Libel and Slander laws are there to protect people
If a national Newspaper prints an untrue story that someone has done something nefarious then they might have their career and potential earnings ruined by this, and no obvious way to convince people of their innocence, the Libel and Slander laws stop people making public statements that may damage people without first checking their facts, and are a way of people having some way of showing they are innocent
It does not stop people saying whatever they like, but does make them qualify it with "I heard", "I think", "In my opinion" rather than stating it as fact...
Complete freedom of speech allows you to shout fire in a crowded theatre and lie under oath...
No... the interest on the loan is 1) to cover the depreciation of the original sum, due to inflation 2) make a profit from the loan company
If there was no interest then the loan company could not make money on it, and in fact would effectively lose money.... so they would not bother, what the borrower does does not matter (they have an agreement with you, so can take you to court to make you pay)
The patent period new drugs get is there like all patents so the company can recoup the development costs, so they can 1) invest in developing new drugs, 2) make a profit and stay in business
The patent period on drugs could be modified to zero if it also guaranteed a profit to the inventing company, i.e. all drugs could be generic from day 1 but would be more expensive, at a level defined by government... the current system allows the inventing company to charge whatever they think the market will allow for 5 years, then they effectively get nothing...
...and only the Police with reasonable suspicion can stop and search your vehicle... they cannot ask the highways agency to blanket search every vehicle for them..Try doing the same on the phone... the police need a court order for a wiretap to find that you are using the telephone system to do illegal activities, it is illegal for the phone company to tap your line with a court order...
Star Wars is set in the Past (A long time ago in a galaxy far far away...), the movies have sound in space (but this is true of many Hard Sci-Fi books made into films), but all the tech is possible as far as I know, excepting "The force"
The lines are very blurry... I have read pure hard Sci-Fi set in the past (not our past but one that could have happened), and Fantasy set in the future, McCaffrey's Dragon books look like fantasy but they are set in the future and she makes flying, firebreathing dragons seem possible
Warp drive, is probably do-able.. nothing in physics prohibits it (as far as we know)
Teleporters, Heisenburg limits would seem to rule this out... but there may be a way round this?
Hyperspace, nothing currently suggests this exists, or if it does (m-brane space maybe) that we can access it...?
If you think star trek is soft SciFi, go and use an PDA (PADD), or Mobile/(Communicator)
They are not above this... and I expect they have stolen ideas in the past... and gotten away with it, by steamrolling the inventor... and the Patent system did not stop them I am not saying the innovator has to be the market leader, but they do have to be first and quick to defend their patent?
In this case why has it taken so long for the apparent inventor of a rather generalised hybrid engine system to make a case against Toyota, did they not see the hype around the Prius, over the last several years? Or perhaps they were just waiting until they could hold Toyota to ransom?
This smacks of Patent trolling, much more than a little inventor fighting the Big Bad company...
Patents when managed and overseen properly can work, but too many of them are awarded without merit, and are far too generalized...
If you accept that freedom of speech can be overridden by libel laws then, no judge or court took away anyones freedom of speech
The Guardian could have without fear of prosecution published the parliamentary question, but could not have also revealed that they were under a gagging order not to publish the report in question
A Lawyer for the company tried to stop the Guardian from publishing the contents of the question in parliament, which was not legally valid.... and the Twitteratti took this up and made everyone aware what they were doing and why...thus making the gagging order moot....
....Always on?... My mail is always on, and will notify of new mail instantly... Facebook and Twitter, I only log on once or twice a day,and get notified of important new items... *by email*
Security through obscurity does work until it is no longer obscure........If you still had your bike, I could now steal it, If I could be bothered I could break into your machine.... now I know
Fantasy - Assumes something that cannot reasonably be true (e.g. Magic works) Sci-Fi - Assumes something that can reasonably be true Hard Sci-Fi - Assumes something that is probably true (or is true)
DVD invented as a data storage medium by a consortium of computer companies including Sony, and extended to store movies the consortium was founded by Computer companies and the movie companies joined it later....
Blu-Ray were invented mostly by Sony, as a data storage medium - the Movie companies (including Sony's movie division) only got involved when the standards for movie formats for these discs were being decided....
So Sony has divisions which deal in Movies and Music, and divisions which don't... and they work together when they need to... but it does not mean the Copyright industries innovate...
This is the problem with Patents..... does anyone really think that Toyota copied this companies idea, does anyone think that this company would become internationally known for their hybrid cars if Toyota had not produced hybrid cars instead.... No...
So why does the patent system protect them, and allow them to block another companies products from sale....?
The problem here is two people who do not understand each other at all....
Miguel is very MS biased and seems to always take their general point of view, he clearly does not understand Free/Opensource software and the movements behind it (much as MS do not), there are people in MS who do, and they probably are at least in part the people behind CodePlex, but the fact that the only sponsor so far is MS and the restrictive terms it uses it means it is not going to be popular (it is a good idea hamstrung by the MS Lawyers)
RMS is not the spokesman for the OpenSource movement... he would like software to be completely free/libre and does not really like software to be restricted at all... this makes him extreme even for the free/libre movement, Linus is more in the GPL, free with required restrictions group that include most OpenSource business, they disagree on many things.....NET/C# is a rather nice system but people are wary of it because MS might despite their assurances to the contrary decide to close down the opensource versions at any time.... and there are other systems that can do all that C# can do already without the perceived danger
Google has ads - I must say I have never noticed, I have an automatic ad filter - it's called ignoring information I did not ask for......
An advert should tell me two things, that a product exists - I can't decide to buy it if I don't know about it, and what sets it apart from the competition, anything else is irrelevant.....
...or try a certain Elizabeth Windsor 1/4 German married to a Greek with Scandanavian Ancestry and she has close relatives from nearly every European country.....
The problem with ASLR is that anyone capable of getting around enough of your security to trouble ASLR is quite capable of bypassing that as well.... giving the guy with a shotgun a revolver as well will not help if he already asleep in the corner...
Putting DRM on something means you have lost control of it... DRM works by giving you the locked box and the key.... then trying to hide the fact that that you have now have the key
This seems to be more like plain encryption, anyone can have the content but it is useless without the key, I will give you the key for a fee, just like a licence key, and this is unique so can be traced to you if you give it to others... not really DRM at all...?
Dave Cutler and his entire team were hired from DEC by Microsoft to design the NT Kernel, they would protest that the NT kernel is nothing like the VMS kernel.... but they are some respects similar simply because they were designed by the same people...
Security however is more to do with the details....
Slashdot Mirror
..it actually says they all do and they all don't ... until someone tries to find out which ....
Libel and Slander laws are there to protect people
If a national Newspaper prints an untrue story that someone has done something nefarious then they might have their career and potential earnings ruined by this, and no obvious way to convince people of their innocence, the Libel and Slander laws stop people making public statements that may damage people without first checking their facts, and are a way of people having some way of showing they are innocent
It does not stop people saying whatever they like, but does make them qualify it with "I heard", "I think", "In my opinion" rather than stating it as fact ...
Complete freedom of speech allows you to shout fire in a crowded theatre and lie under oath ...
Well you could vote Labour and have more and higher taxes, or Conservative and have less services....
This has always been the dilemma,
either you have low taxes and poor services and have to pay for everything yourself
or high taxes and good services
Or in the current economic climate - high taxes and poor services no matter who you vote for
No ... the interest on the loan is 1) to cover the depreciation of the original sum, due to inflation 2) make a profit from the loan company
If there was no interest then the loan company could not make money on it, and in fact would effectively lose money .... so they would not bother, what the borrower does does not matter (they have an agreement with you, so can take you to court to make you pay)
The patent period new drugs get is there like all patents so the company can recoup the development costs, so they can 1) invest in developing new drugs, 2) make a profit and stay in business
The patent period on drugs could be modified to zero if it also guaranteed a profit to the inventing company, i.e. all drugs could be generic from day 1 but would be more expensive, at a level defined by government... the current system allows the inventing company to charge whatever they think the market will allow for 5 years, then they effectively get nothing ...
100 cores plus some room on the chip for management, connections, global cache etc ....
Plus if you say 100 cores and put 128 cores on the chip then 28 can fail before you have to bin the chip as a dud ....
..third scenario
Wipe the laptop and sell it on eBay
Your data is not important and no-one cares about it ...!
...and only the Police with reasonable suspicion can stop and search your vehicle ... they cannot ask the highways agency to blanket search every vehicle for them ..Try doing the same on the phone ... the police need a court order for a wiretap to find that you are using the telephone system to do illegal activities, it is illegal for the phone company to tap your line with a court order ...
Star Wars is set in the Past (A long time ago in a galaxy far far away...), the movies have sound in space (but this is true of many Hard Sci-Fi books made into films), but all the tech is possible as far as I know, excepting "The force"
The lines are very blurry ... I have read pure hard Sci-Fi set in the past (not our past but one that could have happened), and Fantasy set in the future, McCaffrey's Dragon books look like fantasy but they are set in the future and she makes flying, firebreathing dragons seem possible
Warp drive, is probably do-able.. nothing in physics prohibits it (as far as we know)
Teleporters, Heisenburg limits would seem to rule this out ... but there may be a way round this?
Hyperspace, nothing currently suggests this exists, or if it does (m-brane space maybe) that we can access it ...?
If you think star trek is soft SciFi, go and use an PDA (PADD), or Mobile/(Communicator)
They are not above this ... and I expect they have stolen ideas in the past ... and gotten away with it, by steamrolling the inventor ... and the Patent system did not stop them
I am not saying the innovator has to be the market leader, but they do have to be first and quick to defend their patent?
In this case why has it taken so long for the apparent inventor of a rather generalised hybrid engine system to make a case against Toyota, did they not see the hype around the Prius, over the last several years? Or perhaps they were just waiting until they could hold Toyota to ransom?
This smacks of Patent trolling, much more than a little inventor fighting the Big Bad company ...
Patents when managed and overseen properly can work, but too many of them are awarded without merit, and are far too generalized...
If you accept that freedom of speech can be overridden by libel laws then, no judge or court took away anyones freedom of speech
The Guardian could have without fear of prosecution published the parliamentary question, but could not have also revealed that they were under a gagging order not to publish the report in question
A Lawyer for the company tried to stop the Guardian from publishing the contents of the question in parliament, which was not legally valid.... and the Twitteratti took this up and made everyone aware what they were doing and why...thus making the gagging order moot ....
....Always on? ... My mail is always on, and will notify of new mail instantly ... Facebook and Twitter, I only log on once or twice a day,and get notified of important new items ... *by email*
Security through obscurity does work until it is no longer obscure .... ....If you still had your bike, I could now steal it, If I could be bothered I could break into your machine .... now I know
--
The plural of box is boxen....
They all say "What if...."
Fantasy - Assumes something that cannot reasonably be true (e.g. Magic works)
Sci-Fi - Assumes something that can reasonably be true
Hard Sci-Fi - Assumes something that is probably true (or is true)
DVD invented as a data storage medium by a consortium of computer companies including Sony, and extended to store movies the consortium was founded by Computer companies and the movie companies joined it later ....
Blu-Ray were invented mostly by Sony, as a data storage medium - the Movie companies (including Sony's movie division) only got involved when the standards for movie formats for these discs were being decided ....
So Sony has divisions which deal in Movies and Music, and divisions which don't ... and they work together when they need to ... but it does not mean the Copyright industries innovate ...
This is the problem with Patents ..... does anyone really think that Toyota copied this companies idea, does anyone think that this company would become internationally known for their hybrid cars if Toyota had not produced hybrid cars instead.... No...
So why does the patent system protect them, and allow them to block another companies products from sale ....?
The problem here is two people who do not understand each other at all ....
Miguel is very MS biased and seems to always take their general point of view, he clearly does not understand Free/Opensource software and the movements behind it (much as MS do not), there are people in MS who do, and they probably are at least in part the people behind CodePlex, but the fact that the only sponsor so far is MS and the restrictive terms it uses it means it is not going to be popular (it is a good idea hamstrung by the MS Lawyers)
RMS is not the spokesman for the OpenSource movement ... he would like software to be completely free/libre and does not really like software to be restricted at all ... this makes him extreme even for the free/libre movement, Linus is more in the GPL, free with required restrictions group that include most OpenSource business, they disagree on many things .... .NET/C# is a rather nice system but people are wary of it because MS might despite their assurances to the contrary decide to close down the opensource versions at any time .... and there are other systems that can do all that C# can do already without the perceived danger
SG lost the plot when they had to keep stopping them using the technology or powers they had to make the plot last 50 minutes ....
It became either how do we cripple them this week, or how do we make even more powerful enemies ....
Go and look at your congresspeople .... most of them trained as lawyers ....
Obama - Harvard Law School
Clinton - Yale Law School
Google has ads - I must say I have never noticed, I have an automatic ad filter - it's called ignoring information I did not ask for ......
An advert should tell me two things, that a product exists - I can't decide to buy it if I don't know about it, and what sets it apart from the competition, anything else is irrelevant .....
...or try a certain Elizabeth Windsor 1/4 German married to a Greek with Scandanavian Ancestry and she has close relatives from nearly every European country .....
Google cloud storage is not even remotely similar to sharepoint
It's just that Google has a system to import Sharepoint data into Google storage ....
The alternative would be any CMS system that can also do document storage .... i.e. most of them ....
The problem with ASLR is that anyone capable of getting around enough of your security to trouble ASLR is quite capable of bypassing that as well .... giving the guy with a shotgun a revolver as well will not help if he already asleep in the corner ...
Putting DRM on something means you have lost control of it ... DRM works by giving you the locked box and the key .... then trying to hide the fact that that you have now have the key
This seems to be more like plain encryption, anyone can have the content but it is useless without the key, I will give you the key for a fee, just like a licence key, and this is unique so can be traced to you if you give it to others ... not really DRM at all ...?
Can you tell this to the people running that minority system Apache, they don't seem to get many exploits?
Dave Cutler and his entire team were hired from DEC by Microsoft to design the NT Kernel, they would protest that the NT kernel is nothing like the VMS kernel .... but they are some respects similar simply because they were designed by the same people ...
Security however is more to do with the details ....