Investing heavily overseas seems to be the flavor of the week among investors. I have a co-worker who raves about making 25% by buying 6 month CDs in New Zealand, or whereever. Betting on currency is always foolish, IMHO, unless you have a couple of millions of dollars to worry about, but its still too risky.
Its also risky to invest in foreign stocks, because not only do you have the normal risks inherent with stocks, but you also have the risk of foreign laws which might be unfavorable, huge interest rate risk, and exposure to currency fluctuations and liquidity problems. I would only invest 10% in foreign stocks.
I like your bond allocation of 40% though, since your almost 60.
If you diversify the remaining 30% among domestic stocks, I think you would be golden. I think one internet stock + a few other sectors should be safe.
1) WB sets up its own private tracker 2) WB charges a subscription fee to access the tracker 3) WB uses private keys for each individual user to prevent piracy 4) ??? 5) Profit!
You cannot write a document that magically circumvenes existing law, in spirit or in letter...
Of course you can. A good lawyer understands the extent of the law, and how far it can bend. You can disclaim TONS of stuff under the law. There are also many things which you can't disclaim. This contract goes WAY beyond what any reasonable person can agree to. It is so overbroad as to swallow every single cause of action that can be brought against it. If I was the Judge, I'd toss the whole thing out, it is so unreasonable.
My hypothetical isn't so farfetched. Just the other day, I saw some dude cleaning windows on a skyscraper without a harness. People do stupid, negligent, bullshit. If that dude signed a contract saying that cleaning windows was at his own risk, and he fell, it wouldn't be held up in court. His family would get millions.
"By entering the Preserve, you are agreeing that we owe you no duty of care or any other duty...We do not and will not even try to keep the premises safe for any purpose. The premises are not safe for any purpose. This is no joke."
I am no expert in West Virginia law, but if you invite a member of the general public onto your land, charge them a $40 fee, and know that the premises are not safe for any purpose, and then they die, your gonna get hit with a HUGE lawsuit. This disclaimer means next to nothing since land owners owe duties of care to people they invite onto their land. At the very least, they owe a duty to warn of extremely dangerous conditions - which they do, in a general sort of way.
For example, on the main page, there is a very pretty picture of a bridge spanning a valley. As a user of the land, I have a reasonable expectation that the landowner has maintained the bridge, has checked it periodically, and would close off the bridge if it was too dangerous to use. Failure to do that is so negligent, that the disclaimer would be completely ineffective.
Not to miss the forest from the trees, the original blog adapting this to the internet is cute. And I agree with the basic principle that you surf the net at your own risk. But I think that ISPs owe a duty of care to their customers to protect them from websites that distribute viruses, trojans, etc, perhaps with a pop-up or system announce, if they know the website or software is an issue. Hard to do, but they could make more of an effort to protect the less savvy amoung us.
No problemo. Google will be happy to let unknown artists fall into complete obscurity and stop its laudable attempt to educate its millions of daily users about art history.
>It is a measure of the corruption in the legal system that the issues surrounding one-sided contracts >like this have never been fully considered either in courts or in Congress.
Don't be a freakin moron. Of course courts have considered contracts of adhesion, shrink wrap licenses and unconscionable contracts. There is a whole corpus of case law out there. And plenty of State Legislatures have addressed the issue.
Furthermore, check out the Uniform Commercial Code that is in effect in most States:
2-302. Unconscionable contract or Clause. (1) If the court as a matter of law finds the contract or any clause of the contract to have been unconscionable at the time it was made the court may refuse to enforce the contract, or it may enforce the remainder of the contract without the unconscionable clause, or it may so limit the application of any unconscionable clause as to avoid any unconscionable result. (2) When it is claimed or appears to the court that the contract or any clause thereof may be unconscionable the parties shall be afforded a reasonable opportunity to present evidence as to its commercial setting, purpose and effect to aid the court in making the determination.
I've been thinking about selling my photos to a local paper/news station etc. How do you actually go about doing it? Feel free to email me at sweetnjguy(at)(nospam)yahoo(dot)com
The company has negative earnings per share and its profit margin is almost -25%! Almost 15% of the companies shares on the market are shorted. Thats crazy!
I think that dropping the Lifetime Service Plan is a desperate gimmick to get more revenue. It might work, but who knows.
However, I don't think computer based PVRs are going to make a dent in the market...they are too complicated. Adding a card into a computer is too complicated for Joe Schmo. Watching TV on a computer screen is an alien concept to most people. A friend who was over last night thought that watching TV on my PVR-350 was 'interesting'. "You do realize that this is really weird, right?" she said, "I'm not sure if I really liked the experience." But the idea of not having a monthly fee for TiVo intreaged her.
But...I think that computer based PVRs will make a huge dent in the tech savvy market...because it is flexable...and for now...DRM free.
The company has negative earnings per share and its profit margin is almost -25%! Almost 15% of the companies shares on the market are shorted. Thats crazy!
I think that dropping the Lifetime Service Plan is a desperate gimmick to get more revenue. It might work, but who knows.
However, I don't think computer based PVRs are going to make a dent in the market...they are too complicated. Adding a card into a computer is too complicated for Joe Schmo. Watching TV on a computer screen is an alien concept to most people. A friend who was over last night thought that watching TV on my PVR-350 was 'interesting'. "You do realize that this is really weird, right?" she said, "I'm not sure if I really liked the experience." But the idea of not having a monthly fee for TiVo intreaged her.
But...I think that computer based PVRs will make a huge dent in the tech savvy market...because it is flexable...and for now...DRM free."
5) Consumers don't understand that DRM is restricting their rights
The license of Open-Source DRM software would hopefully inform the end-user of his right to fair use, etc.
6)...copyright holders mislead and confuse consumers when they buy DRM'ed goods.
An open-source DRM solution would ensure that the end-user (consumer) would not only have access to the source code of the DRM scheme, but perhaps some sort of clear statement that the work should not be copyied or distributed. If you look at current statements on CDs, it threatens you with an FBI warning. That causes confusion and chaos.
7) Small business people can't afford to set up and maintain a good DRM system
A good OSS DRM solution would be free as in freedom and free as in beer!
I really hate DRM because it limits my freedom. I don't like how complicated it makes copying a simple DVD. But I really like the idea of DRM because it has the potential to protect my work from unauthorized distribution and copying and increasing my cashflow.
The problems I have seen so far with DRM are: 1) Heavyhandedness of DRM schemes 2) Shitty implimentation that causes serious problems on users' computers (eg Sony Rootkit) 3) Inconsistant quality of the DRM scheme itself, which leads to... 4) Easy to crack DRM that is useless. 5) Consumers don't understand that DRM is restricting their rights because,... 6)...copyright holders mislead and confuse consumers when they buy DRM'ed goods. 7) Small business people can't afford to set up and maintain a good DRM system 8) Large business people don't understand DRM
I think all 8 of these points could be solved with an open-source (or free) software solution. DRM needs to be fair. Not burdonsome.
I have a feeling that Sun's DRM scheme won't use a GPL or any other widely accepted open-source license. Thats the real issue here people!
1) Proprietary hardware makes outfitting a customized kick-ass solution a problem. 2) Everyone has a friggin Ipod now. Why can't Apple come up with a dorky, techy version of the ipod? 3) Ipod doesn't support Ogg files. 4) Apple DRM sucks
Any other reasons why you slashdotters out there HATE Apple?
No, the proper contrast is between a typical first year law school class which is taught using the Socratic Method (the subject of the article) and a typical first year computer science class (the majority of which are taught as a lecture).
>The problem with building your own PC is that it's expensive.
No its not!...at least in the Alienware context. I can build an Alienware spec'ed PC for about the same price or a few hundred cheaper (note that the video card isn't a 7900 though and there is no watercooling):
Asus A8N32-SLI ($252) A64 FX-60 Dual Core ($1,139) Western Digital 150GB/16MB Raptor ($300) Western Digital 400GB/16MB WD4000KD ($204) 2GB OCZ Gold XTC PC4000 ($219.50 after $25 MIR) NEC 3550a DL DVD/CD Burner (x2) ($90) BFG Geforce 7800GTX 512MB (x2) ($1,400) PC Power & Cooling 850w SLI PSU ($427) Silverstone Temjin TJ07 ($385) Windows XP Professional OEM w/SP2 ($145) TOTAL = $4,517.50 shipped (Thanks One4yu2c!)
Check out my $300 computer too! AMD Sempron 2800+ $75 $80 Motherboard 512MB PC3200 $38 80GB Seagate Barracuda 7200 SATA $45 Lite On 16x Double Layer $42 Generic ATX Case $30 Ubuntu Linux $0 Total: $310 (thanks maximumpc!) (Thanks to maximumpc and One4yu2c for these specs!)
Keep in mind that its gonna take a few hours to build your system too...so, figure...$120 an hour is the opportunity cost...but still...its easy and cheap to build your own!
I was generalizing. There are some classes that have a nice friendly give and take with the professor. But large lecture classes just require that you sit back and listen. I was trying to illustrate that law professors try to make you cry.
...which I assume is the vast majority of readers on slashdot...
First year law classes aren't computer science lectures where everyone sits passively and takes notes. Law Professors practice the socratic method. Which means that the professor calls on a student and asks that student a question. If the student answers correctly, then the professor asks another question. Then the professor asks a question which he knows the student can't answer. Then the professor yells at the student and asks why he is a moron. Then the professor takes the case book and beats the crap out of the student with it. A notebook computer doesn't fit into this routine.
I'm exaggerating slightly, but thats what a lot of first year law students go through.
I think that she teaches first year civil procedure. This is a very hard class that covers the mechanics of filing a law suit. It is very tricky and nuanced and even experienced lawyers don't understand it fully. Since she co-wrote a treatise about Tennessee Civil Procedure it is not surprising that according to Ratemyprofessors.com, Prof. Entman "expects you to be able to recall every detail from every footnote from every case you ever read." Yikes!
Interestingly, Prof. Entman was a social studies teacher in the late 60s and early 70s for 7 years before going into the law. I imagine that notebook computers don't fit into her conception of a learning environment.
"OpenBSD has no wealthy sponsors, nor a business model. "
Obviously, the OpenBSD people missed the Economist article that says that successful open source projects need a business model and a business plan to be successful!
In my experience, I have found BSD to be woefully inadequate. I can never get it to work on the computers I have at home. Many people have had the same experience. If you can't use a product, you can't recommend it or improve it. No wonder why there are no major companies who have a commercial version of BSD for the public, unlike Linux.
Unfortunately, the sheer lack of planning and vision by OpenBSD has hurt the BSD platform. Its too bad.
Jeez...is the rest of the general populace unable to use PVR or TIVO? After 70 shows for.99 a pop, the card pays for itself! Sure, you have to convert the file to a format that the iPod can handle, but big woop!
Your absolutely right. Most people don't appreciate that there are teams of lawyers and regulators that go through these taped backed up emails looking for violations of company policy and responding to government requests.
Slashdot Mirror
Investing heavily overseas seems to be the flavor of the week among investors. I have a co-worker who raves about making 25% by buying 6 month CDs in New Zealand, or whereever. Betting on currency is always foolish, IMHO, unless you have a couple of millions of dollars to worry about, but its still too risky.
Its also risky to invest in foreign stocks, because not only do you have the normal risks inherent with stocks, but you also have the risk of foreign laws which might be unfavorable, huge interest rate risk, and exposure to currency fluctuations and liquidity problems. I would only invest 10% in foreign stocks.
I like your bond allocation of 40% though, since your almost 60.
If you diversify the remaining 30% among domestic stocks, I think you would be golden. I think one internet stock + a few other sectors should be safe.
...for disabled astronauts.
Don't these handicap rights nazis understand that they can't be on the bleeding edge of everything?
1) WB sets up its own private tracker
2) WB charges a subscription fee to access the tracker
3) WB uses private keys for each individual user to prevent piracy
4) ???
5) Profit!
You cannot write a document that magically circumvenes existing law, in spirit or in letter...
Of course you can. A good lawyer understands the extent of the law, and how far it can bend. You can disclaim TONS of stuff under the law. There are also many things which you can't disclaim. This contract goes WAY beyond what any reasonable person can agree to. It is so overbroad as to swallow every single cause of action that can be brought against it. If I was the Judge, I'd toss the whole thing out, it is so unreasonable.
My hypothetical isn't so farfetched. Just the other day, I saw some dude cleaning windows on a skyscraper without a harness. People do stupid, negligent, bullshit. If that dude signed a contract saying that cleaning windows was at his own risk, and he fell, it wouldn't be held up in court. His family would get millions.
Check out the website, genius, its a privately owned park.
From the original article @ http://www.nelsonrocks.org/disclaimer.html :
"By entering the Preserve, you are agreeing that we owe you no duty of care or any other duty...We do not and will not even try to keep the premises safe for any purpose. The premises are not safe for any purpose. This is no joke."
I am no expert in West Virginia law, but if you invite a member of the general public onto your land, charge them a $40 fee, and know that the premises are not safe for any purpose, and then they die, your gonna get hit with a HUGE lawsuit. This disclaimer means next to nothing since land owners owe duties of care to people they invite onto their land. At the very least, they owe a duty to warn of extremely dangerous conditions - which they do, in a general sort of way.
For example, on the main page, there is a very pretty picture of a bridge spanning a valley. As a user of the land, I have a reasonable expectation that the landowner has maintained the bridge, has checked it periodically, and would close off the bridge if it was too dangerous to use. Failure to do that is so negligent, that the disclaimer would be completely ineffective.
Not to miss the forest from the trees, the original blog adapting this to the internet is cute. And I agree with the basic principle that you surf the net at your own risk. But I think that ISPs owe a duty of care to their customers to protect them from websites that distribute viruses, trojans, etc, perhaps with a pop-up or system announce, if they know the website or software is an issue. Hard to do, but they could make more of an effort to protect the less savvy amoung us.
Remote medical procedures
No problemo. Google will be happy to let unknown artists fall into complete obscurity and stop its laudable attempt to educate its millions of daily users about art history.
>It is a measure of the corruption in the legal system that the issues surrounding one-sided contracts >like this have never been fully considered either in courts or in Congress.
Don't be a freakin moron. Of course courts have considered contracts of adhesion, shrink wrap licenses and unconscionable contracts. There is a whole corpus of case law out there. And plenty of State Legislatures have addressed the issue.
Furthermore, check out the Uniform Commercial Code that is in effect in most States:
2-302. Unconscionable contract or Clause.
(1) If the court as a matter of law finds the contract or any clause of the contract to have been unconscionable at the time it was made the court may refuse to enforce the contract, or it may enforce the remainder of the contract without the unconscionable clause, or it may so limit the application of any unconscionable clause as to avoid any unconscionable result.
(2) When it is claimed or appears to the court that the contract or any clause thereof may be unconscionable the parties shall be afforded a reasonable opportunity to present evidence as to its commercial setting, purpose and effect to aid the court in making the determination.
I've been thinking about selling my photos to a local paper/news station etc. How do you actually go about doing it? Feel free to email me at sweetnjguy(at)(nospam)yahoo(dot)com
No, I am not surprised, in fact, I made the following observation a month ago on slashdot:o ld=0&commentsort=3&mode=thread&cid=14882574
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=179691&thresh
TiVo is in a lot of financial trouble, looking at its key statistics: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=TIVO [yahoo.com]
The company has negative earnings per share and its profit margin is almost -25%! Almost 15% of the companies shares on the market are shorted. Thats crazy!
I think that dropping the Lifetime Service Plan is a desperate gimmick to get more revenue. It might work, but who knows.
However, I don't think computer based PVRs are going to make a dent in the market...they are too complicated. Adding a card into a computer is too complicated for Joe Schmo. Watching TV on a computer screen is an alien concept to most people. A friend who was over last night thought that watching TV on my PVR-350 was 'interesting'. "You do realize that this is really weird, right?" she said, "I'm not sure if I really liked the experience." But the idea of not having a monthly fee for TiVo intreaged her.
But...I think that computer based PVRs will make a huge dent in the tech savvy market...because it is flexable...and for now...DRM free.
Nope, not surprised at all! In fact, I made this post to Slashdot over a month ago which earned a +4 mod:o ld=0&commentsort=3&mode=thread&cid=14882574
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=179691&thresh
For those of you two lazy to click the link:
"TiVo is in a lot of financial trouble, looking at its key statistics: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=TIVO [yahoo.com]
The company has negative earnings per share and its profit margin is almost -25%! Almost 15% of the companies shares on the market are shorted. Thats crazy!
I think that dropping the Lifetime Service Plan is a desperate gimmick to get more revenue. It might work, but who knows.
However, I don't think computer based PVRs are going to make a dent in the market...they are too complicated. Adding a card into a computer is too complicated for Joe Schmo. Watching TV on a computer screen is an alien concept to most people. A friend who was over last night thought that watching TV on my PVR-350 was 'interesting'. "You do realize that this is really weird, right?" she said, "I'm not sure if I really liked the experience." But the idea of not having a monthly fee for TiVo intreaged her.
But...I think that computer based PVRs will make a huge dent in the tech savvy market...because it is flexable...and for now...DRM free."
5) Consumers don't understand that DRM is restricting their rights
...copyright holders mislead and confuse consumers when they buy DRM'ed goods.
The license of Open-Source DRM software would hopefully inform the end-user of his right to fair use, etc.
6)
An open-source DRM solution would ensure that the end-user (consumer) would not only have access to the source code of the DRM scheme, but perhaps some sort of clear statement that the work should not be copyied or distributed. If you look at current statements on CDs, it threatens you with an FBI warning. That causes confusion and chaos.
7) Small business people can't afford to set up and maintain a good DRM system
A good OSS DRM solution would be free as in freedom and free as in beer!
8) Large business people don't understand DRM
You obviously haven't been following the news...
I really hate DRM because it limits my freedom. I don't like how complicated it makes copying a simple DVD. But I really like the idea of DRM because it has the potential to protect my work from unauthorized distribution and copying and increasing my cashflow.
...copyright holders mislead and confuse consumers when they buy DRM'ed goods.
The problems I have seen so far with DRM are:
1) Heavyhandedness of DRM schemes
2) Shitty implimentation that causes serious problems on users' computers (eg Sony Rootkit)
3) Inconsistant quality of the DRM scheme itself, which leads to...
4) Easy to crack DRM that is useless.
5) Consumers don't understand that DRM is restricting their rights because,...
6)
7) Small business people can't afford to set up and maintain a good DRM system
8) Large business people don't understand DRM
I think all 8 of these points could be solved with an open-source (or free) software solution. DRM needs to be fair. Not burdonsome.
I have a feeling that Sun's DRM scheme won't use a GPL or any other widely accepted open-source license. Thats the real issue here people!
Score is unfair!
1) Proprietary hardware makes outfitting a customized kick-ass solution a problem.
2) Everyone has a friggin Ipod now. Why can't Apple come up with a dorky, techy version of the ipod?
3) Ipod doesn't support Ogg files.
4) Apple DRM sucks
Any other reasons why you slashdotters out there HATE Apple?
I wonder......
No, the proper contrast is between a typical first year law school class which is taught using the Socratic Method (the subject of the article) and a typical first year computer science class (the majority of which are taught as a lecture).
>The problem with building your own PC is that it's expensive.
...at least in the Alienware context. I can build an Alienware spec'ed PC for about the same price or a few hundred cheaper (note that the video card isn't a 7900 though and there is no watercooling):
No its not!
Asus A8N32-SLI ($252)
A64 FX-60 Dual Core ($1,139)
Western Digital 150GB/16MB Raptor ($300)
Western Digital 400GB/16MB WD4000KD ($204)
2GB OCZ Gold XTC PC4000 ($219.50 after $25 MIR)
NEC 3550a DL DVD/CD Burner (x2) ($90)
BFG Geforce 7800GTX 512MB (x2) ($1,400)
PC Power & Cooling 850w SLI PSU ($427)
Silverstone Temjin TJ07 ($385)
Windows XP Professional OEM w/SP2 ($145)
TOTAL = $4,517.50 shipped
(Thanks One4yu2c!)
Check out my $300 computer too!
AMD Sempron 2800+ $75
$80 Motherboard
512MB PC3200 $38
80GB Seagate Barracuda 7200 SATA $45
Lite On 16x Double Layer $42
Generic ATX Case $30
Ubuntu Linux $0
Total: $310
(thanks maximumpc!)
(Thanks to maximumpc and One4yu2c for these specs!)
Keep in mind that its gonna take a few hours to build your system too...so, figure...$120 an hour is the opportunity cost...but still...its easy and cheap to build your own!
I was generalizing. There are some classes that have a nice friendly give and take with the professor. But large lecture classes just require that you sit back and listen. I was trying to illustrate that law professors try to make you cry.
...which I assume is the vast majority of readers on slashdot...
First year law classes aren't computer science lectures where everyone sits passively and takes notes. Law Professors practice the socratic method. Which means that the professor calls on a student and asks that student a question. If the student answers correctly, then the professor asks another question. Then the professor asks a question which he knows the student can't answer. Then the professor yells at the student and asks why he is a moron. Then the professor takes the case book and beats the crap out of the student with it. A notebook computer doesn't fit into this routine.
I'm exaggerating slightly, but thats what a lot of first year law students go through.
I think that she teaches first year civil procedure. This is a very hard class that covers the mechanics of filing a law suit. It is very tricky and nuanced and even experienced lawyers don't understand it fully. Since she co-wrote a treatise about Tennessee Civil Procedure it is not surprising that according to Ratemyprofessors.com, Prof. Entman "expects you to be able to recall every detail from every footnote from every case you ever read." Yikes!
Interestingly, Prof. Entman was a social studies teacher in the late 60s and early 70s for 7 years before going into the law. I imagine that notebook computers don't fit into her conception of a learning environment.
"OpenBSD has no wealthy sponsors, nor a business model. "
Obviously, the OpenBSD people missed the Economist article that says that successful open source projects need a business model and a business plan to be successful!
In my experience, I have found BSD to be woefully inadequate. I can never get it to work on the computers I have at home. Many people have had the same experience. If you can't use a product, you can't recommend it or improve it. No wonder why there are no major companies who have a commercial version of BSD for the public, unlike Linux.
Unfortunately, the sheer lack of planning and vision by OpenBSD has hurt the BSD platform. Its too bad.
http://lxer.com.nyud.net:8090/lxer/story/56437/ind ex.html
Jeez...is the rest of the general populace unable to use PVR or TIVO? After 70 shows for .99 a pop, the card pays for itself! Sure, you have to convert the file to a format that the iPod can handle, but big woop!
Your absolutely right. Most people don't appreciate that there are teams of lawyers and regulators that go through these taped backed up emails looking for violations of company policy and responding to government requests.