Yeah, you're missing the difference between a lawsuit and a settlement. The kid was completely in the right, but then lawyers get involved and they play a game of poker. The kid gets some swag and Microsoft gets to save a little face. If the kid had dug in, he most likely would have prevailed, but it would have bankrupted him. Being awarded lawyers fees is far from a certainty.
That sounds an awful lot like airlines selling a one way ticket for more than a round trip. I would prefer that if AMD makes a chip that specs out at 2.6 ghz they then sell that chip at 2.6 ghz. It makes absolutely no sense to introduce inefficiancies into the marketplace. Why on Earth would AMD want to sell a $600 chip for only $100? It's marketing types making a short term profit, but a long term failure. Much like how the major airlines are all being undercut by low cost carriers that sell everything as a cheap one-way ticket.
The answer of course, is that Americans are idiots. And by Americans, I mean American politicians. Changing what time the clock reads has very little effect on actual behavior. Furthermore, the only thing it would really affect is when lights are turned on around the home. Lighting is a trivial expense. The real energy drains are air conditioning and major appliances (electric stove, dryer, refrigerator). But, if politicians feel the need to legislate to make themselves feel like they're doing something, then here's some better ideas:
1) Change the clocks on the first Sunday of each month so that sunrise is always at the same time, like 6am or 7am. 2) Adjust the clocks each month so that sunset is always at the same time (ie, 8pm). 3) Adjust the clocks half an hour to the midpoint between daylight savings time and standard time and quit futzing with it.
I'm most fond of option number 1, as I'm not a morning person and find it easier to get out of bed once the sun is up. On the other hand, I have a 2 year old daughter who won't sleep until it's been dark for a little while. Since DST kicked on, bedtime went from 8pm to 9pm, so option 2 would be good as well. As for 3, I've never liked DST, so that would be fine with me as well.
But we flat refuse to use games as a benchmark for production hardware.
Some games make very good benchmarks for certain types of hardware, particularly in a head to head comparison. Video cards are a good example. Also, if your target market is gamers who obsess about frame rates, then games are a very good means of benchmarking. In most cases, games can give a very good head to head comparison of the overall picture of a system as they tend to be CPU, Video, and memory intensive.
But I personally get most of my reviews from Penny-Arcade. While they do whore themselves out to certain corporations, they're generally honest about it, plus they're successful enough that they can save themselves for companies they really like; ie, Blizzard.
And nothing beats reviews from people you know IRL, or actually playing with the hardware yourself. Personally, I'm pimping the ATI HDTV Wonder these days. I've previously flammed it, but the most recent set of drivers they've released fixed the problems I was having with it, and I love it now. The only other TV card I've tried is the bottom of the line analog card from Hauppage, which even with a great signal had some picture issues.
US/Canada is the worlds largest ungarded border. There is absolutely no way to secure it. Requiring passports to travel across it can only inconveniance the honest and law abiding. Or, as the movie "Canadian Bacon" so chillingly put it - Canadians... they walk among us.
Quite the contrary. The person in question is using the trademarked name to specifically speak about the company in question. If I am badmouthing Microsoft Windows, it is entirely appropriate to incorporate Microsoft Windows into the URL I am using to do so. Using Microsft Windows in a URL aimed at marketing, say, Linspire, would be obviously deceptive. The stupidity in this case is the fool trying to sell it back to Bosley Medical. If he offers it to them, it's blackmail/cybersquatting. On the other hand, if they approach him, it's perfectly legal.
Perhaps you're not familiar with the Berne convention on copyrights. If the EU invalidates a US copyright (worth $25 billion a year) without the consent of the US, that's a major treaty violation. The fallout on this would be insane. That is not an option in the slightest. The value of the Windows copyright to the US is so substantial that siezing it in the US anti-trust case was never even considdered.
And I question whether that should even be illegal. Why? Because the content in question was broadcast. All that's really happening is that it's being relayed down a technological pipe. At least as long as the commercials are distributed with the content. Whether you fast forward through them or not is your perrogative, but in fairness, they ought to be included. If you strip them out beforehand, you're no longer relaying a signal. I look at it as a really elaborate antenna/reciever/television combination.
Well, duh. Give girls a lifetime of sexual repression and two beers and the rest takes care of itself. I find that the less repressed they are, the better they control their urges.
RTFA. Parsons was to have paid the $500,000 as restitution to Microsoft because the worm launched a rather feeble DDOS attack on Microsoft's websites. As such, Microsoft has the authority to waive that, or to make arrangements. Also, with no job, assets, or future, Parsons would have had no means to make the restitution payment, and would likely have had it dismissed in bankruptcy proceedings. Microsoft would never have seen a dime. Instead, Microsoft gets to look charitable and magnanimous while the kid gets to avoid bankruptcy. Sounds like a win-win deal to me.
I get no respect I tell ya. People are set to look up to me and then some jerk blurts out that my wife is a Forensic Scientist. Then for the next half hour or so, it's nothing but questions about CSI and what interesting cases my wife is working. The worst is that this always seems to come up during lunch. The stuff she deals with will cause you to lose your lunch. And ironicly, despite having a masters degree (on top of bachelors degrees in Chemistry and Biology), she only makes about half of what I (the college dropout) do. In that light, perhaps she's the one comming up short on respect.
While I would like media to last forever, it's been pretty consistent over the last 50 years or so that media formats tend to have a maximum lifespan of about 15 years before they become obsolete. Right now, CD is being replaced by DVD which will be replaced by something else in about 5 years. Tried to buy a 5-1/4 floppy drive lately? So, I think it's pretty realistic that every 10 years or so you'll need to migrate all of your digital archives to a new format. As such, if your media is rated for 20 years, you should be in pretty good shape. I remember about 10 years or so ago when it was a big thing to have old Super-8 films transferred to VHS. Recently, my Dad has been converting old home movies from VHS to DVD. Then there's also the issue of transferring data formats as well. Converting from MPEG-2 to MPEG-4, CD to MP3, EBDIC to ASCII, etc. What good will it do me to have media that lasts 100 years if the equipment to read it will only be found in museums?
While dead pixels are common to LCD screens, Sony ought to have a policy of not more than X on the screen, and no more than 1 in the central area of the screen within the first year of ownership. Also, I'd like to see some reliable statistics on how widespread the problem is (with an emphasis on comparisons to similar products - GBA, camrea phones, etc.) If there was a substantial issue, I probably wouldn't buy a PSP without first verifying the screen.
So wrong... The guy is living and working in Kentucky. The state of New York has no basis for taxing any income earned there. But to answer your question on liability, workers comp cases are generally handled in the jurisdiction where the injury occoured. Furthermore, as for issues like benefits and administrative overhead, this should be treated no different than a company that has offices in more than one state. The guy can have the company lease his spare bedroom for $1 a year as an office.
The Supreme Court really has a wide lattitude on this one. It's not really that bad of an argument against companies like Morpheus and Grokster. 99% of the traffic on their networks is copyright infringing. It's sorta like selling someone a pipe-bomb kit. The pipe, fuse, timer, explosive and shrapnel might all be legal separately, but sold as a kit, you'll likely be looking at a weapons charge. All that aside, if you look at other P2P apps like BitTorrent, you can see that there are substantial legal uses for the technology. All in all, the most likely outcome for this is that the Court will say, "there's no actual law restricting their products". Then Congress will step in and take care of that.
Personally, I recommend memorizing no more than 3 or 4 good passwords. The reason is, I can never remember which one I'm using so I end up trying all of them. If I don't get it in 4 tries, I'm locked out for 20 minutes.
I think it's also important to note that the grammar checker included in MS Office, for all its flaws and faults, is still better than the average high school student. My wife once had a job evaluating essay questions on some standardized test (the California HS exit exam (?)). In any event, she would call me over from time to time when she encountered a particularly egregious example. Even the average examples were much worse than me on a bad day.
Geek Squad started in Minneapolis. You'd see the old cars around town from time to time. (this was before they started using VW beetles) They had a pretty good reputation for providing fast on site tech support. They also tended to keep things like RAM and spare hard drives on hand (in their little cars) so that they could actually come on site and fix your system in one trip. I never used them, but they were supposed to be pretty solid. They were successful, so they started branching out into other cities. Then Best Buy, also from around here, did what they do best: merchandising. And now you can pay way too much for cheap crap with the GeekSquad logo on it. Huzzah.
The fact that a non-geek like me can set it up indicates that it can certainly be done by experienced developers.
Truly sir, you contradict yourself. Anyone running a wireless Linux thin-client network out of their house is inherently a geek. No matter how many nights a week you play softball, attend the opera, or whatever it is you may do, you are most assuredly a geek. Fortunately, you seem to have found the proper support group.
Those rules really only pertain to how taxes are collected and paid. They have no bearing on if or what sort of benefits the employer in question is required to provide. State law on this subject is likely to vary wildly. In some cases, state law may require someone to be included in benefits if they meet certain criteria. I really couldn't speculate on the laws out in Idaho, though. Furthermore, if the complainants are working through a contracting agency, then their beef is with the agency, or 'pimp', as I call mine, holding the contract and not HP.
All these extensions apply retroactively automatically. They're sometimes called "Mickey Mouse" extensions as the most notable work that's just this side of falling into the public domain is the first Mickey Mouse cartoon.
That said, you can't copyright the mechanics of a game. You can copyright the visual elements and possibly the layout of the board, and even everything combined as a "collection". However, there's nothing you can do about a game that plays the same. Trademark, of course, can be renewed indefinately. Hasbro is well within their rights to demand that they use a different URL and refrain from any use of the Scrabble trademark, except as it refers to the actual Scrabble board game.
Cable companies are a pretty limited monopoly. Nearly anywhere you can get cable you can also get satelite. Maybe not so much for renters, but most people can choose between Dish Network, DirecTV and the local cable company. The only real edge the cable company has in that marketspace is the ability to also provide broadband internet service. I think it is very poor policy to dictate the development of technology. History has always shown that government standards inevitably lead to uniform mediocracy.
And in case your wondering, I only get free over the air programming. (analog to my TV, HD to my PC.) I would happily sign up for a service that offered ala carte programming, though. I can't justify spending $45/month for DIY, SciFi and Spike.
Or I can buy a perfectly good 25" analog set for $159. Digital is nice. Real nice - I've got an HDTV tuner for my PC. In another couple of years, digital/HD will be competitive with analog. People do in fact want digital HDTV, but most aren't willing to pay much more for it. Especially when their existing setup works just fine. Most people only replace their TVs when the existing set breaks. On the other hand, people willing to shell out $300 for the latest in gaming are already much more like to have or be willing to buy HD.
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Yeah, you're missing the difference between a lawsuit and a settlement. The kid was completely in the right, but then lawyers get involved and they play a game of poker. The kid gets some swag and Microsoft gets to save a little face. If the kid had dug in, he most likely would have prevailed, but it would have bankrupted him. Being awarded lawyers fees is far from a certainty.
That sounds an awful lot like airlines selling a one way ticket for more than a round trip. I would prefer that if AMD makes a chip that specs out at 2.6 ghz they then sell that chip at 2.6 ghz. It makes absolutely no sense to introduce inefficiancies into the marketplace. Why on Earth would AMD want to sell a $600 chip for only $100? It's marketing types making a short term profit, but a long term failure. Much like how the major airlines are all being undercut by low cost carriers that sell everything as a cheap one-way ticket.
The answer of course, is that Americans are idiots. And by Americans, I mean American politicians. Changing what time the clock reads has very little effect on actual behavior. Furthermore, the only thing it would really affect is when lights are turned on around the home. Lighting is a trivial expense. The real energy drains are air conditioning and major appliances (electric stove, dryer, refrigerator). But, if politicians feel the need to legislate to make themselves feel like they're doing something, then here's some better ideas:
1) Change the clocks on the first Sunday of each month so that sunrise is always at the same time, like 6am or 7am.
2) Adjust the clocks each month so that sunset is always at the same time (ie, 8pm).
3) Adjust the clocks half an hour to the midpoint between daylight savings time and standard time and quit futzing with it.
I'm most fond of option number 1, as I'm not a morning person and find it easier to get out of bed once the sun is up. On the other hand, I have a 2 year old daughter who won't sleep until it's been dark for a little while. Since DST kicked on, bedtime went from 8pm to 9pm, so option 2 would be good as well. As for 3, I've never liked DST, so that would be fine with me as well.
But we flat refuse to use games as a benchmark for production hardware.
Some games make very good benchmarks for certain types of hardware, particularly in a head to head comparison. Video cards are a good example. Also, if your target market is gamers who obsess about frame rates, then games are a very good means of benchmarking. In most cases, games can give a very good head to head comparison of the overall picture of a system as they tend to be CPU, Video, and memory intensive.
But I personally get most of my reviews from Penny-Arcade. While they do whore themselves out to certain corporations, they're generally honest about it, plus they're successful enough that they can save themselves for companies they really like; ie, Blizzard.
And nothing beats reviews from people you know IRL, or actually playing with the hardware yourself. Personally, I'm pimping the ATI HDTV Wonder these days. I've previously flammed it, but the most recent set of drivers they've released fixed the problems I was having with it, and I love it now. The only other TV card I've tried is the bottom of the line analog card from Hauppage, which even with a great signal had some picture issues.
US/Canada is the worlds largest ungarded border. There is absolutely no way to secure it. Requiring passports to travel across it can only inconveniance the honest and law abiding. Or, as the movie "Canadian Bacon" so chillingly put it - Canadians... they walk among us.
Quite the contrary. The person in question is using the trademarked name to specifically speak about the company in question. If I am badmouthing Microsoft Windows, it is entirely appropriate to incorporate Microsoft Windows into the URL I am using to do so. Using Microsft Windows in a URL aimed at marketing, say, Linspire, would be obviously deceptive. The stupidity in this case is the fool trying to sell it back to Bosley Medical. If he offers it to them, it's blackmail/cybersquatting. On the other hand, if they approach him, it's perfectly legal.
Perhaps you're not familiar with the Berne convention on copyrights. If the EU invalidates a US copyright (worth $25 billion a year) without the consent of the US, that's a major treaty violation. The fallout on this would be insane. That is not an option in the slightest. The value of the Windows copyright to the US is so substantial that siezing it in the US anti-trust case was never even considdered.
And I question whether that should even be illegal. Why? Because the content in question was broadcast. All that's really happening is that it's being relayed down a technological pipe. At least as long as the commercials are distributed with the content. Whether you fast forward through them or not is your perrogative, but in fairness, they ought to be included. If you strip them out beforehand, you're no longer relaying a signal. I look at it as a really elaborate antenna/reciever/television combination.
(and i even go to a Catholic College)
Well, duh. Give girls a lifetime of sexual repression and two beers and the rest takes care of itself. I find that the less repressed they are, the better they control their urges.
RTFA. Parsons was to have paid the $500,000 as restitution to Microsoft because the worm launched a rather feeble DDOS attack on Microsoft's websites. As such, Microsoft has the authority to waive that, or to make arrangements. Also, with no job, assets, or future, Parsons would have had no means to make the restitution payment, and would likely have had it dismissed in bankruptcy proceedings. Microsoft would never have seen a dime. Instead, Microsoft gets to look charitable and magnanimous while the kid gets to avoid bankruptcy. Sounds like a win-win deal to me.
I get no respect I tell ya. People are set to look up to me and then some jerk blurts out that my wife is a Forensic Scientist. Then for the next half hour or so, it's nothing but questions about CSI and what interesting cases my wife is working. The worst is that this always seems to come up during lunch. The stuff she deals with will cause you to lose your lunch. And ironicly, despite having a masters degree (on top of bachelors degrees in Chemistry and Biology), she only makes about half of what I (the college dropout) do. In that light, perhaps she's the one comming up short on respect.
While I would like media to last forever, it's been pretty consistent over the last 50 years or so that media formats tend to have a maximum lifespan of about 15 years before they become obsolete. Right now, CD is being replaced by DVD which will be replaced by something else in about 5 years. Tried to buy a 5-1/4 floppy drive lately? So, I think it's pretty realistic that every 10 years or so you'll need to migrate all of your digital archives to a new format. As such, if your media is rated for 20 years, you should be in pretty good shape. I remember about 10 years or so ago when it was a big thing to have old Super-8 films transferred to VHS. Recently, my Dad has been converting old home movies from VHS to DVD. Then there's also the issue of transferring data formats as well. Converting from MPEG-2 to MPEG-4, CD to MP3, EBDIC to ASCII, etc. What good will it do me to have media that lasts 100 years if the equipment to read it will only be found in museums?
Um...what *legal* uses are there for selling a pipe-bomb kit?
It's strictly for educational purposes.
Actually, it's sorta like model rockets, some people enjoy amature bomb making and blowing up things like tree stumps and what not.
While dead pixels are common to LCD screens, Sony ought to have a policy of not more than X on the screen, and no more than 1 in the central area of the screen within the first year of ownership. Also, I'd like to see some reliable statistics on how widespread the problem is (with an emphasis on comparisons to similar products - GBA, camrea phones, etc.) If there was a substantial issue, I probably wouldn't buy a PSP without first verifying the screen.
So wrong... The guy is living and working in Kentucky. The state of New York has no basis for taxing any income earned there. But to answer your question on liability, workers comp cases are generally handled in the jurisdiction where the injury occoured. Furthermore, as for issues like benefits and administrative overhead, this should be treated no different than a company that has offices in more than one state. The guy can have the company lease his spare bedroom for $1 a year as an office.
The Supreme Court really has a wide lattitude on this one. It's not really that bad of an argument against companies like Morpheus and Grokster. 99% of the traffic on their networks is copyright infringing. It's sorta like selling someone a pipe-bomb kit. The pipe, fuse, timer, explosive and shrapnel might all be legal separately, but sold as a kit, you'll likely be looking at a weapons charge. All that aside, if you look at other P2P apps like BitTorrent, you can see that there are substantial legal uses for the technology. All in all, the most likely outcome for this is that the Court will say, "there's no actual law restricting their products". Then Congress will step in and take care of that.
Personally, I recommend memorizing no more than 3 or 4 good passwords. The reason is, I can never remember which one I'm using so I end up trying all of them. If I don't get it in 4 tries, I'm locked out for 20 minutes.
I think it's also important to note that the grammar checker included in MS Office, for all its flaws and faults, is still better than the average high school student. My wife once had a job evaluating essay questions on some standardized test (the California HS exit exam (?)). In any event, she would call me over from time to time when she encountered a particularly egregious example. Even the average examples were much worse than me on a bad day.
This post has been checked by MS Word.
Geek Squad started in Minneapolis. You'd see the old cars around town from time to time. (this was before they started using VW beetles) They had a pretty good reputation for providing fast on site tech support. They also tended to keep things like RAM and spare hard drives on hand (in their little cars) so that they could actually come on site and fix your system in one trip. I never used them, but they were supposed to be pretty solid. They were successful, so they started branching out into other cities. Then Best Buy, also from around here, did what they do best: merchandising. And now you can pay way too much for cheap crap with the GeekSquad logo on it. Huzzah.
The fact that a non-geek like me can set it up indicates that it can certainly be done by experienced developers.
Truly sir, you contradict yourself. Anyone running a wireless Linux thin-client network out of their house is inherently a geek. No matter how many nights a week you play softball, attend the opera, or whatever it is you may do, you are most assuredly a geek. Fortunately, you seem to have found the proper support group.
Those rules really only pertain to how taxes are collected and paid. They have no bearing on if or what sort of benefits the employer in question is required to provide. State law on this subject is likely to vary wildly. In some cases, state law may require someone to be included in benefits if they meet certain criteria. I really couldn't speculate on the laws out in Idaho, though. Furthermore, if the complainants are working through a contracting agency, then their beef is with the agency, or 'pimp', as I call mine, holding the contract and not HP.
All these extensions apply retroactively automatically. They're sometimes called "Mickey Mouse" extensions as the most notable work that's just this side of falling into the public domain is the first Mickey Mouse cartoon.
That said, you can't copyright the mechanics of a game. You can copyright the visual elements and possibly the layout of the board, and even everything combined as a "collection". However, there's nothing you can do about a game that plays the same. Trademark, of course, can be renewed indefinately. Hasbro is well within their rights to demand that they use a different URL and refrain from any use of the Scrabble trademark, except as it refers to the actual Scrabble board game.
Cable companies are a pretty limited monopoly. Nearly anywhere you can get cable you can also get satelite. Maybe not so much for renters, but most people can choose between Dish Network, DirecTV and the local cable company. The only real edge the cable company has in that marketspace is the ability to also provide broadband internet service. I think it is very poor policy to dictate the development of technology. History has always shown that government standards inevitably lead to uniform mediocracy.
And in case your wondering, I only get free over the air programming. (analog to my TV, HD to my PC.) I would happily sign up for a service that offered ala carte programming, though. I can't justify spending $45/month for DIY, SciFi and Spike.
Or I can buy a perfectly good 25" analog set for $159. Digital is nice. Real nice - I've got an HDTV tuner for my PC. In another couple of years, digital/HD will be competitive with analog. People do in fact want digital HDTV, but most aren't willing to pay much more for it. Especially when their existing setup works just fine. Most people only replace their TVs when the existing set breaks. On the other hand, people willing to shell out $300 for the latest in gaming are already much more like to have or be willing to buy HD.
Can't say that I have. got pictures?
ps, this is bringing back fond memories of Lynda Carter's cleavage.