The nominal causes of conflicts are often apparently trivial. See "The War of Jenkin's Ear", which was purportedly because a sea captain had his ear cut off. Of course, what really happened was that there was a festring sea of reasons, and this is the one that made the news and roused public emotion.
So. The question is, really, "Just how unhappy ARE the Germans with the US?". If they are really unhappy, then this could sever the alliance, or at least cause a strong renegotiation. If they're just a bit upset, then it will wash over. But you can't tell by looking which it is, not even yet. I doubt that it will be considered cause of war, though it technically could be. But wars between major countries at this point in technological development are much too dangerous for anyone approximately sane to even consider. (Not that I think most politicians are approximately sane...but currently they don't seem to manifest THAT insanity.)
The only way she might have been better would be if congress had stonewalled her more than it has Obama. And given the way the Democrats have acted over the past decade, I wouldn't bet on that for an instant. (Not that she was head of the ticket, but McCain was no bargain either, and not that much better than she was.)
But by our actions we can make it be, or appear to be, not in their best interests to remain our allies. And I have my doubts as to how beneficial being an ally will seem to the average German voter...which will be reflected in how beneficial it appears to the average German politician.
That's one reason they are putting so much effort into automated soldiers. Yeah, right now those are all telefactors (Waldos) rather than actual automatons, but wait a few years...and not that many.
Umnh... FOIA requests were a mockery over a decade ago. A friend asked for his file for a book he was writing, and got back page after page of blacked out text. The main information he got out of it was a (presumably accurate) page count.
He as not merely failed to stem it, he has encouraged it. Is it because he was a corrupt liar before he was elected? Look into his support of FISA while he was a senator.
Carter was a lot better than I expected him to be. I expected him to be a terrible president. As it was he was above average. So was Clinton. Both, of course, had tremendous weaknesses, but even so.
For that matter, Bush was also a better president than I expected, though that's not saying much.
Who has audited the current version of Truecrypt? Why do you trust them?
It's better for different people to use different approaches, so that no one compromise will take down everyone. But this makes communication difficult.
I don't have a real answer, this side of one time pads.
IIRC, the agreement only allows them to sell the works within Antigua. So it would be hard for Antigua to get much profit. OTOH, I don't know of anything forbidding them from allowing resale...so there may be a way.
You are GROSSLY oversimplifying the actual event. At the time of the US revolution in 1776, about 1/3 of the population wanted independence (more than joinder with Britain), 1/3 were supportive of Britain, and 1/3 just wanted eveyone to shut up and leave them alone. And we would have lost quickly and thoroughly if we hadn't had significant aid from France (much of which was in the European theater, but not all, by any means).
The GP who said it was about corporate profits was closer to being correct than are the high school history books. He should have said company profits, as corporations weren't anywhere near as dominant then, and much of the support came from relatively smaller companies. Especially smugglers. (Why, I'm not sure. Maybe they hadn't realized that you make more money outside the law, or maybe they wanted to reduce their danger. The reason probably actually varied.)
P.S.: It's worth remembering that the most successful pirates of the era, and probably any era, depend for their success on close contacts with the "legitimate" financial companies.
If they'd meant tourist advertising, they could have said tourist advertising. If they want to say things that can be interpreted in any way one wants, then they need to accept that others may have different interpretations.
How would they feel if some other country decided that selling religious books was against social policy? And wrote a law that also forbid selling DVDs, CDs, and MP3s, etc. that might contain religious themes? (Not against providing them, O no, just against selling them.) Doing it for entertainment is allowed, but not as a profitable activity. I could come up with an interpretation of that treaty that would easily justify such a law.
I think that maps out of date. Remember you need to include the area around every "international airport". I would guess that this means closer to 2/3 of US citizens live in such areas. And that may well be an underestimate already. But they can expand it ad lib by granting an airport the right to have, say, an Canadian carrier land there. (It doesn't need to actually land there, just have the right to.)
You don't understand the problem at all. Liberal and Conservative are camoflage suits worn by politicians.
Yes, Obama is breaking the law (mainly as an accessory before the fact). But he's able to do this because of the precedents set by Bush. That's what the cycle has been for (at least) decades. The Republicans extend the power of the government, but don't dare use that power because of the opposition (at least apparently). While the Republicans are in power the Democrats vilify their mad power grabs. Then the Democrats take power, and rather then repealing the extension of power, they use the powers that have been granted to them by their predecessors.
In this case, however, it sounds like the actual criminal actions were performed by the Maryland police. (With various TSA personnel accessories before the fact.) I expect that Obama is only an accessory after the fact...and even that hasn't yet been proven. He may decline to support this action.
I'm not sure where you are drawing the line. This sounds like "police state" to me. Not the worst of the breed yet, by any means, but headed in that direction. The government is ignoring any pretense of obeying it's own laws.
Well, if it's true, then one of the problems with the site is that there's too many lines of code. (Even if, as someone suggested, you are counting every line between two html tags as a line of code.)
You can call it "sweat of the brow" if you want to, but that's not a reasonable description of, say, drug testing. First you need to invent a possible new drug. Then you need to test it on a large number of people. etc. This involves very significant up-front costs. It isn't that it's more inventive, it's that it's a lot more expensive to get it to the working stage.
OTOH, by this criterion no drug should actually be granted a patent until after it has FDA approval. I agree that if you are allowed to patent a drug before getting FDA approval, then you don't meet the target. But note that I still would reject many drug patents on "obviousness" ground. E.g., if selling a pill with a drug mixed with asprin to achieve the effects of taking the two pills separately, then you don't meet the "obviousness" criteria, even though you still need to fulfill all the drug testing requirements.
Not saying anything you have said is wrong, but the current system is SO bad that we would be much better off without ANY patents.
A part of the problem has to do with "obviousness". If two people are looking at a problem, it's unlikely that either will find a non-obvious solution. If 100 are looking at the problem, lots of "non-obvious" solutions will be found. If 1,000 people are looking, not only will lots of "non-obvious" solutions be found, but there will be lots of independent duplication. And patents pick an arbitrary winner, which is grossly unfair.
The only time that patents seem to me to be justified is where there are truly significant up-front costs. Drug tests are one example. Even there, it shouldn't be possible to retire a product from the market and also prevent anyone else from making it. And yes, I know that what I'm proposing isn't perfect either. But it would be much less bad, and might well even have a net social benefit.
You are right that those who are in the market to gamble have no reason to gripe. OTOH, I also feel they have no business in the market. Let them play the lottery, or poker.
Still, I'll agree that the market is clearly not something that a sensible investor should get into without VERY deep pockets.
FWIW, I think it should be illegal to sell a (particular) stock more than once an hour. Either that, or there should be a strongly progressive tax on each trade, with the rate of taxation depending on how long you have had the stock. 0% if you've held it 5 years, 100% if you've held it less than a microsecond, and smooth and without an inflection point in between. I tend to think it should be quadratic, but I can see value in making it linear (and then you might consider a negative tax if you hold it for longer than 5 years).
The stock market should be for investment, NOT gambling.
If it's just a choice between China having a backdoor and the NSA having a backdoor, I'd prefer China. They have less immediate power to make my life miserable, and I'm even less worth their interest.
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The nominal causes of conflicts are often apparently trivial. See "The War of Jenkin's Ear", which was purportedly because a sea captain had his ear cut off. Of course, what really happened was that there was a festring sea of reasons, and this is the one that made the news and roused public emotion.
So. The question is, really, "Just how unhappy ARE the Germans with the US?". If they are really unhappy, then this could sever the alliance, or at least cause a strong renegotiation. If they're just a bit upset, then it will wash over. But you can't tell by looking which it is, not even yet. I doubt that it will be considered cause of war, though it technically could be. But wars between major countries at this point in technological development are much too dangerous for anyone approximately sane to even consider. (Not that I think most politicians are approximately sane...but currently they don't seem to manifest THAT insanity.)
Well, if you believe they've stopped listening and won't start again you can say there were no lies told. I've got my suspicions about that, though.
Well, he kept THAT part of his promise.
The only way she might have been better would be if congress had stonewalled her more than it has Obama. And given the way the Democrats have acted over the past decade, I wouldn't bet on that for an instant. (Not that she was head of the ticket, but McCain was no bargain either, and not that much better than she was.)
But by our actions we can make it be, or appear to be, not in their best interests to remain our allies. And I have my doubts as to how beneficial being an ally will seem to the average German voter...which will be reflected in how beneficial it appears to the average German politician.
That's one reason they are putting so much effort into automated soldiers. Yeah, right now those are all telefactors (Waldos) rather than actual automatons, but wait a few years...and not that many.
Umnh... FOIA requests were a mockery over a decade ago. A friend asked for his file for a book he was writing, and got back page after page of blacked out text. The main information he got out of it was a (presumably accurate) page count.
He as not merely failed to stem it, he has encouraged it. Is it because he was a corrupt liar before he was elected? Look into his support of FISA while he was a senator.
Carter was a lot better than I expected him to be. I expected him to be a terrible president. As it was he was above average. So was Clinton. Both, of course, had tremendous weaknesses, but even so.
For that matter, Bush was also a better president than I expected, though that's not saying much.
ROTFLOL.
Who has audited the current version of Truecrypt? Why do you trust them?
It's better for different people to use different approaches, so that no one compromise will take down everyone. But this makes communication difficult.
I don't have a real answer, this side of one time pads.
Not when it's done to suit someone else's agenda.
IIRC, the agreement only allows them to sell the works within Antigua. So it would be hard for Antigua to get much profit. OTOH, I don't know of anything forbidding them from allowing resale...so there may be a way.
You are GROSSLY oversimplifying the actual event. At the time of the US revolution in 1776, about 1/3 of the population wanted independence (more than joinder with Britain), 1/3 were supportive of Britain, and 1/3 just wanted eveyone to shut up and leave them alone. And we would have lost quickly and thoroughly if we hadn't had significant aid from France (much of which was in the European theater, but not all, by any means).
The GP who said it was about corporate profits was closer to being correct than are the high school history books. He should have said company profits, as corporations weren't anywhere near as dominant then, and much of the support came from relatively smaller companies. Especially smugglers. (Why, I'm not sure. Maybe they hadn't realized that you make more money outside the law, or maybe they wanted to reduce their danger. The reason probably actually varied.)
P.S.: It's worth remembering that the most successful pirates of the era, and probably any era, depend for their success on close contacts with the "legitimate" financial companies.
If they'd meant tourist advertising, they could have said tourist advertising. If they want to say things that can be interpreted in any way one wants, then they need to accept that others may have different interpretations.
How would they feel if some other country decided that selling religious books was against social policy? And wrote a law that also forbid selling DVDs, CDs, and MP3s, etc. that might contain religious themes? (Not against providing them, O no, just against selling them.) Doing it for entertainment is allowed, but not as a profitable activity. I could come up with an interpretation of that treaty that would easily justify such a law.
You are accepting what the accomplices say was the reason as if it were fact. Maybe it is...but is it reasonable to believe them?
I think that maps out of date. Remember you need to include the area around every "international airport". I would guess that this means closer to 2/3 of US citizens live in such areas. And that may well be an underestimate already. But they can expand it ad lib by granting an airport the right to have, say, an Canadian carrier land there. (It doesn't need to actually land there, just have the right to.)
You don't understand the problem at all. Liberal and Conservative are camoflage suits worn by politicians.
Yes, Obama is breaking the law (mainly as an accessory before the fact). But he's able to do this because of the precedents set by Bush. That's what the cycle has been for (at least) decades. The Republicans extend the power of the government, but don't dare use that power because of the opposition (at least apparently). While the Republicans are in power the Democrats vilify their mad power grabs. Then the Democrats take power, and rather then repealing the extension of power, they use the powers that have been granted to them by their predecessors.
In this case, however, it sounds like the actual criminal actions were performed by the Maryland police. (With various TSA personnel accessories before the fact.) I expect that Obama is only an accessory after the fact...and even that hasn't yet been proven. He may decline to support this action.
I'm not sure where you are drawing the line. This sounds like "police state" to me. Not the worst of the breed yet, by any means, but headed in that direction. The government is ignoring any pretense of obeying it's own laws.
It's not a "person to person" conversation if you do it in a crowd. Then it's being a loud and noisy nuisance.
Well, if it's true, then one of the problems with the site is that there's too many lines of code. (Even if, as someone suggested, you are counting every line between two html tags as a line of code.)
You can call it "sweat of the brow" if you want to, but that's not a reasonable description of, say, drug testing. First you need to invent a possible new drug. Then you need to test it on a large number of people. etc. This involves very significant up-front costs. It isn't that it's more inventive, it's that it's a lot more expensive to get it to the working stage.
OTOH, by this criterion no drug should actually be granted a patent until after it has FDA approval. I agree that if you are allowed to patent a drug before getting FDA approval, then you don't meet the target. But note that I still would reject many drug patents on "obviousness" ground. E.g., if selling a pill with a drug mixed with asprin to achieve the effects of taking the two pills separately, then you don't meet the "obviousness" criteria, even though you still need to fulfill all the drug testing requirements.
Not saying anything you have said is wrong, but the current system is SO bad that we would be much better off without ANY patents.
A part of the problem has to do with "obviousness". If two people are looking at a problem, it's unlikely that either will find a non-obvious solution. If 100 are looking at the problem, lots of "non-obvious" solutions will be found. If 1,000 people are looking, not only will lots of "non-obvious" solutions be found, but there will be lots of independent duplication. And patents pick an arbitrary winner, which is grossly unfair.
The only time that patents seem to me to be justified is where there are truly significant up-front costs. Drug tests are one example. Even there, it shouldn't be possible to retire a product from the market and also prevent anyone else from making it. And yes, I know that what I'm proposing isn't perfect either. But it would be much less bad, and might well even have a net social benefit.
You are right that those who are in the market to gamble have no reason to gripe. OTOH, I also feel they have no business in the market. Let them play the lottery, or poker.
Still, I'll agree that the market is clearly not something that a sensible investor should get into without VERY deep pockets.
FWIW, I think it should be illegal to sell a (particular) stock more than once an hour. Either that, or there should be a strongly progressive tax on each trade, with the rate of taxation depending on how long you have had the stock. 0% if you've held it 5 years, 100% if you've held it less than a microsecond, and smooth and without an inflection point in between. I tend to think it should be quadratic, but I can see value in making it linear (and then you might consider a negative tax if you hold it for longer than 5 years).
The stock market should be for investment, NOT gambling.
If it's just a choice between China having a backdoor and the NSA having a backdoor, I'd prefer China. They have less immediate power to make my life miserable, and I'm even less worth their interest.