The 4th Amendment, like the rest of the Bill of Rights, preserves the rights of citizens by limiting the power of the federal government. There is nothing in the 4th Amendment that says I cannot take steps to monitor my property to ensure it's return if/when stolen.
Point of pedantry: under the 14th amendment nearly all of the Bill of Rights has been incorporated to apply to state and local governments as well.
That's incorrect as far as the US Code is concerned:
(a) intentionally intercepts, endeavors to intercept, or procures any other person to intercept or endeavor to intercept, any wire, oral, or electronic communication;
Emphasis mine. I'm not sure how state wiretapping laws are written, but if they follow the federal example, electronic communication counts.
You're correct that it doesn't concern only audio communications. Rather, it applies to any and all recordings of CONVERSATIONS or language communication. If the tech was only intercepting pictures, then again, she has no case for claiming wiretapping.
It's kind of fun to watch the wall clock get the "change DST" signal and "spin" its hands to the correct time (my wall clock can't "spin" backwards, so it has to make 11 complete revolutions in the fall). Hey, I'm easily entertained, what can I tell you?
You know that happens at 2 AM, right? You stay up just to watch your clocks change?
It is only for two nights a year... and plus, your work is always understanding about why you're crazy late... "Sorry I'm late... stupid daylight savings... *everyone nods in agreement*"
I haven't had such an instance myself. I've been overclocking my graphics cards like mad, doing this and that crazy stuff, and every single time the graphics card has locked up Windows has been able to restart the driver successfully. Not once has my system locked up completely due to graphics card - related issues. It's really handy and it still baffles me why X.org devs don't seem to consider doing the same thing.
Because the X.org devs don't actually control the nvidia driver blob?
You're implying that natural people would act any differently.
There are still natural people who claim that the 16th Amendment wasn't properly ratified and thus not actually law, and thus Congress has no legal ability to levy income taxes. (Of which the only interesting mistake in the argument is the assumption that Congress was unable to levy income taxes prior to the 16th Amendment.)... Actually, to date, I don't think there is one single legal person who has attempted this argument in court. Probably because a legal person must be represented by a lawyer, and no lawyer would be so stupid as to make an argument that guarantees a $5,000 fine...
Anyways, people are free to argue just about anything in court that they have evidence to support, or think case law supports. Lawyers may even entirely misconstrue and misquote non-applying statutes in order to convince the judge that their position is only valid one, or the case should be dismissed, or whatever.
That does not mean that opposing counsel won't raise objections to the such motions, or that judges won't listen to opposing counsel when it does raise such objections. It is however almost always the opposing counsel's job to point out errors in their adversary's arguments.
So, if you want to argue that legal persons, or more specifically their lawyers (as they are the ones making these arguments, not corporations) are ballsy enough, and intelligent enough to throw all the spaghetti on the wall in hopes that opposing counsel will slip up and let something slide, then you're absolutely right. Only an idiot would not throw everything they have (except frivolous arguments, see above, they come with fines) out, just because some court somewhere else ruled against it. Sure it's a hell of a long shot argument, with almost no chance of actually making it, but by god, that's what zealous representation is all about.
The coupon is not a necessary part of the game though. It's an extraneous addition. As I said, one would have a claim, but it's up to a jury/judge to decide if the coupon constitutes a substantial part of purchase interest.
Who gets to decide if the coupon is a "necessary" part of the game? If I was on the fence, and the manufacturer including coupons was what tipped the scales to me buying a new copy of the game, I would call that fairly necessary.
Relevant answer that you already quoted has been bolded for your convenience.
I suppose based on this "not a necessary part" logic; a bookseller could sell you a "new" book and "cut out" the last page.... it's not a "necessary part" of the book, just an extraneous addition; you can still read the book, you just don't get to read the epilogue, or maybe the ending, is all.
It's pretty likely that a jury and/or judge would agree with an argument that the epilogue or final pages of a book are a substantial part of a book, and thus a purchaser expects to receive the whole and entire book.
However, say a book came with an insert, with an unrelated picture or such in it advertising for a book from the publisher. The argument becomes more vague at this point, and the answer is not immediately clear.
So I'm going to buy a PS3 on the weekend. Guess which store I'm not going to buy the system and a few games from?
I've been looking at PS3s and PS2s as well... it looks like your best bet is to go to Gamestop only for used games... you might luck out and get a new copy instead of a used one. Otherwise, if you want a new game, don't go there because you might hit the craps and not get an actual new copy... basically, I would say, treat everything in their store like it's used, because they don't particularly seem to have the rigor to keep track of this stuff.
So, let me get this straight. Someone makes a statement that a EULA is not enforceable just from opening the box, and you present a case where this claim was argued, but failed... and you start it off with "actually,..." as if the person's statement was incorrect?
Just because some jagoff argued it in court doesn't mean that it will fly, and in fact, if it was argued in court and got shot down, then it's even more unlikely that anyone would ever claim that the argument would ever apply again.
The other statements weren't and would not have been considered until the Appeals judges decided that the teacher would be able to be sued in the first place.
As they found the teacher to have immunity to suit, they would not have and could not have considered the additional statements.
This is a difficult ruling for me as well, even though I'm pretty militantly anti-religious, precisely because by argument of analogy it would exempt teachers from some potentially upsetting speech from my part. For instance, a teacher proselytizing or evangelizing for their religion or such... to be fair though, scientifically religions don't have any support of their claims anyways.
The point is, it's kind of dick to not include the lost Apollo mission on account of it "never having actually launched"... when in truth, but for the fire, it would have launched.
But I believe it was being tested in a configuration that would never have flown; if I remember correctly, the cabin atmosphere changed from normal air to low-pressure (6psi?) pure O2 during launch, whereas the test was about 16psi pure O2.
That said, there were enough flaws with the Block I Apollo capsules that the odds of killing a crew at some point without the Block II redesign were pretty high.
Someone else already addressed this, but you are not correct, the configuration was indeed intended to launch. It was going to be a manned launch as a test, with some further unmanned launches as more tests and then a manned launch of what-would-have-been Apollo 2, which ended up being Apollo 4. When the launch failed, they were originally expected to not use Apollo 1 for the flight, because it never launched, and then Apollo 4 would have been Apollo 1. It was later petitioned that because NASA was fully intending to launch Apollo 1, that the name should be bound to the disaster, regardless of the launch.
God, look at me, sounding all authoritative, I read this shit 5 minutes ago on Wikipedia.....
I would suspect that unless *Gamestop* advertises there is a coupon inside, they are not falsely advertising
The 'false advertising' would be the advertisement that we sell this product, this new game; instead of "We sell an open box copy of this product that has some components removed which were contained in the original product"
The coupon is not a necessary part of the game though. It's an extraneous addition. As I said, one would have a claim, but it's up to a jury/judge to decide if the coupon constitutes a substantial part of purchase interest.
The parent comment is correct, it's unlikely that they could be held liable for false advertising unless the advertisement is apparent from Gamestop: either Gamestop is making the claim, or the coupon is advertised on the box.
The point of all of this is: this is a really really dick thing to do... but fundamentally does not rise to the level of being significantly legally liable.
It's iffy... Gamestop could be seen as diminishing the value of the item that they're selling you (specifically by the exact value of the coupon), so if they're selling it at standard price, you could have a legal claim to recover the "damages" done. However, I doubt that the coupon is for more value than the $25 that it takes to file a small-claims action (YMMV, this is Washington State's value). So, really the only option is a class-action suit from anyone who purchased the game and did not receive a coupon.
This is also kind of unlikely. Square Enix though has no claim, because Gamestop is under no duty to sell the products they buy in the exact same condition that they were in when they purchased the items wholesale.
Although, agreed, if the advertising says that there is a coupon, then Gamestop is potentially running afoul of truth in advertising laws. I somehow almost doubt that they would be so cavalier about removing the coupon if the advertising did though.
Only if you don't count a fire during a launch rehearsal. Sure it's not actually a launch... but they had to scrap that whole flight. But still, I consider it close enough. For instance, if a couple dies during their wedding rehearsal, history should record that but for the deaths, they would have married. (In France, it would probably be good enough to get presidential approval to actually construct the marriage despite them being dead, especially if one were to survive.)
The point is, it's kind of dick to not include the lost Apollo mission on account of it "never having actually launched"... when in truth, but for the fire, it would have launched.
what the heck are you doing over in that development country you call the states?;)
I live here, but I don't consider a "developed country" or "civilized country" to be any country where Doctors without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières) has operated a free clinic for people to get healthcare...
So, he complains about them banning fully-automatic weapons, and you point out that he is wrong, they banned semi-automatic weapons.
My questions are: 1) Does this mean you can still by a fully-automatic weapon? 2) Expecting the first question to be "no", did they ban fully-automatic weapons at the same time, or were fully-automatic weapons banned prior to the semi-automatic weapons?
Wrong. Very little of what the teacher says about religion has to do with creationism. He bashes a lot of religions, often times with ZERO connection to European History (the course). You're acting like he said "well, there isn't evidence to support creationism." That isn't it at all. He flat out says that specific religions are bogus.
Source: Me. I took his class 10 years ago.
My statement was first that he was not making fun of an individual student and you confirm this. My second statement was that he was bashing creationism for not being science. As this was the specific material of the suit, I am still right. (You even acknowledge that he does say SOME things about creationism.)
You're actually expounding upon further details which I had no privy to know: that this is a regular pattern in his lectures.
So what we have is a court that appears to be saying that it is a violation of the constitution for the teacher to do this, but you can't sue them for it because no court has rule that it is a violation of the constitution (and we will not so rule either).
No, the court ruled that they don't know if his speech were a violation of the constitution or not, and because there was no precedent stating that it would be a violation, we can't hold him responsible, because he could not have been aware that his actions would have been a violation.
It's called "you have to have a chance of knowing that your actions are illegal/create a civil liability before you can be held accountable for them." Otherwise, we could just invent civil liabilities out of thin air.
Slashdot Mirror
The 4th Amendment, like the rest of the Bill of Rights, preserves the rights of citizens by limiting the power of the federal government. There is nothing in the 4th Amendment that says I cannot take steps to monitor my property to ensure it's return if/when stolen.
Point of pedantry: under the 14th amendment nearly all of the Bill of Rights has been incorporated to apply to state and local governments as well.
That's incorrect as far as the US Code is concerned:
(a) intentionally intercepts, endeavors to intercept, or procures any other person to intercept or endeavor to intercept, any wire, oral, or electronic communication;
Emphasis mine. I'm not sure how state wiretapping laws are written, but if they follow the federal example, electronic communication counts.
You're correct that it doesn't concern only audio communications. Rather, it applies to any and all recordings of CONVERSATIONS or language communication. If the tech was only intercepting pictures, then again, she has no case for claiming wiretapping.
Meanwhile, Google is busy violating privacy in a way that even the Internet has no porn for...
I dispute this claim under Rule #34!
Weird... when you typed hunter1, all I saw were asterisks.
Exactly, we've all see how well it works on Wikipedia..
Worse, we've seen what it does to texting.
I'm willing to say that this idea is totally rediculous even!
You know that happens at 2 AM, right? You stay up just to watch your clocks change?
It is only for two nights a year... and plus, your work is always understanding about why you're crazy late... "Sorry I'm late... stupid daylight savings... *everyone nods in agreement*"
I haven't had such an instance myself. I've been overclocking my graphics cards like mad, doing this and that crazy stuff, and every single time the graphics card has locked up Windows has been able to restart the driver successfully. Not once has my system locked up completely due to graphics card - related issues. It's really handy and it still baffles me why X.org devs don't seem to consider doing the same thing.
Because the X.org devs don't actually control the nvidia driver blob?
Seriously? Are we Americans so arrogant that in a comment thread titled "Welcome to Australia" that we have to comment about US law?
No, you're not, since I'm not an American. That said, I do apologize. The original post was collapsed, and I usually skirt over the titles.
Oh no... :( Americo-centricism has spread... I hope it's not rapidly contagious...
You're implying that natural people would act any differently.
There are still natural people who claim that the 16th Amendment wasn't properly ratified and thus not actually law, and thus Congress has no legal ability to levy income taxes. (Of which the only interesting mistake in the argument is the assumption that Congress was unable to levy income taxes prior to the 16th Amendment.) ... Actually, to date, I don't think there is one single legal person who has attempted this argument in court. Probably because a legal person must be represented by a lawyer, and no lawyer would be so stupid as to make an argument that guarantees a $5,000 fine...
Anyways, people are free to argue just about anything in court that they have evidence to support, or think case law supports. Lawyers may even entirely misconstrue and misquote non-applying statutes in order to convince the judge that their position is only valid one, or the case should be dismissed, or whatever.
That does not mean that opposing counsel won't raise objections to the such motions, or that judges won't listen to opposing counsel when it does raise such objections. It is however almost always the opposing counsel's job to point out errors in their adversary's arguments.
So, if you want to argue that legal persons, or more specifically their lawyers (as they are the ones making these arguments, not corporations) are ballsy enough, and intelligent enough to throw all the spaghetti on the wall in hopes that opposing counsel will slip up and let something slide, then you're absolutely right. Only an idiot would not throw everything they have (except frivolous arguments, see above, they come with fines) out, just because some court somewhere else ruled against it. Sure it's a hell of a long shot argument, with almost no chance of actually making it, but by god, that's what zealous representation is all about.
The coupon is not a necessary part of the game though. It's an extraneous addition. As I said, one would have a claim, but it's up to a jury/judge to decide if the coupon constitutes a substantial part of purchase interest.
Who gets to decide if the coupon is a "necessary" part of the game?
If I was on the fence, and the manufacturer including coupons was what tipped the scales to me buying a new copy of the game, I would call that fairly necessary.
Relevant answer that you already quoted has been bolded for your convenience.
I suppose based on this "not a necessary part" logic; a bookseller could sell you a "new" book and "cut out" the last page.... it's not a "necessary part" of the book,
just an extraneous addition; you can still read the book, you just don't get to read the epilogue, or maybe the ending, is all.
It's pretty likely that a jury and/or judge would agree with an argument that the epilogue or final pages of a book are a substantial part of a book, and thus a purchaser expects to receive the whole and entire book.
However, say a book came with an insert, with an unrelated picture or such in it advertising for a book from the publisher. The argument becomes more vague at this point, and the answer is not immediately clear.
So I'm going to buy a PS3 on the weekend. Guess which store I'm not going to buy the system and a few games from?
I've been looking at PS3s and PS2s as well... it looks like your best bet is to go to Gamestop only for used games... you might luck out and get a new copy instead of a used one. Otherwise, if you want a new game, don't go there because you might hit the craps and not get an actual new copy... basically, I would say, treat everything in their store like it's used, because they don't particularly seem to have the rigor to keep track of this stuff.
So, let me get this straight. Someone makes a statement that a EULA is not enforceable just from opening the box, and you present a case where this claim was argued, but failed... and you start it off with "actually, ..." as if the person's statement was incorrect?
Just because some jagoff argued it in court doesn't mean that it will fly, and in fact, if it was argued in court and got shot down, then it's even more unlikely that anyone would ever claim that the argument would ever apply again.
The other statements weren't and would not have been considered until the Appeals judges decided that the teacher would be able to be sued in the first place.
As they found the teacher to have immunity to suit, they would not have and could not have considered the additional statements.
This is a difficult ruling for me as well, even though I'm pretty militantly anti-religious, precisely because by argument of analogy it would exempt teachers from some potentially upsetting speech from my part. For instance, a teacher proselytizing or evangelizing for their religion or such... to be fair though, scientifically religions don't have any support of their claims anyways.
Seriously? Are we Americans so arrogant that in a comment thread titled "Welcome to Australia" that we have to comment about US law?
I was obviously talking about Australia. If I wanted to know about US gun law, I would walk into my living room and ask my gun historian roommate.
The point is, it's kind of dick to not include the lost Apollo mission on account of it "never having actually launched"... when in truth, but for the fire, it would have launched.
But I believe it was being tested in a configuration that would never have flown; if I remember correctly, the cabin atmosphere changed from normal air to low-pressure (6psi?) pure O2 during launch, whereas the test was about 16psi pure O2.
That said, there were enough flaws with the Block I Apollo capsules that the odds of killing a crew at some point without the Block II redesign were pretty high.
Someone else already addressed this, but you are not correct, the configuration was indeed intended to launch. It was going to be a manned launch as a test, with some further unmanned launches as more tests and then a manned launch of what-would-have-been Apollo 2, which ended up being Apollo 4. When the launch failed, they were originally expected to not use Apollo 1 for the flight, because it never launched, and then Apollo 4 would have been Apollo 1. It was later petitioned that because NASA was fully intending to launch Apollo 1, that the name should be bound to the disaster, regardless of the launch.
God, look at me, sounding all authoritative, I read this shit 5 minutes ago on Wikipedia.....
I would suspect that unless *Gamestop* advertises there is a coupon inside, they are not falsely advertising
The 'false advertising' would be the advertisement that we sell this product, this new game; instead of "We sell an open box copy of this product that has some components removed which were contained in the original product"
The coupon is not a necessary part of the game though. It's an extraneous addition. As I said, one would have a claim, but it's up to a jury/judge to decide if the coupon constitutes a substantial part of purchase interest.
The parent comment is correct, it's unlikely that they could be held liable for false advertising unless the advertisement is apparent from Gamestop: either Gamestop is making the claim, or the coupon is advertised on the box.
The point of all of this is: this is a really really dick thing to do... but fundamentally does not rise to the level of being significantly legally liable.
It's iffy... Gamestop could be seen as diminishing the value of the item that they're selling you (specifically by the exact value of the coupon), so if they're selling it at standard price, you could have a legal claim to recover the "damages" done. However, I doubt that the coupon is for more value than the $25 that it takes to file a small-claims action (YMMV, this is Washington State's value). So, really the only option is a class-action suit from anyone who purchased the game and did not receive a coupon.
This is also kind of unlikely. Square Enix though has no claim, because Gamestop is under no duty to sell the products they buy in the exact same condition that they were in when they purchased the items wholesale.
Although, agreed, if the advertising says that there is a coupon, then Gamestop is potentially running afoul of truth in advertising laws. I somehow almost doubt that they would be so cavalier about removing the coupon if the advertising did though.
Apollo did 16 launches with no lost craft
Only if you don't count a fire during a launch rehearsal. Sure it's not actually a launch... but they had to scrap that whole flight. But still, I consider it close enough. For instance, if a couple dies during their wedding rehearsal, history should record that but for the deaths, they would have married. (In France, it would probably be good enough to get presidential approval to actually construct the marriage despite them being dead, especially if one were to survive.)
The point is, it's kind of dick to not include the lost Apollo mission on account of it "never having actually launched"... when in truth, but for the fire, it would have launched.
"I forgot how good that movie was" "Too bad they never made any sequels."
what the heck are you doing over in that development country you call the states? ;)
I live here, but I don't consider a "developed country" or "civilized country" to be any country where Doctors without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières) has operated a free clinic for people to get healthcare...
So, he complains about them banning fully-automatic weapons, and you point out that he is wrong, they banned semi-automatic weapons.
My questions are:
1) Does this mean you can still by a fully-automatic weapon?
2) Expecting the first question to be "no", did they ban fully-automatic weapons at the same time, or were fully-automatic weapons banned prior to the semi-automatic weapons?
Just because it's in the dictionary does not mean it is slang. In fact, I'm sure "jeggings" is marked with "slang". I'm for sure that "woot" is.
Wrong. Very little of what the teacher says about religion has to do with creationism. He bashes a lot of religions, often times with ZERO connection to European History (the course). You're acting like he said "well, there isn't evidence to support creationism." That isn't it at all. He flat out says that specific religions are bogus.
Source: Me. I took his class 10 years ago.
My statement was first that he was not making fun of an individual student and you confirm this. My second statement was that he was bashing creationism for not being science. As this was the specific material of the suit, I am still right. (You even acknowledge that he does say SOME things about creationism.)
You're actually expounding upon further details which I had no privy to know: that this is a regular pattern in his lectures.
So what we have is a court that appears to be saying that it is a violation of the constitution for the teacher to do this, but you can't sue them for it because no court has rule that it is a violation of the constitution (and we will not so rule either).
No, the court ruled that they don't know if his speech were a violation of the constitution or not, and because there was no precedent stating that it would be a violation, we can't hold him responsible, because he could not have been aware that his actions would have been a violation.
It's called "you have to have a chance of knowing that your actions are illegal/create a civil liability before you can be held accountable for them." Otherwise, we could just invent civil liabilities out of thin air.