But seriously - if this does carry any water legally, what about all the defendants who have settled with the RIAA in past actions. Do I assume that all those defendants will be provided an opportunity to have their cases reexamined (due to the existence of evidence not available at the times of their trials)?
I wonder if the member companies of the RIAA (Sony, BMG, etc.) could be held liable for RIAA's tactical abuse of the legal system?
therefore there has to be a record somewhere of where their inventory is being shipped from. Even if it's overseas, the importer still has to be on record, with resources ripe for the picking.
That's okay - I'm used to this sort of idiocy from M$ products - just like I'm used to crappy A/V hardware support from Linux (personally, I like OpenSuSE - very well engineered on the whole). *Sigh*
Vista (as preinstalled on my Acer) horked within forty-five minutes of initial boot. The "PC Angel" software (which was supposed to do a reinstall from a hidden partition on the HDD) likewise barfed. After three weeks, I got the "Restore DVD's" from Acer, which likewise vomited. Long story short, Vista only stayed up long enough to get me registered, now it won't run at all.
Funny thing . . . I got ahold of a student version of XP Pro - ran it up in a Xen domain to prove that I could, then it failed to install directly onto the hardware. That's right - my dual-core AMD X64 machine with a SATA drive can't seem to handle Windows XP, but Xen (under OpenSuSE 10.2) can. WGA works, the virtual XP system is fully updated and ready to rock, but I still have a three year old copy of Doom III which I've never run because I don't have a platform to run it on! So far, I'm only out thirty bucks for Doom III (plus an OEM Vista license, whatever that's worth), but I find it mildly irritating that I have to run a pirate version of WinXP just to get back some of what Best Buy/Acer/Microsoft owe me. Oh, and don't think about calling any of the above for help - M$ doesn't want to hear about it (after all, they didn't sell me a Windows OS), Acer's tech support people in New Delhi don't speak English well enough to understand what I'm trying to tell them, and Best Buy's response was (quite correctly) to offer to give me my money back on the hardware as a warranty issue.
So . . . if I buy into this, will M$ continue to tell me that I have an OEM license and don't desserve support, or will they help me to actually get their software to install and run correctly (well, as correctly as M$ software runs, anyhow)?
I think I'll keep my eyepatch and cutlass, thank you - at least, I know that they work. Arrgh!
I just last week got static IP's from AT one of the major points was an assurance from both the sales droid and the tech support guru that this class of internet access was completely unfiltered, non-port blocked, and only throttled as a whole to match my SLA of 3Mb down, 1Mb up.
Does that mean that on the day they start packet filtering my IP's I can terminate my contract without penalty because they will be in breach? (And, yes, even though it's not in writing it can be held to be a binding element of the contract - verbal agreements do carry legal weight, they're just harder to prove than written elements of the contract)
Having been on the receiving end of a 48V DC charge (telco equipment), not to mention more 3000 microfarad capacitors than I care to think about, I've experienced a fair amount of pain, but never had my muscles involuntarily clench my fist onto a hot circuit. AC, on the other hand, hasn't caused me to experience pain per se, but has "grabbed" me. This is why most people who work with electricity tend to touch circuits from underneath - the involuntary contraction of muscles will cause you to fall off of the charged object, rather than onto it.
Incidentally, I have to say that I've touched countless 12V DC (automotive) systems and felt nothing. Even a 9V battery has to be touched to a conductive surface (the tongue, for example) in order to feel it. My dry hand has made contact with "hot grounds" (maybe 20-30V AC, probably 12-18V RMS) that made me squeak plenty. Any form of electricity will kill in sufficient quantity, but AC is decidedly a deadlier beast.
Of course this is a horrible development, one certainly destined to be used for torture and other heinous uses.
Make the military and police forces of the world stick with good ol' firearms! The more high-powered (and hollow-nosed or dum-dum'ed) the better! Let's keep that number of "open casket" ceremonies to a minimum. While we're at it, we should require all police weapons to have a "full automatic" setting (to keep pace with the military, of course).
I wonder if Westinghouse had to put up with this sort of &*%)(* from Edison? After all, DC (as Edison clearly demonstrated) was non-lethal, whereas AC is decidedly lethal! Think of all the poor, innocent men who will be executed because the governments of the world have access to such technology as Alternating Current.
Nope. I don't see a problem here. The boys at Gitmo have already figured out how to run AC from the wall socket to a man's, er, sockets for pain with minimal residual injury - and we haven't even mentioned drugs yet. I just don't see this being the new Marquis De Sade's favorite toy - not enough blistering and bruising for any visual appeal.
for allowing non-technical people to make fundamental decisions about the appropriate use of technology.
A poster (above) has commented that this is analogous to UPS charging more to deliver your package faster. Nothing could be further from the truth. The ISP's et. al. want to be legally permitted to throttle or block traffic based not only on how much the consumer pays for internet access but also upon whether or not the web content provider has ponied up for "express lane" service. Also, the ISP's want the authority to block certain types of content from delivery altogether (gnutella, bittorrent, audio/video streams). A better analogy would be UPS refusing to give me priority delivery because the recipient on my package isn't on their preferred list - and letting UPS determine that the content of my package is not merely safe for transport, but doesn't contain anything which UPS might consider bad for their business (say, fliers and advertising materials for the USPS).
My local cable company shamelessly blocks all gnutella and bittorrent traffic (when they can identify it), and throttles audio and video streams regardless of source. My perception is that they don't want guys like me getting their audio or video unless it comes down their designated pipe - after I pay them for it, that is. Now, my ISP is a telco. I can stream/download anything I want, but I suspect that any attempt on my part to set up a VOIP solution is doomed to failure. Funny, when I was using the cable company for internet, they encouraged me to use VOIP, bundling their own telephony technology up with my cable and internet access. Hmmm . . .
Back to my point - this kind of decision is what we get when we let non-technically oriented people make fundamental, binding, long-term decisions about consumer rights vs. corporate rights with regard to technology. I suspect that the justices under discussion have the same understanding of net neutrality that the UPS poster does - and that understanding is inadequate to the job.
Microsoft is lobbying hard to get OOXML adopted as an industry standard, to prevent Open Office's ODF from becoming de factoTHE accepted standard for document preparation, transmission and storage. I'm sure that all of the votaries who answered "No, with comments" are currently hearing from M$ reps just how, er, lucrative a "Yes" vote could be.
Yes, maybe I'm being paranoid. Being paranoid doesn't mean that they're not out to get you!
Nanomachines. Physicists have struggled for some time with the "sticky fingers" problem as it relates to nanobots (i.e. - if a nanomachine can "pick up" an atom/molecule, odds are good it's done via chemical bonding involving valence electrons. "Pick up" is easy - "Put down" is (so far) impossible).
Reversing the Casmir effect would enable nanobots to "Put down" atoms or molecules which they have "picked up".
Why does TFA go on about 700watt/hours/day, to increase the complexity of the problem as stated?
It took me a few minutes (looking up the length of Mars' day) to guestimate they're getting around 50W from the solar panels when they're in operation, and now they're trying to keep the probe alive on.5W plus whatever's in the batteries. Makes it simple to understand how grave the situation is for our poor, superannuated, underfunded rovers on the surface of Mars.
there's the USA, and then there's the Rest of the world.
You're not in the first class. You don't count.
The problem is that the radio servers which will be affected by raised royalty rates are largely located within the US; thus, their operation is subject to US law (and individual State laws, depending upon which state the servers physically reside in and which state the company running the servers lists as its main office).
Wait, I know - you non-US types can set up radio servers outside the United States, (somewhat) avoiding the pitfalls of US law. YMMV.
Let's say I sell some security-related bit - a firewall, antivirus, whatever . . .
Now, if the thing's busted and somebody get's hacked, well . . . we exercised due diligence in the manufacture, testing and marketing of our product. No problem, as far as I can see.
OTOH, if (for example) some snot-nosed college kids and their dog publish a detailed description of a flaw in our product, we have to either make sure they're wrong or fix it pronto. Else, our fiscal arse is swinging in the breeze, ripe to be violated in court for liability issues. Say, there oughtta be a law making it illegal for mere mortals to figure out how our product works and how to defeat it - that's the ticket! Great! We can push it as being in everybody's best interest, 'cuz it'll be a way to put evil hackers in jail. Yeah, that's it!
Now, have the police pick up those punk kids - they were last seen driving a green van.
Slashdot Mirror
I wonder if the member companies of the RIAA (Sony, BMG, etc.) could be held liable for RIAA's tactical abuse of the legal system?
Maybe the US Government can't do all that, but I'll bet IBM can. The Nazgul, now, they're the apple of the Big Blue Eye, and for good reason.
therefore there has to be a record somewhere of where their inventory is being shipped from. Even if it's overseas, the importer still has to be on record, with resources ripe for the picking.
They're in the US - it should be possible to track their warehouses and resources via shipping records. Let loose the Nazgul!
That's what I do - especially now that my wife and I are done making/raising kids!
Preinstalled? :^)
My hard-earned is gone, where's my value?
That's okay - I'm used to this sort of idiocy from M$ products - just like I'm used to crappy A/V hardware support from Linux (personally, I like OpenSuSE - very well engineered on the whole). *Sigh*
Vista (as preinstalled on my Acer) horked within forty-five minutes of initial boot. The "PC Angel" software (which was supposed to do a reinstall from a hidden partition on the HDD) likewise barfed. After three weeks, I got the "Restore DVD's" from Acer, which likewise vomited. Long story short, Vista only stayed up long enough to get me registered, now it won't run at all.
Funny thing . . . I got ahold of a student version of XP Pro - ran it up in a Xen domain to prove that I could, then it failed to install directly onto the hardware. That's right - my dual-core AMD X64 machine with a SATA drive can't seem to handle Windows XP, but Xen (under OpenSuSE 10.2) can. WGA works, the virtual XP system is fully updated and ready to rock, but I still have a three year old copy of Doom III which I've never run because I don't have a platform to run it on! So far, I'm only out thirty bucks for Doom III (plus an OEM Vista license, whatever that's worth), but I find it mildly irritating that I have to run a pirate version of WinXP just to get back some of what Best Buy/Acer/Microsoft owe me. Oh, and don't think about calling any of the above for help - M$ doesn't want to hear about it (after all, they didn't sell me a Windows OS), Acer's tech support people in New Delhi don't speak English well enough to understand what I'm trying to tell them, and Best Buy's response was (quite correctly) to offer to give me my money back on the hardware as a warranty issue.
So . . . if I buy into this, will M$ continue to tell me that I have an OEM license and don't desserve support, or will they help me to actually get their software to install and run correctly (well, as correctly as M$ software runs, anyhow)?
I think I'll keep my eyepatch and cutlass, thank you - at least, I know that they work. Arrgh!
I can actually see oxygen being wasted.
They apparently already use a random number generator to determine when flights will leave.
Does that mean that on the day they start packet filtering my IP's I can terminate my contract without penalty because they will be in breach? (And, yes, even though it's not in writing it can be held to be a binding element of the contract - verbal agreements do carry legal weight, they're just harder to prove than written elements of the contract)
Incidentally, I have to say that I've touched countless 12V DC (automotive) systems and felt nothing. Even a 9V battery has to be touched to a conductive surface (the tongue, for example) in order to feel it. My dry hand has made contact with "hot grounds" (maybe 20-30V AC, probably 12-18V RMS) that made me squeak plenty. Any form of electricity will kill in sufficient quantity, but AC is decidedly a deadlier beast.
Make the military and police forces of the world stick with good ol' firearms! The more high-powered (and hollow-nosed or dum-dum'ed) the better! Let's keep that number of "open casket" ceremonies to a minimum. While we're at it, we should require all police weapons to have a "full automatic" setting (to keep pace with the military, of course).
I wonder if Westinghouse had to put up with this sort of &*%)(* from Edison? After all, DC (as Edison clearly demonstrated) was non-lethal, whereas AC is decidedly lethal! Think of all the poor, innocent men who will be executed because the governments of the world have access to such technology as Alternating Current.
Nope. I don't see a problem here. The boys at Gitmo have already figured out how to run AC from the wall socket to a man's, er, sockets for pain with minimal residual injury - and we haven't even mentioned drugs yet. I just don't see this being the new Marquis De Sade's favorite toy - not enough blistering and bruising for any visual appeal.
A poster (above) has commented that this is analogous to UPS charging more to deliver your package faster. Nothing could be further from the truth. The ISP's et. al. want to be legally permitted to throttle or block traffic based not only on how much the consumer pays for internet access but also upon whether or not the web content provider has ponied up for "express lane" service. Also, the ISP's want the authority to block certain types of content from delivery altogether (gnutella, bittorrent, audio/video streams). A better analogy would be UPS refusing to give me priority delivery because the recipient on my package isn't on their preferred list - and letting UPS determine that the content of my package is not merely safe for transport, but doesn't contain anything which UPS might consider bad for their business (say, fliers and advertising materials for the USPS).
My local cable company shamelessly blocks all gnutella and bittorrent traffic (when they can identify it), and throttles audio and video streams regardless of source. My perception is that they don't want guys like me getting their audio or video unless it comes down their designated pipe - after I pay them for it, that is. Now, my ISP is a telco. I can stream/download anything I want, but I suspect that any attempt on my part to set up a VOIP solution is doomed to failure. Funny, when I was using the cable company for internet, they encouraged me to use VOIP, bundling their own telephony technology up with my cable and internet access. Hmmm . . .
Back to my point - this kind of decision is what we get when we let non-technically oriented people make fundamental, binding, long-term decisions about consumer rights vs. corporate rights with regard to technology. I suspect that the justices under discussion have the same understanding of net neutrality that the UPS poster does - and that understanding is inadequate to the job.
This was posted by ScuttleMonkey, remember?
Yes, maybe I'm being paranoid. Being paranoid doesn't mean that they're not out to get you!
"What do you want?"
"Information"
"Who's side are you on?"
"That would be telling. We want information...information...information."
"You won't get it!"
"By hook or by crook, we will."
"Who are you?"
"The new Number Two."
"Who is number one?"
"You are Number Six."
"I am not a number, I am a free man!"
(Laughter as Number Two demonstrates Number Six's identity with an RFID scanner)
Oh, well; five down, one to go.
Reversing the Casmir effect would enable nanobots to "Put down" atoms or molecules which they have "picked up".
TOR routing, anyone?
It took me a few minutes (looking up the length of Mars' day) to guestimate they're getting around 50W from the solar panels when they're in operation, and now they're trying to keep the probe alive on .5W plus whatever's in the batteries. Makes it simple to understand how grave the situation is for our poor, superannuated, underfunded rovers on the surface of Mars.
SLES 10.
You're not in the first class. You don't count.
The problem is that the radio servers which will be affected by raised royalty rates are largely located within the US; thus, their operation is subject to US law (and individual State laws, depending upon which state the servers physically reside in and which state the company running the servers lists as its main office).
Wait, I know - you non-US types can set up radio servers outside the United States, (somewhat) avoiding the pitfalls of US law. YMMV.
Now, if the thing's busted and somebody get's hacked, well . . . we exercised due diligence in the manufacture, testing and marketing of our product. No problem, as far as I can see.
OTOH, if (for example) some snot-nosed college kids and their dog publish a detailed description of a flaw in our product, we have to either make sure they're wrong or fix it pronto. Else, our fiscal arse is swinging in the breeze, ripe to be violated in court for liability issues. Say, there oughtta be a law making it illegal for mere mortals to figure out how our product works and how to defeat it - that's the ticket! Great! We can push it as being in everybody's best interest, 'cuz it'll be a way to put evil hackers in jail. Yeah, that's it!
Now, have the police pick up those punk kids - they were last seen driving a green van.