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Comment Re:Wrong Title (Score 2) 499

From TFA: "Barr answered 'no' when asked if she had ever been a member of an organization 'dedicated to the use of violence' to overthrow the U.S. government or to prevent others from exercising their constitutional rights."

They didn't ask her if she "belonged to a group that may have been in some way affiliated with another group, some of whose members may have advocated the violent overthrow of the US." If you ask it that way, anyway that has ever joined the NRA might want to consider how they should answer.

It's also pretty weird that a country that includes a right to bear arms to forbid membership of groups that might advocate using that right. The right to bear arms isn't about hunting or even fighting off foreign invaders, it's about overthrowing tyrannical governments. If the founding fathers thought elections were all that were ever needed to defend against tyranny, then the 2nd amendment would make no sense.

Comment Re:Agree 100% (Score 1) 253

It's a water heater, not a laundry machine. If the pilot won't stay lit, there's basically two parts that could have failed: the thermopile and the gas valve. Each can be carried in one hand.

Either way, I told them the diagnostic code when I called, so they already knew exactly which part had failed. They were servicing a warranty for a unit just over a year old. It's a current model and they knew the exact serial number of the unit before they dispatched anyone.

I've actually been shopping for other appliances recently and been asking more closely about their service standards. It seems to be common knowledge amongst their competitors that Sears generally doesn't carry parts on their while most others actually do.

Comment Re:Agree 100% (Score 2) 253

The thermopile on my 16 month old hot water heater broke down on a Friday morning. The parts are still under warranty, but not labor.

I called Sears service (the warranter), told them the diagnostic code indicated the exact problem, and scheduled service (earliest available was Saturday). The tech arrived, looked at the same double-blink light pattern that I saw, and agreed that the thermopile needed to be replaced. He didn't, however, carry that part on his truck, so he had to "overnight" order it.

An "overnight" order on Saturday actually means it gets ordered on Monday and delivered on Tuesday. They ship it directly to the customer's home, which means they won't schedule the next appointment until after I call to confirm that the part has arrived. They won't come on the same day, so essentially "overnight" on Saturday means we'll see you in some 5-hour window on Wednesday.

I know I'll never order from Sears again (other service companies carry parts on their trucks), but I hadn't thought of just making it illegal to provide bad service...

Comment Re:ugh (Score 1) 552

Every time it snows, deniers claim "see, there's no global warming" and believers say "weather is not climate!" The summary of this article then uses the past three months and declares it proof of climate change.

I realize that the actual article is more subtle, but I believe the point OP is making was that if you don't want "Polar Vortex" to be used as an argument against climate change, you probably shouldn't use "heat wave" as an argument in favor.

Taken as a whole, the trend is clear. Leading with a headline "last three months hottest ever" is only going to remind people in DC that they just experienced the coldest winter in 20 years and the most snow ever recorded.

Comment Not for home users... (Score 3, Insightful) 80

From rtfs, it seems o3b is aimed at the ISP market. I think this could be quite neat, they are aiming at being a backbone provider for say a local wireless ISP on a tropical island, this ISP sets up their terrestrial wifi equipment, and sets up a link to o3b for backhaul.

This could transform the competitive landscape in a lot of these places where either a) becoming an ISP means signing a multi-thousands/mo deal with the 1 company that has pulled fiber under the sea for thousands of miles, or b) having no option, because the terrestrial land lines are all owned by the government run telco who has no interest in providing an upstart with bandwidth

Of course, for this utopia of competition to break out, it assumes that o3b will be charging significantly less than whoever has pulled fiber under the sea, and that government regulation in all these countries doesn't simply preclude the business model by granting unlimited monopoly power to the government run telco. I know in the 2 south american countries I've visited this second hurdle is much larger than the first... The government owns the telco, thats the only way to get internet, period.

But assuming I'm wrong about the regulatory landscape, and assuming o3b will have reasonable pricing, it almost becomes interesting to attempt to setup a wifi based ISP in some underserved country...

Comment Re: Blame Google. (Score 1) 239

But meat inspection includes objective measures (as I already said). There's also no penalty for overblocking, but significant costs if they miss even one block. Meat inspection is well regulated with documented procedures handed down by regulatory bodies, but you insist that Google write all their own rules and procedures and have no forgiveness if they get anything wrong (apparently in either direction).

Comment Re:Blame Google. (Score 2) 239

Isn't "meat inspector" a job of the government, paid for by taxes? The EU didn't provide Google with a "forgotten person" inspector. When it comes to meat, there are clearly objective measurements to determine when it has gone bad. There are no objective criteria handed down to determine when this right applies and when it doesn't. You're asking a for-profit company to personally be responsible for the cost of evaluating every case before them. In fact, you don't even know whether or not they did evaluate this? Given their precedent setting loss, it's not unreasonable to assume that they've set the threshold higher than maybe you would have.

If you were to ask me, the only objective criteria should be as simple as "Was the event newsworthy?" (Yes, because it appeared in the news.) But that's clearly not enough. The information is still allowed to exist, so it's not libelous and the information itself is not illegal, only linking to it is. There is no "registered famous/public person" database (or even a definition of a "public" person). The problem is that you can't just smell this meat and decide if it's gone bad. Now, Google could decide, on its own, to declare that this particular case doesn't pass the undefined threshold, but they have to take on all the expense and risk.

You've come along and demanded that Google toss out all the bad meat (without defining it), and NOW you're complaining when they find it easier to also throw out some good meat. Everyone told you that's what they'd do. It's the ONLY sensible course of action.

Comment Re:Key Point Missing (Score 2) 34

The summary misses a key point. Yes they scan and store the entire book, but they are _NOT_ making the entire book available to everyone. For the most part they are just making it searchable.

Agreed that it's not in the summary, but as you correctly note, it's just a "summary". Anyone who reads the underlying blog post will read this among the facts on which the court based its opinion: "The public was allowed to search by keyword. The search results showed only the page numbers for the search term and the number of times it appeared; none of the text was visible."

So those readers who RTFA will be in the know.

Submission + - Appeals Court finds scanning to be fair use in Authors Guild v Hathitrust

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: In Authors Guild v Hathitrust, the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has found that scanning whole books and making them searchable for research use is a fair use. In reaching its conclusion, the 3-judge panel reasoned, in its 34-page opinion (PDF), that the creation of a searchable, full text database is a "quintessentially transformative use", that it was "reasonably necessary" to make use of the entire works, that maintaining maintain 4 copies of the database was reasonably necessary as well, and that the research library did not impair the market for the originals. Needless to say, this ruling augurs well for Google in Authors Guild v. Google, which likewise involves full text scanning of whole books for research.

Submission + - Councilman/Open Source Developer submits Open Source bill (gothamgazette.com)

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: New York City Council Member Ben Kallos (KallosEsq), who also happens to be a Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) developer, just introduced legislation to mandate a government preference for FOSS and creating a Civic Commons website to facilitate collaborative purchasing of software. He argues that NYC could save millions of dollars with the Free and Open Source Software Preferences Act 2014, pointing out that the city currently has a $67 million Microsoft ELA. Kallos said: "It is time for government to modernize and start appreciating the same cost savings as everyone else."

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