Just because she only wanted medical bills covered does not make it right. Is the city responsible for my medical bills if I trip and break my arm on a public street?
Sure, the city would likely be responsible if they took actions that a reasonable person could foresee as resulting in broken arms.
That's what happened here. McDonald's had received reports of 700+ people suffering burns from coffee that was literally too hot to drink. Testimony revealed that they maintained this high temperature in order to keep the coffee sufficiently hot for the 30-minute average drive to the office in the morning. Ms. Liebeck was unlucky enough to spill the coffee on herself (and despite what is commonly believed, she was a passenger in the car and the driver actually *parked* so that she could add cream and sugar - very reasonable and foreseeable actions). McDonald's knew that people would likely be injured but made the business decision to not change their processes.
It's a shame that it sometimes takes lawsuits to get big business to make consumer-friendly decisions. Trust me there are frivolous lawsuits out there - this just isn't one of them.
Thankfully (at least for the extended warranty I bought for my organization's laptop!) it appears that the extended warranties are not affected. From the website:
Are Circuit City's extended warranties affected by the liquidation?
* No. Circuit City Advantage Protection Plans (extended warranties) have been backed by third-party independent companies for more than 15 years and as a result, are not impacted by Circuit City's closing.
* Currently, all Circuit City Advantage Protection Plans are fully backed by the Assurant Solutions companies. Assurant Solutions operates as Federal Warranty Service Corporation, Sureway, Inc., and United Service Protection, Inc. Assurant Solutions is part of Assurant, Inc. (NYSE: AIZ), and its extended service contacts are backed by an Assurant insurance subsidiary rated A "Excellent" by A.M. Best Co.
This isn't an online banking issue, this is an issue of domain-stealing. The fact that it's banking-related is immaterial. If the domains stolen were instead several newspaper domains we wouldn't call into question the credibility of the news (at least not more than we do now).
I've been involved w/ online/PC banking for 15 years or so and can tell you it's been a huge time + postage savings for me. I have no idea what the cost of a stamp is because the only reason I'd ever need them is for bills. Give it a shot w/ just one bill for a month or two.
That said, CheckFree is fairly notorious for their poor service and it's not surprising to me if they turn out to be at blame here. Especially disturbing is the apparently slapshod response.
You don't have a family member or friend that would/could fall for this? You don't know an 80+ year old that, new to all-things-Internet, may fall for a con?
Your statement, and that of the Nigerian "High Commissioner," are unfortunately typical of what happens often in society, we re-victimize the victim.
Just because somebody exhibits naivete or guilelessness does that make them fair game for cons?
Or if they wear a short skirt, responsible for their own rape?
Or "they should know better than to hike alone" so they're complicit in their own murder?
Though there's an obvious difference between the severity of these cases, the rationale is the same, and to me frankly is repugnant.
Crime victims have enough to contend with already.
I've not read the claim but apparently The AmLaw Daily has and states:
"Warner Bros. claims Fox gave up all rights to Watchmen in a 1994 agreement with Gordon that superseded the older deal. Even if Fox had some option to keep distribution rights--a point Warner Bros. does not concede--it was Fox's responsibility to exercise it promptly, according to Warner's motion to dismiss the suit."
"South Osetia and Abkhazia were de-facto independent for 15 (fifteen) years - looong before Putin."
Do you realize what "de facto" means? "Existing but not officially recognized or legally established."
So, the reason you refer to it as "de-facto independent" is because it's legally not independent; and as I'm sure you already know, most countries recognize it as part of Georgia.
Just because somebody disagrees with you, it doesn't make them "a typical clueless American."
I've no idea how many sites were used but the one used in the site that spammed me is already down. The site is/was (www . weddingsinsardinia . com) if you're curious. (well, that's the site even if you're not curious - but you know what I mean)
I only received one of these and am surprised, I have a dozen or so domains, so I guess the spam filters caught on pretty quickly.
Okay. First of all, you realize that the Bill of Rights is actually the first ten amendments, right? The fact that there even are amendments should be enough to show that nothing in the Constitution is absolute!
Actually, the Constitution is considered a "living document." There are some that believe the Constitution to be enduring (Scalia being an example), but they are in the distinct minority. And even those extreme cases accept the use of amendments.
You may disagree with the unmasking of the punks that trashed these young women, but to deny that Freedom of Speech is not absolute is a bit odd.:-)
Oliver Wendell Holmes' quote about "yelling fire in crowded theater" is the most common example of why these rights are not absolute, and rightfully so.
"As for reducing "amount of material", yeah right... People love when their cups are not filled up."
You misunderstood the post - the 'amount of material' removed was referring to the cup itself, not the coffee. In other words, the cup was made *thinner*.
[...]McDonalds' quality assurance manager testified that the company actively enforces a requirement that coffee be held in the pot at 185 degrees [...] a burn hazard exists with any food substance served at 140 degrees or above, and that McDonalds coffee, at the temperature at which it was poured into styrofoam cups, was not fit for consumption because it would burn the mouth and throat.[emphasis mine]
I've done work with several outsourcing companies but can tell you that I've never seen more incompetence than the Tata folks.
As a consultant for a *major* retailer's credit services group, I managed projects with Citi/Tata resources and never had an implementation that went smoothly.
We have country of origin labels on manufactured goods, why not for our software / data management as well? I believe that American consumers should have the right to know if their financial data is being "managed" outside of the US.
Yes, there are millions of poor Mexican peasants in the USA working at a half or third of standard American pay. This is because NAFTA allowed American agri-business like Cargil with huge US government subsidies to flood the Mexican agricultural economy with corn so cheap that the Mexicans couldn't afford to live by growing it. And because NAFTA allowed American bio-industries like Monsanto to replace traditional Mexican corn with patented bio-engineered varieties that the Mexican farmers couldn't afford to buy. People aren't coming here from Mexico because they want to. They come because they have to, or starve.
I don't know where you're getting your info but I was living on the border before, during and after NAFTA's passage and I guarantee you that illegal immigration is nothing new. Additionally the maquiladora industry was thriving long before NAFTA was even a thought.
And of course does the number of cameras increase the precision of the computed position - the principle is exactly the same as for GPS, where more satellites are better as well.
Since we're only dealing with three dimensions, why would any number of satellites > 3 be more precise for GPS?
I have both the Roomba and the Scooba and while I was initially pleased with both, I've been less than happy with battery life. Although iRobot states that the rechargeable battery will last for "hundreds of cleaning cycles" that hasn't been my experience, with the batteries for each dying far short of that mark.
Before the batteries did die I was very happy with the performance of these "robots." But ultimately would not recommend either until either the batteries last longer or the price drops for replacements ($80 for the Scooba battery & $70 for the Roomba). I just checked, and the Looj battery is available for $30 so it may be a non-issue for some.
Obviously YMMV but thought I'd give you a heads up!
Although it's common to blame a victim that doesn't mean that it's acceptable.
Two years ago my teenage daughter was murdered by her ex-boyfriend. She felt that she could "help him" and, like many an eighteen year-old, thought she was immune from dating violence.
Rather than blaming victims why don't we instead focus on the "bad boys" (or "bad girls") that exhibit this narcissistic behavior? Why don't we hold them accountable for their actions? Our society has forgotten the value of Accountability (with a capital "A") and it's time for that to change.
It may be comforting to believe that these victims "should know better" or "got what they deserved" because it gives us the false illusion that this is a situation that we (and our loved ones) would never find ourselves in, but that is cold comfort indeed when it happens to you or yours.
Instead of ranting online or to your buddies over a few beers actually do something to affect positive change. Although you may feel that you're making a difference by sharing your thoughts on Slashdot or via your blog, remember what Edward R. Murrow said:
"Just because your voice reaches halfway around the world doesn't mean you are wiser than when it reached only to the end of the bar."
Get out into the community and help. There are many organizations (including mine) that are trying to make a difference and would love to have some help.
Are you familiar with this site? http://www.surfacestations.org/
There are 1221 USHCN climate stations in the USA and (according to the website) no photographic database of these stations exists.
It includes examples like:
Forest Grove, OR (air conditioner exhaust blowing directly on temperature shelter, nearby asphalt and buildings)
and
Aberdeen, WA ( large heat source: sewage treatment plant - nearby parking, hot automobile radiators )
I could see how these would be of concern to anybody interested in data quality.
"... designed to criminalize the non-profit facilitation of unauthorized information exchange (emphasis mine) on the internet. This clause would also negatively affect transparency and primary source journalism sites such as Wikileaks.
The document reveals a proposal for a multi-lateral trade agreement of strict enforcement of intellectual property rights (emphasis mine) related to Internet activity and trade in information-based goods hiding behind the issue of false trademarks."
It appears to be focused on IP issues and s/w updates and the like w/should not be affected. This next part is of more concern to me:
"... new cooperation requirements upon internet service providers, including perfunctionary disclosure of customer information (emphasis mine). The proposal also bans 'anti-circumvention' measures which may affect online anonymity systems..."
While not a large site by any means (close to 10,000 unique visitors per month) I've been pleased to see a 40-45% share for Firefox in the past six months (up from about 25-30% a year ago).
It is a non-profit group that I run dedicated to the elimination of Teen Dating Violence ( http://www.jenniferann.org/ ) so there's no technology bias that I'm aware of. For the interested few (likely smaller than that!) here are the stats for May 2008 with 107,004 visits:
FF 45.8%
IE 42.5
Safari 4.4
Opera 2.6
Mozilla(?), Netscape, Camino, K-Meleon, Phoenix and Unknown round out the remainder.
I'm glad to see FF continue to grow - about two years ago I was consulting for a top bank and they refused to QA their customer-facing portal for credit cards with FF. When I did some ad-hoc UI testing the site was filled with errors for FF users - some of these errors were significant and were/are, as I pointed out to them, potential compliance issues.
Using Azureus/Vuze http://azureus.sourceforge.net/ and ISP Network Monitor http://azureuswiki.com/index.php/ISP_Network_Monitor I've been able to track Comcast's network interference here in Atlanta. In general the interference has been 24/7 but there is the occasional reprieve (about five hours Sunday morning being the most recent).
The four files I've been uploading are GPL / public-domain and I would encourage you to visit the links above and do the same. The more data collected the better.
As torrents gain in popularity I'm hoping that software companies adopt this superior technology for updates - not just to improve downloading efficiencies but also to make it much more difficult for the ISPs to throttle P2P traffic. Can you imagine the impact if Microsoft's updates were torrent files?
My daughter was murdered by her ex-boyfriend two years ago. I had recently given her a laptop in preparation for college and after the police were finished inspecting it for clues it was returned to me.
Fortunately she had stayed logged in to her myspace account and I was able to use the "reveal asterisks" hack to reveal her password. That password led to other accounts & email accounts which then led to more passwords.
Eventually I could access everything - to include the killer's accounts. It was very helpful for me to be able to know that my daughter was exactly who I thought she was and at the same time gain insight into the punk that murdered her.
If there is the opportunity to give your friend some closure then I don't feel that a moral dilemma exists. The dead are just that... dead. The ones that are grieving and in pain are the living. If you can do something that may assuage their grief I feel you should.
Just be aware that what might be revealed has the potential to cause more pain - but that's really your friend's decision.
Slashdot Mirror
Sure, the city would likely be responsible if they took actions that a reasonable person could foresee as resulting in broken arms.
That's what happened here. McDonald's had received reports of 700+ people suffering burns from coffee that was literally too hot to drink. Testimony revealed that they maintained this high temperature in order to keep the coffee sufficiently hot for the 30-minute average drive to the office in the morning. Ms. Liebeck was unlucky enough to spill the coffee on herself (and despite what is commonly believed, she was a passenger in the car and the driver actually *parked* so that she could add cream and sugar - very reasonable and foreseeable actions). McDonald's knew that people would likely be injured but made the business decision to not change their processes.
It's a shame that it sometimes takes lawsuits to get big business to make consumer-friendly decisions. Trust me there are frivolous lawsuits out there - this just isn't one of them.
Didn't see this posted earlier but here's the link for opting-out of the DoubleClick DART tracking: http://www.google.com/ads/preferences/plugin/
Thankfully (at least for the extended warranty I bought for my organization's laptop!) it appears that the extended warranties are not affected. From the website:
Are Circuit City's extended warranties affected by the liquidation?
* No. Circuit City Advantage Protection Plans (extended warranties) have been backed by third-party independent companies for more than 15 years and as a result, are not impacted by Circuit City's closing.
* Currently, all Circuit City Advantage Protection Plans are fully backed by the Assurant Solutions companies. Assurant Solutions operates as Federal Warranty Service Corporation, Sureway, Inc., and United Service Protection, Inc. Assurant Solutions is part of Assurant, Inc. (NYSE: AIZ), and its extended service contacts are backed by an Assurant insurance subsidiary rated A "Excellent" by A.M. Best Co.
This isn't an online banking issue, this is an issue of domain-stealing. The fact that it's banking-related is immaterial. If the domains stolen were instead several newspaper domains we wouldn't call into question the credibility of the news (at least not more than we do now).
I've been involved w/ online/PC banking for 15 years or so and can tell you it's been a huge time + postage savings for me. I have no idea what the cost of a stamp is because the only reason I'd ever need them is for bills. Give it a shot w/ just one bill for a month or two.
That said, CheckFree is fairly notorious for their poor service and it's not surprising to me if they turn out to be at blame here. Especially disturbing is the apparently slapshod response.
crud - didn't mean to mod 'offtopic' - sorry! I think that by responding then my mod goes away... right? Sorry again.
You must be new here. :-)
Wow. Really?
You don't have a family member or friend that would/could fall for this? You don't know an 80+ year old that, new to all-things-Internet, may fall for a con?
Your statement, and that of the Nigerian "High Commissioner," are unfortunately typical of what happens often in society, we re-victimize the victim.
Just because somebody exhibits naivete or guilelessness does that make them fair game for cons?
Or if they wear a short skirt, responsible for their own rape?
Or "they should know better than to hike alone" so they're complicit in their own murder?
Though there's an obvious difference between the severity of these cases, the rationale is the same, and to me frankly is repugnant.
Crime victims have enough to contend with already.
Geek Alert: Watchmen Movie in Trouble With Fox Suit
"South Osetia and Abkhazia were de-facto independent for 15 (fifteen) years - looong before Putin."
Do you realize what "de facto" means? "Existing but not officially recognized or legally established."
So, the reason you refer to it as "de-facto independent" is because it's legally not independent; and as I'm sure you already know, most countries recognize it as part of Georgia.
Just because somebody disagrees with you, it doesn't make them "a typical clueless American."
I've no idea how many sites were used but the one used in the site that spammed me is already down. The site is/was (www . weddingsinsardinia . com) if you're curious. (well, that's the site even if you're not curious - but you know what I mean)
I only received one of these and am surprised, I have a dozen or so domains, so I guess the spam filters caught on pretty quickly.
Okay. First of all, you realize that the Bill of Rights is actually the first ten amendments, right? The fact that there even are amendments should be enough to show that nothing in the Constitution is absolute!
:-)
Actually, the Constitution is considered a "living document." There are some that believe the Constitution to be enduring (Scalia being an example), but they are in the distinct minority. And even those extreme cases accept the use of amendments.
You may disagree with the unmasking of the punks that trashed these young women, but to deny that Freedom of Speech is not absolute is a bit odd.
Oliver Wendell Holmes' quote about "yelling fire in crowded theater" is the most common example of why these rights are not absolute, and rightfully so.
You misunderstood the post - the 'amount of material' removed was referring to the cup itself, not the coffee. In other words, the cup was made *thinner*.
Visit http://www.lectlaw.com/files/cur78.htm for more info:
I've done work with several outsourcing companies but can tell you that I've never seen more incompetence than the Tata folks.
As a consultant for a *major* retailer's credit services group, I managed projects with Citi/Tata resources and never had an implementation that went smoothly.
We have country of origin labels on manufactured goods, why not for our software / data management as well? I believe that American consumers should have the right to know if their financial data is being "managed" outside of the US.
"Our insurance is so good that you'll never need it!"
I don't know where you're getting your info but I was living on the border before, during and after NAFTA's passage and I guarantee you that illegal immigration is nothing new. Additionally the maquiladora industry was thriving long before NAFTA was even a thought.
Since we're only dealing with three dimensions, why would any number of satellites > 3 be more precise for GPS?
I have both the Roomba and the Scooba and while I was initially pleased with both, I've been less than happy with battery life. Although iRobot states that the rechargeable battery will last for "hundreds of cleaning cycles" that hasn't been my experience, with the batteries for each dying far short of that mark.
Before the batteries did die I was very happy with the performance of these "robots." But ultimately would not recommend either until either the batteries last longer or the price drops for replacements ($80 for the Scooba battery & $70 for the Roomba). I just checked, and the Looj battery is available for $30 so it may be a non-issue for some.
Obviously YMMV but thought I'd give you a heads up!
Although it's common to blame a victim that doesn't mean that it's acceptable.
Two years ago my teenage daughter was murdered by her ex-boyfriend. She felt that she could "help him" and, like many an eighteen year-old, thought she was immune from dating violence.
Rather than blaming victims why don't we instead focus on the "bad boys" (or "bad girls") that exhibit this narcissistic behavior? Why don't we hold them accountable for their actions? Our society has forgotten the value of Accountability (with a capital "A") and it's time for that to change.
It may be comforting to believe that these victims "should know better" or "got what they deserved" because it gives us the false illusion that this is a situation that we (and our loved ones) would never find ourselves in, but that is cold comfort indeed when it happens to you or yours.
Instead of ranting online or to your buddies over a few beers actually do something to affect positive change. Although you may feel that you're making a difference by sharing your thoughts on Slashdot or via your blog, remember what Edward R. Murrow said:
Get out into the community and help. There are many organizations (including mine) that are trying to make a difference and would love to have some help.
The "Canadian Pharmacy" in question appears to be this one according to spamtrackers:
http://spamtrackers.eu/wiki/index.php?title=Canadian_Pharmacy
Lots of good info including sponsoring registrars & nameserver info at the spamtrackers site for the adventurous souls out there.
It appears to be focused on IP issues and s/w updates and the like w/should not be affected. This next part is of more concern to me:
While not a large site by any means (close to 10,000 unique visitors per month) I've been pleased to see a 40-45% share for Firefox in the past six months (up from about 25-30% a year ago).
It is a non-profit group that I run dedicated to the elimination of Teen Dating Violence ( http://www.jenniferann.org/ ) so there's no technology bias that I'm aware of. For the interested few (likely smaller than that!) here are the stats for May 2008 with 107,004 visits:
FF 45.8%
IE 42.5
Safari 4.4
Opera 2.6
Mozilla(?), Netscape, Camino, K-Meleon, Phoenix and Unknown round out the remainder.
I'm glad to see FF continue to grow - about two years ago I was consulting for a top bank and they refused to QA their customer-facing portal for credit cards with FF. When I did some ad-hoc UI testing the site was filled with errors for FF users - some of these errors were significant and were/are, as I pointed out to them, potential compliance issues.
You can lead a bank to water...
Drew Crecente
Director, Jennifer Ann's Group
http://jenniferann.org/
Why has the parent been modded "offtopic?"
The idea that a higher body mass could be responsible for global warming & higher food prices would apply for taller people as well.
A 5'5" 250lb man (BMI 41.6) has the same mass as a 6'5" 250lb man (BMI 29.6)... right?
Using Azureus/Vuze http://azureus.sourceforge.net/ and ISP Network Monitor http://azureuswiki.com/index.php/ISP_Network_Monitor I've been able to track Comcast's network interference here in Atlanta. In general the interference has been 24/7 but there is the occasional reprieve (about five hours Sunday morning being the most recent).
The four files I've been uploading are GPL / public-domain and I would encourage you to visit the links above and do the same. The more data collected the better.
As torrents gain in popularity I'm hoping that software companies adopt this superior technology for updates - not just to improve downloading efficiencies but also to make it much more difficult for the ISPs to throttle P2P traffic. Can you imagine the impact if Microsoft's updates were torrent files?
My daughter was murdered by her ex-boyfriend two years ago. I had recently given her a laptop in preparation for college and after the police were finished inspecting it for clues it was returned to me.
Fortunately she had stayed logged in to her myspace account and I was able to use the "reveal asterisks" hack to reveal her password. That password led to other accounts & email accounts which then led to more passwords.
Eventually I could access everything - to include the killer's accounts. It was very helpful for me to be able to know that my daughter was exactly who I thought she was and at the same time gain insight into the punk that murdered her.
If there is the opportunity to give your friend some closure then I don't feel that a moral dilemma exists. The dead are just that... dead. The ones that are grieving and in pain are the living. If you can do something that may assuage their grief I feel you should.
Just be aware that what might be revealed has the potential to cause more pain - but that's really your friend's decision.
Good luck, and my condolences to your friend.