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Comment Boss' perception of unproductivity or poor quality (Score 3, Insightful) 1019

by Dr_Art (#30416472) Attached to: Music While Programming?
The big issue here is the boss' PERCEPTION that developers are not producing at a level he expects or that the code being produced is crappy. The music edict is just a proxy for his real concern. It is critical for you to make sure the boss doesn't have this perception about YOU specifically. If so, you need to either find a way to change the boss' perception of you, or find another job. Most likely the boss' perception is general, and is not based on any real metrics of productivity or quality. What might help is suggesting to the boss how to collect such metrics, and more importantly how to present to his management that his team is very productive and has the highest quality work. It's very likely that the boss is being pressured by his management, so giving him the tools to fight back will help your teams' chance of avoiding the next round of layoffs. This is good for everyone: the boss gets credit, you are adding value, and everyone is aligned with the company's goals.
Democrats

Submission + - Hillary's Beard

Submitted by Dr_Art
Dr_Art writes: When Al Gore conceded the 2000 election, he went off and grew a beard. Likewise, when John Kerry conceded the 2004 election, he did the same. I would like to know from Slashdot readers if they think that now that Hillary is out of the race for the 2008 election, whether she should grow a beard herself?

Comment Cuts both ways (Score 1) 245

by Dr_Art (#23117700) Attached to: RIAA Sues Homeless Man
I do feel sorry for the homeless man for being the target of the ruthless RIAA, and am disappointed with the judge for allowing the RIAA's behaviour.

At the same time, I hope this man will fight the RIAA and tie up their legal resources. It's not likely that the RIAA would be able to collect any judgement against a homeless man, and they might run up huge legal fees if the man fights the suit. That would be money they couldn't use to sue other innocent people.

Of course, if any legal precedents are made due to such a case, it could harm the other innocent RIAA targets. At least I can hope that the RIAA's empire collapses long before that.

Regards,
Art
The Courts

Submission + - Is RIAA's MediaSentry illegal in YOUR state? (p2pnet.net)

Submitted by
NewYorkCountryLawyer
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "Is Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG 'investigator' MediaSentry operating illegally in your state?. The Massachusetts State police have already banned the company, it's been accused of operating without a license in Oregon, Florida, Texas, and New York as well, and now similar charges have been levelled at it in Michigan. Michigan's Department of Labor and Economic Growth, in response to a complaint, has confirmed that MediaSentry is not licensed in Michigan, and referred the complainant to the local prosecutor."
The Courts

Submission + - RIAA expert debunked by Prof. Pouwelse (blogspot.com)

Submitted by
NewYorkCountryLawyer
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "Last year the Slashdot community "went medieval" on the testimony of the RIAA's "expert witness", Dr. Doug Jacobson, in UMG v. Lindor. Our friends at Groklaw did likewise. Now you can compare notes with a formally retained expert witness, Prof. Johan Pouwelse of Delft University — one of the world's foremost experts on the science of P2P file sharing and the very same Prof. Pouwelse who stopped the RIAA's Netherlands clone in its tracks back in 2005 — who has weighed in with his expert witness report characterizing Dr. Jacobson's work as "borderline incompetence". p2pnet calls the report a devastating blow to the RIAA's expert. (And in the shameless-plug department, if you enjoyed reading Prof. Pouwelse's report, and want to continue helping to get the truth out to judges and juries about the technology and science of the internet, please consider making a tax deductible contribution to the Expert Witness Defense Fund maintained by the Free Software Foundation, which provides funding for expert witnesses and other technical consultants who are assisting defendants in the RIAA cases)."
The Courts

Submission + - MediaSentry balks at turning over documents (blogspot.com)

Submitted by
NewYorkCountryLawyer
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "MediaSentry, the RIAA's unlicensed "investigator" of p2p file sharing, and its lead trial witness, has balked at turning over its documents and data in response to a subpoena in UMG v. Lindor, forcing Ms. Lindor to make a motion to compel a response. The RIAA's expert witness, Dr. Doug Jacobson, based his conclusion of copyright infringement entirely upon 6 *txt printouts (see exhibits 6 and 10-14) generated by MediaSentry during the course of the litigation, which, many astute observers have observed, are lacking in scientific support. So Ms. Lindor simply subpoenaed the backup material (pdf) which most technical people agree is needed to assess the reliability of MediaSentry's "investigation". (Another subpoena item asked for documents relating to MediaSentry's 'licenses'. According to at least one state attorney general we know, the correct answer to that one would apparently have been "none".) The stonewalling continues."
The Courts

Submission + - OSU "neglects" to respond to RIAA subpoena (blogspot.com)

Submitted by
NewYorkCountryLawyer
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "Mysteriously, Oklahoma State University has, for the past three (3) months, "neglected" to respond to the RIAA's subpoena asking for the identities of 11 OSU students, despite "many reminders". This "neglect" is surprising since, according to documents filed by the RIAA (pdf), it was given assurances back in August by the university that there would be "no difficulty" providing the information. Could it be that, being a state university, OSU might have consulted with its state Attorney General, and learned that it has been violating federal law by failing to protect its students' privacy? Maybe the Oklahoma AG has read the papers of the Oregon AG pointing out that the RIAA is asking the university to violate federal law and that the RIAA has itself violated a cluster of laws, state and federal? I don't know, just asking."
The Courts

Submission + - Double whammy against RIAA in Andersen case (blogspot.com)

Submitted by
NewYorkCountryLawyer
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "In Atlantic v. Andersen the Court has rejected the RIAA's objections to last September's decision of the Magistrate Judge granting Ms. Andersen's motion for attorneys fees against the RIAA record companies, in which the Magistrate held that "Copyright holders generally, and these plaintiffs specifically, should be deterred from prosecuting infringement claims as plaintiffs did in this case." So now the only remaining decision on attorneys fees will be "how much?". And in a separate decision District Judge James A. Redden permitted Ms. Andersen to withdraw her counterclaims without prejudice so that she can pursue them in the class action she has brought against the record companies."
The Courts

Submission + - Type host -l, pay $50,000+ and perhaps go to jail (spamsuite.com) 1

Submitted by
Joe Wagner
Joe Wagner writes: "In a written judgment that has only become public today, anti-spammer David Ritz has lost the SLAPP lawsuit filed by Jerry Reynolds filed for running "unauthorized" DNS lookups on their servers. Knowing "commands are not commonly known to the average computer user" can get you into serious peril in some judges' court rooms.

I kid you not. The Judge ruled that "In all intended uses of a zone transfer, the secondary server is operated by the same party that operates the primary server." The original complaint is here.

Ritz was a thorn in Reynolds' side during the years when Ritz was trying to get the Netzilla/Sexzilla porn spam operation to stop spamming. Reynolds has been quite aggressive in trying to get his past erased from the net (including forged cancel posts). The North Dakota Judge also awarded attorneys fee which could theoretically make the total bill over $500k for doing a domain zone transfer. Reynolds also filed a criminal complaint against Ritz which was on hold pending resolution of this trial.

Here is a literal worst-case scenario of what can happen when a court fails miserably to understand technology. The judge ruled:

Ritz has engaged in a variety of activities without authorization on the Internet. Those activities include port scanning, hijacking computers, and the compilation and publication of Whois lookups without authorization from Network Solutions.
The port scanning/hijacking computers is posting a test message through one of Verizon's machines to prove to Verizon they had an open relay — i.e. posting to 0.verizon.security via the relay a note to Verizon's security saying "What's it going to take to get you to secure this gaping hole in what you call your network," or words to that effect. Verizon apparently had no problem with the demo post and closed the relay.

Take note, for those anti-spammers out there, this Judge is ruling that if you post the whois record for a spammer's domain your are doing a malicious, tortious act.

There is a legal defense fund that was set up for his case. I believe he does not have the resources to appeal and this would be a very bad precedent to stand."
Announcements

Submission + - Florida election ballots to be printed on-demand

Submitted by davidwr
davidwr writes: The St. Petersburg, FL, Times reports that Florida is going back to paper ballots, but with a twist. They are printing the ballots on-demand, right there at the polling booth. This isn't machine-assisted voting where a touch-screen fills in your printed ballot for you. It's just a way to save printing costs and reduce paper waste.
The Media

Submission + - Jack Thompson: Games Industry Colluding With DoD (wired.com)

Submitted by
NexFlamma
NexFlamma writes: "In a press release sent out yesterday, controversial Miami lawyer Jack Thompson claims to have found evidence of an "unholy alliance" between the gaming industry and the United States Department of Defense. When contacted for further information on the subject, Wired's Game|Life was sent a link to the supposed "evidence." The page G|L was directed to not only doesn't serve as evidence of his claims, but after reading through the 10-page link, G|L writer Earnest Cavalli demonstrates how the information presented directly contradicts Jack's statement."

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