Comment Existence != Importance (Score 2, Insightful) 203
Just because something existed in the 70's doesn't necessarily mean people should have known about it or that it had any impact on future developments.
Comment Re:I hope the defendant's lawyer is EXPENSIVE. (Score 1) 138
You know, you're right. I am not a lawyer, but I deal with them on a day-to-day basis for my job. Many—most, even—of them are some of the nicest people on a personal level. But you start talking about legal matters with them and suddenly they are complete bastards. I don't know whether this is something inculcated in law school or what.
Comment Re:Set up the precedent (Score 2) 138
Because we don't. There's not a better answer to your question.
If you think the US should have a "loser pays" legal system, get elected to the Congress and introduce legislation for it.
Comment Re:Removal? (Score 1) 155
And what government instituted among men is going to destroy something so potentially useful—to them, of course, not to the citizenry.
Submission + - Germany Builds Encrypted, Identity-Confirmed Email (itworld.com)
jfruhlinger writes: "Looking to solve the problems of spam, phishing, and uncomfirmed email identities, Germany is betting very, very big. The country will pass a law this month creating 'De-mail,' a service in which all messages will be encrypted and digitally signed so they cannot be intercepted or modified in transit. Businesses and individuals wanting to send or receive De-mail messages will have to prove their real-world identity and associate that with a new De-mail address from a government-approved service provider. The service will be enabled by a new law that the government expects will be in force by the end of this month. It will allow service providers to charge for sending messages if they wish. The service is voluntary, but will it give the government too much control?"
Submission + - MS Legislature Votes to Outlaw Online Impersonatio (clarionledger.com)
Byzantine writes: "At the urging of the Mississippi Attorney General's office, the state Legislature on Wednesday passed House Bill 552 which if signed by Governor Haley Barbour would make impersonating an "actual person" online into a misdemeanor, punishable by a fine of up to $1,000.00 and up to one year in jail."
Submission + - DOJ Anti-trust Investigation of MPEG-LA (wsj.com) 4
thomst writes: "The Wall Street Journal's Thomas Catan reports that the Department of Justice has launched an anti-trust investigation of MPEG-LA's purported efforts to prevent Google's VP8 codec from widespread adoption. According to the article, the California Stare Attorney General's office is also investigating MPEG-LA for possible restraint of trade practices."
Submission + - Red Hat Changes Source Code Shipping Method (h-online.com)
mvar writes: Red Hat has changed the way it ships the source code for the Linux kernel. Previously, it was released as a standard kernel with a collection of patches which could be applied to create the source code of the kernel Red Hat used. Now though, the company ships a tarball of the source code with the patches already applied. This change, noted by Maxillian Attems and LWN.net, appears to be aimed at Oracle, who like others, repackage Red Hat's source as the basis for its Unbreakable Linux. Although targeted at Oracle, the changes will make work harder for distributions such as CentOS, the community built Linux distribution also based on Red Hat's sources.
Comment Re:Unique ID (Score 1) 391
Your ideas intrigue me, and I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
Comment Re:Outlook (Score 2) 294
One can use Evolution as a substitute for Outlook.
Maybe I'm alone here, but I won't use Evolution until it supports recurring tasks. And since that particular bug has gone unclosed for over eleven years, I'm not holding my breath. Well, not anymore.
Comment Re:Not an YRO (Score 1) 634
Minors are not held—legally—to the same standard. This is for their protection. The legal presumption is that the judgment of minors is not as sound as adults', and that therefore they cannot be held accountable to the same extent as an adult would be. Basically, the law believes that minors are too dumb and easily-influenced to know what they're doing. (We can argue about whether that's a valid belief, but that's a different argument.)
That's not the same as being able to "say anything they please without consequence."
Comment Re:Normally - Equity (Score 1) 811
A sales tax in excess of 20% would kill the economy.
It would kill the legal economy. The shadow economy would blossom. Say I'm a widget vendor, and the tax is 20%. You want to buy a widget. So I tell you, "Sure, hedwards, tell you what: if you pay cash, I'll only charge you 10% tax." I then, of course, keep no record of the transaction and pocket the 10%. Calls for some creative bookkeeping, but nothing out of the ordinary as these things go.
Comment Re:Not an YRO (Score 1) 634
Would you say the same thing if it was a student suspended for off-campus speach about his teachers? It seems Slashdot has a problem with punishing the students for this kind of behavior, and I don't see anything that would negate that principle here.
You mean besides the fact that they're minors and not held to the same standard as adults?
Comment Re:I think it's time (Score 1) 468
I'll stipulate for the purpose of this discussion that, of the people who know what the MPAA and RIAA are and what they've done, most believe those organization to be (at least on their way to becoming) obsolete. You can infer my argument from my caveat.
Comment Re:I think it's time (Score 1) 468
I was going to mention aphophasis, but that'd just be silly; so I won't.
