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User: WNight

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  1. Re:Not sure if this patent is still applicable on US ITC May Reverse Judge's Ruling In Kodak vs. Apple · · Score: 1

    That would be the smallest change that would produce some good, but best would be to rip the patent system out entirely and simply replace it with a series of grants based on the actual usage of your technology over the last while. If people referenced Kodak and engineers logged 'Used Kodak system, saved many months' then auditors would find this and Kodak would get a share of the pot based on the money their idea has made/saved everyone else. The pot would be funded with the current patent-office's funding, federal marshal's funding for patent-related cases, etc, and a corporate "technology funding tax" of a few percent.

    The system even properly rewards the right creator in cases of simultaneous invention - the one who did the most to help uptake of their ideas.

  2. Re:!sco on US ITC May Reverse Judge's Ruling In Kodak vs. Apple · · Score: 1

    Neither was SCO - they threatened the community at large but really just sued a few companies. SCO wanted to be paid up front, Kodak just wants everything you buy to cost more.

    In the end they both want the same thing, to be unjustifiably enriched by you without having anything to do with you or the technology you use.

  3. Re:Unexpected benefits on Google Won't Pull Checkpoint Evasion App · · Score: 1

    You don't find that to be an incredibly shallow definition?

    No. Willingness to apply the law fairly to all parties is the defining characteristic of justice.

    Whether or not they would write another officer a traffic ticket might be a good perspective on the (lack of) value of traffic tickets as something more than revenue generation

    If they feel a traffic ticket is worthless revenue generation they shouldn't be giving them out. And if they feel they can exempt a fellow officer from due punishment they're corrupt.

    but it's hardly enough to judge whether they're a good cop, much less a good person.

    So to you an only partly-corrupt cop is still mostly good? If they only throw some cases, like where family or friends are involved, you'd still keep them?

    Evidence from my city suggests that most officers would hide evidence of a murder, if they feared the truth would implicate another officer.

    If you're trying to make a larger point, you're already biasing the discussion by calling it murder. Murder is, by is definition, malicious and unjustified.

    Yes, exactly. That's why they hid evidence. If it seemed justified they wouldn't have bothered to hide evidence.

    Slandering the entirety of the profession is ridiculous even if your example is 100% correct. Hell, even slandering the entirety of the city's force is

    I had meant it as "... in my city" - ie, where the evidence is from. But that's almost a useless technicality because I haven't seen anyone deal with police corruption in a manner likely to actually get rid of it. It seems naive to think that it would exist here, and is incredibly widespread as shown by sites like cops-writing-cops, etc, and yet not exist most places, but I was talking about my city.

    If you're talking about only whatever specific incident you're talking about, then I think the phrasing you're looking for is "Evidence from my city suggests that a few officers may have hidden evidence of a murder, fearing it could implicate another officer."

    No. Evidence shows that many police officers and administrators were willing to try to hide evidence, even while saying they had no reason to recommend an inquiry, and not a single one of the police would break ranks to admit this or finger the rest.

    If you take twenty samples from a population of a few hundred and all samples come up the same it's not proof that the rest are the same but that's the best guess.

    frankly I can conclude little from your post other than that you do not like cops

    Wrong. I dislike dirty cops. I think you, seemingly a cop supporter, should be able to see the difference.

    The problem is the unwillingness to speak up about bad officers which turns the silent witnesses into accomplices.

  4. Re:A quick primer on classifications on Federal Prosecutors Tempt the Streisand Effect · · Score: 1

    But when it's true it's not a bad thing. The world is served by knowing what you are like.

  5. Re:GPL is the problem on Apple Remove Samba From OS X 10.7 Because of GPLv3 · · Score: 1

    They were making it harder for users of software to edit it. That's not "Evil" but it's not helpful so there's no reason to help Apple do it. Let them rewrite whatever they want.

  6. Re:Just what *are* the GPL3 values on Apple Remove Samba From OS X 10.7 Because of GPLv3 · · Score: 1

    Would you rather that iPad users not be able to access Windows shares

    I see no reason why Apple needs charity. If they want to offer the feature let them pay to code it.

    Let some company willing to pass the benefits on to the user get that boost.

  7. Re:Unexpected benefits on Google Won't Pull Checkpoint Evasion App · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Almost all of them have been stand up guys, and good people.

    How many of them would write a fellow officer a traffic ticket? Those who wouldn't aren't good guys.

    Evidence from my city suggests that most officers would hide evidence of a murder, if they feared the truth would implicate another officer.

  8. Re:will he go to jail? on Google Engineer Releases Open Source Bitcoin Client · · Score: 1

    Money can be backed or not backed, thats fine, but to say that silver has real value and paper has no value is ridiculous.

    To ignore the value of gold, convention or otherwise, is intentional ignorance.

    Sure though, there are many commodities, many of which are likely much better. Is that all you're saying though, that gold is silly because it's just shiny and you can't eat it or use it for much?

    Money is a proxy for real value, thats what makes it money and not goods. God damn.

    But you trade things of value for this proxy. If the music stops while you're holding it all you've got is a pretty token.

    If it was some instant process it wouldn't matter so much. But we get paid in it, encouraged to save in it, etc.

  9. Re:will he go to jail? on Google Engineer Releases Open Source Bitcoin Client · · Score: 1

    I am not saying that purchasing gold / silver is a bad thing. Just that if you do so through liberty dollars or some shady gold exchange in response to exhortations of Glen Beck then you are an idiot. There are far better ways to buy and sell precious metals. Liberty dollars were and are just a glorified MLM scam set up to appeal to paranoid libertarian types.

    I think the people who bought them were trying a social experiment, in building a stable currency, more than trying to convert substantial amounts into "precious" metals. But yes, that would be a bad idea.

    However I think it's hilarious that you think the government might have shut him down to protect the people. Have you heard of our recent banking collapse? Everyone in our country is half as rich as they were ten years ago. This was rewarded with more money, not jail sentences. If anything is economic terrorism it's destroying an entire nation's currency as AIG/etc did, but they're going essentially unpunished.

    What he shouldn't do is demand to be paid in silver or trade them at face value when there is a perfectly functional national currency for that purpose.

    There is? You wouldn't consider its value dropping crazily to disqualify it from that? Especially for someone who you'll likely be coaching to save money.

    And how is it better for him? Why shouldn't he demand payment in the most favorable medium?

  10. Re:will he go to jail? on Google Engineer Releases Open Source Bitcoin Client · · Score: 1

    You also don't understand what "remotely" means. These "Liberty Dollars" are quite close to US Federal dollars, especially the famous "Liberty Dollars" circulated in the early 1900s, also made of silver.

    Not close enough for confusion. Want to guess how many liberty dollars I've seen in circulation.

    Also, If Canadian money isn't causing fatal confusion I don't think it's a problem.

    You don't understand what "valuable" means. Silver is valuable because of convention, not utility (except for the rare dentist or metallurgist), just as US Federal dollars are.

    I don't think you understand value. Silver has some. Unbacked paper money has none, unless in large enough quantities to burn.

    But since you'll disagree, please send me all your "garbage" US Federal dollars.

    Nobody's saying you can't spend US dollars, just that they have no intrinsic value and the last person to accept them will get screwed.

    Or, do you have a different take on the whole bailing out of the banking industry? Do you not think that printing a few hundred billion dollars is essentially mass counterfeiting?

  11. Re:will he go to jail? on Google Engineer Releases Open Source Bitcoin Client · · Score: 1

    Perhaps they busted the Liberty Dollars guy to protect idiots like you. Did you ever stop to think of that?

    Yeah right, the government that printed more money to alleviate our banking crisis is looking out for the little guy.

    Why is silver so valuable? Why is its value more real than the value of the currency that you have to pay your taxes in? Because a bunch of people think it looks nice? I understand you can't just pull a bunch of silver out of your ass, but it gets its value from the belief that it is valuable. Just like fiat currencies.

    Silver is backed with silver, fiat currencies are backed with wishes (and in the USA, prayer). Whatever the value of silver it's higher than that.

    And yes, primarily because you can't just pull it out of your ass. Sure, our currency lets them plaster over the mortgage crisis, but only (even if successful) by ripping our money in half.

  12. Re:will he go to jail? on Google Engineer Releases Open Source Bitcoin Client · · Score: 1

    How does that make him wrong?

  13. Re:will he go to jail? on Google Engineer Releases Open Source Bitcoin Client · · Score: 1

    It doesn't matter what money is redeemable for, specifically. It could be silver, or wheat, but it was redeemable for something and now it's the paper alone.

    Yes, there are supposedly sound economic reasons why a backed currency would be subject to deflation, and more prone to runs on the backing goods, but that doesn't mean fiat currency isn't valueless paper.

    Silver has some useful properties, but not as useful as paying taxes which is the value that the US dollar has.

    You mean because it can be inflated at a whim which is roughly the same as collecting taxes, or what?

    You have no understanding of what money is.

    Please enlighten everyone then.

  14. Re:will he go to jail? on Google Engineer Releases Open Source Bitcoin Client · · Score: 1

    Far from it -- however, your comments have not discussed anything of substance on economics, other than how much fiat currency sucks and how a currency backed by precious metals would be great.

    We're told (because there's no such thing as proof of economic theories) that it (backed currency) would cause horrible deflation, but our fiat currency not only causes horrible inflation, but allows easy manipulation.

    Anyways, the problem isn't that you have different beliefs and want a fiat currency as that it's illegal to compete with the government, in providing what may be a better currency.

    This is especially egregious where the other currency is worth more than ours and has inherent value. If he "went out of business" you'd still have your silver. If the US Gov went out of business (not as unreasonable now as 20 years ago) our paper would be worthless.

    There is a reason we switched to fiat currency, and there is no going back. It simply is not feasible, nor realistic. While I disagree with some of the Fed's policies, I am neither so blind nor ignorant that I think that we could magically switch back to using gold and silver instead.

    Switch, as in entirely? Maybe not. But we certainly could survive having other currencies as well. While there were some good reasons to centralize it's also pretty obviously a control play.

  15. Re:will he go to jail? on Google Engineer Releases Open Source Bitcoin Client · · Score: 1

    Just because you disagree with their policies does not make them counterfeiters.

    Right, it's not a matter of opinion. It's how they print up billions of extra dollars all the time.

    Had this guy tried his best, and actually been an economic terrorist, he could have hardly done the same harm that our "legitimate leaders" (Who I've never been offered a vote on) have done.

    The guy minting his own silver coins, and going out of his way to make sure everybody knows they are NOT in fact 'legal tender' is now deemed a terrorist, because the people who really counterfeit the US dollars are afraid that their worthless currency won't be staying in use too much longer.

    No, he was deemed guilty of breaking the law. What part of that is not clear to you?

    Yeah, a law designed to force us to use the government currency so that they can inflate it whenever they want as an alternative to taxing.

    They wouldn't be able to do that to a backed currency, so of course it's illegal.

  16. Re:An insult of a fine on Verizon To Pay $25M For Years of 'Mystery Fees' · · Score: 1

    During the time you waited to collect your $6000 in rebates they overcharged you at least $15000.

    I can think of at least one reason they sat on it. It's a great retention strategy.

    I wonder if there are any emails floating around the office that put it in so many words... If a disgruntled AT&T employee is reading this - here's your chance for a handy leak. Anonymously send the parent poster your boss's email telling you and your coworkers to use these tactics. (Even if you're in a different department - it'll be enough to get the ball rolling.)

  17. Re:I'm all for it on Intel Wants To Charge $50 To Unlock Your CPU's Full Capabilities · · Score: 1

    Software is licensed, not sold

    Strange, I just asked at the store and they said it was sold.

    There are many people who want you to think a license is required, but I don't see any proof of it.

  18. Re:Stupid on Rackspace Shuts Down Quran-Burning Church's Sites · · Score: 1

    The point is that you're using the pedantically narrow definition of ISP to explain why Rackspace SHOULD NOT have CC protection. By a literal definition, one the law would use, it does provide internet services. It does take other people's data and move it around. It does, roughly speaking, the same things a usual ISP would do, but instead of end-users it hosts servers. So? Why is that difference important?

    There's nothing special about dealing with end-users that gets you CC protections/obligations, it's merely about third-party goods or data.

    You're trying to hide behind definitions, as if it's what the courts are going to use to decide the issue. Yes, you're right about common usage. Hallelujah indeed. But in touting that you miss the larger picture, yet again.

  19. Re:What? on WikiLeaks Founder 'Free To Leave Sweden' · · Score: 1

    Wow, so maybe we shouldn't make the decision to kill a group of people walking on a city street with those optics then?

    That video shows just how sloppy the US Military is. They put no effort into identifying the crowd. They were looking to shoot before they even saw the camera, let alone misidentified it.

    Those tactics might work in the desert with tanks, but they aren't appropriate for hunting "insurgents" in a city. Blowing up innocent people in the name of stabilizing their country is accomplishing exactly the opposite of our goals.

    Shit like this is why half the insurgents are insurging, we're cold-blooded killers and we'll lie about anything for PR. If anyone in the rescuers family was on the fence about the USA's occupation they're going to be, violently, on the other side now.

    We can't be a bully or we've merely prolonged the problem. We have to take all care to avoid their civilian casualties like they were our own, or we'll merely be temporarily pacifying our eventual destroyers.

    It's amazing how the USA has healed old wounds in the area - the invasion is the only thing that ever could have made the Iraqis thankful that Iran is developing nukes.

  20. Re:What? on WikiLeaks Founder 'Free To Leave Sweden' · · Score: 1

    This is exactly the reason such videos are kept secret rather than released to the masses. Wikileaks used them for anti-US propaganda, not simply "releasing the facts." Such videos are easy to use as propaganda. You've bought that message hook, line and sinker.

    Hello, retard. The videos are of the mass killing of innocents. That's not propaganda, it's the truth. The USA is flying above third-world countries blowing rescuers away and firing missiles into civilian occupied buildings.

    The only thing that might justify it is YOUR propaganda, that tries to paint these killings as part of a larger and more justified action. However, that's been shown to be a total lie.

  21. Re:What? on WikiLeaks Founder 'Free To Leave Sweden' · · Score: 1

    No, it's the very model of the logic that's used against us. "You did it to me, so it's okay for me to do it to you." And it's really pretty reasonable. We have to treat them how we want to be treated (even while under investigation for terrorism).

    If it's okay for you to declare war and kill innocent people, why isn't it okay for Osama to do it? Arguably he didn't even start it. And the people he killed payed taxes to the USA war machine, which as we can clearly see - blows away innocent people and covers it up.

    BTW, There's a difference between starting a war on false charges, as the USA did, and going in to help stabilize the area and keep it from turning even worse, as the rest of the world is doing.

  22. Re:Forget chocolate rain on Police Publish 'An Introduction To PEDO BEAR' · · Score: 1

    Only the most poorly educated or the policitian with an ulterior motive would thus propose your "reasonable five-word summary of the standard". For your case, I expect the former is the genesis of the latter.

    Do you have a better summary? "If he has reason to suspect you'll re-offend, or flee justice, or harm yourself, ..."

    Some crimes may be classified (by what appears to be your option of the childish liberterian definition) as "causing harm to others", although many causes of harm to others are not crimes.

    Sure, but the issue isn't wrongs that aren't punished but things that aren't wrongs that are punished. The problem is laws that create victimless crimes.

    No, you accept that. It's not "generally accepted" that you have the right to unrestricted "self choice" at all. Don't use the third person with your opinion to try to project it on the world.

    Don't try to redefine what I'm talking about and making it look like a minority opinion. Our system of law is ultimately permissive, in that what isn't forbidden is assumed to be permitted.

    How is it a strawman?

    Because no-one's asserted in this argument that every man should obey every law, just that the police should not selectively enforce laws. These are two separate questions which you can't round off by conflating.

    I didn't improperly combine the two - it was an option for you to list either something you'd refuse to enforce, OR to obey.

    An example of an order you'd refuse to obey (I'd hope) would be to shoot someone because they're Jewish, but it would likely also serve as an example of something you'd refuse to enforce.

    Even if you were correct and I had fallaciously conflated "enforce AND OBEY", it wouldn't be a strawman. That'd be if I presented a weakened version of your argument and attacked it.

    And, if we live in your dystopia where the only people who enforce drugs laws are those who are mindless government servants,

    Hilarious. No, in MY hypothetical there are no drug laws. Thus we don't need robots to enforce them. It's somewhat less dystopian that you make it out to be.

    If I smoke a blunt, I want to be arrested by someone who thinks it's absurd that the law wants me arrested,

    Yeah, because to you arrested by a jackbooted thug or arrested by a nice guy are the only two options. You can't consider that because all our nice guys refuse to enforce a law that we might reexamine it and you might not get arrested at all.

    and who feeds back with the loudest voice of first hand experience how much time and resources he wasted on me.

    Hopefully the effort-bar would be a bit higher for a SWAT team member who was afraid his squad would accidentally kill someone while executing a no-knock warrant.

    And if there's no order these policemen would refuse, yes.

    No order? I'm not sure how old you are, but the job of a policeman - or almost any job - isn't to possibly follow a series of politely worded suggestions.

    Does that even mean anything?

    Is there anything they'd refuse to do because of personal values? If not they'd commit atrocities and justify it as following orders. We've decided that even on the field of battle the standards are higher than that.

  23. Re:What? on WikiLeaks Founder 'Free To Leave Sweden' · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There are multiple sections to that video, in the first the apache pilots discover a group on the ground and assume they're the ones who had been doing the shooting. They think they see an RPG but don't bother getting a better image, despite these streets being used extensively by the civilians whose city the war is being fought in. Furthermore, despite proof from after the event that the video was not enough to distinguish a weapon from a camera, these events aren't seen as a mistake and no changes have been made to prevent it from happening again.

    Even if, and there's no reason to assume they are, those men the reporter was with were the insurgents currently being sought, no efforts were taken to link them to the attack before killing them all.

    In the second they destroy a vehicle full of rescuers, calling them compatriots of the slain though independent sources verify that the man was driving his children elsewhere and they came across a pile of bodies in the street - in Iraq, usually the work of a roadside bomb - and stopped to help the survivor. The rescuers, despite crew expectations, were not seen to handle a single weapon (let alone collecting weapons as was feared) and when they were prepared to drive off, could have been followed, or at worst been stopped by disabling the van with a single round instead of trying to kill all the passengers.

    Finally, the building they fired the missiles into was occupied by non-insurgents (even if you assume the people seen with guns were insurgents and didn't just leave via the back door). They were not under pressure at the time and could have monitored the building until troops arrived and cordoned it off, but they took the expedient route.

    Murder, murder, and murder.

    There are vague excuses but nothing that would stand up if used by anyone else. If you even performed a citizen's arrest on a car thief on the same evidence they had on the rescuers (ie, incredibly circumstantial) you'd be locked up. And yet our military and ardent supporters can't even admit we made a mistake, let alone that it was a horrible one.

  24. Re:Forget chocolate rain on Police Publish 'An Introduction To PEDO BEAR' · · Score: 1

    making the call, based on the circumstances and their experience.

    And I hope you've been well disabused the notion, "it's supposed to be only those who they believe will go on to cause harm to themselves or others."

    Wow, no. Do you seriously think you've said anything to that effect?

    "Harm to themselves or others" is a reasonable five-word summary of the standard for what police officers use to determine who gets taken into custody and who does not. What other standard do you think is used and do you really think it's much different in intent?

    For example, drinking to excess makes you more likely to make instant irrational judgement/become a burden on a health service (private or public, there are only so many paramedics)/reduce your productive output over time/etc.

    Yes, when relying on a social welfare network some of your actions can place a burden on others.

    When you get around to charging rock climbers for their higher use of hospitals than some more sedentary hobby, but giving them a rebate for the exercise, then it's reasonable to talk about the cost of drugs. But until then it's generally accepted that you have a right to self choice, even if your choices are destructive, or more likely merely appear that way to others.

    you can't be found guilty without evidence and a trial, etc.

    But try becoming a state teacher in England with a sexual abuse charge, even if acquitted.

    Yes, but innocent until proven guilty is the principle we strive for even if as you point out - the system has flaws.

    refuse to enforce or obey you're a dangerous sociopath

    I see you snuck in the "obey" strawman. As for "enforce", you are essentially arguing that all policemen in every country are "dangerous sociopaths".

    How is it a strawman?

    And if there's no order these policemen would refuse, yes.

  25. Re:Stupid on Rackspace Shuts Down Quran-Burning Church's Sites · · Score: 1

    Pure comedy gold.

    Yeah, my thoughts exactly.

    You take a simple phrase, that is well understood to everyone in the industry, and spend tons of time arguing why everyone else is wrong, and you're the only one who's right.

    No idiot. I do not. I'm not saying ISP generally means something else. I'm not saying you'd be wrong to use it thusly.

    You've been wrong about virtually everything you've said. You haven't been able to back up a single thing you've said.

    Nope, you again. You're the one going on about Alice and Bob without understanding the real CC status of what you'd term ISPs. Where you aren't technically wrong you're just so far off topic as to be doing a credible impersonation of Grandpa Simpson.

    You've demonstrated that you don't communicate well

    This is demonstrating that one of us doesn't listen well...

    you don't understand the technology being discussed

    I know the difference between a hosting provider, a traditional end-user ISP, and a backbone provider. But I don't see which differences you think are relevant to different CC status.

    you don't understand the legal principles involved with those technologies

    Which technologies specifically?

    and you either refuse to learn or are incapable of understanding any of those things.

    Note, when people defer to you in matters of terminology they aren't "learning" because you aren't right, they're letting the special guy have his way.

    That you get so worked up about the sanctity of the term ISP just makes it clear how insular your world is. You can't even imagine the meaning of something changing, or that it isn't locked to what you think it should be.

    You're incapable of shutting up and discussing CC related issues because all you've got is this authority-on-stuff-that-doesn't-matter routine. You're a one-trick pony, and your trick is better served by a jargon glossary.