They're charging you not for the data, but for an application which will point out where the offenders are registered as living based upon where you're standing at that moment, without you having to perform a manual search.
If someone is paying to see how many Offenders are around them at any given time, rather than just a school, public area, or permanent residence, I'm seriously concerned with their possible intentions.
I just did an App Store search on my iPhone for "iPhone Offender", and sure enough the first result was a list of sexual offenders.
Curious about how many are in my area, I thought I'd download it. Turns out to "think of the children" (in the good way... not the way that gets you on the list) costs money. Which is odd because there are official government resources that will give you this information, online, free of charge.
I can't believe someone's trying to make money off of this. Doesn't feel right to me.
We're seriously wasting the court's time with this? Here's how I hope it plays out...
Verizon: We're the best. AT&T: Nuh-uh! Verizon: Yeah-huh! AT&T: Nuh-uh! Judge:: Damn it! Both of you shut up! The court finds both carriers are limited to using Edge! Verizon may only use the phrase "Home of the Crap Lobster" and AT&T can only use the phrase "That's what she said"! T-Mobile: Good call, your honor. Catherine Zeta-Jones will be by tonight as promised.
We have a very paranoid security department where I work. On top of boot-level encryption, mandatory anti-virus software, various "agents" that try to predict whether or not you would in fact allow some strange program to do what it wants to do, system monitors that make sure everything is up to date and as it should be before you connect to the network, proxies that ban websites with harmful keywords and annoying pop-ups caused by blocking Active-X components, we still get several people throughout the week who report virus infections on their work PCs.
We have people who install Firefox to get around the IE settings so they can visit sites that they know are not permitted. We have people who browse torrent sites and adult sites and are "shocked" when we show them the links in the history. We've had people who blatantly admit "Yeah, I let my kids play on my company issued PC and they find ways around that stuff."
Maybe that's why the security budgets get cut. You can only secure so much until you secure it by locking out the user entirely.
So not only does he run a business based on stealing a service, he's also willing to use personal connections to get special treatment from the legal system.
I do not know where you got that first part at all. No, he did not run a business based on stealing a service. He only named the service after one of the components because he liked the name. It was not implied at all that he assisted others. In fact, my story specifically states the opposite.
As for your second point, if you were in his position, I highly doubt you would be so willing to stick to the ethical high ground and lose everything you have in exchange for a greater sense of self worth.
I had a friend who claimed that he had found a way to pirate DirecTV's service. He only stopped doing so when he realized there was still nothing worth watching. Eventually he opened his own business. He named the company after a component that was essential to the process. I remember when I helped out we'd get about one call a week from people trying to ask not in so-many words if we could help them with their "DirecTV stuff". (It was my first call on it that caused me to mention it to my friend, who then told me what the company name actually meant.)
He pirated the service for about two years. Funny thing was, about a year after he stopped he got hit with a lawsuit. He transferred as much stuff as he could out of his own name and braced for the inevitable. He only got away because he had a friend who knew some influential people. Incidentally, my friend his now his friend's personal no-cost 24/7 concierge tech support.
Anyway, he'd get these calls from people and he'd try to deny that he knew what to do. If someone pressed the issue (usually it was his friends or old co-workers telling others who could help) he tried to do the "scared straight" thing. Funny thing is, some of them would get mad at him for not helping. So many people are willing to throw away financial security just so they don't have to pay for the NFL Channel.
The iPhone has changed the smartphone market to where even with the best hardware Windows Mobile just isn't wanted much anymore.
I'm as much of a brand-loving consumer whore as the next person, but I just don't believe that. While the iPhone is extremely popular (despite the development of phones from HTC that had similar functions) it offered the casual customer base a smart phone alternative to the Blackberry and the like. To say Windows Mobile phones aren't wanted (or needed) is a great assumption. There is still a lot of enterprise level software that will only work with Windows Mobile components, and Blackberries are still quite popular in the business world.
The 360 is still falling behind the Wii despite MS's attempts to beat it with the "New Xbox Experience" and with the development of the Natal controller.
I seem to recall an interview from a Microsoft employee that admitted the Wii and 360 were too different to be competing against each other. As for falling behind, I don't see it as such. Every Christmas season my local stores are out of Wiis and 360s, but the PS3s are plentiful. The NXE is a vast improvement from the old Blade system, now that I've had quite a bit of time to get used to it. As far as the controller, motion controllers have been around for quite some time with Mattel's Power Glove and Broderbund's U-Force.
MS though has finally realized that unless Windows 7 is a hit, Linux/OS X/Now ChromeOS is going to kill them in the OS market.
No, they haven't, because that simply isn't true. Microsoft's OS is too deeply-rooted in the business world for that to happen due to one or two versions of their OS not taking off to the general public's liking. I've heard from many first-hand who were disappointed when their new PC shipped with Vista and later discovered that they did not despise it as much as they believed they would once they customized it to their liking.
Mac OS X is not going to kill Microsoft in the near future unless Apple works out what they believe to be an amicable licensing agreement for their software, as gaining that market share with their own PCs plus their OS is likely to end in an anti-trust hearing.
As for Linux/Chrome, there are too many options within that category itself for any of them to become truly successful. You might explain Linux to a novice as if it's just another operating system, but once you get into the different distributions you'll scare casual users away.
Office has stagnated and has had a popular revolt going on because of the "ribbon" UI that a lot of people hate, and I don't see a new version remedying that in the future.
Just because you don't see it, doesn't mean it won't happen. Consequently, just because you see it happening doesn't mean it is. When I had my corporate training for Office 2007 I was quite confused by the ribbons. After playing around with it a bit I believed I could get the hang of them if I had a solid week to try it out on some serious work. It's different, it's not as compact, and is confusing as Hell at first, but that can be remedied if the next edition of Office has a "switch to classic menus" option.
MS as a whole has remained the same, however the world is changing and they don't seem to realize that.
You can say it's the same company that created Bob, Me, Vista, the first X-Box controller, proprietery document formats and the Blue Screen of Death, sure. You can also say it's the company that made it possible for PCs to become a part of our everyday lives, streamline tedious work-related processes, and communicate with people on the other side of the globe.
Microsoft has changed, before and after Bill. Whether good ideas or not, Microsoft has tried new products or solutions that meet with various degrees of success. They may not always be the first to the party (some may argue that they never have been) but if they hadn't changed to keep up with the world it would be far more evident than a few users online griping about Windows Vista.
Allegedly. Prior to the original verdict, even the girl's mother confirmed the she and her daughter had argued when her daughter tried to speak to her about the supposed boy who broke her heart. It was not directly after she received the message "the world would be better off without you" when the girl hung herself, but after an argument with her mother and her mother left for work.
I have no doubt that Lori Drew's actions were a contributor to the girl's behavior, but I don't believe it was the only catalyst.
I don't really see too much room for debate when the accused states the matter as simply as "...a result of me downloading Angels and Demons". I don't read this and feel that the person is genuinely feeling remorse for what was done, only for getting caught.
If minors can have sex legally with each other, which they can...
Actually, I wish I could find the link to the story that contradicts this.
A girl, 14, did the deed with her boyfriend, 13. Due to the state's laws, the girl was classified as a victim of sexual abuse. However, as she was the one who initiated the act with another minor, she was also classified as a sexual predator.
My wife and I were having a discussion about this very notion.
I believe part of what hampered Watchmen's performance was that any randome Joe off the street had no idea who the main characters were, or had even heard of the original material.
Batman, Superman, Spider-Man and Iron Man have decades of comics behind them, not to mention t-shirts, posters, stickers, pop-tarts, video games, board games, saturday morning cartoon shows and quite a bit of pop-culture notability.
To some guy off the street -- Who the hell are the Watchmen?
I think what really hurt the movie's performance was that there was no identifcation with these characters other than what you learn during the movie, and that's a gamble. People know Batman's just a guy with a brain, a costume and some weird villains. People know Superman's a really strong alien. People know Spider-Man is a nerd with an allergic reaction. People know Iron Man is a guy in a suit of armor.
People don't know about to complexities of Rorshach's backstory (of which even the mask wasn't discussed), the Comedian's motivation or Silk Spectre's reason for being a superhero.
The movies, on top of being profitable themselves, are used to promote the source material. Marvel and DC want new readers to be attracted to the titles. If the audience has to know the source material beforehand to judge any interest in the movie it's not going to perform well at all.
So when you get your first warning, if you are innocent
And how exactly do you do that for "file-sharing"? While I can argue the point that file-sharing in itself is not illegal, the RIAA has previously sought legal action for this and has found themselves losing ground in a court of law. They are in effect seeking non-legal proceedings for what they have addressed as a legal issue.
And AT&T won't check their logs to make sure you haven't done anything wrong. I'm sure the burden of innocence will be put on the customer.
I have to agree. As an Apple customer I cannot stand "fanboi" mentality. I chose a Mac because I looked at what I intended to do with the system and made an informed decision, not because "z0mg it r0x0rs harder then t eh micro$haft".
I believe the problem is that the "fanboi" group is the largest, most outspoken contigent of the Apple community. Let's face it, every OS/PC faction has those people. I know people who have sworn blood-oaths to Microsoft, using only Windows, Internet Explorer, a Windows Mobile phone and a Zune. I've worked with people who refuse to touch Microsoft or Apple products, using a Linux distro, Firefox, an Android G1 and a Creative MP3 player.
Fortunately for Microsoft and Linux, there's a greater number that does not blindly follow the label, definitely not the case with Apple. Most of the business world has adopted Microsoft products, so the productivity is there. Whereas Linux has a stigma of being for the guy who knows "all about computers" by those who have in fact heard of it.
While I am a pro-wrestling fan and can enjoy a good mockery of the topic, a lot of SciFi viewers who are not fans do not know how much content SciFi actually tried to push into ECW.
SciFi actually wanted a more science-fiction themed approach to wrestling. This is why characters like Kevin Thorn (a Vampire who was constantly outside the arena, because no one would invite him in) and "The Zombie" had appearances on the show.
Eventually, SciFi realized it was even more ridiculous than the original product and left it alone.
Slashdot Mirror
They're charging you not for the data, but for an application which will point out where the offenders are registered as living based upon where you're standing at that moment, without you having to perform a manual search.
If someone is paying to see how many Offenders are around them at any given time, rather than just a school, public area, or permanent residence, I'm seriously concerned with their possible intentions.
I just did an App Store search on my iPhone for "iPhone Offender", and sure enough the first result was a list of sexual offenders.
Curious about how many are in my area, I thought I'd download it. Turns out to "think of the children" (in the good way... not the way that gets you on the list) costs money. Which is odd because there are official government resources that will give you this information, online, free of charge.
I can't believe someone's trying to make money off of this. Doesn't feel right to me.
Working at the Microsoft store in a mall where there's an Apple store would be a painful experience.
Yeah. People think that "East Coast/West Coast" thing is bad, but this -- Sheesh.
We're seriously wasting the court's time with this? Here's how I hope it plays out...
Verizon: We're the best.
AT&T: Nuh-uh!
Verizon: Yeah-huh!
AT&T: Nuh-uh!
Judge:: Damn it! Both of you shut up! The court finds both carriers are limited to using Edge! Verizon may only use the phrase "Home of the Crap Lobster" and AT&T can only use the phrase "That's what she said"!
T-Mobile: Good call, your honor. Catherine Zeta-Jones will be by tonight as promised.
We have a very paranoid security department where I work. On top of boot-level encryption, mandatory anti-virus software, various "agents" that try to predict whether or not you would in fact allow some strange program to do what it wants to do, system monitors that make sure everything is up to date and as it should be before you connect to the network, proxies that ban websites with harmful keywords and annoying pop-ups caused by blocking Active-X components, we still get several people throughout the week who report virus infections on their work PCs.
We have people who install Firefox to get around the IE settings so they can visit sites that they know are not permitted. We have people who browse torrent sites and adult sites and are "shocked" when we show them the links in the history. We've had people who blatantly admit "Yeah, I let my kids play on my company issued PC and they find ways around that stuff."
Maybe that's why the security budgets get cut. You can only secure so much until you secure it by locking out the user entirely.
So not only does he run a business based on stealing a service, he's also willing to use personal connections to get special treatment from the legal system.
I do not know where you got that first part at all. No, he did not run a business based on stealing a service. He only named the service after one of the components because he liked the name. It was not implied at all that he assisted others. In fact, my story specifically states the opposite.
As for your second point, if you were in his position, I highly doubt you would be so willing to stick to the ethical high ground and lose everything you have in exchange for a greater sense of self worth.
I had a friend who claimed that he had found a way to pirate DirecTV's service. He only stopped doing so when he realized there was still nothing worth watching. Eventually he opened his own business. He named the company after a component that was essential to the process. I remember when I helped out we'd get about one call a week from people trying to ask not in so-many words if we could help them with their "DirecTV stuff". (It was my first call on it that caused me to mention it to my friend, who then told me what the company name actually meant.)
He pirated the service for about two years. Funny thing was, about a year after he stopped he got hit with a lawsuit. He transferred as much stuff as he could out of his own name and braced for the inevitable. He only got away because he had a friend who knew some influential people. Incidentally, my friend his now his friend's personal no-cost 24/7 concierge tech support.
Anyway, he'd get these calls from people and he'd try to deny that he knew what to do. If someone pressed the issue (usually it was his friends or old co-workers telling others who could help) he tried to do the "scared straight" thing. Funny thing is, some of them would get mad at him for not helping. So many people are willing to throw away financial security just so they don't have to pay for the NFL Channel.
The iPhone has changed the smartphone market to where even with the best hardware Windows Mobile just isn't wanted much anymore.
I'm as much of a brand-loving consumer whore as the next person, but I just don't believe that. While the iPhone is extremely popular (despite the development of phones from HTC that had similar functions) it offered the casual customer base a smart phone alternative to the Blackberry and the like. To say Windows Mobile phones aren't wanted (or needed) is a great assumption. There is still a lot of enterprise level software that will only work with Windows Mobile components, and Blackberries are still quite popular in the business world.
The 360 is still falling behind the Wii despite MS's attempts to beat it with the "New Xbox Experience" and with the development of the Natal controller.
I seem to recall an interview from a Microsoft employee that admitted the Wii and 360 were too different to be competing against each other. As for falling behind, I don't see it as such. Every Christmas season my local stores are out of Wiis and 360s, but the PS3s are plentiful. The NXE is a vast improvement from the old Blade system, now that I've had quite a bit of time to get used to it. As far as the controller, motion controllers have been around for quite some time with Mattel's Power Glove and Broderbund's U-Force.
MS though has finally realized that unless Windows 7 is a hit, Linux/OS X/Now ChromeOS is going to kill them in the OS market.
No, they haven't, because that simply isn't true. Microsoft's OS is too deeply-rooted in the business world for that to happen due to one or two versions of their OS not taking off to the general public's liking. I've heard from many first-hand who were disappointed when their new PC shipped with Vista and later discovered that they did not despise it as much as they believed they would once they customized it to their liking. Mac OS X is not going to kill Microsoft in the near future unless Apple works out what they believe to be an amicable licensing agreement for their software, as gaining that market share with their own PCs plus their OS is likely to end in an anti-trust hearing. As for Linux/Chrome, there are too many options within that category itself for any of them to become truly successful. You might explain Linux to a novice as if it's just another operating system, but once you get into the different distributions you'll scare casual users away.
Office has stagnated and has had a popular revolt going on because of the "ribbon" UI that a lot of people hate, and I don't see a new version remedying that in the future.
Just because you don't see it, doesn't mean it won't happen. Consequently, just because you see it happening doesn't mean it is. When I had my corporate training for Office 2007 I was quite confused by the ribbons. After playing around with it a bit I believed I could get the hang of them if I had a solid week to try it out on some serious work. It's different, it's not as compact, and is confusing as Hell at first, but that can be remedied if the next edition of Office has a "switch to classic menus" option.
MS as a whole has remained the same, however the world is changing and they don't seem to realize that.
You can say it's the same company that created Bob, Me, Vista, the first X-Box controller, proprietery document formats and the Blue Screen of Death, sure. You can also say it's the company that made it possible for PCs to become a part of our everyday lives, streamline tedious work-related processes, and communicate with people on the other side of the globe.
Microsoft has changed, before and after Bill. Whether good ideas or not, Microsoft has tried new products or solutions that meet with various degrees of success. They may not always be the first to the party (some may argue that they never have been) but if they hadn't changed to keep up with the world it would be far more evident than a few users online griping about Windows Vista.
She trolled someone to death.
Allegedly. Prior to the original verdict, even the girl's mother confirmed the she and her daughter had argued when her daughter tried to speak to her about the supposed boy who broke her heart. It was not directly after she received the message "the world would be better off without you" when the girl hung herself, but after an argument with her mother and her mother left for work.
I have no doubt that Lori Drew's actions were a contributor to the girl's behavior, but I don't believe it was the only catalyst.
You have a better chance of TPB and Time Warner merging into one company.
Yeah, but if that were to happen you wouldn't be able to pirate only what you wanted, so I don't think it would work as well.
I don't really see too much room for debate when the accused states the matter as simply as "...a result of me downloading Angels and Demons". I don't read this and feel that the person is genuinely feeling remorse for what was done, only for getting caught.
Why? Just contract /b/ to do all the dirty work for you.
It could be the Blackwater of Online Warfare.
Don't want to be laughed at for not having this, I guess.
This is probably the case you are referring to.
It appears to be, other than I was one year off on their ages. Thank you.
If minors can have sex legally with each other, which they can...
Actually, I wish I could find the link to the story that contradicts this.
A girl, 14, did the deed with her boyfriend, 13. Due to the state's laws, the girl was classified as a victim of sexual abuse. However, as she was the one who initiated the act with another minor, she was also classified as a sexual predator.
Still trying to figure out that one.
Why bleep out the words "Aluminum" and "Iron Oxide"?
Defense Lawyer: And where did you learn to make Thermite?
Defendent: From watching Mythbusters.
Discovery Channel: Uh-oh.
You never saw Mr. Wizard bleeping out the chemical names on his demonstrations.
True, but when did Mr. Wizard use [bleep]ing Thermite?
The keyword in the summary was "accidentally". This was not an intended result and was not anticipated. Especially not a mile away.
My wife and I were having a discussion about this very notion.
I believe part of what hampered Watchmen's performance was that any randome Joe off the street had no idea who the main characters were, or had even heard of the original material.
Batman, Superman, Spider-Man and Iron Man have decades of comics behind them, not to mention t-shirts, posters, stickers, pop-tarts, video games, board games, saturday morning cartoon shows and quite a bit of pop-culture notability.
To some guy off the street -- Who the hell are the Watchmen?
I think what really hurt the movie's performance was that there was no identifcation with these characters other than what you learn during the movie, and that's a gamble. People know Batman's just a guy with a brain, a costume and some weird villains. People know Superman's a really strong alien. People know Spider-Man is a nerd with an allergic reaction. People know Iron Man is a guy in a suit of armor.
People don't know about to complexities of Rorshach's backstory (of which even the mask wasn't discussed), the Comedian's motivation or Silk Spectre's reason for being a superhero.
The movies, on top of being profitable themselves, are used to promote the source material. Marvel and DC want new readers to be attracted to the titles. If the audience has to know the source material beforehand to judge any interest in the movie it's not going to perform well at all.
So when you get your first warning, if you are innocent
And how exactly do you do that for "file-sharing"? While I can argue the point that file-sharing in itself is not illegal, the RIAA has previously sought legal action for this and has found themselves losing ground in a court of law. They are in effect seeking non-legal proceedings for what they have addressed as a legal issue.
And AT&T won't check their logs to make sure you haven't done anything wrong. I'm sure the burden of innocence will be put on the customer.
Is there anyway to defend yourself from these claims? Is there no burden of proof on the RIAA's side? Will AT&T simply punish those accused?
In short, screenshot or it didn't happen.
People, people. No need to argue about this, we can settle this reasonably.
On one hand, you have Inara. On the other hand, you have Kaylee. So all we need to do is--
*rubs hands together*
Y'know, I think I just got a better idea.
I have to agree. As an Apple customer I cannot stand "fanboi" mentality. I chose a Mac because I looked at what I intended to do with the system and made an informed decision, not because "z0mg it r0x0rs harder then t eh micro$haft".
I believe the problem is that the "fanboi" group is the largest, most outspoken contigent of the Apple community. Let's face it, every OS/PC faction has those people. I know people who have sworn blood-oaths to Microsoft, using only Windows, Internet Explorer, a Windows Mobile phone and a Zune. I've worked with people who refuse to touch Microsoft or Apple products, using a Linux distro, Firefox, an Android G1 and a Creative MP3 player.
Fortunately for Microsoft and Linux, there's a greater number that does not blindly follow the label, definitely not the case with Apple. Most of the business world has adopted Microsoft products, so the productivity is there. Whereas Linux has a stigma of being for the guy who knows "all about computers" by those who have in fact heard of it.
Anyone got a mirror?
While I am a pro-wrestling fan and can enjoy a good mockery of the topic, a lot of SciFi viewers who are not fans do not know how much content SciFi actually tried to push into ECW.
SciFi actually wanted a more science-fiction themed approach to wrestling. This is why characters like Kevin Thorn (a Vampire who was constantly outside the arena, because no one would invite him in) and "The Zombie" had appearances on the show.
Eventually, SciFi realized it was even more ridiculous than the original product and left it alone.