Hormel, which has owned the "Spam" brand name for decades and has, in fact, actively worked to prevent 'dilution' of their trademarked name (think: "murphy bed", no longer made solely by the Murphy Bed Company) doesn't get to keep their name.
SCO can come along with a license they acquired in the 1990's and lay claim to owning ALL UNIX OS code dating back to the early 1970's, even though UNIX (*NIX) is a hopelessly 'diluted' product name.
TransMeta can sue Intel for alleged IP violations regarding low-power CPU design, even though it seems logical and even inevitable that Intel would've developed such a product on their own if TransMeta had never existed.
Say what you like - I still like Hormel's version of Spam. After all, it's the great original, and no e-mail import from Russia/China/wherever can ever take that away from them.
Ms. Scheff also won - she got exactly what she hoped for, everything she asked for.
Complaints are one thing. Public allegations of malfeasance/wrongdoing/criminal conduct must be held to a higher standard. Ms. Scheff prevailed by assiduously, zealously pursuing her rights within the court system, while Ms. Bock chose not to do so.
I agree, $11M is not fair or right, and I think even unjust - I personally think $1.00 (plus a court ordered retraction in all affected media) would've made a lot more sense. Oh, and court and reasonable legal fees, of course.
The internet, by its very nature, is a variation on print media. Arguably, it is impossible for "casual speech" to take place on the internet.
Oh, and just because you can get away with an obvious statement of opinion ("Ford cars are a death trap"), you cannot get away with publicly alleging criminal wrongdoing ("She's a fraud/conman/thief"). An opinion can be supported by facts, but cannot be proven by facts; Ms. Bock made factual allegations which the court has determined to be false. There's a huge difference there.
I find that almost all damage awards coming out of our court systems nowadays are excessive to the point of being ludicrous.
That said, Ms. Bock really did bring it on herself. Ms. Scheff is probably exactly what Ms. Bock describes her to be - but that's irrelevant. Our court system certainly implements the ancient wisdom "two wrongs don't make a right!". Now, if Ms. Scheff truly is the reprehensible person that Ms. Bock alleges her to be, I would expect Ms. Bock to countersue and collect even larger damages from Ms. Scheff.
And it is justice - remember, justice isn't about "right" and "wrong", not about "fair" and "unfair", not even about "good" and "bad" - it's about justice - what does the law say should happen here, not "what's fair/right/good".
I have faith that the technical limitations will ultimately (and soon) be solved, which will permit the ultimate throughput and accuracy of wireless broadband to approach (if not exceed or even necessarily match) the performance of fiber.
Just how critical are your network communications (and how fragile are your network applications) anyhow? Wireless doesn't yet, but someday will overcome the (minor) obstacles you mention. Who cares if the retrans rate for packets is a bit higher, as long as the ultimate throughput is comparable? I can see some possible issues (mostly regarding streaming data), but even those are neither insoluble nor particularly intractable.
Someone intentionally defamed/libelled/slandered a service provider, chose not to defend herself in court and had an $11 million default judgement rendered against herself as a direct result. That's justice, alright!
I'm sure Katrina and its effects are even now still winding their way down, how does this constitute an excuse to ignore (and she did ignore) an active court proceeding? Something like this must've been the one and only possible thing on Ms. Bock's mind for that whole year, right? She decided to ignore the common rules by which we preserve our civilization and our society and you think she's being abused? Because the person she slandered decided to spend money she'll never recover to recieve vindication from the courts? That's just ridiculous.
my name and e-mail are shown here on/. without obfuscation. Yours aren't.
Afraid? Sorry - we didn't mean to scare widdle you.
If we've dispensed with the "self-esteem" insults, perhaps we can ask the big question - can Ms. Bock say whatever she wishes about Ms. Scheff, regardless of the truth or falsehood of those statements without being held accountable? Holy crap people like you are why the courts are clogged with idiotic cases like this.
Oops did I just make you think? I'm sorry ('cuz the answer to that question is 'NOT')!
This is no different than if Ms. Bock had stood in the town square crying out that Ms. Scheff was a fraud/conman/thief. She would still have to be held accountable for what she says in public (and posting information on the internet is public speech). Here, let's do an experiment . ..
You give me your full name, city and state of residence, your employer's name and your title and responsibilities for that employer. Then give me immunity from prosecution for anything I publicly say about you or your employer. Then wait.
What? You mean you aren't a muslim terrorist come to destroy our way of life? Mea culpa - I'll think about removing that post later (when threatened with a lawsuit, of course).
on their way out. Think about it - when a wireless infrastructure exists (think 802.11n, for example), it'll be much cheaper to buy your broadband over wireless, as there will be far less infrastructure to install and maintain. Lower transmission speeds for wireless vs [TP copper|fiber] will only be important to a few niche users. While it's true that fiber will always have a higher theoretical capacity than copper (limits of physics, not technology), the same is not true of wireless - radio wave propogation happens at just under c in an atmosphere, fiber transmission happens at just under c in fiber-optic cable, and electrical signal propogation through a copper conductor happens at a much lower speed (something like 1700mi/sec if memory serves). Current limitations on wireless networking are technical, not physical.
Copper and fiber - much better for security purposes than wireless; but most of us don't really need the added protection. Wireless encryption should be able to make my data harder to steal than it's worth in most cases. I'd like to take this opportunity to tell both the telcos and the cablecos to diversify their network divisions - that physical connection is becoming as useful as the human appendix (except for certain special cases).
After a year, you'd think Bock would've at least contacted the court - TFA is pretty clear, Bock didn't even try to defend her actions. She didn't contact the court looking for time to prepare her case (which the courts would've granted, given the situation after hurricane Katrina), she didn't send a letter explaining her situation and seeking a recess with which to prepare a defense - in short, Ms. Bock chose to make "no contest" in a civil case.
The defendant could've showed up. Looks to me like justice won the day.
Sorry, that's just a piss-poor excuse. If we were discussing a matter of days or even weeks, I could see how this could get dropped. Over the course of a year, I'm quite certain Ms. Bock was 1) aware of the situation and 2) had opportunities to contact the court.
In this case, Bock knows all she needs to know about Scheff; with perfect anonymity, she can ensure that Ms. Scheff's life is hell from this day forward - whether or not that's deserved is another point, the fact is, she could do it.
Enjoy your hallucination, buddy. The reality is that what Bock did was wrong, an assertion which the court has confirmed. The fact that she got caught is a good thing.
Tell ya what - lemme be totally anonymous so that I can go out to someplace popular (YouTube? MySpace?) and post an article about how you're a cock-smoking, ass-sucking gay Nazi biker. Let's see how much you want to protect my anonymity then.
Today's Lesson: If you post accusations of criminal misconduct about a person online, you too can be sued if you don't have the simple consideration to contact the court and ensure your ability to be there to prove your allegations to a competent authority.
It's almost impossible to be completely out of touch in this country - even the Amish have access to telephones (and know how to use them). Where was Ms. Bock that she couldn't even be bothered to contact the court to tell them her situation and reschedule her case?
How do you detect/prevent tampering with the kernel? Absent an external authority (TPM, fritz chip, etc), it is exceedingly difficult to detect kernel tampering because anybody who is able to gain access to the kernel can easily ensure that all evidence of their tampering is hidden from userland and incredibly obfuscated in kernelspace.
If your box is rooted (which is what this is intended to prevent, I think?) then your box is rooted; unless there's a hardware/firmware watchdog on duty, I believe the technical term for this is "pwned".
SO . . . how does everybody here feel about a little Palladium today? Line up here to get your GUID's - one to a customer. Hope your LINUX box doesn't go "on the fritz" (does go "on the fritz"? Man, I'm confused).
It's coming folks. Those who refuse to believe that will see when it happens. The rest of us will labor to ensure that it's not totally onerous, while Microsoft sees to it that their monopoly is extended and made impregnable.
Uh, you might want to actually read TFA - this case is no diffent than if Ms. Bock had taken out newspaper or television advertisements in which she defamed Ms. Scheff as a "crook", a "con artist" and a "fraud".
Just because it's free to post information on the intranet doesn't make it any different from any other publishing medium - were this a newspaper or television related case, I'm sure most/.'ers would agree that the law is clear; to publicly accuse someone of a crime, you'd better have a little thing called proof first. Print and television journalists know this. Nothing in the US Constitution/Bill of Rights guarantees anybody the right to make defamatory or libelous statements anywhere in public - when you speak of another, either be nice or have the goods to back up your statements.
As for Ms. Bock's assertion that "nobody heard my side of the case" - obviously not true, as it's plainly evident that some number of web-surfers did hear her case. If she wanted to have her case heard in court she should probably have considered showing up in court. I'm sure that the civil trial wasn't held in secret. Perhaps next time, Ms. Bock will deign to favor the court with her presence when she is being sued.
If 'dptalia' insists on posting this article with commentary that indicates he sympathizes with Ms. Bock, that's certainly a constitutionally protected right. ScuttleMonkey's lack of editorial judgement in permitting the article to be posted as is, while also constitutionally protected is nonetheless unimpressive (but not unexpected).
IANAL, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night!
First - lots of people plunked down their hard-earned to see this guy's work, especially since "Star Wars, Episode IV - A New Hope". I see a lot of people here unhappy with the Star Wars franchise, but hey - what did you expect? "Star Wars, Episode IV - A New Hope" was a virtually plotless hunk of drivel, and exactly what I went to the theater to see. Not an epic saga, not thought-provoking drama, not comedy - I wanted a really cool light show so that I could suspend disbelief.
Second - While the "Silver Screen" and its smaller relative "The Tube" have some differences (format, resolution, audio quality and the overall environment), they are essentially the same thing - moving pictures with speech. Now, in terms of cost to produce product, quality of product, ease of delivery to target audience . . . "The Tube" wins hands-down, especially with the coming implementation of digital transmission, HDTV, etc.
FInally - Mr. Lucas has shown great savvy in the past, demonstrating that he has an excellent grasp of the nature of his profession (his fame and bankbook are adequate proof of this assertion, I think). I've heard of George Lucas - the same cannot be said of his many critics here. There's a point in there somewhere: disinterring it is left as an exercise for the reader. I don't believe he would have his current ambivalence toward internet distribution of his work if there were a clear path for him to profitably ply his trade there.
In fact, all Microsoft products seem to break/.'s tagging beta. Whenever an artical about M$ appears, the tagging beta consistently displays "Fud, NotFud (tagging beta)".
What I really want to know is, having decided to do without the revolutionary new filesystem (VFS - Vaporware File System?) and several of the other radical new goodies which Vista was supposed to bring, just how is Vista superior to current OS offerings. I'm not interested in different, somebody tell me what makes M$ Vista superior? Surely not spending half my CPU cycles driving the GPU at 100% so I can see pretty "Aero glass" effects? Surely not security, which still sufferes most of the same bugaboos which have plagued Windows these last few years (WMV, ActiveX, User priveledge escalation becoming a knee-jerk habit, etc.)? Certainly not openness - there's more than a hint of Palladium still hanging around all of Redmond's offerings lately (call it TPM or Trusted Computing if you insist on the polite euphamism for "Fritz" chip, guaranteed to put your machine on the fritz!)?
I'll stick with Linux - it's free, and well worth the price! Of course, it won't run DK4ever, but at this rate it'll release at about the same time!
after all, most Windows users are already used to their OS curtailing their activities after an hour of uptime. So instead of being a bug . . . now this is a feature?
Slashdot Mirror
SCO can come along with a license they acquired in the 1990's and lay claim to owning ALL UNIX OS code dating back to the early 1970's, even though UNIX (*NIX) is a hopelessly 'diluted' product name.
TransMeta can sue Intel for alleged IP violations regarding low-power CPU design, even though it seems logical and even inevitable that Intel would've developed such a product on their own if TransMeta had never existed.
Say what you like - I still like Hormel's version of Spam. After all, it's the great original, and no e-mail import from Russia/China/wherever can ever take that away from them.
Of course, as with any prediction only time will tell.
Complaints are one thing. Public allegations of malfeasance/wrongdoing/criminal conduct must be held to a higher standard. Ms. Scheff prevailed by assiduously, zealously pursuing her rights within the court system, while Ms. Bock chose not to do so.
I agree, $11M is not fair or right, and I think even unjust - I personally think $1.00 (plus a court ordered retraction in all affected media) would've made a lot more sense. Oh, and court and reasonable legal fees, of course.
The internet, by its very nature, is a variation on print media. Arguably, it is impossible for "casual speech" to take place on the internet.
Oh, and just because you can get away with an obvious statement of opinion ("Ford cars are a death trap"), you cannot get away with publicly alleging criminal wrongdoing ("She's a fraud/conman/thief"). An opinion can be supported by facts, but cannot be proven by facts; Ms. Bock made factual allegations which the court has determined to be false. There's a huge difference there.
Natural (or other) disasters are no excuse to ignore legal obligations for over a year.
Being (or percieving yourself to be) slighted or wronged is no excuse to ignore the laws which elevate all of us above the status of the common mob.
Using the internet as a medium of expression is no less protected (and should be no more protected) than any other form of communication.
Ms. Bock sold her future for a moment of retribution and vengeance. Boy, I hope it was worth it!
That said, Ms. Bock really did bring it on herself. Ms. Scheff is probably exactly what Ms. Bock describes her to be - but that's irrelevant. Our court system certainly implements the ancient wisdom "two wrongs don't make a right!". Now, if Ms. Scheff truly is the reprehensible person that Ms. Bock alleges her to be, I would expect Ms. Bock to countersue and collect even larger damages from Ms. Scheff.
And it is justice - remember, justice isn't about "right" and "wrong", not about "fair" and "unfair", not even about "good" and "bad" - it's about justice - what does the law say should happen here, not "what's fair/right/good".
Just how critical are your network communications (and how fragile are your network applications) anyhow? Wireless doesn't yet, but someday will overcome the (minor) obstacles you mention. Who cares if the retrans rate for packets is a bit higher, as long as the ultimate throughput is comparable? I can see some possible issues (mostly regarding streaming data), but even those are neither insoluble nor particularly intractable.
I'm sure Katrina and its effects are even now still winding their way down, how does this constitute an excuse to ignore (and she did ignore) an active court proceeding? Something like this must've been the one and only possible thing on Ms. Bock's mind for that whole year, right? She decided to ignore the common rules by which we preserve our civilization and our society and you think she's being abused? Because the person she slandered decided to spend money she'll never recover to recieve vindication from the courts? That's just ridiculous.
Afraid? Sorry - we didn't mean to scare widdle you.
If we've dispensed with the "self-esteem" insults, perhaps we can ask the big question - can Ms. Bock say whatever she wishes about Ms. Scheff, regardless of the truth or falsehood of those statements without being held accountable? Holy crap people like you are why the courts are clogged with idiotic cases like this.
Oops did I just make you think? I'm sorry ('cuz the answer to that question is 'NOT')!
This is no different than if Ms. Bock had stood in the town square crying out that Ms. Scheff was a fraud/conman/thief. She would still have to be held accountable for what she says in public (and posting information on the internet is public speech). Here, let's do an experiment . . .
You give me your full name, city and state of residence, your employer's name and your title and responsibilities for that employer. Then give me immunity from prosecution for anything I publicly say about you or your employer. Then wait.
What? You mean you aren't a muslim terrorist come to destroy our way of life? Mea culpa - I'll think about removing that post later (when threatened with a lawsuit, of course).
Copper and fiber - much better for security purposes than wireless; but most of us don't really need the added protection. Wireless encryption should be able to make my data harder to steal than it's worth in most cases. I'd like to take this opportunity to tell both the telcos and the cablecos to diversify their network divisions - that physical connection is becoming as useful as the human appendix (except for certain special cases).
The defendant could've showed up. Looks to me like justice won the day.
Sorry, that's just a piss-poor excuse. If we were discussing a matter of days or even weeks, I could see how this could get dropped. Over the course of a year, I'm quite certain Ms. Bock was 1) aware of the situation and 2) had opportunities to contact the court.
Enjoy your hallucination, buddy. The reality is that what Bock did was wrong, an assertion which the court has confirmed. The fact that she got caught is a good thing.
And I wager you'd care when it started affecting your ability to earn a living or live your life free of unwarranted accusations.
Just askin'.
Tell ya what - lemme be totally anonymous so that I can go out to someplace popular (YouTube? MySpace?) and post an article about how you're a cock-smoking, ass-sucking gay Nazi biker. Let's see how much you want to protect my anonymity then.
It's almost impossible to be completely out of touch in this country - even the Amish have access to telephones (and know how to use them). Where was Ms. Bock that she couldn't even be bothered to contact the court to tell them her situation and reschedule her case?
If your box is rooted (which is what this is intended to prevent, I think?) then your box is rooted; unless there's a hardware/firmware watchdog on duty, I believe the technical term for this is "pwned".
SO . . . how does everybody here feel about a little Palladium today? Line up here to get your GUID's - one to a customer. Hope your LINUX box doesn't go "on the fritz" (does go "on the fritz"? Man, I'm confused).
It's coming folks. Those who refuse to believe that will see when it happens. The rest of us will labor to ensure that it's not totally onerous, while Microsoft sees to it that their monopoly is extended and made impregnable.
Just because it's free to post information on the intranet doesn't make it any different from any other publishing medium - were this a newspaper or television related case, I'm sure most /.'ers would agree that the law is clear; to publicly accuse someone of a crime, you'd better have a little thing called proof first. Print and television journalists know this. Nothing in the US Constitution/Bill of Rights guarantees anybody the right to make defamatory or libelous statements anywhere in public - when you speak of another, either be nice or have the goods to back up your statements.
As for Ms. Bock's assertion that "nobody heard my side of the case" - obviously not true, as it's plainly evident that some number of web-surfers did hear her case. If she wanted to have her case heard in court she should probably have considered showing up in court. I'm sure that the civil trial wasn't held in secret. Perhaps next time, Ms. Bock will deign to favor the court with her presence when she is being sued.
If 'dptalia' insists on posting this article with commentary that indicates he sympathizes with Ms. Bock, that's certainly a constitutionally protected right. ScuttleMonkey's lack of editorial judgement in permitting the article to be posted as is, while also constitutionally protected is nonetheless unimpressive (but not unexpected).
IANAL, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night!
If you can't dazzle 'em with brilliance . . .
Second - While the "Silver Screen" and its smaller relative "The Tube" have some differences (format, resolution, audio quality and the overall environment), they are essentially the same thing - moving pictures with speech. Now, in terms of cost to produce product, quality of product, ease of delivery to target audience . . . "The Tube" wins hands-down, especially with the coming implementation of digital transmission, HDTV, etc.
FInally - Mr. Lucas has shown great savvy in the past, demonstrating that he has an excellent grasp of the nature of his profession (his fame and bankbook are adequate proof of this assertion, I think). I've heard of George Lucas - the same cannot be said of his many critics here. There's a point in there somewhere: disinterring it is left as an exercise for the reader. I don't believe he would have his current ambivalence toward internet distribution of his work if there were a clear path for him to profitably ply his trade there.
What I really want to know is, having decided to do without the revolutionary new filesystem (VFS - Vaporware File System?) and several of the other radical new goodies which Vista was supposed to bring, just how is Vista superior to current OS offerings. I'm not interested in different, somebody tell me what makes M$ Vista superior? Surely not spending half my CPU cycles driving the GPU at 100% so I can see pretty "Aero glass" effects? Surely not security, which still sufferes most of the same bugaboos which have plagued Windows these last few years (WMV, ActiveX, User priveledge escalation becoming a knee-jerk habit, etc.)? Certainly not openness - there's more than a hint of Palladium still hanging around all of Redmond's offerings lately (call it TPM or Trusted Computing if you insist on the polite euphamism for "Fritz" chip, guaranteed to put your machine on the fritz!)?
I'll stick with Linux - it's free, and well worth the price! Of course, it won't run DK4ever, but at this rate it'll release at about the same time!
Besides, you wouldn't want that nasty old virus to infect tobacco plants, would you? Won't somebody think of the smoking children?
after all, most Windows users are already used to their OS curtailing their activities after an hour of uptime. So instead of being a bug . . . now this is a feature?