Because it's just like driving through any other toll plaza anywhere else. I've not heard of any that don't use cameras to track cars or give away the fact that you crossed the control point with your ETC transponder. How this information is any different from going through other toll plazas or border crossings is beyond me. Moreover, why it matters is also a puzzling thought. So a computer knows you drove into Manhattan. It's not like it would have been a secret without these toll plazas.
If "they" want to watch you, they can do it. That ability is not new, nor is it going anywhere. Attempting to attribute some lingering fear to the fact that you're visible to others in public is paranoid.
The other half of this argument (setting aside for a moment the fact that the law can't STOP anyone from doing anything) that are against the law) is that they shouldn't have to stop people from distributing because people shouldn't be doing it in the first place. It's not yours. The internet and computers don't change the things that you should do. It's not your video. That's really the end of it, right there. Regardless of how easy it is or how little harm you see in it, it's not your decision to make and a rational person can see that. You can debate about how it's an artificial monopoly or how it shouldn't be considered property until you're blue in the face, but whatever 'it' is, it's not yours.
Even if you've got a legitimate copy, it doesn't exist in a standalone vacuum under your express and complete monopoly. No law or legal system has ever endorsed that view. If you own stock in a company (and really it's not far off from having a copy--you're essentially an investor in the product), you can't make copies and give them away because it devalues every other investor. Even if you own just two shares and you give two shares to just one other person and the effect is negligible, you don't have that right. And before you say that a stock share has value and a copy doesn't, let me remind you that a stock share is a piece of paper whose "real" worth is nothing more than the paper it's written on--it only has value because the company and the stock market say it has value.
I certainly agree with your point, and that the TSA is a farce (they've busted a laptop and ruined a $600 suit by dumping a $30 bottle of shampoo over the contents of a garment bag), but the second one is a bit tight-assed to complain about.
Yes, it's unprofessional, and that's a point well taken. But it's one of the few instances I've heard of where TSA employees actually demonstrate that they might be, you know, human. It's a tough job, having to enforce stupid rules and pretending that you have any effect at all on making air travel safer, all the while dealing with angry, stressed out people who hate you (not that the hatred is unjustified). A bit of harmless fun is hardly a problem and society needs to loosen up about it.
They simply care more about getting a product that has the functionality they want at a price they can afford. This was addressed, which is all the more delicious given that you're talking about not reading: "The 'economy PC' market is just cheap computers. That's it. It happens, for obvious reasons, to comprise systems that favor performance over design. That does not say anything about preference--i.e. what customers "care more" about."
If you are buying a computer and the most important feature for you is the design, then you buying a fashion accessory that happens to be a computer as well. Which is a clever but unsuccessful attempt at an end-run around this issue. Neither extreme actually exists. If you're buying a computer for your home, it is not up to you to specify what is categorically more important. For the overwhelming majority of the market, the most basic computer is more than adequate. The only real reason to spend more is for prestige--whether that's beefier components or a stylish, elegant design is dependent on personal preference. Both meet any basic set of needs, but people in general are more likely to buy the "pretty" one than the "absolute fastest" one. It's pretty logical--paying leading-edge premiums for components is a rapidly depreciating asset. Paying premiums for sophisticated design is a longer-lasting investment. Resale value speaks to that, as does the popularity of second-hand Macs with "budget" shoppers.
Stop trying to force a binary where none exists. It is neither impossible nor counterintuitive to buy a computer based on its design. You can't eliminate aesthetic design from anything tangible, and you can't eliminate the computer from a computer to prove your point. (Il)logical extremes are not your friend.
They simply care more about getting a product that has the functionality they want at a price they can afford. That's how I define the "economy PC market". If you still don't get what I mean, look up the word "economical". Again, you're disregarding the monetary value of design. You are psychologically prone to a continuing failure to see the distinction.
An economical person does not necessarily value any particular performance functionality over design. An economical person will simply strive to get his or her required features for the lowest possible price. The design of the product may indeed be a feature and could be the most important feature. Economics doesn't have anything to do with performance. It has to do with money, period.
You are attempting to impose an innate superiority to specifications over design. No such distinction exists. The "economy PC" market is just cheap computers. That's it. It happens, for obvious reasons, to comprise systems that favor performance over design. That does not say anything about preference--i.e. what customers "care more" about. You gave it away when you said "a computer, not a fashion accessory," as if there should be a distinction between the two--and now you're trying to backpedal from it. There's little difference between appliances and fashion accessories. They all do the job; people will generally choose the most aesthetically pleasing product that meets their needs.
No, it does not represent the entirety of the economy PC market. There are people with no money who care about appearance as well. They, like most people, desire more than an ugly box. They are forced by their means to sacrifice that. It's not that all poor people have no taste. Paying for aesthetics is a luxury they're not able to do, whether it's furniture, cars, dinnerware, artwork, or computers.
It is also quite far from saying it's most of the market overall. Given the choice, the overwhelming majority of people would select the more attractive, better designed product over an identical one with no redeeming features. As I said, most people DO care about appearance. That second group in the OP, it seems to me, targets the Slashdot demographic of people with no or poor taste or no regard for design. People who do not place any value on aesthetics tend to dominate the anti-Apple comparisons here, because they are unable or unwilling to see beyond the specs.
They do not reflect the world at large. A Lexus ES is more or less a fancy Camry. An Audi A4 is an upmarket VW Passat, trimmed down in size a bit. These models sell exceedingly well despite having performance features that fall far below justifying their price tags. People are interested in and willing to pay for a combination of the two, something you're trying to dismiss. Apple doesn't "quite obviously" target people care "more about appearance than price"--they target people who care about appearance, period. Apple prices are highly competitive with matching systems. They don't offer the flexibility of choice, so if your ideal system differs from Apple's offerings, you're going to find a better deal or a closer match from someone else. That's the way it works and the way it's meant to work.
No, it represents most of the economy PC market. It's a huge market segment and Apple doesn't care about them. It's a business decision that works just fine for them.
People are, by and large, more than happy to pay for something attractive if they can afford it. Design details and a presentable appearance are highly sought-after. Look how well the "pretty" Samsung HDTVs sell. They're unabashedly more expensive than even Samsung's own "basic" designs, let alone budget manufacturers, and yet they're among the best sellers of their classes. People DO care what something looks like if they're going to spend a lot of time looking at it. The trend for richer materials in the home isn't slowing down (granite, stone tile, stainless steel appliances, faux finishes, crafted light fixtures, etc.).
Most people are not practical by nature. Many are forced to be by budget constraints, but design is worth something. Simplicity/elegance is worth something. An enjoyable experience with all facets of a product is worth something. People will pay for it. Yes, you're shutting out bottom-dollar customers. They can buy something else.
Number 2 is wrong. Aluminum has fantastic thermal properties for baking cakes and delicate confections. Its use on the stovetop is undesirable because it is such a direct conductor. Aluminum is useful in a wider array of circumstances than cast iron or glass, so it makes little sense to demonize it.
As for number 3, a "pinch" actually is a technical amount (generally equal to 1/16 t or 1/4 to 1/2 of a gram depending on the ingredient--the precision to which you obey those measures is a personal preference) and "medium heat" is a known convention. Adjusting your own cooktop temperature as needed is just good common sense. The measure is as precise as possible, however--precision set cooktops don't exist and it's up to the cook to know the ideal settings of his cooktop. Issues such as the material of the cooking vessel, ambient temperature, heat loss from the element, and the cooktop's calibration mean that specifying a specific temperature would ultimately be useless. Where it is important, a directly-measured temperature of the pan's contents is specified.
Take whatever liberties you want with recipes and explore the results, but it's poor advice to tell people to depart from the recipe, particularly in confections and many kinds of baked goods. There's no reason not to follow a recipe--"local variations" are generally irrelevant and within the margin of error for the recipe, which is why you can use a certain degree of freedom without disaster.
You were bitching about the government taking away your fun. That was easily debunked. Now you're bitching about unsprung weight, which is decidedly less important on a smooth and well-maintained track than on actual roads. Your "problem" keeps shifting. Neither this article nor most safety systems add to unsprung weight. Traction control is the only one that does, and this weight is more than offset by the improved tracking of the car. Whining about it is like being upset that modern jet engines won't let you stall them.
It's also not entirely true. Nissan marketed its cars in the US under the Datsun name, that's true. However, the Nissan company name has existed since 1934 and has been used in an official capacity in the United States since 1959, long before this Mr. Nissan entered the automobile industry with his family-named business.
It's certainly unfortunate that someone's family name interferes with a service mark, but this has been well established with other companies--Ford, Dodge, Chrysler, and so on. Mr. Nissan may not have been aware of the prior connection and the court has tried to be as sympathetic as possible to the fact that he was only using his own name for his own business.
As for the "mysterious change to 1994"--that is clearly explained as moving from a local market, where Nissan might have been permitted to use his company name without tremendously interfering with Nissan Motor, to an international market (the Internet), where Nissan Motor was unquestionably the owner of the service marks. Mr. Nissan skipped by with squatters' rights, but the domain association and bulk of mindshare belongs to Nissan Motors. The case would be like demanding that GMail change its name worldwide. A company in one US state with a conflict probably wouldn't even carry enough weight to get the US name changed.
The purpose of which being what? We don't have an Autobahn. If you're importing a car, the only requirements are seat belts and airbags, which you're okay with. You're not forced by the government to get anything else. If you're going to be driving like a jackass, you'll probably want those safety features one day.
Thin clients are a massive and undesirable infrastructure change. Parallels is different from running a VM because all the handoffs are transparent. You put in a Windows CD or launch an.exe file, and it takes care of it more or less like Windows. A VM in the background only works for completely managed environments set up by the IT staff, and even still represents an unnecessary amount of network traffic and overhead for what should be done locally. Installing and managing local VMs gets right back to the problem of being adequate but completely undesired.
"It can be done" isn't good enough. It has to be well-executed and seamless.
Connecting to a VM for users to access an application is not reasonable. Remote desktop poses the same problem, and Wine is just a shim. There are a million *suboptimal* ways for corporations to set this up. Ubuntu would most certainly benefit from improved Windows compatibility, not just for the corporate environment, but for everyone. Something like Parallels or Crossover on the Mac have the right idea, but it needs to be seamless, more like Rosetta, for it to take off.
Very true, but unfortunately irrelevant. In a different world where Ubuntu reigns supreme, someone might care. Unfortunately, the onus is on the bit players to be compatible with the standard, even if the standard is merely a de facto one.
Running Windows software out of the box is perhaps the most obvious way to get ahead--it's how Windows beat out OS/2!
That said, there is a philosophical disconnect as well. Most people don't have any real trouble with Windows, or perhaps more accurately, don't see what they do each day AS trouble. Just like the adage, "you don't know what you have until you lose it," you don't know what you have to put up with until you no longer have to deal with it.
As for all the lofty ideals of open source people: no one cares. There's also no reason they should, so don't waste time lamenting the "ignorant masses." Just give them a product that works fully and competes everywhere it should (this includes the UI--it's more than colors and eye candy, and while they can't grasp usability, Microsoft does know a thing or two about layout and presentation). You'll get a philosophical win by proxy--that should be motivation enough.
Strangely enough, seat belts and driver/passenger airbags ARE the only features required by the government. Looks like you're on the same page as big brother, there.
ABS, traction control, collision avoidance hardware, side-curtain airbags, and the like are all optional equipment. Just try buying a base model entry-level car--it likely won't have anti-lock brakes. Two examples: Ford Focus, Nissan Versa.
Now, if you mean that you can't get an upscale car without these features, then yes. Damn Audi for making my car safer without interfering with my driving! I can't do donuts in the mountains and the car stays firmly on track around we corners. How dare they! These are Bad Things for public roadways--if you want to have fun with a plain mechanical system from the 70s, do it on your own property, not six feet behind my back bumper, thank you very much.
That's pretty near the crux of the issue. Any other auction can be pulled or delisted until it is sold. eBay's prohibition may exceed a given standard for what is fair and appropriate. There is no evidence that the item was sold in that period. The offer to sell may have occurred first and the seller, upon returning to eBay to cancel bidding, was prevented. That would be wholly out of the seller's ability to complete the auction--s/he is no longer in possession of the item.
You are not bound in other instances--you may accept higher outside bids or higher offers at any time. People lose houses all the time due to this. It remains the seller's property and the decision to sell to someone else or not to sell is customarily theirs to make at any time prior to auction close. eBay is interfering with the seller's right to control his property in the interest of making eBay work better. However, a prohibition in the last hour would be more than sufficient to cover the problem and equally effective at solving it. Personally, I feel eBay should have to live with pulled auctions entirely, but I'm willing to concede a one hour window--not 5 or 12 or 24 or 48. It's the seller equivalent to last-minute bid sniping, which they accept as part of the reality of auctions.
As eBay's terms also state, as I recall, that eBay is a purchasing site for entertainment only, it would be difficult to present an argument that someone was harmed by the failure of such an auction. It's like buying something and having it not be in stock or be purchased just minutes before you and the computer hasn't updated to reflect that. You think you're getting it, the computer thinks it's available, but it's not.
There's no "however" there. Reread the original comment. A contract is in place at the end of the auction. The issue is whether outside circumstances void said contract--for example, a product being unavailable, destroyed, damaged, or the like would release the seller from his obligation, provided s/he refunds the money and assuming the seller did not act in bad faith by listing the item. The completion of an outside transaction could be one of those circumstances if it happened before the end of the auction. Normally, the seller would de-list the item and avoid any issue. However, eBay policies in place prevent de-listing of items in a way that disadvantages both potential buyers and sellers. It was designed to prevent sellers from deleting auctions at the last minute, but the buffer zone is too wide and it has negative consequences. This case is one potential example.
Because eBay now prohibits the cancellation of auctions by sellers at certain points, the seller has lost the primary means of remedying a problem with the listing that occurs AFTER it is put up for auction. One cannot ensure that there will be no extenuating circumstances in the future--no one knows the future, which is partly why bidding is speculative. If I'm auctioning a boat and that boat sinks, and the auction list provides no means to de-list the item, it's not an enforceable contract. Even if you've wired money to me, as long as I return that money, it's over.
Normally, if you win an auction, you have a reasonable expectation to receive that item. However, if the auction should never have been permitted to end with a winning bid and the cause of that erroneous completion is outside the seller's control, that expectation may not be the controlling issue.
In most cases the transaction is considered complete when there is a transfer of 'consideration'. No. A *contract* is considered complete when there is an exchange of consideration. A *transaction* is complete when money has been received or guaranteed (by a credit agreement, for example) and the good or service has been conveyed (if the transaction is simply a contract (i.e. a license), then what you say is more or less correct). The promise of money and the offer of a good/service is enough to form a contract, but in most cases it is not absolutely binding. If the product turns out to be out of stock, the money is returned and that's the end. If there has been some sort of error in the agreement on price, the agreement may be void as well.
Estoppel, or more specifically reliance estoppel as applicable here, requires unconscionable behavior on the part of the seller. If a separate buyer was achieved but the seller was unable to cancel the auction prior to completion, there's a strong chance that it doesn't meet the standard for unconscionability. On the other hand, the seller should have contacted bidders or so forth, so it's a muddy case.
As always, this is neither legal advice nor a solicitation for such advice.
No, it isn't grammatically incorrect. Plural markers are not always expressed at the articulatory or orthographical levels, and companies are treated as plural entities by the conventions used in the UK and many other Commonwealth English countries. It's got nothing to do with being incorrect, since there is no "correct" grammar and no universal English. You can't apply your local grammar to other locations any more than you can apply your local accent to other speakers. Treating a company like an individual is also a US thing and has evolved independent of other common law legal systems.
It's just as jarring to the English when you say "IBM is."
Re:All bank vaults and locks have also been cracke
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No, lockpicking is not a terribly specialized skill, and no, not only the lockpicker can steal the property. Once the lock is picked and left open, anyone can steal anything until the lock is replaced.
Once the lock is broken, anyone can get it. The only difference is that you can replace locks quickly and DRM isn't so fast. You're still missing the point, moreover, that a lock is more a reminder than a safety device. You can punch through the glass in the door, break a window, or even brute-force defeat a lock. Most of them are not that strong. It's a casual deterrent and a reminder that you're breaking into something that you're not supposed to. That's it.
Re:All bank vaults and locks have also been cracke
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Most locks can be picked with a minimum of effort. They can certainly be bypassed. The point isn't to provide an unsinkable defense. It's to provide a reminder to people that there's a line they're crossing and it's one they should not.
The goal isn't to stop determined criminals or to make it impossible to crack. The goal is simply to be a lock like the one on nearly any door in the world.
Re:You've already fallen into their trap
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No. Fair Use doesn't cover personal use. They're different things, which is part of what Slashdot doesn't understand. Fair Use comprises protections for commentary and review--it's for academic and journalistic purposes. There are legitimate and noninfringing personal use provisions, but they're not Fair Use.
Copyright law isn't required to form a contract, because all the online distribution sites have independent user agreements and terms of services which ARE legally binding. There is no question about their legality as a class, contrary to Slashdot belief. No case has ever challenged the validity of user agreements or EULAs themselves.
As a rightsholder or distributor, any legal terms can be put into a usage agreement to the license for a work. Copyright law prevents only the setting of terms on copy ownership. The work itself remains the property and in full ownership of the copyright holder. They can't tell you what to do with the CD, but they certainly can tell you what to do with the content, except where you're protected by law. As for digital files, all you're buying is a license. There's no ownership of anything else involved. You can't own bits and bytes.
It's not about a correlation of lost profits with download activity. DRM is about reminding people that it's not a free lunch. People abused the openness and actions needed to be taken. There's no question about that. You can't sit idly by and watch hundreds of millions of people blatantly steal without responding. The problem is only that the response was unbalanced and ill-advised. DRM itself as a concept is perfectly reasonable, but it was implemented in an absurd way that prevents certain kinds of legitimate uses--not to the extent decried by Slashdot, but there is a point there.
The solution for artists to abandon the RIAA and MPAA is absolutely a good one. But the current approach is not encouraging that directly. It's an indirect consequence of the current scenario. Artists have always been fed up with the stupid labels and recording industries. But instead of helping the artists and producers, people are more hell-bent on trying to hurt the industry groups, which remain in a position to take it out on the artists. Setting up alternative labels that can compete with the RIAA would be the preferred approach, but it would be difficult and immensely expensive. The easier thing to do is bitch about it.
You need lots of money, lots of distribution agreements, and lots of advertising power. Give the artists an option to go to so that they're not forced to sign with an "evil" label. Right now only very successful artists can afford to break with them, and becoming successful is largely dependent on the RIAA for most musicians.
Slashdot Mirror
Because it's just like driving through any other toll plaza anywhere else. I've not heard of any that don't use cameras to track cars or give away the fact that you crossed the control point with your ETC transponder. How this information is any different from going through other toll plazas or border crossings is beyond me. Moreover, why it matters is also a puzzling thought. So a computer knows you drove into Manhattan. It's not like it would have been a secret without these toll plazas.
If "they" want to watch you, they can do it. That ability is not new, nor is it going anywhere. Attempting to attribute some lingering fear to the fact that you're visible to others in public is paranoid.
Srsly.
The other half of this argument (setting aside for a moment the fact that the law can't STOP anyone from doing anything) that are against the law) is that they shouldn't have to stop people from distributing because people shouldn't be doing it in the first place. It's not yours. The internet and computers don't change the things that you should do. It's not your video. That's really the end of it, right there. Regardless of how easy it is or how little harm you see in it, it's not your decision to make and a rational person can see that. You can debate about how it's an artificial monopoly or how it shouldn't be considered property until you're blue in the face, but whatever 'it' is, it's not yours.
Even if you've got a legitimate copy, it doesn't exist in a standalone vacuum under your express and complete monopoly. No law or legal system has ever endorsed that view. If you own stock in a company (and really it's not far off from having a copy--you're essentially an investor in the product), you can't make copies and give them away because it devalues every other investor. Even if you own just two shares and you give two shares to just one other person and the effect is negligible, you don't have that right. And before you say that a stock share has value and a copy doesn't, let me remind you that a stock share is a piece of paper whose "real" worth is nothing more than the paper it's written on--it only has value because the company and the stock market say it has value.
I certainly agree with your point, and that the TSA is a farce (they've busted a laptop and ruined a $600 suit by dumping a $30 bottle of shampoo over the contents of a garment bag), but the second one is a bit tight-assed to complain about.
Yes, it's unprofessional, and that's a point well taken. But it's one of the few instances I've heard of where TSA employees actually demonstrate that they might be, you know, human. It's a tough job, having to enforce stupid rules and pretending that you have any effect at all on making air travel safer, all the while dealing with angry, stressed out people who hate you (not that the hatred is unjustified). A bit of harmless fun is hardly a problem and society needs to loosen up about it.
Stop trying to force a binary where none exists. It is neither impossible nor counterintuitive to buy a computer based on its design. You can't eliminate aesthetic design from anything tangible, and you can't eliminate the computer from a computer to prove your point. (Il)logical extremes are not your friend.
An economical person does not necessarily value any particular performance functionality over design. An economical person will simply strive to get his or her required features for the lowest possible price. The design of the product may indeed be a feature and could be the most important feature. Economics doesn't have anything to do with performance. It has to do with money, period.
You are attempting to impose an innate superiority to specifications over design. No such distinction exists. The "economy PC" market is just cheap computers. That's it. It happens, for obvious reasons, to comprise systems that favor performance over design. That does not say anything about preference--i.e. what customers "care more" about. You gave it away when you said "a computer, not a fashion accessory," as if there should be a distinction between the two--and now you're trying to backpedal from it. There's little difference between appliances and fashion accessories. They all do the job; people will generally choose the most aesthetically pleasing product that meets their needs.
No, it does not represent the entirety of the economy PC market. There are people with no money who care about appearance as well. They, like most people, desire more than an ugly box. They are forced by their means to sacrifice that. It's not that all poor people have no taste. Paying for aesthetics is a luxury they're not able to do, whether it's furniture, cars, dinnerware, artwork, or computers.
It is also quite far from saying it's most of the market overall. Given the choice, the overwhelming majority of people would select the more attractive, better designed product over an identical one with no redeeming features. As I said, most people DO care about appearance. That second group in the OP, it seems to me, targets the Slashdot demographic of people with no or poor taste or no regard for design. People who do not place any value on aesthetics tend to dominate the anti-Apple comparisons here, because they are unable or unwilling to see beyond the specs.
They do not reflect the world at large. A Lexus ES is more or less a fancy Camry. An Audi A4 is an upmarket VW Passat, trimmed down in size a bit. These models sell exceedingly well despite having performance features that fall far below justifying their price tags. People are interested in and willing to pay for a combination of the two, something you're trying to dismiss. Apple doesn't "quite obviously" target people care "more about appearance than price"--they target people who care about appearance, period. Apple prices are highly competitive with matching systems. They don't offer the flexibility of choice, so if your ideal system differs from Apple's offerings, you're going to find a better deal or a closer match from someone else. That's the way it works and the way it's meant to work.
No, it represents most of the economy PC market. It's a huge market segment and Apple doesn't care about them. It's a business decision that works just fine for them.
People are, by and large, more than happy to pay for something attractive if they can afford it. Design details and a presentable appearance are highly sought-after. Look how well the "pretty" Samsung HDTVs sell. They're unabashedly more expensive than even Samsung's own "basic" designs, let alone budget manufacturers, and yet they're among the best sellers of their classes. People DO care what something looks like if they're going to spend a lot of time looking at it. The trend for richer materials in the home isn't slowing down (granite, stone tile, stainless steel appliances, faux finishes, crafted light fixtures, etc.).
Most people are not practical by nature. Many are forced to be by budget constraints, but design is worth something. Simplicity/elegance is worth something. An enjoyable experience with all facets of a product is worth something. People will pay for it. Yes, you're shutting out bottom-dollar customers. They can buy something else.
Number 2 is wrong. Aluminum has fantastic thermal properties for baking cakes and delicate confections. Its use on the stovetop is undesirable because it is such a direct conductor. Aluminum is useful in a wider array of circumstances than cast iron or glass, so it makes little sense to demonize it.
As for number 3, a "pinch" actually is a technical amount (generally equal to 1/16 t or 1/4 to 1/2 of a gram depending on the ingredient--the precision to which you obey those measures is a personal preference) and "medium heat" is a known convention. Adjusting your own cooktop temperature as needed is just good common sense. The measure is as precise as possible, however--precision set cooktops don't exist and it's up to the cook to know the ideal settings of his cooktop. Issues such as the material of the cooking vessel, ambient temperature, heat loss from the element, and the cooktop's calibration mean that specifying a specific temperature would ultimately be useless. Where it is important, a directly-measured temperature of the pan's contents is specified.
Take whatever liberties you want with recipes and explore the results, but it's poor advice to tell people to depart from the recipe, particularly in confections and many kinds of baked goods. There's no reason not to follow a recipe--"local variations" are generally irrelevant and within the margin of error for the recipe, which is why you can use a certain degree of freedom without disaster.
You were bitching about the government taking away your fun. That was easily debunked. Now you're bitching about unsprung weight, which is decidedly less important on a smooth and well-maintained track than on actual roads. Your "problem" keeps shifting. Neither this article nor most safety systems add to unsprung weight. Traction control is the only one that does, and this weight is more than offset by the improved tracking of the car. Whining about it is like being upset that modern jet engines won't let you stall them.
Then I fail to see what the problem is. The only government-mandated safety features are the ones you admitted wanting anyway.
It's also not entirely true. Nissan marketed its cars in the US under the Datsun name, that's true. However, the Nissan company name has existed since 1934 and has been used in an official capacity in the United States since 1959, long before this Mr. Nissan entered the automobile industry with his family-named business.
It's certainly unfortunate that someone's family name interferes with a service mark, but this has been well established with other companies--Ford, Dodge, Chrysler, and so on. Mr. Nissan may not have been aware of the prior connection and the court has tried to be as sympathetic as possible to the fact that he was only using his own name for his own business.
As for the "mysterious change to 1994"--that is clearly explained as moving from a local market, where Nissan might have been permitted to use his company name without tremendously interfering with Nissan Motor, to an international market (the Internet), where Nissan Motor was unquestionably the owner of the service marks. Mr. Nissan skipped by with squatters' rights, but the domain association and bulk of mindshare belongs to Nissan Motors. The case would be like demanding that GMail change its name worldwide. A company in one US state with a conflict probably wouldn't even carry enough weight to get the US name changed.
The purpose of which being what? We don't have an Autobahn. If you're importing a car, the only requirements are seat belts and airbags, which you're okay with. You're not forced by the government to get anything else. If you're going to be driving like a jackass, you'll probably want those safety features one day.
Thin clients are a massive and undesirable infrastructure change. Parallels is different from running a VM because all the handoffs are transparent. You put in a Windows CD or launch an .exe file, and it takes care of it more or less like Windows. A VM in the background only works for completely managed environments set up by the IT staff, and even still represents an unnecessary amount of network traffic and overhead for what should be done locally. Installing and managing local VMs gets right back to the problem of being adequate but completely undesired.
"It can be done" isn't good enough. It has to be well-executed and seamless.
Connecting to a VM for users to access an application is not reasonable. Remote desktop poses the same problem, and Wine is just a shim. There are a million *suboptimal* ways for corporations to set this up. Ubuntu would most certainly benefit from improved Windows compatibility, not just for the corporate environment, but for everyone. Something like Parallels or Crossover on the Mac have the right idea, but it needs to be seamless, more like Rosetta, for it to take off.
Very true, but unfortunately irrelevant. In a different world where Ubuntu reigns supreme, someone might care. Unfortunately, the onus is on the bit players to be compatible with the standard, even if the standard is merely a de facto one.
Running Windows software out of the box is perhaps the most obvious way to get ahead--it's how Windows beat out OS/2!
That said, there is a philosophical disconnect as well. Most people don't have any real trouble with Windows, or perhaps more accurately, don't see what they do each day AS trouble. Just like the adage, "you don't know what you have until you lose it," you don't know what you have to put up with until you no longer have to deal with it.
As for all the lofty ideals of open source people: no one cares. There's also no reason they should, so don't waste time lamenting the "ignorant masses." Just give them a product that works fully and competes everywhere it should (this includes the UI--it's more than colors and eye candy, and while they can't grasp usability, Microsoft does know a thing or two about layout and presentation). You'll get a philosophical win by proxy--that should be motivation enough.
Strangely enough, seat belts and driver/passenger airbags ARE the only features required by the government. Looks like you're on the same page as big brother, there.
ABS, traction control, collision avoidance hardware, side-curtain airbags, and the like are all optional equipment. Just try buying a base model entry-level car--it likely won't have anti-lock brakes. Two examples: Ford Focus, Nissan Versa.
Now, if you mean that you can't get an upscale car without these features, then yes. Damn Audi for making my car safer without interfering with my driving! I can't do donuts in the mountains and the car stays firmly on track around we corners. How dare they! These are Bad Things for public roadways--if you want to have fun with a plain mechanical system from the 70s, do it on your own property, not six feet behind my back bumper, thank you very much.
That's pretty near the crux of the issue. Any other auction can be pulled or delisted until it is sold. eBay's prohibition may exceed a given standard for what is fair and appropriate. There is no evidence that the item was sold in that period. The offer to sell may have occurred first and the seller, upon returning to eBay to cancel bidding, was prevented. That would be wholly out of the seller's ability to complete the auction--s/he is no longer in possession of the item.
You are not bound in other instances--you may accept higher outside bids or higher offers at any time. People lose houses all the time due to this. It remains the seller's property and the decision to sell to someone else or not to sell is customarily theirs to make at any time prior to auction close. eBay is interfering with the seller's right to control his property in the interest of making eBay work better. However, a prohibition in the last hour would be more than sufficient to cover the problem and equally effective at solving it. Personally, I feel eBay should have to live with pulled auctions entirely, but I'm willing to concede a one hour window--not 5 or 12 or 24 or 48. It's the seller equivalent to last-minute bid sniping, which they accept as part of the reality of auctions.
As eBay's terms also state, as I recall, that eBay is a purchasing site for entertainment only, it would be difficult to present an argument that someone was harmed by the failure of such an auction. It's like buying something and having it not be in stock or be purchased just minutes before you and the computer hasn't updated to reflect that. You think you're getting it, the computer thinks it's available, but it's not.
There's no "however" there. Reread the original comment. A contract is in place at the end of the auction. The issue is whether outside circumstances void said contract--for example, a product being unavailable, destroyed, damaged, or the like would release the seller from his obligation, provided s/he refunds the money and assuming the seller did not act in bad faith by listing the item. The completion of an outside transaction could be one of those circumstances if it happened before the end of the auction. Normally, the seller would de-list the item and avoid any issue. However, eBay policies in place prevent de-listing of items in a way that disadvantages both potential buyers and sellers. It was designed to prevent sellers from deleting auctions at the last minute, but the buffer zone is too wide and it has negative consequences. This case is one potential example.
Because eBay now prohibits the cancellation of auctions by sellers at certain points, the seller has lost the primary means of remedying a problem with the listing that occurs AFTER it is put up for auction. One cannot ensure that there will be no extenuating circumstances in the future--no one knows the future, which is partly why bidding is speculative. If I'm auctioning a boat and that boat sinks, and the auction list provides no means to de-list the item, it's not an enforceable contract. Even if you've wired money to me, as long as I return that money, it's over.
Normally, if you win an auction, you have a reasonable expectation to receive that item. However, if the auction should never have been permitted to end with a winning bid and the cause of that erroneous completion is outside the seller's control, that expectation may not be the controlling issue.
Estoppel, or more specifically reliance estoppel as applicable here, requires unconscionable behavior on the part of the seller. If a separate buyer was achieved but the seller was unable to cancel the auction prior to completion, there's a strong chance that it doesn't meet the standard for unconscionability. On the other hand, the seller should have contacted bidders or so forth, so it's a muddy case.
As always, this is neither legal advice nor a solicitation for such advice.
No, it isn't grammatically incorrect. Plural markers are not always expressed at the articulatory or orthographical levels, and companies are treated as plural entities by the conventions used in the UK and many other Commonwealth English countries. It's got nothing to do with being incorrect, since there is no "correct" grammar and no universal English. You can't apply your local grammar to other locations any more than you can apply your local accent to other speakers. Treating a company like an individual is also a US thing and has evolved independent of other common law legal systems.
It's just as jarring to the English when you say "IBM is."
No, lockpicking is not a terribly specialized skill, and no, not only the lockpicker can steal the property. Once the lock is picked and left open, anyone can steal anything until the lock is replaced.
Once the lock is broken, anyone can get it. The only difference is that you can replace locks quickly and DRM isn't so fast. You're still missing the point, moreover, that a lock is more a reminder than a safety device. You can punch through the glass in the door, break a window, or even brute-force defeat a lock. Most of them are not that strong. It's a casual deterrent and a reminder that you're breaking into something that you're not supposed to. That's it.
Most locks can be picked with a minimum of effort. They can certainly be bypassed. The point isn't to provide an unsinkable defense. It's to provide a reminder to people that there's a line they're crossing and it's one they should not.
The goal isn't to stop determined criminals or to make it impossible to crack. The goal is simply to be a lock like the one on nearly any door in the world.
No. Fair Use doesn't cover personal use. They're different things, which is part of what Slashdot doesn't understand. Fair Use comprises protections for commentary and review--it's for academic and journalistic purposes. There are legitimate and noninfringing personal use provisions, but they're not Fair Use. Copyright law isn't required to form a contract, because all the online distribution sites have independent user agreements and terms of services which ARE legally binding. There is no question about their legality as a class, contrary to Slashdot belief. No case has ever challenged the validity of user agreements or EULAs themselves. As a rightsholder or distributor, any legal terms can be put into a usage agreement to the license for a work. Copyright law prevents only the setting of terms on copy ownership. The work itself remains the property and in full ownership of the copyright holder. They can't tell you what to do with the CD, but they certainly can tell you what to do with the content, except where you're protected by law. As for digital files, all you're buying is a license. There's no ownership of anything else involved. You can't own bits and bytes.
It's not about a correlation of lost profits with download activity. DRM is about reminding people that it's not a free lunch. People abused the openness and actions needed to be taken. There's no question about that. You can't sit idly by and watch hundreds of millions of people blatantly steal without responding. The problem is only that the response was unbalanced and ill-advised. DRM itself as a concept is perfectly reasonable, but it was implemented in an absurd way that prevents certain kinds of legitimate uses--not to the extent decried by Slashdot, but there is a point there.
The solution for artists to abandon the RIAA and MPAA is absolutely a good one. But the current approach is not encouraging that directly. It's an indirect consequence of the current scenario. Artists have always been fed up with the stupid labels and recording industries. But instead of helping the artists and producers, people are more hell-bent on trying to hurt the industry groups, which remain in a position to take it out on the artists. Setting up alternative labels that can compete with the RIAA would be the preferred approach, but it would be difficult and immensely expensive. The easier thing to do is bitch about it.
You need lots of money, lots of distribution agreements, and lots of advertising power. Give the artists an option to go to so that they're not forced to sign with an "evil" label. Right now only very successful artists can afford to break with them, and becoming successful is largely dependent on the RIAA for most musicians.