Ok, lets take your (implied) assumption, that Google should pay taxes on its world wide earnings regardless of the country in which it was earned.
Ok? Sound reasonable so far?
Considering that is *exactly* what I must do? Yes, sounds reasonable that we should all follow the same rules.
Now, google has to follow the law in every country where they have an office and a corporate structure. So same rules apply to all those countries. Earnings in France, US, Japan, etc, all have to have taxes paid in Britain, and again in Norway, and again in China. Never mind that the money was earned in, and kept in the USA.
That is not what he is saying. Nobody should have to pay taxes on the same income more than once. The problem is explained below.
Has the flaw of your assumption dawned on you yet?
You earn a dollar in the US, and just because you have a post office box in Australia you have to pay their taxes too?
You drove thru another state on your summer vacation. Are you going to file income tax in that state? You used their facilities, roads, etc. How bout paying your fair share?
Any bells going off yet?
Google is using loopholes to pay no taxes on their income. They keep their headquarters in USA, their primary work force is in USA, their primary income source is USA, etc. Not Bermuda. They do not have anything other than a 1 room office with a single janitor in Bermuda. They have that there, and transfer all their money there because Bermuda, for the most part, does not tax businesses. This allows them to claim in the USA "our income has already been taxed according to Bermuda's tax system" and exempts them from paying taxes in the USA on the basis that they don't have to pay taxes on the same income twice.
Meanwhile, Google still users our: roads, patent system, laws, schools, people, land, etc... but doesn't pay for it.
That's the Congressional Budget Office's compilation of effective tax rates and percentage of taxes paid by the various income quintiles in the US from 1979 to 2007. They also provide numbers for the top 10%, top 5%, and top 1%.
The effective individual income tax rates for the lowest 40% has been negative since 2002, as the methodology includes low-income tax credits. However, once you add in the other types of federal taxes, it's no longer negative, but the lowest quintile's share of total federal taxes was less than 1% in 2007.
In contrast, the top 10% of taxpayers paid 55% of total federal taxes in 2007. The lower 90% of taxpayers paid the other 45%.
The problem with that publication and your post is that it doesn't tell the whole story.
Yes, the top 10% of taxpayers paid 55% of the total federal taxes collected. However, they (Google being the example in this article) paid the smallest percentage of their income in taxes.
Nearly 40% of my paycheck goes to income tax alone. Google pays just 2.4%. That is the basis of the statement "only the poor pay taxes." We can't afford accountants to help us benefit from those juicy tax evasion policies in the Netherlands and Bermuda.
NO, you bill them for the cost, not the missed payment. The entire cost. which I believe is about 7500 dollars.
While I agree that would have been a better solution, if they won't pay a whole $75 a year to have firefighting service (which is negligible compared to the cost of maintaining the average house), what makes you think they'll pay a bill for $7500 after you put the fire out?
Why was this flagged troll? That is exactly the argument I would have used.
I'll even add to it:
Why should the city subject its citizens to a possible lawsuit to cover this guy? What if after they save his house he claims he never asked them to and sues for the water damage?
It looks like this homeowner specifically declined to pay the $75. If the city started letting people pay the fee after they needed it, it would be like buying auto insurance after you've had a wreck and expecting the insurance company to cover you for that wreck. In other words, after a while, the only $75 payments they'd collect would be for the houses that actually caught on fire.
You mean, it would be exactly like Obamacare where insurance companies are not allowed to deny coverage for pre-existing conditions.
The root of the problem is that "something" is suppressing IT worker pay and that fewer people are interested in doing that sort of work for the rest of their lives. How did that happen? Just gotta follow it all back to see where it started. There was a time when IT was well paid. It could have stopped if the government took a firm stand on the H1B issue. It could also stop if the government interrupted the flow of foreign students here.
I'm well paid. The influx of foreign workers in IT is no different than the influx of foreign workers in any other industry. The CLODs are weeded out, but the truly skilled still have plenty of job opportunities.
Take agriculture for instance. You're not going to be paid well picking cabbage. That is a CLOD job.
Get a degree in agricultural science and design the growing plan for a good sized farm and you can still get a respectable salary.
Since this is an internet forum, I have to add the obligatory insult: Maybe you're not well paid anymore because you suck at what you do?:)
However, in the case of cyber command, you are right on. The proof can be found by counting a simple show of hands:
How many talented computer geeks want to give up six figures for the "excitement" of doing the same work at an E-4 pay grade (maybe, $30k)
There is certainly somehting the police can do: the police handle reports of stolen property all the time (or, at least, when they can be bothered to do their job). Once this guy gets a clue and files a police report, they can investigate, and determine who the real owner is. Since this guy has easy proof the dog is his (the chip), it should end well.
Same situation when your stereo is stolen, and you see in at a pawn shop. If you have some actual proof that it's yours, they police can and should get it back for you.
The difference being in this case, he saw somebody purchase his radio and asked the store clerk "Hey, who was that? Where does he live?"
And the store owner said he couldn't tell him.
So the guy went to the police and said "Hey, the store clerk won't tell me where to find the guy that stole my radio."
And the police said... "Ok. That is their right. If your radio was stolen, file a police report and we'll investigate."
And the guys said... "nah, I'm going to the press!"
To sum up for those that don't want to read a super long post:
The article is talking about outlawing subversive information "attacks". Not the general free speech of individual citizens.
For example, allowed:
A U.S. citizen, in Chicago, IL, with a blog devoted to the horrors of the Iranian government with absolutely every article being a complete an utter lie.
The U.S. President telling everybody how horrible the U.S. is and instructing everybody to rise up and destroy it.
Not allowed:
The CIA dropping leaflets in Libya asking the people to overthrow Kadafi.
The FBI's website listing Kadafi as a "Top ten most wanted" for the sole purpose of making Libyans distrust him.
I think there are a few too many tin-foil hats here.
This looks to me like nothing more than the very standard policy of saying "Nobody except official spokespeople can speak to the media"... to protect the government from lawsuits.
If 1 bad paper is published, and somebody loses money or a life over it, the Canadian government can be held liable.
Every government and private company uses the same policy.
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=830241
VM + iTunes + Apple TV.
The Apple TV is $99. Cheaper than every other suggestion I've seen on here so far.
And its Apple... can't get much more "non-Slashdot crowd" than that.
Its called a motion to vacate.
And it won't necessarily be easy. The argument to vacate a default judgement must effectively show that you did everything you could to obey the courts. So what it will probably come down to is the testimony of whoever served the initial summons. If TheDirt was never properly served then yes, the Judge will almost definitely vacate the judgement and that will be the end of their involvement. However, if it comes down to TheDirt.com receiving the summons and ignoring it because "lol thats not us", the Judge is well within his right to just say "tough, pay the $11m". It has happened exactly like that many times before.
Reading the original article, TheDirty.com says they were never served. Since the person dishing out the summons has to show they served somebody, that probably means TheDirt.com was served, and ignored it. Stupid mistake.
And no, they won't get their expenses reimbursed either. All they had to do was answer the summons, say "thats not us", and go home. They refused, they get to pay their own fees.
Also, I laughed so hard at your "screw up and go to jail" comment. Have fun getting nurses into the field when that policy goes into effect. You would get the nurses that don't need the job quitting just because they don't want to risk it, this increasing the workload for everyone else. You are an idiot.
The policy is already in effect. It is called criminal negligence.
Yes, refusing to work is the ethical thing, just like when you are starving in the street, it is the ethical thing to not steal that bread and instead starve to death. So what?
Soup kitchen. Homeless shelter. Like a nurse choosing to tell their superiors that they are incapable of servicing that many patients safely, a starving person has other options.
You are also assuming there is a standard ethical workload for nurses, defined in law somewhere. There isn't.
No I'm not. I'm assuming you have the mental capacity to figure out when somebody is giving you too much work. I'm also assuming that the laws governing criminal negligence are still in effect. Ever hear of an overworked E.R. doctor giving a patient the wrong dosage, killing the patient, and then going to jail?.
Sure, in fantasy land you can refuse to work, they can fire you, you can sue. And you would be in the right. But in the meantime, you need money to eat, and you need money to deal with a lawsuit. Where is this money supposed to come from, your ass?
In cases like this, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter for exactly the same reasons as when a CPA at KPMG is asked to cook the books for Enron. That CPA has a choice: do it, or get fired and starve. Guess what? The CPAs that cooked the books are in jail (or served their time or struck a deal.) You don't have the right to do something unethical just because the alternative is inconvenient.
In the real world, they fire you, and immediately replace you with someone who needs the money just as much as or even more than you. Not only that, but someone with years of experience, and who doesn't need much training, so there is little lost in getting rid of you.
Yup. Life isn't fair.
Plus if you want more than a settlement for "mental distress" or whatever, have fun figuring out what laws they are breaking. This isn't exactly the kind of thing the average overworked nurse has time to figure out, or would even know where to start.
Not true at all. Wrongful termination suits include violations of an established code of ethics. Health care workers do have a code of ethics that controls their ability to practice. That code I'm sure includes giving the best care possible, which would not be possible if you allowed your superiors to overwork you.
As to where to start, that is also simple: Talk to a lawyer.
Your black and white world is so nice and simple. I wish it existed somewhere beside your mind.
It does. It exists in the real world too. You should try it out.
This is a really stupid argument as it can only be decided in court.
I'll leave it at you are mis-interpreting the law and trying to apply things like "imminent threat" when it doesn't apply. You really just don't understand the mentality of the people that support or enforce the law.
Do you remember Oscar Grant? SF Bart cop accidentally shot him while he was handcuffed. If California law was the same as the Texas law, then Oscar & his friends would have been within their legal right to shoot every cop there to defend themselves from excessive force.
"looked like it might be" is not evidence of imminent danger.
Yes it is. Placing a bomb on your car does place your property in imminent danger as, like was said elsewhere, the most likely way the police will defuse the bomb is by blowing it up... with your car.
"a person is justified in using force against another when and to the degree he reasonably believes the force is immediately necessary to protect himself against the other's use or attempted use of unlawful force"
It then goes on about exceptions to that, and then has a more specific section about deadly force.
You're quoting the wrong section. What you should be quoting is below that and describes what constitutes legal use of deadly force to protect your property. It effectively says you can use deadly force if you believe that there was no other way to protect your property without placing yourself or others in danger.
If the officers are uniformed and clearly visible, trying to claim they were placing a bomb will just get you laughed at before you're convicted of murder. However, since it is far more likely that they sneak up during the night, it can easily be classified as perceived criminal mischief during nighttime.
"I saw him putting his hand into his jacket. I thought he was going to pull a gun on me. How was I supposed to know he was getting out a badge?
People put their hands into their jackets for all kinds of reasons,
Not while they're jacking your car.
You have to bring evidence.
Evidence: He was on private property, at night, dressed in dark clothing, messing with my car.
So then, it must also be legal for me to put one of these devices on my wife's car, or on the local squad cars, without their knowledge? Why do different rules apply to government employees than apply to the rest of us?
The judges only ruled that placing the GPS device on somebody's car, while in their driveway, does not require a warrant.
I doubt that affects any other laws or regulations. For instance, just because they don't need a warrant to place the device doesn't mean they can trespass on your private property if you post "no trespassing" signs.
Likewise in areas like Texas with Castle laws, if you catch somebody that is not clearly identified as a police officer diddling your car in the driveway... you shoot them in the face.
you have over twice the "ethical" workload because there aren't enough nurses and you can't just not give people medical care after they are admitted or you will lose your job
Fine, you screw up, you go to jail.
The alternate is to tell your superiors you are overworked and cannot ethically continue to provide proper care to your patients.
They fire you.
You sue.
Policies change.
I think at that point if you make a mistake, of any magnitude, it is understandable.
So if somebody dies because of your mistake you just say "sorry" and its ok?
No. With some jobs you are not allowed to screw up. If you screw up, it is nobody's fault but your own. If you are in a situation that will make you screw up, you do the ethical thing and change the situation.
Having prior art should be sufficient to prevent that, patenting an extension to a patent by someone else doesn't get out of your obligation to the other person, and receiving a patent is (not yet) a declaration that no prior art exists.
Maybe in Oz.
In the real world, you get the patents, or you get sued out of existence. The patents don't stop the lawsuits, but do reduce the number of lawsuits and make them cheaper because you have a trusted up-front statement of when you invented your invention. Not only does that reduce your defense costs directly, it acts as a bargaining chip to strike a deal even if you are infringing.
So, well done Shostak: you're only coming at this idea 50 years behind the SF writers.;)
Hasn't that been true since the start of SF writing?
Actually, I'd venture to say its been true since the start of human imagination for all aspects of life, not just science, since imagination always goes "faster" than reality.
How many psychics, conspiracy theorists, and writers predicted 9/11?
But then how many did not? The same as for SF writers predicting the scientific future: 99%.
The problem is that on her taxes, she was asked to list all sources of income. She was honest and listed the blog. Now, she's basically being punished for being honest.
She is being punished for being ignorant. Odds are she reported income for blogging, but none of the expenses. All she has to do is maintain a negative cash flow for a couple years and she can claim, legally, it is a hobby, not a business.
Hey mea37, don't mean to jump in the middle of it, but Zero is right. All you need to do to prove it is look up the definitions of "civil offense" and "criminal offense".
The significant differences between the two are 1) the punishment and 2) the burden of proof.
There is no jail time from a civil offense, and the level of proof needed is "more likely than not" rather than "beyond a reasonable doubt."
As to confusing "illegal" with "criminal", the GP did not confuse anything afaik (But I don't know his/her thinking when writing, so I can't be sure). "Illegal" is merely doing something that the law prohibits, or not doing something the law requires. It makes no matter if the offense was criminal or civil, that is a different issue. Running a red light is illegal, but not criminal (in most cases). Running over a human being is both illegal and criminal (again, in most cases).
Slashdot Mirror
Ok, lets take your (implied) assumption, that Google should pay taxes on its world wide earnings regardless of the country in which it was earned.
Ok? Sound reasonable so far?
Considering that is *exactly* what I must do? Yes, sounds reasonable that we should all follow the same rules.
Now, google has to follow the law in every country where they have an office and a corporate structure. So same rules apply to all those countries. Earnings in France, US, Japan, etc, all have to have taxes paid in Britain, and again in Norway, and again in China. Never mind that the money was earned in, and kept in the USA.
That is not what he is saying. Nobody should have to pay taxes on the same income more than once. The problem is explained below.
Has the flaw of your assumption dawned on you yet?
You earn a dollar in the US, and just because you have a post office box in Australia you have to pay their taxes too?
You drove thru another state on your summer vacation. Are you going to file income tax in that state? You used their facilities, roads, etc. How bout paying your fair share?
Any bells going off yet?
Google is using loopholes to pay no taxes on their income. They keep their headquarters in USA, their primary work force is in USA, their primary income source is USA, etc. Not Bermuda. They do not have anything other than a 1 room office with a single janitor in Bermuda. They have that there, and transfer all their money there because Bermuda, for the most part, does not tax businesses. This allows them to claim in the USA "our income has already been taxed according to Bermuda's tax system" and exempts them from paying taxes in the USA on the basis that they don't have to pay taxes on the same income twice.
Meanwhile, Google still users our: roads, patent system, laws, schools, people, land, etc... but doesn't pay for it.
Only poor people pay taxes.
Oh, BS. This meme is stupid, and can be disproved in moments with the US Government's own publications:
http://cbo.gov/publications/collections/tax/2010/all_tables.pdf
That's the Congressional Budget Office's compilation of effective tax rates and percentage of taxes paid by the various income quintiles in the US from 1979 to 2007. They also provide numbers for the top 10%, top 5%, and top 1%.
The effective individual income tax rates for the lowest 40% has been negative since 2002, as the methodology includes low-income tax credits. However, once you add in the other types of federal taxes, it's no longer negative, but the lowest quintile's share of total federal taxes was less than 1% in 2007.
In contrast, the top 10% of taxpayers paid 55% of total federal taxes in 2007. The lower 90% of taxpayers paid the other 45%.
The problem with that publication and your post is that it doesn't tell the whole story.
Yes, the top 10% of taxpayers paid 55% of the total federal taxes collected. However, they (Google being the example in this article) paid the smallest percentage of their income in taxes.
Nearly 40% of my paycheck goes to income tax alone. Google pays just 2.4%. That is the basis of the statement "only the poor pay taxes." We can't afford accountants to help us benefit from those juicy tax evasion policies in the Netherlands and Bermuda.
NO, you bill them for the cost, not the missed payment. The entire cost. which I believe is about 7500 dollars.
While I agree that would have been a better solution, if they won't pay a whole $75 a year to have firefighting service (which is negligible compared to the cost of maintaining the average house), what makes you think they'll pay a bill for $7500 after you put the fire out?
Why was this flagged troll? That is exactly the argument I would have used.
I'll even add to it:
Why should the city subject its citizens to a possible lawsuit to cover this guy? What if after they save his house he claims he never asked them to and sues for the water damage?
99% of home-owners insurance policies state you must have fire coverage. When he files his claim he's going to find out his policy is void.
though something about this story hints he didn't pay his insurance premiums either.
It looks like this homeowner specifically declined to pay the $75. If the city started letting people pay the fee after they needed it, it would be like buying auto insurance after you've had a wreck and expecting the insurance company to cover you for that wreck. In other words, after a while, the only $75 payments they'd collect would be for the houses that actually caught on fire.
You mean, it would be exactly like Obamacare where insurance companies are not allowed to deny coverage for pre-existing conditions.
The root of the problem is that "something" is suppressing IT worker pay and that fewer people are interested in doing that sort of work for the rest of their lives. How did that happen? Just gotta follow it all back to see where it started. There was a time when IT was well paid. It could have stopped if the government took a firm stand on the H1B issue. It could also stop if the government interrupted the flow of foreign students here.
I'm well paid. The influx of foreign workers in IT is no different than the influx of foreign workers in any other industry. The CLODs are weeded out, but the truly skilled still have plenty of job opportunities.
Take agriculture for instance. You're not going to be paid well picking cabbage. That is a CLOD job. Get a degree in agricultural science and design the growing plan for a good sized farm and you can still get a respectable salary.
Since this is an internet forum, I have to add the obligatory insult: Maybe you're not well paid anymore because you suck at what you do? :)
However, in the case of cyber command, you are right on. The proof can be found by counting a simple show of hands:
How many talented computer geeks want to give up six figures for the "excitement" of doing the same work at an E-4 pay grade (maybe, $30k)
There is certainly somehting the police can do: the police handle reports of stolen property all the time (or, at least, when they can be bothered to do their job). Once this guy gets a clue and files a police report, they can investigate, and determine who the real owner is. Since this guy has easy proof the dog is his (the chip), it should end well.
Same situation when your stereo is stolen, and you see in at a pawn shop. If you have some actual proof that it's yours, they police can and should get it back for you.
The difference being in this case, he saw somebody purchase his radio and asked the store clerk "Hey, who was that? Where does he live?"
And the store owner said he couldn't tell him.
So the guy went to the police and said "Hey, the store clerk won't tell me where to find the guy that stole my radio."
And the police said... "Ok. That is their right. If your radio was stolen, file a police report and we'll investigate."
And the guys said... "nah, I'm going to the press!"
The article is talking about outlawing subversive information "attacks". Not the general free speech of individual citizens. For example, allowed:
Not allowed:
Obviously s/Microsoft/Google/ in that post.
parapraxis?
This looks to me like nothing more than the very standard policy of saying "Nobody except official spokespeople can speak to the media"... to protect the government from lawsuits.
If 1 bad paper is published, and somebody loses money or a life over it, the Canadian government can be held liable.
Every government and private company uses the same policy.
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=830241
VM + iTunes + Apple TV.
The Apple TV is $99. Cheaper than every other suggestion I've seen on here so far.
And its Apple... can't get much more "non-Slashdot crowd" than that.
True, it will probably be really easy to appeal.
Its called a motion to vacate.
And it won't necessarily be easy. The argument to vacate a default judgement must effectively show that you did everything you could to obey the courts. So what it will probably come down to is the testimony of whoever served the initial summons. If TheDirt was never properly served then yes, the Judge will almost definitely vacate the judgement and that will be the end of their involvement. However, if it comes down to TheDirt.com receiving the summons and ignoring it because "lol thats not us", the Judge is well within his right to just say "tough, pay the $11m". It has happened exactly like that many times before.
Reading the original article, TheDirty.com says they were never served. Since the person dishing out the summons has to show they served somebody, that probably means TheDirt.com was served, and ignored it. Stupid mistake.
And no, they won't get their expenses reimbursed either. All they had to do was answer the summons, say "thats not us", and go home. They refused, they get to pay their own fees.
Also, I laughed so hard at your "screw up and go to jail" comment. Have fun getting nurses into the field when that policy goes into effect. You would get the nurses that don't need the job quitting just because they don't want to risk it, this increasing the workload for everyone else. You are an idiot.
The policy is already in effect. It is called criminal negligence.
You are an idiot and an asshole.
Yes, refusing to work is the ethical thing, just like when you are starving in the street, it is the ethical thing to not steal that bread and instead starve to death. So what?
Soup kitchen. Homeless shelter. Like a nurse choosing to tell their superiors that they are incapable of servicing that many patients safely, a starving person has other options.
You are also assuming there is a standard ethical workload for nurses, defined in law somewhere. There isn't.
No I'm not. I'm assuming you have the mental capacity to figure out when somebody is giving you too much work. I'm also assuming that the laws governing criminal negligence are still in effect. Ever hear of an overworked E.R. doctor giving a patient the wrong dosage, killing the patient, and then going to jail?.
Sure, in fantasy land you can refuse to work, they can fire you, you can sue. And you would be in the right. But in the meantime, you need money to eat, and you need money to deal with a lawsuit. Where is this money supposed to come from, your ass?
In cases like this, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter for exactly the same reasons as when a CPA at KPMG is asked to cook the books for Enron. That CPA has a choice: do it, or get fired and starve. Guess what? The CPAs that cooked the books are in jail (or served their time or struck a deal.) You don't have the right to do something unethical just because the alternative is inconvenient.
In the real world, they fire you, and immediately replace you with someone who needs the money just as much as or even more than you. Not only that, but someone with years of experience, and who doesn't need much training, so there is little lost in getting rid of you.
Yup. Life isn't fair.
Plus if you want more than a settlement for "mental distress" or whatever, have fun figuring out what laws they are breaking. This isn't exactly the kind of thing the average overworked nurse has time to figure out, or would even know where to start.
Not true at all. Wrongful termination suits include violations of an established code of ethics. Health care workers do have a code of ethics that controls their ability to practice. That code I'm sure includes giving the best care possible, which would not be possible if you allowed your superiors to overwork you.
As to where to start, that is also simple: Talk to a lawyer.
Your black and white world is so nice and simple. I wish it existed somewhere beside your mind.
It does. It exists in the real world too. You should try it out.
I'll leave it at you are mis-interpreting the law and trying to apply things like "imminent threat" when it doesn't apply. You really just don't understand the mentality of the people that support or enforce the law.
Do you remember Oscar Grant? SF Bart cop accidentally shot him while he was handcuffed. If California law was the same as the Texas law, then Oscar & his friends would have been within their legal right to shoot every cop there to defend themselves from excessive force.
Things really are that different there.
"looked like it might be" is not evidence of imminent danger.
Yes it is. Placing a bomb on your car does place your property in imminent danger as, like was said elsewhere, the most likely way the police will defuse the bomb is by blowing it up... with your car.
http://www.self-defender.net/law3.htm
"a person is justified in using force against another when and to the degree he reasonably believes the force is immediately necessary to protect himself against the other's use or attempted use of unlawful force"
It then goes on about exceptions to that, and then has a more specific section about deadly force.
You're quoting the wrong section. What you should be quoting is below that and describes what constitutes legal use of deadly force to protect your property. It effectively says you can use deadly force if you believe that there was no other way to protect your property without placing yourself or others in danger.
If the officers are uniformed and clearly visible, trying to claim they were placing a bomb will just get you laughed at before you're convicted of murder. However, since it is far more likely that they sneak up during the night, it can easily be classified as perceived criminal mischief during nighttime.
"I saw him putting his hand into his jacket. I thought he was going to pull a gun on me. How was I supposed to know he was getting out a badge?
People put their hands into their jackets for all kinds of reasons,
Not while they're jacking your car.
You have to bring evidence.
Evidence: He was on private property, at night, dressed in dark clothing, messing with my car.
So then, it must also be legal for me to put one of these devices on my wife's car, or on the local squad cars, without their knowledge? Why do different rules apply to government employees than apply to the rest of us?
The judges only ruled that placing the GPS device on somebody's car, while in their driveway, does not require a warrant.
I doubt that affects any other laws or regulations. For instance, just because they don't need a warrant to place the device doesn't mean they can trespass on your private property if you post "no trespassing" signs.
Likewise in areas like Texas with Castle laws, if you catch somebody that is not clearly identified as a police officer diddling your car in the driveway... you shoot them in the face.
you have over twice the "ethical" workload because there aren't enough nurses and you can't just not give people medical care after they are admitted or you will lose your job
Fine, you screw up, you go to jail.
The alternate is to tell your superiors you are overworked and cannot ethically continue to provide proper care to your patients.
They fire you.
You sue.
Policies change.
I think at that point if you make a mistake, of any magnitude, it is understandable.
So if somebody dies because of your mistake you just say "sorry" and its ok?
No. With some jobs you are not allowed to screw up. If you screw up, it is nobody's fault but your own. If you are in a situation that will make you screw up, you do the ethical thing and change the situation.
As a systems admin, I can assure you that there is definitely a difference. Trained monkeys [snip] are allowed to fondle their bits in public [snip]
allowed being the keyword in that difference.
Having prior art should be sufficient to prevent that, patenting an extension to a patent by someone else doesn't get out of your obligation to the other person, and receiving a patent is (not yet) a declaration that no prior art exists.
Maybe in Oz.
In the real world, you get the patents, or you get sued out of existence. The patents don't stop the lawsuits, but do reduce the number of lawsuits and make them cheaper because you have a trusted up-front statement of when you invented your invention. Not only does that reduce your defense costs directly, it acts as a bargaining chip to strike a deal even if you are infringing.
So, well done Shostak: you're only coming at this idea 50 years behind the SF writers. ;)
Hasn't that been true since the start of SF writing?
Actually, I'd venture to say its been true since the start of human imagination for all aspects of life, not just science, since imagination always goes "faster" than reality.
How many psychics, conspiracy theorists, and writers predicted 9/11?
But then how many did not? The same as for SF writers predicting the scientific future: 99%.
I wish I had $800 to blow on gags at work. :(
The problem is that on her taxes, she was asked to list all sources of income. She was honest and listed the blog. Now, she's basically being punished for being honest.
She is being punished for being ignorant. Odds are she reported income for blogging, but none of the expenses. All she has to do is maintain a negative cash flow for a couple years and she can claim, legally, it is a hobby, not a business.
The significant differences between the two are 1) the punishment and 2) the burden of proof.
There is no jail time from a civil offense, and the level of proof needed is "more likely than not" rather than "beyond a reasonable doubt."
As to confusing "illegal" with "criminal", the GP did not confuse anything afaik (But I don't know his/her thinking when writing, so I can't be sure). "Illegal" is merely doing something that the law prohibits, or not doing something the law requires. It makes no matter if the offense was criminal or civil, that is a different issue. Running a red light is illegal, but not criminal (in most cases). Running over a human being is both illegal and criminal (again, in most cases).
Maybe there is a legitimate use for this patent
There is: for blocking other vendors from implementing the same feature without paying Apple royalties. Why else would you patent anything?
To avoid paying royalties to somebody else.