i too have (or had) home, g/f, work, shop, and vehicles keys...
plus my storage space, bicycle and motorcycle locks, pool cue locker at the local billiards, and a whole bunch associated with the motorcycle racing trailer etc. yes i obsess over keys a lot. makes me feel twelve but whatever.
a couple of things i accepted:
- while at a normal 'work-day' i don't need to be able to go 'elsewhere' on spur of moment.
- most of my office keys can stay in the office.
- i don't need to check my snail mail every single damn day.
what i ended up doing works very well for me but does take a bit of planning (but honestly if you're even semi conscious it's not hard).
i made four separate rings (because this would be nuts to carry with me even most of the time):
1) HOME. thankfully only two keys for me, two more for g/f, key for the pool cue locker, and a final sixth to my office door at work. six is more than i wanted but it's workable. this always goes in pocket. _always_
2) WORK. two keys for storage rooms, keys to four subordinate's offices (they have mine too), about five to various lockable file and parts drawers. this ring stays in my office and doesn't go home with me.
3) SHOP. two keys for the roll-top padlocks, one for the front door, and another for the inner private door. one more for shop mailbox. NOTE - i put my personal mailbox key on this ring, as well as one for 'padlocks' (which we'll get to)
4) RACING. one for the trailer tongue lock, one for the back and side-door padlocks, two backups for my buddy's pickup, two backup keys for the racebikes (they're production based so yes have keys), again i put my personal mailbox key on this ring, as well as one for 'padlocks'.
- if i'm just going to work, or out to play pool, or over to see her, i'm all set. same ring, always in pocket.
- if i'm going to my shop i grab that ring and it goes in my bag (because i'm almost always carrying something there anyway).
- ditto the racing 'ring'.
- all my vehicle keys have their own ring and just a leather fob since i can't stand that shit banging around on the ignition.
- if you look around you can find some very high quality weatherproof padlocks in multiple sets with one common key. look for the serial number on the package and dig in the shelves and you can find multiple packages. i've got eight nice all weather masterlocks common to one key. i use them for the b/c lock cables, the m/c lock cables, the storage locker padlock, etc.
so yes i generally only check my snail mail when i'm heading out to my shop, which is about twice a week. bit me. of course if i'm expecting something important i can just grab a ring when i'm doing laundry or something and go downstairs and check.
and i can now put my contact info prominently inside my bag for the return of the bag because it never contains keys associated with my home address.
Being positive today I'm going to go with maybe English isn't your first language. Here is a definition..
steal - take without the owner's consent; "Someone stole my wallet on the train"; "This author stole entire paragraphs from my dissertation"
They took the code without Google's consent, hence they stole it.
hmmm. actually it sounds like you're the one with a poor grasp of what's going on here. Definition of 'take' - "to remove, capture, consume, or dispossess from someone else."
the sourcecode was not stolen. a copy of the sourcecode was stolen. and this is a crucial distinction since "steal" means to deprive from another. and while google has been violated, they most absolutely have not been deprived of any code.
a common sense analogy for you: say i break into your house and photocopy all of your books. no one would suggest that i've stolen your books. for me to have stolen you books, i would have to take then and leave you with nothing. in the google case that did not happen. hence OP's quite proper correction.
Nobody machines consumer products out of solid blocks of metal except as a demo, of course. It takes hours to machine something that can be made in seconds by stamping or molding. Machine tools are used mostly to make stamping and molding dies, and one-off parts. Also, even in modest volumes, you don't start with plain blocks of metal. You cast or forge a blank and machine off the excess.
MOTORSPORTS.
billet parts exist everywhere and are often the best and most desired.
most of the rest of your argument is accurate, though. please don't over-reach.
Jesus Christ one or two April Fool stories would have been enough. Is there any chance we could get something informative or interesting posted today? I usually get pissed off when a thread about an interesting topic gets invaded by karma whores trying to score a couple of handy 'Funny' points, but today has just been terrible.
it's called "global fun".
it happens once per year.
if you can't feel it, you may want to check that you're not currently rotting inside a sarlacc...
And to complicate matters, some people seem to feel compelled to put Scientology in the same group as Christianity and Islam when we ALL know Scientology is just a big SCAM. It is NOT a religion just because they say it is. It is a scam disguised as a religion.
Oranges and Apples, my friends...Don't give them the credit they so desire.
yeah. christianity and islam are just as big scams. don't give them credit by putting them up on separate pedestals. the orange (scientology) is dead but still kinda fresh, while the apples (christianity and islam) have been rotting for hundreds of years.
When you buy stock on the open exchange, you're buying it from someone else who owns it, not from the company in question. So none of your money goes to the company in question, and you're not 'putting money into the company'. If you really wanted to have an effect on an 'irresponsible' company, you'd buy as much of their stock as possible, so that you'd have leverage to influence the board of directors.
Yikes that subject line might get me mod-killed but it's true - most white-collar rsi sufferers (i.e. office-workers using mice/keyboards) have _never_ been trained in how to best use the tools they're given. Note that there are plenty (too many!) of people on assmbley lines, in sweat-shops, in grocery-store check-out lines, etc who are victims of what I would call the "rsi-industry", but this article doesn't address that world.
For the office-worker, rsi is all about _which_ muscles get used and for how long. You can give these people all sorts of new input tools but if they try to use the different tools _in_the_same_way_ they're not going to get much benefit. You can't put a new tool (like a trackball) in front of someone and expect that it will just suddenly use different of their muscles. Your 'user' doesn't know what to do to fix her problem, and she's likely going to try to do the same things with the same muscles as when she had a mouse (like holding the trackball with her finger-tips). And if she's having all this trouble with the mouse then she prolly wasn't ever shown how to properly use that device either!
There is a growing industry of "ergonomics consultants" and while I wish their knowledge was common-sense to everyone, it's not. These people can help a great deal. USE THEIR SERVICES. How your user sits at her desk is crucial - the height of her desk, the height of her keyboard, the angle of her upper arms when she's typing, the angle of her knees, the angle of her neck, etc, etc, etc. It's all connected. Does she spend a lot of time on the phone? Where does she place her feet? Does her chair provide good lower back support? etc etc etc.
From my twenty-years' experience in tech/user support & physical therapy, the two most crucial considerations are 1) her upper arms are nearly vertical, and 2) her toes touch the floor while her knees are bent 90 - 100 degrees. But your big breakthrough will come when you or a human-interface consultant shows/teaches/coerces/trains this person to use _different_ muscles while still accomplishing what she needs to do.
From the summary: "Few people realize that when they buy software or music or movies, they are actually buying a license to use, watch or listen. " Well, duh. Staying current on ever-shifting rules is virtually impossible..
No. Not ever. Prolly not even tomorrow. The rules aren't shifting. The "rules" are ONLY copyright law. You do not need a licnese to listen, or view, or play. If you have it, you own it. Copyright law grants exclusive distribution rights to the owners of the creative work. That's it. The owners of that work can sell it, play it, give it away on the street, broadcast it over the airwaves, but still retain copyright - i.e. no one ELSE is allowed to distribute it without the permission of the owners.
Which is why we don't see p2p music downloaders getting hauled off to court. We see p2p music DISTRIBUTORS getting hauled off to court and we see the *IAA using every opportunity to call it a war on "music downloading"... The *IAA have done a masterful job of equating "downloading music via p2p" with breaking the law, but the truth is that the _downloader_ isn't breaking the law. The provider is.
The *IAA have also done a masterful job of equating "unauthorized" with "illegal", which is nothing more than a well-disguised end-run around fair use. Fair use is defined through decades of case-law as "unauthorized but non-infringing". i.e. I do not need your permission to quote snippets of your book. I do not need your permission to pull a single-frame screen grab for my review of your movie. BECAUSE such critique, discussion, and debate is valuable to society in the same way that the original creative work is valuable to society. This was the original intent!
There used to be a balance to copyright - it was a deal between producer and gov't for the sake of society. It's being twisted into a tool for "protecting" producers from society...
And they're winning. Even as they die. Even as their business model flounders. Even as their distribution models are eroded. Even as they rack up record profits... And when they're dead and gone the laws we let them coerce our gov't into passing will remain.
I see very few of the trades that weren't based on novelty or publicity.
...and your point is? This is like the guy with the million dollar home page, who was covered in slashdot (but which references I can't find since slashdot search = pissy). Why do you draw the distinction of 'tangible goods -vs- emotional value'? Why does a publicity deal =! legit?
These guys found ways to increase the overall value of their tangible goods through emotional appeal. Over and over and over... Why are their accomplishments diminished simply because you and I can't likely follow their path and do the same thing?
Had an executive bring in his powerbook for instalation of a wireless airport (wifi) card. He watched me install the slim little card under the keyboard, I explained the limits, and how it only works where there's a signal. He gets the "like a cell-phone" analogy and I think we're all set...
The very next day I get a call - he's at the beach and the powerbook just went dead... black screen. I think he means "at his beach house" so ask about the colour of the ac power cord (amber or green). No, he's _at_ the beach, with no ac power wire. I fuss over sand and water but he assures me it's been kept very clean.
I finally ask "How long were you using it before it went dead?"
"Oh, a few hours..."
I explain that it's prolly just a dead battery, and get back a slightly exasperated "...but you just installed the wireless yesterday! That didn't last very long!" Sigh... just when you think you can send them out on their own...
Then there was the long and very pissed off email on which I was cc'ed, which was sent to "Mailer, Daemon". The writer complained bitterly about how he never responded to her emails, he wasn't listed in the corporate phone directory (in fact, no "Mailer"s in the whole company), he kept sending her all sorts of gibberish crap, he would NOT deliver her email to her sister, etc etc. I was relieved when she was laid off before I had a chance to explain the situation to her.
Don't forget that the first European settlers to this land were a goup of people so uptight that they were (essentially) kicked out of Britain;-)
It's easy to lose the Puritan mindset amongst the noise of more popular "traditional American values" like hard work, original thought, and speaking one's mind, but those early settlers did call themselves Pilgrims for a reason.
...that Microsoft has the manpower to turn it into real software is a given.
Really? Just as was the case with:
Longhorn
Yukon
Widby
.net
win XP
x-box
win 2000
win 95
MS is all about the marketing and the fud. Product development happens in a sub-basement behind the water heater room. Having the manpower is nothing if you don't have the will or the brain-power.
Who mod'ed parent 'insightful'?!?
What does everyone think he's supposed to say? Windows security is inferior to linux? He'd lose his job.
Why are you so sure?
He's the asshat responsible for the sorry state of windows security in the first place. If that distinction isn't enough to get him fired, then it's doubtful that anything he might say would make a difference.
Unfortunately that whooshing sound you hear is SCO jumping on this statement as evidence of bias so they can get the case moved or restarted or somehow stave off their inevitable failure a bit longer.
Question isn't just "Enforcable?", but "Provable?"
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The Basics of EULAs
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· Score: 1
I've asked this before - just how does a company like Blizzard expect to prove that the eula was actually 'clicked through'? Forget enforcability. They can't even prove that the deal was accepted.
What happens when Blizzard takes Joe Schmoe to court over eula violations and Joe simply says "Never saw the eula. It wasn't presented. I'm not bound by those restrictions."? Is Blizzard going to trot out their programmer to testify that the eula should have been displayed? Are they going to trot out some server log with "accept" on line 336297 right next to Joe's name? That seems pretty weak, and suddenly it's not Joe Schmoe on trial, but Blizzard's server software.
Ianal, but the term for this is 'judicial notice', and it refers to the courts' willingness to accept the reliability of a system used to gather evidence. For example, radar speed reading equipment has received judicial notice, so if you get a speeding ticket, the police don't need to again prove that "radar speed reading" is a reliable method of determining speed (never mind that it isn't). There's no way that Blizzard's html has ever received judicial notice, so it all comes down Joe's word against Blizzard's.
We've seen some (SOME) court support for the enforcability of click-through eula's, but what about the provability of acceptance?? Everyone is always arguing about the content of the eula, but how does the authoring company PROVE that the eula was even displayed or clicked-through?
What's to keep someone from simply denying the whole experience? The authoring company has no record of the acceptance, and no proof that the eula was actually ever presented to the end-user.
In a regular contract dispute (which is what eula cases devolve into), the plaintiff must first prove that the defendant accepted the terms of the contract. With nothing more than a supposed click-through, the authoring company doesn't really have any proof of acceptance. I can't see how a legal case against an end-user for 'violation' could get very far in this context.
You're taking the naive approach to freedom of speech.
No, the naive approach is the one that says "I know which values are important and the framers of the constitution couldn't _possibly_ have meant what the words say, because that would rattle my sensibilities...". Look around. The world is a highly diverse and often dangerous place. Regulations will not change that fact.
There is a great logical mechanism for solving this argument: ask yourself "IF the authors had intended that all speech, all the time, anywhere, should be protected, then how would they have best worded the 1st amendment?" Answer is pretty much _exactly_ as they did. If they'd wanted to regulate certain kinds of speach they would have f*cking said so.
These are reasonable measures taken to prevent one canidate from "buying" and election (and, in fact, I feel they're not strong enough as they do not prevent a small handfull of candidates from locking in an election among them).
One man's reasonable is another woman's outrage. The framers of the constitution were rabid idealists who couldn't imagine a lazy or unquetioning populace. They didn't worry about big money 'buying' an election because you can't 'buy' a skeptic.
If free speech were an absolute, a large fraction of the laws in this country at the federal and state levels would have been shot down by the Supreme Court over a century ago.
The constitution is (or should be!) a lot more absolute than any particular sitting 'scotus'. A history of error-riddled tyranny in our courts is no justification for that tyranny.
I'm surprised no one has posted it yet, but John Seach's Volcano-Live site has a lot of good and timely volcano info. Go to the breaking news section for continuous bits about St. Helens.
Seach runs chartered volcano tours and has amassed quite a collection of pics which are up on the site too.
How about, instead of mindlessly bashing what they are trying, coming up with something better.
Ok, sure. But this is only even slightly appropriate if 'they' are fired for incompetence and their salary distributed amongst everyone who comes up with an idea. This isn't some group-think college exercise! 'They' are serious, expensive people sitting around in a room, dreaming up policies that screw the general population, and 'they' are not accountable to anyone.
I (and the rest of the US) are being oppressed and inconvenienced; the price of our freedom and dignity should not be that we help our oppressors more efficiently 'manage' us like cattle.
What is the best way to 'help'?? Vote. EVERY one of you. VOTE GODDAMNIT. If you're unsure of a good choice in a certain election, embrace mutation theory and pick the most obscure candidate.
So you're saying the C-64 was unintuitive... As opposed to now...?
Last login: Mon Jul 12 09:37:32 on ttyp1
Welcome to Darwin!
Mac:~ bcguy$ Help
-bash: Help: command not found
Mac:~ bcguy$ Hi
-bash: Hi: command not found
Mac:~ bcguy$ Hello?
-bash: Hello?: command not found
Mac:~ bcguy$ Eat Flaming Death
-bash: Eat: command not found
So in almost twenty years we've gotten... lower case and serifs!!
Kay's right: there's little progress when the lowest common denominator is the target audience.
Two weeks ago I would have said "Fortunately the constitution is there to protect me from people (voters) like you.". Now, I just shake my head and wonder "How did they misunderstand the argument?? The issue is not one of anonymity!! The issue is one of police authority over anonymous and (presumably) innocent civilians and bystanders.
If a police officer can walk up to you out of the blue and demand anything then the original concept of personal liberty is lost. What's the difference between the Hiibel example and the cops showing up at your door without a warrent? Not much. Que Benjamin Franklin quotes ad nauseum...
911 call centers cannot be reached by mapping to any 10-digit number. There is no 10-digit number for them, they are simply known as 911 on the network within the region they serve.
And THIS is the absolutely perfect example of why government-mandated monopolies are a bad thing. The govt 911 system doesn't have any hooks into it (i.e. a 10-digit) because the govt doesn't allow any competition (multiple services) so no one ever imagined there would be anything to hook into 911 and now the system is stuck closed.
This is a problem that the free-market could probably solve in less than six days. Just look at the blossoming success of private alarm and house-security services. I said this before and got no direct answers but it's still valid. '911' should be a '900'-level call. Why should my calls to my mother subsidize the fact that John Doe can't conduct his life without needing the state to step in and protect him? So far I've done just fine on my own and I'd prefer to pay-as-I-go.
If the govt people feel some over-riding need to be involved and 'make a difference' with our tax money, why don't they just open up the 911 system and then come up with a good rating and testing system so that the consumer can make an informed choice of ermergency responder?
Mandating 911 service on phone systems is like mandating break-down coverage for every new car.
No, it doesn't work that way. Telemarketers are not allowed to call any number that incurs a charge to the recipient. Period.
So if the telemarketer can't figure out if the number is a land or a cell then they'd better not call it because to do so might put them in violation of the law. New freedoms on the part of the consumer don't negate the telemarketer's obligations under old laws.
Slashdot Mirror
i too have (or had) home, g/f, work, shop, and vehicles keys...
plus my storage space, bicycle and motorcycle locks, pool cue locker at the local billiards, and a whole bunch associated with the motorcycle racing trailer etc. yes i obsess over keys a lot. makes me feel twelve but whatever.
a couple of things i accepted:
- while at a normal 'work-day' i don't need to be able to go 'elsewhere' on spur of moment.
- most of my office keys can stay in the office.
- i don't need to check my snail mail every single damn day.
what i ended up doing works very well for me but does take a bit of planning (but honestly if you're even semi conscious it's not hard).
i made four separate rings (because this would be nuts to carry with me even most of the time):
1) HOME. thankfully only two keys for me, two more for g/f, key for the pool cue locker, and a final sixth to my office door at work. six is more than i wanted but it's workable. this always goes in pocket. _always_
2) WORK. two keys for storage rooms, keys to four subordinate's offices (they have mine too), about five to various lockable file and parts drawers. this ring stays in my office and doesn't go home with me.
3) SHOP. two keys for the roll-top padlocks, one for the front door, and another for the inner private door. one more for shop mailbox. NOTE - i put my personal mailbox key on this ring, as well as one for 'padlocks' (which we'll get to)
4) RACING. one for the trailer tongue lock, one for the back and side-door padlocks, two backups for my buddy's pickup, two backup keys for the racebikes (they're production based so yes have keys), again i put my personal mailbox key on this ring, as well as one for 'padlocks'.
- if i'm just going to work, or out to play pool, or over to see her, i'm all set. same ring, always in pocket.
- if i'm going to my shop i grab that ring and it goes in my bag (because i'm almost always carrying something there anyway).
- ditto the racing 'ring'.
- all my vehicle keys have their own ring and just a leather fob since i can't stand that shit banging around on the ignition.
- if you look around you can find some very high quality weatherproof padlocks in multiple sets with one common key. look for the serial number on the package and dig in the shelves and you can find multiple packages. i've got eight nice all weather masterlocks common to one key. i use them for the b/c lock cables, the m/c lock cables, the storage locker padlock, etc.
so yes i generally only check my snail mail when i'm heading out to my shop, which is about twice a week. bit me. of course if i'm expecting something important i can just grab a ring when i'm doing laundry or something and go downstairs and check.
and i can now put my contact info prominently inside my bag for the return of the bag because it never contains keys associated with my home address.
-bc
Being positive today I'm going to go with maybe English isn't your first language. Here is a definition..
They took the code without Google's consent, hence they stole it.
hmmm. actually it sounds like you're the one with a poor grasp of what's going on here. Definition of 'take' - "to remove, capture, consume, or dispossess from someone else."
the sourcecode was not stolen. a copy of the sourcecode was stolen. and this is a crucial distinction since "steal" means to deprive from another. and while google has been violated, they most absolutely have not been deprived of any code.
a common sense analogy for you: say i break into your house and photocopy all of your books. no one would suggest that i've stolen your books. for me to have stolen you books, i would have to take then and leave you with nothing. in the google case that did not happen. hence OP's quite proper correction.
Nobody machines consumer products out of solid blocks of metal except as a demo, of course. It takes hours to machine something that can be made in seconds by stamping or molding. Machine tools are used mostly to make stamping and molding dies, and one-off parts. Also, even in modest volumes, you don't start with plain blocks of metal. You cast or forge a blank and machine off the excess.
MOTORSPORTS.
billet parts exist everywhere and are often the best and most desired.
most of the rest of your argument is accurate, though. please don't over-reach.
Jesus Christ one or two April Fool stories would have been enough. Is there any chance we could get something informative or interesting posted today? I usually get pissed off when a thread about an interesting topic gets invaded by karma whores trying to score a couple of handy 'Funny' points, but today has just been terrible.
it's called "global fun". it happens once per year. if you can't feel it, you may want to check that you're not currently rotting inside a sarlacc...
Oranges and Apples, my friends...Don't give them the credit they so desire.
yeah. christianity and islam are just as big scams. don't give them credit by putting them up on separate pedestals. the orange (scientology) is dead but still kinda fresh, while the apples (christianity and islam) have been rotting for hundreds of years.
-bc
When you buy stock on the open exchange, you're buying it from someone else who owns it, not from the company in question. So none of your money goes to the company in question, and you're not 'putting money into the company'. If you really wanted to have an effect on an 'irresponsible' company, you'd buy as much of their stock as possible, so that you'd have leverage to influence the board of directors.
Where are all of the Douglas Adams quotes??
IBM should name their computer "42".
For the office-worker, rsi is all about _which_ muscles get used and for how long. You can give these people all sorts of new input tools but if they try to use the different tools _in_the_same_way_ they're not going to get much benefit. You can't put a new tool (like a trackball) in front of someone and expect that it will just suddenly use different of their muscles. Your 'user' doesn't know what to do to fix her problem, and she's likely going to try to do the same things with the same muscles as when she had a mouse (like holding the trackball with her finger-tips). And if she's having all this trouble with the mouse then she prolly wasn't ever shown how to properly use that device either!
There is a growing industry of "ergonomics consultants" and while I wish their knowledge was common-sense to everyone, it's not. These people can help a great deal. USE THEIR SERVICES. How your user sits at her desk is crucial - the height of her desk, the height of her keyboard, the angle of her upper arms when she's typing, the angle of her knees, the angle of her neck, etc, etc, etc. It's all connected. Does she spend a lot of time on the phone? Where does she place her feet? Does her chair provide good lower back support? etc etc etc.
From my twenty-years' experience in tech/user support & physical therapy, the two most crucial considerations are 1) her upper arms are nearly vertical, and 2) her toes touch the floor while her knees are bent 90 - 100 degrees. But your big breakthrough will come when you or a human-interface consultant shows/teaches/coerces/trains this person to use _different_ muscles while still accomplishing what she needs to do.
No. Not ever. Prolly not even tomorrow. The rules aren't shifting. The "rules" are ONLY copyright law. You do not need a licnese to listen, or view, or play. If you have it, you own it. Copyright law grants exclusive distribution rights to the owners of the creative work. That's it. The owners of that work can sell it, play it, give it away on the street, broadcast it over the airwaves, but still retain copyright - i.e. no one ELSE is allowed to distribute it without the permission of the owners.
Which is why we don't see p2p music downloaders getting hauled off to court. We see p2p music DISTRIBUTORS getting hauled off to court and we see the *IAA using every opportunity to call it a war on "music downloading"... The *IAA have done a masterful job of equating "downloading music via p2p" with breaking the law, but the truth is that the _downloader_ isn't breaking the law. The provider is.
The *IAA have also done a masterful job of equating "unauthorized" with "illegal", which is nothing more than a well-disguised end-run around fair use. Fair use is defined through decades of case-law as "unauthorized but non-infringing". i.e. I do not need your permission to quote snippets of your book. I do not need your permission to pull a single-frame screen grab for my review of your movie. BECAUSE such critique, discussion, and debate is valuable to society in the same way that the original creative work is valuable to society. This was the original intent!
There used to be a balance to copyright - it was a deal between producer and gov't for the sake of society. It's being twisted into a tool for "protecting" producers from society...
And they're winning. Even as they die. Even as their business model flounders. Even as their distribution models are eroded. Even as they rack up record profits... And when they're dead and gone the laws we let them coerce our gov't into passing will remain.
These guys found ways to increase the overall value of their tangible goods through emotional appeal. Over and over and over... Why are their accomplishments diminished simply because you and I can't likely follow their path and do the same thing?
The very next day I get a call - he's at the beach and the powerbook just went dead... black screen. I think he means "at his beach house" so ask about the colour of the ac power cord (amber or green). No, he's _at_ the beach, with no ac power wire. I fuss over sand and water but he assures me it's been kept very clean.
I finally ask "How long were you using it before it went dead?"
"Oh, a few hours..."
I explain that it's prolly just a dead battery, and get back a slightly exasperated "...but you just installed the wireless yesterday! That didn't last very long!" Sigh... just when you think you can send them out on their own...
Then there was the long and very pissed off email on which I was cc'ed, which was sent to "Mailer, Daemon". The writer complained bitterly about how he never responded to her emails, he wasn't listed in the corporate phone directory (in fact, no "Mailer"s in the whole company), he kept sending her all sorts of gibberish crap, he would NOT deliver her email to her sister, etc etc. I was relieved when she was laid off before I had a chance to explain the situation to her.
Don't forget that the first European settlers to this land were a goup of people so uptight that they were (essentially) kicked out of Britain ;-)
It's easy to lose the Puritan mindset amongst the noise of more popular "traditional American values" like hard work, original thought, and speaking one's mind, but those early settlers did call themselves Pilgrims for a reason.
- B
Really? Just as was the case with:
- Longhorn
- Yukon
- Widby
- .net
- win XP
- x-box
- win 2000
- win 95
MS is all about the marketing and the fud. Product development happens in a sub-basement behind the water heater room. Having the manpower is nothing if you don't have the will or the brain-power.Who mod'ed parent 'insightful'?!?
Why are you so sure?
He's the asshat responsible for the sorry state of windows security in the first place. If that distinction isn't enough to get him fired, then it's doubtful that anything he might say would make a difference.
Actually, the wooshing sound was probably from Judge Donald Thomson's court in nearby Chicago...
What happens when Blizzard takes Joe Schmoe to court over eula violations and Joe simply says "Never saw the eula. It wasn't presented. I'm not bound by those restrictions."? Is Blizzard going to trot out their programmer to testify that the eula should have been displayed? Are they going to trot out some server log with "accept" on line 336297 right next to Joe's name? That seems pretty weak, and suddenly it's not Joe Schmoe on trial, but Blizzard's server software.
Ianal, but the term for this is 'judicial notice', and it refers to the courts' willingness to accept the reliability of a system used to gather evidence. For example, radar speed reading equipment has received judicial notice, so if you get a speeding ticket, the police don't need to again prove that "radar speed reading" is a reliable method of determining speed (never mind that it isn't). There's no way that Blizzard's html has ever received judicial notice, so it all comes down Joe's word against Blizzard's.
What's to keep someone from simply denying the whole experience? The authoring company has no record of the acceptance, and no proof that the eula was actually ever presented to the end-user.
In a regular contract dispute (which is what eula cases devolve into), the plaintiff must first prove that the defendant accepted the terms of the contract. With nothing more than a supposed click-through, the authoring company doesn't really have any proof of acceptance. I can't see how a legal case against an end-user for 'violation' could get very far in this context.
No, the naive approach is the one that says "I know which values are important and the framers of the constitution couldn't _possibly_ have meant what the words say, because that would rattle my sensibilities...". Look around. The world is a highly diverse and often dangerous place. Regulations will not change that fact.
There is a great logical mechanism for solving this argument: ask yourself "IF the authors had intended that all speech, all the time, anywhere, should be protected, then how would they have best worded the 1st amendment?" Answer is pretty much _exactly_ as they did. If they'd wanted to regulate certain kinds of speach they would have f*cking said so.
These are reasonable measures taken to prevent one canidate from "buying" and election (and, in fact, I feel they're not strong enough as they do not prevent a small handfull of candidates from locking in an election among them).
One man's reasonable is another woman's outrage. The framers of the constitution were rabid idealists who couldn't imagine a lazy or unquetioning populace. They didn't worry about big money 'buying' an election because you can't 'buy' a skeptic.
If free speech were an absolute, a large fraction of the laws in this country at the federal and state levels would have been shot down by the Supreme Court over a century ago.
The constitution is (or should be!) a lot more absolute than any particular sitting 'scotus'. A history of error-riddled tyranny in our courts is no justification for that tyranny.
Seach runs chartered volcano tours and has amassed quite a collection of pics which are up on the site too.
Ok, sure. But this is only even slightly appropriate if 'they' are fired for incompetence and their salary distributed amongst everyone who comes up with an idea. This isn't some group-think college exercise! 'They' are serious, expensive people sitting around in a room, dreaming up policies that screw the general population, and 'they' are not accountable to anyone.
I (and the rest of the US) are being oppressed and inconvenienced; the price of our freedom and dignity should not be that we help our oppressors more efficiently 'manage' us like cattle.
What is the best way to 'help'?? Vote. EVERY one of you. VOTE GODDAMNIT. If you're unsure of a good choice in a certain election, embrace mutation theory and pick the most obscure candidate.
So in almost twenty years we've gotten... lower case and serifs!! Kay's right: there's little progress when the lowest common denominator is the target audience.
If a police officer can walk up to you out of the blue and demand anything then the original concept of personal liberty is lost. What's the difference between the Hiibel example and the cops showing up at your door without a warrent? Not much. Que Benjamin Franklin quotes ad nauseum...
And THIS is the absolutely perfect example of why government-mandated monopolies are a bad thing. The govt 911 system doesn't have any hooks into it (i.e. a 10-digit) because the govt doesn't allow any competition (multiple services) so no one ever imagined there would be anything to hook into 911 and now the system is stuck closed.
This is a problem that the free-market could probably solve in less than six days. Just look at the blossoming success of private alarm and house-security services. I said this before and got no direct answers but it's still valid. '911' should be a '900'-level call. Why should my calls to my mother subsidize the fact that John Doe can't conduct his life without needing the state to step in and protect him? So far I've done just fine on my own and I'd prefer to pay-as-I-go.
If the govt people feel some over-riding need to be involved and 'make a difference' with our tax money, why don't they just open up the 911 system and then come up with a good rating and testing system so that the consumer can make an informed choice of ermergency responder?
Mandating 911 service on phone systems is like mandating break-down coverage for every new car.
Anyone else find it amusing that VOTING is managed by the State's Gaming Commision?? They've prolly got the best skillset but I'm still chuckling.
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So if the telemarketer can't figure out if the number is a land or a cell then they'd better not call it because to do so might put them in violation of the law. New freedoms on the part of the consumer don't negate the telemarketer's obligations under old laws.
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