Set the Way Back Machine to about 1981 . . .
on
Forty Years of LOGO
·
· Score: 1
. . . and open that big box from Computability (anyone remember them?). Inside was my Atari 400, 410 Program Recorder and two cartridges: Atari Basic and Atari LOGO. I loved LOGO and hoped at the time that Byte or some of the other computer mags of the day would print program listings for it, but alas it was not to be - it came down to just me and my imagination, making Spirographs on the color TV.:-)
Amazon also charges sales tax in Tennessee (all 9.975% of it) because they use distribution warehouses there to ship out literally tons of merchandise every day.
ISS has a higher nominal orbital altitude than 200 miles. And altitude isn't the issue - sounding rockets having been going up higher (and falling back down) for decades. What matters for orbital flight is velocity.
There's gotta be a way to do it; maybe using fink. That's how I got Knode to run on my iBook with the Apple X11 server.
Re:Grokking McDonalds Coffee Lawsuit
on
The Voice of Groklaw
·
· Score: 4, Informative
Do more reasearch before you start trolling. Mickey D's was serving coffee within 10 degrees F of the temperature at which meat packing plants boil the skin off pigs. McDonalds was doing this for the express purpose of saving a few bucks a week on coffee, as they knew that hotter coffee obscures the bitter flavor from the hours-old pot of coffee left over from the last meal rush in the store. Further, the woman in question required multiple skin grafts and was hospitalized for ten days. Trial evidence demonstrated that most fast food places did NOT serve coffee that hot and that had she spilled coffee from such a place, she would not have been burned nearly as severely (no skin grafts or hospitalization would have been necessary). The damages awarded by the jury were ONE DAYS' profits (not gross receipts) from McDonalds' world-wide coffee sales alone. The trial judge suggested a remittiture of half that (that means he told the plaintiff that if she didn't accept his suggestion, he'd order a new trial), which is what I understand was actually paid.
Now, knowing the facts, flame away.
What are you talking about? Are you saying that Walgreens or the cameras are mostly in Wisconsin right now? I think the Walgreens a quarter of a mile away from my house in Tennessee has these disposable cameras.
I'm half-Swiss myself - I agree with Lothar wholeheartedly.:-)
Re:"Fishing" is not allowed.
on
SCOrched Earth
·
· Score: 5, Informative
IAAL . . . (although I'm probably not licensed in your jurisdiction);-)
You can discover ANYTHING which is admissible or REASONABLY CALCULATED TO LEAD TO ADMISSIBLE EVIDENCE, subject to only a few areas privileged agaist discovery (e.g., attorney-client communications). That means that "fishing" IS de facto allowed, subject to the rules of evidence (which are pretty damned liberal).
In complicated cases it often comes down to exactly what is going on here: the trial court judge is asked to rule on what is and is not to be handed over.
The Coke Formula analogy above is not a good one because courts can (and often do) allow discovery of trade secrets but subject them to protective orders limiting who has access to the material, how it is to be distributed and copies, how it is to be handled (returned or destroyed, usually) after the litigation, etc.
That's how discovery works in litigation
on
SCOrched Earth
·
· Score: 5, Informative
Sorry to break it to everyone but it works that way for both sides under the federal (and most state) rules of civil procedure. Each side is entitled to request information and materials from the other.
If you decline to provide the requested information or material (documents, etc.), the requesting party has the option to ask the Court to force disclosure. You have to have a pretty good reason (usually some kind of legal privilege) to justify noncompliance or you risk sanctions (like monetary fines or the Court making a factual finding against you or perhaps even dismissing your case).
However, the rules are the same for both parties and even though SCO is the "Bad Guy" here, don't forget IBM can do the same if SCO fails to comply with THEIR discovery requests.
It's not like M$ didn't have the same snags over two years ago with XP.
Product activation schemes are just another flavor of compatibility problem that the software/hardware industries have been having since the first geek stuck the first expansion card into bus slot. Try as they might, coders always miss SOMETHING and no matter how many hardware and software configurations are tested prior to release, there will always be more combinations than they can test.
Since I'm not a developer, I can't very well send SCO a cease-and-desist from using my code in violation of the license.
On the other hand, I'm an attorney and I am also an end-user who uses Linux. What I can do is dare SCO to sue me, as they've threatened to sue end-users in the past. Sue me, you stupid bastards, and see what Federal district judges think of your licensing charade.
God, I can't wait until IBM takes these assholes apart in Court.
I already have. Fortunately, the state Senator Trail, quoted extensively in the linked article giving the MPAA/RIAA/cable crowd a hard time, is a personal and professional acquaintance of mine, close enough that we're on a first name basis. Also fortunately, I'm also on a first-name acquaintanceship with the U.S. Representative (Congress-critter) from that Distric, Bart Gordon. I don't hesitate to write whatever letters I can and to chat them up on these issues when I run into them.
The best way to stay informed and involved in these issues is to join the EFF. Subscribe to their Action Alerts and send those emails, faxes and letters ASAP on any issue that matters to you. DON'T sit there like one of the sheeple, being led around by the cable industry, the recording industry, the movie industry and others. If you make yourself heard intelligibly, calmly, rationally and CONSISTENTLY, you will be heard.
John Carmack is a semi-regular poster to sci.space.policy on usenet; he's posted several times today with details of his test plans and schedules. Even if the company site is slashdotted, go do a Google Groups search on him and the sci.space.* groups and you'll get all his publically-available info, straight from the source.
Well, I am a lawyer (but I'm only licensed in one state and this is not to be considered legal advice . . . yada yada yada). You're pretty much correct; a 3 judge panel IS the norm in U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeals. The entire panel sitting together is called "en banc" and is extremely rare.
So the decision IS precedential. Now the confusion may be coming from the fact that not all Courts of Appeals decisions are reported or published (that is, printed in the bound law reporters). Unpublished decisions are usually unpublished for a reason - they reaffirm existing law with no clarifications or corrections; they're based on really weird facts ("Bad cases make bad law!" - ancient legal maxim); or the judges aren't entirely comfortable with their decisions. Such decisions can only usually be cited in limited circumstances and they don't carry much weight with other cases at all. Published decisions are much more important as they are binding within their circuits and are often used by courts in other circuits to justify their decisions.
Just FYI . . . (coming from one who HAS argued and gotten a reported, published decision from a U.S. Court of Appeals - my client lost!)
YMMV . . .
This "controversy" really isn't new. The very issue of interpreting Viking data has been batted around since the Viking probes landed in the first place, not just "several years now." Much like the Martian meteorite magnetite formations announced as evidence of microbial life a few years ago, the evidence for Martian life has been EXTREMELY ambiguous at best. However, there's at least some hope that the slew of new Mars landers planned over the next few years will uncover some more definitive answers one way or another.
My favorite was their truly indie debut, "It Came From Nashville," complete with flying saucers on the cover! My then-gf had it on cassette and I had it on CD - lost that in the divorce twelve years later!:-( The band was credited as "Webb Wilder and the Beatnecks" (there's even an spoken blurb on the record explaining that they are NOT "beatNIKS" . . .:-) I used to have the VHS of "Cornflicks" but that, too, was lost in the end of the relationship . . .
Ahh, another Webb Wilder fan! I saw him (and the various incarnations of his band) play live over the years many times.
It's a shame that labels can't/won't release the catalogs of artists like this electronically. Historically, the argument raised by labels for NOT re-issuing old material is the relatively high costs of reproduction and distribution for "marginal" stuff that probably won't sell many copies in any one retail location. Maybe they'll see that making 99 cents per track beats letting the masters rot in a vault somewhere.
Excellent physics lesson (I was an engineer in my previous career). However, please PLEASE learn to spell or at least proofread - "straight", "second", and "calculations",for example, are the correct spellings.
You misspelled "independent," Mr. 3.78 GPA.
(I was a National Merit Scholar and an engineering major in college and also have a law degree from an exclusive private university. Big whoop de do if you can't spell.)
Well, Echostar has had Dishplayers (there own in-house TiVo-wannabe) for awhile now. Most people who frequent dbsforums.com seem think they suck. I'm reasonably certain they DON'T run Windows, yet somehow still suck. Will wonders never cease?
TiVo HAS already sold it to DirecTV. My TiVo service is now billed as DIRECTV DVR. Advertising materials are now calling it "DirecTV Digital Video Recording service powered by TiVo" or some such nonsense. My Series I combo boxes still have TiVo logos on the front! Can't change that with a line on the billing statement. Don't know about the new Series2 satellite receiver/DVR combos, though.
"it is blatantly unconstitutional in this regard, and is therefore unenforceable - it is an illegal law"
Sadly, not true. It is eminently enforceable until a federal court with enough balls to stand up to the Administration of King George II says it's unconstitutional and that ruling is affirmed by the U.S. Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court.
"Unenforceable" it is not - do you really think Ashcroft would hesitate to enforce that law just because a bunch of libertarian/anarchist/Slashdot types told him it was unconstitutional?
Historically, to the extent that First Amendment precedent makes sense (and most of it is woefully inconsistent), most restrictions on speech that have passed muster have been "time/place/manner" restrictions that limit the time, place and/or manner of the communications, REGARDLESS of the content. In other words, if the statute prohibited ALL internet links as such, that is a manner restriction or perhaps a place restriction, but is neutral with regard to the content of the communication and under traditional Constitutional law analysis would be acceptable to the Court. The Patriot Act at issue is NOT content-neutral in its approach; links to the Boy Scouts are presumably okay while links to a terrorist group are not. Ergo, prior to Sept. 11, such a law would've been tossed by the first federal court to consider it with very little debate.
However, with all the sheeple in this country now bleating for "security" and respect for the First Amendment at an all-time low, I seriously fear for the future of our free and open society. The Founding Fathers (who arguably were guilty of treason, conspiracy and terrorism against their lawful monarch, BTW) are turning over in their graves now.
Slashdot Mirror
. . . and open that big box from Computability (anyone remember them?). Inside was my Atari 400, 410 Program Recorder and two cartridges: Atari Basic and Atari LOGO. I loved LOGO and hoped at the time that Byte or some of the other computer mags of the day would print program listings for it, but alas it was not to be - it came down to just me and my imagination, making Spirographs on the color TV. :-)
Amazon also charges sales tax in Tennessee (all 9.975% of it) because they use distribution warehouses there to ship out literally tons of merchandise every day.
ISS has a higher nominal orbital altitude than 200 miles. And altitude isn't the issue - sounding rockets having been going up higher (and falling back down) for decades. What matters for orbital flight is velocity.
There's gotta be a way to do it; maybe using fink. That's how I got Knode to run on my iBook with the Apple X11 server.
Do more reasearch before you start trolling. Mickey D's was serving coffee within 10 degrees F of the temperature at which meat packing plants boil the skin off pigs. McDonalds was doing this for the express purpose of saving a few bucks a week on coffee, as they knew that hotter coffee obscures the bitter flavor from the hours-old pot of coffee left over from the last meal rush in the store. Further, the woman in question required multiple skin grafts and was hospitalized for ten days. Trial evidence demonstrated that most fast food places did NOT serve coffee that hot and that had she spilled coffee from such a place, she would not have been burned nearly as severely (no skin grafts or hospitalization would have been necessary). The damages awarded by the jury were ONE DAYS' profits (not gross receipts) from McDonalds' world-wide coffee sales alone. The trial judge suggested a remittiture of half that (that means he told the plaintiff that if she didn't accept his suggestion, he'd order a new trial), which is what I understand was actually paid. Now, knowing the facts, flame away.
What are you talking about? Are you saying that Walgreens or the cameras are mostly in Wisconsin right now? I think the Walgreens a quarter of a mile away from my house in Tennessee has these disposable cameras.
I'm half-Swiss myself - I agree with Lothar wholeheartedly. :-)
IAAL . . . (although I'm probably not licensed in your jurisdiction) ;-)
You can discover ANYTHING which is admissible or REASONABLY CALCULATED TO LEAD TO ADMISSIBLE EVIDENCE, subject to only a few areas privileged agaist discovery (e.g., attorney-client communications). That means that "fishing" IS de facto allowed, subject to the rules of evidence (which are pretty damned liberal).
In complicated cases it often comes down to exactly what is going on here: the trial court judge is asked to rule on what is and is not to be handed over.
The Coke Formula analogy above is not a good one because courts can (and often do) allow discovery of trade secrets but subject them to protective orders limiting who has access to the material, how it is to be distributed and copies, how it is to be handled (returned or destroyed, usually) after the litigation, etc.
Sorry to break it to everyone but it works that way for both sides under the federal (and most state) rules of civil procedure. Each side is entitled to request information and materials from the other. If you decline to provide the requested information or material (documents, etc.), the requesting party has the option to ask the Court to force disclosure. You have to have a pretty good reason (usually some kind of legal privilege) to justify noncompliance or you risk sanctions (like monetary fines or the Court making a factual finding against you or perhaps even dismissing your case). However, the rules are the same for both parties and even though SCO is the "Bad Guy" here, don't forget IBM can do the same if SCO fails to comply with THEIR discovery requests.
I don't beleive it is in the client versions of OS X but it almost certainly is in OS X Server (which is also subject to the published vulnerability).
It's not like M$ didn't have the same snags over two years ago with XP. Product activation schemes are just another flavor of compatibility problem that the software/hardware industries have been having since the first geek stuck the first expansion card into bus slot. Try as they might, coders always miss SOMETHING and no matter how many hardware and software configurations are tested prior to release, there will always be more combinations than they can test.
Since I'm not a developer, I can't very well send SCO a cease-and-desist from using my code in violation of the license. On the other hand, I'm an attorney and I am also an end-user who uses Linux. What I can do is dare SCO to sue me, as they've threatened to sue end-users in the past. Sue me, you stupid bastards, and see what Federal district judges think of your licensing charade. God, I can't wait until IBM takes these assholes apart in Court.
I already have. Fortunately, the state Senator Trail, quoted extensively in the linked article giving the MPAA/RIAA/cable crowd a hard time, is a personal and professional acquaintance of mine, close enough that we're on a first name basis. Also fortunately, I'm also on a first-name acquaintanceship with the U.S. Representative (Congress-critter) from that Distric, Bart Gordon. I don't hesitate to write whatever letters I can and to chat them up on these issues when I run into them. The best way to stay informed and involved in these issues is to join the EFF. Subscribe to their Action Alerts and send those emails, faxes and letters ASAP on any issue that matters to you. DON'T sit there like one of the sheeple, being led around by the cable industry, the recording industry, the movie industry and others. If you make yourself heard intelligibly, calmly, rationally and CONSISTENTLY, you will be heard.
John Carmack is a semi-regular poster to sci.space.policy on usenet; he's posted several times today with details of his test plans and schedules. Even if the company site is slashdotted, go do a Google Groups search on him and the sci.space.* groups and you'll get all his publically-available info, straight from the source.
Well, I am a lawyer (but I'm only licensed in one state and this is not to be considered legal advice . . . yada yada yada). You're pretty much correct; a 3 judge panel IS the norm in U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeals. The entire panel sitting together is called "en banc" and is extremely rare. So the decision IS precedential. Now the confusion may be coming from the fact that not all Courts of Appeals decisions are reported or published (that is, printed in the bound law reporters). Unpublished decisions are usually unpublished for a reason - they reaffirm existing law with no clarifications or corrections; they're based on really weird facts ("Bad cases make bad law!" - ancient legal maxim); or the judges aren't entirely comfortable with their decisions. Such decisions can only usually be cited in limited circumstances and they don't carry much weight with other cases at all. Published decisions are much more important as they are binding within their circuits and are often used by courts in other circuits to justify their decisions. Just FYI . . . (coming from one who HAS argued and gotten a reported, published decision from a U.S. Court of Appeals - my client lost!) YMMV . . .
This "controversy" really isn't new. The very issue of interpreting Viking data has been batted around since the Viking probes landed in the first place, not just "several years now." Much like the Martian meteorite magnetite formations announced as evidence of microbial life a few years ago, the evidence for Martian life has been EXTREMELY ambiguous at best. However, there's at least some hope that the slew of new Mars landers planned over the next few years will uncover some more definitive answers one way or another.
My favorite was their truly indie debut, "It Came From Nashville," complete with flying saucers on the cover! My then-gf had it on cassette and I had it on CD - lost that in the divorce twelve years later! :-( The band was credited as "Webb Wilder and the Beatnecks" (there's even an spoken blurb on the record explaining that they are NOT "beatNIKS" . . . :-) I used to have the VHS of "Cornflicks" but that, too, was lost in the end of the relationship . . .
Ahh, another Webb Wilder fan! I saw him (and the various incarnations of his band) play live over the years many times. It's a shame that labels can't/won't release the catalogs of artists like this electronically. Historically, the argument raised by labels for NOT re-issuing old material is the relatively high costs of reproduction and distribution for "marginal" stuff that probably won't sell many copies in any one retail location. Maybe they'll see that making 99 cents per track beats letting the masters rot in a vault somewhere.
Excellent physics lesson (I was an engineer in my previous career). However, please PLEASE learn to spell or at least proofread - "straight", "second", and "calculations" ,for example, are the correct spellings.
You misspelled "independent," Mr. 3.78 GPA. (I was a National Merit Scholar and an engineering major in college and also have a law degree from an exclusive private university. Big whoop de do if you can't spell.)
Well, Echostar has had Dishplayers (there own in-house TiVo-wannabe) for awhile now. Most people who frequent dbsforums.com seem think they suck. I'm reasonably certain they DON'T run Windows, yet somehow still suck. Will wonders never cease?
TiVo HAS already sold it to DirecTV. My TiVo service is now billed as DIRECTV DVR. Advertising materials are now calling it "DirecTV Digital Video Recording service powered by TiVo" or some such nonsense. My Series I combo boxes still have TiVo logos on the front! Can't change that with a line on the billing statement. Don't know about the new Series2 satellite receiver/DVR combos, though.
"it is blatantly unconstitutional in this regard, and is therefore unenforceable - it is an illegal law" Sadly, not true. It is eminently enforceable until a federal court with enough balls to stand up to the Administration of King George II says it's unconstitutional and that ruling is affirmed by the U.S. Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court. "Unenforceable" it is not - do you really think Ashcroft would hesitate to enforce that law just because a bunch of libertarian/anarchist/Slashdot types told him it was unconstitutional? Historically, to the extent that First Amendment precedent makes sense (and most of it is woefully inconsistent), most restrictions on speech that have passed muster have been "time/place/manner" restrictions that limit the time, place and/or manner of the communications, REGARDLESS of the content. In other words, if the statute prohibited ALL internet links as such, that is a manner restriction or perhaps a place restriction, but is neutral with regard to the content of the communication and under traditional Constitutional law analysis would be acceptable to the Court. The Patriot Act at issue is NOT content-neutral in its approach; links to the Boy Scouts are presumably okay while links to a terrorist group are not. Ergo, prior to Sept. 11, such a law would've been tossed by the first federal court to consider it with very little debate. However, with all the sheeple in this country now bleating for "security" and respect for the First Amendment at an all-time low, I seriously fear for the future of our free and open society. The Founding Fathers (who arguably were guilty of treason, conspiracy and terrorism against their lawful monarch, BTW) are turning over in their graves now.