the guerrillas will run over them without a problem, but the Robocops will get a nasty surprise.
The weight difference is not that big -- if a "naked" guerilla jumps right on it, or if there are two of them, it may mistaken him for a heavier pursuer.
They can do better already with remotely controlled (rather than weight-triggered) mines (US military does it all the time too, according to movies). But they don't...
Anyway, there are no guerillas striking from valleys any more. There are IED triggered from afar...
Boycotting it does not only cut you off from the entertainment, it also cut you from the culture that is part of.
No, it limits your cultural enrichment to books, which are usually better anyway.
But even if the boycot cut you off completely, surely, the price you pay would still be far less than, say, a hunger strike...
The alternative presents an ethics problem of actively forcing a maker of something to change his ways. In my opinion, only the passive ways (like boycott their wares) should be used, when at all possible.
This exoskeleton sucks for defending and going after people in cities, close alleys.
The apparatus may let the soldier avoid getting hit by running or jumping very quickly and/or far... It may also help in pursuing attackers -- down those same valleys. If the soldier can jump over a 2 meter fence or simply maintain 25 km/h for a few minutes, the guerillas will be in a tougher spot.
Evilness and stupidness are not mutually exclusive. The infamous Idi Amin comes to mind. Just look at the vicious murderers in prison with IQs below 85.
Yes, a human being (and a baboon) may be evil and stupid at the same time. But the evilness of Hitler's scale is mutually exclusive with the stupidity, that warrants comparisions with a monkey.
Until you are ready to accuse Bush of plotting to intentionally kill a few million civilians, you should leave Hitler alone.
A good example is Bush'e reply recently to the number of civilian killed in Iraq.
Heh, do you think, Roosevelt knew exactly how many Japanese died in any of the American attacks? Does that make him in any way similar to Hitler? Or to Bush, for that matter?
The plan is to make it harder to copy, so as to shrink the number of people doing it down so that:
less profits are lost to piracy;
the number of pirates remains "sueable".
Personally, I don't quite get, what the fuzz is about -- if you hate the movie houses so much for this, stop buying their wares. It's only entertainment -- people have given up far more vital things in protest...
And, if it turns out, Joe Sixpack (a.k.a. "sheeple") does not care, then, maybe, that's how it should be... Read a book and donate the saved money to ACLU or the pademelons, or whatever...
Your attempt to oversimply Bush's evil actions has failed once again.
Hey, hey, stop erecting strawmen here. All I said, is that the same person simply can not be stupid enough to deserve being called "clueless baboon" and evil enough to warrant comparisions with Hitler.
Bush-bashers have been having troubles picking one of the two lines for the last several years, which simply means, both are wrong:-)
Have a nice day, and do wipe the saliva off your keyboard...
was a first-hand witness of the rise of the Nazis and studied them before the burning of the Reichstag.
You referred to the burning twice in your posting, but forgot to mention, that it was the Nazis themselves, who burned it in order to blame the Communists (another lovely party) for it.
Unless you share some kooks' opinion, that "BushCo" is behind the 9/11 attack, you should stop bringing up the burning of Reichstag.
The general emphasis on authoritarian families (Republican Family Values), the state as an authority on moral issues, etc. are strong commonalities between the NSDAP and the current GOP leadership.
"Strong similarities"? Let me ask you the same question, I asked in this thead already: do you accuse "the current GOP leadership" of wanting to build death camps in order to exterminate entire genoms? Because if you don't, then you should also stop dropping off-handed remarks like this one.
On the other hand, the fact that somewhere on the order of 30,000 Iraqi civilians are dead because of his actions is nothing to sneeze at, either.
Those deaths were not intentional. You may have noticed, that I am not blaming Hitler for the millions, who died on the battlefields, nor for his "collateral damage". It is the millions of innocent, that he intentionally and methodically killed, that make his name a dirty word.
Well, maybe you should ask black people whether he's been a good president.
You are changing the subject from Bush being a racist (althgough the grandparent accused him of being a nationalist) to black people thinkging he is a bad president. Oops...
Hitler used the same sort of approach to gain power [...]
Let me ask you flat out: do you, or do you not accuse Bush of building (or wanting to build) gas-chambers to kill entire genoms? Because if your hatred of him has not yet lead you to an accusation of that kind of gravity, then you should stop comparing him with Hitler.
This shall be my last post in this ridiculous thread -- Godwin's Law and all...
The key similarities between Bush and Hitler are that both are fierce nationalists pushing agendas that include aggressive foreign policies and a reduction in civil rights.
"Nationalism" is fine. Dandy. So dandy, in fact, various Latin American politicians are running on just that and are hailed as heros by the same people, who bash Bush.
Hitler was a fierce racist, not just nationalist. Bush obviously has no problems with Americans of any race -- just look at his administration. You can't dismiss Rice, Gonzales, Powell, Alito as "uncle toms". There is no nationalism as in "America for Americans" either -- if anything, Bush is blasted by dimwits from Left and Right for being too easy on the immigrants (legal and otherwise).
And then, of course, there is Godwin's Law. In short, you may truly hate George W. Bush, but he is not sending (nor would like to send) millions of innocent people to gas chambers. To compare someone to Hitler, the accusation must of that kind of gravity.
Yes, the entire 50+ volumes from the 1960-ies. There are entire apages missing with articles on certain politicians (primarily -- Soviet, of course), which the party members (no one else was really able to subscribe to the encyclopedia) were instructed to cut out and destroy.
The issuing of warrants to authorize searches is a judicial function;
By tradition, not by Constitution. Constitution only states, that the searches must be "reasonable". One can argue, that the nation's top spy agency is no less "reasonable", than a local judge in some neck of the woods.
when the executive branch bypasses this, it's taking those powers on for itself.
How about a traffic stop? If a cop considers your behavior "suspicious", he can search your car -- and they always could. As long as he can justify his "suspicion" later, the search will be considered "reasonable".
The talk is about the violations of the spy-regulating law(s), not the Constitution. I don't like it either, but I think, the term "separation of powers" was pulled in by its ears here.
[...] a story not just about the Constitutional concept of the separation of powers [...]
What does "separation of powers" have to do with the story? Did the President (the Executive) also "authorize" the courts (the Judiciary) to accept NSA's intercepts as evidence?
Knowing the accuracy of GPS at the best of times of the time it takes for a usable signal to be picked up, it seems that they don't seem rugged enough to actually be of use to geophysicists for a reasonable amount of time.
That may be the disadvantage of the cripled civilian models. But real GPS is good enough for targeting a (very fast moving) cruise missile, so it can't be that bad.
The internal policy, probably, consist of: "Wave the charges in reasonable cases". With the definition of "reasonable" left to the customer service representatives or their managers.
This is good enough for the internal understanding, but not for the dissemination to customers. Such dissemination would take the interpretation of the rule from Verizon to courts, and Verizon does not, obviously, want that.
Reject that idea as you wish, but IP is not a real thing. Property is a physical asset that can be seen, bought, and traded.
No software, then, can be owned, thus invalidating all licenses -- including (heavens!) GPL.
That the US is allowing patents on concept is ridiculous; ideas were never supposed to be patentable, only the implementation.
This is a rather foolish attempt to set the scope. Why could not the two inventors of telephone settle their claims by simply getting patents for, say, black phones connected via. copper wires for one of them and red phones using steel wires for the other? These would've been two drastically different implementations.
I suspect, you are just confused. You heard somewhere, that US is allowing patents on "business methods" (like Amazon's "1-click"), and are now trying to pull the criticism of that here by its ears.
Paying inventors is fine and dandy. For one thing, it would mean that someone actually invented something. However, NTP invented nothing; they have no product, no prototype, nothing of value.
If you reject the principle, that something intangible (like intellectual property) may exist, then who will ever be paying the inventors? There'd be nothing to pay for.
NTP did not invent anything, true, but it paid the inventor. Without the concept of the intellectual property, the inventors will have to hide their ideas until they manage to manufacture and sell things based on them. This will be worse than whatever your grievances are now. First, as I pointed out already, talents for inventions and for entrepreneurship rarely meet in the same head.
Second, even a talented entrepreneur would find it very difficult (or just impossible) to obtain financing, find partners, etc. without exposing the idea to the prospects. And -- without the concept of intellectual property -- what is to hold the prospected financiers, partners, etc. from saying: "Not interested," -- and deciding to do it themselves?
Ethics? Maybe... But what is to prevent the already established companies from snatching up the idea of a start-up, before the start-up signs up the 1000th customer? Not even ethics -- they learned about the idea in the market place... Currently, they can try to license it and compete, or wait for the patent to expire, thus giving the patent holder time to get off the ground.
This is a very real concern. I heard and saw venture capitalists interrogating founders of startups about their intellectual property -- without patented (or patent-pending) ideas, they often would not give even the seed money.
NTP is completely at fault for their intentional abuse of the patent system with the goal of profiting from it. They have no product, no design, and absolutely no use.
(-: You must've posted without following the link in G.P. Try it, maybe, it will help.
Then, without asking, the rep said "but if your phone gets stolen then we'll waive the charges." I told her that I'd accept that if she's put it in writing, but she said she couldn't do that.
Your story would've been a lot more interesting, if you still signed up, the phone got stolen and Verizon refused to waive the charges. Then, you'd have something to complain about.
She couldn't put it in writing, because the legal definitions alone would've taken several pages. Verizon does not want to give too much grief to honest customers, who lost their phones, but it does not want to get taken by those, who lie about it either.
They, probably, look at each case individually, and that is, what she was trying to say.
That said, your advice to not trust (or partially discount) verbal promises is perfectly sound, of course, and applies to all business dealings.
Now compare that to NTP. They provide *no value add*. No work, no service, no accessibility, no publishing. If on the other hand, they make the ideas accessible to those who would like to license them, *that* would be a value add.
First of all, I absolutely reject this criteria. One must be entitled to enjoy her property, even if he does not do anything (perceived by others as useful) with it.
But you are wrong. NTP and entities like it certainly make our lives better by paying inventors for their ideas. This allows inventors to make a living inventing.
They waited until RIM had invested *big money* in their infrastructure, not knowing about the virtual landmine.
This is simply, as they say, factually wrong. NTP first contacted RIM in 2000, a year after the service was introduced. RIM chose to fight, and lost...
It's worth noting that patent language is so impenetrable, and the numbers of patents so massive, that it (the patent system as it stands today) probably can no longer serve its original purpose.
This may well be true. But it is not NTP's fault. Patent system needs fixing, but ideas still have value. And thus they must remain sellable, and the ownership of them must enforced.
Here is an article on the subject -- my other post with a link to it gets slowly down-modded by dimmer mods.
In this case, NTP is clearly just a patent litigation machine which is worse
Very few people combine both the entrepreneurial and the inventors' talent. "Patent litigation machines" allow both kinds to prosper independently. And give us the fruits of their innovation...
Supermarkets are not growing the foods, that they sell, either. Does not make them "evil"... Growing apples and selling them are entirely different vocations.
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The weight difference is not that big -- if a "naked" guerilla jumps right on it, or if there are two of them, it may mistaken him for a heavier pursuer.
They can do better already with remotely controlled (rather than weight-triggered) mines (US military does it all the time too, according to movies). But they don't...
Anyway, there are no guerillas striking from valleys any more. There are IED triggered from afar...
But even if the boycot cut you off completely, surely, the price you pay would still be far less than, say, a hunger strike...
The alternative presents an ethics problem of actively forcing a maker of something to change his ways. In my opinion, only the passive ways (like boycott their wares) should be used, when at all possible.
Until you are ready to accuse Bush of plotting to intentionally kill a few million civilians, you should leave Hitler alone.
See Tim Skirvin's excellent commentary.
Heh, do you think, Roosevelt knew exactly how many Japanese died in any of the American attacks? Does that make him in any way similar to Hitler? Or to Bush, for that matter?The plan is to make it harder to copy, so as to shrink the number of people doing it down so that:
Personally, I don't quite get, what the fuzz is about -- if you hate the movie houses so much for this, stop buying their wares. It's only entertainment -- people have given up far more vital things in protest...
And, if it turns out, Joe Sixpack (a.k.a. "sheeple") does not care, then, maybe, that's how it should be... Read a book and donate the saved money to ACLU or the pademelons, or whatever...
Bush-bashers have been having troubles picking one of the two lines for the last several years, which simply means, both are wrong :-)
Have a nice day, and do wipe the saliva off your keyboard...
The two are mutually exclusive, so which is it?
Unless you share some kooks' opinion, that "BushCo" is behind the 9/11 attack, you should stop bringing up the burning of Reichstag.
"Strong similarities"? Let me ask you the same question, I asked in this thead already: do you accuse "the current GOP leadership" of wanting to build death camps in order to exterminate entire genoms? Because if you don't, then you should also stop dropping off-handed remarks like this one.This shall be my last post in this ridiculous thread -- Godwin's Law and all...
Hitler was a fierce racist, not just nationalist. Bush obviously has no problems with Americans of any race -- just look at his administration. You can't dismiss Rice, Gonzales, Powell, Alito as "uncle toms". There is no nationalism as in "America for Americans" either -- if anything, Bush is blasted by dimwits from Left and Right for being too easy on the immigrants (legal and otherwise).
And then, of course, there is Godwin's Law. In short, you may truly hate George W. Bush, but he is not sending (nor would like to send) millions of innocent people to gas chambers. To compare someone to Hitler, the accusation must of that kind of gravity.
And my grandfather, of course, abided...
The talk is about the violations of the spy-regulating law(s), not the Constitution. I don't like it either, but I think, the term "separation of powers" was pulled in by its ears here.
That may be the disadvantage of the cripled civilian models. But real GPS is good enough for targeting a (very fast moving) cruise missile, so it can't be that bad.
This is good enough for the internal understanding, but not for the dissemination to customers. Such dissemination would take the interpretation of the rule from Verizon to courts, and Verizon does not, obviously, want that.
So officially -- no refunds.
Huge actual holes in the civil liberties also exist -- one of the provinces, for example, mandates the use of a certain language in public life.
Actually, NASA can simply license the ideas/patents from his estate and from his employer of several decades -- Boston University.
I suspect, you are just confused. You heard somewhere, that US is allowing patents on "business methods" (like Amazon's "1-click"), and are now trying to pull the criticism of that here by its ears.
If you reject the principle, that something intangible (like intellectual property) may exist, then who will ever be paying the inventors? There'd be nothing to pay for.NTP did not invent anything, true, but it paid the inventor. Without the concept of the intellectual property, the inventors will have to hide their ideas until they manage to manufacture and sell things based on them. This will be worse than whatever your grievances are now. First, as I pointed out already, talents for inventions and for entrepreneurship rarely meet in the same head.
Second, even a talented entrepreneur would find it very difficult (or just impossible) to obtain financing, find partners, etc. without exposing the idea to the prospects. And -- without the concept of intellectual property -- what is to hold the prospected financiers, partners, etc. from saying: "Not interested," -- and deciding to do it themselves?
Ethics? Maybe... But what is to prevent the already established companies from snatching up the idea of a start-up, before the start-up signs up the 1000th customer? Not even ethics -- they learned about the idea in the market place... Currently, they can try to license it and compete, or wait for the patent to expire, thus giving the patent holder time to get off the ground.
This is a very real concern. I heard and saw venture capitalists interrogating founders of startups about their intellectual property -- without patented (or patent-pending) ideas, they often would not give even the seed money.
(-: You must've posted without following the link in G.P. Try it, maybe, it will help.She couldn't put it in writing, because the legal definitions alone would've taken several pages. Verizon does not want to give too much grief to honest customers, who lost their phones, but it does not want to get taken by those, who lie about it either.
They, probably, look at each case individually, and that is, what she was trying to say.
That said, your advice to not trust (or partially discount) verbal promises is perfectly sound, of course, and applies to all business dealings.
But you are wrong. NTP and entities like it certainly make our lives better by paying inventors for their ideas. This allows inventors to make a living inventing.
This is simply, as they say, factually wrong. NTP first contacted RIM in 2000, a year after the service was introduced. RIM chose to fight, and lost... This may well be true. But it is not NTP's fault. Patent system needs fixing, but ideas still have value. And thus they must remain sellable, and the ownership of them must enforced.Here is an article on the subject -- my other post with a link to it gets slowly down-modded by dimmer mods.
Very few people combine both the entrepreneurial and the inventors' talent. "Patent litigation machines" allow both kinds to prosper independently. And give us the fruits of their innovation...
Supermarkets are not growing the foods, that they sell, either. Does not make them "evil"... Growing apples and selling them are entirely different vocations.