Oh, my greatest props to you for linking BS to snopes.com! I love that site to send someone a link for every time I hear something about a Teddy Bear virus, taxing email, etc.
There was a friend of mine who was on a long car trip. Instead of the tape player not working, it did play, but there was a tape stuck in it. Since there was a tape in, it wouldn't play the radio, so the sound options were either play the tape or nothing. Here is where it descends into the seventh circle of Hell. The tape was a cassette single of "I'm Too Sexy" by Right Said Fred.
He said he would listen to the song a few times until it drove him nuts and then would have to turn it off. After about a half hour, the silence would get to be too much, so he would turn it on again for another time or two through the song. Repeat ad nauseam.
The quality of the espresso and coffee you get at a locally-owned place depends pretty heavily on things like how rigorously the baristas are trained...
That is an interesting point you make. I didn't know there was so much to the espresso side of things until about a year ago. I'm used to regular coffee makers, where they just run, and it's done when it stops dripping. I live in Boise Idaho, and there is a coffe place called Moxie Java that we have out here. They have them in 14 states so far. I was talking with a guy who works there, and they don't let regular joes off the street come and start working their coffee counters. They specifically want to avoid the Starbucks crappiness of people not knowing what they are doing and making bad coffee. All Moxie people have to go to barista training school before they can do the espresso at Moxie.
My friend and I have an ongoing joking argument about Moxie vs. Starbucks. I've had Starbucks several times, and I can stand stuff like mochas and white mochas because they flavor them enough, but I've had some of their regular coffee, and a latte, and they are just so bitter that no amount of sugar would cure it. I asked my 'Bucks-liking friend what he usually orders, and he said "Caramel Macciatto". Oh, right. I get lattes at Moxie because they actually taste good without having to fix them with caramel.
I read Dave Barry's column once about this Lewak coffee. Here were some great lines from it (approx. quotes), "We looked at the coffee beans, to see if they looked different somehow, but they looked just like regular coffee beans. We started to wonder if we had gotten ripped off and gotten regular coffee. It dawned on me how strange that is to think I'm being ripped off by getting coffee beans NOT pooped out by a weasel."
"You know how there are some things that you think would be just terrible, but then when you try them they turn out to be one of the most wonderful things you've ever had? Well this was not one of them. This coffee tasted like someone had washed a dead cat in it."
He ended with, "I can't wait to start hearing people ordering decaf poopaccinos."
All right, I just about had a stroke reading that. I had to look away from my computer about halfway through reading your post so I could calm down and not look like a total moron busting out laughing at work.
Yeah, it was used in a mixed metaphor kind of way there. Toeing the line usually refers to conforming to someone else's instruction--like if someone draws a line, you step to it as expected. This from the Amer. Heritage Dictionary: "To adhere to doctrines or rules conscientiously; conform."
I think the original poster was trying to use it in terms of not "crossing the line", meaning going too far or being extreme.
Auuggghhh! Please stop calling it a "small town" sheriff's office. It's the north side of Detroit. I can see how this would get a significant amount of traffic if Wayne County's (downtown Detroit) sheriff's office didn't have a site like this.
While I don't think the guy was totally under a halo on this, the fact that there was no contract is significant. Yes, he agreed to do it without pay, but how long is that good for? It's a verbal agreement. If you volunteer to do something for free, and then it grows into a much bigger thing that is costing you a lot of money, you have to make some kind of arrangement to get paid for it, or stop doing it. He should be glad he did not sign a contract saying he would do it for free, because then there would be some legal grounds against him.
Give the county free services for three years, then hit them with the price and tell them that they can't live without him... that's not true, the county can take those three years of free service and give him nothing but a thank you, and then take their business elsewhere.
Your statement is right, but you probably didn't write what you actually are thinking. Instead of just taking their business elsewhere, as you suggest, they had him arrested and charged with 4 felonies instead of negotiating.
usually any contract worth $300,000 a year has to go out to bid.
Math lesson: He ran it for 3 years. $300,000 / 3 = $100,000 a year. It probably would have required bidding, even for $100k, but since there was no contract, it didn't matter. $300k does sound a bit arrogant as an initial offer, but what I notice is conspicuously absent from these stories is any mention of a counter offer from the Sheriff's department. It sounds like their first reaction was to get pissed off and arrest and charge him.
His claim of ownership of the domain is a bit weak.
Oh, you mean besides his registering and paying for it personally? Right, no claim at all. [rolls eyes]
He's not the Macomb Sheriff. The sheriff's office could very well create a trademark and then sue for posession of the domain name.
...you mean following due process to get the website, instead of confiscating his possesions, arresting him, and bringing charges against him? Good idea.
You'd need to prove that someone else stole your database, as opposed to arriving at it independently. As the plaintiff, you have the burden of proof.
You know, I used to have that level of idealism about the U.S. legal system until the recent actions of the RIAA. I suppose this falls under the classic Slashdot line, "Where have you been?" (By the way, for whoever owns the copyright on that, I'm not using it for profit, and it is only a small excerpt of your comment quoted as part of fair use rights.) What you say may be the case with respect to final court decisions, but in reality, money is the law. Burden of proof is on the accused's bank account long before a lawsuit ever comes to a conclusion--most of the time before it even starts.
And if the courts don't beat the hell out of SCO with a cluebat pretty soon, your original conclusion may even be suspect.
(which I highly recommend you read before flaming)
I did read the bill when the first story about this came out, I did send a letter to my congressman about this, and I'm still flaming mad about it! I want to know the names of the congress people in the house judiciary committee who voted on this.
The general idea behind this bill is maybe, possibly, OK in a grey-area sort of way, but my serious complaint against this is that the bill is terribly written. It is so dangerously un-specific as to be easily abused. I really hope this can be stopped because this could be legislative disaster on the scale of the DMCA.
Well, I set up heads and tails in a seeded double elimination tournament to prevent a single game aberration. The seeding in the playoffs is determined by 135 "regular season" flips. It usually takes me a few days to make any decision this way though, what with ticket sales, concessions, parking, etc.
Apparently you don't grasp the point of the moderation system -- it's about the readers, not the posters.
Moderation is indeed fucked, but having to read the same thing 3 times in a row really is redundant, no matter how quickly they were posted.
I think it can be about both. The moderating instructions request to focus on modding up, rather than modding down. That way, one answer gets brought up with a mod point instead of having to use two or more mod points to push the other ones down. People can then browse at a threthhold of 2 or more, and see the good stuff. Let the unuseful stuff stay at 0 or 1 and just pull up the good ones.
When I read your comment, I saw it applying so well to another school of thought that is popular here on Slashdot. With your permission, I have modified a few of your words and am "redistributing" here. "Who said it was [corporately] funded? Lot's of cheap [software] has been and continues to be done on the [programmer's] own tab, as long as the costs are low enough. If they are genuinely interested in the [product], who is to say that it's not worthwhile?"
Those sound like valid concerns, but they are already taken care of by other factors as indicated here:
There is a risk they could get sued. They determined it was cheaper to pay them off then risk it. Unpopular decisiton, but justifiable. Note he did refer to the cost of defense, not just losing.
That's always possible because anyone can sue anyone else for anything. The saving factor here is that they bought their Linux software and support from Red Hat, who has promised all their customers that they will cover all their legal expenses against anyone suing them for their usage of Red Hat's Linux. Therefore, no risk--no reason to pay.
Now the liability issue, people keep claiming that the end user isn't liable. However I thought that in US law the act of running a program (ie copying into memory) required a license, this is the arguement behind EULA.
The end user is only responsible for the terms of the license they agreed to when they bought the software. They bought the software from Red Hat, so the only license that applies to them is the license Red Hat presents with their software. If Red Hat is doing something wrong and does not have rights to resell the software, then that is an issue Red Hat has to deal with. EV1 had not signed (until now) a license with SCO, so they had no responsibilities to SCO as long as they were complying with the Red Hat license they agreed to.
In this case the person actually running the software would be committing the infringement, and liable.
The license they agreed to (GPL in this case) does not restrict their own use or copying (imaging to more servers) so they are not in any violation. If they break that, then they would be liable to the original copyright holders, which would then depend on SCO's claims of ownership.
'Linux server use at a popular hosting provider declined 50% the first three quarters of 2004'
There was a book called "How to Lie With Statistics", originally published in 1954. It was an entertaining read, and this was one of the great examples it pointed out. You can shift percentages how you want by changing the total number you compare to. Here is Amazon's link to the book if you're interested.
Oh, beauty. That's why I dislike the "Redundant" mod. The guy asked what CYA stood for. He got answers at: 8:31 AM 8:31 AM (modded redundant) 8:33 AM (modded redundant) I want to set up my moderating view like this guy, to include seconds in the posted time. That way I can know which post at 8:31 was really the redundant one!
I feel your pain because that was my first mod when I signed up for my account. I answered someone's question a little too late, and got put in a mod hole right at the beginning.
You know, I loved his self-contradicting response to the allegation that they are funding SCO's legal fights. Here are the two choice quotes:
"Other have claimed that we're essentially funding SCOs various lawsuits. This is not true...our small fee would not go very far defending an action such as this, much less prosecuting one." So just because you don't give enough to completely fund an entire lawsuit on your own, you are not funding them??? I can't wait to hear that from hundreds of other wuss companies who roll over to SCO's threats and then wonder how they have the funds to continue their rampage.
"Whatever your position on the various suits, which SCO has said will increase. These suits have a very real and significant cost, even if proven unsuccessful. These are costs we were prepared to bear as we did in the Free Speech case with CI Host." You're right! SCO is mounting up significant costs with all these lawsuits they have going, and it's extremely helpful to them that you are willing to bear these costs. I do see that he means they will bear the costs on the receiving end of their customers that might get sued, but I don't see how giving money to SCO accomplishes that. On the contrary, if people would stop giving money to SCO, they wouldn't have the funds to continue filing lawsuits.
I have this funny picture in my head of SCO running out of legal bullets, but companies like this keep giving them "special" bullets that can't hit their customers. They think they are protecting their customers, but if they would STOP GIVING THEM BULLETS, they would be protecting everyone!
Slashdot Mirror
All your websites are belong to us!
Please don't kill me--it was just too perfect.
Oh, my greatest props to you for linking BS to snopes.com! I love that site to send someone a link for every time I hear something about a Teddy Bear virus, taxing email, etc.
There was a friend of mine who was on a long car trip. Instead of the tape player not working, it did play, but there was a tape stuck in it. Since there was a tape in, it wouldn't play the radio, so the sound options were either play the tape or nothing. Here is where it descends into the seventh circle of Hell. The tape was a cassette single of "I'm Too Sexy" by Right Said Fred.
He said he would listen to the song a few times until it drove him nuts and then would have to turn it off. After about a half hour, the silence would get to be too much, so he would turn it on again for another time or two through the song. Repeat ad nauseam.
I've just got this to say about that:
They just better not enable wireless access to this thing.
My friend and I have an ongoing joking argument about Moxie vs. Starbucks. I've had Starbucks several times, and I can stand stuff like mochas and white mochas because they flavor them enough, but I've had some of their regular coffee, and a latte, and they are just so bitter that no amount of sugar would cure it. I asked my 'Bucks-liking friend what he usually orders, and he said "Caramel Macciatto". Oh, right. I get lattes at Moxie because they actually taste good without having to fix them with caramel.
I read Dave Barry's column once about this Lewak coffee. Here were some great lines from it (approx. quotes), "We looked at the coffee beans, to see if they looked different somehow, but they looked just like regular coffee beans. We started to wonder if we had gotten ripped off and gotten regular coffee. It dawned on me how strange that is to think I'm being ripped off by getting coffee beans NOT pooped out by a weasel."
"You know how there are some things that you think would be just terrible, but then when you try them they turn out to be one of the most wonderful things you've ever had? Well this was not one of them. This coffee tasted like someone had washed a dead cat in it."
He ended with, "I can't wait to start hearing people ordering decaf poopaccinos."
Yeah, that's because Alzheimer's is about losing your memory, and those caffeine addicts can't fall asleep long enough to forget anything.
All right, I just about had a stroke reading that. I had to look away from my computer about halfway through reading your post so I could calm down and not look like a total moron busting out laughing at work.
Yeah, it was used in a mixed metaphor kind of way there. Toeing the line usually refers to conforming to someone else's instruction--like if someone draws a line, you step to it as expected. This from the Amer. Heritage Dictionary:
"To adhere to doctrines or rules conscientiously; conform."
I think the original poster was trying to use it in terms of not "crossing the line", meaning going too far or being extreme.
"Also, to plug my own horn..."
Does that mean to not promote yourself?
Auuggghhh! Please stop calling it a "small town" sheriff's office. It's the north side of Detroit. I can see how this would get a significant amount of traffic if Wayne County's (downtown Detroit) sheriff's office didn't have a site like this.
While I don't think the guy was totally under a halo on this, the fact that there was no contract is significant. Yes, he agreed to do it without pay, but how long is that good for? It's a verbal agreement. If you volunteer to do something for free, and then it grows into a much bigger thing that is costing you a lot of money, you have to make some kind of arrangement to get paid for it, or stop doing it. He should be glad he did not sign a contract saying he would do it for free, because then there would be some legal grounds against him.
Math lesson: He ran it for 3 years. $300,000 / 3 = $100,000 a year. It probably would have required bidding, even for $100k, but since there was no contract, it didn't matter. $300k does sound a bit arrogant as an initial offer, but what I notice is conspicuously absent from these stories is any mention of a counter offer from the Sheriff's department. It sounds like their first reaction was to get pissed off and arrest and charge him.
Oh, you mean besides his registering and paying for it personally? Right, no claim at all. [rolls eyes]
...you mean following due process to get the website, instead of confiscating his possesions, arresting him, and bringing charges against him? Good idea.
You know, I used to have that level of idealism about the U.S. legal system until the recent actions of the RIAA. I suppose this falls under the classic Slashdot line, "Where have you been?" (By the way, for whoever owns the copyright on that, I'm not using it for profit, and it is only a small excerpt of your comment quoted as part of fair use rights.) What you say may be the case with respect to final court decisions, but in reality, money is the law. Burden of proof is on the accused's bank account long before a lawsuit ever comes to a conclusion--most of the time before it even starts.
And if the courts don't beat the hell out of SCO with a cluebat pretty soon, your original conclusion may even be suspect.
The general idea behind this bill is maybe, possibly, OK in a grey-area sort of way, but my serious complaint against this is that the bill is terribly written. It is so dangerously un-specific as to be easily abused. I really hope this can be stopped because this could be legislative disaster on the scale of the DMCA.
Oh, jeez, that Beowulf one was good. I don't expect to see many literary jokes on Slashdot.
Well, I set up heads and tails in a seeded double elimination tournament to prevent a single game aberration. The seeding in the playoffs is determined by 135 "regular season" flips. It usually takes me a few days to make any decision this way though, what with ticket sales, concessions, parking, etc.
When I read your comment, I saw it applying so well to another school of thought that is popular here on Slashdot. With your permission, I have modified a few of your words and am "redistributing" here.
"Who said it was [corporately] funded? Lot's of cheap [software] has been and continues to be done on the [programmer's] own tab, as long as the costs are low enough. If they are genuinely interested in the [product], who is to say that it's not worthwhile?"
That's always possible because anyone can sue anyone else for anything. The saving factor here is that they bought their Linux software and support from Red Hat, who has promised all their customers that they will cover all their legal expenses against anyone suing them for their usage of Red Hat's Linux. Therefore, no risk--no reason to pay.
The end user is only responsible for the terms of the license they agreed to when they bought the software. They bought the software from Red Hat, so the only license that applies to them is the license Red Hat presents with their software. If Red Hat is doing something wrong and does not have rights to resell the software, then that is an issue Red Hat has to deal with. EV1 had not signed (until now) a license with SCO, so they had no responsibilities to SCO as long as they were complying with the Red Hat license they agreed to.
The license they agreed to (GPL in this case) does not restrict their own use or copying (imaging to more servers) so they are not in any violation. If they break that, then they would be liable to the original copyright holders, which would then depend on SCO's claims of ownership.
There was a book called "How to Lie With Statistics", originally published in 1954. It was an entertaining read, and this was one of the great examples it pointed out. You can shift percentages how you want by changing the total number you compare to. Here is Amazon's link to the book if you're interested.
Oh, beauty. That's why I dislike the "Redundant" mod. The guy asked what CYA stood for. He got answers at:
8:31 AM
8:31 AM (modded redundant)
8:33 AM (modded redundant)
I want to set up my moderating view like this guy, to include seconds in the posted time. That way I can know which post at 8:31 was really the redundant one!
I feel your pain because that was my first mod when I signed up for my account. I answered someone's question a little too late, and got put in a mod hole right at the beginning.
You know, I loved his self-contradicting response to the allegation that they are funding SCO's legal fights. Here are the two choice quotes:
"Other have claimed that we're essentially funding SCOs various lawsuits. This is not true...our small fee would not go very far defending an action such as this, much less prosecuting one."
So just because you don't give enough to completely fund an entire lawsuit on your own, you are not funding them??? I can't wait to hear that from hundreds of other wuss companies who roll over to SCO's threats and then wonder how they have the funds to continue their rampage.
"Whatever your position on the various suits, which SCO has said will increase. These suits have a very real and significant cost, even if proven unsuccessful. These are costs we were prepared to bear as we did in the Free Speech case with CI Host."
You're right! SCO is mounting up significant costs with all these lawsuits they have going, and it's extremely helpful to them that you are willing to bear these costs. I do see that he means they will bear the costs on the receiving end of their customers that might get sued, but I don't see how giving money to SCO accomplishes that. On the contrary, if people would stop giving money to SCO, they wouldn't have the funds to continue filing lawsuits.
I have this funny picture in my head of SCO running out of legal bullets, but companies like this keep giving them "special" bullets that can't hit their customers. They think they are protecting their customers, but if they would STOP GIVING THEM BULLETS, they would be protecting everyone!
You can't prove a bet with theoretical equations! Geez, get back to us when they have:
a) proof
or
b) a real headline
"They're an agressive company, growing like hell, and the last thing they need is to be the point defendent in something like this."
Yeah, but by doing this, customers are going to turn on them and leave in droves. The "growing like hell" will stop and may even reverse.