If you have a choice of two competitors, and one is more expensive fiber/cable and the other one is DSL, you can order the DSL if you so choose.
-
Get involved.
We want your input!
Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.
After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.
After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/
Thanks in advance and have fun!
RadioDiscussions Administrators
NPR temporarily stopped it's twitter accounts in a "state-media" beef with Elon Musk
- Thread starter DarrenVision
- Start date
But the attorneys don't come up with the idea to sue massive corporations, in the cases like the ones you're talking about. They don't look for a problem and then seek out clients they can use to sue a company. The clients come to them first, and the class action suit develops from there. The TV ads you see are cases that were already started by a plaintiff, or plaintiffs.
And class action suits only arise when there are enough plaintiffs to justify a class action suit.
Suing corporations is not cheap. They cost thousands and thousands of dollars. Most law firms don't have the money themselves to sue a massive corporation. They often (if not always) have to borrow money (often from litigation funding firms) to sue a major corporation. So it's not something that attorneys, or law firms, take lightly. Because every attorney knows that it's very easy to lose a case. There are no guarantees.
During the 2008 crash, a lot of medium sized law firms went bankrupt, or dissolved, because they had been funding their litigation and the money to fund their litigation dried up, and they either were caught owing a lot of money or found they couldn't take on large cases anymore because there was less money available to borrow on the market to fund litigation.
As for 'there's no fee', that applies in nearly every personal injury suit out there, and it's been standard legal practice in every sort of personal injury case for decades. The plaintiff approaches the attorney about an injury -- auto accident, slip and fall, etc. -- and the attorney looks into the case to see if it's potentially winnable -- because many such cases are not. There are too many variables to guarantee an outcome. If the case looks winnable, or at least one that would settle, the attorney or firm takes it on. There will be a contract between the attorney and the client stating that the attorney receives a percentage of any award or settlement. The flip side is that the law firm / attorney doesn't charge hourly fees for their work. So they are putting in literally hundreds of hours of work, and not getting paid, unless their side wins.
As for the issue of TV advertisements by law firms advertising class action suits, a lot of people sense quackery, but who else is going to hold corporations accountable? You think the government is that proactive? They're not.
The reason when you buy a bottle of aspirin or any other over the counter medication or food, and you see a seal on the top of it, isn't because the government initiated the practice.
It was because of a lawsuit.
Again, I don't think you're completely correct in this. There are tons of stories where attorneys might see similarities in patents or spot some type of potential infringement, or hear of a medical issue that's arisen, etc. and they see $$ signs and they initiate contact with potential plaintiffs, not the other way 'round. Again, if you've ever received paperwork telling you that you may be entitled to enter into a class action suit, the few I've bothered to look at before tossing them have spelled out the estimated fees that would go to the attorneys if successful, and those amounts can be more that significant. While I'm sure you're correct in your previous post that some lawfirms have had financial difficulties if they've taken on too much risk and cases where thy had to pay their attorneys for their work but ultimately weren't successful in winning the suit or enough $$ to cover all expenses, on the other hand if you're a relatively small firm and can win just a few big $$$ cases and take a serious cut, you'll be doing very well financially. Obviously there's money in it, or you wouldn't see so many attorneys and firms engaging in that type of litigation or making those kinds of "no risk to you, and you own nothing if we don't win" kinds of offers.
Last edited:
I'm not trying to denigrate or cast aspersions on your opinion, but I know people in the legal arena, who work in it daily, and I'm telling you how it works.
Sure, law firms often seek out cases that will make them money, usually through advertising their services. But they can not file a lawsuit without a plaintiff, and they can not file a lawsuit that isn't valid, i.e. has a valid legal basis. Any lawsuit where there is no valid basis for the suit gets thrown out. Courts generally do not like their time wasted, and there are laws and rules about this sort of thing.
As for patents, most patents are owned by large companies and they often have floors full of attorneys to protect their intellectual property, and big companies guard their IP using the court system when necessary.
With medical issues it's usually the victims who seek out legal help. Law firms may catch wind of a medicine or product that has injured people, and they may advertise, generally, for prospective clients, but this is usually after there have been lawsuits on the matter, and people generally approach lawyers, not the other way around. And there are also limits concerning how attorneys and law firms may advertise to prospective clients. They are not allowed to initiate contact with prospective clients directly. There is a legal rule (RPC 7.3) that bars attorneys and firms from doing that.
And 30% is the average take for a law firm in an injury or product liability case like the ones described, where they don't charge hourly fees. It's not an industry standard set by some rule or law, but it's the standard in the industry, and has been for at least several decades.
The fact there is money in it is irrelevant. There is money in whatever job you do. Otherwise you wouldn't be doing it. Not many people work for free. Just sayin'.
You're exactly correct. Which is why some attorneys and law firms, at times, not always, seek out said plaintiffs as part of their business model. As explained in my initial comment a few posts above this one, the plaintiff is the one who ultimately needs to sign the paperwork, but that doesn't mean that the lawyers and legal firms aren't the ones who initiate contact first, plant the idea of the potential suit and "the deal you can't lose", meaning no risk for the potential plaintiff and no loss to them if the case fails, but potentially a handsome payoff for them if it's successful.
With the greatest of respect, I think we've taken this diversion from the stated title of this discussion thread as far as it can/should go. This thread is supposedly about NPR and its suspension of their Twitter accounts. Before we get a nudge from the moderators, let's allow it to get back to that.
Last edited:
And that's why if you win they get paid a lot. It seems fair under those circumstances.
In my case I was told fiber would cost the same. It's the phone company.
Whether I switch to it depends on whether they have to drill a hole in the wall and whether anything else has to be done inside. at the very least, the hole would mean moving furniture.
When I replaced my DSL with fiber earlier this year, AT&T took out the phone line and used the same hole in the wall to put the fiber through. If you want the fiber router to be in the same place as your DSL, they probably wouldn't need to drill any new holes.
I have Comcast, just checked Century Link and they can only offer me 10MB, I'm guessing they can call it what they want but that's still DSL. Live in a populated area of the Twin Cities, and I know the phone lines are multiplexed, so I'm betting we'll never see faster service, from C/L.
You haven't heard it, at least from me.
I question the USA's heavy reliance on Chinese goods, particularly for technology.
But also on manufacturing in general.
The new Oakland span of the SF Bay Bridge that was put into service around 2014-2015? The metalwork was manufactured almost entirely by China, as far as I know (the old span, since demolished, was manufactured domestically, maybe even in Oakland), and nobody seems to care.
I'm not opposed to all foreign manufacturing, of course (the Japanese and Germans make some very fine cars, and some of the really good home audio equipment is Japanese, for example). I just think we're getting too reliant on trade with China, in particular.
c
I built two new PCs for my website use last year. I tried to find as many parts as possible that were not made in China, such as SSDs, traditional hard drives, power supplies, motherboards, CPUs, liquid coolers, video cards, memory, mouses and keyboards, cabling, monitors. I only had luck with a couple of things, like my sets of 16tb hard drives being made in another SE Asian country.
There are plenty of other things that can no longer be obtained anywhere else: I wanted a customized recliner for my bad back and the only place non-stock models were made was, of course, China.
I'm sort of fascinated Seattle NPR station KUOW's exit from Twitter. It seems that no one really cares.
So far their last tweet is stuck at 88K views (greater then their other recent tweets) and 927 likes, with a lot of those possibly from anti-KUOW people. Looks like maybe their Twitter feed never was all that important to their listeners. The previous tweets from this year average maybe 800-1200 views and anywhere from 5-15 likes.
Maybe they had tons more in the past. Takes hours to scroll even to the beginning of the year, though.
So far their last tweet is stuck at 88K views (greater then their other recent tweets) and 927 likes, with a lot of those possibly from anti-KUOW people. Looks like maybe their Twitter feed never was all that important to their listeners. The previous tweets from this year average maybe 800-1200 views and anywhere from 5-15 likes.
Maybe they had tons more in the past. Takes hours to scroll even to the beginning of the year, though.
Singapore used to make a LOT of the world's hard drives. I take it that it is no longer the case?
I'm divided on trade with China. I think the economic realities of trade lessens the chance of war. it doesn't guarantee that no war happens, but it at least keeps lines of communication open between nations. At the same time, if you're depending on one country or regime alone for all of your manufactured products, that's problematic.
Hard drives have been replaced by SSD. Singapore is a major player in making solid state memory. Micron Technology has a huge plant in Singapore. How do I know this? Because my wife was involved in setting up the Singapore plant for Micron.
As a nation, we're too far down that road. We are forced to live with our appetite for inexpensive consumer goods made in China, or other places overseas.
I think that's true for most twitter users. We all were able to live just fine without twitter before, and we all seem to be doing fine without it now. Radio stations have lots of social media options. NPR and KUOW are optimizing the other non-hostile options. Their followers know this is an unprovoked attack. Members of public media outlets are used to this kind of thing. Members have ownership in those stations, and will defend them against attackers.
The tech community has been talking lately about a new app as a possible replacement for Twitter called BlueSky. BlueSky was created by Jack Dorsey, one of the Twitter founders, as a less politically charged alternative to Twitter. Right now, if one wanted to try BlueSky, you must be invited by another user. From what I understand, currently BlueSky users are mainly people talking about tech, hobbies, and LGBTQ community topics.
Tucker Carlson’s Next Move: Axios Reporter Tells CNN Why ‘Talking to Elon Musk Makes Sense’ for the Fired Fox News Host (Video)
The controversial anchor is looking to get out of his contract with his former employer, which runs through January 2025
Elon Musk is apparently in talks with Tucker Carlson.
Elon Musk Talking With Tucker Carlson About Working Together: Report
Elon Musk has been talking with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson about possibly working together, according to a new report from Axios. The news comes after Carlson was abruptly pulled off the air by Fox, despite hosting the most popular cable news show in the U.S.
www.forbes.com
And he says he wants to make Twitter more friendly to free speech.
Free for whom? The farthest of the far right??
As far as genuine free speech protections for everybody, he has done nothing useful, and has in fact conspicuously gone after anyone daring to either criticize him or any of his companies, or simply for saying or doing anything that isn't, in his opinion, far right MAGA fanaticism.
I've never had a Twitter account, and I've survived just fine, so fortunately I'm not terribly affected by all this, but I'm very unimpressed by his childishness regarding NPR. It serves no purpose whatsoever other than to abuse his authority to be the top bully with virtual impunity.
He'll get what he deserves sooner or later....
Hopefully sooner....
c
Free for whom? The farthest of the far right??
As far as genuine free speech protections for everybody, he has done nothing useful, and has in fact conspicuously gone after anyone daring to either criticize him or any of his companies, or simply for saying or doing anything that isn't, in his opinion, far right MAGA fanaticism.
I've never had a Twitter account, and I've survived just fine, so fortunately I'm not terribly affected by all this, but I'm very unimpressed by his childishness regarding NPR. It serves no purpose whatsoever other than to abuse his authority to be the top bully with virtual impunity.
He'll get what he deserves sooner or later....
Hopefully sooner....
c
Sure, free speech that aligns with the world according to Elon, or in praise of Elon.
They still make lots of mechanical drives. The most advanced SSDs, though, are coming from China.
And if you go outside the US, it is more extreme. One of my daughters was in Chile recently and chanced to see the annual new car exhibit at one of the huge malls. Of about 75 cars on display, over 65 were from China and none from the US.
- Status