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Why I’m Suing the US Government

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Re: Why I’m Suing the US Government

#131

Post by Pica_soO »

Pica_soO wrote: post #107
chasing wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We can't let these hypothetical worst-case scenarios be an excuse to stifle innovation. Yes, we sure can. I don't want your "innovation" killing a bunch of people. If you can't innovate without endangering people, you need to "innovate your innovation" and come up with a way you can do it safely.

I'm sorry Mr. Wright, we have several, accounted ways of flying and they all led to death. Maybe you should try something a little safer. No, of course you cant experiment with only yourself as test person- this government cares about its subjects.

Still dont see the point why the third generation of the of Wrights should have a right to cease control over new forms of space travel. No reason why the descendants of the inventors wife and the patent-lawyer, shall hold back the creatives of today.

Re: Why I’m Suing the US Government

#132

Post by safeignorance »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #110
DoubleGlazing wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She barely takes home minimum wage and she is self-employed. Most of her peers are in a similar position. It is not a vocation you get in to for the money. Edit: A common problem in her sector, and other therapy sectors, is that all the recognised diagnosis and treatment systems get bought by the likes of Pearson and other big technical publishers who will demand recurring payments to use the system. For example Owls…

How much do you think it'd cost to replicate the software as an open source tool? I've written grants before for funding open source projects, and this anecdote boils my blood.

Taking on Pearson and other companies that use similarly predatory tactics to extract value from society's most disadvantaged is exactly the sort of "disruption" that the world needs more of.

That said, I doubt one could go at it alone with no support or with only a grant -- building up mind share, fighting off BS patent threats, and doing enough sales to break even on these non-development costs aren't the sort of things that a government/ngo grant will typically support. And even if you could find the money, you'll still need access to a network of experts.

Someone should setup a fund that force-multiplies government/NGO grants for societally beneifical OSS with funding and access to expertise for these other things (legal/marketing/etc.). The aim could just be breaking even on non-grant-funded costs by selling support/branding/etc. to institutional players like hospitals and large chains.

Re: Why I’m Suing the US Government

#133

Post by cwyers »

hiou wrote: post #114
mountaineer22 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does profit have to do with market cap.?

I didn't down vote you because I don't agree with anonymously down voting people when I disagree with a comment like a sneaky coward, but maybe I can shine a little light on a possible disagreement. Twitter is made up of it's shareholders and workers. The workers have been receiving a salary(profit essentially). Twitter shareholders make money when the market cap goes up(profit essentially). It's likely a semantics d…

Um, that's a semantics discussion, I guess, but one with a clearly right and wrong answer.

Re: Why I’m Suing the US Government

#134

Post by onetwotree »

jedberg wrote: post #129
onetwotree wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Under American contract law you can sign away any of your constitutional rights. Be careful what you put your magic squiggles on.

Sort of. We can't make a contract to do something that would otherwise be illegal. A very simple example is that I cannot put into a rental lease that I can evict a tenant in 5 days. That would be in conflict with the law that says I must go through a 30 day process. Even if I put it in a contract and you sign it, you can still sue me for not going through the 30 day process.

Right, there are laws that govern certain types of contracts. I think the problem there is that a lease is regulated, rather than contracts in general. As a counter example, the contracts that members of sober living houses sign indicate that they can be expelled for relapse without going through a formal eviction process. These contracts are governed by a different federal law (the 1988 amendment to the federal fair housing act, IIRC).

Re: Why I’m Suing the US Government

#135

Post by icefo »

DoubleGlazing wrote: post #94

Good. My wife is a speech therapist and uses a system that is designed to help people who have had strokes regain their voice. It comprises a piece of software that comes with a "specially calibrated USB microphone". The microphone is actually a Samson laptop USB mic that had the voice improvement systems logo stuck on it. The system came with lots of legal warnings about not copying, not telling unqualified people a…

I think you should copy the USB device ID. If the software only rely on that and the mic fail again I'm pretty sure there is a way to make the software believe it's talking to the old mic with that.

Re: Why I’m Suing the US Government

#136

Post by gerbilly »

gerbilly wrote: post #111
ryanswapp wrote: post #28

I studied section 1201 thoroughly during law school and I think this post doesn't give a fair characterization of it. The reason this statute exists is because companies were unable to devise protection for copyrighted works that hackers were not able to immediately circumvent. As a result, the government stepped in and created 1201 to make it illegal for someone to circumvent some form of access control that a compa…

>The purpose of the statute isn't to destroy What difference does the intended purpose make if it does indeed destroy ? If that was indeed the purpose of 1201, the the law as written has unintended consequences. But my feeling is that they knew damn well that they were going to sweep up non commercial tinkerers as well. These days the line between commercial and non commercial is blurred. With the internet a hacker c…

This reminds me of SLAPP suits.[1]

Of course not every violation of 1201 will be prosecuted, but the laws are there to intimidate people if their tinkering becomes commerciall bothersome.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_lawsuit_against_pu...

Re: Why I’m Suing the US Government

#137

Post by dboreham »

astazangasta wrote: post #87
cwyers wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter isn't profiting off their users, or at all for that matter.

Twitter has a market cap of $13 billion mostly because of content produced by its users. The only possible way it can make money is by showing ads to users (getting them to do free labor).

It can also make some money by selling data.

Re: Why I’m Suing the US Government

#140

Post by gkya »

iaw wrote: post #120
astazangasta wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real problem, of course, is that the Internet today consists almost exclusively of private companies profiting from other people's content. Twitter doesn't pay its users, it makes money off their tweets AND by having them look at ads (yes, this is work). Similarly with Facebook, or with any review aggregator (Yelp, Amazon, Google+), monetizing the free labor of others. The DMCA protects certain forms of property…

Some people seem to be downvoting you because they disagree with your view point. I'm not sure I agree with you but your views are valid and a positive contribution to this thread. Just want to call out that I'm a bit disappointed with the rest of the community for targeting you.

That's very common here. I'll usually have it in waves: I post on internets state, some criticism, sysadmins take a lunch break and my post is voted up, then front end guys go out for a coffee and that's reverted, when startup founders start midnight hacking it's flagged etc. :) this is annoying, though I do understand that the comments that one disagree seem more likely to be spammish to them, and that this instinct is hard to overcome.
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