If I'm a dad with young children,... it's actually a pretty fucking cool idea.
If that's not just a hypothetical, can I ask you a small favor? Please set a good example for your young children when it comes to swearing. I'm not asking you to force them never to swear and to censor all they hear and read, but they should learn that there is a time and place for everything, and foul language is most effective when used in the right venue and sparingly.
Of course, assuming that it's not obnoxious as hell to use, this mouse and the multi-user preferences of MacOS make it pretty fucking cool, I have to agree.:)
When I think of critics acclaiming something, I think of "critically acclaimed," just as you worded it. "Universally" means everyone, critics and others. Maybe that's just me, though.
It's universally acclaimed, and by "universally acclaimed" I mean that neither I nor anyone I know had even heard of it before this article. Maybe everyone who used one liked it, but you have to be ubiquitous before you can be universally acclaimed. Of course, nobody who knows what ubiquitous actually means other than "cool gadget that I saw in Best Buy on two occasions" has ever had a story approved for the front page of Slashdot.
The one thing KDE always lacked for me was an applet that would check my IMAP boxes over SSL. A central KDE configuration section for mailboxes that kmail and the various xbiff-thingies would all use would probably be a nice thing. But I don't use KDE anymore. I use XFCE in Linux and will soon even be done with that, in favor of MacOS X all-around.
Yes, many of them do include KDE 3.4. This article is about KDE 3.5. Also, I asked what's really new since 3.0 that isn't just an incremental improvement. I've run KDE before, at least once during each major version from before the dawn of time (I forget the exact version and year, but I ran it on a Sparcstation IPX running OpenBSD, during high school) through 3.3. I'm no stranger to KDE - I just wonder what is so special about the 3.5 preview that makes it front-page "news for nerds" or stuff that even remotely matters.
For some, success is holding a conference on schedule with no deaths or maimings. For others, it is deciding exactly what the goals are for the next release. The blurb does not tell us what success the conference actually met, and from the other comments so far it appears that the article doesn't, either.
Why not just say "Sixth DebConf Ends" instead of "...Ends in Success" when the additional words are meaningless?
Regarding the MS suit against Google, from the article I linked you to earlier in the thread:
In a complaint filed in King County Superior Court in Seattle, Microsoft accused Lee of breaking his 2000 employment contract, in part by taking a job with a direct competitor within a year of leaving the company.
This is exactly the issue we're talking about. How enforceable is that contract?
IAALStudent, and any court can apply any law. Federal court in diversity jurisdiction has to pick a state whose law it will apply to a given case, for instance. As another example, contracts can be written so as to be governed by a given state's laws (read your banking and credit card contracts; many of them will be governed by Delaware law even if your bank has no idea where Delaware is), and those contracts can be enforced in any state.
An example of that would be a case that came before the North Dakota Supreme Court in which the California court system had a case concerning a contract governed by North Dakota law (don't ask - the ND Supreme Court couldn't figure out why they picked ND law for the contract, either) and couldn't figure out the answer to a question of ND law, so they sent a certified question of law to the ND Supreme Court. But they had to apply ND law in the CA court.
That said, if they can get the matter in a California court, and there is a dispute as to which state's laws apply, it might be easier to convince the CA court to apply CA law than the other possibilities.
I don't think it would be that drastic of a result. To me, the legal question is mostly one of enforceability of the contract between Microsoft and the guy they lost, on its face. I personally tend to favor the right to freely contract, including to enter unwise contracts such as those with draconian non-competition clauses. Fortunately, the legal system also has built-in protections for contracts that are not just unwise, but also unavoidable. Say that Microsoft wins this, and it becomes the law of the land that non-competition clauses are enforceable all over the globe. If that's the case, then either people will negotiate harder to avoid non-competition clauses, or everyone will be required to sign one to work for anyone in the IT industry.
If the latter happens, then those contracts would be what are called contracts of adhesion and, given that they are unconscionable , I would think courts would opt not to enforce them.
It would take more than that to destroy employee rights entirely, although it is certainly a step down that road.
There are torts called "interference with contract" and "interference with prospective advantage." The case isn't frivolous for certain, although it sure does appear that way on the surface. I would like to read Microsoft's Complaint as well as Google's Answer and counterclaim to see exactly what is being alleged and what claims are being made, but thesmokinggun.com only seems to get ahold of court documents in frivolous cases involving celebrities or prostitutes.
Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) sued Google Inc. (GOOG) on Tuesday, accusing it of poaching a top executive the search engine company had wooed away to head a new research lab in China.
The Redmond-based software power also sued the executive, Kai-Fu Lee, whose appointment Google trumpeted in a news release announcing the lab's establishment.
There is a lawsuit with Microsoft on one side and Google on the other, where the issue is whether a non-compete employment contract is enforceable. Is that not correct?
The lawsuit is Microsoft v. Google. Any similarly-named lawsuit in the US matters a great deal. The surprising thing to me is that Google is countersuing in California instead of removing to Federal court. Regardless, both companies can afford to fight this through to the bitter end, and that means that whoever loses will probably appeal the case, and there will be precedent set as to the validity of such anti-competition clauses in employment contracts on a multi-state level.
The Constitution establishes a government which is clearly not democratic. The Founding Fathers trusted majority rule only slightly more than they trusted kings (or perhaps less, or perhaps there was no relevant difference at the time since a majority of people wanted Washington to be their king, or whatever other situation existed... the point is that they didn't trust majorities). That's why we have the Electoral College and why the Senate was originally selected by state legislatures (which only failed to work out because the state legislatures were corrupt).
I join the Founding Fathers in distrusting majority rule. Americans voted last fall almost unanimously for either George W. Bush or John Kerry. That alone says something about the intelligence of democratic majorities.
Consider this line of thought: There is no such thing as a constitutional democracy. Democracy and written constitutions are mutually exclusive because true majority rule means that you make decisions purely according to a democratic process, whereas written constitutions set limits on what decisions you can make.
Personally, I prefer the constitutional republic to democracy, and I prefer the confederation to the single state. The states of North Dakota, California, and Alabama (to use three examples out of 50) should be able to operate as independently as possible while maintaining a strong union - there is no reason to let Los Angeles County tell North Dakotans how to farm, and there is no reason to let North Dakota tell the California Highway Patrol how to run things. But that's a separate discussion entirely.:)
Slashdot Mirror
If I'm a dad with young children, ... it's actually a pretty fucking cool idea.
:)
If that's not just a hypothetical, can I ask you a small favor? Please set a good example for your young children when it comes to swearing. I'm not asking you to force them never to swear and to censor all they hear and read, but they should learn that there is a time and place for everything, and foul language is most effective when used in the right venue and sparingly.
Of course, assuming that it's not obnoxious as hell to use, this mouse and the multi-user preferences of MacOS make it pretty fucking cool, I have to agree.
How to Write Unmaintainable Code. Enough said. Read it.
Don't blame the editors -- the press release contains the same irritatingly vague language.
Wherever the blame lies, the language isn't irritatingly vague. It's irritatingly wrong. I can accept vague just fine. Wrong is another story.
Jigga, what?
When I think of critics acclaiming something, I think of "critically acclaimed," just as you worded it. "Universally" means everyone, critics and others. Maybe that's just me, though.
It's universally acclaimed, and by "universally acclaimed" I mean that neither I nor anyone I know had even heard of it before this article. Maybe everyone who used one liked it, but you have to be ubiquitous before you can be universally acclaimed. Of course, nobody who knows what ubiquitous actually means other than "cool gadget that I saw in Best Buy on two occasions" has ever had a story approved for the front page of Slashdot.
Thanks for answering my question. :)
The one thing KDE always lacked for me was an applet that would check my IMAP boxes over SSL. A central KDE configuration section for mailboxes that kmail and the various xbiff-thingies would all use would probably be a nice thing. But I don't use KDE anymore. I use XFCE in Linux and will soon even be done with that, in favor of MacOS X all-around.
Yes, many of them do include KDE 3.4. This article is about KDE 3.5. Also, I asked what's really new since 3.0 that isn't just an incremental improvement. I've run KDE before, at least once during each major version from before the dawn of time (I forget the exact version and year, but I ran it on a Sparcstation IPX running OpenBSD, during high school) through 3.3. I'm no stranger to KDE - I just wonder what is so special about the 3.5 preview that makes it front-page "news for nerds" or stuff that even remotely matters.
Everything you mention was true about 3.0.
Can someone go through the changelog and tell us what's actually new since 3.0?
For some, success is holding a conference on schedule with no deaths or maimings. For others, it is deciding exactly what the goals are for the next release. The blurb does not tell us what success the conference actually met, and from the other comments so far it appears that the article doesn't, either.
Why not just say "Sixth DebConf Ends" instead of "...Ends in Success" when the additional words are meaningless?
Luck still wins. After postage, handling, and taxes, you'll probably get a bill from Yahoo for their time. :P
And I've pointed out elsewhere in this thread that there are recognized legal actions against third parties for interference with contract.
IAALStudent, and any court can apply any law. Federal court in diversity jurisdiction has to pick a state whose law it will apply to a given case, for instance. As another example, contracts can be written so as to be governed by a given state's laws (read your banking and credit card contracts; many of them will be governed by Delaware law even if your bank has no idea where Delaware is), and those contracts can be enforced in any state.
An example of that would be a case that came before the North Dakota Supreme Court in which the California court system had a case concerning a contract governed by North Dakota law (don't ask - the ND Supreme Court couldn't figure out why they picked ND law for the contract, either) and couldn't figure out the answer to a question of ND law, so they sent a certified question of law to the ND Supreme Court. But they had to apply ND law in the CA court.
That said, if they can get the matter in a California court, and there is a dispute as to which state's laws apply, it might be easier to convince the CA court to apply CA law than the other possibilities.
I don't think it would be that drastic of a result. To me, the legal question is mostly one of enforceability of the contract between Microsoft and the guy they lost, on its face. I personally tend to favor the right to freely contract, including to enter unwise contracts such as those with draconian non-competition clauses. Fortunately, the legal system also has built-in protections for contracts that are not just unwise, but also unavoidable. Say that Microsoft wins this, and it becomes the law of the land that non-competition clauses are enforceable all over the globe. If that's the case, then either people will negotiate harder to avoid non-competition clauses, or everyone will be required to sign one to work for anyone in the IT industry.
If the latter happens, then those contracts would be what are called contracts of adhesion and, given that they are unconscionable , I would think courts would opt not to enforce them.
It would take more than that to destroy employee rights entirely, although it is certainly a step down that road.
There are torts called "interference with contract" and "interference with prospective advantage." The case isn't frivolous for certain, although it sure does appear that way on the surface. I would like to read Microsoft's Complaint as well as Google's Answer and counterclaim to see exactly what is being alleged and what claims are being made, but thesmokinggun.com only seems to get ahold of court documents in frivolous cases involving celebrities or prostitutes.
The article originally linked to by Slashdot says:
There is a lawsuit with Microsoft on one side and Google on the other, where the issue is whether a non-compete employment contract is enforceable. Is that not correct?
The lawsuit is Microsoft v. Google. Any similarly-named lawsuit in the US matters a great deal. The surprising thing to me is that Google is countersuing in California instead of removing to Federal court. Regardless, both companies can afford to fight this through to the bitter end, and that means that whoever loses will probably appeal the case, and there will be precedent set as to the validity of such anti-competition clauses in employment contracts on a multi-state level.
You need to read The Greatest Generation, by Tom Brokaw. He talks a lot about how incredibly modest most WWII veterans were upon their return home.
I tried to link it. I must have typoed the closing tag or something and got caught by the Slashfilter. Thanks for the follow-up.
The Constitution establishes a government which is clearly not democratic. The Founding Fathers trusted majority rule only slightly more than they trusted kings (or perhaps less, or perhaps there was no relevant difference at the time since a majority of people wanted Washington to be their king, or whatever other situation existed ... the point is that they didn't trust majorities). That's why we have the Electoral College and why the Senate was originally selected by state legislatures (which only failed to work out because the state legislatures were corrupt).
:)
I join the Founding Fathers in distrusting majority rule. Americans voted last fall almost unanimously for either George W. Bush or John Kerry. That alone says something about the intelligence of democratic majorities.
Consider this line of thought: There is no such thing as a constitutional democracy. Democracy and written constitutions are mutually exclusive because true majority rule means that you make decisions purely according to a democratic process, whereas written constitutions set limits on what decisions you can make.
Personally, I prefer the constitutional republic to democracy, and I prefer the confederation to the single state. The states of North Dakota, California, and Alabama (to use three examples out of 50) should be able to operate as independently as possible while maintaining a strong union - there is no reason to let Los Angeles County tell North Dakotans how to farm, and there is no reason to let North Dakota tell the California Highway Patrol how to run things. But that's a separate discussion entirely.
It's Daylight Saving Time. Not "Savings." See Wikipedia for an explanation.
Chocolatiers.