Thanks for implying that I'm ignorant to our legal system. But just so you're aware, you corrected me by repeating what I said in my post.
You said: It might be persuasive, and useful in an argument, but the other circuit courts are not bound in any way to follow it.
When I had already posted that the judge didn't have to abide by the other ruling, but often will take that ruling into account and rule the same way.
You also wrote: I wish people would have a basic grasp of our legal system before they try to post like they know what they're talking about.
Now that I've pointed out that you did little more than repeat my post (even though you said it was wrong) don't you feel like a silly snob for saying this? Are you one of the many who suffer from need-to-correct-everyone-to-feel-important syndrome?
This isn't final unless/until all the remaining appellate districts rule in the same way. One district going the other way might bring it back to the supremes.
If they'd heard it and decided against the RIAA, rather than just refusing to hear it, it would be final.
Judges have a sort of gentlemens' agreement to honor each other's rulings. They don't have to. Another judge could certainly rule differently in a separate, yet related case. But as soon as one of the cases comes up, the lawyer should say, "look at this related case, where the last judge decided we were right." And generally, the judge will see that there is legal precident, and barring any major differences, rule the same way. This is necessary for consistancy, and many judges will uphold precident, even if they may have decided contrarily to the old judgement. Now that the Supreme Court has refused the case, the precident has been set.
At the time of this posting, the parent is modded Funny. But it's true! I've been looking into making small devices that I can communicate with via ethernet. And to do that, I need to impliment a tcp/ip stack on a microcontroller.
In fact, there's no really good way, that I've ever seen, for a hobbyist to controll peripherals with his computer. What are your options? PCI... ParPort... SerialPort... Ethernet. None of these are easy to interface with. Small, powerful controllers are exactly what we need to really get our hands dirty.
There are a few applications where this step up will really help. There are several projects that impliment a tcp/ip stack on a microcontroller. I've seen webservers about the size of a quarter! How cool is that!
Even though this has already been done with 8-bit controllers, it would be much easier with 32 bits. This will make it just a little easier to connect your toaster/fridge/(fill_in_the_blank) to your network.
The Atmel company has always gone to great pains ensuring that their chips are compatible. That's very smart, because developers can switch chips with little or no adjustments.
This is a pretty big, fundamental change. But based on their repuation, I think Atmel will provide the maximum amount of compatibility possible without being silly about it.
Firefox will most likely gain a lot of ground but I don't think it will come out on top. I would love to see it come out on top but Microsoft has a lot of ground it they're not going to give it up without a fight.
Firefox and others don't have to come out on top. There just needs to be a significant presence of browsers other than IE on the net to negate Microsofts ability to abuse. When 98% of browsers are IE, they can basterdize standards and it looks like the 2% are the screwed up ones. If several other browsers are largely in use (don't need to be #1) then it will be more apparent which browser is actually screwed up and not following standards.
Well, I can see it in Safari, and Joe can see in Firefox. Sally says it works with Opera. How come it looks so weird on your computer?
I have a small office, ~10 desktop computers. But I have already moved everybody over to Firefox. I think situations like yours and mine will spur much of the growth that we're going to see by Firefox and other browsers.
First of all, I don't expect the average user to understand the implications of using I.E. And I don't expect them to know that they have alternatives. An administrator can make a blanket decision and override these factors.
This initial move by large businesses has to happen to make it unnacceptable to make non-standard web pages. Any professional web designer worth his salt will make a page that works with every conceivable browser. But many people rely on FrontPage and other such filth. It must become taboo to use Microsoft-Only extionsions on a page. With that advantage taken away from MS, the real fight can begin.
What is the standard? How informed is informed enough? When is an opinion enough of an opinion? So voting based on the last yard sign I saw isn't enough. Is listening to talk radio? Reading one newspaper a day? Reading slashdot?
I respond to every time someone presumes to have some standard on who should vote and who is better off staying home. None of the big shots who presume to tell other people they shouldn't vote ever steps up with some specifics.
Most people here know the difficulty in implimenting artificial intelligence. Complex judgments aren't easily reduced to a set of clear cut rules. Your request asks for a set of clear cut rules to a problem that requires thought - that's why you don't get the simplistic answers you want. There will always be hairs to split. But a reasonable person knows the difference between someone who should vote and one who probably shouldn't.
I'm in the other camp, I'd like to see a larger voter turn out, even if it is mostly made up of uninformed people.
We're increasingly moving toward dumbed-down news with sound bytes and one-liners for political platforms. I think this is a result of the dumbing down of the voting population. I think candidates regularly stretch their position if not lie about it. Both of this year's political conventions, for example, wandered away from much of the party's core beleifs.
With a sharper, more educated, more caring voting body, they couldn't get away with this. I'm not Nader fan. But his comment about football is stingingly true. What if americans new as much about candidates as about their favorite players?
We wouldn't have all these sly maneuvers from politicians because they would get caught too often.
I would like a higher voter turnout - but I think dumbing down the voting body is too high a cost.
I'm not a fan of "slippery slope" arguments, but if you start disenfranching certain segments of people for their perceived uninformed vote, what's to say that next time you won't miss the cut?
The truth is we DO disenfranchise certain groups. An extreme example... in many cases a mentally retarded man cannot vote. Why not? Because he does not have the capacity to vote. This was his lot in life, he did not choose it. But some people DO choose to have a similar lack of capacity. Are they allowed to vote?... sure. But I wouldn't encourage them.
I'm all for high voter turnout. But I also think people should be informed before rushing to the ballot box.
I don't really care for a lot of these recent "get out the vote" efforts. A lot of people who don't vote don't have a clue about who is running. Many can't name the president, and certainly not their congressman. Do they know where each candidate stands on even one issue? Probably not. They do know who just broke up in Hollywood though, and the last person to be kicked off Survivor.
If these people flock to the polls, they'll simply dilute the votes of people like you and me, who really, honestly, and deeply care about voting. They will probably vote for whoever their friends are voting for. They might randomly pick somebody off the ballot. They'll probably just pick whoever they recognize or like more from the 10 seconds they saw them on TV. Is this a good idea? Not really.
Convince people to care, then convince them to vote. That's what I say.
Yes, I was talking about a US $20. So you're right, the story either got changed in the telling, or wasn't true to begin with. Maybe it was a different bill?
I heard it from someone who read it from a "Stupid Criminal" list. And most of those are taken from police reports. I wouldn't bet my life that it's true, but I wouldn't be suprised either.
One man decided to counterfeit some money on his computer, so he printed off some high quality images of $20 bills. They looked good, but the new $20's have a hologram on them. So he got a roll of twenty dollar bills and cut out the holograms to past onto his counterfeits.
There you have it... All this anti-counterfeiting technology is working.
...the only legitimate (afaict) role of the electoral college is actually to psuedo-normalize votes...
This is confusing, because the EC is supposed to act (if it is legitimate at all) as an intermediary between the people and the FedGov.
Additionally, the electoral college exists to secure States' rights. I think you're expressing how you think our representation should be. Many people like the idea of direct (or as direct as possible) representation. When in fact, it is the State that actually votes. This was done on purpose. And in the wide scope of history, it makes sense. States reserve the right to cast their votes however they want. Two states do have somewhat of a split between their electoral votes. And any other state could do so if it so chose.
It isn't. And neither one is bad. Those terms are not derogatory, and are not meant to be derogatory. I think people just started to think that any term used for black people was a racial slur. Now people don't like when you use the term black.
Mark my words, in ten years the term African American will no longer be acceptable because of this senseless process.
A term is only derogatory if it is meant in an insulting or hurtful way.
Instant Runoff Voting will be used in San Francisco this November and a number of other cities and counties have approved of using it or are considering doing so. Instant Runoff Voting, or IRV, solves the perceived "spoiler" problem because you can vote for all the candidates you like; you don't have to make a lesser-evil choice. I encourage people to learn more about IRV at Center for Voting and Democracy.
IRV does NOT solve all of our voting problems. In fact, as long as you have more than two candidates, there isn't really a good way to elect one. Every method we've thought of so far has major issues. For instance, IRV solves the spoiler problem as long as the spoiler only gets a small percentage of the vote. But as they start to get a larger share of the electorate, the spoiler problem comes back!...even with IRV.
The best voting method I've seen is Condorcet voting. But even that isn't perfect.
...since most states have a winner-takes-all approach to electing Electoral College representatives, that their systems are unfairly biased towards "the majority", which is in many cases white European descendants.
As far as I know, democracies are always biased toward the majority. If they weren't, it wouldn't be a democracy.
I suppose we could normalize votes between minorities and majorities. But what are you goint to do when every election gets normalized to a tie?
the project is supposed to add a "social aspect" to online gaming
Yes, and perhaps the most egregious error was not looking at the lifestyles of video game fanatics. If they've chosen not to have social lives by now, why would they want to start one in a video game?
Let's rack you up as another person who doesn't read EULAs then.
Hint: when you buy a computer with Windows on it you have not actually bought a copy of Windows...
So says Microsoft. But the courts don't always validate assinign claims made in EULAs. In fact, if you've never installed the software, you never had the opportunity to accept or decline the EULA! The iron fist of the EULA is sort of rusty and weak, and under no circumstances should you interpret EULAs as law.
The case was Softman v. Adobe. It is several years old, and it's been a while since I've looked into it. Basically, the court said, the customer bought the product, he owns it, he may redistribute it like any other product. You do NOT have the right to tell him what he can and cannot do with it via an EULA once he buys it.
You'll want to double check all this stuff to make sure I got it right, and that nothing has changed since. But there is legal precident on our side.
Slashdot Mirror
Thanks for implying that I'm ignorant to our legal system. But just so you're aware, you corrected me by repeating what I said in my post.
You said: It might be persuasive, and useful in an argument, but the other circuit courts are not bound in any way to follow it.
When I had already posted that the judge didn't have to abide by the other ruling, but often will take that ruling into account and rule the same way.
You also wrote: I wish people would have a basic grasp of our legal system before they try to post like they know what they're talking about.
Now that I've pointed out that you did little more than repeat my post (even though you said it was wrong) don't you feel like a silly snob for saying this? Are you one of the many who suffer from need-to-correct-everyone-to-feel-important syndrome?
This isn't final unless/until all the remaining appellate districts rule in the same way. One district going the other way might bring it back to the supremes.
If they'd heard it and decided against the RIAA, rather than just refusing to hear it, it would be final.
Judges have a sort of gentlemens' agreement to honor each other's rulings. They don't have to. Another judge could certainly rule differently in a separate, yet related case. But as soon as one of the cases comes up, the lawyer should say, "look at this related case, where the last judge decided we were right." And generally, the judge will see that there is legal precident, and barring any major differences, rule the same way. This is necessary for consistancy, and many judges will uphold precident, even if they may have decided contrarily to the old judgement. Now that the Supreme Court has refused the case, the precident has been set.
The article says that the quality of the MCE television has generally been received as inferior to rival and competitor TiVo.
...But wait! Have you seen all the new DRM features?
Microsoft salesman:
Anyone think this was about Diebold?
I certainly did when I read the title. I was very suprised to see that it was about a fictional work.
At the time of this posting, the parent is modded Funny. But it's true! I've been looking into making small devices that I can communicate with via ethernet. And to do that, I need to impliment a tcp/ip stack on a microcontroller.
In fact, there's no really good way, that I've ever seen, for a hobbyist to controll peripherals with his computer. What are your options? PCI... ParPort... SerialPort... Ethernet. None of these are easy to interface with. Small, powerful controllers are exactly what we need to really get our hands dirty.
There are a few applications where this step up will really help. There are several projects that impliment a tcp/ip stack on a microcontroller. I've seen webservers about the size of a quarter! How cool is that!
Even though this has already been done with 8-bit controllers, it would be much easier with 32 bits. This will make it just a little easier to connect your toaster/fridge/(fill_in_the_blank) to your network.
The Atmel company has always gone to great pains ensuring that their chips are compatible. That's very smart, because developers can switch chips with little or no adjustments.
This is a pretty big, fundamental change. But based on their repuation, I think Atmel will provide the maximum amount of compatibility possible without being silly about it.
We're talking about people who for the most part don't have the competence to download security fixes, let alone downloading a new browser.
Shouldn't the automated security patch downloader on Windows install Firefox for you?
Firefox will most likely gain a lot of ground but I don't think it will come out on top. I would love to see it come out on top but Microsoft has a lot of ground it they're not going to give it up without a fight.
Firefox and others don't have to come out on top. There just needs to be a significant presence of browsers other than IE on the net to negate Microsofts ability to abuse. When 98% of browsers are IE, they can basterdize standards and it looks like the 2% are the screwed up ones. If several other browsers are largely in use (don't need to be #1) then it will be more apparent which browser is actually screwed up and not following standards.
Well, I can see it in Safari, and Joe can see in Firefox. Sally says it works with Opera. How come it looks so weird on your computer?
I have a small office, ~10 desktop computers. But I have already moved everybody over to Firefox. I think situations like yours and mine will spur much of the growth that we're going to see by Firefox and other browsers.
First of all, I don't expect the average user to understand the implications of using I.E. And I don't expect them to know that they have alternatives. An administrator can make a blanket decision and override these factors.
This initial move by large businesses has to happen to make it unnacceptable to make non-standard web pages. Any professional web designer worth his salt will make a page that works with every conceivable browser. But many people rely on FrontPage and other such filth. It must become taboo to use Microsoft-Only extionsions on a page. With that advantage taken away from MS, the real fight can begin.
What is the standard? How informed is informed enough? When is an opinion enough of an opinion? So voting based on the last yard sign I saw isn't enough. Is listening to talk radio? Reading one newspaper a day? Reading slashdot?
I respond to every time someone presumes to have some standard on who should vote and who is better off staying home. None of the big shots who presume to tell other people they shouldn't vote ever steps up with some specifics.
Most people here know the difficulty in implimenting artificial intelligence. Complex judgments aren't easily reduced to a set of clear cut rules. Your request asks for a set of clear cut rules to a problem that requires thought - that's why you don't get the simplistic answers you want. There will always be hairs to split. But a reasonable person knows the difference between someone who should vote and one who probably shouldn't.
So for whom is the Master Chief voting?
Nice grammar!
Well done. Well done.
I'm in the other camp, I'd like to see a larger voter turn out, even if it is mostly made up of uninformed people.
We're increasingly moving toward dumbed-down news with sound bytes and one-liners for political platforms. I think this is a result of the dumbing down of the voting population. I think candidates regularly stretch their position if not lie about it. Both of this year's political conventions, for example, wandered away from much of the party's core beleifs.
With a sharper, more educated, more caring voting body, they couldn't get away with this. I'm not Nader fan. But his comment about football is stingingly true. What if americans new as much about candidates as about their favorite players?
We wouldn't have all these sly maneuvers from politicians because they would get caught too often.
I would like a higher voter turnout - but I think dumbing down the voting body is too high a cost.
I'm not a fan of "slippery slope" arguments, but if you start disenfranching certain segments of people for their perceived uninformed vote, what's to say that next time you won't miss the cut?
... sure. But I wouldn't encourage them.
The truth is we DO disenfranchise certain groups. An extreme example... in many cases a mentally retarded man cannot vote. Why not? Because he does not have the capacity to vote. This was his lot in life, he did not choose it. But some people DO choose to have a similar lack of capacity. Are they allowed to vote?
I'm all for high voter turnout. But I also think people should be informed before rushing to the ballot box.
I don't really care for a lot of these recent "get out the vote" efforts. A lot of people who don't vote don't have a clue about who is running. Many can't name the president, and certainly not their congressman. Do they know where each candidate stands on even one issue? Probably not. They do know who just broke up in Hollywood though, and the last person to be kicked off Survivor.
If these people flock to the polls, they'll simply dilute the votes of people like you and me, who really, honestly, and deeply care about voting. They will probably vote for whoever their friends are voting for. They might randomly pick somebody off the ballot. They'll probably just pick whoever they recognize or like more from the 10 seconds they saw them on TV. Is this a good idea? Not really.
Convince people to care, then convince them to vote. That's what I say.
Yes, I was talking about a US $20. So you're right, the story either got changed in the telling, or wasn't true to begin with. Maybe it was a different bill?
I heard it from someone who read it from a "Stupid Criminal" list. And most of those are taken from police reports. I wouldn't bet my life that it's true, but I wouldn't be suprised either.
Do we just need to give Condorcet a less Frenchy name? Figure out a way to make the mathematics more popularly accessible?
Is there a "Matrix Mathematics for Dummies" book?
One man decided to counterfeit some money on his computer, so he printed off some high quality images of $20 bills. They looked good, but the new $20's have a hologram on them. So he got a roll of twenty dollar bills and cut out the holograms to past onto his counterfeits.
There you have it... All this anti-counterfeiting technology is working.
p.s. To my knowledge, this story is true.
...the only legitimate (afaict) role of the electoral college is actually to psuedo-normalize votes...
This is confusing, because the EC is supposed to act (if it is legitimate at all) as an intermediary between the people and the FedGov.
Additionally, the electoral college exists to secure States' rights. I think you're expressing how you think our representation should be. Many people like the idea of direct (or as direct as possible) representation. When in fact, it is the State that actually votes. This was done on purpose. And in the wide scope of history, it makes sense. States reserve the right to cast their votes however they want. Two states do have somewhat of a split between their electoral votes. And any other state could do so if it so chose.
People of color
How is that better than 'colored people'?
It isn't. And neither one is bad. Those terms are not derogatory, and are not meant to be derogatory. I think people just started to think that any term used for black people was a racial slur. Now people don't like when you use the term black.
Mark my words, in ten years the term African American will no longer be acceptable because of this senseless process.
A term is only derogatory if it is meant in an insulting or hurtful way.
Instant Runoff Voting will be used in San Francisco this November and a number of other cities and counties have approved of using it or are considering doing so. Instant Runoff Voting, or IRV, solves the perceived "spoiler" problem because you can vote for all the candidates you like; you don't have to make a lesser-evil choice. I encourage people to learn more about IRV at Center for Voting and Democracy.
...even with IRV.
IRV does NOT solve all of our voting problems. In fact, as long as you have more than two candidates, there isn't really a good way to elect one. Every method we've thought of so far has major issues. For instance, IRV solves the spoiler problem as long as the spoiler only gets a small percentage of the vote. But as they start to get a larger share of the electorate, the spoiler problem comes back!
The best voting method I've seen is Condorcet voting. But even that isn't perfect.
...since most states have a winner-takes-all approach to electing Electoral College representatives, that their systems are unfairly biased towards "the majority", which is in many cases white European descendants.
As far as I know, democracies are always biased toward the majority. If they weren't, it wouldn't be a democracy.
I suppose we could normalize votes between minorities and majorities. But what are you goint to do when every election gets normalized to a tie?
the project is supposed to add a "social aspect" to online gaming
Yes, and perhaps the most egregious error was not looking at the lifestyles of video game fanatics. If they've chosen not to have social lives by now, why would they want to start one in a video game?
Let's rack you up as another person who doesn't read EULAs then.
Hint: when you buy a computer with Windows on it you have not actually bought a copy of Windows...
So says Microsoft. But the courts don't always validate assinign claims made in EULAs. In fact, if you've never installed the software, you never had the opportunity to accept or decline the EULA! The iron fist of the EULA is sort of rusty and weak, and under no circumstances should you interpret EULAs as law.
Here's a link to one of many stories on the net about this: http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=5628
The case was Softman v. Adobe. It is several years old, and it's been a while since I've looked into it. Basically, the court said, the customer bought the product, he owns it, he may redistribute it like any other product. You do NOT have the right to tell him what he can and cannot do with it via an EULA once he buys it.
You'll want to double check all this stuff to make sure I got it right, and that nothing has changed since. But there is legal precident on our side.