It's a very interesting and important case. I look forward to more developments.
I really don't want this to be the case that the community rallys around, because she clearly (in my mind) did what is claimed. I think this is a slam-dunk for a civil trial and I'd say it would have a pretty good chance even for criminal (if that were the case).
Having worked as a waiter before, I'd say that you have no idea how stressful and hectic it can be. A good waiter does have a number of specialized skills, including diplomacy, efficient time management, and expectation management. Having a good memory, the ability to multitask and think on your feet, and keep the customer satisfied as their sole conduit to the (usually harried and even more frazzled) kitchen staff is a lot more challenging than you'd think.
I've never been a waiter but I'll second that. Let's say the average tip is the aforementioned 18%, and since the whole point is to be a discretionary reward, that I range from 10%-25% for below average to above average service. If the check for a party of two comes to $50, then I might tip between $5 and $7.50 (examples only, I don't actually count pennies). Surely the difference between a good and bad server is worth $2.50.
So what do I get for my extra $2.50? Not having to ask twice for condiments. Having the guy notice I need a refill before I give up in vain and start holding the glass above my head. Not sitting for a half hour waiting for my check. Not getting my order screwed up. If someone does all those things they make my dinner more enjoyable; I have no problem rewarding them for it.
Now, one could claim from a statistical standpoint that the amount of the tip need not correspond directly to the value of the service, but to the discretionary portion of the service alone. A tip of zero should correspond to bare minimum service or the least amount a humane person would leave, with the employer picking up the difference and increasing salaries. In America, anything below 10% is considered unconscionable. What's the point of the tipping system, if it's not actually discretionary? Just save me the hassle and pay the servers more. That way, they don't worry about getting stiffed by tightwads, and leaving a sizeable tip would be more of an actual reward than something servers count on for their salary (which seems to have been the original point of the whole custom).
But in general, having had a number of friends who were servers in college and hearing all the crap they have to do...yeah, cut the server a break. Another reason that tips seem high: yes, they probably do make $30 an hour on Saturday night - but that accounts for 1) the fact they have to work Saturday night, which sucks, 2) it's not always that busy and lucrative, and 3) at a lot of places, they have to show up before the restaurant opens to do prep and stay afterwards to do close, at which point they make half minimum wage. And if it really were that lucrative, you'd see a lot more non-teenagers making a career out of being an Applebys server, but somehow I think it's not that great a deal.
The purpose of a company is generally to make money, not to crusade for some political stance. The investors want a good return on their investment, not a philosophy.
Right. And, assuming our government does a good job of protecting the market, it's actually *our* job as consumers to show them that we'll pay for what they want - ie, their desire to make money is aligned with our desire to get good stuff. In this case, they're seeing the crap slung about with regard to the heavily protected iPhone and deciding to profit from it.
How many times have I seen people scream about what companies should do, only to not patronize said company when they do it. If a company listens to its customers, it's time for them to put their money where their mouths are.
As a pro feminist, I was in favor of the law. We really need to get rid of pornography. It is degrading to women and it severely cripples the feminist movement. Pornography is not an art form. It does not deserve protection. It is indecent and vile. It is time to "clean up the tubes." I am a shareholder of Time Warner. I have submitted a proposal for voting at the next shareholder meeting for Time Warner to only allow access to whitelisted sites by default and eventually become mandatory.
If you look at MS's site, you'll find that Visio is considered an Office product. So, to clarify, he activated Office, installed (but did not activate) a new part of Office, and now it won't let him install Office add-ons. This is entirely an Office issue. You may not like what they're doing, but this has no bearing on whether it will have problems with an unactivated non-Office product. If it did, I would be mightily pissed.
I wouldn't give a shit what they call it, the end result is that they've locked him out of support for a product he purchased because he has something else on his machine. That's BS. Whether they consider Visio part of office is immaterial - clearly they can be purchased separately, so they can be supported separately.
Well, I mean the packing list includes a "for glue the sex rubber mat" -- so it can't possibly be that bad, could it?
Actually, ew. It's an ethernet switch. I really don't want to know what that bit's for!
It sounds like they've come up with the greatest invention of all time - an ethernet switch that allows you to completely circumvent the computer and have your pr0n delivered directly to the ultimate....ah...consumer. God bless those crazy bastards.
Call me a pussy, but I'd rather use Visual Studio than any other IDE any day. In Linux, I don't even use an IDE... cause they all seem to blow. Except MonoDevelop, but that doesn't do C.
Just use VI. With syntax highlighting since you're a pussy.;)
Actually RTFA Matt's reasoning gives the opposite impression of the summary. Fork the submitter and Kdawson for greenlighting this.
Given his ability to make the wrong conclusion every time after his cursory 5 seconds of review, I'm taking the liberty of forwarding Dawson's resume to the USPTO. I think he'll fit in well there.
For linking to a blog that linked to a blog that linked to the actual complaint.
Once I finally got to the pot of gold at the end of the blog rainbow, it looks to my non-lawyer eye as if he has no case. Seems like just another SLAPP suit to me. Is he really claiming that a company can become immune to criticism by simply trademarking its name? Come on.
Same here. I have a PB with 512 MB RAM and I finally gave up on Firefox. Tried Camino - loads pages faster, doesn't appear to be as bad a memory pig as firefox. Not sure why it doesn't share the same flaws since they share a great deal of code, but there you go. Seems to panic less than Safari too.
With either FF or Safari, I'm staring at the SBOD much more than I'd like, but it doesn't seem to happen with Camino. I'm pretty happy with it.
I'm sad for Firefox. Started out as this nice fast, beautiful little web browser that shed all the Mozilla bloat and modularized all the little features. Now look what happened to it, a big disgusting memory-gorging pig.
Since when is "provoking authorities" ever been an excuse for taking someone's rights away?
Since always, if your provocation simulates a public emergency. See 'crowded theater, yelling FIRE in.' I'd say a reasonable person would conclude a fake bomb in an airport qualifies. In fact, there are laws on the books for specifically that - and postings in every airport to the same effect.
Did she intend to deceive authorities into thinking the "device" is a bomb.. highly unlikely as she didn't refer to it as such.
No, she just had a breadboard, wires, and silly putty in an airport. Do you really believe that wasn't intent to simulate a bomb? Do you have a plausible alternate explanation? Come on. I can't think of a single acceptable reason you'd have those specific things in an airport.
It was an ASSUMPTION that those police made. How many of these assumptions have paid off??.. well so far NONE.
Forgot Richard Reed? Based on your argument I'm sure you'd claim that having wires coming out of your shoe is freedom of expression. Additionally, based on the relative risk of a false alarm to a missed detection (ie, a night in jail for a moron vs. hundreds dead), I'm perfectly fine with the cops arresting absolutely anyone who does anything this dumb.
"those who would sacrifice liberty for security, deserve neither."
Those who confuse liberty with anarchy are usually college students.
A grade 12 education could have defused this in seconds, but instead we have a super bright person being oppressed by the stupid.
No, we have a 'bright' idiot provoking cops who lack a EE degree and patience, and finding out what happens when you do that. Seriously, do you think she wasn't *trying* to get a fun reaction from the authorities? This is just another spoiled little brat looking for rebellion from her middle-class existence and biting off a lot more than she was prepared to chew.
Do they just need to do some public service announcements about what a real bomb looks like and what fake electronic gadgets look like?
Fair enough to pick on Boston (it is fun, after all), but it does illustrate the general point - are *you* certain you could tell a working bomb from 'fake' electronic components? Particularly in this case, when wearing the bomb is a common means of deployment.
Ah, yes, because whatever the hamster is doing, it's going to be *more* disturbed by having a cell phone ring.
Well if it's true what they say about cell phones igniting gas fumes....then yes he will. He'll also become a projectile if you believe the old urban legend. ('Armageddon!!!!')
Signing up on a web form every 5 years - 10 minutes Avoiding telemarketing phone calls during dinner, sex, and sleep - Priceless.
That's some messed up priorities. If the kids are asleep and I'm having 'relations' with my wife...well, there ain't anybody important enough to be calling me that won't be waiting. That phone can ring all it wants.
This is awesome. I have a 'digital plus' cable package with over 200 channels, which I had to buy because the 4-5 channels I regularly watch were on that list. I would love to get rid of the other 190 channels or so, (200-(5 I watch)-(5 or so others I occasionally use/check)) and if I could get a price cut at the same time, that'd be even better.
That won't happen. If anyone thinks they can take their current bill and divide by the fraction of channels they watch to get a new a la carte bill, they're deluding themselves.
I'm also not quite getting the basis of the lawsuit. Can I sue the grocery store for refusing to sell me one egg?
So is velociraptor going to be announced as the earliest known ancestor of birds?
That would assume evolution works as a ladder - but it doesn't. It's more like a tree. This indicates that velociraptor *could* be an ancestor of birds; probably more likely is that they share a common ancestor.
If this is the first one where feathers were identified then I'd ask if it really is the same species. Is it possible that this new fossil is a different species, but one where the skeleton was close enough to velociraptor that a fossilized version is originally identified as one?
Yeah, it would be nice if the article gave better evidence and more analysis to answer questions like that. One possibility is that it could take a well-preserved bone to show the quill knobs, which might be missed in other specimens. But I'm purely speculating.
That being said, guys like Sun seem to be doing alright, so it really comes down to business model, period...I'll wager SCO was finished with or without the lawsuit.
The ridiculous thing is that they originally had a decent business model too; I'm not so sure they were toast had they maintained decent leadership. As I understand it, they were a leader in point of sale (POS, not to be confused with how that acronym is usually attributed to SCO) Unix boxes. Had they concentrated on this core business they would have been fine. They could have tweaked their OS for optimal stability, reliability, abd simplicity. They could have developed good add-on tools that would work well in that environment. But they got greedy, fell into bed with IBM, got tossed aside, and got bought out some weasels who bet the company on a lawsuit.
Slashdot Mirror
It's a very interesting and important case. I look forward to more developments.
I really don't want this to be the case that the community rallys around, because she clearly (in my mind) did what is claimed. I think this is a slam-dunk for a civil trial and I'd say it would have a pretty good chance even for criminal (if that were the case).
Yeah, I don't think anyone would have figured that out minus your help. Thanks.
Nope, my pennies still seem to work..
Only if they're 1982 or older.
Having worked as a waiter before, I'd say that you have no idea how stressful and hectic it can be. A good waiter does have a number of specialized skills, including diplomacy, efficient time management, and expectation management. Having a good memory, the ability to multitask and think on your feet, and keep the customer satisfied as their sole conduit to the (usually harried and even more frazzled) kitchen staff is a lot more challenging than you'd think.
I've never been a waiter but I'll second that. Let's say the average tip is the aforementioned 18%, and since the whole point is to be a discretionary reward, that I range from 10%-25% for below average to above average service. If the check for a party of two comes to $50, then I might tip between $5 and $7.50 (examples only, I don't actually count pennies). Surely the difference between a good and bad server is worth $2.50.
So what do I get for my extra $2.50? Not having to ask twice for condiments. Having the guy notice I need a refill before I give up in vain and start holding the glass above my head. Not sitting for a half hour waiting for my check. Not getting my order screwed up. If someone does all those things they make my dinner more enjoyable; I have no problem rewarding them for it.
Now, one could claim from a statistical standpoint that the amount of the tip need not correspond directly to the value of the service, but to the discretionary portion of the service alone. A tip of zero should correspond to bare minimum service or the least amount a humane person would leave, with the employer picking up the difference and increasing salaries. In America, anything below 10% is considered unconscionable. What's the point of the tipping system, if it's not actually discretionary? Just save me the hassle and pay the servers more. That way, they don't worry about getting stiffed by tightwads, and leaving a sizeable tip would be more of an actual reward than something servers count on for their salary (which seems to have been the original point of the whole custom).
But in general, having had a number of friends who were servers in college and hearing all the crap they have to do...yeah, cut the server a break. Another reason that tips seem high: yes, they probably do make $30 an hour on Saturday night - but that accounts for 1) the fact they have to work Saturday night, which sucks, 2) it's not always that busy and lucrative, and 3) at a lot of places, they have to show up before the restaurant opens to do prep and stay afterwards to do close, at which point they make half minimum wage. And if it really were that lucrative, you'd see a lot more non-teenagers making a career out of being an Applebys server, but somehow I think it's not that great a deal.
The purpose of a company is generally to make money, not to crusade for some political stance. The investors want a good return on their investment, not a philosophy.
Right. And, assuming our government does a good job of protecting the market, it's actually *our* job as consumers to show them that we'll pay for what they want - ie, their desire to make money is aligned with our desire to get good stuff. In this case, they're seeing the crap slung about with regard to the heavily protected iPhone and deciding to profit from it.
How many times have I seen people scream about what companies should do, only to not patronize said company when they do it. If a company listens to its customers, it's time for them to put their money where their mouths are.
As a pro feminist, I was in favor of the law. We really need to get rid of pornography. It is degrading to women and it severely cripples the feminist movement. Pornography is not an art form. It does not deserve protection. It is indecent and vile. It is time to "clean up the tubes." I am a shareholder of Time Warner. I have submitted a proposal for voting at the next shareholder meeting for Time Warner to only allow access to whitelisted sites by default and eventually become mandatory.
*sniff sniff sniff*....I smell...*sniff sniff*....a troll!!!!!
Clues that this was a troll:
Great troll, by the way.
I hope this means that laptops and large capacate media players with extremely long battery life are not too far away.
At least as far as laptops are concerned, I thought a limited number of write cycles was a problem for solid-state drives.
If you look at MS's site, you'll find that Visio is considered an Office product. So, to clarify, he activated Office, installed (but did not activate) a new part of Office, and now it won't let him install Office add-ons. This is entirely an Office issue. You may not like what they're doing, but this has no bearing on whether it will have problems with an unactivated non-Office product. If it did, I would be mightily pissed.
I wouldn't give a shit what they call it, the end result is that they've locked him out of support for a product he purchased because he has something else on his machine. That's BS. Whether they consider Visio part of office is immaterial - clearly they can be purchased separately, so they can be supported separately.
Well, I mean the packing list includes a "for glue the sex rubber mat" -- so it can't possibly be that bad, could it? Actually, ew. It's an ethernet switch. I really don't want to know what that bit's for!
It sounds like they've come up with the greatest invention of all time - an ethernet switch that allows you to completely circumvent the computer and have your pr0n delivered directly to the ultimate....ah...consumer. God bless those crazy bastards.
Call me a pussy, but I'd rather use Visual Studio than any other IDE any day. In Linux, I don't even use an IDE... cause they all seem to blow. Except MonoDevelop, but that doesn't do C.
Just use VI. With syntax highlighting since you're a pussy. ;)
What good is that? You'll never get to see her again.
Like you didn't give yourself a shell account with superuser access. Come on. You'll be able to make that thing stop working at will!
That and you'll install software to remotely control her webcam anyway. You'll definitely be seeing her...
Actually RTFA Matt's reasoning gives the opposite impression of the summary. Fork the submitter and Kdawson for greenlighting this.
Given his ability to make the wrong conclusion every time after his cursory 5 seconds of review, I'm taking the liberty of forwarding Dawson's resume to the USPTO. I think he'll fit in well there.
Maybe they can make some money on the side moving some color TVs, installing some Microwave ovens, doing some custom kitchens, things like that.
For linking to a blog that linked to a blog that linked to the actual complaint.
Once I finally got to the pot of gold at the end of the blog rainbow, it looks to my non-lawyer eye as if he has no case. Seems like just another SLAPP suit to me. Is he really claiming that a company can become immune to criticism by simply trademarking its name? Come on.
wait a sec. Some men in black are knocking on my window. brb.
Say hey to Will Smith for me.
Same here. I have a PB with 512 MB RAM and I finally gave up on Firefox. Tried Camino - loads pages faster, doesn't appear to be as bad a memory pig as firefox. Not sure why it doesn't share the same flaws since they share a great deal of code, but there you go. Seems to panic less than Safari too.
With either FF or Safari, I'm staring at the SBOD much more than I'd like, but it doesn't seem to happen with Camino. I'm pretty happy with it.
I'm sad for Firefox. Started out as this nice fast, beautiful little web browser that shed all the Mozilla bloat and modularized all the little features. Now look what happened to it, a big disgusting memory-gorging pig.
Slashdot needs a "Chop up and feed to the pigs out back" button.
They do, that's what happened to timothy and michael.
Since when is "provoking authorities" ever been an excuse for taking someone's rights away?
Since always, if your provocation simulates a public emergency. See 'crowded theater, yelling FIRE in.' I'd say a reasonable person would conclude a fake bomb in an airport qualifies. In fact, there are laws on the books for specifically that - and postings in every airport to the same effect.
Did she intend to deceive authorities into thinking the "device" is a bomb.. highly unlikely as she didn't refer to it as such.
No, she just had a breadboard, wires, and silly putty in an airport. Do you really believe that wasn't intent to simulate a bomb? Do you have a plausible alternate explanation? Come on. I can't think of a single acceptable reason you'd have those specific things in an airport.
It was an ASSUMPTION that those police made. How many of these assumptions have paid off??.. well so far NONE.
Forgot Richard Reed? Based on your argument I'm sure you'd claim that having wires coming out of your shoe is freedom of expression. Additionally, based on the relative risk of a false alarm to a missed detection (ie, a night in jail for a moron vs. hundreds dead), I'm perfectly fine with the cops arresting absolutely anyone who does anything this dumb.
"those who would sacrifice liberty for security, deserve neither."
Those who confuse liberty with anarchy are usually college students.
A grade 12 education could have defused this in seconds, but instead we have a super bright person being oppressed by the stupid.
No, we have a 'bright' idiot provoking cops who lack a EE degree and patience, and finding out what happens when you do that. Seriously, do you think she wasn't *trying* to get a fun reaction from the authorities? This is just another spoiled little brat looking for rebellion from her middle-class existence and biting off a lot more than she was prepared to chew.
Do they just need to do some public service announcements about what a real bomb looks like and what fake electronic gadgets look like?
Fair enough to pick on Boston (it is fun, after all), but it does illustrate the general point - are *you* certain you could tell a working bomb from 'fake' electronic components? Particularly in this case, when wearing the bomb is a common means of deployment.
This 'prank' was stunningly stupid.
Ah, yes, because whatever the hamster is doing, it's going to be *more* disturbed by having a cell phone ring.
Well if it's true what they say about cell phones igniting gas fumes....then yes he will. He'll also become a projectile if you believe the old urban legend. ('Armageddon!!!!')
Signing up on a web form every 5 years - 10 minutes Avoiding telemarketing phone calls during dinner, sex, and sleep - Priceless.
That's some messed up priorities. If the kids are asleep and I'm having 'relations' with my wife...well, there ain't anybody important enough to be calling me that won't be waiting. That phone can ring all it wants.
This is awesome. I have a 'digital plus' cable package with over 200 channels, which I had to buy because the 4-5 channels I regularly watch were on that list. I would love to get rid of the other 190 channels or so, (200-(5 I watch)-(5 or so others I occasionally use/check)) and if I could get a price cut at the same time, that'd be even better.
That won't happen. If anyone thinks they can take their current bill and divide by the fraction of channels they watch to get a new a la carte bill, they're deluding themselves.
I'm also not quite getting the basis of the lawsuit. Can I sue the grocery store for refusing to sell me one egg?
So is velociraptor going to be announced as the earliest known ancestor of birds?
That would assume evolution works as a ladder - but it doesn't. It's more like a tree. This indicates that velociraptor *could* be an ancestor of birds; probably more likely is that they share a common ancestor.
If this is the first one where feathers were identified then I'd ask if it really is the same species. Is it possible that this new fossil is a different species, but one where the skeleton was close enough to velociraptor that a fossilized version is originally identified as one?
Yeah, it would be nice if the article gave better evidence and more analysis to answer questions like that. One possibility is that it could take a well-preserved bone to show the quill knobs, which might be missed in other specimens. But I'm purely speculating.
That being said, guys like Sun seem to be doing alright, so it really comes down to business model, period...I'll wager SCO was finished with or without the lawsuit.
The ridiculous thing is that they originally had a decent business model too; I'm not so sure they were toast had they maintained decent leadership. As I understand it, they were a leader in point of sale (POS, not to be confused with how that acronym is usually attributed to SCO) Unix boxes. Had they concentrated on this core business they would have been fine. They could have tweaked their OS for optimal stability, reliability, abd simplicity. They could have developed good add-on tools that would work well in that environment. But they got greedy, fell into bed with IBM, got tossed aside, and got bought out some weasels who bet the company on a lawsuit.