sure, but when you have to justify your evil actions to the plebeians, you do so by saying "i'm doing this to protect your children" or something stupid like that (protecting precious children being the epitome of preserving law and order). If you are open about supressing freedom in the name of evil, you won't be very successful. You need to lie about your motives, no matter how you feel deep down inside your black, cold heart (trust me on this). Didn't you take Promulgating Evil 101?
"I'm going to assrape you in the name of evil" won't get you very far, but "In the name of law and order, and to protect our precious children, I am going to assrape you" will enable you to freely rape assholes all day long (regardless of what your inner motives may be).
But it can be a little hard (no pun intended) to get off (again, no pun intented). Still, in an emergency it's better to be safe than to either get a disease or breed.
I don't see anything in there about a $100 fine and/or 30 days in jail. Anyway, none of this is stuff that you "violate." It's just the official encoding of "the way we do it." Ya know, in case you were wondering if the proper way to dispose of an old, ragged flag was to shit on it and flush it down the toilet, now you know that is "officially" incorrect.
Ahh but that's where you are wrong. This is a new business model of getting people to their computers/internet connection faster. That way they can buy stuff from your website (i.e. amazon.com) much more often. If you can move the people 50 times faster than they can walk, you can increase your profits by a factor of 50 (well not really but it's good enough for the patent office). And, of course, if someone walks on the Amazon.com travelator to get to a computer to order off of BarnesandNoble.com, it is a DMCA violation.
Not corrupt. Just powerless. It's quite possible to be full of honor and completely ineffectual at the same time. I'm not accusing anyone of being corrupt (other than MS of course). Lazy, yes. Corrupt, no.
Antitrust law is a good thing, but if it's not used quickly enough, a monopoly can get so big, rich, and powerful, that laws no longer apply to it. It can afford to buy its way out of any problems it may face. Microsoft is just such a monopoly. It should have been broken up around the time of Windows 3.1. But it was left alone for years after that, and now it can fart in the faces of the justice department and there's not a single thing they can do about it (other than whine to the press).
Someone, hurry out and patent this. Ya know, an innovative "fast" version of the thingies we have at airports. This version is faster, so it is innovative, and totally non-obvious. Prior art? Naw.. that doesn't matter in America anymore. I think it may be too late though, because either MS or Jeff Bezos will probably have patented this by the time I post this message.
I don't know if every theater shows the same previews for each movie, but there were 5 or 6 previews when I saw T3 the other day, and every single one of them was for a sequel. And, of course, the main feature was a sequel. Are original movies too risky to make nowadays because they don't have a proven potential audience?
Something is seriously wrong with the world when they are making "The Whole 10 Yards"... a sequel to that idiotic "The Whole 9 Yards" movie w/ Bruce Willis and the 'Friends' gimp. TombRaider 2, Bad Boys 2, Whole 9 Yards 2, and about 2 or 3 others that, not surprisingly, I can't remember.
The chase scene in this movie (crane) is one of the greatest I've ever seen, and I cannot think of a better one off the top of my head. It blows away the crap scene in that CGI cartoon, Matrix 2. More destruction, and unlike Matrix, this actually looks real.
I expected this movie to absolutely blow. No James Cameron. No Linda Hamilton. The director of U-571. But it was actually quite good, IMO. Nowhere near as good as T2, mind you, but infinitely better than I thought it would be. And that chase scene kicked ass.
Ok so it is more expensive than an 85 Dom. There are more expensive bottles of chapagne out there. There are some really damn expensive ones. And as for Sauternes.... a '67 Chateau d'Yquem is quite pricey (as is any Yquem). 1945 vintage ports go for a nice dollar as well. So it's not more expensive than champagne just some champagnes. Which, of course, is disengenuous because champagne is not used in the extremely small quantities that inkjet ink is used in. 750ml of ink would last a helluva long time, a lot longer than 750ml (standard size bottle) of champagne would last (especially in my vicinity).
No patent describes its claims as "the" widget that does x. All claims are described as "a" widget that does x. It's standard language. If "a" wasn't all-encompassing then patents would be worthless. It's understood that, during the monopoly period, it will be "the" only one. If you make "a" real-time instant messanger translator, they'll sue you.
things worked just fine before junk mail, telemarketers, spam, and flyers stuck on my doorknob. Maybe the more sensible, less extreme thing to do would just be ban all forms of direct marketing. If I didn't ask for it or consent to get it, and I get the advertisement, someone has to be executed.
Anything other than word of mouth should be punishable by death. If a product or service is worthy, and if I'm in need of it, I'll find out about it from a friend or family member. We can at least start off with a 500% advertising tax to help now, because it will take a few decades before enough people will agree with me regarding using the death penalty for all convicted advertisers.
We don't want their god damn advertisements. We don't want to hear them, see them, feel them, or so much as share our oxygen with them. The fact that over 12,000 people signed up with the do-not-call registry on its first day of operation should give these jackfucks a hint that they should keep their unsolicited garbage to themselves.
I hope I live long enough to see the day when all advertising is banned. All commercial speech. Banned. Eventually, if they keep this shit up, the government will have a compelling interest in shutting them up, and banning it will be the most narrowly-tailored way of achieving that goal. Champagne's on me.
I'm not advocating violence, but if we can convince psycho fundamentalists that abortions are taking place in advertising agencies, we might be able to make a wee bit of progress.
"If you are in the advertising business... kill yourself." -- Bill Hicks
Sorry. I'm not trying to troll here, although I know I'll be accused of being horribly insensitive. Accomodation can only go so far. It can only be reasonable. If you are blind, I am truly sorry--I really am--but you are going to face some inconveniences in your life. Having to read the picture of the little word to sign up for something online is one of those inconveniences. Ask someone who can see to read the damn word for you. It's not hard, it's really easy, and there's nothing to feel bad about. If there is a tradeoff between autonomy and pride, it is only imaginary. What if the blind person is all alone and there's nobody there to read the word? Pick up the phone and call the next door neighbor or a friend. If ya don't have a neighbor or any friends, you have bigger problems than not being able to sign up for a hotmail account.
As a side note, if they are going to sue someone, sue the spammers who make this picture-word system necessary.
Most civil cases come down to a "battle of the experts." An expert whose opinion is based on no foundation at all is simply not an expert, and his/her testimony doesn't help the jury. It may confuse the jury or skew the issues. That's why it's best that such testimony is completely excluded. That some relevant, good evidence may end up being excluded is a disingenuous argument. Whenever the rules of evidence are applied some good evidence can end up being excluded. Just because something is hearsay doesn't mean it's necessarily false. But it gets excluded nonetheless (unless it falls into an exception to the rule).
Because what people need is fairly objective. If you have personal, subjective desires (wants) that's just fine, but just because those wants are not incorporated into everyone's browser doesn't mean "innovation is dead."
and I didn't even have to give away my personal information for marketing purposes in order to read the article. Isn't that a breach of some 'social contract' or something? hehe
"Innovation" much like "diversity" is a stupid, meaningless, feel-good catchphrase. Just because something exists doesn't mean it needs some innovatin'. A web browser is the perfect example of this. Bookmarks ('favorites'), foward, back, stop, and 'go' are all you need. Sure, you could stick a calculator in there, or customized 'skins' (probably the single dumbest 'innovation' in the history of computing), or maybe even a content-spellchecker (so you can see all the spelling errors in someone's webpage), but the bottom line is it doesn't change the functionality. Fix bugs and make it run as fast as possible. Once you reach that goal (ideally it shouldn't take too long), leave it alone. Maybe innovation ended 5 years ago because the web browser was just fine back in the days of Lynx. Oh I forgot, leaving it alone doesn't make money. Never mind.
Spam should obviously be illegal, and the spammer should be fined. Allow the guilty spammer to sue the person who provided him with the email list for contribution (i.e. make everyone down the chain jointly and severally liable) and this bullshit will stop real fucking quickly. Whenever someone gets an unsolicited advertisement, everyone down the chain is strictly liable.
Example: Company X sells its customer data to company Y, who compiles the data on CDROMs and sells it to spammer Z. Spammer Z is fined $10,000 per email he sends (in my perfect world). Spammer Z, after being sued and found liable for a large sum of money, should be able to sue the company Y for contribution, and Co. Y should be able to sue Co. X, so that each guilty party pays their pro rata share of the fine(s). It's just like strict products liability; improperly using customer data is like putting a defective product into the stream of commerce.
And like with defective products, liability shouldn't be allowed to be waived, as that's against public policy. No "you give us permission to use your data any way we want" disclaimers--they should all be void. Selling customer data (or "renting it") for any marketing purpose is per se improper usage. Kinda like how Ford can't make you sign something saying you won't sue them if your car's tires blow out. If it's really Firestone's fault, then once you sue Ford, Ford can sue Firestone.
Should ebay have an affirmative duty to set up a system to monitor what users bid on, and if so, what should the extent of that duty be? If a user named Mohammed keeps bidding on books about bombs, terrorism, and how america is evil, should eBay have a duty to notice that and report it? I personally say no, but that's just MHO. Watching out for this stuff should be the job of the government, not individuals.
There are 3 different levels of duty that are possible:
1) Ebay has a duty to actively monitor/find it and to report it;
2) Ebay has a duty to report it if it happens to notice it, but no affirmative duty to be on the lookout;
3) No duty to either monitor or report suspicious behavior.
I think the duty has to be legally established before ebay decides it will just hand out info.
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sure, but when you have to justify your evil actions to the plebeians, you do so by saying "i'm doing this to protect your children" or something stupid like that (protecting precious children being the epitome of preserving law and order). If you are open about supressing freedom in the name of evil, you won't be very successful. You need to lie about your motives, no matter how you feel deep down inside your black, cold heart (trust me on this). Didn't you take Promulgating Evil 101?
"I'm going to assrape you in the name of evil" won't get you very far, but "In the name of law and order, and to protect our precious children, I am going to assrape you" will enable you to freely rape assholes all day long (regardless of what your inner motives may be).
But it can be a little hard (no pun intended) to get off (again, no pun intented). Still, in an emergency it's better to be safe than to either get a disease or breed.
ah i figured out what you were talking about. http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/4/3.html.
I don't see anything in there about a $100 fine and/or 30 days in jail. Anyway, none of this is stuff that you "violate." It's just the official encoding of "the way we do it." Ya know, in case you were wondering if the proper way to dispose of an old, ragged flag was to shit on it and flush it down the toilet, now you know that is "officially" incorrect.
exactly. http://www.usflag.org/us.code36.html#176. Although I'm sure you knew that.
neener neener!
Ahh but that's where you are wrong. This is a new business model of getting people to their computers/internet connection faster. That way they can buy stuff from your website (i.e. amazon.com) much more often. If you can move the people 50 times faster than they can walk, you can increase your profits by a factor of 50 (well not really but it's good enough for the patent office). And, of course, if someone walks on the Amazon.com travelator to get to a computer to order off of BarnesandNoble.com, it is a DMCA violation.
Not corrupt. Just powerless. It's quite possible to be full of honor and completely ineffectual at the same time. I'm not accusing anyone of being corrupt (other than MS of course). Lazy, yes. Corrupt, no.
Antitrust law is a good thing, but if it's not used quickly enough, a monopoly can get so big, rich, and powerful, that laws no longer apply to it. It can afford to buy its way out of any problems it may face. Microsoft is just such a monopoly. It should have been broken up around the time of Windows 3.1. But it was left alone for years after that, and now it can fart in the faces of the justice department and there's not a single thing they can do about it (other than whine to the press).
Someone, hurry out and patent this. Ya know, an innovative "fast" version of the thingies we have at airports. This version is faster, so it is innovative, and totally non-obvious. Prior art? Naw.. that doesn't matter in America anymore. I think it may be too late though, because either MS or Jeff Bezos will probably have patented this by the time I post this message.
I don't know if every theater shows the same previews for each movie, but there were 5 or 6 previews when I saw T3 the other day, and every single one of them was for a sequel. And, of course, the main feature was a sequel. Are original movies too risky to make nowadays because they don't have a proven potential audience?
... a sequel to that idiotic "The Whole 9 Yards" movie w/ Bruce Willis and the 'Friends' gimp. TombRaider 2, Bad Boys 2, Whole 9 Yards 2, and about 2 or 3 others that, not surprisingly, I can't remember.
Something is seriously wrong with the world when they are making "The Whole 10 Yards"
The chase scene in this movie (crane) is one of the greatest I've ever seen, and I cannot think of a better one off the top of my head. It blows away the crap scene in that CGI cartoon, Matrix 2. More destruction, and unlike Matrix, this actually looks real.
I expected this movie to absolutely blow. No James Cameron. No Linda Hamilton. The director of U-571. But it was actually quite good, IMO. Nowhere near as good as T2, mind you, but infinitely better than I thought it would be. And that chase scene kicked ass.
Ok so it is more expensive than an 85 Dom. There are more expensive bottles of chapagne out there. There are some really damn expensive ones. And as for Sauternes.... a '67 Chateau d'Yquem is quite pricey (as is any Yquem). 1945 vintage ports go for a nice dollar as well. So it's not more expensive than champagne just some champagnes. Which, of course, is disengenuous because champagne is not used in the extremely small quantities that inkjet ink is used in. 750ml of ink would last a helluva long time, a lot longer than 750ml (standard size bottle) of champagne would last (especially in my vicinity).
No patent describes its claims as "the" widget that does x. All claims are described as "a" widget that does x. It's standard language. If "a" wasn't all-encompassing then patents would be worthless. It's understood that, during the monopoly period, it will be "the" only one. If you make "a" real-time instant messanger translator, they'll sue you.
things worked just fine before junk mail, telemarketers, spam, and flyers stuck on my doorknob. Maybe the more sensible, less extreme thing to do would just be ban all forms of direct marketing. If I didn't ask for it or consent to get it, and I get the advertisement, someone has to be executed.
Anything other than word of mouth should be punishable by death. If a product or service is worthy, and if I'm in need of it, I'll find out about it from a friend or family member. We can at least start off with a 500% advertising tax to help now, because it will take a few decades before enough people will agree with me regarding using the death penalty for all convicted advertisers.
well that's a pretty slippery slope. the banning of x doesn't mean the banning of y.
We don't want their god damn advertisements. We don't want to hear them, see them, feel them, or so much as share our oxygen with them. The fact that over 12,000 people signed up with the do-not-call registry on its first day of operation should give these jackfucks a hint that they should keep their unsolicited garbage to themselves.
I hope I live long enough to see the day when all advertising is banned. All commercial speech. Banned. Eventually, if they keep this shit up, the government will have a compelling interest in shutting them up, and banning it will be the most narrowly-tailored way of achieving that goal. Champagne's on me.
I'm not advocating violence, but if we can convince psycho fundamentalists that abortions are taking place in advertising agencies, we might be able to make a wee bit of progress.
"If you are in the advertising business... kill yourself." -- Bill Hicks
Sorry. I'm not trying to troll here, although I know I'll be accused of being horribly insensitive. Accomodation can only go so far. It can only be reasonable. If you are blind, I am truly sorry--I really am--but you are going to face some inconveniences in your life. Having to read the picture of the little word to sign up for something online is one of those inconveniences. Ask someone who can see to read the damn word for you. It's not hard, it's really easy, and there's nothing to feel bad about. If there is a tradeoff between autonomy and pride, it is only imaginary. What if the blind person is all alone and there's nobody there to read the word? Pick up the phone and call the next door neighbor or a friend. If ya don't have a neighbor or any friends, you have bigger problems than not being able to sign up for a hotmail account.
As a side note, if they are going to sue someone, sue the spammers who make this picture-word system necessary.
Most civil cases come down to a "battle of the experts." An expert whose opinion is based on no foundation at all is simply not an expert, and his/her testimony doesn't help the jury. It may confuse the jury or skew the issues. That's why it's best that such testimony is completely excluded. That some relevant, good evidence may end up being excluded is a disingenuous argument. Whenever the rules of evidence are applied some good evidence can end up being excluded. Just because something is hearsay doesn't mean it's necessarily false. But it gets excluded nonetheless (unless it falls into an exception to the rule).
Because what people need is fairly objective. If you have personal, subjective desires (wants) that's just fine, but just because those wants are not incorporated into everyone's browser doesn't mean "innovation is dead."
and I didn't even have to give away my personal information for marketing purposes in order to read the article. Isn't that a breach of some 'social contract' or something? hehe
"Innovation" much like "diversity" is a stupid, meaningless, feel-good catchphrase. Just because something exists doesn't mean it needs some innovatin'. A web browser is the perfect example of this. Bookmarks ('favorites'), foward, back, stop, and 'go' are all you need. Sure, you could stick a calculator in there, or customized 'skins' (probably the single dumbest 'innovation' in the history of computing), or maybe even a content-spellchecker (so you can see all the spelling errors in someone's webpage), but the bottom line is it doesn't change the functionality. Fix bugs and make it run as fast as possible. Once you reach that goal (ideally it shouldn't take too long), leave it alone. Maybe innovation ended 5 years ago because the web browser was just fine back in the days of Lynx. Oh I forgot, leaving it alone doesn't make money. Never mind.
Spam should obviously be illegal, and the spammer should be fined. Allow the guilty spammer to sue the person who provided him with the email list for contribution (i.e. make everyone down the chain jointly and severally liable) and this bullshit will stop real fucking quickly. Whenever someone gets an unsolicited advertisement, everyone down the chain is strictly liable.
Example: Company X sells its customer data to company Y, who compiles the data on CDROMs and sells it to spammer Z. Spammer Z is fined $10,000 per email he sends (in my perfect world). Spammer Z, after being sued and found liable for a large sum of money, should be able to sue the company Y for contribution, and Co. Y should be able to sue Co. X, so that each guilty party pays their pro rata share of the fine(s). It's just like strict products liability; improperly using customer data is like putting a defective product into the stream of commerce.
And like with defective products, liability shouldn't be allowed to be waived, as that's against public policy. No "you give us permission to use your data any way we want" disclaimers--they should all be void. Selling customer data (or "renting it") for any marketing purpose is per se improper usage. Kinda like how Ford can't make you sign something saying you won't sue them if your car's tires blow out. If it's really Firestone's fault, then once you sue Ford, Ford can sue Firestone.
Should ebay have an affirmative duty to set up a system to monitor what users bid on, and if so, what should the extent of that duty be? If a user named Mohammed keeps bidding on books about bombs, terrorism, and how america is evil, should eBay have a duty to notice that and report it? I personally say no, but that's just MHO. Watching out for this stuff should be the job of the government, not individuals.
There are 3 different levels of duty that are possible:
1) Ebay has a duty to actively monitor/find it and to report it;
2) Ebay has a duty to report it if it happens to notice it, but no affirmative duty to be on the lookout;
3) No duty to either monitor or report suspicious behavior.
I think the duty has to be legally established before ebay decides it will just hand out info.