"Back then I still thought there were a few rights left and some common sense. Apparently there was or I lucked out or both probably. I wouldn't do that today. Of course, I rarely venture into any large urban area either, it's gotten too weird. Won't fly either, not on any commercial airplane."
You need to leave the USA as soon as you can; your nation will need sensible people like you to repopulate the place after your countrymen have all killed one another in paranoid rage.
"Ford execs knew that the tires they equipped all their Explorer SUVs was defective and could explode when too hot on a highway"
Wasn't that because the manual gave a tire pressure suitable for off road driving whereas most people who drive these things are doing so on sealed roads where the lower pressure in the tires causes the walls to squash outward as the wheel rotates causing exessive heating?
ie: the purchasers were not using the vehicle for its 'intended' off-road purpose?
(ok so the *real* intended purpose of the SUV is so that the manufacturer can avoid emissions surcharge as they count as a 'light truck').
Relative to the position of the barrels, I think the truck driver would be safer than the car driver.
The car driver is going to have bits of barrel and lots of water coming through the windscreen, whereas the truck driver might get wet if the windscreen does break.
My intended meaning is that rather than being tolerant (implying friendly respect for anothers views) I am cautious (implying healthy regard for my own well being).
By 'tolerance' I imply concern for others, by 'caution' I imply concern for myself.
This means that if I am in a heated argument with someone I believe to be of the Islamic persuasion, I will think twice about calling them 'a son of a bitch' because of the consequences.
I think the difference would be clear to the observer in a real life situation.
"and it is that effect that they see that makes it a bad idea, in my opinion [to be either tolerant or cautious]." (to paraphrase you there)
Sounds to me as if you would even advocate using deliberately emotive language with everyone you talk to...?
"Does that include misspelling the name of their religion?"
absolutely; I anticipate an fatua any time now. And then another one for misspelling fatua.
(besides, anal retentive pedant, its a transliteration from the Arabic so its got to be phonetic spelling anyway and you can't misspell a phonetic spelling:-P )
Well, no, not the whole world, just the USA and its allies who also feel terribly guilty and scared that someone that they pissed off will lash out at them.
Most of the world doesn't go around pissing off Moslems; when I was at school (in the UK) I learned never *ever* to piss a Moslem off when it came to matters of religion (which includes things like calling them 'son of a bitch' by the way (it implies that their mother is a dog and since dogs gave the Prophet away when he was trying to sneak into Mecca, dogs are bad)).
" I suppose the helmet is to protect your brain while the rest of your body is horribly crushed and mutilated. Or something."
I've heard that one of the most disgusting aspects of dealing with traffic accidents is when people have had their heads smashed open and their brains everywhere.
I suspect that the helmet law is not 'nanny state' forcing you to wear a helmet for your own good, but rather its in the interests of morale in the emergency services.
"what is this clicking you are talking about? i have a script running that automatically detects "i agree" buttons and clicks them, that way the contract is only binding to that script and not to me."
Maybe if I lived in a third world country I'd say 'lots' (because I'd likely have lost family members to war).
If I lived in suburban USA I'd probably say zero (because the only war I'd see is on TV and it happens somewhere else).
However, you miss the point of the nukes. Its not about fighting 'major wars'; its about keeping *people* under control by terrifying them with the prospect of nuclear war.
The so-called cold war was, in effect if not in intent, a collaboration between the USA and the USSR.
Both parties maintained a state of M.A.D. and thereby held their populations (and those of other nations) in fear for their lives.
This is the aim of the nukes; not the blast damage they could inflict but the psychological effect their existance has.
This is why their proliferation is so frowned upon by the powers that already have them; because it would dilute their usefulness as weapons of pure terror.
More than that; BeOS hardware and network support was shocking.
I got a secondhand copy of the last release of BeOS and installed it... and discovered that it had no driver for the network card I had (IIRC an 8139 chipset card) and I had to boot into Linux, scour the internet for a driver, copy it onto a floppy, boot into BeOS and install the driver.
Then I discovered that BeOS had no support for NFS nor windows filesharing so I couldn't copy anything else onto it from the network shares where I'd downloaded more BeOS bits.
"Here at/. people are pissed because they have no way of reading contract when they do the purchase but still have to accept it. Remember that most stores don't accept boxes that have been opened back."
If one disagreed with the EULA, took the (opened) package back to the store who refused to take it back and give a refund, wouldn't that void the 'contract'?
"but since you didn't sign it the whole sales contract is void"
Since when does anyone ever sign a EULA? Or does a click of the mouse -- an *anonymous* click of the mouse -- now count as a legal signature in the USA now?
This has to be the breaking point of this EULA as Contract argument; either a EULA is a contract in which case both parties must sign it or if neither party signs it then there is no contract.
Or does American contract law not require any form of signature?
Slashdot Mirror
"Back then I still thought there were a few rights left and some common sense. Apparently there was or I lucked out or both probably. I wouldn't do that today. Of course, I rarely venture into any large urban area either, it's gotten too weird. Won't fly either, not on any commercial airplane."
You need to leave the USA as soon as you can; your nation will need sensible people like you to repopulate the place after your countrymen have all killed one another in paranoid rage.
Yeah but when you need to squeeze every ounce of performance out of a 2GHz processor you will be glad you chose ASP.NET
;)
And not to mention when you need to squeeze your application into a mere 2 gigs of RAM.
"Ford execs knew that the tires they equipped all their Explorer SUVs was defective and could explode when too hot on a highway"
Wasn't that because the manual gave a tire pressure suitable for off road driving whereas most people who drive these things are doing so on sealed roads where the lower pressure in the tires causes the walls to squash outward as the wheel rotates causing exessive heating?
ie: the purchasers were not using the vehicle for its 'intended' off-road purpose?
(ok so the *real* intended purpose of the SUV is so that the manufacturer can avoid emissions surcharge as they count as a 'light truck').
"who exactly goes to jail?"
This is the perennial problem of the corporation.
Since the corporation is a legal person, 'it' might be responsible, but then how do you send a corporation to jail?
Personally I think that the 'corporation as a legal person' is one of the great lies of our time; it seriously fucks the law right up.
"Thank heavens we have a government that is taking rapid action to protect us from ourselves!"
and the national dress of the USA should really be the strait jacket
Relative to the position of the barrels, I think the truck driver would be safer than the car driver.
The car driver is going to have bits of barrel and lots of water coming through the windscreen, whereas the truck driver might get wet if the windscreen does break.
"My first car was a Ford [car model removed due to owner's embarrassment]."
Oh, so it was a Pinto?
To be clear...
My intended meaning is that rather than being tolerant (implying friendly respect for anothers views) I am cautious (implying healthy regard for my own well being).
By 'tolerance' I imply concern for others, by 'caution' I imply concern for myself.
This means that if I am in a heated argument with someone I believe to be of the Islamic persuasion, I will think twice about calling them 'a son of a bitch' because of the consequences.
I think the difference would be clear to the observer in a real life situation.
"and it is that effect that they see that makes it a bad idea, in my opinion [to be either tolerant or cautious]." (to paraphrase you there)
Sounds to me as if you would even advocate using deliberately emotive language with everyone you talk to...?
Hey you wouldn't be Richard Stallman would you???
"I don't think it's a good idea to give out extra tolerance to people as a reward for them being oversensitive intolerent people themselves"
I didn't really suggest that exactly, more caution than tolerance...
"Does that include misspelling the name of their religion?"
:-P )
absolutely; I anticipate an fatua any time now.
And then another one for misspelling fatua.
(besides, anal retentive pedant, its a transliteration from the Arabic so its got to be phonetic spelling anyway and you can't misspell a phonetic spelling
"does the whole world have to go insane?"
Well, no, not the whole world, just the USA and its allies who also feel terribly guilty and scared that someone that they pissed off will lash out at them.
Most of the world doesn't go around pissing off Moslems; when I was at school (in the UK) I learned never *ever* to piss a Moslem off when it came to matters of religion (which includes things like calling them 'son of a bitch' by the way (it implies that their mother is a dog and since dogs gave the Prophet away when he was trying to sneak into Mecca, dogs are bad)).
"Je suis Marxiste, Tendance Groucho."
bizarre coincidence; back in the 70's I had a badge saying exactly that...
" I suppose the helmet is to protect your brain while the rest of your body is horribly crushed and mutilated. Or something."
I've heard that one of the most disgusting aspects of dealing with traffic accidents is when people have had their heads smashed open and their brains everywhere.
I suspect that the helmet law is not 'nanny state' forcing you to wear a helmet for your own good, but rather its in the interests of morale in the emergency services.
"what is this clicking you are talking about? i have a script running that automatically detects "i agree" buttons and clicks them, that way the contract is only binding to that script and not to me."
That should be built into Windows
And if I were China, I would want to compile that source and then those are the binaries I run because I would anticipate a shell game of some sort.
I suspect that what actually happens is that MS reveal portions of the code, without the supporting infrastructure to compile it successfuly.
"For example a sales receipt is perfectly valid, both parties don't have to sign it to form a contract."
Right, but then your contract is with the seller not with the manufacturer...
Depends how you define 'major'.
Maybe if I lived in a third world country I'd say 'lots' (because I'd likely have lost family members to war).
If I lived in suburban USA I'd probably say zero (because the only war I'd see is on TV and it happens somewhere else).
However, you miss the point of the nukes. Its not about fighting 'major wars'; its about keeping *people* under control by terrifying them with the prospect of nuclear war.
The so-called cold war was, in effect if not in intent, a collaboration between the USA and the USSR.
Both parties maintained a state of M.A.D. and thereby held their populations (and those of other nations) in fear for their lives.
This is the aim of the nukes; not the blast damage they could inflict but the psychological effect their existance has.
This is why their proliferation is so frowned upon by the powers that already have them; because it would dilute their usefulness as weapons of pure terror.
uh yeah if I don't mind copying everything to a floppy or CD first because the networking support is so poor.
I mean its not as if it was an oddball NIC. And its not as if samba or NFS are unusual in a networking environment.
"We have hundreds of nuclear missiles in the ground all across the west, but we don't use them."
They *are* used; as weapons of terror.
The atmosphere of terror created by threat of their use is their actual value.
"while OSX is a Harley"
:-P
Yeah, a flathead Harley
More than that; BeOS hardware and network support was shocking.
I got a secondhand copy of the last release of BeOS and installed it... and discovered that it had no driver for the network card I had (IIRC an 8139 chipset card) and I had to boot into Linux, scour the internet for a driver, copy it onto a floppy, boot into BeOS and install the driver.
Then I discovered that BeOS had no support for NFS nor windows filesharing so I couldn't copy anything else onto it from the network shares where I'd downloaded more BeOS bits.
And (again IIRC) no sshd in BeOS?
"Here at /. people are pissed because they have no way of reading contract when they do the purchase but still have to accept it. Remember that most stores don't accept boxes that have been opened back."
If one disagreed with the EULA, took the (opened) package back to the store who refused to take it back and give a refund, wouldn't that void the 'contract'?
"but since you didn't sign it the whole sales contract is void"
Since when does anyone ever sign a EULA? Or does a click of the mouse -- an *anonymous* click of the mouse -- now count as a legal signature in the USA now?
This has to be the breaking point of this EULA as Contract argument; either a EULA is a contract in which case both parties must sign it or if neither party signs it then there is no contract.
Or does American contract law not require any form of signature?
"The decision acknowledges that an EULA is a contract of adhesion,"
So that means that its a contract that doesn't require a signature? Or does the anonymous click in the dialog box now count as a signature under law?
"This case has so many holes, I can't see how it can stand up to appeal. Unless the appeal judge(s) also smoke crack, like the judge in this case."
Well sure, remember that crack costs money. You don't think the judges go out and buy their own crack do you?
No, they have to cultivate good relationships with wealthy corporations so that they will buy the judges crack for them...