That's not what I said. Try again. You don't have to kiss asses and you can tell the judge that the case against you is totally ludicrous. You are just a lot better served by doing so in a way that doesn't make you look like an adolescent with an anger management problem. When I say I eat weak people for breakfast, what I am referring to as weak people are the types who respond to rational arguments with emotional melodrama as this guy is doing. It has nothing to do with speaking legalese and everything to do with engaging in rational discourse rather than untoward ad hominem attacks.
I never said you had to kiss any asses. If you really think that this guy's panicky, emotional, ad hominem response does anything but embolden his opponents, I'd like to hear your explanation. As someone who does eat weak people for breakfast for a living, I speak from personal experience when I say that this guy could have told them all to go fuck themselves a lot more effectively than he did. No ass-kissing necessary.
Exactly. Use words like "frivolous," not words like "fuck" and "slim[e]." If you are able to tell the judge that the case against you is frivolous in a cogent, adult manner, he might actually listen. If your response is littered with profanity and personal attacks on others, he likely won't. Having the judge listen to you is usually a good thing.
Like many things in life, there is a right way and a wrong way to respond to a ridiculous lawsuit
The "right way" being to craft a stately letter filled with "professional" prose, and thus confering not a small amount of legitimacy to the actions of these blackmailers. By doing so, the responder tacitly recognises the worthiness of the claims to be heard in court and dives headfirst into the molasses of rules, traditions and procedures of the legal system, where cunning lawyers have the upper hand.
Better to reject their claims as contemptible nonsense, and say as much to the court when (if) the matter is finally heard. Remember, they're the ones who have to prove that you've done something wrong. It's not your job to prove you haven't.
Please do not follow this advice. Being a melodramatic child is never a good idea. There is a proper way to tell the court that the allegations against you are ridiculous and don't deserve to waste the court's time. This guy's approach is pretty much the opposite of that. It gets him on the bad side of the court without accomplishing anything.
If you are sued and you believe the lawsuit is ridiculous, you still have to handle it seriously. Failure to do so most often results in it becoming a more serious matter than it needs to be, with you fined or jailed for contempt as a bad outcome or having a default judgment entered against you as a "good" outcome.
Precisely. I am a connoisseur of strongly-worded letters, and his is not one. A strongly-worded letter strikes fear into the heart of the recipient using only on-topic attacks of the recipient's argument itself. Ad hominem attacks always have the effect of derogating your own position by the implied concession that your opponent's argument is too iron-clad for you to respond to it directly. There is a time and place for ad hominem attacks, but at least spell them right.
Picture yourself as the judge. There are two people in front of you, neither of whom you have met. One of them says, "He infringed my patent by operating a business that manufactured millions of units of products utilizing the claimed technique." The other one only says, "Fuck you, slim[e]!" Right off the bat, you are going to be biased against the guy who can't be bothered to explain why he didn't infringe the patent. He just looks like a puerile, sophomoric idiot.
Now, try it again. This time, however, the second guy says, "The suggestion that I infringed his patent is almost too absurd to form a response. Not only was I never in a manufacturing business, but no activity I have ever undertaken has utilized the technique claimed in the patent. Even the slightest bit of factual research could have reached that conclusion prior to bringing this lawsuit against me." Now, the first guy is the one who looks like a lazy buffoon.
And that's how you word things strongly. And, if you really want to have some fun, use the puntacular phrase "patently ridiculous." Judges love puns!*
* - Well, not really. Some do, but only if you use them judiciously.
I'm just glad someone made that joke before I did. I sat there for five minutes, just staring at the comments and wondering whether to make a coyote joke or not. Now, my worries are over.
Those would be troll patents. This is about patent trolls. But English has a patented word order, so if you're not a native speaker this can be forgiven.
I wouldn't worry about it too much. This entire comment thread is based on patently false notions of the legal system underlying this situation. First you have the suggestion that local legislators are in favor of patent troll lawsuits. Then, when that's explained to be wrong, you have the suggestion that 'East Texas laws' (whatever those are - East Texas is not its own legislative jurisdiction with its own laws, it's just a federally-created judicial district for the federal courts) should be changed to stop this from happening. I hesitate to imagine what ridiculous idea is going to come up in response to your correction. We can only hope that it's a Godwin-approved car analogy.
The other part of the story is that his letter is going to end up in front of the federal judge. He might be entitled to sanctions to compensate him for the wasted time and expense in responding to a lawsuit that was brought against him with no basis in reality, but federal judges tend to disdain juvenile responses to serious matters. Like many things in life, there is a right way and a wrong way to respond to a ridiculous lawsuit - this guy chose the wrong way and it will most likely end up costing him.
Re:How many soldiers die if 187 F-22s aren't enoug
on
F-22 Raptor Cancelled
·
· Score: 1
People hate America for many reasons. It would be naive at best to suggest that there is a simple fix (reducing military spending by 90%, as was suggested by the OP) that would eliminate all (as was claimed by the OP) of these reasons. History has shown that America cannot just adjust its response to any one reason that it is hated without adversely affecting another reason, unless you know of counterexamples that I am not thinking of right now.
In reality, the hatred of America is a complicated thing that one must grok every reason for before claiming to have a solution.
For instance, if you think that there is any action whatsoever that America could take that would keep even just the Middle East as a whole from hating it, much less the entire world, go ahead and suggest it. It is very likely that some Middle East nation or people would hate America for taking your advice, even if it improved relationships with another.
You never know. You could find a lawyer willing to handle your case on a contingency basis if you can show a definite license violation and have solid proof of damages.
Re:How many soldiers die if 187 F-22s aren't enoug
on
F-22 Raptor Cancelled
·
· Score: 1
No, I didn't say that they only hate Americans for their freedom. I said that they will hate America regardless of the amount of meddling it does. People definitely hate imperious meddling. But they also hate having America sit idle.
Do I think that American foreign policy could stand to be improved? Yes. That's undeniable. Do I think that the world will love America if it cuts its military to 1/10 the size (as the OP's suggestion was)? Not a chance.
What amuses me is that people think United States of America is a singular noun.
States have a fairly good grip on education, and most recent federal attempts at improving it do the exact opposite. No Child Left Behind, for instance. There are things that could be improved, but the federal government would be better left to fixing existing, broken educational laws than nationalizing education any further.
As to health care, please itemize the existing nationalized health care systems in the world and indicate, citing to empirical sources, which of them provide better or more timely care than is currently available to Americans. Let's leave greedy insurance companies out of the equation for now. We can talk about the admitted shortcomings in affordability of health care to certain (but not nearly a majority of) people in America later, once it is shown that quality and timeliness of care decrease as a function of nationalization.
Re:How many soldiers die if 187 F-22s aren't enoug
on
F-22 Raptor Cancelled
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
What is your definition of being "just cool with people"? Do you really believe that the world will stop hating America if America stops meddling in other nations' affairs? What are your thoughts on interfering when a state-sponsored genocide is in progress? There is no happy medium. Large portions of the world are going to hate the United States of America no matter its foreign policy. You can't make everyone happy, and you certainly can't do it when they have already come to depend on you for one thing or another. It would not surprise me to see America the target of more hatred and violent attacks after returning to isolationism than in its most internationally-meddling times.
But what you're suggesting doesn't recognize that voices are unique and that Futurama had several of the best voice actors since Mel Blanc. There simply are not people capable of perfectly replicating every voice that Billy West, John DiMaggio, Maurice LeMarche, etc. used in Futurama. This is especially true when you look at how the actors developed their characters' voices, inflections, speech rhythms, and so on as the series progressed.
Futurama without at least Billy West and John DiMaggio is not Futurama. Those two brought too much to the show independent of the writing and directing.
If you have real talent, getting signed by a major label isn't exactly an easy path. It's only easy after you get signed, or maybe even after a couple of albums when you've got enough momentum that you can bounce back when the record company stabs you in the back.
Any band that has signed with a major label since Napster was shut down is complicit.
I agree with the fact of their complicity but not with the degree. Most bands sign with major labels because it gives them greater income, greater exposure, and an overall greater reward for their years of hard work in getting to that point. Don't punish the artists who are actually creating art just because they are part of a system that gives them no choice for ultimate success other than signing with a major label. Punish the source of the problem, not a fellow victim.
Actually, as an attorney, I can say that it's not always that cynicism-worthy. Many young, bright attorneys choose to work for firms that give them leeway to take on pro bono cases, specifically because they know that they can do some good for the world by taking them. I personally hate the numerous times every week that my phone rings and I think to myself, "I wish I could afford to help this guy for free, because what was done to him is just plain wrong.," and then explain that it's not the type of case I can handle on a contingency fee basis and that it will cost him X dollars per hour. I give every person who calls me the advice not to chase bad money with good, and all too often they take it, much to my chagrin, because I really wanted to help them out.
That said, by most attorneys' third year at the mega-firms that have very pro-bono-friendly policies, they fit the pattern you described to a tee. Youthful idealism gives way to wanting more status symbols fairly rapidly when you work at those places.
The point is that criminal enforcement of a copyright law is not a new thing. The DMCA is, by the way, so unrelated to copyright law that only 25% of its letters stand for the word "copyright."
Yeah, "Grumpo" said he added the FBI warnings to his wares to make the bootlegged tapes seem more authentic. I think he may have used the wrong crayon to write the warning, though.
Slashdot Mirror
That's not what I said. Try again. You don't have to kiss asses and you can tell the judge that the case against you is totally ludicrous. You are just a lot better served by doing so in a way that doesn't make you look like an adolescent with an anger management problem. When I say I eat weak people for breakfast, what I am referring to as weak people are the types who respond to rational arguments with emotional melodrama as this guy is doing. It has nothing to do with speaking legalese and everything to do with engaging in rational discourse rather than untoward ad hominem attacks.
I actually went to law school because I was sick of people taking 'IANAL' the wrong way.
There is a proper way to tell the court that the allegations against you are ridiculous
The word you're looking for is "bullshit."
Of "everything that guy just said is bullshit" fame.
I never said you had to kiss any asses. If you really think that this guy's panicky, emotional, ad hominem response does anything but embolden his opponents, I'd like to hear your explanation. As someone who does eat weak people for breakfast for a living, I speak from personal experience when I say that this guy could have told them all to go fuck themselves a lot more effectively than he did. No ass-kissing necessary.
Exactly. Use words like "frivolous," not words like "fuck" and "slim[e]." If you are able to tell the judge that the case against you is frivolous in a cogent, adult manner, he might actually listen. If your response is littered with profanity and personal attacks on others, he likely won't. Having the judge listen to you is usually a good thing.
The "right way" being to craft a stately letter filled with "professional" prose, and thus confering not a small amount of legitimacy to the actions of these blackmailers. By doing so, the responder tacitly recognises the worthiness of the claims to be heard in court and dives headfirst into the molasses of rules, traditions and procedures of the legal system, where cunning lawyers have the upper hand.
Better to reject their claims as contemptible nonsense, and say as much to the court when (if) the matter is finally heard. Remember, they're the ones who have to prove that you've done something wrong. It's not your job to prove you haven't.
Please do not follow this advice. Being a melodramatic child is never a good idea. There is a proper way to tell the court that the allegations against you are ridiculous and don't deserve to waste the court's time. This guy's approach is pretty much the opposite of that. It gets him on the bad side of the court without accomplishing anything.
In other words, a frequent usenet user.
No, nothing nearly so respectable. I'm an attorney.
If you are sued and you believe the lawsuit is ridiculous, you still have to handle it seriously. Failure to do so most often results in it becoming a more serious matter than it needs to be, with you fined or jailed for contempt as a bad outcome or having a default judgment entered against you as a "good" outcome.
Precisely. I am a connoisseur of strongly-worded letters, and his is not one. A strongly-worded letter strikes fear into the heart of the recipient using only on-topic attacks of the recipient's argument itself. Ad hominem attacks always have the effect of derogating your own position by the implied concession that your opponent's argument is too iron-clad for you to respond to it directly. There is a time and place for ad hominem attacks, but at least spell them right.
Picture yourself as the judge. There are two people in front of you, neither of whom you have met. One of them says, "He infringed my patent by operating a business that manufactured millions of units of products utilizing the claimed technique." The other one only says, "Fuck you, slim[e]!" Right off the bat, you are going to be biased against the guy who can't be bothered to explain why he didn't infringe the patent. He just looks like a puerile, sophomoric idiot.
Now, try it again. This time, however, the second guy says, "The suggestion that I infringed his patent is almost too absurd to form a response. Not only was I never in a manufacturing business, but no activity I have ever undertaken has utilized the technique claimed in the patent. Even the slightest bit of factual research could have reached that conclusion prior to bringing this lawsuit against me." Now, the first guy is the one who looks like a lazy buffoon.
And that's how you word things strongly. And, if you really want to have some fun, use the puntacular phrase "patently ridiculous." Judges love puns!*
* - Well, not really. Some do, but only if you use them judiciously.
I'm just glad someone made that joke before I did. I sat there for five minutes, just staring at the comments and wondering whether to make a coyote joke or not. Now, my worries are over.
Those would be troll patents. This is about patent trolls. But English has a patented word order, so if you're not a native speaker this can be forgiven.
I wouldn't worry about it too much. This entire comment thread is based on patently false notions of the legal system underlying this situation. First you have the suggestion that local legislators are in favor of patent troll lawsuits. Then, when that's explained to be wrong, you have the suggestion that 'East Texas laws' (whatever those are - East Texas is not its own legislative jurisdiction with its own laws, it's just a federally-created judicial district for the federal courts) should be changed to stop this from happening. I hesitate to imagine what ridiculous idea is going to come up in response to your correction. We can only hope that it's a Godwin-approved car analogy.
The other part of the story is that his letter is going to end up in front of the federal judge. He might be entitled to sanctions to compensate him for the wasted time and expense in responding to a lawsuit that was brought against him with no basis in reality, but federal judges tend to disdain juvenile responses to serious matters. Like many things in life, there is a right way and a wrong way to respond to a ridiculous lawsuit - this guy chose the wrong way and it will most likely end up costing him.
People hate America for many reasons. It would be naive at best to suggest that there is a simple fix (reducing military spending by 90%, as was suggested by the OP) that would eliminate all (as was claimed by the OP) of these reasons. History has shown that America cannot just adjust its response to any one reason that it is hated without adversely affecting another reason, unless you know of counterexamples that I am not thinking of right now.
In reality, the hatred of America is a complicated thing that one must grok every reason for before claiming to have a solution.
For instance, if you think that there is any action whatsoever that America could take that would keep even just the Middle East as a whole from hating it, much less the entire world, go ahead and suggest it. It is very likely that some Middle East nation or people would hate America for taking your advice, even if it improved relationships with another.
You never know. You could find a lawyer willing to handle your case on a contingency basis if you can show a definite license violation and have solid proof of damages.
No, I didn't say that they only hate Americans for their freedom. I said that they will hate America regardless of the amount of meddling it does. People definitely hate imperious meddling. But they also hate having America sit idle.
Do I think that American foreign policy could stand to be improved? Yes. That's undeniable. Do I think that the world will love America if it cuts its military to 1/10 the size (as the OP's suggestion was)? Not a chance.
What amuses me is that people think United States of America is a singular noun.
States have a fairly good grip on education, and most recent federal attempts at improving it do the exact opposite. No Child Left Behind, for instance. There are things that could be improved, but the federal government would be better left to fixing existing, broken educational laws than nationalizing education any further.
As to health care, please itemize the existing nationalized health care systems in the world and indicate, citing to empirical sources, which of them provide better or more timely care than is currently available to Americans. Let's leave greedy insurance companies out of the equation for now. We can talk about the admitted shortcomings in affordability of health care to certain (but not nearly a majority of) people in America later, once it is shown that quality and timeliness of care decrease as a function of nationalization.
What is your definition of being "just cool with people"? Do you really believe that the world will stop hating America if America stops meddling in other nations' affairs? What are your thoughts on interfering when a state-sponsored genocide is in progress? There is no happy medium. Large portions of the world are going to hate the United States of America no matter its foreign policy. You can't make everyone happy, and you certainly can't do it when they have already come to depend on you for one thing or another. It would not surprise me to see America the target of more hatred and violent attacks after returning to isolationism than in its most internationally-meddling times.
Example of that for you: Meg Griffin.
But what you're suggesting doesn't recognize that voices are unique and that Futurama had several of the best voice actors since Mel Blanc. There simply are not people capable of perfectly replicating every voice that Billy West, John DiMaggio, Maurice LeMarche, etc. used in Futurama. This is especially true when you look at how the actors developed their characters' voices, inflections, speech rhythms, and so on as the series progressed.
Futurama without at least Billy West and John DiMaggio is not Futurama. Those two brought too much to the show independent of the writing and directing.
Watch some anime; you'll get used to it.
NO I demmand the original japanese cast with subtitles!
Original cast, nothing! I demand the original subtitle artists/technicians/whatever!
If you have real talent, getting signed by a major label isn't exactly an easy path. It's only easy after you get signed, or maybe even after a couple of albums when you've got enough momentum that you can bounce back when the record company stabs you in the back.
Any band that has signed with a major label since Napster was shut down is complicit.
I agree with the fact of their complicity but not with the degree. Most bands sign with major labels because it gives them greater income, greater exposure, and an overall greater reward for their years of hard work in getting to that point. Don't punish the artists who are actually creating art just because they are part of a system that gives them no choice for ultimate success other than signing with a major label. Punish the source of the problem, not a fellow victim.
Actually, as an attorney, I can say that it's not always that cynicism-worthy. Many young, bright attorneys choose to work for firms that give them leeway to take on pro bono cases, specifically because they know that they can do some good for the world by taking them. I personally hate the numerous times every week that my phone rings and I think to myself, "I wish I could afford to help this guy for free, because what was done to him is just plain wrong.," and then explain that it's not the type of case I can handle on a contingency fee basis and that it will cost him X dollars per hour. I give every person who calls me the advice not to chase bad money with good, and all too often they take it, much to my chagrin, because I really wanted to help them out.
That said, by most attorneys' third year at the mega-firms that have very pro-bono-friendly policies, they fit the pattern you described to a tee. Youthful idealism gives way to wanting more status symbols fairly rapidly when you work at those places.
The point is that criminal enforcement of a copyright law is not a new thing. The DMCA is, by the way, so unrelated to copyright law that only 25% of its letters stand for the word "copyright."
Yeah, "Grumpo" said he added the FBI warnings to his wares to make the bootlegged tapes seem more authentic. I think he may have used the wrong crayon to write the warning, though.