I don't think this is quite true. They usually don't allow extradition to a country where *the person to be extradited* could face the death penalty. This is not the same thing!
People *are* extradited from european countries to the US, but often only on the condition that the death-penalty will not be applied to them.
This was decided by a court based on European law. The court acted upon complaints by Real and Sun (both US companies) against MS (also US).
There have been many similar decisions against companies from within and outside the EU, for example Volkswagen (cars, germany), BASH (chemicals, germany), Hoffman-Laroche (pharmaceutical, swiss), Nintendo (Japan), Degussa, Hoechst, etc. etc.
The law applies to everyone, including MS, and that's why this prosecution was brought. The court found MS in violation of the law hence the fine and the orders to changer their business practices.
So I think the question of who the EU is trying to benefit is the wrong question. You can argue with the law or with the courts' interpretation of the law, but it's not for "the EU" (whatever that entity might be) to decide what's good for its citizens in a court-case...
The benefit of RFID will be when you push your trolley through a gate, but your credit card in the hole in the wall and pay...
I really don't see the privacy implication here. All they will know is what you've bought, which they know anyway, seeing you're paying for it. How exactly are they going to use the RFIDs to invade anyone's privacy?
I'm sure even i can come up with some ludicrous schemes, and knowing the way the world works some of them will be implemented eventually, but at the moment with the things they propose i see it as a stock-keeping and payment issue, and nothing else...
> Evolution will select out people who are less able to do > the things that are most important or need to be done in our society
Rubbish. Evolution will select out those with the highest number of viable off-spring. While in ancient times this might have had to do mainly with strength or even intelligence, i don't think there is any such link today.
I have no idea what the current evolutionary pressures are, but i can't see how traits that society needs are particularly selected for at the moment.
Who has lots of children? - people born in 3rd world countries - mormons - people so stupid that they couldn't figure out birth control at 15 -...
I'm not saying it's good or bad that any of these groups will grow in population, but the reasons for having many/few children are mainly social and have little correlation to fitness in the usual sense.
His acts may have been criminal in many countries, but that does not mean he committed the crimes in those countries. If I shoot a canadian businessman while he is in France, i've committed a crime in france, but wouldn't be extradited to Canada.
Question with the sort of thing this case deals with is where the crime is actually committed. I think that as long as he hosted stuff on a server in Australia and he was in Australia, it does not matter which US copyrights he violated, he did not commit a crime in the US, so he shouldn't be extradited. How can he possibly break US law without being in the US or doing anything in the US?
If the server he is using is located in the US, then maybe things are different. But just because the object was from the US doesn't mean he's broken US laws...
Of course he can be prosecuted in Australia for breaking Australian law....
I'm not particularly convinced by this car... what happens if it breaks down on the motorway? Do you have to call the Volvo break down service? How about a dead battery? Or just flat one when you need a jump-start? What if you want to get an oil-change at a garage round the corner? It strikes me as the kind of thing a car maker would do to increase their slice of the servicing market, much like some up-market cars that have rare or very odd parts so that only "authorised garages" are likely to be able to do anything beyond chancingin the oil...
Most of the other design features also sound more like bunch of men were having a laugh as to what a woman wants in a car... like being able to colour-coordinate with your clothes... Please!!!
I guess doing this kind of design study is a good way of getting publicity though, even made it onto slashdot...
I think the parent wanted to point out that declarations of war seem to be a thing of the past. AFAIK none of the superpowers declared war on anyone since WWII. There was no declaration of war by the US in Vietnam, nor the Russians in Afghanistan, nor in either gulf war...
There is still a difference between an undeclared war and an act of terrorism mind you. Much as i disagree with the US role in some of the conflicts mentioned, i will never accept terrorism as an acceptable means of furthering ones goals.
The US attacks on Afghanistan or Iraq were obviously undeclared wars rather than terrorism as they target strategic and military installations, though with something like the "decapitation attempts" on Hussein it's getting a bit shady legally, but still a very different kettle of fish from terrorism.
Even the frequently cited israeli raids into palestinian territory don't pass muster for terrorism, though bulldozing or attacking the families of palestinian terrorist comes uncomfortably close to revenge terrorist attacks. (ie the people targetted are not the perpetrators and the aim is to terrorise families to the point that no-one would dare commit an attack for fear of his family meeting the same fate, which is a similar strategy to what terrorists use)
I think the reason the US or Israel (or the UK, France, etc.) get so much grief for their role is that a much higher standard is expected of a modern democracy compared to some shady underworld groups (Ie if your three year old hits another child you tell him off/send him to his room/... , but if it's an adult he goes to jail because you have much higher expectations of an adult responsible party...
> There is no such thing as the "fact of evolution". You should really check your sources > on that one. It's called a theory for a reason.
Yup, it's a theory, just like the "theory of gravity" the "theory of elctromagnetism" and the "theory of thermodynamics" or the "theory of quantum mechanics". It's a theory and a well supported and understood one at that.
In contrast there is young earth creationsim, which is not a theory, but a fairy-tale. It makes no predictions, it has no explanatary power, nor evidence, and worst of all, it's not falsifiable!!!
I can't believe this debate still exists in the US...
> There is an incredible difference between rich and poor here [in the uk], the difference ins't > nearly as big in the Netherlands.
I definetely second that. It's not even the wages that are the problem as much as the cost of living in general and housing in particular. In the south-west of the UK even a teacher has virutally no chance of buying a house and is going to expend 50% of his income on rent... how those working in low-wage jobs get by is a completely mistery to me!
I don't think anyone can doubt that those on low income jobs are better off in countries like the netherlands, germany, france, denmark, sweden, finland,... than most anywhere else in the world...
Do you know how efficient it is to store the energy in the laptop batteries? I have no idea, but i imagine it might be quite a lossy process, considering how much hotter my laptop gets when it's plugged in. I guess the only way to know would be to actually measure the energy drawn by a laptop when plugged in.
Anyway, on the balance of things I'm sure you're right and the laptop does actually use less energy including the whole charging process...
> To me it looks like they just take the trend of the past 2 years, extrapolate it to 2015, > think of a few pages worth of `reasoning' why the numbers go so much down/up, and, hey presto, > a new raport available!
Are you suggesting there's somethign wrong with that? It's what all the analysts/consulatants/investment bankers seem to be doing, surely it must be right!
I once suggested during an intership that they quote errors, or at least reduce the number of significant figures from 9 to 1 or 2 when predicting market volumes 10 years in the future... all i got in response was blank stares...
> While we're at it, resist the lure of VC funds for as long as you can
Once you sell out to VCs or go public you've lost, because your company invariably ends up with the "we have a responsibility to our share-holders" line that is used whenever something "unethical" happens. Whether you founded it, or even hold a controlling share of the stock won't make much difference...
So basically, keep control of your company, and you probably know what customers want anyway!
Really, going public does only one instantaneous good thing for a company, raise some instant cash, and a good thing for the owners of the company, raise some more cash for them.
After that, it's a big burden, the company has to follow a whole new set of rules, publish accounts, be subject to pressures from shareholders for instant returns, etc. etc.
Anyway, maybe there is an economist out there who can explain to me why it is good for a company to be listed on the stockmarket as opposed to being in private ownerships. Is there any more to it than a one-off sum of instant cash?
from the Oxford English Dictionary: -- fundamentalism a. A religious movement, which orig. became active among various Protestant bodies in the United States after the war of 1914-1918, based on strict adherence to certain tenets (e.g. the literal inerrancy of Scripture) held to be fundamental to the Christian faith; the beliefs of this movement; opp. liberalism and modernism. [...] b. In other religions, esp. Islam, a similarly strict adherence to ancient or fundamental doctrines, with no concessions to modern developments in thought or customs. --
While i don't know your exact beliefs, i'd hazard a guess that you'd fit in this definition.
People who blow up buses are called terrorists. They might of course be fundamentalists at the same time, but you don't have to be violent to be a fundamentalist. The important distinction is that doctrines are upheld blindly against the better knowledge or changes in customs (such as work on a sunday, evolution, acceptability of being gay etc. etc.)
Maybe you should just accept the fact that you're a fundamentalist? It's not necessarily something bad...
> For example devout Christians hate murder, and devout Christians hate rape
Well, there appear to be lots of devout christians trying to apply the death penalty to as many people as possible... And i you have to invoke your christian faith to realise that rape is wrong, then there is something seriously wrong with you! Like, if it said in the bible rape was ok, would you do it???
no, i think you're just under the mistaken belief that you're not a fundamentalist... You probably also believe that all gay people are sinners, and that you are not allowed to mow the lawn on a sunday... that's what i (and most non-believers) would call a fundamentalist...)
Anyway, we'll just implant it into their feet, will that make it better???
I can think of lots of reasons to agree with or object to this idea... religion is certainly not one of them!
Ponxx
Re:Thinking about this financially...
on
SCO News Roundup
·
· Score: 1
I reckon that SCO realise they'll loose all their remaining business over the next few years and just want to get as much cash now as possible...
> Sure there are geeks like us that demand high-speed inet, but for the most part, i see people leaving high-speed > in droves to go back to dialup.
I don't know, i see a lot of relatives with very little computing skills turning to broadband, just because it's easier and faster. They're all in the 50-65 age-range and i'm actually impressed at how far they've come in using the internet (3 years ago it was "can you explain the internet to me", now they do flights, shopping, maps, general info, tv listings, phone, etc. etc. and start asking me about cookies, ssl and such). Since getting braodband they use the internet much more and are generally happier about it...
I also know more and more families who have a network at home with a broad-band connection serving several computers, i think in a few years this will be the norm. I don't personally know anyone who has gone back to dial-up!
Then again, this is Europe (Germany and UK) so it might all be different where you are;).
> I am an advocate of a law that says the loser in a tort must pay the winner's court costs. > That would prevent fishing expiditions like SCO's because they are too expensive.
At the very least you must set a limit as to what "reasonable" costs are. Otherwise MS come and sue you for $100, but you will also have to pay their $100,000 legal cost if they win!
Anyway, i think this sort of system exists elsewhere in the world, what is the status quo in the US? Does everyone just pay their own legal cost? So even if you win you're screwed?
I was always wondering what those emails were all about, assuming it was just some stupid kids having a laugh... I cannot possibly imagine how stupid you'd have to be to actually believe it, leave alone send them some money in advance!!!
> they are legally bound to do what is in the best financial interests of their shareholders.
Has anyone ever dared to suggest that it is in the best financial long-term interest of the share-holders to have lots of happy customers?
You can't put a dollar value on everything a company does, but a competition like this I think is very beneficial for google financially, just by creating good will with the community that includes both its customers and employees.
Of course a board of directors would probably see that differently, which is why i think google is much better of *not* being publicly owned. In fact, other than the IPO injection of cash i have never understood why it is good for a company to be listed on the stock market...
Slashdot Mirror
I don't think this is quite true. They usually don't allow extradition to a country where *the person to be extradited* could face the death penalty. This is not the same thing!
People *are* extradited from european countries to the US, but often only on the condition that the death-penalty will not be applied to them.
This was decided by a court based on European law. The court acted upon complaints by Real and Sun (both US companies) against MS (also US).
There have been many similar decisions against companies from within and outside the EU, for example Volkswagen (cars, germany), BASH (chemicals, germany), Hoffman-Laroche (pharmaceutical, swiss), Nintendo (Japan), Degussa, Hoechst, etc. etc.
The law applies to everyone, including MS, and that's why this prosecution was brought. The court found MS in violation of the law hence the fine and the orders to changer their business practices.
So I think the question of who the EU is trying to benefit is the wrong question. You can argue with the law or with the courts' interpretation of the law, but it's not for "the EU" (whatever that entity might be) to decide what's good for its citizens in a court-case...
Ponxx
The benefit of RFID will be when you push your trolley through a gate, but your credit card in the hole in the wall and pay...
I really don't see the privacy implication here. All they will know is what you've bought, which they know anyway, seeing you're paying for it. How exactly are they going to use the RFIDs to invade anyone's privacy?
I'm sure even i can come up with some ludicrous schemes, and knowing the way the world works some of them will be implemented eventually, but at the moment with the things they propose i see it as a stock-keeping and payment issue, and nothing else...
Ponxx
> Evolution will select out people who are less able to do
...
> the things that are most important or need to be done in our society
Rubbish. Evolution will select out those with the highest number of viable off-spring. While in ancient times this might have had to do mainly with strength or even intelligence, i don't think there is any such link today.
I have no idea what the current evolutionary pressures are, but i can't see how traits that society needs are particularly selected for at the moment.
Who has lots of children?
- people born in 3rd world countries
- mormons
- people so stupid that they couldn't figure out birth control at 15
-
I'm not saying it's good or bad that any of these groups will grow in population, but the reasons for having many/few children are mainly social and have little correlation to fitness in the usual sense.
Ponxx
His acts may have been criminal in many countries, but that does not mean he committed the crimes in those countries. If I shoot a canadian businessman while he is in France, i've committed a crime in france, but wouldn't be extradited to Canada.
....
Question with the sort of thing this case deals with is where the crime is actually committed. I think that as long as he hosted stuff on a server in Australia and he was in Australia, it does not matter which US copyrights he violated, he did not commit a crime in the US, so he shouldn't be extradited. How can he possibly break US law without being in the US or doing anything in the US?
If the server he is using is located in the US, then maybe things are different. But just because the object was from the US doesn't mean he's broken US laws...
Of course he can be prosecuted in Australia for breaking Australian law
I'm not particularly convinced by this car... what happens if it breaks down on the motorway? Do you have to call the Volvo break down service? How about a dead battery? Or just flat one when you need a jump-start? What if you want to get an oil-change at a garage round the corner? It strikes me as the kind of thing a car maker would do to increase their slice of the servicing market, much like some up-market cars that have rare or very odd parts so that only "authorised garages" are likely to be able to do anything beyond chancingin the oil...
Most of the other design features also sound more like bunch of men were having a laugh as to what a woman wants in a car... like being able to colour-coordinate with your clothes... Please!!!
I guess doing this kind of design study is a good way of getting publicity though, even made it onto slashdot...
Robin
I think the parent wanted to point out that declarations of war seem to be a thing of the past. AFAIK none of the superpowers declared war on anyone since WWII. There was no declaration of war by the US in Vietnam, nor the Russians in Afghanistan, nor in either gulf war...
There is still a difference between an undeclared war and an act of terrorism mind you. Much as i disagree with the US role in some of the conflicts mentioned, i will never accept terrorism as an acceptable means of furthering ones goals.
The US attacks on Afghanistan or Iraq were obviously undeclared wars rather than terrorism as they target strategic and military installations, though with something like the "decapitation attempts" on Hussein it's getting a bit shady legally, but still a very different kettle of fish from terrorism.
Even the frequently cited israeli raids into palestinian territory don't pass muster for terrorism, though bulldozing or attacking the families of palestinian terrorist comes uncomfortably close to revenge terrorist attacks. (ie the people targetted are not the perpetrators and the aim is to terrorise families to the point that no-one would dare commit an attack for fear of his family meeting the same fate, which is a similar strategy to what terrorists use)
I think the reason the US or Israel (or the UK, France, etc.) get so much grief for their role is that a much higher standard is expected of a modern democracy compared to some shady underworld groups (Ie if your three year old hits another child you tell him off/send him to his room/... , but if it's an adult he goes to jail because you have much higher expectations of an adult responsible party...
excuse the unnecessarily long ramblings...
Ponxx
> There is no such thing as the "fact of evolution". You should really check your sources
> on that one. It's called a theory for a reason.
Yup, it's a theory, just like the "theory of gravity" the "theory of elctromagnetism" and the "theory of thermodynamics" or the "theory of quantum mechanics". It's a theory and a well supported and understood one at that.
In contrast there is young earth creationsim, which is not a theory, but a fairy-tale. It makes no predictions, it has no explanatary power, nor evidence, and worst of all, it's not falsifiable!!!
I can't believe this debate still exists in the US...
Ponxx
> There is an incredible difference between rich and poor here [in the uk], the difference ins't
... than most anywhere else in the world...
> nearly as big in the Netherlands.
I definetely second that. It's not even the wages that are the problem as much as the cost of living in general and housing in particular. In the south-west of the UK even a teacher has virutally no chance of buying a house and is going to expend 50% of his income on rent... how those working in low-wage jobs get by is a completely mistery to me!
I don't think anyone can doubt that those on low income jobs are better off in countries like the netherlands, germany, france, denmark, sweden, finland,
Ponxx
I imagine he wast thinking along the lines of 1026ms=1.026s...
> Remember, there is no incentive to be frugal with power there because you are plugged in and
> have lots of chunky KWH coming out of the wall
Well, for this guy it is, hence i wondered wether a laptop is as energy efficient when plugged in...
Ponxx
Do you know how efficient it is to store the energy in the laptop batteries? I have no idea, but i imagine it might be quite a lossy process, considering how much hotter my laptop gets when it's plugged in. I guess the only way to know would be to actually measure the energy drawn by a laptop when plugged in.
Anyway, on the balance of things I'm sure you're right and the laptop does actually use less energy including the whole charging process...
Ponxx
> To me it looks like they just take the trend of the past 2 years, extrapolate it to 2015,
> think of a few pages worth of `reasoning' why the numbers go so much down/up, and, hey presto, > a new raport available!
Are you suggesting there's somethign wrong with that? It's what all the analysts/consulatants/investment bankers seem to be doing, surely it must be right!
I once suggested during an intership that they quote errors, or at least reduce the number of significant figures from 9 to 1 or 2 when predicting market volumes 10 years in the future... all i got in response was blank stares...
crazy world!
Ponxx
> While we're at it, resist the lure of VC funds for as long as you can
Once you sell out to VCs or go public you've lost, because your company invariably ends up with the "we have a responsibility to our share-holders" line that is used whenever something "unethical" happens. Whether you founded it, or even hold a controlling share of the stock won't make much difference...
So basically, keep control of your company, and you probably know what customers want anyway!
Ponxx
Really, going public does only one instantaneous good thing for a company, raise some instant cash, and a good thing for the owners of the company, raise some more cash for them.
After that, it's a big burden, the company has to follow a whole new set of rules, publish accounts, be subject to pressures from shareholders for instant returns, etc. etc.
Anyway, maybe there is an economist out there who can explain to me why it is good for a company to be listed on the stockmarket as opposed to being in private ownerships. Is there any more to it than a one-off sum of instant cash?
Ponxx
from the Oxford English Dictionary:
--
fundamentalism
a. A religious movement, which orig. became active among various Protestant bodies in the United States after the war of 1914-1918, based on strict adherence to certain tenets (e.g. the literal inerrancy of Scripture) held to be fundamental to the Christian faith; the beliefs of this movement; opp. liberalism and modernism.
[...]
b. In other religions, esp. Islam, a similarly strict adherence to ancient or fundamental doctrines, with no concessions to modern developments in thought or customs.
--
While i don't know your exact beliefs, i'd hazard a guess that you'd fit in this definition.
People who blow up buses are called terrorists. They might of course be fundamentalists at the same time, but you don't have to be violent to be a fundamentalist. The important distinction is that doctrines are upheld blindly against the better knowledge or changes in customs (such as work on a sunday, evolution, acceptability of being gay etc. etc.)
Maybe you should just accept the fact that you're a fundamentalist? It's not necessarily something bad...
Ponxx
> For example devout Christians hate murder, and devout Christians hate rape
Well, there appear to be lots of devout christians trying to apply the death penalty to as many people as possible... And i you have to invoke your christian faith to realise that rape is wrong, then there is something seriously wrong with you! Like, if it said in the bible rape was ok, would you do it???
Ponxx
no, i think you're just under the mistaken belief that you're not a fundamentalist... You probably also believe that all gay people are sinners, and that you are not allowed to mow the lawn on a sunday... that's what i (and most non-believers) would call a fundamentalist...)
Anyway, we'll just implant it into their feet, will that make it better???
I can think of lots of reasons to agree with or object to this idea... religion is certainly not one of them!
Ponxx
I reckon that SCO realise they'll loose all their remaining business over the next few years and just want to get as much cash now as possible...
Ponxx
> Sure there are geeks like us that demand high-speed inet, but for the most part, i see people leaving high-speed
;).
> in droves to go back to dialup.
I don't know, i see a lot of relatives with very little computing skills turning to broadband, just because it's easier and faster. They're all in the 50-65 age-range and i'm actually impressed at how far they've come in using the internet (3 years ago it was "can you explain the internet to me", now they do flights, shopping, maps, general info, tv listings, phone, etc. etc. and start asking me about cookies, ssl and such). Since getting braodband they use the internet much more and are generally happier about it...
I also know more and more families who have a network at home with a broad-band connection serving several computers, i think in a few years this will be the norm. I don't personally know anyone who has gone back to dial-up!
Then again, this is Europe (Germany and UK) so it might all be different where you are
Ponxx
> I am an advocate of a law that says the loser in a tort must pay the winner's court costs.
> That would prevent fishing expiditions like SCO's because they are too expensive.
At the very least you must set a limit as to what "reasonable" costs are. Otherwise MS come and sue you for $100, but you will also have to pay their $100,000 legal cost if they win!
Anyway, i think this sort of system exists elsewhere in the world, what is the status quo in the US? Does everyone just pay their own legal cost? So even if you win you're screwed?
I was always wondering what those emails were all about, assuming it was just some stupid kids having a laugh... I cannot possibly imagine how stupid you'd have to be to actually believe it, leave alone send them some money in advance!!!
then again, Sweden only has a population of ~9M. If you scale this to the population of the US (300M) then you get 24*300/9=800.
Admittedly that's still only half as many entrants/population as the US, but the disparity is not as huge as you suggest...
Ponxx
> they are legally bound to do what is in the best financial interests of their shareholders.
Has anyone ever dared to suggest that it is in the best financial long-term interest of the share-holders to have lots of happy customers?
You can't put a dollar value on everything a company does, but a competition like this I think is very beneficial for google financially, just by creating good will with the community that includes both its customers and employees.
Of course a board of directors would probably see that differently, which is why i think google is much better of *not* being publicly owned. In fact, other than the IPO injection of cash i have never understood why it is good for a company to be listed on the stock market...
Ponxx
> Build one from basic chemicals and I'll be impressed
that's what they did.
It is a copy of a well-known virus, but it was made from entirely from basic chemicals.
Are you impressed now?
Ponxx