Using Occam's Razor, the following scenario seems likely.
1) Penguin's legal team researches proposed names and replies that they wouldn't want to be associated with girl.com, but katie.com's content is inoffensive enough.
2) The author is told that 867-5309 set enough precedent that she could use the name as a separate entity.
3) As publicity builds up before a proposed tour using the name katie.com, the author attempts to engage legal counsel to acquire the domain.
4) A cyber-ambulance chaser gets in touch with her and is engaged. (Come on. Just look at this site.)
5) The geek world, while sympathetic to the author's original experience and book, cries 'Shenanigans!' to her lawyer's actions towards the current domain owner.
6) Penguin's legal staff decides that that negative fallout was becoming larger than their original risk estimates, and recommends a name change to settle things without admitting anything.
A publisher has great control over a book's title especially for unpublished authors (even Asimov had his titles changed early in his career), so I don't hold the author overly to blame for the original use. I also don't hold her to blame for wanting to acquire the name. She obviously could have chosen a better lawyer, but who knows how she made that choice.
The only thing I think the publisher is guilty of is underestimating the degree of problems usurping an existing domain name would cause. While it's obvious to us now, the book did come out in 2000 and the title may have been decided in 1999. At that time domain name legality was still all over the place, and it's more likely a combination of inexperience and ignorance then malevolence.
Katie Jones should set up a Paypal account linked from her website,
I'd think that if she did this then the other lawyers would find it easier to say she benefitted from the publicity and would subpoena her income tax records and other information about her assets. It would be better to somehow donate to something else, like E.F.F. (Not that I've seen anything yet about them getting in on one side or the other, but you get the point.)
Being lawyers, our home page would not be complete without a legal disclaimer. Accepting the terms of the disclaimer is a condition to visiting our site. To our friends on the Net, we are sorry to condition our site on disclaimers. In a perfect world we wouldn't need this disclaimer, but in a perfect world, you wouldn't need lawyers either.
Actually, in a perfect world we would have morally responsible lawyers. At least, they would know that a buried agreement without even a front page click is unlikely to be enforceable.
Our website and the materials contained in the site are copyrighted. That means terrible things can happen to you, including being drawn and quartered, if you copy or alter anything we publish at the site.:-) We give all webbers the permission to copy our legal disclaimers, however, since limiting legal liability on the net is something we all want. Just don't blame us if it doesn't work. Also feel free to link to us.
Where'd she get her law degree - an online college? Who uses emoticons in a disclaimer? Who threatens being drawn and quartered in this day and age?
We intend for this page to provide interesting information to our visitors and function as the equivalent of a seminar attended by lawyers and lay people. No information posted here or materials provided is intended to constitute legal advice. We cannot guarantee that all queries will get a response, and we cannot guarantee the accuracy of posted information, especially as to each individual situation. All responses to queries in our chat area or by e-mail are only educating the recipient as to the types of issues typically relevant to their inquiry, and are not legal advice and should not be relied upon by any recipient.
Fairly straightforward and surprisingly reasonable.
We are lawyers licensed to practice law in the states of New York and New Jersey only. The availability of this site to residents of any other state or country is not intended as a solicitation of clients in those states or other countries.
Now I'm confused. How does someone only licensed in New York and New Jersey have anything useful to offer in a web domain case?
Neither the receipt nor the distribution of materials, including the use of private electronic mail, constitutes the formation of an attorney-client relationship. An attorney-client relationship will be formed with Parry Aftab only upon the execution and delivery of a retainer agreement and the satisfaction of the conditions contained therein. Materials distributed shall not in any event be deemed confidential or privileged.
Translation: no privacy of what you send us is intended until you send us money.
No one shall be entitled to claim detrimental reliance on any views or forms or models provided or expressed, or to claim that there is a duty to update answers or materials provided or to use care to protect the interests of the recipient. You should not rely on our statements (or those of any other website) for legal advice, and should always confirm such information with your lawyers, who should be responsible for taking whatever steps are necessary to check all information and personally assuring that the advice they provide is based on accurate and complete information and research from any available sources. Links are provided for your enjoyment and no endorsement should be inferred therefrom. Now with this said, enjoy the site....
Translation: No matter how we set up this site to look like it offers useful information, we make no guarantee we were qualified to present any of it.
I've always wanted to write a book. I think "aftab.com" will be a great title.
Okay, when you think you just read the phrase "interested in underwater breastfeeding" it's time to step away from the monitor and just lie down for a bit.
And those are just the ones we care about as nerds/geeks. Don't forget mini-skirts, hula-hoops, the Twist, the Beatles, birth control...
Not to put too fine a point on it, but it's all about control and subservience; anything that might allow or encourage others to think for themselves is feared and belittled by the overly conservative & powerful.
The fault might be XP. I'm running it on my 1.25Ghz Powerbook. I've tried some old games under Windows 95 and they run too fast - no Sierra games, but Ultima VI, Sam & Max, Scorched Earth, Battle Chess 2... I never tried them under XP. Once XP was running I copied over an old 95 I've had since Vpc 1 and installed a fresh 2000 Server for work which generally runs fast enough, even with a SQL server active. (Heck, even with the 2000 Server running games run too quickly in 95.)
I suggest if you're trying to run old games go ahead and make a 95 or 98 install, if you can find someone with an installation CD you can use. Even if you're booting into 'MS'-mode, I think an actual DOS or 95/98 install would help, though frankly I have no idea how to set up a DOS install these days.
Of course, more memory will definitely help, but trying an older Windows might help more. Of course, it may be how King's Quest 4 interacts with the Video-card - games with FMV don't work very well, nor do modern, bloated games of any kind.
and you can have parody which is not satirical (EG any Wierd Al song).
I would like to point out that Weird Al pretty much does all three. Song's like Eat It and Yoda quite clearly are parodies, since his lyrics are completely unrelated to the originals. Some of his original songs, like Germs and Dare to be Stupid, satirize a particular musical style. However, songs like Achy Breaky Song and Smells Like Nirvana both satirize the very songs they are parodying.
Of course, discussing satire vs. parody in regards to Weird Al would get a good deal more complicated when you bring in his videos. Suddenly you have a video of a parody that satirizes the original song's video. Pretty much ends discussion of Weird Al as a one way artist.
(My favorite Weird Al song that blurs the line is Theme from Rocky XIII. Set to Eye of the Tiger it insinuates that Rocky is retired and running a deli. Brilliant!)
Why should Apple have the right to dictate what people do with their iPods (which is what this amounts to) in the first place?
They have no right to do so, nor are they doing so. The reasons they are pursuing their options:
1) Real has hacked their software. IANAL, but ignoring even minor infractions could be used as precedent when trying to defend against major infractions.
2) Users will expect this hack to work even after updates. For years in System 6, 7, 8, 9 people were constantly adding hacks against undocumented code that would break with updates. This is the same thing, with the difference being that the users won't realize they are using hacks until after an update when things don't work. And when that happens they'll blame Apple, both in extra support calls and in bad press.
Apple couldn't care less what people do to their OWN iPods. But when you start telling others what to do with theirs and it will only lead to problems Apple has a responsibility to step in and a) tell their users that it IS a hack, and b) discourage the authors from continuing distribution. If this had been just some guy releasing it Apple probably would have just tried to shut down distribution sites, but would not have worried that many mainstream users would use it. The fact that it is Real Networks, a corporation in the music distribution industry, gives the hack credibility and the apparent endorsement of Apple. As such, Apple has to pursue corporate level tactics to get them to stop.
I've noticed that those that tout Windows as being "all that" seem to recommend a clean reinstall as an acceptable way of fixing them too...
The first time I heard this when I was having problems with a Windows install I was flabbergasted. I thought he was kidding, and he said he did it once a month. I told him I was glad I wasn't his mechanic since I wouldn't want to take out and reinstall his engine every month.
(This was '97 an we were discussing 95 obviously, but it's essentially still regarded as a valid fix for all versions.)
"We have extended this traditional copyright doctrine to exclude from protection against infringement those elements of a work that necessarily result from external factors inherent in the subject matter of the work. For computer-related applications, these external factors include hardware standards and mechanical specifications, software standards and compatibility requirements, computer manufacturer design standards, industry programming practices, and practices and demands of the industry being serviced.See Gates Rubber, 9F.3d at 838; Computer Assocs. Int'l, Inc. v. Altai, Inc., 982 F.2d 693, 709-10 (2d Cir. 1992); Plains Cotton Coop. Assoc. v. Goodpasture Serv., Inc., 807 F.2d 1256, 1262 1635](5th Cir. 1987)
If Word documents (or Office documents in general) an be argued to be 'standard', could this clause be used to protect code used to open them, regardless of how Microsoft changes them? This part appears a double edged sword, as the next question becomes who deigns something a 'standard'. Does common use qualify, or does it have to be recognized by some board or group?
As I think about it, it may mean that the method of using published standards can't be copyrighted; but the 'published' part is implied. Perhaps the whole document defines 'standards' and 'specifications' more specifically (Groklaw only quoted part itself), but it seems like a possible angle to use in a non-intended manner.
Those who use this phrase pejoratively against lawyers are as miserably misguided about their Shakespeare as they are about the judicial system which they disdain so freely.
Even a cursory reading of the context in which the lawyer killing statement is made in King Henry VI, Part II, (Act IV), Scene 2, reveals that Shakespeare was paying great and deserved homage to our venerable profession as the front line defenders of democracy.
The accolade is spoken by Dick the Butcher, a follower of anarchist Jack Cade, whom Shakespeare depicts as "the head of an army of rabble and a demagogue pandering to the ignorant," who sought to overthrow the government. Shakespeare's acknowledgment that the first thing any potential tyrant must do to eliminate freedom is to "kill all the lawyers" is, indeed, a classic and well-deserved compliment to our distinguished profession.
Don't get me wrong, too many lawyers are motivated by money then either justice or law. But using this quote against them is like using F=ma to explain why you drove drunk and hit a church.
I don't think that Apple will have much interest in changing their DRM to accommodate the CD DRM companies since doing nothing will have the same effect.
There are two reasons Apple won't do this. 1) Economical. They'd rather sell the controlled music through the iTunes Music Store. 2) Usability. You know damn well Suncomm and Macrovision aren't going to label these things as protected unless they have to, and Apple doesn't want to deal with "Why can I burn songs from CD A but not B?".
What loophole? They are almost certainly trying to get Apple to import the songs as "Protected" and only allow exporting to iPods. Even these idiots would recognize that the iTunes software allows burning CDs from Apple's current DRM.
What's to stop God from creating life on another planet?
It's not so much that it's a proof for or against a particular god, goddess, or pantheon. It would be another chink in the everything-you-need-to-know-is-in-this-book- written-after-corn-was-engineered-so-stop- asking-questions attitude prevalent in most organized religions.
As for your other part, the center of the universe theory was almost certainly held by all primitive cultures, an it's not really an easy concept to give up if you want to convince people that mankind was created as the most important being ever. What's more interesting is that the Greeks observed things like shadow lengths and ships going down on the horizon and concluded that the earth was a sphere, but other cultures missed this. Otherwise why would the disciples travel to the four corners of the Earth?
Re:Check out the Ebert review... (minor *SPOILER*)
on
I, Robot Hits the Theaters
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I agree with the first part of you post, but not the last. Another common theme among ALL of the robot stories was that the Laws were merely English interpretations of what the positronic pathways actually held. Everything was in the form of electronic potentials* which were compared to make a decision. Only the most primitive of his early robots would have been so deadlocked to not rescue one or the other. In the end rescuing one is certainly better than none, and the decision of which may have come down to which one was closer and more reliably rescuable. It's unlikely the movie goes into whether the robot suffered any harm which would have depended on exactly how advanced it was, but that it would have immediately frozen does not truly follow from Asimov's stories and novels.
* Yeah, some of his descriptions seem odd today with our current technology, but the principle remained: Potential-For-Harm-A vs. PFH-B and an action chosen. One book or story specifically mentioned that much of the design went into ensuring that the potentials would always have a difference, even if it required a randomizer of some sort. I forget where; I think Caves of Steel. The point being that only two robots in his stories froze: the speaking robot in Robbie (his first, and I believe written before the three laws were fully developed); and the mind reading robot in Liar! whose brain was arguably an unstable variant to begin with, and who was badgered into locking up both verbally and mentally. (Others froze from either radiation or direct instructions to.)
As an aside, Susan Calvin was young at some point in her life. I haven't seen enough of her in the trailers yet to see if they actually changed her character, but the fact that she's young doesn't bother me. This story quite obviously does not fit directly into the short stories' timelines as the Nesters weren't developed until after robots had been banned on earth. A brief overview of the movie's site shows they moved other characters around a little as well; as long as it's cohesive it doesn't really bother me. It also makes it sound like it is the first robot for consumer use, something that died out early on Earth in most of Asimov's timelines (Bicentennial Man being one notable exception).
FWIW, the story about the Nestors (The Lost Robot, or something like that) specifically deals with strengthening the second law until it was equal with first, and the first really only meant that the robots wouldn't actively harm humans and they had no motivation to prevent harm. Plenty of room for havoc there, if say there was a manufacturing error that resulted in that.
maybe add permanent consequences (i.e. if you die or get arrested you have to load your last save).
I would argue that in the early game there are permanent consequences, of a sort. Until you collect a lot of hidden packages, have a lot of money, or learn your way around there is a huge inconvenience of reacquiring your weapons and maybe that hard-to-find fast car. This was lessoned in the late game when you could just whip by a hideout or one of your car suppliers, but by that point the challenge has changed from finding things to mostly doing missions.
Also, there's nothing preventing you from reloading yourself every time you're arrested or killed. I did it all the time early game, just to get around finding weapons or health/shield buffs.
If their high-end Mac starts at $3K, the iMac base is $1300, the lowest iBook is $1100, and the eMac is $800, what do you consider MID-RANGE?????
This is about as insightful as saying BMW can't compete with a used Hyundai.
To lessen the Flamebait aspect, quality costs money or time. If you want to build your own hot-rod in the back yard over a year that's great, but don't go pooh-poohing my brand new Corvette over it.
Problem also is two or more departments whose products must interface, but pass the buck on who is responsible for trapping errors, etc.
No need to attribute it to active malice on either part - most often it is simply differing assumptions. Especially when the programmers are sufficiently divorced from the designers. If the design document says your code will be passed certain information and makes no allusion to checking it for validity or for passing back if it is invalid then where does that leave you? Are you going to question the design? Spend extra time writing error checking code that will put you over the alloted schedule and possibly lead to discipline? Or do EXACTLY what the document calls for?
Frankly, the answer isn't cut and dried - it depends both on the environment and how well acquainted you are with it. However, programmers at the bottom of the pole are safest remembering that: "It's the quacking duck that gets shot."
For myself, I've generally been in a position to question the design. Most of the time that's as far as it got though, so I would do my best to prevent hard errors (e.g. surrounding division with zero checks - yeah, they say they'll never pass one, but why chance it?). And more then once something has been found where my code worked oddly without error and I'd trace it to the passed parameters did NOT match the design, a possibility I could document as NEVER would happen.
Getting a virus or trojan shouldn't even take the system down a full day, such things are generally easily correctable. Of course, your average cubicle jockey will use it as an excuse to do nothing that day.
If you were running a large machine shop and one of your assembly lines breaks down, would you really want the 3rd shifter item loader to start tearing it apart looking for the problem? In most companies a computer is a tool your employees use to perform their actual job, and they have a separate staff (internal or outsourced) to handle problems with those tools. In fact, in most corporations probably discourage users from attempting to fix things themselves, since most have little to no training in this area. (Yes, nearly everyone has computers now, but nearly everyone also have cars. That doesn't make them mechanics.)
Slashdot Mirror
Using Occam's Razor, the following scenario seems likely.
1) Penguin's legal team researches proposed names and replies that they wouldn't want to be associated with girl.com, but katie.com's content is inoffensive enough.
2) The author is told that 867-5309 set enough precedent that she could use the name as a separate entity.
3) As publicity builds up before a proposed tour using the name katie.com, the author attempts to engage legal counsel to acquire the domain.
4) A cyber-ambulance chaser gets in touch with her and is engaged. (Come on. Just look at this site.)
5) The geek world, while sympathetic to the author's original experience and book, cries 'Shenanigans!' to her lawyer's actions towards the current domain owner.
6) Penguin's legal staff decides that that negative fallout was becoming larger than their original risk estimates, and recommends a name change to settle things without admitting anything.
A publisher has great control over a book's title especially for unpublished authors (even Asimov had his titles changed early in his career), so I don't hold the author overly to blame for the original use. I also don't hold her to blame for wanting to acquire the name. She obviously could have chosen a better lawyer, but who knows how she made that choice.
The only thing I think the publisher is guilty of is underestimating the degree of problems usurping an existing domain name would cause. While it's obvious to us now, the book did come out in 2000 and the title may have been decided in 1999. At that time domain name legality was still all over the place, and it's more likely a combination of inexperience and ignorance then malevolence.
Katie Jones should set up a Paypal account linked from her website,
I'd think that if she did this then the other lawyers would find it easier to say she benefitted from the publicity and would subpoena her income tax records and other information about her assets. It would be better to somehow donate to something else, like E.F.F. (Not that I've seen anything yet about them getting in on one side or the other, but you get the point.)
Being lawyers, our home page would not be complete without a legal disclaimer. Accepting the terms of the disclaimer is a condition to visiting our site. To our friends on the Net, we are sorry to condition our site on disclaimers. In a perfect world we wouldn't need this disclaimer, but in a perfect world, you wouldn't need lawyers either.
:-) We give all webbers the permission to copy our legal disclaimers, however, since limiting legal liability on the net is something we all want. Just don't blame us if it doesn't work. Also feel free to link to us.
Actually, in a perfect world we would have morally responsible lawyers. At least, they would know that a buried agreement without even a front page click is unlikely to be enforceable.
Our website and the materials contained in the site are copyrighted. That means terrible things can happen to you, including being drawn and quartered, if you copy or alter anything we publish at the site.
Where'd she get her law degree - an online college? Who uses emoticons in a disclaimer? Who threatens being drawn and quartered in this day and age?
We intend for this page to provide interesting information to our visitors and function as the equivalent of a seminar attended by lawyers and lay people. No information posted here or materials provided is intended to constitute legal advice. We cannot guarantee that all queries will get a response, and we cannot guarantee the accuracy of posted information, especially as to each individual situation. All responses to queries in our chat area or by e-mail are only educating the recipient as to the types of issues typically relevant to their inquiry, and are not legal advice and should not be relied upon by any recipient.
Fairly straightforward and surprisingly reasonable.
We are lawyers licensed to practice law in the states of New York and New Jersey only. The availability of this site to residents of any other state or country is not intended as a solicitation of clients in those states or other countries.
Now I'm confused. How does someone only licensed in New York and New Jersey have anything useful to offer in a web domain case?
Neither the receipt nor the distribution of materials, including the use of private electronic mail, constitutes the formation of an attorney-client relationship. An attorney-client relationship will be formed with Parry Aftab only upon the execution and delivery of a retainer agreement and the satisfaction of the conditions contained therein. Materials distributed shall not in any event be deemed confidential or privileged.
Translation: no privacy of what you send us is intended until you send us money.
No one shall be entitled to claim detrimental reliance on any views or forms or models provided or expressed, or to claim that there is a duty to update answers or materials provided or to use care to protect the interests of the recipient. You should not rely on our statements (or those of any other website) for legal advice, and should always confirm such information with your lawyers, who should be responsible for taking whatever steps are necessary to check all information and personally assuring that the advice they provide is based on accurate and complete information and research from any available sources. Links are provided for your enjoyment and no endorsement should be inferred therefrom. Now with this said, enjoy the site....
Translation: No matter how we set up this site to look like it offers useful information, we make no guarantee we were qualified to present any of it.
I've always wanted to write a book. I think "aftab.com" will be a great title.
It's pretty cool that Dan Quayle reads slashdot, but it's a shame he has to post A.C. to avoid harassment like this.
Okay, when you think you just read the phrase "interested in underwater breastfeeding" it's time to step away from the monitor and just lie down for a bit.
First it was science fiction.
Then it was comic books.
Followed by Dungeons and Dragons.
Next was heavy metal and rap.
Now it's video games.
And those are just the ones we care about as nerds/geeks. Don't forget mini-skirts, hula-hoops, the Twist, the Beatles, birth control...
Not to put too fine a point on it, but it's all about control and subservience; anything that might allow or encourage others to think for themselves is feared and belittled by the overly conservative & powerful.
The fault might be XP. I'm running it on my 1.25Ghz Powerbook. I've tried some old games under Windows 95 and they run too fast - no Sierra games, but Ultima VI, Sam & Max, Scorched Earth, Battle Chess 2... I never tried them under XP. Once XP was running I copied over an old 95 I've had since Vpc 1 and installed a fresh 2000 Server for work which generally runs fast enough, even with a SQL server active. (Heck, even with the 2000 Server running games run too quickly in 95.)
I suggest if you're trying to run old games go ahead and make a 95 or 98 install, if you can find someone with an installation CD you can use. Even if you're booting into 'MS'-mode, I think an actual DOS or 95/98 install would help, though frankly I have no idea how to set up a DOS install these days.
Of course, more memory will definitely help, but trying an older Windows might help more. Of course, it may be how King's Quest 4 interacts with the Video-card - games with FMV don't work very well, nor do modern, bloated games of any kind.
and you can have parody which is not satirical (EG any Wierd Al song).
I would like to point out that Weird Al pretty much does all three. Song's like Eat It and Yoda quite clearly are parodies, since his lyrics are completely unrelated to the originals. Some of his original songs, like Germs and Dare to be Stupid, satirize a particular musical style. However, songs like Achy Breaky Song and Smells Like Nirvana both satirize the very songs they are parodying.
Of course, discussing satire vs. parody in regards to Weird Al would get a good deal more complicated when you bring in his videos. Suddenly you have a video of a parody that satirizes the original song's video. Pretty much ends discussion of Weird Al as a one way artist.
(My favorite Weird Al song that blurs the line is Theme from Rocky XIII. Set to Eye of the Tiger it insinuates that Rocky is retired and running a deli. Brilliant!)
Why should Apple have the right to dictate what people do with their iPods (which is what this amounts to) in the first place?
They have no right to do so, nor are they doing so. The reasons they are pursuing their options:
1) Real has hacked their software. IANAL, but ignoring even minor infractions could be used as precedent when trying to defend against major infractions.
2) Users will expect this hack to work even after updates. For years in System 6, 7, 8, 9 people were constantly adding hacks against undocumented code that would break with updates. This is the same thing, with the difference being that the users won't realize they are using hacks until after an update when things don't work. And when that happens they'll blame Apple, both in extra support calls and in bad press.
Apple couldn't care less what people do to their OWN iPods. But when you start telling others what to do with theirs and it will only lead to problems Apple has a responsibility to step in and a) tell their users that it IS a hack, and b) discourage the authors from continuing distribution. If this had been just some guy releasing it Apple probably would have just tried to shut down distribution sites, but would not have worried that many mainstream users would use it. The fact that it is Real Networks, a corporation in the music distribution industry, gives the hack credibility and the apparent endorsement of Apple. As such, Apple has to pursue corporate level tactics to get them to stop.
A modern marvel that might help next time.
Yeah... that ghost image would definitely have an update copy of my work! That's a great solution for all possible situations!
I've noticed that those that tout Windows as being "all that" seem to recommend a clean reinstall as an acceptable way of fixing them too...
The first time I heard this when I was having problems with a Windows install I was flabbergasted. I thought he was kidding, and he said he did it once a month. I told him I was glad I wasn't his mechanic since I wouldn't want to take out and reinstall his engine every month.
(This was '97 an we were discussing 95 obviously, but it's essentially still regarded as a valid fix for all versions.)
Bill Gates will be running around with a bullhorn yelling "HEY YOU! BUY HALO 2"
Given how they handle other standards, that's exactly how I picture Microsoft handling subliminal messaging.
"We have extended this traditional copyright doctrine to exclude from protection against infringement those elements of a work that necessarily result from external factors inherent in the subject matter of the work. For computer-related applications, these external factors include hardware standards and mechanical specifications, software standards and compatibility requirements, computer manufacturer design standards, industry programming practices, and practices and demands of the industry being serviced.See Gates Rubber, 9F.3d at 838; Computer Assocs. Int'l, Inc. v. Altai, Inc., 982 F.2d 693, 709-10 (2d Cir. 1992); Plains Cotton Coop. Assoc. v. Goodpasture Serv., Inc., 807 F.2d 1256, 1262 1635](5th Cir. 1987)
If Word documents (or Office documents in general) an be argued to be 'standard', could this clause be used to protect code used to open them, regardless of how Microsoft changes them? This part appears a double edged sword, as the next question becomes who deigns something a 'standard'. Does common use qualify, or does it have to be recognized by some board or group?
As I think about it, it may mean that the method of using published standards can't be copyrighted; but the 'published' part is implied. Perhaps the whole document defines 'standards' and 'specifications' more specifically (Groklaw only quoted part itself), but it seems like a possible angle to use in a non-intended manner.
Those who use this phrase pejoratively against lawyers are as miserably misguided about their Shakespeare as they are about the judicial system which they disdain so freely.
Even a cursory reading of the context in which the lawyer killing statement is made in King Henry VI, Part II, (Act IV), Scene 2, reveals that Shakespeare was paying great and deserved homage to our venerable profession as the front line defenders of democracy.
The accolade is spoken by Dick the Butcher, a follower of anarchist Jack Cade, whom Shakespeare depicts as "the head of an army of rabble and a demagogue pandering to the ignorant," who sought to overthrow the government. Shakespeare's acknowledgment that the first thing any potential tyrant must do to eliminate freedom is to "kill all the lawyers" is, indeed, a classic and well-deserved compliment to our distinguished profession.
Analysis
Don't get me wrong, too many lawyers are motivated by money then either justice or law. But using this quote against them is like using F=ma to explain why you drove drunk and hit a church.
I don't think that Apple will have much interest in changing their DRM to accommodate the CD DRM companies since doing nothing will have the same effect.
There are two reasons Apple won't do this. 1) Economical. They'd rather sell the controlled music through the iTunes Music Store. 2) Usability. You know damn well Suncomm and Macrovision aren't going to label these things as protected unless they have to, and Apple doesn't want to deal with "Why can I burn songs from CD A but not B?".
What loophole? They are almost certainly trying to get Apple to import the songs as "Protected" and only allow exporting to iPods. Even these idiots would recognize that the iTunes software allows burning CDs from Apple's current DRM.
What's to stop God from creating life on another planet?
It's not so much that it's a proof for or against a particular god, goddess, or pantheon. It would be another chink in the everything-you-need-to-know-is-in-this-book- written-after-corn-was-engineered-so-stop- asking-questions attitude prevalent in most organized religions.
As for your other part, the center of the universe theory was almost certainly held by all primitive cultures, an it's not really an easy concept to give up if you want to convince people that mankind was created as the most important being ever. What's more interesting is that the Greeks observed things like shadow lengths and ships going down on the horizon and concluded that the earth was a sphere, but other cultures missed this. Otherwise why would the disciples travel to the four corners of the Earth?
I agree with the first part of you post, but not the last. Another common theme among ALL of the robot stories was that the Laws were merely English interpretations of what the positronic pathways actually held. Everything was in the form of electronic potentials* which were compared to make a decision. Only the most primitive of his early robots would have been so deadlocked to not rescue one or the other. In the end rescuing one is certainly better than none, and the decision of which may have come down to which one was closer and more reliably rescuable. It's unlikely the movie goes into whether the robot suffered any harm which would have depended on exactly how advanced it was, but that it would have immediately frozen does not truly follow from Asimov's stories and novels.
* Yeah, some of his descriptions seem odd today with our current technology, but the principle remained: Potential-For-Harm-A vs. PFH-B and an action chosen. One book or story specifically mentioned that much of the design went into ensuring that the potentials would always have a difference, even if it required a randomizer of some sort. I forget where; I think Caves of Steel. The point being that only two robots in his stories froze: the speaking robot in Robbie (his first, and I believe written before the three laws were fully developed); and the mind reading robot in Liar! whose brain was arguably an unstable variant to begin with, and who was badgered into locking up both verbally and mentally. (Others froze from either radiation or direct instructions to.)
As an aside, Susan Calvin was young at some point in her life. I haven't seen enough of her in the trailers yet to see if they actually changed her character, but the fact that she's young doesn't bother me. This story quite obviously does not fit directly into the short stories' timelines as the Nesters weren't developed until after robots had been banned on earth. A brief overview of the movie's site shows they moved other characters around a little as well; as long as it's cohesive it doesn't really bother me. It also makes it sound like it is the first robot for consumer use, something that died out early on Earth in most of Asimov's timelines (Bicentennial Man being one notable exception).
FWIW, the story about the Nestors (The Lost Robot, or something like that) specifically deals with strengthening the second law until it was equal with first, and the first really only meant that the robots wouldn't actively harm humans and they had no motivation to prevent harm. Plenty of room for havoc there, if say there was a manufacturing error that resulted in that.
maybe add permanent consequences (i.e. if you die or get arrested you have to load your last save).
I would argue that in the early game there are permanent consequences, of a sort. Until you collect a lot of hidden packages, have a lot of money, or learn your way around there is a huge inconvenience of reacquiring your weapons and maybe that hard-to-find fast car. This was lessoned in the late game when you could just whip by a hideout or one of your car suppliers, but by that point the challenge has changed from finding things to mostly doing missions.
Also, there's nothing preventing you from reloading yourself every time you're arrested or killed. I did it all the time early game, just to get around finding weapons or health/shield buffs.
"Now, now. The Canadian government has apologized for Brian Adams on numerous occasions."
If their high-end Mac starts at $3K, the iMac base is $1300, the lowest iBook is $1100, and the eMac is $800, what do you consider MID-RANGE?????
This is about as insightful as saying BMW can't compete with a used Hyundai.
To lessen the Flamebait aspect, quality costs money or time. If you want to build your own hot-rod in the back yard over a year that's great, but don't go pooh-poohing my brand new Corvette over it.
Problem also is two or more departments whose products must interface, but pass the buck on who is responsible for trapping errors, etc.
No need to attribute it to active malice on either part - most often it is simply differing assumptions. Especially when the programmers are sufficiently divorced from the designers. If the design document says your code will be passed certain information and makes no allusion to checking it for validity or for passing back if it is invalid then where does that leave you? Are you going to question the design? Spend extra time writing error checking code that will put you over the alloted schedule and possibly lead to discipline? Or do EXACTLY what the document calls for?
Frankly, the answer isn't cut and dried - it depends both on the environment and how well acquainted you are with it. However, programmers at the bottom of the pole are safest remembering that: "It's the quacking duck that gets shot."
For myself, I've generally been in a position to question the design. Most of the time that's as far as it got though, so I would do my best to prevent hard errors (e.g. surrounding division with zero checks - yeah, they say they'll never pass one, but why chance it?). And more then once something has been found where my code worked oddly without error and I'd trace it to the passed parameters did NOT match the design, a possibility I could document as NEVER would happen.
Don't bogart my .sig, Durandal!
More Bob quotes:
See ya starside!
Hey! Watch it!
They're everywhere!
Getting a virus or trojan shouldn't even take the system down a full day, such things are generally easily correctable. Of course, your average cubicle jockey will use it as an excuse to do nothing that day.
If you were running a large machine shop and one of your assembly lines breaks down, would you really want the 3rd shifter item loader to start tearing it apart looking for the problem? In most companies a computer is a tool your employees use to perform their actual job, and they have a separate staff (internal or outsourced) to handle problems with those tools. In fact, in most corporations probably discourage users from attempting to fix things themselves, since most have little to no training in this area. (Yes, nearly everyone has computers now, but nearly everyone also have cars. That doesn't make them mechanics.)