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User: Richard_at_work

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Comments · 7,308

  1. Re:Enough is enough on SourceForge and GIMP [Updated] · · Score: 1

    So why the fuck should he bother? His reasons seem plausible enough, and yet it seems that you wouldn't accept anything short of him saying "yup, its a conspiracy theory, my overlords required me to not post it until this morning while they hoped it would all go away"...

    Also, you aren't due an apology, not even one little one.

  2. Re:Clean room implementation? on US Justice Department Urges Supreme Court Not To Take Up Google v. Oracle · · Score: 2

    The only sway the GPL has here is due to copyright law, so if the GPL is in force in my example then that means the API is considered to be copyrighted...

    No copyright issues means no GPL restrictions.

  3. Re:Justice Department? on US Justice Department Urges Supreme Court Not To Take Up Google v. Oracle · · Score: 2

    WTF do they have to do with this case? This isn't a criminal proceeding, it's a civil matter.

    The Supreme Court asked the government to comment, and so they did.

  4. Re:Clean room implementation? on US Justice Department Urges Supreme Court Not To Take Up Google v. Oracle · · Score: 2

    Doesn't the Linux kernel group hold a very similar stance in that you cannot use the kernels internal APIs without breaching copyright and thus falling under the GPL as a derivative work?

  5. Re:Well there's the problem... on Court Orders UberPop Use To Be Banned In All of Italy · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If you want to see how extreme unregulated taxi services can get, I suggest visiting Kampala or some other city in a sub-Saharan country sometime - 500 drivers all vying for the same fair, to the extent where fights actually break out and the passenger is physically pulled this way and that, 30 people jammed into an 8 person minibus. Yeah, some regulation is just common sense.

  6. Re:What? on Oculus Founder Hit With Lawsuit · · Score: 2

    Because there might have been other things going on behind the scenes that are yet to come to light? Perhaps this filing is just the latest action in a series, most of which happened in private between the parties? Not everyone launches into a lawsuit without trying other redress first - especially if contract cases are likely to be thrown out if lesser mediations have been skipped in the first place.

  7. Re:How is this a shuttle? on India Targets July/August To Test Its Space Shuttle · · Score: 1

    A shuttle is generally accepted to be something that runs often, doing a job over and over, back and forth, time after time - the airport shuttle, the shuttlecock (more weaving than the sport) etc etc.

    So going by its intended use, this meets the naming criteria...

  8. Re:Now Germany! on US Levels Espionage Charges Against 6 Chinese Nationals · · Score: 2

    I really hope you are being sarcastic or something, and you don't really think that...

    The German airforce has over 200 front line offensive aircraft in its inventory, 109 of them being the Eurofighter.

    The German army has over 230 Leopard 2 main battle tanks, a tank commonly held as one of the best in the world, and over 150 PzH 2000 self propelled guns, again commonly held as one of the best in the world.

    The German navy has 81 commissioned ships in service, 43 of them front line offensive in nature.

    Germany isn't exactly a nation I would want to currently face in battle, not even with a top tier military such as the US, France, UK et al - those military's would almost certainly win any competition, but they wouldn't come out unscathed....

  9. Re:Isn't R GPL? on In-Database R Coming To SQL Server 2016 · · Score: 1

    An implementation of R is GPL, but that doesn't extend to all independent implementations, such as the one MS is writing to do this.

  10. Re:But, but? on In-Database R Coming To SQL Server 2016 · · Score: 2

    SQL Server 2016 will have a Json column type, so its most of the way there.

  11. Re:"Cashless" is meaningless on The Solution To Argentina's Banking Problems Is To Go Cashless · · Score: 1

    You realise that Ireland received a massive bailout from the ECB, right? That's spending EU money right there...

  12. Re:"Cashless" is meaningless on The Solution To Argentina's Banking Problems Is To Go Cashless · · Score: 1

    Actually, there are written procedures for removing a member country voluntarily or involuntarily from the Eurozone (the ECB can simply stop dealing with that country), but there (deliberately) isn't any procedures for removing a member country voluntarily or involuntarily from the EU. The issue resides with the fact that (apart from countries with a written opt out), EU countries are required to be part of the Eurozone, so leaving or being forced to leave the Euro raises fundamental conflicts with EU membership.

  13. Re:Obvious point of comparison? on FCC May Stop 911 Access For NSI Phones · · Score: 1

    But the numbers you have come up with are not comparable to each other, as they are for different areas and data sets.

    25% of calls are pranks, while 70% are dialled inadvertently - an inadvertent dial is not a prank, and a prank is not an inadvertent dial, so these figures are not comparable.

    45% of calls in California are for non-emergencies, but that doesn't make them pranks, fraudulent or inadvertent dials. Sacramento is above the average in California for this type of call - but it doesn't mean the 45% figure is poor, as California will certainly have hot spots in higher density population areas.

    20% of calls nationally are estimated to be non-emergencies, so that could just mean California is a hot spot with 45%.

    So you can't throw the figures out just like that, because you can't compare them in the way you did.

  14. Re:On iOS platforms. on Swift Vs. Objective-C: Why the Future Favors Swift · · Score: 1

    Apple tried the whole "your app must be written natively for IOS in ObjC" before, specifically to kill off projects like Xamarin who were at the time doing a great job of allowing people to write iPhone and iPad apps in c# - the ban lasted a few months, before Apple decided the legal challenges it was facing weren't worth it and dropped the clause.

    The main way in which they will force use of Swift is by dropping ObjC library updates - Xamarin succeeded because there were people willing to develop a parallel ecosystem for developers, but will anyone bother to do that for ObjC?

  15. Re:Not forced... on Uber Forced Out of Kansas · · Score: 1

    Not really - the NHS will bear immediate costs, but if the victim needs ongoing care etc then that will come out of insurance.

  16. Re: Not forced... on Uber Forced Out of Kansas · · Score: 1

    In general its self reported, along with the other aspects such as off road parking, secure parking, roadside parking, commuting only or full business use etc.

  17. Re: Not forced... on Uber Forced Out of Kansas · · Score: 1

    The NHS doesn't ask about the reason you ended up needing medical care, but you may find yourself being denied immediate access to treatments for non-life threatening issues if you indulge in activities which either hamper treatment or are exacerbating the issues - for example, smoking when being treated for COPD or lung cancer will get you into trouble, or being very overweight will cause surgery to be put off until you lose weight.

  18. Re:Yeah that will work on Europe Vows To Get Rid of Geo-Blocking · · Score: 1

    Which is a fucking nightmare the moment your user posts a link to something on Twitter which includes his session id in the URL...

  19. Re:Not forced... on Uber Forced Out of Kansas · · Score: 1

    Those are quite low limits, and that surprises me somewhat - here in the UK a car insurance policy has no liability limit, so if an accident costs £1 or £10Million its still covered under the same policy.

    I'm surprised insurance has liability limits in the US...

  20. Re:why do we need a walled garden? on Facebook Launches Internet.org Platform and Opens Up To More Developers · · Score: 1

    The walled garden here means free access for the user - no data charges, no access charges.

    The alternative is for a user to have to pay data charges and/or access charges - in other words, the status quo. In many places, data charges can be expensive - in many parts of Africa, you can buy airtime in 15 cent vouchers, which sort of indicates the level of disposable funds people have. Data charges can fairly rapidly wipe out 15 cents, so people generally dont bother and stick to cheaper SMS and voice services.

    So if the user isn't paying the data charges, who picks up the bills? Someone has to...

    So why the hate for Facebook et al doing this? Do people really expect them to pick up the tab for everyone just because?

  21. Re:Who will win? on Uber Office Raided By Police In China, Accused of Running 'Illegal' Car Business · · Score: 2

    Ok, so what is your argument about Uber flouting the laws in the UK, where anyone can get commercial passenger carrying insurance and then get a taxi cab license from the local council for less than £3,000 to operate from a taxi rank or a private hire license to operate point to point on prebooking jobs?

    Is it perhaps because those drivers dont have to prove that they have taken out the commercial passenger carrying insurance, nor pay the license fees, and instead just sacrifice a smaller amount to Uber?

    It just shows that when you remove undue barriers to entry, people will still cut corners in order to save that little bit more money, even when the fees are justifiable and fair. And that is why Uber is having the hard time they are.

  22. Re:Ms or Mrs? on SurveyMonkey's CEO Dies While Vacationing With Wife Sheryl Sandberg · · Score: 1, Informative

    Mrs or Ms is a personal choice for the woman, and should be respected - so if she is being referred to as Ms its usually because that is how she has requested to be known, or because a publication wants to play it safe when not knowing.

  23. Re:Apple chooses not to port Safari on Chrome Passes 25% Market Share, IE and Firefox Slip · · Score: 2

    Apple didn't even have the courtesy to say they were discontinuing Safari on Windows, they just stopped releasing versions. So fuck them.

  24. Re:It is Atom from github on Microsoft Releases Visual Studio Code Preview For Linux, OS X, and Windows · · Score: 4, Informative

    Its not simply Atom, it uses the Monaco editor MS have been using on VS Online for some time, as well as Omnisharp and a few other things - Atom supplies the shell, and Chromium the runtime, but its much more than simply Atom.

  25. Re:K Bye. on Grooveshark Shuts Down · · Score: 4, Informative

    Who said they are getting to walk away with just an apology? Their statement includes:

    “As part of a settlement agreement with the major record companies, we have agreed to cease operations immediately, wipe clean all of the record companies’ copyrighted works and hand over ownership of the website, our mobile apps and intellectual property, including our patents and copyrights.”

    Note the "as part of a settlement agreement ..." part - which indicates that shutting down operations isn't the end of it for them.