fatdog789

Doctors learn the prerequisites to the stuff they learn in Medical school: chemistry, biology, all that other science.

Lawyers learn the law in law school. We do not actually need to go to college for anything, since the law does not rely on any prerequisite knowledge, except maybe (American) political history and intro-level macroeconomics.

Unlike the cheap phone you were offered, the Kindle e-ink display uses a newer form of e-ink that allows for more than 2 colors, with a resolution several hundred times the resolution of the phone's e-ink display, significantly faster refreshing, AND which can update portions of the screen instead of the entire screen every time (which was not available on any e-ink product until the iRex illiad which came out in 2007). It's sort of like the difference between the mouse and the elephant.

The processor is not the expensive part, nor is the ram. The fucking display is the expensive part.

*pm = paying me

Actually, the reason is that old people who live in these communities don't want young families or children, and don't want to pay school taxes. In some states, retirement villages are exempted from paying local school taxes b/c there aren't any children to support.

Local governments hate retirement villages b/c they are not net contributors to local tax coffers: they use up more police, fire, and medical services, they rarely purchase goods (IOW, no sales tax), and they don't own property (b/c the units are "leased" not owned) so they don't pay property taxes. On top of all that, they usually oppose new development in the vicinity of the retirement village, which can freeze commercial development.

Tags can't be nested.

The "dormant commerce clause" power is actually the last bit: B/C the power to regulate interstate commerce is given to Congress, it is not within the domain of the states to interfere with (i.e., by regulating) interstate commerce.

The dormant commerce clause power doesn't prevent states from having incompatible vehicle compliance measures...the commerce clause does b/c Congress has passed legislation on point. States are allowed to have incompatible vehicle standards (Cali and NY/NJ can set their own emissions and fuel efficiency standards) b/c the legislation allows them to seek waiver. If the dormant commerce clause applied, they wouldn't be able to do this b/c there wouldn't be any waivers available b/c Congress was silent on the issue.

IAALBYANPM.

1) You appear to be unfamiliar with the game "sardines", or Times Square. People don't take up much space, especially when standing up. There are 27,878,400 Square Feet in a square mile. Each square foot can hold a person, standing up. That means in a square mile, you can fit up to 27 million people. (not pleasantly or comfortably, but it can be done.)

2) Police have guns and fire hoses. Any of these alone is enough to control a crowd several times the size of the police force, especially the fire hoses.

3) Amanjeed (mispelled i know) is not known for employing logic. Indeed, the primary reason given by many of Mousavi's supporters was that Amanijeed was too capricious and arbitrary in his decision-making. And when you control all of the important offices and agencies (i.e., the state police and military), politics is just for show.

4) This is incorrect; the Ayatollah did not approve of the election; that is why they have launched an investigation into irregularities.

You clearly didn't put much thought into your own claims.

At several million copies sold, that comes out to quite a bit.

No, it's not. They haven't yet gone after people who jailbreak their phones. That doesn't mean they won't.

And btw, they have gone after sites that talk about how to jailbreak the iPhone. Copyright was just an excuse.

Google can afford to pay for them. That's the reason the artists are pissed.

It's like a millionaire asking a homeless bum for change, claiming that the "exposure" of being a nice guy will earn the bum a few more donations.

Anecdotes are still data.

You have 2 verified MBP users with a total of 4 problematic MBPs. That's raw data right there.

Do not confuse data with statistics.

MS doesn't need to.

1) C# is a standardized, open spec language. Mono is an implementation of that open spec. The development of that specification is driven by MS's .Net platform.

2) Here's a crucial bit of patent/IP law: by releasing the specification of the language to the "public", MS is barred from suing over it in a court of law. So again, there's no need for it say that it won't sue, since it's already prevented from doing so.

Consider this: it's not just the cost of making the site these guys would have to swallow if they go with another developer, it's the cost of developing the customer base. This means that there will be a several month period during which they're not able to monetize.

Demand 100%. They haven't offered you anything. Monetization? Micro-transactions, or subscriptions (i.e., ad-free access). Hm...For that, I think I deserve 90% of your company now. :)

Agreed. Business folk tend to think that the technical side of their plans is the easy part, when it's usually the other way around: business plans are a dime a dozen, but a flawed technical execution will kill any business plan (see Cuil, for example).

Plus, from the business/legal perspective: you have all the valuable assets. They have...nothing. You're making the only capital contribution to this company...that means, you own 100% of the company unless they put their own cash in (services rendered don't count as capital contributions).

Except that the bank can also refuse to consider these transfers to be made "in error", given the vast publicity this has been given on the web. Indeed, given the fraudulent intent behind these transactions, the bank can simply keep the money (without forcing the intended recipient to swallow the costs of the transfer) to pay for its own costs in handling the transfer.

On top of that, above a certain dollar limit (don't know what it is in this case), this gives the Swedish court jurisdiction for criminal charges for the mastermind, for bank fraud.

For the love of all that is good, do not ever use Legalzoom for a legal document.

Pay a lawyer $200 to draft the documents for you, or do it yourself. Either way, your documents will be superior to the shit they sell at Legalzoom.

Wyoming's not a bad choice for LLCs, but the corporate tax bit is irrelevant if you choose pass-through taxes.

You must pay taxes in every state in which you are incorporated/organized/chartered AND where the corporation actually resides (headquarters, major offices, etc).

Delaware. It's the friendliest state to "foreign" companies (companies registered in the state but headquartered/operated out-of-state).

You have a nexus with any state in which (1) you are registered or (2) are physically located (employees, offices, facilities, leased real property etc, but not including contract workers or leased equipment). You have to pay income taxes, social security, etc, in those states.

Any law textbook on LLCs.

IMPORTANT: An LLC alone will not shelter you from legal liability. The "piercing the veil" doctrine disregards the LLC and allows someone to go after the owner if the LLC is not sufficiently separated from your personal assets and control. For a sole proprietorship, the control part is already met, so you have to make damn well sure that you keep the LLC assets separate from your personal assets. Log and track EVERYTHING.

An S-Corp is actually worse from the VC standpoint than an LLC, b/c S-Corps don't require incorporation (DBA's can apply for and receive S-Corp status). This means it's easier to take the money and run.

Some VCs prefer LLCs because it gives them the risk-minimizing benefits of a corporation, while at the same time giving them a hand in managing the business (a la partnership form). HOWEVER, many VCs, especially the smaller ones, are unfamiliar with LLC law, and avoid it b/c they don't know about it. Some VCs prefer S-Corp because it ideally gives them access to the founders' personal assets, but in practice, a bankruptcy court will try very hard to deny this benefit.

Taxation is about funding the government. It doesn't give a rat's ass about "controlling aggregate demand for dollars".

Remember dude, EVERY CIVILIZATION HAS HAD TAXES. Rome had taxes. Ancient Mesopotamia had taxes. TAX PREDATE AMERICA. Tax predate fiat currency. Ergo, taxes are not about controlling the money supply.

Compliance is easy, unless you're trying to hide your income. Pay X% of your total gross income for the year. Subtract the standard deduction (which is fixed every year). Subtract state income taxes, if any.

Done. What's so hard about that?

The tax code is only complicated for people who choose to make it complicated.

Because they recognized that the most efficient way to collect taxes is by automatic withholding, which keeps the size of the IRS smaller than it would otherwise be. Our current system keeps the audit portion the same size as it would be in the non-automatic system, but cuts out most of the collection-side bulk (which would be HUGE in a manual system)..

The tax code is only complicated because of the people exploiting the loopholes. Way back in the beginning, it used to be ridiculously simple: you pay X% of your income. But then, people began arguing over what income was. And that's when it started getting complicated.

Amchem Products v. Windsor (SCOTUS 1997)

Found the case I was looking for. In this case, the court struck down a settlement which abridged absent member's substantive rights, in parts on the grounds that it was a violation of their due process to be bound (and to have their substantive rights abridged) without adequate due process, notice and the right to opt out of the class action. In our Google case, the orphan authors are in the same position as the absent class members in Anchem; their literary rights have been transferred to Google without proper notice and opportunity to opt out of the settlement.

Most universities provide XP and Vista to their students via the university's software download repository.

There are no strategic similarities in the Lane's Gift case; in that case that i can see, so you should elaborate on what you mean.

Google did what all class action defendants try to do: retain control over the payment of monies (in LG)...Here... they transferred that right to the Guild in exchange for the rights to orphan works. Google tried to make the class as broad as possible so that it would be binding on as many authors as possible, which all Ds do in every class action.

It's important to note that all the LG members were already Google customers; here, most of the class members have no prior relationship with Google. It's also important to note that the transfer of rights contemplated by this settlement is not possible via a class action (at least, not on behalf of absent members); see the Ars Technica article for more on that.

Class representatives do not have the right to bargain on behalf of members in materially different circumstances. Technically, orphaned book authors should not even be part of this class action because an orphaned-book author is not in the same position as an identifiable author. At best, the orphaned book authors could be part of a subclass, but they would require a separate settlement (or rather, sub-settlement). The problem is clear, as here, where the Guild negotiated money on behalf of orphaned authors...to be paid to the Guild. The Guild is not required to attempt to locate these orphan authors, or their successors/estates...it can just keep the money until the authors claim it. Even worse, the Guild is allowed to use this money for its own purpose, rather than setting it aside into a trust account for the orphan authors.

In this case, others have challenged the settlement on two grounds: (1) antitrust, which is the most important issue, and (2) the orphaned authors were not fairly represented by the Guild, as evidenced by the lack of proper notice, the Guild negotiating to receive money for orphan authors, and the Guild granting itself the right to use that money for its own efforts. (Note: the challenge on (2) is both to the settlement AND to the class certification.)

You're right, the pocket summary says a lot about the quality of Google's research. But it's not a clever hack of the legal process, because a law student could easily observe the antitrust issues arising here. It's an example of Google's lawyer's fucking up on an issue, and getting the Justice Department involved (and millions spent in responding to the JD's subpoena's and information requests) where the JD didn't need to get involved. If this had been an outside law firm, it would be considered malpractice.

The problem isn't that Google tried to do it, The problem is that Google set up the deal so that nobody else could ever do something like this ever again. Google set up a per se monopoly. It pulled a Microsoft. Hell, based on publicly available information, it looks like Google has just committed a violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act Sec. 2. (Note that the attempt to anti-competitively monopolize is just as much a violation as establishing an actual anti-competitive monopoly. Monopolies are only sanctioned when they arise purely from competitive market forces, i.e., Apple getting away with 90+% of the MP3 player market).

Both Microsoft and Adobe tried to pull off something like this in the past, but both failed due to a break down in negotiations related to orphaned works. Neither would pay the Author's Guild for access to orphaned works b/c the Guild doesn't have the legal right to bargain on behalf of those authors. The Justice Department did get involved in the MS attempt; I don't know if they were snooping around in Adobe's attempt.

The fact that Google is willing to arrange payment to the Guild for rights to works that the Guild doesn't have the power to grant says a lot about the lack of research and general shoddiness of Google's transactions and antitrust legal teams.

There's no irony at all.

You're respecting someone else's rights. You're doing the right thing.

The anonymous scribbers are not doing the right thing. Don't change who you are just b/c of them.

That's wrong. Fictional facts are considered expressions, not ideas (See the James Bond and Seinfield cases).

JK can control any fictional facts from her work, like Hogwarts, or the characters. She can't control the underlying ideas, such as a wizard school, or an orphan boy hero.