IANAL, but I think I have another way similar to yours. You can also post the letter, but replace various words (or all the words) with synonyms. "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog" would become "The speedy caramel-colored wild canine leaped through the air above the sluggard domesticated canine." "I want to suck your blood" would become "I desire to draw out your sanguine fluid and consume it." "Digital Millenium Copyright Act" would become "Non-analog Decacenturial Copyright Law".
Then include a copyright notice at the beginning of the posting and indicate that members of the law firm that sent the original C&D are expressly denied permission to copy, distribute, etc. this version of the letter. [You could make it even better and deny them permission to even read your version, then if they indicate in court that they've done so accuse them of copyright infringement yourself.]
The fact that the diebold ballots were so far off is very troubling, considering they make ATM's which don't miss a penny and are virtually fraud proof (not to mention there is a paper trail).
I'm not a lawyer or a banker, but if an ATM malfunctions due to a software or hardware error, I'd bet that Diebold would be held financial responsible under the terms of the sales agreements they had with the bank. [Given how much is at stake for the bank, they'd be foolish not to have their lawyers include something like that, and they're paying Diebold enough to get that clause accepted.] What potential penalty is there for Diebold if their voting machines malfunction or deliberately interfere with the course of an election? There would have to be proof before they could get penalized by the legal system, and from what I've read, Diebold's voting machines aren't big on producing anything that could be considered proof of wrongdoing in a court of law.
Instead of recharging your battery inside the car, simply exchange your exhausted battery for a fresh battery at the 'gas station'. They recharge your exhausted battery for however long it takes, and exchanges it for someone else's exhausted battery. People with gas grills are already used to doing something like this; when your propane tank is empty, you take it to a location where they exchange it for a full tank. They then fill the tank you gave them and sell it to someone else.
It's even worse when there are typos on the resume of a candidate for a QA position. If you're applying for a position where one of the main job responsibilities is detecting errors, at the very least you should make sure there are none on your resume.
Damned if you do, damned if you don't, by our litigious society. If the administrators monitor the kids, find something like this and take action, people accuse the schools of having too many administrators who aren't actually doing administrative work. If the administrators don't monitor the kids and something happens (one of the kids drives drunk and kills themselves or someone else, for instance) then the parents sue the schools for not protecting their kids and the media rips the school apart for not doing enough to protect the kids. Even if the school is in the right, they get dragged through the mud in the media and the courts and have to spend a lot of money defending themselves (money which, if you think about it, could be spent on teachers.)
It would be totally infeasible, but I think potential parents should have to get a license to have a child. We have licenses to get married, purchase a gun, and drive (each of which can have a significant impact on the lives of multiple people) -- why not make people prove they're responsible (for some definition of "responsible", which I know is the rub) and have basic common sense before they can keep the child whose life they're going to mold until the child becomes responsible for themselves.
I think they'd be less worried about the loss of communications than about the fact that the dust will block sunlight from reaching the rovers' solar panels. If they lose communications with the rovers for a while, there's still a chance to restore that communication. If the rovers lose power, it may not be possible to restore communication with them (short of having future manned Mars missions seek them out and jump start them.)
I wonder if NASA has AAA service -- that would be one hell of a service call. "Hello, yes, our batteries are dead and we need a jump start. You'll never guess where we are..."
That's an interesting question. IANAL, but I imagine at least _some_ of the specifications would fall under export control regulations. It'll be interesting to see if it's just the specs for key components that fall into categories that are already controlled, or if the US government tries to prevent any information from being exported. Given the current trend in the Executive branch towards secrecy, I imagine it'll be closer to the latter than the former.
I've heard that Slashdot was responding sluggishly the day Chuck Norris signed up for his account, and so he roundhouse kicked the server to try to speed it up. The program that assigns IDs couldn't handle the raw influx of power from the kick and it malfunctioned, giving him the only 0-digit UID on Slashdot [ChuckNorris ()].
1) Put a picture you created and for which you own the copyright on your webpage 2) Send messages to members of Congress, the RIAA, and the MPAA telling them they are not allowed to view your picture 3) Wait for recipients of the messages sent in step 2 to visit your webpage [telling a person not to do something is one of the best ways to get them to do it] 4) File a copyright infringement claim and get their computers taken away 5) ??? 6) Profit!
How much more does it take to see that it is a BAD idea?
I think we're only going to see people turn against electronic voting machines that do not have a paper trail once someone manipulates a vote using those machines so far that it's impossible to ignore. If, for instance, ALL the votes in the state of California (over 50 electoral votes -- I believe 271 or thereabouts gets you the White House) were changed to vote for CowboyNeal, that would be a situation that couldn't be ignored. The major news organizations would _have_ to cover that story. It would take that level of outrage (or the level of having all the votes in the state of New York be modified to be votes for Osama bin Laden, for example) to get the message through that these machines are not secure and that we shouldn't be trusting our votes to them.
In hindsight, the Windows boot.ini file should have been write protected, so that it couldn't be accidentally deleted. Hindsight is 20/20, but foresight tends to be much worse.
That's why you don't put up road signs. You construct a sturdy 9 or 10 foot high archway across the main road into town, and have a path (you don't call it a road) that local trucks can use to get into town. Alternately, put up a toll booth -- $50 for nonlocal truck passage through the town.
Option A and B: A & B achieve identical functionality but B comes with an enormous security breach. Implementing A costs one million dollars more than implementing B.
WWDPHBD? [What Would Dilbert's Pointy Haired Boss Do?]
If someone that reports to you tells you that they're leaving the company, often your first action should be to ask why. There may be something you can do to keep a valued employee. For instance, if they're quitting because they're fed up with their commute, perhaps you can allow them to telecommute one day a week. If they're quitting because of a personality conflict with another worker, perhaps you can shuffle around who's working on which project or offer some suggestions for how to ease the tension.
Now there are some circumstances where you'd want to escort the former employee off the premises immediately... but in those cases, hopefully you've had some warning and some time to prepare.
It may be bad journalism practice to avoid explicitly stating that you feel Steve Ballmer has committed a crime, but it's good "avoid a lawsuit from Steve Ballmer for libel" practice to do so. Even if you know you're right, it'll cost you plenty to prove it in court.
Here's the 10 cent version: continuations are used when:
a) your inventor comes up with a new way of extending his invention (continuation in part);
That sounds to me like it should be a completely new patent application.
b) you disclosed multiple distinct inventions in the original application, but only filed claims at one of them (continuation);
That too sounds like you should have to file a new application for the new inventions.
c) the patent office is being dense, and you have to argue your claims repeatedly (request for continuing examination); or
That sounds reasonable.
d) the patent office grants some of your claims, and you want to get an issued patent AND continue to argue about the others (continuation).
If the accepted claims and the rejected claims were closely related, this sounds reasonable. If the rejected claims were rejected because you were trying to patent the kitchen sink and all its contents, then I say go back to the end of the line and file a new application.
The last perfect score I remember seeing was for Soul Caliber on the Dreamcast. Gotta say, it is perfect. The only possible quibble I can come up with is that they could have had maybe a dozen voice samples for the announcer to cycle through to avoid repetition. That's about all I can fault it on! Fucking 10/10, absolutely.
You forgot three words at the end of this sentence of your comment. "Fucking 10/10, absolutely, in my opinion." I played Soul Caliber for Dreamcast a few times at a friend's place. I don't like playing fighting games all that much -- I prefer role-playing games -- so I'd probably rate it as a 6 or 7 on a scale of 1 to 10. Now give me Final Fantasy Tactics, or Castlevania: Symphony of the Night -- in my opinion, those go to 11. Your mileage may vary.
Frankly, I'd like to see game reviews cover the whole real line -- from -infinity to +infinity, with the endpoints unattainable. Games start out with a neutral score of 0. Each reviewer can add or subtract points from a game's rating, but they have to give a reason. For instance, I might say "-10 points, since I'm not a fan of fighting games" for Soul Caliber. You might assign that same reason "+10 points, I am a fan of fighting games". Over time, the list of 'modifiers' ('this game is a fighting game', 'this is an RPG', 'too short', 'too long', etc.) for a game's score would become standardized, as would the scores each reviewer assigns to each modifier. People reading those reviews could decide what value they wanted to assign to each modifier and so would be able to translate the scores from the reviewer's scale to their own.
If you were a patent troll, would you be willing to go up against IBM's army of lawyers in court in an attempt to get this patent overturned? True, you'd be making life better for other patent trolls... but would you be willing to spend basically all the money you have (and probably some beyond that) in order to help other patent trolls? I think most patent trolls would be too selfish for that.
Giving away 8 consoles that will not generate money from game license fees and getting an article in Wired that's linked to by Slashdot is a good deal for Sony marketing.
Slashdot Mirror
IANAL, but I think I have another way similar to yours. You can also post the letter, but replace various words (or all the words) with synonyms. "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog" would become "The speedy caramel-colored wild canine leaped through the air above the sluggard domesticated canine." "I want to suck your blood" would become "I desire to draw out your sanguine fluid and consume it." "Digital Millenium Copyright Act" would become "Non-analog Decacenturial Copyright Law".
Then include a copyright notice at the beginning of the posting and indicate that members of the law firm that sent the original C&D are expressly denied permission to copy, distribute, etc. this version of the letter. [You could make it even better and deny them permission to even read your version, then if they indicate in court that they've done so accuse them of copyright infringement yourself.]
Ask me again tomorrow afternoon.
Instead of recharging your battery inside the car, simply exchange your exhausted battery for a fresh battery at the 'gas station'. They recharge your exhausted battery for however long it takes, and exchanges it for someone else's exhausted battery. People with gas grills are already used to doing something like this; when your propane tank is empty, you take it to a location where they exchange it for a full tank. They then fill the tank you gave them and sell it to someone else.
It's even worse when there are typos on the resume of a candidate for a QA position. If you're applying for a position where one of the main job responsibilities is detecting errors, at the very least you should make sure there are none on your resume.
Damned if you do, damned if you don't, by our litigious society. If the administrators monitor the kids, find something like this and take action, people accuse the schools of having too many administrators who aren't actually doing administrative work. If the administrators don't monitor the kids and something happens (one of the kids drives drunk and kills themselves or someone else, for instance) then the parents sue the schools for not protecting their kids and the media rips the school apart for not doing enough to protect the kids. Even if the school is in the right, they get dragged through the mud in the media and the courts and have to spend a lot of money defending themselves (money which, if you think about it, could be spent on teachers.)
It would be totally infeasible, but I think potential parents should have to get a license to have a child. We have licenses to get married, purchase a gun, and drive (each of which can have a significant impact on the lives of multiple people) -- why not make people prove they're responsible (for some definition of "responsible", which I know is the rub) and have basic common sense before they can keep the child whose life they're going to mold until the child becomes responsible for themselves.
I think they'd be less worried about the loss of communications than about the fact that the dust will block sunlight from reaching the rovers' solar panels. If they lose communications with the rovers for a while, there's still a chance to restore that communication. If the rovers lose power, it may not be possible to restore communication with them (short of having future manned Mars missions seek them out and jump start them.)
..."
I wonder if NASA has AAA service -- that would be one hell of a service call. "Hello, yes, our batteries are dead and we need a jump start. You'll never guess where we are
That's an interesting question. IANAL, but I imagine at least _some_ of the specifications would fall under export control regulations. It'll be interesting to see if it's just the specs for key components that fall into categories that are already controlled, or if the US government tries to prevent any information from being exported. Given the current trend in the Executive branch towards secrecy, I imagine it'll be closer to the latter than the former.
I've heard that Slashdot was responding sluggishly the day Chuck Norris signed up for his account, and so he roundhouse kicked the server to try to speed it up. The program that assigns IDs couldn't handle the raw influx of power from the kick and it malfunctioned, giving him the only 0-digit UID on Slashdot [ChuckNorris ()].
Take a page from the former Attorney General's playbook -- I cannot recall the passphrase for that particular encrypted file.
Post an ad for a "Wee with 3 games". If any resellers take the bait, send them exactly that -- a sealed container of "wee" with three games.
1) Put a picture you created and for which you own the copyright on your webpage
2) Send messages to members of Congress, the RIAA, and the MPAA telling them they are not allowed to view your picture
3) Wait for recipients of the messages sent in step 2 to visit your webpage [telling a person not to do something is one of the best ways to get them to do it]
4) File a copyright infringement claim and get their computers taken away
5) ???
6) Profit!
In hindsight, the Windows boot.ini file should have been write protected, so that it couldn't be accidentally deleted. Hindsight is 20/20, but foresight tends to be much worse.
That's why you don't put up road signs. You construct a sturdy 9 or 10 foot high archway across the main road into town, and have a path (you don't call it a road) that local trucks can use to get into town. Alternately, put up a toll booth -- $50 for nonlocal truck passage through the town.
What if the boss had these options:
Option A and B: A & B achieve identical functionality but B comes with an enormous security breach. Implementing A costs one million dollars more than implementing B.
WWDPHBD? [What Would Dilbert's Pointy Haired Boss Do?]
"diet caffeine-free Mountain Dew"
If someone that reports to you tells you that they're leaving the company, often your first action should be to ask why. There may be something you can do to keep a valued employee. For instance, if they're quitting because they're fed up with their commute, perhaps you can allow them to telecommute one day a week. If they're quitting because of a personality conflict with another worker, perhaps you can shuffle around who's working on which project or offer some suggestions for how to ease the tension.
... but in those cases, hopefully you've had some warning and some time to prepare.
Now there are some circumstances where you'd want to escort the former employee off the premises immediately
It may be bad journalism practice to avoid explicitly stating that you feel Steve Ballmer has committed a crime, but it's good "avoid a lawsuit from Steve Ballmer for libel" practice to do so. Even if you know you're right, it'll cost you plenty to prove it in court.
So they're going to seize the NSA's computers? Perhaps they're going to seize the computers running whitehouse.gov? Or let's go the direct route and have the FBI seize some computers close to home.
That sounds to me like it should be a completely new patent application. That too sounds like you should have to file a new application for the new inventions. That sounds reasonable. If the accepted claims and the rejected claims were closely related, this sounds reasonable. If the rejected claims were rejected because you were trying to patent the kitchen sink and all its contents, then I say go back to the end of the line and file a new application.
Frankly, I'd like to see game reviews cover the whole real line -- from -infinity to +infinity, with the endpoints unattainable. Games start out with a neutral score of 0. Each reviewer can add or subtract points from a game's rating, but they have to give a reason. For instance, I might say "-10 points, since I'm not a fan of fighting games" for Soul Caliber. You might assign that same reason "+10 points, I am a fan of fighting games". Over time, the list of 'modifiers' ('this game is a fighting game', 'this is an RPG', 'too short', 'too long', etc.) for a game's score would become standardized, as would the scores each reviewer assigns to each modifier. People reading those reviews could decide what value they wanted to assign to each modifier and so would be able to translate the scores from the reviewer's scale to their own.
If you were a patent troll, would you be willing to go up against IBM's army of lawyers in court in an attempt to get this patent overturned? True, you'd be making life better for other patent trolls ... but would you be willing to spend basically all the money you have (and probably some beyond that) in order to help other patent trolls? I think most patent trolls would be too selfish for that.
Giving away 8 consoles that will not generate money from game license fees and getting an article in Wired that's linked to by Slashdot is a good deal for Sony marketing.