I loved Webvan. My friends loved Webvan. To this day, I think it was one of the best ideas to come out of the dot-com era, even though it was one of the first companies to go under when the bubble burst.
It is such a shame that they're gone, and the day I heard they were closing up shop (or technically, warehouse, I suppose) was a sad day indeed. Going to the grocery store is such a hassle, and I gladly paid the premium for the convenience.
I still think that the idea is valid, and if it were done right, would be a multibillion-dollar industry. Whoever takes up the cause now, though, would have to fight not only the trials and tribulations of starting a new business, but the legacy of the spectacular failure of Webvan before it.
What a shame. I can't believe that it's been six years since their demise.
I remember a friend asking me, "What's the difference between Windows 2000 and Windows Millennium Edition?"
I took around ten minutes to explain it to him, but I felt stupid the whole time I was doing so. I wanted to smack whichever Microsoft genius came up with those names upside the head.
Microsoft desperately needs to lose all of these confusing names and editions they keep releasing. I don't understand for the life of me what's so hard about releasing two editions: Home and Business. Let people pick how they want their machines optimized during installation.
I long for the days when Windows had version numbers like 3.11. It was so simple for any average schmoe to tell what they were holding in their hands.
Now, after a decade or stupid name progressions like Windows 95 -> Windows 98 (at least it was consistent) -> Windows ME (what the hell?) and Windows NT 4.0 -> Windows 2000 -> Windows XP (what?) -> Windows Vista (huh!!?) -> Windows ???, it's a wonder anyone will buy anything named "Windows" any more.
Because when I think of places to outsource jobs to, the first place I think of are places with no technical infrastructure, right? I have an idea, let's just skip over Africa, which has probably millions of computers and thousands of competent, qualified computer technicians and programmers, and just outsource to Antarctica.
India made a concerted effort that took many years to get up to speed. It wasn't all just thrown together after the mythical Great Outsourcing, the technical infrastructure existed first. It's been building up since, but if it hadn't been for some wise people realizing what it took to convince companies to outsource there (i.e. a technical infrastructure) and building it, it never would have happened and they wouldn't have come.
Word of advice: If you have a problem with jobs being sent to India, don't blame the Indians. Blame the people who are responsible: American companies. Blaming the Indians (or the Chinese, Africans, or anyone else) is a silly waste of time.
Wow, those capital letters do make wishful thinking look more valid, don't they? I'll have to use them more often. Thanks!
Back to the point at hand, it doesn't mean diddly what the machine is used for. If you deliberately use a machine that is broken specifically for the purpose of financial gain at someone else's expense, you're stealing. Undoubtedly, the people who are accused will try to convince the judge and jury that they didn't know that the machine was faulty, and they might get away with it. It depends on how obvious it was that the machine was broken. If the machine's signage and screen clearly indicates that it costs a dollar per spin and the people were getting 10 spins for a dollar, it's entirely possible that it will be ruled that they knew that the machine was faulty and be ruled against.
All that other stuff you mention doesn't matter. The loss relative to their income, people playing to win money, the incentive to gamble, all irrelevant. All it will boil down to is this, and I'll use capital letters so that it will look really important and more true for you: DID THE PEOPLE INTENTIONALLY EXPLOIT A BROKEN MACHINE TO RIP OFF ANOTHER PARTY!!? If the answer is yes, at the very least, they're liable for the casino's losses due to their actions, pure and simple. At worst, yes, they committed a crime.
Wow, how cleverly you have defeated all of my well thought-out arguments, I never would have thought of that. You should be a lawyer, and by all means, please use that as a defense in a court case some time and be sure to let us all know how it works out.
Damn, I must be going blind, because I don't see anywhere in the comment where he said anything about aid being used for the SAT3 fiber cable. I think he was talking about how billions in aid money haven't helped much in social, political, and agricultural reforms.
That's arguable, as is the importance of Internet access to Africa. I mean, after all, India is one of the most bitterly poor countries in the world, but their technical infrastructure has improved the lives of many people there and is bringing the country out of the third world and into a modernized society. Maybe Internet access in Africa will have similar results.
There are many problems that need to be addressed in Africa, and many ways to address those problems, each contributing to the overall progress in different and productive ways.
Yes, casinos are about as watchful a business as there is.
Still, mistakes will always be made in every business. It doesn't give people the unmitigated right to exploit them. "They should have caught me" is not a valid defense.
Most likely some guy will be fired for placing the decimal in the wrong place.
Blackjack is a winnable game, but it is not "a simple set of rules" that will do it.
The rules you're referring to are called "Basic Strategy," which is a set of rules that will maximize your odds of winning in any given situation. All casinos I've ever been in allow you to actually keep Basic Strategy notes with you for reference. I've even seen them sold on cards in the gift shops of some casinos.
However, this set of rules will not give you an edge over the casino. All it does is lower the casino's edge over you.
The rules that will win at blackjack depend on counting cards. You have to keep track in your head of what's been played, at least in general terms of high cards vs. low cards. As low cards are played out of a shoe, the odds of the player winning go up, because high cards tend to bust dealer hands. The key is to bet more money when the shoe has a disproportionate number of high cards in it, and to bet less when the shoe has a normal distribution or when the shoe has a disproportionate number of low cards in it.
In some places such as Las Vegas, casinos have the legal right to bar players they suspect of counting cards. In others such as Atlantic City, they don't. In those places, casinos compensate by having dealers at tables with card counters shuffle the shoes much more often, sometimes after every single hand. By doing so, any advantage a card counter may have is negated, and the odds will always be in favor of the casino.
Obviously, pit bosses and security personnel in casinos are trained to spot card counters. The casino has computers itself that can analyze the odds of the player and casino at any point in a shoe, and if they see players vary their bets according to where those odds lie, they know they've got a counter on their hands and can ban them. Casinos have also been known to hire card counters to watch for betting variations of other counters and report them. Also, casinos maintain databases of known card counters so that professionals are instantly spotted and never even get a chance to play in their own favor.
But the set of rules to be a counter is not simple. In fact, most casinos actually LIKE it when people who think they can count cards come. The thing is, if you screw it up, you will lose a lot of money, because you'll be betting large amounts when the odds are not in your favor. Casinos get far more money from people who screw up card counting than they lose to people who can actually pull it off. For one thing, you're having to keep running counts of at least two numbers (more, if you want better odds) in your head. For another, you're actually having to play the game, and the guy sitting beside you at the table doesn't want to wait 30 seconds for you to decide whether to hit or stand after every card. For another, when you're trying to count cards, you're typically trying to do it in some non-obvious way so that if you're successful, you won't be banned or shuffled up on. It's hard to act all casual like you're not intensely concentrating on something when in reality you are. For yet another, casinos are by their nature very distracting places, with lots of commotion, yelling, dinging slot machines, and so on. As if that weren't enough, while you're at the tables, you'll have waitresses who are generally very attractive coming by repeatedly offering you free drinks, and counting cards while drunk is infinitely harder than counting them while sober.
As long as you are not messing with the machine, there is no crime here.
This is patently false.
the difference is, that with slot machines, by design are there for you to put money into, and hope you get more money out of them.
And this is probably where the source of your confusion lies.
There is no difference. Each machine is designed to perform a certain function that involves money. In each case, one party is using the machine to conduct a transaction with another party. In each case, the machine is broken in such a way that heavily favors one party over the other, a way that is readily obvious to a reasonable person, and a way that the other party does not agree to. In each case, the first party (the one that is being favored) exploits the fact that the other party (the one that is being screwed) doesn't know that the machine is broken in order to continue their financial gain at the expense of the other party even though it is obvious that the other party wouldn't consent.
The exact nature of what the machines do is irrelevant. Whether it's an ATM, a slot machine, an arcade money changer, an automated car wash money collector, a pay phone... whatever. All that really matters legally, both civilly and criminally, is whether the machine was screwed up in such a way that a reasonable person would know it. I'm guessing that the answer to that is yes. I can't imagine getting $10 credit for $1 inserted and thinking, "Gee, that was unexpected, but it must be what they meant." In the end, it will probably be something a judge or jury decides.
People should be paying attention to this stuff. There's really no excuse for venue management to no know what was going on with these machines. This problem is readily forseeable. People who are paid to have a clue about this stuff and pay attention should be the ones on the hook for this.
This is true, which is why I said that I agree that the casino is partially responsible for what happened.
However... (And it's a big one that merits bold letters...)
This does not relieve people exploiting machines that are messed up of the liability of financial loss! If you take advantage of someone else's crime, or in this case, mistake, for your own financial gain and a third party's financial loss, you do bear the blame for it even if you didn't instigate the cause! The entire blame? Maybe not, but certainly some of it! (At least to the point where you will have to make right by what you took as a result of the exploit.)
Contrary to popular belief, we do not live in an "everything you can get away with is legal" society.
Who said anything about the power to change the software? If you know the software is working incorrectly (which you do, if you get $10 credit for inserting $1), and you use that fact to exploit the machine for your financial gain at the expense of the casino, then you do bear responsibility for their loss.
Think of it this way. If you walk up to an ATM and withdraw $100, and it says on your receipt that your account has been reduced by $100, but the machine actually spit out $1,000, what do you do?
A. Report to the bank that their machine is screwed up and give them back the $900.
B. Keep the whole $1,000 and go your merry way.
C. Insert your card again and take $1,000 at a time until either your account or the ATM is empty.
Option A is clearly the right answer. If you pick option B, the bank will probably drop the issue if you give back the $900. If you choose option C, which is effectively what the people did in the casino, then it's pretty likely you'll find your ass in jail for theft, which is exactly where it should be.
On the one hand, the casino should bear at least some of the responsibility for allowing a faulty machine to give away its money. I think it's entirely reasonable to expect them to inspect equipment for such glaring problems before installing it and letting the public have at it.
On the other hand, if a slot machine has the fact that it costs one dollar to play prominently displayed, and you get ten dollars' worth of credit when you insert your dollar, it's painfully obvious to any reasonable person that the machine is messed up. The people playing most certainly should have reported the error, or at the very least, not exploited it.
At the very least, I think the casino would--and should--have a very strong civil case against the people who exploited the bug and who didn't return the money. If the opposite happened, that people only got one dollar's worth of credit when they inserted a ten-dollar bill, you'd better believe there would have been hell to pay, and maybe even a lawsuit over it. Just because the error is in favor of the customer instead of the company doesn't shift the morality of the issue. As a matter of public relations, though, it might be in the casino's best interest not to push the issue, or to push the issue with the people who programmed the slots incorrectly instead of their paying customers.
As for criminal charges, although I think that exploiting the machines is a pretty scummy thing to do, I have a hard time thinking it should be escalated to the level of a crime. Like I said, the casino should bear some responsibility for the mistake. Even if exploiting the machine should be considered some sort of theft or cheating, what happened could be considered enticement to commit a crime that one wouldn't otherwise normally commit. That's entrapment, and that is illegal itself.
You're not in error, you're simply not reading it from the perspective of what the power claimed in the Executive Order can be used for. The stuff you talk about in item #3 in your list isn't a limitation on that power, and the Executive Order is expanding it.
Also, let's say that Congress does repeal IEEP. That means that the few limits on the power (items of non-value, CD's, microfiches, etc.) would be wiped out, and it would give the President the power to pretty much do whatever he (or she) wants. That's what the IEEP was passed in the first place, to say that the power isn't without limit.
Of course, this administration doesn't recognize any limits on its power. When it does run up against a legal wall, it simply ignores the wall and does whatever it wants to anyway. Like I said, if you trust these guys, I think you're a bit naive and I obviously disagree with your assessment of their character. But more importantly, you're also setting the precedent that whomever is in office next (likely one of those evil liberal Democrats) will have the same powers.
If that's okay with you, then sure, go ahead and ignore the klaxons. It's not so okay with me, though.
Here's the short version with a lot of legalese stripped out:
All property and interests in property of the following persons are blocked and may not be transferred, paid, exported withdrawn, or otherwise dealt in: any person determined by the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense threatening the peace or stability of Iraq or the Government of Iraq or undermining efforts to promote economic reconstruction and political reform in Iraq or to provide humanitarian assistance to the Iraqi people.
Because of the ability to transfer funds or other assets instantaneously, prior notice to such persons of measures to be taken pursuant to this order would render these measures ineffectual. I therefore determine that for these measures to be effective there need be no prior notice of a listing or determination made.
Yes, there is a bunch of other stuff in there, but I don't see anything stopping the Secretary of the Treasury from using this for political purposes. If you go to an anti-war demonstration, you just might be undermining efforts to promote political reform in Iraq (as defined by the Bush administration).
Just for the sake of argument, let's say that you're a die-hard Republican George Bush fan, and you honestly think that this would never be used for such blatant political purposes. Would you say the same thing about Hillary Clinton, who stands a very good chance of being elected in 2008? Because guess what. She's going to have the same powers when she takes office.
People who support the creation of this kind of crap based on their trust of the Guy (or Gal) In Charge right now, whether that person is a Democrat, Republican, or whatever, are idiots. You should never ask yourself what something like this will be used for, you should ask yourself what it can be used for, and then imagine that the politician you hate the most holding the reigns. Then, and only then, can you decide whether a law, executive order, or whatever is good or bad.
...he can either vote with his money (that he does) and buy a software that doesn't "put him off", or vote with his feet and move from the country that imposes such restrictions on him
Actually, there is a third option, the one that is actually most often used here, the one that the MPAA doesn't want anyone to acknowledge exists. Yes, it can have some dire consequences, but it doesn't change the fact that it's worked numerous times throughout history.
Here's the way I look at it. I've paid good money for a DVD and for the player that can play it, and some nice person has written software that they're giving away for free that will allow me to watch the movie that I've paid for. I'm sorry, but I'm not going to obey some stupid law that says that I can't watch the movie I paid for because I might make copies and share them with my friends (which, incidentally, I do not). If they want to come and get me for that, then so be it; let them come.
I'm sorry, but if your business model depends on making customers do things that they don't want to do, things that are easily bypassed in favor of heavy discounts, you're just asking to go out of business.
The examples you've cited are very weird and somewhat debatable. The long and short of it is that price fixing is bad for the general public, and if businesses choose to engage in the practice by exploiting legal loopholes and piss off their consumers, they don't deserve to be in business. There shouldn't be any kind of legal protection for this type of activity, period, and the Leegin v. PSKS decision will eventually be viewed historically as one of the Supreme Court's spectacular mistakes.
Why use an algorithm? Can't it just pick a number from X to Y? i can pick a number.
Because then your own psychology comes into play.
If you ask people to pick a number between 1 and 10, the vast majority of them won't pick 1 or 10. People just don't like the edges. I think that they avoid 5, too, because it's right smack in the middle. For a number between 1 and 10 to be random, most people subconsciously want to make it not stand out and will pick something like 3, 6, or 8, thus not making it even random enough for gaming.
Also, in the same vein of not standing out, if you ask people to pick multiple numbers between 1 and 10, most won't allow there to be any patterns in them in the attempt to make them more random, thus actually making them less random. For example, if you ask people to pick five numbers, most won't pick something like 4, 4, 4, 4, and 4, even though it's a legitimate combination that's just as likely as something like 7, 3, 1, 1, 9.
Another example. When I was in high school, I used to play $5 in the lottery once a week, figuring that it sure would be convenient if I never had to bother going to college and get a job and so on. I usually just selected the quick pick and let the machine pick my numbers. Once, though, I manually picked 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 for the first ticket, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 for the second, and so on. My dad basically said, "You're an idiot. Those numbers will never come up, and you just wasted five dollars!" He never quite got it that, aside from the lottery being a colossal waste of money to begin with, it didn't matter what numbers I picked; any given set was just as likely to come up as any other given set. Not having six consecutive numbers is merely imposing human psychology on the random numbers, which could have very well been consecutive numbers.
If I'm not mistaken, several years ago, someone proved that the digits of pi are random. That if you expand it out to a bazillion decimal places, you'll eventually run across patterns like 0123456789 and such. As humans, with brains that are designed to seek out patterns, it strikes us as interesting, perhaps even as some sort of sign that the numbers aren't random. Nothing is further from the truth, though; the lack of such patterns would be a sure sign that the numbers aren't random.
From what I'm reading, it looks like this only applies to device-to-device transfer, a la the Zune's "squirt" feature.
Seriously, in the grand scheme of things, with people downloading tracks from p2p networks and ripping their own CDs, is this going to make an impact whatsoever?
I think not. It sounds like yet another goofy scheme to "enable" (the RIAA's word that roughly translates to "disable" in English) what consumers can do with their players.
By generating wealth, I mean making something tangible and of value to society.
I'm sorry, but that's silly. Anyone who has taken Accounting 101 would tell you that there are many, many things that count as "wealth" that are not necessarily "tangible and of value of society." (By the way, who gets to decide what is of "value to society?" You?)
Taking a tree and turning it into lumber, that adds wealth.
So does taking a story and writing it down, making a movie about it, and showing it to people.
Burning the lumber destroys wealth.
And I suppose the burning the Mona Lisa destroys around $10 or so worth of paint and canvas, right? Because there's no room for non-tangible ideas of wealth like art or scarcity?
What is so bad about intangible things not being wealth?
You mean other than the fact that it's wrong, as proven in countless business transactions, sometimes in the billions of dollars, for intangible things each and every day?
Let's go back to your original post:
or example, let's take "Spiderman." Spiderman has been around a lot longer than 14 years, and recently Sony has made a ton of money for Marvel and its own investors with three hit movies. If Spiderman had already fallen into the public domain, those films might not have been made, and therefore that wealth not generated.
Wealth wasn't generated. It was redistributed.
Society would have been just fine without those movies.
Wealth was, in fact, generated. It was provably generated for Sony and Marvel, who now have more money than they did before. It was also generated for society as a whole, which now has Spiderman movies added to its repertoire of artistic creations. Would society have been just fine without these movies? Sure, I suppose so, but it sounds suspiciously like all you're saying is, "Spiderman sux." If you think that, fine, to each his own. But like I said, the first statement is provably wrong, and the second is a baseless opinion has nothing to do with copyright laws, and is completely irrelevant to the conversation at hand. It is a non sequitur to its parent post.
Which might be what you intended, in which I guess a more appropriate reply from me would be, "Whatever."
When someone makes a chair, a tangible product is created that can be used repeatedly until it is destroyed.
...At which point, the person is without their money and without a chair. By your definition, it seems that the chair doesn't count as "wealth," either. Unless that baby's made of titanium, you've only bought yourself a temporary resting spot.
What about an apple? Once I eat it, would you say that it was wasted money because all it did was distract my hunger for a little while? I guess you could argue that it's sustenance, but since I've got a few kilograms to spare, I technically don't need that apple to live.
I don't know where you're getting that wealth must be permanent tangible assets. A patent isn't tangible, it's merely a legal concept, yet people use them for enormous financial (and material, for that matter) gain.
What about education? If I pay thousands of dollars for a college degree, is society not any better off because I have nothing permanently tangible to show for it? Would you argue that the college I paid my tuition to didn't earn any wealth from me?
I hate to burst your bubble, but money is wealth. If you manage to get some of it from me, you can convert it into anything you want to, temporary or permanent, tangible or conceptual. It doesn't matter what I'm paying you for, whether it's a chair or a couple of hours of entertainment, or even if it's because I think you're a nice guy and I'm feeling particularly generous with the extra I've acquired, you've generated wealth.
What tangible asset did I exchange my money for? What "wealth", exactly, was created?
It doesn't matter whether I'm receiving a tangible asset or not, wealth is still being generated for people.
When I pay $10 to go see a movie, I'm effectively paying the theater some money for being able to watch the movie in comfort on a kick-ass screen and with a kick-ass sound system. I'm paying the movie distributor for making it easy for me to go 5 miles to see the film instead of having to travel somewhere like New York City or Los Angeles. I'm paying the production company for taking a story and presenting it to me in an exciting and entertaining manner. I'm paying the actors for performing. I'm paying the writers for creating the story. I'm paying Stan Lee for coming up with an interesting character. And so on, and so on.
Again, I'm sorry to burst your bubble, but services are considered just as valuable a part of our economy as tangible goods. These days, in fact, they're probably considered more valuable. At the company I work for, they pay me. Do you honestly think I make chairs? No, I'm a capacity planner. The only tangible thing I produce are reports, and most of them aren't physical paper reports, they're web pages and/or e-mails. Everything else is bits and bytes in the programs I write and the computer tools I configure and use. Does that mean that by your definition, since only knowledge and information is traded for money and there were no tangible goods involved, that everything I own can't be considered wealth?
Two completely facetious and irrelevant statements:
Wealth wasn't generated. It was redistributed.
Wealth was generated for the companies involved in making, distributing, and showing the movies. Dismissing it as simply redistributed is silly. That's like complaining when someone says, "I made a chair," telling them, "No you didn't, you simply rearranged some wood, nails, and lacquer into the shape of a chair."
Society would have been just fine without those movies.
Technically, society would be just fine without all movies, books, music, and other forms of art, but it certainly wouldn't be better off. That's a baseless opinion that has absolutely no relevance at all. Unless you're arguing that copyright terms should be based on how good or bad a movie or other copyrighted work is, in which case, since the vast majority of the country happens to disagree with your assessment of these movies, I suppose the copyright for them should last pretty much indefinitely.
What was the point you were trying to make, anyway? I'm just curious.
I skimmed the article, and I didn't see one other reason why I think everything that can be done with a mouse should also be doable by a keyboard, even stuff that is more efficient to do with a mouse: scripting.
Generally, scripting and automating mouse actions is very difficult. Scripting and automating keyboard actions is trivial.
Slashdot Mirror
That's easy: Webvan.
I loved Webvan. My friends loved Webvan. To this day, I think it was one of the best ideas to come out of the dot-com era, even though it was one of the first companies to go under when the bubble burst.
It is such a shame that they're gone, and the day I heard they were closing up shop (or technically, warehouse, I suppose) was a sad day indeed. Going to the grocery store is such a hassle, and I gladly paid the premium for the convenience.
I still think that the idea is valid, and if it were done right, would be a multibillion-dollar industry. Whoever takes up the cause now, though, would have to fight not only the trials and tribulations of starting a new business, but the legacy of the spectacular failure of Webvan before it.
What a shame. I can't believe that it's been six years since their demise.
I remember a friend asking me, "What's the difference between Windows 2000 and Windows Millennium Edition?"
I took around ten minutes to explain it to him, but I felt stupid the whole time I was doing so. I wanted to smack whichever Microsoft genius came up with those names upside the head.
Microsoft desperately needs to lose all of these confusing names and editions they keep releasing. I don't understand for the life of me what's so hard about releasing two editions: Home and Business. Let people pick how they want their machines optimized during installation.
I long for the days when Windows had version numbers like 3.11. It was so simple for any average schmoe to tell what they were holding in their hands.
Now, after a decade or stupid name progressions like Windows 95 -> Windows 98 (at least it was consistent) -> Windows ME (what the hell?) and Windows NT 4.0 -> Windows 2000 -> Windows XP (what?) -> Windows Vista (huh!!?) -> Windows ???, it's a wonder anyone will buy anything named "Windows" any more.
Because when I think of places to outsource jobs to, the first place I think of are places with no technical infrastructure, right? I have an idea, let's just skip over Africa, which has probably millions of computers and thousands of competent, qualified computer technicians and programmers, and just outsource to Antarctica.
India made a concerted effort that took many years to get up to speed. It wasn't all just thrown together after the mythical Great Outsourcing, the technical infrastructure existed first. It's been building up since, but if it hadn't been for some wise people realizing what it took to convince companies to outsource there (i.e. a technical infrastructure) and building it, it never would have happened and they wouldn't have come.
Sounds like I'm not the one that needs a clue.
Word of advice: If you have a problem with jobs being sent to India, don't blame the Indians. Blame the people who are responsible: American companies. Blaming the Indians (or the Chinese, Africans, or anyone else) is a silly waste of time.
IT DOESN'T MATTER!
Wow, those capital letters do make wishful thinking look more valid, don't they? I'll have to use them more often. Thanks!
Back to the point at hand, it doesn't mean diddly what the machine is used for. If you deliberately use a machine that is broken specifically for the purpose of financial gain at someone else's expense, you're stealing. Undoubtedly, the people who are accused will try to convince the judge and jury that they didn't know that the machine was faulty, and they might get away with it. It depends on how obvious it was that the machine was broken. If the machine's signage and screen clearly indicates that it costs a dollar per spin and the people were getting 10 spins for a dollar, it's entirely possible that it will be ruled that they knew that the machine was faulty and be ruled against.
All that other stuff you mention doesn't matter. The loss relative to their income, people playing to win money, the incentive to gamble, all irrelevant. All it will boil down to is this, and I'll use capital letters so that it will look really important and more true for you: DID THE PEOPLE INTENTIONALLY EXPLOIT A BROKEN MACHINE TO RIP OFF ANOTHER PARTY!!? If the answer is yes, at the very least, they're liable for the casino's losses due to their actions, pure and simple. At worst, yes, they committed a crime.
Wow, how cleverly you have defeated all of my well thought-out arguments, I never would have thought of that. You should be a lawyer, and by all means, please use that as a defense in a court case some time and be sure to let us all know how it works out.
Damn, I must be going blind, because I don't see anywhere in the comment where he said anything about aid being used for the SAT3 fiber cable. I think he was talking about how billions in aid money haven't helped much in social, political, and agricultural reforms.
That's arguable, as is the importance of Internet access to Africa. I mean, after all, India is one of the most bitterly poor countries in the world, but their technical infrastructure has improved the lives of many people there and is bringing the country out of the third world and into a modernized society. Maybe Internet access in Africa will have similar results.
There are many problems that need to be addressed in Africa, and many ways to address those problems, each contributing to the overall progress in different and productive ways.
Yes, casinos are about as watchful a business as there is.
Still, mistakes will always be made in every business. It doesn't give people the unmitigated right to exploit them. "They should have caught me" is not a valid defense.
If he's lucky.
Blackjack is a winnable game, but it is not "a simple set of rules" that will do it.
The rules you're referring to are called "Basic Strategy," which is a set of rules that will maximize your odds of winning in any given situation. All casinos I've ever been in allow you to actually keep Basic Strategy notes with you for reference. I've even seen them sold on cards in the gift shops of some casinos.
However, this set of rules will not give you an edge over the casino. All it does is lower the casino's edge over you.
The rules that will win at blackjack depend on counting cards. You have to keep track in your head of what's been played, at least in general terms of high cards vs. low cards. As low cards are played out of a shoe, the odds of the player winning go up, because high cards tend to bust dealer hands. The key is to bet more money when the shoe has a disproportionate number of high cards in it, and to bet less when the shoe has a normal distribution or when the shoe has a disproportionate number of low cards in it.
In some places such as Las Vegas, casinos have the legal right to bar players they suspect of counting cards. In others such as Atlantic City, they don't. In those places, casinos compensate by having dealers at tables with card counters shuffle the shoes much more often, sometimes after every single hand. By doing so, any advantage a card counter may have is negated, and the odds will always be in favor of the casino.
Obviously, pit bosses and security personnel in casinos are trained to spot card counters. The casino has computers itself that can analyze the odds of the player and casino at any point in a shoe, and if they see players vary their bets according to where those odds lie, they know they've got a counter on their hands and can ban them. Casinos have also been known to hire card counters to watch for betting variations of other counters and report them. Also, casinos maintain databases of known card counters so that professionals are instantly spotted and never even get a chance to play in their own favor.
But the set of rules to be a counter is not simple. In fact, most casinos actually LIKE it when people who think they can count cards come. The thing is, if you screw it up, you will lose a lot of money, because you'll be betting large amounts when the odds are not in your favor. Casinos get far more money from people who screw up card counting than they lose to people who can actually pull it off. For one thing, you're having to keep running counts of at least two numbers (more, if you want better odds) in your head. For another, you're actually having to play the game, and the guy sitting beside you at the table doesn't want to wait 30 seconds for you to decide whether to hit or stand after every card. For another, when you're trying to count cards, you're typically trying to do it in some non-obvious way so that if you're successful, you won't be banned or shuffled up on. It's hard to act all casual like you're not intensely concentrating on something when in reality you are. For yet another, casinos are by their nature very distracting places, with lots of commotion, yelling, dinging slot machines, and so on. As if that weren't enough, while you're at the tables, you'll have waitresses who are generally very attractive coming by repeatedly offering you free drinks, and counting cards while drunk is infinitely harder than counting them while sober.
This is patently false.
And this is probably where the source of your confusion lies.
There is no difference. Each machine is designed to perform a certain function that involves money. In each case, one party is using the machine to conduct a transaction with another party. In each case, the machine is broken in such a way that heavily favors one party over the other, a way that is readily obvious to a reasonable person, and a way that the other party does not agree to. In each case, the first party (the one that is being favored) exploits the fact that the other party (the one that is being screwed) doesn't know that the machine is broken in order to continue their financial gain at the expense of the other party even though it is obvious that the other party wouldn't consent.
The exact nature of what the machines do is irrelevant. Whether it's an ATM, a slot machine, an arcade money changer, an automated car wash money collector, a pay phone... whatever. All that really matters legally, both civilly and criminally, is whether the machine was screwed up in such a way that a reasonable person would know it. I'm guessing that the answer to that is yes. I can't imagine getting $10 credit for $1 inserted and thinking, "Gee, that was unexpected, but it must be what they meant." In the end, it will probably be something a judge or jury decides.
This is true, which is why I said that I agree that the casino is partially responsible for what happened.
However... (And it's a big one that merits bold letters...)
This does not relieve people exploiting machines that are messed up of the liability of financial loss! If you take advantage of someone else's crime, or in this case, mistake, for your own financial gain and a third party's financial loss, you do bear the blame for it even if you didn't instigate the cause! The entire blame? Maybe not, but certainly some of it! (At least to the point where you will have to make right by what you took as a result of the exploit.)
Contrary to popular belief, we do not live in an "everything you can get away with is legal" society.
Who said anything about the power to change the software? If you know the software is working incorrectly (which you do, if you get $10 credit for inserting $1), and you use that fact to exploit the machine for your financial gain at the expense of the casino, then you do bear responsibility for their loss.
Think of it this way. If you walk up to an ATM and withdraw $100, and it says on your receipt that your account has been reduced by $100, but the machine actually spit out $1,000, what do you do?
A. Report to the bank that their machine is screwed up and give them back the $900.
B. Keep the whole $1,000 and go your merry way.
C. Insert your card again and take $1,000 at a time until either your account or the ATM is empty.
Option A is clearly the right answer. If you pick option B, the bank will probably drop the issue if you give back the $900. If you choose option C, which is effectively what the people did in the casino, then it's pretty likely you'll find your ass in jail for theft, which is exactly where it should be.
I have mixed feelings about this.
On the one hand, the casino should bear at least some of the responsibility for allowing a faulty machine to give away its money. I think it's entirely reasonable to expect them to inspect equipment for such glaring problems before installing it and letting the public have at it.
On the other hand, if a slot machine has the fact that it costs one dollar to play prominently displayed, and you get ten dollars' worth of credit when you insert your dollar, it's painfully obvious to any reasonable person that the machine is messed up. The people playing most certainly should have reported the error, or at the very least, not exploited it.
At the very least, I think the casino would--and should--have a very strong civil case against the people who exploited the bug and who didn't return the money. If the opposite happened, that people only got one dollar's worth of credit when they inserted a ten-dollar bill, you'd better believe there would have been hell to pay, and maybe even a lawsuit over it. Just because the error is in favor of the customer instead of the company doesn't shift the morality of the issue. As a matter of public relations, though, it might be in the casino's best interest not to push the issue, or to push the issue with the people who programmed the slots incorrectly instead of their paying customers.
As for criminal charges, although I think that exploiting the machines is a pretty scummy thing to do, I have a hard time thinking it should be escalated to the level of a crime. Like I said, the casino should bear some responsibility for the mistake. Even if exploiting the machine should be considered some sort of theft or cheating, what happened could be considered enticement to commit a crime that one wouldn't otherwise normally commit. That's entrapment, and that is illegal itself.
Read it again.
You're not in error, you're simply not reading it from the perspective of what the power claimed in the Executive Order can be used for. The stuff you talk about in item #3 in your list isn't a limitation on that power, and the Executive Order is expanding it.
Also, let's say that Congress does repeal IEEP. That means that the few limits on the power (items of non-value, CD's, microfiches, etc.) would be wiped out, and it would give the President the power to pretty much do whatever he (or she) wants. That's what the IEEP was passed in the first place, to say that the power isn't without limit.
Of course, this administration doesn't recognize any limits on its power. When it does run up against a legal wall, it simply ignores the wall and does whatever it wants to anyway. Like I said, if you trust these guys, I think you're a bit naive and I obviously disagree with your assessment of their character. But more importantly, you're also setting the precedent that whomever is in office next (likely one of those evil liberal Democrats) will have the same powers.
If that's okay with you, then sure, go ahead and ignore the klaxons. It's not so okay with me, though.
Here's the short version with a lot of legalese stripped out:
Yes, there is a bunch of other stuff in there, but I don't see anything stopping the Secretary of the Treasury from using this for political purposes. If you go to an anti-war demonstration, you just might be undermining efforts to promote political reform in Iraq (as defined by the Bush administration).
Just for the sake of argument, let's say that you're a die-hard Republican George Bush fan, and you honestly think that this would never be used for such blatant political purposes. Would you say the same thing about Hillary Clinton, who stands a very good chance of being elected in 2008? Because guess what. She's going to have the same powers when she takes office.
People who support the creation of this kind of crap based on their trust of the Guy (or Gal) In Charge right now, whether that person is a Democrat, Republican, or whatever, are idiots. You should never ask yourself what something like this will be used for, you should ask yourself what it can be used for, and then imagine that the politician you hate the most holding the reigns. Then, and only then, can you decide whether a law, executive order, or whatever is good or bad.
Actually, there is a third option, the one that is actually most often used here, the one that the MPAA doesn't want anyone to acknowledge exists. Yes, it can have some dire consequences, but it doesn't change the fact that it's worked numerous times throughout history.
Here's the way I look at it. I've paid good money for a DVD and for the player that can play it, and some nice person has written software that they're giving away for free that will allow me to watch the movie that I've paid for. I'm sorry, but I'm not going to obey some stupid law that says that I can't watch the movie I paid for because I might make copies and share them with my friends (which, incidentally, I do not). If they want to come and get me for that, then so be it; let them come.
You're kidding, right?
I'm sorry, but if your business model depends on making customers do things that they don't want to do, things that are easily bypassed in favor of heavy discounts, you're just asking to go out of business.
The examples you've cited are very weird and somewhat debatable. The long and short of it is that price fixing is bad for the general public, and if businesses choose to engage in the practice by exploiting legal loopholes and piss off their consumers, they don't deserve to be in business. There shouldn't be any kind of legal protection for this type of activity, period, and the Leegin v. PSKS decision will eventually be viewed historically as one of the Supreme Court's spectacular mistakes.
Because then your own psychology comes into play.
If you ask people to pick a number between 1 and 10, the vast majority of them won't pick 1 or 10. People just don't like the edges. I think that they avoid 5, too, because it's right smack in the middle. For a number between 1 and 10 to be random, most people subconsciously want to make it not stand out and will pick something like 3, 6, or 8, thus not making it even random enough for gaming.
Also, in the same vein of not standing out, if you ask people to pick multiple numbers between 1 and 10, most won't allow there to be any patterns in them in the attempt to make them more random, thus actually making them less random. For example, if you ask people to pick five numbers, most won't pick something like 4, 4, 4, 4, and 4, even though it's a legitimate combination that's just as likely as something like 7, 3, 1, 1, 9.
Another example. When I was in high school, I used to play $5 in the lottery once a week, figuring that it sure would be convenient if I never had to bother going to college and get a job and so on. I usually just selected the quick pick and let the machine pick my numbers. Once, though, I manually picked 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 for the first ticket, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 for the second, and so on. My dad basically said, "You're an idiot. Those numbers will never come up, and you just wasted five dollars!" He never quite got it that, aside from the lottery being a colossal waste of money to begin with, it didn't matter what numbers I picked; any given set was just as likely to come up as any other given set. Not having six consecutive numbers is merely imposing human psychology on the random numbers, which could have very well been consecutive numbers.
If I'm not mistaken, several years ago, someone proved that the digits of pi are random. That if you expand it out to a bazillion decimal places, you'll eventually run across patterns like 0123456789 and such. As humans, with brains that are designed to seek out patterns, it strikes us as interesting, perhaps even as some sort of sign that the numbers aren't random. Nothing is further from the truth, though; the lack of such patterns would be a sure sign that the numbers aren't random.
From what I'm reading, it looks like this only applies to device-to-device transfer, a la the Zune's "squirt" feature.
Seriously, in the grand scheme of things, with people downloading tracks from p2p networks and ripping their own CDs, is this going to make an impact whatsoever?
I think not. It sounds like yet another goofy scheme to "enable" (the RIAA's word that roughly translates to "disable" in English) what consumers can do with their players.
I'm sorry, but that's silly. Anyone who has taken Accounting 101 would tell you that there are many, many things that count as "wealth" that are not necessarily "tangible and of value of society." (By the way, who gets to decide what is of "value to society?" You?)
So does taking a story and writing it down, making a movie about it, and showing it to people.
And I suppose the burning the Mona Lisa destroys around $10 or so worth of paint and canvas, right? Because there's no room for non-tangible ideas of wealth like art or scarcity?
You mean other than the fact that it's wrong, as proven in countless business transactions, sometimes in the billions of dollars, for intangible things each and every day?
Let's go back to your original post:
Wealth was, in fact, generated. It was provably generated for Sony and Marvel, who now have more money than they did before. It was also generated for society as a whole, which now has Spiderman movies added to its repertoire of artistic creations. Would society have been just fine without these movies? Sure, I suppose so, but it sounds suspiciously like all you're saying is, "Spiderman sux." If you think that, fine, to each his own. But like I said, the first statement is provably wrong, and the second is a baseless opinion has nothing to do with copyright laws, and is completely irrelevant to the conversation at hand. It is a non sequitur to its parent post.
Which might be what you intended, in which I guess a more appropriate reply from me would be, "Whatever."
...At which point, the person is without their money and without a chair. By your definition, it seems that the chair doesn't count as "wealth," either. Unless that baby's made of titanium, you've only bought yourself a temporary resting spot.
What about an apple? Once I eat it, would you say that it was wasted money because all it did was distract my hunger for a little while? I guess you could argue that it's sustenance, but since I've got a few kilograms to spare, I technically don't need that apple to live.
I don't know where you're getting that wealth must be permanent tangible assets. A patent isn't tangible, it's merely a legal concept, yet people use them for enormous financial (and material, for that matter) gain.
What about education? If I pay thousands of dollars for a college degree, is society not any better off because I have nothing permanently tangible to show for it? Would you argue that the college I paid my tuition to didn't earn any wealth from me?
I hate to burst your bubble, but money is wealth. If you manage to get some of it from me, you can convert it into anything you want to, temporary or permanent, tangible or conceptual. It doesn't matter what I'm paying you for, whether it's a chair or a couple of hours of entertainment, or even if it's because I think you're a nice guy and I'm feeling particularly generous with the extra I've acquired, you've generated wealth.
It doesn't matter whether I'm receiving a tangible asset or not, wealth is still being generated for people.
When I pay $10 to go see a movie, I'm effectively paying the theater some money for being able to watch the movie in comfort on a kick-ass screen and with a kick-ass sound system. I'm paying the movie distributor for making it easy for me to go 5 miles to see the film instead of having to travel somewhere like New York City or Los Angeles. I'm paying the production company for taking a story and presenting it to me in an exciting and entertaining manner. I'm paying the actors for performing. I'm paying the writers for creating the story. I'm paying Stan Lee for coming up with an interesting character. And so on, and so on.
Again, I'm sorry to burst your bubble, but services are considered just as valuable a part of our economy as tangible goods. These days, in fact, they're probably considered more valuable. At the company I work for, they pay me. Do you honestly think I make chairs? No, I'm a capacity planner. The only tangible thing I produce are reports, and most of them aren't physical paper reports, they're web pages and/or e-mails. Everything else is bits and bytes in the programs I write and the computer tools I configure and use. Does that mean that by your definition, since only knowledge and information is traded for money and there were no tangible goods involved, that everything I own can't be considered wealth?
Two completely facetious and irrelevant statements:
Wealth was generated for the companies involved in making, distributing, and showing the movies. Dismissing it as simply redistributed is silly. That's like complaining when someone says, "I made a chair," telling them, "No you didn't, you simply rearranged some wood, nails, and lacquer into the shape of a chair."
Technically, society would be just fine without all movies, books, music, and other forms of art, but it certainly wouldn't be better off. That's a baseless opinion that has absolutely no relevance at all. Unless you're arguing that copyright terms should be based on how good or bad a movie or other copyrighted work is, in which case, since the vast majority of the country happens to disagree with your assessment of these movies, I suppose the copyright for them should last pretty much indefinitely.
What was the point you were trying to make, anyway? I'm just curious.
...China is testing anti-satellite laser weapons.
I skimmed the article, and I didn't see one other reason why I think everything that can be done with a mouse should also be doable by a keyboard, even stuff that is more efficient to do with a mouse: scripting.
Generally, scripting and automating mouse actions is very difficult. Scripting and automating keyboard actions is trivial.