American Arbitration Association

The American Arbitration Association ^® (AAA), with its long history and experience in the field of alternative dispute resolution, provides services to individuals and organizations who wish to resolve conflicts out of court.

The AAA role in the dispute resolution process is to administer cases, from filing to closing. The AAA provides administrative services in the U.S., as well as abroad through its International Centre for Dispute Resolution ^® (ICDR). The AAA's and ICDR's administrative services include assisting in the appointment of mediators and arbitrators, setting hearings, and providing users with information on dispute resolution options, including settlement through mediation. Ultimately, the AAA aims to move cases through arbitration or mediation in a fair and impartial manner until completion.

Additional AAA services include the design and development of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) systems for corporations, unions, government agencies, law firms, and the courts. The Association also provides elections services as well as education, training, and publications for those seeking a broader or deeper understanding of alternative dispute resolution.

How many lawyers does it take to change a lightbulb?

How many lawyers does it take to change a lightbulb?

“Such number as may be deemed necessary to perform the stated task in a timely and efficient manner within the strictures of the following agreement: Whereas the party of the first part, also known as "The Lawyer," and the party of the second part, also known as "The Light Bulb," do hereby and forthwith agree to a transaction wherein the party of the second part (Light Bulb) shall be removed from the current position as a result of failure to perform previously agreed upon duties, i.e., the lighting, elucidation, and otherwise illumination of the area ranging from the front (north) door, through the entry way, terminating at an area just inside the primary living area, demarcated by the beginning of the carpet, any spill-over illumination being at the option of the party of the second part (Light Bulb) and not required by the aforementioned agreement between the parties. The aforementioned removal transaction shall include, but not be limited to, the following steps:

The party of the first part (Lawyer) shall, with or without elevation at his option, by means of a chair, step stool, ladder or any other means of elevation, grasp the party of the second part (Light Bulb) and rotate the party of the second part (Light Bulb) in a counter-clockwise direction, said direction being non-negotiable. Said grasping and rotation of the party of the second part (Light Bulb) shall be undertaken by the party of the first part (Lawyer) with every possible caution by the party of the first part (Lawyer) to maintain the structural integrity of the party of the second part (Light Bulb), notwithstanding the aforementioned failure of the party of the second part (Light Bulb) to perform the aforementioned customary and agreed upon duties. The foregoing notwithstanding, however, both parties stipulate that structural failure of the party of the second part (Light Bulb) may be incidental to the aforementioned failure to perform and in such case the party of the first part (Lawyer) shall be held blameless for such structural failure insofar as this agreement is concerned so long as the non-negotiable directional codicil (counter-clockwise) is observed by the party of the first part (Lawyer) throughout.

Upon reaching a point where the party of the second part (Light Bulb) becomes separated from the party of the third part ("Receptacle"), the party of the first part (Lawyer) shall have the option of disposing of the party of the second part (Light Bulb) in a manner consistent with all applicable state, local and federal statutes.

Once separation and disposal have been achieved, the party of the first part (Lawyer) shall have the option of beginning installation of the party of the fourth part ("New Light Bulb"). This installation shall occur in a manner consistent with the reverse of the procedures described in step one of this self-same document, being careful to note that the rotation should occur in a clockwise direction, said direction also being non-negotiable.

NOTE: The above described steps may be performed, at the option of the party of the first part (Lawyer), by said party of the first part (Lawyer), by his heirs and assigns, or by any and all persons authorized by him to do so, the objective being to produce a level of illumination in the immediate vicinity of the aforementioned front (north) door consistent with maximization of ingress and revenue for the party of the fifth part.”

Mother of All Tax Bills

It would change the tax rules regarding foreign income for U.S. companies. The Rangel plan would require companies to defer deductions on certain overseas business expenses until the money is repatriated to the U.S. That would raise $106 billion over 10 years.

Books to Buy and perhaps read!

Thinking with Type: A Critical Guide for Designers, Writers, Editors, & Students

Stop Stealing Sheep & Find Out How Type Works, Second Edition

The Worldly Philosophers: The Lives, Times And Ideas Of The Great Economic Thinkers

The Art of UNIX Programming

The Cathedral & the Bazaar: Musings on Linux and Open Source by an Accidental Revolutionary

Head First Design Patterns

How Linux Is Testing The Limits Of Open Source Development

As the latest release of the Linux kernel emerged this month, it reflected a dizzying number of changes. Kernel 2.6.23, coming just three months after the last update, incorporated business-friendly features, including better virtualization support and an update to the all-important scheduler, as well as the usual new device drivers and bug fixes.

The sheer number of changes coming every two to three months from Linus Torvalds' "code tree" is a sign of accelerating kernel development.

Some think the kernel, clocked at 86 lines of new code per hour, is exceeding the software development speed limit. A key maintainer, Alan Cox, has warned that some device driver changes should get more testing before being incorporated into the kernel. Andrew Morton, a skilled programmer dubbed "the colonel of the kernel" after Torvalds tapped him as a general manager, has been outspoken on the problem of unfixed bugs in Linux. "I would like to see people spending more time fixing bugs and less time on new features," Morton says. "That's my personal opinion."

The Press Will Be Outsourced Before Stopped

First, we frequently see much larger dollar amounts printed in the business sections of newspapers ('Murdoch Buys Dow Jones for $5 billion', etc.), making us somewhat inurred to smaller financial figures such as $330 million or $1 million per week. However, the San Francisco Chronicle's latest weekday circulation figure is 386,564, so if that newspaper has lost $330 million during the past six years, it's lost approximately $853.67 per reader during that time or $142.28 per reader per year! Now does its amount of loss impress you? It does me. The Chronicle would lose less money if it just bought each reader a fine meal each year at San Francisco's best restaurant instead of delivering a newspaper each day.

Don't Pay Sales Tax!

You'd think that ordering from a catalog or the Internet would work the same way, but it doesn't. The reasons are complicated, but they boil down to the fact that the tax laws put an inordinate amount of value on physical presence. So if I live in Massachusetts and buy something from a mail-order store located in Vermont, Vermont can't charge me sales tax, because I'm not there. Similarly, Massachusetts can't collect sales tax from the store because it's in Vermont.

Configuring WebDAV for cross-platform file sharing

Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning (WebDAV) is an often-overlooked protocol that can provide cross-platform file sharing with minimal client-side configuration. This article explains how to configure WebDAV servers on Windows with IIS, on Mac OS X and Linux with Apache, and how to connect using built-in WebDAV clients on all three OSes.

The right to criticize programming languages

Python's third win is simplicity. Most of the complex things about Ruby - syntactic, semantic, or whatever - are exceedingly important. Still, Python by being much simpler would be far better language for teaching peolpe to code. Sure, I know all the arguments for using Scheme or Java for it, and by legal overlook starting with C or C++ isn't in the Criminal Code yet, but if you love kids, you surely agree that Python is simply The Right First Language.

I Can Get Your Kid into an Ivy

As I listened to my 8th period English teacher drone on for the third time about how Finny, a character in A Separate Peace, was indeed the main character although he was not the narrator, it finally dawned on me that this was not the exciting world of high school that I had hoped for.

This is how Andrew Garza began an essay in his application to Haverford College. It was a 1,200-word piece that established him as an intellectually curious young man. It was crafted to appeal specifically to the admissions officers at the small liberal arts school. And it was the idea of his high-priced college admissions coach, Michele A. Hernandez. Garza attended a private school in Switzerland, and that worried Hernandez: She thought he might appear to be a privileged teenager without much substance. So she advised him to write about why he had left his public high school in suburban New Jersey. "We had to make it seem like he didn't want to be around so many rich kids. We spun a whole story about him taking the initiative to leave in order to broaden his experience," Hernandez says. "It was his initiative. But he wouldn't have written about it."

Today Andrew is a senior at Haverford, studying sociology and economics. His father, John, paid Hernandez $18,000 for 18 months' worth of advice. "It is a lot of money," says Garza, a manager at Abitibi-Consolidated (ABY ) in New York. "But if you look at it as an investment, it's not a bad one."

Learning Linux, Perl, Python

Linux

Linux Newbie Administrator Guide - Google for LNAG.pdf

Aileen Frisch's Essential System Administrator - Multi Platform

http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/04/19/1920221

http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/

http://tldp.org/LDP/Linux-Filesystem-Hierarchy/html/

http://tldp.org/LDP/Linux-Filesystem-Hierarchy/html/

http://nostarch.com/frameset.php?startat=vmware

Unix Power Tools

Perl

Robert's Perl Tutorials

Python

Dive into python

Our patent system is broken.

I've come to realize that this is a misconception. The patent system isn't broken, corrupt, or overwhelmed. Unfortunately, it is working exactly as it was designed.

From an early age we are taught idealist interpretations of patent law and how it is a wonderful tool to spur innovation, research, business, etc. and provide a level playing field for the little entrepreneur. However, when confronted with the reality of what patent law is, a forced impedement on human nature to invent and create which turns out to be contradictory to the idealistic intent, it is assumed it must be because it is broken.

43 Exceptionally Useful AJAX Applications

Usability on websites is exploding right now. AJAX has enabled web developers everywhere to add functionality to their sites like never before. I’ve gathered 43 extremely useful (but still easy to implement) AJAX applications for use on any website. Keep your users coming back and increase your website’s functionality.