not really an incentive to take more care in future
I'm hoping that the banks at least suspended and revoked the privilage of online banking from the users in question. If you can't take care not to download trojans/etc online that affect online banking, you shouldn't be allowed to do your banking online.
Actually, it's the US that's different from the rest. Canada, (apparently) Australia, and from my understanding most of Europe do not tax lottery/contest winnings.
If I were to break a Canadian law by electronic means (say stealing funds by hacking into a Canadian Bank) from the US, don't you think that I would be arrested by Canadian Police if they later found me travelling in Canada? Of course I would.
You're skewing the topic. Yes, in this case you actively engaged in a crime against a US company. Not only might you be arrested on entering the US, but you could be extradited from your country of origin. Not only that, but the current country is likely to recognise your actions as a crime
however, the company in question was not actively pursueing an illegal activity with or against US companies. It was not a gambling company in itself. The execs arrested are apparently no longer affiliated with said company, and had broken affiliation with it before the laws changed. Now, gambling companies that cater to US citizens online might in themselves be liable, but it's ludicrous to chomp up the chain this far.
Not only that, but the illegality itself is possibly illegal under international trade law, as the only reason it seems to exist is due to the lack of taxable revenue for the US gov't (gambling itself is not illegal and is in fact a government sponsored activity).
If I smoke a dooby in Europe am I accountable on drug laws in the US? This is akin to cases where US authorities have held Canadian citizens who visited Cuba (which is under embargo in the US and thus illegal to visit). If the US really has a complaint against such activities, it should be bringing them to a world-governing organization or the other governments in question.
Of course you don't through 60 million people in jail. Increasing the legal penalties (and broadening defitions) for common activity just allows them to more easily nab the people that they do want to nail. If you've got 60 million people who are now regularly committing a "crime," it's much easier to nail the ones you want for some reason or other.
Yes, because (other than the possibility of a piece hitting somebody on the head) it's certainly dangerous to the country's citizens to shoot down one's own satellite in space. I mean, think of all the people that will be harmed by the fallout and radiatio... oh wait there's none of that. Pursueing a health-hazardous and dangerous test like dropping a nuke is not exactly all that comparable to blowing up an orbital satellite.
What's the recoil on one of these suckers? Since there's not an actual explosive reaction, I'm not sure if it would be all that much, but given that actual ballistic output of the thing I'd imagine that if there were recoil it could be a bitch to deal with...
Bullshit. Try surfing for cracks online sometime. 99% of the banner are for porn, and a large percentage of that is very iffy at best as to legality. Now you might argue that the cracks themselves aren't legal but there are plenty of fair-use reasons to have them
If you license the patent, then you are agreeing that it's valid (you licensed it, after all), and thus have no right to challenge it's validity.
Partly, but in many ways it's just part of covering your bases. If you have a legitimate arguement that the patent is invalid, it could still take a substantial period of time to prove. In the meantime, you could also be sued, and when the courts seem to allow such things as US companies sueing foreign entities for more than their country's GDP, then one can see how much that would suck.
So long as the license doesn't have a do-not-sue clause, you can protect yourself from lawsuits and try to have the patent invalidated. It might be cheaper to pay $10,000/year and have the patent nuked after 1-2 years than fight lawsuits of $10,000,000, have production of your goods halted, and have the stigma of being sued for patent violation (which may mean less sales) hanging over one's head.
The children are likely not German, so they're not protecting the german children. The servers are not in Germany, so they are not policing they're own internet. They are telling people what they cannot do
While I'm by no stretch a fan of the government (any government, even though this one isn't my own) simply diving into private records, there is a certain line between reasonable and unreasonable. Swap the actions with the above arguements, for example:
What if they were ordering illegal merchandise? Perhaps ivory or pelts from an endangered animal. If they're ordering from a country where such is legal, does that mean that it's OK since no German elephants were killed (nevermind the lack of elephants in Germany). Why is it OK to harm kids from other coutries. Now if there were a case of drawn/animated material you might have a case for patrolling against "thoughtcrime", but no such distinction is made. Certainly if someone were in Germany and arranged a "hit" against somebody out-of-country, I would still expect that person to be arrested on murder charges.
The children are likely not German, so they're not protecting the german children.
Yeah, right, so if some kids are touring from another country it should be just fine to abuse/murder/etc them just because they're not citizens. Or they just shouldn't give a damn about non-citizens in other countries? Good logic.
Now, a lot of this depends on how the records are being checked. But personally, if they have an automated programs checking for payments of $13.50 to IllegalPerve.com between January and March 2005 (an example registration cost, site, and date of operation), I find it hard to object. Perhaps if this were the entire basis for arresting and jailing somebody, yes (stolen CC #'s and various other issues), but it's plenty of grounds for further investigation and I'm surprised that this is even news (I would have *expected* them to investigate such things).
I've seen a lot of gigabyte boards with bad caps, although it seems to be that boards from various manufacturers about the 1Ghz Athlon era ago all suffered from a plague of them, I've found a rash of GB boards in general with cap issues.
I've found some pretty decent gigabyte boards, but the end results tended to have them dying of exploded capacitors. If GB has a good solution for this, and they still manage to maintain a good cost/value ratio, it might be a good reason for me to consider going back to them. I find their webpage/support is generally a little better than other brands.
And she wasn't actually attacked or taped, unless somebody videotaped her in the computer room where flying wangs were somehow attacking her in real-life, as well.
By "the guy" you mean whoemever is behind the monkey currently in the president's chair? Most likely his father or other high-ups somewhere in the shadows.
I didn't have a choice in the matter. I was told to block sites such as deviantart (which IMHO is great for aspiring artists who want to post their work up) because it had a nude section buried somewhere in it, and various other similar sites. Unfortunately my admins upheld that if a teacher wanted to block a site, it got blocked.
We had something similar but in our case a network switch in a cubblehole had been covered and walled over by the drywallers. It really sucked to find it when it died, and sucked more when they had to whack a 3x4' hole in the wall to get at it.
Car TV's that have been installed properly, will, if in viewable range of the driver, disable the screen while the e-brake is off. That gives the driver the ability to watch shows while parked (good for, say, truckers or distance-drivers that want a break), but does not allow for watching-while-driving (unless one wants to grind the e-brake down to the nub). Of course, many shops and self-installs bypass this by attaching the safety connector to ground. My car has a DVD player, but the screen isn't installed by default so the safety is disabled. When I have passengers who want to watch, I just pass them back the screen and some headphones (my JVC unit allows them to watch/hear the DVD, and me to plug an Mp3 player into the deck-amp so I can still have my own tunes).
However, I believe that by law, a screen visible to the driver is/should be disabled when the e-brake is off or perhaps when the vehicle is out of park if possible. Applying this to wifi wouldn't be too difficult either, especially if this is a factory install.
I must ask though, why do you need wifi in a car? If you need a laptop signal then an ethernet jack in the center console would work fine, even if it is piggybacking on a wireless system.
and not some "hugs and tea" fascimilie of reality.
Actually, I think that something along the lines of "Boston Tea Party" might be appropriate in this situation. It's time to stand up for what is right, people!
I think that part of the problem can actually be regionalized in some cases. I've worked IT in a few school districts, and it seems that the case of teachers being tech-illiterate (or illiterate period, I can't begin to describe the frustration of teachers whose grammar/spelling skills verge on the grade 4 level) tends to fall within a certain region or school. In schools where there are some rather technically inclined teachers, it seems that either said teacher helps the others learn new tricks, or that they decide to learn so they don't look dumb.
In some schools, however, I must state that I've found the teachers to be plain lazy when it comes to technology or learning in general. The mood can be "I've gone to school, now I teach, don't expect me to learn anything new." These teachers are the ones who complain their computers don't work, when they've actually been unplugged (by somebody doing cleaning, or a student etc). They fight tooth-and-nail against any new or different technology, and they absolutely despise anyone who tries to tell them that they need to *learn* something.
This isn't to say that it's the case with all my teachers, some are genuinely as fond of learning as teaching, others are simply afraid of breaking something, but there are definately a significant number that treat IT like bad voodoo, and will have to be dragged kicking and screaming into the future.
Again, this isn't to insult you personally or your job. I quite enjoy working in schools myself, it's just that there are bad teachers: ones that are there for a paycheque, or just looking on their retirement in the next few years, etc, and they tend to be highly visible but for some reason highly unfirable... perhaps because some of the worse ones are quite senior and management would rather let them play out their time than fight to get them out. I'll also bite that I've also seen some lazy and empire-building techs in my time, so it's not as if my industry is immune either.
I tend to alamgamate my bills on one credit-card or bank account. I check it regularly, and watch that it stays under a certain amount with a two-week (pay) period. Yes, paying cash would work too, but one of the nice things about being connected is that I can constantly monitor my finances and adjust my spending accordingly, plus I gain travel points (others get cash-back etc) on my Visa, as well as various guarantees (backcharge is wonderful), that just don't come with cash. Of course I also always pay my balance on time. Always.
It's like the anti-abortion wackos. A lot of people would agree that abortions - like many things - can be abused (for example, they shouldn't be used as a method of birth-control), but an outright ban is idiotic. Yes, it might mean that Suzi-Sexaholic thinks a little stronger on using the pill and getting her boyfriend Harry Hardon to wrap it up (though even this is not always true), but it doesn't help 12-year-old Sally who was raped and impregnated by her perverted uncle.
There are very few reasons for absolutes. No, such games shouldn't be 100% unrestricted, but neither should they be 100% banned either. The same things applies to abortions, guns, games, movies, music (wouldn't an enforced rating system be ni on that), medication, controlled substances, killing (self defence, state-assigned death sentences for serial killers) etc.
I think a lot of this depends on the genre, how much "base" is required to make the game possible, and how much "new" (and different) environment is possible.
For example, with Half-Life 2, you needed the awesome base of HL1 (graphics/physics engine etc) to make it work. You couldn't have sold HL2 itself as an episode for $15, because the revenue needed to meet the initial cost of development. Also, I'm still in the middle of "Episode 1" (HL2ep1) but thus far it's not really anything new. Some new enemies (zombine soldiers) and a little more plot, but nothing substantial. For $15 it's not bad, but no new weapons (so far at least) and nothing really differentiates it from the base HL2. However, HL2 itself is a great improvement in terms of graphics/sound/physics from HL1, although the plot from HL1 was supposed to be better.
Next, take - for example - something that is entirely plot-based such as Sam and Max. This is more reminiscient of the old Sierra games. In particular, the concept reminds me of "Space Quest" series, wherein the same style of plot and base character(s) prevailed between games. There were definately some jumps in graphics between various time periods, but overall the best part was the plot/humour, which made the games more episode in the Roger Wilco universe. Others such as King's Quest varied in plot greatly, but Police Quest and some others were similarly episodic (new story, same general universe).
I think this is what makes games such as Sam 'n' Max such as treat for us long-time gamers, and what may lead to the episodic model being quite nice within them. There's no need to spend tons of money on new game engines, bigass meshes for alien baddies, or weird and wonderful weaponry... just keep cranking out quality, engaging plotlines.
How about cost? Singular high-bright LED's tend to be pricey. Not sure if the mass-production would reduce them that much, but they main drawbacks I've found is the cost and that they tend to be much more "directional" (i.e. the light is brightest up front) in comparison to regular bulbs.
I'm not sure how it would be if you asked your average European person, but ask many an American about such things and you're likely to get an equally blank stare.
Of course, I can't comment much on the subject, as I'm Canadian and sometimes I think the average Canuck knows more about US history (or TV-show law, etc) than he or she does about local history. Try asking 'em what Nixon is famous for Vs Trudeau, for example.
My other disappointment is that so much time & resourcefulness was spent on this rather than a way to prevent prion diease from taking it's toll on the untold people who have eaten infected 'industrial-beef' through fast food & other sources but won't show symptoms for many years.
Oh, but there would be a lot of money in this too. Sure, a cure can be worth bucks at first but then loses momentum when the disease becomes mostly a historical footnote, but a vaccine or preventative antidote is a wonderful thing for medical moneybags, as you can keep selling it to many generations in the future.
Slashdot Mirror
not really an incentive to take more care in future
I'm hoping that the banks at least suspended and revoked the privilage of online banking from the users in question. If you can't take care not to download trojans/etc online that affect online banking, you shouldn't be allowed to do your banking online.
Actually, it's the US that's different from the rest. Canada, (apparently) Australia, and from my understanding most of Europe do not tax lottery/contest winnings.
If I were to break a Canadian law by electronic means (say stealing funds by hacking into a Canadian Bank) from the US, don't you think that I would be arrested by Canadian Police if they later found me travelling in Canada? Of course I would.
You're skewing the topic. Yes, in this case you actively engaged in a crime against a US company. Not only might you be arrested on entering the US, but you could be extradited from your country of origin. Not only that, but the current country is likely to recognise your actions as a crime
however, the company in question was not actively pursueing an illegal activity with or against US companies. It was not a gambling company in itself. The execs arrested are apparently no longer affiliated with said company, and had broken affiliation with it before the laws changed. Now, gambling companies that cater to US citizens online might in themselves be liable, but it's ludicrous to chomp up the chain this far.
Not only that, but the illegality itself is possibly illegal under international trade law, as the only reason it seems to exist is due to the lack of taxable revenue for the US gov't (gambling itself is not illegal and is in fact a government sponsored activity).
If I smoke a dooby in Europe am I accountable on drug laws in the US? This is akin to cases where US authorities have held Canadian citizens who visited Cuba (which is under embargo in the US and thus illegal to visit). If the US really has a complaint against such activities, it should be bringing them to a world-governing organization or the other governments in question.
what would you do? Throw 60mio people in jail?
Of course you don't through 60 million people in jail. Increasing the legal penalties (and broadening defitions) for common activity just allows them to more easily nab the people that they do want to nail. If you've got 60 million people who are now regularly committing a "crime," it's much easier to nail the ones you want for some reason or other.
Is there an article/link for that one?
Yes, because (other than the possibility of a piece hitting somebody on the head) it's certainly dangerous to the country's citizens to shoot down one's own satellite in space. I mean, think of all the people that will be harmed by the fallout and radiatio... oh wait there's none of that. Pursueing a health-hazardous and dangerous test like dropping a nuke is not exactly all that comparable to blowing up an orbital satellite.
What's the recoil on one of these suckers? Since there's not an actual explosive reaction, I'm not sure if it would be all that much, but given that actual ballistic output of the thing I'd imagine that if there were recoil it could be a bitch to deal with...
Bullshit. Try surfing for cracks online sometime. 99% of the banner are for porn, and a large percentage of that is very iffy at best as to legality. Now you might argue that the cracks themselves aren't legal but there are plenty of fair-use reasons to have them
How about some contact info for those interesting in writing the powers that be about this issue?
If you license the patent, then you are agreeing that it's valid (you licensed it, after all), and thus have no right to challenge it's validity.
Partly, but in many ways it's just part of covering your bases. If you have a legitimate arguement that the patent is invalid, it could still take a substantial period of time to prove. In the meantime, you could also be sued, and when the courts seem to allow such things as US companies sueing foreign entities for more than their country's GDP, then one can see how much that would suck.
So long as the license doesn't have a do-not-sue clause, you can protect yourself from lawsuits and try to have the patent invalidated. It might be cheaper to pay $10,000/year and have the patent nuked after 1-2 years than fight lawsuits of $10,000,000, have production of your goods halted, and have the stigma of being sued for patent violation (which may mean less sales) hanging over one's head.
The children are likely not German, so they're not protecting the german children.
The servers are not in Germany, so they are not policing they're own internet.
They are telling people what they cannot do
While I'm by no stretch a fan of the government (any government, even though this one isn't my own) simply diving into private records, there is a certain line between reasonable and unreasonable. Swap the actions with the above arguements, for example:
What if they were ordering illegal merchandise? Perhaps ivory or pelts from an endangered animal. If they're ordering from a country where such is legal, does that mean that it's OK since no German elephants were killed (nevermind the lack of elephants in Germany). Why is it OK to harm kids from other coutries. Now if there were a case of drawn/animated material you might have a case for patrolling against "thoughtcrime", but no such distinction is made. Certainly if someone were in Germany and arranged a "hit" against somebody out-of-country, I would still expect that person to be arrested on murder charges.
The children are likely not German, so they're not protecting the german children.
Yeah, right, so if some kids are touring from another country it should be just fine to abuse/murder/etc them just because they're not citizens. Or they just shouldn't give a damn about non-citizens in other countries? Good logic.
Now, a lot of this depends on how the records are being checked. But personally, if they have an automated programs checking for payments of $13.50 to IllegalPerve.com between January and March 2005 (an example registration cost, site, and date of operation), I find it hard to object. Perhaps if this were the entire basis for arresting and jailing somebody, yes (stolen CC #'s and various other issues), but it's plenty of grounds for further investigation and I'm surprised that this is even news (I would have *expected* them to investigate such things).
I've seen a lot of gigabyte boards with bad caps, although it seems to be that boards from various manufacturers about the 1Ghz Athlon era ago all suffered from a plague of them, I've found a rash of GB boards in general with cap issues.
I've found some pretty decent gigabyte boards, but the end results tended to have them dying of exploded capacitors. If GB has a good solution for this, and they still manage to maintain a good cost/value ratio, it might be a good reason for me to consider going back to them. I find their webpage/support is generally a little better than other brands.
And she wasn't actually attacked or taped, unless somebody videotaped her in the computer room where flying wangs were somehow attacking her in real-life, as well.
By "the guy" you mean whoemever is behind the monkey currently in the president's chair? Most likely his father or other high-ups somewhere in the shadows.
I didn't have a choice in the matter. I was told to block sites such as deviantart (which IMHO is great for aspiring artists who want to post their work up) because it had a nude section buried somewhere in it, and various other similar sites. Unfortunately my admins upheld that if a teacher wanted to block a site, it got blocked.
We had something similar but in our case a network switch in a cubblehole had been covered and walled over by the drywallers. It really sucked to find it when it died, and sucked more when they had to whack a 3x4' hole in the wall to get at it.
Car TV's that have been installed properly, will, if in viewable range of the driver, disable the screen while the e-brake is off. That gives the driver the ability to watch shows while parked (good for, say, truckers or distance-drivers that want a break), but does not allow for watching-while-driving (unless one wants to grind the e-brake down to the nub). Of course, many shops and self-installs bypass this by attaching the safety connector to ground. My car has a DVD player, but the screen isn't installed by default so the safety is disabled. When I have passengers who want to watch, I just pass them back the screen and some headphones (my JVC unit allows them to watch/hear the DVD, and me to plug an Mp3 player into the deck-amp so I can still have my own tunes).
However, I believe that by law, a screen visible to the driver is/should be disabled when the e-brake is off or perhaps when the vehicle is out of park if possible. Applying this to wifi wouldn't be too difficult either, especially if this is a factory install.
I must ask though, why do you need wifi in a car? If you need a laptop signal then an ethernet jack in the center console would work fine, even if it is piggybacking on a wireless system.
and not some "hugs and tea" fascimilie of reality.
Actually, I think that something along the lines of "Boston Tea Party" might be appropriate in this situation. It's time to stand up for what is right, people!
I think that part of the problem can actually be regionalized in some cases. I've worked IT in a few school districts, and it seems that the case of teachers being tech-illiterate (or illiterate period, I can't begin to describe the frustration of teachers whose grammar/spelling skills verge on the grade 4 level) tends to fall within a certain region or school. In schools where there are some rather technically inclined teachers, it seems that either said teacher helps the others learn new tricks, or that they decide to learn so they don't look dumb.
In some schools, however, I must state that I've found the teachers to be plain lazy when it comes to technology or learning in general. The mood can be "I've gone to school, now I teach, don't expect me to learn anything new." These teachers are the ones who complain their computers don't work, when they've actually been unplugged (by somebody doing cleaning, or a student etc). They fight tooth-and-nail against any new or different technology, and they absolutely despise anyone who tries to tell them that they need to *learn* something.
This isn't to say that it's the case with all my teachers, some are genuinely as fond of learning as teaching, others are simply afraid of breaking something, but there are definately a significant number that treat IT like bad voodoo, and will have to be dragged kicking and screaming into the future.
Again, this isn't to insult you personally or your job. I quite enjoy working in schools myself, it's just that there are bad teachers: ones that are there for a paycheque, or just looking on their retirement in the next few years, etc, and they tend to be highly visible but for some reason highly unfirable... perhaps because some of the worse ones are quite senior and management would rather let them play out their time than fight to get them out. I'll also bite that I've also seen some lazy and empire-building techs in my time, so it's not as if my industry is immune either.
I tend to alamgamate my bills on one credit-card or bank account. I check it regularly, and watch that it stays under a certain amount with a two-week (pay) period. Yes, paying cash would work too, but one of the nice things about being connected is that I can constantly monitor my finances and adjust my spending accordingly, plus I gain travel points (others get cash-back etc) on my Visa, as well as various guarantees (backcharge is wonderful), that just don't come with cash. Of course I also always pay my balance on time. Always.
It's like the anti-abortion wackos. A lot of people would agree that abortions - like many things - can be abused (for example, they shouldn't be used as a method of birth-control), but an outright ban is idiotic. Yes, it might mean that Suzi-Sexaholic thinks a little stronger on using the pill and getting her boyfriend Harry Hardon to wrap it up (though even this is not always true), but it doesn't help 12-year-old Sally who was raped and impregnated by her perverted uncle.
There are very few reasons for absolutes. No, such games shouldn't be 100% unrestricted, but neither should they be 100% banned either. The same things applies to abortions, guns, games, movies, music (wouldn't an enforced rating system be ni on that), medication, controlled substances, killing (self defence, state-assigned death sentences for serial killers) etc.
I think a lot of this depends on the genre, how much "base" is required to make the game possible, and how much "new" (and different) environment is possible.
For example, with Half-Life 2, you needed the awesome base of HL1 (graphics/physics engine etc) to make it work. You couldn't have sold HL2 itself as an episode for $15, because the revenue needed to meet the initial cost of development. Also, I'm still in the middle of "Episode 1" (HL2ep1) but thus far it's not really anything new. Some new enemies (zombine soldiers) and a little more plot, but nothing substantial. For $15 it's not bad, but no new weapons (so far at least) and nothing really differentiates it from the base HL2. However, HL2 itself is a great improvement in terms of graphics/sound/physics from HL1, although the plot from HL1 was supposed to be better.
Next, take - for example - something that is entirely plot-based such as Sam and Max. This is more reminiscient of the old Sierra games. In particular, the concept reminds me of "Space Quest" series, wherein the same style of plot and base character(s) prevailed between games. There were definately some jumps in graphics between various time periods, but overall the best part was the plot/humour, which made the games more episode in the Roger Wilco universe. Others such as King's Quest varied in plot greatly, but Police Quest and some others were similarly episodic (new story, same general universe).
I think this is what makes games such as Sam 'n' Max such as treat for us long-time gamers, and what may lead to the episodic model being quite nice within them. There's no need to spend tons of money on new game engines, bigass meshes for alien baddies, or weird and wonderful weaponry... just keep cranking out quality, engaging plotlines.
How about cost? Singular high-bright LED's tend to be pricey. Not sure if the mass-production would reduce them that much, but they main drawbacks I've found is the cost and that they tend to be much more "directional" (i.e. the light is brightest up front) in comparison to regular bulbs.
I'm not sure how it would be if you asked your average European person, but ask many an American about such things and you're likely to get an equally blank stare.
Of course, I can't comment much on the subject, as I'm Canadian and sometimes I think the average Canuck knows more about US history (or TV-show law, etc) than he or she does about local history. Try asking 'em what Nixon is famous for Vs Trudeau, for example.
My other disappointment is that so much time & resourcefulness was spent on this rather than a way to prevent prion diease from taking it's toll on the untold people who have eaten infected 'industrial-beef' through fast food & other sources but won't show symptoms for many years.
Oh, but there would be a lot of money in this too. Sure, a cure can be worth bucks at first but then loses momentum when the disease becomes mostly a historical footnote, but a vaccine or preventative antidote is a wonderful thing for medical moneybags, as you can keep selling it to many generations in the future.