60 years ago? That'd put us at about 1945. Remember what we did for you in those years?
Look, you might not agree with us now (hey, I might not either!), but don't ever go pointing the finger at America for our actions 60 years ago. It's because of this country's servicemen that you're not speaking german or russian right now. The UK had some of the bravest men to fight in europe, but the war was unwinnable alone. Don't sit here and trivialize what we did for you 60 years ago. Criticize what's going on now all you want, you're free to do it.
With all due respect to the OP, this post should not have been modded insightful.
The best that you can hope for isn't that the law will go uninforced, but that it will be enforced upon someone with the willingness to litigate it. Courts decide whether a law violates your rights, and that's what you need in this case, a suit argued well by a competent attorney in the field. It needs to go to a jury and won there. You might argue that a judge or jury doesn't understand the injustice in the law, but that's why you need a good attorney to craft the argument.
As much as you people hate trial lawyers around here (I can't say I like the ambulance chasing types either).
I never said it was inevitable, all I said was that my parents knew that it might happen, or even was likely to happen. They never sat us down and said "here are the bad things you're going to do when you get older." They just were smart enough to know that these things might happen, and chose to talk about them constructively. We're not the typical American family who chose to just pretend like those things never happened. Talking to your kids about drinking, sex, etc is a good thing and should be done. All I was getting at was that my parents weren't fooling themselves into believing I would never do any of those things.
The fact that you chose never to drink is a reflection of your values. Good for you, but don't be one of those people who believes anyone that does drink (responsibly) is somehow worse than them. I'll respect you up to the point where you start thinking that. Essentially your folks raised you the same way mine raised me, with two different outcomes (I enjoy social drinking in moderation, you've chosen not to).
I'm not sure about the US as a whole, but I've lived in NJ and VA, and both concern the right to consume. In fact, during my first year of college, I got cited by an officer for underaged possession of alcohol and I didn't even have anything in my hands. The fact that I had consumed any (without so much as a breath test, mind you) was good enough for them.
Here in the US, most parents I see won't even give their kids a sip. I'm Italian-American, so growing up it was never a big deal for me to have some wine with a meal or a beer with a pizza. I suspect most other parents would've been outraged by this.
You have to understand, in the US, parents ignore their kids a lot, and feel better when there are "rules" in place to govern their childrens' behavior. It's less that they feel they have to do. Then they wonder why their kids failed out during their freshman year of college. Too much comfort in the fact that they "couldn't" drink, but never actually admitting the fact that they would. Therefore, teaching responsible drinking never happened. I'm not saying this happens to everyone, but I'll tell ya, I know a lot of smart people who failed out of college at some point during my 4 years.
America's full of nieve (sp?) parents when it comes to alcohol, drugs, gambling, sex, basically any of the "vices" that their kids are probably going to experiment in, regardless of what the law says they can do.
My ipod mini is easily the best piece of consumer electronics I've ever bought. It's durable (dropped repeatedly without a case onto the sidewalk, I'm clumsy in the morning), the UI is great, it lacks unnecessary features, good input device, etc. If they were to make a DVR-type device, I'd buy it, as long as it did not restrict content at all and had hardware HD encoding support (I'm not keen on the software-based HD solutions on Windows/Linux right now). If they shipped it with a version of OSX tweaked for multimedia services (ie, OSX dedicated for media server apps), that would be a plus. I wouldn't just want a mini w/ just the addition of video in. That's not enough added value to get me to pay the price premium over running a PC DVR like I do now. A mini that worked as a full media center out of the box would, though, and it'd probably get me to buy a video-capable ipod too.
Funny I never got into the mac as a computing platform, as I do honestly prefer Windows XP, especially since I like to play Call of Duty after a long day of work/law school, but as a producer of mass market consumer electronics, Apple has really done a nice job. They've managed to realize not everybody is going to adopt their computing platform, and responded by making devices that everyone WILL want, and have them work with all platforms. Proof that to stay in business, you can't be an elitist and tote the superiority of your products that DON'T sell that well.
I don't believe intro. level business law even gets into state law. I know that my business law course didn't. And actually, in my first year of law school, it's been mostly federal law.
The issue goes beyond a college course. Individuals ought to try and inform themselves of their jurisdiction's laws, or at least the ones addressing the most common public policy issues.
If "economic waste" is the best reason you can think of why it's not right to sue children into oblivion, then your law school desperately needs to upgrade their philosophy curriculum.
Moral arguments hold up better universally when they're taken out of that context and framed in the practical public policy issue that they address. Some might not feel sorry for the kid and would disregard the moral argument, but they simply cannot argue that the child will not grow up disadvantaged if the lawsuit drives her family broke. The bleeding heart thing doesnt appeal to everyone, you know. They're opinions, unlike the fact that economic disadvantage raises the likelihood of lower levels of education, a worse job in the future, etc. If you frame your argument on firm ground, the public at large is less likely to be able to refute it.
This is what the best judges do, they remove themselves and their personal beliefs in a situation and apply the law and the public policy that the law was meant to support (the "spirit of the law").
You're taught to not always tell the truth. That doesn't necessarily mean lying, however.
The Federal Rules treat withholding as lying in most cases. But in any case, we're generally talking about trial lawyers here, which is something I'll never choose to be. Lawyers can do some good, but in the end, it lies within the individual.
Re:This sort of thing...
on
RIAA Sues a Child
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· Score: 5, Interesting
in IT you are tought truth. in the legal profession you are tought to lie your ass off at every chance you get. and who drives these legal suits against people? Lawyers.
do the world a favor, vote to have all lawyers killed today!
I'm a law student, and let me tell you, we're not taught to lie. And in the end, its the RIAA management that drives this first, then the lawyers involved. The bottom line is there'd be no litigation if RIAA management didn't want it. Besides, the lawyers here are working for the RIAA to stop people from downloading music they didn't pay for. The RIAA may be all that is soulless and wrong in how it operates, but you can't sit here and tell me that their desire to have people pay for their music is wrong. Suing a kid might be wrong, but the parent should've taken responsibility long ago.
Would I personally choose to plead this case? Absolutely not, I don't think its right to sue a family into oblivion for this. That would be economic waste, in my opinion. So while I disagree with their method of action, I don't disagree with them trying to prevent filesharing of their copyrighted works. If I were the RIAA's counsel, my advice to them would be not to sue, but to get with the times and update their business model. It's quite outdated, and that's what's driving this.
I think the guy has consumerism confused with poor money management. Spending is fine, WITHIN YOUR MEANS. That would translate into some non-zero savings rate, not paycheck to paycheck plus credit card debt. I'm with you, I look forward to spending my money when I'm out of work. Not because it makes me happy to spend it, but because it makes it easier for me to do things that are fun. I'm a year out of college, work an 8 hr day as a stat. programmer, plus go to law school at night.. you have to be crazy if you think I wouldn't enjoy going and dropping a few bucks on a night out when I have the opportunity.
He specifically mentioned his "home documents" so he must be using an office suite at home. I am curious how he got a license for home use without being charged for it.
Well, in all reality, he likely pirated a copy. I was just playing devil's advocate:) But I will say this:
My company through licensing with Microsoft has a Home Use Program. For certain software, employees can just pay shipping, and we get a free license to use at home. I have MS Office licensed this way. Now, the license is void if you leave the company, per the terms, but it's an excellent deal. He could also be using one of these, I'd imagine other large companies have a similar arrangement.
If the RIAA had activity logs, wouldn't it be pretty straight forward to discover them under Rule 26? They're certainly not privileged, and if the RIAA is going to introduce them as evidence, they've pretty much foregone the irrelevant argument. However, the RIAA could argue that the defense ought to subpoena them from the source, rather than from them, but facts aren't necessarily not discoverable from the other party directly (or at least, thats what I've been taught in my first year civ pro so far).
Well, technically speaking, in the federal court system, a judge CAN impose the defendant's legal fees for an obviously frivolous action.
See Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, specifically Rule 11(b)(2), which specifies that claims must be based in law or in a nonfrivolous extension of law. Rule 11(c) covers possible sanctions.
Now, Rule 11 isn't designed as a cost shifting device (this is an actual quote from memory, but I can't remember the actual case), but will be used as one in obviously frivolous cases. Read all of Rule 11, which has to do with proper representation of a claim. FRCP can be found here:
http://classaction.findlaw.com/research/frcp.pdf
I'm a first year law student, so don't take my claims as actual legal advice!
More simply said: put it in there what you are not willing to do on a regular basis or not at all.
Within reason, doing things not in your job description is what can make you a key employee. I do tons of things not in my description, some of them more challenging, some very simple administrative chores, but try to never view them as being "below me." (haha, below me.. get it). In the end, there are things that simply HAVE to get done, and if you're the guy with a few free minutes, you should do it. Of course, I'm a programmer in a non-IT group, so my technical skills are going to be extended into other small tasks moreso than most, but it's a team game. Nobody's going to want me as management if I cant demonstrate a willingness to work outside of my bounds in order to help out, it would make no sense. I wouldn't promote someone that wasn't willing.
As long as its not illegal or immoral, you ought to be willing to do anything in your down time at work (and even some when you're busy). I was once asked to go and make a ton of copies of a presentation that I wasn't giving, nor in attendance at the presentation, simply because the people that WERE involved were all in last minute prep (this was about 60 mins before it had to go, and the copies took about 50 to run). In the end, all I did was bring an original to one of our copy shop people and wait there while they did the copy job. I was the highest paid paper shuffler our company had ever seen that day. When I came back up with the copies, everyone (most of them far higher ranking than me) was apologetic about even asking me to do that sort of task. But really, somebody had to do it, and you're being paid for your time either way, right? You'd be surprised how much "team player" counts when you're up for a review and a promotion. Doing things you deem "good for a summer intern" every now and again really shows how you'll integrate with the people you might then be promoted to manage. I personally won't work for a guy who doesn't get his hands dirty when it has to get done.
If you're a contractor you might say its a bit different because you're not going to get promoted, but it may very well lead to a good employment offer, especially if you're seen as someone they DON'T want to go and contract for a competitor when this one is up.
From an American who's proud to be one, unequivocally supportive of your actions and presence in Iraq, thank you for your service.
Every soldier and marine I've come across has said the same as you regarding the situation there vs what's reported. IED's and suicide bombers disguised as civilians get more ratings than the good things going on, though, because the news audience in the US is largely liberal. But hey, the shoddy journalism is being exposed, slowly but surely. The NYT is laying off some folks, readership is down, etc. Don't let it overshadow the good things you and the people you were with have done.
The 9th circuit decisions are some of the most overturned in the history of our nation. Seriously, the judges appointed there are completely out of touch with reality, and this will likely be another case that bites it. I wouldn't worry.
It's expensive to let someone learn on the job. For one, they could learn bad habits. Second, those bad habits could translate into outages or data loss. Third, it costs their salary plus the salary of the person teaching them for the time they spend doing so. Training courses done by IBM or a 3rd party are much more attractive.
I'm a fairly competent *nix person, but I'm not about to start teaching myself z/OS, OS/390, MVS, or any of the other mainframe things we have going on here. It's a whole different animal to someone my age (23). Training would be far more efficient in my development.
If the goal of the country is to increase next year's GDP at all costs, then listen to the economists.
Not all economists view max GDP as their goal. Some, and increasingly more, attempt to minimize the GINI coefficient (which also tends to maximize GDP as a secondary effect).
The externalized expenses of increased unemployment numbers (the real unemployment numbers, not the crap the Labor Dept. puts out), stagnant wages, and increased costs of living have been largely absorbed by increased reliance on credit (thanks in part to the housing bubble).
And economists have been warning about this for quite some time. What you failed to mention is our increasing trade imbalance. That's the biggest threat to our long run economy. As far as the housing bubble, read some economic journals for some positions on that. Reading economics as interpreted by the popular press/media tends to simplify positions to the point where it looks like economists think all of this is OK. In reality, it's the exact opposite.
have been largely absorbed by increased reliance on credit.... None of these figures puts any red ink to a balance sheet, so why should the economists care? Their job is to serve the holy God of The Market.
Economists have been concerned with the low American savings rate for decades. That does have far reaching negative impacts on the market, as does increased utilization of credit (read about the money multiplier and inflation). Even if the goal of every economist was to worship the market, as you put it, the points you've made and suggested that economists have ignored are entirely opposite of the truth. They're all valid concerns of every competent economist out there.
I have a feeling that when China decides to stop subsidizing us, we'll find out that our economy (and country) has been bankrupt for years.
This is an excellent point and I'm glad you brought it up. This is something most economists are very concerned about. The growing trade gap is everyone's concern, from Greenspan to Buffett, and seemingly to everyone BUT the current administration. I'm a republican (the true fiscally conservative kind, not the kind we have in office now. neoconservatism = liberal spending, oppressive social agenda), and I happen to be appalled by all of this. Fiscal responsibility should be the #1 concern of every administration, because that DOES trickle down in a sense. Want to keep the middle class afloat? Howbout not doing things that will raise inflation. The rich can take the hit, the middle and lower class sure can't. The first concern is the trade gap.
Anyway, I hope I was able to clear a few things up there. I have a degree in economics and a job as a programmer, I'm middle class, republican, and absolutely pissed off at the current state of affairs. Such a combination DOES exist, you know. Not all of us are concerned with the party line or pretending everything's OK because "our guys" are in office. I really hope a candidate runs in '08 who really has a handle on this, or at least the right advisors, because the last election gave us two candidates who were economically clueless, if not absolute liars. Whether your choice was "The economy couldn't be in better long term shape" Bush or "We can afford socialized healthcare" Kerry, the outlook for that 4 year term were awful. The problem is, none of these older-than-dirt politicians seem to understand the workings of a global economy because it didn't quite exist the way it does now for the majority of their lives.
I'm not just being difficult here, I'm just in cost accounting mode:)
Since the song was purchased for the launch, it seems less than ideal to amortize the price over 3 years. I'd honestly prefer to do so over 6 months or a year after the launch. A quick google gave me ~40M in the first year, so that would be what, 30 cents per copy? Still a bargain:) As far as the marketing, I still relate that song to the Win95 product launch.
I did misinterpret your point then. But in regards to that, they did pay for the research, so they should be entitled to do what they want with it.
Now, releasing it under some sort of license where a for-profit derivative work requires them to receive, say, 20% of revenue or something like that.. now that COULD be a nice way to make money off of shelved research. I'd love to see that.
Like I said, though, I did happen to agree with you on the point that it isn't helping themselves or anyone else. A method where it would help them if it helped anyone else would definitely ease that economic inefficiency.
As you can also tell, I'm not entirely happy with price controls, though:)
There's not even if you lack insurance. You'll have the procedure first then work out the bills later. It's your life we're talking here, and you're paying a guy to cut you open and stand over you for 6 hours on average to do a coronary bypass. Let me ask, what do YOU think that sort of procedure is worth? Then consider what the doctor takes home on that procedure, generally a few thousand. The rest is all hospital and OR fees.
Seriously, these things cost a lot of money and you can't just print more. Who do you expect to pay for this if not yourself (if you lack insurance)? I might sound like a jerk saying that, but if it were me raising a family, I'd put health insurance right below housing on my list of priorities.
And in a case where you need this sort of procedure and you really can't afford it, they WILL work something out with you. Even many of the for-profit hospitals aren't that cold, and especially, the doctors themselves are not.
While you're lecturing us on economics, howbout you talk about the economics of free and open research you mention? Seriously, profit maximizing is the only reason these companies are in business, and they happen to be in the business of coming up with new drugs and therapies to save lives. Take away their economic incentive and they're no longer going to innovate. If you want to be altruistic about it and you're an American, just realize we bear the cost of R&D on all of this stuff, because the price controls other (more socialist, generally) nations have in place on pharmaceuticals would completely kill the industry if it weren't for us. It's a mess and we (The United States of America, the country that everyone loves to hate nowadays) pay for it, along with a few others that don't severely regulate drug prices.
I happen to agree with you, but it's mostly America's wallets that have to be fatter to afford medication, because our market essentially subsidizes everyone else's.
I tend to think our own prices would be WAY less if we weren't bearing most of the R&D costs as a portion of unit cost. You might say that the drug companies would still employ monopoly pricing on their patented products, and that's true, but I happen to think we're paying above the monopoly price right now. The real test would be to simulate price controls such as those in Canada on the US market, and model how quickly the drug companies would fall into the red.
I am, of course, presenting only one side of this and simplistically at that. I'd love to hear other takes on this.
I've experienced a blowout at about 90 MPH on a long empty stretch of highway, and you should probably take that off of your list. If the car's stable at that speed, you're not likely to lose control unless you jerk the wheel in response. I just kept it straight, slowed down, then pulled over and all was fine. The blowout was to my rear (driven) tire on a toyota supra.
I get your point, by the way, and do agree with it. I just don't like misinformation about blowouts because when they occur, people panic partly because of what they've heard, and THAT creates danger. The blowout itself, from what I've experienced, just makes you a nuisance in traffic as you slow down and pull over. Similar results were found in simulated conditions by Car and Driver Magazine on the Ford Explorer, when defective tires were causing frequent blowouts. If it happens, don't jerk the wheel, keep it going straight, slow down, and pull over.
Slashdot Mirror
60 years ago? That'd put us at about 1945. Remember what we did for you in those years?
Look, you might not agree with us now (hey, I might not either!), but don't ever go pointing the finger at America for our actions 60 years ago. It's because of this country's servicemen that you're not speaking german or russian right now. The UK had some of the bravest men to fight in europe, but the war was unwinnable alone. Don't sit here and trivialize what we did for you 60 years ago. Criticize what's going on now all you want, you're free to do it.
With all due respect to the OP, this post should not have been modded insightful.
The best that you can hope for isn't that the law will go uninforced, but that it will be enforced upon someone with the willingness to litigate it. Courts decide whether a law violates your rights, and that's what you need in this case, a suit argued well by a competent attorney in the field. It needs to go to a jury and won there. You might argue that a judge or jury doesn't understand the injustice in the law, but that's why you need a good attorney to craft the argument.
As much as you people hate trial lawyers around here (I can't say I like the ambulance chasing types either).
I never said it was inevitable, all I said was that my parents knew that it might happen, or even was likely to happen. They never sat us down and said "here are the bad things you're going to do when you get older." They just were smart enough to know that these things might happen, and chose to talk about them constructively. We're not the typical American family who chose to just pretend like those things never happened. Talking to your kids about drinking, sex, etc is a good thing and should be done. All I was getting at was that my parents weren't fooling themselves into believing I would never do any of those things.
The fact that you chose never to drink is a reflection of your values. Good for you, but don't be one of those people who believes anyone that does drink (responsibly) is somehow worse than them. I'll respect you up to the point where you start thinking that. Essentially your folks raised you the same way mine raised me, with two different outcomes (I enjoy social drinking in moderation, you've chosen not to).
I'm not sure about the US as a whole, but I've lived in NJ and VA, and both concern the right to consume. In fact, during my first year of college, I got cited by an officer for underaged possession of alcohol and I didn't even have anything in my hands. The fact that I had consumed any (without so much as a breath test, mind you) was good enough for them.
Here in the US, most parents I see won't even give their kids a sip. I'm Italian-American, so growing up it was never a big deal for me to have some wine with a meal or a beer with a pizza. I suspect most other parents would've been outraged by this.
You have to understand, in the US, parents ignore their kids a lot, and feel better when there are "rules" in place to govern their childrens' behavior. It's less that they feel they have to do. Then they wonder why their kids failed out during their freshman year of college. Too much comfort in the fact that they "couldn't" drink, but never actually admitting the fact that they would. Therefore, teaching responsible drinking never happened. I'm not saying this happens to everyone, but I'll tell ya, I know a lot of smart people who failed out of college at some point during my 4 years.
America's full of nieve (sp?) parents when it comes to alcohol, drugs, gambling, sex, basically any of the "vices" that their kids are probably going to experiment in, regardless of what the law says they can do.
My ipod mini is easily the best piece of consumer electronics I've ever bought. It's durable (dropped repeatedly without a case onto the sidewalk, I'm clumsy in the morning), the UI is great, it lacks unnecessary features, good input device, etc. If they were to make a DVR-type device, I'd buy it, as long as it did not restrict content at all and had hardware HD encoding support (I'm not keen on the software-based HD solutions on Windows/Linux right now). If they shipped it with a version of OSX tweaked for multimedia services (ie, OSX dedicated for media server apps), that would be a plus. I wouldn't just want a mini w/ just the addition of video in. That's not enough added value to get me to pay the price premium over running a PC DVR like I do now. A mini that worked as a full media center out of the box would, though, and it'd probably get me to buy a video-capable ipod too.
Funny I never got into the mac as a computing platform, as I do honestly prefer Windows XP, especially since I like to play Call of Duty after a long day of work/law school, but as a producer of mass market consumer electronics, Apple has really done a nice job. They've managed to realize not everybody is going to adopt their computing platform, and responded by making devices that everyone WILL want, and have them work with all platforms. Proof that to stay in business, you can't be an elitist and tote the superiority of your products that DON'T sell that well.
I don't believe intro. level business law even gets into state law. I know that my business law course didn't. And actually, in my first year of law school, it's been mostly federal law.
The issue goes beyond a college course. Individuals ought to try and inform themselves of their jurisdiction's laws, or at least the ones addressing the most common public policy issues.
This is the best comment I've seen on this article out of all. Nice work.
If "economic waste" is the best reason you can think of why it's not right to sue children into oblivion, then your law school desperately needs to upgrade their philosophy curriculum.
Moral arguments hold up better universally when they're taken out of that context and framed in the practical public policy issue that they address. Some might not feel sorry for the kid and would disregard the moral argument, but they simply cannot argue that the child will not grow up disadvantaged if the lawsuit drives her family broke. The bleeding heart thing doesnt appeal to everyone, you know. They're opinions, unlike the fact that economic disadvantage raises the likelihood of lower levels of education, a worse job in the future, etc. If you frame your argument on firm ground, the public at large is less likely to be able to refute it.
This is what the best judges do, they remove themselves and their personal beliefs in a situation and apply the law and the public policy that the law was meant to support (the "spirit of the law").
You're taught to not always tell the truth. That doesn't necessarily mean lying, however.
The Federal Rules treat withholding as lying in most cases. But in any case, we're generally talking about trial lawyers here, which is something I'll never choose to be. Lawyers can do some good, but in the end, it lies within the individual.
in IT you are tought truth. in the legal profession you are tought to lie your ass off at every chance you get. and who drives these legal suits against people? Lawyers. do the world a favor, vote to have all lawyers killed today!
I'm a law student, and let me tell you, we're not taught to lie. And in the end, its the RIAA management that drives this first, then the lawyers involved. The bottom line is there'd be no litigation if RIAA management didn't want it. Besides, the lawyers here are working for the RIAA to stop people from downloading music they didn't pay for. The RIAA may be all that is soulless and wrong in how it operates, but you can't sit here and tell me that their desire to have people pay for their music is wrong. Suing a kid might be wrong, but the parent should've taken responsibility long ago.
Would I personally choose to plead this case? Absolutely not, I don't think its right to sue a family into oblivion for this. That would be economic waste, in my opinion. So while I disagree with their method of action, I don't disagree with them trying to prevent filesharing of their copyrighted works. If I were the RIAA's counsel, my advice to them would be not to sue, but to get with the times and update their business model. It's quite outdated, and that's what's driving this.
I think the guy has consumerism confused with poor money management. Spending is fine, WITHIN YOUR MEANS. That would translate into some non-zero savings rate, not paycheck to paycheck plus credit card debt. I'm with you, I look forward to spending my money when I'm out of work. Not because it makes me happy to spend it, but because it makes it easier for me to do things that are fun. I'm a year out of college, work an 8 hr day as a stat. programmer, plus go to law school at night.. you have to be crazy if you think I wouldn't enjoy going and dropping a few bucks on a night out when I have the opportunity.
He specifically mentioned his "home documents" so he must be using an office suite at home. I am curious how he got a license for home use without being charged for it.
:) But I will say this:
Well, in all reality, he likely pirated a copy. I was just playing devil's advocate
My company through licensing with Microsoft has a Home Use Program. For certain software, employees can just pay shipping, and we get a free license to use at home. I have MS Office licensed this way. Now, the license is void if you leave the company, per the terms, but it's an excellent deal. He could also be using one of these, I'd imagine other large companies have a similar arrangement.
Uh, your job pays for the license? I know I don't have to buy my own software at work, they provide it.
If the RIAA had activity logs, wouldn't it be pretty straight forward to discover them under Rule 26? They're certainly not privileged, and if the RIAA is going to introduce them as evidence, they've pretty much foregone the irrelevant argument. However, the RIAA could argue that the defense ought to subpoena them from the source, rather than from them, but facts aren't necessarily not discoverable from the other party directly (or at least, thats what I've been taught in my first year civ pro so far).
Well, technically speaking, in the federal court system, a judge CAN impose the defendant's legal fees for an obviously frivolous action.
See Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, specifically Rule 11(b)(2), which specifies that claims must be based in law or in a nonfrivolous extension of law. Rule 11(c) covers possible sanctions.
Now, Rule 11 isn't designed as a cost shifting device (this is an actual quote from memory, but I can't remember the actual case), but will be used as one in obviously frivolous cases. Read all of Rule 11, which has to do with proper representation of a claim. FRCP can be found here: http://classaction.findlaw.com/research/frcp.pdf
I'm a first year law student, so don't take my claims as actual legal advice!
More simply said: put it in there what you are not willing to do on a regular basis or not at all.
Within reason, doing things not in your job description is what can make you a key employee. I do tons of things not in my description, some of them more challenging, some very simple administrative chores, but try to never view them as being "below me." (haha, below me.. get it). In the end, there are things that simply HAVE to get done, and if you're the guy with a few free minutes, you should do it. Of course, I'm a programmer in a non-IT group, so my technical skills are going to be extended into other small tasks moreso than most, but it's a team game. Nobody's going to want me as management if I cant demonstrate a willingness to work outside of my bounds in order to help out, it would make no sense. I wouldn't promote someone that wasn't willing.
As long as its not illegal or immoral, you ought to be willing to do anything in your down time at work (and even some when you're busy). I was once asked to go and make a ton of copies of a presentation that I wasn't giving, nor in attendance at the presentation, simply because the people that WERE involved were all in last minute prep (this was about 60 mins before it had to go, and the copies took about 50 to run). In the end, all I did was bring an original to one of our copy shop people and wait there while they did the copy job. I was the highest paid paper shuffler our company had ever seen that day. When I came back up with the copies, everyone (most of them far higher ranking than me) was apologetic about even asking me to do that sort of task. But really, somebody had to do it, and you're being paid for your time either way, right? You'd be surprised how much "team player" counts when you're up for a review and a promotion. Doing things you deem "good for a summer intern" every now and again really shows how you'll integrate with the people you might then be promoted to manage. I personally won't work for a guy who doesn't get his hands dirty when it has to get done.
If you're a contractor you might say its a bit different because you're not going to get promoted, but it may very well lead to a good employment offer, especially if you're seen as someone they DON'T want to go and contract for a competitor when this one is up.
From an American who's proud to be one, unequivocally supportive of your actions and presence in Iraq, thank you for your service.
Every soldier and marine I've come across has said the same as you regarding the situation there vs what's reported. IED's and suicide bombers disguised as civilians get more ratings than the good things going on, though, because the news audience in the US is largely liberal. But hey, the shoddy journalism is being exposed, slowly but surely. The NYT is laying off some folks, readership is down, etc. Don't let it overshadow the good things you and the people you were with have done.
I'm not a lawyer, but I am a law student.
The 9th circuit decisions are some of the most overturned in the history of our nation. Seriously, the judges appointed there are completely out of touch with reality, and this will likely be another case that bites it. I wouldn't worry.
It's expensive to let someone learn on the job. For one, they could learn bad habits. Second, those bad habits could translate into outages or data loss. Third, it costs their salary plus the salary of the person teaching them for the time they spend doing so. Training courses done by IBM or a 3rd party are much more attractive.
I'm a fairly competent *nix person, but I'm not about to start teaching myself z/OS, OS/390, MVS, or any of the other mainframe things we have going on here. It's a whole different animal to someone my age (23). Training would be far more efficient in my development.
If the goal of the country is to increase next year's GDP at all costs, then listen to the economists.
... None of these figures puts any red ink to a balance sheet, so why should the economists care? Their job is to serve the holy God of The Market.
Not all economists view max GDP as their goal. Some, and increasingly more, attempt to minimize the GINI coefficient (which also tends to maximize GDP as a secondary effect).
The externalized expenses of increased unemployment numbers (the real unemployment numbers, not the crap the Labor Dept. puts out), stagnant wages, and increased costs of living have been largely absorbed by increased reliance on credit (thanks in part to the housing bubble).
And economists have been warning about this for quite some time. What you failed to mention is our increasing trade imbalance. That's the biggest threat to our long run economy. As far as the housing bubble, read some economic journals for some positions on that. Reading economics as interpreted by the popular press/media tends to simplify positions to the point where it looks like economists think all of this is OK. In reality, it's the exact opposite.
have been largely absorbed by increased reliance on credit.
Economists have been concerned with the low American savings rate for decades. That does have far reaching negative impacts on the market, as does increased utilization of credit (read about the money multiplier and inflation). Even if the goal of every economist was to worship the market, as you put it, the points you've made and suggested that economists have ignored are entirely opposite of the truth. They're all valid concerns of every competent economist out there.
I have a feeling that when China decides to stop subsidizing us, we'll find out that our economy (and country) has been bankrupt for years.
This is an excellent point and I'm glad you brought it up. This is something most economists are very concerned about. The growing trade gap is everyone's concern, from Greenspan to Buffett, and seemingly to everyone BUT the current administration. I'm a republican (the true fiscally conservative kind, not the kind we have in office now. neoconservatism = liberal spending, oppressive social agenda), and I happen to be appalled by all of this. Fiscal responsibility should be the #1 concern of every administration, because that DOES trickle down in a sense. Want to keep the middle class afloat? Howbout not doing things that will raise inflation. The rich can take the hit, the middle and lower class sure can't. The first concern is the trade gap.
Anyway, I hope I was able to clear a few things up there. I have a degree in economics and a job as a programmer, I'm middle class, republican, and absolutely pissed off at the current state of affairs. Such a combination DOES exist, you know. Not all of us are concerned with the party line or pretending everything's OK because "our guys" are in office. I really hope a candidate runs in '08 who really has a handle on this, or at least the right advisors, because the last election gave us two candidates who were economically clueless, if not absolute liars. Whether your choice was "The economy couldn't be in better long term shape" Bush or "We can afford socialized healthcare" Kerry, the outlook for that 4 year term were awful. The problem is, none of these older-than-dirt politicians seem to understand the workings of a global economy because it didn't quite exist the way it does now for the majority of their lives.
I'm not just being difficult here, I'm just in cost accounting mode :)
:) As far as the marketing, I still relate that song to the Win95 product launch.
Since the song was purchased for the launch, it seems less than ideal to amortize the price over 3 years. I'd honestly prefer to do so over 6 months or a year after the launch. A quick google gave me ~40M in the first year, so that would be what, 30 cents per copy? Still a bargain
I did misinterpret your point then. But in regards to that, they did pay for the research, so they should be entitled to do what they want with it.
:)
Now, releasing it under some sort of license where a for-profit derivative work requires them to receive, say, 20% of revenue or something like that.. now that COULD be a nice way to make money off of shelved research. I'd love to see that.
Like I said, though, I did happen to agree with you on the point that it isn't helping themselves or anyone else. A method where it would help them if it helped anyone else would definitely ease that economic inefficiency.
As you can also tell, I'm not entirely happy with price controls, though
There's not even if you lack insurance. You'll have the procedure first then work out the bills later. It's your life we're talking here, and you're paying a guy to cut you open and stand over you for 6 hours on average to do a coronary bypass. Let me ask, what do YOU think that sort of procedure is worth? Then consider what the doctor takes home on that procedure, generally a few thousand. The rest is all hospital and OR fees.
Seriously, these things cost a lot of money and you can't just print more. Who do you expect to pay for this if not yourself (if you lack insurance)? I might sound like a jerk saying that, but if it were me raising a family, I'd put health insurance right below housing on my list of priorities.
And in a case where you need this sort of procedure and you really can't afford it, they WILL work something out with you. Even many of the for-profit hospitals aren't that cold, and especially, the doctors themselves are not.
Warning: NOT a flame. Read on.
While you're lecturing us on economics, howbout you talk about the economics of free and open research you mention? Seriously, profit maximizing is the only reason these companies are in business, and they happen to be in the business of coming up with new drugs and therapies to save lives. Take away their economic incentive and they're no longer going to innovate. If you want to be altruistic about it and you're an American, just realize we bear the cost of R&D on all of this stuff, because the price controls other (more socialist, generally) nations have in place on pharmaceuticals would completely kill the industry if it weren't for us. It's a mess and we (The United States of America, the country that everyone loves to hate nowadays) pay for it, along with a few others that don't severely regulate drug prices.
I happen to agree with you, but it's mostly America's wallets that have to be fatter to afford medication, because our market essentially subsidizes everyone else's.
I tend to think our own prices would be WAY less if we weren't bearing most of the R&D costs as a portion of unit cost. You might say that the drug companies would still employ monopoly pricing on their patented products, and that's true, but I happen to think we're paying above the monopoly price right now. The real test would be to simulate price controls such as those in Canada on the US market, and model how quickly the drug companies would fall into the red.
I am, of course, presenting only one side of this and simplistically at that. I'd love to hear other takes on this.
Until he/she has a tyre blowout
I've experienced a blowout at about 90 MPH on a long empty stretch of highway, and you should probably take that off of your list. If the car's stable at that speed, you're not likely to lose control unless you jerk the wheel in response. I just kept it straight, slowed down, then pulled over and all was fine. The blowout was to my rear (driven) tire on a toyota supra.
I get your point, by the way, and do agree with it. I just don't like misinformation about blowouts because when they occur, people panic partly because of what they've heard, and THAT creates danger. The blowout itself, from what I've experienced, just makes you a nuisance in traffic as you slow down and pull over. Similar results were found in simulated conditions by Car and Driver Magazine on the Ford Explorer, when defective tires were causing frequent blowouts. If it happens, don't jerk the wheel, keep it going straight, slow down, and pull over.