Can you cite a single case of a libel case in America lost by a defendant, that spoke the truth, on a "technicality"?
Lost? Probably not many, because a lot (if not most) settle before it gets to that point. The problem is that a plaintiff with money can keep you buried under motion after motion, which costs a lot of time to answer, and that's time not spent on your business. Look at how much SCO cost IBM for their little adventure, even though SCO really didn't have any technical merits to their suit and it was mostly just an attempt to increase their share price. Sure, you can try to get the court to deal with a vexatious litigant, but there's no guarantee the judge will see things your way, and again, that's more of your time spent doing stuff that a lawyer could probably deal with more efficiently.
I'm not saying you're wrong for doing things pro se - actually, I admire that you made the effort to do it yourself. Just don't underestimate how much trouble someone with money can make if they really want to cause problems for you.
but most of these guys jobs are simply going around and drilling the most convenient holes they can in your house to run new service (god forbid they might actually think about how ugly a cable would look coming out at waist height in the middle of a room...)
Or whether that hole happens to go through some power conduit. I'm sure he'll notice quickly enough though.
Not quite. I'm free to go into the middle of the town square and yell "TsuruchiBrian is a thief and punches kittens!", but you're just as free to bring legal action against me for saying it. Freedom of speech means the government is not allowed to curtail it, but there still can be legal consequences just the same.
We already had the right to form companies, build houses, live, work, and pursue happiness without requiring the blessing and forbearance of the federal government.
You've always had the right to go into business for yourself, but you don't have the right to saddle others with your debt. Unless you want to keep track of a signed contract for every shareholder that explicitly grants you the right to pawn a percentage of your debts off on them in exchange for their share purchase, you're going to need Big Brother's help to make that happen. Even ignoring the debt issues, there's no way to force the government to recognize your company as a separate legal entity capable of entering into contracts and such without their cooperation. It'd really suck to go into court, have the judge say, "I don't recognize this ad-hoc corporation as a legal entity, so the plaintiff's entire award will be paid by you, Mr. Stoploss."
He likely does have a case against Comcast under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, as the company is not allowed to contact an employer about a debt or matters relating to it.
The FDCPA deals with third-party debt collectors, not original creditors.
So as long as the employee isn't fired (contract breached/broken) Comcast would not be at fault for Tortious Interference.
Aside from the fact the employee *was* fired, tortious interference can be interpreted by the court as "interfering with an existing business relationship" without an explicit contract, which it sounds like was definitely the case. I think this guy's SOL in regards to his employer if he's in an at-will state, but that doesn't let Comcast off the hook.
In any event, if he sues either party, someone's going to have to cough up some emails to the court.
I've encountered it a few times - it's usually someone that's young, inexperienced and has a higher opinion of his abilities than is warranted. I've had a couple of them that have tried to stab me in the back during meetings and such, which is usually followed by a private conversation indicating that if they want to play office politics, I'm more than willing to do so, but I have a lot more experience doing it and a complete lack of concern for the consequences for them if that's really the route they want to take.
I think a lot of it boils down to John Gabriel's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory. People that actually have to interact with you in person tend not to be as dickish because of the potential consequences.
In Europe they put on their blinker towards the median side rather than obnoxiously flashing their high beams to remind people in front to vacate the fast lane. Very civilized.
Yes, I've seen that many times myself. Of course, that presupposes that most drivers are actually checking their rear-view mirrors, which sadly and often is not the case here.
That's not the case here though - we have a lot of older drivers that either just don't know better or aren't paying attention. Having had the opportunity to drive in a few countries in Europe, it's interesting to see how much easier it is there because people actually know the laws and follow them. Even driving on the Peripherique around Paris is a walk in the park compared to dealing with a lot of highways here in the U.S.
Personally, I will happily forego both systemd and Gnome 3.
I think this is probably what will end up happening. People will either switch to systemd-less distros and find a way to do without packages that have dependencies, or switch to other non-GNU systems like FreeBSD.
Unless I'm missing something, he's not the one who chose to put his software into Debian, OpenSuse and Arch, he made it and promoted it
No, but he and Red Hat pressured the maintainers for a lot of important packages (Gnome is probably the biggest) to include it as a dependency. If the distro maintainer wants to offer those packages, they either have to use systemd, excise the dependencies from all of the packages themselves (and then maintain all of those forks in perpetuity), or not include the package at all. No distro maintainer has those kinds of resources, so they're basically being forced to include it if they want to keep current on package releases.
What is being said isn't really that people hate Poettering, but that people disagree with a decision the Debian maintainers have made.
The problem is that the Debian folks (along with a lot of other distro maintainers) don't really have a choice. Recent versions of a lot of popular packages simply won't run without it due to a LOT of lobbying by Poettering and Red Hat, and most maintainers simply don't have the resources to fork everything that has those dependencies.
I'm interested, in which jurisdiction can you get fined for NOT violating rules ?!
Most states in the U.S. have laws regarding driving too slowly, and being in the passing lane when you're not in fact passing anyone. Where I live, the relevant laws are F.S. 316.183 (5) and F.S. 316.081. Note that 316.081 is missing the "or in compliance with law" language present in 316.183 (5), so even if you're going the speed limit, you can still be ticketed for hanging in the left lane when you're not supposed to be there. It's rarely enforced though, and it's quite common where I live to see a bunch of idiots cruising in the left lane with the right lane vacant for a mile or more.
Bigger motors aren't going to help the fact that there's just not that much kinetic energy to recover at low speeds, plus a bigger motor weighs more and will have greater internal losses in the windings. The system I have personal experience with used motors that were bigger than a V6 engine block and run through a substantial gearbox (so the motors ran fairly fast even at low speeds), and regenerative braking was still useless under about 15 mph. Residental garbage trucks don't go even that fast on the majority of their routes, and bear in mind that a heavy truck with a high accessory load will need much larger batteries.
I'm not saying that it couldn't be made to work, just that it seems kind of impractical for a heavy low-speed road vehicle that has to be completely self-contained and can't pull power from a catenary or other outside power source.
Then on top of that, you have to look at the number of people that commute to work. My commute is about 30 miles - well over an hour's ride to get to work, and given the heat and humidity here (Florida), you'd have to be working someplace where you could shower after you get there. Factor in the daily thunderstorms during the summer, and it sounds to me like a really miserable experience.
and an electric motor is MUCH better for a stop&go traffic pattern due to resting torque differences and regenerative braking.
Regenerative braking doesn't do a whole lot when the vast majority of your stop & go driving never gets above 10 mph with only 100 feet or so between stops.
I mean, OK, senators are there for ever, representatives for a while
Neither senators nor representatives have term limits. John Dingell has been in office for almost 59 years, and is the longest serving member of Congress ever.
If this kind of thing isn't fixed soon, America is marching into becoming a facist state, while pretending to still be defenders of freedom and justice. And people are applauding this as it goes along.
I believe George Santayana had something to say about this.
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Can you cite a single case of a libel case in America lost by a defendant, that spoke the truth, on a "technicality"?
Lost? Probably not many, because a lot (if not most) settle before it gets to that point. The problem is that a plaintiff with money can keep you buried under motion after motion, which costs a lot of time to answer, and that's time not spent on your business. Look at how much SCO cost IBM for their little adventure, even though SCO really didn't have any technical merits to their suit and it was mostly just an attempt to increase their share price. Sure, you can try to get the court to deal with a vexatious litigant, but there's no guarantee the judge will see things your way, and again, that's more of your time spent doing stuff that a lawyer could probably deal with more efficiently.
I'm not saying you're wrong for doing things pro se - actually, I admire that you made the effort to do it yourself. Just don't underestimate how much trouble someone with money can make if they really want to cause problems for you.
but most of these guys jobs are simply going around and drilling the most convenient holes they can in your house to run new service (god forbid they might actually think about how ugly a cable would look coming out at waist height in the middle of a room...)
Or whether that hole happens to go through some power conduit. I'm sure he'll notice quickly enough though.
Not quite. I'm free to go into the middle of the town square and yell "TsuruchiBrian is a thief and punches kittens!", but you're just as free to bring legal action against me for saying it. Freedom of speech means the government is not allowed to curtail it, but there still can be legal consequences just the same.
We already had the right to form companies, build houses, live, work, and pursue happiness without requiring the blessing and forbearance of the federal government.
You've always had the right to go into business for yourself, but you don't have the right to saddle others with your debt. Unless you want to keep track of a signed contract for every shareholder that explicitly grants you the right to pawn a percentage of your debts off on them in exchange for their share purchase, you're going to need Big Brother's help to make that happen. Even ignoring the debt issues, there's no way to force the government to recognize your company as a separate legal entity capable of entering into contracts and such without their cooperation. It'd really suck to go into court, have the judge say, "I don't recognize this ad-hoc corporation as a legal entity, so the plaintiff's entire award will be paid by you, Mr. Stoploss."
He likely does have a case against Comcast under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, as the company is not allowed to contact an employer about a debt or matters relating to it.
The FDCPA deals with third-party debt collectors, not original creditors.
So as long as the employee isn't fired (contract breached/broken) Comcast would not be at fault for Tortious Interference.
Aside from the fact the employee *was* fired, tortious interference can be interpreted by the court as "interfering with an existing business relationship" without an explicit contract, which it sounds like was definitely the case. I think this guy's SOL in regards to his employer if he's in an at-will state, but that doesn't let Comcast off the hook.
In any event, if he sues either party, someone's going to have to cough up some emails to the court.
Because there's always BSD to fall back on. Just keep Poettering away from that.
Theo would eat him alive without a second thought.
I've encountered it a few times - it's usually someone that's young, inexperienced and has a higher opinion of his abilities than is warranted. I've had a couple of them that have tried to stab me in the back during meetings and such, which is usually followed by a private conversation indicating that if they want to play office politics, I'm more than willing to do so, but I have a lot more experience doing it and a complete lack of concern for the consequences for them if that's really the route they want to take.
I think a lot of it boils down to John Gabriel's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory. People that actually have to interact with you in person tend not to be as dickish because of the potential consequences.
In Europe they put on their blinker towards the median side rather than obnoxiously flashing their high beams to remind people in front to vacate the fast lane. Very civilized.
Yes, I've seen that many times myself. Of course, that presupposes that most drivers are actually checking their rear-view mirrors, which sadly and often is not the case here.
That's not the case here though - we have a lot of older drivers that either just don't know better or aren't paying attention. Having had the opportunity to drive in a few countries in Europe, it's interesting to see how much easier it is there because people actually know the laws and follow them. Even driving on the Peripherique around Paris is a walk in the park compared to dealing with a lot of highways here in the U.S.
Personally, I will happily forego both systemd and Gnome 3.
I think this is probably what will end up happening. People will either switch to systemd-less distros and find a way to do without packages that have dependencies, or switch to other non-GNU systems like FreeBSD.
Unless I'm missing something, he's not the one who chose to put his software into Debian, OpenSuse and Arch, he made it and promoted it
No, but he and Red Hat pressured the maintainers for a lot of important packages (Gnome is probably the biggest) to include it as a dependency. If the distro maintainer wants to offer those packages, they either have to use systemd, excise the dependencies from all of the packages themselves (and then maintain all of those forks in perpetuity), or not include the package at all. No distro maintainer has those kinds of resources, so they're basically being forced to include it if they want to keep current on package releases.
Read it before you judge. They don't make any claim to be objective, but they *do* have rational and technically sound arguments against it.
What is being said isn't really that people hate Poettering, but that people disagree with a decision the Debian maintainers have made.
The problem is that the Debian folks (along with a lot of other distro maintainers) don't really have a choice. Recent versions of a lot of popular packages simply won't run without it due to a LOT of lobbying by Poettering and Red Hat, and most maintainers simply don't have the resources to fork everything that has those dependencies.
A fairly comprehensive list of perceived problems can be found here.
I'm interested, in which jurisdiction can you get fined for NOT violating rules ?!
Most states in the U.S. have laws regarding driving too slowly, and being in the passing lane when you're not in fact passing anyone. Where I live, the relevant laws are F.S. 316.183 (5) and F.S. 316.081. Note that 316.081 is missing the "or in compliance with law" language present in 316.183 (5), so even if you're going the speed limit, you can still be ticketed for hanging in the left lane when you're not supposed to be there. It's rarely enforced though, and it's quite common where I live to see a bunch of idiots cruising in the left lane with the right lane vacant for a mile or more.
Bigger motors aren't going to help the fact that there's just not that much kinetic energy to recover at low speeds, plus a bigger motor weighs more and will have greater internal losses in the windings. The system I have personal experience with used motors that were bigger than a V6 engine block and run through a substantial gearbox (so the motors ran fairly fast even at low speeds), and regenerative braking was still useless under about 15 mph. Residental garbage trucks don't go even that fast on the majority of their routes, and bear in mind that a heavy truck with a high accessory load will need much larger batteries.
I'm not saying that it couldn't be made to work, just that it seems kind of impractical for a heavy low-speed road vehicle that has to be completely self-contained and can't pull power from a catenary or other outside power source.
Except that regenerative braking doesn't work well at low speeds.
Then on top of that, you have to look at the number of people that commute to work. My commute is about 30 miles - well over an hour's ride to get to work, and given the heat and humidity here (Florida), you'd have to be working someplace where you could shower after you get there. Factor in the daily thunderstorms during the summer, and it sounds to me like a really miserable experience.
Around where I live, most dispatches are for EMS calls. Ambulance + fire truck is the usual drill.
and an electric motor is MUCH better for a stop&go traffic pattern due to resting torque differences and regenerative braking.
Regenerative braking doesn't do a whole lot when the vast majority of your stop & go driving never gets above 10 mph with only 100 feet or so between stops.
And have little to no accountability to the people they ostensibly serve.
I mean, OK, senators are there for ever, representatives for a while
Neither senators nor representatives have term limits. John Dingell has been in office for almost 59 years, and is the longest serving member of Congress ever.
If this kind of thing isn't fixed soon, America is marching into becoming a facist state, while pretending to still be defenders of freedom and justice. And people are applauding this as it goes along.
I believe George Santayana had something to say about this.
The first bullet point of the domestic section reads: - "Involve acts dangerous to human life that violate federal or state law"
Using that criteria, jaywalking could be considered domestic terrorism.