I'm sorry? Is Ron Paul slating a bunch of Republican Congressional candidates along with his Presidential bid? No.
There are no "Ron Paul" Republicans to vote for in this election. Are you saying we should elect him President and then wait two years for the next House election?
If you think "Ron Paul" Congresspeople are going to come out of the woodwork, or suddenly be available for election, especially in the House of Representatives (all fiscal legislation starts there) where gerrymandering assures incumbent stalwarts who never leave and are often virtually party appointees, you don't understand U.S. civics.
It will not happen. There is too much money at stake, and Ron Paul would cut it off, so they will cut him off. It is a dirty game and greed is its master. This status quo can only be changed from the bottom up.
As a Republican, Ron Paul is a failure. There is no conspiracy to stop him. He chose a party whose leadership talks the talk of smaller government, but cannot and will not walk the walk. They will not support him. It's a pity, but all he can do is call out their hypocrisies.
The SCO case was intelligence gathering. I don't believe SCO ever intended to win that case. They just wanted the legal discovery. If you want to find exhaustive information about a company's IP profile, the best way to do so is to sue them in a broad IP case. Breaking into their headquarters is risky and stupid.
Why else do you suppose Novell paid their indemnification money so quickly?
They are a scared and cornered 700-lb (318-kg) gorilla. Such animals never go quietly. That's because you can't stab them in the back, or use stealth to take them down.
Microsoft will not go quietly if they have cause to remain in this defensive posture. Bank on it.
Microsoft's corporate leadership used to speak out against patents. This was when they were getting sued, and patents were a ticking bomb in their "embrace, extend, extinguish" tactics. Patents kept them from being able to "borrow" from successful innovators to improve their product line with impunity.
So, after a few losses, they took to using their capital reserves to purchase such companies outright while they were small, as their success and huge capital reserves made them a lawsuit target. This was a necessary change in policy that came with the success of having all that captial to poach. It's why their getting rid of some of that capital: It exposes them to larger judgments.
Those days are over. Linus would be right in the 90's, but no longer.
Now Microsoft is in a bunker mentality, using patents to defend a near monopoly in market share. They have completely changed their tune, because what they now need to do is slow down inevitable attrition of that market share. In much of their market, there is no where else to go, and no way to grow revenue except by raising prices. Witness the pricing on Windows Vista.
Don't think for a second that they won't sue. They've already got expert patent firms on retainer from defending themselves. Certainly, they started the ball rolling with SCO, but that was just testing the waters. They will pursue this to their greatest possible advantage, regardless of whether the claims are reasonable, because they're already paying the lawyers.
If you consider a multi-million dollar lawsuit for marketing purposes "just marketing," then you've never defended yourself in a court of law.
Linus is wrong. He's thinking about the "hungry" Microsoft of the 90's. We're in the chair chucking, f-ing burying, Ballmer days now, and Microsoft is no longer an upstart. They run the desktop software industry, like the mafia ran Chicago. There's no reason, save the massive loss of judicial mind-share in various anti-trust cases, that they can't pursue legal options regarding their rapidly growing patent portfolio. Microsoft is, among other things, becoming a patent troll, and there's no reason to believe that they can't buy something actionable, if they don't already have it.
I would be greatly in support of John McCain over any of the other Republican candidates, except for one thing. He's 71 years old. After two terms he'd be 79. It gives me pause. Even then, he's the Republican that has me excited.
I was recently discussing this at a political roundtable, and a WW-II vet rather pointedly told me that McCain was "too old," and I think this perception is common among moderates, and affects his viability. It certainly hurt Bob Dole in 1996. We're in for another round of "Depends" jokes if he is the nominee.
Despite that, against Hillary Clinton, McCain has my vote for President. Against Barack Obama, I'd have to seriously listen to the debates, but I still favor McCain at this point.
I think the best way to solve the mess in Iraq, and our country in general, is to elect a moderate Republican to repair the damage that radical, neo-conservative demagogues have done to both the office of the Presidency and the party in general. We need a President who will take the occupation/state building mission seriously, and not base his or her policy on impatience with the war effort in the general populace.
I think we were utterly mistaken in going into Iraq in the first place, but I ascribe to the "you break it, you own it" philosophy. I don't think any sort of withdrawal is possible, certainly not without passing the buck to the U.N. and Arab states to maintain regional stability.
On a final note, Ron Paul.
I'm glad his supporters think a President can save the country, and I'll admit that he is the only man up there who truly supports small government and true U.S. Constitutional values, but though zeal is commendable, it is naive to believe he can do anything to fix the problems in Washington. The President is quite hamstrung in most matters without Congressional support, and if Ron Paul were elected President, he would be persona non grata on the Hill, and therefore could get nothing done.
He has a compelling message, but no ability to affect many of the changes he discusses, much as the Democratic candidates cannot make good on their promises of universal health care without 60 votes in the Senate. It's all a bit daft for Presidential candidates to talk about anything other than executive policy and statesmanship. A Cult of Personality, without full political backing, cannot get things done in Washington.
He has a great message, but no sense of how those values apply practically to the Presidency. Indeed, sometimes it seems he has no common sense at all.
Atheism and Deism are actually very close, but there are practical differences.
If you are the sort of atheist who believes that the universe behaves in an organized and rational fashion, that it has rules and properties that once figured out remain consistent, then you are, for all practical intents and purposes, very much like a Deist.
The only difference is that a deist would claim that these rules exist because a rational being created the universe, and then left us on our own. I describe it as: "God has left the building."
If, on the other hand, you are the sort of atheist who believes that there is no rational scheme, or that the universe is inherently chaotic and the properties we have discovered through science a mere overlay of our best guess, subject to revocation or misinterpretation without notice, you have nothing in common with your deist counterpart.
So, rational atheists and deists have little difference, other than origin of the universe, which the deists explain as "God" and the rational atheists describe as "who gives a damn unless we can measure it." I'd say it was balancing angels on the head of a pin to call such beliefs different, but the atheists would complain.;^)
Rationalism is, of course, a subset of atheism, so there is a great deal of practical difference because atheism covers a greater spectrum of godlessness than simply those who subscribe to a rational universe. For instance, nihilists and deists have nothing in common.
ABSTRACT:
Not only is technology titan Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) exquisitely positioned to ride out this storm, it has made a number of strong changes in recent years that make it a company worth owning. This was part of a "Dueling Fools" feature. Someone had to talk "bear" about Microsoft. Just because Twitter wet his pants doesn't mean you can give half the story here. Motley Fool favors MSFT.
And Lord, I don't like Microsoft either, but you are discrediting the Motley Fool undeservedly by telling half the story. This is not the way to make an argument.
I saw your second comment below, but there is one important thing to remember: training isn't everything, and common sense is often more valuable than training. An untrained bystander who is calm and thinks about what's going on can be more valuable then a hyper-excited volly firefighter who doesn't take two seconds to step back and think. Without a doubt. A reckless responder who puts his ambulance in a ditch, for instance, just creates a second emergency. An overconfident responder who overextends himself, or doesn't keep a proper sense of emergency (blase), can cause grievous harm.
Some people don't have "grace under pressure." Unfortunately, the only way to find out is to be put a person in a real situation. Training helps to allay that panic, but I agree that overconfidence is just as dangerous.
I now see that you were responding to another post that was beneath my view threshold at the time. Your advice is sound and welcome, while his advice was... lunatic.
Perhaps the "more than a scratch" poster applied a tourniquet to his neck to stop a bad nosebleed?
Exactly. *When* is so very, very important. I certainly wasn't recommending anyone use a tourniquet unless they knew exactly what they were doing.
I'm sorry if you felt I hadn't made that abundantly clear. I thought I did. I'll be more emphatic this time.
I didn't think this guy was an adequately trained first responder, despite the "feel good" story, and I don't want a propaganda effort to encourage a bunch of people who clearly don't know what they are doing to believe that watching the "medic cutscene" in AA, and passing the test, is ever going to prepare them to be one.
Especially if they start Googling techniques without receiving live training from experts.
Thus, sour grapes. I'm glad it all worked out. I don't appreciate the idea expressed by the article that an untrained gamer can be a competent first responder because of a game. He was a *lucky* and *incompetent* first responder, and I'm glad it worked out.
Two guys, one case undocumented, learn crappy, inadequate first aid from a crappy, simulated lecture in America's Army and it gets a write up, even though the game is about efficiently killing people. I think that's terribly misleading, if not propaganda.
Great, he elevated the arm, but I hope he had good reason to move that other guy, because that was *really* dangerous (I'm hoping the smoke was in the passenger compartment and it was truly required, otherwise the guy should be smacked, not praised).
But did he know where the pressure point is on the upper arm? Did he know how, and especially *when*, to apply a tourniquet should there be a severed limb? Could he perform artificial respiration? How about CPR? The victim was LUCKY there wasn't a serious injury involved.
America's Army, the game, benefits no one but the military-industrial complex. If you want to save lives, and not end them, skip AA and get real training. The Red Cross is a "great place to start."
I predict that the long term effect of eating cloned meat will be the inexplicable affectation of a New Zealand accent amongst those who eat them. Perhaps a tendency to murder Jedi as well.
Thank you so much for reminding me of the model number for my first video game experience. I knew it was an Odyssey, but I couldn't for the life of me figure out which one. I kept coming up with that system that played "K.C. Muchkin" on Google. Yuck.
My uncle got bored with his and gave me an Odyssey 500, and we got a hand-me-down color TV that year too. It was my first video game experience. It was heaven.
The whole thing has come full circle playing Wii Sports tennis with my 5-year-old. Everything old is new again.
If you think about it, watermarking is really a solution to a nonexistent problem. What a watermark will determine is "Yup, this is a legitimate, official copy."
My concern is not authenticity; the problem is piracy, not forgery. We are talking about an act of infringement, not actual physical theft. The "stolen" track can't be returned to its licensee, can it? Why do we need this then?
After all, the prosecution will still have to prove that the "owner" of the tracks (who is named by the watermark), in fact, distributed the tracks himself, and possibly even that he did so from a machine that he was authorized to use in that fashion.
In the end, watermarked tracks solve nothing.
To use a car analogy: If this was a car, a VIN number could track whose car it was, when it was bought, maintenance records, and who produced the vehicle. It couldn't prove that the owner ran somebody down with it. You'd need someone to testify that he was at the wheel!
Same thing here. It doesn't matter who licensed the song for playback, it matters if he committed infringement. The watermark can't help prove that any more than the VIN number.
What scares me about this is that unethical prosecutors are going to claim that this is just like "fingerprints." Such claims can compound the mess we are already in if they are presented to credulous juries as an incontrovertible technological identifier, like a fingerprint, instead of what it actually is: a cleverly applied certificate of authenticity and licensure.
This would no more prove infringement than the serial number on a hundred dollar bill could tell you who stole it.
That's right: Clinton took 9 delegates and Obama took 9 delegates in NH. Edwards took the remaining 4.
This was not a popular election. It's about the delegates. How the press could report this as anything other than a tie is beyond me.
There's no shame in second place in a Democratic primary. So long as you take 15% of the vote, you get delgates, and you are not a "loser" by any stretch of the imagination. Especially in such a tiny state. It takes over 2000 delegates to be nominated.
And don't forget, Democrats have "super delegates," that are unpledged, to spoil a close race towards the Will of The Party, regardless of what the popular vote says.
But all the major news outlets cover our civic process like it was a soap opera. The primary reporting is just incompetent and wrong, if not bloody-minded lying.
Slashdot Mirror
Illogical?
I'm sorry? Is Ron Paul slating a bunch of Republican Congressional candidates along with his Presidential bid? No.
There are no "Ron Paul" Republicans to vote for in this election. Are you saying we should elect him President and then wait two years for the next House election?
If you think "Ron Paul" Congresspeople are going to come out of the woodwork, or suddenly be available for election, especially in the House of Representatives (all fiscal legislation starts there) where gerrymandering assures incumbent stalwarts who never leave and are often virtually party appointees, you don't understand U.S. civics.
It will not happen. There is too much money at stake, and Ron Paul would cut it off, so they will cut him off. It is a dirty game and greed is its master. This status quo can only be changed from the bottom up.
As a Republican, Ron Paul is a failure. There is no conspiracy to stop him. He chose a party whose leadership talks the talk of smaller government, but cannot and will not walk the walk. They will not support him. It's a pity, but all he can do is call out their hypocrisies.
--
Toro
The SCO case was intelligence gathering. I don't believe SCO ever intended to win that case. They just wanted the legal discovery. If you want to find exhaustive information about a company's IP profile, the best way to do so is to sue them in a broad IP case. Breaking into their headquarters is risky and stupid.
Why else do you suppose Novell paid their indemnification money so quickly?
--
Toro
They are a scared and cornered 700-lb (318-kg) gorilla. Such animals never go quietly. That's because you can't stab them in the back, or use stealth to take them down.
Microsoft will not go quietly if they have cause to remain in this defensive posture. Bank on it.
--
Toro
Microsoft's corporate leadership used to speak out against patents. This was when they were getting sued, and patents were a ticking bomb in their "embrace, extend, extinguish" tactics. Patents kept them from being able to "borrow" from successful innovators to improve their product line with impunity.
So, after a few losses, they took to using their capital reserves to purchase such companies outright while they were small, as their success and huge capital reserves made them a lawsuit target. This was a necessary change in policy that came with the success of having all that captial to poach. It's why their getting rid of some of that capital: It exposes them to larger judgments.
Those days are over. Linus would be right in the 90's, but no longer.
Now Microsoft is in a bunker mentality, using patents to defend a near monopoly in market share. They have completely changed their tune, because what they now need to do is slow down inevitable attrition of that market share. In much of their market, there is no where else to go, and no way to grow revenue except by raising prices. Witness the pricing on Windows Vista.
Don't think for a second that they won't sue. They've already got expert patent firms on retainer from defending themselves. Certainly, they started the ball rolling with SCO, but that was just testing the waters. They will pursue this to their greatest possible advantage, regardless of whether the claims are reasonable, because they're already paying the lawyers.
If you consider a multi-million dollar lawsuit for marketing purposes "just marketing," then you've never defended yourself in a court of law.
Linus is wrong. He's thinking about the "hungry" Microsoft of the 90's. We're in the chair chucking, f-ing burying, Ballmer days now, and Microsoft is no longer an upstart. They run the desktop software industry, like the mafia ran Chicago. There's no reason, save the massive loss of judicial mind-share in various anti-trust cases, that they can't pursue legal options regarding their rapidly growing patent portfolio. Microsoft is, among other things, becoming a patent troll, and there's no reason to believe that they can't buy something actionable, if they don't already have it.
SCO was just an unsuccessful test case. Look out.
--
Toro
I would be greatly in support of John McCain over any of the other Republican candidates, except for one thing. He's 71 years old. After two terms he'd be 79. It gives me pause. Even then, he's the Republican that has me excited.
I was recently discussing this at a political roundtable, and a WW-II vet rather pointedly told me that McCain was "too old," and I think this perception is common among moderates, and affects his viability. It certainly hurt Bob Dole in 1996. We're in for another round of "Depends" jokes if he is the nominee.
Despite that, against Hillary Clinton, McCain has my vote for President. Against Barack Obama, I'd have to seriously listen to the debates, but I still favor McCain at this point.
I think the best way to solve the mess in Iraq, and our country in general, is to elect a moderate Republican to repair the damage that radical, neo-conservative demagogues have done to both the office of the Presidency and the party in general. We need a President who will take the occupation/state building mission seriously, and not base his or her policy on impatience with the war effort in the general populace.
I think we were utterly mistaken in going into Iraq in the first place, but I ascribe to the "you break it, you own it" philosophy. I don't think any sort of withdrawal is possible, certainly not without passing the buck to the U.N. and Arab states to maintain regional stability.
On a final note, Ron Paul.
I'm glad his supporters think a President can save the country, and I'll admit that he is the only man up there who truly supports small government and true U.S. Constitutional values, but though zeal is commendable, it is naive to believe he can do anything to fix the problems in Washington. The President is quite hamstrung in most matters without Congressional support, and if Ron Paul were elected President, he would be persona non grata on the Hill, and therefore could get nothing done.
He has a compelling message, but no ability to affect many of the changes he discusses, much as the Democratic candidates cannot make good on their promises of universal health care without 60 votes in the Senate. It's all a bit daft for Presidential candidates to talk about anything other than executive policy and statesmanship. A Cult of Personality, without full political backing, cannot get things done in Washington.
He has a great message, but no sense of how those values apply practically to the Presidency. Indeed, sometimes it seems he has no common sense at all.
--
Toro
Atheism and Deism are actually very close, but there are practical differences.
;^)
If you are the sort of atheist who believes that the universe behaves in an organized and rational fashion, that it has rules and properties that once figured out remain consistent, then you are, for all practical intents and purposes, very much like a Deist.
The only difference is that a deist would claim that these rules exist because a rational being created the universe, and then left us on our own. I describe it as: "God has left the building."
If, on the other hand, you are the sort of atheist who believes that there is no rational scheme, or that the universe is inherently chaotic and the properties we have discovered through science a mere overlay of our best guess, subject to revocation or misinterpretation without notice, you have nothing in common with your deist counterpart.
So, rational atheists and deists have little difference, other than origin of the universe, which the deists explain as "God" and the rational atheists describe as "who gives a damn unless we can measure it." I'd say it was balancing angels on the head of a pin to call such beliefs different, but the atheists would complain.
Rationalism is, of course, a subset of atheism, so there is a great deal of practical difference because atheism covers a greater spectrum of godlessness than simply those who subscribe to a rational universe. For instance, nihilists and deists have nothing in common.
Hope that helps.
--
Toro
At the center of the earth is a singularity.
;^)
Hell, it'd explain the red-shift and why no one can travel faster than the speed of light.
--
Toro
Send a bug report out to WineHQ. Linux users should not be forbidden to use the Dark Side, or is that restricted drivers? ;^)
--
Toro
Too bad she didn't have Sandra Bullock on her team to type "UPLOAD VIRUS." ;^)
--
Toro
Qualification: Retarded penguins with *no* sense of humor.
;^)
P.S.: I dual-boot because Cedega is a pain.
Perhaps we could call it the "decade of wishful thinking" or the "decade of fashionably naive, torch carrying, Finnish fanatics?"
All I know is that if we keep repeatedly predicting it on
--
Toro
ABSTRACT: Not only is technology titan Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) exquisitely positioned to ride out this storm, it has made a number of strong changes in recent years that make it a company worth owning. This was part of a "Dueling Fools" feature. Someone had to talk "bear" about Microsoft. Just because Twitter wet his pants doesn't mean you can give half the story here. Motley Fool favors MSFT.
And Lord, I don't like Microsoft either, but you are discrediting the Motley Fool undeservedly by telling half the story. This is not the way to make an argument.
--
Toro
Some people don't have "grace under pressure." Unfortunately, the only way to find out is to be put a person in a real situation. Training helps to allay that panic, but I agree that overconfidence is just as dangerous.
--
Toro
I now see that you were responding to another post that was beneath my view threshold at the time. Your advice is sound and welcome, while his advice was... lunatic.
Perhaps the "more than a scratch" poster applied a tourniquet to his neck to stop a bad nosebleed?
--
Toro
Exactly. *When* is so very, very important. I certainly wasn't recommending anyone use a tourniquet unless they knew exactly what they were doing.
I'm sorry if you felt I hadn't made that abundantly clear. I thought I did. I'll be more emphatic this time.
I didn't think this guy was an adequately trained first responder, despite the "feel good" story, and I don't want a propaganda effort to encourage a bunch of people who clearly don't know what they are doing to believe that watching the "medic cutscene" in AA, and passing the test, is ever going to prepare them to be one.
Especially if they start Googling techniques without receiving live training from experts.
Thus, sour grapes. I'm glad it all worked out. I don't appreciate the idea expressed by the article that an untrained gamer can be a competent first responder because of a game. He was a *lucky* and *incompetent* first responder, and I'm glad it worked out.
--
Toro
Two guys, one case undocumented, learn crappy, inadequate first aid from a crappy, simulated lecture in America's Army and it gets a write up, even though the game is about efficiently killing people. I think that's terribly misleading, if not propaganda.
Great, he elevated the arm, but I hope he had good reason to move that other guy, because that was *really* dangerous (I'm hoping the smoke was in the passenger compartment and it was truly required, otherwise the guy should be smacked, not praised).
But did he know where the pressure point is on the upper arm? Did he know how, and especially *when*, to apply a tourniquet should there be a severed limb? Could he perform artificial respiration? How about CPR? The victim was LUCKY there wasn't a serious injury involved.
America's Army, the game, benefits no one but the military-industrial complex. If you want to save lives, and not end them, skip AA and get real training. The Red Cross is a "great place to start."
--
Toro
I predict that the long term effect of eating cloned meat will be the inexplicable affectation of a New Zealand accent amongst those who eat them. Perhaps a tendency to murder Jedi as well.
--
Toro
Thank you so much for reminding me of the model number for my first video game experience. I knew it was an Odyssey, but I couldn't for the life of me figure out which one. I kept coming up with that system that played "K.C. Muchkin" on Google. Yuck.
My uncle got bored with his and gave me an Odyssey 500, and we got a hand-me-down color TV that year too. It was my first video game experience. It was heaven.
The whole thing has come full circle playing Wii Sports tennis with my 5-year-old. Everything old is new again.
--
Toro
Thank you for giving up your shot at the presidency to moderate this discussion. ;^)
--
Toro
My question is how does this safeguard anyone?
If you think about it, watermarking is really a solution to a nonexistent problem. What a watermark will determine is "Yup, this is a legitimate, official copy."
My concern is not authenticity; the problem is piracy, not forgery. We are talking about an act of infringement, not actual physical theft. The "stolen" track can't be returned to its licensee, can it? Why do we need this then?
After all, the prosecution will still have to prove that the "owner" of the tracks (who is named by the watermark), in fact, distributed the tracks himself, and possibly even that he did so from a machine that he was authorized to use in that fashion.
In the end, watermarked tracks solve nothing.
To use a car analogy: If this was a car, a VIN number could track whose car it was, when it was bought, maintenance records, and who produced the vehicle. It couldn't prove that the owner ran somebody down with it. You'd need someone to testify that he was at the wheel!
Same thing here. It doesn't matter who licensed the song for playback, it matters if he committed infringement. The watermark can't help prove that any more than the VIN number.
What scares me about this is that unethical prosecutors are going to claim that this is just like "fingerprints." Such claims can compound the mess we are already in if they are presented to credulous juries as an incontrovertible technological identifier, like a fingerprint, instead of what it actually is: a cleverly applied certificate of authenticity and licensure.
This would no more prove infringement than the serial number on a hundred dollar bill could tell you who stole it.
--
Toro
That's right: Clinton took 9 delegates and Obama took 9 delegates in NH. Edwards took the remaining 4.
This was not a popular election. It's about the delegates. How the press could report this as anything other than a tie is beyond me.
There's no shame in second place in a Democratic primary. So long as you take 15% of the vote, you get delgates, and you are not a "loser" by any stretch of the imagination. Especially in such a tiny state. It takes over 2000 delegates to be nominated.
And don't forget, Democrats have "super delegates," that are unpledged, to spoil a close race towards the Will of The Party, regardless of what the popular vote says.
Here's a good look at it: http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/01/02/delegate.explainer/index.html
But all the major news outlets cover our civic process like it was a soap opera. The primary reporting is just incompetent and wrong, if not bloody-minded lying.
--
Toro
Chapter 6
Mod your critics as trolls on Slashdot.
Chapter 4
Declare Chapter 11.
Chapter 2!
An unidentified program wants to use your little peep hole.
The source and purpose of this little peep hole is unknown. Don't use the peep hole unless you have used it before or know where it's from.
CANCEL/ALLOW?
I believe they would be copyrighting the "expression" of that shape, rather than the concept.
You can't copyright a mouse, or even the idea of a "cartoon mouse," but you sure as heck can copyright Mickey Mouse.