So...I can now get a dead tree version of a scanned copy of a dead tree book?

How long before google starts a service to provide scanned copies of these new dead tree versions online and indexed?

All these years I'd volunteered to be a fat donor....finally realized!

"You won't find the meaning of life at level 80."

No, but farming eternal life is a lot easier in Wintergrasp at level 80...

As opposed to Conservative fantasies, which don't even bother starting out as absolute do-whatever-you-want-just-don't-kill-anyone free-for-all and just go straight to the authoritarian group usurping natural ownership and dictating rules galore stage....
You would have been better off just saying "Power corrupts"

The 1st Amendment has generally had stronger protections than the 2nd. You don't *need* a firearm to survive in Society, you do need the ability to communicate with your peers.

I see this dying quickly to a challenge on the basis of rights of association and free speech.

Yes, you can ban them from talking to the punishment here is far too harsh to not be challenged.

I would think automated Robotic Calling programs, which have been around for...sheesh...at least a decade now...would qualify as prior art here.

I acknowledge that at least the suing company is in the market of actually selling something to 911's, EMS's and the like, and the increasing use of twitter for "Follow me for important safety updates" is probably cutting into their business...dramatically....but...I don't think this lawsuit deserves legs.

"Shot quickly, opponent was just what I ordered, A++++++, would frag again"????

(quote) McCain/Feingold: What part of Congress shall make no law... is beyond the comprehension of the Honorable Senators? Note that the entirety of the Campaign Finance regulatory regime fails this test along with most of the FEC regulatory machinery. (/quote)

The same part that lets them ban child porn. (No, I am not in favor of child porn, I'm just using the 'Child porn is the root password to the Constitution' logic.)

"No law" doesn't mean "No law", it means That the Constitutional Principles the law being examined is furthering (Fair and honest elections, people electing their representatives, not corporations, etc) are furthered more than the constitutional principals being diminished by the law (unlimited speech in the political arena)

That balance falls in favor of "Yes, you can restrict someone's ability to essentially buy an office".

Fixed your post.

Yeah...right...

"Okay Joe, here's your options, you can take this box home for $699, plug it in, turn it on and it will work reasonably well...*OR* you can use your old PC to download one of 1000 linux variants, all with different advantages and disadvantages, copy it over to this new box, spend hours installing and tweaking it, with no guarantee it will work with this hardware, and then it will work....reasonably well.

which way is Joe gonna go?

Once vendors start including it on the box by default at build time, people will adopt it.

It's too much hassle to switch back *for the average user*.

Yes, the Slashdot crowd will rollback, but for Joe "I just wanna check e-mail and look at my porn on the Intraweb", whatever comes on the box at purchase time will be the OS he uses...and that's a majority of the market right now.

Let's see....

Characteristics of a flu...

• Overrated in impact
• makes you feel sick if you come in contact with it
• Those who pay the least attention to science will be impacted by it the worst
• makes you feel much better once you're beyond it
• Costs the nation billions of dollars in lost productivity
• invades countries without any concern for borders
• the world would be a better place without it.

given all these, the choice is obvious...

I hereby dub this latest flu the CONSERVATIVE REPUBLICAN FLU

Be very careful about that assumption...

Many (most?) state's laws regarding prostitution require actual physical contact (or the promise of same), so, since a digital being can't perform physical contact, an agreement to "I'll let you enter commands on Second life that will show animations where your avatar appears to be fucking mine and use poseballs to enhance the animation for 30 minutes for 1000 Linden" actually *might be* valid. (assuming all the other requirements for a contract are met)

Regardless, though...the contract in question here wasn't actually *for* cybersex, it was for the creation and ownership of a digital thing *used in* Cybersex...and that sort of contract would almost certainly be enforceable, assuming all the other requirements were met.

Yeah, you know...aside from that whole Mars Rover thing (5+ years on a 4 month plan...better return on time planned than Gilligan's Island "3 hour tour"

Or the successful repair/upgrade missions to the Hubble Space Telescope

Or, you know, building a space station...

Or any of the 2700 other successes they've had. Yes, you're right...the manned program...not going so good...but considering that they'd jettison it if they weren't forced to keep it by Washington...they're doin alright.