the effect thereof. The dispersants are intended to increase the surface area of the oil, allowing chemical and biological processes to break it down more quickly.
Just toss them in the oil-fouled water as entertainment for those doing the cleaning up. Should improve morale tremendously (among the workers, not the marketing people).
They're welcome to get them the same way their esteemed ancestors did. Particularly given that Gaius Julius Caesar didn't hold hereditary office...
Damages for "pain and suffering" are different from punitive damages; they're actually regarded as compensatory. Neither New York nor California has abolished punitive damages.
No, they aren't, and the reason is the currency. They've been subsidizing the rest of the world on the backs of their own people by keeping their currency undervalued and not freely convertible (by Chinese people). The only way they could "take over" as number one consumer would be to eliminate that policy and allow their citizens to enjoy the fruits of their labors... but doing so would raise the costs of Chinese good enough that the boom could not be sustained.
It won't come back to the US in any great quantity. It might go to Mexico and Central America, though (Intel has a large presence in Costa Rica, for instance.. closer than China and more stable than Mexico)
The property was never stolen in the common use of the term, any more than torrented DVD rips are. It was lost. While the law may have made it "stolen property" (and it isn't at all clear; only the criminal code section applies), it was never deliberately taken from anyone.
In fact, it's easy to predict when you're the guy with the control for the remote shock-collar.
I'd be surprised if that was their major market, though I've used them for that purpose (For The Record, before the DMCA took effect). All the tools I used were intended for software development/debugging.
Sure, but then everyone thinks you're a pussy, and you know they're right. Better to argue with the cop, curse him out, take the pepper spray and/or beating which ensures, spend the weekend in jail, and THEN go home and write about how you hate fucking pigs. Of course, everyone will then think you're a LYING pussy, but you'll know better.
Simply replacing "capitalist" with "corporatist" doesn't make the sentence true. You need a total rewrite, like
"Last time I checked, we live in a corporatist society where individuals and companies that succeed are taxed to pay for companies that fail, when the latter companies have the ear of the government".
Apple ][, mid 1977 //e, 1983
Apple ][+, mid 1979
Apple
Apple IIGS, 1986
That's not really "shortly".
Same goes for the early Macs (the 128K was upgradable to the 512K, BTW), and the Mac II wasn't supplanted by a much superior model until the Quadra series several years later; the IIfx was in a far higher price range and the other models weren't superior. Of course, on a longer timescale, it's true... but do you expect them not to improve their product?
Correct, but the claims are even dumber.
As I understand it, the difference between classic fraud and ID theft is whether or not new credit is established. And the problem isn't so much the money, but the destruction of reputation. Someone steals my credit card number, I just cancel it and don't pay the fraudulent charges. Someone obtains and uses enough information to apply for new credit in my name, I still don't have to pay the bills, but credit reporting agencies list me as a deadbeat; I can challenge the information but the criminals can just keep doing it; I can do little to stop it that doesn't hurt me as well.
A set of rules that are so onerous that the lawyers and accountants are running scared of the paperwork probably is a bad idea all around, not just as applied to certain people and companies.
(note to idiots who have never seen a regulation they don't like: I am not saying that preventing identity theft is a bad idea. I'm saying this particular way of doing so is probably a bad idea)
In practice in most of the US (don't know about Europe), the energy efficiency of passenger rail is on the same order as that of the automobile.
There's a Supreme Court case shooting that one down on fifth amendment grounds: Timothy Leary v. United States, 395 U.S. 6, 89 S. Ct. 1532 (1969)
We are. Well, not we personally, but techies. The people who come up with anonymous proxies, steganography, encrypted connections, and all the rest. Of course, there's black-hat techies working for The Man trying to undo all that.
Well, guess what. This ain't one of those situations where we can just agree to disagree and all get along. Someone's "sense of ethics" has to hold sway, and that of the other side has to be violated. I know which side I want to be one... do you?
I blame Sally Struthers. You deluge people for years and years and years with the plight of others and demand they feel bad about it (usually in a cynical attempt to obtain donations), and people grow themselves a nice hard shell.
Speaking for the Slashdot groupmind: we'd support the film-maker or author who re-hashed the common plot design if someone sued him/her over it as well. Doesn't mean we'd like the movie, and we might well sneer at it too.
All the lawyer is going to do is tell you it isn't worth the risk or cost to fight it. You're in the right but screwed anyway because the stakes (for you) are high, the stakes (for them) are nonexistent, and the price of just being at the table is high (for you) as well. There ain't no justice.
Wrong. If they re-instate on the basis of the counter-claim, they are free and clear until the original claimant notifies them of the lawsuit, at which point it has to be brought down again for safe harbor to apply.