It may be a good idea to look at how those countries with different tort-system actually work.
A blanket "loser pays" in all cases is seldom. I don't know of even a single country that has that.
Norway has, for example, a system where the loser will mostly end up paying. But ultimately it is decided by the judge. The loser will more likely pay if he was *obviously* in the wrong and him not settling was essentially a waste of everyones time.
The loser will more likely pay if he is a big player with deep pockets.
The loser will more likely pay if he was the one filing suit.
The loser will most likely pay if he lost the case completely, as opposed to losing it on certain points.
And last, but not least, the loser is often, especially if he is a small player limited to having to pay for costs of his opponent up to the sum spent by himself. For example a private person that files a suit against a company, spends $5000 on figthing his case, is opposed by a $50.000 team of lawyers and loses, will often need to pay only $5000 in case-costs to the big-player. (which prevents big-spending from essentially becoming a threat)
In practice, it tends to work something like this:
You file a case in "forliksrådet", and represent yourself there. This costs you about $200, which the big-company will probably need to repay you if you win. Definitely if it's a clear and full win. If you lose, you'll be out another $200 aproximately for the case-costs of the big-company.
Assuming you win, that's the end of it. Unless the big-company appeals. They're unlikely to if it's a clear win. But even if they did, you'll probably easily find a lawyer that'd take it at-risk. Afterall you *do* have a verdict from forliksrådet in your favour, so the chances that your case is actually strong are good.
Most economics proffessors know that there is no sure-fire way to make money apart from saving and investing carefully. They know that just as many people lose money in the market as make it.
You hear this terribly misguided claim again and again on slashdot. Are Americans really in general that clueless about investments?
If losing and gaining money was equally likely, if the stock-market was a zero-sum game then there'd be no reason to play it. Indeed, on the average you'd lose your brokerage-fees.
Luckily that definitely isn't true.
On the average, you are a LOT more likely to make money than to lose money on the stock-market. Over the last 100 years, the average return on the stock-market was not 0% (as it would be if your claim was true). The average return was 9.2% pro year.
There *is* a simple way to very likely make money. Invest randomly. You will very likely come out in plus. The longer time-horizon, and the more different investments you have, the higher the likeliness.
Invest in a single stock, and keep it for a year. You'll have maybe 65% chance of coming out ahead, 35% chance of losing money.
Invest in 50 different stocks on 5 continents, keep the money invested over a period of 20 years. Your chances of coming out ahead is now 98%+ (indeed in the history of stock-markets there has *never* until now been a 20-year period where you didn't, on the average, come out ahead.)
Repeat after me: The stock-market (and investments in general) is NOT a zero-sum game.
If you have 120 MW after one day, 240MW after two days, 360MW after 3 days and so on, then you can reasonably claim to have 120MW pro day. This would require the power-output.
Sort of like how you can have mph pro second if you're accelerating. Or liters pro meter square meter if you're irrigating.
Most combinations of physical units like these give some meaning. It very often, with clueless journalists anyway, doesn't give the meaning they intend though.
Sometimes the best choice is to don't do something.
IF it is true (I'm not taking a stand on if it actually is) that you cannot today open an online music-shop without dealing with the major labels and accepting their DRM, then it's perfectly possible that the best response is not to, at this time, open an online music-shop at all.
The same for an individual. It's perfectly possible (likely even, in my opinion) that if a certain piece of music is only available as DRM-infested crap, that the best choice is simply not to buy it at all. Rather than conclude, as you seem to do, that in the "real world" you have "no choice" but to accept the DRM if you want that music, so buy it, despite that actually harming your own interests.
True, a small as in single-comma fix can have large consequences.
There still are small fixes, but most of them are in data rather than in code. If you mis-spelled a word in the online help, then correcting say "errorr" to "error".
Yes, it is perfectly *possible* that that change will cause havoc. But only if you've got serious bugs in the programs handling the help-files, and *those* should already have been thoroughly tested. So you should be reasonably (not completely) sure that that won't happen.
Depends. In Final Fantasy X, there are two grids, one "beginner" where each character is indeed pretty much pre-determined to be a specific type of character, and one "advanced" where you're free to choose.
The looks, name and the starting stats are given, but using this grid you *are* free to choose what skills which character learns. It's not totally freeform because there are two skills which are pre-configured to be for a certain character (for story purposes), but other than that you're free to let anyone learn anything. (Only Yuna can "Summon" and only Kimari can "Lancet")
Perfectly true. No current machine (*certainly* not any console) are capable of doing real-time video with the same quality as the best pre-rendered scenes.
The Blitzball-game and Sins attack (in FF X) is more than 5 years old now. There is no way in hell an Xbox360 or PS3 will be able to render something similar in realtime. Not even in plain old television-resolution. Add HD and it just goes from utterly impossible to downrigth ridicolous.
That may be true. However, that's not the same as saying Denmark ain't a target. Infact, I heard in the news just yesterday that 9 muslims had been arrested, and that the police confiscated bomb-parts from their apartments.
That doesn't sound very comforting to me. OK, so the police may -- this far -- have managed to prevent deaths. Still, it looks as if Denmark too is a target of muslim extremists.
Oh! Actually, I just hit upon the real reason. It's because Americans are so litagious. We'll sue generally over anything that we can. Or at least some of us will.
Well, yes. But that's just a symptom, ain't it. Not the real disease.
I don't think Americans are genetically predestined to be litigation-happy. So it has to be part of your culture and/or your legal climate that works out making litigation-happy.
Part of it is the ridicolous torts being paid in the US.
In Scandinavia (most of Europe I suspect, but I wouldn't know) you won't get much more than your direct economical losses in most cases.
The perpetrator migth still get a harsh punishment, if what he/she did was all that bad. But that *still* won't net you millions.
Say some guy at work refused to take no for an answer and continued to bugger you despite clear indications that you a) have no interest and b) consider it an annoyance.
First, I think it's literally 99% likely he wouldn't get sued at all. More likely you'd have a talk with the boss, and the guy would get a strict warning. If that didn't help, or if his actions where fully inacceptable, the guy would be fired. This solves the problem (imho) but doesn't land you a million. (it does however ensure you can work without being harassed, which should be the goal, no ?)
In the unlikely event it *did* end up in court, he'd need to pay the court-costs for both of you (loser pays) assuming he lost, and aditionally, depending on the severity, he *migth* be convicted to pay you some restitution money. The sum wouldn't be high though, even for something really severe, let's say rape, we're talking perhaps a few months pay.
I'm not saying he'd get off easy -- he wouldn't. He'd sit in jail for the next several years. What I'm saying is that the end-result *wouldn't* be an extremely-fat-check sent your way.
No idea. It is kinda sad to see so many of you guys essentially living in fear. Don't make the wrong joke. Don't make a tiny mistake when trying to help. Don't look at someone funny. Or else.
Most people are pretty reasonable most of the time. It seems strange to me to have people act as if that isn't the case.
You are wrong about at least Denmark (clue: Muhammed-caricatures), Norway, Germany (infact they had coffer-bombs on railroads this very month (which luckily didn't explode due to being poorly made, nevertheless, a concerted attack by muslim radicals) and Poland.
That's just from my own personal knowledge. I'd bet you're wrong about most of the others too.
infectuous, adj. 1. likely to cause infection; containing disease-producing organisms or matter.
Clearly doesn't fit. GPLd sourcecode *cannot* "cause infection" (a human beings deliberate acts, on the other hand, can "cause infection") Nor does it contain organisms or matter of any sort (disease-producing or not)
2. designating a disease caused by infection.
Clearly doesn't fit. It's the sourcecode for a program. It's not a disease.
3. tending to spread or to affect others; catching; as, an infectuous laugh.
Overbroad. If you insist that anything that: "tends to affect others" is 'viral' then punching you on the nose, screaming real loud, pushing "submit" on this post and wearing a large hat in the Opera are all 'viral' since they all "tend to" affect others.
4. [Obs.], infected with disease.
Clearly doesn't fit.
Take careful note that nowhere does it state that accidental spread is a requirement.
No. But it *is* a requirement that it "tends to" spread as in that will typically happen. Are you going to claim a pile of pebbles is "viral" because it is possible for a person, trough deliberate action, to make the pile "spread" ?
I dunno. Works both ways I think. It's the entire culture. I really *do* think you're more likely to get in trouble over say some remark in the US than you are in Norway. Here I really, honestly, cannot see that happening unless the remark is really honestly clearly hostile. And in that case you deserve it, regardless of if sex is involved or not.
Examples ? Kjetil mentioned, at lunch some day, that they'd heard in the news that someone-famous-or-other in the US had gotten fired for having sex with his girlfriend in the office (on a saturday, after closing-hours, door closed until the wash-lady ran in on them) and thougth our boss wouldn't fire someone for that. Nah, says Alf (the boss), certainly not. But there's a *lock* on you guys office-doors you know ? Don't you guys have a nicer bed at home anyway ?
I don't think I even feel like repeating some of the remarks of a female co-worker of mine over her experiences with sticks, holes and balls. (context: there's a golf-course running after-hours with free participation for employes who want to get a greencard)
I honestly don't see why such things should be a problem. It *would* be a problem if you where harassing someone or not respecting the borders of someone when clearly signaled to back down.
I agree with you about Hitch, I can't imagine in what way that would be harmful to a child of any age. I have a son aged 2. I wouldn't care if that was running with him in the room. (he wouldn't watch it anyway, it has no colorful cartoony characters, nor dancing, thus it's uninteresting to him)
It's not clear that a high "quality of life" is the same as a "high standard of living". (for example, the latter sounds to me, more a materialistic measure than the first)
Nor is it clear that the "Quality of life" measurement you refer to are the obviously correct ones. Different people will put different weigth on different factors. Some factors can even be backwards.
Women in Iraq divorce their men significantly more seldom than women in Norway. In this ranking, having lots of divorces are ranked as negative. And it is, offcourse, if the reason for the difference is that the Norwegian females (or males) are unhappier with their partner than the Iraqi ones.
All evidence though, points in a different direction; Iraqi women seldom divorce their partners, not because the couples are so much happier, but because divorce is simply not an option in all but the most severe cases. In other words, the low divorce-rates are a result of fanatical religion, societaly norms and actual laws which prevent divorce.
That was just a single example. Similar arguments can be applied to any and all of the remaining indicators.
I don't know *precisely* what it means either. I do however have a vague idea.
Furthermore, I am quite convinced that whatever reasonable definition you come up with for "high standard of living", Norway would likely qualify.
Much harder would be to give objective evidence for the claim that Norway is "generally regarded" as enjoying such.
By the way, statements such as these are perfectly common in all encyclopedias. Not just Wikipedia. I don't think it's possible, or even desirable, to completely eliminate them.
A disease is not infectious because you can get it accidentally. It is infectious because you can get it, period. The fact that you have to deliberately infect yourself with it is entirely irrelevant.
I don't think so. You don't call Tatoos a "disease". Because there is no way they can transfer by accident. It is however possible to deliberately copy them over to your own body. Just as it's possible to deliberately copy code under the GPL into your own project. Infact tatoos are *more* "infectious" than GPLed code, since it IS possible to get a tatoo against your will, or without your knowledge.
Someone breaking into your sourcecode-server at nigth and secretly inserting GPLed code is a very fanciful idea. And even if it where to happen, there's no way any court would hold you liable to do anything other than to remove it again, leaving you where you where.
I challenge you to come up with even a single example of something that is universally accepted as "infectious" or a "disease" where infection is only possible if the receiver consciously and deliberately "infects" himself. (i.e. you can only get it by deliberately choosing to get it)
Argue all you will. It doesn't change the fact that "viral" was *deliberatedly* choosen for it's negative connotations, and that it has no actual informative value.
That is the argument in favor of including such statements, yes. Atleast up until someone disputes them. (and I don't think anyone will honestly despute that Norway has a shared border with Sweden, or that we're "generally regarded" as modern.)
Why do I "have to" leave my backup-disc plugged into my computer ? That would be utter lunacy !
My backup-harddisc is stored in a locked cupboard at home except for the 20 minutes a week or so that it's hooked up in order to update the backups.
I *do* realize this fails if say ligthning strikes *while* I'm doing backup. It's for unlikely (but perfectly possible) happenings like that that I have a secondary (though more infrequent) backup stored offsite.
But in practice, there's little chance that your bid on oh, say some computer-game for $45 will fail to be accepted because you have only oh, say 95% positive feedback among 40 transactions. (which means 2 negative ratings)
I find the entire discussion strange. Migth it be that the gender-roles are very much influenced by societal norms, and that Scandinawian ones are just different enough from US ones that the entire discussion seem alien ?
I mean, you get the stereotypical "no CS-guy has a girlfriend" crap at every crossroads at Slashdot. It's nonsense. Atleast in the world where I live. I work in programming, precisely *2* of my co-workers are single, one of them male and 23, the other female and 21. Most are married, a few are in relationships. Seems no different than the average environment.
You also constantly get the "how can males make females feel more welcome" or "how can females 'fit in' with the male-domainate area", questions which I also don't understand.
I mean, sure, most programmers are male. We have only like 20-30% females in programming. It's not as if the females don't exist though. The discussion, on the other had, frequently sound as if in the USA there are large teams of dozens of programmers, and not a SINGLE female. I almost find that hard to believe. Especially since I know quite a few female american programmers myself. Hell, even on *Slashdot* there's many females. (yes, yes, I'm sure they're only 10% or something, but clearly they exist)
Of course, the Wiki-boosters mantra "anyone can fix it" is ridiculous, as there's no value proposition in correcting sloppily written articles when you know that some "administrator" with a fifth-grade reading level is going to revert the article as soon as you've cleaned it up.
Do you have any experience that this happens ?
I've *never* experienced having an improvement in language reverted. Have you ? Or are you just trolling. Post a few links to examples of such reverts, if you want to continue claiming they're a real problem as opposed to one you just invented.
Sure. In the absence of affordable communication and transport, the local environment is all there is, so you'll spend 100% of your time interacting only with your local environment.
The moment you get newspapers, radio or television, you start becoming *aware* that there's a larger world out there. But it's still one-way, you don't interact with this world, you only receive information from it.
With cheap travel, internet and telephone you are directly in contact with a lot that isn't in your immediate surrounding.
I know people in atleast 2 dozen countries. I've got *friends* living on other continents. People I talk to every week (sometimes every day), people I care about. Offcourse this means that I spend *less* time with the "local environment". When the starting-point was 100% local, how could this go any other direction than downwards ?
You don't need to make it global either. It's the same on a much smaller scale.
When my great-grandmother was small, (aprox 100 years ago) it was completely unpractical to have friends even 10 miles away. Sure you'd *know* some people living that far away, but communicating with them in any way meant either spending 2 hours for transport, or if you didn't need face-to-face, write a letter and wait several days for an answer.
The world is shrinking.
I'm closer to my friends in oh say Texas (Hallo Nadine!) (I live in Norway) in every way that matters than my grandmother was to her boyfriend (later husband) that lived about 50 miles away.
I can trivially, and at zero cost talk to her whenever I want. 100 years ago that wasn't possible in rural Norway at all. For large expense (a days pay) a telegram could be sent that'd arrive the same day.
I can send her email, and she'll receive it minutes later. 100 years ago a letter would be expensive, and would take on the order of a week to arrive.
I can visit her. It takes like 10 hours of travel, and costs on the order of 1 weeks pay. 100 years ago the 50 miles took on the order of 15 hours by horse and boat.
I can even send her physical packets, and have them arrive quicker and cheaper than the 50 miles back then.
In every way that matters *Texas* is closer to western Norway today than two different villages 50 miles from oneanother where 100 years ago.
Slashdot Mirror
The *core* of the sun, on the other hand, is something like 14 *million* Kelvins hot.
A blanket "loser pays" in all cases is seldom. I don't know of even a single country that has that.
Norway has, for example, a system where the loser will mostly end up paying. But ultimately it is decided by the judge. The loser will more likely pay if he was *obviously* in the wrong and him not settling was essentially a waste of everyones time.
The loser will more likely pay if he is a big player with deep pockets.
The loser will more likely pay if he was the one filing suit.
The loser will most likely pay if he lost the case completely, as opposed to losing it on certain points.
And last, but not least, the loser is often, especially if he is a small player limited to having to pay for costs of his opponent up to the sum spent by himself. For example a private person that files a suit against a company, spends $5000 on figthing his case, is opposed by a $50.000 team of lawyers and loses, will often need to pay only $5000 in case-costs to the big-player. (which prevents big-spending from essentially becoming a threat)
In practice, it tends to work something like this:
You file a case in "forliksrådet", and represent yourself there. This costs you about $200, which the big-company will probably need to repay you if you win. Definitely if it's a clear and full win. If you lose, you'll be out another $200 aproximately for the case-costs of the big-company.
Assuming you win, that's the end of it. Unless the big-company appeals. They're unlikely to if it's a clear win. But even if they did, you'll probably easily find a lawyer that'd take it at-risk. Afterall you *do* have a verdict from forliksrådet in your favour, so the chances that your case is actually strong are good.
You hear this terribly misguided claim again and again on slashdot. Are Americans really in general that clueless about investments?
If losing and gaining money was equally likely, if the stock-market was a zero-sum game then there'd be no reason to play it. Indeed, on the average you'd lose your brokerage-fees.
Luckily that definitely isn't true.
On the average, you are a LOT more likely to make money than to lose money on the stock-market. Over the last 100 years, the average return on the stock-market was not 0% (as it would be if your claim was true). The average return was 9.2% pro year.
There *is* a simple way to very likely make money. Invest randomly. You will very likely come out in plus. The longer time-horizon, and the more different investments you have, the higher the likeliness.
Invest in a single stock, and keep it for a year. You'll have maybe 65% chance of coming out ahead, 35% chance of losing money.
Invest in 50 different stocks on 5 continents, keep the money invested over a period of 20 years. Your chances of coming out ahead is now 98%+ (indeed in the history of stock-markets there has *never* until now been a 20-year period where you didn't, on the average, come out ahead.)
Repeat after me: The stock-market (and investments in general) is NOT a zero-sum game.
If you have 120 MW after one day, 240MW after two days, 360MW after 3 days and so on, then you can reasonably claim to have 120MW pro day. This would require the power-output.
Sort of like how you can have mph pro second if you're accelerating. Or liters pro meter square meter if you're irrigating.
Most combinations of physical units like these give some meaning. It very often, with clueless journalists anyway, doesn't give the meaning they intend though.
IF it is true (I'm not taking a stand on if it actually is) that you cannot today open an online music-shop without dealing with the major labels and accepting their DRM, then it's perfectly possible that the best response is not to, at this time, open an online music-shop at all.
The same for an individual. It's perfectly possible (likely even, in my opinion) that if a certain piece of music is only available as DRM-infested crap, that the best choice is simply not to buy it at all. Rather than conclude, as you seem to do, that in the "real world" you have "no choice" but to accept the DRM if you want that music, so buy it, despite that actually harming your own interests.
There still are small fixes, but most of them are in data rather than in code. If you mis-spelled a word in the online help, then correcting say "errorr" to "error".
Yes, it is perfectly *possible* that that change will cause havoc. But only if you've got serious bugs in the programs handling the help-files, and *those* should already have been thoroughly tested. So you should be reasonably (not completely) sure that that won't happen.
The looks, name and the starting stats are given, but using this grid you *are* free to choose what skills which character learns. It's not totally freeform because there are two skills which are pre-configured to be for a certain character (for story purposes), but other than that you're free to let anyone learn anything. (Only Yuna can "Summon" and only Kimari can "Lancet")
The Blitzball-game and Sins attack (in FF X) is more than 5 years old now. There is no way in hell an Xbox360 or PS3 will be able to render something similar in realtime. Not even in plain old television-resolution. Add HD and it just goes from utterly impossible to downrigth ridicolous.
That doesn't sound very comforting to me. OK, so the police may -- this far -- have managed to prevent deaths. Still, it looks as if Denmark too is a target of muslim extremists.
Well, yes. But that's just a symptom, ain't it. Not the real disease.
I don't think Americans are genetically predestined to be litigation-happy. So it has to be part of your culture and/or your legal climate that works out making litigation-happy.
Part of it is the ridicolous torts being paid in the US.
In Scandinavia (most of Europe I suspect, but I wouldn't know) you won't get much more than your direct economical losses in most cases.
The perpetrator migth still get a harsh punishment, if what he/she did was all that bad. But that *still* won't net you millions.
Say some guy at work refused to take no for an answer and continued to bugger you despite clear indications that you a) have no interest and b) consider it an annoyance.
First, I think it's literally 99% likely he wouldn't get sued at all. More likely you'd have a talk with the boss, and the guy would get a strict warning. If that didn't help, or if his actions where fully inacceptable, the guy would be fired. This solves the problem (imho) but doesn't land you a million. (it does however ensure you can work without being harassed, which should be the goal, no ?)
In the unlikely event it *did* end up in court, he'd need to pay the court-costs for both of you (loser pays) assuming he lost, and aditionally, depending on the severity, he *migth* be convicted to pay you some restitution money. The sum wouldn't be high though, even for something really severe, let's say rape, we're talking perhaps a few months pay.
I'm not saying he'd get off easy -- he wouldn't. He'd sit in jail for the next several years. What I'm saying is that the end-result *wouldn't* be an extremely-fat-check sent your way.
No idea. It is kinda sad to see so many of you guys essentially living in fear. Don't make the wrong joke. Don't make a tiny mistake when trying to help. Don't look at someone funny. Or else.
Most people are pretty reasonable most of the time. It seems strange to me to have people act as if that isn't the case.
That's just from my own personal knowledge. I'd bet you're wrong about most of the others too.
If they've got room-temperature IQ they should be able to understand you're complaining about the company, not them personally.
Who the hell *should* you complain to, if not the people who deal with customers ?
Clearly doesn't fit. GPLd sourcecode *cannot* "cause infection" (a human beings deliberate acts, on the other hand, can "cause infection") Nor does it contain organisms or matter of any sort (disease-producing or not)
2. designating a disease caused by infection.
Clearly doesn't fit. It's the sourcecode for a program. It's not a disease.
3. tending to spread or to affect others; catching; as, an infectuous laugh.
Overbroad. If you insist that anything that: "tends to affect others" is 'viral' then punching you on the nose, screaming real loud, pushing "submit" on this post and wearing a large hat in the Opera are all 'viral' since they all "tend to" affect others. 4. [Obs.], infected with disease.
Clearly doesn't fit.
Take careful note that nowhere does it state that accidental spread is a requirement.
No. But it *is* a requirement that it "tends to" spread as in that will typically happen. Are you going to claim a pile of pebbles is "viral" because it is possible for a person, trough deliberate action, to make the pile "spread" ?
That's ridicolous, and I think you know it.
Examples ? Kjetil mentioned, at lunch some day, that they'd heard in the news that someone-famous-or-other in the US had gotten fired for having sex with his girlfriend in the office (on a saturday, after closing-hours, door closed until the wash-lady ran in on them) and thougth our boss wouldn't fire someone for that. Nah, says Alf (the boss), certainly not. But there's a *lock* on you guys office-doors you know ? Don't you guys have a nicer bed at home anyway ?
I don't think I even feel like repeating some of the remarks of a female co-worker of mine over her experiences with sticks, holes and balls. (context: there's a golf-course running after-hours with free participation for employes who want to get a greencard)
I honestly don't see why such things should be a problem. It *would* be a problem if you where harassing someone or not respecting the borders of someone when clearly signaled to back down.
I agree with you about Hitch, I can't imagine in what way that would be harmful to a child of any age. I have a son aged 2. I wouldn't care if that was running with him in the room. (he wouldn't watch it anyway, it has no colorful cartoony characters, nor dancing, thus it's uninteresting to him)
You didn't run into Nadine yet then. Your loss :-)
Nor is it clear that the "Quality of life" measurement you refer to are the obviously correct ones. Different people will put different weigth on different factors. Some factors can even be backwards.
Women in Iraq divorce their men significantly more seldom than women in Norway. In this ranking, having lots of divorces are ranked as negative. And it is, offcourse, if the reason for the difference is that the Norwegian females (or males) are unhappier with their partner than the Iraqi ones.
All evidence though, points in a different direction; Iraqi women seldom divorce their partners, not because the couples are so much happier, but because divorce is simply not an option in all but the most severe cases. In other words, the low divorce-rates are a result of fanatical religion, societaly norms and actual laws which prevent divorce.
That was just a single example. Similar arguments can be applied to any and all of the remaining indicators.
Furthermore, I am quite convinced that whatever reasonable definition you come up with for "high standard of living", Norway would likely qualify.
Much harder would be to give objective evidence for the claim that Norway is "generally regarded" as enjoying such.
By the way, statements such as these are perfectly common in all encyclopedias. Not just Wikipedia. I don't think it's possible, or even desirable, to completely eliminate them.
I don't think so. You don't call Tatoos a "disease". Because there is no way they can transfer by accident. It is however possible to deliberately copy them over to your own body. Just as it's possible to deliberately copy code under the GPL into your own project. Infact tatoos are *more* "infectious" than GPLed code, since it IS possible to get a tatoo against your will, or without your knowledge.
Someone breaking into your sourcecode-server at nigth and secretly inserting GPLed code is a very fanciful idea. And even if it where to happen, there's no way any court would hold you liable to do anything other than to remove it again, leaving you where you where.
I challenge you to come up with even a single example of something that is universally accepted as "infectious" or a "disease" where infection is only possible if the receiver consciously and deliberately "infects" himself. (i.e. you can only get it by deliberately choosing to get it)
Argue all you will. It doesn't change the fact that "viral" was *deliberatedly* choosen for it's negative connotations, and that it has no actual informative value.
That is the argument in favor of including such statements, yes. Atleast up until someone disputes them. (and I don't think anyone will honestly despute that Norway has a shared border with Sweden, or that we're "generally regarded" as modern.)
I don't really doubt that it's more or less true. But I'm not sure one could easily find authorative sources to confirm it.
My backup-harddisc is stored in a locked cupboard at home except for the 20 minutes a week or so that it's hooked up in order to update the backups.
I *do* realize this fails if say ligthning strikes *while* I'm doing backup. It's for unlikely (but perfectly possible) happenings like that that I have a secondary (though more infrequent) backup stored offsite.
But in practice, there's little chance that your bid on oh, say some computer-game for $45 will fail to be accepted because you have only oh, say 95% positive feedback among 40 transactions. (which means 2 negative ratings)
I mean, you get the stereotypical "no CS-guy has a girlfriend" crap at every crossroads at Slashdot. It's nonsense. Atleast in the world where I live. I work in programming, precisely *2* of my co-workers are single, one of them male and 23, the other female and 21. Most are married, a few are in relationships. Seems no different than the average environment.
You also constantly get the "how can males make females feel more welcome" or "how can females 'fit in' with the male-domainate area", questions which I also don't understand.
I mean, sure, most programmers are male. We have only like 20-30% females in programming. It's not as if the females don't exist though. The discussion, on the other had, frequently sound as if in the USA there are large teams of dozens of programmers, and not a SINGLE female. I almost find that hard to believe. Especially since I know quite a few female american programmers myself. Hell, even on *Slashdot* there's many females. (yes, yes, I'm sure they're only 10% or something, but clearly they exist)
Do you have any experience that this happens ?
I've *never* experienced having an improvement in language reverted. Have you ? Or are you just trolling. Post a few links to examples of such reverts, if you want to continue claiming they're a real problem as opposed to one you just invented.
The moment you get newspapers, radio or television, you start becoming *aware* that there's a larger world out there. But it's still one-way, you don't interact with this world, you only receive information from it.
With cheap travel, internet and telephone you are directly in contact with a lot that isn't in your immediate surrounding.
I know people in atleast 2 dozen countries. I've got *friends* living on other continents. People I talk to every week (sometimes every day), people I care about. Offcourse this means that I spend *less* time with the "local environment". When the starting-point was 100% local, how could this go any other direction than downwards ?
You don't need to make it global either. It's the same on a much smaller scale.
When my great-grandmother was small, (aprox 100 years ago) it was completely unpractical to have friends even 10 miles away. Sure you'd *know* some people living that far away, but communicating with them in any way meant either spending 2 hours for transport, or if you didn't need face-to-face, write a letter and wait several days for an answer.
The world is shrinking.
I'm closer to my friends in oh say Texas (Hallo Nadine!) (I live in Norway) in every way that matters than my grandmother was to her boyfriend (later husband) that lived about 50 miles away.
In every way that matters *Texas* is closer to western Norway today than two different villages 50 miles from oneanother where 100 years ago.