Bloomberg was singing the virtues of Sub Prime mortgages and the new derivatives packages until about a month before the crash. Who in their right mind would listen to anything they have to say anymore?
And the USD is on a consistent trend buying less gold per dollar than the GBP, CAD and AUD. http://www.alchemymetals.com.au/index.php?site_id=6&product_types_id=2 See the disparity between the CAD, AUD and USD disappearing? That's not a good sign that the USD is "gaining". The price of gold is increasing for anyone buying with USD but is pretty flat for anyone buying in the aforementioned currencies.
That's not the dollar "gaining", that's inflation of the USD and the buying power of the dollar dropping when compared to other currencies.
People need to stop thinking that *price drops* of consumer products which is inevitable in a recession is the same thing as an a upward trend of the strength of their currency. The only rational comparison is how much stuff you can buy vs how much stuff other similar currencies can buy, and at the moment the USD is buying less and less.
Completely and utterly irrelevant, these are not "collectors" coins, they are boring straight from the mint, cold hard cash. I think there's a mistake being made here that gold coins are somehow exotic.
They are not.
The money is legal tender, it's minted by the government by the hundreds of thousands every year. If the government doesn't like the situation then they can alter the constitution or increase the face value of the coins to more closely match their true value. Otherwise it goes the other way as well and paper money thats market value is about 0.1 cent - for the paper - can be "valued" at that rate too come tax time.
The government *cannot* have two "values" for its legal tender, as far as the government is concerned it's either what the government says it's worth (the face value) or it's not. Otherwise the stack of $100 dollar paper notes (actually some sort of polymer here) I just got paid are only "worth" 1 cent each and that is what I'll claim them as.
I'm pretty sure no government is going to open the "market value" can of worms on its currency. If it's good for the government to claim a currencies value is "market value" rather than face value at tax time then it's good for me.
All that aside, they're prosecuting a guy for the financial decisions of his contractors as paying someone in gold even if it's just bullion is perfectly legal. How they then claim that on their taxes is their own responsibility not his.
No if you're paid with $20 in government currency then as far as the government is concerned you received $20 in wealth.
Otherwise it works the other way too and this $100 dollar paper note is only "worth" 1 cent and should be taxed as such.
Oh that's right, for some insane reason people always come down on the side of the government.
Perhaps you should ask *why* the government is stamping $30 on legal tender that actually costs 1000 $1 federal reserve notes (and counting). These gold coins are not "special" collectors items, they are cold hard cash minted by the hundreds of thousands and hold enormous amounts of wealth.
What they're terrified of is people going back to hard currency.
He's being made an example of, it's that simple.
It's a loophole that's protected by the US constitution. Gold and Silver are protected as legal currency and the federal government must supply and accept gold and silver tender. The only way around it is to amend the constitution - or scare people enough not to do it.
If it became popular may also get people asking difficult questions like why a $30 coin is really worth $1000, or more to the point why a $1 federal reserve note can only buy 1% of the value of a $30 dollar coin.
Such things are best not thought about by the plebs.
"Reportedly told them that they can only be taxed on the face value of the coinage -- not the much higher market value of the metal"
The money paid is 100% legal United States Currency, minted by the United States Government itself.
The US constitution specifically states that gold an silver are legal tender.
What's the problem? It's not his problem that the US government has destroyed the value of money so that "old" but perfectly legal currency is now worth 1000 times more than it's equivalent "new" money...IF the government doesn't like it they need to change the law and outlaw the gold coins that they mint as legal tender.
Otherwise he's being prosecuted for something that "feels" illegal, which is a deadly slippery slope to go down.
I cannot stomach this sort of moral relativist BS anymore.
We're talking about Iran here, the same Iran that had a functioning democracy that the "fair" US Of A decided it didn't like so fully funded, armed AND trained a group of radicals specifically to overthrow said democracy and install a radical and brutal dictator. Resulting in a decade of the worst most brutal treatment of the citizens of Iran out of any secular nation in modern history. 100% morally, financially and politically backed by the "fair" US. All purely for a corporations interest.
You say "support" in the hope of diminishing the US's real role in the evil it perpetrates when it overthrows a country. I hate to break it to you, but the "support" isn't just a few bucks and an angry letter. It's boots on the ground, free tanks and planes and millions of dollars in weapons, (all to be paid off by the citizens once they are subjugated of course). Flying radicals into the USA and training them in methods of torture and propaganda is not the actions of a "fair" country.
Just because the "fair" US didn't like the democratic governments choices for it's people.
You give us a glimpse of your complete moral bankruptcy when you describe the torturing, murderous tyrannies that the US creates then supports 100% with guns, money and weapons as "some overthrows".
Did you know the CIA set up SAVAK - the most brutal secret police in modern history. Did you know that the CIA trained SAVAK agents in methods of torture?
Are you aware in that little pathetic insular world of yours, that the US was flying *400* SAVAK agents a year onto US soil to be trained? The same agents that tortured children in front of parents by poring boiling water up their rectums and pulled their fingernails out because their parents had the gall to stand against the US installed dictator?
Who gives a shit though ay? Just one of a couple of "overthrows" boo fucking who for the tens of thousands of Iranians tortured to death by the US trained, funded, equipped and actively supported secret police.
Do you even care?
I doubt it. Anything that happened more than five years is meaningless to the likes of you, anything your country does is diminished "well we're not as bad as them". Well actually yes you are - the average Iranian would have been NO WORSE OFF becoming part of the soviet block rather than letting the "fair" US get their claws into the country.
You are a complete moral void.
Iran is a damaged mess now 100% because of the US's actions. Just like Iraq is.
Accept responsibility for your countries fuck ups, or you are *worse* than the worst.
Sorry matey, but it's the tiny fraction of a fraction of individuals who don't have children that are the burden on those that do. And it wasn't long ago that the barren and childless were openly viewed as dead weight on society and handled accordingly, with pity and charity. Who do you think is going to support your elitist arse when you turn 50?
In purely economic terms children are the ultimate infrastructure investment with 18 years worth of investing 90% of time and probably 60% of free income of the private individual going into them. And then people like you not only think your inherently entitled to reap the rewards of our investment you do so ungraciously.
I won't even go into the trite, tired boring clique Slashdot rant against "parents" (as though parents are some sort of race). The whole thing stinks of jealousy and snobbery of the worse kind, perhaps parent react that way to you because you've got a chip on your shoulder the size of a planet. We get it you've got an ideology you'll be able to tell it to someone elses kids when they're looking after you in the nursing home.
And for what it's worth I'd rather ten parents who think they're "saints" (something I've never actually come across) then one Slashdot "elite" who's so out of touch with the world around him that thinks he's superior to "parents" and uses terms such as xeroxing in a pathetic attempt to diminish the quite amazing system that is the parent - child bond.
"The clinic is right, it's only a matter of time until we accept this, and we'll just have to wait and see what happens."
Seriously, is it 1930 again?
Eugenics being seriously debated. Worldwide depression. Fascism becoming a mainstream political ideal. A country in a far away land beating the drums of war with it's huge army that can "blitz" it's neighbour in a day. An Asian empire rising and on a collision course with the States.
A child is not a present from santa clause that is brought into the world for your own vapid insecure entertainment.
The question I have is why the hell would you want to? Who's that messed up in their vanity that they would bother. Not to mention what's the risk? there's gotta be potential side effects for mother and child.
And for what? Oh baby's got blue eyes!...except they're more like grey until they change to their permanent colour in a few years in which time you'll be so up to your ears in parenting that the colour of your childs eyes are of absolutely no consequence to you what-so-ever.
If people want to do it that's their choice, I'm not going to try and stop them. But they can expect to by shunned by quite a bit of society for a long long time. If only for the sheer mindless vanity of it all.
All of your points can be equally and concisely rebutted by one simple mans name.
George Walker Bush.
Most powerful man on earth for eight years and doesn't match one single item on your list.
Well maybe strong, I don't really know about that we haven't arm wrestled lately.
People will always find their own traits to be attractive in others. Being slender, blonde and blue eyed isn't going to get you anywhere in 99% of the world, that's an anglo cultural attribute.
The worst thing about it all - the thing that *nobody* seems to care about: there won't be anymore carrot tops with pasty white skin and too many freckles anymore.
So who will school children mercilessly torment during the day for their own pleasure when the redhead is gone?? A hundred year old tradition, gone. Just.like.that.
The real problem in the US is that its too easy to get and use all sorts of things (including credit cards and prepaid mobile phones) with very little ID checking.
I'm here in Aus too mate, and the last prepaid phone I bought...from the grocery store...didn't require any ID what so ever.
"it doesn't make our government track our every move or anything."
And you know that how?
Because in my country at least getting government departments to tell us what they do and don't talk to each other about and what info they are and aren't mining about the citizens is like pulling teeth and requires costly court battles.
I assume you just implicitly trust your public servants to do the moral thing in the course of their duties?
I've worked in our federal government, if the data is there and there isn't a specific law banning the use of it, at best there's a pilot project or little dodgey in house app to play with the data a million different ways. I know this because I wrote one and though it was pretty benign to start with, the potential that it created and the hunger for information on everyone displayed by the various deparments I worked with I'm sure it's not benign (or even legal) anymore.
The thing is, who's going to stop them from doing things like that? You?
As far as I'm aware the US Federal Government doesn't have the mandate or authority to "require" the states to do anything like that. Given that it was the states who created the Federal Government and gave it the power to exist to do a limited range of things involving common defense and keeping interstate trade regular in the first place it's not really ok for it to turn around and tell the states what to do.
But that may just be my naive reading of the highest law of your land, the law that actually allows a legal entity such as the federal government to exists. I was under the impression that the US was a nation of laws. Unlike say Soviet Russia who had a set of laws outlined in a similar document that stated what the central government could do, but completely ignored them and did whatever it liked.
A piece of plexiglass can be sharpened equally as sharp as a metal knife.
A ball point pen can be turned into a small gun that can kill.
A length of cotton double wrapped can strangle someone.
It's not possible to stop people smuggling deadly weapons on board, as nearly any object can be used to hurt or maim. And if a maximum security prison can't stop smuggling, then neither can an airline. If they can then get the airlines to run the prisons.
All this relaxed talk by Americans of "homeland" this and "papers" that as though it's just another day at the office makes me little sick btw.
Our great friend the US of A teetering on the edge of becoming the monster that it once so valiantly wrestled. Fortunately something, a single thread perhaps, keeps holding it back...but for how much longer?
No I'm not, its funny because someone the other day called me a "Liberal" which here in Aus means conservative, guess I just don't fit in anywhere. What a shame.
Not quite my cup of tea. But, I'll leave the flaming to someone else.
I didn't say it's what I like or how I want it to be, I said it's the truth. It's reality - a place that far to many Internet "libertarians" don't factor into their ideology and in refusing to do so ensure that their idea will remain on the fringe.
Governments do what their people allow them to do. In fantasy land a flimsy piece of paper stops them, in practice (and we have *a lot* of evidence) flimsy pieces of paper can't stop very much at all. That requires people and if the people want battery research done by the Government, then the people will have it, piece of paper or not.
That's the rules of the game at this point, where I sit in regards to the matter is irrelevant.
Why does the government exists to pave roads? Or pick up "trash" and maintain parks?
If you're happy to run road builders and private street cleaners out of business then why not battery research firms? Why is that tiny sector more deserving of protection than a large landowner who wants to build a dam, lay pipe and sell the water?
Bring a bit of consistency to your ideals for goodness sake, you say the government exists to do x,y,z someone else says that it exists to do a,b and z and someone else says they exist to do a-z. The truth is the government exists to do whatever the people consent to them doing. If that means researching batteries then that is the choice of the people. Whether it's a good or bad choice is another story.
- I await the people trying to figure out which political stripe they can flame me as.
The power of Google Wave comes from the unification of various communication and collaboration paradigms, it's federated nature, it's extensibility and it's open-standard and web-centric approach.
BING-freaking-GO!
I can retire on my winnings from the amount of BS in that sentence!
It's probably sad that I could actually understand what the hell you're actually on about, but that's neither here nor there.
99.9% of all medical research ALL READY IS government funded.
Go look at the top 100 leaders in *any* field, they *all* work for Universities and Medical Schools, are all tenured and they ALL take funds from their respective governments.
Merck, Roche, et-al don't even come up as a tiny blip on the radar when searching for opinion leaders in any given medical field. In fact pharma companies are so insignificant that they're edge cases in the software I'm working on which identifies key opinion leaders in various medical fields fields. For every 100 people doing amazing work in medical schools and research hospitals in the world there's one tiny private research firm.
So if you're that wrong about that and in reality know *nothing* about how medical research is done yet have such a strong view about it. Perhaps that should cast doubt on the rest of what you think you know about too.
There's a 99.999% chance at least some of it is violating multiple patents for starters. So probably quite a bit of that code that you wrote, you actually don't own the "IP" to. You're stealing from someone else.
And if you agree with the new IP movement then you're a thief and hypocrite if you aren't licensing all code and concepts that you use that infringe.
As for copyright, it's as irrelevant to talk about copyright with regards to code as talking about the copyright that exists on the finger painting my 1 year old did this morning. When is code *ever* subject to copyright litigation? It happens *so rarely* it's not worth wasting a single thought to think about. Contract law, NDAs, dodgy licences, compilers and obfuscaters protect "code" as a general tradition.
No the real issue is why should people who upload Bing Crosby's work - someone who's been dead since 1977, be issued take down notices against their *own* creative works on Youtube in 2009?
Who alive contributed *anything* to that music? Who can possibly claim any "right" to a DEAD MANS music by saying their trying to protect artists rights??
This discussion is about culture, not people who push buttons* and call it "art".
Slashdot Mirror
Bloomberg was singing the virtues of Sub Prime mortgages and the new derivatives packages until about a month before the crash. Who in their right mind would listen to anything they have to say anymore?
And the USD is on a consistent trend buying less gold per dollar than the GBP, CAD and AUD. http://www.alchemymetals.com.au/index.php?site_id=6&product_types_id=2 See the disparity between the CAD, AUD and USD disappearing? That's not a good sign that the USD is "gaining". The price of gold is increasing for anyone buying with USD but is pretty flat for anyone buying in the aforementioned currencies.
That's not the dollar "gaining", that's inflation of the USD and the buying power of the dollar dropping when compared to other currencies.
People need to stop thinking that *price drops* of consumer products which is inevitable in a recession is the same thing as an a upward trend of the strength of their currency. The only rational comparison is how much stuff you can buy vs how much stuff other similar currencies can buy, and at the moment the USD is buying less and less.
Completely and utterly irrelevant, these are not "collectors" coins, they are boring straight from the mint, cold hard cash. I think there's a mistake being made here that gold coins are somehow exotic.
They are not.
The money is legal tender, it's minted by the government by the hundreds of thousands every year. If the government doesn't like the situation then they can alter the constitution or increase the face value of the coins to more closely match their true value. Otherwise it goes the other way as well and paper money thats market value is about 0.1 cent - for the paper - can be "valued" at that rate too come tax time.
The government *cannot* have two "values" for its legal tender, as far as the government is concerned it's either what the government says it's worth (the face value) or it's not. Otherwise the stack of $100 dollar paper notes (actually some sort of polymer here) I just got paid are only "worth" 1 cent each and that is what I'll claim them as.
I'm pretty sure no government is going to open the "market value" can of worms on its currency. If it's good for the government to claim a currencies value is "market value" rather than face value at tax time then it's good for me.
All that aside, they're prosecuting a guy for the financial decisions of his contractors as paying someone in gold even if it's just bullion is perfectly legal. How they then claim that on their taxes is their own responsibility not his.
It's a public example nothing more.
No if you're paid with $20 in government currency then as far as the government is concerned you received $20 in wealth.
Otherwise it works the other way too and this $100 dollar paper note is only "worth" 1 cent and should be taxed as such.
Oh that's right, for some insane reason people always come down on the side of the government.
Perhaps you should ask *why* the government is stamping $30 on legal tender that actually costs 1000 $1 federal reserve notes (and counting). These gold coins are not "special" collectors items, they are cold hard cash minted by the hundreds of thousands and hold enormous amounts of wealth.
What they're terrified of is people going back to hard currency.
He's being made an example of, it's that simple.
It's a loophole that's protected by the US constitution. Gold and Silver are protected as legal currency and the federal government must supply and accept gold and silver tender. The only way around it is to amend the constitution - or scare people enough not to do it.
If it became popular may also get people asking difficult questions like why a $30 coin is really worth $1000, or more to the point why a $1 federal reserve note can only buy 1% of the value of a $30 dollar coin.
Such things are best not thought about by the plebs.
What power?
It's stating that states must accept gold and silver and only gold and silver as tender. How hard is that to understand?
To hard for some it would seem. Apparently there's got to be secret hidden meanings and interpretation in everything.
"Reportedly told them that they can only be taxed on the face value of the coinage -- not the much higher market value of the metal"
The money paid is 100% legal United States Currency, minted by the United States Government itself.
The US constitution specifically states that gold an silver are legal tender.
What's the problem? It's not his problem that the US government has destroyed the value of money so that "old" but perfectly legal currency is now worth 1000 times more than it's equivalent "new" money...IF the government doesn't like it they need to change the law and outlaw the gold coins that they mint as legal tender.
Otherwise he's being prosecuted for something that "feels" illegal, which is a deadly slippery slope to go down.
I cannot stomach this sort of moral relativist BS anymore.
We're talking about Iran here, the same Iran that had a functioning democracy that the "fair" US Of A decided it didn't like so fully funded, armed AND trained a group of radicals specifically to overthrow said democracy and install a radical and brutal dictator. Resulting in a decade of the worst most brutal treatment of the citizens of Iran out of any secular nation in modern history. 100% morally, financially and politically backed by the "fair" US. All purely for a corporations interest.
You say "support" in the hope of diminishing the US's real role in the evil it perpetrates when it overthrows a country. I hate to break it to you, but the "support" isn't just a few bucks and an angry letter. It's boots on the ground, free tanks and planes and millions of dollars in weapons, (all to be paid off by the citizens once they are subjugated of course). Flying radicals into the USA and training them in methods of torture and propaganda is not the actions of a "fair" country.
Just because the "fair" US didn't like the democratic governments choices for it's people.
You give us a glimpse of your complete moral bankruptcy when you describe the torturing, murderous tyrannies that the US creates then supports 100%
with guns, money and weapons as "some overthrows".
Did you know the CIA set up SAVAK - the most brutal secret police in modern history. Did you know that the CIA trained SAVAK agents in methods of torture?
Are you aware in that little pathetic insular world of yours, that the US was flying *400* SAVAK agents a year onto US soil to be trained? The same agents that tortured children in front of parents by poring boiling water up their rectums and pulled their fingernails out because their parents had the gall to stand against the US installed dictator?
Who gives a shit though ay? Just one of a couple of "overthrows" boo fucking who for the tens of thousands of Iranians tortured to death by the US trained, funded, equipped and actively supported secret police.
Do you even care?
I doubt it. Anything that happened more than five years is meaningless to the likes of you, anything your country does is diminished "well we're not as bad as them". Well actually yes you are - the average Iranian would have been NO WORSE OFF becoming part of the soviet block rather than letting the "fair" US get their claws into the country.
You are a complete moral void.
Iran is a damaged mess now 100% because of the US's actions. Just like Iraq is.
Accept responsibility for your countries fuck ups, or you are *worse* than the worst.
"foist themselves"?
Sorry matey, but it's the tiny fraction of a fraction of individuals who don't have children that are the burden on those that do. And it wasn't long ago that the barren and childless were openly viewed as dead weight on society and handled accordingly, with pity and charity. Who do you think is going to support your elitist arse when you turn 50?
In purely economic terms children are the ultimate infrastructure investment with 18 years worth of investing 90% of time and probably 60% of free income of the private individual going into them. And then people like you not only think your inherently entitled to reap the rewards of our investment you do so ungraciously.
I won't even go into the trite, tired boring clique Slashdot rant against "parents" (as though parents are some sort of race). The whole thing stinks of jealousy and snobbery of the worse kind, perhaps parent react that way to you because you've got a chip on your shoulder the size of a planet. We get it you've got an ideology you'll be able to tell it to someone elses kids when they're looking after you in the nursing home.
And for what it's worth I'd rather ten parents who think they're "saints" (something I've never actually come across) then one Slashdot "elite" who's so out of touch with the world around him that thinks he's superior to "parents" and uses terms such as xeroxing in a pathetic attempt to diminish the quite amazing system that is the parent - child bond.
"The clinic is right, it's only a matter of time until we accept this, and we'll just have to wait and see what happens."
Seriously, is it 1930 again?
Eugenics being seriously debated.
Worldwide depression.
Fascism becoming a mainstream political ideal.
A country in a far away land beating the drums of war with it's huge army that can "blitz" it's neighbour in a day.
An Asian empire rising and on a collision course with the States.
I think I want the '90s back thanks. Post-haste.
A child is not a present from santa clause that is brought into the world for your own vapid insecure entertainment.
The question I have is why the hell would you want to? Who's that messed up in their vanity that they would bother. Not to mention what's the risk? there's gotta be potential side effects for mother and child.
And for what? Oh baby's got blue eyes!...except they're more like grey until they change to their permanent colour in a few years in which time you'll be so up to your ears in parenting that the colour of your childs eyes are of absolutely no consequence to you what-so-ever.
If people want to do it that's their choice, I'm not going to try and stop them. But they can expect to by shunned by quite a bit of society for a long long time. If only for the sheer mindless vanity of it all.
All of your points can be equally and concisely rebutted by one simple mans name.
George Walker Bush.
Most powerful man on earth for eight years and doesn't match one single item on your list.
Well maybe strong, I don't really know about that we haven't arm wrestled lately.
People will always find their own traits to be attractive in others. Being slender, blonde and blue eyed isn't going to get you anywhere in 99% of the world, that's an anglo cultural attribute.
But you're correct about the disease thing.
And the anti-social pasty white nerd gene too please.
Sorry CmdrTaco, half your audience will no longer exist in 20 years.
The worst thing about it all - the thing that *nobody* seems to care about: there won't be anymore carrot tops with pasty white skin and too many freckles anymore.
So who will school children mercilessly torment during the day for their own pleasure when the redhead is gone?? A hundred year old tradition, gone. Just.like.that.
Won't somebody please think of the children!
(Sorry to any redheads out there).
(Not really).
How quaint - someone who believes the CIA exists or has *ever* existed to protect American lives.
Don't ever lose that innocence, it's just all so warm and fuzzy to see someone so naive.
The real problem in the US is that its too easy to get and use all sorts of things (including credit cards and prepaid mobile phones) with very little ID checking.
I'm here in Aus too mate, and the last prepaid phone I bought...from the grocery store...didn't require any ID what so ever.
And why the hell would it?
"it doesn't make our government track our every move or anything."
And you know that how?
Because in my country at least getting government departments to tell us what they do and don't talk to each other about and what info they are and aren't mining about the citizens is like pulling teeth and requires costly court battles.
I assume you just implicitly trust your public servants to do the moral thing in the course of their duties?
I've worked in our federal government, if the data is there and there isn't a specific law banning the use of it, at best there's a pilot project or little dodgey in house app to play with the data a million different ways. I know this because I wrote one and though it was pretty benign to start with, the potential that it created and the hunger for information on everyone displayed by the various deparments I worked with I'm sure it's not benign (or even legal) anymore.
The thing is, who's going to stop them from doing things like that? You?
As far as I'm aware the US Federal Government doesn't have the mandate or authority to "require" the states to do anything like that. Given that it was the states who created the Federal Government and gave it the power to exist to do a limited range of things involving common defense and keeping interstate trade regular in the first place it's not really ok for it to turn around and tell the states what to do.
But that may just be my naive reading of the highest law of your land, the law that actually allows a legal entity such as the federal government to exists. I was under the impression that the US was a nation of laws. Unlike say Soviet Russia who had a set of laws outlined in a similar document that stated what the central government could do, but completely ignored them and did whatever it liked.
Why does there have to be a solution?
More efficient commerce isn't an acceptable answer.
A free people don't have to verify themselves to their government and the government has no intrinsic right to demand that of a person.
A piece of plexiglass can be sharpened equally as sharp as a metal knife.
A ball point pen can be turned into a small gun that can kill.
A length of cotton double wrapped can strangle someone.
It's not possible to stop people smuggling deadly weapons on board, as nearly any object can be used to hurt or maim. And if a maximum security prison can't stop smuggling, then neither can an airline. If they can then get the airlines to run the prisons.
No.
All this relaxed talk by Americans of "homeland" this and "papers" that as though it's just another day at the office makes me little sick btw.
Our great friend the US of A teetering on the edge of becoming the monster that it once so valiantly wrestled. Fortunately something, a single thread perhaps, keeps holding it back...but for how much longer?
Tune in over the next few years to find out.
You're a (little "d") democrat:
No I'm not, its funny because someone the other day called me a "Liberal" which here in Aus means conservative, guess I just don't fit in anywhere. What a shame.
Not quite my cup of tea. But, I'll leave the flaming to someone else.
I didn't say it's what I like or how I want it to be, I said it's the truth. It's reality - a place that far to many Internet "libertarians" don't factor into their ideology and in refusing to do so ensure that their idea will remain on the fringe.
Governments do what their people allow them to do. In fantasy land a flimsy piece of paper stops them, in practice (and we have *a lot* of evidence) flimsy pieces of paper can't stop very much at all. That requires people and if the people want battery research done by the Government, then the people will have it, piece of paper or not.
That's the rules of the game at this point, where I sit in regards to the matter is irrelevant.
Why does the government exists to pave roads? Or pick up "trash" and maintain parks?
If you're happy to run road builders and private street cleaners out of business then why not battery research firms? Why is that tiny sector more deserving of protection than a large landowner who wants to build a dam, lay pipe and sell the water?
Bring a bit of consistency to your ideals for goodness sake, you say the government exists to do x,y,z someone else says that it exists to do a,b and z and someone else says they exist to do a-z. The truth is the government exists to do whatever the people consent to them doing. If that means researching batteries then that is the choice of the people. Whether it's a good or bad choice is another story.
- I await the people trying to figure out which political stripe they can flame me as.
The power of Google Wave comes from the unification of various communication and collaboration paradigms, it's federated nature, it's extensibility and it's open-standard and web-centric approach.
BING-freaking-GO!
I can retire on my winnings from the amount of BS in that sentence!
It's probably sad that I could actually understand what the hell you're actually on about, but that's neither here nor there.
99.9% of all medical research ALL READY IS government funded.
Go look at the top 100 leaders in *any* field, they *all* work for Universities and Medical Schools, are all tenured and they ALL take funds from their respective governments.
Merck, Roche, et-al don't even come up as a tiny blip on the radar when searching for opinion leaders in any given medical field. In fact pharma companies are so insignificant that they're edge cases in the software I'm working on which identifies key opinion leaders in various medical fields fields. For every 100 people doing amazing work in medical schools and research hospitals in the world there's one tiny private research firm.
So if you're that wrong about that and in reality know *nothing* about how medical research is done yet have such a strong view about it. Perhaps that should cast doubt on the rest of what you think you know about too.
Yeah I can dream I know.
There's a 99.999% chance at least some of it is violating multiple patents for starters. So probably quite a bit of that code that you wrote, you actually don't own the "IP" to. You're stealing from someone else.
And if you agree with the new IP movement then you're a thief and hypocrite if you aren't licensing all code and concepts that you use that infringe.
As for copyright, it's as irrelevant to talk about copyright with regards to code as talking about the copyright that exists on the finger painting my 1 year old did this morning. When is code *ever* subject to copyright litigation? It happens *so rarely* it's not worth wasting a single thought to think about. Contract law, NDAs, dodgy licences, compilers and obfuscaters protect "code" as a general tradition.
No the real issue is why should people who upload Bing Crosby's work - someone who's been dead since 1977, be issued take down notices against their *own* creative works on Youtube in 2009?
Who alive contributed *anything* to that music? Who can possibly claim any "right" to a DEAD MANS music by saying their trying to protect artists rights??
This discussion is about culture, not people who push buttons* and call it "art".
*Pushes buttons for a living.