The Mathematically Challenged Comedic Failure These posters try to grab karma by hanging onto list posts and posting their own humorous counterpoint list, but fail to realize that 1+1+1+1+1+1 = 6 not 7.
Would you be so kind as to cite the portion of the Constitution that excludes "adult oriented" from the first amendment?
"Obscene" is a legally defined (albeit very loosey goosey and hard to know exactly where the line is) term, but the mere fact that material is of interest to Adults does not exempt it from First Amendment protection.
In this case, the issue is that Interstate Commerce is involved. You're attempting to subject a company based in, let's say Maine, to Utah's laws, becase an e-mail address that is not clearly marked as belonging to someone in Utah (let's say "@gmail.com") does. That's exactly the kind of thing that is supposed to be within the purview of Federal Regulation, not State powers.
Otherwise, what keeps South Carolina from saying "Anyone that provides an e-mail advocating kissing shall be publically flogged, unless they pay us $20 per e-mail address they want to send this to to check it against our list of folks who think girls have cooties". It's the same exact law
Large numbers of companies, including Enron, forced their employees to keep large portions of (if not all of) their retirement portfolios in 401K's invested in Company Stock.
If you aren't allowed to diversify, it's appropriate to blame the bigwig fraudulent CEO for ruining your retirement. And that's exactly what happened here.
Wow, your company morale must be sky high. If your company is publically traded, could you send me your stock symbol so I could short it? Studies have proven repeatedly that companies that TRUST THEIR EMPLOYEES to do what is right result in significantly larger profits over the long term.
Yes, you may well get the occasional person that spends too much time on their connection. You can catch that using your big brother software and counsel/fire/shoot/whatever that person. Yep, you probably have that right.
Trust me, you're still not getting 8 hours a day of work out of your people. They're using MS Word to update their resumes, or they are staring at pieces of paper on their desk looking like they are working, but in reality, they're counting minutes. Or they're at home, taking every single vacation/sick/comp time minute they are entitled to, in an effort to rebalance the work/life ratio that the US has completely screwed up. Or they're around the coffeepot/water cooler complaining about you. Probably taking 90 minute lunches too, because they're having to take care of the personal business you're not letting them take care of at their desk.
Of course, I'm probably feeding the troll here, but I couldn't let it stand.
Rationality certainly can co-exist with religious beliefs...just not the way "intelligent" designers choose to.
It's not at all inconsistent with observed evidence to postulate that some Divine Being (hereinafter referred to as Fred) decided to create a universe that would end up in the creation of something very, very similar to today's Man, so Fred spent some time and developed a bunch of rules and cause-effect relationships and etc, then set it in motion, observed it for billyuns of years, and the result is what we have today.
It would also work to postulate that Fred started out with that system, and at some point decided to "fix" the die roll so that this particular species of ape would develop larger cranial capacity...
Regretfully, most of the "Intelligent" design folks aren't willing to understand that just because there is a Fred, it doesn't mean that Fred hand crafted everything, Fred could have just built the machinery and now lets it run...much like an ant farm.
You don't have to suspend belief in Scientific Processes to postulate Divinity...but it is a very simple and appealing option, that many take.
For someone with more accounting/legal background...would anything keep me from opening, say a Bank of England account, funding that account via legal methods, using said account for various normal activities (ie debiting my groceries, etc) then when I want to fund a poker account using the funds from that account to do so?
I wouldn't be using the US financial system to fund the account, it would be my British (where this is legal, regulated, and presumably taxed) account, transferring money to a British online casino (pokerstars, for example). I would be using US wires to notify them to do this, but I'm not notifying them to do anything illegal (under their laws), so not running afoul of wire statutes...
Would this work? If so, I can see a huge business opportunity for overseas banking for the little guy, as opposed to the big corporation which uses a similar dodge to avoid taxes.
If you want to no longer receive any of those offers, it's quite simple...
1-888-5-OPTOUT
Follow the prompts (when I did it it was option 2, then 2 again).
You have to provide some personally identifying info (specifically SSN).
This will get you marked by the main credit bureaus as "Do not mail", so they will not include your name in the marketing lists they sell to credit providers. I worked in the credit card business for a couple of years, 90% or more of these offers come straight off these marketing lists. (The remainder come because companies that offer one sort of debt sell their customer lists to companies that sell another sort).
Alternatively, you can write each of the major bureaus individually and make the request (I believe they have links to do it online hidden deep in their websites as well
You can....Gambling losses are a deduction up to the amount of gambling winnings. So, if you've won 10,000, but lost 9,900 over the year, you only have to pay taxes on $100. However, you need to have good records to prove this in case of an audit, since the casinos don't report your losses to the IRS, only your wins, so to them it looks like you put a buck in a slot machine and hit it big.
And when it comes to the taxman, it is truly "Guilty until proven innocent"
This is how it would play out (assuming NJ actually passes this piece of trash):
Day 0 - Legislature passes bill, governor indicates it will be signed. state laws dictate at some future date law will come into affect. (For purposes of argument, let's assume NJ has a 90 day rule, that's pretty typical).
Day 1 - ACLU, EFF, and about 3 dozen other organizations start finding people willing to be defendents in a "Test Case", as well as lining up counsel (ie lawyers) and other needed assets.
Day 5 (at the latest, it takes time to write legal briefs) - ACLU, EFF, et al file lawsuit under the title of the lead test defendant, with Federal Court allegding that the law infringes on rights of test defendant in some way.
Day 6 - Federal judge reviews pleading and determines that there is, in fact, a decent chance that the law might be unconstitutional, files a temporary restraining order prohibiting New Jersey from enforcing the law.
Day 374 - Case actually comes to trial.
In the meantime, no one can be arrested, charged, prosecuted, threatened with prosecution, or in any other way hit over the head with this law, it is forbidden to be enforced until judgement is rendered.
(Worst Case scenario) Day 380 - Judge determines ACLU is wrong, law is allowed to go into effect. At this point, prosecutions could begin, assuming the restraining order is not continued to allow appeal (which would almost certainly happen)
(Best Case scenario) Day 380 - Judge determines New Jersey was smoking crack and the law is patently wrong, rules for test defendents. Temporary injunction is made permanent (assuming NJ doesn't appeal).
So, in short, until the Courts and the lawyers are done, this will have no effect at all.
What's going to keep China from saying "Give us access to the records you've got stored in the US, or we're shutting your service down"?
And will Google kowtow to that demand, or depart the largest potential growth market in the world these days?
I do think the "Google has 47,000 other search results to your query, but to comply with laws, we have removed them from the results we're showing you" is a nice little thing though...we'll see how long that lasts.
Umm...folks...there's a *trivial* solution to the "But what about folks that need to stay in touch??"
Go to movie theater, find seat, get number of seat, bring cell phone to the "cell phone check", which is outside the painted area, register it with your seat number. Minimum wage popcorn jockey sits and waits for phone to ring. If it does he takes a brief message with callback number and delivers it inobtrusively to your seat.
It's how things like that have been handled for years...and the solution is needed.
I do live comedy performances, and nothing ruins the flow of the show more than a cell phone going off in the middle of a scene. The Troupe I'm with has implemented this solution, it works pretty darned well.
Credit bureaus are *heavily* regulated. If they have a file on you you can get a copy of it every few months. If there is an error, there is a defined process to follow to clear it up, and they are forced by law to resend new reports to anyone who accessed your report during the time the error was present.
"Blacklists" are not regulated at all. There is no accountability, no way to protest a listing if you believe it is incorrect. No recourse.
If you can't see a difference...then I pity you and whatever school system you went to.
Wow..."SQL and Relational Databases to be replaced by new technology"...film at 11.
See "COBOL to be replaced...." for an example of just how unlikely that is...sure, the latest hip "Tres Kewl" software for business might be written in something else, but SQL will be around for a long, long time.
Consider just the fact that "Relational Database" technology as laid out by Cobb back in the early days specifically says "You don't *HAVE* to do it this way, but it will be more effecient if you do"...realize that SQL handles Denormalized Warehouse and Datamart tables just as well as it does the 5th normal form model of perfection...and relax...it ain't goin nowhere.
Sure there is...
Social Security Card and Driver's license, for one. At least it satisifies the INS for the I-9 forms.
Any one of 47,593 other combinations would do just as well. (don't bother checking my math, I made the number up, but basically, it's "pick one from A and one from B).
Wow...how remarkably unaware of the law that is...
In the real world, you would not be able to sue in the tomato peeler incident because there was no contract (the owner of the peeler received no benefit from the transaction) therefore no liablity can attach.
You would be able to sue in the tax liability case because there is an implied warranty of fitness on any good sold, which guarantees that the product is suitable for it's intended purpose. Since you represented the program as a tax calculation program, and accepted money for it, your "Oh, by the way you can't sue me" clause wouldn't stand in a court of law, because that right is unwaivable. You could try to use that as a defense, and you might get away with reduced damages, but you aren't getting away scott free...*PARTICULARLY* if you knew the calculation was wrong, or you should have known.
No, they're not special cases; they're all the same case. Government can't limit free speech, as would be the case if spam were banned somehow. Every example you have involves private actors. That's a big difference.
Wow...I'm sure glad the government can't limit Free Speech...guess I'll go and widely scream stories about having sex with underage Llama's while consuming vast amounts of recreational pharmaceuticals in a crowded theater...obviously it's not illegal, since the goverment can't limit Free Speech...a Lawyer just said so, so it must be true.
Or, I could recognize that the government has a right to put in laws that protect people's ability to enjoy the space and time of their choosing for the purpose they went there for...so you can be arrested for disturbing the peace if you're shouting in a movie theater...you're disturbing the purpose of the facility.
Likewise, the purpose of me reading my e-mail box is to get information aboutthe activities I choose to. SPAM does nothing but disturb that purpose, and cause me to incur damages (even if it's just the 2 cents worth of my time it takes to delete unread, that time is still worth money).
How could it have been "taken" from you when you NEVER HAD IT!??
More importantly, noone's preventing you from praying, silently, between just yourself and your god, as much and as often as you want. What I object to is your forcing *me* to listen to your moment of begging supplicational assistance from your diety of choice, or forcing me to make time to allow you to beg supplicational assistance, when I would rather be doing what I'm in school to do...ie learn.
Want to have a Bible Study on school property after school, when I don't have to be around? Cool, have at, so long as the local Islamic folks can have a Koran study, the local Jews can have a Torah study, and the local Satanists can have a Black Bible (or whatever) study.
Strangely enough, all the folks who claim "Freedom of Religion is being crushed" never seem to have any qualms about crushing *other* religions...just their own. And *that* is what those against Fundamentalism are protesting.
Yes, there is...
your local weather and news, for one. Satellite uplinks of the Weather Channel are marvelous...if you live in Atlanta...
It's handy to be able to get the updates on that big storm as it's coming through.
From the site:
The committee recommends a provision that would exempt from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), (section 552 of title 5, United States Code), data that are collected by land remote sensing and are prohibited from sale to customers other than the United States and its affiliated users under the Land Remote Sensing Policy Act of 1992, (section 5601 et seq. of title 15, United States Code).. The exemption would also include any imagery and other product that is derived from such data. State and local laws mandating disclosure by a State or local government would be preempted. (Bold emphasis mine)
So this would appear to mean that only some subset of stuff, which is prohibited from sale currently, would be removed from FOIA.
What, exactly, this is I do not know, but it wouldn't surprise me if this means "When the military buys a commercial satellite pass over a suspected terrorist camp and forbids the satellite company from reselling the image (which seems reasonable, otherwise there would be a huge market in 'see what the DoD is taking pictures of' industry), no one can file a FOIA request to access that image".
Slashdot Mirror
The Mathematically Challenged Comedic Failure These posters try to grab karma by hanging onto list posts and posting their own humorous counterpoint list, but fail to realize that 1+1+1+1+1+1 = 6 not 7.
"Obscene" is a legally defined (albeit very loosey goosey and hard to know exactly where the line is) term, but the mere fact that material is of interest to Adults does not exempt it from First Amendment protection.
In this case, the issue is that Interstate Commerce is involved. You're attempting to subject a company based in, let's say Maine, to Utah's laws, becase an e-mail address that is not clearly marked as belonging to someone in Utah (let's say "@gmail.com") does. That's exactly the kind of thing that is supposed to be within the purview of Federal Regulation, not State powers.
Otherwise, what keeps South Carolina from saying "Anyone that provides an e-mail advocating kissing shall be publically flogged, unless they pay us $20 per e-mail address they want to send this to to check it against our list of folks who think girls have cooties". It's the same exact law
Virginia, for example, does not require any time off for voting. Many companies grant it, but they don't have to.
Large numbers of companies, including Enron, forced their employees to keep large portions of (if not all of) their retirement portfolios in 401K's invested in Company Stock.
If you aren't allowed to diversify, it's appropriate to blame the bigwig fraudulent CEO for ruining your retirement. And that's exactly what happened here.
(Standing and applauding) Good show!
Yes, you may well get the occasional person that spends too much time on their connection. You can catch that using your big brother software and counsel/fire/shoot/whatever that person. Yep, you probably have that right.
Trust me, you're still not getting 8 hours a day of work out of your people. They're using MS Word to update their resumes, or they are staring at pieces of paper on their desk looking like they are working, but in reality, they're counting minutes. Or they're at home, taking every single vacation/sick/comp time minute they are entitled to, in an effort to rebalance the work/life ratio that the US has completely screwed up. Or they're around the coffeepot/water cooler complaining about you. Probably taking 90 minute lunches too, because they're having to take care of the personal business you're not letting them take care of at their desk.
Of course, I'm probably feeding the troll here, but I couldn't let it stand.
Why is your girlfriend so caring about your ability to test 9 volt batteries to see if they're still live?
It's not at all inconsistent with observed evidence to postulate that some Divine Being (hereinafter referred to as Fred) decided to create a universe that would end up in the creation of something very, very similar to today's Man, so Fred spent some time and developed a bunch of rules and cause-effect relationships and etc, then set it in motion, observed it for billyuns of years, and the result is what we have today.
It would also work to postulate that Fred started out with that system, and at some point decided to "fix" the die roll so that this particular species of ape would develop larger cranial capacity...
Regretfully, most of the "Intelligent" design folks aren't willing to understand that just because there is a Fred, it doesn't mean that Fred hand crafted everything, Fred could have just built the machinery and now lets it run...much like an ant farm.
You don't have to suspend belief in Scientific Processes to postulate Divinity...but it is a very simple and appealing option, that many take.
I wouldn't be using the US financial system to fund the account, it would be my British (where this is legal, regulated, and presumably taxed) account, transferring money to a British online casino (pokerstars, for example). I would be using US wires to notify them to do this, but I'm not notifying them to do anything illegal (under their laws), so not running afoul of wire statutes...
Would this work? If so, I can see a huge business opportunity for overseas banking for the little guy, as opposed to the big corporation which uses a similar dodge to avoid taxes.
1-888-5-OPTOUT Follow the prompts (when I did it it was option 2, then 2 again). You have to provide some personally identifying info (specifically SSN).
This will get you marked by the main credit bureaus as "Do not mail", so they will not include your name in the marketing lists they sell to credit providers. I worked in the credit card business for a couple of years, 90% or more of these offers come straight off these marketing lists. (The remainder come because companies that offer one sort of debt sell their customer lists to companies that sell another sort).
Alternatively, you can write each of the major bureaus individually and make the request (I believe they have links to do it online hidden deep in their websites as well
And when it comes to the taxman, it is truly "Guilty until proven innocent"
Day 0 - Legislature passes bill, governor indicates it will be signed. state laws dictate at some future date law will come into affect. (For purposes of argument, let's assume NJ has a 90 day rule, that's pretty typical).
Day 1 - ACLU, EFF, and about 3 dozen other organizations start finding people willing to be defendents in a "Test Case", as well as lining up counsel (ie lawyers) and other needed assets.
Day 5 (at the latest, it takes time to write legal briefs) - ACLU, EFF, et al file lawsuit under the title of the lead test defendant, with Federal Court allegding that the law infringes on rights of test defendant in some way.
Day 6 - Federal judge reviews pleading and determines that there is, in fact, a decent chance that the law might be unconstitutional, files a temporary restraining order prohibiting New Jersey from enforcing the law.
Day 374 - Case actually comes to trial.
In the meantime, no one can be arrested, charged, prosecuted, threatened with prosecution, or in any other way hit over the head with this law, it is forbidden to be enforced until judgement is rendered.
(Worst Case scenario) Day 380 - Judge determines ACLU is wrong, law is allowed to go into effect. At this point, prosecutions could begin, assuming the restraining order is not continued to allow appeal (which would almost certainly happen)
(Best Case scenario) Day 380 - Judge determines New Jersey was smoking crack and the law is patently wrong, rules for test defendents. Temporary injunction is made permanent (assuming NJ doesn't appeal).
So, in short, until the Courts and the lawyers are done, this will have no effect at all.
And will Google kowtow to that demand, or depart the largest potential growth market in the world these days?
I do think the "Google has 47,000 other search results to your query, but to comply with laws, we have removed them from the results we're showing you" is a nice little thing though...we'll see how long that lasts.
Go to movie theater, find seat, get number of seat, bring cell phone to the "cell phone check", which is outside the painted area, register it with your seat number. Minimum wage popcorn jockey sits and waits for phone to ring. If it does he takes a brief message with callback number and delivers it inobtrusively to your seat.
It's how things like that have been handled for years...and the solution is needed.
I do live comedy performances, and nothing ruins the flow of the show more than a cell phone going off in the middle of a scene. The Troupe I'm with has implemented this solution, it works pretty darned well.
Yeah yeah...we all know it's only cat 2.
Riiiiiiiiiight.....so the latest games will run just fine on my Atari 2600 huh?
And what was all that about the PS3 not playing PS2 games? (or was that the new XBox, I don't recall...)
Just sayin is all....
kinda makes sense to me, especially for modem users...you can read one while getting the other...or waiting for the slashdotting to pass, either way.
Credit bureaus are *heavily* regulated. If they have a file on you you can get a copy of it every few months. If there is an error, there is a defined process to follow to clear it up, and they are forced by law to resend new reports to anyone who accessed your report during the time the error was present.
"Blacklists" are not regulated at all. There is no accountability, no way to protest a listing if you believe it is incorrect. No recourse.
If you can't see a difference...then I pity you and whatever school system you went to.
See "COBOL to be replaced...." for an example of just how unlikely that is...sure, the latest hip "Tres Kewl" software for business might be written in something else, but SQL will be around for a long, long time.
Consider just the fact that "Relational Database" technology as laid out by Cobb back in the early days specifically says "You don't *HAVE* to do it this way, but it will be more effecient if you do"...realize that SQL handles Denormalized Warehouse and Datamart tables just as well as it does the 5th normal form model of perfection...and relax...it ain't goin nowhere.
Sure there is... Social Security Card and Driver's license, for one. At least it satisifies the INS for the I-9 forms. Any one of 47,593 other combinations would do just as well. (don't bother checking my math, I made the number up, but basically, it's "pick one from A and one from B).
In the real world, you would not be able to sue in the tomato peeler incident because there was no contract (the owner of the peeler received no benefit from the transaction) therefore no liablity can attach.
You would be able to sue in the tax liability case because there is an implied warranty of fitness on any good sold, which guarantees that the product is suitable for it's intended purpose. Since you represented the program as a tax calculation program, and accepted money for it, your "Oh, by the way you can't sue me" clause wouldn't stand in a court of law, because that right is unwaivable. You could try to use that as a defense, and you might get away with reduced damages, but you aren't getting away scott free...*PARTICULARLY* if you knew the calculation was wrong, or you should have known.
Wow...I'm sure glad the government can't limit Free Speech...guess I'll go and widely scream stories about having sex with underage Llama's while consuming vast amounts of recreational pharmaceuticals in a crowded theater...obviously it's not illegal, since the goverment can't limit Free Speech...a Lawyer just said so, so it must be true.
Or, I could recognize that the government has a right to put in laws that protect people's ability to enjoy the space and time of their choosing for the purpose they went there for...so you can be arrested for disturbing the peace if you're shouting in a movie theater...you're disturbing the purpose of the facility.
Likewise, the purpose of me reading my e-mail box is to get information aboutthe activities I choose to. SPAM does nothing but disturb that purpose, and cause me to incur damages (even if it's just the 2 cents worth of my time it takes to delete unread, that time is still worth money).
How could it have been "taken" from you when you NEVER HAD IT!?? More importantly, noone's preventing you from praying, silently, between just yourself and your god, as much and as often as you want. What I object to is your forcing *me* to listen to your moment of begging supplicational assistance from your diety of choice, or forcing me to make time to allow you to beg supplicational assistance, when I would rather be doing what I'm in school to do...ie learn. Want to have a Bible Study on school property after school, when I don't have to be around? Cool, have at, so long as the local Islamic folks can have a Koran study, the local Jews can have a Torah study, and the local Satanists can have a Black Bible (or whatever) study. Strangely enough, all the folks who claim "Freedom of Religion is being crushed" never seem to have any qualms about crushing *other* religions...just their own. And *that* is what those against Fundamentalism are protesting.
Yes, there is... your local weather and news, for one. Satellite uplinks of the Weather Channel are marvelous...if you live in Atlanta... It's handy to be able to get the updates on that big storm as it's coming through.
From the site: The committee recommends a provision that would exempt from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), (section 552 of title 5, United States Code), data that are collected by land remote sensing and are prohibited from sale to customers other than the United States and its affiliated users under the Land Remote Sensing Policy Act of 1992, (section 5601 et seq. of title 15, United States Code).. The exemption would also include any imagery and other product that is derived from such data. State and local laws mandating disclosure by a State or local government would be preempted. (Bold emphasis mine)
So this would appear to mean that only some subset of stuff, which is prohibited from sale currently, would be removed from FOIA.
What, exactly, this is I do not know, but it wouldn't surprise me if this means "When the military buys a commercial satellite pass over a suspected terrorist camp and forbids the satellite company from reselling the image (which seems reasonable, otherwise there would be a huge market in 'see what the DoD is taking pictures of' industry), no one can file a FOIA request to access that image".