IANAL, but I'm guessing that "liability" is a legal term, so if you ask a non-lawyer a legal question (do you admit liability), then the answer is meaningless.
The real issues is that witnesses (even expert witnesses, and even if they are lawyers) in a case testify only to matters of fact (there are times when someone's opinion, particularly a past opinion, on a matter of law may be a relevant fact, whether or not they are a lawyer, but that's different than testifying on the point of law itself.)
He had a jury trial, he also admitted to doing what he was accused of doing. In a criminal trial that's pleading guilty.
No, its not. In both a criminal trial and a civil trial there are pleadings, and they are distinct from testimony given at trial. What he did was answer an improper question asked of him as a witness (since the question was one of law not of fact) in a way which was harmful, which is not at all the same as pleading guilty in a criminal case.
3 is 50% larger than 2. 3 is 150% of 2. 3 is 1.5 times larger than 2.
Except that, well, its not. 3 is 1.5 times as large as 2, it is not 1.5 times larger than 2. (Just as 2 is one time as large as 2, not one time larger than 2.)
"X times larger" is frequently sloppily used where "X times as large" is correct, and "X times smaller" used, even more sloppily, by reverse analogy to the abuse of "times larger" when "1/X times as large" would be correct.
"X times larger" is also sometimes used, arguably more correctly, to mean "1+X times as large" (there is no corresponding use, that I've seen or heard of, of "X times smaller".) Its generally best, even though the latter form of "X times larger" makes some sense, unlike the former, to avoid using "X times larger" at all (and equally to avoid using "X times smaller"), as there are always clearer and equally concise ways of communicating whatever is attempted to be communicated by those phrases, whichever definition is intended.
The copyright of machine generated work has been a matter of law for more than a hundred years.
If you think this is in any way open to debate, ask yourself who drew Toy Story.
Actually, Toy Story is a bad example, since the people who used the tools to create the work, the people who owned the actual tools, and the people who owned the copyright on the tools were, largely, the same people, as Pixar both made the film and built the key rendering tools, and owned the copies of the rendering tools it used; the more relevant situations to the Wolfram|Alpha claim would be cases where the use of the tools, the ownership of the tools, and the ownership of the copyright on the tools weren't all concentrated in the same person.
So, instead, as yourself who (absent any copyright assignment or work for hire situation) owns the copyright on output you create with a copy of Microsoft Word licensed to you (presuming, for the moment, "you" are not Microsoft Corp.)? What about (again, absent any copyright assignment or work for hire situation) owns the copyright on output you create with a copy of Microsoft Word that isn't licensed to you?
The owner of the machine producing the output is the owner of the output.
US copyright law, at least (and, AFAIK, the copyright law of just about every other nation on the planet) assigns copyright ownership by authorship, not by ownership of the tools used by authors.
The source code (or original work that Wolfram Alpha reads) can be copyrighted. Anything resulting from machine manipulation of that is a derivative work and there's already copyright rules for dealing with such.
A "derivative work" under US copyright law is an original work, and copyright in the derivative work belongs to the work's author, just as for any other original work. The significance of the status of "derivative work" vs. any other original work is that it is a violation of the copyright of the work from which the derivative work is derived to create such a work without the permission of the copyright owner of that prior work. See the definition of "derivative work" at 17 USC Sec. 101, the description of the exclusive rights in copyrighted works at 17 USC Sec. 106, and the description of copyright ownership at 17 USC Sec. 201.
What does it mean to create something? They will argue that their program is like the artist's paintbrush - it enables the output.
If they do argue that, it would certainly defeat their copyright claim, since its pretty clear that the maker of a paintbrush doesn't have copyright on any painting created with it. Making a tool that someone else uses to create an original work of authorship doesn't give you copyright, using the tool to create the work does.
Sounds a lot like the retail chains claiming copyright on information from their Black Friday fliers to keep the prices from being posted too early.
Its more like, say, Microsoft claiming copyright on any document you create with Word. And the claim is about as laughable—and destructive to the usability of the tool for any purpose—as Microsoft making such a claim would be.
Personally,, I find a picture of the universe that has a definite beginning to be a form of stealth creationism.
There may have been a time when we didn't have tools for explaining the universe besides appeals to personal aesthetics, but today we've got things like formulating hypothesis that explain past observations and lead to empirically falsifiable predictions of future observations, and then constructing experimenets to attempt to falsify those predictions.
That site does not refute the observation that if you attempt to leave additional space, in practice people move in and fill that space, defeating the desire to use it as a buffer.
Has something to do with each session needing to spawn its own JVM in JRuby or something like that...
Sounds like a combination of Rails requiring separate Ruby processes and JRuby normally using a separate JVM per invocation; JRuby 1.3.0, though, includes Nailgun integration so that it is easier to avoid using a separate JVM per jruby invocation.
It's the ruby VM that's slow. There's nothing about the language itself that makes it slower than any other dynamic languages.
That's not entirely true; Charles Nutter (one of the subjects of TFA) has pointed out on several occasions particular features of the Ruby language that make it hard to make implementations that are both complete and correct and also quick.
Still, the degree to which the "Ruby is slow" thing is about the implementation (and particularly the pre-1.9 CRuby implementation) is underlined by how much faster Ruby 1.9 and JRuby are than Ruby 1.8.x.
Supposedly some of the climate models that predict global warming also predict it would cause increased precipitation and glacial build-up in Greenland and Antarctica, resulting in *lower* sea levels.
"Global warming" is an observed fact, not something predicted by computer models. As is increased preciptation and thicker ice sheets in parts of Antarctica. As is, for that matter, reduced ice coverage in the Antarctic. As is, most recently, reduced total ice volume in the Antarctic. Essentially, warming drives more moisture to the Antarctic, and means that where conditions continue to support ice sheets, they will in many cases be thicker. It also means that the conditions for support of ice sheets get worse; particularly, the melting of the sea ice along Antarctica removes the barriers that are stopping the continental glaciers from sliding off into the ocean.
Unless the IPCCC's initial estimates for sea level rise are radically off, 10-50cm of sea level rise isn't going to be forcing any but the most absurdly exposed to move inland
Most of the research since after the 1995 IPCC report has suggested that the 95cm high end of the IPCC projections is either near the middle or at the bottom of the range, rather than the top. The two more reports I recall in particular supported 0.8-2.0m and 0.5-1.5m ranges by 2100.
Not to burst your bubble, but "our habitat", of large mammals in general becomes actually much better (esp. much larger, but also easier to farm) at a higher global temperature. The last "globally warmed" climate saw a rich civilization in Greenland, with huge orchards and wineries, lush forests, rich wildlife, etc.
Current global temperatures are, to the best available evidence, both higher and rising faster than they have ever been in the time in which there has been any human civilization. Certainly, during the Medieval Warm Period (a period of somewhat elevated global average temperature--though cooler than the current period--and particularly elevated average temperatures in the North Atlantic region) Greenland had a milder climate, though it wasn't anything like the paradise you paint. But, even if it was, Greenland isn't the world. Global change that makes arctic regions more livable also makes the places where people actually live now, and have built agricultural, industrial, and other infrastructure, less livable.
There is also the little tidbit that global warming stops desertification, and makes e.g. the sahara lose ground.
The source you point to ends with this note: Peter Cox, of the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology in Dorset, said: "This looks like an interesting study. However, the conclusion that Sahellian rainfall will increase under climate change must be considered as highly uncertain. Models differ in their predictions, with about as many showing decreases in rainfall as increases."
the absolute worst case sea level rise of 95 centimeters by 2100 should not be a problem for any US coastal city, or for Holland for that matter.
The source you point to doesn't support that that is the "absolute worst case" (which, in fact, it suggests is a couple orders of magnitude worse, at something over 68 meters), but that it was viewed as the worst likely case in a 1995 IPCC report, and its worth noting that more recent studies have suggested that the IPCC reports estimates were too conservative, e.g., this study, which concludes "Using MIS-5e to gain insight into the potential rates of sea-level rise due to further ice-volume reduction in a warming world, our data provide an observational context that underscores the plausibility of recent, unconventionally high, projections of 1.0 +/- 0.5 m sea-level rise by AD 2100."
In fact, you can prevent and even stop traffic jams by leaving enough space between you and the people in front of you.
No, you can't. What you can do is stop moving entirely if you try that. Now, it would work* if everyone did it, but if one person tries to do it, what happens in practice is people in adjacent lanes move in to fill the extra space, making it impossible for you to keep moving and still maintain "enough space".
* Actually, it wouldn't even really work then, in the case of real serious jams, which are due to overcapacity not clumping when the road is within its capacity, in those cases, it would just move the traffic jams back to the places where people were trying to get on to the overcapacity route.
The problem of cars "clumping" is due to the "rule abiding" drivers following each other too closely.
No, actually, its due to more people wanting to use a route in a given time period than the route has the capacity to handle. Drivers breaking the rules by following to closely, just like drivers breaking the rules by violating other controls intended for safety (whether passing on the wrong side, stopping in intersections, etc.) are all different manifestations of the same underlying problem.
Only one side is reading and countering the other side's claims with rational arguments; the other side is simply parroting long-discredited talking points ad nauseam.
The funny thing? Both sides will agree with the above statement, but will disagree on its interpretation.
Actually, I think that only the side that is parroting long-discredited talking points will agree with this statement, but they will insist that they aren't the side doing that.
The other side would (rightly) characterize the situation as one side doing science and discussing the results, while the other side denies it and parrots long-discredited talking points without any scientific validity. Within the side doing science and discussing the results, there is a lively debate, but its not over the issues the other side is trying to dispute with their talking points.
Since you are really defending antropogenic global warming,
Actually, I'm very much opposed to anthropogenic global warning, not defending it.
you surely know that all other measure got temperature increase, as planet earth, do you?
As with the sentence in GP to which I responded with "what?" ("Finally the point that wake me up to the possibility global warming is maybe political / taxation propaganda : ALL other planets got temperature increase."), I haven't got a clue what this is trying to say.
I might be missing something, too, but I've seen a vocal minority of Obama supporters assuming that if you disagree with Obama, you must be racist against blacks.
You seem to be missing the part where she claims that racial profiling by law enforcement is justified by the disproportionate number of minorities who are, in fact, arrested and thrown in jail, and that the poster who characterized her as racist didn't point to the "O-dumb-a" comment at all, much less refer to that comment as a "racial slur". There is little basis for concluding that the statement about racism had anything to do with anything said about Obama (except, perhaps, the unwarranted assumption that no one on Slashdot reads anything but the summary.)
So, before characterizing this as "Obama supporters" making unjustified kneejerk reactions based on misattributing the basis of criticism, maybe you should consider who else might be making that mistake.
WTF? deputy press secretary? The Borough President has a press secretary AND a deputy press secretary???
The Borough of Manhattan has a population greater than that of many notable cities (about twice that of the City and County of San Francisco, for instance.) Why is it surprising that the senior elected official for a polity of such that size, whose primary role is one of public advocacy (as most hard policy power has been removed from the office), has a press secretary and a deputy press secretary?
However, suing your customers to silence them really shoots a whole in trying to 'preserve a good reputation'. PR: They're doing it wrong.
Per the Sun-Times article paints Horizon as a property management company; its customers would, then, be the owners of property that it manages, not the tenants. The reputation it wants to maintain is, of course, the reputation of providing management services at low costs for property owners without unexpected costs to the landlords; making tenants afraid to complain by suing at the drop of a hat probably reinforces, rather than harming, that image.
Maybe I'm missing something, but how is "O-dumb-a" a racial slur?
No one said that "O-dumb-a" was a "racial slur", or even that the press secretary had used a "racial slur".
GP did say that the Ms. Landor was a racist, but that doesn't mean she used a racial slur. One might, for instance, be led toward the conclusion that someone is a racist when they advance the argument that racial profiling by law enforcement is justified because minorities are disproportionately likely to be arrested, as Landor argued in one of the posts that led to her being fired, as was described in TFA (though its not noted in TFS.)
Racial slurs aren't the only manifestation of racism.
Maybe, but she still has the right to have a private life. And voice her opinion in her spare time.
Certainly, she has that right. And the politician she works for has a right to express his opinions of her actions by not continuing to employ her as a public representative.
A politician's press secretary isn't a civil servant, they are a political staffer. Anyone in such a position faces firing for actions -- including expressing opinions -- in any forum, in any communications medium, at any time, that are contrary to the preferences or political interests of the politician for whom they work.
This is not new with the advent of online communication.
This is something we cannot tolerate or let them take away from us.
Slashdot Mirror
The real issues is that witnesses (even expert witnesses, and even if they are lawyers) in a case testify only to matters of fact (there are times when someone's opinion, particularly a past opinion, on a matter of law may be a relevant fact, whether or not they are a lawyer, but that's different than testifying on the point of law itself.)
No, its not. In both a criminal trial and a civil trial there are pleadings, and they are distinct from testimony given at trial. What he did was answer an improper question asked of him as a witness (since the question was one of law not of fact) in a way which was harmful, which is not at all the same as pleading guilty in a criminal case.
Except that, well, its not. 3 is 1.5 times as large as 2, it is not 1.5 times larger than 2. (Just as 2 is one time as large as 2, not one time larger than 2.)
"X times larger" is frequently sloppily used where "X times as large" is correct, and "X times smaller" used, even more sloppily, by reverse analogy to the abuse of "times larger" when "1/X times as large" would be correct.
"X times larger" is also sometimes used, arguably more correctly, to mean "1+X times as large" (there is no corresponding use, that I've seen or heard of, of "X times smaller".) Its generally best, even though the latter form of "X times larger" makes some sense, unlike the former, to avoid using "X times larger" at all (and equally to avoid using "X times smaller"), as there are always clearer and equally concise ways of communicating whatever is attempted to be communicated by those phrases, whichever definition is intended.
Actually, Toy Story is a bad example, since the people who used the tools to create the work, the people who owned the actual tools, and the people who owned the copyright on the tools were, largely, the same people, as Pixar both made the film and built the key rendering tools, and owned the copies of the rendering tools it used; the more relevant situations to the Wolfram|Alpha claim would be cases where the use of the tools, the ownership of the tools, and the ownership of the copyright on the tools weren't all concentrated in the same person.
So, instead, as yourself who (absent any copyright assignment or work for hire situation) owns the copyright on output you create with a copy of Microsoft Word licensed to you (presuming, for the moment, "you" are not Microsoft Corp.)? What about (again, absent any copyright assignment or work for hire situation) owns the copyright on output you create with a copy of Microsoft Word that isn't licensed to you?
US copyright law, at least (and, AFAIK, the copyright law of just about every other nation on the planet) assigns copyright ownership by authorship, not by ownership of the tools used by authors.
A "derivative work" under US copyright law is an original work, and copyright in the derivative work belongs to the work's author, just as for any other original work. The significance of the status of "derivative work" vs. any other original work is that it is a violation of the copyright of the work from which the derivative work is derived to create such a work without the permission of the copyright owner of that prior work. See the definition of "derivative work" at 17 USC Sec. 101, the description of the exclusive rights in copyrighted works at 17 USC Sec. 106, and the description of copyright ownership at 17 USC Sec. 201.
If they do argue that, it would certainly defeat their copyright claim, since its pretty clear that the maker of a paintbrush doesn't have copyright on any painting created with it. Making a tool that someone else uses to create an original work of authorship doesn't give you copyright, using the tool to create the work does.
Its more like, say, Microsoft claiming copyright on any document you create with Word. And the claim is about as laughable—and destructive to the usability of the tool for any purpose—as Microsoft making such a claim would be.
There may have been a time when we didn't have tools for explaining the universe besides appeals to personal aesthetics, but today we've got things like formulating hypothesis that explain past observations and lead to empirically falsifiable predictions of future observations, and then constructing experimenets to attempt to falsify those predictions.
That site does not refute the observation that if you attempt to leave additional space, in practice people move in and fill that space, defeating the desire to use it as a buffer.
Sounds like a combination of Rails requiring separate Ruby processes and JRuby normally using a separate JVM per invocation; JRuby 1.3.0, though, includes Nailgun integration so that it is easier to avoid using a separate JVM per jruby invocation.
That's not entirely true; Charles Nutter (one of the subjects of TFA) has pointed out on several occasions particular features of the Ruby language that make it hard to make implementations that are both complete and correct and also quick.
Still, the degree to which the "Ruby is slow" thing is about the implementation (and particularly the pre-1.9 CRuby implementation) is underlined by how much faster Ruby 1.9 and JRuby are than Ruby 1.8.x.
"Global warming" is an observed fact, not something predicted by computer models. As is increased preciptation and thicker ice sheets in parts of Antarctica. As is, for that matter, reduced ice coverage in the Antarctic. As is, most recently, reduced total ice volume in the Antarctic. Essentially, warming drives more moisture to the Antarctic, and means that where conditions continue to support ice sheets, they will in many cases be thicker. It also means that the conditions for support of ice sheets get worse; particularly, the melting of the sea ice along Antarctica removes the barriers that are stopping the continental glaciers from sliding off into the ocean.
This is all observed now and happening.
Most of the research since after the 1995 IPCC report has suggested that the 95cm high end of the IPCC projections is either near the middle or at the bottom of the range, rather than the top. The two more reports I recall in particular supported 0.8-2.0m and 0.5-1.5m ranges by 2100.
Current global temperatures are, to the best available evidence, both higher and rising faster than they have ever been in the time in which there has been any human civilization. Certainly, during the Medieval Warm Period (a period of somewhat elevated global average temperature--though cooler than the current period--and particularly elevated average temperatures in the North Atlantic region) Greenland had a milder climate, though it wasn't anything like the paradise you paint. But, even if it was, Greenland isn't the world. Global change that makes arctic regions more livable also makes the places where people actually live now, and have built agricultural, industrial, and other infrastructure, less livable.
The source you point to ends with this note: Peter Cox, of the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology in Dorset, said: "This looks like an interesting study. However, the conclusion that Sahellian rainfall will increase under climate change must be considered as highly uncertain. Models differ in their predictions, with about as many showing decreases in rainfall as increases."
The source you point to doesn't support that that is the "absolute worst case" (which, in fact, it suggests is a couple orders of magnitude worse, at something over 68 meters), but that it was viewed as the worst likely case in a 1995 IPCC report, and its worth noting that more recent studies have suggested that the IPCC reports estimates were too conservative, e.g., this study, which concludes "Using MIS-5e to gain insight into the potential rates of sea-level rise due to further ice-volume reduction in a warming world, our data provide an observational context that underscores the plausibility of recent, unconventionally high, projections of 1.0 +/- 0.5 m sea-level rise by AD 2100."
No, you can't. What you can do is stop moving entirely if you try that. Now, it would work* if everyone did it, but if one person tries to do it, what happens in practice is people in adjacent lanes move in to fill the extra space, making it impossible for you to keep moving and still maintain "enough space".
* Actually, it wouldn't even really work then, in the case of real serious jams, which are due to overcapacity not clumping when the road is within its capacity, in those cases, it would just move the traffic jams back to the places where people were trying to get on to the overcapacity route.
No, actually, its due to more people wanting to use a route in a given time period than the route has the capacity to handle. Drivers breaking the rules by following to closely, just like drivers breaking the rules by violating other controls intended for safety (whether passing on the wrong side, stopping in intersections, etc.) are all different manifestations of the same underlying problem.
Actually, I think that only the side that is parroting long-discredited talking points will agree with this statement, but they will insist that they aren't the side doing that.
The other side would (rightly) characterize the situation as one side doing science and discussing the results, while the other side denies it and parrots long-discredited talking points without any scientific validity. Within the side doing science and discussing the results, there is a lively debate, but its not over the issues the other side is trying to dispute with their talking points.
Actually, I'm very much opposed to anthropogenic global warning, not defending it.
As with the sentence in GP to which I responded with "what?" ("Finally the point that wake me up to the possibility global warming is maybe political / taxation propaganda : ALL other planets got temperature increase."), I haven't got a clue what this is trying to say.
You seem to be missing the part where she claims that racial profiling by law enforcement is justified by the disproportionate number of minorities who are, in fact, arrested and thrown in jail, and that the poster who characterized her as racist didn't point to the "O-dumb-a" comment at all, much less refer to that comment as a "racial slur". There is little basis for concluding that the statement about racism had anything to do with anything said about Obama (except, perhaps, the unwarranted assumption that no one on Slashdot reads anything but the summary.)
So, before characterizing this as "Obama supporters" making unjustified kneejerk reactions based on misattributing the basis of criticism, maybe you should consider who else might be making that mistake.
The Borough of Manhattan has a population greater than that of many notable cities (about twice that of the City and County of San Francisco, for instance.) Why is it surprising that the senior elected official for a polity of such that size, whose primary role is one of public advocacy (as most hard policy power has been removed from the office), has a press secretary and a deputy press secretary?
Per the Sun-Times article paints Horizon as a property management company; its customers would, then, be the owners of property that it manages, not the tenants. The reputation it wants to maintain is, of course, the reputation of providing management services at low costs for property owners without unexpected costs to the landlords; making tenants afraid to complain by suing at the drop of a hat probably reinforces, rather than harming, that image.
No one said that "O-dumb-a" was a "racial slur", or even that the press secretary had used a "racial slur".
GP did say that the Ms. Landor was a racist, but that doesn't mean she used a racial slur. One might, for instance, be led toward the conclusion that someone is a racist when they advance the argument that racial profiling by law enforcement is justified because minorities are disproportionately likely to be arrested, as Landor argued in one of the posts that led to her being fired, as was described in TFA (though its not noted in TFS.)
Racial slurs aren't the only manifestation of racism.
Since truth is an absolute bar to claims of libel or slander in the US, this is something of an understatement.
Certainly, she has that right. And the politician she works for has a right to express his opinions of her actions by not continuing to employ her as a public representative.
A politician's press secretary isn't a civil servant, they are a political staffer. Anyone in such a position faces firing for actions -- including expressing opinions -- in any forum, in any communications medium, at any time, that are contrary to the preferences or political interests of the politician for whom they work.
This is not new with the advent of online communication.
Who is "them"? Who is "us"? What is "this"?