It's an interesting fact that every single long distance company, and most local companies, have the right to use the Bell telephone symbol because some part of them were part of AT&T at some point.
Microsoft quite clearly state the system requirements for Vista. They are unuestionably blameless if either a) customers don't read those system requirements or b) a hardware reseller defrauds a customer.
Except that Microsoft is the one putting the stickers on the boxes.(1)
Microsoft is claiming, in ads, that Vista can do all sorts of amazing graphical things. (In fact, that's their main selling point to consumers.) And Microsoft went ahead and put 'Vista Capable' stickers on boxes that can't, in fact, do those things.
Actual sold copies of Vista are quite clearly labeled as to what requirements they have, but that doesn't help someone who went out and purchased a new 'Vista Capable' computer last week with the expectation of purchasing Vista in a few months and getting all the features they were promised. They might learn they can't do that before they purchase Vista, but they still bought the wrong computer because Microsoft mislead them with Official Microsoft Stickers(TM) promising that the computer could run 'Vista'.
1) In fact, Microsoft's already gotten some flack because the way it decides if a computer gets sticker is simply though hardware combinations inside, and there are computers that, while every single piece of hardware works in Vista in general, that specific combination does not, at this point, actually function, thanks to some bug. Although that's how all hardware compatibility works, so it's a kinda stupid complaint. But the point is, the manufacturer doesn't actually tests the systems to see if Vista works at all, much less how much of Vista works. They aren't the one making the claim, MS is.
If Valve were labeling computers 'Valve compatible', while running ads talking about how great Valve is and showing Half-Life 2 and whatnot, when some of the computer labeled couldn't run Half-Life, you'd have a point.
Or maybe not, because that's stupid.
Microsoft is advertising Vista using Aero, and pretty much solely using Aero, without making any distinction that Vista!=Aero. It is labeling computers that cannot run Aero. (Not run it reduced, can't run it at all.) If you purchase Vista you get a nice list of system requirements for each piece, but there's no indication on the computers that 'Vista Capable' actually means 'Can run parts of Vista, but not the main one you're seeing advertised'.
There's a fundamental difference between that and showing software using a fast computer. That's the difference between 'require' and 'recommended' system requirements, and there have actually been people who cry wrongdoing when a game on a system meeting 'recommended' does not reach the graphical level in the ad copy, although I can't think of any actual lawsuits offhand. Vista presumable has the same list on their box, but this lawsuit is about people buying computers, not Vista.
The problem here isn't software with differing system requirements. It's hardware specifically labeled as being able to do something, namely 'run Vista', and ads that imply that 'running Vista' is something else. Both the labels and the ads are created by the same company. Which is 'really' running Vista is irrelevant, and impossible to decide, as there is no actual product named 'Vista', but MS doesn't get to say Vista is can do something in their ads but label things that can't do that as 'Vista Capable'.
They don't 'quite clearly' say anything that even vaguely resembles that.
They run ads for 'Vista', displaying all sorts of graphical tricks. (Despite there being no such product as 'Vista' by itself.)
They put stickers on computers that say 'Vista Capable'.
That's all they do. I don't know where you're inventing these disclaimers out of thin air, but they simply don't exist. They obviously aren't in the stickers, and they aren't in the ads.
Now, I'm sure Vista comes with a disclaimer, but the lawsuit isn't about people buying Vista in stores. It's about people who bought computers because they were informed that Vista (Something either came with the computer or that they were considering purchasing later.) could do certain things, and that the computer could support Vista. Whether they actually ended up with a copy of Vista is irrelevant, they're asserting the computers were sold under false pretenses thanks to MS ads. And, considering that MS is the one who labeled the computers and ran the ads, MS is the ones they are suing.
I'm inclinded to think that if the sticker says "Vista Capable", it bloody well be equipped enough to run Aero.
Especially as no one outside the computer industry knows what the fuck 'Aero' is or how it differs from Vista. The average computer user probably doesn't really even know there's a reason to upgrade OSes besides it looks better. (Frankly, I too am a little vague on why you'd upgrade to Vista without Aero.)
Yes with all the bells, and a lot of the whistles turned on, its a memory hog, but then so is XP once you load up your AV of choice, firefox faststart, google desktop and throw window blinds onto it.
RTFAS (Read The Fucking Article Summary)
The point is that MS advertises those bells and whistles, and then goes and brands computers as Vista compatible that cannot do those things.
If MS says 'Vista has X', and then says 'This computer supports Vista', that computer damn well better be able to do X, or, like the lawsuit asserts, there's false advertising somewhere going on.
In any other circumstances, this would be a good thing.
ICANN, however, has demonstrated repeatedly they can't even be trusted to follow their own damn bylaws and even their charter, and that they are operating themselves for the benefit of corporate entities instead of the internet as a whole.
Yes, the domain system needs to be an independent entity. This entity must not be ICANN, because ICANN sucks ass and will suck even more with no control. Give control to the ISOC or even the ITU, then we can talk.
That's something people don't consider. Blood is not just useful to put in people.
Not only can they can strip out the cell and turn it into plasma, but I'm sure this specific research, for example, was done with expired and unneeded donated blood. As is many other useful research.
So even if it doesn't go directly to help someone, it could instead end up in a lab where they invent a way to make blood donation more useful overall, or where they examine how to get the immune system to detect cancerous cells loose in the bloodstream, or who knows what.
Prison terms for its employees has no direct effect on a company bottom line.
Oh, I'm pretty sure that prison terms for lawyers will result in said lawyers not doing said behavior anymore. And companies usually have policies in place that say only their lawyers, or possibly top management, can issue legal documents.
Companies like to order employees to do illegal activities, and then act like they were shocked, shocked, to find was gambling in the casino! So often jail terms doesn't stop illegal activity. But in this case, it will...it's different when a lawyer or CEO has to sign a document they know is untrue and will land them in jail.
Granted, large corporations could adapt by having unpaid interns or other low level workers sign DMCA takedown notices, but I'll believe that problem when I see it.
If the perjurer is an alien, it all falls down.
Not with companies. Many companies do business in the US, and thus can be hurt by US courts. And just because someone is out of our juridiction doesn't mean we should just let them get away with the crime. Charge them, try them, convict them. Worry about actually figuring out how to imprison them later.
If the DA won't file charges, it all falls down.
Bingo. And why would they? Viacom donates quite a lot of money to the Administration. And we've already see how this Administration treat prosecutors that it doesn't like.
Or, even better, we can make it a criminal offense to file one. We could call it perjury. And, as an added bonus, we could make that a misconduct that gets the lawyer that signs it disbarred!
There is nothing that stops someone physically located in another country from being able to commit perjury in the US.
There might be difficulties in prosecuting them, but the same thing would happen if they lied in court, immediately caught a plane to England, and then were discovered to have done so.
Viacom (and anyone else that decides to issue one of those things) should be required to be goddamn sure it's their content being misused: if not, then they are the ones misusing the law and there should be consequences. Should my rights under the law have to be violated so that someone else can protect theirs?
Viacom is required to make sure. They sign those notices, actually, their lawyers do, under threat of perjury. Lying in them, or even being unsure of the truth and saying it anyway, is actually illegal, but, oddly enough, no one actually seems to be filing charges. (And, just ask Bill Clinton, perjury is a much bigger deal when you're a lawyer, as it will also result in the bar sanctioning you.)
But, as we've discovered recently, Bush's Justice Department has 'other priorities'.
I haven't seen anything in the DMCA that prevents the victim from filing a suit.
No one should have to 'file suit'. DMCA takedowns are signed under threat of perjury. That's an actual crime, not a civil offense. The Federal government should have, as soon as they became aware of this, required YouTube to turn over the DMCA notice they got, and looked into setting up a grand jury or filing charges or whatever the proper process is.
Of course, heaven forbid the government actually investigate the improper issuing of DMCA takedown notices. They put that in as a pretend check on the DMCA, they never had any intent of actually investigating the open-and-shut cases of perjury that they get handed on a silver platter. A signed document, stating a lie, under threat of perjury. Gee, hard case there. The only defense is mindboggling incompetence, and, despite what some people seem to think, that actually won't save their ass. Companies are presumed to have some sort of minimum level of competence when signing legal documents.
But investigating abuses would require the government going after large corporations that are either a) maliciously claiming they own content they don't, to restrict free speech, which is alright under the Administration's POV, or b) incompetantly claiming that they own content they don't by spewing out letters based on searching on filenames instead of actually checking the content, which if they treated any other legal documents that way...well, it's hard to even conceive how bad things would turn out for them. Treat another large company that way, by filing lies with the government, say with the SEC, to bring up you stock price before a merger with them, and you'll get your ass investigated off.
But it's okay to do behave in that manner when interacting with human beings, as human beings rarely have the courage to do anything about it, and the government won't care if you do so.
However the fact it doesn't work in Vista is almost certainly entirely Blackboard's fault, because they're morons who don't know how to code to web standards, instead making all sorts of custom crap that required lowered security and only worked on one browser. Yeah, only supporting IE6 was fun and saved you idiot a good 5% of the work, but now you're fucked.
I'm glad all the people who decided to write custom shit for IE6 the last five years are being left out in the cold with IE7 and/or Vista incompatibilities or added security. It couldn't happen to a nice bunch of fucktards.
And now yet another bunch of developers will have 'Microsoft does not care for you, so coding specifically to one of their products instead of an open standard is the stupidest possible move imaginable' burned into their brains. The HTML and Active X coders working in IE6 can go stand with the J# and VB6 people.
I'll bring up a faction I haven't heard mentioned: The Spartans. I'd always play as them.
If you were going to go to war, and my games always had massive amounts of war in them, the Spartans were the ones to play. You could constantly keep all units upgraded. As an added bonus, no one started out pissed at me, which let me pick them off one at a time.
Alternately, I'd play as University. (You had to get Hunter-Seeker if you were then, or you'd lose, almost without exception.) Oddly enough, in all Civ 4 games, I end up playing as I played University in AC.
Why is it that discussions about Civ 4 always turn into how much fun AC was? Why don't we get an expansion for Civ 4 that actually gives unique civilizations, instead of essentially having a dozen traits and you pick two, or, rather, pick the leader that has the two you want?
While in theory siblings can share 0% genetic code (At least, 0% of the genetic code that actually differs among humans.), male siblings must share at least a little. There's only one possibly source for the Y chromosome.
Incidentally, this article is talking about polar body twins, but ones that 'merged' and then 'unmerged', or, more technically, separated incorrectly. Instead of splitting when first fertilized, they split later, along non-genetic lines.
This resulted in two people who had both sets of genetic codes, in fairly random cells. This is called a chimera, or, rather, two chimeras, and usually results in death....it's like doing random transplants between people on the street with no regard to the immune system or blood types. Usually part of the body ends up attacking another part.
When they do live, they usually have odd 'banding' where their skin changes color and their eyes can be different colors. (Note: Eyes can be different colors for other reasons.) If they are a mix of XX and XY, they not only can be intersexed, they can be fully functional hermaphrodites, with both ovaries and testicles, and all the genitalia that goes with both of them. (Although thanks to weird hormones they are unlikely to produce children either way.)
These kids are 'half-chimeras', in that the genetic code they got from their mother is the same throughout, so only half of the code differs. I seem to recall that most chimeras who live are 'half-chimeras', which makes sense. These two are just odd in that they split into twins, which is mildly ironic in that they 'should' have been polar body twins in the first place, but didn't become twins at that time, and then, later on, they did split up randomly.
I don't even want to imagine the scenario that would be required to get two sperm from two different fathers to fertilize one egg at the same time.
From what I remember from biology, almost all fertilization often happens when the egg drops into place, and the sperm is just hanging around already there. The 'sperm swims to the egg' is a fairly large over-simplification of the process.
This is how the morning after pill works, it stops the release of the egg so it won't hit the sperm waiting for it, or at least screws the release up long enough that the sperm dies. (Sperm lasts like 24 hours inside a woman, IIRC.)
So one egg being fertilized from two fathers is not that amazing, timewise. The egg (Or two eggs, or three, or whatever) shows up, and there are two men's sperm waiting for it. Considering the low amount of two sperm fertilizing one egg, the odds of them every happening with two fathers is improbable, but plenty of fraternal twins have different fathers. (Well, 'plenty' is probably overstating it, but it's happened enough that it's not even that neat a trick.)
Incidentally, there's some study out that that demonstrated that men can sometimes produce sperm that is a good deal less viable, and the main purpose of it appears to be entangling other men's sperm, stopping it from reaching any eggs. And that men who are suspicious of affairs, or just know their lover has other lovers, are more likely to produce said combatant sperm.
The real amazing trick here is two chimera twins. Human chimeras are fairly unlikely to be healthy, as the two parts often react in bad ways. Although, now that I think about it, if one survived, that logically means the combination 'worked', and thus the other surviving is not that impressive.
I'm confused as to why they're calling these 'semi-identical' twins, though. They'd be semi-identical if each of them contained a single genetic code that considered of the same part from the mother but with each having a different part from the father. However, they both contain the same genetic codes, so they are, indeed, identical twins. They just have 1.5 times the genetic code of anyone else, with cells in their body randomly containing one code or another.
What they really are are two semi-chimeras. Parts of their body have half the genetic code differing, instead of all their genetic code differing like normal chimeras. Which is, I guess, why they managed to live. But I seem to recall that a lot of the surviving human chimeras are like this. So they're just unique in being a pair.
I guess they're 'semi-identical' in the sense that different parts of their bodies might contain different genetic codes. One twin's heart might contain code A, and the other code B, whereas they both have code A eyes and code B hair color.
Exactly. The western world already has exactly something to deal with a ticking time bomb.
It's called breaking the law and throwing yourself the mercy of the court.
We don't need goddamn exceptions to laws just in case horrible things are going to happen. Do we have exceptions to speeding for people rushing someone to the hospital? Nope.
Why? Because if you got a ticket for that, you could trivially demand a jury trial, present the fact you were trying to save someone's life, and, you know what, they'd find you not guilty.
Likewise, if you actually manage to find yourself in a situation that no one in the entire history of the world has found themselves in, (Despite it appearing a lot on TV shows.) confronting someone who knows where a bomb is and how to disarm it, go ahead and torture them. When it's over, and you've disarmed the bomb, you'll be arrested, but you'll have a pretty strong case in court.
This whole idea that we need some sort of legal exception to laws against torture is part of the fucking fascist takeover of this government. We don't need people torturing in back rooms, classifying their work and never have to present justification for it because we might, in some incredibly unlikely event, need to do it once. If that's the case, people can just do it and then say 'Yeah, I broke the law.'.
I think the military is taking a lot of flack for the CIA here.
And thus I make two comments about the Pentagon's complaint. I am not UCMJ expert, but here goes:
It not only is unlawful to torture someone, it is unlawful to turn over a prisoner to the CIA to be tortured. People in the military operating these prisons need to remember that.
It is even more unlawful to 'soften up' someone and then hand them over to be tortured.
And are trained in using them (most of the military is conservative).
Oh, don't worry. Bush is fixing that as fast as he can. He's killing a quarter of them and maiming another half. Meanwhile, the Democrats are setting up rules requiring they don't do six tours in a row and actually have armor and other equipment before being sent over.
The military, or at least the Army and Marines, completely lost trust in the Republicans at least two years ago.
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It's an interesting fact that every single long distance company, and most local companies, have the right to use the Bell telephone symbol because some part of them were part of AT&T at some point.
Microsoft quite clearly state the system requirements for Vista. They are unuestionably blameless if either a) customers don't read those system requirements or b) a hardware reseller defrauds a customer.
Except that Microsoft is the one putting the stickers on the boxes.(1)
Microsoft is claiming, in ads, that Vista can do all sorts of amazing graphical things. (In fact, that's their main selling point to consumers.) And Microsoft went ahead and put 'Vista Capable' stickers on boxes that can't, in fact, do those things.
Actual sold copies of Vista are quite clearly labeled as to what requirements they have, but that doesn't help someone who went out and purchased a new 'Vista Capable' computer last week with the expectation of purchasing Vista in a few months and getting all the features they were promised. They might learn they can't do that before they purchase Vista, but they still bought the wrong computer because Microsoft mislead them with Official Microsoft Stickers(TM) promising that the computer could run 'Vista'.
1) In fact, Microsoft's already gotten some flack because the way it decides if a computer gets sticker is simply though hardware combinations inside, and there are computers that, while every single piece of hardware works in Vista in general, that specific combination does not, at this point, actually function, thanks to some bug. Although that's how all hardware compatibility works, so it's a kinda stupid complaint. But the point is, the manufacturer doesn't actually tests the systems to see if Vista works at all, much less how much of Vista works. They aren't the one making the claim, MS is.
If Valve were labeling computers 'Valve compatible', while running ads talking about how great Valve is and showing Half-Life 2 and whatnot, when some of the computer labeled couldn't run Half-Life, you'd have a point.
Or maybe not, because that's stupid.
Microsoft is advertising Vista using Aero, and pretty much solely using Aero, without making any distinction that Vista!=Aero. It is labeling computers that cannot run Aero. (Not run it reduced, can't run it at all.) If you purchase Vista you get a nice list of system requirements for each piece, but there's no indication on the computers that 'Vista Capable' actually means 'Can run parts of Vista, but not the main one you're seeing advertised'.
There's a fundamental difference between that and showing software using a fast computer. That's the difference between 'require' and 'recommended' system requirements, and there have actually been people who cry wrongdoing when a game on a system meeting 'recommended' does not reach the graphical level in the ad copy, although I can't think of any actual lawsuits offhand. Vista presumable has the same list on their box, but this lawsuit is about people buying computers, not Vista.
The problem here isn't software with differing system requirements. It's hardware specifically labeled as being able to do something, namely 'run Vista', and ads that imply that 'running Vista' is something else. Both the labels and the ads are created by the same company. Which is 'really' running Vista is irrelevant, and impossible to decide, as there is no actual product named 'Vista', but MS doesn't get to say Vista is can do something in their ads but label things that can't do that as 'Vista Capable'.
They don't 'quite clearly' say anything that even vaguely resembles that.
They run ads for 'Vista', displaying all sorts of graphical tricks. (Despite there being no such product as 'Vista' by itself.)
They put stickers on computers that say 'Vista Capable'.
That's all they do. I don't know where you're inventing these disclaimers out of thin air, but they simply don't exist. They obviously aren't in the stickers, and they aren't in the ads.
Now, I'm sure Vista comes with a disclaimer, but the lawsuit isn't about people buying Vista in stores. It's about people who bought computers because they were informed that Vista (Something either came with the computer or that they were considering purchasing later.) could do certain things, and that the computer could support Vista. Whether they actually ended up with a copy of Vista is irrelevant, they're asserting the computers were sold under false pretenses thanks to MS ads. And, considering that MS is the one who labeled the computers and ran the ads, MS is the ones they are suing.
I'm inclinded to think that if the sticker says "Vista Capable", it bloody well be equipped enough to run Aero.
Especially as no one outside the computer industry knows what the fuck 'Aero' is or how it differs from Vista. The average computer user probably doesn't really even know there's a reason to upgrade OSes besides it looks better. (Frankly, I too am a little vague on why you'd upgrade to Vista without Aero.)
Yes with all the bells, and a lot of the whistles turned on, its a memory hog, but then so is XP once you load up your AV of choice, firefox faststart, google desktop and throw window blinds onto it.
RTFAS (Read The Fucking Article Summary)
The point is that MS advertises those bells and whistles, and then goes and brands computers as Vista compatible that cannot do those things.
If MS says 'Vista has X', and then says 'This computer supports Vista', that computer damn well better be able to do X, or, like the lawsuit asserts, there's false advertising somewhere going on.
In any other circumstances, this would be a good thing.
ICANN, however, has demonstrated repeatedly they can't even be trusted to follow their own damn bylaws and even their charter, and that they are operating themselves for the benefit of corporate entities instead of the internet as a whole.
Yes, the domain system needs to be an independent entity. This entity must not be ICANN, because ICANN sucks ass and will suck even more with no control. Give control to the ISOC or even the ITU, then we can talk.
That's something people don't consider. Blood is not just useful to put in people.
Not only can they can strip out the cell and turn it into plasma, but I'm sure this specific research, for example, was done with expired and unneeded donated blood. As is many other useful research.
So even if it doesn't go directly to help someone, it could instead end up in a lab where they invent a way to make blood donation more useful overall, or where they examine how to get the immune system to detect cancerous cells loose in the bloodstream, or who knows what.
When I had blackboard classes, three years ago, it certainly didn't work in FF.
Prison terms for its employees has no direct effect on a company bottom line.
Oh, I'm pretty sure that prison terms for lawyers will result in said lawyers not doing said behavior anymore. And companies usually have policies in place that say only their lawyers, or possibly top management, can issue legal documents.
Companies like to order employees to do illegal activities, and then act like they were shocked, shocked, to find was gambling in the casino! So often jail terms doesn't stop illegal activity. But in this case, it will...it's different when a lawyer or CEO has to sign a document they know is untrue and will land them in jail.
Granted, large corporations could adapt by having unpaid interns or other low level workers sign DMCA takedown notices, but I'll believe that problem when I see it.
If the perjurer is an alien, it all falls down.
Not with companies. Many companies do business in the US, and thus can be hurt by US courts. And just because someone is out of our juridiction doesn't mean we should just let them get away with the crime. Charge them, try them, convict them. Worry about actually figuring out how to imprison them later.
If the DA won't file charges, it all falls down.
Bingo. And why would they? Viacom donates quite a lot of money to the Administration. And we've already see how this Administration treat prosecutors that it doesn't like.
Um, I don't recalled Blackboard working in FF at all.
The DMCA gave companies a really easy way to screw people over, but didn't give individuals any corresponding power to fight back, as you said.
It's not supposed to be individuals fighting back. It's supposed to be the Federal government bringing these lying asshats up on perjury charges.
Or, even better, we can make it a criminal offense to file one. We could call it perjury. And, as an added bonus, we could make that a misconduct that gets the lawyer that signs it disbarred!
There is nothing that stops someone physically located in another country from being able to commit perjury in the US.
There might be difficulties in prosecuting them, but the same thing would happen if they lied in court, immediately caught a plane to England, and then were discovered to have done so.
Viacom (and anyone else that decides to issue one of those things) should be required to be goddamn sure it's their content being misused: if not, then they are the ones misusing the law and there should be consequences. Should my rights under the law have to be violated so that someone else can protect theirs?
Viacom is required to make sure. They sign those notices, actually, their lawyers do, under threat of perjury. Lying in them, or even being unsure of the truth and saying it anyway, is actually illegal, but, oddly enough, no one actually seems to be filing charges. (And, just ask Bill Clinton, perjury is a much bigger deal when you're a lawyer, as it will also result in the bar sanctioning you.)
But, as we've discovered recently, Bush's Justice Department has 'other priorities'.
I haven't seen anything in the DMCA that prevents the victim from filing a suit.
No one should have to 'file suit'. DMCA takedowns are signed under threat of perjury. That's an actual crime, not a civil offense. The Federal government should have, as soon as they became aware of this, required YouTube to turn over the DMCA notice they got, and looked into setting up a grand jury or filing charges or whatever the proper process is.
Of course, heaven forbid the government actually investigate the improper issuing of DMCA takedown notices. They put that in as a pretend check on the DMCA, they never had any intent of actually investigating the open-and-shut cases of perjury that they get handed on a silver platter. A signed document, stating a lie, under threat of perjury. Gee, hard case there. The only defense is mindboggling incompetence, and, despite what some people seem to think, that actually won't save their ass. Companies are presumed to have some sort of minimum level of competence when signing legal documents.
But investigating abuses would require the government going after large corporations that are either a) maliciously claiming they own content they don't, to restrict free speech, which is alright under the Administration's POV, or b) incompetantly claiming that they own content they don't by spewing out letters based on searching on filenames instead of actually checking the content, which if they treated any other legal documents that way...well, it's hard to even conceive how bad things would turn out for them. Treat another large company that way, by filing lies with the government, say with the SEC, to bring up you stock price before a merger with them, and you'll get your ass investigated off.
But it's okay to do behave in that manner when interacting with human beings, as human beings rarely have the courage to do anything about it, and the government won't care if you do so.
Blackboard isn't a windows program.
Blackboard is a web application.
However the fact it doesn't work in Vista is almost certainly entirely Blackboard's fault, because they're morons who don't know how to code to web standards, instead making all sorts of custom crap that required lowered security and only worked on one browser. Yeah, only supporting IE6 was fun and saved you idiot a good 5% of the work, but now you're fucked.
I'm glad all the people who decided to write custom shit for IE6 the last five years are being left out in the cold with IE7 and/or Vista incompatibilities or added security. It couldn't happen to a nice bunch of fucktards.
And now yet another bunch of developers will have 'Microsoft does not care for you, so coding specifically to one of their products instead of an open standard is the stupidest possible move imaginable' burned into their brains. The HTML and Active X coders working in IE6 can go stand with the J# and VB6 people.
I'll bring up a faction I haven't heard mentioned: The Spartans. I'd always play as them.
If you were going to go to war, and my games always had massive amounts of war in them, the Spartans were the ones to play. You could constantly keep all units upgraded. As an added bonus, no one started out pissed at me, which let me pick them off one at a time.
Alternately, I'd play as University. (You had to get Hunter-Seeker if you were then, or you'd lose, almost without exception.) Oddly enough, in all Civ 4 games, I end up playing as I played University in AC.
Why is it that discussions about Civ 4 always turn into how much fun AC was? Why don't we get an expansion for Civ 4 that actually gives unique civilizations, instead of essentially having a dozen traits and you pick two, or, rather, pick the leader that has the two you want?
Oh! I missed that part, I thought they were both chimeras.
While in theory siblings can share 0% genetic code (At least, 0% of the genetic code that actually differs among humans.), male siblings must share at least a little. There's only one possibly source for the Y chromosome.
Incidentally, this article is talking about polar body twins, but ones that 'merged' and then 'unmerged', or, more technically, separated incorrectly. Instead of splitting when first fertilized, they split later, along non-genetic lines.
This resulted in two people who had both sets of genetic codes, in fairly random cells. This is called a chimera, or, rather, two chimeras, and usually results in death....it's like doing random transplants between people on the street with no regard to the immune system or blood types. Usually part of the body ends up attacking another part.
When they do live, they usually have odd 'banding' where their skin changes color and their eyes can be different colors. (Note: Eyes can be different colors for other reasons.) If they are a mix of XX and XY, they not only can be intersexed, they can be fully functional hermaphrodites, with both ovaries and testicles, and all the genitalia that goes with both of them. (Although thanks to weird hormones they are unlikely to produce children either way.)
These kids are 'half-chimeras', in that the genetic code they got from their mother is the same throughout, so only half of the code differs. I seem to recall that most chimeras who live are 'half-chimeras', which makes sense. These two are just odd in that they split into twins, which is mildly ironic in that they 'should' have been polar body twins in the first place, but didn't become twins at that time, and then, later on, they did split up randomly.
I don't even want to imagine the scenario that would be required to get two sperm from two different fathers to fertilize one egg at the same time.
From what I remember from biology, almost all fertilization often happens when the egg drops into place, and the sperm is just hanging around already there. The 'sperm swims to the egg' is a fairly large over-simplification of the process.
This is how the morning after pill works, it stops the release of the egg so it won't hit the sperm waiting for it, or at least screws the release up long enough that the sperm dies. (Sperm lasts like 24 hours inside a woman, IIRC.)
So one egg being fertilized from two fathers is not that amazing, timewise. The egg (Or two eggs, or three, or whatever) shows up, and there are two men's sperm waiting for it. Considering the low amount of two sperm fertilizing one egg, the odds of them every happening with two fathers is improbable, but plenty of fraternal twins have different fathers. (Well, 'plenty' is probably overstating it, but it's happened enough that it's not even that neat a trick.)
Incidentally, there's some study out that that demonstrated that men can sometimes produce sperm that is a good deal less viable, and the main purpose of it appears to be entangling other men's sperm, stopping it from reaching any eggs. And that men who are suspicious of affairs, or just know their lover has other lovers, are more likely to produce said combatant sperm.
The real amazing trick here is two chimera twins. Human chimeras are fairly unlikely to be healthy, as the two parts often react in bad ways. Although, now that I think about it, if one survived, that logically means the combination 'worked', and thus the other surviving is not that impressive.
I'm confused as to why they're calling these 'semi-identical' twins, though. They'd be semi-identical if each of them contained a single genetic code that considered of the same part from the mother but with each having a different part from the father. However, they both contain the same genetic codes, so they are, indeed, identical twins. They just have 1.5 times the genetic code of anyone else, with cells in their body randomly containing one code or another.
What they really are are two semi-chimeras. Parts of their body have half the genetic code differing, instead of all their genetic code differing like normal chimeras. Which is, I guess, why they managed to live. But I seem to recall that a lot of the surviving human chimeras are like this. So they're just unique in being a pair.
I guess they're 'semi-identical' in the sense that different parts of their bodies might contain different genetic codes. One twin's heart might contain code A, and the other code B, whereas they both have code A eyes and code B hair color.
what if the trrist got a bomb with a code
Exactly. The western world already has exactly something to deal with a ticking time bomb.
It's called breaking the law and throwing yourself the mercy of the court.
We don't need goddamn exceptions to laws just in case horrible things are going to happen. Do we have exceptions to speeding for people rushing someone to the hospital? Nope.
Why? Because if you got a ticket for that, you could trivially demand a jury trial, present the fact you were trying to save someone's life, and, you know what, they'd find you not guilty.
Likewise, if you actually manage to find yourself in a situation that no one in the entire history of the world has found themselves in, (Despite it appearing a lot on TV shows.) confronting someone who knows where a bomb is and how to disarm it, go ahead and torture them. When it's over, and you've disarmed the bomb, you'll be arrested, but you'll have a pretty strong case in court.
This whole idea that we need some sort of legal exception to laws against torture is part of the fucking fascist takeover of this government. We don't need people torturing in back rooms, classifying their work and never have to present justification for it because we might, in some incredibly unlikely event, need to do it once. If that's the case, people can just do it and then say 'Yeah, I broke the law.'.
I think the military is taking a lot of flack for the CIA here.
And thus I make two comments about the Pentagon's complaint. I am not UCMJ expert, but here goes:
It not only is unlawful to torture someone, it is unlawful to turn over a prisoner to the CIA to be tortured. People in the military operating these prisons need to remember that.
It is even more unlawful to 'soften up' someone and then hand them over to be tortured.
It's not a fucking 'failure' at all when something is deliberately planned.
And are trained in using them (most of the military is conservative).
Oh, don't worry. Bush is fixing that as fast as he can. He's killing a quarter of them and maiming another half. Meanwhile, the Democrats are setting up rules requiring they don't do six tours in a row and actually have armor and other equipment before being sent over.
The military, or at least the Army and Marines, completely lost trust in the Republicans at least two years ago.