A lot of the laws you are thinking of regarding recording have to do
specifically with telephone conversations. Nixon's recordings were of
conversations in his office, meaning that they were not subject to
state law, only federal law, insofar as there was any federal law
regarding conversation not over the telephone, and DC law.
And as others have said, he didn't get in trouble for making the recordings
but because he refused to release them because they contained evidence of his
misconduct.
To be fair, it isn't at all clear that the King is the one behind this law. Indeed, in a recent incident in which a foreigner was sentenced to ten years in prison for violating it by defacing portraits of the King, the King pardoned the man. Although the King has a great deal of moral power and can influence events by letting it be known that he is unhappy, Thailand is a constitutional monarchy in which the de jure power is limited. The existence of this law owes much to the attitudes of the thai people and political parties.
Yes, on many points my sympathies are with Royal. However, her critics are, I'm afraid, correct, that she knows next to nothing about foreign policy. I don't mean that I disagree with her - I mean that she evidently knows very little and has no policy on many important issues. That is a large weak spot.
Thus far we only have SoundExchange's word for this. They may be twisting things the way they want them to be. I'd like to see some lawyers (who do not work for the RIAA) views on this.
If it is true, it is actually a positive development. It is so outrageous, and so destroys the RIAA's claim to be helping starving artists, that I suspect it will ultimately weaken the RIAA's grip.
These people are simulating approximately 10^7 neurons. The last estimate that I know of for granule cells of the human cerebellum alone was 10^11. That means that simulating a human brain requires at least 10^4 more neurons. So, this may be interesting, but it is still a good ways from stimulating a human brain.
There is a simple solution to excessive restriction by broadcasters of the presidential debates and such: change copyright law. Remember, copyright is not some sort of natural right - it is a privilege granted by legislation under a constitutional provision that explicitly gives as its purpose the public benefit. If broadcasters, political parties, and the like use copyright in a way that is against the public interest, let's take away the privilege.
What I suggest is that copyright law be amended to exempt certain categories of political speech. Perhaps the exemption should be broader, but for present purposes, let's say that copyright will not apply to any speech or writing (e.g. position paper) by a candidate for public office made during his or her campaign. The broadcasters and publishers will still cover these events - they will lose only residual royalties, which are hardly necessary to support their business.
No, Bush's extravagant spending on Iraq vastly outweighs anything that a democratic President might have done. The federal deficit wouldn't be nearly what it is now if Gore had become President.
As for socialized medicine, even if a Gore administration had gone the whole route, which is not clear, the consequences would not be what you describe. The Canadian medical system has its faults, but overall it is vastly better medical system than the United States has. The US not only fails to provide adequate medical care to millions of citizens, it spends more than necessary because, without access to regular medical care, when the poor do get medical care, they tend to get it in emergency rooms, which are much more expensive to run than ordinary clinics, and they are much sicker and therefore more expensive to treat.
Your claim that people won't find it worthwhile to become physicians is ludicrous. Canadian physicians may not make as much as those in the US, but they still make salaries that pay off their educational expenses. Moreover, although some people do go into medicine for the money, social status, and lifestyle, many people go into medicine out of a desire to help other people and/or interest in the subject. There are more than enough of the latter to provide a sufficient supply of physicians. Reducing physician pay will only have the effect of discouraging those who are in it for the money, and medicine will get along just fine without them. The simple fact is, there are plenty of physicians in Canada, including specialists.
The reason that the "debates" (since they don't really qualify as such) are no longer run by the League of Women Voters is that the League wouldn't give in to the ridiculous conditions that the parties wanted to impose. In 1988 the League terminated its sponsorship of the debates and issued this statement:
The League of Women Voters is withdrawing sponsorship of the presidential debates... because the demands of the two campaign organizations would perpetrate a fraud on the American voter. It has become clear to us that the candidates' organizations aim to add debates to their list of campaign-trail charades devoid of substance, spontaneity and answers to tough questions. The League has no intention of becoming an accessory to the hoodwinking of the American public.
The two major parties thereupon organized the present Commission on Presidential Debates. It is a real shame that that they got away with this - the LWV was absolutely right. Any candidate who isn't smart enough, cool enough, and well-informed enough to participate in a real debate without making a fool of himself isn't fit to be President.
This doesn't apply to the poster's case since he has been presented with the agreement prior to accepting the position, but in some of the cases mentioned, where the agreement was sprung on the new employee after he started the job, I wonder if it is valid at all since it was signed under duress and by imposing additional conditions on employment is a breach of the existing employment contract. Any of the lawyers (the real ones, not the ones who play a lawyer on/.) care to comment?
As I understand it, the RIAA ADMITS to having entered Ms.Andersen's
computer without her consent. Is this not a criminal offense? Has a criminal
complaint been brought?
This is a silly complaint. He didn't compare ICANN to the USSR. He compared the governance structure of ICANN to that of the USSR, a very different thing. He never even hints that ICANN's activities are comparable in nature to those of the USSR.
It may be offensive to compare every little thing you don't like to the USSR or Nazi Germany, but I find it just as offensive when people get all snitty about any comparison involving the USSR or Nazi Germany. People of any intelligence understand that saying that two things are comparable in certain respects does not mean that they are comparable in other respects. Comparing ICANN's governance structure to that of the USSR does not imply that ICANN kills and imprisons people, nor does it imply that killing and imprisoning people is no worse than playing footsie with Verisign etc.
What you're missing is the fact that many people care more about a politician's effectiveness in advancing the positions that they advocate than they do about his personal habits and morality. Senator Kennedy may be an alcoholic, but he's a highly functional alcoholic. He remains in office because, on the one hand, Massachusetts voters like his positions and find him effective, and on the other hand, they don't care very much about his alcoholism. There's no reason to think that it is particularly difficult to get rid of politicians in Massachusetts if the voters want to.
It's always disturbing to see things like this, but this is nothing to worry about. The bill is a "private member's bill". That means that her party isn't interested. Even worthwhile private member's bills that would receive a lot of support if sponsored by the party have little chance of passage. Furthermore, she isn't a prominent member of the party. It's very unlikely that this bill will go anywhere.
If the facts are as you've described, I agree that there isn't a security issue here. There is, however, still a bug. Anytime a program crashes for reasons other than hardware failure, there is a bug. If it takes really unusual input to do it and there are no security consequences, it may be a minor bug, but it is still a bug.
So what? That MIGHT be evidence that Google incorporated Sogou's data, but
as I said, we need to know more about where Sogou got it's data. Furthermore, it isn't even clear evidence that Google borrowed from Sogou. They might have put in those names as a compliment, or as part of a long list of personal names that they included. (The total number of Chinese personal names of any frequency is actually not that large.)
Without more evidence it isn't clear to me whether Google has done
anything wrong. The fact is, there are various files around pairing Chinese characters and words written in Chinese characters with their Roman equivalents,
many of them "free" for various notions of "free". Fairly comprehensive lists of this type have been around long enough that it is unlikely that anybody would start from scratch. You'd get some existing lists, combine them, review them for errors, and look for things that need to be added.
Even if there is evidence that Google consulted its competitor's data, it is far from obvious who if anyone has rights to the compilation. Suppose that the competitor itself took a free list and made a few modifications? Ethically, I don't see that Google would be doing wrong in that case. Legally, maybe - it would depend on the original license and on whether the competitor made sufficient modifications for a court to consider that they had a right to a compilation copyright.
I don't put it beyond Google to screw up, and maybe even intentionally "do evil", but I don't think that we can judge this case without knowing a lot more of the history of the data in question.
This is what I have always been told, but I just googled it to check, and it looks like it is an urban myth in terms of black-letter law. The police often consider it dangerous and may ticket you for reckless or negligent driving, which you could then dispute in court. In some states it IS illegal to ride a motorcycle barefoot. Driving barefoot is illegal in some other places, such as Hong Kong.
That's only true if you wear shoes that are easy to slip on and off,
which is fine if you're out for a long drive, but not very practical in circumstances where you need to wear other shoes or boots for work or whatever.
Similarly, if they have to pay close attention to extra gauges, they probably can't drive safely in heavy traffic or bad road conditions. Maybe what they are doing can be automated, but if not, it may not be practical for general driving conditions.
I also wonder whether the driving techniques they use are applicable in traffic of any density. It sounds like they speed up and slow down a lot, which may be fine on the open road but not as traffic becomes denser. A minor point is that in most of the United States, at least, it is illegal to drive barefoot.
Slashdot Mirror
A lot of the laws you are thinking of regarding recording have to do specifically with telephone conversations. Nixon's recordings were of conversations in his office, meaning that they were not subject to state law, only federal law, insofar as there was any federal law regarding conversation not over the telephone, and DC law. And as others have said, he didn't get in trouble for making the recordings but because he refused to release them because they contained evidence of his misconduct.
To be fair, it isn't at all clear that the King is the one behind this law. Indeed, in a recent incident in which a foreigner was sentenced to ten years in prison for violating it by defacing portraits of the King, the King pardoned the man. Although the King has a great deal of moral power and can influence events by letting it be known that he is unhappy, Thailand is a constitutional monarchy in which the de jure power is limited. The existence of this law owes much to the attitudes of the thai people and political parties.
Yes, on many points my sympathies are with Royal. However, her critics are, I'm afraid, correct, that she knows next to nothing about foreign policy. I don't mean that I disagree with her - I mean that she evidently knows very little and has no policy on many important issues. That is a large weak spot.
Uh, I think those are the same Americans that marry only family. It won't do any good to convert since they don't do arithmetic too good. :)
Moving from one Unix to another isn't really news. Moving to Vista would be news.
10^7 * 10^4 = 10^11
Thus far we only have SoundExchange's word for this. They may be twisting things the way they want them to be. I'd like to see some lawyers (who do not work for the RIAA) views on this.
If it is true, it is actually a positive development. It is so outrageous, and so destroys the RIAA's claim to be helping starving artists, that I suspect it will ultimately weaken the RIAA's grip.
These people are simulating approximately 10^7 neurons. The last estimate that I know of for granule cells of the human cerebellum alone was 10^11. That means that simulating a human brain requires at least 10^4 more neurons. So, this may be interesting, but it is still a good ways from stimulating a human brain.
There is a simple solution to excessive restriction by broadcasters of the presidential debates and such: change copyright law. Remember, copyright is not some sort of natural right - it is a privilege granted by legislation under a constitutional provision that explicitly gives as its purpose the public benefit. If broadcasters, political parties, and the like use copyright in a way that is against the public interest, let's take away the privilege.
What I suggest is that copyright law be amended to exempt certain categories of political speech. Perhaps the exemption should be broader, but for present purposes, let's say that copyright will not apply to any speech or writing (e.g. position paper) by a candidate for public office made during his or her campaign. The broadcasters and publishers will still cover these events - they will lose only residual royalties, which are hardly necessary to support their business.
No, Bush's extravagant spending on Iraq vastly outweighs anything that a democratic President might have done. The federal deficit wouldn't be nearly what it is now if Gore had become President.
As for socialized medicine, even if a Gore administration had gone the whole route, which is not clear, the consequences would not be what you describe. The Canadian medical system has its faults, but overall it is vastly better medical system than the United States has. The US not only fails to provide adequate medical care to millions of citizens, it spends more than necessary because, without access to regular medical care, when the poor do get medical care, they tend to get it in emergency rooms, which are much more expensive to run than ordinary clinics, and they are much sicker and therefore more expensive to treat.
Your claim that people won't find it worthwhile to become physicians is ludicrous. Canadian physicians may not make as much as those in the US, but they still make salaries that pay off their educational expenses. Moreover, although some people do go into medicine for the money, social status, and lifestyle, many people go into medicine out of a desire to help other people and/or interest in the subject. There are more than enough of the latter to provide a sufficient supply of physicians. Reducing physician pay will only have the effect of discouraging those who are in it for the money, and medicine will get along just fine without them. The simple fact is, there are plenty of physicians in Canada, including specialists.
The reason that the "debates" (since they don't really qualify as such) are no longer run by the League of Women Voters is that the League wouldn't give in to the ridiculous conditions that the parties wanted to impose. In 1988 the League terminated its sponsorship of the debates and issued this statement:
The two major parties thereupon organized the present Commission on Presidential Debates. It is a real shame that that they got away with this - the LWV was absolutely right. Any candidate who isn't smart enough, cool enough, and well-informed enough to participate in a real debate without making a fool of himself isn't fit to be President.
This doesn't apply to the poster's case since he has been presented with the agreement prior to accepting the position, but in some of the cases mentioned, where the agreement was sprung on the new employee after he started the job, I wonder if it is valid at all since it was signed under duress and by imposing additional conditions on employment is a breach of the existing employment contract. Any of the lawyers (the real ones, not the ones who play a lawyer on /.) care to comment?
As I understand it, the RIAA ADMITS to having entered Ms.Andersen's computer without her consent. Is this not a criminal offense? Has a criminal complaint been brought?
This is a silly complaint. He didn't compare ICANN to the USSR. He compared the governance structure of ICANN to that of the USSR, a very different thing. He never even hints that ICANN's activities are comparable in nature to those of the USSR.
It may be offensive to compare every little thing you don't like to the USSR or Nazi Germany, but I find it just as offensive when people get all snitty about any comparison involving the USSR or Nazi Germany. People of any intelligence understand that saying that two things are comparable in certain respects does not mean that they are comparable in other respects. Comparing ICANN's governance structure to that of the USSR does not imply that ICANN kills and imprisons people, nor does it imply that killing and imprisoning people is no worse than playing footsie with Verisign etc.
Vermont did Rhode Island one better. It refused to join the United States until 1791 and was an independent country for 14 years.
What you're missing is the fact that many people care more about a politician's effectiveness in advancing the positions that they advocate than they do about his personal habits and morality. Senator Kennedy may be an alcoholic, but he's a highly functional alcoholic. He remains in office because, on the one hand, Massachusetts voters like his positions and find him effective, and on the other hand, they don't care very much about his alcoholism. There's no reason to think that it is particularly difficult to get rid of politicians in Massachusetts if the voters want to.
It's always disturbing to see things like this, but this is nothing to worry about. The bill is a "private member's bill". That means that her party isn't interested. Even worthwhile private member's bills that would receive a lot of support if sponsored by the party have little chance of passage. Furthermore, she isn't a prominent member of the party. It's very unlikely that this bill will go anywhere.
If the facts are as you've described, I agree that there isn't a security issue here. There is, however, still a bug. Anytime a program crashes for reasons other than hardware failure, there is a bug. If it takes really unusual input to do it and there are no security consequences, it may be a minor bug, but it is still a bug.
So what? That MIGHT be evidence that Google incorporated Sogou's data, but as I said, we need to know more about where Sogou got it's data. Furthermore, it isn't even clear evidence that Google borrowed from Sogou. They might have put in those names as a compliment, or as part of a long list of personal names that they included. (The total number of Chinese personal names of any frequency is actually not that large.)
Without more evidence it isn't clear to me whether Google has done anything wrong. The fact is, there are various files around pairing Chinese characters and words written in Chinese characters with their Roman equivalents, many of them "free" for various notions of "free". Fairly comprehensive lists of this type have been around long enough that it is unlikely that anybody would start from scratch. You'd get some existing lists, combine them, review them for errors, and look for things that need to be added.
Even if there is evidence that Google consulted its competitor's data, it is far from obvious who if anyone has rights to the compilation. Suppose that the competitor itself took a free list and made a few modifications? Ethically, I don't see that Google would be doing wrong in that case. Legally, maybe - it would depend on the original license and on whether the competitor made sufficient modifications for a court to consider that they had a right to a compilation copyright.
I don't put it beyond Google to screw up, and maybe even intentionally "do evil", but I don't think that we can judge this case without knowing a lot more of the history of the data in question.
Indeed, Microsoft is a member of OASIS and was invited to participate in the development of ODF. They had their chance and they refused.
This is what I have always been told, but I just googled it to check, and it looks like it is an urban myth in terms of black-letter law. The police often consider it dangerous and may ticket you for reckless or negligent driving, which you could then dispute in court. In some states it IS illegal to ride a motorcycle barefoot. Driving barefoot is illegal in some other places, such as Hong Kong.
That's only true if you wear shoes that are easy to slip on and off, which is fine if you're out for a long drive, but not very practical in circumstances where you need to wear other shoes or boots for work or whatever.
Similarly, if they have to pay close attention to extra gauges, they probably can't drive safely in heavy traffic or bad road conditions. Maybe what they are doing can be automated, but if not, it may not be practical for general driving conditions.
I also wonder whether the driving techniques they use are applicable in traffic of any density. It sounds like they speed up and slow down a lot, which may be fine on the open road but not as traffic becomes denser. A minor point is that in most of the United States, at least, it is illegal to drive barefoot.