Hmm... Never had that problem. Flash crashed often for a while, but it hasn't crashed on me in weeks, maybe months now. Regardless, it rarely if ever brought down the entire browser. Like so many other bugs, I imagine that it very much depends on your configuration. Maybe I just got lucky.
Yes, because clearly that's all a web browser does. Nothing dynamic happens in a web browser! I'm guessing you're still running probably Netscape 4.1, or at least you aren't running Flash, probably have Java and Javascript disabled, and you run with no add-ons. If you do all those things, then you're right, all your web browser does is parse HTML and place it in a scrollable viewport.
Some of us use the browser in a bit more demanding manner, though. Come back when you've moved into the 21st century and your comments would be more credible.
But of course, one example doesn't prove much, just like my one example doesn't prove that Chrome is superior. I do know others who have had problems with FF reliability, though, so my example is not completely isolated.
Can't see how ads would be the source of the problem. Ads are either images or Flash, maybe a bit of DHTML sometimes. But they are plain web content. There is nothing different about ads that would cause them to crash the browser while the other page elements don't. You could be onto something in a roundabout way, in that blocking ads might lower your memory footprint, and memory is I think the real culprit here. I typically have a bunch of tabs open, and FF leaks memory like crazy. I know for certain that my Flash problems were memory related (they'd only appear once the FF memory footprint reached a certain size. And note that these are NOT related to the amount of memory in my system, of which I have plenty). But I don't like the notion of having to adjust my usage style to keep a program from crashing. Because Chrome puts each tab in it's own process, these memory related issues never appear.
And I'll paraphrase your last sentence... I have nothing against Firefox. I used it for years, and still use it regularly when I find a site that doesn't like Chrome. But for me, on my system and with my browsing style, Chrome has proven MUCH more reliable. But I do still watch for new FF releases, and if they fix some of these issues, I'll happily consider switching back.
Really ironic example, since Flash was the biggest source of my problems on Firefox. With FF, if Flash has a problem, it either brings down the entire browser or it requires restarting the entire browser to make it work again. Since plug-ins run in their own process in Chrome, if Flash crashes you either reload the any pages using Flash (in the event of a full crash), or use the Task Manager to kill Flash then reload those pages. Quick and easy.
If you're suggesting that should matter for web browsing something is very very wrong.
Why wouldn't it matter? With a properly coded web browser that is designed to support multiple cores, it will make a big difference.
I'm hesitant to get involved in a flame war, but here's my two cents. I've been running Chrome since about 2 days after it was released. In that time, the browser has crashed maybe a handful of times, vs. probably once a week with Firefox. When something does go wrong, it usually is specific to the page/tab, and doesn't bring down the entire browser, and while I had issues with tabs crashing early on, it almost never happens with the more recent updates. Speed? Seems plenty fast to me. I do have a couple of sites that won't work with Chrome, but it's a very small fraction.
I was a dedicated Firefox user for several years, and I still use it for web development and those few sites that still won't work with Chrome. But until the Firefox guys come up with a new version, it's just plain outclassed by Chrome for day to day web browsing.
There is no such mythical perfectly peaceful primitive tribal culture.
There were many such tribes. I'm not saying that they had no experience with war, or that they necessarily felt that their neighboring tribes had equal access to the land that they considered their homeland, but within their own tribe they had no concept of property (And believe it or not, many of them did live in relative peace with outsiders as well). There are several N. American Indian tribes that lived that way, as well as others from around the world. Watch the movie "The Gods Must Be Crazy" for a humorous examination of what happens when the concept of property is thrust into a society that has no concept of it. If property rights were something "that has been obvious to any retard ever since Ug the caveman made a cool club and whacked the first guy who tried to take it away from him", those tribes would obviously either be made up of retards, or or they never existed at all. Well, they did exist, and while I haven't seen their IQ tests, I doubt that they are all retards.
There must be at least some individual property rights, if nothing else, to own the clothes you are wearing.
I agree. In fact, virtually everyone in the US agrees. You would be very hard pressed to find a single sane person anywhere on the left who doesn't believe in property rights to some extent. Hell, even the Soviet Union had the concept of property rights. The question is just how far those rights extend. Where that line is drawn is by no means 'obvious to any retard'.
It's possible that we agree more than we disagree, but there is one point where I think you're dead wrong. You've bought in to a bit of right-wing rhetoric that, like so much else on the right, takes a complicated issue and dumbs it down to a soundbite. You argue that "Other than life itself, there is no more fundamental right than the right to property", yet you now acknowledge that it's not quite that simple. When people lose site of the nuance in these issues, they will be taken advantage of by others who have not lost that perspective.
Remember, whether we're talking global warming, drilling for oil, or just cutting income taxes, there are usually a few VERY rich people who stand to gain a whole lot more money by convincing the populous to go along with them (and those gains usually come at the expense of the property values of others, property rights be damned). If they can achieve that by oversimplifying a few issues, they are more than willing to do so.
Netflix has a variety of plans ranging from one movie at a time out plus unlimited streaming for $9/mo, up to 8 at a time for $48. Their 'default' plan is 3 at a time for $17.
I just wanted to recognize and point out something that has been obvious to any retard ever since Ug the caveman made a cool club and whacked the first guy who tried to take it away from him.
So I take it that, by your definition, every culture that didn't place property right paramount are retards? Does that apply to all the tribal culture that lived communally, the sort that existed peacefully for thousands of years before running into the white men who exterminated them to take their property? [Before you object, not all tribal cultures fit this definition.] What about countries like Sweden, Finland and Norway where capitalism is tempered by a liberal helping of socialism (and taxes to match), yet by most surveys have the happiest citizens in the world?
Or how about the United States, where property rights get but the barest mention in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights (really none other than the right to be secure against illegal searches and seizures and the prohibition against quartering soldiers with the populace during times of peace), yet things like freedom of the press, freedom of religion and the prohibition against unjust prosecutions are explicitly mentioned? The Declaration of Independence cites three unalienable rights, none of which include property. It also cites numerous grievances against the King of England justifying our rebellion, only a few of which could even remotely be argued as violations of property rights. Clearly our founding fathers must have been retards for failing to spell out such a "fundamental" right.
The reality is that property rights, while significant, are secondary to civil rights. Without personal freedoms, property rights are useless. All the wealth in the world doesn't benefit you if you're locked in the King's dungeon. And while the tyrant in a libertarian culture may not be a king, the natural conclusion of libertarianism state is totalitarianism just the same. Gradually the wealth will become more and more concentrated until it is in the hands of a very few people, and everyone else will be their de facto slaves. Without progressive taxation (AKA the dreaded "wealth redistribution"), there is no other possible conclusion (and remember, every society has some form of wealth redistribution. It's just that in libertarian societies, the wealth is always redistributed upwards).
The argument that taxes somehow stifle people's desire to create new businesses (not made by you here, but made by many others while justifying similar viewpoints) is just absurd on it's face. Remember, every company in America today was started by people paying those same high taxes that the right likes to rail about. In fact most of the companies that are more than eight years old were founded when income taxes were much higher than they are today (the average top marginal tax rate since the income tax was established is 60 percent). Those high taxes didn't stop their founders from starting their companies, so the argument that we must cut taxes or they won't have incentive to reinvest is just silly.
In fact, contrary to everything you've ever heard from the Republicans, higher income taxes actually create a greater incentive to reinvest, since you only pay income taxes when you take money out of a company. In practice, low taxes encourage people to take money out of their businesses and invest in such "economy-growing" things as luxury yachts and villas in France. They also encourage things like the outsourcing of jobs overseas, which is great for the shareholders of a company, but lousy for everyone else in the country. It's funny how much of this stuff is just obvious if you stop and think about it for a moment, yet people rarely bother to do so.
(Sorry to be a bit rambly, but I'd appreciate if you'd at least skim the whole thing)
The top like what 10% or the money makers in the US already pay abou 90% of the taxes
Well, yes, that may be true, but the top 10% of money makers make something like 98% of the money. If you actually break it down by percentage of income earned to percentage of taxes paid, it quickly becomes clear that the top wage earners actually pay a lower percentage of their income to taxes than do the lower incomes. And that doesn't even include the billions of dollars of tax-free income that are 'earned' by the 'overseas' (read: Cayman Islands) branches of US corporations. In fact over a quarter of large US corporations (>$250,000,000 in assets or >$50,000,000 in gross receipts) paid no US income taxes in 2005. About two-thirds of U.S. companies and foreign firms doing business in this country paid no federal income taxes from 1998 to 2005. Sure some of those companies legitimately lost money, but hard to believe they all did.
The reality is that while the rich like to complain about their high tax rate, few people in that top tax bracket actually pay anything close to the amount they owe. When you earn a million or more a year, you can afford to hire a very good accountant. You complain about your high taxes paid, but remember, if the rich actually paid the same percentage you did, everyone's tax rate would go down.
But Google Earth is free and not ad supported. How does not using Google Earth punish them?
Google has a pretty good history of responding to public complaints. They're far from perfect, but they really do seem to care what the public thinks of them. I bet that public pressure to fix this will almost certainly work. It's such a blatantly bad decision on their part that I have trouble believing that it wasn't a screw up by some low-level minion. My guess is that this will be fixed sooner rather than later.
I have to say that those are about the poorest justifications against the tax I can imagine... First, #1 is just silly. Even if you are a professional landscaper or gardener, it's unlikely that you are using enough gas in your lawnmowers and chainsaws to really be a significant concern. And since the cost of the fuel you use should be a deductible expense, the net tax you pay is negligible. If you are not a professional, you probably use less than 10 or 20 gallons of gasoline (for most people MUCH less) per year for these purposes, so most people probably spend more driving to the gas station to fill up their gas can than they waste on unnecessary gas taxes each year. #2 makes a bit more sense, but still falls flat. As others have pointed out, off-road fuels are already not taxed the same. If you spend enough time driving off road to find this tax a major concern, you probably already no how to avoid paying it.
You are right that some people pay a little bit of extra tax with the current system, but I would be surprised if the amount of gasoline sold and taxed for on-road use that was not used on the road even came to 1% of the total. Out of all the unfair taxes in the world, this one doesn't really seem all that bad to me.
It would not be normal to expect entirely new features to be installed
Oh, it wouldn't, eh?
iPhone users, you hear that? You should be pissed at Apple for adding new features to your phone. How dare they try to make you experience better. Same for you Tivo users, and early adopters everywhere. Tell the companies: I bought your product when it sucked, and I LIKE it that way. STOP TRYING TO MAKE MY EXPERIENCE BETTER!
I'm sorry, but you're an idiot. Firmware upgrades frequently add new features, and if those features are intended to make you internet connection more secure, then it is ABSOLUTELY reasonable for them to be added. I agree that the way D-Link handles the process (assuming that it is really the way it's described in the article) is bad, but the mere addition of the feature isn't. Criticize them all you want for their nagware, but don't be an idiot and complain that just because they are trying to add new features to their products they are somehow a bad company.
He's actually right. He's saying that the US governement can't treat a citizen any different just because you're in a different country. Of course how that country's government treats you is another matter entirely, and is only regulated by the various treaties that we have signed.
Now, if you take the platters out of the drive ( forbidden by the 'contest' rules )
Go reread the contest rules... In particular, pay attention to the underlined part. It specifically says that professional data-recovery businesses and government agencies can disassemble the drive if needed.
Professor: "I'm sorry, Fry, but astronomers renamed Uranus in 2620 to end that stupid joke once and for all." Fry: "Oh. What's it called now?" Professor: "Urectum."
While I agree with you and the other posters who say that we can't rely on any one single energy source, I don't think anyone (or at least anyone credible) is suggesting that we do.
But there's still a big problem with your post. What's needed to make wind power systems reliable isn't just other energy systems, it is some form of energy storage that allows energy to be stockpiled for future use. One possible solution to that problem is storing the energy as compressed air as detailed in the Solar Grand Plan detailed in the Jan. 08 issue of Scientific American. These systems are already in use, with the oldest such system dating to 1978, so they are proven technology. I have trouble picturing a situation where the wind would drop off statewide all at the same time, so the short spin-up time of the turbines should not be a factor. As the energy level produced by the wind mills drops off, more and more of the compressed air turbines can be brought online to balance the output. Properly designed, such a system could be virtually automatic. These systems aren't completely carbon-neutral, since they do require burning some natural gas to keep the compressed air turbines from freezing up, but that is a reasonable trade off under the circumstances.
Fair point. The real problem isn't that the rich get off to easy, or that the poor don't. The real problem is that the two groups are not punished equally. Your personal net worth, your political ideology, etc. should have no bearing on criminal prosecutions, but unfortunately, that isn't the case. If you can afford to hire the right lawyer, you almost never end up in prison, no matter how egregious your crimes.
I disagree about the "plutocracy" statement Disagree all you want, there sure aren't many examples of it happening. True, in extreme cases rich people do go to jail, but it takes almost overwhelming evidence for it to happen. Like videotape of OJ actually stabbing Nicole -might- have been sufficient. Phil Specter, Robert Blake... There are others. And even when they do occasionally get convicted of something, they typically don't serve the same type of hard time that the great unwashed do. There are exceptions to the rule, but they are far less common then they should be.
This ruling will be cheered by the average free-market zealot, while being absolutely terrible for the free-market itself. It's anti-competitive and pro-big-business. If you don't have the money to argue (or defend against) the relatively vague notion of "harmed consumers" then you cannot win no matter what the merits of your case. It seems to me that any artificial restriction of the marketplace is inherently harmful to the consumer. If it can be proven that Rambus lied and its actions harmed its competitors, then it really should be Rambus' responsibility to show that their actions DID NOT result in harm to consumers. That should be decided separately from their guilt, and only after the verdict has been decided. If they can prove that their actions did not harm the consumer, then the judge can use that in determining their punishment.
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Hmm... Never had that problem. Flash crashed often for a while, but it hasn't crashed on me in weeks, maybe months now. Regardless, it rarely if ever brought down the entire browser. Like so many other bugs, I imagine that it very much depends on your configuration. Maybe I just got lucky.
Yes, because clearly that's all a web browser does. Nothing dynamic happens in a web browser! I'm guessing you're still running probably Netscape 4.1, or at least you aren't running Flash, probably have Java and Javascript disabled, and you run with no add-ons. If you do all those things, then you're right, all your web browser does is parse HTML and place it in a scrollable viewport.
Some of us use the browser in a bit more demanding manner, though. Come back when you've moved into the 21st century and your comments would be more credible.
Good for you!
But of course, one example doesn't prove much, just like my one example doesn't prove that Chrome is superior. I do know others who have had problems with FF reliability, though, so my example is not completely isolated.
Can't see how ads would be the source of the problem. Ads are either images or Flash, maybe a bit of DHTML sometimes. But they are plain web content. There is nothing different about ads that would cause them to crash the browser while the other page elements don't. You could be onto something in a roundabout way, in that blocking ads might lower your memory footprint, and memory is I think the real culprit here. I typically have a bunch of tabs open, and FF leaks memory like crazy. I know for certain that my Flash problems were memory related (they'd only appear once the FF memory footprint reached a certain size. And note that these are NOT related to the amount of memory in my system, of which I have plenty). But I don't like the notion of having to adjust my usage style to keep a program from crashing. Because Chrome puts each tab in it's own process, these memory related issues never appear.
And I'll paraphrase your last sentence... I have nothing against Firefox. I used it for years, and still use it regularly when I find a site that doesn't like Chrome. But for me, on my system and with my browsing style, Chrome has proven MUCH more reliable. But I do still watch for new FF releases, and if they fix some of these issues, I'll happily consider switching back.
Really ironic example, since Flash was the biggest source of my problems on Firefox. With FF, if Flash has a problem, it either brings down the entire browser or it requires restarting the entire browser to make it work again. Since plug-ins run in their own process in Chrome, if Flash crashes you either reload the any pages using Flash (in the event of a full crash), or use the Task Manager to kill Flash then reload those pages. Quick and easy.
If you're suggesting that should matter for web browsing something is very very wrong.
Why wouldn't it matter? With a properly coded web browser that is designed to support multiple cores, it will make a big difference.
I'm hesitant to get involved in a flame war, but here's my two cents. I've been running Chrome since about 2 days after it was released. In that time, the browser has crashed maybe a handful of times, vs. probably once a week with Firefox. When something does go wrong, it usually is specific to the page/tab, and doesn't bring down the entire browser, and while I had issues with tabs crashing early on, it almost never happens with the more recent updates. Speed? Seems plenty fast to me. I do have a couple of sites that won't work with Chrome, but it's a very small fraction.
I was a dedicated Firefox user for several years, and I still use it for web development and those few sites that still won't work with Chrome. But until the Firefox guys come up with a new version, it's just plain outclassed by Chrome for day to day web browsing.
There is no such mythical perfectly peaceful primitive tribal culture.
There were many such tribes. I'm not saying that they had no experience with war, or that they necessarily felt that their neighboring tribes had equal access to the land that they considered their homeland, but within their own tribe they had no concept of property (And believe it or not, many of them did live in relative peace with outsiders as well). There are several N. American Indian tribes that lived that way, as well as others from around the world. Watch the movie "The Gods Must Be Crazy" for a humorous examination of what happens when the concept of property is thrust into a society that has no concept of it. If property rights were something "that has been obvious to any retard ever since Ug the caveman made a cool club and whacked the first guy who tried to take it away from him", those tribes would obviously either be made up of retards, or or they never existed at all. Well, they did exist, and while I haven't seen their IQ tests, I doubt that they are all retards.
There must be at least some individual property rights, if nothing else, to own the clothes you are wearing.
I agree. In fact, virtually everyone in the US agrees. You would be very hard pressed to find a single sane person anywhere on the left who doesn't believe in property rights to some extent. Hell, even the Soviet Union had the concept of property rights. The question is just how far those rights extend. Where that line is drawn is by no means 'obvious to any retard'.
It's possible that we agree more than we disagree, but there is one point where I think you're dead wrong. You've bought in to a bit of right-wing rhetoric that, like so much else on the right, takes a complicated issue and dumbs it down to a soundbite. You argue that "Other than life itself, there is no more fundamental right than the right to property", yet you now acknowledge that it's not quite that simple. When people lose site of the nuance in these issues, they will be taken advantage of by others who have not lost that perspective.
Remember, whether we're talking global warming, drilling for oil, or just cutting income taxes, there are usually a few VERY rich people who stand to gain a whole lot more money by convincing the populous to go along with them (and those gains usually come at the expense of the property values of others, property rights be damned). If they can achieve that by oversimplifying a few issues, they are more than willing to do so.
Netflix has a variety of plans ranging from one movie at a time out plus unlimited streaming for $9/mo, up to 8 at a time for $48. Their 'default' plan is 3 at a time for $17.
I just wanted to recognize and point out something that has been obvious to any retard ever since Ug the caveman made a cool club and whacked the first guy who tried to take it away from him.
So I take it that, by your definition, every culture that didn't place property right paramount are retards? Does that apply to all the tribal culture that lived communally, the sort that existed peacefully for thousands of years before running into the white men who exterminated them to take their property? [Before you object, not all tribal cultures fit this definition.] What about countries like Sweden, Finland and Norway where capitalism is tempered by a liberal helping of socialism (and taxes to match), yet by most surveys have the happiest citizens in the world?
Or how about the United States, where property rights get but the barest mention in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights (really none other than the right to be secure against illegal searches and seizures and the prohibition against quartering soldiers with the populace during times of peace), yet things like freedom of the press, freedom of religion and the prohibition against unjust prosecutions are explicitly mentioned? The Declaration of Independence cites three unalienable rights, none of which include property. It also cites numerous grievances against the King of England justifying our rebellion, only a few of which could even remotely be argued as violations of property rights. Clearly our founding fathers must have been retards for failing to spell out such a "fundamental" right.
The reality is that property rights, while significant, are secondary to civil rights. Without personal freedoms, property rights are useless. All the wealth in the world doesn't benefit you if you're locked in the King's dungeon. And while the tyrant in a libertarian culture may not be a king, the natural conclusion of libertarianism state is totalitarianism just the same. Gradually the wealth will become more and more concentrated until it is in the hands of a very few people, and everyone else will be their de facto slaves. Without progressive taxation (AKA the dreaded "wealth redistribution"), there is no other possible conclusion (and remember, every society has some form of wealth redistribution. It's just that in libertarian societies, the wealth is always redistributed upwards).
The argument that taxes somehow stifle people's desire to create new businesses (not made by you here, but made by many others while justifying similar viewpoints) is just absurd on it's face. Remember, every company in America today was started by people paying those same high taxes that the right likes to rail about. In fact most of the companies that are more than eight years old were founded when income taxes were much higher than they are today (the average top marginal tax rate since the income tax was established is 60 percent). Those high taxes didn't stop their founders from starting their companies, so the argument that we must cut taxes or they won't have incentive to reinvest is just silly.
In fact, contrary to everything you've ever heard from the Republicans, higher income taxes actually create a greater incentive to reinvest, since you only pay income taxes when you take money out of a company. In practice, low taxes encourage people to take money out of their businesses and invest in such "economy-growing" things as luxury yachts and villas in France. They also encourage things like the outsourcing of jobs overseas, which is great for the shareholders of a company, but lousy for everyone else in the country. It's funny how much of this stuff is just obvious if you stop and think about it for a moment, yet people rarely bother to do so.
(Sorry to be a bit rambly, but I'd appreciate if you'd at least skim the whole thing)
The top like what 10% or the money makers in the US already pay abou 90% of the taxes
Well, yes, that may be true, but the top 10% of money makers make something like 98% of the money. If you actually break it down by percentage of income earned to percentage of taxes paid, it quickly becomes clear that the top wage earners actually pay a lower percentage of their income to taxes than do the lower incomes. And that doesn't even include the billions of dollars of tax-free income that are 'earned' by the 'overseas' (read: Cayman Islands) branches of US corporations. In fact over a quarter of large US corporations (>$250,000,000 in assets or >$50,000,000 in gross receipts) paid no US income taxes in 2005. About two-thirds of U.S. companies and foreign firms doing business in this country paid no federal income taxes from 1998 to 2005. Sure some of those companies legitimately lost money, but hard to believe they all did.
The reality is that while the rich like to complain about their high tax rate, few people in that top tax bracket actually pay anything close to the amount they owe. When you earn a million or more a year, you can afford to hire a very good accountant. You complain about your high taxes paid, but remember, if the rich actually paid the same percentage you did, everyone's tax rate would go down.
Spoken like a true Objectivist.
But Google Earth is free and not ad supported. How does not using Google Earth punish them?
Google has a pretty good history of responding to public complaints. They're far from perfect, but they really do seem to care what the public thinks of them. I bet that public pressure to fix this will almost certainly work. It's such a blatantly bad decision on their part that I have trouble believing that it wasn't a screw up by some low-level minion. My guess is that this will be fixed sooner rather than later.
I have to say that those are about the poorest justifications against the tax I can imagine... First, #1 is just silly. Even if you are a professional landscaper or gardener, it's unlikely that you are using enough gas in your lawnmowers and chainsaws to really be a significant concern. And since the cost of the fuel you use should be a deductible expense, the net tax you pay is negligible. If you are not a professional, you probably use less than 10 or 20 gallons of gasoline (for most people MUCH less) per year for these purposes, so most people probably spend more driving to the gas station to fill up their gas can than they waste on unnecessary gas taxes each year. #2 makes a bit more sense, but still falls flat. As others have pointed out, off-road fuels are already not taxed the same. If you spend enough time driving off road to find this tax a major concern, you probably already no how to avoid paying it.
You are right that some people pay a little bit of extra tax with the current system, but I would be surprised if the amount of gasoline sold and taxed for on-road use that was not used on the road even came to 1% of the total. Out of all the unfair taxes in the world, this one doesn't really seem all that bad to me.
And frankly, people who can't figure out how to turn off SecureSpot probably should something like it installed.
Brilliant strategy... A company pisses you off, so you boycott their competitor. That'll teach 'em!
Oh, it wouldn't, eh?
iPhone users, you hear that? You should be pissed at Apple for adding new features to your phone. How dare they try to make you experience better. Same for you Tivo users, and early adopters everywhere. Tell the companies: I bought your product when it sucked, and I LIKE it that way. STOP TRYING TO MAKE MY EXPERIENCE BETTER!
I'm sorry, but you're an idiot. Firmware upgrades frequently add new features, and if those features are intended to make you internet connection more secure, then it is ABSOLUTELY reasonable for them to be added. I agree that the way D-Link handles the process (assuming that it is really the way it's described in the article) is bad, but the mere addition of the feature isn't. Criticize them all you want for their nagware, but don't be an idiot and complain that just because they are trying to add new features to their products they are somehow a bad company.
You obviously didn't read the fine print of the ticket, did you?
He's actually right. He's saying that the US governement can't treat a citizen any different just because you're in a different country. Of course how that country's government treats you is another matter entirely, and is only regulated by the various treaties that we have signed.
Go reread the contest rules... In particular, pay attention to the underlined part. It specifically says that professional data-recovery businesses and government agencies can disassemble the drive if needed.
Professor: "I'm sorry, Fry, but astronomers renamed Uranus in 2620 to end that stupid joke once and for all."
Fry: "Oh. What's it called now?"
Professor: "Urectum."
While I agree with you and the other posters who say that we can't rely on any one single energy source, I don't think anyone (or at least anyone credible) is suggesting that we do.
But there's still a big problem with your post. What's needed to make wind power systems reliable isn't just other energy systems, it is some form of energy storage that allows energy to be stockpiled for future use. One possible solution to that problem is storing the energy as compressed air as detailed in the Solar Grand Plan detailed in the Jan. 08 issue of Scientific American. These systems are already in use, with the oldest such system dating to 1978, so they are proven technology. I have trouble picturing a situation where the wind would drop off statewide all at the same time, so the short spin-up time of the turbines should not be a factor. As the energy level produced by the wind mills drops off, more and more of the compressed air turbines can be brought online to balance the output. Properly designed, such a system could be virtually automatic. These systems aren't completely carbon-neutral, since they do require burning some natural gas to keep the compressed air turbines from freezing up, but that is a reasonable trade off under the circumstances.
To bad you can't mod "-1 didn't get the joke".
AC parent should be modded up...
Fair point. The real problem isn't that the rich get off to easy, or that the poor don't. The real problem is that the two groups are not punished equally. Your personal net worth, your political ideology, etc. should have no bearing on criminal prosecutions, but unfortunately, that isn't the case. If you can afford to hire the right lawyer, you almost never end up in prison, no matter how egregious your crimes.
This ruling will be cheered by the average free-market zealot, while being absolutely terrible for the free-market itself. It's anti-competitive and pro-big-business. If you don't have the money to argue (or defend against) the relatively vague notion of "harmed consumers" then you cannot win no matter what the merits of your case. It seems to me that any artificial restriction of the marketplace is inherently harmful to the consumer. If it can be proven that Rambus lied and its actions harmed its competitors, then it really should be Rambus' responsibility to show that their actions DID NOT result in harm to consumers. That should be decided separately from their guilt, and only after the verdict has been decided. If they can prove that their actions did not harm the consumer, then the judge can use that in determining their punishment.