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User: StenD

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Comments · 392

  1. Re:This is not a good trend to cheer. on Brazil Breaks Patent to Make AIDS Drug · · Score: 2
    This is the new trend, government are going to take what they want and justify it in any shape or form. While they start off doing this with the cover of "saving lives" how long before it becomes anything they want?
    Well, in the U.S. at least, this is hardly a "new trend". The blanket justification taking or controlling whatever they want is that it's "for the children". Whenever you hear a politician say that, or it's relative "it's for the seniors", hold onto your wallet and your liberties.
    Apparently people are willing to allow those with the guns to do it, and not realize its the first step to losing their own rights.
    No, the first step to losing your own rights is to permit yourself to be disarmed. That's why those who honestly believe that they know better how you should be living your life than you do are so interested in curtailing private ownership of small arms, and are so distressed that the Bush administration opposes those activities. The ostensible excuse for this is that it will reduce armed conflicts, despite documentation that less than 1% of small arms are held by insurgents. The true objective isn't to prevent armed conflict, but to prevent you from being able to live your own life.
  2. Re:If they paid for it... on Don't Eat the Yellow Links · · Score: 2
    Respectfully, I think my reply to Jeffrey's comment applies to your post as well. I'm not talking about the "bits", but about the content.
    As am I. Once your content reaches my system(s), I can use filters and proxies to alter that content as I see fit. If I want a filter to remove any hyperlinks you provided going to cnn.com, I can. If I want a filter to add a hyperlink to Google for anything that appears to be a Proper Name, I can. You have no legitimate expectation that the content presented to me will be exactly the same as the content you provided.
  3. Re:If they paid for it... on Don't Eat the Yellow Links · · Score: 2
    When I put my content on the web it is with the understanding that it will reach your eyes in unaltered form.
    Then your understanding is not complete. Your expectation of control over the form of your content ends once the bits leave your system(s). Unless we've entered into a contractual agreement for me to display your content in a specific manner, once it enters my system(s) I can pass it through as many proxies and filters as I desire, adding, removing, and reformatting content to my every whim, before it is displayed in a browser or read by a speech system of my choice. The only part of this which is objectionable is the below the radar method of installation.
  4. Re:Tech-savvy Feds on Legal Challenge to FBI's Keystroke Sniffing · · Score: 2
    not that i'm an acronym fascist, but SCOTUS sounds cooler (and for some strange reason, dirtier) than USSC.
    Prolly because you're subconciously adding a couple of letters: SCrOTUmS.
  5. Re:Yeah (and the answer is obvious) on DMCA Worldwide: Canada, New Zealand, USA · · Score: 1
    we have even executed people without ever granting them this right, which is supposedly guaranteed by the Geneva Convention
    That would be the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, not the Geneva Convention.
    Can you cite any non-wartime examples? I can't think of a one. The US has done some pretty dumb things in the past but I can't recall anything like this.
    Then your recall needs improving. Miguel Angel Flores was executed on November 9, 2000 by Texas. He was not informed of his right to contact the Mexican Consulate, and the Mexican government was not aware of his case until nearly a year after he was sentenced to death.
  6. Are "lost" customers important? on Why Won't You Pay for Content? · · Score: 1
    The problem with this stems from the fact that not everyone assigns the same value to content. Let's say Joe finds a piece of info on the Internet and he's willing to pay $10 for it, Jack finds that same piece of info but only thinks it is worth $2, and Jill finds the information not useful at all. Now if the information provider sets the value of that piece of information at $5, he's lost 2 customers, not one.
    So? How many customers does Lexus "lose" because of the price of their vehicles? The measure of success for sales isn't the quantity, but the profit. If it costs $1 to produce the content, the content producer is more successful if she sells one copy for $10, than if she sells 2 copies for $2, or 3 copies for $0.50.
  7. Subjectivity of worth. on Why Won't You Pay for Content? · · Score: 1
    Just how should one charge for information, especially when the worth of such information is subjective?
    The worth of everything is subjective. An ounce of gold is worth far more to a broker in his office on Wall Street than to a man dying of dehydration in the desert. The only thing different about information is that the producer doesn't need to make back her investment with the first sale.
  8. Re:Why? on Using GPS To Catch Speeders Found Illegal · · Score: 1
    What part of vehicles driven in excess of posted speed limit will be charged a $150 fee per occurrence. All our vehicles are GPS equipped didn't these people understand? vehicles driven in excess of posted speed limit is pretty clear to me.
    But most people are unaware that there are GPS units which broadcast information back to a base station. A reasonable person could fail to make a connection between the two separate statements, and conclude that Acme would find out about speeding from police reports.
  9. Re:Interesting ruling...will it stick? on Using GPS To Catch Speeders Found Illegal · · Score: 1
    No the article says the judge finds there is "no legal ability for them to charge a penalty when there has been no damage."
    That's odd - the article I saw didn't mention any judge. There were comments from the DCP commissioner, but nothing from a judge. The DCP is alleging that Acme violated the law, and Acme previously indicated that they would accept the DCP interpretation of the law, but this prolly doesn't set a legal precedent.
  10. Re:Interesting ruling...will it stick? on Using GPS To Catch Speeders Found Illegal · · Score: 1
    Not to defend Acme on this one, but NPR did an interview with their lawyer, and he said that the notice was displayed clearly across the top of the renter's agreement.
    That would be clear-as-in-readable, not clear-as-in-understandable, which is what the driver claimed that it wasn't. At any rate, the Conn DCP apparently doesn't care if it was clear or not, as it's illegal under Conn law either way (I suppose they don't want to give up their monopoly on speeding tickets).
  11. Re:One thing comes to mind. on MilSpec Biotech · · Score: 2
    Nothing wrong with that, as long as the Department of Defense focuses on defense. However, most of the resources seem to go towards making better weapons for offense.
    There's not really much of a difference. Better "offensive" weapons tend to discourage potential enemies from starting a conflict, or help to keep the conflict away from the U.S. if one does start. On the other hand, better "defensive" weapons can be more threatening than offensive weapons - look at the reactions to a possible missle defense system - and the result of defensive weapons can be less security than was started with.
  12. Re:If they're so sophisticated... on MilSpec Biotech · · Score: 1
    Wouldn't it be easier to just pour a much smaller fraction of their budget into discovering ways to, oh,-I-don't-know, maybe find ways to reduce the need for armed conflict in the first place??!?
    I'm sure that someone is working on the orbital mind control beams as we speak. Until that is done, there's not much that can be done about the perceived "need" for armed conflict, since most of it has its roots in ethnic and religious animosity. Even when there are actual resource issues involved, the ethnic and religious differences tend to prevent agreement on an "equitable" division of the available resources. Then there's the basic human nature of wanting more than one has, even if it isn't necessarily "needed". All in all, until the orbital mind control beams are operational, there's going to be those who want what someone else has, and you can choose to either let them take it, or try to discourage them from doing so.
  13. Re:The water in the think tank needs cleaning. on MilSpec Biotech · · Score: 1
    "-- Bioengineered tracking agents soldiers would swallow before going into the field, which could help the Army follow troop movements and maybe allow sensor-equipped snipers to distinguish friend from foe."

    It also allows enemy sensor equipped snipers to have a field day...
    But no enemy could possibly be so advanced as to have the technology to detect it, would they? After all, the U.S. only goes into battle against overmatched opponents like Grenada, Panama, Iraq, and Bosnia, not technologically comprable opponents like China, Russia, or Germany.
  14. Re:You CANNOT copyright titles on Roxio Countersues Gracenote · · Score: 1
    The upshot of all this is that Margaret Mitchell's estate has successfully managed to have the book pulled from bookstores.
    Not exactly. Since it had never made it to the bookstores, it couldn't be pulled. More significantly, the injunction was lifted on May 25, and the novel is now available.
  15. Re:Ever heard of an adjuster? on Eye in the Sky Busts Fraudulent Farmers · · Score: 1
    Why didn't the insurance company send somebody out to inspect the crops?
    Why should they? They knew the government would reimburse them, so they had no incentive to check it out.
  16. Re:Wow on Rental Car + GPS = Speeding Ticket · · Score: 1
    The rental agent claiming that it's about public safety, and not money?
    What rental agent? It was a landshark, not a rental agent.
    Is $150 what most people would call a mild deterrent?
    I didn't see the article claiming that anyone called it a mild deterrent.
    Even if we disregard, for a moment, the threat to the constitutional right to privacy and the issues of contract law, the government by rights SHOULD step in NOW in a BIG WAY to put a stop to this. It usurps power from a countless number of state and municipal authorities. Then, supposing you DO get a 'real' ticket from the local PD, you get home and you're fined by the rental car agency? Can we say 'double jeopardy'?
    Yes, I can, and it doesn't apply, as it's a concept of criminal law, not civil (think OJ). You're the one disregarding contract law, and you don't have a constitutional right to privacy from a property owner on/in their property. While I doubt that there is a question as to whether a rental car company can specify limits on the use of their vehicles in their contracts (for example, here's Hertz's Driving Restrictions), it's certainly arguable that Acme wasn't clear enough as to how they would determine that the speed limit was exceeded.
    Mind you, I'm not saying that I agree with doing this - if Hertz started doing this, I'd take my personal business elsewhere (I don't have a choice on work rentals).
  17. Re:Ghost writer? on Rental Car + GPS = Speeding Ticket · · Score: 1
    The question does arise, however, as to how it really works. The GPS signal IS received from a satellite, however a transmitter that could send back to a satellite from a moving car would require a directional dish antenna and... ya, stupid.
    Since two-way pagers work from moving vehicles, having a transmitter that can return data to AirIQ wouldn't be difficult or obvious.
  18. I signed up for Alliance@IBM ... on Dial U for Union · · Score: 2

    ... because I was concerned about the unilateral changes IBM made to its promised retirement benefits (changes which have resulted in paper profits), but also because I was concerned about the impact a union would have on my job. I left in disgust three months later, because the "alliance" wasn't interested in holding meetings in Austin (a city with several thousand IBM employees), and the communications I received consisted of the CWA trying to tell me how I should think and vote, rather than showing any interest in adressing the concerns of any employees beyond the cabal in Endicott. I still support the stated mission of providing employees with a voice in changes to retirement and benefits packages, but if/when there is a vote to make Alliance@IBM our union, I'll be voting against it.

  19. Re:some comments on the new adventure on Kernel Configuration As An Adventure · · Score: 1
    Let me remind you that 'make menuconfig' depends on curses and 'make xconfig' on TCL/tk.
    And both of those are optional. So far as I know, everything you can select via menuconfig or xconfig can be selected using 'make config'. So long as CML2 maintains a configure-and-build mode that doesn't require Python, then having an optional (but far more convienient) mode that does require it is completely acceptable.
  20. Re:That's BS on Typosquatting Held Illegal · · Score: 1
    The fact that a court has ruled this ILLEGAL is inane.
    The fact is that the court didn't rule this illegal, the Congress made it illegal, and Zuccarini apparently raised no questions as to the validity of the law, but merely attempted to shoehorn himself into the exceptions of the law. Courts don't go out of their way to find reasons to overturn laws, they expect the apellants to present them with arguments to do so.
  21. Read for comprehension. on nVidia nForce · · Score: 4
    ...no onboard ethernet...
    According to the article, it does.
    The MCP also has all the typical I/O connectivity and functionality you'd expect from a south bridge. These include two ATA/100 channels for hard drives, a hardware Ethernet 10/100 MAC
    As you note for PCI, the chipset supports onboard ethernet, but the reference board doesn't have onboard ethernet. From "The Real Thing--Hands On":
    Curiously, although device manager reported an "nVidia Ethernet Adaptor", there was no physical connection on the motherboard
  22. Re:drill the fuck out of the ANWR?? Dont Think so on GM Investing in Fuel Cells · · Score: 1
    If you really want to see some numbers, see his May 1 web page at http://www.boortz.com/may1.htm
    WARNING!
    Dont believe anything you read on the Internet or hear on my radio show (or any other show, for that matter) unless you can confirm it with another source, and/or it is consistent with what you already know to be true. Yes, that does include information obtained from this site.


    So, can you give us another source to confirm your claims? Boortz, at least, is an honest liar - he tells you right up front (on his radio show) that he will lie to you. You, on the other hand, just lie. Even if Boortz is telling the truth (and that's still up for verification), you lied as to what his statements were. He compared the amount of land to be explored for oil with the size of Alaska, not ANWR, it was less than a size 12 shoe on a 120x250 piece of real estate, and .824 square inches on the rug (which, again, represented Alaska, nor ANWR). Of course, you're a stupid liar - you lied to us, then pointed us to the actual statements.
  23. Re:shocking on Supreme Court Limits High-Tech Snooping · · Score: 1

    It's not really a conservative-liberal issue, but a statist-liberty issue. Both conservative statists (most Republican politicians) and liberal statists (most Democratic politicians) want to control everything you do in your life, they just want to require you to do different things. Privacy is an essential part of liberty, so you can understand why statists are so afraid of it.

  24. Re:This is getting scary... on AOL/Time-Warner Won't Advertise Competition · · Score: 1
    If AOL-Time-Warner starts refusing to allow competitors to advertise, how long will it be before they realize they can also refuse to air any news they don't like?
    Are you under some illusion that they air all of the "news" now? There's a limited amount of airtime, so what "news" is aired, and for how long, varies according to the producer's judgement as to how profitable the item is - if the producer like the item, and thinks that it will keep viewers eyes gluded to the channel, it runs. If the producer doesn't like the item, it doesn't.

    Remember, there is no such thing as an objective, unbiased journalist, or an objective, unbiased media outlet. The best you can hope for is for a journalist to be honest and open about her biases, and consider her reporting with that in mind.
  25. Re:How about MS on AOL/Time-Warner Won't Advertise Competition · · Score: 1
    Those are all national rags, however, and as discussed, regional ISP's don't want national ads anyway.
    National magazines can carry regional advertising. If the circulation is large enough, the issues may be printed in multiple locations, and a few advertising pages can vary from site to site. Even with a single print location, an issue can be done in several print runs, with a few pages switched out between runs. Ii's not always noticable, but I've seen it done on occaision.