Well, as much as I hate to admit it, the core credo behind Democracy is "To serve the will of the Majority while protecting the rights of the Minority." It is their copyright, and they have the "right" (sic) to use it as they see fit.
That being said... [RANT] I hate the RIAA. I'm not ashamed to admit it. I haven't bought an album, CD, or tape produced by an RIAA member in over 8 years, and I have no future plans to, either. I have won a few off the radio. Bought some second hand (off of friends or used stores, that way no money of mine goes to them). I buy local bands** and indie bands directly from the band themselves so that the BAND/ARTIST gets the money and not some middle man.
At the end of 2001 I had close to 120,000 Mp3s. I used to DJ with them at Frat parties at college. When I left college, I erased them all. Was I scared of the RIAA or other FUD from file sharing? No. I deleted them cause I wasn't gonna DJ anymore and they're all crap. I kept my indie band CDs. Occasionally I'll grab an Mp3 off of P2P when I'm trying to learn a song on my guitar, but that's about it, then it get's deleted. I wish they'da done this 2 years ago when i had my entire MP3 collection shared (close to 450 Gigs... gotta love Promise cards and multiple servers). I'd almost look forward to dragging them to court.
I read in another thread someone's idea to have a mass "buy and return" day to tick them off. i suggest we follow another groups tactics, equally absurd as the RIAA's. Let's mimic truth.com and take all of our old CDs/tapes/albums/8-tracks, etc. that we're disappointed in, head out to the RIAA headquarters, and start piling them up at the front door. They've put out enough crap that we could litterally blockade them in with they're own garbage. Then someone could toss a match and the world would be a better place. [/RANT]
-Ab
** if you are interested in some of the bands I listen to, try Katsu and Axum
Well, in the same vein, I'll agree with parts of your statement. Acutally, I'll agree with the spirit of it. You have noble intentions (at least you write like it, you could just be a troll;) ), but some is propaganda, and you probably don't even realize it.
As an industrial engineer/robotics major, I got to take a class on industrial waste management. 1/3 of the class was spent on recycling. There are 3 catagories (industrially speaking) of recycling:
1. Economically viable and helps the environment
2. Environemntally necessary, but not economically efficient
3. Feel Good, but pointless
A good example of #1 is Aluminum cans. Smelting and treating bauxite leaves a lot of slag and is expensive compared to remelting, skimming carbon from paint and past contents off the top and pressing new cans.
A good example of #2 is batteries, motor oil, and plastic. It is very economically un-profitable to recycle any of these. To do this job, most places need LARGE gov't subsidies just to survive. They exists solely to try and limit toxic and non-degradable items in the environment.
#3 is the oddest one. Items in catagory 3 are mostly things that people THINK are helping the planet, but really aren't. the 2 greatest examples of this are... glass and paper for 2 very different reasons. Glass is basically an economic one with little environmental impact either way. Glass is basically sand (silica), and will return to sand. The cost to recycle it is only slightly higher than that to create new, only because of the cleaning process (to remove bits of metal, paint, paper, etc... from the slurry).
Paper is quite possibly the WORST thing on earth to recylce. The chemicals that are used to re-pulp the paper, purify, and bleach it are extremely toxic. It takes more energy and resources (electricity, water, etc...) to recycle a tree's worth of paper, than it does to harvest a new tree and process it into paper. More and more logging companies (at least out here where I'm at in Central Western Pennsylvania) are using a technique calle "Circular logging**" to prevent tree loss. Couple those together and recycling paper is down-right retarded. The only reason it exists is because of [credability_loss] damn left-wing liberal hippie tree-huggers [/credability_loss].
To recap, I'm all for recycling... when it actually benefits, but recycling is like everything else on the planet: it has it's ups and downs, and the un-informed populous sways in the breezes of propaganda.
-Ab
** Circular logging is a technique where the logger's land is divided up into 20-30 LARGE tracts. 1 tract is logged bare each year. The next year, the tract is burnt with a controlled burn (supervised by local fire companies) and the ashes re-fertilize the ground. new seeds are spread the following year and the cycle continues. This way the resource is renewed constantly. After 20-25 years, the trees are tall enough to harvest again and the cycle repeats.
I have Protanomaly progressing towards Protanopia. I've been this way since birth and it gradually7 gets worse as I age. It's compounded by the fact that I also have detatched retinas that seriously hampers my sight as well. I can speak for most colorblind people when I say, don't worry about it. Chances are, we'll figure it out anyways. We've spent our lives learning how. It's second nature. I've beaten many a player at games like Bust-A-Move and other color-matching things, even though I often can't tell the blue/purple, red/green, red/brown, green/yellow apart. I learn from other clues and patterns.
PS, If you do find a colorblind person to help you out, please don't insult him by constantly asking "What color does this look like? How 'bout this?..." or "tell me how you cope with this part of life that is based on color..." I can answer them all in one simple concept... "Memorization by association." I know grapes are purple... not cause they look it to me, but because I was told so. Same with grsas-green, go lights-green, jeans-blue. etc. That's what I was taught, so that's what they appear to me. My mind makes it so. You show me a piece of paper the EXACT same hue as grass, and I can't tell you what it is. Maybe a few educated guesses (green or brown), but never anything certain. Same way I know Red light is on top, yellow in the middle, green on bottom (which, incidently, is stark white to me).
now that I'm done ranting, the secret to dealing with us and programming is not to try and beat the system. I've never met anyone that I can explain fully how it works. Try explaining what red is without being able to use any color related terms. That's where I'm at. Make your software, then ask someone who is colorblind to test it. We'll let you know right away if something is really hard to notice, pick up on, or use.
-Ab
credentials: 1. Colorblind since birth
2. Passed PSU IE408: Human Machine Interaction & Perception Analysis with an A
3. Designed an interface for use in Nuclear power plants that was colorblind & colorsighted friendly
Numbers? Here's some from the company I work for (A top 100 Design and Consulting Engineering firm on the East Coast). I do the spam filtering for them corporate wide, so I know the numbers are true.
For July (first 2 weeks, 1st - 14th, including the holiday): # Employees: 490 # Spam blocked: 43,126 # Spam/person/day: ~6.28
Now, let's use your premiss that it takes 1.5 seconds to identify and delete spam. Let's also note that our company's net profits from last year was 51 million dollars and the gross asset intake was closer to 150 million.
1.5sec/spam * 43,126spam * 1hr/3600sec = ~18hrs 43,126spam/2weeks * 26 2weeks/yr = 1,121,276 spam/yr $51mil/yr / 490workers = $104,081.63 profit/worker/year $104,081.63 / 2080working hrs/yr = $50.04 profit/hr 18hrs * $50.04 profit/hr = $900 profit lost in 2 weeks $900 * 26biweeks/yr = $23,418.36 (enough for my own personal secretery... or at least intern)
Now, this is only direct profits, not net flow, net flow is nearly 3X as much, so the loss will be 3 times as much, which means ~$70K. We could've hire another engineer for what it had cost us to deal with spam.
Now, let's take the analysis one step further and point out that 70% of our spam goes to 4 people: CIO, CFO, CEO and VP of Marketting, all of which take home salaries in excess of $400K/year (far cry from the average salary of $55K of the rest of us) so the losses are even bigger than before cause my secretery gets about 2 spam a month (unfiltered).
Now take this $150Mil company with losses of ~$70K and extrapolate out to the Economy of the EU (I'd guess several trillion, no concrete numbers to back that up, though). Let's say 5 trillion for the sake of numbers(*).
150Mil:70K::5Tril:.... $2.3Bil. So if the EU's GNP is roughly 5 Trillion and spam is rouhly proportional throughout 1st world nations... then I'd say, "yeah, 2.5Billion in losses is probably a fair estimate."
-Ab
(*) Hey you people accross the pond, is 5 trillion reasonable? I don't follow polotics/economy at all. I don't even know what the US's GDP is.
Dir sirs,
Intellectual property laws were originally designed with physical replication. In the past, it used to cost the copier money to replicate and disseminate the works in question, now with the digital revolution and the Internet, it can be done with almost zero cost and zero profit to everyone involved. With that in mind, what burdens do you currently have in applying these laws to copyright infringers and how do you plan overcoming these issues?
The Ionic Breeze is quite good at what it does. Very pricey, but it does clean the air of my small apartment (2 room effeciency) very well... and I'm a smoker.
This is a good thing. I refuse to buy stuff on Ebay cause I've gotten screwed twice. If I get screwed at WalMart(c), I can goto the store manager. If I get Screwed at "Mom and Pop's Local 5&Dime and Cow Manure Emporium", I can contact the Better Business Bureau or my local law enforcement officials. But when I get screwed on Ebay, I'm screwed.
Ebay ignores everything except the most extreme of cases, at worst cancelling the seller's account and leaving the fleeced buyer up a creek without a paddle. This allows for some culpability on the sellers part. When I go into a store, I can see the business license on the wall (ask, they are required to post it for all potential customers to see, even if that is often in the management offices) and know who is ultimately responsible.
Now, I admit, I would PREFER to see Ebay require by default, Sellers to list verified contact info, but that's a pipe dream cause it would cost too much. I would also PREFER that a warrant or subpeona be required to release information such as credit card numbers, bank accounts, and transactions, even to law enforcement officials.
Anonymity and privacy are great things, but they only extend as far as you are willing to stay private. When you enter a public domain, your expectaion of privacy is highly deminished. Ebay is very much a public area where people freely go (no different than a department store). At a department store, the store is never private, but the customers can choose to be by purchasing in cash, or they can wave that privacy and use traceable credit/debit cards or checks.
I noticed that the poster said that they called the FBI... Does someone have that number handy? On the FBI's site, all I can find is a web form to post "tips" to. Thanks!/i
Yes, did you read them? If you read past the initial chart and legend, you'll see the listing of the "soft limits" in states, even those listed with 'absolute' limits. For example, you can read down that Mississippi has a 15mph "soft limit" and PA (my state) on has a 5mph "soft limit". So that means that I can legally drive 5mph OVER the posted speed limit *IF* conditions are co-operative (minimal traffic, well lit, no kids in the street, no construction, no snow/rain, etc...). Conversely, this means that the state views no legitimate reasons for drivers without the proper emergency notifications (i.e. cops, fire trucks, ambulances) to break that 5mph buffer. Now, that means that if I do 61mph in a 55mph zone, the cop has every right to pull me over and I have no legal ground to stand on. But if he pulls me over at 59mph, it becomes a "his word vs. my word" case in front of the magistrate. Usually if you show up with some weather reports of the day showing that it wasn't raining (and a traffic report if you can get it) you get off every time.
So in answer to your question/accusation, VERY few states actually ahve TRUE absolute limits. Most have reasonable and prudent laws that people just don't know about.
-Ab
(ps. There are more to articles than pretty pictures and charts.)
I have and have won... on several occasions. I've been pulled over 15 times in my life, been written 6 tickets and only ever had to pay 2 of them. The key is being polite and honest with the police. Say "Yes, sir. No, Sir. I was speeding, Sir. I guess I deserve a ticket, Sir." and well informed and prepared for the magistrate/justice if you fight a ticket. an hour of online research can save you upwards of $250 in fines and court costs. Print out laws and know their reference numbers.
As a side note, 5 of the 6 tickets I've been written were from State Cops, rather than local, and both fines were from out of state tickets when I was driving cross country.
Actually, in most states the speed limit is a suggested value for safe travel. Unless the sign has the word "max" on it, in which case it becomes an absolute speed limit. Here are a few articles to explain further: article 1 and article 2
The secret to carving CDs is to go slow and insure the rigidity of the CD.I find that by using contact cement and gluing a piece of 1/8" plywood to the BOTTOM of the CD, I can use a band saw on a CD quite well. The wood prevents the CD from bending, which will cause it to catch and crack/shatter or chip. I've also found grinding wheels to work well, too... but the same thing, you need to attach something rigid to prevent the CD from bending. I find plexiglass to work well, too.
It was an FPS with guns instead of joysticks. You ran around shooting aliens (go figure). Power-ups and life were kept in wooden crates and exploding toxic waste barrels that you'd have to shoot open and shoot the power up to collect.
And yes, Aerosmith did provide the soundtrack.
-Ab
Re:Only a partial solution
on
Chicken Run
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· Score: 1
As an owner and proud wearer of the "I {heart} EATING COWS" t-shirt by Rhubarb, I will offer you the same deal I offer every vegetarian the tells me eating meet is bad and I should stop:
I will respect your beliefs and not eat meat for as long as you like... as long as you convey the same respect for my beliefs over the same time period and eat at LEAST 1 pound of meat a day between your meals and at least 1.5 pounds per week of chicken, cow, and pig.
If one government does this, then another, then another, eventually all governments would be forced to
Just like the metric system and cell phone networks and the Kyoto conference and... everything else that the rest of the world has adopted and the US has collectively given them the bird.
fyi: the longest sentence ever is the final 60 page CHAPTER of the book "Ulyses" by James Joyce.
Try reading it sometime... it's a bland stream of (un)conciousness that will turn your mind to cream of wheat, and not the good kind of breakfast mush, but the kind that is white with no flavoring other than the starchy grain and a hint of sour milk that has been pulled from a dying guernsey, left in the sun for 7 days, then sent to the kitchen to stagnate in the fridge until combined with the crushed heart of the wheat seed and boiled on a fiery stove... (I think you get the picture)
If McCalls can sue someone for picking in the garbage, who is to prevent companies from suing bums that pick stuff off the streets?
Yes, because we all know the CEOs of major companies REALLY covet those stylish shopping carts filled with broken TVs, 'holey' clothes, and empty cans of Bud.
I know in my city (maybe even the whole state) that dumpsters and trash removal are a paid service purchased by individual or groups of home owners, renters, or businesses. The dumpsters are considered private property and are USUALLY stored on someone's property. I've actually won a small claims court case against our neighbors (a fraternity) for filling our dumpster with sand after they had a beach party because it wouldn't all fit in theirs. They got a warning about some sort of citation for having the sand piled in their parking lot/lawn. They filled our dumpster when their's filled (and put the remainder in the next neighbor over's trash). The weight of the sand put the dumpster over the limit for the truck the next day and he wouldn't take it. The driver left a note stating this. We took pictures of the sand (including the trail from their house to ours) and called the cops. The cops charged them with tresspass, criminal mischief, and recommended we sue in small claims for theft of services. They had to pay for the court cost ($35) and 1 trash bill (which is semi-annual) (~$300).
Moral? Keep on sinning. Protect yourself. If you quit smoking cigarettes, then they'll want to tax your water to make up for the lost tobacco-tax revenue.
My state is feeling that crunch. PA ran a HUGE anti-smoking campaign the last 10 years and low and behold... it worked. Now, close to 15% of the state budget was from cigarette taxes and it's been cut in half. They raised the tax $.60 per pack last summer (to just over $2 per pack total) and it still hasn't worked. Now they're trying to eliminate some of the blue laws to get more alcohol tax (in PA, all liquor stores are owned by the state and you have to have 1 of over a dozen different types of licenses to sell alcohol at all). We can now by alcohol (in bulk) on Sundays because they got some people to stop smoking. They're talking about creating a state property tax, increasing the state income tax and sales tax. All cause we got a fuckin' democrat in office (who, by the way, LOST all but 7 of our over 50 counties, yet still won the election). Where's Jesse Ventura when we need him.
Don't misunderstand me, I am a HUGE fan of the first amendment (and an ACLU member).
You are correct. This has nothing to do with the first amendment, nor do most issues where people cry out about it. The first amendment, with relation to freedom of speech, simply states that the GOVERNMENT cannot prevent free speech, except in the cases of public endangerment, fraud, or misrepresentation. Police may not be allowed to stop a 'peaceful protest,' but Joe Citizen can go down and put duct tape over their mouths.**
This case against Bonzi is purely fraud and misrepresentation. They are purposely deceiving potential "clients" in hopes of gaining something of monetary value.
-Ab.
** Putting duct tape over their mouth to shut them up does NOT infringe on their first amendment rights. Private citizens and entities retain the right to regulate speech. It does, however, break other laws, such as simple assault, unlawful detainment, and generally being a prick.
1. Write good music 2. Play it well live 3. Build up a fan base 4. Sell stuff (CDs, t-shirts, tickets...) 5.... 6. Profit!
Try looking at these guys. They're doing alright. Not quite to the Metallica, Creed, Brittney Speares level of riches yet, but they definitely hold their own for a small town with more local acts than it knows what to do with.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, as much as I hate to admit it, the core credo behind Democracy is "To serve the will of the Majority while protecting the rights of the Minority." It is their copyright, and they have the "right" (sic) to use it as they see fit.
...
... gotta love Promise cards and multiple servers). I'd almost look forward to dragging them to court.
That being said
[RANT]
I hate the RIAA. I'm not ashamed to admit it. I haven't bought an album, CD, or tape produced by an RIAA member in over 8 years, and I have no future plans to, either. I have won a few off the radio. Bought some second hand (off of friends or used stores, that way no money of mine goes to them). I buy local bands** and indie bands directly from the band themselves so that the BAND/ARTIST gets the money and not some middle man.
At the end of 2001 I had close to 120,000 Mp3s. I used to DJ with them at Frat parties at college. When I left college, I erased them all. Was I scared of the RIAA or other FUD from file sharing? No. I deleted them cause I wasn't gonna DJ anymore and they're all crap. I kept my indie band CDs. Occasionally I'll grab an Mp3 off of P2P when I'm trying to learn a song on my guitar, but that's about it, then it get's deleted. I wish they'da done this 2 years ago when i had my entire MP3 collection shared (close to 450 Gigs
I read in another thread someone's idea to have a mass "buy and return" day to tick them off. i suggest we follow another groups tactics, equally absurd as the RIAA's. Let's mimic truth.com and take all of our old CDs/tapes/albums/8-tracks, etc. that we're disappointed in, head out to the RIAA headquarters, and start piling them up at the front door. They've put out enough crap that we could litterally blockade them in with they're own garbage. Then someone could toss a match and the world would be a better place.
[/RANT]
-Ab
** if you are interested in some of the bands I listen to, try Katsu and Axum
Well, in the same vein, I'll agree with parts of your statement. Acutally, I'll agree with the spirit of it. You have noble intentions (at least you write like it, you could just be a troll ;) ), but some is propaganda, and you probably don't even realize it.
... glass and paper for 2 very different reasons. Glass is basically an economic one with little environmental impact either way. Glass is basically sand (silica), and will return to sand. The cost to recycle it is only slightly higher than that to create new, only because of the cleaning process (to remove bits of metal, paint, paper, etc ... from the slurry).
... when it actually benefits, but recycling is like everything else on the planet: it has it's ups and downs, and the un-informed populous sways in the breezes of propaganda.
As an industrial engineer/robotics major, I got to take a class on industrial waste management. 1/3 of the class was spent on recycling. There are 3 catagories (industrially speaking) of recycling:
1. Economically viable and helps the environment
2. Environemntally necessary, but not economically efficient
3. Feel Good, but pointless
A good example of #1 is Aluminum cans. Smelting and treating bauxite leaves a lot of slag and is expensive compared to remelting, skimming carbon from paint and past contents off the top and pressing new cans.
A good example of #2 is batteries, motor oil, and plastic. It is very economically un-profitable to recycle any of these. To do this job, most places need LARGE gov't subsidies just to survive. They exists solely to try and limit toxic and non-degradable items in the environment.
#3 is the oddest one. Items in catagory 3 are mostly things that people THINK are helping the planet, but really aren't. the 2 greatest examples of this are
Paper is quite possibly the WORST thing on earth to recylce. The chemicals that are used to re-pulp the paper, purify, and bleach it are extremely toxic. It takes more energy and resources (electricity, water, etc...) to recycle a tree's worth of paper, than it does to harvest a new tree and process it into paper. More and more logging companies (at least out here where I'm at in Central Western Pennsylvania) are using a technique calle "Circular logging**" to prevent tree loss. Couple those together and recycling paper is down-right retarded. The only reason it exists is because of [credability_loss] damn left-wing liberal hippie tree-huggers [/credability_loss].
To recap, I'm all for recycling
-Ab
** Circular logging is a technique where the logger's land is divided up into 20-30 LARGE tracts. 1 tract is logged bare each year. The next year, the tract is burnt with a controlled burn (supervised by local fire companies) and the ashes re-fertilize the ground. new seeds are spread the following year and the cycle continues. This way the resource is renewed constantly. After 20-25 years, the trees are tall enough to harvest again and the cycle repeats.
I have Protanomaly progressing towards Protanopia. I've been this way since birth and it gradually7 gets worse as I age. It's compounded by the fact that I also have detatched retinas that seriously hampers my sight as well. I can speak for most colorblind people when I say, don't worry about it. Chances are, we'll figure it out anyways. We've spent our lives learning how. It's second nature. I've beaten many a player at games like Bust-A-Move and other color-matching things, even though I often can't tell the blue/purple, red/green, red/brown, green/yellow apart. I learn from other clues and patterns.
..." or "tell me how you cope with this part of life that is based on color ..." I can answer them all in one simple concept ... "Memorization by association." I know grapes are purple ... not cause they look it to me, but because I was told so. Same with grsas-green, go lights-green, jeans-blue. etc. That's what I was taught, so that's what they appear to me. My mind makes it so. You show me a piece of paper the EXACT same hue as grass, and I can't tell you what it is. Maybe a few educated guesses (green or brown), but never anything certain. Same way I know Red light is on top, yellow in the middle, green on bottom (which, incidently, is stark white to me).
PS, If you do find a colorblind person to help you out, please don't insult him by constantly asking "What color does this look like? How 'bout this?
now that I'm done ranting, the secret to dealing with us and programming is not to try and beat the system. I've never met anyone that I can explain fully how it works. Try explaining what red is without being able to use any color related terms. That's where I'm at. Make your software, then ask someone who is colorblind to test it. We'll let you know right away if something is really hard to notice, pick up on, or use.
-Ab
credentials: 1. Colorblind since birth
2. Passed PSU IE408: Human Machine Interaction & Perception Analysis with an A
3. Designed an interface for use in Nuclear power plants that was colorblind & colorsighted friendly
Numbers? Here's some from the company I work for (A top 100 Design and Consulting Engineering firm on the East Coast). I do the spam filtering for them corporate wide, so I know the numbers are true.
For July (first 2 weeks, 1st - 14th, including the holiday):
# Employees: 490
# Spam blocked: 43,126
# Spam/person/day: ~6.28
Now, let's use your premiss that it takes 1.5 seconds to identify and delete spam. Let's also note that our company's net profits from last year was 51 million dollars and the gross asset intake was closer to 150 million.
1.5sec/spam * 43,126spam * 1hr/3600sec = ~18hrs
43,126spam/2weeks * 26 2weeks/yr = 1,121,276 spam/yr
$51mil/yr / 490workers = $104,081.63 profit/worker/year
$104,081.63 / 2080working hrs/yr = $50.04 profit/hr
18hrs * $50.04 profit/hr = $900 profit lost in 2 weeks
$900 * 26biweeks/yr = $23,418.36 (enough for my own personal secretery
Now, this is only direct profits, not net flow, net flow is nearly 3X as much, so the loss will be 3 times as much, which means ~$70K. We could've hire another engineer for what it had cost us to deal with spam.
Now, let's take the analysis one step further and point out that 70% of our spam goes to 4 people: CIO, CFO, CEO and VP of Marketting, all of which take home salaries in excess of $400K/year (far cry from the average salary of $55K of the rest of us) so the losses are even bigger than before cause my secretery gets about 2 spam a month (unfiltered).
Now take this $150Mil company with losses of ~$70K and extrapolate out to the Economy of the EU (I'd guess several trillion, no concrete numbers to back that up, though). Let's say 5 trillion for the sake of numbers(*).
150Mil:70K::5Tril:
So if the EU's GNP is roughly 5 Trillion and spam is rouhly proportional throughout 1st world nations
-Ab
(*) Hey you people accross the pond, is 5 trillion reasonable? I don't follow polotics/economy at all. I don't even know what the US's GDP is.
Dir sirs,
Intellectual property laws were originally designed with physical replication. In the past, it used to cost the copier money to replicate and disseminate the works in question, now with the digital revolution and the Internet, it can be done with almost zero cost and zero profit to everyone involved. With that in mind, what burdens do you currently have in applying these laws to copyright infringers and how do you plan overcoming these issues?
-Ab
Kinda makes me wonder if Taco and Timothy are actually the most skilled trolls around. They're casting nets, and getting 150 replies. :)
-Ab
I'm also not seeing any good examples of cases which failed because obviously valid expert testimony was barred from the court room.
:)
Yeah, cause all that DNA evidence would've shown that O.J. really didn't do it.
-Ab
The Ionic Breeze is quite good at what it does. Very pricey, but it does clean the air of my small apartment (2 room effeciency) very well ... and I'm a smoker.
-Ab
This is a good thing. I refuse to buy stuff on Ebay cause I've gotten screwed twice. If I get screwed at WalMart(c), I can goto the store manager. If I get Screwed at "Mom and Pop's Local 5&Dime and Cow Manure Emporium", I can contact the Better Business Bureau or my local law enforcement officials. But when I get screwed on Ebay, I'm screwed.
Ebay ignores everything except the most extreme of cases, at worst cancelling the seller's account and leaving the fleeced buyer up a creek without a paddle. This allows for some culpability on the sellers part. When I go into a store, I can see the business license on the wall (ask, they are required to post it for all potential customers to see, even if that is often in the management offices) and know who is ultimately responsible.
Now, I admit, I would PREFER to see Ebay require by default, Sellers to list verified contact info, but that's a pipe dream cause it would cost too much. I would also PREFER that a warrant or subpeona be required to release information such as credit card numbers, bank accounts, and transactions, even to law enforcement officials.
Anonymity and privacy are great things, but they only extend as far as you are willing to stay private. When you enter a public domain, your expectaion of privacy is highly deminished. Ebay is very much a public area where people freely go (no different than a department store). At a department store, the store is never private, but the customers can choose to be by purchasing in cash, or they can wave that privacy and use traceable credit/debit cards or checks.
-Ab
I noticed that the poster said that they called the FBI... Does someone have that number handy? On the FBI's site, all I can find is a web form to post "tips" to. Thanks!/i
1(215)418-4000
-Ab
Crackers are lazy these days. They're waiting for Orin Hatch's remote computer detonation proposal to become law and installed.
-Ab
Yes, did you read them? If you read past the initial chart and legend, you'll see the listing of the "soft limits" in states, even those listed with 'absolute' limits. For example, you can read down that Mississippi has a 15mph "soft limit" and PA (my state) on has a 5mph "soft limit". So that means that I can legally drive 5mph OVER the posted speed limit *IF* conditions are co-operative (minimal traffic, well lit, no kids in the street, no construction, no snow/rain, etc ...). Conversely, this means that the state views no legitimate reasons for drivers without the proper emergency notifications (i.e. cops, fire trucks, ambulances) to break that 5mph buffer. Now, that means that if I do 61mph in a 55mph zone, the cop has every right to pull me over and I have no legal ground to stand on. But if he pulls me over at 59mph, it becomes a "his word vs. my word" case in front of the magistrate. Usually if you show up with some weather reports of the day showing that it wasn't raining (and a traffic report if you can get it) you get off every time.
So in answer to your question/accusation, VERY few states actually ahve TRUE absolute limits. Most have reasonable and prudent laws that people just don't know about.
-Ab
(ps. There are more to articles than pretty pictures and charts.)
I have and have won ... on several occasions. I've been pulled over 15 times in my life, been written 6 tickets and only ever had to pay 2 of them. The key is being polite and honest with the police. Say "Yes, sir. No, Sir. I was speeding, Sir. I guess I deserve a ticket, Sir." and well informed and prepared for the magistrate/justice if you fight a ticket. an hour of online research can save you upwards of $250 in fines and court costs. Print out laws and know their reference numbers.
As a side note, 5 of the 6 tickets I've been written were from State Cops, rather than local, and both fines were from out of state tickets when I was driving cross country.
-Ab
Actually, in most states the speed limit is a suggested value for safe travel. Unless the sign has the word "max" on it, in which case it becomes an absolute speed limit. Here are a few articles to explain further: article 1 and article 2
-Ab
The secret to carving CDs is to go slow and insure the rigidity of the CD.I find that by using contact cement and gluing a piece of 1/8" plywood to the BOTTOM of the CD, I can use a band saw on a CD quite well. The wood prevents the CD from bending, which will cause it to catch and crack/shatter or chip. I've also found grinding wheels to work well, too ... but the same thing, you need to attach something rigid to prevent the CD from bending. I find plexiglass to work well, too.
-Ab
Area 52.
It was an FPS with guns instead of joysticks. You ran around shooting aliens (go figure). Power-ups and life were kept in wooden crates and exploding toxic waste barrels that you'd have to shoot open and shoot the power up to collect.
And yes, Aerosmith did provide the soundtrack.
-Ab
As an owner and proud wearer of the "I {heart} EATING COWS" t-shirt by Rhubarb, I will offer you the same deal I offer every vegetarian the tells me eating meet is bad and I should stop:
... as long as you convey the same respect for my beliefs over the same time period and eat at LEAST 1 pound of meat a day between your meals and at least 1.5 pounds per week of chicken, cow, and pig.
I will respect your beliefs and not eat meat for as long as you like
I have yet to have a vegetarian take me up on it.
-Ab
If one government does this, then another, then another, eventually all governments would be forced to
... everything else that the rest of the world has adopted and the US has collectively given them the bird.
Just like the metric system and cell phone networks and the Kyoto conference and
-Ab
fyi: the longest sentence ever is the final 60 page CHAPTER of the book "Ulyses" by James Joyce.
... it's a bland stream of (un)conciousness that will turn your mind to cream of wheat, and not the good kind of breakfast mush, but the kind that is white with no flavoring other than the starchy grain and a hint of sour milk that has been pulled from a dying guernsey, left in the sun for 7 days, then sent to the kitchen to stagnate in the fridge until combined with the crushed heart of the wheat seed and boiled on a fiery stove ... (I think you get the picture)
Try reading it sometime
(-1 off topic)
-Ab
If McCalls can sue someone for picking in the garbage, who is to prevent companies from suing bums that pick stuff off the streets?
Yes, because we all know the CEOs of major companies REALLY covet those stylish shopping carts filled with broken TVs, 'holey' clothes, and empty cans of Bud.
-Ab
I know in my city (maybe even the whole state) that dumpsters and trash removal are a paid service purchased by individual or groups of home owners, renters, or businesses. The dumpsters are considered private property and are USUALLY stored on someone's property. I've actually won a small claims court case against our neighbors (a fraternity) for filling our dumpster with sand after they had a beach party because it wouldn't all fit in theirs. They got a warning about some sort of citation for having the sand piled in their parking lot/lawn. They filled our dumpster when their's filled (and put the remainder in the next neighbor over's trash). The weight of the sand put the dumpster over the limit for the truck the next day and he wouldn't take it. The driver left a note stating this. We took pictures of the sand (including the trail from their house to ours) and called the cops. The cops charged them with tresspass, criminal mischief, and recommended we sue in small claims for theft of services. They had to pay for the court cost ($35) and 1 trash bill (which is semi-annual) (~$300).
-Ab.
ps. (we didn't press the criminal charges)
Moral? Keep on sinning. Protect yourself. If you quit smoking cigarettes, then they'll want to tax your water to make up for the lost tobacco-tax revenue.
... it worked. Now, close to 15% of the state budget was from cigarette taxes and it's been cut in half. They raised the tax $.60 per pack last summer (to just over $2 per pack total) and it still hasn't worked. Now they're trying to eliminate some of the blue laws to get more alcohol tax (in PA, all liquor stores are owned by the state and you have to have 1 of over a dozen different types of licenses to sell alcohol at all). We can now by alcohol (in bulk) on Sundays because they got some people to stop smoking. They're talking about creating a state property tax, increasing the state income tax and sales tax. All cause we got a fuckin' democrat in office (who, by the way, LOST all but 7 of our over 50 counties, yet still won the election). Where's Jesse Ventura when we need him.
My state is feeling that crunch. PA ran a HUGE anti-smoking campaign the last 10 years and low and behold
-Ab
Don't misunderstand me, I am a HUGE fan of the first amendment (and an ACLU member).
You are correct. This has nothing to do with the first amendment, nor do most issues where people cry out about it. The first amendment, with relation to freedom of speech, simply states that the GOVERNMENT cannot prevent free speech, except in the cases of public endangerment, fraud, or misrepresentation. Police may not be allowed to stop a 'peaceful protest,' but Joe Citizen can go down and put duct tape over their mouths.**
This case against Bonzi is purely fraud and misrepresentation. They are purposely deceiving potential "clients" in hopes of gaining something of monetary value.
-Ab.
** Putting duct tape over their mouth to shut them up does NOT infringe on their first amendment rights. Private citizens and entities retain the right to regulate speech. It does, however, break other laws, such as simple assault, unlawful detainment, and generally being a prick.
1. Write good music ...
2. Play it well live
3. Build up a fan base
4. Sell stuff (CDs, t-shirts, tickets...)
5.
6. Profit!
Try looking at these guys. They're doing alright. Not quite to the Metallica, Creed, Brittney Speares level of riches yet, but they definitely hold their own for a small town with more local acts than it knows what to do with.
-Ab
Why? Because Penn State is already partnered with Microsoft. (Nike, Pepsi, Motorola, and AT&T just to say a few more).
-Ab