A few years ago I was saying the exact same thing, and I still have major reservations about homeopathic medicine, but I will be damned if I don't have first-hand experience of acupuncture therapy actually working.
My cat had been hit by a car when she was chasing a squirrel across the road. Fortunately, the car tire only caught the very tail end of her (quite literally her tail and the vertebrae that connect it to hips). She survived, thankfully, due to us being there to take her to the emergency vet, but for a year her tail was completely and totally paralyzed. It was long and it would drag behind her, much to her irritation, and you could touch it and she would never notice. There was no measurable nerve function at all, and she stayed this way for the better part of twelve months.
One of the vets techs at the clinic had been studying animal acupuncture in addition to her clinical rotations, which I thought was the most laughable thing in the world. But she was sweet and didn't like seeing our cat grumpy about tripping over her tail all the time, so she offered, along with the permissive curiosity of our vet, to perform acupuncture therapy sessions on her tail free of charge, just to see if anything would happen at all. Assured of zero risk to any further damage, and because I was curious and try to give anything its fair shot, we agreed.
Two months later, my cat could not only lift her tail, she could swish and flick it with the same mobility she had prior to its injury. It was a recovery so amazingly rapid that I cannot scientifically attribute it to coincidence, especially considering the deterioration that had occurred in the twelve months prior. I'm still flabbergasted. My dad, who has since started massage therapy school and studies a combination of Western and Eastern healing techniques, basically summarized it best: "Each side has their own ideas, and each method maybe has its merits, but neither side has a complete picture. I can't say that energy channeling is as effective as pharmaceutical remedies, but then I can't say that pharmaceutical solutions are the only right solution, either. There's more to us than chemicals, and there's more to us than harmonic healing crystals. Both perspectives are wrong in that they think they have a complete picture, and while I don't have a good answer as to what is a complete picture, I sometimes wonder if that's not the point."
My dad had been prescribed Oxycontin following a painful surgery but had to dispose of his medication when he found himself starting to get addicted. He had asked about breaking the pills apart so as to take smaller doses, and the doctor blanched. Apparently the time-release portion of Oxycontin has to do with a coating of the pill that takes longer for your stomach acid to digest. If you chew it up or break it apart, the slow-fuse release no longer works, and you metabolize it all at once. Apparently this is one of the leading causes of overdose on Oxycontin.
I'm not sure I agree with your assessment of username and password . Usernames and passwords passed in plain-text are de minimis security. At best, at least under United States law (I'm not sure how Dutch law treats IP) the information may be classified as a trade secret. But copyright infringement has not occurred because direct copyright infringement requires actual copying.
This would be a perfect example of security by obscurity. A poster argues above that the same argument can apply to the configuration of key bumps, so that this can't really be called security by obscurity , but in actuality all that StO comprises is security where an attacker's knowledge of the vector alone will constitute access. In the case of a key, the attacker must have 1) the knowledge of the key configuration, and 2) a blank key with a method to cut that key. SbO is hiding a key under a rock; knowledge of the location alone is all that is needed to compromise the security portal, and no other device is required other than the vector. I'd say it would be presumptive to say "we all agree" that information such as that should be confidential, since, to some degree, it requires a "looking the other way" and 3rd party nondisclosure to keep the security valid and uncompromised. You'd essentially be saying that we should bind all people, as a matter of law, to nondisclosure to protect poor security. Tennessee did that with Netflix passwords, and there's a very strong argument that such a law is blatantly unconstitutional as a limitation of free speech. Denmark'sMMV, however.
If the copyrighted works are accessible by simple knowledge of an arrangement of characters in a hyperlink, and no other security measure is required, then they are protected only by StO. Depending on what you're talking about, this may be enough. U.S. trade secrets require 1) something that provides economic advantage by being kept secret, and 2) reasonable efforts to keep that thing secret. StO might well-enough be reasonable, though not advisable, to protect trade secrets. But this wasn't a trade secret case. It's a copyright case. In many countries, and for a while in the United States, copyright requires disclosure of copyright notice, which means disclosure of the work. You couldn't keep something locked in a vault, and then when someone published something allegedly infringing, you pulled the item out of the vault and claimed copyright infringement.
Furthermore, in order to constitute copyright infringement, copying must actually occur. I'm assuming this was a contributory copyright infringement case, similar to U.S. P2P uploading cases, but even under such rules, generally at common law, contributory or secondary copyright infringement requires more than a provision of a link. The Dutch Supreme Court has established that hyperlinking to copyright material is not copyright infringement. This ruling, which states that hyperlinking to copyrighted material is copyright infringement, stands in contest to that, no matter what way you want to spin it. It should be overturned. If the plaintiff had brought a misappropriation of trade secrets claim, then it might have had more success. But copyright infringement through hyperlinks, either direct or contributory, is not a recognizable wrong.
Actually, and essentially in support of your conclusion although contrary to your opening, the Eastern District of Texas - while the margin is narrowing - is still much friendlier to patent plaintiffs than a strong majority of other districts. Or, specifically, it would be more fair to say the E.D.Tex. is not horrendously biased to favor the defendant, like several other districts. Most of it boils down to the Local Patent Rules. For example, E.D.Tex. allows for very liberal amendments of initial infringement contentions. In layman's terms this means that a patent-holder can sue an alleged infringer with "well-formed" suspicion that the defendant's product is allegedly infringing, go into discovery, and then determine the details as to whether or not the product is actually infringing based on evidence. In districts like the Northern District of California, the local patent rules expressly prohibit this behavior, requiring that the plaintiff have essentially absolute proof that the defendant's product is infringing before being able to move to the discovery phase.
While N.D.Cal's strict rules cut down on troll litigation, it does become a problem for plaintiffs when the details of how a defendant's product works is only available to the defendant: for example, closed-source software or secret formulas or recipes not available to the public. While software patents aren't treated well here on Slashdot, what this would allow someone to do is to copy line for line someone else's code, resell it, and then have total immunity in the Northern District of California from patent infringement (and good luck proving copyright infringement when you don't have access to the source code...). The Eastern District of Texas (specifically Judge Ward of said district) realized the potential problem for abuse and thus created a standing order to modify the Local Patent Rules and allow for more liberal discovery. Good for plaintiffs (troll and honest) who are attempting to prove infringement, bad for defendants (honest and infringing) who now lose shelter and have to deal with costly discovery.
The problem is two-fold. First, the dichotomy between local patent rules across federal districts completely destroys the concept of "one body of federal law." It encourages forum shopping, which is exactly what we're seeing here where a plaintiff chooses where to file suit in a place most favorable to him (thus theoretically unbalancing the concept of a fair and impartial trial). Second, it encourages patent trolls to flock to a district and abuse the system. In a perfect world, discovery would be allowed and initial infringement contentions could be modified, but anyone found to be patent trolling would be liable for attorney's fees and damages if discovery proved senseless litigation or the patent was invalidated (or hell, I'd just make a rule where you have to actually manufacture the patented product to have a claim for damages... none of this treating IP like physical property where you have an arbitrary right to exclude). In reality, it causes people to see the ratking of patent trolls form in E.D.Tex, and everyone blames the system there for supporting patent trolls and praises draconian districts like N.D.Cal for arbitrarily (and contrary to federal mandate) favoring defendants.
As more patent trolls flood in, the win-margin is narrowing, because even the Eastern District of Texas tires of senseless lawsuits. But the rules are still much more favorable to plaintiffs in those districts, and any patent lawyer worth his salt is going to find a way to establish personal jurisdiction in that district.
I commend you for inventing my new favorite unit of measurement. "You'll find the average homework for this law class to measure around 2.3 AS per night." So what's the conversion rate for Atlas Shruggeds to Fountainheads?
Don't these dorks know there is not much difference between streaming and downloading.
Ads. Data caps. Access restriction. Post-upload revisions. Censorship. If you can equate streaming to downloading, you can equate licensing to ownership.
Note that recipes can be patented, however, so long as the recipe does something particularly novel and non-obvious. Like tomato beer, or salsa without spicy chili peppers. Software patents are kind of dumb, though, because it's awfully hard to think of a series of programming lines as non-obvious.
It's a little more than that. You can impede the investigation into something you are innocent of by denying access to evidence that would either prove that you are innocent (or guilty.) In this case, the FCC is saying that Google wouldn't turn over e-mail evidence or the name of the engineer who authorized the data collection process. If Pops thinks Timmy broke the neighbor's window, Timmy is going to get in trouble when he doesn't let Dad into his closet to see if the baseball's still there. Pretty much the same thing here.
The problem with adopting a multi-partisan system over a bipartisan system is that it's inherently undemocratic. A bipartisan system, while it presents an either/or scenario on issues, does have the advantage of the elected official being a representative of the majority of the people. If you had five parties running, the winner might win with 22% of the voting population's support, and then the 22% would be able to impose their political views on the remaining 78% because the 78% couldn't choose to back a single candidate. This is essentially what happened to the democratic party every time a green party candidate would run. A bipartisan system forces compromise for the sake of ensuring that a candidate represents, at least tenuously, the majority of the population.
I am aware that the U.S.'s bipartisan system is a result of the winner-takes-all electorate system, that shifting to a party-proportional representation system would reduce the centric pressures of the winner-takes-all system, thereby preventing a tyranny of the majority that I mentioned above. However, party-proportional representation systems have their own flaws as well, particularly that of legislative gridlock and the problem of a "cacophony of voices," whereby the number of increasingly differing political opinions worsens the signal-to-noise ratio in the legislative system. Inevitably it boils down into an argument about the benefits/disadvantages of the Electoral College, which would derail the topic further; but I will point out that as "unrepresentative" as the indirect Electoral College may seem, true democracy, over a republic, has never lasted more than a few centuries, due to legislative gridlock and the tyranny of the majority.
Which is why I've always kept my password as "ImurderedMrandMrsBlevinsonJune171982inJacksonCounty!" Satisfies those pesky security requirements as well.
If these guys want to make a statement, they should disconnect the user accounts of all politicians who support SOPA. I'm sure it's within their ludicrously one-sided ToSs to exclude members at a whim (and it's legal as long as it's not discrimination). It'd be a nice reminder about what life would be like without these tech services.
Already have done this with my business some time ago. I wouldn't call this new news. It's not like they bust in and snap the photos without the business owner's permission. It's opt-in, and it's a good idea for businesses that would like the marketing boost. Cutting in through the ceiling to avoid motion detectors? You guys have been watching WAY too many heist movies. Ever tried operating a concrete saw at night? Good luck not attracting attention. It's just as easy for a criminal to walk into a place, walk around, get a feel, maybe snap some photos on their cell phone (increasingly commonplace), buy a cheap item to keep from looking suspicious, and walk out.
"[W]e've created a controller that we're testing to really allow for immersive gameplay," he said. "It's hard to imagine how to stream a game—let's say Modern Warfare 3—onto a tablet and then play it with your finger."
I was going to comment on any one of the seventeen inaccuracies/deceptions/downright lies about cloud gaming that can be construed from this statement, but, I don't know, it seems to speak for itself. I suppose this all explains why Gamestop has recently decided to pursue a business model only slightly more reputable than a pawn shop. Oh well, as long as parents have more money than parenting skills, I suppose the business model will flourish.
Don't get me wrong. I'm a huge gamer, and my parents were very good about exposing me to video games. They also played the games with me or at the least watched to make sure my games were appropriate. And they sure as hell didn't give me a credit card to go out and buy whatever. Nor did I give them a list of demanded games. Seriously, if you ever want to despair for the fate of humanity being placed in our youth, go creep around Gamestop for a few tens of minutes.
You are mistaken. It is legal to format shift in cases where you have not either a) broken the licensing terms to which you agreed (EULA), or b) intentionally or unintentionally circumvented DRM. This is why AnyDVD cannot be sold in the United States (downloaded yes, sold no).
Part of what constitutes legal ownership of property is the right to exclude others from use of that property, with some non-discriminatory limitations on certain venues. Owning copyright doesn't just grant you the limitation of who can copy your product, it also allows you the use of limiting you can use your product. So it is perfectly within Disney's right to own the old Uncle Remus cartoons and refuse to publish them, thus refusing your ability to see the product legally entirely. That philosophy tends not to jive with our ideas of freedom of information in the Information Age, but they exist within many legal spectra of the modern world.
Is this news? I'm a mid-twenty-something and everyone I know -- EVERYONE -- wears and has worn true analog watches. Seriously, I know people who would sooner wear tennis shoes with their work clothes than a Casio or Timex watch. Nearly a quarter of my friends wear watches that need to be wound. I would have been more surprised to read that the digital generation was moving back to retro digital LCD watches.
If you order a bun-less burger and wind up with cross-contamination then they're doing their prep wrong (i.e. hotplate bun browning). Not that that would be surprising, given the stellar professionalism that comes from the fast food industry, but at least the operational procedures of McDonald's corporate is certified to prevent allergen cross-contamination.
Also incorrect. The USDA requires all beef byproducts, eyeballs and organ meat included, to be labeled as such. Organ meat also happens to be more expensive, so there's no reason for fast food restaurants to try to trick you by using organ meat. Any substitutions on fast food meat are for additives and fillers like wheat (to maintain patty consistency).
To be fair, McDonald's is one of the few only FFRs/QSRs to use 100% real beef in their burgers. A close friend of mine with Celiac disease tests off the charts with her gluten reaction, and McDonald's beef is the only fast food beef she can tolerate.
Slashdot Mirror
A few years ago I was saying the exact same thing, and I still have major reservations about homeopathic medicine, but I will be damned if I don't have first-hand experience of acupuncture therapy actually working.
My cat had been hit by a car when she was chasing a squirrel across the road. Fortunately, the car tire only caught the very tail end of her (quite literally her tail and the vertebrae that connect it to hips). She survived, thankfully, due to us being there to take her to the emergency vet, but for a year her tail was completely and totally paralyzed. It was long and it would drag behind her, much to her irritation, and you could touch it and she would never notice. There was no measurable nerve function at all, and she stayed this way for the better part of twelve months.
One of the vets techs at the clinic had been studying animal acupuncture in addition to her clinical rotations, which I thought was the most laughable thing in the world. But she was sweet and didn't like seeing our cat grumpy about tripping over her tail all the time, so she offered, along with the permissive curiosity of our vet, to perform acupuncture therapy sessions on her tail free of charge, just to see if anything would happen at all. Assured of zero risk to any further damage, and because I was curious and try to give anything its fair shot, we agreed.
Two months later, my cat could not only lift her tail, she could swish and flick it with the same mobility she had prior to its injury. It was a recovery so amazingly rapid that I cannot scientifically attribute it to coincidence, especially considering the deterioration that had occurred in the twelve months prior. I'm still flabbergasted. My dad, who has since started massage therapy school and studies a combination of Western and Eastern healing techniques, basically summarized it best: "Each side has their own ideas, and each method maybe has its merits, but neither side has a complete picture. I can't say that energy channeling is as effective as pharmaceutical remedies, but then I can't say that pharmaceutical solutions are the only right solution, either. There's more to us than chemicals, and there's more to us than harmonic healing crystals. Both perspectives are wrong in that they think they have a complete picture, and while I don't have a good answer as to what is a complete picture, I sometimes wonder if that's not the point."
My dad had been prescribed Oxycontin following a painful surgery but had to dispose of his medication when he found himself starting to get addicted. He had asked about breaking the pills apart so as to take smaller doses, and the doctor blanched. Apparently the time-release portion of Oxycontin has to do with a coating of the pill that takes longer for your stomach acid to digest. If you chew it up or break it apart, the slow-fuse release no longer works, and you metabolize it all at once. Apparently this is one of the leading causes of overdose on Oxycontin.
I'm not sure I agree with your assessment of username and password . Usernames and passwords passed in plain-text are de minimis security. At best, at least under United States law (I'm not sure how Dutch law treats IP) the information may be classified as a trade secret. But copyright infringement has not occurred because direct copyright infringement requires actual copying.
This would be a perfect example of security by obscurity. A poster argues above that the same argument can apply to the configuration of key bumps, so that this can't really be called security by obscurity , but in actuality all that StO comprises is security where an attacker's knowledge of the vector alone will constitute access. In the case of a key, the attacker must have 1) the knowledge of the key configuration, and 2) a blank key with a method to cut that key. SbO is hiding a key under a rock; knowledge of the location alone is all that is needed to compromise the security portal, and no other device is required other than the vector. I'd say it would be presumptive to say "we all agree" that information such as that should be confidential, since, to some degree, it requires a "looking the other way" and 3rd party nondisclosure to keep the security valid and uncompromised. You'd essentially be saying that we should bind all people, as a matter of law, to nondisclosure to protect poor security. Tennessee did that with Netflix passwords, and there's a very strong argument that such a law is blatantly unconstitutional as a limitation of free speech. Denmark'sMMV, however.
If the copyrighted works are accessible by simple knowledge of an arrangement of characters in a hyperlink, and no other security measure is required, then they are protected only by StO. Depending on what you're talking about, this may be enough. U.S. trade secrets require 1) something that provides economic advantage by being kept secret, and 2) reasonable efforts to keep that thing secret. StO might well-enough be reasonable, though not advisable, to protect trade secrets. But this wasn't a trade secret case. It's a copyright case. In many countries, and for a while in the United States, copyright requires disclosure of copyright notice, which means disclosure of the work. You couldn't keep something locked in a vault, and then when someone published something allegedly infringing, you pulled the item out of the vault and claimed copyright infringement.
Furthermore, in order to constitute copyright infringement, copying must actually occur. I'm assuming this was a contributory copyright infringement case, similar to U.S. P2P uploading cases, but even under such rules, generally at common law, contributory or secondary copyright infringement requires more than a provision of a link. The Dutch Supreme Court has established that hyperlinking to copyright material is not copyright infringement. This ruling, which states that hyperlinking to copyrighted material is copyright infringement, stands in contest to that, no matter what way you want to spin it. It should be overturned. If the plaintiff had brought a misappropriation of trade secrets claim, then it might have had more success. But copyright infringement through hyperlinks, either direct or contributory, is not a recognizable wrong.
Rest assured we can celebrate the cooperative effort to eradicate all forms of trolls. Cheers! :)
Actually, and essentially in support of your conclusion although contrary to your opening, the Eastern District of Texas - while the margin is narrowing - is still much friendlier to patent plaintiffs than a strong majority of other districts. Or, specifically, it would be more fair to say the E.D.Tex. is not horrendously biased to favor the defendant, like several other districts. Most of it boils down to the Local Patent Rules. For example, E.D.Tex. allows for very liberal amendments of initial infringement contentions. In layman's terms this means that a patent-holder can sue an alleged infringer with "well-formed" suspicion that the defendant's product is allegedly infringing, go into discovery, and then determine the details as to whether or not the product is actually infringing based on evidence. In districts like the Northern District of California, the local patent rules expressly prohibit this behavior, requiring that the plaintiff have essentially absolute proof that the defendant's product is infringing before being able to move to the discovery phase.
While N.D.Cal's strict rules cut down on troll litigation, it does become a problem for plaintiffs when the details of how a defendant's product works is only available to the defendant: for example, closed-source software or secret formulas or recipes not available to the public. While software patents aren't treated well here on Slashdot, what this would allow someone to do is to copy line for line someone else's code, resell it, and then have total immunity in the Northern District of California from patent infringement (and good luck proving copyright infringement when you don't have access to the source code...). The Eastern District of Texas (specifically Judge Ward of said district) realized the potential problem for abuse and thus created a standing order to modify the Local Patent Rules and allow for more liberal discovery. Good for plaintiffs (troll and honest) who are attempting to prove infringement, bad for defendants (honest and infringing) who now lose shelter and have to deal with costly discovery.
The problem is two-fold. First, the dichotomy between local patent rules across federal districts completely destroys the concept of "one body of federal law." It encourages forum shopping, which is exactly what we're seeing here where a plaintiff chooses where to file suit in a place most favorable to him (thus theoretically unbalancing the concept of a fair and impartial trial). Second, it encourages patent trolls to flock to a district and abuse the system. In a perfect world, discovery would be allowed and initial infringement contentions could be modified, but anyone found to be patent trolling would be liable for attorney's fees and damages if discovery proved senseless litigation or the patent was invalidated (or hell, I'd just make a rule where you have to actually manufacture the patented product to have a claim for damages... none of this treating IP like physical property where you have an arbitrary right to exclude). In reality, it causes people to see the ratking of patent trolls form in E.D.Tex, and everyone blames the system there for supporting patent trolls and praises draconian districts like N.D.Cal for arbitrarily (and contrary to federal mandate) favoring defendants.
As more patent trolls flood in, the win-margin is narrowing, because even the Eastern District of Texas tires of senseless lawsuits. But the rules are still much more favorable to plaintiffs in those districts, and any patent lawyer worth his salt is going to find a way to establish personal jurisdiction in that district.
I commend you for inventing my new favorite unit of measurement. "You'll find the average homework for this law class to measure around 2.3 AS per night." So what's the conversion rate for Atlas Shruggeds to Fountainheads?
Don't these dorks know there is not much difference between streaming and downloading.
Ads. Data caps. Access restriction. Post-upload revisions. Censorship. If you can equate streaming to downloading, you can equate licensing to ownership.
Note that recipes can be patented, however, so long as the recipe does something particularly novel and non-obvious. Like tomato beer, or salsa without spicy chili peppers. Software patents are kind of dumb, though, because it's awfully hard to think of a series of programming lines as non-obvious.
It's a little more than that. You can impede the investigation into something you are innocent of by denying access to evidence that would either prove that you are innocent (or guilty.) In this case, the FCC is saying that Google wouldn't turn over e-mail evidence or the name of the engineer who authorized the data collection process. If Pops thinks Timmy broke the neighbor's window, Timmy is going to get in trouble when he doesn't let Dad into his closet to see if the baseball's still there. Pretty much the same thing here.
Wicked, tricksy, false! It chokeses, burnses us! Gollum! Gollum!
http://funpics.classicfun.ws/var/albums/Funpics/On%20the%20Internet%20nobody%20knows%20you're%20a%20dog.jpg?m=1300661194
The problem with adopting a multi-partisan system over a bipartisan system is that it's inherently undemocratic. A bipartisan system, while it presents an either/or scenario on issues, does have the advantage of the elected official being a representative of the majority of the people. If you had five parties running, the winner might win with 22% of the voting population's support, and then the 22% would be able to impose their political views on the remaining 78% because the 78% couldn't choose to back a single candidate. This is essentially what happened to the democratic party every time a green party candidate would run. A bipartisan system forces compromise for the sake of ensuring that a candidate represents, at least tenuously, the majority of the population.
I am aware that the U.S.'s bipartisan system is a result of the winner-takes-all electorate system, that shifting to a party-proportional representation system would reduce the centric pressures of the winner-takes-all system, thereby preventing a tyranny of the majority that I mentioned above. However, party-proportional representation systems have their own flaws as well, particularly that of legislative gridlock and the problem of a "cacophony of voices," whereby the number of increasingly differing political opinions worsens the signal-to-noise ratio in the legislative system. Inevitably it boils down into an argument about the benefits/disadvantages of the Electoral College, which would derail the topic further; but I will point out that as "unrepresentative" as the indirect Electoral College may seem, true democracy, over a republic, has never lasted more than a few centuries, due to legislative gridlock and the tyranny of the majority.
Which is why I've always kept my password as "ImurderedMrandMrsBlevinsonJune171982inJacksonCounty!" Satisfies those pesky security requirements as well.
If these guys want to make a statement, they should disconnect the user accounts of all politicians who support SOPA. I'm sure it's within their ludicrously one-sided ToSs to exclude members at a whim (and it's legal as long as it's not discrimination). It'd be a nice reminder about what life would be like without these tech services.
Already have done this with my business some time ago. I wouldn't call this new news. It's not like they bust in and snap the photos without the business owner's permission. It's opt-in, and it's a good idea for businesses that would like the marketing boost. Cutting in through the ceiling to avoid motion detectors? You guys have been watching WAY too many heist movies. Ever tried operating a concrete saw at night? Good luck not attracting attention. It's just as easy for a criminal to walk into a place, walk around, get a feel, maybe snap some photos on their cell phone (increasingly commonplace), buy a cheap item to keep from looking suspicious, and walk out.
"[W]e've created a controller that we're testing to really allow for immersive gameplay," he said. "It's hard to imagine how to stream a game—let's say Modern Warfare 3—onto a tablet and then play it with your finger."
I was going to comment on any one of the seventeen inaccuracies/deceptions/downright lies about cloud gaming that can be construed from this statement, but, I don't know, it seems to speak for itself. I suppose this all explains why Gamestop has recently decided to pursue a business model only slightly more reputable than a pawn shop. Oh well, as long as parents have more money than parenting skills, I suppose the business model will flourish.
Don't get me wrong. I'm a huge gamer, and my parents were very good about exposing me to video games. They also played the games with me or at the least watched to make sure my games were appropriate. And they sure as hell didn't give me a credit card to go out and buy whatever. Nor did I give them a list of demanded games. Seriously, if you ever want to despair for the fate of humanity being placed in our youth, go creep around Gamestop for a few tens of minutes.
You are mistaken. It is legal to format shift in cases where you have not either a) broken the licensing terms to which you agreed (EULA), or b) intentionally or unintentionally circumvented DRM. This is why AnyDVD cannot be sold in the United States (downloaded yes, sold no).
Part of what constitutes legal ownership of property is the right to exclude others from use of that property, with some non-discriminatory limitations on certain venues. Owning copyright doesn't just grant you the limitation of who can copy your product, it also allows you the use of limiting you can use your product. So it is perfectly within Disney's right to own the old Uncle Remus cartoons and refuse to publish them, thus refusing your ability to see the product legally entirely. That philosophy tends not to jive with our ideas of freedom of information in the Information Age, but they exist within many legal spectra of the modern world.
Only if we can get Zuckerberg to shift his assets into a more conservative, sandwich-heavy portfolio!
I have to point out that that is, in fact, known as the "Stormtrooper Effect".
Is this news? I'm a mid-twenty-something and everyone I know -- EVERYONE -- wears and has worn true analog watches. Seriously, I know people who would sooner wear tennis shoes with their work clothes than a Casio or Timex watch. Nearly a quarter of my friends wear watches that need to be wound. I would have been more surprised to read that the digital generation was moving back to retro digital LCD watches.
"Phone for help? What good is a phone-call, Mr. Anderson, if you are unable to put down the controller?"
If you order a bun-less burger and wind up with cross-contamination then they're doing their prep wrong (i.e. hotplate bun browning). Not that that would be surprising, given the stellar professionalism that comes from the fast food industry, but at least the operational procedures of McDonald's corporate is certified to prevent allergen cross-contamination.
Also incorrect. The USDA requires all beef byproducts, eyeballs and organ meat included, to be labeled as such. Organ meat also happens to be more expensive, so there's no reason for fast food restaurants to try to trick you by using organ meat. Any substitutions on fast food meat are for additives and fillers like wheat (to maintain patty consistency).
To be fair, McDonald's is one of the few only FFRs/QSRs to use 100% real beef in their burgers. A close friend of mine with Celiac disease tests off the charts with her gluten reaction, and McDonald's beef is the only fast food beef she can tolerate.
I still laughed, though. +1