Lots of low-end jobs pay their employees via prepaid cards. Many McDonalds stores pay this way because it's easier than paying by check, and in any case, many of the workers don't have traditional bank accounts. I don't see why this should make them guilty of anything. Seizing their money without trial is just ludicrous.
There have also been times when I've legitimately carried large amounts of cash. A group I used to work with held an annual event of sorts and I ended on on the crew counting ticket proceeds and packaging them to make a bank deposit. As it happened, the people on that crew including myself were all licensed weapon holders and we were, in fact, very well armed as we carried nearly $200,000 in cash to a bank deposit drop chute.
Would have been a real pain to get stopped by the cops. Several heavily armed men with a lot of cash? Surely they can't simply be trying to protect themselves and their honestly-acquired money!?
Joined up with Comcast last fall and yes I may be the ONE happy Comcast customer, sitting along side the "one funny German Joke" or something but here I am.
During the install process, at NO time did Comcast obtain my SSN or run my credit. I opted to have them verify my ID in person, but when the installer was here running wires, he never asked for my ID and I didn't sign anything.
They took me as a customer without having any actual idea who I was. I was shocked.
This idea is DOA. Criminals assigned to ankle-trackers have repeatedly demonstrated great skill in defeating, evading and otherwise getting out of the tracker and back into whatever sort of crime they wish. And often the people paid to monitor those trackers don't even notice.
SO even if a rice-grain injectable device existed, we can assume that crafty criminals would likewise find ways of removing the tracker and going about things as they wish.
Injected things are easy to remove with a knife. Surgical implants might be harder but no cheapass police agency is going to pay for surgeons to work on this.
It DOES remind me of a sci-fi story I read years ago, and I cannot remember the name or author and I cannot find the damn book. But the premise involved a couple human astronauts who ended up in prison on an alien planet for some sort of contraband charge. Stuff in the ship medkit was illegal or something. Anyway these alien prison critters would inject a device into their inmates. It caused some sort of change to the blood which was harmless until or unless the inmate tried to remove the thing, at which point their blood would instantly crystallize and kill them. Or something like that.
I wish I'd actually read that book. All I remember is reading the first chapter or so.
Was it not clear Reynolds himself leaked the footage? He's been championing this project for years. It's not a mere ROLE for him. It IS him. This is his dream, his baby, his nightmare, and his passion, in a way I have never seen before with any actor. He also happens to have NAILED the role solid. And oh yeah, brought home $150M in box office in four days.
Reynolds can be forgiven any rules he broke. He broke enough records to make up for it several dozen times over. Hell, he deserves some kind of Oscar for this.
Props also to the director and editor for making it all work. This movie could have trainwrecked a dozen different places but it didn't, and mostly all works well. Cast and crew all did a great job.
Look, this is coming from the businesses that use their Hollywood Account to make every film and TV show look like it loses money. Everything loses money. The studios are always almost bankrupt.
Somehow Disney WILL find a way to declare the new Star Wars film a total loss and a failure even as it brings in $2bn even before home video is counted or revenue from any of the co-branded crap that came with it. It's going to lose way more than it earns. They'll make it happen.
So of course they see piracy as a loss area. Every damn thing is a loss area. Sure they lost millions of dollars on stolen copies of the Star Wars Christmas Special on DVD, which then never actually made and nobody ever pirated. But if they HAD made those DVDs, they'd have lost money on it, so claim a loss against something that never existed but would have been pirated or lost money if it had existed.
Hollywood accounting IS that full of bullshit. Just wait and watch as Disney simultaneously talks up Lucasfilm results to their shareholders AND declares the whole thing and the movie as terrible, awful, no good lousy losses.
Facts like names and addresses and locations comprising a location database cannot be copyrighted because they are facts and not a creative work eligible for copyright.
Similarly records of FCC radio licenses, telephone listings, licence plate records, voter records, etc, are all facts and cannot be copyrighted.
Cited court discussions or decisions are public domain facts which anyone could obtain by going to the court and pulling whatever records are needed to display the relevant facts.
So I don't see how there was ever a copyright given to this book. Perhaps they can get a patent or copyright on the design or presentation or appearance, but not in the fact content which is immutable and irrefutable.
The monkey can author this photo but he has no rights and is not a citizen and therefore he isn't entitled to a copyright. But since the other parties in this didn't take the photo, they are also not entitled to claim copyright. They didn't make the photo. The monkey did, but he can't own it. So nobody can.
By the way, this whole system is going to cause a mess if or when a space alien (Have to use Space alien instead of just alien in case people think I mean like from Somalia) lands and begins distributing bible tracts. A space alien has no rights to patent or copyright or indeed to property at all, so there won't be anything stopping some human from walking over and claiming they own the alien, his or her ship, and of course the bible tracts. The alien won't be able to defend themselves under our laws. But perhaps their ray gun may be a good defense.
Similarly if or when human make it to other planets, we have no rights to claim we own it. And especially if the planet has life forms, we have no right to trespass, take samples, plant flags or claim ownership or start naming things, mining for materials, etc. Other beings would already have property rights.
And as well, since humans have no ownership of any bodies in the Sol system, if aliens decided to settle on Mars, we'd have no grounds to object -well we have no ability to stop it anyway but Mars doesn't belong to us.
Sprint tends to cater to lower tiers of society, as they have lower credit standards. So I don't know that Radio Shack can expect to be saved by customers who may not have a lot of spending money.
That's because the sales staff are at least partly on commission and under tremendous pressure to sell sell sell!
They're hungry, desperate for sales. Any sales. And you walk in with money. To a hungry salesperson, you look like a steak dinner. So please understand they mean YOU personally no harm. But they want you well-done with a side of buttered baked potato.
As a rule, I don't play games on my phone. The few I keep I did pay for, but it's not like $5 one time is a lot of revenue to any company. They're never going to make it depending on users like me, and no I won't pay more because it's a game. On my phone. A few inches of screen automatically devalues the content displayed on it.
Compare to a PC MMO, which is where I spend a lot of time and money. I get immersed in it, have friends and voice chat and spend a lot of time making screencaps and recordings of gameplay. And it's all on a glorious large screen where I can forget about everything. Those games get my money. Just spent $200 on one of them just to beta test the game and another $40 buying the incredible music from the game.
Games like this are normally free to play but of course use the cash shop model and I will throw money at games that way too. So I feel no guilt about not doing so on phone games I don't have.
Not even mentioned in this complaint is companies like Amazon deciding most of their app library is "truly free" or whatever they call it. Ask users what they think "free" apps are worth and no developer is likely to want to hear the reply. But developers AGREE to have Amazon give away their apps. Nobody forces them to do it. How they make any money on it, I have no idea. But that's not my problem. Plenty of businesses run on shitty flawed business plans that aren't the responsibility of their customers.
What a weird world we live in where you PAY to attend a school, and by so doing, apparently the school thinks it gains the right to control all aspects of your life and/or enforce rules as it wishes.
We're paying them. We are the customer and they aren't the Soup Nazi, so why are we all accepting this bull?
In NO other sort of business would the person who pays accept this kind of abuse and control and meddling from the business they are patronizing.
Unless you are hiring a dom. Then yes, you are paying to be abused.
The whole American education system needs to be gutted and rebuilt. It won't be because those in power like it that way and because sheeple students just want to graduate and don't want that paper held hostage.
This happens for two reasons: First, journalists for the big networks either don't have the freedom to go off and ask tough questions or they play to a crowd which has already made up its mind so the reporters don't need to break anything new. They just have to keep the old folks happy.
And two, people suspect journalist's motives anyway and don't believe them. Every big network reporter has an hidden agenda, you know. Even the ones working for networks strongly identified with one side or another are often accused of being a plant from the other side. Nobody trust anyone.
When a comedian comes along and does this kind of interview, you KNOW what his hidden agenda is, which is to make the subject look like an idiot and makes jokes. To do that, they need to ask the questions regular reports won't touch or can't touch, or didn't think about. It takes more brains to do comedy than it does to do regular reporting so automatically you are likely to be dealing with a much smarter interviewer than usual. Regular airhead reporters could not possibly DO comedy, other than to be the punchline.
I dunno... in the fourth grade, I used to get put in a headlock and pummeled and dragged around the school athletic field, had kickballs hurled at my face, rocks thrown, etc. I left that field every day beaten and dirty. And all the while this battery was happening, multiple teachers looked on and did absolutely nothing. Nothing. No reports, no complaints, not even a "hey you kids cut it out" and course no punishment dealt out to the other kids. Eventually they put me in a class for learning disabled kids, in retrospect mainly to get rid of me.
Looking back on it, I still don't see where all the hate was coming from. But the school did nothing to stop it, made no reports, etc. In their official eyes, none of it ever happened.
Had I known how, I would have killed myself back then. I went through a lot of misery in that place and it still affects my life today because it totally derailed my academic future and sent me onto a path of skipping school entirely after grade 6. Nope. Never got caught. Skipped high school, college, all of it. This means I have no career and nothing to contribute to starting a family I couldn't support anyway.
So when I look at why I have failed to achieve, of course I blame myself but I also have to look at where it started going so wrong, where a smart kid crashed into a brick wall. And that was being bullied like a dog in 4th grade. When nobody did a damn thing to stop it.
It would have been better off for me to have died back then.
Google won't get too involved. With Google fibre TV service, they are in fact a cable company themselves doing the very licensing and payments to broadcasters that Aereo is avoiding.
On virtually every website where TWC vs DirecTV has been opened for comments, TWC is getting cremated. I haven't seen even one pro-TWC comment, and it's not like people love DirecTV either. They just seem unanimous that reality sucks, the movies suck, the forecasting is mediocre at best and there are plenty of alternatives that either do it better or just plain do it faster, or both.
TWC needs to take a look at this and realize their brand is a disaster area all by itself, even worse than their trainwreck website. They have wrecked something people USED to care about. And maybe it's too late to ever get back to those days where TWC mattered a lot, but if they don't do something to fix their image and right now, they will have so little left, they will be able to run their entire operation out of a used FEMA trailer.
Maybe they need to start packing up on Circle 75 Parkway right now. It's done. It's all over but the shouting. DirecTV has dared to speak the word nobody would dare say, and that word is obsolete.
After watching John Miller quite often on CBS Morning Show (or whatever they call it this week), I got to like his reporting quite a lot. He seemed to get it and the show made good use his talents. I thought he was a huge asset to the network.
It's disappointing to hear he may have been telling us something less than the truth.
On the other hand, he always did seem like the mission (whatever that was) was always first with him.
On the post: Oklahoma Cops Debut Tool That Allows Them To Drain Pre-Paid Cards During Traffic Stops
Lots of companies PAY employees on prepaid cards
There have also been times when I've legitimately carried large amounts of cash. A group I used to work with held an annual event of sorts and I ended on on the crew counting ticket proceeds and packaging them to make a bank deposit. As it happened, the people on that crew including myself were all licensed weapon holders and we were, in fact, very well armed as we carried nearly $200,000 in cash to a bank deposit drop chute.
Would have been a real pain to get stopped by the cops. Several heavily armed men with a lot of cash? Surely they can't simply be trying to protect themselves and their honestly-acquired money!?
On the post: Cable Company Admits It Gives Poor Credit Score Customers -- Even Worse Customer Service
Comcast never pulled my credit or validated my ID
During the install process, at NO time did Comcast obtain my SSN or run my credit. I opted to have them verify my ID in person, but when the installer was here running wires, he never asked for my ID and I didn't sign anything.
They took me as a customer without having any actual idea who I was. I was shocked.
On the post: Independent Musician Sues Justin Bieber & Skrillex For Copyright Infringement... Over A Sample They Didn't Use
Come somebody sue something over this one.
On the post: Canadian City Wants To Solve Crime Problem By Using Tracking Technology That Doesn't Exist
DOA
SO even if a rice-grain injectable device existed, we can assume that crafty criminals would likewise find ways of removing the tracker and going about things as they wish.
Injected things are easy to remove with a knife. Surgical implants might be harder but no cheapass police agency is going to pay for surgeons to work on this.
It DOES remind me of a sci-fi story I read years ago, and I cannot remember the name or author and I cannot find the damn book. But the premise involved a couple human astronauts who ended up in prison on an alien planet for some sort of contraband charge. Stuff in the ship medkit was illegal or something. Anyway these alien prison critters would inject a device into their inmates. It caused some sort of change to the blood which was harmless until or unless the inmate tried to remove the thing, at which point their blood would instantly crystallize and kill them. Or something like that.
I wish I'd actually read that book. All I remember is reading the first chapter or so.
On the post: Without Copyright Infringement, Deadpool Doesn't Get Made
Reynolds can be forgiven any rules he broke. He broke enough records to make up for it several dozen times over. Hell, he deserves some kind of Oscar for this.
Props also to the director and editor for making it all work. This movie could have trainwrecked a dozen different places but it didn't, and mostly all works well. Cast and crew all did a great job.
On the post: Once Again, Piracy Is Destroying The Movie Industry... To Ever More Records At The Box Office
Hollywood Accounting
Somehow Disney WILL find a way to declare the new Star Wars film a total loss and a failure even as it brings in $2bn even before home video is counted or revenue from any of the co-branded crap that came with it. It's going to lose way more than it earns. They'll make it happen.
So of course they see piracy as a loss area. Every damn thing is a loss area. Sure they lost millions of dollars on stolen copies of the Star Wars Christmas Special on DVD, which then never actually made and nobody ever pirated. But if they HAD made those DVDs, they'd have lost money on it, so claim a loss against something that never existed but would have been pirated or lost money if it had existed.
Hollywood accounting IS that full of bullshit. Just wait and watch as Disney simultaneously talks up Lucasfilm results to their shareholders AND declares the whole thing and the movie as terrible, awful, no good lousy losses.
On the post: Harvard Law Review Freaks Out, Sends Christmas Eve Threat Over Public Domain Citation Guide
Facts cannot be copyrighted
Similarly records of FCC radio licenses, telephone listings, licence plate records, voter records, etc, are all facts and cannot be copyrighted.
Cited court discussions or decisions are public domain facts which anyone could obtain by going to the court and pulling whatever records are needed to display the relevant facts.
So I don't see how there was ever a copyright given to this book. Perhaps they can get a patent or copyright on the design or presentation or appearance, but not in the fact content which is immutable and irrefutable.
On the post: The Selfie Monkey Strikes Back: Lawyers Claim Of Course Monkeys Can Sue For Copyright
By the way, this whole system is going to cause a mess if or when a space alien (Have to use Space alien instead of just alien in case people think I mean like from Somalia) lands and begins distributing bible tracts. A space alien has no rights to patent or copyright or indeed to property at all, so there won't be anything stopping some human from walking over and claiming they own the alien, his or her ship, and of course the bible tracts. The alien won't be able to defend themselves under our laws. But perhaps their ray gun may be a good defense.
Similarly if or when human make it to other planets, we have no rights to claim we own it. And especially if the planet has life forms, we have no right to trespass, take samples, plant flags or claim ownership or start naming things, mining for materials, etc. Other beings would already have property rights.
And as well, since humans have no ownership of any bodies in the Sol system, if aliens decided to settle on Mars, we'd have no grounds to object -well we have no ability to stop it anyway but Mars doesn't belong to us.
On the post: RadioShack Attempts To Shock Itself Back Into Relevance Using Dumb Tactics From Five Years Ago
Re:
On the post: RadioShack Attempts To Shock Itself Back Into Relevance Using Dumb Tactics From Five Years Ago
Re:
They're hungry, desperate for sales. Any sales. And you walk in with money. To a hungry salesperson, you look like a steak dinner. So please understand they mean YOU personally no harm. But they want you well-done with a side of buttered baked potato.
On the post: CEO Of Mobile Company Blames Everyone For Wanting Coffee Rather Than His Game
Compare to a PC MMO, which is where I spend a lot of time and money. I get immersed in it, have friends and voice chat and spend a lot of time making screencaps and recordings of gameplay. And it's all on a glorious large screen where I can forget about everything. Those games get my money. Just spent $200 on one of them just to beta test the game and another $40 buying the incredible music from the game.
Games like this are normally free to play but of course use the cash shop model and I will throw money at games that way too. So I feel no guilt about not doing so on phone games I don't have.
Not even mentioned in this complaint is companies like Amazon deciding most of their app library is "truly free" or whatever they call it. Ask users what they think "free" apps are worth and no developer is likely to want to hear the reply. But developers AGREE to have Amazon give away their apps. Nobody forces them to do it. How they make any money on it, I have no idea. But that's not my problem. Plenty of businesses run on shitty flawed business plans that aren't the responsibility of their customers.
On the post: State Court Says University Can't Punish Student For Off-Campus Tweets
We're paying them. We are the customer and they aren't the Soup Nazi, so why are we all accepting this bull?
In NO other sort of business would the person who pays accept this kind of abuse and control and meddling from the business they are patronizing.
Unless you are hiring a dom. Then yes, you are paying to be abused.
The whole American education system needs to be gutted and rebuilt. It won't be because those in power like it that way and because sheeple students just want to graduate and don't want that paper held hostage.
On the post: What Does It Say About The US Press That The Toughest Interview Keith Alexander Has Is From A Comedian?
It's two things
And two, people suspect journalist's motives anyway and don't believe them. Every big network reporter has an hidden agenda, you know. Even the ones working for networks strongly identified with one side or another are often accused of being a plant from the other side. Nobody trust anyone.
When a comedian comes along and does this kind of interview, you KNOW what his hidden agenda is, which is to make the subject look like an idiot and makes jokes. To do that, they need to ask the questions regular reports won't touch or can't touch, or didn't think about. It takes more brains to do comedy than it does to do regular reporting so automatically you are likely to be dealing with a much smarter interviewer than usual. Regular airhead reporters could not possibly DO comedy, other than to be the punchline.
So that's how this happens. And yes, it's sad.
On the post: Police File On Student 'Bullied Into Committing Suicide' Strangely Lacking In Evidence Of Bullying
Looking back on it, I still don't see where all the hate was coming from. But the school did nothing to stop it, made no reports, etc. In their official eyes, none of it ever happened.
Had I known how, I would have killed myself back then. I went through a lot of misery in that place and it still affects my life today because it totally derailed my academic future and sent me onto a path of skipping school entirely after grade 6. Nope. Never got caught. Skipped high school, college, all of it. This means I have no career and nothing to contribute to starting a family I couldn't support anyway.
So when I look at why I have failed to achieve, of course I blame myself but I also have to look at where it started going so wrong, where a smart kid crashed into a brick wall. And that was being bullied like a dog in 4th grade. When nobody did a damn thing to stop it.
It would have been better off for me to have died back then.
On the post: Supreme Court Discussion In Aereo: At Least The Justices Recognize The Harm They Might Do
Re:
On the post: Weather Channel To DirecTV: Meet Our Cost Demands Or EVERYONE WILL DIE!
TWC needs to take a look at this and realize their brand is a disaster area all by itself, even worse than their trainwreck website. They have wrecked something people USED to care about. And maybe it's too late to ever get back to those days where TWC mattered a lot, but if they don't do something to fix their image and right now, they will have so little left, they will be able to run their entire operation out of a used FEMA trailer.
Maybe they need to start packing up on Circle 75 Parkway right now. It's done. It's all over but the shouting. DirecTV has dared to speak the word nobody would dare say, and that word is obsolete.
Dish, now it's your turn. Pull the plug.
On the post: President Of CBS News Knew 'Reporter' John Miller Would Go Back To NYPD Before His 60 Min Propaganda Piece Aired
It's disappointing to hear he may have been telling us something less than the truth.
On the other hand, he always did seem like the mission (whatever that was) was always first with him.
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