The US Department of Justice has these fellows they call US Marshals. They are the Police of the courts. They are fairly well trained..and could force this ruling to be followed. Remember kids, laws mean nothing until someone with a gun tells you to follow them.
I was hoping someone would mention this idea. I've been thinking this for months. It would completely remove those piggyback clauses that we see so often (especially in the House). We could all edit a bill, then all vote on it once it was considered 'final'. If it failed the vote, it could go back into 'wiki-mode' and be revised until everyone that voted on it was happy, or until it passed. I see the oversight on this being terrific. It may take an amendment to the Constitution for some of this, as it certainly makes the Senate and House kind of redundant.
Even putting something in place such as a comment/edit moderation system where the best ideas/and revisions bubble to the top. It would be fantastic, and everyone would feel as though they played a more important role in governing themselves....The End of Corruption in our Congress. I'm all for it.
The word 'claims' is being used as a verb, not a noun. The sentence makes perfect grammatical sense, plus given the context clues, an 8th grader can figure out what was being said.
Sincerely,
Your Friendly Neighborhood Anti-Grammar-Nazi
I take it you don't understand the difference between private companies and government actions? A private company can fire you for saying something. If the government takes any action to get you fired for saying something, they have violated the First amendment in the Bill of rights and broken the law.
I take it you didn't RTFA. She was working as an employee of a subcontractor that was doing something for the CIA. She didn't work for the CIA anymore than AT&T engineers work for the NSA. She was fired by BAE Systems (who incidentally has an office right down the hall from mine, and they most certainly are a private company). A subcontractor couldn't be let go because of something one of their employee's wrote on an external blog, but they sure could be overlooked when time came to renew that contract. BAE Systems was protecting what they felt was their best interest. Case closed. Fairly simple in my mind.
And why is it Microsoft's fault that no one writes software (mostly games) for Linux and/or MacOS? The software library for Windows is SO stinking big not only because they have the dominating OS, but because the IDE they provide (FREE I might add) is second to none. And any kid with a birght mind can start pumping out programs in an afternoon, full applications in a month.
And why is it Microsoft's fault that your bank doesn't write standard's compliant web-sites? That old "everyone uses MS-Internet Explorer" argument is bunk, as it should be your BANK's priority to write pages that render is all browsers at least semi-equally.
And why is it Microsoft's fault that your hardware vendor doesn't release Linux Drivers? I'm not even going to get into the Linux versus Windows Driver models. This probably due to support costs. But that isn't Microsoft's fault either.
The "problem" of your hard drive being encrypted is plain bogus. As you should've un-encrypted it, or offloaded it to another medium (say, a DVD-R) before you got rid of Windows.
These arguments against Microsoft are misdirected (especially here on/.) I'm no MS-Fanboy, but I don't always understand these arguments that seem to be emotion based, and not fact based.
Just my $.02,
Brad
I take offense (sarcastic offense, but offense none-the-less) to that comment.
I have been a programmer for over a decade, a proud geek for 15 years.
With that being said, I have also been a resident DJ here in Columbus, GA for nearly 8 years. There are a LOT of geeks that love the club scene and dance music. Programming to me is a lot like running a live mix-set....take components of varying complexity & origin, then blend them together to create a good program (set). In programming, the desired outcome is a working, clean, glorious program. From my DJ Booth, the desired outcome is for the crowd to blow up and tear the place down from exhileration and excitment that MY PROGRAM generated. The end results are similar, the processes are nearly identical, and only the tools/components are different.
Also, in my most humble opinion, it is immoral to write software unless you have some Paul van Dyk, Tiesto, or at least some Ministry of Sound in the CD/MP3 player, anything else would just be WEIRD.
I don't suspect he was the size/shape of your stereotypical programmer. I am no exception, being 6'2" and 165lbs of solid skeleton. No amount of mountain dew could coerce me to get into a ring with a guy unless he was a paraplegic midget.
I agree that this may be far fetched and doubt it will be seen in the next 5 years.
However, I do not see any reason for it to not be feasible, even desirable, in the next 10 or 12. Ten years ago I never would have thought that I could use a computer to control my movie watching (Media Center). 8 years ago I did not expect that I would ever use my cell phone to take pictures & then email them to a friend. 5 years ago I did not expect that I would use a common framework to build a functioning Club website using only off-the-shelf components (DotNetNuke).
I am not so cynical. I think this may happen. I think some guy in his garage (or mom's basement) will develop a MMO gaming framework, release it open source, and then you would have a slew of games released, using a common underlying structure. Even possibly a peer-to-peer framework where no one would house the servers (excepting a smaller, log-in type server). I see this as the next step. Differing locations, differing plots, different visual engines perhaps, but the same characters. All one world. Open your minds. Its coming.
Maybe this author is a bit ahead of his time, but don't accuse his creative imagination as being fueled by crack.
Plug a phone into your wall outlet, or if you have a spare disconnected cell phone, keep it charged and make sure your family knows where it is. 911 service works on any phone line in the U.S. even if the service is not activated.
Total nonsense. I live in an apartment (BellSouth Services the complex). I never activated my 'land-line' because I use a cell-phone. I do however have an old, standard phone mounted onto the wall-jack (it is about shoulder high, in the kitchen) to cover the ugly connector. If I pick up that phone, I don't get dial-tone, the phone's lights (behind the keypad) do not even work.
Telling me that dialing 911 will work from that phone is total non-sense. I'd have just as much luck dialing it from my daughter's Barbie Fun-Fone.
Actually, if you burn a rich mixture of jet fuel, the particulate fog that results from the engine spreads out and persists for around three months. The particles eventually come down in the rain, and are not especially toxic, and while they're up there they're reflecting sunlight.
From the Matrix:
"We do not know who struck first, man or machine. But we know it was the humans who scorched the sky. At the time, the machines where dependent on the sun for energy."
Long story short, it backfired.
Massive, large scale manipulation of a chaos-based system was, is, and always will be an extremely bad idea. Until we understand enough about the Earth's climate for it to no longer be considered a choas system, we must let nature do its thing.
I would seem to consider WoW (and by association Blizzard) to be merely a medium. Like the phone company or the newspaper. It seems to me to that if Blizzard wants to make the most money possible, they would have an official 'non-interference' policy. Then people would have no reason to boycott WoW. Instead, they could boycott that guild that had the opposing view. In this perticular situation, it would be simple...don't go to the wedding.
If we're talking about the company responsible (the ones that built it)...you are both wrong. Miles Dyson (the creator of the microchip that enabled AI) worked for a company called Cyberdyne Systems.
Google is building a superior network. They are the architects, not the architecture.
I applaud Microsoft for not doing what I would have done in this situation: pull a Google and ignore the court's demand. They are actually providing patches & updates to solve the problem. I wouldn't be so accomidating.
Also, unless the Guatemalan inventor has a competing product, I don't see the court's point of enforcing this patent.
Patents where created to encourage innovation. Remember?
They lost the formula for that special 'Space Agency' foam that we sleep on. They apparently left it in the same drawer as the plans to the shuttle, which they lost too.
The article didn't say, but certainly the MPAA would have a stipulation in any service agreements between themselves and any film-makers. I bet in that agreement there is a clause that states copies may be created for internal review purposes.
In Sec 2909.04, (B) No person shall knowingly use any computer, computer system, computer network, telecommunications device, or other electronic device or system or the internet so as to disrupt, interrupt, or impair the functions of any police, fire, educational, commercial, or governmental operations.
(C) Whoever violates this section is guilty of disrupting public services, a felony of the fourth degree.
So, according to my understanding of that Law...
If my ISP uses a console to de-activate my business' service, they have commited a 4th degree felony.
A Denial of Service attack, to me, implies that the requester's address has been spoofed, and the server attempts to handshake with the fake address. This is what makes a DoS what it is. A slashdotting is not a true DoS. It can cause a DoS, where no-one can get to the page they requested.....but then again so could pulling the server's power cord out of the wall.
Will CSI have a show now about a couple plumbers driving around throwing turtles at princesses & humanoid fungi?. For Flying Spaghetti Monster's sake, will someone think of the children?
This is good news to me. I do not buy the 'crap' that most people consider good. I can't remember when the last time I purchased a CD or record (yes, I still buy vinyl) for some pop-trendy crap, or the newest Hip-Hop clown.
Most of what I buy is either underground, b-side material, or otherwise 'lesser-known' artists anyway, and that is the stuff that will be cheaper than $.99.
IANAL...but most of these Copyright lawsuits are based around compensation for damages. If software is LGPL, then the amount of monentary damages would be close to zero. The software is free, as long as you use it for x purpose and include y source code. If they broke the LGPL, there may be another set of rules to follow.
Who knows, maybe Sony got permission from the original authors of these binaries for this purpose (HA!).
Either way, I'm scared that these guys are operating above the law, and would bend a court to thier every whim. Exciting times.
Slashdot Mirror
The US Department of Justice has these fellows they call US Marshals. They are the Police of the courts. They are fairly well trained..and could force this ruling to be followed. Remember kids, laws mean nothing until someone with a gun tells you to follow them.
I was hoping someone would mention this idea. I've been thinking this for months. It would completely remove those piggyback clauses that we see so often (especially in the House). We could all edit a bill, then all vote on it once it was considered 'final'. If it failed the vote, it could go back into 'wiki-mode' and be revised until everyone that voted on it was happy, or until it passed. I see the oversight on this being terrific. It may take an amendment to the Constitution for some of this, as it certainly makes the Senate and House kind of redundant. Even putting something in place such as a comment/edit moderation system where the best ideas/and revisions bubble to the top. It would be fantastic, and everyone would feel as though they played a more important role in governing themselves....The End of Corruption in our Congress. I'm all for it.
The word 'claims' is being used as a verb, not a noun. The sentence makes perfect grammatical sense, plus given the context clues, an 8th grader can figure out what was being said.
Sincerely,
Your Friendly Neighborhood Anti-Grammar-Nazi
And why is it Microsoft's fault that no one writes software (mostly games) for Linux and/or MacOS? The software library for Windows is SO stinking big not only because they have the dominating OS, but because the IDE they provide (FREE I might add) is second to none. And any kid with a birght mind can start pumping out programs in an afternoon, full applications in a month.
/.) I'm no MS-Fanboy, but I don't always understand these arguments that seem to be emotion based, and not fact based.
Just my $.02,
And why is it Microsoft's fault that your bank doesn't write standard's compliant web-sites? That old "everyone uses MS-Internet Explorer" argument is bunk, as it should be your BANK's priority to write pages that render is all browsers at least semi-equally.
And why is it Microsoft's fault that your hardware vendor doesn't release Linux Drivers? I'm not even going to get into the Linux versus Windows Driver models. This probably due to support costs. But that isn't Microsoft's fault either.
The "problem" of your hard drive being encrypted is plain bogus. As you should've un-encrypted it, or offloaded it to another medium (say, a DVD-R) before you got rid of Windows.
These arguments against Microsoft are misdirected (especially here on
Brad
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.
Edward Abbey
I take offense (sarcastic offense, but offense none-the-less) to that comment.
I have been a programmer for over a decade, a proud geek for 15 years.
With that being said, I have also been a resident DJ here in Columbus, GA for nearly 8 years. There are a LOT of geeks that love the club scene and dance music. Programming to me is a lot like running a live mix-set....take components of varying complexity & origin, then blend them together to create a good program (set). In programming, the desired outcome is a working, clean, glorious program. From my DJ Booth, the desired outcome is for the crowd to blow up and tear the place down from exhileration and excitment that MY PROGRAM generated. The end results are similar, the processes are nearly identical, and only the tools/components are different.
Also, in my most humble opinion, it is immoral to write software unless you have some Paul van Dyk, Tiesto, or at least some Ministry of Sound in the CD/MP3 player, anything else would just be WEIRD.
Peace,
Brad
I don't suspect he was the size/shape of your stereotypical programmer. I am no exception, being 6'2" and 165lbs of solid skeleton. No amount of mountain dew could coerce me to get into a ring with a guy unless he was a paraplegic midget.
I agree that this may be far fetched and doubt it will be seen in the next 5 years.
However, I do not see any reason for it to not be feasible, even desirable, in the next 10 or 12. Ten years ago I never would have thought that I could use a computer to control my movie watching (Media Center). 8 years ago I did not expect that I would ever use my cell phone to take pictures & then email them to a friend. 5 years ago I did not expect that I would use a common framework to build a functioning Club website using only off-the-shelf components (DotNetNuke).
I am not so cynical. I think this may happen. I think some guy in his garage (or mom's basement) will develop a MMO gaming framework, release it open source, and then you would have a slew of games released, using a common underlying structure. Even possibly a peer-to-peer framework where no one would house the servers (excepting a smaller, log-in type server). I see this as the next step. Differing locations, differing plots, different visual engines perhaps, but the same characters. All one world. Open your minds. Its coming.
Maybe this author is a bit ahead of his time, but don't accuse his creative imagination as being fueled by crack.
Total nonsense. I live in an apartment (BellSouth Services the complex). I never activated my 'land-line' because I use a cell-phone. I do however have an old, standard phone mounted onto the wall-jack (it is about shoulder high, in the kitchen) to cover the ugly connector. If I pick up that phone, I don't get dial-tone, the phone's lights (behind the keypad) do not even work.
Telling me that dialing 911 will work from that phone is total non-sense. I'd have just as much luck dialing it from my daughter's Barbie Fun-Fone.
"We do not know who struck first, man or machine. But we know it was the humans who scorched the sky. At the time, the machines where dependent on the sun for energy."
Long story short, it backfired.
Massive, large scale manipulation of a chaos-based system was, is, and always will be an extremely bad idea. Until we understand enough about the Earth's climate for it to no longer be considered a choas system, we must let nature do its thing.
That's easy. One is paid for by local members' tithing. One is paid for by our tax dollars.
Big Difference.
BTW - I agree that NASA should never even consider such a theory as ID, with minimal evidence to its support. Rediculous.
I would seem to consider WoW (and by association Blizzard) to be merely a medium. Like the phone company or the newspaper. It seems to me to that if Blizzard wants to make the most money possible, they would have an official 'non-interference' policy. Then people would have no reason to boycott WoW. Instead, they could boycott that guild that had the opposing view. In this perticular situation, it would be simple...don't go to the wedding.
If we're talking about the company responsible (the ones that built it)...you are both wrong. Miles Dyson (the creator of the microchip that enabled AI) worked for a company called Cyberdyne Systems.
Google is building a superior network. They are the architects, not the architecture.
I applaud Microsoft for not doing what I would have done in this situation: pull a Google and ignore the court's demand. They are actually providing patches & updates to solve the problem. I wouldn't be so accomidating.
Also, unless the Guatemalan inventor has a competing product, I don't see the court's point of enforcing this patent.
Patents where created to encourage innovation. Remember?
They lost the formula for that special 'Space Agency' foam that we sleep on. They apparently left it in the same drawer as the plans to the shuttle, which they lost too.
The article didn't say, but certainly the MPAA would have a stipulation in any service agreements between themselves and any film-makers. I bet in that agreement there is a clause that states copies may be created for internal review purposes.
this is, however, just speculation.
If my ISP uses a console to de-activate my business' service, they have commited a 4th degree felony.
Sounds like pretty dumb law to me.
Brad
A Denial of Service attack, to me, implies that the requester's address has been spoofed, and the server attempts to handshake with the fake address. This is what makes a DoS what it is. A slashdotting is not a true DoS. It can cause a DoS, where no-one can get to the page they requested.....but then again so could pulling the server's power cord out of the wall.
How do you know that they aren't already? (Oh wait, that was your point.)
And if the RIAA has taught us anything at all, it is that holding on to ancient business practices is the only way to go...
Brad
I was born in 1981 you insensitive clod!
Will CSI have a show now about a couple plumbers driving around throwing turtles at princesses & humanoid fungi?. For Flying Spaghetti Monster's sake, will someone think of the children?
This is good news to me. I do not buy the 'crap' that most people consider good. I can't remember when the last time I purchased a CD or record (yes, I still buy vinyl) for some pop-trendy crap, or the newest Hip-Hop clown.
Most of what I buy is either underground, b-side material, or otherwise 'lesser-known' artists anyway, and that is the stuff that will be cheaper than $.99.
Brad
IANAL...but most of these Copyright lawsuits are based around compensation for damages. If software is LGPL, then the amount of monentary damages would be close to zero. The software is free, as long as you use it for x purpose and include y source code.
If they broke the LGPL, there may be another set of rules to follow.
Who knows, maybe Sony got permission from the original authors of these binaries for this purpose (HA!).
Either way, I'm scared that these guys are operating above the law, and would bend a court to thier every whim. Exciting times.