If I get pulled over...and am tanked...I'm just refusing any tests! I'll just have them cuff me and take me in. If you take the field tests...all that does is give them evidence. They can't force you to give blood.
Yes, they can, but mostly they don't bother, because if you refuse, you are in violation of the DUI law. See 75 Pa.C.S.A. Section 1547.
So, yes, you'll lose your license for a year in most cases
It's automatic if you refuse to submit to blood or breath tests (in PA). Essentially, it is the same punishment as the DUI itself. Again, see the statute cited above....possibly get 'wreckless driving'
I don't know if you were trying to be funny, but it is "reckless driving". "Wreckless" driving would be admirable, not punishable. Although I must mention that "wreckless" and "reckless" driving are not mutually exclusive under PA law. See annotations to 75 Pa.C.S.A. section 3736.
, BUT it is still better than getting a DWI.
Refusing to be tested is not better than a DUI.
And in most cases, especially with first offense...you can get a temp driving permit to allow you to go to work, grocery store..etc.
PA law specifically prohibits the issuance of "bread and butter" licenses when a person has lost his license as a result of a DUI or refusal to submit to testing. See 75 Pa.C.S.A. Section 1553(d)(6 through 8). FWIW, these are officially known as "occupational limited licenses".
Star Trek (Sega), Qix, Tron, Tempest, and (later) Rampage and Gauntlet.
I remember playing the original Pac Man, Space Invaders, asteroids, defender, phoenix, galaga, etc.
I think that my personal favorites were probably Omega Race, Tron, and Star Trek.
There was one game that I recall vaguely (can't remember a name though) that was kind of an arcade version of a fantasy text adventure gaem -- you had to find stuff, get past a cloud giant, and some other things. Five bucks to the first person who can come up with what it was. I'm thinking it would have been on the scene around 83-86, maybe.
Do you want the client to edit the spec before signing off? If not, OpenOffice.org can export PDF, and any computer with the no-charge Adobe Reader can read and print PDF. Yes, Adobe Reader is a separate download, but at least I'd guess it's already on an order of magnitude more Windows computers than OO.o is and possibly on more computers than even Microsoft Office itself.
This is what I do with my emailed documents. I use OOO on Windows and when I need to send something, I just hit the "PDF" button in OOO, and I email the document. Works great. Plus it saved me the expense of having to buy a machine with an OEM copy of Office or buying an exorbitantly expensive retail copy of Office when I opened my own business.
In general, I have had some difficulties when opening documents from Office users, but mostly, everything has worked pretty well. It is not perfect, but it does everything I need it to do.
This may be a little paranoid, but is it possible that this whole thing is a honeypot, and now MS can go around pulling SCO type stunts on OSS projects?
Second, we're going to see lawsuits in the next 2 years where Microsoft identifies code in Linux, added after February 10, 2004, which are either copied from, or influenced by, the Windows source code. And, as absurd as this is, it will be used to have, as Microsoft would say, a chilling effect on innovation.
Hm. I bet Andrew Morton has better things to do then trawl through WinNT code. Staying away from it does seem safest, though...
Part of future kernen maintenance should probably include comparisons against this code, just to be safe. The worst possible thing would be for some witless idiot to include any of it into any OSS project and have this miss final review.
IMHO, rather than chortling over this disclosure, I'd rather have the code be kept completely secret by MSFT. Unfortunately, information is hard to keep secret when so may people have it.
Of course, sleazy lawyers will wow clueless jury members with how easy it is to change things in photoshop, which they'll understand. And those jury members will be asleep when the mathemetician demonstrates that there's only a 1 in 400 kajillion chance of altering time image without changing the checksums...
Of course, sleazy and/or simply lazy cops will still be able to lie under oath and have the juries believe them because they virtually always believe the cops.
And the state will present as part of its case their expert who has testified 8,000 times that the chain of evidence is perfect and that they photos (or whatever) could not possibly have been altered. And the court appointed attorney who received the case won't be able to get the judge to approve an expert to testify in the case, because it costs too much money. "Besides," the judge will argue, "do you have any reason to believe that any of this stuff is faked? We've gone over this testimony 8,000 times in my courtroom and it's never worked. I don't have time for this. Have you seen my docket? Let's move on."
Cops will get hip to this and start to realize that they can tighten up loose cases by faking things. And since nobody _really_ watches the cops, people will go to jail when the cops cut corners.
You mentioned some steps that police have taken in your area. I like the sound of them as a start, but what I would like to see is for police to videotape everything that they do while in uniform, and I would like it to be discoverable under Right to Know type laws, undercover operations excepted. Cops should be forced to wear mini digicams on their badges to record everything. No more forced confessions, no more roughing up accused criminals, no more testilying about the case. If they're doing the right thing (and we _know_ that _all_ cops are great and its the lawyers who are dirtballs), then they have nothing to hide. We need someone to police the police.
Do you know how many times I have heard the same testimony from cops about every DUI stop that they've ever done? Every crack deal shake down? The testimony, intentionally or not, ultimately boils down to a script that they have found to be effective in the cases on which they've presented testimony. They may vaguely remember details from cases that they've remembered from the report that they read two minutes before they took the stand, but to hear the telling on the witness stand, it's like it was yesterday.
These meatheads probably can't tell you what they had for breakfast, but they can clearly remember what they did on their 343rd drug bust of their careers eight months ago when it goes to trial.
It seems as though you've worked for law enforcement -- that is not inherently evil. Nor is being a defense attorney. Both callings are necessary in a free society. OTOH, cops are people too, and people everywhere are prone to cut corners and take the lazy way out. You must understand that, and you must understand that attorneys are trying to make sure that they system works. If my clients go to jail, fine. I'm not put out by that. I am put out if someone goes to jail and the state hasn't dotted its i's and crossed its t's.
Law enforcement will tamper evidence on occasion, and making it easier for them to do so virtually insures that it will be tampered more often. In order to maintain (or even improve) the integrity of our justice system, we need to make modifying digital evidence as difficult (or impossible) as is possible, and we have numerous tools already to do so.
I agree wholeheartedly.
Dismissing this issue is foolish... unless you want a scenerio where any Jury with any technical knowhow whatsoever will always vote to acquit, on the grounds that digital evidence is no more valuable than a he-said/she-said argument
Your assumption is totally wrong. Juries will vote to convict under almost any circumstance where it is he said/she said, and the cop is one of the parties. Absent almost unimpeachable evidence that a cop is lying, juries swallow their stories in my jurisdiction like Linda Lovelace swallowed cocks. "The cops are lying" is not a winning defense under almost all circumstances but the most extreme. Jurors like cops. They hate crack dealers and people who are accused of being crack dealers. In my jurisdiction, they hate young black men who act and talk differently than your typical juror.
You are right about the problems inherent with digital evidence. I think your conclusions about the consequences are wrong. People won't go free as a result of jurors not considering the evidence -- they will go to jail because they will consider the evidence.
The blinding flash of a badge, a freshly starched and pressed uniform, a physically fit cop, and a cop who is experienced at testifying in criminal cases will trump virtually any testimony from a homey from the hood who was picked up with a couple of grams of crack wrapped in a baggie that was stuffed down his pants. Throw in some digitally modified evidence, and you're fucked if you are the accused.
It's not hard for experts to detect Photoshop fakery, even if amateurs can be fooled.
I work in wholesale justice -- I do a lot of court-appointed work. There is no way that an expert will be approved in every case to authenticate or detect alterations of digital images. At the basic level of the legal system, the people who most need this sort of protection (accused criminals) will not be able to afford it.
I like the idea of digital photographs with some sort of cryptographic self-authentication. It would reduce the risk of cowboy cops faking evidence and putting it over on juries and judges. Someone needs to police the police, and this might help.
make digital evidence inadmissable. Photoshopping/gimping/email fraud/video editing is becoming too easy and too difficult to trace.
1. I guess that incriminating email should be kept out of evidence, then. It's digital evidence, after all.
2. As a criminal defense attorney, I recommend that all my clients should immediately make use of this new "digital" technology, including email, websites, etc. Sell child porn over the internet and use Pay Pal with no consequences! Commit fraud in eBay auctions with no consequences! It's all good!
3. I can imagine circumstances where _all_ evidence in a criminal or civil case might well be digital. Throwing it all out of court or ignoring the "best evidence" rule is plainly idiotic.
Since digital evidence cannot be used in court under the AC's proposed rule (modded up to +5 by unthinking idiots), then fraudulent websites could never be taken down. Digitally distributed child pornography would be ok. Duh.
There are legitimate issues to work on with the chain of evidence. Even something as simple as slightly altering photos (in a non-criminal context, remember when a major news magazine slightly darkened OJ's picture for a cover?) needs to be addressed.
Throwing the baby out with the bathwater (excluding all digital evidence) defies pratical considerations as well as the changing nature of the common law, which tends to adapt to circumstances.
I really like the idea that it provides free access to papers and research instead of making you pay for something like Nature. I think this is a perfect application for the internet, and I hope to see this sort of use expand as other academic areas become aware of the project. Economics, legal journals, etc. Academia and the internet have been intertwined from the get go, and this is right in the wheelhouse of that tradition.
"It is not doing the thing that we like to do, but liking the thing that we have to do, that makes life blessed." -Goethe (but it appeared on/. this morning so it is relevant).
I like the things I have to do -- criminal and civil litigation. I like it enough to enjoy doing it as much as I need to in order to keep my bills paid. I think that I'd do it even if I got paid $10.00/hour instead of $125/hr. (with maybe 20 billables a week, which is extremely low in my business -- I'm basically part-time). Basically, after expenses, I make about $70,000/yr.
I think that given a choice between more time at home and more time at work, I would actually work more. I like helping people with their problems, and I get home at night (most of the time, unless I have a trial) at 6. My commute is 15 minutes. I rarely work on weekends, except to do billing and accounting and taxes.
I think the issue with work is less how much people work or how much they'e paid than it is people finding work environments that they will be happy with. I hated my last job, so I quit and I opened my own firm. Hours worked were never a consideration -- primarly I wanted discretion to do things my way and to do what I wanted to do. Not having a pointy-haired boss is huge.
For me, I think the dream job is ultimately about being able to decide what you want to do and being able to do it your own way, no matter the field. It doesn't matter whether you're pounding out code, building circuits, or filing legal memoranda. Freedom is, IMHO, the necessary ingredient in any job that makes it enjoyable.
A significant element in me figuring things out for my life was dealing with my finances. I have some student debt left and a small mortgage (less than most new cars). That was huge in getting me off of the corporate treadmill o'debt. There's nothing like creditors chasing you to keep you under yoke and on the treadmill. Living like a church mouse and grinding the debt was a big part of what I had to do in order to be able to open my own office. I basically bought my freedom, and it feels good.
Perhaps Wolfram is giving back to the scientific community; perhaps it is simply clever marketing for a framework that is beginning to gain momentum. For any matter, the entire encyclopedic volume is online, and this appears to be a positive step for scientific writing.
Nope. This is a positive step for scientific writing.
There are many valid reasons for having bogus whois information, and many of those have already been enumerated here, so I won't repeat them. What I think is a useful addition to the conversation is that it is long past time for a technology court.
There are lots of issues to be worked out -- who would staff it, what the judges' qualifications would need to be, CLE requirements, who can practice before the court, where it should be convened (overlay districts on the existing federal district courts?), and what its jurisdiction would be (what is a "technology issue"?, should complex cases with lots of issues be broken apart with contract in court A and tech in court B?). An additional alternative is for perhaps a tech judge to be assigned to each federal district court. Cases would proceed normally through the existing system with tech-related cases being assigned to the tech judge. By petition, perhaps cases could be adjucidated under special rules to accelerate the process.
In the context of the present "bogus whois info" issue, perhaps the above process could be used to deal with cases where whois is bogufied for fraudulent purposes as opposed to unremarkable reasons. It may be possible to have an enhancement for another crime to have bogus whois info, but have it be nonactionable in the absence of any other crime. Top my way of thinking, fraud or similar crimes/civil offenses should be the ones where this sort of "enhancement" would be an available remedy. If its a case where concealing the identity of a party is not an issue, it shouldn't be available to the state or to a private claimant.
"When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns." While that idea might be more accurately stated as "When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will accidentally shoot their own kids,"
Nice troll. You should contact the troll archives. I'll bite:
"When computers are outlawed, only outlaws' kids will be victimized by sleazy chat-room dirtballs."
or
"When computers are outlawed, only outlaws will download music or spread child pornography."
or
"When OSS and/or Free software is outlawed, only GNU users will have the tools to write viruses."
or
"When DCSS is outlawed, only criminals will be able to use it."
(1) Soundbite politics are inherently idiotic. The people here are smarter than that.
(2) Guns are like computers. They are tools that should be respected and used with respect and care. They are not sentient objects with "good" or "evil" characteristics. The behavior of their owners is the issue, not the items themselves. In that context, your troll is not entirely inaccurate as it points to behavior of gun owners, but painting an entire class of largely law-abiding people in such broad strokes is really the same as setting up a straw man. Again, a majority of the/. crowd may giggle at it, but they aren't going to buy it. People are too smart for that sort of thing here.
Nothing lets you into the id of an organization or cause like seeing:
1. Where the money comes from, and 2. Where the money goes.
In the Microsoft/GNU/Linux debate, the TCO numbers highlighted on the "Get the Facts" site state that:
" A study of total costs of ownership over five years for working corporate infrastructure shows that lower staffing expenses are a large part of an 11-22% cost advantage for Windows. For file-server workloads in particular:
* Staffing expenses were 33.5% better.
* Training costs were 32.3% better."
It neglects to mention that "security" and "AV control" and "worm damage" costs are also commensurately higher.
Follow the money, boys! How much downtime did you have from the last Windows worm?
Best funny jargon I've seen on/. (saved it to a local file for just such an occasion as this):
============ If I were a CIO or CTO debating the TCO of *nix vs. Win2K to a CEO, would IBM vs. SCO be the TKO that stops the CEO from approving A/P to pay my PO for RH's LGX?
FWIW, even if OSS is FAIB, if the DOJ considers *nix IP with a TM, then it basically becomes SCO's LIC, meaning our OSS becomes a CSS OS, which would RSTBO.
AIBO going w/ an ASP that manages our OS? BTA, we might end up w/ a BOFH giving us ZA, which WWAD PMS.
AFAIK, INMP if SCO wants to be ITM by enforcing its supposed IPR - *nix IP should be PD or GNU, like BSD just on GP, IYKWIM. I keep asking myself in this situation - WWLD?
Slashdot Mirror
cayenne8 obviously doesn't live in Pennsylvania:
...possibly get 'wreckless driving'
If I get pulled over...and am tanked...I'm just refusing any tests! I'll just have them cuff me and take me in. If you take the field tests...all that does is give them evidence. They can't force you to give blood.
Yes, they can, but mostly they don't bother, because if you refuse, you are in violation of the DUI law. See 75 Pa.C.S.A. Section 1547.
So, yes, you'll lose your license for a year in most cases
It's automatic if you refuse to submit to blood or breath tests (in PA). Essentially, it is the same punishment as the DUI itself. Again, see the statute cited above.
I don't know if you were trying to be funny, but it is "reckless driving". "Wreckless" driving would be admirable, not punishable. Although I must mention that "wreckless" and "reckless" driving are not mutually exclusive under PA law. See annotations to 75 Pa.C.S.A. section 3736.
, BUT it is still better than getting a DWI.
Refusing to be tested is not better than a DUI.
And in most cases, especially with first offense...you can get a temp driving permit to allow you to go to work, grocery store..etc.
PA law specifically prohibits the issuance of "bread and butter" licenses when a person has lost his license as a result of a DUI or refusal to submit to testing. See 75 Pa.C.S.A. Section 1553(d)(6 through 8). FWIW, these are officially known as "occupational limited licenses".
GF.
Over here, even with out gross taxes on writeable media,
Yeah...that's pretty much what I think of taxes, too.
GF.
The ones I remember the most are:
Star Trek (Sega), Qix, Tron, Tempest, and (later) Rampage and Gauntlet.
I remember playing the original Pac Man, Space Invaders, asteroids, defender, phoenix, galaga, etc.
I think that my personal favorites were probably Omega Race, Tron, and Star Trek.
There was one game that I recall vaguely (can't remember a name though) that was kind of an arcade version of a fantasy text adventure gaem -- you had to find stuff, get past a cloud giant, and some other things. Five bucks to the first person who can come up with what it was. I'm thinking it would have been on the scene around 83-86, maybe.
GF
Yes:
http://www.bmigaming.com/games-video.htm
Do you want the client to edit the spec before signing off? If not, OpenOffice.org can export PDF, and any computer with the no-charge Adobe Reader can read and print PDF. Yes, Adobe Reader is a separate download, but at least I'd guess it's already on an order of magnitude more Windows computers than OO.o is and possibly on more computers than even Microsoft Office itself.
This is what I do with my emailed documents. I use OOO on Windows and when I need to send something, I just hit the "PDF" button in OOO, and I email the document. Works great. Plus it saved me the expense of having to buy a machine with an OEM copy of Office or buying an exorbitantly expensive retail copy of Office when I opened my own business.
In general, I have had some difficulties when opening documents from Office users, but mostly, everything has worked pretty well. It is not perfect, but it does everything I need it to do.
GF
This may be a little paranoid, but is it possible that this whole thing is a honeypot, and now MS can go around pulling SCO type stunts on OSS projects?
Second, we're going to see lawsuits in the next 2 years where Microsoft identifies code in Linux, added after February 10, 2004, which are either copied from, or influenced by, the Windows source code. And, as absurd as this is, it will be used to have, as Microsoft would say, a chilling effect on innovation.
Hm. I bet Andrew Morton has better things to do then trawl through WinNT code. Staying away from it does seem safest, though...
Part of future kernen maintenance should probably include comparisons against this code, just to be safe. The worst possible thing would be for some witless idiot to include any of it into any OSS project and have this miss final review.
IMHO, rather than chortling over this disclosure, I'd rather have the code be kept completely secret by MSFT. Unfortunately, information is hard to keep secret when so may people have it.
GF.
Of course, sleazy lawyers will wow clueless jury members with how easy it is to change things in photoshop, which they'll understand. And those jury members will be asleep when the mathemetician demonstrates that there's only a 1 in 400 kajillion chance of altering time image without changing the checksums...
Of course, sleazy and/or simply lazy cops will still be able to lie under oath and have the juries believe them because they virtually always believe the cops.
And the state will present as part of its case their expert who has testified 8,000 times that the chain of evidence is perfect and that they photos (or whatever) could not possibly have been altered. And the court appointed attorney who received the case won't be able to get the judge to approve an expert to testify in the case, because it costs too much money. "Besides," the judge will argue, "do you have any reason to believe that any of this stuff is faked? We've gone over this testimony 8,000 times in my courtroom and it's never worked. I don't have time for this. Have you seen my docket? Let's move on."
Cops will get hip to this and start to realize that they can tighten up loose cases by faking things. And since nobody _really_ watches the cops, people will go to jail when the cops cut corners.
You mentioned some steps that police have taken in your area. I like the sound of them as a start, but what I would like to see is for police to videotape everything that they do while in uniform, and I would like it to be discoverable under Right to Know type laws, undercover operations excepted. Cops should be forced to wear mini digicams on their badges to record everything. No more forced confessions, no more roughing up accused criminals, no more testilying about the case. If they're doing the right thing (and we _know_ that _all_ cops are great and its the lawyers who are dirtballs), then they have nothing to hide. We need someone to police the police.
Do you know how many times I have heard the same testimony from cops about every DUI stop that they've ever done? Every crack deal shake down? The testimony, intentionally or not, ultimately boils down to a script that they have found to be effective in the cases on which they've presented testimony. They may vaguely remember details from cases that they've remembered from the report that they read two minutes before they took the stand, but to hear the telling on the witness stand, it's like it was yesterday.
These meatheads probably can't tell you what they had for breakfast, but they can clearly remember what they did on their 343rd drug bust of their careers eight months ago when it goes to trial.
It seems as though you've worked for law enforcement -- that is not inherently evil. Nor is being a defense attorney. Both callings are necessary in a free society. OTOH, cops are people too, and people everywhere are prone to cut corners and take the lazy way out. You must understand that, and you must understand that attorneys are trying to make sure that they system works. If my clients go to jail, fine. I'm not put out by that. I am put out if someone goes to jail and the state hasn't dotted its i's and crossed its t's.
GF.
Law enforcement will tamper evidence on occasion, and making it easier for them to do so virtually insures that it will be tampered more often. In order to maintain (or even improve) the integrity of our justice system, we need to make modifying digital evidence as difficult (or impossible) as is possible, and we have numerous tools already to do so.
... unless you want a scenerio where any Jury with any technical knowhow whatsoever will always vote to acquit, on the grounds that digital evidence is no more valuable than a he-said/she-said argument
I agree wholeheartedly.
Dismissing this issue is foolish
Your assumption is totally wrong. Juries will vote to convict under almost any circumstance where it is he said/she said, and the cop is one of the parties. Absent almost unimpeachable evidence that a cop is lying, juries swallow their stories in my jurisdiction like Linda Lovelace swallowed cocks. "The cops are lying" is not a winning defense under almost all circumstances but the most extreme. Jurors like cops. They hate crack dealers and people who are accused of being crack dealers. In my jurisdiction, they hate young black men who act and talk differently than your typical juror.
You are right about the problems inherent with digital evidence. I think your conclusions about the consequences are wrong. People won't go free as a result of jurors not considering the evidence -- they will go to jail because they will consider the evidence.
The blinding flash of a badge, a freshly starched and pressed uniform, a physically fit cop, and a cop who is experienced at testifying in criminal cases will trump virtually any testimony from a homey from the hood who was picked up with a couple of grams of crack wrapped in a baggie that was stuffed down his pants. Throw in some digitally modified evidence, and you're fucked if you are the accused.
It's not hard for experts to detect Photoshop fakery, even if amateurs can be fooled.
I work in wholesale justice -- I do a lot of court-appointed work. There is no way that an expert will be approved in every case to authenticate or detect alterations of digital images. At the basic level of the legal system, the people who most need this sort of protection (accused criminals) will not be able to afford it.
I like the idea of digital photographs with some sort of cryptographic self-authentication. It would reduce the risk of cowboy cops faking evidence and putting it over on juries and judges. Someone needs to police the police, and this might help.
GF.
make digital evidence inadmissable. Photoshopping/gimping/email fraud/video editing is becoming too easy and too difficult to trace.
1. I guess that incriminating email should be kept out of evidence, then. It's digital evidence, after all.
2. As a criminal defense attorney, I recommend that all my clients should immediately make use of this new "digital" technology, including email, websites, etc. Sell child porn over the internet and use Pay Pal with no consequences! Commit fraud in eBay auctions with no consequences! It's all good!
3. I can imagine circumstances where _all_ evidence in a criminal or civil case might well be digital. Throwing it all out of court or ignoring the "best evidence" rule is plainly idiotic.
Since digital evidence cannot be used in court under the AC's proposed rule (modded up to +5 by unthinking idiots), then fraudulent websites could never be taken down. Digitally distributed child pornography would be ok. Duh.
There are legitimate issues to work on with the chain of evidence. Even something as simple as slightly altering photos (in a non-criminal context, remember when a major news magazine slightly darkened OJ's picture for a cover?) needs to be addressed.
Throwing the baby out with the bathwater (excluding all digital evidence) defies pratical considerations as well as the changing nature of the common law, which tends to adapt to circumstances.
GF.
I really like the idea that it provides free access to papers and research instead of making you pay for something like Nature. I think this is a perfect application for the internet, and I hope to see this sort of use expand as other academic areas become aware of the project. Economics, legal journals, etc. Academia and the internet have been intertwined from the get go, and this is right in the wheelhouse of that tradition.
"It is not doing the thing that we like to do, but liking the thing that we have to do, that makes life blessed." -Goethe (but it appeared on /. this morning so it is relevant).
I like the things I have to do -- criminal and civil litigation. I like it enough to enjoy doing it as much as I need to in order to keep my bills paid. I think that I'd do it even if I got paid $10.00/hour instead of $125/hr. (with maybe 20 billables a week, which is extremely low in my business -- I'm basically part-time). Basically, after expenses, I make about $70,000/yr.
I think that given a choice between more time at home and more time at work, I would actually work more. I like helping people with their problems, and I get home at night (most of the time, unless I have a trial) at 6. My commute is 15 minutes. I rarely work on weekends, except to do billing and accounting and taxes.
I think the issue with work is less how much people work or how much they'e paid than it is people finding work environments that they will be happy with. I hated my last job, so I quit and I opened my own firm. Hours worked were never a consideration -- primarly I wanted discretion to do things my way and to do what I wanted to do. Not having a pointy-haired boss is huge.
For me, I think the dream job is ultimately about being able to decide what you want to do and being able to do it your own way, no matter the field. It doesn't matter whether you're pounding out code, building circuits, or filing legal memoranda. Freedom is, IMHO, the necessary ingredient in any job that makes it enjoyable.
A significant element in me figuring things out for my life was dealing with my finances. I have some student debt left and a small mortgage (less than most new cars). That was huge in getting me off of the corporate treadmill o'debt. There's nothing like creditors chasing you to keep you under yoke and on the treadmill. Living like a church mouse and grinding the debt was a big part of what I had to do in order to be able to open my own office. I basically bought my freedom, and it feels good.
GF.
To be a self-employed criminal defense attorney with some civil litigation work...hey...wait a minute... That's my job!
w00t!
GF.
"Anonymous" submitted the review, eh? Methinks that a "friend" of the reviewer may have submitted the site to /.
I wonder whether this sort of thing has happened in the past? If not, it's not a bad idea...
GF.
Perhaps Wolfram is giving back to the scientific community; perhaps it is simply clever marketing for a framework that is beginning to gain momentum. For any matter, the entire encyclopedic volume is online, and this appears to be a positive step for scientific writing.
Nope. This is a positive step for scientific writing.
GF.
There are many valid reasons for having bogus whois information, and many of those have already been enumerated here, so I won't repeat them. What I think is a useful addition to the conversation is that it is long past time for a technology court.
There are lots of issues to be worked out -- who would staff it, what the judges' qualifications would need to be, CLE requirements, who can practice before the court, where it should be convened (overlay districts on the existing federal district courts?), and what its jurisdiction would be (what is a "technology issue"?, should complex cases with lots of issues be broken apart with contract in court A and tech in court B?). An additional alternative is for perhaps a tech judge to be assigned to each federal district court. Cases would proceed normally through the existing system with tech-related cases being assigned to the tech judge. By petition, perhaps cases could be adjucidated under special rules to accelerate the process.
In the context of the present "bogus whois info" issue, perhaps the above process could be used to deal with cases where whois is bogufied for fraudulent purposes as opposed to unremarkable reasons. It may be possible to have an enhancement for another crime to have bogus whois info, but have it be nonactionable in the absence of any other crime. Top my way of thinking, fraud or similar crimes/civil offenses should be the ones where this sort of "enhancement" would be an available remedy. If its a case where concealing the identity of a party is not an issue, it shouldn't be available to the state or to a private claimant.
Just my $.02.
GF.
"When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns." While that idea might be more accurately stated as "When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will accidentally shoot their own kids,"
/. crowd may giggle at it, but they aren't going to buy it. People are too smart for that sort of thing here.
Nice troll. You should contact the troll archives. I'll bite:
"When computers are outlawed, only outlaws' kids will be victimized by sleazy chat-room dirtballs."
or
"When computers are outlawed, only outlaws will download music or spread child pornography."
or
"When OSS and/or Free software is outlawed, only GNU users will have the tools to write viruses."
or
"When DCSS is outlawed, only criminals will be able to use it."
(1) Soundbite politics are inherently idiotic. The people here are smarter than that.
(2) Guns are like computers. They are tools that should be respected and used with respect and care. They are not sentient objects with "good" or "evil" characteristics. The behavior of their owners is the issue, not the items themselves. In that context, your troll is not entirely inaccurate as it points to behavior of gun owners, but painting an entire class of largely law-abiding people in such broad strokes is really the same as setting up a straw man. Again, a majority of the
GF.
follow the money
Nothing lets you into the id of an organization or cause like seeing:
1. Where the money comes from, and
2. Where the money goes.
In the Microsoft/GNU/Linux debate, the TCO numbers highlighted on the "Get the Facts" site state that:
" A study of total costs of ownership over five years for working corporate infrastructure shows that lower staffing expenses are a large part of an 11-22% cost advantage for Windows. For file-server workloads in particular:
* Staffing expenses were 33.5% better.
* Training costs were 32.3% better."
It neglects to mention that "security" and "AV control" and "worm damage" costs are also commensurately higher.
Follow the money, boys! How much downtime did you have from the last Windows worm?
GF.
it's always sad to watch someone stoop to this level.
Yeah...the next thing you know, someone will start sending out invoices to people for imaginary things that they "sold" to "customers".
And we have nothing to show for it!
We have lots of marijuana.
but can the SCO people be put in jail for being ridiculously stupid and making people suffer needlessly from it?
If they could do that, 90% of the human race would be rotting in jail.
In a roundabout way, that would explain why the US has the biggest prison population in the world.
GF.
Factoids:
1. I do criminal defense work.
2. I am an American.
Best funny jargon I've seen on /. (saved it to a local file for just such an occasion as this):
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If I were a CIO or CTO debating the TCO of *nix vs. Win2K to a CEO, would IBM vs. SCO be the TKO that stops the CEO from approving A/P to pay my PO for RH's LGX?
FWIW, even if OSS is FAIB, if the DOJ considers *nix IP with a TM, then it basically becomes SCO's LIC, meaning our OSS becomes a CSS OS, which would RSTBO.
AIBO going w/ an ASP that manages our OS? BTA, we might end up w/ a BOFH giving us ZA, which WWAD PMS.
AFAIK, INMP if SCO wants to be ITM by enforcing its supposed IPR - *nix IP should be PD or GNU, like BSD just on GP, IYKWIM. I keep asking myself in this situation - WWLD?
Oh, BTW - IITYWIMWYBMAD?
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Some folks won't rest until we are all subsistence-farming vegetarians
Who, ironically, are against intolerance and fascism in all its forms.
IIRC, Hitler was a vegetarian. Dietary choices do not make you fascist/non-fascist or tolerant/not tolerant.
GF.
News flash! The Beagle has been found!
GF.