Rice is mostly carbohydrate.... admittedly, it's not as simple as the sugars and carbs you see in the average North American diet, but it still has a pretty high glycemic index.
Pedophilia causes great harm to other people. Smoking causes little-if-any harm to others.
Quite aside from the general unpleasantness caused by the stench, there are a lot of documented cases of people contracting lung cancer from tobacco exposure without ever having smoked a cigarette in their life.
Oh, and also, abortion does not harm other people because a fetus is not a person.
The abortion debate should have nothing to do with whether the fetus is a person or not... the fact is that in every country where abortion was legalized, the number of women having abortions went down, because they could now get proper medical treatment and be informed of their options. Not every woman who decides she needs an abortion goes through with it, because many of them don't know about the other options available to them. Beyond that, making abortion illegal doesn't stop a woman from having an abortion, it just means she's less likely to have proper medical supervision before/after, and as a result, more likely to develop complications from the procedure.
I hope they nail his ass to the wall for juror misconduct and that Samsung gets an actual fair and impartial trial out of it.
After the Billion-Dollar ruling against Samsung last time, good luck finding a jury of 12 people who haven't heard about the case and had a chance to form an opinion about it. Even my grandmother, who suffers from Alzheimer's, asked me about it last time I saw her.
Motorcycles aren't about narcissism, they're about freedom. With the exception of Harley Davidson bikes, which are deliberately tuned badly to make noise, most of the good bikes (think Honda orr BMW) are actually pretty quiet, and, especially among older motorcycle drivers, they are far and above the most courteous drivers on the road, which seems kind of counter to the notion that they're narcissistic.
Even in the US, there's provisions which restrict freedom of speech. The US has, far and above, the most liberal free speech laws in the world, and there's still provision in US law that could make what he did illegal. I haven't seen the film in question, so I can't really give an opinion one way or the other on whether what he did actually was inciteful, but there is provision in US law to make inciteful speech illegal.
In the rest of the civilized world, there wouldn't be any question... every developed country in the world other than the US, and most of the developing nations with free speech, have restrictions on free speech that essentially boil down to a basic rule: your right to say what you want stops at my right to be safe and free. If what you're saying can cause me harm, and it's not 100% true and backed up by verifiable facts, you're not allowed to say it. Even if it is backed up by verifiable facts, if it is likely to incite hatred or violence against me (say you're telling the wrong people I'm a lesbian), then you're not allowed to say it either.
Ultimately, it doesn't matter whether your constitution protects your right to speak... your actions have consequences, and you need to take responsibility for them. The US Constitution is *not* a carte blanche to do whatever the hell you want, and the free speech provision says nothing about being exempt from the consequences of your speech, it only says that they won't prevent you from speaking in the first place.
I didn't receive it... and I am a fairly prominent member of the LGBT community here in Ottawa, having been interviewed on the subject a couple of times by CBC's The Current, and also having worked with some government departments to help develop their sensitivity training (most recently, Corrections Canada's transgender awareness/rights program). I'm also personal friends with a few members of parliament, one of whom is a Conservative... I also write to my MP, Gordon O'Connor, on a regular basis, and have told him point blank, to his face, that I would never vote for him because of his record on queer rights. You'd think I would be pretty high on their list of people to target for this kind of communication....
Still bothered?
It's bad form for them to send out this kind of mailing... especially considering that direct mailings aren't strictly allowed (or at least, not to be billed to the taxpayer), unless it's non-propaganda, and only being sent to his direct constituents....
... and I see they want $385/tire for the Bridgestones I have right now.... I have no idea how much they cost Subaru when I bought the car, but considering that they were included in the purchase price of the car, I doubt it was anywhere near that much....
Not really...:) When you factor in the cost of shipping... different economies and such, though, could be different in your neck of the woods. Here in Canada, not so much. Plus, when I bought the winter tires, there was a manufacturer rebate on, and I got enough cash back from Michelin to cover the cost of the rims for the winter tires. If I'd bought them online, I wouldn't have qualified for that.:)
I expect the winter tires to last at least another 3, maybe 4 years before I have to buy new ones, and the summer tires I'll probably be replacing at the end of next season (so the start of the following season to take advantage of summer sales)... if I remember, I'll check online at that time. But I'm also probably going to go with Pirellis instead of the Bridgestones at that point, and I'm not sure you can even get those online. A quick search online for the Pirellis I like right now, however, I stand to save about $6/tire over the price that I was quoted by my tire shop, and the tire shop price included installation and balance.
Run Flat tires won't help against a spike strip... they're designed to be rigid and maintain their shape for a short distance, usually less than 50 miles, when punctured, say with a nail or bolt picked up on the road.
Spike strips are designed to shred a tire. There isn't a lot you can do to maintain tire shape when your tread isn't there any more.
given that different cars have different manufacturer-specified inflation levels, it's a fairly safe bet that when a consumer version of this hits the market, it'll be programmable in some way.
Not to mention the fuel wasted by having underinflated tires....
Also, most of the *good* tires, the tire shop will install and balance them as part of the MSRP. My car has Michelin X-ICE i2 in the winter, and Bridgestone Potenza tires in the summer, and I don't think I've ever needed to pay for a wheel balance on that car.
No, they have an absurd system where the car needs to pass an inspection every 2 years, variable cost depending on the vehicle ($600 for 'light cars' (660cc cars), $1200 for normal cars, more for trucks etc..) and basically check all of the high wear parts on the car, and throw in compulsory auto insurance. What this tends to do, when the car starts to wear heavily, is to make repeatedly paying the shaken more expensive than buying a new car (3 year exemption) or a used car that hasn't degraded as far.
The Japanese aren't the only ones who have regular safety and emissions testing on older cars... and who said anything about buying old cars? Buy new Japanese cars... My parents have owned 5 Subarus since 1984, and between them have put on more than 2 million KM's without a single major repair. I think that speaks quite highly for their reliability. And since the OP was talking about Toyota trucks specifically, you'd do well to watch this series of videos from Series 3 of BBC's Top Gear: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnWKz7Cthkk
The funny thing about most "liberals" are... well... they don't get it/aren't really liberal.
The problem with that is, you can't really define things in a binary. It's not a liberal/conservative dichotomy, because there's too many issues to be divided on. How do you define somebody who believes in small government, supports the death penalty in some cases (repeat offender, serial murder, for example), is pro-choice, pro-gay marriage, etc.? Even dividing it on lines of fiscal versus social liberalism is an oversimplification, because then you get people like me, who self identify as a fiscal conservative (shouldn't be spending money we don't have), but still believe in socialized health care and subsidized education on the basis that as a long-term investment they end up increasing tax revenues and pay for themselves. And like you, I also believe that we should be paying for fair trade products (there's a reason I drink Ceylon tea), and avoiding products with blood minerals, because even though they're more expensive, they promote quality of life around the world. Unlike you, I do buy my electronics new, but I am also careful about what I buy, and don't replace them just because something shiner comes along.... I find I get better economy by buying something that's relatively high quality, even though it may be more expensive up front, because it lasts longer.
So what does that make me? A liberal, or a conservative? By American definitions, I'm ultra-left-wing commie pinko liberal (pro-choice, pro-gay rights as well... no I don't support the death penalty, I believe in restorative justice rather than punitive), but by European standards I'm actually pretty conservative, at least fiscally... I'd fit right in in Germany. And this is where the whole thing falls apart, and why we can't draw a binary comparison.:)
They are the shining example of capitalism.... and the poster child for why neither unfettered communism nor unfettered capitalism is a system that works.
Used to do that on my netbook with a 1024x600 screen. Gave that away. Using a laptop with a 1366x768 screen, and it renders fine no matter what browser I use. Same for my work PC, which is 1680x1050, and my gaming machine, which is 1920x1080. Can't be bothered to give it a go on my tablet (1280x600) or my phone (800x480).
Bad juju to expect a minimum screen resolution, or even to design for a minimum screen resolution in this day and age, but I think that explains why it looks wonky for some people, and others have no problems at all, even though they're using the same platform and browser.
The problem is any self-respecting lawyer would not dare give legal advice on a forum, because of liabilities/etc.. Lawyers need to be careful that what they say, especially if it's not in full possession of the facts, is not taken as legal advice, because they can be held liable if it turns out to be bad advice. And no, I am not a lawyer, but I have studied some law.
Your best bet, in a situation like this is to do a little research. First off, make sure that they actually are violating your copyright... from what I've seen, there's a small amount of the original work that gets used repeatedly. My understanding of the US "fair use" allows for re-use of a small clip in a derivative or other work, as long as it is not a large part of the original film, and is not substantially the same as the original. There are also considerations for the potential impact on market value of the original, and for the commerciality of the derivative work... is it being used for educational purposes, for example?
These are questions I can't answer, because I don't know enough about US copyright law, but I suspect that they're arguing that their film is allowed because it's educational in nature, because it is substantively different from the original, and because they're only using a small part of the video without including the sound.
If you still feel you have a case, then make an appointment with a lawyer and ask them whether it's worth pursuing it. If you don't like their answer, ask another lawyer.
Copyright laws are different in different parts of the world. Whether Youtube is an American company or not has nothing to do with whether the video in question is legally considered to be violating any copyright in another country
Even under American copyright laws, there's exemptions made for "educational" use, and they could be arguing that their film is educational in nature. Tinfoil hat alarmist dreck though it may be, it could still meet the legal definition for an educational exemption from copyright.
The previous versions were bad enough that I don't really have any desire to try a newer version. In seriousness, however, can you honestly give me a good reason to consider switching to Unity when I'm already happy and productive with e17?
I think the answer to that question will give you the answer to why people hate Unity so much. They were happy with a system that worked well for them, and which gave them a workflow that they were used to. Without even considering the merits of Unity itself, why did they need to foist it on people who were happy where they were?
I understand fully the desire to have a system that works for new users, and which is relatively intuitive, but they threw the baby out with the bathwater, and the "classic" interface was half-assed, from all I've heard about it. Now again, I don't use it... I use e17, and have done for years.... before that I was on XFCE, and before that KDE... last time I used Gnome, RedHat 6.2 was bleeding edge. But honestly, did they really need to ditch Gnome and the UI that everybody as used to and happy with, and did they really need to push Unity to users who were already working with Gnome the next time they updated their system?
You might want to follow your own advice... there's nothing in the GPL which says you can't profit from it, nor that you are even discouraged from trying to profit from it, and there are a *lot* of distros that *do* turn a profit in one way or another. That's without even considering software companies like Crossover or Cedega or PlayOnLinux. Pretty much every Linux developer profits from it in some way, if not directly then from being able to put it on their resume, or from job opportunities that arise through contacts they make in the community, or from keeping their skills up while they work on different projects. Even big name companies that pay people specifically to develop for Linux make a profit out of it... thanks to better Linux support, I went from being a rabid AMD fangirl to buying nothing but Intel in my systems, and NVidia graphics for gaming systems, and I'm not the only one.
Besides that, Canonical has been selling support contracts for years. What's new is using an ad-supported model, but even that isn't completely new in Linux, and has been done by others. And you know what? It costs money to keep a server going, and they get a lot of downloads. If they are not making enough from donations to stay afloat, then they have every right to try to monetize in other ways. It sure as hell wouldn't be the first time... you know that both Firefox and Ubuntu get money from Google every time you open your browser to the default searchpage? That's their decision to make, and if you have a problem with it you can switch to somebody else, or try giving them money so they don't have to advertise.
Not that I'm a hater or anything, but if you're going to go with Gnome 2 on Ubuntu, why not switch to a distro where it's officially supported? Mint has an official MATE roll, which is a Gnome2 fork that showed up specifically because of the whole Gnome3/Unity fiasco. And... because Mint was originally a Ubuntu derivative, it will be familiar enough in terms of package management that there should be effectively zero learning curve.
And no, I'm not trying to evangelize for Mint... I use a different distro entirely. But if your criteria are wanting a Gnome2-based distro with apt repositories, then Mint/MATE should be a pretty good choice.
Being bombarded with ads for products/services I can't use wasn't the problem. Having a flash applet take over the screen, or a hundred popups that spawned 10 new windows when you closed them was.
I don't have a problem with advertising. I actually like that Google Adsense is relatively unobtrusive and tends to show stuff that at least makes sense (though I have my browser in private browsing mode 100% of the time, so as soon as I close the browser most of its contextual data is gone, and since I get my gmail on my phone, I'm usually not logged in to a Google account on the browser). But a *lot* of ads behave very badly, which is why I have ABP installed on my systems, and won't be removing it any time soon. If the ad industry is worried about their revenues, they should self govern better, and prevent their colleagues from annoying users enough that they seek out solutions like ABP in the first place.
Do Not Track is a solution in search of a problem. Most users don't seem to care enough about it to be bothered, or actually appreciate that the ads they see are at least somewhat contextual. Truthfully, I probably wouldn't bother enabling it, if I didn't already have ABP installed... the *real* problem is the behaviours that led me to install ABP in the first place.
Well, don't speak for the system being described in TFA, but I do know that my city (Ottawa, Canada) has been trying to replace the old bus pass/ticket/transfer system with an electronic system called Presto.
With the Presto system, in theory, it communicates your card ID to a central server, debits the card, and records the last time you used it so that you can swipe it every time you get on, and it will be smart about whether it charges you (assuming you're not on a monthly pass). You can also buy extra money through an online portal, and you can set it up to automatically renew. That's how it's supposed to work, in theory.
In practice, it's been delayed by a year due to "unforseen behaviour". Specifically, it occasionally double charges somebody when the wireless communication is spotty, sometimes it doesn't register the charge at all, and I've seen the readers on buses popping up error windows instead of the actual reader screen more often than not... presumably this error is also caused by lack of communication with the central server, if the text of the error message is anything to go by. I've also seen them pop up the Windows CE equivalent of a BSOD a couple of times, and at this point, even though they were supposed to be in full use/production by June of this year, they're turned off.
Now, for a subway system, there's no excuse to be relying on wireless communications for the point of sale. The gates don't move, and you're running a wire to it for power anyway. But for something that does move, like, say, a bus or trolley car, they do have to rely on some kind of wireless network, and that may or may not be reliable depending on how the network is set up. They may have decided that going with something like cellular data was too expensive for the system, and have set it up to sync the logs by wifi when they get back to the shop. In a situation like that, it may make sense to have some writeable data on the card to sync with, like a floating balance.
That being said, not having each card uniquely identifiable/trackable to catch this kind of thing is just silly... if you *are* going to have to leave some writeable data on the card, put a unique identifier in a non-programmable part of the memory, and have an automated system update the central database with your running balance at the end of the day... when the last value read by the card reader doesn't match what it should be in the database, blacklist the card have each unit pull the current blacklist as they leave the terminal for the day's route. It's not as if it would take a lot of data storage to keep a list of blacklisted serial numbers, and flash storage is cheap enough to include in every console.
How can you pre-calibrate a monitor? Doesn't the calibration depend on the ambient lighting in the room you're using it in? The colour temperature of your ambient lights makes a huge difference to the perceived colour on a screen.
Some of the good monitors have optical sensors and will self-calibrate, but it's not always reliable, and if you're using the wrong connection to the computer then there's no point in using the calibration. There's nothing that says that you can't use such a setup on a Windows-based system, though, and the reason that Macs tend to be popular among artists isn't the availability of self-calibrating hardware, it's because, generally, Macs have less hassle. The chances of having a virus wipe everything out are slimmer, and because it's a closed ecosystem hardware-wise you generally don't have to worry about whether everything will play friendly together. Even if it's not playing friendly, you just have to take it in to an Apple store, and somebody else will fix it for you. I have an artist friend who bought herself a MacBook Pro 4 years ago when she was studying interior design, and she doesn't regret it at all, even though she spent more on that laptop than I have spent on the laptop, tablet, and desktop computer that I've bought since then, combined (and she spent almost double what I did). And the reason she doesn't regret it is that she saw the kinds of problems that her non-computer-savvy classmates were having with their cheap computers they bought at retail.
The sad truth is that for somebody who isn't even remotely computer savvy, and who recognizes that limitation, a Mac is the best thing they can buy, because it's harder for them to screw it up (and easier to recover if they do). It requires at least some knowledge, or at least wariness about the stupid things other people do, to be able to use a Windows system safely. Thanks to the changes they're making to piss off all the power users, Windows 8 will probably change that story a bit, but I guess time will tell.
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Rice is mostly carbohydrate.... admittedly, it's not as simple as the sugars and carbs you see in the average North American diet, but it still has a pretty high glycemic index.
Pedophilia causes great harm to other people. Smoking causes little-if-any harm to others.
Quite aside from the general unpleasantness caused by the stench, there are a lot of documented cases of people contracting lung cancer from tobacco exposure without ever having smoked a cigarette in their life.
Oh, and also, abortion does not harm other people because a fetus is not a person.
The abortion debate should have nothing to do with whether the fetus is a person or not... the fact is that in every country where abortion was legalized, the number of women having abortions went down, because they could now get proper medical treatment and be informed of their options. Not every woman who decides she needs an abortion goes through with it, because many of them don't know about the other options available to them. Beyond that, making abortion illegal doesn't stop a woman from having an abortion, it just means she's less likely to have proper medical supervision before/after, and as a result, more likely to develop complications from the procedure.
I hope they nail his ass to the wall for juror misconduct and that Samsung gets an actual fair and impartial trial out of it.
After the Billion-Dollar ruling against Samsung last time, good luck finding a jury of 12 people who haven't heard about the case and had a chance to form an opinion about it. Even my grandmother, who suffers from Alzheimer's, asked me about it last time I saw her.
Motorcycles aren't about narcissism, they're about freedom. With the exception of Harley Davidson bikes, which are deliberately tuned badly to make noise, most of the good bikes (think Honda orr BMW) are actually pretty quiet, and, especially among older motorcycle drivers, they are far and above the most courteous drivers on the road, which seems kind of counter to the notion that they're narcissistic.
It is not illegal to be a dirtbag.
Actually, in some cases it is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fighting_words . See also incitement to riot.
Even in the US, there's provisions which restrict freedom of speech. The US has, far and above, the most liberal free speech laws in the world, and there's still provision in US law that could make what he did illegal. I haven't seen the film in question, so I can't really give an opinion one way or the other on whether what he did actually was inciteful, but there is provision in US law to make inciteful speech illegal.
In the rest of the civilized world, there wouldn't be any question... every developed country in the world other than the US, and most of the developing nations with free speech, have restrictions on free speech that essentially boil down to a basic rule: your right to say what you want stops at my right to be safe and free. If what you're saying can cause me harm, and it's not 100% true and backed up by verifiable facts, you're not allowed to say it. Even if it is backed up by verifiable facts, if it is likely to incite hatred or violence against me (say you're telling the wrong people I'm a lesbian), then you're not allowed to say it either.
Ultimately, it doesn't matter whether your constitution protects your right to speak... your actions have consequences, and you need to take responsibility for them. The US Constitution is *not* a carte blanche to do whatever the hell you want, and the free speech provision says nothing about being exempt from the consequences of your speech, it only says that they won't prevent you from speaking in the first place.
What about foreigners who used to fly to the US multiple times per year, and have instead decided to spend their money elsewhere?
Socrates aside, one can still opt out, and as mentioned elsewhere, there seems to be no pleasure taken in the procedurally advised frisk
Their official policy is to make the frisk as embarrassing as possible, so that you opt in next time.
I didn't receive it... and I am a fairly prominent member of the LGBT community here in Ottawa, having been interviewed on the subject a couple of times by CBC's The Current, and also having worked with some government departments to help develop their sensitivity training (most recently, Corrections Canada's transgender awareness/rights program). I'm also personal friends with a few members of parliament, one of whom is a Conservative... I also write to my MP, Gordon O'Connor, on a regular basis, and have told him point blank, to his face, that I would never vote for him because of his record on queer rights. You'd think I would be pretty high on their list of people to target for this kind of communication....
Still bothered?
It's bad form for them to send out this kind of mailing... especially considering that direct mailings aren't strictly allowed (or at least, not to be billed to the taxpayer), unless it's non-propaganda, and only being sent to his direct constituents....
... and I see they want $385/tire for the Bridgestones I have right now.... I have no idea how much they cost Subaru when I bought the car, but considering that they were included in the purchase price of the car, I doubt it was anywhere near that much....
Not really... :) When you factor in the cost of shipping... different economies and such, though, could be different in your neck of the woods. Here in Canada, not so much. Plus, when I bought the winter tires, there was a manufacturer rebate on, and I got enough cash back from Michelin to cover the cost of the rims for the winter tires. If I'd bought them online, I wouldn't have qualified for that. :)
I expect the winter tires to last at least another 3, maybe 4 years before I have to buy new ones, and the summer tires I'll probably be replacing at the end of next season (so the start of the following season to take advantage of summer sales)... if I remember, I'll check online at that time. But I'm also probably going to go with Pirellis instead of the Bridgestones at that point, and I'm not sure you can even get those online. A quick search online for the Pirellis I like right now, however, I stand to save about $6/tire over the price that I was quoted by my tire shop, and the tire shop price included installation and balance.
Run Flat tires won't help against a spike strip... they're designed to be rigid and maintain their shape for a short distance, usually less than 50 miles, when punctured, say with a nail or bolt picked up on the road.
Spike strips are designed to shred a tire. There isn't a lot you can do to maintain tire shape when your tread isn't there any more.
given that different cars have different manufacturer-specified inflation levels, it's a fairly safe bet that when a consumer version of this hits the market, it'll be programmable in some way.
Not to mention the fuel wasted by having underinflated tires....
Also, most of the *good* tires, the tire shop will install and balance them as part of the MSRP. My car has Michelin X-ICE i2 in the winter, and Bridgestone Potenza tires in the summer, and I don't think I've ever needed to pay for a wheel balance on that car.
No, they have an absurd system where the car needs to pass an inspection every 2 years, variable cost depending on the vehicle ($600 for 'light cars' (660cc cars), $1200 for normal cars, more for trucks etc..) and basically check all of the high wear parts on the car, and throw in compulsory auto insurance. What this tends to do, when the car starts to wear heavily, is to make repeatedly paying the shaken more expensive than buying a new car (3 year exemption) or a used car that hasn't degraded as far.
The Japanese aren't the only ones who have regular safety and emissions testing on older cars... and who said anything about buying old cars? Buy new Japanese cars... My parents have owned 5 Subarus since 1984, and between them have put on more than 2 million KM's without a single major repair. I think that speaks quite highly for their reliability. And since the OP was talking about Toyota trucks specifically, you'd do well to watch this series of videos from Series 3 of BBC's Top Gear: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnWKz7Cthkk
The funny thing about most "liberals" are... well... they don't get it/aren't really liberal.
The problem with that is, you can't really define things in a binary. It's not a liberal/conservative dichotomy, because there's too many issues to be divided on. How do you define somebody who believes in small government, supports the death penalty in some cases (repeat offender, serial murder, for example), is pro-choice, pro-gay marriage, etc.? Even dividing it on lines of fiscal versus social liberalism is an oversimplification, because then you get people like me, who self identify as a fiscal conservative (shouldn't be spending money we don't have), but still believe in socialized health care and subsidized education on the basis that as a long-term investment they end up increasing tax revenues and pay for themselves. And like you, I also believe that we should be paying for fair trade products (there's a reason I drink Ceylon tea), and avoiding products with blood minerals, because even though they're more expensive, they promote quality of life around the world. Unlike you, I do buy my electronics new, but I am also careful about what I buy, and don't replace them just because something shiner comes along.... I find I get better economy by buying something that's relatively high quality, even though it may be more expensive up front, because it lasts longer.
So what does that make me? A liberal, or a conservative? By American definitions, I'm ultra-left-wing commie pinko liberal (pro-choice, pro-gay rights as well... no I don't support the death penalty, I believe in restorative justice rather than punitive), but by European standards I'm actually pretty conservative, at least fiscally... I'd fit right in in Germany. And this is where the whole thing falls apart, and why we can't draw a binary comparison. :)
They are the shining example of capitalism.... and the poster child for why neither unfettered communism nor unfettered capitalism is a system that works.
Used to do that on my netbook with a 1024x600 screen. Gave that away. Using a laptop with a 1366x768 screen, and it renders fine no matter what browser I use. Same for my work PC, which is 1680x1050, and my gaming machine, which is 1920x1080. Can't be bothered to give it a go on my tablet (1280x600) or my phone (800x480).
Bad juju to expect a minimum screen resolution, or even to design for a minimum screen resolution in this day and age, but I think that explains why it looks wonky for some people, and others have no problems at all, even though they're using the same platform and browser.
The problem is any self-respecting lawyer would not dare give legal advice on a forum, because of liabilities/etc.. Lawyers need to be careful that what they say, especially if it's not in full possession of the facts, is not taken as legal advice, because they can be held liable if it turns out to be bad advice. And no, I am not a lawyer, but I have studied some law.
Your best bet, in a situation like this is to do a little research. First off, make sure that they actually are violating your copyright... from what I've seen, there's a small amount of the original work that gets used repeatedly. My understanding of the US "fair use" allows for re-use of a small clip in a derivative or other work, as long as it is not a large part of the original film, and is not substantially the same as the original. There are also considerations for the potential impact on market value of the original, and for the commerciality of the derivative work... is it being used for educational purposes, for example?
These are questions I can't answer, because I don't know enough about US copyright law, but I suspect that they're arguing that their film is allowed because it's educational in nature, because it is substantively different from the original, and because they're only using a small part of the video without including the sound.
If you still feel you have a case, then make an appointment with a lawyer and ask them whether it's worth pursuing it. If you don't like their answer, ask another lawyer.
Copyright laws are different in different parts of the world. Whether Youtube is an American company or not has nothing to do with whether the video in question is legally considered to be violating any copyright in another country
Even under American copyright laws, there's exemptions made for "educational" use, and they could be arguing that their film is educational in nature. Tinfoil hat alarmist dreck though it may be, it could still meet the legal definition for an educational exemption from copyright.
The previous versions were bad enough that I don't really have any desire to try a newer version. In seriousness, however, can you honestly give me a good reason to consider switching to Unity when I'm already happy and productive with e17?
I think the answer to that question will give you the answer to why people hate Unity so much. They were happy with a system that worked well for them, and which gave them a workflow that they were used to. Without even considering the merits of Unity itself, why did they need to foist it on people who were happy where they were?
I understand fully the desire to have a system that works for new users, and which is relatively intuitive, but they threw the baby out with the bathwater, and the "classic" interface was half-assed, from all I've heard about it. Now again, I don't use it... I use e17, and have done for years.... before that I was on XFCE, and before that KDE... last time I used Gnome, RedHat 6.2 was bleeding edge. But honestly, did they really need to ditch Gnome and the UI that everybody as used to and happy with, and did they really need to push Unity to users who were already working with Gnome the next time they updated their system?
You might want to follow your own advice... there's nothing in the GPL which says you can't profit from it, nor that you are even discouraged from trying to profit from it, and there are a *lot* of distros that *do* turn a profit in one way or another. That's without even considering software companies like Crossover or Cedega or PlayOnLinux. Pretty much every Linux developer profits from it in some way, if not directly then from being able to put it on their resume, or from job opportunities that arise through contacts they make in the community, or from keeping their skills up while they work on different projects. Even big name companies that pay people specifically to develop for Linux make a profit out of it... thanks to better Linux support, I went from being a rabid AMD fangirl to buying nothing but Intel in my systems, and NVidia graphics for gaming systems, and I'm not the only one.
Besides that, Canonical has been selling support contracts for years. What's new is using an ad-supported model, but even that isn't completely new in Linux, and has been done by others. And you know what? It costs money to keep a server going, and they get a lot of downloads. If they are not making enough from donations to stay afloat, then they have every right to try to monetize in other ways. It sure as hell wouldn't be the first time... you know that both Firefox and Ubuntu get money from Google every time you open your browser to the default searchpage? That's their decision to make, and if you have a problem with it you can switch to somebody else, or try giving them money so they don't have to advertise.
Not that I'm a hater or anything, but if you're going to go with Gnome 2 on Ubuntu, why not switch to a distro where it's officially supported? Mint has an official MATE roll, which is a Gnome2 fork that showed up specifically because of the whole Gnome3/Unity fiasco. And... because Mint was originally a Ubuntu derivative, it will be familiar enough in terms of package management that there should be effectively zero learning curve.
And no, I'm not trying to evangelize for Mint... I use a different distro entirely. But if your criteria are wanting a Gnome2-based distro with apt repositories, then Mint/MATE should be a pretty good choice.
Being bombarded with ads for products/services I can't use wasn't the problem. Having a flash applet take over the screen, or a hundred popups that spawned 10 new windows when you closed them was.
I don't have a problem with advertising. I actually like that Google Adsense is relatively unobtrusive and tends to show stuff that at least makes sense (though I have my browser in private browsing mode 100% of the time, so as soon as I close the browser most of its contextual data is gone, and since I get my gmail on my phone, I'm usually not logged in to a Google account on the browser). But a *lot* of ads behave very badly, which is why I have ABP installed on my systems, and won't be removing it any time soon. If the ad industry is worried about their revenues, they should self govern better, and prevent their colleagues from annoying users enough that they seek out solutions like ABP in the first place.
Do Not Track is a solution in search of a problem. Most users don't seem to care enough about it to be bothered, or actually appreciate that the ads they see are at least somewhat contextual. Truthfully, I probably wouldn't bother enabling it, if I didn't already have ABP installed... the *real* problem is the behaviours that led me to install ABP in the first place.
Well, don't speak for the system being described in TFA, but I do know that my city (Ottawa, Canada) has been trying to replace the old bus pass/ticket/transfer system with an electronic system called Presto.
With the Presto system, in theory, it communicates your card ID to a central server, debits the card, and records the last time you used it so that you can swipe it every time you get on, and it will be smart about whether it charges you (assuming you're not on a monthly pass). You can also buy extra money through an online portal, and you can set it up to automatically renew. That's how it's supposed to work, in theory.
In practice, it's been delayed by a year due to "unforseen behaviour". Specifically, it occasionally double charges somebody when the wireless communication is spotty, sometimes it doesn't register the charge at all, and I've seen the readers on buses popping up error windows instead of the actual reader screen more often than not... presumably this error is also caused by lack of communication with the central server, if the text of the error message is anything to go by. I've also seen them pop up the Windows CE equivalent of a BSOD a couple of times, and at this point, even though they were supposed to be in full use/production by June of this year, they're turned off.
Now, for a subway system, there's no excuse to be relying on wireless communications for the point of sale. The gates don't move, and you're running a wire to it for power anyway. But for something that does move, like, say, a bus or trolley car, they do have to rely on some kind of wireless network, and that may or may not be reliable depending on how the network is set up. They may have decided that going with something like cellular data was too expensive for the system, and have set it up to sync the logs by wifi when they get back to the shop. In a situation like that, it may make sense to have some writeable data on the card to sync with, like a floating balance.
That being said, not having each card uniquely identifiable/trackable to catch this kind of thing is just silly... if you *are* going to have to leave some writeable data on the card, put a unique identifier in a non-programmable part of the memory, and have an automated system update the central database with your running balance at the end of the day... when the last value read by the card reader doesn't match what it should be in the database, blacklist the card have each unit pull the current blacklist as they leave the terminal for the day's route. It's not as if it would take a lot of data storage to keep a list of blacklisted serial numbers, and flash storage is cheap enough to include in every console.
How can you pre-calibrate a monitor? Doesn't the calibration depend on the ambient lighting in the room you're using it in? The colour temperature of your ambient lights makes a huge difference to the perceived colour on a screen.
Some of the good monitors have optical sensors and will self-calibrate, but it's not always reliable, and if you're using the wrong connection to the computer then there's no point in using the calibration. There's nothing that says that you can't use such a setup on a Windows-based system, though, and the reason that Macs tend to be popular among artists isn't the availability of self-calibrating hardware, it's because, generally, Macs have less hassle. The chances of having a virus wipe everything out are slimmer, and because it's a closed ecosystem hardware-wise you generally don't have to worry about whether everything will play friendly together. Even if it's not playing friendly, you just have to take it in to an Apple store, and somebody else will fix it for you. I have an artist friend who bought herself a MacBook Pro 4 years ago when she was studying interior design, and she doesn't regret it at all, even though she spent more on that laptop than I have spent on the laptop, tablet, and desktop computer that I've bought since then, combined (and she spent almost double what I did). And the reason she doesn't regret it is that she saw the kinds of problems that her non-computer-savvy classmates were having with their cheap computers they bought at retail.
The sad truth is that for somebody who isn't even remotely computer savvy, and who recognizes that limitation, a Mac is the best thing they can buy, because it's harder for them to screw it up (and easier to recover if they do). It requires at least some knowledge, or at least wariness about the stupid things other people do, to be able to use a Windows system safely. Thanks to the changes they're making to piss off all the power users, Windows 8 will probably change that story a bit, but I guess time will tell.