Star Wars is mythic fiction set in space. You could even call it a space western. Calling it fantasy is probably something that fans of actual fantasy works would find objectionable.
Much of Trek is also little more than space western and this is exactly how Roddenberry originally sold it too.
A lot of this usual sort of "our fiction is better than your fiction" is mostly nonsense. It's empty pretense.
...Tories trying to sabotage social welfare programs in the UK just like the Republicans try to do in the US.
Imagine that...
This is something that you have to account for when you make policy arguments. You can't just assume that we all live in a idealized world populated by rainbow unicorns. You have to consider that perhaps a third or a half of the population will be highly motivated to oppose what you're trying to do.
If I need an MRI, I get an MRI. That stuff is serious and is nothing to procrastinate about. If you can't afford one RIGHT NOW then perhaps you need to readjust your economic priorities. All of these social welfare programs tend to make people think that they don't have to take care of themselves.
All you're doing is abdicating responsibility for yourself and giving it to someone else like a civil servant.
Even the best do-gooder doesn't have to worry about the long term consequences of you putting off that MRI.
That number could easily be inflated by 10x or more. Billed hospital expenses are generally not paid out at rates anywhere near the "suggested retail price". That's yet another problem with the current system in the US. Prices are opaque and largely fictional.
If you said that $250K was spent to keep some kid alive during a really bad infection, it's hard to know how seriously to take that number.
The fact that people don't seem to think they are on the hook for anything helps add to the problem. It's treated like it's someone elses money.
You can't necessarily transplant a social welfare system. It won't work the same in another culture and will likely not allowed to be implemented intact.
So trying to pretend that we can replicate the NHS or something else is just a really out of touch fantasy.
Demand for catastrophic care is very inelastic. Demand for anything else can be shopped for like anything else including fancy new mobile devices. Hospital care in the US is the real problem. The prices are all a work of fiction. So it's really hard to get a handle on the problem. You can also find yourself in a bad position if you have to pay strictly as an individual (rather than an insured). Although that's unpredictable and that too is part of the problem.
Doctors are no more expensive than many of the purely discretionary things that many people engage in. Yet because it is medical care, people get this idea into their head that they should not directly pay for anything. They have this idea that things should just be given to them.
Insurance is not for low cost routine things. All you are doing is taking something and making it more expensive by adding a transaction cost to it.
It's like you're using a high interest rate credit card but paying before you use services rather than after.
People willing to spend $2000 or $600 on a bit of software are very resistant to change. It doesn't matter what license the alternative uses.
The problem isn't the "quality" of Free Software alternatives but the fact that NO alternative of any sort will be considered acceptable because software consumers tend to have a mentality fixated on single brands even when the data formats involved don't have any inherent lock-in.
Shills with no money but lots of free time to post on web forums help contribute to the sense of "single brand ineveitablity".
Android gives users more control over their hardware and their user experience. It also presents a more diverse and meaningful set of choices.
A lot of people like to whine about Android fragmentation and then ignore how badly forced OS upgrades can run on an iPhone.
Even without Google trying to emulate Apple. Android provides a useful and distinct alternative.
There is nothing about Google engaging in Apple style megalomania that will improve my user experience as an Android user. Those perpetuating the usual FUD in this area never highly any actual real consequence of this so-called tragic fragmentation.
By that logic, selling a bootleg on a Manhattan street corner would make you liable for 10 million instances of infringement. Of course that kind of logic is absurd and anyone that's not a corporate toadie realizes it.
This is not the middle ages. Justice is supposed to have some sort of sanity and some sense of proportionality.
The problem with the troll claims is that you've got a state of affairs that boils down to "Tort reform for the rich, and Crime and Punishment for the Poor".
Most tort case don't have the benefit of extreme and unjust statutory damages. In most tort cases, you actually have to prove harm. Media moguls don't have to do that. They can dodge the issue entirely. Beyond that, you have a well cultivated hatred of lawyers coupled with tort reform movement that's been pretty effective in gutting civil remedies in non-copyright cases.
In your average tort case, you don't have the benefit of a credible threat of multi-million dollar damages for trivial infractions.
If corporations are unwilling or unable to create franken-crops then leave it to the Universities. Leave it to the land grant colleges with agronomy departments. Leave it to geeks and professors to build better crops rather than handing monopolies to poison merchants.
If Big Chem can't have a big pay day then that's not really a tragedy.
> Without that policy Monsanto would have a year to recoup their investment in research and development as subsequent crops would be planted with saved seeds. That would remove any incentive
Not a problem really.
Arguments such as those really have no place at SCOTUS. They really shouldn't give a sh*t if a particular legal theory guts someone's business model. They simply aren't there to protect business models. If they're even bringing it up, then that means that the entire process has been corrupted.
There are plenty of things you can't make money on and that's perfectly fine.
They also attack anyone that provides seed saving services. They aren't just attacking individual farmers. They are also attacking their ability to be self-sufficient. So even if someone wanted to do things the old fashioned way, they would have trouble finding anyone to process their seeds.
It helps to watch the entire movie if you are going to cite from it.
> Monsanto developed the genetically modified seeds, they can restrict their use however they want.
That is a legal perversion. The fact that it is tolerated now doesn't make it ethically or morally right. It gives entirely too much unnecessary power to patent holders to the detriment of everyone else (and their rights).
> Just remember that without those higher crop yields,
This isn't about "higher crop yields". This is about selling more Roundup. In case you don't know what that is, it's a herbicide that would burn your throat if you got a whiff of it.
Let's not kid ourselves that there is any altruistic motivations at work here.
Genetic manipulation of seeds is done by poison salesmen, not farmers.
Slashdot Mirror
> No sideloading
Why no side loading? All I have to do to side load on my Android device is to download/copy the file to it and run it. It's exactly like a PC.
Star Wars is mythic fiction set in space. You could even call it a space western. Calling it fantasy is probably something that fans of actual fantasy works would find objectionable.
Much of Trek is also little more than space western and this is exactly how Roddenberry originally sold it too.
A lot of this usual sort of "our fiction is better than your fiction" is mostly nonsense. It's empty pretense.
We should give Larry the clap and then advertise the fact widely.
...Tories trying to sabotage social welfare programs in the UK just like the Republicans try to do in the US.
Imagine that...
This is something that you have to account for when you make policy arguments. You can't just assume that we all live in a idealized world populated by rainbow unicorns. You have to consider that perhaps a third or a half of the population will be highly motivated to oppose what you're trying to do.
If I need an MRI, I get an MRI. That stuff is serious and is nothing to procrastinate about. If you can't afford one RIGHT NOW then perhaps you need to readjust your economic priorities. All of these social welfare programs tend to make people think that they don't have to take care of themselves.
All you're doing is abdicating responsibility for yourself and giving it to someone else like a civil servant.
Even the best do-gooder doesn't have to worry about the long term consequences of you putting off that MRI.
That number could easily be inflated by 10x or more. Billed hospital expenses are generally not paid out at rates anywhere near the "suggested retail price". That's yet another problem with the current system in the US. Prices are opaque and largely fictional.
If you said that $250K was spent to keep some kid alive during a really bad infection, it's hard to know how seriously to take that number.
The fact that people don't seem to think they are on the hook for anything helps add to the problem. It's treated like it's someone elses money.
You can't necessarily transplant a social welfare system. It won't work the same in another culture and will likely not allowed to be implemented intact.
So trying to pretend that we can replicate the NHS or something else is just a really out of touch fantasy.
Demand for catastrophic care is very inelastic. Demand for anything else can be shopped for like anything else including fancy new mobile devices. Hospital care in the US is the real problem. The prices are all a work of fiction. So it's really hard to get a handle on the problem. You can also find yourself in a bad position if you have to pay strictly as an individual (rather than an insured). Although that's unpredictable and that too is part of the problem.
Doctors are no more expensive than many of the purely discretionary things that many people engage in. Yet because it is medical care, people get this idea into their head that they should not directly pay for anything. They have this idea that things should just be given to them.
Insurance is not for low cost routine things. All you are doing is taking something and making it more expensive by adding a transaction cost to it.
It's like you're using a high interest rate credit card but paying before you use services rather than after.
> the fact that it is still a free market
It's not a free market as long as the government can tell me what I am allowed to buy.
Obamacare is nothing resembling socialized medicine. It's more like a big fat gift to the insurance industry. It's corporate welfare at it's worst.
All that proves is that Free Software is more transparent.
People willing to spend $2000 or $600 on a bit of software are very resistant to change. It doesn't matter what license the alternative uses.
The problem isn't the "quality" of Free Software alternatives but the fact that NO alternative of any sort will be considered acceptable because software consumers tend to have a mentality fixated on single brands even when the data formats involved don't have any inherent lock-in.
Shills with no money but lots of free time to post on web forums help contribute to the sense of "single brand ineveitablity".
Android gives users more control over their hardware and their user experience. It also presents a more diverse and meaningful set of choices.
A lot of people like to whine about Android fragmentation and then ignore how badly forced OS upgrades can run on an iPhone.
Even without Google trying to emulate Apple. Android provides a useful and distinct alternative.
There is nothing about Google engaging in Apple style megalomania that will improve my user experience as an Android user. Those perpetuating the usual FUD in this area never highly any actual real consequence of this so-called tragic fragmentation.
> Exerting your legal rights is not extortion
Clearly that is the intent here. They are abusing the system for their personal enrichment and even the courts realize it.
The fact that they have civilian defenders that think they can hide behind the letter of the law doesn't change their mens rea.
This judge seems to understand that.
By that logic, selling a bootleg on a Manhattan street corner would make you liable for 10 million instances of infringement. Of course that kind of logic is absurd and anyone that's not a corporate toadie realizes it.
This is not the middle ages. Justice is supposed to have some sort of sanity and some sense of proportionality.
The problem with the troll claims is that you've got a state of affairs that boils down to "Tort reform for the rich, and Crime and Punishment for the Poor".
Most tort case don't have the benefit of extreme and unjust statutory damages. In most tort cases, you actually have to prove harm. Media moguls don't have to do that. They can dodge the issue entirely. Beyond that, you have a well cultivated hatred of lawyers coupled with tort reform movement that's been pretty effective in gutting civil remedies in non-copyright cases.
In your average tort case, you don't have the benefit of a credible threat of multi-million dollar damages for trivial infractions.
If corporations are unwilling or unable to create franken-crops then leave it to the Universities. Leave it to the land grant colleges with agronomy departments. Leave it to geeks and professors to build better crops rather than handing monopolies to poison merchants.
If Big Chem can't have a big pay day then that's not really a tragedy.
> Without that policy Monsanto would have a year to recoup their investment in research and development as subsequent crops would be planted with saved seeds. That would remove any incentive
Not a problem really.
Arguments such as those really have no place at SCOTUS. They really shouldn't give a sh*t if a particular legal theory guts someone's business model. They simply aren't there to protect business models. If they're even bringing it up, then that means that the entire process has been corrupted.
There are plenty of things you can't make money on and that's perfectly fine.
That's part of a society being civilized.
They also attack anyone that provides seed saving services. They aren't just attacking individual farmers. They are also attacking their ability to be self-sufficient. So even if someone wanted to do things the old fashioned way, they would have trouble finding anyone to process their seeds.
It helps to watch the entire movie if you are going to cite from it.
That's pretty much Monstanto's obvious goal.
That's rather the whole point of a monopoly mechanism to begin with.
Plants utilize the same genetic and adaptive mechanisms as animals.
s/insect/plant/g
Roundup ready crabgrass... yum.
> Monsanto developed the genetically modified seeds, they can restrict their use however they want.
That is a legal perversion. The fact that it is tolerated now doesn't make it ethically or morally right. It gives entirely too much unnecessary power to patent holders to the detriment of everyone else (and their rights).
> by repeatedly spraying his crops with glyphosate herbicide to kill
A farmer using Roundup? Say it isn't so!
Farmers have been using Roundup probably since before you were born.
Herbicide is Monsanto's real primary product. They used to advertise widely in farm country (and probably still do).
No. Monsanto is not a drug company. They are a poison company.
Monsanto is "Big Chem".
It's like Dick Cheney's dog sh*ts in your yard and suddenly your house belongs to Dick Cheney.
Never mind the Frankenstein stuff. THIS is the real problem with patenting life.
> Just remember that without those higher crop yields,
This isn't about "higher crop yields". This is about selling more Roundup. In case you don't know what that is, it's a herbicide that would burn your throat if you got a whiff of it.
Let's not kid ourselves that there is any altruistic motivations at work here.
Genetic manipulation of seeds is done by poison salesmen, not farmers.