This is why the FCC wanted the fine-per-violation to be multiplied by ten to $50,000 because it's quite profitable to violate regularly and then write off the fines as the cost of doing business.
This was a "truth-in-labeling" violation. Parents thought they knew what they were buying for their kids, and may have been okay with the violence but not the sexuality of the "hot coffee" scene.
$14,000 per incident is nothing compared to the scale of a major video game publisher.
Shouldn't they be liable for closer to $1.4 million the next time they release M rating content hidden within a lower-rated game?
Netscape used to be the domanant web browser... back when we were using Windows 3.1, you needed a third-party DLL called Trumpet Winsock to implement TCP/IP, and RealAudio was the dominant streaming program.
Then, Microsoft came to the party and knocked out the entire industry by illegally bundling competitors to all three of these pre-.com-era startups. Where are these players now?
RealNetworks still exists, but their proprietary audio/video codecs are used by nobody other than their bloatware RealOne product. Rhapsody is an also-ran in the digital music world.
Trumpet? They're still supporting networking for 3.1, 95, 98, and NT, but they've never had another must-have hit the size Trumpet Winsock and likely never will again.
And Netscape? They've officially deemed that there's no money to be made making a browser, and gave what they had for source code over to the Open Source community still uses the basics in the form of Mozilla. Netscape.com is just a domain that Time Warner keeps reformating. They've tried it as a cut-rate ISP, but United Online's Netzero and Juno have that game covered? They've tried it as a portal site, but realized that was redundant to AOL.com. So now they're trying it as a Digg knockoff... let's see how long that one lasts.
In reality, these companies deserved a better fate. Too bad as soon as the Bush 1.01 administration came in, the Clinton Justice Department's case suddenly died. At least the EU is still trying to take a bite...
Bad summary. The article doesn't discuss people working multiple jobs to retire early, it's discussing a school district that pays its starting teachers so low that the teachers can't make ends meet. Unsurprisingly, the district has more than one thousand openings unfilled.
Encryption is fine when you're connecting peer-to-peer... but connect as secure as you want to a VoIP-to-phone provider, they'll have to hand over your unencrypted stream at the point they're decrypting it to get to the PSTN.
As long as there is one user who has dicthed their landline, doesn't have a cell phone, and is doing all their telephone talking over VoIP, the emergency network depends on VoIP. If you can't call 911 and get to the right people serving your area, you're an accident waiting to happen.
VoIP is operating in a regulartory space where because they don't have to taylor their network to the same level of regulations that POTS, they appear cheaper. When you dial 911 on POTS, you're certain that call will go through, even if another user's non-emergency call has to be disconnected to make room for you. Same goes for cellular service, where you might even connect to a carrier other than your own if they have a stronger signal. VoIP 911 packets should have a right-of-way on the Internet to be considered equal, but it appears if you take Vonage instead of your ISPs VoIP brand, you'll be traveling in the slow lane.
Why does this need code analysis? All it takes is two user's who paid the ransom comparing notes to notice that everybody has the same password to unlock...
Baseball failed to continue as an Olympic sport because there wasn't enough nations willing to field national teams. Europe's more interested in "football", er, "soccer". Baseball's almost purely an American thing, with maybe a little intrest from Japenese people who really wish they were Americans. Think about it, you don't hear about any MLB Europe leagues forming.
Winter sports all involve ice or snow. Basketball, an indoor event that is played in the USA during the Winter season is a Summer event because it uses neither ice nor snow. Hockey, since it involves ice, is a Winter event.
One thing Olympic sports have in common is that the rules of play don't change that much each cycle. Soccer is played on a flat field retangular field every time. The mass of a discus or javelin is always the same it was last time. Oh, and it doesn't matter who makes the balls, timing devices, or shoes used, those are interchangable sponsors that can change every cycle.
If there were to be an Olympic First-Person Shooter event, everybody would have to play the same sanitized game which wouldn't have any new maps utilize the latest whiz-bang technology. Imagine America's Army gone open source and stripped of American and Teriorist designations.
This is just not going to happen. Forget about it. Nothing to see here.
Unfortunately, there's no such thing as "fair use laws". Fair use is a concept of rights that the courts uphold repeatedly through the holes in the existing copyright laws. See, sometimes "activist judges" rule in our favor.
Properly applied crypto is a pain to crack. Sure, it can be done, but is dedicating a government supercomputer for a few weeks worth it if all they get out of it is one e-mail message?
The Slashdot FAQ explains exactly what is going on here:
From The last question in the Slashmeta section: "I thought everyone on Slashdot hated the RIAA, the MPAA, and Microsoft. Why do you keep hyping CDs, movies, and Windows games? Big corporations are what they are. They sell us cool stuff with one hand and tighten the screws on our freedoms with the other. We hate them every morning and love them every afternoon, and vice versa. This is part of living in the modern world: you take your yin with your yang and try to figure out how to do what's right the best you can. If you think it has to be all one way or the other, that's cool, share your opinions, but don't expect everyone else to think the same."
We hate that "Big Media" is using ever "improving"/"tightening" DRM restrictions, but we have to accept them if we want the latest music, video, and computer content. These people deserve to get paid, and this is their way of blocking the free providers of their content. If you don't like what they're doing, do without their content.
It's finer than that. They don't dispute that they have to pay Verizon to termate the call, but Global NAPs wants to pay the rate set by the FCC for long distance calls, Verizon is charging the rate set by the state which is higher for intra-state calls. So far, the courts have held up the Verizon rates and Global NAPs is effectively being put out of business until they pay up.
The problem here is that local ISPs were reselling Global NAPs' dial-up service, and providing virtual POPs with seemingly local numbers that really were trunks to the actual POP in Boston. Verizon wanted their pennies per minute for being the terminal end of those long distance calls, and the court gave it to them.
So now, these virtual local ISPs have a problem: They've either got to get real Internet POP centers in these rural towns, or pass the per minute long distance charges they'll have to pay onto the consumer. This is basically going to be a shock to a lot of small ISP business models. As if they're not already bleeding customers from 2 days and ticking of unannounced downtime.
Let's not forget what we're dealing with here. This is a company with a known history of pulling whatever attention getting stunt it can, including starting with a name of "Lindows" that got shot down by MS. All along, their goal has been simple: try to find a buck out of distributing open source software, including making their "Click and Run" store of mostly freely available apps.
This is about as newsworthy as a paid-software vendor announcing a free trial edition that replaces all the "good stuff" with reminders to buy the full version.
Enron lied to analysts, google won't talk to analysts. Both companies show very little respect for teh average stockholder.
How is not talking to analysts disrepectful to the average shareholder? The average shareholder doesn't have time or sometimes even access to read analyst reports, those are mainly used by the big-pocket investors.
Google's way of doing things is to release it all in a sometimes surprising earnings report. Sure, the stock tumbles when they miss the baseless estimates, but just wait to see how much it jumps when the baseless estimates come in too low.
GOOG's been bucking the trend on Wall Street from the day it came out. Remember, they had the insiders up in arms with the unconventional way that they auctioned off their IPO shares. Insiders didn't get their traditional advantage, average Joes got it instead. The quick profits from the opening day bounce went to the people who bid high enough to get IPO shares, not those well connected enough to get access to a rapidly-selling IPO.
So, now, what law says a company has to provide earning guidance? Google will provide their earnings data when it's good and ready, and that's all they're obligated to do. Sure, it makes the analysts play guessing games, but what good are they anyway in a day when everybody has access to the same raw sources?
Slashdot Mirror
This is why the FCC wanted the fine-per-violation to be multiplied by ten to $50,000 because it's quite profitable to violate regularly and then write off the fines as the cost of doing business.
Before anybody rings me up for inaccuracy... Let me correct that Hot Coffee deserves an AO rating, whlie GTA only wore an M.
This was a "truth-in-labeling" violation. Parents thought they knew what they were buying for their kids, and may have been okay with the violence but not the sexuality of the "hot coffee" scene.
$14,000 per incident is nothing compared to the scale of a major video game publisher. Shouldn't they be liable for closer to $1.4 million the next time they release M rating content hidden within a lower-rated game?
Netscape used to be the domanant web browser... back when we were using Windows 3.1, you needed a third-party DLL called Trumpet Winsock to implement TCP/IP, and RealAudio was the dominant streaming program.
Then, Microsoft came to the party and knocked out the entire industry by illegally bundling competitors to all three of these pre-.com-era startups. Where are these players now?
RealNetworks still exists, but their proprietary audio/video codecs are used by nobody other than their bloatware RealOne product. Rhapsody is an also-ran in the digital music world.
Trumpet? They're still supporting networking for 3.1, 95, 98, and NT, but they've never had another must-have hit the size Trumpet Winsock and likely never will again.
And Netscape? They've officially deemed that there's no money to be made making a browser, and gave what they had for source code over to the Open Source community still uses the basics in the form of Mozilla. Netscape.com is just a domain that Time Warner keeps reformating. They've tried it as a cut-rate ISP, but United Online's Netzero and Juno have that game covered? They've tried it as a portal site, but realized that was redundant to AOL.com. So now they're trying it as a Digg knockoff... let's see how long that one lasts.
In reality, these companies deserved a better fate. Too bad as soon as the Bush 1.01 administration came in, the Clinton Justice Department's case suddenly died. At least the EU is still trying to take a bite...
Bad summary. The article doesn't discuss people working multiple jobs to retire early, it's discussing a school district that pays its starting teachers so low that the teachers can't make ends meet. Unsurprisingly, the district has more than one thousand openings unfilled.
Encryption is fine when you're connecting peer-to-peer... but connect as secure as you want to a VoIP-to-phone provider, they'll have to hand over your unencrypted stream at the point they're decrypting it to get to the PSTN.
As long as there is one user who has dicthed their landline, doesn't have a cell phone, and is doing all their telephone talking over VoIP, the emergency network depends on VoIP. If you can't call 911 and get to the right people serving your area, you're an accident waiting to happen.
VoIP is operating in a regulartory space where because they don't have to taylor their network to the same level of regulations that POTS, they appear cheaper. When you dial 911 on POTS, you're certain that call will go through, even if another user's non-emergency call has to be disconnected to make room for you. Same goes for cellular service, where you might even connect to a carrier other than your own if they have a stronger signal. VoIP 911 packets should have a right-of-way on the Internet to be considered equal, but it appears if you take Vonage instead of your ISPs VoIP brand, you'll be traveling in the slow lane.
Why does this need code analysis? All it takes is two user's who paid the ransom comparing notes to notice that everybody has the same password to unlock...
Skates and skis may evolve over the years, but ice surfaces and snow covered hills don't.
Baseball failed to continue as an Olympic sport because there wasn't enough nations willing to field national teams. Europe's more interested in "football", er, "soccer". Baseball's almost purely an American thing, with maybe a little intrest from Japenese people who really wish they were Americans. Think about it, you don't hear about any MLB Europe leagues forming.
Winter sports all involve ice or snow. Basketball, an indoor event that is played in the USA during the Winter season is a Summer event because it uses neither ice nor snow. Hockey, since it involves ice, is a Winter event.
One thing Olympic sports have in common is that the rules of play don't change that much each cycle. Soccer is played on a flat field retangular field every time. The mass of a discus or javelin is always the same it was last time. Oh, and it doesn't matter who makes the balls, timing devices, or shoes used, those are interchangable sponsors that can change every cycle.
If there were to be an Olympic First-Person Shooter event, everybody would have to play the same sanitized game which wouldn't have any new maps utilize the latest whiz-bang technology. Imagine America's Army gone open source and stripped of American and Teriorist designations.
This is just not going to happen. Forget about it. Nothing to see here.
Unfortunately, there's no such thing as "fair use laws". Fair use is a concept of rights that the courts uphold repeatedly through the holes in the existing copyright laws. See, sometimes "activist judges" rule in our favor.
Properly applied crypto is a pain to crack. Sure, it can be done, but is dedicating a government supercomputer for a few weeks worth it if all they get out of it is one e-mail message?
When was the right to copy music from the Internet granted by the US Government?
The Slashdot FAQ explains exactly what is going on here:
From The last question in the Slashmeta section:
"I thought everyone on Slashdot hated the RIAA, the MPAA, and Microsoft. Why do you keep hyping CDs, movies, and Windows games?
Big corporations are what they are. They sell us cool stuff with one hand and tighten the screws on our freedoms with the other. We hate them every morning and love them every afternoon, and vice versa. This is part of living in the modern world: you take your yin with your yang and try to figure out how to do what's right the best you can. If you think it has to be all one way or the other, that's cool, share your opinions, but don't expect everyone else to think the same."
We hate that "Big Media" is using ever "improving"/"tightening" DRM restrictions, but we have to accept them if we want the latest music, video, and computer content. These people deserve to get paid, and this is their way of blocking the free providers of their content. If you don't like what they're doing, do without their content.
It's finer than that. They don't dispute that they have to pay Verizon to termate the call, but Global NAPs wants to pay the rate set by the FCC for long distance calls, Verizon is charging the rate set by the state which is higher for intra-state calls. So far, the courts have held up the Verizon rates and Global NAPs is effectively being put out of business until they pay up.
The problem here is that local ISPs were reselling Global NAPs' dial-up service, and providing virtual POPs with seemingly local numbers that really were trunks to the actual POP in Boston. Verizon wanted their pennies per minute for being the terminal end of those long distance calls, and the court gave it to them.
So now, these virtual local ISPs have a problem: They've either got to get real Internet POP centers in these rural towns, or pass the per minute long distance charges they'll have to pay onto the consumer. This is basically going to be a shock to a lot of small ISP business models. As if they're not already bleeding customers from 2 days and ticking of unannounced downtime.
and what happens if FAT32 isn't supported by Vista?
Would Windows be considered taxable because it afterall contains Solitare and Minesweeper which clearly are games?
Let's not forget what we're dealing with here. This is a company with a known history of pulling whatever attention getting stunt it can, including starting with a name of "Lindows" that got shot down by MS. All along, their goal has been simple: try to find a buck out of distributing open source software, including making their "Click and Run" store of mostly freely available apps.
This is about as newsworthy as a paid-software vendor announcing a free trial edition that replaces all the "good stuff" with reminders to buy the full version.
Ah, a pefect test case for why we should have a Unfunny(-1) mod...
Enron lied to analysts, google won't talk to analysts. Both companies show very little respect for teh average stockholder.
How is not talking to analysts disrepectful to the average shareholder? The average shareholder doesn't have time or sometimes even access to read analyst reports, those are mainly used by the big-pocket investors.
Google's way of doing things is to release it all in a sometimes surprising earnings report. Sure, the stock tumbles when they miss the baseless estimates, but just wait to see how much it jumps when the baseless estimates come in too low.
GOOG's been bucking the trend on Wall Street from the day it came out. Remember, they had the insiders up in arms with the unconventional way that they auctioned off their IPO shares. Insiders didn't get their traditional advantage, average Joes got it instead. The quick profits from the opening day bounce went to the people who bid high enough to get IPO shares, not those well connected enough to get access to a rapidly-selling IPO.
So, now, what law says a company has to provide earning guidance? Google will provide their earnings data when it's good and ready, and that's all they're obligated to do. Sure, it makes the analysts play guessing games, but what good are they anyway in a day when everybody has access to the same raw sources?