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Comment USA Shipments Impacted? (Score 1) 135

The articles I've read about this are not very clear about whether or not this holds up the shipments destined for the United States. I don't understand why the retailers would be worried about having EU approval for the lots destined for the US, unless I'm missing something. As a side note, damn Newark, they pushed back my ship date to August without even sending an email notification.

Comment Bad metrics for "best" (Score 5, Interesting) 182

I work at a university and Hotmail has on a number of occasions blocked all mail from our domain as an overreaction to some compromised accounts sending mail to hotmail users. These blocks have lasted for days while we have to ask them to revert this. They've been completely unwilling to whitelist our domain or even incorporate a more expedient process for getting these blocks resolved. We have never had any similar problems with Google, Yahoo, etc..

Their metrics for "best" are flawed if they block tens of thousands of good accounts and emails on account of a few compromised accounts, which every institution with over 20,000 users will have. I'm sure their users appreciate not getting normal mail from some domains for days instead of a slightly larger spam folder.

Comment Re:5th Amendment? (Score 1) 1009

The idea is that they are compelling her to decrypt the files and not actually hand over the password. It seems to hinge on whether the courts view the decryption of the files as analogous to compelling you to hand over paper files, etc., which you can be compelled to do, or whether by compelling someone to decrypt the files, they are being compelled to turn over the contents of their mind. To try and avoid the latter interpretation, it seems the government has opted for the first approach which is more ambiguous currently instead of asking them to tell them the password.

Comment What's the point with bandwidth caps present? (Score 1) 354

The idea of big studios pushing for more and higher quality streaming content is just unrealistic. Even current rumors of Apple streaming 1080p at 10Mbps would put the bandwidth requirements at 4.39 GB per hour. Even that could get some households in trouble with the new standard 250GB caps that Comcast and Time Warner have been pushing. Take for example a family, where the kids watch 2 movies a week and the parents watch 1 per week. Assuming a movie length of 2 hours, that alone would be over 100GB for only 24 hours of content in a month. Even before anyone does anything else, or before all of the youtube videos and such, that's 40% of a typical cap in the US. Without fundamental change on the part of large US ISPs, the idea that streaming content will push us to new and exciting resolution territory is just unrealistic.

Comment Re:BooHoo (Score 2, Informative) 789

You can carry your phone number over from carrier to carrier, but if you cancel your contract you no longer have a claim to that number unless another carrier requests to take over the number from AT&T, which since they were your provider before and after, won't happen.

Sometihng else to consider is that AT&T has no obligation to sell you the second contract, nor can you be certain they don't do some sort of blacklisting of people who cancel their contracts. Seems like a lot of hassle and risk for saving $85.

Comment Re:Security on auto-locate feature? (Score 2, Insightful) 770

It doesn't really matter if you do wipe it. You can take the iPhone, plug it into your computer and click restore from backup. Since you have to have MobileMe to wipe, you'll also have your contacts and calendar already backed up there, and the only things you might lose are non-MobileMe pop emails, texts, or that app you just downloaded.

As long as the partner isn't too vengeful and doesn't delete your iTunes library, you'll be fine.

Comment Re:About time (Score 1) 181

One of the Supreme Court's greatest purposes is to review legislation for constitutionality. Judicial review is a key part of the balance of powers within the U.S.

I'm not saying it's likely given how long this has been a concept within American patent law, but just because it's a clearly written statute does nothing to protect or endanger the concept.

Comment Re:It could pass (Score 1) 205

The current law on the books doesn't make the act illegal. The law makes it illegal for financial institutions to transfer money to/from internet gambling sites.

Strictly speaking, this is fully within Congress' rights to regulate interstate commerce which is explicitly granted by the Constitution.

Your assertion about it never being the government's business about what you do with your money, doesn't pass a common sense test. Two obvious examples, drug money, and unlicensed gun sales.

Social outrage works a bit better when you have a decent thing to stand on.

Comment Re:With all due respect, what's the problem? (Score 1) 143

Acting in your client's best interests may indeed mean protesting a continuance, but most general norms of decency would see it a little differently.

If the reason for her lawyer's withdrawal is her inability to pay, then she is not likely to find alternative counsel even with a continuance. In that case, protesting the continuance, is a no-win situation for the RIAA, and only generates further bad press. No average person can reasonably be assumed capable of defending themselves without a lawyer, so again, no additional threat even if she has more time to prepare.

Your question is about what's the problem with what the RIAA is doing, my question is rather, what's the harm to them in letting her look for another lawyer given the most likely reason for the current one withdrawing?

The Media

Submission + - Radio Station Prank to Datamine Email Addresses (philly.com)

fintler writes: "A Philadelphia radio station, The Beat (100.3), ran a contest on April fools day and managed to increase their e-mail database by around 2000 people. At the end of the day, the contest turned out to be a fake. According to FCC regulations, "[It is required] that a licensee that broadcasts or advertises information about a contest that it conducts shall fully and accurately disclose the material terms of the contest, and shall conduct the contest substantially as announced or advertised. No contest description shall be false, misleading or deceptive with respect to any material term". So, what should happen now?"

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