Your best option is really to just tell the boss you need more bandwidth... the fact of the matter is that you're selling something you don't have, and that's just not good business. The alternative is that the company can face the distinct possibility of alienating paying customers, who are unlikely to respect any internal distinction between the cable service and ISP and might abandon, or even sue, the one for the sins of the other.
Not that you're going to make overblown predictions or anything. Remember how incorrect all the liberals' predictions that Bush would be a stunning and painful failure were? Oh, wait...
Reading the article it strikes me as shockingly alarmist. Here are a few reasons why:
The court did not, it appears, rule that libel had occurred, they merely ruled that a libel suit could be filed in the face of a summary dismissal. The plaintiff still has to prove that the claim was made with malevolent intent, and the law seems to imply that he must also prove this malevolent intent led to a claim which is perhaps factually true but clearly misleading. Unless I misunderstand the ruling here, the ruling basically says "under Massachusetts law, you might have a case, and as such you are allowed to plead it before the court" but makes no actual ruling on the validity of his case.
It does sound incredibly odd that this e-mail was sent in the first place. If the plaintiff was seriously believed to have defrauded the company, they should have pressed charges and most other companies would have, and if they don't believe this then they have no reason to break their own procedures by announcing "we think this guy was stealing from us" to all and sundry. Free speech or no, that seems like an extremely unprofessional thing for a VP to do. In my own experience with a large national retailer, something like that would NEVER be announced company wide, and likely wouldn't even be announced regionally or within the district... a rumor might be "leaked", but absolutely not an official statement. If Staples isn't looking at firing this VP as well, I'll be shocked.
If charges were not pressed and nobody was ever convicted of theft, then an accusation like this cannot be stated as fact. This nation operates under a presumption of innocence, and for a company to report a former employee as having committed fraud based solely on their suspicions is clearly contrary to that spirit.
It is already unlawful in many locales for an employer to tell competitors things like that about former employees, and I find it hard to believe that under the circumstances the intent here was to accomplish something other than prevent future employment. Those laws currently stand, so unless they are to be ruled invalid I don't see how this case can be entirely without merit.
The whole thing hinges on an obscure law from 107 years ago. Even if this one guy manages to win this one time, it will be on a narrow technicality and probably not take more than a week or two for the State legislature to strike it from the book.
Fucking idiot- n. - one who refuses to accept Profane MuthFucka's random half-assed theories based on his innate trustworthiness and obvious intellectual superiority
Thanks for adding that new definition to the Slashdot dictionary.
"Are you a fucking idiot? I'm just trying to tell you to read what I've already written in this thread so we can both avoid wasting our time."
So you mean your other posts in the thread... yeah, I read them, you proved nothing.
"What are you going on about "deep"? Are you a mental case?"
No, I'm implying that your logic and philosophy are flawed and trite. And by "imply" I mean saying outright. Are you not familiar with the colloquial usage of the word "deep" with regard to thought?
Or, you let capitalism sort it out... the ISP that doesn't provide adequate logging saves money on that service, and then gets additional business from their customers who don't get cut off.
Of, course, 99% of internet connections were run by companies that don't care what the ##AA thinks of them (ie. not by TV providers) they probably would have told them where to shove it long ago.
Avast! has no nag screen that pops you out of game, though it does have an irritating talking box that pops into the lower right corner to tell you when it updates the VDB or software... fortunately it just takes about 10 seconds and then you're done.
I'd also like to state, for the record, that if all the "articles" you've ever written are as "deep" as what you've been posting, that I have absolutely no interest in reading any of them. Seriously, who the fuck are you that I should have read any other "articles" you've written?
I'm saying that you cannot scientifically test for the existence of something that is, by definition, not scientifically testable. Maybe in your world, that means that petunias turn into whales, but in mine it just means you're a douchebag.
Congratulations, you've effectively pointed out that there is no deity doing random shit... what's your fucking point?
By the way, I'd like to point out that deities are always posited to pre-exist humans... if they were causing random shit to happen, we'd just think of it "the way things have always been" AKA an obvious statement of reality.
Why are you so dead set on the idea that you can do something with science that you simply cannot? Is it really such a blow to your ego that, perhaps in this case, you are as helpless and ignorant as everyone else?
You seem to be forgetting that a being capable of shaping reality in whatever way it wants is more than capable of reshaping reality so that nobody would know the difference. You also seem to think that just because a deity fails to behave in some arbitrary way you think it should behave that it clearly does not exist.
To use your example of amputees... you cannot rule out that an all-powerful and all-knowing being could heal an amputee by preventing the amputation in the first place, eliminating the potential of finding healed amputees. Such a being could also, presumably, enter the thoughts and minds of all involved and simply remove all memory of the amputation, which would have the same effect.
The point here is that given the ramifications of an omnipotent deity, any test you can envision to prove OR disprove the existence of such a being is going to be inherently flawed and therefore inconclusive.
So because I don't buy the BS argument that science can actually investigate claims of a SUPERNATURAL being despite the fact that "supernatural" is defined as being outside of nature and science I'm a fundie? Short answer: no, I'm not. Hell, I don't even know what I would be a fundamentalist OF... I'm not a Christian/Muslim/Jew/Buddhist/Hindu/Odinist/Zoroastrian/Scientologist/member of any other religion and I don't even believe in any traditional Western style omniscient/omnipotent deity.
You are also, apparently, under the impression that I was arguing against Dawkins directly, which I wasn't (although many of my points still stand against him... I've read some of his stuff and his attempts at theology and philosophy are mediocre at best, ignorant and childish at worst). I was arguing against another post, which contained none of the weasel words you mention.
By the way, the only reason to include the words "almost certainly" in an assertion is to save face while conceding that, on some level, you can never actually prove what you claim. Dawkins is smart enough to see this, and inserts such language... apparently you are not smart enough to understand why.
So if your actual creation doesn't exist in any form other than digital, fuck off with wanting money for it? I'm glad that your girlfriend can make a living selling ACTUAL PHYSICAL PAINTINGS while giving away digital copies to anyone who wants one, but if you can't see how perhaps that example isn't relevant across the board then you are beyond helping.
I'm also wondering where your bizarre black and white world view comes from. Is there no middle ground between merely wishing to share an artistic vision as the ultimate expression of one's soul and creating "art" for the mere purpose of generating revenue? I'm pretty sure that most professional artists out there (including, from the sound of it, your girlfriend) actually strike a balance between the two: they create art because that is what they live to do, but since living DOES require some sort of income they also find a way to make money doing it, and begrudging somebody that income is just asinine.
Last I checked, video games weren't exactly a great way to exercise (no, not even Wii Fit... I own it, I know), and inadequate exercise is still considered to be a risk factor for obesity, which is in turn a a major risk factor in a huge number of potentially deadly conditions and preconditions. I love videogames, and I'm not about to cut back my playing in order to exercise more, but I simply can't in good conscience argue that it wouldn't be a good idea (and I'm not even at risk for obesity... my BMI is actually below the average range). I would even say that it is absolutely valid for a public health agency to advocate substituting physical activities for video games, board games, reading, and other non-physical activites for purely health related reasons.
I'm not sure what the game publishers are actually protesting here, because this sounds like a pretty clear cut issue to me.
Interesting theory. Please, let me know when you develop a means to pay the bills with your lofty ideals, it sounds much more fulfilling than selling out the way everyone else does.
"I'm wondering if the Internet infrastructure really has the bandwidth to support everyone (not just a minority of people) all doing real time streaming."
Well if we were to retask all of the infrastructure currently devoted to carrying TV signal rather than internet traffic, I have the funny feeling that we could find enough bandwidth to accommodate both services.
Because finances aside, if they go completely under and fail to release such a thing it is possible the most culpable individuals (read: executives) could potentially face criminal charges for fraud and theft. It's an outside chance, but it's also fairly trivial to write a nuclear option patch that completely defeats the possibility.
"No one thinks women should be discriminated against but I do think that as a group that working women take more hours off than working men. Period."
If you don't count time off die to child birth, that discrepancy almost completely vanishes. If you also take into account that men generally make more money for the same work, the notion that women take more time off starts looking like a self fulfilling prophecy (ie. given the choice between a family losing $x when a woman takes the day off or losing $1.5x whena man takes the day off, the most rational choice is clearly for the woman to take the day off), not to mention that there is a cultural norm that mothers are expected to take time off to deal with children (meaning that schools are more likely to call mothers in an emergency than fathers, and that employers are far more likely to permit time off to deal with children for mothers than fathers). Even assuming that your statement of "fact" really is, there are some very clear factors making it far more likely than the alternative which, frankly, have almost nothing to do with the quality or quantity of work done by women and everything to do with social norms and economic conditions.
"So that means they work less hours. Less on the production side. Also as a group women make more of the buying decisions in a family than the men do. More on the consuming side."
I doubt this very much. I work in retail, and while I certainly see women buying more items, I also men buying more expensive items... VASTLY more expensive.
"Sounds like the post is just factually true."
No, it sounds like the post is stating a common and highly controversial assumption that is factually ambiguous but reinforces what many people already believe subconsciously and is possibly a major factor in making or keeping it true. It is rationalization for sexism, not a valid explanation in its own right.
Slashdot Mirror
Your best option is really to just tell the boss you need more bandwidth... the fact of the matter is that you're selling something you don't have, and that's just not good business. The alternative is that the company can face the distinct possibility of alienating paying customers, who are unlikely to respect any internal distinction between the cable service and ISP and might abandon, or even sue, the one for the sins of the other.
Not that you're going to make overblown predictions or anything. Remember how incorrect all the liberals' predictions that Bush would be a stunning and painful failure were? Oh, wait...
Reading the article it strikes me as shockingly alarmist. Here are a few reasons why:
The court did not, it appears, rule that libel had occurred, they merely ruled that a libel suit could be filed in the face of a summary dismissal. The plaintiff still has to prove that the claim was made with malevolent intent, and the law seems to imply that he must also prove this malevolent intent led to a claim which is perhaps factually true but clearly misleading. Unless I misunderstand the ruling here, the ruling basically says "under Massachusetts law, you might have a case, and as such you are allowed to plead it before the court" but makes no actual ruling on the validity of his case.
It does sound incredibly odd that this e-mail was sent in the first place. If the plaintiff was seriously believed to have defrauded the company, they should have pressed charges and most other companies would have, and if they don't believe this then they have no reason to break their own procedures by announcing "we think this guy was stealing from us" to all and sundry. Free speech or no, that seems like an extremely unprofessional thing for a VP to do. In my own experience with a large national retailer, something like that would NEVER be announced company wide, and likely wouldn't even be announced regionally or within the district... a rumor might be "leaked", but absolutely not an official statement. If Staples isn't looking at firing this VP as well, I'll be shocked.
If charges were not pressed and nobody was ever convicted of theft, then an accusation like this cannot be stated as fact. This nation operates under a presumption of innocence, and for a company to report a former employee as having committed fraud based solely on their suspicions is clearly contrary to that spirit.
It is already unlawful in many locales for an employer to tell competitors things like that about former employees, and I find it hard to believe that under the circumstances the intent here was to accomplish something other than prevent future employment. Those laws currently stand, so unless they are to be ruled invalid I don't see how this case can be entirely without merit.
The whole thing hinges on an obscure law from 107 years ago. Even if this one guy manages to win this one time, it will be on a narrow technicality and probably not take more than a week or two for the State legislature to strike it from the book.
Fucking idiot- n. - one who refuses to accept Profane MuthFucka's random half-assed theories based on his innate trustworthiness and obvious intellectual superiority
Thanks for adding that new definition to the Slashdot dictionary.
"Are you a fucking idiot? I'm just trying to tell you to read what I've already written in this thread so we can both avoid wasting our time."
So you mean your other posts in the thread... yeah, I read them, you proved nothing.
"What are you going on about "deep"? Are you a mental case?"
No, I'm implying that your logic and philosophy are flawed and trite. And by "imply" I mean saying outright. Are you not familiar with the colloquial usage of the word "deep" with regard to thought?
Awesome, I've been looking for that feature and just hadn't come across it. Thanks.
Or, you let capitalism sort it out... the ISP that doesn't provide adequate logging saves money on that service, and then gets additional business from their customers who don't get cut off.
Of, course, 99% of internet connections were run by companies that don't care what the ##AA thinks of them (ie. not by TV providers) they probably would have told them where to shove it long ago.
Yeah, but it's also in an "it's complicated" with Trojans. Kind of a problem, really.
Easy solution: masturbation. Not as an alternative to sex though, that would never work. The trick is getting them to do it with coat hangers.
Avast! has no nag screen that pops you out of game, though it does have an irritating talking box that pops into the lower right corner to tell you when it updates the VDB or software... fortunately it just takes about 10 seconds and then you're done.
What, one can't have a hoard of monsters? I like to collect them. Getting them into chests and the like is a real bitch, though.
If that really were the answer I could almost respect it... I mean really, it works pretty well for the CIA.
I'd also like to state, for the record, that if all the "articles" you've ever written are as "deep" as what you've been posting, that I have absolutely no interest in reading any of them. Seriously, who the fuck are you that I should have read any other "articles" you've written?
No, I'm not arguing that, you don't make sense.
I'm saying that you cannot scientifically test for the existence of something that is, by definition, not scientifically testable. Maybe in your world, that means that petunias turn into whales, but in mine it just means you're a douchebag.
Congratulations, you've effectively pointed out that there is no deity doing random shit... what's your fucking point?
By the way, I'd like to point out that deities are always posited to pre-exist humans... if they were causing random shit to happen, we'd just think of it "the way things have always been" AKA an obvious statement of reality.
Why are you so dead set on the idea that you can do something with science that you simply cannot? Is it really such a blow to your ego that, perhaps in this case, you are as helpless and ignorant as everyone else?
Hey, I know that it happened once... in like 2007, but still IT FUCKING HAPPENED!
Throw enough shit at the wall and eventually something's gotta stick, amirite?
You seem to be forgetting that a being capable of shaping reality in whatever way it wants is more than capable of reshaping reality so that nobody would know the difference. You also seem to think that just because a deity fails to behave in some arbitrary way you think it should behave that it clearly does not exist.
To use your example of amputees... you cannot rule out that an all-powerful and all-knowing being could heal an amputee by preventing the amputation in the first place, eliminating the potential of finding healed amputees. Such a being could also, presumably, enter the thoughts and minds of all involved and simply remove all memory of the amputation, which would have the same effect.
The point here is that given the ramifications of an omnipotent deity, any test you can envision to prove OR disprove the existence of such a being is going to be inherently flawed and therefore inconclusive.
So because I don't buy the BS argument that science can actually investigate claims of a SUPERNATURAL being despite the fact that "supernatural" is defined as being outside of nature and science I'm a fundie? Short answer: no, I'm not. Hell, I don't even know what I would be a fundamentalist OF... I'm not a Christian/Muslim/Jew/Buddhist/Hindu/Odinist/Zoroastrian/Scientologist/member of any other religion and I don't even believe in any traditional Western style omniscient/omnipotent deity.
You are also, apparently, under the impression that I was arguing against Dawkins directly, which I wasn't (although many of my points still stand against him... I've read some of his stuff and his attempts at theology and philosophy are mediocre at best, ignorant and childish at worst). I was arguing against another post, which contained none of the weasel words you mention.
By the way, the only reason to include the words "almost certainly" in an assertion is to save face while conceding that, on some level, you can never actually prove what you claim. Dawkins is smart enough to see this, and inserts such language... apparently you are not smart enough to understand why.
Thanks for playing.
So if your actual creation doesn't exist in any form other than digital, fuck off with wanting money for it? I'm glad that your girlfriend can make a living selling ACTUAL PHYSICAL PAINTINGS while giving away digital copies to anyone who wants one, but if you can't see how perhaps that example isn't relevant across the board then you are beyond helping.
I'm also wondering where your bizarre black and white world view comes from. Is there no middle ground between merely wishing to share an artistic vision as the ultimate expression of one's soul and creating "art" for the mere purpose of generating revenue? I'm pretty sure that most professional artists out there (including, from the sound of it, your girlfriend) actually strike a balance between the two: they create art because that is what they live to do, but since living DOES require some sort of income they also find a way to make money doing it, and begrudging somebody that income is just asinine.
Last I checked, video games weren't exactly a great way to exercise (no, not even Wii Fit... I own it, I know), and inadequate exercise is still considered to be a risk factor for obesity, which is in turn a a major risk factor in a huge number of potentially deadly conditions and preconditions. I love videogames, and I'm not about to cut back my playing in order to exercise more, but I simply can't in good conscience argue that it wouldn't be a good idea (and I'm not even at risk for obesity... my BMI is actually below the average range). I would even say that it is absolutely valid for a public health agency to advocate substituting physical activities for video games, board games, reading, and other non-physical activites for purely health related reasons.
I'm not sure what the game publishers are actually protesting here, because this sounds like a pretty clear cut issue to me.
Interesting theory. Please, let me know when you develop a means to pay the bills with your lofty ideals, it sounds much more fulfilling than selling out the way everyone else does.
"I'm wondering if the Internet infrastructure really has the bandwidth to support everyone (not just a minority of people) all doing real time streaming."
Well if we were to retask all of the infrastructure currently devoted to carrying TV signal rather than internet traffic, I have the funny feeling that we could find enough bandwidth to accommodate both services.
Because finances aside, if they go completely under and fail to release such a thing it is possible the most culpable individuals (read: executives) could potentially face criminal charges for fraud and theft. It's an outside chance, but it's also fairly trivial to write a nuclear option patch that completely defeats the possibility.
Fine then, it's a 720 degree difference.
At the same time. That's how real partiers roll.
"No one thinks women should be discriminated against but I do think that as a group that working women take more hours off than working men. Period."
If you don't count time off die to child birth, that discrepancy almost completely vanishes. If you also take into account that men generally make more money for the same work, the notion that women take more time off starts looking like a self fulfilling prophecy (ie. given the choice between a family losing $x when a woman takes the day off or losing $1.5x whena man takes the day off, the most rational choice is clearly for the woman to take the day off), not to mention that there is a cultural norm that mothers are expected to take time off to deal with children (meaning that schools are more likely to call mothers in an emergency than fathers, and that employers are far more likely to permit time off to deal with children for mothers than fathers). Even assuming that your statement of "fact" really is, there are some very clear factors making it far more likely than the alternative which, frankly, have almost nothing to do with the quality or quantity of work done by women and everything to do with social norms and economic conditions.
"So that means they work less hours. Less on the production side. Also as a group women make more of the buying decisions in a family than the men do. More on the consuming side."
I doubt this very much. I work in retail, and while I certainly see women buying more items, I also men buying more expensive items... VASTLY more expensive.
"Sounds like the post is just factually true."
No, it sounds like the post is stating a common and highly controversial assumption that is factually ambiguous but reinforces what many people already believe subconsciously and is possibly a major factor in making or keeping it true. It is rationalization for sexism, not a valid explanation in its own right.