I can't really fault people for taking a long time to figure out that ubiquitous surveillance and a corporate/government surveillance regime is a bad thing. I didn't want to believe it myself until around the middle of last decade, when it became impossible to deny.
Considering that there is still substantial disagreement and debate about if it is good or bad, I don't think you're going to persuade anybody by telling them that their opinion is impossible.
I think a better approach is to communicate why it is bad. You're probably going to need to figure out how to get that message into a "Reality TV" format in order to get through to most people.
If it is an "iron curtain" is a whole different question that, "would it assist the implementation of one if they tried."
I would argue that if you're worried about that happening in the future, being honest about the current situation is more valuable than hyperbole and propaganda that intentionally overstates the situation.
If the game mechanics are derivative is a different question than if the code is.
If they owned the game look & feel, if the mechanics were their own idea and their contract with the developer was regarding the actual code, as such agreements normally do, then none of that matters. In that case, you can hire a different team of developers, and if you don't even show them the old code, only the look and feel, they can duplicate the gameplay exactly and it is not a derivative. If you show the new team the old code, then it gets muddy fast.
And even with the game play, what the judge ruled was that the jury can't make a determination of similarity between things they've never seen. An expert explaining the ways they are same has to also have the context of seeing the things the expert is talking about. Otherwise you can believe the expert 100%, but you still don't have enough information to claim they are the same.
It isn't enough for the Jury to be 51% sure of something. They have to be 51% sure that the evidence presented proves some fact. In this case there was no evidence presented. The expert is supposed to talk about the evidence, their opinion is not itself evidence of anything except the expert's opinion.
And if you did show them the side-by-side, then you'd need to prove that the game mechanics came from the programmer and not... the game of football. So it is a no-brainer why they didn't show enough evidence; the case was a hail-Mary.
If the code itself is a derivative work is different than if the story or art are derivatives. It is actually rather hyper-technical, it is not enough to just say it is a sequel so it is a derivative.
It is not up to the defense to prove they didn't copy. It is up to the plaintiff to prove that they did.
When the plaintiff bungles, don't expect the defendant in an adversarial system to set up the correct test to save the plaintiff's behind. Instead, expect the defense to file motions claiming that the plaintiff bungled it. As happened here.
IANAL, and since your advice is so awful, you should probably disclaim it too;)
No, actually that isn't what they want at all. They don't want to everyone to be poor together. They just want to keep being poor in the same neighborhoods they grew up being poor in. And they sure don't want to do it together with the rich bastards from google; that is their basic complaint, rich people moving into their neighborhoods.
They want the rich people to keep being rich wherever they were being rich before they moved into a formerly poor neighborhood. The basic problem with that is that that would require the rich to live in increasingly high density neighborhoods, like the poor have to. The rich don't want to live in close proximity, even to other rich people. And they have enough money to buy the property and make those decisions for everybody.
I'm not from Cali, but if I was told the old place I could afford to live was Sacramento and that I should consider taking the greyhound bus to work in the City every morning, I might just go on a crazy riot spree too. Or move to the woods and starve on berries.
You seem a little full of propaganda. Gentrification is not a process where the landlords go out of business unless they raise rents. That's just LOL funny because it is so daft. The way it works, the landlords are making huge windfall profits because land they bought when it was slums are now trendy neighborhoods.
If they "moved everything back out" rents would revert to what they were before gentrification; fairly high rents normal in a big city. They would still be big city landlords making lots of money. It isn't "losing money" to make less than you would have made if the world was different. That isn't what it means to "make" or "lose" money. It is normal for the landlords to want to make as much as they can, but that doesn't mean that they're losing money if they're not making the most they can imagine making. That is just as idiotic as thinking they would be happy making the least they ever made. It is the same "brain-dead [idiocy]" just flipped around backwards.
If the world stays the same, as expected, and gentrification continues (at the rate chosen by the liberals in SF, btw; don't forget that the protesters here are anti-liberal) then that is the world that these landlords live in, and they get to keep making windfall profits. And if the pace of gentrification slows because the community decides to place more value on traditional neighborhoods, then that will be the world the landlords live in, and they will continue making big city landlord money. Notice that there is no "losing money" going on in these things, or anybody taking anything from the landlords. Or, in the case where they make the most money, is there are sign that the money they're making is because of their own work; they are certainly not the cause of gentrification.
These are just basic facts and characteristics of the situation. It is normal to choose your own opinions, and to draw your own conclusions, and to have your own values; but not your own facts.
I think it is a lot like Player Piano, by Kurt Vonnegut. (*spoilers ahead) Sure they're going to die in the end, but their struggle gives their lives purpose. They can't fix their problems, the poor aren't going to have a place to live near the bay. They're going to get pushed farther and farther east until they live in Sac.
People say they should move, but miss the point; they did move, they did choose their place to live, and it is being taken away from them.
Only they can choose what is more important, their lives or their neighborhoods. I don't know these freaks, and I don't live in their neighborhoods, so for me it is just the latest video entertainment from California. I'm hoping for a full action flick with armed security and a charging mass of drunks attempting to use Pabst as molotov cocktails. Maybe a neighboring celebrity throwing rooftop vegetables when their gate is breached, right before the security tower opens up (like in that Somali pirate video)
Ultra-pasteurized milk is shelf-stable for 6 months, and they do sell it in stores in the US. There is even a lot of expensive organic milk that is packaged with this process.
It is perfectly reasonable that a person would have milk in their emergency reserves in this age.
You have it exactly backwards. They modernized already. Past tense. They were preparing to join the EU. An old Socialist sold them out to be the first member of Tsar Putin's New Russian Empire, instead.
They're fighting to keep the Freedom they've only had for a couple decades. If they can't even carry their cellphones with them anymore, they've already lost their freedom and should probably be taking up larger arms than burning bottles of vodka.
By standing tall and proud they're denying the government the lie that it is all for their own good. This fake/pirate cell tower of the government's could really have a strong effect on public opinion, and support for the protesters; especially among the educated classes.
Or, you know, a few nerds logged in and moderated based on information quality instead of just based on if the person spewed similar propaganda.
You don't have to "like" the NSA or FBI to be interested in the actual extant civics in the United States, or specifically the duties of the various agencies involved in intelligence and law enforcement.
The big news on that front this month, for people concerned about facts instead of a boogeymen, is that the NSA was giving 3 "tips" per day to the FBI, where the FBI would then know which search warrant to ask for.
That is an urban myth. It is what the imaginary slum lord banker would do, but actually they took the money and moved it to other things, such as bonuses.
Remember, the people who stole the money were not the legal entities stealing the money; they didn't steal the money and put it into their own pocket directly. And they also didn't steal it just for the well being of their employer, so the company could buy foreclosed properties. They stole is so the company would convert part of it to inflated bonuses.
The actual companies have a long-standing aversion to holding real estate. They don't force people into foreclosure and then buy the properties back. They force people into foreclosure, auction the property at a loss if needed, and keep their money in other places. Banks don't want to own "things," they want to own numbers. Numbers don't burn down, get eaten by termites, filled up with squatters, or regulated by the local town council. Also, deposited numbers can be borrowed against; and when you're a bank, that means that having $100k in an account is $1m that you can spend. (new math, right? lol) Whereas a $100k house is worth at most $100k, and maybe not even that by the time you get the money.
house prices also weren't grossly inflated by speculation and a bubble back then the way they are now
When it comes to property values, you should be looking only at 30 year price charts. The 10 year chart will move around a lot, but the 30 year chart is very steady. As compared to prices in the 80s, current values are only the expected price growth in most places in the US. The speculation bubble pushed things up, yes; and people who bought at the height of that, the prices had already factored in up to 10 years of future growth. Prices were then flat, and in most cases that curve actually caught back up already a couple years ago.
It has been substantially relaxed, and in Oregon there is even one whose requirement is that you... live in Oregon.
As to the grandparent, if somebody asks you to sign something and they claim you can't have a copy, ask to talk to the manager. It is most likely a "misunderstanding" (and really the closest copy machine is out of toner). The manager, not knowing if you're just detail-oriented or if you're doing an investigation, will almost certainly clear up the "misunderstanding" for you, even if it means faxing a form to themselves to make a "copy."
Sorry to reply to myself, but I just wanted to add: If I hadn't had the social ability to deal with the bank manager in a way that would generate a favorable outcome for me, I'd have lost the account and entered 5 years of Banking Purgatory and I'd just now be climbing out of that. A lot of people lack that skill, and would be (understandably!) angry and scared in that situation, and probably not even understanding which of the companies involved was the one who did something "wrong" to them.
I actually think the poor would be a lot better off if the conservatives would just let the Government provide banking services directly to the poor. When you have the money you can straighten these things out yourself even if you don't know the magic words; but the poor would be better served by a bland, slow, emotionless bureaucrat who could simply add up the real charges, check that everybody got paid, and turn the account back on, with no need for the nonsense "fees" to even be involved.
That reminds me of a funny one I had a few years ago. I had $10 in my account, and so I rented a $1 redbox movie. No problem, right? Wrong! See, I had been planning for redbox to actually hit my account twice; once for the authorization, and then again for the actual $1 charge. Which is what they had done the few times I had used the service before. But no. They put a $10 authorization in to rent me the movie,(turns out it varies) which went through, but then when I returned it and they charged the real $1, now I was over. Funny thing is, there was no overdraft because the $10 wasn't a charge, just an authorization. But of course, banks have fees for everything, so there is still a fee; $7/day for having a negative account. Takes 3 days for an authorization to expire, when a company like redbox is lazy and does it that way. So that still left me $12 in the hole. I didn't even find out there was a problem until 2 weeks later, either; I figured I had $9 in my account, why would be I be checking on my $9 every day?
Luckily, I know the magic word for this. "Hi, I'd like to have some fees rescinded." Don't ask to have fees "removed," "taken off," or "forgiven." Most banks do not have a policy where they will "take off" fees. However, banks do have a policy of rescinding fees to make a customer happy. That tip was given to me in 1998 by David Cohen, a local Toastmaster and former Chess Club President. US Bank was happy to rescind all the fees... except for the first $7 which they said was my fault for not knowing how much of an authorization I was authorizing. (true, that)
What you are missing is the social conditioning where they are told the car is a "necessity" because moving closer to work... is some kind of wimpy liberal thing to do, and the real reason they live so far from work is... public planning. And they can't ride a bicycle, because they're not a hippie and don't want the wind from the bicycle to give them dreadlocks.
Actually, going hungry is the one thing that is different than the others; hunger is a luxury for those too drunk to make it to the soup kitchen. Food is the one form of assistance that is easy to get in the US. Shelter and jobs are much harder to replace.
age discrimination, by prohibiting legal adults from obtaining credit cards unless they meet income requirements that are impossible to obtain for most young people, especially students.
This lack of critical thinking skills is what created the problem where the CC companies were preying on students' presumed future incomes before they even had any income, and therefore, before they knew the value of their future income. Then they graduate, and they're actually already so far in CC debt, the first thing they do when they graduate and a get a job is to cancel all their credit cards because all they can afford is a maintenance payment on what they already owe.
Any you may not have considered this, gramps, but income isn't age. I know that is hard to comprehend at your age. But requiring the bank to verify that the income you get is high enough (by their own formulas!) for the amount of credit they extend, that has nothing to do with age.
Slashdot Mirror
I can't really fault people for taking a long time to figure out that ubiquitous surveillance and a corporate/government surveillance regime is a bad thing. I didn't want to believe it myself until around the middle of last decade, when it became impossible to deny.
Considering that there is still substantial disagreement and debate about if it is good or bad, I don't think you're going to persuade anybody by telling them that their opinion is impossible.
I think a better approach is to communicate why it is bad. You're probably going to need to figure out how to get that message into a "Reality TV" format in order to get through to most people.
You fail to comprehend that there can be something bad that isn't an "Iron Curtain."
Other bad things have different bars. That is expected.
The US is not "first and foremost," the UK has 100% information sharing with the US. We are fully and entirely the same team in this.
If it is an "iron curtain" is a whole different question that, "would it assist the implementation of one if they tried."
I would argue that if you're worried about that happening in the future, being honest about the current situation is more valuable than hyperbole and propaganda that intentionally overstates the situation.
If the game mechanics are derivative is a different question than if the code is.
If they owned the game look & feel, if the mechanics were their own idea and their contract with the developer was regarding the actual code, as such agreements normally do, then none of that matters. In that case, you can hire a different team of developers, and if you don't even show them the old code, only the look and feel, they can duplicate the gameplay exactly and it is not a derivative. If you show the new team the old code, then it gets muddy fast.
And even with the game play, what the judge ruled was that the jury can't make a determination of similarity between things they've never seen. An expert explaining the ways they are same has to also have the context of seeing the things the expert is talking about. Otherwise you can believe the expert 100%, but you still don't have enough information to claim they are the same.
It isn't enough for the Jury to be 51% sure of something. They have to be 51% sure that the evidence presented proves some fact. In this case there was no evidence presented. The expert is supposed to talk about the evidence, their opinion is not itself evidence of anything except the expert's opinion.
And if you did show them the side-by-side, then you'd need to prove that the game mechanics came from the programmer and not... the game of football. So it is a no-brainer why they didn't show enough evidence; the case was a hail-Mary.
Laymen are allowed to give incorrect legal advice as much as they want, as long as they aren't in a commercial arrangement with the other party.
False. Lawman are allowed to have opinions about legal matters, but are not allowed to give legal advice.
If the code itself is a derivative work is different than if the story or art are derivatives. It is actually rather hyper-technical, it is not enough to just say it is a sequel so it is a derivative.
It is not up to the defense to prove they didn't copy. It is up to the plaintiff to prove that they did.
When the plaintiff bungles, don't expect the defendant in an adversarial system to set up the correct test to save the plaintiff's behind. Instead, expect the defense to file motions claiming that the plaintiff bungled it. As happened here.
IANAL, and since your advice is so awful, you should probably disclaim it too ;)
then get 2/3 of state legislatures to ratify it.
Sorry, no. 2/3 is how much of the House and Senate have to vote Yes. Ratification requires 3/4th of the States.
No, actually that isn't what they want at all. They don't want to everyone to be poor together. They just want to keep being poor in the same neighborhoods they grew up being poor in. And they sure don't want to do it together with the rich bastards from google; that is their basic complaint, rich people moving into their neighborhoods.
They want the rich people to keep being rich wherever they were being rich before they moved into a formerly poor neighborhood. The basic problem with that is that that would require the rich to live in increasingly high density neighborhoods, like the poor have to. The rich don't want to live in close proximity, even to other rich people. And they have enough money to buy the property and make those decisions for everybody.
I'm not from Cali, but if I was told the old place I could afford to live was Sacramento and that I should consider taking the greyhound bus to work in the City every morning, I might just go on a crazy riot spree too. Or move to the woods and starve on berries.
You seem a little full of propaganda. Gentrification is not a process where the landlords go out of business unless they raise rents. That's just LOL funny because it is so daft. The way it works, the landlords are making huge windfall profits because land they bought when it was slums are now trendy neighborhoods.
If they "moved everything back out" rents would revert to what they were before gentrification; fairly high rents normal in a big city. They would still be big city landlords making lots of money. It isn't "losing money" to make less than you would have made if the world was different. That isn't what it means to "make" or "lose" money. It is normal for the landlords to want to make as much as they can, but that doesn't mean that they're losing money if they're not making the most they can imagine making. That is just as idiotic as thinking they would be happy making the least they ever made. It is the same "brain-dead [idiocy]" just flipped around backwards.
If the world stays the same, as expected, and gentrification continues (at the rate chosen by the liberals in SF, btw; don't forget that the protesters here are anti-liberal) then that is the world that these landlords live in, and they get to keep making windfall profits. And if the pace of gentrification slows because the community decides to place more value on traditional neighborhoods, then that will be the world the landlords live in, and they will continue making big city landlord money. Notice that there is no "losing money" going on in these things, or anybody taking anything from the landlords. Or, in the case where they make the most money, is there are sign that the money they're making is because of their own work; they are certainly not the cause of gentrification.
These are just basic facts and characteristics of the situation. It is normal to choose your own opinions, and to draw your own conclusions, and to have your own values; but not your own facts.
I think it is a lot like Player Piano, by Kurt Vonnegut. (*spoilers ahead) Sure they're going to die in the end, but their struggle gives their lives purpose. They can't fix their problems, the poor aren't going to have a place to live near the bay. They're going to get pushed farther and farther east until they live in Sac.
People say they should move, but miss the point; they did move, they did choose their place to live, and it is being taken away from them.
Only they can choose what is more important, their lives or their neighborhoods. I don't know these freaks, and I don't live in their neighborhoods, so for me it is just the latest video entertainment from California. I'm hoping for a full action flick with armed security and a charging mass of drunks attempting to use Pabst as molotov cocktails. Maybe a neighboring celebrity throwing rooftop vegetables when their gate is breached, right before the security tower opens up (like in that Somali pirate video)
Well, if you're a rich google engineer my advice is not to arm yourself, which is fraught with various legalities, but instead to hire armed security.
Ultra-pasteurized milk is shelf-stable for 6 months, and they do sell it in stores in the US. There is even a lot of expensive organic milk that is packaged with this process.
It is perfectly reasonable that a person would have milk in their emergency reserves in this age.
You have it exactly backwards. They modernized already. Past tense. They were preparing to join the EU. An old Socialist sold them out to be the first member of Tsar Putin's New Russian Empire, instead.
They're fighting to keep the Freedom they've only had for a couple decades. If they can't even carry their cellphones with them anymore, they've already lost their freedom and should probably be taking up larger arms than burning bottles of vodka.
By standing tall and proud they're denying the government the lie that it is all for their own good. This fake/pirate cell tower of the government's could really have a strong effect on public opinion, and support for the protesters; especially among the educated classes.
Or, you know, a few nerds logged in and moderated based on information quality instead of just based on if the person spewed similar propaganda.
You don't have to "like" the NSA or FBI to be interested in the actual extant civics in the United States, or specifically the duties of the various agencies involved in intelligence and law enforcement.
The big news on that front this month, for people concerned about facts instead of a boogeymen, is that the NSA was giving 3 "tips" per day to the FBI, where the FBI would then know which search warrant to ask for.
First you claim the poor are rational economic actors. Then you start proposing to base welfare on rational economic factors.
I think you're entirely missing the point of the class war.
That is an urban myth. It is what the imaginary slum lord banker would do, but actually they took the money and moved it to other things, such as bonuses.
Remember, the people who stole the money were not the legal entities stealing the money; they didn't steal the money and put it into their own pocket directly. And they also didn't steal it just for the well being of their employer, so the company could buy foreclosed properties. They stole is so the company would convert part of it to inflated bonuses.
The actual companies have a long-standing aversion to holding real estate. They don't force people into foreclosure and then buy the properties back. They force people into foreclosure, auction the property at a loss if needed, and keep their money in other places. Banks don't want to own "things," they want to own numbers. Numbers don't burn down, get eaten by termites, filled up with squatters, or regulated by the local town council. Also, deposited numbers can be borrowed against; and when you're a bank, that means that having $100k in an account is $1m that you can spend. (new math, right? lol) Whereas a $100k house is worth at most $100k, and maybe not even that by the time you get the money.
house prices also weren't grossly inflated by speculation and a bubble back then the way they are now
When it comes to property values, you should be looking only at 30 year price charts. The 10 year chart will move around a lot, but the 30 year chart is very steady. As compared to prices in the 80s, current values are only the expected price growth in most places in the US. The speculation bubble pushed things up, yes; and people who bought at the height of that, the prices had already factored in up to 10 years of future growth. Prices were then flat, and in most cases that curve actually caught back up already a couple years ago.
It has been substantially relaxed, and in Oregon there is even one whose requirement is that you... live in Oregon.
As to the grandparent, if somebody asks you to sign something and they claim you can't have a copy, ask to talk to the manager. It is most likely a "misunderstanding" (and really the closest copy machine is out of toner). The manager, not knowing if you're just detail-oriented or if you're doing an investigation, will almost certainly clear up the "misunderstanding" for you, even if it means faxing a form to themselves to make a "copy."
Sorry to reply to myself, but I just wanted to add: If I hadn't had the social ability to deal with the bank manager in a way that would generate a favorable outcome for me, I'd have lost the account and entered 5 years of Banking Purgatory and I'd just now be climbing out of that. A lot of people lack that skill, and would be (understandably!) angry and scared in that situation, and probably not even understanding which of the companies involved was the one who did something "wrong" to them.
I actually think the poor would be a lot better off if the conservatives would just let the Government provide banking services directly to the poor. When you have the money you can straighten these things out yourself even if you don't know the magic words; but the poor would be better served by a bland, slow, emotionless bureaucrat who could simply add up the real charges, check that everybody got paid, and turn the account back on, with no need for the nonsense "fees" to even be involved.
That reminds me of a funny one I had a few years ago. I had $10 in my account, and so I rented a $1 redbox movie. No problem, right? Wrong!
See, I had been planning for redbox to actually hit my account twice; once for the authorization, and then again for the actual $1 charge. Which is what they had done the few times I had used the service before. But no. They put a $10 authorization in to rent me the movie,(turns out it varies) which went through, but then when I returned it and they charged the real $1, now I was over. Funny thing is, there was no overdraft because the $10 wasn't a charge, just an authorization. But of course, banks have fees for everything, so there is still a fee; $7/day for having a negative account. Takes 3 days for an authorization to expire, when a company like redbox is lazy and does it that way. So that still left me $12 in the hole. I didn't even find out there was a problem until 2 weeks later, either; I figured I had $9 in my account, why would be I be checking on my $9 every day?
Luckily, I know the magic word for this. "Hi, I'd like to have some fees rescinded." Don't ask to have fees "removed," "taken off," or "forgiven." Most banks do not have a policy where they will "take off" fees. However, banks do have a policy of rescinding fees to make a customer happy. That tip was given to me in 1998 by David Cohen, a local Toastmaster and former Chess Club President. US Bank was happy to rescind all the fees... except for the first $7 which they said was my fault for not knowing how much of an authorization I was authorizing. (true, that)
What you are missing is the social conditioning where they are told the car is a "necessity" because moving closer to work... is some kind of wimpy liberal thing to do, and the real reason they live so far from work is... public planning. And they can't ride a bicycle, because they're not a hippie and don't want the wind from the bicycle to give them dreadlocks.
Actually, going hungry is the one thing that is different than the others; hunger is a luxury for those too drunk to make it to the soup kitchen. Food is the one form of assistance that is easy to get in the US. Shelter and jobs are much harder to replace.
age discrimination, by prohibiting legal adults from obtaining credit cards unless they meet income requirements that are impossible to obtain for most young people, especially students.
This lack of critical thinking skills is what created the problem where the CC companies were preying on students' presumed future incomes before they even had any income, and therefore, before they knew the value of their future income. Then they graduate, and they're actually already so far in CC debt, the first thing they do when they graduate and a get a job is to cancel all their credit cards because all they can afford is a maintenance payment on what they already owe.
Any you may not have considered this, gramps, but income isn't age. I know that is hard to comprehend at your age. But requiring the bank to verify that the income you get is high enough (by their own formulas!) for the amount of credit they extend, that has nothing to do with age.