You made we wonder. He's been in space for 748 days, that's 64627200. The ISS orbits at 7.7km/s Meaning this guy has traveled ~497,629,440 That's more then the distance to mars. (not that it means anything... just food for thought) Impressive.
"This packaging is the property of the U.S. Postal Service and is provided solely for use in sending Priority Mail. Misuse may be a violation of Federal law."
Betcha won't find that on a private corporation's packages...
Posting on Slashdot may be a violation of the law.
Breathing air may be a violation of the law.
Saying that something may be a violation of the law may be a violation of the law.
Well since FedEx asked him to take down the site and I know they know more about marketing then you could ever dream of. You lose.
Let's imagine a site that says 'Wal-Mart - A great place to shoplift' Sure it's got Wal-Mart's name in it, but it's going to cost them a lot more then it makes them. That's not good advertising.
And you are right, the best aproach probably would have been to talk with him and gotten him to maybe mention how strong FedEx boxes are so they make good furniture (and good for shipping) but just because the lawyer took the heavy handed approach doesn't make it wrong. The fact that this blew up into a big news story did hurt though.
fedexfurniture.com is not an advertisement for them. The only people that go there aren't going to changing their shiping needs because some guy made a couch of boxes.
You don't think they know what makes good adversting for them and what doesn't?
And more to the point chances are no one would have even ever heard of this site if they hadn't sued him, and if they don't sue him then there is a site out there telling people to abuse their free box system that gets very few hits. And those hits aren't the type of people that are going to change their shipping habits because of the site.
CEO:"Hey this guy is telling people how to make furniture out of our boxes. This could cost us lots of money if it catchs on"
Insane Lawyer:"Don't worry I'll stop him"
Of course the lawyer was insane for even mentioning the DMCA because that was sure to get it picked up by all the internet news channels and give this story more publicity then it ever would have received other wise.
I'd bet the lawyer is in some deep shit with his bosses for letting this story blow up like this.
I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm pretty conflicted about this.
On the one hand I'd hate to see this guy's right to publish his ideas on the internet get quashed.
But on the other, I'd hate to see FedEx get taken advantage of for providing a very useful service. ...
I don't know who to root for.
If Joe has a problem of course the company will pay, that was never in doubt. But in the economic sense everyone that has insurance has to pay for Joe. Because if Joe has a million dollar problem, and has only paid 25k dollars into the program. Where do you think the company is going to get the money to cover those costs? From everyone in the form of higher premiums. That's why it's so important that they know the risk ahead of time so they can set the rates properly. To high and everyone goes somewhere else, to low and they don't have enough to cover their costs and they go out of business.
Health problems do drive up rates because health problems are very expensive. If I have a problem that costs a million dollars of care. Where do you think the insurance company is going to get that money? They raise everyone's rate by 1 dollar.
So if we have a test that can determine your chances at a million dollar health problem and you test comes up and says you have a 50% chance of getting the problem. There is only two options. Option one is to charge the person with the problem 500,000 more to get the policy. Which is really the same as saying no coverage for you because there is no way anyone can afford that. Or by raising everyone else's rate by a collective 500,000 dollars to pay off the chances of that person getting sick.
I don't want someone in my health insurance program that has a good chance of costing me money.
If I walk past a trash can pull out my wallet and it's $50 in cash and toss it in I have "discarded" it and I agree, have at, you just made $50. If however it falls from my pocket, I have "lost" it, and you have no right to anything in it.
I'd like to refer to the case of Finders vs. Keepers
No, insurance companies are there for the unknown, not against risk per say. Smoking is a risk but it's very known that it causes problems, therefore you pay a higher premium. Walking on the sidewalk is also a risk, but it's not known if your going to get hit by a car or not. And until someone does studies to know the risk of sidewalk walking in different areas everyone will pay the same. The only reason this seems different is because it's something that the person can't control. So they're basically being punished for losing the genetic lottery. But such is life. I didn't have a choice to be born male, but I still have to pay more in car insurance. So this isn't entirely a new precedent.
It may sound cruel but IMO if someone has a genetic test done that says they are 99% likely to develop heart problems they shouldn't be allowed into an insurance program and drive up the rates for the rest of us. They should be turning to charity or the government for help.
Intresting, but something in my gut tells me it would be easier to switch time to base 10, then our numbering system to base 12;) You mathematicians are still free to use base 60 for circles. But for the rest of us I'd just settle with knowing how many hours 12412 seconds is. Which in the current system is 3.4477777777777777777777 But in metric time would be an obvious 1.2412:)
Slashdot Mirror
It ended badly.
What is a color if not something that we perceive to be as such?
Optical tricks or not the sky will always be 'blue' because we see it as blue.
Yah I saw them too. Everyone knows it's not 'elite hacker' but rather 'l33t hax0r'
Damn editors.
http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/deve loperId,127/
:P
Shows he worked on
Backyard Wrestling: Don't Try This at Home
Which as you can see says it was a licensed title.
You made we wonder.
He's been in space for 748 days, that's 64627200.
The ISS orbits at 7.7km/s
Meaning this guy has traveled ~497,629,440
That's more then the distance to mars. (not that it means anything... just food for thought)
Impressive.
Well the best example I know of is an Ion drive they've started using.
http://nmp.jpl.nasa.gov/ds1/tech/ionpropfaq.html
We just need a really big power source to move larget objects.
I didn't realize the British even had a space program ;)
Seriously, we need a new power source. As long as we're burning shit to get into space we're never going to be able get anywhere.
Breathing air may be a violation of the law.
Saying that something may be a violation of the law may be a violation of the law.
Well since FedEx asked him to take down the site and I know they know more about marketing then you could ever dream of.
You lose.
Let's imagine a site that says
'Wal-Mart - A great place to shoplift'
Sure it's got Wal-Mart's name in it, but it's going to cost them a lot more then it makes them.
That's not good advertising.
And you are right, the best aproach probably would have been to talk with him and gotten him to maybe mention how strong FedEx boxes are so they make good furniture (and good for shipping) but just because the lawyer took the heavy handed approach doesn't make it wrong. The fact that this blew up into a big news story did hurt though.
fedexfurniture.com is not an advertisement for them. The only people that go there aren't going to changing their shiping needs because some guy made a couch of boxes.
You don't think they know what makes good adversting for them and what doesn't?
And more to the point chances are no one would have even ever heard of this site if they hadn't sued him, and if they don't sue him then there is a site out there telling people to abuse their free box system that gets very few hits. And those hits aren't the type of people that are going to change their shipping habits because of the site.
Or more likely.
CEO:"Hey this guy is telling people how to make furniture out of our boxes. This could cost us lots of money if it catchs on"
Insane Lawyer:"Don't worry I'll stop him"
Of course the lawyer was insane for even mentioning the DMCA because that was sure to get it picked up by all the internet news channels and give this story more publicity then it ever would have received other wise.
I'd bet the lawyer is in some deep shit with his bosses for letting this story blow up like this.
I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm pretty conflicted about this.
...
On the one hand I'd hate to see this guy's right to publish his ideas on the internet get quashed.
But on the other, I'd hate to see FedEx get taken advantage of for providing a very useful service.
I don't know who to root for.
Of course it sucks. Which is why the government is there to help out.
I pay taxes so I don't have to help the people that can't help themselves.
If Joe has a problem of course the company will pay, that was never in doubt.
But in the economic sense everyone that has insurance has to pay for Joe. Because if Joe has a million dollar problem, and has only paid 25k dollars into the program. Where do you think the company is going to get the money to cover those costs? From everyone in the form of higher premiums.
That's why it's so important that they know the risk ahead of time so they can set the rates properly. To high and everyone goes somewhere else, to low and they don't have enough to cover their costs and they go out of business.
Health problems do drive up rates because health problems are very expensive.
If I have a problem that costs a million dollars of care. Where do you think the insurance company is going to get that money? They raise everyone's rate by 1 dollar.
So if we have a test that can determine your chances at a million dollar health problem and you test comes up and says you have a 50% chance of getting the problem. There is only two options.
Option one is to charge the person with the problem 500,000 more to get the policy. Which is really the same as saying no coverage for you because there is no way anyone can afford that.
Or by raising everyone else's rate by a collective 500,000 dollars to pay off the chances of that person getting sick.
I don't want someone in my health insurance program that has a good chance of costing me money.
No, insurance companies are there for the unknown, not against risk per say.
Smoking is a risk but it's very known that it causes problems, therefore you pay a higher premium.
Walking on the sidewalk is also a risk, but it's not known if your going to get hit by a car or not. And until someone does studies to know the risk of sidewalk walking in different areas everyone will pay the same.
The only reason this seems different is because it's something that the person can't control. So they're basically being punished for losing the genetic lottery. But such is life.
I didn't have a choice to be born male, but I still have to pay more in car insurance. So this isn't entirely a new precedent.
It may sound cruel but IMO if someone has a genetic test done that says they are 99% likely to develop heart problems they shouldn't be allowed into an insurance program and drive up the rates for the rest of us. They should be turning to charity or the government for help.
I personally would have gone with 'Deep Blue Screen of Death' ;)
Has a better sound to it
But he was also sued by the New York Attorney General.
I always thought the government was 'for the people'
My bad
Shouldn't 'we' as the true victims get some of that?
As always google has the answer.
define:VMWare
define:RSS
Intresting, but something in my gut tells me it would be easier to switch time to base 10, then our numbering system to base 12 ;) :)
You mathematicians are still free to use base 60 for circles.
But for the rest of us I'd just settle with knowing how many hours 12412 seconds is.
Which in the current system is 3.4477777777777777777777
But in metric time would be an obvious 1.2412
What is war but not fear and greed taken the extreme?
Most wars are started by greed.
And the cold war was based mostly on fear.
And yes there is always funding for the basic sciences but not as much as there should be.
War just puts more money in the pot.
The ends by no means justify the means but there is (IMO) some up validity to the statement that wars do help fund sciences.
And while on the topic... who thought up this crazy 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour, and 24 hours in a day.
We need metric time damn it!