... declare that they will no longer enforce the properly passed laws on copyright because "its too hard"?
Actually, yes. It's an important roles of the courts to judge the laws themselves. There are any number of reasons why a court may invalidate a law. Maybe it conflicts directly other laws or governmental rules with a higher priority (such as a constitution if you have one). Maybe the law states claims that are clearly counter-factual (pi=3, for example). Maybe the law is too vague to justly hold people to it (in the US this has been ruled, for example, on a number of obscenity laws). Or maybe a law is just completely impossible or impractical to enforce.
I don't think anything in this particular ruling qualifies, but I do think it is the responsibility of the courts to consider such questions.
Yes, there certainly are. The most obvious reason is code optimization. If your target device is something relatively light on resources like a mobile phone, then you probably want to optimize very aggressively. All forms of optimization require context. For something like "false && statement" all the required context for optimizing away the statement is very nearby. Something like the return value optimization needs to know about the entire function. So far we're considering the easy stuff. If you want to go all out and get into whole program optimization then some optimizations cannot be guaranteed to be safe without knowing the entire program.
Now if "compile" refers to the entire build process, then we're also probably talking about some serious static analysis. Checking for things like "can this function ever throw?" or "is this code reachable?" or "is the memory allocated here always eventually freed?" also requires an awful lot of context to check. In the worst case each of these questions requires knowing all of the code to answer.
It's standard HTML to use IFrames on a page. It's also standard to be able to flag a page with "don't load me in an IFrame." Google is raising that flag.
Even is the components are completely obsolete and not reusable, the components of the components could still be reusable. How far down do you want to strip it? If it came down to it, you could melt parts of the satellite down, separate out the materials, and start from scratch. The main thing you're saving is the gigantic cost of getting mass from the Earth into orbit.
The physical materials are cheap, but the fuel required to orbit them is not. There is some value in the "real estate" as you say, but if you just move the existing satellites out of the way to make room for new ones launched from Earth, you still have to pay to get all that mass into orbit. If you can reuse some of that mass, then you can save a lot of fuel.
It works this way because money IS debt. If you have $100 that means you are owed $100 worth of stuff. All banks create money by making loans. If you buy a house by getting a loan, the bank "pays" the seller by writing down a number somewhere that says the bank owes the "seller" this much money. Voila, money has been created. The house seller can then trade that promise from the bank to someone else for something else. And banks don't have a monopoly on the creation of money either. If you give some item to your friend for a payment but the recipient doesn't have cash on-hand and you're willing to take the cash tomorrow, that's a debt. The only thing preventing it from also being "money" is that people in general probably don't trust your friend enough to take his word that he'll pay up, and so you probably can't go around buying things with his IOUs. But banks we do trust, so their word is money. If your "friend" is a trustworthy corporation, then the IOU is called a bond, and yeah it's money.
Really there's no incentive for dealers to service customers who want to pay in cash? Wouldn't selling their wares and services be a pretty good incentive?
It's both. The act is theft. But even having stolen an item you are obligated to pay for it and have thus incurred a debt against the owner. Indeed, we've collectively decided in order to discourage crime, that in addition to the actual value you owe, in addition you have a debt to society to be repaid with a fine or prison time. And before someone gets all huffy about paying with cash instead of prison time, it's pretty obvious that there are different kinds of debt.
While I'm right with you on the utility and convenience of tear-away tabs, I can see how users who do not want to use the feature might be annoyed by it. It is true that you have to move the mouse a good bit to tear a tab away, but I often like to drag tabs left and right within the same window, and occasionally while doing that I accidentally tear one off.
I would pay $35 for an alarm clock with an adjustable face, on which I can check my email, and that I can use to write myself quick notes or check a web page. I'd probably buy five of them to put all over the house.
on less than one gallon of fuel or electric equivalent
This is obviously neglecting the energy required for the initial charge of the batteries. A jet would fare much better if you didn't count the fuel in it's tank when it took off.
Without checking, I'll just assume that the contest was designed with an enormous and obvious loophole, that way I can criticize it more easily.
First, it was a joke. Second, the pound is a unit of force and so converts directly to newtons, which is why I used that unit. Converting to mass requires the assumption of 1g (or whatever acceleration fits your context).
The pound is a unit of force (weight) not mass. It is often treated as a unit of mass informally and in some legal contexts under the assumption of 1 g of acceleration and is converted to kilograms with the same assumption. This usage is a consequence of distinction not being commonly made between mass and weight since most people never have reason to consider contexts other than 1 g. The corresponding unit of mass is the slug, which is rarely used.
If your job is to figure out what caused something to happen, "I can't figure it out" is not success, but is at least a rational response. "It had no cause" is nonsense.
I don't think it's reasonable to call attending a full size class vs. attending "special ed with an occupational therapist" a form of "preferential treatment." If either is advantaged then it's the latter.
fsn was made for IRIX systems so I guess it's not too terribly surprising that's what a bunch of CGI guys would pick when told to "Show something computery... and make it look good."
Why would a processor "care" where it gets its electricity? Anyone who owns a computer and has rooftop solar panels or buys electricity from a provider using solar generation presumably has probably run a processor on solar power. Heck, so has anyone who's used a two dollar solar powered pocket calculator. A CPU and its electrical power source are just not coupled concepts.
It appears we each have a different view as to what rights are. My view is that rights are something which people are entitled independent of their location. Some governments alienate their citizens' rights, but that doesn't make them no longer rights. Some (all, really) governments promise their citizens all sorts of things that are not rights. I acknowledge there is a gray area here; some of these rights are really "first order" but rather rights that are necessary for another rights. For example the right to vote is not fundamental, it is just how most republics implement a more fundamental right to participation and influence in governance (I don't think I'm verbalizing that well, but hopefully my point is understood).
Slashdot Mirror
... declare that they will no longer enforce the properly passed laws on copyright because "its too hard"?
Actually, yes. It's an important roles of the courts to judge the laws themselves. There are any number of reasons why a court may invalidate a law. Maybe it conflicts directly other laws or governmental rules with a higher priority (such as a constitution if you have one). Maybe the law states claims that are clearly counter-factual (pi=3, for example). Maybe the law is too vague to justly hold people to it (in the US this has been ruled, for example, on a number of obscenity laws). Or maybe a law is just completely impossible or impractical to enforce.
I don't think anything in this particular ruling qualifies, but I do think it is the responsibility of the courts to consider such questions.
When someone innovates, copy it, make it really shiny, market it extensively, and sell it at a large markup.
Now if "compile" refers to the entire build process, then we're also probably talking about some serious static analysis. Checking for things like "can this function ever throw?" or "is this code reachable?" or "is the memory allocated here always eventually freed?" also requires an awful lot of context to check. In the worst case each of these questions requires knowing all of the code to answer.
It's standard HTML to use IFrames on a page. It's also standard to be able to flag a page with "don't load me in an IFrame." Google is raising that flag.
Even is the components are completely obsolete and not reusable, the components of the components could still be reusable. How far down do you want to strip it? If it came down to it, you could melt parts of the satellite down, separate out the materials, and start from scratch. The main thing you're saving is the gigantic cost of getting mass from the Earth into orbit.
The physical materials are cheap, but the fuel required to orbit them is not. There is some value in the "real estate" as you say, but if you just move the existing satellites out of the way to make room for new ones launched from Earth, you still have to pay to get all that mass into orbit. If you can reuse some of that mass, then you can save a lot of fuel.
It works this way because money IS debt. If you have $100 that means you are owed $100 worth of stuff. All banks create money by making loans. If you buy a house by getting a loan, the bank "pays" the seller by writing down a number somewhere that says the bank owes the "seller" this much money. Voila, money has been created. The house seller can then trade that promise from the bank to someone else for something else. And banks don't have a monopoly on the creation of money either. If you give some item to your friend for a payment but the recipient doesn't have cash on-hand and you're willing to take the cash tomorrow, that's a debt. The only thing preventing it from also being "money" is that people in general probably don't trust your friend enough to take his word that he'll pay up, and so you probably can't go around buying things with his IOUs. But banks we do trust, so their word is money. If your "friend" is a trustworthy corporation, then the IOU is called a bond, and yeah it's money.
Really there's no incentive for dealers to service customers who want to pay in cash? Wouldn't selling their wares and services be a pretty good incentive?
It's both. The act is theft. But even having stolen an item you are obligated to pay for it and have thus incurred a debt against the owner. Indeed, we've collectively decided in order to discourage crime, that in addition to the actual value you owe, in addition you have a debt to society to be repaid with a fine or prison time. And before someone gets all huffy about paying with cash instead of prison time, it's pretty obvious that there are different kinds of debt.
While I'm right with you on the utility and convenience of tear-away tabs, I can see how users who do not want to use the feature might be annoyed by it. It is true that you have to move the mouse a good bit to tear a tab away, but I often like to drag tabs left and right within the same window, and occasionally while doing that I accidentally tear one off.
Al Davis was Californian.
Similarly, many Sheriff's departments in both large and small counties have volunteer deputies, often called reserves.
I would pay $35 for an alarm clock with an adjustable face, on which I can check my email, and that I can use to write myself quick notes or check a web page. I'd probably buy five of them to put all over the house.
on less than one gallon of fuel or electric equivalent
This is obviously neglecting the energy required for the initial charge of the batteries. A jet would fare much better if you didn't count the fuel in it's tank when it took off.
Without checking, I'll just assume that the contest was designed with an enormous and obvious loophole, that way I can criticize it more easily.
First, it was a joke. Second, the pound is a unit of force and so converts directly to newtons, which is why I used that unit. Converting to mass requires the assumption of 1g (or whatever acceleration fits your context).
The pound is a unit of force (weight) not mass. It is often treated as a unit of mass informally and in some legal contexts under the assumption of 1 g of acceleration and is converted to kilograms with the same assumption. This usage is a consequence of distinction not being commonly made between mass and weight since most people never have reason to consider contexts other than 1 g. The corresponding unit of mass is the slug, which is rarely used.
Oh right, they're metric. They'd give him 44,000 Newtons over there.
Probably that strumpet Lenina.
If your job is to figure out what caused something to happen, "I can't figure it out" is not success, but is at least a rational response. "It had no cause" is nonsense.
I don't think it's reasonable to call attending a full size class vs. attending "special ed with an occupational therapist" a form of "preferential treatment." If either is advantaged then it's the latter.
Yes, but that is a story about improvements in the computation power to electrical power consumption ratio. The solar power bit is immaterial.
And he never bothered to play another character for the rest of his days...
fsn was made for IRIX systems so I guess it's not too terribly surprising that's what a bunch of CGI guys would pick when told to "Show something computery... and make it look good."
Why would a processor "care" where it gets its electricity? Anyone who owns a computer and has rooftop solar panels or buys electricity from a provider using solar generation presumably has probably run a processor on solar power. Heck, so has anyone who's used a two dollar solar powered pocket calculator. A CPU and its electrical power source are just not coupled concepts.
It appears we each have a different view as to what rights are. My view is that rights are something which people are entitled independent of their location. Some governments alienate their citizens' rights, but that doesn't make them no longer rights. Some (all, really) governments promise their citizens all sorts of things that are not rights. I acknowledge there is a gray area here; some of these rights are really "first order" but rather rights that are necessary for another rights. For example the right to vote is not fundamental, it is just how most republics implement a more fundamental right to participation and influence in governance (I don't think I'm verbalizing that well, but hopefully my point is understood).