As the old intel canard goes, "Those who know aren't talking; those who are talking don't know." "cold war Sub sailor" is either speculating, or is providing classifed data and is standing by to make little rocks out of big rocks for a decade or two at Leavenworth.
There are some good reasons that the seat belt sign stays on longer than you think it should:
1. winds aloft reports suggest turbulence ahead. Ride reports from aircraft ahead may include turbulence. Contrary to popular belief, you can get turbulence without clouds or inclement weather (e.g., "wake" turbulence from upwind mountains, or wind shears at altitude).
2. the flight attendants needs to serve food (rare these days, but still.) Keeping the seat belt sign on keeps the passengers in their seats, which expedites the meal service.
Article I, Section 8: The Congress shall have the Power [...] To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
In the Constitution it states that the purpose is "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts..." If that is not what is happening, then the laws violate the Constitution.
True, but guess who gets to determine whether progress is happening? It won't be you and me. Also, we've had patents for 200+ years; I believe that removing patents would cause unbearable chaos, and would never be attempted.
Chief Justice John Marshall: "In the United States, a different principle is established. Our constitution declares a treaty to be the law of the land. "
The US has entered into several patent treaties with other nations; it could be argued that those treaties require the presense of patents in the US.
I can't speak to other countries, but in the US the "IP monopoly" function of the government is in the Constitution. And, in the abstract, it does seem like a reasonable tradeoff -- full disclosure (which improves the state of the art) for a limited time monopoly. You can argue how long the monopoly period should be, but I think this is better than "everything is a trade secret", which IMHO would slow innovation.
And, IMHO, the definition is "fair competition" is problematic, and usually another rent-seeking charade when an entity competes better than the entrenched incumbents (e.g., Walmart vs. "Mom and Pop stores", or amazon.fr and the small French booksellers that sued over Amazon's free shipping).
While (in general) capitalism/the free market work best with minimal government interference, it is a proper (and necessary) role of government to foster the necessary instititutions (law, the judicial branch, etc.) required for the optimal functioning of that market. Markets can't work with things like contract arbitration, penalties for fraud, defense of properties, and other necessary functions.
Corporations want free markets with a $10,000,000,000 entry fee.
I'd argue that established corporations want free markets with a $10B entry free to stifle upstart competitors, and all too often the rent-receiving politicians are eager to give it to them. Example: GE joins the "CO2 is bad" coalition, so they can influence regulation so their nuclear reactors and wind turbines are favored by the regulation. Or the "let's subsidize domestic ethanol more" campaign, while we quietly tarriff a far better source of energy, Brazilian Sugar Cane.
If I had the even choice between a Huawei router and a Cisco router (and if the service and support was the same), I'd take the Huawei, as it is almost always superior. It's not better because it's Chinese or such, but because it's a rip-off of the Cisco that's not just the same, but improved.
One of the "improvements" of the Huawei ripoff version is the probable "feature" of a backdoor under the control of the Chinese Communist Party. Choose your router carefully.
say, a password and an RSA dongle -- the number on the token changes every 30 seconds.
Also, use SSL to log into your webmail, and verify that the presented certificate is signed by a reputable CA, to avoid the possibility of a man-in-the-middle attack.
Or, use your own data-enabled phone, and avoid the public terminal.
I wouldn't call it a hardware fault with the design of Firewire -- indeed, the DMA nature of Firewire (400Mb/sec) gives it a leg up on the transfer rate of USB (typical 280Mb/sec), which requires that the host cpu get involved.
That the DMA of Firewire can be pointed to host ram is an unintended consequence, and just reinforces the idea that only trusted devices should be connected to a system. I expect that Microsoft and others will get around to sandboxing the DMA target -- say, in a Virtual Machine distinct from the real machine.
Even if/when Firewire is sandboxed, you'll still be able to get the contents of ram via Ed Felten's "freeze the ram" exploit. Once again, if the bad guys have access to your system, you're screwed.
Why have encryption at the hardware level when you can use e.g. Linux's crypto device-mapper tool?
For the crypto in software case, a motivated bad guy can sniff memory to determine the key and method of encryption. To sniff the crypto in hardware takes a bit more effort, but I'm guessing your friendly neighborhood NSA can do it -- if they don't already have a back door.
I don't see the strict dichotomy (Monster gets their IP, or their tax-advantaged structure, but not both). The letter mentions the possibility, but not the certainty, of sham companies and sham transactions. From my experience, if these structures are drafted correctly, they are legitimate and at arms-length.
That said, I really love his letter -- a most excellent comeback to a misdirected shotgun patent strategy.
Monster is famous for questionable engineering claims concerning their cables. Their real strategy for success, IMHO, is their elaborate and extensive spiff program for people who sell their stuff.
There's no "sham company tax shelter methods" -- just the usual legal method of tranferring income from a high tax juristiction to a lower one. Companies and people do this all the time (e.g., US/Bermuda, California/Nevada) to avoid their biggest and unnecessary expense.
The threat here is not "you're going to jail", but "we're going to expose you to political ridicule for not passively bending over and paying whatever the government demand."
If you don't consider this method as a part of your tax planning, you're paying more than you need to. As Judge Learned Hand said, "Anyone may arrange his affairs that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which best pays the Treasury; there is not even a patriotic duty to increase one's taxes. Over and over again courts have said that there is nothing sinister in so arranging affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible, everyone does it, rich and poor alike and all do right; for nobody owes any public duty to pay more than the law demands. Taxes are an enforceable action, not a voluntary contribution." Helvering vs Gregory 60 Fed (2d) 809
It's not regulation that is the problem, it is the extra-territorial jurisdiction asserted by the EU over US companies. For example, when Boeing acquired McDonnell Douglas, the EU required that Boeing scrap its already-signed exclusive contracts with US airlines (Delta, American.) These contracts were legal between two US companies, yet the EU meddled with them -- allegedly for competition reasons, but it was really done to give another bit of the apple to the EU's favorite subsidy child, Airbus.
If you think this is ok, let's look at some possible tit-for-tat responses from the US government. Say, the US thinks that Siemens prices are too low or they are bribing too many EU officials, and fines them 50% of sales worldwide. Or, the US declares that commercial aircraft companies that receive subsidies are anti-competitive, and attaches a special anti-subsidy landing fee on each Airbus aircraft worldwide.
So if you really want a trade war, let's go; if not, the EU should back off.
The EU loves to meddle with US Companies, and impose their bizzare form of competition (to a USian) on foreigners. Recent victims include Boeing, Microsoft, and Honeywell.
The pace of this meddling is accellerating; it may be time for the US to engage in a little tit-for-tat to show the Eurocrats the error of their ways.
I'd add that it is the _middle_ finger of Galileo, it is almost vertical, and it appears to be raised toward Rome. I think he got the last laugh.
It is a very cool museum -- see it if you can!
kimchi was too much in a dorm fridge
on
Kimchi in Space
·
· Score: 1
I can't imagine the fun of Kimchi in a smaller space from which you can't step out for a breath of fresh air. It makes hermetically-sealed tupperware mission-critical.
I sure hope those Soyuz lifeboats are in good working order...
The EU could try to pull this stunt, but watch what happens when/if the US retaliates. Say, the US blocks the merger of KLM/Air France, $1m landing fees and huge tarrifs on Airbus aircraft for illegal (in the US) launch aid, invalidate IP protections on Bayer, pull more US forces from Europe.. the list goes on. There are a slew of things legal in the US, but not in the EU -- and vice versa. There needs to be a uniform way to handle these things, just as aircraft certification is harmonized.
MS is trying to get OOXML accepted by a standards body. That is hardly an act requiring retaliation by the EU.
Hate to burst your bubble, but a loss of engine power does not create a stall. Rather, an increase in Angle of Attack past the critical AoA (which is sometimes simplified to a stall airspeed) creates a stall.
Additionally, much more investigation will happen in the following days and weeks, so locking on to one possible scenario is silly at this point. Offhand, I'd say the preliminary facts support a number of hypotheses, including:
wind shear fuel starvation fuel contamination failure in the engine control bird strike/bird ingestion
Slashdot Mirror
As the old intel canard goes, "Those who know aren't talking; those who are talking don't know." "cold war Sub sailor" is either speculating, or is providing classifed data and is standing by to make little rocks out of big rocks for a decade or two at Leavenworth.
There are some good reasons that the seat belt sign stays on longer than you think it should:
1. winds aloft reports suggest turbulence ahead. Ride reports from aircraft ahead may include turbulence. Contrary to popular belief, you can get turbulence without clouds or inclement weather (e.g., "wake" turbulence from upwind mountains, or wind shears at altitude).
2. the flight attendants needs to serve food (rare these days, but still.) Keeping the seat belt sign on keeps the passengers in their seats, which expedites the meal service.
Article I, Section 8:
The Congress shall have the Power [...] To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
In the Constitution it states that the purpose is "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts..." If that is not what is happening, then the laws violate the Constitution.
True, but guess who gets to determine whether progress is happening? It won't be you and me. Also, we've had patents for 200+ years; I believe that removing patents would cause unbearable chaos, and would never be attempted.
Chief Justice John Marshall:
"In the United States, a different principle is established. Our constitution declares a treaty to be the law of the land. "
The US has entered into several patent treaties with other nations; it could be argued that those treaties require the presense of patents in the US.
Touche, although US citizens have some indirect control (via the political process) over the NSA, while they have nothing to say in the ChiCom case.
I will grant you that Bush 43's interpretation of the Constitution gives me less of that indirect control.
I can't speak to other countries, but in the US the "IP monopoly" function of the government is in the Constitution. And, in the abstract, it does seem like a reasonable tradeoff -- full disclosure (which improves the state of the art) for a limited time monopoly. You can argue how long the monopoly period should be, but I think this is better than "everything is a trade secret", which IMHO would slow innovation.
And, IMHO, the definition is "fair competition" is problematic, and usually another rent-seeking charade when an entity competes better than the entrenched incumbents (e.g., Walmart vs. "Mom and Pop stores", or amazon.fr and the small French booksellers that sued over Amazon's free shipping).
While (in general) capitalism/the free market work best with minimal government interference, it is a proper (and necessary) role of government to foster the necessary instititutions (law, the judicial branch, etc.) required for the optimal functioning of that market. Markets can't work with things like contract arbitration, penalties for fraud, defense of properties, and other necessary functions.
Corporations want free markets with a $10,000,000,000 entry fee.
I'd argue that established corporations want free markets with a $10B entry free to stifle upstart competitors, and all too often the rent-receiving politicians are eager to give it to them. Example: GE joins the "CO2 is bad" coalition, so they can influence regulation so their nuclear reactors and wind turbines are favored by the regulation. Or the "let's subsidize domestic ethanol more" campaign, while we quietly tarriff a far better source of energy, Brazilian Sugar Cane.
If I had the even choice between a Huawei router and a Cisco router (and if the service and support was the same), I'd take the Huawei, as it is almost always superior. It's not better because it's Chinese or such, but because it's a rip-off of the Cisco that's not just the same, but improved.
One of the "improvements" of the Huawei ripoff version is the probable "feature" of a backdoor under the control of the Chinese Communist Party. Choose your router carefully.
The law explictly, specifically, prohibits tie-ins. It's the fucking law. It applies to carpets, car insurance, hair stylists and frozen vegetables.
In other news, the French sued VW, Ford, Jaguar, and Citroen for illegally tying the sale of an engine with a car. Film at 11.
The definition of tie-in has some difficulties.
One doc standard, ODF, is cool; another, OOXML is somehow evil. A truly bizzare thought process.
Of course, the French ruled that free shipping offered by Amazon is somehow unfair to French booksellers (http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080115-amazons-free-shipping-costing-1000-per-day-in-france.html), so maybe this is just another Eurocrat implementing a "bash America" strategy.
Flame away, my kevlar and asbestos suit is at the ready.
say, a password and an RSA dongle -- the number on the token changes every 30 seconds.
Also, use SSL to log into your webmail, and verify that the presented certificate is signed by a reputable CA, to avoid the possibility of a man-in-the-middle attack.
Or, use your own data-enabled phone, and avoid the public terminal.
I wouldn't call it a hardware fault with the design of Firewire -- indeed, the DMA nature of Firewire (400Mb/sec) gives it a leg up on the transfer rate of USB (typical 280Mb/sec), which requires that the host cpu get involved.
That the DMA of Firewire can be pointed to host ram is an unintended consequence, and just reinforces the idea that only trusted devices should be connected to a system. I expect that Microsoft and others will get around to sandboxing the DMA target -- say, in a Virtual Machine distinct from the real machine.
Even if/when Firewire is sandboxed, you'll still be able to get the contents of ram via Ed Felten's "freeze the ram" exploit. Once again, if the bad guys have access to your system, you're screwed.
Why have encryption at the hardware level when you can use e.g. Linux's crypto device-mapper tool?
For the crypto in software case, a motivated bad guy can sniff memory to determine the key and method of encryption. To sniff the crypto in hardware takes a bit more effort, but I'm guessing your friendly neighborhood NSA can do it -- if they don't already have a back door.
Yes, and he had a brother, Noble Hand (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_Hand).
>The Not FUD: The iPhone is incompatible with GPLv3.
Use GPLv2, and be happy. IMHO, the anti-tivo rantings and virtues of GPLv3 are wildly overplayed.
Also, you should get your own legal advice concerning this topic. FSF's Smith may have an ax to grind.
I don't see the strict dichotomy (Monster gets their IP, or their tax-advantaged structure, but not both). The letter mentions the possibility, but not the certainty, of sham companies and sham transactions. From my experience, if these structures are drafted correctly, they are legitimate and at arms-length.
That said, I really love his letter -- a most excellent comeback to a misdirected shotgun patent strategy.
Monster is famous for questionable engineering claims concerning their cables. Their real strategy for success, IMHO, is their elaborate and extensive spiff program for people who sell their stuff.
There's no "sham company tax shelter methods" -- just the usual legal method of tranferring income from a high tax juristiction to a lower one. Companies and people do this all the time (e.g., US/Bermuda, California/Nevada) to avoid their biggest and unnecessary expense.
The threat here is not "you're going to jail", but "we're going to expose you to political ridicule for not passively bending over and paying whatever the government demand."
If you don't consider this method as a part of your tax planning, you're paying more than you need to. As Judge Learned Hand said, "Anyone may arrange his affairs that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which best pays the Treasury; there is not even a patriotic duty to increase one's taxes. Over and over again courts have said that there is nothing sinister in so arranging affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible, everyone does it, rich and poor alike and all do right; for nobody owes any public duty to pay more than the law demands. Taxes are an enforceable action, not a voluntary contribution."
Helvering vs Gregory
60 Fed (2d) 809
It's not regulation that is the problem, it is the extra-territorial jurisdiction asserted by the EU over US companies. For example, when Boeing acquired McDonnell Douglas, the EU required that Boeing scrap its already-signed exclusive contracts with US airlines (Delta, American.) These contracts were legal between two US companies, yet the EU meddled with them -- allegedly for competition reasons, but it was really done to give another bit of the apple to the EU's favorite subsidy child, Airbus.
If you think this is ok, let's look at some possible tit-for-tat responses from the US government. Say, the US thinks that Siemens prices are too low or they are bribing too many EU officials, and fines them 50% of sales worldwide. Or, the US declares that commercial aircraft companies that receive subsidies are anti-competitive, and attaches a special anti-subsidy landing fee on each Airbus aircraft worldwide.
So if you really want a trade war, let's go; if not, the EU should back off.
The EU loves to meddle with US Companies, and impose their bizzare form of competition (to a USian) on foreigners. Recent victims include Boeing, Microsoft, and Honeywell.
The pace of this meddling is accellerating; it may be time for the US to engage in a little tit-for-tat to show the Eurocrats the error of their ways.
Thank g*d on the minor nature of the Bible thumpers.
...
It also demonstrates that g*d has a sense of humor
I'd add that it is the _middle_ finger of Galileo, it is almost vertical, and it appears to be raised toward Rome. I think he got the last laugh.
It is a very cool museum -- see it if you can!
I can't imagine the fun of Kimchi in a smaller space from which you can't step out for a breath of fresh air. It makes hermetically-sealed tupperware mission-critical.
...
I sure hope those Soyuz lifeboats are in good working order
The EU could try to pull this stunt, but watch what happens when/if the US retaliates. Say, the US blocks the merger of KLM/Air France, $1m landing fees and huge tarrifs on Airbus aircraft for illegal (in the US) launch aid, invalidate IP protections on Bayer, pull more US forces from Europe .. the list goes on. There are a slew of things legal in the US, but not in the EU -- and vice versa. There needs to be a uniform way to handle these things, just as aircraft certification is harmonized.
MS is trying to get OOXML accepted by a standards body. That is hardly an act requiring retaliation by the EU.
More than likely, boats were anchoring long before the undersea cable arrived.
Having said that, I'm not too disappointed that the whack-jobs mullahs that run Iran can't get to their favorite pr0n site.
Hate to burst your bubble, but a loss of engine power does not create a stall. Rather, an increase in Angle of Attack past the critical AoA (which is sometimes simplified to a stall airspeed) creates a stall.
Additionally, much more investigation will happen in the following days and weeks, so locking on to one possible scenario is silly at this point. Offhand, I'd say the preliminary facts support a number of hypotheses, including:
wind shear
fuel starvation
fuel contamination
failure in the engine control
bird strike/bird ingestion
You wouldn't be Specialist Schwarz (http://skippyslist.com/list/), would you?