100$ to send him mail? After all that 100$ dosent even garantie you reply from him...
Of course not
You would need to pay at least $500 to guarantee receiving a reply from him. But with a monthly $5,000 fee, that price can be knocked down to $150.
Just pay $1.59* and exercise your right to free speech! ... compensate for your brazen use of the First Amendment.
Oh, come on. I dislike Facebook as much as the next person, but what "free speech" and what "first amendment" are you talking about??
Facebook is a private enterprise. Until they are a government agency (not yet), free speech/1st amendment does not apply. Totally irrelevant
This might not even be a money grabbing move as much as "rich people should have their privacy" despite being on Facebook. M.Z. had one of his family Thanksgiving photos published against his wishes recently -- he was pretty annoyed about that.
The facebook is still free, but the "cool" (i.e. rich) people will exist in a separate world. Almost surprising it took so long to separate the first and economy class. I am guessing MZ will never need to pay to message anyone.
They sued, and the judge ruled that the developed didn't have to follow the contract.
Can you maybe site some sources? A news article?
A contract is a contract. It is possible that the purchase contract stated that a X% change in the market allows backing out of the contract. Or that the buyers get the "option" at the contractor's discretion. I am guessing that buyer got screwed over by the small print that they did not read.
Why can't we get copies of our ebooks when we buy the dead-tree version?
You would be lucky if you can buy an eBook for less than a dead-tree version. If a higher (or even comparable) eBook price does not demonstrate boundless greed, then I don't know what does.
Back pockets filled by media companies funding the entire operation I suspect.
Not necessarily!
This program will collect $35 fees and throttle customers as punishment. So -- extra revenue and less work maintaining service (doubt they'll throttle the fees). Very beneficial for all around. Verizon (+other ISPs) have nothing to lose by falsely accusing customers either.
The solution is to drop them the moment they throttle you...and never come back...and NEVER COME BACK. Trust me--when they start seeing ANY loss of revenue, they will rethink this
Oh, yeah. Drop them and sit at home without internet. That'll show them!
Oh, you have choices where you are? Good for you I sincerely doubt that Verizon has a lot of customers joining their program by choice. Most are locked in due to having very few or NO other options at all.
If I pay for it, I expect it to be DRM-free. If the pirates can figure out how to publish a quality product, I'm sure the real distributors can do so as well.
Don't forget AD-free! I am still trying to figure out who pays for Hulu because paid accounts let you watch a much larger library of videos, each still with an ad per every 7 minutes or so.
Because 5 dollars for every movie or episode of a show id like to watch will break me.
In other words, based on some undisclosed justification, you are entitled to all-you-can-eat entertainment.
Care to share what that reason is?
My internet will not support streaming video, even at crappy quality. I don't even try high quality. And if the connection should be lost, I get to wait for the video to resume (and I sometimes get to re-watch the same ads I already watched for that video segment)
Oh, and I sometimes like to watch video when I am NOT connected to internet. (on the train, in the plane...)
How many paid services allow the courtesy of downloading a copy for offline/bad internet situations? I am ok with paying, but I should be able to watch videos on my terms.
No proof. No evidence. No names, just you gone. No penalties for lying
The latter is the biggest concern
I don't know if Verizon would even want you "gone". $35 fee every so often is nice extra revenue (maybe higher fines for repeat offenders?). I don't think that any of that money will be going to the copyright owner, even in the legitimate infringement cases.
And you have to pay $35 to defend yourself, which pirates are too cheap to do.
And I am absolutely certain that if you should be accused falsely/by accident, then someone will refund your money and compensate your time spent defending yourself.
Otherwise, there is no reason for Verizon to send warnings only to infringers. Occasional random $35 extra payment with no downsides/costs is a great revenue source!
The family friendly console developer is the first to release a game that receives an R18+ rating. This is the very definition of irony.
There is absolutely no irony here
I have no idea what makes R18+ different from MA, but I have to assume that this is not the first game deserving of R18+ rating. And so, the family-friendly developer is the first one to mark a mature game as such.
Yep! This'll stop the government from coming after you! Not!
It should, actually.
Otherwise, the government could come after anyone who plays Monopoly, too. Or anyone who plays poker with virtual gold coins in an MMORPG.
How many of you folks that think this is a big deal have turned down a job because they had to wear a badge on company property?
How many job will track your movement using that badge (instead of using it to buzz into secure doors)?
Even if this isn't part of the mandate now, having the student bathrooms monitored by RFID tracker is a no-brainer -- any students who spends more than X minutes in the bathroom is possibly smoking (or is sick). Feature creep will come and out of most noble (official) intentions.
Another great feature is being able to detect if your kids is skipping school or not!
Ignoring the privacy issues, what is it that makes you think that 200 RFID tags on school premises equals 200 kids? All that tells you is that there is 1 or more kids in school and these kids are carrying around 200 RFID tags.
They offered an accommodation, which she/her
family/All Mighty Zombie Jesus/etc DECLINED.
Part of the condition was her carrying the badge around anyway (no battery) and never talking about or objecting to the program.
That's hardly a very friendly concession -- they were willing to make an exception for her if she fully pretends to support the program and never voices any objections again. Why should she be required to pretend that this system is acceptable just so that an exception is made for her??
RFID offers a better way of tracking students while they're on campus, which in turn increases the number of seat hours while holding down the costs of keeping detailed attendance records.
Except that it doesn't! How can you verify that the student associated with the RFID is actually in school? They can just skip school and have a friend buzz them in.
It actually has absolutely nothing to do with tracking students.
It enables _others_ to track students (potentially). At least during school, possibly outside schools if students do not actively disable RFIDs every day.
You know those little ID batches you have to wear to work (office workers everywhere know this)?
You know how you don't have to work at such job? Students HAVE to go to school. They may even not have too many options to switch schools (like you could with a job) as public schools are usually tied to where you live
And if RFID badge at work was used to track people I'd oppose that too.
"Q. What does this pilot cost and what is the projected additional revenue expected?
A. NISD will spend approximately $261,000 on this pilot for the two schools and expects to realize $2 million in additional revenues."
Ahahahaha. Will the students be paying fees for using the RFID tags?
Otherwise any "additional revenues" simply refers to extra taxpayer funding! Which will probably come from the budget of another school. So eventually each school will waste $250K or so on RFID tags and the funding will stabilize to original levels.
Not that I want to take a knee-jerk attitude to this and say it must be banned. But it has unintended consequences, which may not have been thought through.
I think they HAVE thought it through.
The "official" attendance will go up (due to people hacking the system or lending their RFID to a friends while they skip school). The actual student attendance may drop, but since schools get funding from "official" reports, they will get increased funding.
The school, here, can argue pretty convincingly that they have a need to know who's in the school, and whether they choose to use teacher visual/auditory identification (calling roll) or swiping a badge or RFID or fingerprint scanners or image recognition is immaterial.
Oh, the school can argue that -- but can they also convincingly argue that RFID badge WILL track students? It's ridiculously easy to have your friend take the badge while you skip school
Unless they are planning to implant it under student's skin eventually -- let's see if the court will oppose to that practice when it starts.
Supposedly the evidence was deleted from the camera while in police custody.
Fixed that for ya.
Well, at least he can no longer be charged without any evidence, right? Or are they trying to charge him with HIPAA violation without a video that he allegedly recorded?
Seriously, when did it become acceptable that evidence can just disappear in police custody? I know it is not the same as 11 (or was it 17?) police cruiser cameras malfunctioning simultaneously but still.
A database of 200 million Electronic Benefit Transfer records from January 2011 to July 2012, obtained by The Post through a Freedom of Information request, showed welfare recipients using their EBT cards to make dozens of cash withdrawals at ATMs inside Hankâ(TM)s Saloon in Brooklyn; the Blue Door Video porn shop in the East Village; The Anchor, a sleek SoHo lounge; the Patriot Saloon in TriBeCa; and Drinks Galore, a liquor distributor in The Bronx.
DOZENS of withdrawals from 200 MILLION records. If every government program was abused on the order of less than 1 thousandth of 1%, then we'd all be sitting pretty
and there is no proof that the money was actually spent on alcohol (likely perhaps, but probably not in all cases). But regardless, any program that wastes less than 1 hundredth of 1% (and here it was even less) is a raging success.
Defense spending is about 19% of the federal budget, compared to about 50% in the 1950s.
Are you counting the wars in Afganistan and Iraq? Or is it ok to ignore these expenses because they were passed as "emergency appropriations" instead of military budget?
Why don't we just stop defending ourselves entirely, then we'll all be dead in a year or so and with the money we saved we'll all be rich.
We are not actually defending ourselves against anyone at the moment, so your statement makes no sense
Why don't we keep the "defense" budget as is, but eliminate all offensive budget (specifically drone strikes and various external wars to name a few). This way we'll save a lot of money and will be as defended as we were before budget cuts.
A family cannot expect to improve finances by borrowing and investing into infrastructure.
The concept of a family business is entirely beyond your grasp.
Not at all, but all of the "monthly checkbook balancing" specifically referred to a family budget. A business (family business or not) does not necessarily balance its income/expenses every month, but instead has a longer-term plan. A family tries to balance their checkbook because their income is (roughly) constant.
Instead of addressing real problems with real solutions, we are once again seeing the Congress bloviating instead of doing something.... This is pretty much what this proposal is all about: a mass outbreak of useless posturing that gets in the way of anything meaningful.
You don't say.
Hell, Republicans (spearheaded by Bachmann) spent about 2-weeks worth of Congress time trying to repeal the Health Care Bill. 33 votes and counting!. Talk about posturing.
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100$ to send him mail? After all that 100$ dosent even garantie you reply from him...
Of course not
You would need to pay at least $500 to guarantee receiving a reply from him. But with a monthly $5,000 fee, that price can be knocked down to $150.
Just pay $1.59* and exercise your right to free speech!
... compensate for your brazen use of the First Amendment.
Oh, come on. I dislike Facebook as much as the next person, but what "free speech" and what "first amendment" are you talking about??
Facebook is a private enterprise. Until they are a government agency (not yet), free speech/1st amendment does not apply. Totally irrelevant
This might not even be a money grabbing move as much as "rich people should have their privacy" despite being on Facebook. M.Z. had one of his family Thanksgiving photos published against his wishes recently -- he was pretty annoyed about that.
"It's free and always will be."
MZ must like his privacy -- imagine that.
The facebook is still free, but the "cool" (i.e. rich) people will exist in a separate world. Almost surprising it took so long to separate the first and economy class. I am guessing MZ will never need to pay to message anyone.
They sued, and the judge ruled that the developed didn't have to follow the contract.
Can you maybe site some sources? A news article?
A contract is a contract. It is possible that the purchase contract stated that a X% change in the market allows backing out of the contract. Or that the buyers get the "option" at the contractor's discretion. I am guessing that buyer got screwed over by the small print that they did not read.
Why can't we get copies of our ebooks when we buy the dead-tree version?
You would be lucky if you can buy an eBook for less than a dead-tree version.
If a higher (or even comparable) eBook price does not demonstrate boundless greed, then I don't know what does.
Back pockets filled by media companies funding the entire operation I suspect.
Not necessarily!
This program will collect $35 fees and throttle customers as punishment. So -- extra revenue and less work maintaining service (doubt they'll throttle the fees). Very beneficial for all around. Verizon (+other ISPs) have nothing to lose by falsely accusing customers either.
The solution is to drop them the moment they throttle you...and never come back...and NEVER COME BACK. Trust me--when they start seeing ANY loss of revenue, they will rethink this
Oh, yeah. Drop them and sit at home without internet. That'll show them!
Oh, you have choices where you are? Good for you
I sincerely doubt that Verizon has a lot of customers joining their program by choice. Most are locked in due to having very few or NO other options at all.
If I pay for it, I expect it to be DRM-free. If the pirates can figure out how to publish a quality product, I'm sure the real distributors can do so as well.
Don't forget AD-free! I am still trying to figure out who pays for Hulu because paid accounts let you watch a much larger library of videos, each still with an ad per every 7 minutes or so.
Because 5 dollars for every movie or episode of a show id like to watch will break me.
In other words, based on some undisclosed justification, you are entitled to all-you-can-eat entertainment.
Care to share what that reason is?
My internet will not support streaming video, even at crappy quality. I don't even try high quality. And if the connection should be lost, I get to wait for the video to resume (and I sometimes get to re-watch the same ads I already watched for that video segment)
Oh, and I sometimes like to watch video when I am NOT connected to internet. (on the train, in the plane...)
How many paid services allow the courtesy of downloading a copy for offline/bad internet situations? I am ok with paying, but I should be able to watch videos on my terms.
No proof. No evidence. No names, just you gone. No penalties for lying
The latter is the biggest concern
I don't know if Verizon would even want you "gone". $35 fee every so often is nice extra revenue (maybe higher fines for repeat offenders?). I don't think that any of that money will be going to the copyright owner, even in the legitimate infringement cases.
And you have to pay $35 to defend yourself, which pirates are too cheap to do.
And I am absolutely certain that if you should be accused falsely/by accident, then someone will refund your money and compensate your time spent defending yourself.
Otherwise, there is no reason for Verizon to send warnings only to infringers. Occasional random $35 extra payment with no downsides/costs is a great revenue source!
The family friendly console developer is the first to release a game that receives an R18+ rating. This is the very definition of irony.
There is absolutely no irony here
I have no idea what makes R18+ different from MA, but I have to assume that this is not the first game deserving of R18+ rating. And so, the family-friendly developer is the first one to mark a mature game as such.
Yep! This'll stop the government from coming after you! Not!
It should, actually.
Otherwise, the government could come after anyone who plays Monopoly, too. Or anyone who plays poker with virtual gold coins in an MMORPG.
How many of you folks that think this is a big deal have turned down a job because they had to wear a badge on company property?
How many job will track your movement using that badge (instead of using it to buzz into secure doors)?
Even if this isn't part of the mandate now, having the student bathrooms monitored by RFID tracker is a no-brainer -- any students who spends more than X minutes in the bathroom is possibly smoking (or is sick). Feature creep will come and out of most noble (official) intentions.
Another great feature is being able to detect if your kids is skipping school or not!
Ignoring the privacy issues, what is it that makes you think that 200 RFID tags on school premises equals 200 kids? All that tells you is that there is 1 or more kids in school and these kids are carrying around 200 RFID tags.
They offered an accommodation, which she/her family/All Mighty Zombie Jesus/etc DECLINED.
Part of the condition was her carrying the badge around anyway (no battery) and never talking about or objecting to the program.
That's hardly a very friendly concession -- they were willing to make an exception for her if she fully pretends to support the program and never voices any objections again. Why should she be required to pretend that this system is acceptable just so that an exception is made for her??
RFID offers a better way of tracking students while they're on campus, which in turn increases the number of seat hours while holding down the costs of keeping detailed attendance records.
Except that it doesn't! How can you verify that the student associated with the RFID is actually in school? They can just skip school and have a friend buzz them in.
It actually has absolutely nothing to do with tracking students.
It enables _others_ to track students (potentially). At least during school, possibly outside schools if students do not actively disable RFIDs every day.
You know those little ID batches you have to wear to work (office workers everywhere know this)?
You know how you don't have to work at such job? Students HAVE to go to school. They may even not have too many options to switch schools (like you could with a job) as public schools are usually tied to where you live
And if RFID badge at work was used to track people I'd oppose that too.
"Q. What does this pilot cost and what is the projected additional revenue expected?
A. NISD will spend approximately $261,000 on this pilot for the two schools and expects to realize $2 million in additional revenues."
Ahahahaha. Will the students be paying fees for using the RFID tags?
Otherwise any "additional revenues" simply refers to extra taxpayer funding! Which will probably come from the budget of another school. So eventually each school will waste $250K or so on RFID tags and the funding will stabilize to original levels.
Not that I want to take a knee-jerk attitude to this and say it must be banned. But it has unintended consequences, which may not have been thought through.
I think they HAVE thought it through.
The "official" attendance will go up (due to people hacking the system or lending their RFID to a friends while they skip school). The actual student attendance may drop, but since schools get funding from "official" reports, they will get increased funding.
The school, here, can argue pretty convincingly that they have a need to know who's in the school, and whether they choose to use teacher visual/auditory identification (calling roll) or swiping a badge or RFID or fingerprint scanners or image recognition is immaterial.
Oh, the school can argue that -- but can they also convincingly argue that RFID badge WILL track students? It's ridiculously easy to have your friend take the badge while you skip school
Unless they are planning to implant it under student's skin eventually -- let's see if the court will oppose to that practice when it starts.
You're under 18, so not a human being in the eyes of the state, and as such subject to being tracked like cattle.
That may be, but her parents are over 18. Do parents (who are human beings in the eyes of the state) get any say in this?
School is not optional, so I was hoping that parents retain some rights here in how their children are treated.
Supposedly the evidence was deleted from the camera while in police custody.
Fixed that for ya.
Well, at least he can no longer be charged without any evidence, right? Or are they trying to charge him with HIPAA violation without a video that he allegedly recorded?
Seriously, when did it become acceptable that evidence can just disappear in police custody? I know it is not the same as 11 (or was it 17?) police cruiser cameras malfunctioning simultaneously but still.
A database of 200 million Electronic Benefit Transfer records from January 2011 to July 2012, obtained by The Post through a Freedom of Information request, showed welfare recipients using their EBT cards to make dozens of cash withdrawals at ATMs inside Hankâ(TM)s Saloon in Brooklyn; the Blue Door Video porn shop in the East Village; The Anchor, a sleek SoHo lounge; the Patriot Saloon in TriBeCa; and Drinks Galore, a liquor distributor in The Bronx.
DOZENS of withdrawals from 200 MILLION records. If every government program was abused on the order of less than 1 thousandth of 1%, then we'd all be sitting pretty
and there is no proof that the money was actually spent on alcohol (likely perhaps, but probably not in all cases). But regardless, any program that wastes less than 1 hundredth of 1% (and here it was even less) is a raging success.
Defense spending is about 19% of the federal budget, compared to about 50% in the 1950s.
Are you counting the wars in Afganistan and Iraq? Or is it ok to ignore these expenses because they were passed as "emergency appropriations" instead of military budget?
Why don't we just stop defending ourselves entirely, then we'll all be dead in a year or so and with the money we saved we'll all be rich.
We are not actually defending ourselves against anyone at the moment, so your statement makes no sense
Why don't we keep the "defense" budget as is, but eliminate all offensive budget (specifically drone strikes and various external wars to name a few). This way we'll save a lot of money and will be as defended as we were before budget cuts.
A family cannot expect to improve finances by borrowing and investing into infrastructure.
The concept of a family business is entirely beyond your grasp.
Not at all, but all of the "monthly checkbook balancing" specifically referred to a family budget. A business (family business or not) does not necessarily balance its income/expenses every month, but instead has a longer-term plan. A family tries to balance their checkbook because their income is (roughly) constant.
Instead of addressing real problems with real solutions, we are once again seeing the Congress bloviating instead of doing something. ... This is pretty much what this proposal is all about: a mass outbreak of useless posturing that gets in the way of anything meaningful.
You don't say.
Hell, Republicans (spearheaded by Bachmann) spent about 2-weeks worth of Congress time trying to repeal the Health Care Bill. 33 votes and counting!. Talk about posturing.