Let me phrase it this way then - how do you define "those who are harmed"? That itself is a very basic question any lawsuit must define before a court would even accept the paperwork. With something like climate change, "those harmed" would be... everyone. And who, exactly, could be better suited for taking a legal action on behalf of "everyone" than the government?
You are making the mistake of assuming small-scale lawsuit logic applies at this scale. A single McDonalds serving coffee at an unsafe temperature, or a single power plant worker being injured due to unsafe work conditions, is literally several orders of magnitude smaller than the entire collective power industry being held responsible for emissions by lawsuits.
And, while I'm arguing with you, I'll point out that the system you propose, where companies are held in check purely by consumer lawsuits against them, is completely infeasible simply because there would be no standardization. In the current system, the companies know what the limits are. XX million tons of CO2. XX parts per million of sulfur. Whatever the actual limits are, they are known. You could, and probably will, argue that the limits are too low, or too high, or were written in the wrong font size, but the limits are known. Under the kind of system you propose, the companies would have no idea where the boundaries are. Can they emit X tons? Is Y safe? Z? Even if they got emissions to nearly undetectable levels, they could still face lawsuits from anyone, because they can't point to the regulations and say "we are following all the laws and regulations passed by the appropriate government bodies".
Let me make an analogy. Let's assume that there's a judicial ruling that food producers are legally liable for any effects their food has, including obesity. Obviously, then, there would be a major reduction in the fat and sugar content of food. But people would still get fat, because that's what people do - some people will overeat so much that they'll get fat living on a diet of carrots and soy. So those obese people decide to file a lawsuit against the food companies (who, in this theoretical scenario, are liable), and of course they win, at least sometimes, because most juries will accept the logic that "I ate food X, and now I'm fat" is valid. This goes on for a while - food companies keep reducing fat until literally everything is fat-free, keep reducing everything until it's all calorie-free too. And then everyone starves because you can't live off zero calories.
Obviously, such a theoretical scenario is implausible - something in that system would have to change before that ending. That change would be "make a government thing that tells companies how much of X, Y and Z they can put in food". That system generally works for everyone's benefit - the people get an actual guarantee that food will have only X of Y, the companies get a guarantee that if they only have X of Y, they won't be sued, and the government gets the happy feeling that it did something right for a change.
And you know what happens when someone decides that limit X isn't good enough, that we need limit Y? They go through the fucking legislative branch, get a law passed saying "the new limit is limit Y", or they go to the fucking executive body in charge of that particular limit and get them to change the regulations, The judiciary does not, except under the most extreme conditions, make laws. They decide if laws apply in certain cases, and they decide if one law violates some other law (often the Constitution), but they don't make them. Anyone who's made it through elementary school knows that.
The problem with your logic is that it doesn't make sense to have the power companies regulate their own emissions, which is actually what you're arguing for (albeit in a roundabout way, by having them sued anytime they break some undefined limit). Think about it this way - if you argue that you can sue the power company for failing to not cause climate change, then you are implicitly stating that the power companies are responsible for regulating climate-change-causing things. It makes far more sense, legally, to sue the EPA for failing to perform its essential function, just as you can sue the FDA for failing to regulate food quality, or sue the FAA for failing to regulate air transport.
Fujitsu is actually mentioned in the article. It's not big (they seem to give more credit to Japan as a whole than the individual company), but they're still credited.
I was not arguing the "I don't give a crap". I was arguing the "Founding Father's" bit. Washington, Jefferson, Franklin et al. had nothing to do with the WPR, and they probably would have disapproved of it as well, for allowing the President to start wars without even Congress's input. But, if Obama can get the Supreme Court to buy that drone attacks are not hostile (and the Supreme Court holds that the WPR itself is legal), then it is, in fact, legal.
Uh, the War Powers Resolution was passed in 1973. Unless you consider Nixon a Founding Father, you're using a logical non sequitur.
Can't argue with the "changing your definition doesn't make it right" argument, but apparently "changing your definition makes it legal" works when you're defining the law.
PS: For what it's worth, Nixon vetoed the WPR, and it took a Congressional override to make it a law. The Executive Branch has a long history of hating that law.
"Modder" might work. The gaming community already understands the term (both "game modding" and "casemodding" are common, although "modding" alone usually refers to the former), and it's probably easier to expand one word's definition than it is to change one completely.
Hmm. I like how that is mostly a homophone for "thinker", but for some reason it just seems lame. Can't tell exactly why, but that doesn't seem right.
I would think that something related to "cyborg" might be better, since to most hackers the computer is an extension of the brain. "Borg" itself is obviously out, but "Cybe" might not be. Kinda close to the slang verb "cyber", ie. "to have cybersex", though, which might not be good either.
Maybe I should check some different languages. Once I get home, I'll crack open my Esperanto dictionary, see if there's anything good.
I think it's time we give up on this. Sure, most of us know about the technical distinction between "hacking" and "cracking". But the mass public hasn't picked up on that, and even many hackers (old sense) now use the term hacking (new sense) for cracking.
At this point, trying to push the term "cracking" is futile. We won't change anyone's mind. In fact, all we'll do is come across as semantics-arguing dweebs. It's probably best to just accept that "hacking" now means "gaining unauthorized access to a system". It'll be easier to make a new term for "person who messes with computer systems for fun".
Haven't RTFA'd yet, but I would suspect that hacks aren't any more common now - just more visible and more reported. It's like when the news media has a "summer of the shark" - after a few notable incidents, the media realizes that these stories bring in viewers, and then any further incidents, no matter how insignificant, are publicized when they otherwise wouldn't be. Just look at the recent Bethesda hack - that kind of thing goes on all the time, and I was surprised anyone bothered paying attention to it. Sure, some of them were big - the first Sony attack was significant, and the US Senate hack is noteworthy - but a lot of these recent hacks have been relatively minor.
There's also the possibility that all this attention is actually causing more hacks - after the initial Sony hack, hackers realized that Sony was a big, vulnerable target. By extension, they realized that big companies actually aren't bulletproof - in fact, many of them have terrible security. I'm sure such knowledge was widespread in the black-hat world, but now the secret is public knowledge.
Plus, they've made a promise to make a DRM removal patch if they ever go out of business. It isn't a legally-binding promise, AFAIK, but it still shows that they mean well.
And pirates have already made their own DRM removal patch, so even if Valve goes out without that last patch, you won't be totally locked out.
Suspend to RAM generally brings the power draw down to a few watts, even on extremely high-power machines. After all, it's only powering the RAM, and then only enough for a periodic refresh. Probably just a dozen watts, max.
Suspend to disk is even better - brings power draw to zero. Or at least as close as possible - we shouldn't be counting standby power here, since that's there after a full shutdown, too. And, while not quite as fast to restart as restore from RAM, restore from disk is still usually faster than a full boot sequence.
You're thinking of a copyright, which does not require registration. An unregistered trademark only receives common law protections and certain Lenham Act protections. IANAL, so my only source on this is the Wikipedia article linked previously. If you can point me to a better, more reliable source, I will gladly stand corrected.
Huh. So it seems pretty obvious, then, that "iCloud Communications" doesn't really have a leg to stand on. The only thing you can sue for with an unregistered trademark is "passing off", if Apple were trying to advertise their service/product as being provided by iCloud Communications without it actually being so. Since that's not the case, as far as I can tell, the case will probably be swiftly dismissed.
Seriously, how did Apple not know about it? Doing a trademark search is simple - it's almost as easy as Googling it, once you find the search site. Half an hour's work could have thoroughly checked for anyone using that name - did nobody at Apple think to do so?
Laptop. Only two slots (DDR2 as well), and both already have 2GB in them. Upgrading to 4GB sticks of the same speed would be $140. Since I'm planning to get a new machine this year, it's not worth it.
Firefox desperately needs to lower its memory usage. I've been using FF4 for a while now, and it's using 200MB. It's gotten so bad that I installed an addon to provide easy restarts - twice a day or so, I reboot the browser.
Yes, 200MB would be fine if the computer was just being used for web browsing, or even just office stuff. But I use this machine for gaming a lot - a a recent convertee from Chrome, I'm used to being able to start up a massive memory-hog game without needing to close out my browser.
Remember when it used to be first, by a huge margin? It's not dead by any means, and still a very active language, but it's not taught as much anymore. Within a generation, it'll be in the same class as FORTRAN - only used to support legacy apps.
Make software patents shorter-term - six months to three years should be about right.
Now, obviously, companies are going to start filing their software under non-software patents. But it's far easier to argue "this patent was misfiled, it should be a software patent (and thus expired two years ago)" than it is to argue "this patent is completely invalid and should never have been allowed". Remember, the people deciding these cases are bureaucrats - misfiled forms are something they can handle; the system being wrong is something they can't.
While we're at it, cut copyright in general to ten years, with a single ten-year extension if it has been in constant commercial production. That brings them in line with patents, and provides an incentive for companies to actually use their copyrights (instead of sticking them in a vault like Disney). A twenty-year copyright would put all kinds of things into the public domain: season 2 of "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air", Final Fantasy IV, Terminator 2, Metallica's Black Album, and the novel "The Sum of All Fears" - and that's just things that would enter the public domain this year.
I almost mentioned that Torchlight was responsible for me losing at least one point off my GPA freshman year. Oblivion can take credit for the other point, but that's not important right now. However, I figured "ruins your GPA" isn't the best endorsement to give.
However, I also forgot to mention that the game has pets. Little kids like having a virtual pet puppy/kitten. And they're actually used exceptionally well in gameplay - they're like an extended pocket, a portable store, and a combat ally, all in one.
Slashdot Mirror
Let me phrase it this way then - how do you define "those who are harmed"? That itself is a very basic question any lawsuit must define before a court would even accept the paperwork. With something like climate change, "those harmed" would be... everyone. And who, exactly, could be better suited for taking a legal action on behalf of "everyone" than the government?
You are making the mistake of assuming small-scale lawsuit logic applies at this scale. A single McDonalds serving coffee at an unsafe temperature, or a single power plant worker being injured due to unsafe work conditions, is literally several orders of magnitude smaller than the entire collective power industry being held responsible for emissions by lawsuits.
And, while I'm arguing with you, I'll point out that the system you propose, where companies are held in check purely by consumer lawsuits against them, is completely infeasible simply because there would be no standardization. In the current system, the companies know what the limits are. XX million tons of CO2. XX parts per million of sulfur. Whatever the actual limits are, they are known. You could, and probably will, argue that the limits are too low, or too high, or were written in the wrong font size, but the limits are known. Under the kind of system you propose, the companies would have no idea where the boundaries are. Can they emit X tons? Is Y safe? Z? Even if they got emissions to nearly undetectable levels, they could still face lawsuits from anyone, because they can't point to the regulations and say "we are following all the laws and regulations passed by the appropriate government bodies".
Let me make an analogy. Let's assume that there's a judicial ruling that food producers are legally liable for any effects their food has, including obesity. Obviously, then, there would be a major reduction in the fat and sugar content of food. But people would still get fat, because that's what people do - some people will overeat so much that they'll get fat living on a diet of carrots and soy. So those obese people decide to file a lawsuit against the food companies (who, in this theoretical scenario, are liable), and of course they win, at least sometimes, because most juries will accept the logic that "I ate food X, and now I'm fat" is valid. This goes on for a while - food companies keep reducing fat until literally everything is fat-free, keep reducing everything until it's all calorie-free too. And then everyone starves because you can't live off zero calories.
Obviously, such a theoretical scenario is implausible - something in that system would have to change before that ending. That change would be "make a government thing that tells companies how much of X, Y and Z they can put in food". That system generally works for everyone's benefit - the people get an actual guarantee that food will have only X of Y, the companies get a guarantee that if they only have X of Y, they won't be sued, and the government gets the happy feeling that it did something right for a change.
And you know what happens when someone decides that limit X isn't good enough, that we need limit Y? They go through the fucking legislative branch, get a law passed saying "the new limit is limit Y", or they go to the fucking executive body in charge of that particular limit and get them to change the regulations, The judiciary does not, except under the most extreme conditions, make laws. They decide if laws apply in certain cases, and they decide if one law violates some other law (often the Constitution), but they don't make them. Anyone who's made it through elementary school knows that.
The problem with your logic is that it doesn't make sense to have the power companies regulate their own emissions, which is actually what you're arguing for (albeit in a roundabout way, by having them sued anytime they break some undefined limit). Think about it this way - if you argue that you can sue the power company for failing to not cause climate change, then you are implicitly stating that the power companies are responsible for regulating climate-change-causing things. It makes far more sense, legally, to sue the EPA for failing to perform its essential function, just as you can sue the FDA for failing to regulate food quality, or sue the FAA for failing to regulate air transport.
Fujitsu is actually mentioned in the article. It's not big (they seem to give more credit to Japan as a whole than the individual company), but they're still credited.
I was not arguing the "I don't give a crap". I was arguing the "Founding Father's" bit. Washington, Jefferson, Franklin et al. had nothing to do with the WPR, and they probably would have disapproved of it as well, for allowing the President to start wars without even Congress's input. But, if Obama can get the Supreme Court to buy that drone attacks are not hostile (and the Supreme Court holds that the WPR itself is legal), then it is, in fact, legal.
Uh, the War Powers Resolution was passed in 1973. Unless you consider Nixon a Founding Father, you're using a logical non sequitur.
Can't argue with the "changing your definition doesn't make it right" argument, but apparently "changing your definition makes it legal" works when you're defining the law.
PS: For what it's worth, Nixon vetoed the WPR, and it took a Congressional override to make it a law. The Executive Branch has a long history of hating that law.
I have no problem with taxes on morons. It adds an evolutionary pressure for the population to get smarter.
"Modder" might work. The gaming community already understands the term (both "game modding" and "casemodding" are common, although "modding" alone usually refers to the former), and it's probably easier to expand one word's definition than it is to change one completely.
Hmm. I like how that is mostly a homophone for "thinker", but for some reason it just seems lame. Can't tell exactly why, but that doesn't seem right.
I would think that something related to "cyborg" might be better, since to most hackers the computer is an extension of the brain. "Borg" itself is obviously out, but "Cybe" might not be. Kinda close to the slang verb "cyber", ie. "to have cybersex", though, which might not be good either.
Maybe I should check some different languages. Once I get home, I'll crack open my Esperanto dictionary, see if there's anything good.
I think it's time we give up on this. Sure, most of us know about the technical distinction between "hacking" and "cracking". But the mass public hasn't picked up on that, and even many hackers (old sense) now use the term hacking (new sense) for cracking.
At this point, trying to push the term "cracking" is futile. We won't change anyone's mind. In fact, all we'll do is come across as semantics-arguing dweebs. It's probably best to just accept that "hacking" now means "gaining unauthorized access to a system". It'll be easier to make a new term for "person who messes with computer systems for fun".
Haven't RTFA'd yet, but I would suspect that hacks aren't any more common now - just more visible and more reported. It's like when the news media has a "summer of the shark" - after a few notable incidents, the media realizes that these stories bring in viewers, and then any further incidents, no matter how insignificant, are publicized when they otherwise wouldn't be. Just look at the recent Bethesda hack - that kind of thing goes on all the time, and I was surprised anyone bothered paying attention to it. Sure, some of them were big - the first Sony attack was significant, and the US Senate hack is noteworthy - but a lot of these recent hacks have been relatively minor.
There's also the possibility that all this attention is actually causing more hacks - after the initial Sony hack, hackers realized that Sony was a big, vulnerable target. By extension, they realized that big companies actually aren't bulletproof - in fact, many of them have terrible security. I'm sure such knowledge was widespread in the black-hat world, but now the secret is public knowledge.
Plus, they've made a promise to make a DRM removal patch if they ever go out of business. It isn't a legally-binding promise, AFAIK, but it still shows that they mean well.
And pirates have already made their own DRM removal patch, so even if Valve goes out without that last patch, you won't be totally locked out.
I for one have never had problems with suspend to disk. I've been using it for years on my various laptops, had no such problems.
Suspend to RAM generally brings the power draw down to a few watts, even on extremely high-power machines. After all, it's only powering the RAM, and then only enough for a periodic refresh. Probably just a dozen watts, max.
Suspend to disk is even better - brings power draw to zero. Or at least as close as possible - we shouldn't be counting standby power here, since that's there after a full shutdown, too. And, while not quite as fast to restart as restore from RAM, restore from disk is still usually faster than a full boot sequence.
You're thinking of a copyright, which does not require registration. An unregistered trademark only receives common law protections and certain Lenham Act protections. IANAL, so my only source on this is the Wikipedia article linked previously. If you can point me to a better, more reliable source, I will gladly stand corrected.
Huh. So it seems pretty obvious, then, that "iCloud Communications" doesn't really have a leg to stand on. The only thing you can sue for with an unregistered trademark is "passing off", if Apple were trying to advertise their service/product as being provided by iCloud Communications without it actually being so. Since that's not the case, as far as I can tell, the case will probably be swiftly dismissed.
Seriously, how did Apple not know about it? Doing a trademark search is simple - it's almost as easy as Googling it, once you find the search site. Half an hour's work could have thoroughly checked for anyone using that name - did nobody at Apple think to do so?
Unless you're on 64-bit, in which case it can theoretically access terabytes of RAM, should you have that much.
Actually, I don't think I've installed Flash on this browser yet. That might be the cause.
Laptop. Only two slots (DDR2 as well), and both already have 2GB in them. Upgrading to 4GB sticks of the same speed would be $140. Since I'm planning to get a new machine this year, it's not worth it.
And yes, modern games will easily use 4GB.
Firefox desperately needs to lower its memory usage. I've been using FF4 for a while now, and it's using 200MB. It's gotten so bad that I installed an addon to provide easy restarts - twice a day or so, I reboot the browser.
Yes, 200MB would be fine if the computer was just being used for web browsing, or even just office stuff. But I use this machine for gaming a lot - a a recent convertee from Chrome, I'm used to being able to start up a massive memory-hog game without needing to close out my browser.
Remember when it used to be first, by a huge margin? It's not dead by any means, and still a very active language, but it's not taught as much anymore. Within a generation, it'll be in the same class as FORTRAN - only used to support legacy apps.
Programmer time is more expensive than hardware time. If a less efficient language is easier to use, it makes business sense to use it to save money.
This does not explain the slow languages that are difficult to use, but it does explain why assembly has fallen from favor, and why C is in decline.
Make software patents shorter-term - six months to three years should be about right.
Now, obviously, companies are going to start filing their software under non-software patents. But it's far easier to argue "this patent was misfiled, it should be a software patent (and thus expired two years ago)" than it is to argue "this patent is completely invalid and should never have been allowed". Remember, the people deciding these cases are bureaucrats - misfiled forms are something they can handle; the system being wrong is something they can't.
While we're at it, cut copyright in general to ten years, with a single ten-year extension if it has been in constant commercial production. That brings them in line with patents, and provides an incentive for companies to actually use their copyrights (instead of sticking them in a vault like Disney). A twenty-year copyright would put all kinds of things into the public domain: season 2 of "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air", Final Fantasy IV, Terminator 2, Metallica's Black Album, and the novel "The Sum of All Fears" - and that's just things that would enter the public domain this year.
I almost mentioned that Torchlight was responsible for me losing at least one point off my GPA freshman year. Oblivion can take credit for the other point, but that's not important right now. However, I figured "ruins your GPA" isn't the best endorsement to give.
However, I also forgot to mention that the game has pets. Little kids like having a virtual pet puppy/kitten. And they're actually used exceptionally well in gameplay - they're like an extended pocket, a portable store, and a combat ally, all in one.