France is a nuclear power, for chrissakes. Why would they need to fear U.S. retaliation?
Huh? We aren't talking about military retaliation. Why would you bring that up? Christ, nuclear power or not France is an ally! Regardless, what we are talking about is economic and political reprisal, not warheads. In other words, if they go against us on this, we may take sides against them on some other issue. Personally, I hope they do stand up to us, just like Germany did regarding Iraq. "No, this is a bad idea!" That's all they have to do.
And, no Italy isn't standing up against the media companies, they're standing up to what they (correctly) perceive as undue influence upon their economy by the United States.
I try not to support companies run by litigious pricks with no sense of humor.
I think this covers a fair chunk of successful companies, public and private. When you're on the hook for millions of dollars in revenue, and competitors are looking for any weakness to bring you down, a sense of humour can be a liability. As for pricks, Microsoft didn't muscle its way into preeminence by Gates being a nice guy. Even allowing that Google isn't evil, it hasn't gotten to its position today by allowing itself to be pushed around.
I disagree. If you are successful because you play fast and loose with the law, that does not mean that your behavior is acceptable or even tolerable. You become a liability to everyone else, if not an outright aggressive menace.
Furthermore, in no way was Magic Jack being "pushed around". They released a publicly available document, and then got upset that a news organization had the temerity to comment upon it. The only pushing around being done was by Magic Jack, who were behaving very badly even by corporate standards. The judge in the case apparently thinks so as well.
It would appear that you are arguing that Magic Jack's actions were entirely reasonable from a legal and business perspective, and that corporations can and should be allowed to suppress outside commentary that they happen to dislike. If so, I disagree with you on a number of levels.
Are you arguing that the ends justify the means? I imagine that William H. Gates would agree with you. I don't.
The problem with this whole line of thinking is that we don't know what Dan Borislow's lawyers said to him.
Doesn't matter. Lawyers are just tools to get what whoever pays them wants, and he wanted Boing Boing to shut up.
This Borislow character went after a site that was publishing factual material. As it happened, this was information that he didn't want his customers (or potential customers) knowing about. In other words, he wants to do whatever he wants without any consequences and he's only apologizing because he had is ass handed to him on a Sterno-fueled platter.
Furthermore, if you want to mistreat your customers, and use attack lawyers to silence any criticism of your actions, then you're exactly what I originally called him: a litigious prick.
Of course, a large number of people that had never heard of Magic Jack now know that the company is owned and operated by a complete jerk. That can't be good for sales... I mean, cripes if there was ever a prime example of the Streisand effect, this is it. You'd think that someone who runs an Internet communications company would have a bit more on the ball. I guess that just makes him a stupid jerk.
they created a LOT of patents, many of them for non-obvious, very interesting inventions... like the Mouse.
Which is not to say that they actually produced those inventions: patenting does not equal innovation or creativity. Doug Engelbart (who was working at Stanford at the time) is usually credited with the invention of the mouse. So, while PARC certainly used the mouse in their Smalltalk GUI, they didn't invent it. Furthermore, patents or not, if a corporation has reached the point where they are expecting to survive financially off their patent portfolio, well, let's just say that they're past their prime.
And who says the mouse wasn't obvious? Actually, it's pretty damn obvious, particularly considering that it was invented in 1968 or thereabouts.
But I try not to support companies run by litigious pricks with no sense of humor.
And if we weren't nerds we probably wouldn't have even known about this. My thanks to slashdot! But why aren't these sorts of things reported in the mainstream press?
Not sensationalist enough, I'd say. They probably believe that it's only of interest to nerds, and who cares what they find interesting.
convincing me to not buy their product. Too bad, I was considering getting hold of one to play around with it. But I try not to support companies run by litigious pricks with no sense of humor.
The International Olympic Committee has ordered a blogger to remove a video
I agree, but where did the IOC get the legal authority to order someone in another country to do anything whatsoever? You want me to take down my blog? Fine. Hire some local attorneys and take me to court in a proper venue.
Personally, I think the Olympics have lost whatever it was that once made them worth something, and they should simply be discontinued and that blood-sucking IOC disbanded. They're politicized, commercialized crap that dilutes and demeans the efforts of the remarkable athletes who we should be watching. The IOC makes me sick, and the cheapass TV networks in this country don't help.
All it would take is catching on child changing or masturbating. Then you're guilty of creating child pornography maybe even distributing it. I think that sounds much better than just a "sex offender".
Just hope for a single nude shot on the school server. Then the entire bunch could be nailed as a child porn ring.
And you know... that being true is not out of the realm of possibility. This whole thing seems so surreal that you have to wonder. In any event, this is one case where having children involved may be a good thing: the Federal Government has made child pornography and pedophilia a major priority. That this is happening under the auspices of a school administration would be hard to sweep under the rug, and is going to require some kind of example to be set. I would imagine that any other institutions that may have been planning (or already implemented) something similar are already in damage-control mode.
We don't know exactly what kinds of images these creeps were viewing, but I do hope that none of them get made public. It's going to be hard enough on the children and their families as it is. Jesus H. Christ... what kind of school does something like this?
The diseases of unaccountability strikes once again. Hopefully, in this case it can be cured.
Simple question for you: are the illegal immigrants paying their real estate taxes? If so, why aren't their kids entitled to be educated?
Better question: why should they be? If you move to another country against the wishes of that nation's people, and their established laws, should you be entitled to anything? Should your children? You are taking the position that the rule of law should be abrogated in the U.S. (which, frankly, it pretty much is in Mexico, unless you consider rule by drug lord families to be "law".) Is that what you want for America? Really? I urge you to think long and hard on this question: the world has become a far more dangerous place than it used to be.
Consequently, since you are advocating lawlessness, I fully expect you to have a better answer to that question. I don't have to justify my position (which is pretty simple: enforce the laws we have, or convince enough Americans to influence their government(s) to change those laws.) Simply ignoring our legal system in order to make certain Americans even more wealthy than they already are is just stupid. In the long run, it doesn't help the immigrants and it doesn't help us. Far better for Mexico to invest in improving itself, and becoming an economic partner to the U.S., rather than the debilitating parasite that it is.
It's telling that the people closest to the border with our friends to the south are far more aware of the consequences of illegal immigration than elsewhere in the U.S. My mother lived fairly close the border for a couple of decades, and she could have told you a lot about what's really going on.
The Feds are largely unaccountable themselves. What makes you think they're not getting involved just to get a look at any of the recorded video?
Just saying.
Probably because this is pretty tame stuff, from their perspective. Furthermore, the Feds (and law enforcement in general) do NOT like anyone playing in their backyard. They're pretty jealous about their turf, in fact. So yes, I'm pretty sure the FBI is going to take a very dim view of this school's surveillance activities.
It's quite probable that 56% of the real estate taxes SHOULD go to the school.
And it's just as likely that it isn't. Matter of fact, I'm pretty sure it isn't. I've seen the overbuilt, overfunded, underutilized facilities built around here, and I'm not happy with the way public officials have been handling my money.
I'm not going to dispute the importance of education to our society, I hope I didn't give that impression. But we are spending an enormous amount of money on this, and we're not receiving enough in return. We're just not. Given the misuse of public funds that goes on in the modern "educational system", I suspect that schools could get along with a lot less money than they do if they were better managed. This is typical of taxpayer-funded operations that are run without sufficient oversight. And schools not only have little oversight, but have the political advantage of being able to say that every tax increase is necessary "for the children". No politician wants to vote against that. It's the standard recipe for misuse of public funds and malfeasance in office.
I don't even want to go into the dollars spent on educating illegal immigrants in my area. That's a whole 'nother issue, but it directly affects the bottom line when it comes to the cost of educating our children. What the word "our" means to you may be different than what it means to me, of course, but either way we are talking about our money.
Why do you think kids, especially teens, act like such idiotic assholes nowadays? They learn it at school -- from the employees.
Well, you've basically convinced me that the problem is far worse than I thought. It's systemic, and for that reason is probably incurable at this point.
as a taxpayer without children, I am not welcome at PTA or other school meetings where I would be permitted to voice my opinions as to the misguided actions of educators and administrators
Well, sure, because as someone without children you might be inclined to ask where the hell all of your money is going, and the "but, it's for the children" argument most likely won't work on you. Me either... I don't have kids but 56% (fifty six percent) of my real-estate taxes go to "education." Think about that: education overshadows all other civil services in my area: police, fire, social and medical services, everything. That just seems entirely out of proportion, somehow.
And even if you aren't welcome at such meetings, if you're not an attorney you might want to consult one. Find out if the school has any legal right to exclude you: parent or not, the taxes you pay go to support that organization, and if there's any justice at all, you should be entitled to some say in how it is run.
What were these people thinking when they set this up?
More to the point, if the people who are running our schools have so little capacity for critical thinking, what the hell are they doing in charge of our children's education?
Don't forget to charge the kid too. It's the American way.
As an American, I suppose I should be irritated by that remark... but it's uncomfortably close to the truth. We're not handling many of these cases very well, it seems.
Sometimes you have to look at stories like this and say, "Well, we don't have all the facts in our possession, so maybe there were some extenuating circumstances." In this case, I can't really see any justification for what this school has done. It just sounds like a group of administrative types who thought they were invulnerable to consequence went too far.
When you get right down to it, the reason our schools SUCK at this point in time is because of power-mad, empire-building administrators that really couldn't give a rat's ass about the students. Teachers take a lot of the blame (much of it deserved, I agree) but just as with a staff of software developers managed by an idiot, the real responsibility lies at the top.
Slashdot Mirror
France is a nuclear power, for chrissakes. Why would they need to fear U.S. retaliation?
Huh? We aren't talking about military retaliation. Why would you bring that up? Christ, nuclear power or not France is an ally! Regardless, what we are talking about is economic and political reprisal, not warheads. In other words, if they go against us on this, we may take sides against them on some other issue. Personally, I hope they do stand up to us, just like Germany did regarding Iraq. "No, this is a bad idea!" That's all they have to do.
And, no Italy isn't standing up against the media companies, they're standing up to what they (correctly) perceive as undue influence upon their economy by the United States.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." -- Thomas Jefferson
Home of the (not so) brave (anymore), land of the (less) free (than we used to be.)
Isn't that NASA's goal? To get that pie in the sky?
Yes, but you shouldn't need to use sky pie to get pie in the sky. Or something. I had a point there but I think I lost it.
Bell Labs? Perhaps you mean Lucent Technologies (or, these days, Alcatel-Lucent).
No, I meant the old Bell Labs. The OP was talking about how the mighty have fallen.
So I'm not sure what world this lobbying group lives in where FOSS is incompatible with copyright.
I don't know either ... but I'm betting the sky isn't blue.
I try not to support companies run by litigious pricks with no sense of humor.
I think this covers a fair chunk of successful companies, public and private. When you're on the hook for millions of dollars in revenue, and competitors are looking for any weakness to bring you down, a sense of humour can be a liability. As for pricks, Microsoft didn't muscle its way into preeminence by Gates being a nice guy. Even allowing that Google isn't evil, it hasn't gotten to its position today by allowing itself to be pushed around.
I disagree. If you are successful because you play fast and loose with the law, that does not mean that your behavior is acceptable or even tolerable. You become a liability to everyone else, if not an outright aggressive menace.
Furthermore, in no way was Magic Jack being "pushed around". They released a publicly available document, and then got upset that a news organization had the temerity to comment upon it. The only pushing around being done was by Magic Jack, who were behaving very badly even by corporate standards. The judge in the case apparently thinks so as well.
It would appear that you are arguing that Magic Jack's actions were entirely reasonable from a legal and business perspective, and that corporations can and should be allowed to suppress outside commentary that they happen to dislike. If so, I disagree with you on a number of levels.
Are you arguing that the ends justify the means? I imagine that William H. Gates would agree with you. I don't.
The problem with this whole line of thinking is that we don't know what Dan Borislow's lawyers said to him.
Doesn't matter. Lawyers are just tools to get what whoever pays them wants, and he wanted Boing Boing to shut up.
... I mean, cripes if there was ever a prime example of the Streisand effect, this is it. You'd think that someone who runs an Internet communications company would have a bit more on the ball. I guess that just makes him a stupid jerk.
This Borislow character went after a site that was publishing factual material. As it happened, this was information that he didn't want his customers (or potential customers) knowing about. In other words, he wants to do whatever he wants without any consequences and he's only apologizing because he had is ass handed to him on a Sterno-fueled platter.
Furthermore, if you want to mistreat your customers, and use attack lawyers to silence any criticism of your actions, then you're exactly what I originally called him: a litigious prick.
Of course, a large number of people that had never heard of Magic Jack now know that the company is owned and operated by a complete jerk. That can't be good for sales
if he could use a hardware weapon
Well, if you count the apparently rather thick skull of his lawyer as hardware, I'd say that's exactly what he did.
a total mother-stabbing new-age-witchcraft-practicing father-raping puppy-shredding nun-strangling terrorist hippie racist moronic flat-earther sexist heretic robber-baron asshole Republican innocent-attacking bastard litigious prostitute kitten-poisoning jerk gay Scientologist thieving SCO homophobic Democrat shit-eating Nazi stupid criminal cocksucking evil Communist odious pig-fucking Christian pedophile nu-metal-wigger Romulan poo-head
I think you're being a little unfair to the Romulans.
Just make sure your family members never use MagicJack by them about telling them about Skype
Yes, because Skype is so much better on the privacy front.
Good times, but how the mighty have fallen these days. I for one miss the idea of a pure research group.
Yeah ... no kidding. Put Bell Laboratories on the short list as well.
they created a LOT of patents, many of them for non-obvious, very interesting inventions... like the Mouse.
Which is not to say that they actually produced those inventions: patenting does not equal innovation or creativity. Doug Engelbart (who was working at Stanford at the time) is usually credited with the invention of the mouse. So, while PARC certainly used the mouse in their Smalltalk GUI, they didn't invent it. Furthermore, patents or not, if a corporation has reached the point where they are expecting to survive financially off their patent portfolio, well, let's just say that they're past their prime.
And who says the mouse wasn't obvious? Actually, it's pretty damn obvious, particularly considering that it was invented in 1968 or thereabouts.
But I try not to support companies run by litigious pricks with no sense of humor. And if we weren't nerds we probably wouldn't have even known about this. My thanks to slashdot! But why aren't these sorts of things reported in the mainstream press?
Not sensationalist enough, I'd say. They probably believe that it's only of interest to nerds, and who cares what they find interesting.
convincing me to not buy their product. Too bad, I was considering getting hold of one to play around with it. But I try not to support companies run by litigious pricks with no sense of humor.
The International Olympic Committee has ordered a blogger to remove a video
I agree, but where did the IOC get the legal authority to order someone in another country to do anything whatsoever? You want me to take down my blog? Fine. Hire some local attorneys and take me to court in a proper venue.
Personally, I think the Olympics have lost whatever it was that once made them worth something, and they should simply be discontinued and that blood-sucking IOC disbanded. They're politicized, commercialized crap that dilutes and demeans the efforts of the remarkable athletes who we should be watching. The IOC makes me sick, and the cheapass TV networks in this country don't help.
All it would take is catching on child changing or masturbating. Then you're guilty of creating child pornography maybe even distributing it. I think that sounds much better than just a "sex offender".
Just hope for a single nude shot on the school server. Then the entire bunch could be nailed as a child porn ring.
... that being true is not out of the realm of possibility. This whole thing seems so surreal that you have to wonder. In any event, this is one case where having children involved may be a good thing: the Federal Government has made child pornography and pedophilia a major priority. That this is happening under the auspices of a school administration would be hard to sweep under the rug, and is going to require some kind of example to be set. I would imagine that any other institutions that may have been planning (or already implemented) something similar are already in damage-control mode.
... what kind of school does something like this?
And you know
We don't know exactly what kinds of images these creeps were viewing, but I do hope that none of them get made public. It's going to be hard enough on the children and their families as it is. Jesus H. Christ
The diseases of unaccountability strikes once again. Hopefully, in this case it can be cured.
Simple question for you: are the illegal immigrants paying their real estate taxes? If so, why aren't their kids entitled to be educated?
Better question: why should they be? If you move to another country against the wishes of that nation's people, and their established laws, should you be entitled to anything? Should your children? You are taking the position that the rule of law should be abrogated in the U.S. (which, frankly, it pretty much is in Mexico, unless you consider rule by drug lord families to be "law".) Is that what you want for America? Really? I urge you to think long and hard on this question: the world has become a far more dangerous place than it used to be.
Consequently, since you are advocating lawlessness, I fully expect you to have a better answer to that question. I don't have to justify my position (which is pretty simple: enforce the laws we have, or convince enough Americans to influence their government(s) to change those laws.) Simply ignoring our legal system in order to make certain Americans even more wealthy than they already are is just stupid. In the long run, it doesn't help the immigrants and it doesn't help us. Far better for Mexico to invest in improving itself, and becoming an economic partner to the U.S., rather than the debilitating parasite that it is.
It's telling that the people closest to the border with our friends to the south are far more aware of the consequences of illegal immigration than elsewhere in the U.S. My mother lived fairly close the border for a couple of decades, and she could have told you a lot about what's really going on.
It's not pretty.
The Feds are largely unaccountable themselves. What makes you think they're not getting involved just to get a look at any of the recorded video?
Just saying.
Probably because this is pretty tame stuff, from their perspective. Furthermore, the Feds (and law enforcement in general) do NOT like anyone playing in their backyard. They're pretty jealous about their turf, in fact. So yes, I'm pretty sure the FBI is going to take a very dim view of this school's surveillance activities.
It's quite probable that 56% of the real estate taxes SHOULD go to the school.
And it's just as likely that it isn't. Matter of fact, I'm pretty sure it isn't. I've seen the overbuilt, overfunded, underutilized facilities built around here, and I'm not happy with the way public officials have been handling my money.
I'm not going to dispute the importance of education to our society, I hope I didn't give that impression. But we are spending an enormous amount of money on this, and we're not receiving enough in return. We're just not. Given the misuse of public funds that goes on in the modern "educational system", I suspect that schools could get along with a lot less money than they do if they were better managed. This is typical of taxpayer-funded operations that are run without sufficient oversight. And schools not only have little oversight, but have the political advantage of being able to say that every tax increase is necessary "for the children". No politician wants to vote against that. It's the standard recipe for misuse of public funds and malfeasance in office.
I don't even want to go into the dollars spent on educating illegal immigrants in my area. That's a whole 'nother issue, but it directly affects the bottom line when it comes to the cost of educating our children. What the word "our" means to you may be different than what it means to me, of course, but either way we are talking about our money.
Close, but not quite correct.
I bow to your superior experience.
Why do you think kids, especially teens, act like such idiotic assholes nowadays? They learn it at school -- from the employees.
Well, you've basically convinced me that the problem is far worse than I thought. It's systemic, and for that reason is probably incurable at this point.
That, or they're trying to figure out how they can do it themselves.
I'm gonna go out on a limb here, and say that most of our three-letter law-enforcement agencies already know how to remotely activate a Web cam.
as a taxpayer without children, I am not welcome at PTA or other school meetings where I would be permitted to voice my opinions as to the misguided actions of educators and administrators
Well, sure, because as someone without children you might be inclined to ask where the hell all of your money is going, and the "but, it's for the children" argument most likely won't work on you. Me either ... I don't have kids but 56% (fifty six percent) of my real-estate taxes go to "education." Think about that: education overshadows all other civil services in my area: police, fire, social and medical services, everything. That just seems entirely out of proportion, somehow.
And even if you aren't welcome at such meetings, if you're not an attorney you might want to consult one. Find out if the school has any legal right to exclude you: parent or not, the taxes you pay go to support that organization, and if there's any justice at all, you should be entitled to some say in how it is run.
What were these people thinking when they set this up?
More to the point, if the people who are running our schools have so little capacity for critical thinking, what the hell are they doing in charge of our children's education?
Isn't the FBI in charge of invading our privacy, not protecting it?
Well, the point is that law enforcement, in general, is not going to look kindly upon this.
Don't forget to charge the kid too. It's the American way.
As an American, I suppose I should be irritated by that remark ... but it's uncomfortably close to the truth. We're not handling many of these cases very well, it seems.
Sometimes you have to look at stories like this and say, "Well, we don't have all the facts in our possession, so maybe there were some extenuating circumstances." In this case, I can't really see any justification for what this school has done. It just sounds like a group of administrative types who thought they were invulnerable to consequence went too far.
When you get right down to it, the reason our schools SUCK at this point in time is because of power-mad, empire-building administrators that really couldn't give a rat's ass about the students. Teachers take a lot of the blame (much of it deserved, I agree) but just as with a staff of software developers managed by an idiot, the real responsibility lies at the top.