Comment This has been answered (Score 0) 233
By Douglas Adams: Milliways aka The Restaurant at the End of the Universe.
Then it's on to breakfast at the The Big Bang Burger Bar.
By Douglas Adams: Milliways aka The Restaurant at the End of the Universe.
Then it's on to breakfast at the The Big Bang Burger Bar.
I just discovered Gandi.net in another Slashdot article, and they offer VPS. Does anyone have any experience with them?
I've been using Linode (transferred from Slicehost). Linode is fabulous, and Slicehost was great in its day but hasn't really been updated since Rackspace bought it. I'm curious how Gandi.net compares.
Sir –
I'm sorry, I didn't see a single law firm (major or otherwise) on the list of supporters linked from the story.
Is the parent comment referring to a different list perhaps? If not, it would be troll, and IMHO ought to be modded down.
Any debate on privacy always draws me to The Right to Privacy, by Warren and Brandeis Harvard Law Review. Vol. IV December 15, 1890 No. 5:
Of the desirability -- indeed of the necessity -- of some such protection [for privacy], there can, it is believed, be no doubt. The press is overstepping in every direction the obvious bounds of propriety and of decency. Gossip is no longer the resource of the idle and of the vicious, but has become a trade, which is pursued with industry as well as effrontery. To satisfy a prurient taste the details of sexual relations are spread broadcast in the columns of the daily papers. To occupy the indolent, column upon column is filled with idle gossip, which can only be procured by intrusion upon the domestic circle. The intensity and complexity of life, attendant upon advancing civilization, have rendered necessary some retreat from the world, and man, under the refining influence of culture, has become more sensitive to publicity, so that solitude and privacy have become more essential to the individual; but modern enterprise and invention have, through invasions upon his privacy, subjected him to mental pain and distress, far greater than could be inflicted by mere bodily injury. Nor is the harm wrought by such invasions confined to the suffering of those who may be the subjects of journalistic or other enterprise. In this, as in other branches of commerce, the supply creates the demand. Each crop of unseemly gossip, thus harvested, becomes the seed of more, and, in direct proportion to its circulation, results in the lowering of social standards and of morality. Even gossip apparently harmless, when widely and persistently circulated, is potent for evil. It both belittles and perverts. It belittles by inverting the relative importance of things, thus dwarfing the thoughts and aspirations of a people. When personal gossip attains the dignity of print, and crowds the space available for matters of real interest to the community, what wonder that the ignorant and thoughtless mistake its relative importance. Easy of comprehension, appealing to that weak side of human nature which is never wholly cast down by the misfortunes and frailties of our neighbors, no one can be surprised that it usurps the place of interest in brains capable of other things. Triviality destroys at once robustness of thought and delicacy of feeling. No enthusiasm can flourish, no generous impulse can survive under its blighting influence.
The relationship between this 120 year old paper and modern society is illuminating.
It has a great list, and may have what you're looking for: Book recommendations - Web Usability.
Sir –
> I've always been curious how companies know *who* clicked the button.
>
> Do they rely on psychics?
It's a great question. Usually in litigation a person being accused of violating an electronically executed EULA is asked under oath whether they did or not push the button and whether they understood that clicking on the button was agreement to some terms. The statements under oath serves as evidence, and the standard of proof is generally balance-of-probabilities (i.e. it's more likely than not).
There are some arguments that expand agreement:
- agency (i.e. whomever did click it was acting on behalf of the accused)
-perfection by performance (i.e. the contract is enforceable because one used the software), and
- equity (i.e. one benefitted by using the software or by evading the contract's terms).
The above, along with other law, may expand the "who" beyond merely an act to the intention to enter the contract (or to avoid the terms, being a species of fraud), or to make the question of whether the terms themselves were agreed to irrelevant. Mind you, the consequences change depending on the conclusion as to what wrong has been committed (breaking the contract, avoiding entering it, benefitting from the software/service without a contract).
There are weird "edge cases" that certainly would not result in contractual or other responsibility, but generally most people click the button and admit it or are unable to portray an honest, plausible story that exculpates them (dishonest people aren't usually the brightest).
In any case, practically speaking these EULAs are consumer contracts that are enforceable for small amounts by threatening your credit rating (which is a nuisance to fight) or with the spectre of expensive litigation. Strong consumer protection legislation can (should) help alleviate the unfairness by way of abusing credit ratings and fear/consequences of consumer rights litigation.
Sir –
How does a signature relate to an agreement? A signature is evidence of the requisite intention to form, and execution of, a legally enforceable mutual promise, commonly known as a contract.
Clicking a button signifies the requisite intention and execution, and is substitutable for a signature. What matters is the intention, and that there has been execution.
With intention on both sides, and some form of execution of the terms, contracts become legally binding - by click or otherwise. This isn't exactly novel, see the 12 year old case: Rudder v. Microsoft Corp., 1999 CanLII 14923 (ON SC) (this case, and in particular the principle of adapting legal certainty to adapt to technological advances was affirmed by the Supreme Court of Canada in 2007).
Please stop spreading the nonsense that a contract is unenforceable because it was executed by way of the click of a button. Judges don't think that, and so you shouldn't.
Of course, there may be stray jurisdictions with different opinions – seek out and retain a lawyer for advice.
I've had good luck with StrongVPN. I connect to it with OpenVPN from a gateway running pfSense, which allows me to select the route to use (VPN or direct) based on either the internal and external IPs. At around $10/month, it's quite cost-effective.
Sir – Here's a comparison Is Japan's nuclear disaster âoeon parâ with Chernobyl? that you (and others) may find interestig.
Sir –
With all due respect, your comments are not helpful.
The link you refer to does not shed any new light on the situation. In particular, it gives a "new estimate" of approximately 15,0000 terabecquerels being released from Fukushima between April and May. The wiki cites 770,000 terabecquerels since the explosion in March, 2011. The reference you have provided is significantly narrower temporal scope than that referred to in the wiki of significantly lower quantum (i.e. is not a "new estimate" of any merit). Please, in future, at least give a reference that advances your point.
Your point is unstated, but I speculate to be something like: the Fukushima disaster will be bigger than we estimated when we look back on it in the future. Alternatively, perhaps you're simply suggesting that we should do nothing because the data will never be good enough. In either case, I find it hard to imagine that in the future we'll be able to improve on the measurements that were taken back in March-July of 2011.
Second, I'm not sure what alternative you propose to "available objective data". Perhaps you forgot to elaborate on why TEPCO is relevant. The references from the wiki do not seem to source data from TEPCO, if that is what you were alluding to.
While you may think comparisons at this point are done by the "clueless", I believe such a conclusion is wrong for at least two reasons. First, the comparison puts into a useful context the information we have. Second, for posterity we shall have the opportunity to illuminate our errors. That the information we have is difficult to quantify or of questionable quality may certainly be an issue, but it requires a brazen or nihilistic cynicism to dismiss it as useless and those who use it as "clueless".
I respectfully suggest as well that you may have missed the point of wikis such as the one linked. It is a community driven publishing system that can be updated at will in response to new information. In this particular case, the wiki also clearly states that this article is about a current event and the article may change in response to new information. Thus, a criticism seeming to be that the data is incomplete or incorrect is not really a relevant consideration, since the wiki was designed with the ability to incorporate that new data as it becomes available (and if better data does not become available, we are no worse off). The wiki provides us with not just the ability to make the comparison with what we know today, but to update the comparison with what we may know tomorrow. It is preferable to work with something today that'll give us structure and historical reference in the future rather than nothing at all.
All to say, your criticism is unclear, your citation is not useful, your conclusions are misguided. I'll say nothing of the tone I perceive and language you use, other than to suggest you may have issues with attitude and maturity, though that is speculative.
As you may infer, it took much more effort to address your concerns than it probably did for you to crack them off. Perhaps you should consider the consequences of your comments before you make such a post. You've added nothing to the discussion, you needlessly distract from useful conclusions and valuable efforts with misinformation, and you've wasted my time writing a constructive response. You could do us all a favour next time, and refrain from posting in such poor form.
The Stackexchange Skeptics web-site has a relatively thorough and well cited wiki, Is Japan's nuclear disaster "on par" with Chernobyl), that compares the two disasters using a number of objective metrics.
It seems fairly apparent based on that wiki that while Fukushima is a serious nuclear event, it is a fraction of the calamity that Chernobyl was, using the available objective data.
Sir –
You've a noteworthy observation. Many mergers & acquisitions that would have taken place between 2007-2011 were put on hold (or impossible) because of the credit crunch.
Thousands of lawyers in London & New York were put out of work because the M&A departments were vacant in 2009 (search for "black/bloody thursday law firm layoffs").
Now that markets are becoming liquid again, M&A is coming back into vogue. We may be seeing a spike to resolve pent-up demand. Maybe the demand is overcoming the lack of liquidity â" I'm not sure.
To.[sic] actually understand it you will have to step up one abstraction level to philosophy.
To communicate the philosophy, you must use a system of representation, a common language if you will, and the only system we have with adequate fidelity is mathematics.
Without mathematics, the philosophy you would be attempting to communicate would be merely allegory.
I don't see any mention of the Jenny McCarthy body count yet. It's a well sourced web-site on the topic.
To the systems programmer, users and applications serve only to provide a test load.
