One word for you: "easement." The local cable company used their right to an easement to bury a cable in my back yard, screwing up my yard in the process. What makes it even worse is that I didn't even have cable -- I was a DishTV subscriber. However, I had neighbors that had cable, and when the cable company switched from analog to digital cable, they dug a trench in my backyard to bury the new cable, then just made a token effort to cover the hole they dug.
In short, your" property isn't your property. Sucks, but that's the way it is (not that I think that's the way it should be, but my opinion is irrelevant).
The telecom company's equipment always "tests good from their end", even when smoke is pouring out their fibermux cabinet.
One of the guys I work with recently called the local cable Internet provider to troubleshoot his connection. The cable provider called back a little while later to report that "everything looked okay with their equipment -- [the tech] ran all of the diagnostic tests and could see the cable modem, etc." The only problem -- my friend called from work, after having shut off his cable modem before he left his house that morning. In other words, all of the blathering about everything looking fine was completely bogus. Either the tech had tested someone else's equipment or he was simply lying through his teeth.
Unfortunately, if you can't get enough intelligent, informed voters to vote in a Congress that will actually do their job rather than play partisan politics while the whole country falls apart, what chance do you think you will have rounding up an army to throw them out by force?
Seriously, there is no good way for an armed revolt to be pulled off right now...
How is this different from any other point in history? The Zulu nation overthrew the Brits in Africa, even thought the Zulu nation was armed with spears and arrows and the Brits were armed with guns. Japanese martial arts (well, at least some of them) were invented as a way for peasant farmers, who were essentially unarmed, to defend themselves against sword-wielding, armored samurai and ronin. In virtually every uprising in history, a relatively poorly armed militia took on a technologically superior army, with the possible exception of the American Revolution. The militia always took heavy losses because the regular army had the technological edge, but if the militia is sufficiently pissed, they can win.
The only thing that makes it look so overwhelming now is that we don't have the advantage of hindsight to see what the weaknesses of modern armies are. They are definitely there, but it's hard to see what weakness to exploit when you have a front-row seat to the battle.
The answer, of course, is to take your money elsewhere.
In January I was in Oahu, and while there, I decided to visit the Arizona memorial at Pearl Harbor. If you thought the TSA was bad at U.S. airports, let me enlighten you -- the Arizona memorial is even worse. No bags. No pocket knives. You can carry a camera, but not a camera case. They will search you before you start the tour, just like at the airport.
My response was, "WTF? The ship has already been sunk -- what are you worried about?!?!" I decided that, while I might have to suck it up at the airport since it's pretty hard to get anywhere from Alaska -- or even within Alaska -- without flying, I would not submit to searches to visit an effing tourist attraction.
Money talks, and if tourists and shoppers refuse to visit places with Orwellian "security" restrictions, eventually those trying to force such stupid policies down our throats will either relent or go out of business.
You can take the photographs, and when they ask you leave (which they will if you continue to take photographs) then you need to leave. Otherwise, they can charge you with trespassing. But as long as you leave when asked, they can't charge you with anything, AFAIK (not being a lawyer and all that).
Yes you can publish the photos without a model release. IANAL, etc., so don't quote what I say below if you end up in court, but I have researched this for my own personal knowledge.
The law isn't black and white -- there are certainly grey areas between what is clearly allowed and what is clearly not allowed. However, as I understand, taking photographs in public is allowed, even without a model release, even if the person photographed asks you to stop (although I suppose there is the possibility of harassment or stalking that you might want to consider). Taking photographs where there is a "reasonable expectation of privacy" is *not* allowed, although you can bet there is some wiggle room with the vague term "reasonable expectation of privacy". The less identifiable a person is in the photo (part of a group, face turned so that they cannot be identified, etc.), the less likely the photographer is to get in trouble for taking the photo. If, however, you intend to use a photo for commercial purposes, the person in the photograph is clearly identifiable (for example, a portrait), and/or the photograph would likely cause embarrassment or harm to the person photographed, then you'd better get a model release before publishing the photo. Also note that the term "commercial purposes" is a bit vague, too. As I understand, if you own a web site that is not primarily for the purpose of publishing photographs, then posting photos on the web site is not considered a commercial purpose. If you are selling photos on your web site, or if...ahem...photos of people are the whole reason for your web site's existence, then you should probably have a model release.
Even if there is doubt about whether or not you should have a model release before publishing a particular photo, there is also the whole risk-management thing to consider -- what are the odds that the subject would actually sue you for taking the photo? First, they have to see the photo published somewhere. Second, they have to identify the photographer who took the photo. Third, they have to find a lawyer willing to represent them (and face it, if you are a starving artist, a lawyer probably won't be interested in taking the case, because you don't have any/many assets worth taking, so it won't be worth the lawyer's time to sue you). Fourth, even if the first three conditions can be met, the judge and/or jury still have to find in the plaintiffs favor, which is not a given.
If you want to know more about the law covering model releases, just Google "photography model release". There are some really good resources on-line. If you are really serious and have something to lose if you, well, lose in court, then hire a lawyer to tell you what the law says.
If there were someone standing 20' away from a playground taking "up skirt" pictures of my daughter while she was going down a slide I would be full of many emotions, though one specifically would probably dominate.
Agreed, but I think you are mistaken when you say that "Under the law I would have no right to stop this person from taking this picture or others like it..." IANAL and all that, but as I understand, while it is entirely legal to shoot pictures in public settings, it is *not* legal to take "upskirt" photos any more than it is legal to walk around lifting up womens' skirts to take a peek. The greater the lengths the photographer had to go to in order to take the shot, the more likely the judge would be to take a dim view of the photographer's actions (i.e., if one were to lose their pants/shorts/skirt/whatever a la the "Funniest Videos" clips you see on T.V., the photographer is probably fine, but if the photographer were stashing a camera in a hidden location to shoot upwards as women in dresses walked over it, the photographer almost certainly is in trouble).
Anyway, were I in the hypothetical situation you described above, I'd probably go ahead and assault the photographer and worry about the jury later;)
Awesome! I'm so fricking tired of this mindset of fear and paranoia that I'd love to do something like that just to show how incredibly stupid all of this FUD is.
Who else is in?
Spend six months in rural (i.e., "bush") Alaska and *then* tell me how great a plan this is. In most Alaskan bush villages, you won't find even a bank. There might be one store that is a somewhere between a 7-11 and a Walgreens (more like 7-11), but you sure won't find a computer store. Want to go to Fairbanks or Anchorage to get your computer parts? That's a (very expensive) airplane ride.
I had a friend who found a parody of such signatures on the GNU web site, IIRC. I've tried to find it since, but haven't been successful. In a nutshell, the parody points out the logical fallacy in such signatures: that if the e-mail is addressed to me, then I can reasonably expect that I was the intended recipient, and therefore I have plausible deniability for the "received in error" clause.
IOW, even if you don't consider the corporate policy angle that you point out (correctly, IMHO), those signatures are still unenforceable.
Wish I had mod points, because you are exactly right.
I used to work in a union shop. The job was a lot of fun until we went union, but just sucked afterwards (in fairness I have to mention that I knew we were going union when I took the job).
* Before we went union, I was working 4x10s (by choice). After going union, "I'm sorry...that's not an approved work schedule. You'll have to work 5x8s."
* After going union, my pay check actually went down, even though the union promised us no loss in pay (they negotiated a slight salary increase to offset the union dues, but calculated the pay increase pre-tax; after subtracting taxes and union dues, I lost about $100/month).
* Before going union, we were free to adjust our schedules as needed to accomplish after hours work or to take time off for personal errands. After going union, we had six fixed schedules to provide 24 hour coverage.
I could go on, but you get the idea.
What really pissed most of us off is that pretty much every one of these points were things that we told the union not to change when we were negotiating union membership. They promised us it wouldn't change, and well, they lied.
I don't have the link or citation right now, but there was an article on Linux Journal several years ago about using your webcam as a motion sensor. So, yeah, I suppose the camera was equipped with a motion sensor in that you can use the camera itself as one.
Dialysis machines don't use needles. You have a tube surgically inserted into your veins that the dialysis machine taps into. I still have the scar in my external jugular from my year on dialysis (13 years ago).
I suspect she was too small for the catheter to be inserted, but I don't know that for a fact. I suppose it is also possible that, due to her size, the existing machines would have attempted to circulate the blood too quickly for her veins to handle. But these are just guesses; I'm not a doctor.
First, not everything that causes a dependence upon medical science is perpetuated to subsequent generations. I lost my kidneys to a non-hereditary disease at 21 -- ten years before I had a child. Yes, I now have to take immunosuppressants for the rest of my life, at quite a bit of cost to my health insurance provider, and that sucks. But my daughter should be free of the problem I had, and so should her children and so on.
Second, those of you who argue "survival of the fittest!!!" should keep in mind that a better understanding of science -- including medical science -- may well imply "more fit", even if it *physically* weakens us. Considering that, so far at least, humanity is one of the more successful species on the planet despite the fact that 1) we are far weaker than many other animal species, 2) we are far slower than many other animal species, 3) we have fewer natural defensive weapons (teeth, claws, venom, etc.) than many other animal species, 4) we have much poorer senses than many other animal species (and so on), I would say that there is ample evidence in favor of this line of reasoning.
The problem is that, what with the morning sickness, additional weight from the baby, and the bloated feeling from having a baby growing in your midsection, a lot of otherwise active women don't feel like exercising very much while pregnant. As a result, even if their eating habits don't change, they can, in fact, gain weight while pregnant (although this can be offset by the lack of appetite caused by morning sickness).
Okay, in the vast majority of cases, this is correct (although there are people who have sexual addictions, and consequently in such cases, there is nothing the other spouse could have done to prevent the failure). Not knowing the people involved in the failed marriage(s) mentioned in TFA, I have to assume that it was a failure of both parties, and I will concede the point to you.
Having said that, nothing in this argument invalidates my main point: Fortuny was not the reason the marriages failed. Period.
If that is the case, then what right does an agency of the U.S. government have to operate there? You can't have it both ways...well, at least logically you can't have it both ways, but no one said the government was logical.
Yeah, you're exactly right, because chances are, the cheating husbands probably never actually cheated on their wives. This was probably the only time they ever entertained the idea of extra-marital sex, and they probably only responded to the ad because Fortuny was soooo good at enticing men.
Without a doubt the evils of the pending (?) divorces are far worse than the potential side effects of being married to a cheating spouse. After all, no one ever catches...I don't know...AIDS, perhaps?...from someone they are married to, right? </sarcasm>
Your post was waaaay heavy on the melodrama. Do you really think that every kid whose parents divorce wind up "an emo kid who feels rejected and unloved...run away from home...become child prostitutes in order to survive, and subsequently become addicted to crack"? Don't be stupid. Divorce sucks, and yeah, Fortuny certainly appears to have some anti-social tendencies, but the blame for the failed marriages lies with the husbands, not with Fortuny. If they had had the self-control to keep their pants zipped, their marriages would have stayed together.
Wow -- you're a pretty hard-core skeptic, aren't you?
My wife and I have used craigslist a number of times. While I *have* seen the cash-cheque-forward-money-scammers a few times, in my experience there are a lot more honest people on craigslist than scammers. YMMV, of course.
Slashdot Mirror
One word for you: "easement." The local cable company used their right to an easement to bury a cable in my back yard, screwing up my yard in the process. What makes it even worse is that I didn't even have cable -- I was a DishTV subscriber. However, I had neighbors that had cable, and when the cable company switched from analog to digital cable, they dug a trench in my backyard to bury the new cable, then just made a token effort to cover the hole they dug.
In short, your" property isn't your property. Sucks, but that's the way it is (not that I think that's the way it should be, but my opinion is irrelevant).
The telecom company's equipment always "tests good from their end", even when smoke is pouring out their fibermux cabinet.
One of the guys I work with recently called the local cable Internet provider to troubleshoot his connection. The cable provider called back a little while later to report that "everything looked okay with their equipment -- [the tech] ran all of the diagnostic tests and could see the cable modem, etc." The only problem -- my friend called from work, after having shut off his cable modem before he left his house that morning. In other words, all of the blathering about everything looking fine was completely bogus. Either the tech had tested someone else's equipment or he was simply lying through his teeth.
Wow, your score is still positive. I'm surprised you haven't been modded down for that post, comparing RMS/GPL to the **AAs!
I joke, of course, but your point is very insightful, IMHO.
Exactly! I mean Gitmo was only running for eight years before...oh, wait.
Crap. Nevermind.
Failing that, then yes, it must involve guns.
Unfortunately, if you can't get enough intelligent, informed voters to vote in a Congress that will actually do their job rather than play partisan politics while the whole country falls apart, what chance do you think you will have rounding up an army to throw them out by force?
Seriously, there is no good way for an armed revolt to be pulled off right now...
How is this different from any other point in history? The Zulu nation overthrew the Brits in Africa, even thought the Zulu nation was armed with spears and arrows and the Brits were armed with guns. Japanese martial arts (well, at least some of them) were invented as a way for peasant farmers, who were essentially unarmed, to defend themselves against sword-wielding, armored samurai and ronin. In virtually every uprising in history, a relatively poorly armed militia took on a technologically superior army, with the possible exception of the American Revolution. The militia always took heavy losses because the regular army had the technological edge, but if the militia is sufficiently pissed, they can win.
The only thing that makes it look so overwhelming now is that we don't have the advantage of hindsight to see what the weaknesses of modern armies are. They are definitely there, but it's hard to see what weakness to exploit when you have a front-row seat to the battle.
Uh oh...now we can add "conspiracy" charges to the charge of "legally taking pictures in public places" :D
The answer, of course, is to take your money elsewhere.
In January I was in Oahu, and while there, I decided to visit the Arizona memorial at Pearl Harbor. If you thought the TSA was bad at U.S. airports, let me enlighten you -- the Arizona memorial is even worse. No bags. No pocket knives. You can carry a camera, but not a camera case. They will search you before you start the tour, just like at the airport.
My response was, "WTF? The ship has already been sunk -- what are you worried about?!?!" I decided that, while I might have to suck it up at the airport since it's pretty hard to get anywhere from Alaska -- or even within Alaska -- without flying, I would not submit to searches to visit an effing tourist attraction.
Money talks, and if tourists and shoppers refuse to visit places with Orwellian "security" restrictions, eventually those trying to force such stupid policies down our throats will either relent or go out of business.
You can take the photographs, and when they ask you leave (which they will if you continue to take photographs) then you need to leave. Otherwise, they can charge you with trespassing. But as long as you leave when asked, they can't charge you with anything, AFAIK (not being a lawyer and all that).
Yes you can publish the photos without a model release. IANAL, etc., so don't quote what I say below if you end up in court, but I have researched this for my own personal knowledge.
The law isn't black and white -- there are certainly grey areas between what is clearly allowed and what is clearly not allowed. However, as I understand, taking photographs in public is allowed, even without a model release, even if the person photographed asks you to stop (although I suppose there is the possibility of harassment or stalking that you might want to consider). Taking photographs where there is a "reasonable expectation of privacy" is *not* allowed, although you can bet there is some wiggle room with the vague term "reasonable expectation of privacy". The less identifiable a person is in the photo (part of a group, face turned so that they cannot be identified, etc.), the less likely the photographer is to get in trouble for taking the photo. If, however, you intend to use a photo for commercial purposes, the person in the photograph is clearly identifiable (for example, a portrait), and/or the photograph would likely cause embarrassment or harm to the person photographed, then you'd better get a model release before publishing the photo. Also note that the term "commercial purposes" is a bit vague, too. As I understand, if you own a web site that is not primarily for the purpose of publishing photographs, then posting photos on the web site is not considered a commercial purpose. If you are selling photos on your web site, or if...ahem...photos of people are the whole reason for your web site's existence, then you should probably have a model release.
Even if there is doubt about whether or not you should have a model release before publishing a particular photo, there is also the whole risk-management thing to consider -- what are the odds that the subject would actually sue you for taking the photo? First, they have to see the photo published somewhere. Second, they have to identify the photographer who took the photo. Third, they have to find a lawyer willing to represent them (and face it, if you are a starving artist, a lawyer probably won't be interested in taking the case, because you don't have any/many assets worth taking, so it won't be worth the lawyer's time to sue you). Fourth, even if the first three conditions can be met, the judge and/or jury still have to find in the plaintiffs favor, which is not a given.
If you want to know more about the law covering model releases, just Google "photography model release". There are some really good resources on-line. If you are really serious and have something to lose if you, well, lose in court, then hire a lawyer to tell you what the law says.
If there were someone standing 20' away from a playground taking "up skirt" pictures of my daughter while she was going down a slide I would be full of many emotions, though one specifically would probably dominate.
Agreed, but I think you are mistaken when you say that "Under the law I would have no right to stop this person from taking this picture or others like it..." IANAL and all that, but as I understand, while it is entirely legal to shoot pictures in public settings, it is *not* legal to take "upskirt" photos any more than it is legal to walk around lifting up womens' skirts to take a peek. The greater the lengths the photographer had to go to in order to take the shot, the more likely the judge would be to take a dim view of the photographer's actions (i.e., if one were to lose their pants/shorts/skirt/whatever a la the "Funniest Videos" clips you see on T.V., the photographer is probably fine, but if the photographer were stashing a camera in a hidden location to shoot upwards as women in dresses walked over it, the photographer almost certainly is in trouble).
;)
Anyway, were I in the hypothetical situation you described above, I'd probably go ahead and assault the photographer and worry about the jury later
Awesome! I'm so fricking tired of this mindset of fear and paranoia that I'd love to do something like that just to show how incredibly stupid all of this FUD is. Who else is in?
Spend six months in rural (i.e., "bush") Alaska and *then* tell me how great a plan this is. In most Alaskan bush villages, you won't find even a bank. There might be one store that is a somewhere between a 7-11 and a Walgreens (more like 7-11), but you sure won't find a computer store. Want to go to Fairbanks or Anchorage to get your computer parts? That's a (very expensive) airplane ride.
I had a friend who found a parody of such signatures on the GNU web site, IIRC. I've tried to find it since, but haven't been successful. In a nutshell, the parody points out the logical fallacy in such signatures: that if the e-mail is addressed to me, then I can reasonably expect that I was the intended recipient, and therefore I have plausible deniability for the "received in error" clause.
IOW, even if you don't consider the corporate policy angle that you point out (correctly, IMHO), those signatures are still unenforceable.
*Had*. I left that job for a much better one :) And yeah, it was definitely a sucky union.
Wish I had mod points, because you are exactly right.
I used to work in a union shop. The job was a lot of fun until we went union, but just sucked afterwards (in fairness I have to mention that I knew we were going union when I took the job).
* Before we went union, I was working 4x10s (by choice). After going union, "I'm sorry...that's not an approved work schedule. You'll have to work 5x8s."
* After going union, my pay check actually went down, even though the union promised us no loss in pay (they negotiated a slight salary increase to offset the union dues, but calculated the pay increase pre-tax; after subtracting taxes and union dues, I lost about $100/month).
* Before going union, we were free to adjust our schedules as needed to accomplish after hours work or to take time off for personal errands. After going union, we had six fixed schedules to provide 24 hour coverage.
I could go on, but you get the idea.
What really pissed most of us off is that pretty much every one of these points were things that we told the union not to change when we were negotiating union membership. They promised us it wouldn't change, and well, they lied.
I don't have the link or citation right now, but there was an article on Linux Journal several years ago about using your webcam as a motion sensor. So, yeah, I suppose the camera was equipped with a motion sensor in that you can use the camera itself as one.
Having spent a year on dialysis myself...
Dialysis machines don't use needles. You have a tube surgically inserted into your veins that the dialysis machine taps into. I still have the scar in my external jugular from my year on dialysis (13 years ago).
I suspect she was too small for the catheter to be inserted, but I don't know that for a fact. I suppose it is also possible that, due to her size, the existing machines would have attempted to circulate the blood too quickly for her veins to handle. But these are just guesses; I'm not a doctor.
Yes.
Trolls, on the other hand...
Your argument is flawed for two reasons.
First, not everything that causes a dependence upon medical science is perpetuated to subsequent generations. I lost my kidneys to a non-hereditary disease at 21 -- ten years before I had a child. Yes, I now have to take immunosuppressants for the rest of my life, at quite a bit of cost to my health insurance provider, and that sucks. But my daughter should be free of the problem I had, and so should her children and so on.
Second, those of you who argue "survival of the fittest!!!" should keep in mind that a better understanding of science -- including medical science -- may well imply "more fit", even if it *physically* weakens us. Considering that, so far at least, humanity is one of the more successful species on the planet despite the fact that 1) we are far weaker than many other animal species, 2) we are far slower than many other animal species, 3) we have fewer natural defensive weapons (teeth, claws, venom, etc.) than many other animal species, 4) we have much poorer senses than many other animal species (and so on), I would say that there is ample evidence in favor of this line of reasoning.
The problem is that, what with the morning sickness, additional weight from the baby, and the bloated feeling from having a baby growing in your midsection, a lot of otherwise active women don't feel like exercising very much while pregnant. As a result, even if their eating habits don't change, they can, in fact, gain weight while pregnant (although this can be offset by the lack of appetite caused by morning sickness).
Okay, in the vast majority of cases, this is correct (although there are people who have sexual addictions, and consequently in such cases, there is nothing the other spouse could have done to prevent the failure). Not knowing the people involved in the failed marriage(s) mentioned in TFA, I have to assume that it was a failure of both parties, and I will concede the point to you.
Having said that, nothing in this argument invalidates my main point: Fortuny was not the reason the marriages failed. Period.
If that is the case, then what right does an agency of the U.S. government have to operate there? You can't have it both ways...well, at least logically you can't have it both ways, but no one said the government was logical.
Yeah, you're exactly right, because chances are, the cheating husbands probably never actually cheated on their wives. This was probably the only time they ever entertained the idea of extra-marital sex, and they probably only responded to the ad because Fortuny was soooo good at enticing men.
Without a doubt the evils of the pending (?) divorces are far worse than the potential side effects of being married to a cheating spouse. After all, no one ever catches...I don't know...AIDS, perhaps?...from someone they are married to, right? </sarcasm>
Your post was waaaay heavy on the melodrama. Do you really think that every kid whose parents divorce wind up "an emo kid who feels rejected and unloved...run away from home...become child prostitutes in order to survive, and subsequently become addicted to crack"? Don't be stupid. Divorce sucks, and yeah, Fortuny certainly appears to have some anti-social tendencies, but the blame for the failed marriages lies with the husbands, not with Fortuny. If they had had the self-control to keep their pants zipped, their marriages would have stayed together.
Wow -- you're a pretty hard-core skeptic, aren't you?
My wife and I have used craigslist a number of times. While I *have* seen the cash-cheque-forward-money-scammers a few times, in my experience there are a lot more honest people on craigslist than scammers. YMMV, of course.