Yes, because no capitalist country has ever caused massive death and destruction. You don't think capitalism can slow progress too? What do you think the RIAA is doing? The telecoms? How does slavery fit in? That was done under a capitalist society as well.
For what its worth, i'm willing to bet people will chose 1954 levels of health care over no health care if those are the choses.
I've heard that you need less admins though for linux then you do MS, so 1 linux admin can do the work of 2 windows, or something. Don't know how true that is though.
Except that spelling it out is required under most standard forms of statutory interpretation. From a legal persective, the Griswold court essentially manufactured a "right to privacy" out of thin air/from whole cloth.
Not true at all. Thats a very narrow view of how the court system works, and i believe its wrong. The intent of the law is a very important factor in interperating it, which is what the courts do. Thats why the Constitution, and bills, usually have a preamble of some kind. Otherwise you're reading the law out of context so to speak. If you don't know why a law exists, how can you possibly enforce it properly?
Obviously, a majority of justices disagreed with my viewpoint and Griswold is still law, so WTF do I know, anyway? Just goes to show that the Constitution is not what is says, but what majority of justices say it is, which is a conclusion Robert Woodside reached in his seminal book on Pennsylvania constitutional law.
The justices are not all powerful. Their rulings can lead the legislature to change or clarify a law. Its likely that if they simply just don't agree with a law, and overrule it on those grounds, thier ruling will be overturned at a higher court. The exception of course is the Supreme court, which has the final say in interperating the Constitution. Thats not a flaw of the system, thats exactly how its supposed to work. But a ruling here can lead to an amendment, if it is something the people think will better society.
Whatever legal theory you use to interpret a constitution is pretty much subject to failure in the real world where the number of votes at a given point in time is the only thing that really matters.
Isn't that the point of democracy though? The people decide thier fate, and what they want?
At any rate, your argument in this post falls apart when you look at the Ninth and Tenth amendments, which DO explicitly state that the Bill of Rights is not a comprehensive listing of rights, and that any rights not EXPLICITLY granted to the Federal government, are left to the states or the people.
Honestly though, what do you think the purpose of the Fourth amendment really is? While i'm sure part of it is to prevent harrasment and the taking of your property by law enforcement, i'm willing to bet there's more to the issue then that.
if someone beats up or kills someone else, they ought to be thrown in jail or executed, it doesn't really matter to me why they did it
Well, i'd like to point out that our justice system very much looks at intent. If a well of man steals a loaf of bread, he should be punished, right? But if he's not well off, and has no other way to feed his kids, i'd hope we'd be much more lienent. Don't get hung up on the specifics of that example, its a simple example to make a simple point.
Perhaps a more real life example is needed though. Here in philly, an 18 yr old girl had been arrested for fatally stabbing her father. The DA decided not to file charges however, because of the abuse the girl had suffered.
Now, i disagree with that decision, but i also don't think she deserved life in prison, or execution. There were mitigating circumstances, and it was a crime of passion. Still wrong, but much more understandable and forgivable. So i think very much that 'why' is an important question to ask when deciding how to punish someone.
laws s/b simple and concise. and general enough to cover the behavior they're intended to cover.
We talked about that in a philosophy of law class i took. The problem with that approarch is that it leads to vagueness, and perhaps unequal appliment of the law. The other way is to be very precise; but that has its own problem of needing many, many laws for just about every case.
things like callers being REQUIRED to indentify themselves, and a requirement for operating a phone company should be that they must carry all caller identification information (and not allow it to be blocked).
That is a part of this law. Do you mean anyone calling, or just businesses?
Most phone companys have an option to block private numbers; unfortunatlly, out of area doesn't count.
our newspaper readers will soon complain that it's annoying to read the news paper b/c they can't find the news mixed in with all the advertising. all the while the newspapers are raking in huge amounts of cash.
Yes, but if you don't like it, you can stop reading the paper. I don't like that solution for the phone; i find it very useful, but some people with little reguard for my time abuse it, thus the law.
To me, the DNC is the telephone equivelent of a no tresspassing or no solicitations sign.
nothing forces you to have a publicly available telephone.
I'd like to be able to order pizza, or talk to family members, send and receive calls if i'm looking for a job, or talk to a business with whom i do have a relationship. Should i not have a driveway b/c some mormons might come up it? Please, stop being an idiot.
get a private phone from a company that DOES NOT sell/distribute your number.
Ok, i'm tired of people saying this. THERE IS NO SUCH THING. First of all, most people have but one phone company to chose from. Secondly, its not really the phone company thats selling the info. Its either sold by someone else, or someone is simply dialing every number in an exchange. Not very hard with a computer.
nothing forces you to watch television, but the channels are there, beaming onto your property filled with annoying commercials!
Wow, you're more stupid then i thought. Those frequences aren't even noticed if you turn off all the tvs, so i don't really care. Maybe you'd have a point if a signal could turn your tv on when a commercial was airing, but then i'd want that to be illegal too.
by the same token, these annoying marketing ploys should be outlawed and the companies should be fined for marketing over these public airways (radio/tv, even any quiet marketing such as the "friends" cast drinking a budweiser should be banned and fined heavily).
You chose to watch the commercials if you're watching television. Hell, you can even leave the room if you so chose. Nothing is being interrupted, since you're already staring at the box. The phone is quite different; its mostly idle, and when it rings, people typically stop what they are doing to answer it.
you're right that companies don't have right, but what about individual businesses?
Same thing.
a lawn care service trying to market itself to the community, etc. do these people have rights?
Nope. Human beings have rights. Thats it...not fictous people (which is what businesses are usually considered), not cats, not dogs, not little bacteria.
regardless of weather a company has rights, is it the job of a federal government to police a business such that if a business is annoying to the people, then the government can put that business out of business?
Yes, and it happens all the time. Ever wonder why there are no strip clubs in residental areas? Zoning. Get a clue dude.
i believe that there's something in the constitution which prohibits restriction of inter-state commerce. this effectively restricts inter-state trade. company A from IOWA cannot now market itself anymore.
The consitution says that only the federal gov't may REGULATE interstate commerce. So yes, it has every power and right to enact a nation DNC. The comany from Iowa can market itself, just not by calling across state lines to bother me. Since i'm not likely to buy anything from them anyway, i don't really know what they motive is.
once again, this problem space should be handled by the free market and by technology (it's a technological problem).
The free market has failed here. Technology cannot solve the problem, unless you drastically alter the technology. Besides, its NOT a technology problem, its a social problem. There is nothing inherently wrong with the telephone system (as far as this issue is concerned), its just when assholes abuse it that there's a problem. This is exactly what happened.
get a conmmunication method (phone, email, pager, whatever) from a provider which restricts access to whom may contact you.
I'll repeat. THERE IS NO SUCH THING!! Please leave your fantasy world, and join us in the real world. Email seems to have the same problem as phones, and its actually worse. Pagers, cell phones, and fax machines are already banned from telemarkets because the cost the recepient of the advertisment money.
That's a little harsh. I wish the owners and managers of these companies would die screaming with sharp things in their heads, but the people making the actual calls are often only doing it to pay the bills.
Ya, but so is the guy running the chopshop selling bits of your car. Sorry, i think they should get a more decent and honest profession, like prostitution.
Why not just be polite and tell the person on the other end you're not interested if a call slips through the do-not-call list?
For one, its there job to make sure nothing slip through the DNC. Second, you can only be polite so many times, but after being called a few times a day when you're trying to eat dinner, it quickly wears thin.
It'll take you the same amount of time as a screaming fit, and leaves everyone a little better off. It's karma, my friend, and not the slashdot type.
As i said, it wears thin. I don't yell anymore though, since i don't get the calls. The 2 calls i did get, i asked for all the relavent info, and promptly reported them to the AG.
please. this measure will effectively put the telemarketing business out of business.
Good. I'm glad. I hope everyone that works for one starves to death in the streets.
those people who don't sign up will be called so much that they will be forced to sign up for the list.
Sounds like thats the fault of the telemarketers. If they weren't calling so much to begin with people wouldn't be all up in arms now would they?
i've said over and over, this problem space did no t and does not require legislation to resolve.
Apparently it does, because my calls didn't stop until i signed up for the state DNC.
in fact, i don't see any constitutional grounds for our congress to make such a law.
There is no right to go into someones house and annoy them. I can have a no tresspass sign on my lawn; this is the equivlent for a telephone.
why not limit the freedoms of a few to benefit the masses?
Companies have (or should have) NO rights whatsoever. Only human beings have rights. And before i get this idiots that claim companies are made up of people: everyone in the company already got there vote!
They have a computer that dials and listens for human voices. That's why you get silence when you answer it. When it hears you say "hello" it knows there is a living human there and it switches you to a semi-human operator so they can harrass you for 10 minutes.
Except that i never hear anyone...i heard clicking, and then it hangs up. I know its telemarketers though, since those calls all but have stopped after signing up on the state do-not-call list.
I don't think its too far of a stretch to say that the right of privacy is all but spelled out in the 4th amendment. Other amendments support this as well.
I don't have dozens of revolving credit accounts like some of the idiots on 20/20 who've had their identities stolen...the max on most of my credit cards is $1000, and i get an email if an attempt is made to charge over the limit.
Except the idiots on 20/20 usually have new credit cards taken out in thier names by the ID thief, as well as loans. Its doubtful that any of your existing accounts would be in danger, since the real danger of ID theft is the new accounts 'you' opened.
Well...i'm programming for a living, and i defaintly am into anything computers. But the novelty of getting your modem to work wears off pretty quickly, even for me. There are other fun things i'd rather be doing with a computer, i've installed enough OSes and drivers that i'd really like to be done with it. There are other more interesting problems i'd like to solve; i'd like my internet connection to just work.
Oh, I see... so because you (and some others) don't want to pay anything for an item, that item is worth nothing?
Yes, its worth nothing TO ME. Buyer and seller must agree on a price for a good.
There are many things you'd have to pay ME to use (like, say, Pontiac Aztek), but that doesn't make them worthless, and ok to steal, or copyright infringe.
Your comparing phyical property with something more abstract. If you steal the Aztek, someone else is deprived of its use.
Copyright infringement is also not theft. There is a distinct difference. Other people explain why, i feel no need to repeat any of thier arguments.
The problem is that we can replicate infinite numbers of copies of music (and anything else we can store on the computer). Things have value because they are scarce, that's simple economics. If you remove scarcity for something, you remove its value. Thats what happened to the music industry.
Imagine we had replicators ala Star Trek. Something like food would also lose value, since we can create as much food as we like (well, as long as we have electric to power the device, and H2 to make the food out of...but at that point H2 and elec. have value, not the food). Food would have no value any longer, as its no longer scarce. A similar problem exists today; farmers are so efficient, they can produce enough food to almost be worthless. Hence farm subsidies which are used to pay farmers NOT to farm. They can make enough to keep our food relatively cheap, and them in buisness.
And since when is music/entertainment/culture a luxury? By that line of thinking corn flakes or milk are a luxury, as long as you have ready access to bread and water?
Luxury items are by definition things we do NOT need to survive. I've never heard of anyone dying without being able to listen to music, but i have heard of people dying that were living on only bread and water. Corn flakes and milk provide nutrients that bread and water do not. So while they are not necessities per se, they are because you need enough different foods to get all of your nutrients to continue living. Cats and dogs have no culture or music, yet they seem to live. Humans are capable of this too. Your line of logic is flawed, the fact that music is a luxury does not lead to milk being one.
I came into this thread talking about hitchhiking. How relevant that is to a discussion of HOV lanes is also up for debate.
The article is about selling rights to a restricted lane. I think i can understand that without having any HOV lanes around and make comments on that which are relevant. Also related discussion on how to improve traffic flow would be relevant, since thats why Seattle is doing anything with eBay to begin with.
About the only related comments i could make reguarding HOV lanes that would be irrelevant are 'they suck, they work great, or i hate them', none of which i have said.
So to say that i have nothing relevant to say on this topic is arrogant and self-centered.
And you ARE profiting from this sharing. You're breaking copyright laws and keeping money in your pocket because you didn't have to pay for your songs.
I always think that point is debatable. If the max price people are willing to pay for a luxury is 0, then i don't see how you can say someone is profiting.
But think what you could do if all your clothing had RFID tags. You could have a sensor that queries what is currently in your closet, what is in the drawers, what is in the hamper. No searching for things, no wondering.
Do you honestly have problems with this?
Extend this out to food items, if you had rfid tags in the packaging of all your food items, your refridgerator and pantry could make the grocery list itself. I've seen many conversations on/. about this, and rfid tags seems like a simple way to do it.
What i buy food-wise varies greatly. I don't think this would be that useful.
Don't really see how it would do any of those things. I don't respond to sales already, and most of my shopping time is spent in the car getting to the store...very little actually spent locating and buying the item in question.
I'm not saying you can magically get a million dollar lawyer, I'm saying you could borrow money.. get friends/family help.. If possible
And if its not possible? Even if it is, with the cost of a laywer, you are likely to run out of funds quickly. And there's no guarantee you'll win. Basically, you have the same problems you have now, except you'll have to pay even more should you lose the case. I really don't see how that helps, especially in the case of John Doe vs. MegaCorp.
I never said pro bono. My point was though this could be the fast track to better things for a good yet inexperienced lawyer.
Its unlikely that a lawyer would lower his price because he lost. There's simply no incentive to do so.
I'm pretty sure I stipulated that the lawyer would want to do it if he/she thought they had a chance of winning the case. They would do it to take a chance.. It's like playing the lottery, but with much much much better odds. No, Mr Million-Dollar-A-Year lawyer isn't going to go for this.. However there are lots of lawyers just barely done with public defender work or ambulance chasing, that just might see their chance to get to the top. I don't see how it could be much worse than it is now..
Again, why would the laywer agree to lower his price at all? What about cases that don't look winable? I'm sure even innocent people get into a situation were it is likely they'll be convicted...its already happening. What happens ot those people?
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, because no capitalist country has ever caused massive death and destruction. You don't think capitalism can slow progress too? What do you think the RIAA is doing? The telecoms? How does slavery fit in? That was done under a capitalist society as well.
For what its worth, i'm willing to bet people will chose 1954 levels of health care over no health care if those are the choses.
I've heard that you need less admins though for linux then you do MS, so 1 linux admin can do the work of 2 windows, or something. Don't know how true that is though.
Except that spelling it out is required under most standard forms of statutory interpretation. From a legal persective, the Griswold court essentially manufactured a "right to privacy" out of thin air/from whole cloth.
Not true at all. Thats a very narrow view of how the court system works, and i believe its wrong. The intent of the law is a very important factor in interperating it, which is what the courts do. Thats why the Constitution, and bills, usually have a preamble of some kind. Otherwise you're reading the law out of context so to speak. If you don't know why a law exists, how can you possibly enforce it properly?
Obviously, a majority of justices disagreed with my viewpoint and Griswold is still law, so WTF do I know, anyway? Just goes to show that the Constitution is not what is says, but what majority of justices say it is, which is a conclusion Robert Woodside reached in his seminal book on Pennsylvania constitutional law.
The justices are not all powerful. Their rulings can lead the legislature to change or clarify a law. Its likely that if they simply just don't agree with a law, and overrule it on those grounds, thier ruling will be overturned at a higher court. The exception of course is the Supreme court, which has the final say in interperating the Constitution. Thats not a flaw of the system, thats exactly how its supposed to work. But a ruling here can lead to an amendment, if it is something the people think will better society.
Whatever legal theory you use to interpret a constitution is pretty much subject to failure in the real world where the number of votes at a given point in time is the only thing that really matters.
Isn't that the point of democracy though? The people decide thier fate, and what they want?
At any rate, your argument in this post falls apart when you look at the Ninth and Tenth amendments, which DO explicitly state that the Bill of Rights is not a comprehensive listing of rights, and that any rights not EXPLICITLY granted to the Federal government, are left to the states or the people.
Honestly though, what do you think the purpose of the Fourth amendment really is? While i'm sure part of it is to prevent harrasment and the taking of your property by law enforcement, i'm willing to bet there's more to the issue then that.
I hope not. I don't really see why checking for traffic problems before i leave would be a bad thing :-)
if someone beats up or kills someone else, they ought to be thrown in jail or executed, it doesn't really matter to me why they did it
Well, i'd like to point out that our justice system very much looks at intent. If a well of man steals a loaf of bread, he should be punished, right? But if he's not well off, and has no other way to feed his kids, i'd hope we'd be much more lienent. Don't get hung up on the specifics of that example, its a simple example to make a simple point.
Perhaps a more real life example is needed though. Here in philly, an 18 yr old girl had been arrested for fatally stabbing her father. The DA decided not to file charges however, because of the abuse the girl had suffered.
Now, i disagree with that decision, but i also don't think she deserved life in prison, or execution. There were mitigating circumstances, and it was a crime of passion. Still wrong, but much more understandable and forgivable. So i think very much that 'why' is an important question to ask when deciding how to punish someone.
laws s/b simple and concise. and general enough to cover the behavior they're intended to cover.
We talked about that in a philosophy of law class i took. The problem with that approarch is that it leads to vagueness, and perhaps unequal appliment of the law. The other way is to be very precise; but that has its own problem of needing many, many laws for just about every case.
things like callers being REQUIRED to indentify themselves, and a requirement for operating a phone company should be that they must carry all caller identification information (and not allow it to be blocked).
That is a part of this law. Do you mean anyone calling, or just businesses?
Most phone companys have an option to block private numbers; unfortunatlly, out of area doesn't count.
our newspaper readers will soon complain that it's annoying to read the news paper b/c they can't find the news mixed in with all the advertising. all the while the newspapers are raking in huge amounts of cash.
Yes, but if you don't like it, you can stop reading the paper. I don't like that solution for the phone; i find it very useful, but some people with little reguard for my time abuse it, thus the law.
To me, the DNC is the telephone equivelent of a no tresspassing or no solicitations sign.
nothing forces you to have a publicly available telephone.
I'd like to be able to order pizza, or talk to family members, send and receive calls if i'm looking for a job, or talk to a business with whom i do have a relationship. Should i not have a driveway b/c some mormons might come up it? Please, stop being an idiot.
get a private phone from a company that DOES NOT sell/distribute your number.
Ok, i'm tired of people saying this. THERE IS NO SUCH THING. First of all, most people have but one phone company to chose from. Secondly, its not really the phone company thats selling the info. Its either sold by someone else, or someone is simply dialing every number in an exchange. Not very hard with a computer.
nothing forces you to watch television, but the channels are there, beaming onto your property filled with annoying commercials!
Wow, you're more stupid then i thought. Those frequences aren't even noticed if you turn off all the tvs, so i don't really care. Maybe you'd have a point if a signal could turn your tv on when a commercial was airing, but then i'd want that to be illegal too.
by the same token, these annoying marketing ploys should be outlawed and the companies should be fined for marketing over these public airways (radio/tv, even any quiet marketing such as the "friends" cast drinking a budweiser should be banned and fined heavily).
You chose to watch the commercials if you're watching television. Hell, you can even leave the room if you so chose. Nothing is being interrupted, since you're already staring at the box. The phone is quite different; its mostly idle, and when it rings, people typically stop what they are doing to answer it.
you're right that companies don't have right, but what about individual businesses?
Same thing.
a lawn care service trying to market itself to the community, etc. do these people have rights?
Nope. Human beings have rights. Thats it...not fictous people (which is what businesses are usually considered), not cats, not dogs, not little bacteria.
regardless of weather a company has rights, is it the job of a federal government to police a business such that if a business is annoying to the people, then the government can put that business out of business?
Yes, and it happens all the time. Ever wonder why there are no strip clubs in residental areas? Zoning. Get a clue dude.
i believe that there's something in the constitution which prohibits restriction of inter-state commerce. this effectively restricts inter-state trade. company A from IOWA cannot now market itself anymore.
The consitution says that only the federal gov't may REGULATE interstate commerce. So yes, it has every power and right to enact a nation DNC. The comany from Iowa can market itself, just not by calling across state lines to bother me. Since i'm not likely to buy anything from them anyway, i don't really know what they motive is.
once again, this problem space should be handled by the free market and by technology (it's a technological problem).
The free market has failed here. Technology cannot solve the problem, unless you drastically alter the technology. Besides, its NOT a technology problem, its a social problem. There is nothing inherently wrong with the telephone system (as far as this issue is concerned), its just when assholes abuse it that there's a problem. This is exactly what happened.
get a conmmunication method (phone, email, pager, whatever) from a provider which restricts access to whom may contact you.
I'll repeat. THERE IS NO SUCH THING!! Please leave your fantasy world, and join us in the real world. Email seems to have the same problem as phones, and its actually worse. Pagers, cell phones, and fax machines are already banned from telemarkets because the cost the recepient of the advertisment money.
That's a little harsh. I wish the owners and managers of these companies would die screaming with sharp things in their heads, but the people making the actual calls are often only doing it to pay the bills.
Ya, but so is the guy running the chopshop selling bits of your car. Sorry, i think they should get a more decent and honest profession, like prostitution.
Why not just be polite and tell the person on the other end you're not interested if a call slips through the do-not-call list?
For one, its there job to make sure nothing slip through the DNC. Second, you can only be polite so many times, but after being called a few times a day when you're trying to eat dinner, it quickly wears thin.
It'll take you the same amount of time as a screaming fit, and leaves everyone a little better off. It's karma, my friend, and not the slashdot type.
As i said, it wears thin. I don't yell anymore though, since i don't get the calls. The 2 calls i did get, i asked for all the relavent info, and promptly reported them to the AG.
please. this measure will effectively put the telemarketing business out of business.
Good. I'm glad. I hope everyone that works for one starves to death in the streets.
those people who don't sign up will be called so much that they will be forced to sign up for the list.
Sounds like thats the fault of the telemarketers. If they weren't calling so much to begin with people wouldn't be all up in arms now would they?
i've said over and over, this problem space did no t and does not require legislation to resolve.
Apparently it does, because my calls didn't stop until i signed up for the state DNC.
in fact, i don't see any constitutional grounds for our congress to make such a law.
There is no right to go into someones house and annoy them. I can have a no tresspass sign on my lawn; this is the equivlent for a telephone.
why not limit the freedoms of a few to benefit the masses?
Companies have (or should have) NO rights whatsoever. Only human beings have rights. And before i get this idiots that claim companies are made up of people: everyone in the company already got there vote!
They have a computer that dials and listens for human voices. That's why you get silence when you answer it. When it hears you say "hello" it knows there is a living human there and it switches you to a semi-human operator so they can harrass you for 10 minutes.
Except that i never hear anyone...i heard clicking, and then it hangs up. I know its telemarketers though, since those calls all but have stopped after signing up on the state do-not-call list.
I don't think its too far of a stretch to say that the right of privacy is all but spelled out in the 4th amendment. Other amendments support this as well.
I don't have dozens of revolving credit accounts like some of the idiots on 20/20 who've had their identities stolen...the max on most of my credit cards is $1000, and i get an email if an attempt is made to charge over the limit.
Except the idiots on 20/20 usually have new credit cards taken out in thier names by the ID thief, as well as loans. Its doubtful that any of your existing accounts would be in danger, since the real danger of ID theft is the new accounts 'you' opened.
Well...i'm programming for a living, and i defaintly am into anything computers. But the novelty of getting your modem to work wears off pretty quickly, even for me. There are other fun things i'd rather be doing with a computer, i've installed enough OSes and drivers that i'd really like to be done with it. There are other more interesting problems i'd like to solve; i'd like my internet connection to just work.
Oh, I see... so because you (and some others) don't want to pay anything for an item, that item is worth nothing?
Yes, its worth nothing TO ME. Buyer and seller must agree on a price for a good.
There are many things you'd have to pay ME to use (like, say, Pontiac Aztek), but that doesn't make them worthless, and ok to steal, or copyright infringe.
Your comparing phyical property with something more abstract. If you steal the Aztek, someone else is deprived of its use.
Copyright infringement is also not theft. There is a distinct difference. Other people explain why, i feel no need to repeat any of thier arguments.
The problem is that we can replicate infinite numbers of copies of music (and anything else we can store on the computer). Things have value because they are scarce, that's simple economics. If you remove scarcity for something, you remove its value. Thats what happened to the music industry.
Imagine we had replicators ala Star Trek. Something like food would also lose value, since we can create as much food as we like (well, as long as we have electric to power the device, and H2 to make the food out of...but at that point H2 and elec. have value, not the food). Food would have no value any longer, as its no longer scarce. A similar problem exists today; farmers are so efficient, they can produce enough food to almost be worthless. Hence farm subsidies which are used to pay farmers NOT to farm. They can make enough to keep our food relatively cheap, and them in buisness.
And since when is music/entertainment/culture a luxury? By that line of thinking corn flakes or milk are a luxury, as long as you have ready access to bread and water?
Luxury items are by definition things we do NOT need to survive. I've never heard of anyone dying without being able to listen to music, but i have heard of people dying that were living on only bread and water. Corn flakes and milk provide nutrients that bread and water do not. So while they are not necessities per se, they are because you need enough different foods to get all of your nutrients to continue living. Cats and dogs have no culture or music, yet they seem to live. Humans are capable of this too. Your line of logic is flawed, the fact that music is a luxury does not lead to milk being one.
I came into this thread talking about hitchhiking. How relevant that is to a discussion of HOV lanes is also up for debate.
The article is about selling rights to a restricted lane. I think i can understand that without having any HOV lanes around and make comments on that which are relevant. Also related discussion on how to improve traffic flow would be relevant, since thats why Seattle is doing anything with eBay to begin with.
About the only related comments i could make reguarding HOV lanes that would be irrelevant are 'they suck, they work great, or i hate them', none of which i have said.
So to say that i have nothing relevant to say on this topic is arrogant and self-centered.
At a minimum, it's theft of service, which is just as illegal as stealing a physical thing. Just because the right is abstract doesn't make it OK.
Music isn't a service, its a product.
And you ARE profiting from this sharing. You're breaking copyright laws and keeping money in your pocket because you didn't have to pay for your songs.
I always think that point is debatable. If the max price people are willing to pay for a luxury is 0, then i don't see how you can say someone is profiting.
But think what you could do if all your clothing had RFID tags. You could have a sensor that queries what is currently in your closet, what is in the drawers, what is in the hamper. No searching for things, no wondering.
/. about this, and rfid tags seems like a simple way to do it.
Do you honestly have problems with this?
Extend this out to food items, if you had rfid tags in the packaging of all your food items, your refridgerator and pantry could make the grocery list itself. I've seen many conversations on
What i buy food-wise varies greatly. I don't think this would be that useful.
Well they wouldn't...they'd care when you rip the tag off before you leave..
Don't really see how it would do any of those things. I don't respond to sales already, and most of my shopping time is spent in the car getting to the store...very little actually spent locating and buying the item in question.
We don't have any HOV lanes here. At least, none that i know of.
So build another bypass :-)
I'm not saying you can magically get a million dollar lawyer, I'm saying you could borrow money.. get friends/family help.. If possible
And if its not possible? Even if it is, with the cost of a laywer, you are likely to run out of funds quickly. And there's no guarantee you'll win. Basically, you have the same problems you have now, except you'll have to pay even more should you lose the case. I really don't see how that helps, especially in the case of John Doe vs. MegaCorp.
I never said pro bono. My point was though this could be the fast track to better things for a good yet inexperienced lawyer.
Its unlikely that a lawyer would lower his price because he lost. There's simply no incentive to do so.
I'm pretty sure I stipulated that the lawyer would want to do it if he/she thought they had a chance of winning the case. They would do it to take a chance.. It's like playing the lottery, but with much much much better odds. No, Mr Million-Dollar-A-Year lawyer isn't going to go for this.. However there are lots of lawyers just barely done with public defender work or ambulance chasing, that just might see their chance to get to the top. I don't see how it could be much worse than it is now..
Again, why would the laywer agree to lower his price at all? What about cases that don't look winable? I'm sure even innocent people get into a situation were it is likely they'll be convicted...its already happening. What happens ot those people?