Great post. Much like saying we should factories without workers.
Lawyers are an integral aspect of justice. If you're going to ask for courts, you have to realize that you're asking for fairness, which means both sides get a chance to have a professional advocate - even the bot-using farmer.
Actually, your post is only half correct. THAC0 is analagous to what is now called attack bonus; THAC0 stood for "To Hit Armor Class 0." Armor Class was still armor class, however, a lower armor class was better and 0 was considered the best non-magical AC (a human wearing full plate had a AC of 0, as I recall.)
When evolcing marketplace dynamics make it unprofitable to hire programmers in the U.S., slashdotters are up in arms, demanding government intervention.
Hmm, I wonder why the discrepancy?
The real discrepancy is in the costs corporations are required to bear in the US versus in India. These are not "evolving market dynamics." Let me say something you might not understand: the TRUE cost of maintaining a business, employing workers, producing a product, etc. is the SAME regardless of WHERE you are, barring things like access to a specific natural resource. When it comes to something like producing software, such issues do not truly apply to the process.
What IS different is that corporations in India are allowed to externalize more costs in the process onto the environment and their workers. The absolute cost is the same. The discrepancy is how the cost gets spread around. It is not an "evolving market dynamic" that corporations will always attempt to get others to bear as much as the cost as possible and keep as much of the profit as they can to themselves. The question is whether we want to allow them to do this, since SOCIETY, the rest of us, are the ones who end up picking up the tab for things like a degraded environment and unhealthier workers who are paid less.
The trick the corporations pulled is getting other societies to let them do it. At some point in this country we decided that people should earn at least X amount and get at least X benefits and protections while working, because it is socially desirable and moral. This costs corporations extra money, so they go some place they hasn't decided that... yet. This is not a matter of marketplace dynamics, but of social progress. We as a people have certain standards relating to the interplay between the market and society, and government intervention is how we enforce those standards. It doesn't seem unreasonable to me that if we think workers deserve X rights, that we shouldn't trade with countries or support corporations who don't conform to those standards.
You can't have free trade with a country that isn't free.
Depends on the individual EULA. Arguably you would be not be allowed to play it, since you haven't entered into the EULA, which is what (apparently) grants you license to use.
The biggest thing to remember is that THE GAME IS NEVER YOUR PROPERTY UNDER THE LAW. The disc may be your property, but THE PROGRAM IS NOT. You are getting a limited license to use.
The biggest problem is how you reconcile paying first. Certainly invites critique as a "holdup" problem.
You CANNOT enter a contract with someone if you have no way of communication.
In terms of legal philosophy, this is dead wrong. There is such a thing as a "unilateral offer." Like when Pepsi offers to sell people bottles of Pepsi out of vending machines for $1. They are making an offer. Anyone is free to anonymously accept the offer by putting a dollar in the machine and getting a bottle of Pepsi out. This is a contract, and Pepsi has no idea whatsoever that you entered it with them - and they are still liable for breach of contract. For example, if the Pepsi bottles contains no Pepsi. Or contains poison. Whatever.
The bottom line is that unilateral offers are just as binding as other contracts, even though the parties don't know each other at all.
Your example of the store was flawed because the anonymous contract is with the manufacturer, not the vendor.
I hear this argument a lot. HOW IS THAT AN ADVANTAGE? There are more Californians and New Yorkers than all the Alaskans. They have more money than you. They are more connected to other people than you are, and have a greater impact on a larger number of people than you do.
Since NYers and CAians are practically more important than you, and in an objective sense should have equal rights than you, please explain to me why you should get more influence than they do.
Government represents the will of the people. The people don't live in Alaska.
The injustice of the electoral college is that every state gets House representation + 2 for Senatorial represenation = electoral votes. Those extra 2 are simply by virtue of the state existing. Sovreignty should rest in the people, not in the state - and those +2 don't represent any people, and people are the ultimate holders of sovreignty. I agree that states should represent their people, BUT THOSE +2 DON'T REPRESENT ANY PEOPLE.
Disclaimers: I am not a lawyer. I am a law student. I have not finished my law degree and I am not admitted to the bar in any state. This post does constitute legal advice. I have not even finished reading the entire opinion.
It's simple. The court does class EULAs as contracts. The whole point of contracts is to exchange rights: I exchange ownership rights of dollar bills in exchange for ownership rights to food every day. So OF COURSE you can sign away rights - that's the point. Some are really hard to sign away - like the right to be alive or the right to compete in a certain market. "Fair use" rights are apparently not hard to sign away.
I've been trying to explain a certain dichotomy to people on Slashdot for awhile now: civil cases versus criminal cases. Contracts have nothing to do at all with criminal laws and everything to do with civil laws. Civil cases have to do with suits between individuals and society. Criminal cases are about suits between you and society.
I can sign away my right to own certain money. I CANNOT sign away my right to be not robbed. You can sign away your right to reverse engineer software. All saying you have a right to something (like reverse engineering) means that the default state is that you can do it. You can sign a contract changing that between you and the contracting party - unless there is a criminal law saying you can't do that. So in answer to your question, criminal law trumps contracts which trump civil law.
In this case, reverse engineering is generally legal. However, to install Blizzard software, you have to agree that you will not R/E their software, or you are not allowed to install it. So you exchange your right to R/E to get the right to use their stuff, which you wouldn't normally have (hmmm, except you already bought it. Although the judge seems to think you bought a license to use it. I don't see how that helps, though.) Important point: in both CA and MO (the states whose law applies in this case), EULAs have been deemed to be valid contracts.
Now consider the reverse: suppose reverse engineering was illegal in the US. No one is allowed to reverse engineer anything. Blizzard would not be able to hire you (contract you) to R/E anything for them. Just like murder: murder is illegal. In fact, prosecution for murder does not involve the victim: it's a crime against society. The state prosecutes you for murder, not the victim.
In contrast to you opinion, I believe the people are better represented by moving the power back down to the State, County, and local level. Let them decide what is best for their State, and the State will represent them Federally.
Except that is not what happens. My congressional district has 90% chance of going Democratic this election, like in all recent elections. However, most other districts in my state are usually Republican. So the state will give all of its electoral votes to a candidate, even though significant groups and communities want it the other way around. Sovreignty ultimately lies with the people, so the States should at least be required to represent the interests of their citizens as accurately as possible. Besides apportioning electoral votes according to district, this should also include subtracting 2 votes from every state - sovreignty doesn't reside in the State, it resides in the people. I don't see anything wrong with virtual representation in general, as long as it is conducted accurately and fairly. Which right now it is not.
No shit, idiot. That's why I said "theoretically." Of course they're illegal in practice. My point was that in no way can you contract around a potential criminal offense, because criminal law doesn't deal with relationships between two parties, just relationships between individuals and society.
Although, in some sense, you do sign away your right to recover for potentially fatal torts all the time. Some cases are more severe than others: signing a waiver for a medical procedure, which usually includes a clause like "I understand that this procedure could produce unwanted injury or death." And in some countries and US states, assisted suicide is legal. I wonder what the contracts for those say, genius.
Not to split hairs, but even if you could sign away your right to be killed, the killer could still be prosecuted for murder. Theoretically, signing away your right not to be killed would eliminate a wrongful death suit. However, murder, like all criminal offenses, is a crime against society. When you get tried for murder, the victim isn't the one prosecuting you.
Precisely. But GDP does not care about what end to which work is put - only the amount of work. Remember 1984 - "goods must be produced, but they must not be distributed."
So in our hypothetical oil spill, the GDP measures the entire process as a positive effect, when in reality it is simply correcting a disaster. Do you really think it helps the economy to go around creating natural disasters and then spending vast sums of money cleaning them up?
By the same argument, littering is good for the economy, because someone has to be hired to clean up the mess. Vandalism is good for the economy. Perceptions of a lack of security are good for the economy - guards must be hired to create "security."
GDP fails to take into account if work is being put towards a useful goal. $10 billion net GDP gain from cleaning up spilled oil is not the same as $10 billion net GDP gain from employing engineers to design more effecient car engines.
GDP can be easily shown to be a falsely inflated measure of economic value and production.
If one country gives mothers maternity leave, and mothers stay home and raise children, this lowers GDP in comparison to a second country where there is maternity leave and babies are cared for by hired professionals. The act of hiring and paying a professional increases GDP by the amount the professional caregiver is paid. However, all other things being equal, the actual amount of work done is no greater. All that has happened is social capital has been internalized by the market in one instance, and GDP looks higher. This is not necessarily better unless you think GDP is some magical number that makes everything better.
In another example, let's say I spill a tanker of oil off the New England coast. Damage to the economy and value of lost oil will be arbitrarily set at $50 billion dollars. If, however, the cleanup costs are $60 billion dollars paid out to various workers to clean up the mess, then the GDP will actually increase by $10 billion dollars, despite the fact that nothing actually got produced - some idiot just made a big mess and then someone cleaned it up.
That is an incredibly over-simplified analysis of the situation. The fact is that the basic premise of property ownership rights (which are supposed endowed by the Creator according to American legal thought, or, in other words, inalienable) is that you are entitled to that which you acquire or create throw your own effort ("sweat of the brow," or, in this case, the mouse finger.) Some would argue that you are merely manipulating 1's and 0's on the server, which the game company clearly owns or pays for. However, it seems equally clear that you are responsible for the unique configuration of 1's and 0's which you arranged through your gameplay.
You can no more "disclaim" your right to own property than you can "disclaim" your right to be alive. Of course the EULA is an all-encompasing document, since it's akin to the corporation's opening position on the issue - their opening position in any kind of legal negotiation. They will, of course, take the strongest position possible. This does not mean that it is air-tight.
"The NHTCU quotes an IDC study that estimates that a 10 per cent reduction in UK piracy would contribute $17.5bn for the UK's GDP, indirectly create 40,000 jobs and generate $4.1bn in tax revenue."
I love insanely inflated figures like that. Imagine what a 10% reduction in piracy could do for the US economy! We could probably save social security or institute a national health program by eliminating piracy.;)
RTFA. Virtually every scientist who read their work was of the opinion that the explanation "mutation to smaller jaw means bigger brain" is incredibly simplistic and that the real explanation is probably far more complex. The change in jaw morphology is probably only one of many contributing factors.
Wow. Where to begin? Well, first thing is that people actually DO useful things in class with laptops: notetaking, scheduling, calculations
As pointed out multiple times already, a pen and paper will be easier to carry around and cost less.
Ever go to the library to do your paper?
Yes, and the library already has computers in it for me to use. Why bring another one? Help support my local larcenist, I suppose.
How about just getting out of your room to do some work outside?
Which I do and enjoy doing, with my pen and paper. Although it's very interesting that you construe working alone as social isolation. After reading your post it seems to me that your idea of doing work is sitting outside with friends socializing? I don't know what your program of study is/was, but I'm in English and Political Science, and having other people around while I'm working isn't conducive to reading books and writing papers. So when I work, I isolate myself so I can concentrate. When I'm not working, I admit, I have been known to go outside before and talk to people.:p
Slashdot Mirror
Personally, I sabotage random facts in random articles as a hobby.
Lawyers are an integral aspect of justice. If you're going to ask for courts, you have to realize that you're asking for fairness, which means both sides get a chance to have a professional advocate - even the bot-using farmer.
Actually, your post is only half correct. THAC0 is analagous to what is now called attack bonus; THAC0 stood for "To Hit Armor Class 0." Armor Class was still armor class, however, a lower armor class was better and 0 was considered the best non-magical AC (a human wearing full plate had a AC of 0, as I recall.)
The real discrepancy is in the costs corporations are required to bear in the US versus in India. These are not "evolving market dynamics." Let me say something you might not understand: the TRUE cost of maintaining a business, employing workers, producing a product, etc. is the SAME regardless of WHERE you are, barring things like access to a specific natural resource. When it comes to something like producing software, such issues do not truly apply to the process.
What IS different is that corporations in India are allowed to externalize more costs in the process onto the environment and their workers. The absolute cost is the same. The discrepancy is how the cost gets spread around. It is not an "evolving market dynamic" that corporations will always attempt to get others to bear as much as the cost as possible and keep as much of the profit as they can to themselves. The question is whether we want to allow them to do this, since SOCIETY, the rest of us, are the ones who end up picking up the tab for things like a degraded environment and unhealthier workers who are paid less.
The trick the corporations pulled is getting other societies to let them do it. At some point in this country we decided that people should earn at least X amount and get at least X benefits and protections while working, because it is socially desirable and moral. This costs corporations extra money, so they go some place they hasn't decided that... yet. This is not a matter of marketplace dynamics, but of social progress. We as a people have certain standards relating to the interplay between the market and society, and government intervention is how we enforce those standards. It doesn't seem unreasonable to me that if we think workers deserve X rights, that we shouldn't trade with countries or support corporations who don't conform to those standards.
You can't have free trade with a country that isn't free.
The biggest thing to remember is that THE GAME IS NEVER YOUR PROPERTY UNDER THE LAW. The disc may be your property, but THE PROGRAM IS NOT. You are getting a limited license to use.
The biggest problem is how you reconcile paying first. Certainly invites critique as a "holdup" problem.
Power proceeds from consent. People that don't exist can't consent. So you shouldn't get power for people that don't exist.
The bottom line is that unilateral offers are just as binding as other contracts, even though the parties don't know each other at all.
Your example of the store was flawed because the anonymous contract is with the manufacturer, not the vendor.
There was a typographical error. For the record, I meant to say "This post does not constitute legal advice."
That was a typographical error. For the record, I meant to say "This post does not constitute legal advice."
Since NYers and CAians are practically more important than you, and in an objective sense should have equal rights than you, please explain to me why you should get more influence than they do.
Government represents the will of the people. The people don't live in Alaska.
The injustice of the electoral college is that every state gets House representation + 2 for Senatorial represenation = electoral votes. Those extra 2 are simply by virtue of the state existing. Sovreignty should rest in the people, not in the state - and those +2 don't represent any people, and people are the ultimate holders of sovreignty. I agree that states should represent their people, BUT THOSE +2 DON'T REPRESENT ANY PEOPLE.
It's simple. The court does class EULAs as contracts. The whole point of contracts is to exchange rights: I exchange ownership rights of dollar bills in exchange for ownership rights to food every day. So OF COURSE you can sign away rights - that's the point. Some are really hard to sign away - like the right to be alive or the right to compete in a certain market. "Fair use" rights are apparently not hard to sign away.
I've been trying to explain a certain dichotomy to people on Slashdot for awhile now: civil cases versus criminal cases. Contracts have nothing to do at all with criminal laws and everything to do with civil laws. Civil cases have to do with suits between individuals and society. Criminal cases are about suits between you and society.
I can sign away my right to own certain money. I CANNOT sign away my right to be not robbed. You can sign away your right to reverse engineer software. All saying you have a right to something (like reverse engineering) means that the default state is that you can do it. You can sign a contract changing that between you and the contracting party - unless there is a criminal law saying you can't do that. So in answer to your question, criminal law trumps contracts which trump civil law.
In this case, reverse engineering is generally legal. However, to install Blizzard software, you have to agree that you will not R/E their software, or you are not allowed to install it. So you exchange your right to R/E to get the right to use their stuff, which you wouldn't normally have (hmmm, except you already bought it. Although the judge seems to think you bought a license to use it. I don't see how that helps, though.) Important point: in both CA and MO (the states whose law applies in this case), EULAs have been deemed to be valid contracts.
Now consider the reverse: suppose reverse engineering was illegal in the US. No one is allowed to reverse engineer anything. Blizzard would not be able to hire you (contract you) to R/E anything for them. Just like murder: murder is illegal. In fact, prosecution for murder does not involve the victim: it's a crime against society. The state prosecutes you for murder, not the victim.
Except that is not what happens. My congressional district has 90% chance of going Democratic this election, like in all recent elections. However, most other districts in my state are usually Republican. So the state will give all of its electoral votes to a candidate, even though significant groups and communities want it the other way around. Sovreignty ultimately lies with the people, so the States should at least be required to represent the interests of their citizens as accurately as possible. Besides apportioning electoral votes according to district, this should also include subtracting 2 votes from every state - sovreignty doesn't reside in the State, it resides in the people. I don't see anything wrong with virtual representation in general, as long as it is conducted accurately and fairly. Which right now it is not.
Although, in some sense, you do sign away your right to recover for potentially fatal torts all the time. Some cases are more severe than others: signing a waiver for a medical procedure, which usually includes a clause like "I understand that this procedure could produce unwanted injury or death." And in some countries and US states, assisted suicide is legal. I wonder what the contracts for those say, genius.
Get a clue.
Not to split hairs, but even if you could sign away your right to be killed, the killer could still be prosecuted for murder. Theoretically, signing away your right not to be killed would eliminate a wrongful death suit. However, murder, like all criminal offenses, is a crime against society. When you get tried for murder, the victim isn't the one prosecuting you.
So in our hypothetical oil spill, the GDP measures the entire process as a positive effect, when in reality it is simply correcting a disaster. Do you really think it helps the economy to go around creating natural disasters and then spending vast sums of money cleaning them up?
By the same argument, littering is good for the economy, because someone has to be hired to clean up the mess. Vandalism is good for the economy. Perceptions of a lack of security are good for the economy - guards must be hired to create "security."
GDP fails to take into account if work is being put towards a useful goal. $10 billion net GDP gain from cleaning up spilled oil is not the same as $10 billion net GDP gain from employing engineers to design more effecient car engines.
real unemployment 9.6%
In another example, let's say I spill a tanker of oil off the New England coast. Damage to the economy and value of lost oil will be arbitrarily set at $50 billion dollars. If, however, the cleanup costs are $60 billion dollars paid out to various workers to clean up the mess, then the GDP will actually increase by $10 billion dollars, despite the fact that nothing actually got produced - some idiot just made a big mess and then someone cleaned it up.
GDP is big fat lie.
A little behind. If this could have been posted before the NY Times article went archival...
That is an incredibly over-simplified analysis of the situation. The fact is that the basic premise of property ownership rights (which are supposed endowed by the Creator according to American legal thought, or, in other words, inalienable) is that you are entitled to that which you acquire or create throw your own effort ("sweat of the brow," or, in this case, the mouse finger.) Some would argue that you are merely manipulating 1's and 0's on the server, which the game company clearly owns or pays for. However, it seems equally clear that you are responsible for the unique configuration of 1's and 0's which you arranged through your gameplay. You can no more "disclaim" your right to own property than you can "disclaim" your right to be alive. Of course the EULA is an all-encompasing document, since it's akin to the corporation's opening position on the issue - their opening position in any kind of legal negotiation. They will, of course, take the strongest position possible. This does not mean that it is air-tight.
"The NHTCU quotes an IDC study that estimates that a 10 per cent reduction in UK piracy would contribute $17.5bn for the UK's GDP, indirectly create 40,000 jobs and generate $4.1bn in tax revenue." I love insanely inflated figures like that. Imagine what a 10% reduction in piracy could do for the US economy! We could probably save social security or institute a national health program by eliminating piracy. ;)
Bullshit. I live 5 minute from a place with a dozen linked xboxs. People play on them all the time, as much as they play CS and WC3 on PC.
Again, NO. Read a more informative version of the article, like the one at the NY Times. Free registration required for more accurate reporting. :)
RTFA. Virtually every scientist who read their work was of the opinion that the explanation "mutation to smaller jaw means bigger brain" is incredibly simplistic and that the real explanation is probably far more complex. The change in jaw morphology is probably only one of many contributing factors.
strong sad + caffeine = SCIENCE
As pointed out multiple times already, a pen and paper will be easier to carry around and cost less.
Ever go to the library to do your paper?
Yes, and the library already has computers in it for me to use. Why bring another one? Help support my local larcenist, I suppose.
How about just getting out of your room to do some work outside?
Which I do and enjoy doing, with my pen and paper. Although it's very interesting that you construe working alone as social isolation. After reading your post it seems to me that your idea of doing work is sitting outside with friends socializing? I don't know what your program of study is/was, but I'm in English and Political Science, and having other people around while I'm working isn't conducive to reading books and writing papers. So when I work, I isolate myself so I can concentrate. When I'm not working, I admit, I have been known to go outside before and talk to people. :p