You programmers make me laugh. There's a shortage of GOOD EVERYTHING! Good engineers for example, are DAMN hard to find. Sure we all want to work with the best, but lets face it, sometimes an AVERAGE employee will do just fine. It sounds like people have unreasonable expectations.
What's to stop these people from suing Verizon and their distributors for their $hitty security? I mean it should be VERY easy to prove the financial damage they have been caused. We KNOW that if this had happened to a corporation, whoever had screwed up would be in jail (right Dmitry?). I personally would sue them for every dime I ever thought I would spend fixing this and add on 200% for damages. This is the only way businesses will stop treating our information so casually. We have to make them pay when they screw up and pay BIG TIME!
People who don't believe in global warming are just burying their head in the sand.
We already know that the icecaps ARE melting, and as the icecaps melt, more and more fresh water will enter the Atlantic, shutting down the Atlantic Conveyor's (AKA Gulf Stream's) Thermo-Haline Circulation, essentially killing the Gulf Stream.
Since Europe (N. Europe & England especially) is primarily warmed by this current, average temperatures there will plummet by ~10-20C. There will soon (50 years) be a LOT more Europeans who are true believers than there currently are.
The fun part is that some of the OEM versions of Win95 are not recognized by Windows2000 as valid upgrade versions. So what does M$ support say? "Tough $hit, sorry."
Thank God I am in this business too, because I didn't take no for an answer. They sent me a new copy of Win95 to validate with. Seemed like a bit of a waste, but it's not my fault their stupid upgrade program wasn't written to acknowledge legitimate copies of their software.
By golly you're right! And when someone gives $500,000 to a Supreme Court judge that will have a direct influence on the success of your case, you are just helping out another "right thinking" friend, not BRIBING him. I mean, he would agree with you even WITHOUT the money right?
Look up the definition of a bribe. Compaign contributions are BRIBES by definition. They are ESPECIALLY bribes when they are made by corporations to influence THE PEOPLE's representatives. The government is for US remember, not for Citibank.
The problem is that he should not have used the words "justice system". We don't have a "justice system". We have a "legal system". We have laws that we laughably hope enforce some sort of justice. In somes cases they do, and in some they don't. Our legal system does appear mostly to work, but don't expect justice from it.
In the Old West they knew what Justice was, and Justice carried a gun.
It might be restraint of trade, but it's sure as hell prior restraint on Napster's freedom of speech (if a company can have such.. no wait, companies are PEOPLE thanks to our fscked up court system).
Sure Napster might violate copyright, but that's no reason to have to the RIAA decide what they can and can't say ahead of time. Does the RIAA REALIZE that every one of Napster's millions of users now HATES them with a vengence? Talk about pissing off your customers.
The only reason crap like this works is because the RIAA is essentially a monopoly. A giant consortium that gets away with murder that a single company would never be able to without having the Justice Department breathing down their neck. They appear to collude on prices with each other, etc. I know that there are a lot of little record labels, but lets face it, their dollar amounts are nothing compared to the big 4 in the RIAA. That plus they can't afford to get their music played on mass market radio stations.
Is there anyway we can get a group of big wig tech heads (Stallman, etc.) to ask the Justice Department to investigate the RIAA the same way M$ is being investigated? I mean, making non-standard audio formats to lock smaller labels out (DVD-audio anyone?) and trying to kill our fair use rights is EVIL. It'd be nice if we actual got JUSTICE once instead of just the LAW.
"...they had the law and they had justice. They understood they were two different things. Justice carried a sword." - D. Drake
Oh yeah? Show me ONE DMCA case where the court HASN'T sided with the monied companies and I'll agree that it's biased. Otherwise I just consider it to be accurate.
Especially considering Mark Rich. Anyone who thinks our government can't be bought after the Mark Rich case has shown us all that they can is a fool.
The key issue here though that SHOULD get him fired and causes me to STILL say he's a paid lackey is that his lawfirm has done PAID work for the MPAA on the DMCA. A clear conflict of interest so insanely obvious that it doesn't take a genius to see it. And yet, Kaplan refused to recuse himself. Can he not be censured for this?
Have we no recourse against such a blatant violation of a judges ethical creed?
Incidentally, I personally know one (1) federal judge, so I realize that they are exactly as you describe them.
I could accept poor judgement by itself. What I can't accept is that corporations can so blatantly buy justice.
Just a question. I think we all agree that Kaplan was nothing but a paid lackey for the MPAA. His decision SHOULD get overturned faster than a burning pancake, but what happens to him then? Is there no mechanism by which his superiors can punish him for his obvious conflict of interest and bias in deciding this case? This man looked at his duty in protecting The People's rights vs. his duty in staying bought and decided to screw The People over. Am I the only one who gets insanely angry over this?
I don't think our thieves/politicians care. I SNAIL mailed my Representative and two Senators regarding the DMCA and what an evil piece of S*$% it is, and I didn't get a "Thank You", "Go to Hell".... nothing...
This is after reading here that they ALWAYS respond to SNAIL mail. Paaagh! And before you ask, I was the epitome of politeness.
"The interest in encouraging freedom of expression in a democratic society outweighs any theoretical but unproven benefit of censorship."
- 9th Circuit Court Judge
If you can't prove direct harm, supposed, unproven indirect harm is not enough to remove a right to free expression (or any other right in my opinion).
That said, this particular subject is so inflammitory as to make it amazingly difficult to have a rational discussion on the subject. Most people can't do it. Maybe that's best.
As the FCC's Chief Technologist, what say (if any) do you have in decisions like the one where the FCC has sided with the MPAA against consumers in requiring content protected HDTV signals? Incidentally, since this decision had the effect of obsoleting all existing HDTVs being sold in the US, effectively eliminating all possibility of achieving the 80% US market penetration by 2006, what was the thought process behind this decision? Do you agree with this decision, if so why? In many people's minds, the FCC has gone from being a consumer advocate to a corporate advocate. How do you respond to that characterization?
You know why of course though don't you? Because in SV you have to make $100k to avoid LIVING IN A BOX! It never ceases to amaze me that companies continue to try and hire people into SV paying wages that are decent for other portions of the country, but that are TOTALLY INADEQUATE to survive in SV. I could see how bringing in H1B's would help this since depending on where they are from, they might be used to the crappy standard of living they will have in SV getting paid at that level. However most Americans are used to being able to afford buying a house and a car, which you will never be able to do in SV on 60-70k/yr.
Do you think that Judge Kaplan should have recused himself from this trial given the appearance of impropriety since his lawfirm had done work for the plaintiffs? Is there any higher authority to which you can issue a complaint regarding the judge's lack of ethics in refusing to recuse himself? Will you do so?
Britain's turning into a fascist state anyway, it's just 60 years later than he'd planned. But seriously, do the people in Britain just not care about individual rights? It's just baby steps people... first guns, then this, then the next time you complain about the government you'll find yourself in jail.
"I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it." -- Thomas Jefferson
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You programmers make me laugh. There's a shortage of GOOD EVERYTHING! Good engineers for example, are DAMN hard to find. Sure we all want to work with the best, but lets face it, sometimes an AVERAGE employee will do just fine. It sounds like people have unreasonable expectations.
What's to stop these people from suing Verizon and their distributors for their $hitty security? I mean it should be VERY easy to prove the financial damage they have been caused. We KNOW that if this had happened to a corporation, whoever had screwed up would be in jail (right Dmitry?). I personally would sue them for every dime I ever thought I would spend fixing this and add on 200% for damages. This is the only way businesses will stop treating our information so casually. We have to make them pay when they screw up and pay BIG TIME!
People who don't believe in global warming are just burying their head in the sand.
We already know that the icecaps ARE melting, and as the icecaps melt, more and more fresh water will enter the Atlantic, shutting down the Atlantic Conveyor's (AKA Gulf Stream's) Thermo-Haline Circulation, essentially killing the Gulf Stream.
Since Europe (N. Europe & England especially) is primarily warmed by this current, average temperatures there will plummet by ~10-20C. There will soon (50 years) be a LOT more Europeans who are true believers than there currently are.
The fun part is that some of the OEM versions of Win95 are not recognized by Windows2000 as valid upgrade versions. So what does M$ support say? "Tough $hit, sorry."
Thank God I am in this business too, because I didn't take no for an answer. They sent me a new copy of Win95 to validate with. Seemed like a bit of a waste, but it's not my fault their stupid upgrade program wasn't written to acknowledge legitimate copies of their software.
By golly you're right! And when someone gives $500,000 to a Supreme Court judge that will have a direct influence on the success of your case, you are just helping out another "right thinking" friend, not BRIBING him. I mean, he would agree with you even WITHOUT the money right?
Look up the definition of a bribe. Compaign contributions are BRIBES by definition. They are ESPECIALLY bribes when they are made by corporations to influence THE PEOPLE's representatives. The government is for US remember, not for Citibank.
The problem is that he should not have used the words "justice system". We don't have a "justice system". We have a "legal system". We have laws that we laughably hope enforce some sort of justice. In somes cases they do, and in some they don't. Our legal system does appear mostly to work, but don't expect justice from it.
In the Old West they knew what Justice was, and Justice carried a gun.
It might be restraint of trade, but it's sure as hell prior restraint on Napster's freedom of speech (if a company can have such.. no wait, companies are PEOPLE thanks to our fscked up court system).
Sure Napster might violate copyright, but that's no reason to have to the RIAA decide what they can and can't say ahead of time. Does the RIAA REALIZE that every one of Napster's millions of users now HATES them with a vengence? Talk about pissing off your customers.
The only reason crap like this works is because the RIAA is essentially a monopoly. A giant consortium that gets away with murder that a single company would never be able to without having the Justice Department breathing down their neck. They appear to collude on prices with each other, etc. I know that there are a lot of little record labels, but lets face it, their dollar amounts are nothing compared to the big 4 in the RIAA. That plus they can't afford to get their music played on mass market radio stations.
Is there anyway we can get a group of big wig tech heads (Stallman, etc.) to ask the Justice Department to investigate the RIAA the same way M$ is being investigated? I mean, making non-standard audio formats to lock smaller labels out (DVD-audio anyone?) and trying to kill our fair use rights is EVIL. It'd be nice if we actual got JUSTICE once instead of just the LAW.
"...they had the law and they had justice. They understood they were two different things. Justice carried a sword." - D. Drake
Oh yeah? Show me ONE DMCA case where the court HASN'T sided with the monied companies and I'll agree that it's biased. Otherwise I just consider it to be accurate.
Especially considering Mark Rich. Anyone who thinks our government can't be bought after the Mark Rich case has shown us all that they can is a fool.
The key issue here though that SHOULD get him fired and causes me to STILL say he's a paid lackey is that his lawfirm has done PAID work for the MPAA on the DMCA. A clear conflict of interest so insanely obvious that it doesn't take a genius to see it. And yet, Kaplan refused to recuse himself. Can he not be censured for this?
Have we no recourse against such a blatant violation of a judges ethical creed?
Incidentally, I personally know one (1) federal judge, so I realize that they are exactly as you describe them.
I could accept poor judgement by itself. What I can't accept is that corporations can so blatantly buy justice.
Just a question. I think we all agree that Kaplan was nothing but a paid lackey for the MPAA. His decision SHOULD get overturned faster than a burning pancake, but what happens to him then? Is there no mechanism by which his superiors can punish him for his obvious conflict of interest and bias in deciding this case? This man looked at his duty in protecting The People's rights vs. his duty in staying bought and decided to screw The People over. Am I the only one who gets insanely angry over this?
In short, how do we get him fired?
I don't think our thieves/politicians care. I SNAIL mailed my Representative and two Senators regarding the DMCA and what an evil piece of S*$% it is, and I didn't get a "Thank You", "Go to Hell".... nothing...
This is after reading here that they ALWAYS respond to SNAIL mail. Paaagh! And before you ask, I was the epitome of politeness.
I think the following quote sums it up.
"The interest in encouraging freedom of expression in a democratic society outweighs any theoretical but unproven benefit of censorship."
- 9th Circuit Court Judge
If you can't prove direct harm, supposed, unproven indirect harm is not enough to remove a right to free expression (or any other right in my opinion).
That said, this particular subject is so inflammitory as to make it amazingly difficult to have a rational discussion on the subject. Most people can't do it. Maybe that's best.
As the FCC's Chief Technologist, what say (if any) do you have in decisions like the one where the FCC has sided with the MPAA against consumers in requiring content protected HDTV signals? Incidentally, since this decision had the effect of obsoleting all existing HDTVs being sold in the US, effectively eliminating all possibility of achieving the 80% US market penetration by 2006, what was the thought process behind this decision? Do you agree with this decision, if so why? In many people's minds, the FCC has gone from being a consumer advocate to a corporate advocate. How do you respond to that characterization?
You know why of course though don't you? Because in SV you have to make $100k to avoid LIVING IN A BOX! It never ceases to amaze me that companies continue to try and hire people into SV paying wages that are decent for other portions of the country, but that are TOTALLY INADEQUATE to survive in SV. I could see how bringing in H1B's would help this since depending on where they are from, they might be used to the crappy standard of living they will have in SV getting paid at that level. However most Americans are used to being able to afford buying a house and a car, which you will never be able to do in SV on 60-70k/yr.
Do you think that Judge Kaplan should have recused himself from this trial given the appearance of impropriety since his lawfirm had done work for the plaintiffs? Is there any higher authority to which you can issue a complaint regarding the judge's lack of ethics in refusing to recuse himself? Will you do so?
Britain's turning into a fascist state anyway, it's just 60 years later than he'd planned. But seriously, do the people in Britain just not care about individual rights? It's just baby steps people... first guns, then this, then the next time you complain about the government you'll find yourself in jail.
"I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it."
-- Thomas Jefferson