NPRs complaint about the FM modulators has little to do with XM or Sirius; neither company makes nor operates the modulators, and I'm sure any that they sell have FCC approval. So if NPR has a problem with the modulators, it's either with people using unapproved or modified ones (seems unlikely), that the FCC hasn't been doing their jobs testing them (slightly more likely), that the manufacturing tolerances are terrible (much more likely), or that NPRs testing methodology of measuring unknown devices an unknown distance away in traffic isn't what you'd call rigorous (ding ding ding ding).
Then you can cite the section of US code which makes it illegal to manufacture a lock-pick?
(no? Didn't think so.)
What he's charged with is the sort of bogus catch-all law which erodes freedom faster than barrel full of TSA agents. He didn't actually DO it, since there was no conspiracy, but current federal conspiracy law has about a zero burden of proof.
See, this is what I don't get. Obviously the studio has a legal right to do at least most of what they're doing, but that completely ignores the unwritten ethics of the situation -- yet everyone is jumping all over the fan site.
Everyone? Or have the pro-draconian-copyright people finally cottoned to the idea of Slashdot shills?
Consider this before you stick up for the studio -- if _Universal_ had sold the T-shirts, and any of the artists who worked on the images on the shirts had demanded Universal give them residuals, would they have? Damn right they would not have -- they would have claimed the T-shirts were "promotional items" and therefore not covered.
A patent is not on the concept itself, it's on the actual "invention" - the method and / or mechanism.
You're thinking of the old patent system. In the new patent system, you patent the goal and then sue anyone who reaches it. This patent is definitely an example of that.
The person who builds the installer package can decide whether or not to put the "license" step in that package. When I put together the package for my port of a GPLed wireless driver to OS X, I deliberately left that step out.
I have travelled to 25 countries round the world, to USA many times, spanning four continents. I many many cases I have seen people treat Americans obsequiously, in a transparently patronising manner, because of their wealth, and yet the moment the American is gone the hatred is clear.
And they do that before knowing anything about the Americans in question (who mostly, BTW, ain't so stupid as to not know what's going on). The term is "prejudice", and it's not the Americans who are guilty of it in your example.
What idiot modded this one Insightful? Does Noam Chomsky have a slashdot ID now? Murdered more humans than anyone in history? What about a certain Georgian (and I don't mean Jimmy Carter) megalomaniac and his Austrian counterpart? Or a pair of Asians named Tojo and Mao? Idi Amin? Pol Pot? The US has done its share of killing but compared to all of recorded history, it's not even in the major leagues.
The other points aren't QUITE as stupid, but that's only because the first one sets such a monumentally high bar.
Scouts also must choose one activity from a list that includes visiting a movie studio to see how many people can be harmed by film piracy.
So Billy the Boy Scout takes the tour of the movie studio. While he's there, he sees several groups of people. First it's carpenters, putting together a set.
"Are THOSE the people hurt by piracy?"
"Oh, no, Billy, the carpenters are paid whether the film sells or not. They aren't the ones hurt by piracy".
Later they see some writers, smoking cigarettes and muttering under their breath. "Are those the people hurt by piracy"
"Oh, no, Billy. It's kind of complicated, but we actually don't pay them no matter how well the movie does. It's called 'accounting'"
Then they pass a group of actors. "How about them, are THEY hurt by piracy?"
"Oh, no, Billy, they get paid even if the movie flops, no matter how many people pirate it. They're supposed to get extra if it does well, but, well, there's that 'accounting' again"
Billy then points to a director, sitting in a chair. "Is HE the one hurt by piracy"
"Well, you're getting a little closer. He's a little better at 'accounting'. But piracy really doesn't hurt him all that much either"
"Then who IS seriously hurt by piracy?"
"Well, Billy, it's not normally a part of the tour, but just for you, we'll make a special trip."
So Billy and the tour guide go to the studio offices. Up, up they go to the very top floor. The guide takes Billy to a large office with a door. "Billy, if you stand right here and look through the door, do you see the man there"
"Yes"
"That's one of the vice presidents of the studio. Thanks to piracy, he could only buy 3 Porsches last year instead of 5, and had to cut his cocaine habit in half. He can now only maintain one mistress, and she's in her LATE 20s. This studio alone has 30 executives, and they're all similarly suffering. And THAT'S who is hurt by piracy. NOW do you understand why you mustn't pirate movies?"
"Loud and clear," said Billy, "Loud and clear". Billy then went home, told his parents he was quitting the Scouts, and asked if they could get a faster Internet connection
There is zero access to the internet that isn't filtered and even as one of two tech people running the entire show I can't exactly go against the state, the school board, and the administrators and disable it just long enough to read an article, no matter how stupid the blocking of a particular site is...
Of course you can. Provided you follow the 11th Commandment, you can do it with impunity. That, in fact, is the tech person's main form of power. The tech person rarely has the skills to be a politician, administrator, or lawyer. So the option of changing policies, laws, and rules through the political system or the courts are not open to him. But, since the technical person knows how those rules are implemented, he has the option of bypassing or subverting them at that level (provided he doesn't get caught).
You're running the entire show... you can make a permanent hole in the firewall just for yourself (and the other techie). What's to stop you? Is the other guy going to rat you out?
The problem for the MPAA is that Usenet providers have been deemed to be 17 USC 512(a) service providers. That means they can't be successfully sued for copyright infringement for material traversing their networks, and they need not even respond to takedown notices for such material. Yep, it's their own law, the DMCA, working against them. Though before that law, the Netcom case left them pretty hamstrung anyway.
If you have a sole proprietorship (a business owned entirely by one person), Form 1040 Schedule C is exactly the schedule you use for your business income and expenses. Nothing bars you from running such a business as well as having wage income, nor from having several sole proprietorships.
one fact for you, they tested all the enterants for Oxford Uni in the UK one year, and found that somewhere in the reagon of 75% had an "autistic spectrum disorder", and I would be interested to see about how many people on/. do too. maybe we could do an experiment some time.
This strongly suggests that the definition of "autistic spectrum disorder" has been widened to uselessness. If anyone who isn't the gladhanding extroverted salesperson or politician type gets pegged with an autistic spectrum disorder, it's just plain silly.
Whatever happened to the days when those of us who could relate to the world around us but hated dealing with the people in it were just "antisocial" or "misanthropic"?
The claim that the pattern of counties receiving cable televisions is likely to be uncorrelated with the incidence of autism seems suspect. The claim that the only effect weather can have on autism is through increasing TV watching is even more suspect; if you're willing to accept that TV can cause autism, why not bad weather? Why not simply not being outside as much?
Even if its just a hobby, you can deduct all the hobby-related expenses up to the amount of hobby-related income. In other words, if your expenses and income are
Materials for Building Super Uber Game Machine: ($9000) T1 line for Zero Lag: ($3600) Selling Uber Swords on eBay: $10,000
Then while you can't deduct all $12,600, you can deduct $10,000 of that amount, offsetting the $10,000 in income you made.
(Slashdot thinks space is a junk character. Sheesh.)
Lottery tickets are deductible as gambling losses. Gambling losses are only deductible to the extent of gambling winnings (in a given tax year). It's a special case.
That would suck if it were true. Fortunately, it isn't. At least, I don't see anything in the Schedule C or 1040 instructions about "majority" source of income.
Poor Hammurabi. Thanks to Gandhi, many people fail to give him the credit he deserves.
It's an eye for an eye, and it _stops there_. That ends it. The person punished doesn't then get to go back and take the original victim's other eye.
If there's no deterrent effect at all, "an eye for an eye" causes twice as many eyes to get poked out as "no punishment". It doesn't leave the whole world blind. The idea, of course, is that there WILL be a deterrent.
No, we're paying for an item (the abstract "we", because I ain't buying it). Microsoft's attempt to dictate terms of use after sale (beyond what copyright law actually gives them) is bullshit. And while of course they have the lawyers to make their view prevail in court if it comes to that, they (like the MPAA) don't actually have the resources to police each licensee. They can try to use technical protection measures for self-help, but those will be defeated as well.
Having an Anti-SLAPP law won't help if you're going to simply acquiesce to a demand that you can't even post an article "lamenting the loss of free speech".
Another $11m default judgement, another issue of questionable jurisdiction. The plaintiff lives in Florida and sued in the Florida court system. The defendant has resided in Louisiana and Texas, and was unable to afford a lawyer. Will the plaintiff be able to enforce the judgement in Louisiana or Texas? As I understand it, if she tries the defendant will have the right to argue (in the courts where she lives) that the case never should have been tried in Florida for lack of personal jurisdiction and prevent the judgement from being enforced.
DMCA is effectively that. (Among other things.) From what I understand, in the legal realm they've extracted (from guess where?) an "implied contract" that when you decide to watch their show, you have become obligated to watch their attached advertisements, as well. They "put up with" bathroom breaks, channel surfing, and the VCR fast-forward button, but they really got uppity when Tivo came along.
ROTFL. The DMCA is bad, but it ain't that bad. Some idiot (I think from Fox) made comments similar to that, but no one has been sued for not watching commercials. There's not (yet) a legal concept of an implied obligation to watch commercials.
At the same time Spamhaus filed for removal of the case to Federal District Court, they also (through their attorneys) filed a response "with express reservation of jurisdiction-related defenses" and denied that the court had jurisdiction in that response.
Slashdot Mirror
NPRs complaint about the FM modulators has little to do with XM or Sirius; neither company makes nor operates the modulators, and I'm sure any that they sell have FCC approval. So if NPR has a problem with the modulators, it's either with people using unapproved or modified ones (seems unlikely), that the FCC hasn't been doing their jobs testing them (slightly more likely), that the manufacturing tolerances are terrible (much more likely), or that NPRs testing methodology of measuring unknown devices an unknown distance away in traffic isn't what you'd call rigorous (ding ding ding ding).
Then you can cite the section of US code which makes it illegal to manufacture a lock-pick?
(no? Didn't think so.)
What he's charged with is the sort of bogus catch-all law which erodes freedom faster than barrel full of TSA agents. He didn't actually DO it, since there was no conspiracy, but current federal conspiracy law has about a zero burden of proof.
Consider this before you stick up for the studio -- if _Universal_ had sold the T-shirts, and any of the artists who worked on the images on the shirts had demanded Universal give them residuals, would they have? Damn right they would not have -- they would have claimed the T-shirts were "promotional items" and therefore not covered.
Edison's patent on the incandescent light bulb was ruled invalid.
The person who builds the installer package can decide whether or not to put the "license" step in that package. When I put together the package for my port of a GPLed wireless driver to OS X, I deliberately left that step out.
And they do that before knowing anything about the Americans in question (who mostly, BTW, ain't so stupid as to not know what's going on). The term is "prejudice", and it's not the Americans who are guilty of it in your example.
What idiot modded this one Insightful? Does Noam Chomsky have a slashdot ID now? Murdered more humans than anyone in history? What about a certain Georgian (and I don't mean Jimmy Carter) megalomaniac and his Austrian counterpart? Or a pair of Asians named Tojo and Mao? Idi Amin? Pol Pot? The US has done its share of killing but compared to all of recorded history, it's not even in the major leagues.
The other points aren't QUITE as stupid, but that's only because the first one sets such a monumentally high bar.
You know, I tried to take your post seriously, but it's just impossible to take seriously someone whose home page is a domain squatting page.
"Are THOSE the people hurt by piracy?"
"Oh, no, Billy, the carpenters are paid whether the film sells or not. They aren't the ones hurt by piracy".
Later they see some writers, smoking cigarettes and muttering under their breath. "Are those the people hurt by piracy"
"Oh, no, Billy. It's kind of complicated, but we actually don't pay them no matter how well the movie does. It's called 'accounting'"
Then they pass a group of actors. "How about them, are THEY hurt by piracy?"
"Oh, no, Billy, they get paid even if the movie flops, no matter how many people pirate it. They're supposed to get extra if it does well, but, well, there's that 'accounting' again"
Billy then points to a director, sitting in a chair. "Is HE the one hurt by piracy"
"Well, you're getting a little closer. He's a little better at 'accounting'. But piracy really doesn't hurt him all that much either"
"Then who IS seriously hurt by piracy?"
"Well, Billy, it's not normally a part of the tour, but just for you, we'll make a special trip."
So Billy and the tour guide go to the studio offices. Up, up they go to the very top floor. The guide takes Billy to a large office with a door. "Billy, if you stand right here and look through the door, do you see the man there"
"Yes"
"That's one of the vice presidents of the studio. Thanks to piracy, he could only buy 3 Porsches last year instead of 5, and had to cut his cocaine habit in half. He can now only maintain one mistress, and she's in her LATE 20s. This studio alone has 30 executives, and they're all similarly suffering. And THAT'S who is hurt by piracy. NOW do you understand why you mustn't pirate movies?"
"Loud and clear," said Billy, "Loud and clear". Billy then went home, told his parents he was quitting the Scouts, and asked if they could get a faster Internet connection
Of course you can. Provided you follow the 11th Commandment, you can do it with impunity. That, in fact, is the tech person's main form of power. The tech person rarely has the skills to be a politician, administrator, or lawyer. So the option of changing policies, laws, and rules through the political system or the courts are not open to him. But, since the technical person knows how those rules are implemented, he has the option of bypassing or subverting them at that level (provided he doesn't get caught).
You're running the entire show... you can make a permanent hole in the firewall just for yourself (and the other techie). What's to stop you? Is the other guy going to rat you out?The problem for the MPAA is that Usenet providers have been deemed to be 17 USC 512(a) service providers. That means they can't be successfully sued for copyright infringement for material traversing their networks, and they need not even respond to takedown notices for such material. Yep, it's their own law, the DMCA, working against them. Though before that law, the Netcom case left them pretty hamstrung anyway.
If you have a sole proprietorship (a business owned entirely by one person), Form 1040 Schedule C is exactly the schedule you use for your business income and expenses. Nothing bars you from running such a business as well as having wage income, nor from having several sole proprietorships.
This strongly suggests that the definition of "autistic spectrum disorder" has been widened to uselessness. If anyone who isn't the gladhanding extroverted salesperson or politician type gets pegged with an autistic spectrum disorder, it's just plain silly.
Whatever happened to the days when those of us who could relate to the world around us but hated dealing with the people in it were just "antisocial" or "misanthropic"?
The claim that the pattern of counties receiving cable televisions is likely to be uncorrelated with the incidence of autism seems suspect. The claim that the only effect weather can have on autism is through increasing TV watching is even more suspect; if you're willing to accept that TV can cause autism, why not bad weather? Why not simply not being outside as much?
Even if its just a hobby, you can deduct all the hobby-related expenses up to the amount of hobby-related income. In other words, if your expenses and income are
Materials for Building Super Uber Game Machine: ($9000)
T1 line for Zero Lag: ($3600)
Selling Uber Swords on eBay: $10,000
Then while you can't deduct all $12,600, you can deduct $10,000 of that amount, offsetting the $10,000 in income you made.
(Slashdot thinks space is a junk character. Sheesh.)
Lottery tickets are deductible as gambling losses. Gambling losses are only deductible to the extent of gambling winnings (in a given tax year). It's a special case.
That would suck if it were true. Fortunately, it isn't. At least, I don't see anything in the Schedule C or 1040 instructions about "majority" source of income.
Poor Hammurabi. Thanks to Gandhi, many people fail to give him the credit he deserves.
It's an eye for an eye, and it _stops there_. That ends it. The person punished doesn't then get to go back and take the original victim's other eye.
If there's no deterrent effect at all, "an eye for an eye" causes twice as many eyes to get poked out as "no punishment". It doesn't leave the whole world blind. The idea, of course, is that there WILL be a deterrent.
No, we're paying for an item (the abstract "we", because I ain't buying it). Microsoft's attempt to dictate terms of use after sale (beyond what copyright law actually gives them) is bullshit. And while of course they have the lawyers to make their view prevail in court if it comes to that, they (like the MPAA) don't actually have the resources to police each licensee. They can try to use technical protection measures for self-help, but those will be defeated as well.
Having an Anti-SLAPP law won't help if you're going to simply acquiesce to a demand that you can't even post an article "lamenting the loss of free speech".
Another $11m default judgement, another issue of questionable jurisdiction. The plaintiff lives in Florida and sued in the Florida court system. The defendant has resided in Louisiana and Texas, and was unable to afford a lawyer. Will the plaintiff be able to enforce the judgement in Louisiana or Texas? As I understand it, if she tries the defendant will have the right to argue (in the courts where she lives) that the case never should have been tried in Florida for lack of personal jurisdiction and prevent the judgement from being enforced.
At the same time Spamhaus filed for removal of the case to Federal District Court, they also (through their attorneys) filed a response "with express reservation of jurisdiction-related defenses" and denied that the court had jurisdiction in that response.