Subj : Re: How much should I charge for fixed-price software contract? To : comp.programming From : Richard Heathfield Date : Sun Aug 21 2005 08:33 pm Randy Howard wrote: > Richard Heathfield wrote > (in article > ): > >>> Oh my. This /is/ a hot button for you. You have to be joking. I think you now realise I'm not. >> >> It could have gone like this: > > It seems that you really, really, really, really, really, really > take this seriously. Oh yes. If anyone were thinking of traveling to the USA, I'd advise them against it, on the grounds that they might - just might - get arrested. > I don't see grain sanctions against russia or any other > country for someone being arrested (even falsely) for > potentially breaking a law. Ah, you still don't understand. No law was broken. Not even the silly DMCA law. But even if it had been (which it wasn't), it's stupid to consider it a jailing matter. > More importantly, nobody in the US > would know about it in the first place, since Russia would have > made sure nobody talked about it, free speech not being such a > common entity around the globe as one might hope. So your relatives wouldn't notice you were missing, then? :-) > >> The Navy is on full alert, >> and the Pentagon is watching developments with care." > > Even less likely. They wouldn't go to war unless Russia > kidnapped the blonde-headed braindead daughter of some > trailer-park queenie and shipped her in a box to Aruba. Nothing > but children is important to the US anymore. Luckily, there are > more than enough of them to occupy their attention. I think you do your country a disservice. I suspect that they would be quick, at the very least, to lodge a complaint and expect your imminent release. >> But because it's >> Americans doing it, it seems to be okay to some Americans. That's called >> "special pleading". > > No, we simply understand that mistakes are made. The mistake > you are upset about was corrected, perhaps too slowly in your > opinion, but it was. Was it? Was Elcomsoft compensated for their lost time? Was Sklyarov given compensation for the time he spent locked up? I don't think so. > He's not currently making license plates > and making new friends in prison, he's probably writing software > somewhere else. That's the way it is supposed to work. You > cannot enforce laws and never make mistakes. > > I would expect the British people understand that pretty well > after shooting an innocent person quite famously just recently. > I would claim that was a more egregious example than yours, or > the actual event with DS. The British people didn't shoot anyone, any more than the US people imprisoned Dmitri Sklyarov. One police officer murdered an innocent man on a Tube train while others assisted by holding the guy down. I hope they are sent to prison for life, because murderers should be punished. I also think the British Government should pay reparations to the victim's family, and a full independent public inquiry into the incident should be conducted. I also hope the guy who arrested Sklyarov is punished, and that Sklyarov and Elcomsoft receive full compensation for their inconvenience, expense, and loss of liberty. > >>> Well that much has been obvious for a very long time. What is >>> less obvious possibly, but much more important is that the US >>> voting population is willing to accept it, provided it occurs >>> slowly enough. >> >> Yep. Like the frog who can't tell that he's being boiled alive, provided >> you raise the temperature slowly enough. > > I almost mentioned that originally, but wasn't sure if it was in > general use world-wide, or just something that I had heard > somewhere that was only heard of in parts of the US. It may, or may not, be an urban myth. Perhaps Snopes will know. But whether it is or not, it remains a graphic analogy for what's happening in the "free" world at present. -- Richard Heathfield "Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29/7/1999 http://www.cpax.org.uk mail: rjh at above domain .