Actually, in the specific case that you mentioned they were ALL culprits, admittedly to lesser degrees. Freon is a CFC. It was the "low hanging fruit" banning (almost) CFCs reduced the threat to the ionosphere. It didn't eliminate it, because CFCs are persistent, but it stopped the increase, and they do break down over time. (Though I forget the average half-life.)
Garbage dumps are a source of methane. This is a stronger IR blocker than CO2, but less persistent. Reducing methane emissions has quicker results than reducing CO2 emissions by the same amount. And ships *do* emit lots of CO2 in a manner that's essentially uncontrolled.
That said, the argument against hybrids due to pollution from their batteries is reasonable, and I don't know any answer, except to keep working on supercapacitors. For now we're still driving a 1990's station wagon that still gets more than 25 mpg. Not great, but as you point out the pollution created by buying a new car is an immense amount to write-off.
As for solar cells...sorry, but you're wrong there. Yes, making anything damages the environment, but solar power is less damaging over time than fossil fuels. (Don't know if this was always true, or is true no matter who builds your particular cells. But I suspect that currently it's true for all solar cells. Waste is expensive, and I think all manufacturers of modern ICs realize this. Yes, it still happens, but they try to minimize it. [This doesn't mean that workers aren't being poisoned in many plants, but that's a separate issue. And it will change as robots get cheaper.])
P.S.: If you think that fossil fuels are clean, go look at a working coal mine or oil well.
It sort of depends on what you're allergic to. And as we age, we naturally tend to become allergic to more and more things. The only real way, e.g., that I could avoid Oak Tree pollen is to move to some place where oak trees wouldn't grow. Texas, maybe. Perhaps Washington (state). (I haven't researched this, as that's a foolish approach. You move, and then it turns out that at some time of year the new environment has something you're *more* allergic to than you were to the place you left.) It's not like I'm only allergic to one thing. (And the same either is, or probably will be, true of you.)
But allergies aren't something that anyone makes much money off of. Not if they're treated properly. (If you just take an anti-histamine, then either your allergies are minor, or you really *should* see a good allergist.)
That said, one of the things the allergist would say is to avoid the substances you are allergic to. Which he would identify for you. (Though he might miss a few. The allergist didn't catch that I was allergic to bell peppers, but I did, and they're easy enough to avoid. But he found many that I had no way of identifying. Dust mites, e.g., are essentially invisible. Special cases around the mattress and pillows worked marvels.)
There are lots of reasons to be skeptical of big pharma, and they certainly shouldn't be allowed to forbid others to produce a drug that they refuse to produce. But it's also true that they've done a lot of important work, and are still doing more. Still...
I *do* think things would be improved if every firm that became so large it controlled more than 1/10th of the market was automatically dissolved. Or maybe it's tax rate should just be the same as it's share of the market. With no allowances for business expenses. So small firms would pay no tax, and as they got larger, they paid more taxes. (As stated, this is obviously impossible. Firms work in more than one market, e.g. But the basic idea seems good. The devil is in the details of how one says it.) Note that this is the kind of thing that the income tax was supposed to be, and never became. So the details are VERY important.
The problem is, as industries mature things tend to get set up so that those who do the science are paid by the industries. Results that don't say what the industries want to become public knowledge just aren't published. Falsification is much rarer. It's usually possible, however, to achieve the same result by carefully choosing the questions to be researched...if you can control which answers get published.
So you get solid answers to questions that don't do any harm to the people who paid to have the research performed.
This is analogous to the way that the news media shape public opinion by selectively choosing what they will consider to be news. Until quite recently intentional falsification was quite rare. It may still be on most media. But by carefully choosing which stories to report and which angles to shoot the cameras from you can present vastly a distorted picture of reality without saying that something happened which didn't happen. (Fox is the only channel that went to court to defend the right to directly lie to it's viewers. Of course, all the other media are protected by the decision.)
You read things your way. I'll read them mine. I don't and won't accept an EULA that promises things I find unacceptable. I'll grant that it's probably only insurance against someone suing them, but I don't really *care* what their excuses are. And if one board of directors understands it one way, another, some time hence, will understand it another way. So I'm not going to either promise or recommend that others promise to do or allow something that I find unacceptable.
I'll grant that the sky hasn't fallen yet. I'd prefer, however, not to make promises I'd rather not be held to.
Well, Apple sucks, but that sure isn't why. Apple *does* go out of their way to deliver a quality product. It's just that: 1) I don't like their user interface choices, and 2) Their EULA is unacceptable
Other than that it's a good computer, and until they changed their EULA I was recommending it to all non-techie acquaintances. Now, if I don't think Ubuntu will fill their needs, I don't have a recommendation. Because I just can't recommend anything with an EULA like theirs. (Admittedly, it going on a decade since I last read an Apple EULA, but it's longer than that for MS and I doubt that either have gotten any better.)
That's what I meant by one month of hyperinflation. But there would be severe side effects. A part of the current economic problems are due to the recent hyperinflation to allow the banks to walk off with much of the country's wealth.
Do you think that if this happened again that OPEC would continue to sell oil in dollars? It might, but there would be severe costs involved as "payoff" to keep them acquiescent. (Yeah, I heard the rumor that the invasion of Iran was because they started to sell oil in Euros, but one country is different from OPEC.)
You might look into the history of what happened to Rome when it got into the habit of inflating the currency. (I'll admit that in that case they could only inflate the newly issued coins, so the effect wouldn't be exactly the same.)
You did? So will jiggering with the statistics some more.
FWIW, I don't believe it when CNN says it either. If you do, well, that's a fair comment on your understanding of the situation.
I *suspect* the current real unemployment is over 20%, possibly over 30%. That's not the official statistics, of course, but those are "managed" in many ways, and have been "adjusted" repeatedly over a period of at least decades to make the current administration look good.
There's really only two ways to improve the balance of trade. Either import less or export more. A hefty import tax would decrease the imports, but the reactions from other countries would hurt the exports.
Another alternative is to cut taxes on any goods that are exported. This has probably already been done, though. (I'm clearly no expert, so I'm just going down the logic tree.)
Depressing wages isn't going to help much, as minimum wage is already insufficient to live on. People on minimum wage MUST find extra ways of earning cash. What they do is often illegal, but that just means it's tax free.
Of course, the big booming industry in the US is slave labor camps...excuse me, prison labor. We are the leading country in the number of citizens serving in such places. More than any other country in the world either in absolute numbers or as a percentage of our population. But somehow we still can't compete with China. (Probably too many guards at too high a salary, but they are politically untouchable.)
The only other place to look is among the wealthy. Most of the wealth of the country is owned or controlled by a very few people. This means that that is the only place where real savings can be made. (This is obvious even without considering the other factors that I mentioned, but I wanted to be complete.)
Actually, to be complete I should consider the middle-class, but they are a vanishing breed. They used to be a major part of the wealth of the country, but in the past several decades they have been systematically pillaged, and their number and the proportion of the wealth that they control have already been shrinking. They do still exist, but they are becoming economically irrelevant. And as their wealth is already shrinking, the only thing that cutting their salaries would accomplish is their earlier extermination.
Do you think that's an overly harsh statement of the situation? I don't. And if you trust the media, I have to ask you "Who sets their editorial policies?" Hint: It's not the editor any more. That went out during the 1980's, except in very small publications. And the small publications have been being bought up also. I can't think that it's a profitable investment, not directly, but it allows the editorial policy to be set by those who own them. And some people find that a quite profitable investment.
Fox is, as you suggest, targeted at only the most gullible. But *ALL* the major media are owned by extremely wealthy participants. Usually through a chain of intermediates. Mr. Gates didn't need to tell the director of NBC what line to take. That was done by someone who was appointed by someone who was appointed by him. I *guess* he doesn't do this anymore, but I'm not sure. I don't know who *did* recently buy MSNBC. But not being able to point to an individual just tells me that I don't know which oligarch is controlling that voice. I still know that it's one oligarch or another.
E.g.: Where did you hear that FOX went to court to defend their right to demand that the reporter in a news program lie (knowingly misinform) the viewers about what happened? Can you point to a major media channel that gave it even moderately prominent coverage?
If the professed ideals were accurate descriptions of what is enacted, they might well NOT be a drag. But they are little better than hypocrisy. (I *do* cherish that little bit.)
Note that I'm describing our current government. There have been periods when, at least domestically, we attempted to live up to our ideals. It's an interesting fact to note that at these periods the bulge in the population age has been around 20. I.e., they reflect the ideals taught in the schools, but without the experience of what living in the civilization is like. In the particular instance of this with which I am familiar (1960's-70's) there was also a large and prosperous middle class. That may be another important factor. P.S.: Note that even during this time the govt. only attempted to live up to the proclaimed ideals domestically. External relations were always a matter of "We're bigger and stronger, so do as we say", possibly a legacy of Dulles' "Brinksmanship", but quite possibly much older. ("Speak softly and carry a big stick", etc.)
What's the definition of "Fucking with". I think that both the parent and the grandparents of this post were sincere, but that they were using different meanings. If one were to substitute "Interacting with" then Doc Ruby would clearly be correct. If one were to substitute "Dominately abusing" then the grandparent looks more correct. And either is a legitimate interpretation.
How has Marx ever been discredited? Mind you, I think his arguments weak. But the various Communist Parties had little to do with Marx beyond abusing his name.
And in this particular instance I think it's a valid argument. *ANY* dominant group attempts to freeze the present into a mold that will maintain their dominance. There may be exceptions, but I can't think of any off-hand. It holds for sports teams, political parties, every dominant group. Some dominant groups acquire more power to freeze the present than others, but they all attempt it.
And anything that *does* fall directly under that description is doomed to fail due to resource depletion.
So come up with an alternative. (Hint: Buckminister Fuller used the term ephemeralization.)
ICs instead of individual transistors is one step along the way, but we haven't completed the journey. But already we can lay down (unreliable) single atom wide traces and circuits. In a few labs. Nano-technologies using mainly CHON can demonstrable be used all over the surface of the planet, but Silicon is also sufficiently common. There are probably a few other elements that are widely available. The trick is going to be building nanotechnology based extraction engines that can run on solar power. Fortunately, our genetic engineering is proceeding apace, and plants suffice for mining CHO&N. And there are already some grasses that mine silicon to edge their leaves. So we've got a decent head-start. We should be seeing the first results by 2020, probably based around bacteria or algae.
Just a heads up... China already owns most of the US economy. (This next bit has been mushed around a bit in my memory, so the facts are incorrect. But the idea is still correct.) In fact recently when a reporter asked a Chinese official if they were planning an attack on Wall Street she received the reply "Why should we. We already own most of it."
China could sink any US policy it cared enough about by calling in some of it's foreign debt. This would cause the US economy to tank as much as China cared to. If they called in all their foreign debt the US would have the choice of either repudiating it's foreign debts, or hyper-inflating the dollar. A few thousand percent in one month should solve the problem of the Chinese debt...of course either of these choices would cause many other problems... Then there's all the property owned outright by China and other foreign countries. China owns enough already that this is another major area where they can exert economic control, either by hiring people, and thus causing prosperity, or by laying people off, causing a depression.
Currently China seems to be supporting our economy. Probably not out of good wishes, but out of rational self-interest. But still, supporting it. Just imagine what the economic downturn would be like if they just stopped. Not actively tried to cause harm, but just stopped offering support. All they'd need to do is allow their currency to rise a bit against the dollar.
If this is economic warfare, then China won a few decades ago. I'll admit that they probably speak using those metaphors. They don't play american football over there, so they aren't going to use those metaphors. But it's a metaphor. The object of this game is to win, not to destroy. And China has won.
People talk about china's lack of respect for human rights. It's true. They don't really have any choice about that. They've GOT to keep the population growth under control. And when you give a government power, it practically never gives it up. (The occasions that I can think of where that happened are all more mythological than historical. Cincinnatus giving up dictatorial power over Rome when the war had been won is one example.) OTOH, the Soviet Union breaking apart (almost) peacefully shows that it *CAN* happen. And the current China is less autocratic than it was under Mao. (Still, China has a long history of switching between Emperors and WarLords. One shouldn't be surprised to see it continue. But improved transportation and communication may change things. A part of the reason used to be that the country was just too large to be centrally controlled, so the Emperor had to "trust" his provincial governors.)
1) The reports seems to say that they *are* respecting the patents. 2) Patents are national law. If a country doesn't like them, it doesn't need to have laws about them. 3) The US respect for foreign patents isn't a record we'd want anyone else to emulate. (Check out the patent on, e.g., Neem tree oil. Then tell me that the US even follows it's own laws. With a straight face.)
Sorry, most of my information comes from print media. And most are articles I read a year or so ago. (Not all at the same time.) Google found a bunch of links when I looked for "Austrailian reef danger pollution global warming". The first one was:
For that you need the opinion of a copyright lawyer. IANAL or any stripe, and copyright law is strange (though not a strange as patent law). But if I understand it correctly linked code *IS* a derivative work if it depends upon the code it links to to perform it's functions. So then you get into arguments about just what it's functions are.
But source code is always safe to ship with GPL code. And that source code can itself, if it's license permits, link to non-GPL code. But when you compile and link the code it becomes a derivative work, even if you're linking to libraries that are dynamically bound. Again, IANAL, and this is based on one person's opinion of what a doctrine based on (I think) dramatic manuscripts meant when translated into a precedent binding on computer code.
Well, I was definitely wrong in certain ways. It sounds like they did have a warrant, e.g. And this time I didn't hear of anybody's door being broken down. As for the rest... that still seems unproven.
It is, however, true that I don't trust anyone who combines appointed authority with power. In fact, I'm suspicious of any centralized power. So I tend to read about action of the Feds with two strikes already against them. Even if they were honest this would make it difficult to satisfy me. Unfortunately, it looks quite often as if my initial presumptions end up being shown correct. This time... at least many of them aren't, and some are still undecided. And it's also true that I tend to conflate the actions of the various arms of the federal government. Sometimes this causes me to be unreasonably suspicious. (Well, without "good" reason.)
So it appears as if in this case the FBI has complied with the legal formalities. (This is not to say that I deem their actions good. I haven't decided that given that the legal formalities were followed their actions were just in this case. That one's quite tricky. With a lot of nasty edges.)
Of course, it doesn't matter to them, or much of anyone, how I decide on this. I'm not an actor in this matter, merely a... well, if it were a play, my role would be drama critic...for a really unimportant news flyer.
That's not clear. The conjecture of a link between sunspots and temperature is just that, a conjecture. Currently it doesn't look likely to be true.
OTOH, rising prices of oil and irregular weather patterns are quite likely to cause the cost of food to rise. But it's hard to blame those two on the lack of sunspots.
To be fair, one also needs to take quantities into account. Which one can't do just by looking at a picture. That's why climate models are important, to handle it when things get complicated.
It's already affecting it. Now as to killing it all...some life is more affected by it than others. Jellyfish are pretty hardened against it. Oysters don't like it at all. And coral reefs are dissolving (though that's partially due to warming, and partially due to other pollution, as well as the CO2 levels).
Almost. It's not infringing unless you distribute it. You know, like sell it or give it away.
The end user *can't* violate the GPL. The only way for them to violate the GPL is to become a distributor instead of an end-user. But once you link GPL code with non-free code you have something that's illegal to distribute. This is sort of silly, but it's the way the interface between the legal system and the GPL worked out.
I can see the point of the guy who claimed that it would be easier to use BSD, but he's ignoring that the end user software runs under Linux, not BSD. So he'd need to write a compatibility layer. (This is what SCO was planning on doing when R.Love was GM, before it was taken over by Vandals. I never did like his policies, but they were honest at the time. And when he switched jobs he supported FOSS. So perhaps he was being pushed by the board.)
OTOH...*DOES* BSD, or rather one of the BSDs, have a Linux compatibility layer? If so, that might be a *very* good idea. It worked out well for Apple.
Sorry, but source code is volatile. It changes. Pointing to someone else's site may work today, but tomorrow they may change the page, fix a bug, just take it down. Anything.
So, yes, if you could depend on some independent third party to host identical code to the code that compiles to the binary that you distributed, and to continue doing so for 3 years, then you would have a valid argument.
You can't. Their 3 year time cycle is guaranteed to be different from yours, or you wouldn't know that their page existed. Or they'll fix a bug and move the prior copy to a different location, and then what you point to doesn't match the code you shipped.
In theory you would have an argument, but the effort required to stay compliant via that means would far surpass the effort required to just host the code.
Cleared that through a lawyer? I didn't think so. IANAL, but the way I've always heard it interpreted it that *YOU* must do the distribution. You can't just say that someone else is distributing it, so the code's available.
And there are numerous reasons for this. One is because source code is volatile, and what you distribute must match the binary that you distribute. And unless you ship the source with the binary, you must continue to provide the source that matches the binary you shipped for 3 years. So bug fixes can't be incorporated, etc. What you distribute as source must match what you distributed as binary.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, in the specific case that you mentioned they were ALL culprits, admittedly to lesser degrees. Freon is a CFC. It was the "low hanging fruit" banning (almost) CFCs reduced the threat to the ionosphere. It didn't eliminate it, because CFCs are persistent, but it stopped the increase, and they do break down over time. (Though I forget the average half-life.)
Garbage dumps are a source of methane. This is a stronger IR blocker than CO2, but less persistent. Reducing methane emissions has quicker results than reducing CO2 emissions by the same amount. And ships *do* emit lots of CO2 in a manner that's essentially uncontrolled.
That said, the argument against hybrids due to pollution from their batteries is reasonable, and I don't know any answer, except to keep working on supercapacitors. For now we're still driving a 1990's station wagon that still gets more than 25 mpg. Not great, but as you point out the pollution created by buying a new car is an immense amount to write-off.
As for solar cells...sorry, but you're wrong there. Yes, making anything damages the environment, but solar power is less damaging over time than fossil fuels. (Don't know if this was always true, or is true no matter who builds your particular cells. But I suspect that currently it's true for all solar cells. Waste is expensive, and I think all manufacturers of modern ICs realize this. Yes, it still happens, but they try to minimize it. [This doesn't mean that workers aren't being poisoned in many plants, but that's a separate issue. And it will change as robots get cheaper.])
P.S.: If you think that fossil fuels are clean, go look at a working coal mine or oil well.
It sort of depends on what you're allergic to. And as we age, we naturally tend to become allergic to more and more things. The only real way, e.g., that I could avoid Oak Tree pollen is to move to some place where oak trees wouldn't grow. Texas, maybe. Perhaps Washington (state). (I haven't researched this, as that's a foolish approach. You move, and then it turns out that at some time of year the new environment has something you're *more* allergic to than you were to the place you left.) It's not like I'm only allergic to one thing. (And the same either is, or probably will be, true of you.)
But allergies aren't something that anyone makes much money off of. Not if they're treated properly. (If you just take an anti-histamine, then either your allergies are minor, or you really *should* see a good allergist.)
That said, one of the things the allergist would say is to avoid the substances you are allergic to. Which he would identify for you. (Though he might miss a few. The allergist didn't catch that I was allergic to bell peppers, but I did, and they're easy enough to avoid. But he found many that I had no way of identifying. Dust mites, e.g., are essentially invisible. Special cases around the mattress and pillows worked marvels.)
There are lots of reasons to be skeptical of big pharma, and they certainly shouldn't be allowed to forbid others to produce a drug that they refuse to produce. But it's also true that they've done a lot of important work, and are still doing more. Still...
I *do* think things would be improved if every firm that became so large it controlled more than 1/10th of the market was automatically dissolved. Or maybe it's tax rate should just be the same as it's share of the market. With no allowances for business expenses. So small firms would pay no tax, and as they got larger, they paid more taxes. (As stated, this is obviously impossible. Firms work in more than one market, e.g. But the basic idea seems good. The devil is in the details of how one says it.) Note that this is the kind of thing that the income tax was supposed to be, and never became. So the details are VERY important.
The problem is, as industries mature things tend to get set up so that those who do the science are paid by the industries. Results that don't say what the industries want to become public knowledge just aren't published. Falsification is much rarer. It's usually possible, however, to achieve the same result by carefully choosing the questions to be researched...if you can control which answers get published.
So you get solid answers to questions that don't do any harm to the people who paid to have the research performed.
This is analogous to the way that the news media shape public opinion by selectively choosing what they will consider to be news. Until quite recently intentional falsification was quite rare. It may still be on most media. But by carefully choosing which stories to report and which angles to shoot the cameras from you can present vastly a distorted picture of reality without saying that something happened which didn't happen. (Fox is the only channel that went to court to defend the right to directly lie to it's viewers. Of course, all the other media are protected by the decision.)
You read things your way. I'll read them mine. I don't and won't accept an EULA that promises things I find unacceptable. I'll grant that it's probably only insurance against someone suing them, but I don't really *care* what their excuses are. And if one board of directors understands it one way, another, some time hence, will understand it another way. So I'm not going to either promise or recommend that others promise to do or allow something that I find unacceptable.
I'll grant that the sky hasn't fallen yet. I'd prefer, however, not to make promises I'd rather not be held to.
Well, Apple sucks, but that sure isn't why. Apple *does* go out of their way to deliver a quality product. It's just that:
1) I don't like their user interface choices, and
2) Their EULA is unacceptable
Other than that it's a good computer, and until they changed their EULA I was recommending it to all non-techie acquaintances. Now, if I don't think Ubuntu will fill their needs, I don't have a recommendation. Because I just can't recommend anything with an EULA like theirs. (Admittedly, it going on a decade since I last read an Apple EULA, but it's longer than that for MS and I doubt that either have gotten any better.)
That's what I meant by one month of hyperinflation. But there would be severe side effects. A part of the current economic problems are due to the recent hyperinflation to allow the banks to walk off with much of the country's wealth.
Do you think that if this happened again that OPEC would continue to sell oil in dollars? It might, but there would be severe costs involved as "payoff" to keep them acquiescent. (Yeah, I heard the rumor that the invasion of Iran was because they started to sell oil in Euros, but one country is different from OPEC.)
You might look into the history of what happened to Rome when it got into the habit of inflating the currency. (I'll admit that in that case they could only inflate the newly issued coins, so the effect wouldn't be exactly the same.)
You did? So will jiggering with the statistics some more.
FWIW, I don't believe it when CNN says it either. If you do, well, that's a fair comment on your understanding of the situation.
I *suspect* the current real unemployment is over 20%, possibly over 30%. That's not the official statistics, of course, but those are "managed" in many ways, and have been "adjusted" repeatedly over a period of at least decades to make the current administration look good.
There's really only two ways to improve the balance of trade. Either import less or export more. A hefty import tax would decrease the imports, but the reactions from other countries would hurt the exports.
Another alternative is to cut taxes on any goods that are exported. This has probably already been done, though. (I'm clearly no expert, so I'm just going down the logic tree.)
Depressing wages isn't going to help much, as minimum wage is already insufficient to live on. People on minimum wage MUST find extra ways of earning cash. What they do is often illegal, but that just means it's tax free.
Of course, the big booming industry in the US is slave labor camps...excuse me, prison labor. We are the leading country in the number of citizens serving in such places. More than any other country in the world either in absolute numbers or as a percentage of our population. But somehow we still can't compete with China. (Probably too many guards at too high a salary, but they are politically untouchable.)
The only other place to look is among the wealthy. Most of the wealth of the country is owned or controlled by a very few people. This means that that is the only place where real savings can be made. (This is obvious even without considering the other factors that I mentioned, but I wanted to be complete.)
Actually, to be complete I should consider the middle-class, but they are a vanishing breed. They used to be a major part of the wealth of the country, but in the past several decades they have been systematically pillaged, and their number and the proportion of the wealth that they control have already been shrinking. They do still exist, but they are becoming economically irrelevant. And as their wealth is already shrinking, the only thing that cutting their salaries would accomplish is their earlier extermination.
Do you think that's an overly harsh statement of the situation? I don't. And if you trust the media, I have to ask you "Who sets their editorial policies?" Hint: It's not the editor any more. That went out during the 1980's, except in very small publications. And the small publications have been being bought up also. I can't think that it's a profitable investment, not directly, but it allows the editorial policy to be set by those who own them. And some people find that a quite profitable investment.
Fox is, as you suggest, targeted at only the most gullible. But *ALL* the major media are owned by extremely wealthy participants. Usually through a chain of intermediates. Mr. Gates didn't need to tell the director of NBC what line to take. That was done by someone who was appointed by someone who was appointed by him. I *guess* he doesn't do this anymore, but I'm not sure. I don't know who *did* recently buy MSNBC. But not being able to point to an individual just tells me that I don't know which oligarch is controlling that voice. I still know that it's one oligarch or another.
E.g.: Where did you hear that FOX went to court to defend their right to demand that the reporter in a news program lie (knowingly misinform) the viewers about what happened? Can you point to a major media channel that gave it even moderately prominent coverage?
If the professed ideals were accurate descriptions of what is enacted, they might well NOT be a drag. But they are little better than hypocrisy. (I *do* cherish that little bit.)
Note that I'm describing our current government. There have been periods when, at least domestically, we attempted to live up to our ideals. It's an interesting fact to note that at these periods the bulge in the population age has been around 20. I.e., they reflect the ideals taught in the schools, but without the experience of what living in the civilization is like. In the particular instance of this with which I am familiar (1960's-70's) there was also a large and prosperous middle class. That may be another important factor.
P.S.: Note that even during this time the govt. only attempted to live up to the proclaimed ideals domestically. External relations were always a matter of "We're bigger and stronger, so do as we say", possibly a legacy of Dulles' "Brinksmanship", but quite possibly much older. ("Speak softly and carry a big stick", etc.)
Natural languages are *so* ambiguous.
What's the definition of "Fucking with". I think that both the parent and the grandparents of this post were sincere, but that they were using different meanings. If one were to substitute "Interacting with" then Doc Ruby would clearly be correct. If one were to substitute "Dominately abusing" then the grandparent looks more correct. And either is a legitimate interpretation.
How has Marx ever been discredited? Mind you, I think his arguments weak. But the various Communist Parties had little to do with Marx beyond abusing his name.
And in this particular instance I think it's a valid argument. *ANY* dominant group attempts to freeze the present into a mold that will maintain their dominance. There may be exceptions, but I can't think of any off-hand. It holds for sports teams, political parties, every dominant group. Some dominant groups acquire more power to freeze the present than others, but they all attempt it.
And anything that *does* fall directly under that description is doomed to fail due to resource depletion.
So come up with an alternative. (Hint: Buckminister Fuller used the term ephemeralization.)
ICs instead of individual transistors is one step along the way, but we haven't completed the journey. But already we can lay down (unreliable) single atom wide traces and circuits. In a few labs. Nano-technologies using mainly CHON can demonstrable be used all over the surface of the planet, but Silicon is also sufficiently common. There are probably a few other elements that are widely available. The trick is going to be building nanotechnology based extraction engines that can run on solar power. Fortunately, our genetic engineering is proceeding apace, and plants suffice for mining CHO&N. And there are already some grasses that mine silicon to edge their leaves. So we've got a decent head-start. We should be seeing the first results by 2020, probably based around bacteria or algae.
Just a heads up...
China already owns most of the US economy. (This next bit has been mushed around a bit in my memory, so the facts are incorrect. But the idea is still correct.) In fact recently when a reporter asked a Chinese official if they were planning an attack on Wall Street she received the reply "Why should we. We already own most of it."
China could sink any US policy it cared enough about by calling in some of it's foreign debt. This would cause the US economy to tank as much as China cared to. If they called in all their foreign debt the US would have the choice of either repudiating it's foreign debts, or hyper-inflating the dollar. A few thousand percent in one month should solve the problem of the Chinese debt...of course either of these choices would cause many other problems... Then there's all the property owned outright by China and other foreign countries. China owns enough already that this is another major area where they can exert economic control, either by hiring people, and thus causing prosperity, or by laying people off, causing a depression.
Currently China seems to be supporting our economy. Probably not out of good wishes, but out of rational self-interest. But still, supporting it. Just imagine what the economic downturn would be like if they just stopped. Not actively tried to cause harm, but just stopped offering support. All they'd need to do is allow their currency to rise a bit against the dollar.
If this is economic warfare, then China won a few decades ago. I'll admit that they probably speak using those metaphors. They don't play american football over there, so they aren't going to use those metaphors. But it's a metaphor. The object of this game is to win, not to destroy. And China has won.
People talk about china's lack of respect for human rights. It's true. They don't really have any choice about that. They've GOT to keep the population growth under control. And when you give a government power, it practically never gives it up. (The occasions that I can think of where that happened are all more mythological than historical. Cincinnatus giving up dictatorial power over Rome when the war had been won is one example.) OTOH, the Soviet Union breaking apart (almost) peacefully shows that it *CAN* happen. And the current China is less autocratic than it was under Mao. (Still, China has a long history of switching between Emperors and WarLords. One shouldn't be surprised to see it continue. But improved transportation and communication may change things. A part of the reason used to be that the country was just too large to be centrally controlled, so the Emperor had to "trust" his provincial governors.)
1) The reports seems to say that they *are* respecting the patents.
2) Patents are national law. If a country doesn't like them, it doesn't need to have laws about them.
3) The US respect for foreign patents isn't a record we'd want anyone else to emulate. (Check out the patent on, e.g., Neem tree oil. Then tell me that the US even follows it's own laws. With a straight face.)
Sorry, most of my information comes from print media. And most are articles I read a year or so ago. (Not all at the same time.) Google found a bunch of links when I looked for "Austrailian reef danger pollution global warming". The first one was:
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CB4QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.helium.com%2Fitems%2F1474190-effects-of-pollution-great-barrier-reef&rct=j&q=Austrailian%20reef%20danger%20pollution%20global%20warming&ei=GK0fTdPsGoW8sQOVhp2HCw&usg=AFQjCNGef66_UEc14PsuNjhgVBnNz_IBWQ&sig2=SXFofunw_jg54cOq1oefHw&cad=rja
but I've no reason to think that's the best.
For that you need the opinion of a copyright lawyer. IANAL or any stripe, and copyright law is strange (though not a strange as patent law). But if I understand it correctly linked code *IS* a derivative work if it depends upon the code it links to to perform it's functions. So then you get into arguments about just what it's functions are.
But source code is always safe to ship with GPL code. And that source code can itself, if it's license permits, link to non-GPL code. But when you compile and link the code it becomes a derivative work, even if you're linking to libraries that are dynamically bound. Again, IANAL, and this is based on one person's opinion of what a doctrine based on (I think) dramatic manuscripts meant when translated into a precedent binding on computer code.
Well, I was definitely wrong in certain ways. It sounds like they did have a warrant, e.g. And this time I didn't hear of anybody's door being broken down. As for the rest ... that still seems unproven.
It is, however, true that I don't trust anyone who combines appointed authority with power. In fact, I'm suspicious of any centralized power. So I tend to read about action of the Feds with two strikes already against them. Even if they were honest this would make it difficult to satisfy me. Unfortunately, it looks quite often as if my initial presumptions end up being shown correct. This time ... at least many of them aren't, and some are still undecided. And it's also true that I tend to conflate the actions of the various arms of the federal government. Sometimes this causes me to be unreasonably suspicious. (Well, without "good" reason.)
So it appears as if in this case the FBI has complied with the legal formalities. (This is not to say that I deem their actions good. I haven't decided that given that the legal formalities were followed their actions were just in this case. That one's quite tricky. With a lot of nasty edges.)
Of course, it doesn't matter to them, or much of anyone, how I decide on this. I'm not an actor in this matter, merely a ... well, if it were a play, my role would be drama critic...for a really unimportant news flyer.
That's not clear. The conjecture of a link between sunspots and temperature is just that, a conjecture. Currently it doesn't look likely to be true.
OTOH, rising prices of oil and irregular weather patterns are quite likely to cause the cost of food to rise. But it's hard to blame those two on the lack of sunspots.
To be fair, one also needs to take quantities into account. Which one can't do just by looking at a picture. That's why climate models are important, to handle it when things get complicated.
It's already affecting it. Now as to killing it all...some life is more affected by it than others. Jellyfish are pretty hardened against it. Oysters don't like it at all. And coral reefs are dissolving (though that's partially due to warming, and partially due to other pollution, as well as the CO2 levels).
Counterfeit purses, etc., are, indeed, blocked. But only after someone pushes customs to do so.
Almost. It's not infringing unless you distribute it. You know, like sell it or give it away.
The end user *can't* violate the GPL. The only way for them to violate the GPL is to become a distributor instead of an end-user. But once you link GPL code with non-free code you have something that's illegal to distribute. This is sort of silly, but it's the way the interface between the legal system and the GPL worked out.
I can see the point of the guy who claimed that it would be easier to use BSD, but he's ignoring that the end user software runs under Linux, not BSD. So he'd need to write a compatibility layer. (This is what SCO was planning on doing when R.Love was GM, before it was taken over by Vandals. I never did like his policies, but they were honest at the time. And when he switched jobs he supported FOSS. So perhaps he was being pushed by the board.)
OTOH...*DOES* BSD, or rather one of the BSDs, have a Linux compatibility layer? If so, that might be a *very* good idea. It worked out well for Apple.
Sorry, but source code is volatile. It changes. Pointing to someone else's site may work today, but tomorrow they may change the page, fix a bug, just take it down. Anything.
So, yes, if you could depend on some independent third party to host identical code to the code that compiles to the binary that you distributed, and to continue doing so for 3 years, then you would have a valid argument.
You can't. Their 3 year time cycle is guaranteed to be different from yours, or you wouldn't know that their page existed. Or they'll fix a bug and move the prior copy to a different location, and then what you point to doesn't match the code you shipped.
In theory you would have an argument, but the effort required to stay compliant via that means would far surpass the effort required to just host the code.
Cleared that through a lawyer? I didn't think so. IANAL, but the way I've always heard it interpreted it that *YOU* must do the distribution. You can't just say that someone else is distributing it, so the code's available.
And there are numerous reasons for this. One is because source code is volatile, and what you distribute must match the binary that you distribute. And unless you ship the source with the binary, you must continue to provide the source that matches the binary you shipped for 3 years. So bug fixes can't be incorporated, etc. What you distribute as source must match what you distributed as binary.
A written offer somewhere on their website isn't the same as a written offer shipped with the code. It isn't even approximately the same.
That said, if they actually follow through with the offer, then I doubt that there'd be a lawsuit.
Well, it sounds like my initial presumption that they didn't bother to get a warrant was wrong.