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*laugh* Oh my goodness - the disproof of God. That's a philosophical and logical minefield unto itself; a darn fine intellectual exercise, but you'd be surprised at what you run up against :)

I ran across an interesting snippet a while back on the subject of modern-day Gnostic Christianity, and this particular person was ranting up a storm against the fundamentalists who seem to basically want us to stop asking questions, and to revile science as a means of finding the truth. His view, which I found interesting (it resembles what I remember of the Gnostics in post-Roman times), was that you should not fetter the search for truth, because if God were out there, you'd eventually find it to be true from all the knowledge humankind eventually collected about the universe.

Actually, on the subject of proof versus Laws, is that even Laws are conditional, though they've been upgraded to near 100% certainty in local conditions.

The Law of Gravity, for example, holds within the solar system to a very fine degree, but there have been murmurs, even in the mainstream, about whether it might hold differently on the large scale. The excessive amount of 'missing matter' required to hold a galaxy together seems to be the main sticking point. The amount of conjecture when the Voyagers went "off course" was unexpected :)

As to whether or not science accepts non-disproven theories... actually, it does, but there's a pretty good reason for it. For more wonderful philosophy, here's an outline version of Kuhn's Structure Of Scientific Revolutions. The basic piece to get out of it is that science, when presented with a number of alternatives that seem impossible to decide between, decides on something, because then you actually have an explanation you can actually test against; throw the spaghetti at the wall and see if it sticks.

It takes quite a while to overturn things, because there's usually some way to explain it in the current theory, but there's usually some loss of internal consistency as observations come in.

Anyhow, Kuhn is kinda cool :)

Still early days on cosmology - Spitzer has been coming up with some new and very surprising things... stuff like neon being present in the same quantities in stars 10 billion light years away, which doesn't make sense as it stands, since neon is a secondary product of supernovas in BBT.

*laugh* Sounds like a darned fine physics teacher! My fiancée is actually a high school science teacher; dealing with the 'slowpokes' who frustrate everyone in the class is high art :) *laugh* I remember her story of dropping glycerin on a pile of KMn04, looking disappointed that nothing happened, then turning back to write things on the chalkboard... then, of course, it ignites, and she blithely pretends nothing's going on as the students are screaming. Teachers with a sense of humor are worth their weight in osmium :)

Is this really that hard?

You said yourself that their qualifies person. Person is singluar, their is plural. Therefore, there is no pronoun agreement in number, and the sentence is incorrect. As I pointed out, the sentence could be correct if their refers to some unnamed third party group of people, in which case their doesn't qualify person.

I assume, and I am right (it doesn't take a mind-reader, and no matter how much you insist otherwise, you're not fooling anyone), that you meant that the original poster has too much time on the original poster's hands. In this case, the only wiggle room you could have gotten is if you had argued that the correct sentence is You are a person with too much time on his hands, or to be more gender-neutral, You are a person with too much time on his or her hands. This would agree in number, gender, and person with person in a generic sense of the word. "You are a person with too much time on your hands" is correct because person as an antecedent isn't generic; it refers to a specific person, you, which justifies usage of the second-person possessive pronoun your.

If you had said, "Pedants are people who have too much time on their hands," you would have been right, because their (plural) qualifies people (plural), and indirectly, pedants (plural). Of course, that sentence is semantically different and, as I said, not interchangeable with the corrected original sentence.

you have proven that a tortured rewriting of the sentence can cause the possessive pronoun to change

This is just, for lack of a better term, crazy talk. What are you smoking, anyway? I don't care how tortuously you rewrite a sentence, the possessive pronoun doesn't change unless its antecedent changes. Your hands are your hands, not his hands, not her hands, not their hands, not our hands.

Seriously, call your local high school English teacher. Then again, make it a college English professor, because too many high school teachers are incompetent, and knowing my luck, you'd get one of the stupid ones. True story: I once had a high school teacher who, when I got into an argument with an idiot of a classmate over whether there were 50 or 52 states in the United States, said, "Well, I don't know, really..." To add insult to injury, I was in a history classroom full of textbooks, none of which contained a simple list of the 50 states. The next class, I brought in detailed documentation that I was right, and it was all I could do to keep from commenting on how sad I think it is that someone who educates our children doesn't even know that there are 50—and only 50—states in the Union. Hey, just out of curiousity, how many states do you think are in the Union? That wasn't you by any chance, was it? (Guess number two...)

Anyway, if you don't believe me, then maybe you'll trust the literati at Emory , Purdue, or the writers of the American Heritage Book of English Use . Now please, stop making yourself look so foolish. I wish there were some way to agree on a disinterested third party to hold a large wager in escrow and settle this matter once and for all, because I am 100% certain that you are 100% wrong. Again, on the offhand chance that anyone else is reading this silliness, your grammatic illiteracy doesn't make you an idiot, because we all make stupid mistakes sometimes. Your relentless efforts to justify yourself in the face of obvious wrongness is what makes you an idiot. Hey, wait a minute, you're not George W. Bush, are you? (Guess number three...)

Moron.

If by "moron" you mean

In regard to research, just because something has been found to be a factor doesn't mean that it is the only factor. Einstein's brain was smaller than the average male. His brain weighed about 1230 grams where most adult males average around 1400 grams. Size and volume of a brain may not be the only factor in intelligence. Einstein's brain showed a number of characteristics which may lead to higher cognitive thinking.

Try this one.

So with an air popper, I get fewer bad kernels, just over three times the amount of corn, and I can control the salt and butter amounts.

I don't understand why people use microwaves rather than a cheap air popper.

Agreed.
But some people prefer the swiss army knife approach, while others prefer to select the right tool for the job.

Apparently Chief Justice Antonin Scalia thinks so. When I heard that on the news a month ago I literally felt a chill go down my spine.

Warm up. The actual quote (from your link) is: "It's a symbol of the fact that government comes -- derives its authority from God."

Both you and Austin Cline are right -- the Government "derives its just Powers from the Consent of the governed". But Antonin Scalia knows this document a little better than you two. Because it also states: "endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights".

So, the Government derives its power from the consent of the governed, who, in turn got created with these rights. Ergo, the Government's power can be said to be coming from the governed's Creator(s) directly.

No wonder, Scalia dislikes journalists. :-)

All of the Founding Father were religious people -- although of different sects. Scalia is simply one of those jurists, who interpret the Constitution "traditionaly". What it meant, when it was written, rather than what it should mean now (as the "activist" judges like to ponder).

"Bemba is a language spoken by 5 to 6 million people in Zambia, and in bordering areas of Tanzania and Congo (DRC). Bemba is one of the eight official languages of Zambia. It is the language of the Bemba people (population est. 1.7 million) and a major lingua franca across Zambia. Bemba is part of the Bantu language family (Guthrie's M.42), which consists of over 500 different languages throughout Central, Eastern, Western, and Southern Africa. Other Bantu languages include Swahili, Zulu, Luganda, Shona, Sesotho, and Kongo...."

So, you were pretty close.

I just read the committee's report on the book and the author's response. There is no evidence that the author committed fraud (i.e., intentionally falsified data)--the committee says so. What he did do is advance a controversial thesis based on sloppy data collection. That warrants a harsh response in a professional journal, no more. Instead, the guy got torn apart by the gun lobby, who got people like you to believe that he committed fraud.

Whether his theory is true, we will never know, because no other historian is going to spend any amount of time collecting the data again, only to risk his job and reputation when publishing the results.

The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame sued a dude who sold pictures of their museum. If I read the decision right, the museum lost and the guy won.

It's amusing that I found this case referenced through these IP lawyers/scumbags, who say "This is one of those cases where the dissent got it right...On the other hand, the dissent by Judge Martin is 'right on' and 'righteous.'" Yeah - they totally get it, dude.

And I don't regret it one bit. I do database and web development for our School of Public Health and in addition to the low stress, I also feel like I'm contributing to something much more meaningful than making some jackass investors rich. Hope to start doing master's work in CS soon - I could take a few hours a semester here for free, but I'll probably take the tuition reimbursement for another institution instead.

Here is a homepage with some nice articles http://www.ccnl.emory.edu/greg/. This article looks especially nice http://www.ccnl.emory.edu/greg/MontagueBernsPrinte d.pdf. Basically they brain scan people during the process of making a decission. The relation to economics seems to be buzz.

Here is a homepage with some nice articles http://www.ccnl.emory.edu/greg/. This article looks especially nice http://www.ccnl.emory.edu/greg/MontagueBernsPrinte d.pdf. Basically they brain scan people during the process of making a decission. The relation to economics seems to be buzz.

...from the Yerkes site.

• Here's a list of technical I put together on Bhopal at my site, listed in my sig. These are very deadly chemicals with effects that linger on and on and on and on...you know Union Carbide became the EverReady before Dow bought them...

  New Exportation of Risk: The Case of Bhopal

• New Bhopal Papers V. Ramana Dhara at Emory University is a nice cource of technical papers including health effects, epidemiology, toxicology and respiratory effects.

• New Chemical Accidents, CHEMICAL SAFETY & SECURITY Environmental Health Watch. A comprehensive page of articles on chemical safety, security and implications since the Bhopal tragedy.

• Toxicological Profiles for Key Pollutants in Bhopal

• The Disaster and Its aftermath: The Hiroshima of the Chemical Industry "Indeed those who died may have been the lucky ones......" Ward Morehouse.

• A child is born... Site not recommended for children.

• Growth Patterns Journal of the American Medical Association (pdf format)

• The $195 Million Discrepancy - Where's The Money Gone?

• Bhopal gas tragedy lives on, 20 years later

• Personal Exposure and Long-Term Health Effects in Survivors of the Union Carbide Disaster at Bhopal

• Lessons Learned? Chemical Plant Safety Since Bhopal

• Chemical Process Safety at a Crossroads

Friday Dec.3rd marks the 20th anniversary of the tragedy in Bhopal, India. Unfortunately, the Bhopal disaster has never ended. It remains one of the greatest humanitarian catastrophes of the century.

More than half a million people were exposed to the deadly MIC gases on the night of the accident, 120,000 so badly that they've been left with permanent and debilitating health effects. Blindness, extreme difficulty in breathing, and cancer are common after effects of exposure, and gynecological problems are also rampant. Some women are still waiting for their first period at the age of twenty, while others have as many as four or five per month. Brain damage and birth defects are also common. The after effects of gas exposure have extended to the second and third generations, and few of the victims have access to adequate medical treatment.

The people of Bhopal have endured unimaginable pain and suffering, and will continue to do so until the site is cleaned up (Union Carbide simply packed up and left the site as it was) and is now after 20 years, the chemicals are contaminating local water supplies. Students and other organizations are joining together in the struggle for Bhopal, one of the most beautiful areas of India. I have collected over 200 links to information on the Bhopal tragedy including local actions on the 20th anniversary, humor, Dow/Union Carbide statements, activist groups, news, book reviews, petitions, timelines, photos and videos, case studies and technical papers.

Please visit my site at...

20th Anniversary of Bhopal, India tragedy on December 2/3. 1984

Thanks for your time,

also aswell

Here's a previous slashdot story the Yesmen vs. Dow, Dow vs. Parody.

PS this post was rejected two days ago

Welcome to the real world.

Have you ever bothered to read ProCD v Zeidenberg and it's appeal, or perhaps even the volumes of work written about it. This is the defacto case law on the subject of shrink wrap licenses, and it clearly says that so long as there is a means to return the product and receive a refund, then the party need not be able to read the license prior to purchase.

Before anyone jumps down my throat about not being able to return the copy of Windows that comes with an OEM PC, you can. You have to return the PC with it, though. While you might not like that, it is an option, and thus meets the criteria set by the appeals court.

There's the ProCD case, which is the leading case.

Hill and the bnetd case are good examples of cases that follow ProCD.

Not all courts have followed ProCD, but the pro-EULA side is, if not winning, at least not losing.

There's the ProCD case, which is the leading case.

Hill and the bnetd case are good examples of cases that follow ProCD.

Not all courts have followed ProCD, but the pro-EULA side is, if not winning, at least not losing.

ProCD is the leading case for upholding EULAs. There are a number of others but they generally follow this one.

As for your whole argument about the warranty being inside a box, why don't you read ProCD v. Zeidenberg a case we read in MY contracts class. Though it deals with EULAs instead of warranties, it held that software manufacturers do not have to place the terms on the outside of the box because it would effectively replace any advertising on the box.

"But why would Wisconsin fetter the parties' choice in this way? Vendors can put the entire terms of a contract on the outside of a box only by using microscopic type, removing other information that buyers might find more useful (such as what the software does, and on which computers it works), or both." ProCD, Inc. v. Zeidenberg, 86 F.3D 1447 (7th Cir., June 20, 1996)

-truth

This is nothing really new. Dr. Phil Kennedy was the first to successfully implant a person at Emory University in 1999. He has done five more implants and two lasted over two years. Go here for more details His company is working on the third generation version. Neural Signals

And related to this, the "photograph of a trademarked building" issue has already been litigated., in "Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum vs. Gentile". The photographer won on appeal. And he was selling a poster of the building, in competition with a poster sold by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Legitimacy comes from representative democracy. The Constitution was ratified by 9 state legislatures in accordance with the Articles of Confederation. The Articles of Confederation were passed by the state legislatures, who were elected. Your arguments about the separation of powers was covered in the Federalist Papers and answered.

Theocratic Monarchial Egypt was hardly on par with Democratic Athens or Republican Rome both of which didn't last longer than our current government. You've got a point with Iceland, but it's not much longer and it didn't last. Ancient Ireland was neither as democratic or republican as Athens or Rome, it transformed itself, along with the rest of Europe from it's Roman base. In fact Ireland was the keeper of the Roman law and cannon laws from the early Church that helped to develop the modern liberal state. The arguments presented in the documents you reference are intellectually dishonest or incomplete studies of the historical record. A much more thorough analysis which supports the position I have taken about the body of law coming from a progression of non-aggression pacts is supported in Harold Berman's Law and Revolution. He brings up wergeld, bot (payment for injury), lof (glory), mund (protection agreement), frith (peace of the household) and wyrd (arbitrary fate). He covers this in the Folklaw of the Germanic, Anglo-Saxon and Norse people. The laws of Rome survived the barbarian invasions in the monasteries of Ireland and were reintroduced by missionaries. The early Churches main gift to the barbarians they Christianized was the written law.

The Federalists argued that concentration of power would be the root cause of government being able to unjustly expand it's power. You can't simply attack a larger government, there are more people and new rights that must be protected. You will have to prove how it has expanded unjustly. Liberals might agree on some points, but disagree on others, the size of government has no inherent goodness or badness, only whether or not it is the right size. Your 2nd Amendment argument is stupid, you have the ballot box and courts available to you. If you can't be bothered or find the support to use these two, then why should I take you seriously. If you can't beat me in an argument, I doubt the courts will give you the time of day.

You don't seem to understand government. We entrust the powers in government that need to be shared equally and provided equally for our markets to survive. Do you really think you should have to provide your own national defense for your property? If that is a valid reason to provide equal service and laws, then other rights are equal reasons to do so. We place in government the services that must be carried out in a fashion where trust is more important than cost. Paying extra for that trust is not coercion.

Ancient Iceland again, there's a reason these laws don't still exist in the West. The Folklaw wasn't an effective tool to deal with a changing world. You are either arguing for anarchy or you have yet to provide a basis for your attack on the state. Please explain to me how the state is illegitimate. The United States government is incredibly legitimate. It's power was has been consistently derived from representative democracy for 228 years and including universal suffrage for nearly a generation. Our Constitution is twice removed from English Authority and most of the States have adopted new Constitutions numerous times since then. If you are looking for legitimacy then Japan and most of Western Europe should be more legitimate since they have democratically adopted Constitutions within the last 100 years.

You have yet to prove that you have any basis for your system. Why should I nitpick with you over details of economics and foreign policy when you can't justify your basic domestic policy? You'll need to supply legitimate basis for authority, actual freedom under scrutiny and uphold equality before the law. If you're system requires morality and cannot incorporate multi-culturalism, then it is invalid. If you must change human nature in order to make your system work, then it is invalid.

The Indonesian legal system is based on Roman-Dutch law, modified by custom and Islamic law. Sources of law are Islamic law, statutory legislation, presidential instructions, and official compilations of Islamic law.

I googled this up from Emory concerning the definition of "state sponsored terrorism"....

HUMAN RIGHTS VS. SOVEREIGN RIGHTS: THE STATE SPONSORED TERRORISM EXCEPTION TO THE FOREIGN SOVEREIGN IMMUNITIES ACT

The interesting excerpt:

II. DEFINING STATE SPONSORED TERRORISM
A precise definition of state sponsored terrorism is elusive.[23] Since this Comment examines state sponsored terrorism in the context of the FSIA, it will use the term "state" as referring to an entity which qualifies under the FSIA for immunity. Under the FSIA, a state includes its political subdivisions and agencies or instrumentalities such as corporations in which the state has a majority ownership interest,[24] but nowhere does the act define a state. International law defines a state as "an entity that has a defined territory and a permanent population, under the control of its own government, and that engages in, or has the capacity to engage in, formal relations with other such entities."[25] Courts regularly use this definition to determine the applicability of the FSIA.[26] For example, in Klinghoffer v. S.N.C. Achille Lauro,[27] the court had to determine whether the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was a sovereign state and thus immune from suit under the FSIA. The case stemmed from the hijacking of a cruise ship in the Mediterranean Sea.[28] During the incident, the hijackers murdered Leon Klinghoffer, a United States citizen, by throwing him and his wheelchair overboard.[29] His survivors brought suit against the owner of the cruise ship and various other defendants who in turn impleaded the PLO.[30] The PLO moved to dismiss the complaints against it, claiming that it was a sovereign state and therefore immune from suit under the FSIA.[31] The court found that the PLO was not immune under the FSIA because it did not meet the requirements of statehood.[32] Most importantly, it lacked a defined territory. From this it followed that the PLO could not have a permanent population under its control and was incapable of entering into genuine formal relations of the type which "normally accompany formal participation in the international community."[33] As a result, the PLO was not entitled to immunity under the FSIA and the case was remanded for further proceeding on service of process to determine if personal jurisdiction existed.[34]

Terrorism has been defined as "[a] system of government that seeks to rule by intimidation."[35] Professor Paust provides a more comprehensive definition: "the intentional use of violence, or threat of violence . . . to communicate to a primary target a threat of future violence so as both to coerce the primary target into behavior or attitudes through intense fear or anxiety and to serve a particular political end."[36] Paust's definition encompasses those acts contemplated by the terrorism exception[37] and recognizes that individuals as well as governments engage in terrorist activity. When a terrorist is an employee, agent, or official and acts within the scope of his duties, the state is deemed a state sponsor of terrorism.[38]

U.S. courts have had little difficulty exercising jurisdiction over individual terrorists who commit terrorist acts against Americans throughout the world. The problem arises when the victim files suit alleging that a state is responsible. The advantages of this tactic are obvious: a government is easily found, and presumably has assets within the United States which may be used to satisfy a judgment. The disadvantage is that the FSIA grants immunity to the sovereign unless one of its enumerated exceptions applies. The FSIA's definition of a state includes its agents or instrumentalities.[39] A U.S. court has interpreted this definition to include individuals acting in their official capacity.[40] When a plaintiff sues the individual, the courts routinely grant immunity only if the individual was acting within the scope of his authority. However,

Looks like it was formed in a watery animal. Scat (such as Dinosaur coprolite) is what it looks like. Mars poop Ca poop Earth poop

Whups, that should of course be "integrity over money", duuh.

Further reading on: Coke and Emory.

Excuse me?? What ivory tower did you just escape from?

We're talking about a private university here - since when did they supposedly put money over integrity? Seriously.

You mention Coca-Cola. Well they wouldn't support Duke, they practically have their own university already.

I'm not saying I think this stuff is good, but your comment suggests that this is something unusual. As if!

"Thank you. Yes, both are significant improvements over the previous regimes."

Says whom?

I hate it when some guy behind a PC speaks for them Iraqis,
claiming that the current situation is better.

Better or not, the picture is just plain arrogant.
Let the Iraqi represent themselves, instead of some outsiders representing them.

Calling something someone didn't agree to a contract, as you incorrectly did, is like calling a bike frame without wheels a bicycle. A bicycle is defined by having two wheels. Likewise, mutual assent is required to have a contract. Don't bother saying "you can't enforce a contract someone didn't agree to" because if they didn't agree, then there is no "contract." There is a license, but it is not a contract until it is agreed to.

And while Valve cannot "take" your copy away from you, the act of playing the game is a manifestation of assent to the license. If you play the game, and know of the license, guess what? you've accepted it.

Lastly, EULA's have CERTAINLY held up in court. See ProCD v. Zeidenberg which held that shrinkwrap license ARE enforceable. I'd be interested to see the "case law" you are rferring to since ProCD is pretty much THE authority on this matter.

You don't discuss surgical procedures with a plumber. Neither should slashdoters pretend that they know what they are talking about when it comes to the law. And no, IANAL, but at least I do a little research* before shooting my mouth off.

* research does not include RTFA.

-truth

1. a consumer opens a package to find an insert saying "you owe us an extra $10,000" and the seller files suit to collect. Any buyer finding such a demand can prevent formation of the contract by returning the package, as can any consumer who concludes that the terms of the license make the software worth less than the purchase price.

Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions holds that such theories cannot be compared locally with contending theories, and thus the new pattern simply supplants the old pattern globally, sometimes as a result of old-timers dying off, as many refuse to shift paradigm.

Should you want to download the videos, they're here

It is also worth noting that this decision is widely considered to have been incorrectly decided, according to every one of the dozen or so books on technology law I've read through. (The first one that comes to mind is Kaner&Fels' book on software law; couldn't find a link to the book but see Dr. Kaner's page for information.)

So no, there isn't a whole lot of case law on the books on this point, but as far as I can tell it is fairly controversial. (Personally, I think ProCD was decided incorrectly, too, but again, IANAL.)

A rocket scientist would know better than to assume something as silly as that. You're flat out wrong about the US not extraditing one of its citizens to another country. Charles Phillip Smith was extradited to Germany for crimes he committed there. There tons of cases where the US has extradited it's citizens to countries whose legal systems don't offer nearly the amount of protection to defendants that US Constitution does but nobody ever hears about them. It's all very routine.

This Australian case actually went according to the laws (as it should have). The only novle thing is that US tried to establish a new precedent. It tried to extradite someone who caused harm to a domestic US company despite never having breached US jurisdiction (in reality or through the various legally fictional ways). Since the extradition treaty with Australia didn't specifically allow extradition for this type of action and since Australian law doesn't otherwise allow for extradition for something they don't even consider a crime, there was never any doubt as to how this case was be resolved legally. I would say that I'm suprised that the US Justice Dept tried to expand extradition this far but then I remember that this is the Bush administration. They probably want to use this to get other 'terrorists' e.g. anyone that disagrees with them. As Ari Fleischer said, "People need to watch what they say..."

No, he wasn't looking at the slush pile. He was giving a talk and responding to the common belief that 90% of science fiction is crud.

Thomas Kuhn worte a great book in the 60's called The Structure of Scientific Revolution, which coined the terms "paradigm" and "paradigm shift" in terms of competing scientific ideas. A must read for anyone interested in this stuff.

Someone else wrote a book on the structure of ideas that classified them into three areas, I believe ideas, paradigms, and worldviews. I remember it being a poignant argument, but can't remember for the life of me the author or title. Perhaps someone else knows?

Here's an old press release from Emory. Note the date.

D of I .... when was teh last time you really read it?

Apostrophes are never used to indicate a plural.

That's not true, actually. An appostrophe is used in pluralizing numbers, letters, symbols, and abbreviations. See here: http://www.emory.edu/ENGLISH/WC/apostrophe2.html (scroll down to "Plurals of Numbers, Letters, Symbols, Abbreviations"). This means:

• compact discs but
• CD's

And the prior art example for use to use is This action against the UK.....

China Attempts to Set New High-Tech Standards

China surprised the wireless industry three years ago by declaring it would create its own technical standard for third-generation mobile phones. Then it said it was going to develop its own format for digital television. And six weeks ago, it announced it was creating a different audio and video standard for the next wave of DVD players and videogame players...

...however, in other areas, China is looking to set the standard even beyond its own borders by licensing its standard at a lower cost to competitors...

<sarcasm> Of *course* they are doing this for the good of the global marketplace! Just like developing their own processor and distro of Linux!</sarcasm>

Maybe I'm being too skeptical here, but government mandates are inherently industrial policy. Industrial policy does NOT mean "May the best product succeed." It means "The product that most benefits officials in gov *will* succeed." Just look at agricultural policy for an idea of where this could go. (Here's a nice bit of dairy case law as an example) Seems to me each government will ultimately try to make its software base *the* standard, which will likely lead to interoperabilty problems. As for security, imagine the fun governments will have with IP and DRM once they control the standards. What a great way to control the media. Then again, maybe I am being alarmist, and China really is a worker's paradise. But, seems to me that private enterprise has a much better track record of supplying what people want. OSS is fine in the hands of private enterprise. Watch out when it becomes part of industrial policy, though. Having governments drive the OSS community is not a good thing, IMHO.

India I believe is still majority an agricultural country. Granted, Bangalore is consider the fastest technology growing city in Asia. However, if you google for Bangalore and select a few links, you will see that Bangalore is also becoming the urban city of the west where it is dealing with a massive population explosion, every form of polution problem known to man, i.e. ranging from air to water. And you also have the urban ghettos and slumbs in the country side where the malnutrition is also a big problem. This article describes some of these urban ghetto problems. So before you make a permanent change of address, you may want to take a second look and perhaps listen to the final words from an old rap song from Naughty by Nature...

If you ain't ever been to the ghetto
Don't ever come to the ghetto
'Cause you ain't understand the ghetto
And stay the f*ck out of the ghetto

So much has already gone into effort to stop "Software Patents" in Europe but to no avail. Perhaps the reason is the Europe is taking the better safe than sorry approach.

Considering the US patent office grants patents and anything from the wheel to swinging sideways on a swing, dropping their responsibility of granting only valid patents, while letting the court system (that finds MS guilty of Federal crimes but does not punish them)..... sort it out at the aditional expense of the concerned parties..

The better safe then sorry approach is one of allowing software patents, knowing full well they may very well be wrong morallly and technically, the unanswered question means to do it and sort it out or correct it later, when "proof" is supplied one way or the other about the validity of software patents.

There is more to the issue than whether or not software patents are valid in nature, there is the length of time these man made laws have defined, and been redefinedm and again lengthened...

It all seems to come down to money, whos got the most to win any battle, with absolutely no concern to ever stop the war ---- its to profitable for teh legal system making the laws up as they go along.

As I said above, this Europe debate on software patents has been going on for some time, and even I have commented to those of concern and organized effort to fight such software patents. search my input and who to.

Perhaps there can be some inspiration to be found in the THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE as to Learning how to say NO to the Law Makers and Backers.

Any reasonable lawyer, not working for one of the sides in this issue, would say that substantial doubt surrounds the enforceability of shrinkwrap licenses in the United States.

My experience with coal fired power plants is that they are nearing 40% thermodynamic efficiency.

There is no magic bullet to make this picture multiple orders of magnatude better. The problem is complex, and requires a comprehensive (complex) solution. Hydrogen isn't it.

--Mike--

Ironically, I found this ruling on a site saying that this ruling was "DIfferent case showing how shrink wrap licenses are not binding": First Sale and U.S. Copyrights

In addition to that, a different college friend of mine who is now a lawyer was interested in the question, and did a case law search. The result was the same: EULAs are legally binding contracts, especially if you have to "click-through" the license agreement to make the program run. It may be critical that the person agreeing to the EULA "contract" makes some "affirmative action" to signify agreement. The "Click OK to agree" button is such an affirmative action.

Here is another example of EULAs being upheld, Here is an analysis done by a non-lawyer but it has a lot of good cases. He says: "So, are clickwraps legal? It must be clear by now that the answer is 'it depends'". However, if you pay attention, you will see that all the cases he cites where the licensee took some "affirmative action", the license was upheld, as long as it was a valid contract. The real answer to the question is: "yes".

I should put up a Slashdotters are idiots who don't know what they're talking about page for all the people who don't even do a Google search before making up legal shit like they're experts.

it is NEVER up to the accused to prove innocence

Informative? Apparently the moderator attended Oxford