You're reading it mostly correctly, except #1 is Stardock talking about their own system, and #2 is Microsoft talking about their own system. To make a car analogy, Car Company A says their new electric car has no gas tank, and is pure electric. Car Company B says their new hybrid gas/electric vehicle gets 72 MPG City on standard unleaded. And then you chime in accusing them of talking nonsense, because how can you get MPG on gasoline if you don't use gasoline at all???
RTFA. They mention one weakness, namely that there are some evolutionary steps that seem highly improbably, as any intermediate step would be at a disadvantage, and there are no fossil records showing such intermediate steps. This is all true. But they don't want to state this hole as a hole with no data. They want to present it as proof that evolution is impossible. They say precisely that, the textbooks can present evolution, but must make the case that these missing links prove evolution to be impossible. This is even worse than teaching ID side by side with evolution. This is saying fine, you can leave out ID, but you need a little spot at the end where you say that evolution is impossible.
Anyways, this flaw shouldn't be mentioned at all, unless the flaw with this flaw gets equal detail! First of all, evolution does not preclude steps that make things worse for the animal, as this would imply intelligent control of the process! An intermediate step towards a heart-driven circulatory system might indeed provide no benefit, and even weaken the animal. However, if it doesn't weaken it to the point where its lethal before breeding age, the mutation will survive. Perhaps not thrive, but it will stick around, like many genetic disorders do! So there goes that! Just because a system is "irreducibly complex" doesn't mean it can't evolve, because no rule says you can't evolve a part of a system that is completely useless! It just has to not prevent you from breeding. Even if you are quite disadvantaged it can still be passed on, its just unlikely to last long. Also, irreducibly complex is a proof by example. It says "I cannot think of an intermediate step, therefore there is none." Imagine if that worked! Consider that 1^2 + 2^2 != 3^2. Therefore there are no Pythagorean triples. How about this: An archway is irreducibly complex. Without the arch, nothing holds up the keystone. Without the keystone, nothing holds up the arch. Therefore, an arch cannot be built, only God can create one, fully formed. This is actually true, an arch is irreducibly complex by creationist's definition of that beloved term. After all, take any piece out, and it breaks. Looks like a system being irreducibly complex doesn't prove a damn thing, as we CAN build arches. But we do it by using scaffholding to hold up the structure in progress, until we're ready to remove it! The ability to have a more complex system reduce to your system is ignored, and should not be! There's a specific example in nature of this happening (and a counter example to one of the systems Behe "proved" by example cannot possible evolve:
There's a spider that dangles a single thread with glue at the end. It then emits a moth pheromone. When a moth comes, stuck to the glue. Behe said this is irriducable. Without the thread, nothing is caught. Without the glue, nothing is caught. Without the pheromone, nothing is caught. But he never thought about the opposite kind of reduction, did he? Take a spider that spins a full sized, sticky web. It catches enough moths to survive, usually. Now, it starts to emit a moth pheromone. Suddenly its catching many times more moths. It survives much more handily now. But its catching a lot more than it needs to eat. Those spiders who then evolve to spin smaller webs are at no disadantage, they still catch enough to get by. Eventually it gets down to one strand. This spider still catches enough food. It has the advantage of needing less material to make a web. It has the advantage of trapping and killing less unneeded food, so there is less chance of killing off all your food in the immediate area. Same argument for having only a sticky end, instead of the whole strand being sticky! Looks like just because you can't think of a way to get there, doesn't mean there isn't one! Behe's most famous example is the mousetrap. Can't work without the base, the pressure plate, the latch, the spring, and the hammer. Behe said its useless without all 5, the mousetrap is not an improveme
I mean, unlike a thumb drive, you couldn't simply add a little write lock button on the motherboard to lock the bios into read only mode, could you?
Why the heck not? They used to be the standard. But, people found it ANNOYING. So, it's a much touted feature that the modern BIOS can be rewritten by anybody, without direct access to the machine.
My first flashable BIOS, you had to make a boot disk with the new BIOS image, and flashing tool. Then you had to turn the PC off and open the case. Then you had to short the "Write BIOS" jumper. Put the jumper from "OFF" to "ON" for 3+ seconds, then move it back onto the "OFF" pegs. This made it so that the BIOS will accept writes on the next reboot only. You cannot leave the jumper on the "ON" pegs or it won't post, thus preventing you from forgetting about it and leaving the BIOS writable.
Anyways, my new board has two BIOS chips. One is read only I think. There's allegedly a jumper I can set to make it bypass the primary BIOS. It's for recovering from an interrupted or bad patch, but I imagine it would work just fine for removing a BIOS virus, too. (I say allegedly because I've never had cause to look for it).
An Open Source BIOS would not be immune to this, at least, depending on how it works. It patches its own code in. Now, that means on an Open Source BIOS, it could work fine, either because the same code is in the same spot, or because the virus looks for the right spot instead of always writing the same address. Or it could completely trash the BIOS. Either way you're screwed! There's also possibility #3 that it would patch over unused blocks and have no effect, or it would be unable to find the right spot to patch, and so do nothing.
If you can't get it, you HAVE to walk, because not a movie in history has made money! All 6 starwars movies tanked. Lord of the Rings? Huge bust. The Spiderman Movies? Total financial ruin. Creative accounting not only ensure that they don't have to pay anybody who agreed to net points, but also, they can apply for government bailouts, and write it off as a lost investment on their taxes.
Some people never answer their door if they don't know the person in the peephole. And some people never check their mail, either. However, going to their residence in person, and sending registered mail, are both perfectly acceptable. If you don't answer your door, and don't respond within 30 days of receiving registered mail from the court, you will get a default judgment. Allowing additional service by Facebook is doing the defendant a favour! It notified them by one more avenue. Fine. They ignore their door, their mailbox, their phone. Maybe they read their facebook though. That gives them one more chance. I don't see how this is in any way bad for them, since precedent already establishes that Facebook can only be used if all other methods of contact have failed. This is not a first method, its the method of last resort. Prior to facebook, the typical method of last resort was to put a notice in the classified section of the paper. Less people read the public notices section classified for than read their facebook messages, I'm sure.
That applies to the Oz case, anyway, where they'd already been contacted by phone, mail, and a person at their door, none of which were responded to. That's more than sufficient for a default judgment! The NZ case, less so. The person had left the country, moved to England. He had no known address. But he did have a facebook account and e-mail address, both of which he uses regularly to talk to his family! It was known to be him, and he's known to check it! Serving his immediate family, (and his friend and alleged co-conspirator) and serving him by e-mail and facebook, that has to be sufficient, or else he just is immune to the law.
Since you read the link and discovered that the plaintiff had corresponded with the defendant via the facebook account, and associated e-mail address, on previous occasions. At least, that's the NZ case. The guy was being sued by his FATHER after he stole a quarter million from the father's business. He had moved to England, and left no forwarding address. But he did communicate with his father by e-mail and FaceBook. Thus, the court ruled that it was a method of contacting him. It was already established that that account belonged to him. A friend of his was served as a co-defendant. They knew HIS address.
This isn't CSI, and it isn't a criminal case. On TV, its a daily occurrence that somebody would make a fake e-mail address and facebook account in the name of some guy, including photos of him, and use that to contact his father and talk about family stuff and his daily life. In real life, I'm sure people make fake facebooks of their mates/enemies all the time. Put some photos on there, talk like a jackass, e-mail it around and laugh. Maybe they use it to send hate mail to random people, too! I doubt many of them use them for months on end, discussing family business with the father of their "prey". Because, why? Anyways, courts have always served documents on people with no forwarding address, by either leaving the document with family (in this case the plaintiff IS immediate family) or by placing an ad in the classified section of a paper local to the last known address! Nobody has ever been outraged at this practice. I'd say that facebooking and e-mailing him at accounts he's known to use regularly, and confirmed by family members to be his real accounts, is more reliable than putting a classified ad in every British paper. The judge apparently agrees.
The Oz case is even more cut and dry. That was about a defaulted 6 figure loan, with their house as collateral. They wouldn't answer the door at their listed address. They wouldn't answer the phone number or email they gave to the bank, either. But, the bank found both their facebook accounts. Both matched their name and birthday. They listed each other as friends. It was them. They had already received a default judgment. This is because they were served by phone, mail, and e-mail, and would have been served in person too had they answered the door at their listed place of residence. They either had moved with no forwarding address (though the house was still owned by them!) or were purposefully ignoring officers of the court. They weren't served by facebook at all. What they were, was issued a notice of the default judgment by facebook. The judge decided that since they weren't reachable any other way, that would be fine. But they'd already been ruled against, well before that happened. Because they didn't read their mail, their email, answer their phone, or answer the door. Maybe they were on a very long, multi-month vacation! Who knows. If so, sucks to be them. But if you leave your home unattended for months straight, right after defaulting on a 6 figure lone, you get what's coming to you. The facebook business is just how they were notified of the default judgment (in addition to the notice on their front door!) They were not served a subpoena by facebook. And again, traditionally the notice would be done via a public notice in the local paper. Facebook is more likely to be read than that.
Finally, Oz courts have already ruled Facebook cannot be used unless all others methods of attempting to contact the party have been exhausted. That is, they had tried going in person, and by registered mail and phone, with no response. The judge said that they have to also send registered mail to his PO Box and give sufficient time for a reply, before he would allow them to attempt to contact the person by facebook. Sounds reasonable. You can't get out of court by moving without a forwarding address.
Canada does have a 5th amendment equivalent. You cannot be compelled to testify at your own trial, at least not to anything related to the charge. However, if issued a subpoena for somebody else's trial, you must give testimony, even if it implicates you in a crime. That testimony cannot be used against you in another trial though. Unless its a trial for perjury, of course.
But this person is not being charged with a crime. And he won't be, not unless something on his facebook page show's he's outright lying under oath. What it might do is look bad. But even in the states I don't think the 5th protects you from being compelled to give testimony that might damage your civil case! "You say you are miserable all the time" "yes" "Here you are dancing in a youtube video. where you miserable then?" "FIFTH!" I don't think so...
Be careful what you wish for. I think it would be worse if trivial crap was also bogged down for weeks in pointless debate, and crammed full of riders, wouldn't it?;)
See how you feel when somebody puts posters up in your neighborhood with your face on them and "Possible Child Molester". The statement is true, you could be a child molester, who knows? Therefore, the statement is true, and he has an absolute defense against any libel charges. He simply made a 100% true statement, and it is not his fault people interpreted the poster as implying there was actually any reason to believe you ARE. Therefore, I would say that any ruling that your reason for making a "true statement" is irrelevant, would be a terrible ruling. If malice didn't matter, only truthiness, you could just make whatever libelous statements you wanted! Don't say "Politician X is a criminal who takes bribes and eats puppies and also he's gay". Just say "Some evidence indicates..." after all, if you say it, and somebody hears it, it's hearsay. And hearsay is a type of evidence (unreliable is a type!) Therefore, you made a true statement, and are 100% immune from any repercussions, even though there is no reason to think that at all, and you are doing it out of pure malice.
Because he's had time to read every policy and law for every federal agency, and had time to amend every single policy, and force through new bills, for every single case. Thus, any omission is due to willful malice.
They accepted 70% as correct (15% said that), and 65%-75% as close enough (47% said that). Which is funny, because more recent surveys say its 71%, not 70%, so they accepted the "wrong" "exact" number.
This has nothing to do with loading unprotected DRM-free content onto your Kindle. Kindle can load Amazons proprietary DRM'd format, MOBI format, and.txt. Anything else you have to ask Amazon to please convert it to their secret format. However, MOBI files can be DRM'd. The Kindle can read DRM'd MOBI files. However, only if they were encrypted with its public key! This script allows you to view your Kindle's MOBI ID, so you can give it to an eBook service and buy a DRM'd eBook from them that will work on your Kindle. This is very bad for Amazon, as it means you can buy eBook from somebody who isn't Amazon!
Isn't that how politicians do everything? No Child Left Behind tripled the amount of fresh veggies children were eating in cafeterias, by defining ketchup, relish, and French...sorry, FREEDOM fries as fresh vegetables, since they are all plant matter, and all WERE fresh before being cooked. Awesome work, children are eating healthier and they didn't even have to spend money on giving them different food than before! They also drastically reduced animal testing within the US by defining rodents and birds as non-animal vermin. For a grand finale, they redefined the poverty line, thus reducing the number of low income families! Then for an encore they changed the definition of what it means to be "unemployed" and drastically reduced unemployment! Truly amazing what you can to dramatically improve the country without doing anything other than changing the definitions of words!
They already did that I think. The company is toast. The $5000 fine and/or jail time is for the owner, with them also looking for other people to charge criminally.
is old. Its been known for years now. Its an Access database. Pretty sure you could reboot it, then hold down shift while it was starting to prevent the "auto-run" loading of the forms. And all the audit logs are just Visual Basic "triggers" that insert into a "log" table. Changing votes is as easy as going to the vote table and changing them. The Visual Basic triggers will be fired off, and insert crap into the logs. Then you just go to the log table and delete the new entries. There aren't logs of log changes or there would be an infinite loop of log entries, so you've just erased all record of your tampering. BlackBoxVoting.org has had detailed instructions up for as long as I've been hearing the name "Diebold".
My brother challenged a speeding ticket. Saying that not only was he not speeding, but that his make model and paint color do not match the police officers testimony, so clearly he pulled over the wrong car. The judge doubled his fine and took his license away for implying a police officer had lied.
Slashdot (as a single minded group) might suppose that most everybody on Slashdot cares about open files, formats, and software. However, Slashdot certainly doesn't operate under the false impression that it represents normal people!
The Honor Harrington series is about how war sucks. She gets mutilated and nearly killed almost every book. In every book 90% of the characters introduced are killed. Ace pilots with lots of character development? Oops lucky shot they're all dead now. A minor firefight typically wrecks the ship and kills lots of the crew. There's no, "Shields holding Captain" like in StarTrek. Its all about chickenhawk politicians rattling sabres and pushing for "Glorious war" and totally ruining their nation. The fact that you have a Mary-Sue who always wins and kicks the bad guys ass doesn't change the fact that she doesn't want to fight, and that stupid politicians make it necessary. The foppish nobles who sign on for the glory of battle end up with their eyes open, or dead. Victories are almost always Pyhrric, with the victor suffering horrific losses, holding off annihilation, but with an enemy with many times their numbers. Again, as I said, almost all the new characters in each book die by the end.
Just because the Admiralty and House of Lords are all very rah rah pro war, and are major players in the plot...doesn't mean the book is. Anybody on the "good" side that believes in the glory if war is almost invariably the "enemy within".
David Drake's work is also very much along the same lines. Just because its a military book doesn't mean its pro-war. I understand Eric Flint is also much along those same lines, but haven't read his stuff. Bujold hardly strikes me as glorifying war. The main character in the Miles Vorkosagan series is considered a freak because he's deformed due to a nerve gas attack while his mother was pregnant. He's a secret agent, he invariably works to stop assassinations and wars. He almost always ends the book with broken bones and other injuries. He's now epileptic due to severe nerve damage, and has to regularly induce seizures to prevent them from happening at inopportune moments. Glorious indeed.
All in all, I would say the unifying theme across Baen's sci-fi military books (those I've read anyway) is politicians who believe in the glory of war, and the grunts who end up dying for political stupidity. I see some AC saying that's the same thing as glorifying war, which makes no sense to me at all! So...the politicians are stupid for thinking war is glorious. The actual soldiers know its hell and they don't want to be there...thus the message is that soldiers are better than politicians...therefore war IS glorious because it makes you a better person? Damned if you do, damned if you don't, apparently?
He doesn't have to testify against himself except where he already has. He doesn't have to turn over his decryption key. He does have to enter it for them so they can examine the encrypted Z: partition. The part he does have to testify to is that A) It is his laptop. And B) He stores his pictures on Z:. Admitting these things will definitely incriminate him if those pictures are child porn. However, he cannot plead the 5th because he already admitted to both A) and B) when questioned by the officers. Thus, when he stops disobeying a court order, and opens the drive for them (again, he does NOT have to tell a soul what his password is), and they find child porn, he cannot plead the 5th on whether or not it was his. He already said he uses Z: for pictures, so the fact that he knew the password isn't self incrimination. Think of it this way. Your house has a safe in it. The cops think you are hiding drugs and have a warrant. They ask about the safe. If you say "It was there when we moved in, I don't know the combo." then they have to cut it open. If however, you say "Ya I hide stuff in there," you cannot plead the 5th when asked to open it. Yes, opening it shows you know how to open it, and likely did open it to keep whatever they find in there. But, you already said you put things in there, so knowing the combination doesn't incriminate you any farther than you've already admitted.
Bad analogy is bad. This is a case of, you let him in to your home because he asks. On your desk is a note "Get Hydroponics Equipment for the Basement". He asks whats in the basement and you say "I grow plants down there." What kind? "I plead the 5th!" Can you show me the basement? "I PLEAD THE 5TH." The cop now has probable cause and goes to look himself. The door is locked by a numeric keypad. "What is the code, sir?" "5th!!!!!"
They don't want in because its encrypted. They want in because the recently used files section had child-porn names in it, and they were all located on Z:. The judge ruled that he must comply with the warrant. He doesn't need to turn over his password, but he does need to enter it for them. He said its his laptop, and he said he keeps pictures on Z:. The "already cooperated" part is saying he cannot plead the 5th on whether or not it is his laptop, and whether or not the pictures on Z: are his. He said they are already. There are no "Backsies".
You can take the 5th all you want. You can't take it on what you've already admitted to. He said its his laptop, and he said Z: is an encrypted partition where he stores the images. The image files names from recent documents looked like child porn. That got them a warrant. He refused to cooperate with the warrant. The judge said you can't take the 5th on whether those pictures are there, since you admitted it. Since they are there, you must cooperate with the warrant and let us see them. You don't have to testify as to the password, but you DO have to use it to show us the files.
Ted "Tubes" Stevens was convicted of numerous corruption charges. Shockingly, 1 month after his conviction, he failed to be reelected, if only by a narrow margin;) (There is no law preventing convicted felons from serving on the senate, even from jail!)
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You're reading it mostly correctly, except #1 is Stardock talking about their own system, and #2 is Microsoft talking about their own system. To make a car analogy, Car Company A says their new electric car has no gas tank, and is pure electric. Car Company B says their new hybrid gas/electric vehicle gets 72 MPG City on standard unleaded. And then you chime in accusing them of talking nonsense, because how can you get MPG on gasoline if you don't use gasoline at all???
Adding conspiracy just increases your jail sentence.
RTFA. They mention one weakness, namely that there are some evolutionary steps that seem highly improbably, as any intermediate step would be at a disadvantage, and there are no fossil records showing such intermediate steps. This is all true. But they don't want to state this hole as a hole with no data. They want to present it as proof that evolution is impossible. They say precisely that, the textbooks can present evolution, but must make the case that these missing links prove evolution to be impossible. This is even worse than teaching ID side by side with evolution. This is saying fine, you can leave out ID, but you need a little spot at the end where you say that evolution is impossible.
Anyways, this flaw shouldn't be mentioned at all, unless the flaw with this flaw gets equal detail! First of all, evolution does not preclude steps that make things worse for the animal, as this would imply intelligent control of the process! An intermediate step towards a heart-driven circulatory system might indeed provide no benefit, and even weaken the animal. However, if it doesn't weaken it to the point where its lethal before breeding age, the mutation will survive. Perhaps not thrive, but it will stick around, like many genetic disorders do! So there goes that! Just because a system is "irreducibly complex" doesn't mean it can't evolve, because no rule says you can't evolve a part of a system that is completely useless! It just has to not prevent you from breeding. Even if you are quite disadvantaged it can still be passed on, its just unlikely to last long. Also, irreducibly complex is a proof by example. It says "I cannot think of an intermediate step, therefore there is none." Imagine if that worked! Consider that 1^2 + 2^2 != 3^2. Therefore there are no Pythagorean triples. How about this: An archway is irreducibly complex. Without the arch, nothing holds up the keystone. Without the keystone, nothing holds up the arch. Therefore, an arch cannot be built, only God can create one, fully formed. This is actually true, an arch is irreducibly complex by creationist's definition of that beloved term. After all, take any piece out, and it breaks. Looks like a system being irreducibly complex doesn't prove a damn thing, as we CAN build arches. But we do it by using scaffholding to hold up the structure in progress, until we're ready to remove it! The ability to have a more complex system reduce to your system is ignored, and should not be! There's a specific example in nature of this happening (and a counter example to one of the systems Behe "proved" by example cannot possible evolve:
There's a spider that dangles a single thread with glue at the end. It then emits a moth pheromone. When a moth comes, stuck to the glue. Behe said this is irriducable. Without the thread, nothing is caught. Without the glue, nothing is caught. Without the pheromone, nothing is caught. But he never thought about the opposite kind of reduction, did he? Take a spider that spins a full sized, sticky web. It catches enough moths to survive, usually. Now, it starts to emit a moth pheromone. Suddenly its catching many times more moths. It survives much more handily now. But its catching a lot more than it needs to eat. Those spiders who then evolve to spin smaller webs are at no disadantage, they still catch enough to get by. Eventually it gets down to one strand. This spider still catches enough food. It has the advantage of needing less material to make a web. It has the advantage of trapping and killing less unneeded food, so there is less chance of killing off all your food in the immediate area. Same argument for having only a sticky end, instead of the whole strand being sticky! Looks like just because you can't think of a way to get there, doesn't mean there isn't one! Behe's most famous example is the mousetrap. Can't work without the base, the pressure plate, the latch, the spring, and the hammer. Behe said its useless without all 5, the mousetrap is not an improveme
Why the heck not? They used to be the standard. But, people found it ANNOYING. So, it's a much touted feature that the modern BIOS can be rewritten by anybody, without direct access to the machine. My first flashable BIOS, you had to make a boot disk with the new BIOS image, and flashing tool. Then you had to turn the PC off and open the case. Then you had to short the "Write BIOS" jumper. Put the jumper from "OFF" to "ON" for 3+ seconds, then move it back onto the "OFF" pegs. This made it so that the BIOS will accept writes on the next reboot only. You cannot leave the jumper on the "ON" pegs or it won't post, thus preventing you from forgetting about it and leaving the BIOS writable.
Anyways, my new board has two BIOS chips. One is read only I think. There's allegedly a jumper I can set to make it bypass the primary BIOS. It's for recovering from an interrupted or bad patch, but I imagine it would work just fine for removing a BIOS virus, too. (I say allegedly because I've never had cause to look for it).
An Open Source BIOS would not be immune to this, at least, depending on how it works. It patches its own code in. Now, that means on an Open Source BIOS, it could work fine, either because the same code is in the same spot, or because the virus looks for the right spot instead of always writing the same address. Or it could completely trash the BIOS. Either way you're screwed! There's also possibility #3 that it would patch over unused blocks and have no effect, or it would be unable to find the right spot to patch, and so do nothing.
If you can't get it, you HAVE to walk, because not a movie in history has made money! All 6 starwars movies tanked. Lord of the Rings? Huge bust. The Spiderman Movies? Total financial ruin. Creative accounting not only ensure that they don't have to pay anybody who agreed to net points, but also, they can apply for government bailouts, and write it off as a lost investment on their taxes.
Some people never answer their door if they don't know the person in the peephole. And some people never check their mail, either. However, going to their residence in person, and sending registered mail, are both perfectly acceptable. If you don't answer your door, and don't respond within 30 days of receiving registered mail from the court, you will get a default judgment. Allowing additional service by Facebook is doing the defendant a favour! It notified them by one more avenue. Fine. They ignore their door, their mailbox, their phone. Maybe they read their facebook though. That gives them one more chance. I don't see how this is in any way bad for them, since precedent already establishes that Facebook can only be used if all other methods of contact have failed. This is not a first method, its the method of last resort. Prior to facebook, the typical method of last resort was to put a notice in the classified section of the paper. Less people read the public notices section classified for than read their facebook messages, I'm sure.
That applies to the Oz case, anyway, where they'd already been contacted by phone, mail, and a person at their door, none of which were responded to. That's more than sufficient for a default judgment! The NZ case, less so. The person had left the country, moved to England. He had no known address. But he did have a facebook account and e-mail address, both of which he uses regularly to talk to his family! It was known to be him, and he's known to check it! Serving his immediate family, (and his friend and alleged co-conspirator) and serving him by e-mail and facebook, that has to be sufficient, or else he just is immune to the law.
Since you read the link and discovered that the plaintiff had corresponded with the defendant via the facebook account, and associated e-mail address, on previous occasions. At least, that's the NZ case. The guy was being sued by his FATHER after he stole a quarter million from the father's business. He had moved to England, and left no forwarding address. But he did communicate with his father by e-mail and FaceBook. Thus, the court ruled that it was a method of contacting him. It was already established that that account belonged to him. A friend of his was served as a co-defendant. They knew HIS address.
This isn't CSI, and it isn't a criminal case. On TV, its a daily occurrence that somebody would make a fake e-mail address and facebook account in the name of some guy, including photos of him, and use that to contact his father and talk about family stuff and his daily life. In real life, I'm sure people make fake facebooks of their mates/enemies all the time. Put some photos on there, talk like a jackass, e-mail it around and laugh. Maybe they use it to send hate mail to random people, too! I doubt many of them use them for months on end, discussing family business with the father of their "prey". Because, why? Anyways, courts have always served documents on people with no forwarding address, by either leaving the document with family (in this case the plaintiff IS immediate family) or by placing an ad in the classified section of a paper local to the last known address! Nobody has ever been outraged at this practice. I'd say that facebooking and e-mailing him at accounts he's known to use regularly, and confirmed by family members to be his real accounts, is more reliable than putting a classified ad in every British paper. The judge apparently agrees.
The Oz case is even more cut and dry. That was about a defaulted 6 figure loan, with their house as collateral. They wouldn't answer the door at their listed address. They wouldn't answer the phone number or email they gave to the bank, either. But, the bank found both their facebook accounts. Both matched their name and birthday. They listed each other as friends. It was them. They had already received a default judgment. This is because they were served by phone, mail, and e-mail, and would have been served in person too had they answered the door at their listed place of residence. They either had moved with no forwarding address (though the house was still owned by them!) or were purposefully ignoring officers of the court. They weren't served by facebook at all. What they were, was issued a notice of the default judgment by facebook. The judge decided that since they weren't reachable any other way, that would be fine. But they'd already been ruled against, well before that happened. Because they didn't read their mail, their email, answer their phone, or answer the door. Maybe they were on a very long, multi-month vacation! Who knows. If so, sucks to be them. But if you leave your home unattended for months straight, right after defaulting on a 6 figure lone, you get what's coming to you. The facebook business is just how they were notified of the default judgment (in addition to the notice on their front door!) They were not served a subpoena by facebook. And again, traditionally the notice would be done via a public notice in the local paper. Facebook is more likely to be read than that.
Finally, Oz courts have already ruled Facebook cannot be used unless all others methods of attempting to contact the party have been exhausted. That is, they had tried going in person, and by registered mail and phone, with no response. The judge said that they have to also send registered mail to his PO Box and give sufficient time for a reply, before he would allow them to attempt to contact the person by facebook. Sounds reasonable. You can't get out of court by moving without a forwarding address.
Canada does have a 5th amendment equivalent. You cannot be compelled to testify at your own trial, at least not to anything related to the charge. However, if issued a subpoena for somebody else's trial, you must give testimony, even if it implicates you in a crime. That testimony cannot be used against you in another trial though. Unless its a trial for perjury, of course.
But this person is not being charged with a crime. And he won't be, not unless something on his facebook page show's he's outright lying under oath. What it might do is look bad. But even in the states I don't think the 5th protects you from being compelled to give testimony that might damage your civil case! "You say you are miserable all the time" "yes" "Here you are dancing in a youtube video. where you miserable then?" "FIFTH!" I don't think so...
Be careful what you wish for. I think it would be worse if trivial crap was also bogged down for weeks in pointless debate, and crammed full of riders, wouldn't it? ;)
See how you feel when somebody puts posters up in your neighborhood with your face on them and "Possible Child Molester". The statement is true, you could be a child molester, who knows? Therefore, the statement is true, and he has an absolute defense against any libel charges. He simply made a 100% true statement, and it is not his fault people interpreted the poster as implying there was actually any reason to believe you ARE. Therefore, I would say that any ruling that your reason for making a "true statement" is irrelevant, would be a terrible ruling. If malice didn't matter, only truthiness, you could just make whatever libelous statements you wanted! Don't say "Politician X is a criminal who takes bribes and eats puppies and also he's gay". Just say "Some evidence indicates..." after all, if you say it, and somebody hears it, it's hearsay. And hearsay is a type of evidence (unreliable is a type!) Therefore, you made a true statement, and are 100% immune from any repercussions, even though there is no reason to think that at all, and you are doing it out of pure malice.
Because he's had time to read every policy and law for every federal agency, and had time to amend every single policy, and force through new bills, for every single case. Thus, any omission is due to willful malice.
They accepted 70% as correct (15% said that), and 65%-75% as close enough (47% said that). Which is funny, because more recent surveys say its 71%, not 70%, so they accepted the "wrong" "exact" number.
This has nothing to do with loading unprotected DRM-free content onto your Kindle. Kindle can load Amazons proprietary DRM'd format, MOBI format, and .txt. Anything else you have to ask Amazon to please convert it to their secret format. However, MOBI files can be DRM'd. The Kindle can read DRM'd MOBI files. However, only if they were encrypted with its public key! This script allows you to view your Kindle's MOBI ID, so you can give it to an eBook service and buy a DRM'd eBook from them that will work on your Kindle. This is very bad for Amazon, as it means you can buy eBook from somebody who isn't Amazon!
"If he died in the middle of posting, why would be bother clicking submit?"
"Perhaps he was dictating?"
Isn't that how politicians do everything? No Child Left Behind tripled the amount of fresh veggies children were eating in cafeterias, by defining ketchup, relish, and French...sorry, FREEDOM fries as fresh vegetables, since they are all plant matter, and all WERE fresh before being cooked. Awesome work, children are eating healthier and they didn't even have to spend money on giving them different food than before! They also drastically reduced animal testing within the US by defining rodents and birds as non-animal vermin. For a grand finale, they redefined the poverty line, thus reducing the number of low income families! Then for an encore they changed the definition of what it means to be "unemployed" and drastically reduced unemployment! Truly amazing what you can to dramatically improve the country without doing anything other than changing the definitions of words!
They already did that I think. The company is toast. The $5000 fine and/or jail time is for the owner, with them also looking for other people to charge criminally.
is old. Its been known for years now. Its an Access database. Pretty sure you could reboot it, then hold down shift while it was starting to prevent the "auto-run" loading of the forms. And all the audit logs are just Visual Basic "triggers" that insert into a "log" table. Changing votes is as easy as going to the vote table and changing them. The Visual Basic triggers will be fired off, and insert crap into the logs. Then you just go to the log table and delete the new entries. There aren't logs of log changes or there would be an infinite loop of log entries, so you've just erased all record of your tampering. BlackBoxVoting.org has had detailed instructions up for as long as I've been hearing the name "Diebold".
My brother challenged a speeding ticket. Saying that not only was he not speeding, but that his make model and paint color do not match the police officers testimony, so clearly he pulled over the wrong car. The judge doubled his fine and took his license away for implying a police officer had lied.
Slashdot (as a single minded group) might suppose that most everybody on Slashdot cares about open files, formats, and software. However, Slashdot certainly doesn't operate under the false impression that it represents normal people!
The Honor Harrington series is about how war sucks. She gets mutilated and nearly killed almost every book. In every book 90% of the characters introduced are killed. Ace pilots with lots of character development? Oops lucky shot they're all dead now. A minor firefight typically wrecks the ship and kills lots of the crew. There's no, "Shields holding Captain" like in StarTrek. Its all about chickenhawk politicians rattling sabres and pushing for "Glorious war" and totally ruining their nation. The fact that you have a Mary-Sue who always wins and kicks the bad guys ass doesn't change the fact that she doesn't want to fight, and that stupid politicians make it necessary. The foppish nobles who sign on for the glory of battle end up with their eyes open, or dead. Victories are almost always Pyhrric, with the victor suffering horrific losses, holding off annihilation, but with an enemy with many times their numbers. Again, as I said, almost all the new characters in each book die by the end.
Just because the Admiralty and House of Lords are all very rah rah pro war, and are major players in the plot...doesn't mean the book is. Anybody on the "good" side that believes in the glory if war is almost invariably the "enemy within".
David Drake's work is also very much along the same lines. Just because its a military book doesn't mean its pro-war. I understand Eric Flint is also much along those same lines, but haven't read his stuff. Bujold hardly strikes me as glorifying war. The main character in the Miles Vorkosagan series is considered a freak because he's deformed due to a nerve gas attack while his mother was pregnant. He's a secret agent, he invariably works to stop assassinations and wars. He almost always ends the book with broken bones and other injuries. He's now epileptic due to severe nerve damage, and has to regularly induce seizures to prevent them from happening at inopportune moments. Glorious indeed.
All in all, I would say the unifying theme across Baen's sci-fi military books (those I've read anyway) is politicians who believe in the glory of war, and the grunts who end up dying for political stupidity. I see some AC saying that's the same thing as glorifying war, which makes no sense to me at all! So...the politicians are stupid for thinking war is glorious. The actual soldiers know its hell and they don't want to be there...thus the message is that soldiers are better than politicians...therefore war IS glorious because it makes you a better person? Damned if you do, damned if you don't, apparently?
He doesn't have to testify against himself except where he already has. He doesn't have to turn over his decryption key. He does have to enter it for them so they can examine the encrypted Z: partition. The part he does have to testify to is that A) It is his laptop. And B) He stores his pictures on Z:. Admitting these things will definitely incriminate him if those pictures are child porn. However, he cannot plead the 5th because he already admitted to both A) and B) when questioned by the officers. Thus, when he stops disobeying a court order, and opens the drive for them (again, he does NOT have to tell a soul what his password is), and they find child porn, he cannot plead the 5th on whether or not it was his. He already said he uses Z: for pictures, so the fact that he knew the password isn't self incrimination. Think of it this way. Your house has a safe in it. The cops think you are hiding drugs and have a warrant. They ask about the safe. If you say "It was there when we moved in, I don't know the combo." then they have to cut it open. If however, you say "Ya I hide stuff in there," you cannot plead the 5th when asked to open it. Yes, opening it shows you know how to open it, and likely did open it to keep whatever they find in there. But, you already said you put things in there, so knowing the combination doesn't incriminate you any farther than you've already admitted.
Bad analogy is bad. This is a case of, you let him in to your home because he asks. On your desk is a note "Get Hydroponics Equipment for the Basement". He asks whats in the basement and you say "I grow plants down there." What kind? "I plead the 5th!" Can you show me the basement? "I PLEAD THE 5TH." The cop now has probable cause and goes to look himself. The door is locked by a numeric keypad. "What is the code, sir?" "5th!!!!!"
They don't want in because its encrypted. They want in because the recently used files section had child-porn names in it, and they were all located on Z:. The judge ruled that he must comply with the warrant. He doesn't need to turn over his password, but he does need to enter it for them. He said its his laptop, and he said he keeps pictures on Z:. The "already cooperated" part is saying he cannot plead the 5th on whether or not it is his laptop, and whether or not the pictures on Z: are his. He said they are already. There are no "Backsies".
You can take the 5th all you want. You can't take it on what you've already admitted to. He said its his laptop, and he said Z: is an encrypted partition where he stores the images. The image files names from recent documents looked like child porn. That got them a warrant. He refused to cooperate with the warrant. The judge said you can't take the 5th on whether those pictures are there, since you admitted it. Since they are there, you must cooperate with the warrant and let us see them. You don't have to testify as to the password, but you DO have to use it to show us the files.
Links in Slashdot comments aren't followed by Google, so at this rate, nothing at all will change
Ted "Tubes" Stevens was convicted of numerous corruption charges. Shockingly, 1 month after his conviction, he failed to be reelected, if only by a narrow margin ;) (There is no law preventing convicted felons from serving on the senate, even from jail!)