This is actually the opposite: where you ARE sure that you DO have a correctly licensed product.
How about you buy a CD from some shop in the local mall, or some digital media from a web site that accepts regular credit cards and paypal and whatnot, and the web site says they have the correct license for that. Then I take their word for it. Basically I am as sure as can be that the media for sale is legit.
You don't need a license to BUY something. You need a license to COPY something. That is why it is called COPYright. The question was whether you could rely on removed copyright notices as a defense for copying and redistributing a copyrighted work, and my answer was that it depends, but in general it is a shaky defense and might only get you a reduced penalty. Copyright does not govern whether it is legal to buy anything.
Now imagine you buy it from a web site that is hosted in some small country you have never heard of, let's call it Antigua. Are you reasonably expected to know whether you can import (that's what you're doing) that media over the Internet from Antigua? Or that you need to pay other license fees? The media is fully legally distributed within Antigua after all. They may not even tell you they are in Antigua, and use a.com domain.
Copyright does not in any way regulate imports of anything. Other laws might do that, however. From what I understand US law on this matter is a bit murky, but in general if you buy something legally elsewhere it is legal to import as far as copyright status goes. Whether the US would view that sale as legal in Antigua is another matter. However, I don't believe I've seen anybody sue anybody for receiving copyrighted goods - likely because there is no end of people to sue for distributing them and that is a far easier case to win.
The universe isn't a container. A cardboard box AND the computer inside is more complex than just the computer inside.
The universe is all existing matter and space considered as a whole; the cosmos. At least, that is what Google tells me. That is a pretty standard definition. There are other terms like visible universe and such, but they all include all the human brains in existance in their scope.
You don't live inside the universe - you're a part of the universe.
When you see a copyright notice on the work, you can not normally verify it to be valid. You can have doubts, but can never be sure. Also if you think it's the correct one, you can still not be sure.
If you REALLY aren't sure then that is a valid defense in court.
If you're just saying that you aren't sure, that isn't a valid defense in court.
No, they can't read your mind. Yes, they can financially ruin you just the same. Remember - it is a "reasonable doubt" - not mathematical certainty. The only strong defense against copyright infringement is a license from the actual copyright holder. If you distribute something, you're expected to do reasonable due diligence to ensure you have this. The fact that you bought a deed for the Brooklyn Bridge from some guy on a street corner won't get you much sympathy with a judge if you decide to blow it up.
That is one reason why I never really got into online gaming. I just want it to be casual, and online games have a few attributes I simply don't find fun:
1. They often require scheduling (coordinated events). Ugh, the last thing I need is another appointment. 2. They usually involve forcing you to waste time as a way of enforcing the cost of actions. Staring at a screen waiting for something to happen isn't fun. 3. They don't have a pause button. No, I'm not going to ignore the doorbell or phone call or family just for the lack of a pause button. 4. They usually don't let you save/quit at arbitrary times and pick up when you left off. Just an extension of #3.
I don't mind the concept of playing with other people. What I don't like is the concept of other people having to depend on me such that I'm causing them harm when I don't take the game seriously. I don't even mind playing serious games, as long as you can hit pause. I love to fly flight simulators but I can never fly them online for the same reason - if I want to fly across the ocean I'm not going to do that in real-time.
The problem with this sort of argument is that everything is gray. If you gave somebody an order to shoot a prisoner they would probably protest that it is an illegal order. If you told them to point a gun at a prisoner that is just being on guard duty.
Flying low over a city might be illegal for a civilian, but the military is not subject to civilian laws when acting in the course of duty. If your superior issues an order you follow it. If they told you to crash into a building you'd probably consider that illegal due to the wonton loss of life (including your own). If they told you to merely do something somewhat risky that isn't so clear-cut, and simply flying over the city isn't THAT risky (sure, it does entail risk, but so does driving a convoy on a highway - more risk if anything).
I once was on a jury that had to decide if some police officers were liable for an improperly conducted identification that resulted in an innocent guy rotting in jail for a month. In the end they were acquitted because the supervisor running the lineup wasn't named in the suit. The deliberations included whether they really should get off on the "following orders" defense, but they really were just following orders. Even if the details of the operation were improper, it wasn't like they obeyed an order to beat up the guy or something.
So, agree that the US is spending way too much money.
However, the guy does have a point, you can't compare mean spending with median income. That only works if the distribution of income is fairly balanced, and in the US that is ANYTHING but true. If you took all the income of all the people making under median income and added it up that would probably only add up to a few percent of the total US income. On the other hand if you took the income of just the top 5% of wage earners that would probably be something like half the US income.
Compare means to means.
Now, you are right that debt and spending aren't the same thing either. That is splitting hairs a bit though - and the debt is larger than the deficit so if anything that error tends to make the problem look worse than it is. US debt isn't anywhere near 100% of GDP.
Oh, and the one thing that nobody has mentioned is that something like a third of the GDP in the US is from the financial industry. That is funny money if you ask me, and here is why it matters. The debt ratio only matters in a world where you're concerned the US can't pay its debts. If everybody just happily assumes the US can never default then the US can borrow however many quintillions of dollars it needs at low interest no matter how much debt it is in and how low the GDP is. It can just borrow more when it need to service the interest. The ratio only matters when people lose confidence in the US government. When that happens how much confidence do you think they'll have in the US financial system? Suddenly 1/3rd of that GDP that everybody is counting on to help keep the government running just vanishes. Factories don't vanish. A mortgage is only worth whatever the house and person it is issued against is worth, and if nobody can afford to buy that house when the owner defaults then it is worthless. That is how huge sums of "money" can just vanish on Wall Street.
I think you're on to something here, but there is a downside to all this stuff.
Back after 9/11 there was a big push to beef up things like SWAT teams all over the country so that there would be more readiness in case of a terrorist strike. On the one hand it makes sense - if every county in the country is able to mount an initial response then you get a faster response.
The problem is that we don't have terrorist attacks 3 times a week, but those SWAT teams are still sitting around getting paid. So, then there is an incentive to put them to use. The problem is that instead of having them take off their uniforms and work as conventional cops they are used as a SWAT team. So now routine police actions like serving warrants get performed by them if there is any hint of risk. Somebody calls in a tip that some house is growing pot, and suddenly 15 guys are going through doors and windows at 3AM shooting all the family pets and generally trashing the place. There is no need to stake the place out and figure out if such a response is necessary - the team is just sitting around so you might as well give them some practice.
When you have an expensive toy you tend to use it. Armed forces are toys to politicians. That is why any time there is trouble the US is sending in the marines - you can pay them to fire at practice targets, or you can pay them to fire at real targets. The latter is usually perceived as getting more value for the dollar, and regardless of that it certainly is better practice (part of why the US armed forces are so good - they're mostly veterans).
Maybe. Keep in mind that tanks are armed with more than a main gun - if they're facing infantry then consider it a pillbox on wheels, and those can be quite deadly. If nothing else it can just hold ground, like a pillbox, and let the infantry advance under its cover.
Oh, and if the city is really being contested then it won't really resemble anything you'd recognize as a city by the time the tanks arrive. First come the bombs and artillery, and your roadblock is just that much more rubble in the big pile of rubble.
Well, driving through a building only works if the building lacks a basement. Plowing through a roadblock does entail risk if there is the possibility of mines.
But, it is never about one tank. If tanks are rolling through then there is whole operation going on, with lots of tanks, helicopters, infantry, and so on.
If your block is the objective then they'll all come crashing through your barricades (after the bombs drop of course), and losses are just accepted. If your block isn't the objective then they'll just go around them - you can't anti-tank mine every intersection in a city unless the whole city is in cahoots, and if that is the case they'll probably just pull a Dresden on you.
Doesn't really change the point. The whole 51/49 thing really needs to stop in the US. People get worked up and make the most controversial issues the hills to die on. That of course is exactly what politicians want, as it drives contributions and it keeps people from looking at all those issues that 90% would agree on and doing something about it. I mean, if you had a referendum on speed cameras or whether parents should be bankrupted if their kids download a movie behind their backs do you really think it would be a close race?
I wouldn't be surprised if they already do this for tax purposes. Arrange for the rights to some blockbuster to be owned by some Irish company or whatever, then the US studio licenses it and spends $500M producing the movie, rakes in $2B in profit, and then gets hit with the licensing fee of $5B of which they pay $2B and agree to drop the matter. Then they report to the IRS that the movie was a net loss, and do the same for anybody they promised a cut of the profits to. The Irish company shows a profit of $2B and pays taxes accordingly.
I can't be bothered to look up the exact details but check out wikipedia and such for hollywood accounting, and shady accounting practices involving Ireland and the Netherlands. (Off topic - the name "Netherlands" always amuses me - sounds like something out of a Fantasy novel.)
Seems like the most sensible way to measure it is in terms of Antigua revenue. If they're losing $21M in revenue then they should gain $21M in revenue. So, if they sell a DVD set for $2 that counts as $2, and if they sell it for $10 it counts as $10 - what the US-based company charges for it shouldn't be relevant. Besides, it would only make sense that Antigua would price things at whatever turns out to be most profitable, and in the end the worth of something is whatever a buyer and seller agree it is. If you REALLY want to know what your house is worth, sell it - anything else is just fodder for argument.
There rarely is much alternative. If Japan discriminates against the US on wheat imports, what is the WTO going to do, tell the US to put a tariff on wheat from Japan? Nobody buys wheat from Japan. There are a bazillion cases where there is a huge trade imbalance when you look at only one particular product, which would mean that the WTO would have no power at all and there would end up not being any free trade.
The WTO deals with nations, not industries. The US violated the WTO, so the WTO is going to do something that costs the US money. If the US feels bad for the poor movie studios they can:
1. Fix their online gambling laws and get the sanction lifted OR 2. Write a check out to Antigua every year OR 3. Tax their domestic gambling operations and give the money to the movie studios OR 4. Just tax the average Joe and give the money to the movie studios
If US movie studios don't like how the US fails to protect their copyrights (ha), then they could always move to a country that doesn't get into spats with the WTO and therefore has their rights preserved.
More generally, when you want to punish a nation you really have no choice but to punish people who had nothing to do with the crimes of that nation. A nation isn't a person - you can't lock it up in jail/etc. A nation is nothing more than a collection of people, and when you do things to that nation it is inevitable that they will affect people who live inside it.
I don't think there would necessarily be an issue if online casinos were actually banned. It turns out that only foreign online casinos were banned - domestic companies could still run them. That seems like a VERY clear-cut WTO violation. An online-only ban is a bit more of a gray area as it obviously interferes with international trade, but sets restrictions on domestic trade as well.
The claim that you didn't realize that the work was copyrighted is a defense you could raise. Under US law the defense of unintentional infringement is defeated by a copyright notice, but the law does NOT say that the defense is guaranteed in the absence of a notice.
The work is still copyrighted. If you REALLY didn't realize this and can persuade a court of this then you'd probably get off might easier, or maybe even entirely (though the US concept of "getting off" might not make you happy in light of what they consider fair damages).
However, if you actually send the file to somebody in Antigua and somebody can show evidence to demonstrate this, then your infringement is obviously not unintentional. If you've even looked at the original product with the notice then it would be a hard defense to mount. Somebody who does work on Linux is not going to be able to persuade a court that they never realized it was copyrighted, until one day when they went to an unusual source for the code and looked for a copyright notice and didn't see one.
Agreed. In the enterprise I think that tablets are more popular than warranted just due to the coolness factor - decision makers love them. Actually, I think tablets are great for decision makers - they're consumers of information and tablets excel at consumption. The problem is that the decision makers assume that what works for them will work for those who report to them, and those people tend to be content creators, and tablets aren't all that great for content creation.
I think tablets will take off in the enterprise in a few niches where they work really well, and for senior leaders. Otherwise, I think that the hype is already starting to pass. Sure, people are happy to have them as a second computer, but how many businesses want to buy two computers for every employee? When ordinary laptops start getting old employees will ask to replace them with new laptops.
The reason tablets are growing is because they are a growth market. Nobody will buy one more laptop unless their old one dies - they will buy an extra tablet on top though...
Win95 was really the only transition here that was somewhat dramatic - it was a fairly large change from 3.1. The rest have been basically changing window themes and such, but other than finding a few config items anybody familiar with 95 could pick up win7 and launch programs and such without much trouble. The ribbon was a bigger change, but that wasn't at the OS level.
Win8 is a much larger change. Frankly, even change aside it seems like two OSes bolted into one with the whole metro-vs-desktop thing. It just doesn't feel cohesive, and metro doesn't really seem like something I'd even want to use. So, it is a big change, and a bad one at that.
The only protection I have from fraud is legal, and to use a debit card is to give up that legal protection.
Citation needed. Every fraudulent transaction I've had on my debit card has been reversed without complaint. Sounds like you might want to switch banks. Now, maybe a pin transaction is different. I'll have to check on that. IIRC, my bank even protects me from fraudulent ATM withdrawals (gun-to-head ATM withdrawals, kidnappings, ATM cameras, over-the-shoulder-pin-surfing etc), but I could be wrong.
I'm not sure how the laws apply to debit cards when using a signature, but it is entirely possible that your bank is treating you better than the law requires them to. That's wonderful, but one shouldn't count on it.
And worse, with PIN transactions, the account holder assumes the risk of fraud, which is large, and the fault of banks creating a ridiculous transaction system based on a set of "secret" numbers (printed on the card).
Yup, this is why I never use debit cards. Credit cards are completely insecure. The only protection I have from fraud is legal, and to use a debit card is to give up that legal protection.
That's just another reason NOT to do a demonstration. Everybody KNOWS the US has extremely good targeting - that we couldn't possibly miss.
If a demonstration were mounted there are only three possible logical outcomes: 1. The demonstration goes better than expected. 2. The demonstration goes as well as expected. 3. The demonstration goes worse than expected.
People already expect perfection, so the chances of #1 happening are almost impossible (how do you do better than a bullseye?). I'll agree that #2 is by far the most likely outcome, but there is no benefit to achieving #2 as it won't change anybody's expectations. #3 is unlikely, but always possible (there is ALWAYS the possibility that things could go wrong). So, mounting a demonstration is really all downside - it can't possibly improve the world's awe of US weapons because the world is already in awe of US weapons. It could, however, decrease the world's awe, which would be bad for the US.
Dell made half a billion dollars last quarter. The only reason anybody wants to sell it is because if somebody like MS buys it and does abusive market tying they could gouge consumers and make even more.
Chances are the company that makes the toothpaste you buy makes plenty of money too, despite making essentially the same product for decades. Sure, they probably don't make a 500% markup on each tube, but they make plenty.
Agree. Sure, I love that T-Mobile is decent, but they're quite small compared to Verizon/ATT. Consumers should have a choice of more than one national carrier if they want a family plan and unlocked phones.
This depends on the carrier. T-Mobile has become more upfront with the charges, and now factor in the cost of the phone in your monthly charges, and charge less if you BYOP or when you have paid off your phone. Not as much less as they should, but still.
Not sure what you mean by "not as much less as they should." If you buy a top-of-the-line phone on a value plan the downpayment and monthly payments work out to about the retail price of the phone - if anything you're getting a break on time value of money. Now, I will say that their phones tend to be pricey compared to what you can find unlocked online.
If you don't get a phone from them at all their plans are quite reasonable. Sure, I'd like them to be cheaper, but they're about the cheapest national carrier in the US, so it is a bit hard to say that they're ripping anybody off. I'm paying about $100/mo for four phones, two of which have unlimited voice, and two of which have 2GB/mo 4G data and unlimited 2G data. I've yet to buy a phone from them since I switched to the value plan (Nexus 4 from Google, iPhone, ~1 yr old used android phone, and an ancient feature phone - and yes, that is 3 smartphones and two data plans, which works just fine with T Mobile if you don't get the phones from them (and you disable the APNs)).
I'd love the options Europeans enjoy, and I'd love to see regulatory reform in the US to make it happen. However, T-Mobile is the least crooked of the lot right now so I really hate to make them the target of the mud.
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This is actually the opposite: where you ARE sure that you DO have a correctly licensed product.
How about you buy a CD from some shop in the local mall, or some digital media from a web site that accepts regular credit cards and paypal and whatnot, and the web site says they have the correct license for that. Then I take their word for it. Basically I am as sure as can be that the media for sale is legit.
You don't need a license to BUY something. You need a license to COPY something. That is why it is called COPYright. The question was whether you could rely on removed copyright notices as a defense for copying and redistributing a copyrighted work, and my answer was that it depends, but in general it is a shaky defense and might only get you a reduced penalty. Copyright does not govern whether it is legal to buy anything.
Now imagine you buy it from a web site that is hosted in some small country you have never heard of, let's call it Antigua. Are you reasonably expected to know whether you can import (that's what you're doing) that media over the Internet from Antigua? Or that you need to pay other license fees? The media is fully legally distributed within Antigua after all. They may not even tell you they are in Antigua, and use a .com domain.
Copyright does not in any way regulate imports of anything. Other laws might do that, however. From what I understand US law on this matter is a bit murky, but in general if you buy something legally elsewhere it is legal to import as far as copyright status goes. Whether the US would view that sale as legal in Antigua is another matter. However, I don't believe I've seen anybody sue anybody for receiving copyrighted goods - likely because there is no end of people to sue for distributing them and that is a far easier case to win.
The universe isn't a container. A cardboard box AND the computer inside is more complex than just the computer inside.
The universe is all existing matter and space considered as a whole; the cosmos. At least, that is what Google tells me. That is a pretty standard definition. There are other terms like visible universe and such, but they all include all the human brains in existance in their scope.
You don't live inside the universe - you're a part of the universe.
When you see a copyright notice on the work, you can not normally verify it to be valid. You can have doubts, but can never be sure. Also if you think it's the correct one, you can still not be sure.
If you REALLY aren't sure then that is a valid defense in court.
If you're just saying that you aren't sure, that isn't a valid defense in court.
No, they can't read your mind. Yes, they can financially ruin you just the same. Remember - it is a "reasonable doubt" - not mathematical certainty. The only strong defense against copyright infringement is a license from the actual copyright holder. If you distribute something, you're expected to do reasonable due diligence to ensure you have this. The fact that you bought a deed for the Brooklyn Bridge from some guy on a street corner won't get you much sympathy with a judge if you decide to blow it up.
That is one reason why I never really got into online gaming. I just want it to be casual, and online games have a few attributes I simply don't find fun:
1. They often require scheduling (coordinated events). Ugh, the last thing I need is another appointment.
2. They usually involve forcing you to waste time as a way of enforcing the cost of actions. Staring at a screen waiting for something to happen isn't fun.
3. They don't have a pause button. No, I'm not going to ignore the doorbell or phone call or family just for the lack of a pause button.
4. They usually don't let you save/quit at arbitrary times and pick up when you left off. Just an extension of #3.
I don't mind the concept of playing with other people. What I don't like is the concept of other people having to depend on me such that I'm causing them harm when I don't take the game seriously. I don't even mind playing serious games, as long as you can hit pause. I love to fly flight simulators but I can never fly them online for the same reason - if I want to fly across the ocean I'm not going to do that in real-time.
The problem with this sort of argument is that everything is gray. If you gave somebody an order to shoot a prisoner they would probably protest that it is an illegal order. If you told them to point a gun at a prisoner that is just being on guard duty.
Flying low over a city might be illegal for a civilian, but the military is not subject to civilian laws when acting in the course of duty. If your superior issues an order you follow it. If they told you to crash into a building you'd probably consider that illegal due to the wonton loss of life (including your own). If they told you to merely do something somewhat risky that isn't so clear-cut, and simply flying over the city isn't THAT risky (sure, it does entail risk, but so does driving a convoy on a highway - more risk if anything).
I once was on a jury that had to decide if some police officers were liable for an improperly conducted identification that resulted in an innocent guy rotting in jail for a month. In the end they were acquitted because the supervisor running the lineup wasn't named in the suit. The deliberations included whether they really should get off on the "following orders" defense, but they really were just following orders. Even if the details of the operation were improper, it wasn't like they obeyed an order to beat up the guy or something.
The latter wasn't an invasion.
And if you want military attacks on US states then the Aleutians were attacked well after Pearl harbor - right before Midway.
So, agree that the US is spending way too much money.
However, the guy does have a point, you can't compare mean spending with median income. That only works if the distribution of income is fairly balanced, and in the US that is ANYTHING but true. If you took all the income of all the people making under median income and added it up that would probably only add up to a few percent of the total US income. On the other hand if you took the income of just the top 5% of wage earners that would probably be something like half the US income.
Compare means to means.
Now, you are right that debt and spending aren't the same thing either. That is splitting hairs a bit though - and the debt is larger than the deficit so if anything that error tends to make the problem look worse than it is. US debt isn't anywhere near 100% of GDP.
Oh, and the one thing that nobody has mentioned is that something like a third of the GDP in the US is from the financial industry. That is funny money if you ask me, and here is why it matters. The debt ratio only matters in a world where you're concerned the US can't pay its debts. If everybody just happily assumes the US can never default then the US can borrow however many quintillions of dollars it needs at low interest no matter how much debt it is in and how low the GDP is. It can just borrow more when it need to service the interest. The ratio only matters when people lose confidence in the US government. When that happens how much confidence do you think they'll have in the US financial system? Suddenly 1/3rd of that GDP that everybody is counting on to help keep the government running just vanishes. Factories don't vanish. A mortgage is only worth whatever the house and person it is issued against is worth, and if nobody can afford to buy that house when the owner defaults then it is worthless. That is how huge sums of "money" can just vanish on Wall Street.
I think you're on to something here, but there is a downside to all this stuff.
Back after 9/11 there was a big push to beef up things like SWAT teams all over the country so that there would be more readiness in case of a terrorist strike. On the one hand it makes sense - if every county in the country is able to mount an initial response then you get a faster response.
The problem is that we don't have terrorist attacks 3 times a week, but those SWAT teams are still sitting around getting paid. So, then there is an incentive to put them to use. The problem is that instead of having them take off their uniforms and work as conventional cops they are used as a SWAT team. So now routine police actions like serving warrants get performed by them if there is any hint of risk. Somebody calls in a tip that some house is growing pot, and suddenly 15 guys are going through doors and windows at 3AM shooting all the family pets and generally trashing the place. There is no need to stake the place out and figure out if such a response is necessary - the team is just sitting around so you might as well give them some practice.
When you have an expensive toy you tend to use it. Armed forces are toys to politicians. That is why any time there is trouble the US is sending in the marines - you can pay them to fire at practice targets, or you can pay them to fire at real targets. The latter is usually perceived as getting more value for the dollar, and regardless of that it certainly is better practice (part of why the US armed forces are so good - they're mostly veterans).
Maybe. Keep in mind that tanks are armed with more than a main gun - if they're facing infantry then consider it a pillbox on wheels, and those can be quite deadly. If nothing else it can just hold ground, like a pillbox, and let the infantry advance under its cover.
Oh, and if the city is really being contested then it won't really resemble anything you'd recognize as a city by the time the tanks arrive. First come the bombs and artillery, and your roadblock is just that much more rubble in the big pile of rubble.
Well, driving through a building only works if the building lacks a basement. Plowing through a roadblock does entail risk if there is the possibility of mines.
But, it is never about one tank. If tanks are rolling through then there is whole operation going on, with lots of tanks, helicopters, infantry, and so on.
If your block is the objective then they'll all come crashing through your barricades (after the bombs drop of course), and losses are just accepted. If your block isn't the objective then they'll just go around them - you can't anti-tank mine every intersection in a city unless the whole city is in cahoots, and if that is the case they'll probably just pull a Dresden on you.
Just wait for drones + AI (perhaps weak), though that cuts both ways.
Doesn't really change the point. The whole 51/49 thing really needs to stop in the US. People get worked up and make the most controversial issues the hills to die on. That of course is exactly what politicians want, as it drives contributions and it keeps people from looking at all those issues that 90% would agree on and doing something about it. I mean, if you had a referendum on speed cameras or whether parents should be bankrupted if their kids download a movie behind their backs do you really think it would be a close race?
I wouldn't be surprised if they already do this for tax purposes. Arrange for the rights to some blockbuster to be owned by some Irish company or whatever, then the US studio licenses it and spends $500M producing the movie, rakes in $2B in profit, and then gets hit with the licensing fee of $5B of which they pay $2B and agree to drop the matter. Then they report to the IRS that the movie was a net loss, and do the same for anybody they promised a cut of the profits to. The Irish company shows a profit of $2B and pays taxes accordingly.
I can't be bothered to look up the exact details but check out wikipedia and such for hollywood accounting, and shady accounting practices involving Ireland and the Netherlands. (Off topic - the name "Netherlands" always amuses me - sounds like something out of a Fantasy novel.)
Seems like the most sensible way to measure it is in terms of Antigua revenue. If they're losing $21M in revenue then they should gain $21M in revenue. So, if they sell a DVD set for $2 that counts as $2, and if they sell it for $10 it counts as $10 - what the US-based company charges for it shouldn't be relevant. Besides, it would only make sense that Antigua would price things at whatever turns out to be most profitable, and in the end the worth of something is whatever a buyer and seller agree it is. If you REALLY want to know what your house is worth, sell it - anything else is just fodder for argument.
There rarely is much alternative. If Japan discriminates against the US on wheat imports, what is the WTO going to do, tell the US to put a tariff on wheat from Japan? Nobody buys wheat from Japan. There are a bazillion cases where there is a huge trade imbalance when you look at only one particular product, which would mean that the WTO would have no power at all and there would end up not being any free trade.
The WTO deals with nations, not industries. The US violated the WTO, so the WTO is going to do something that costs the US money. If the US feels bad for the poor movie studios they can:
1. Fix their online gambling laws and get the sanction lifted OR
2. Write a check out to Antigua every year OR
3. Tax their domestic gambling operations and give the money to the movie studios OR
4. Just tax the average Joe and give the money to the movie studios
If US movie studios don't like how the US fails to protect their copyrights (ha), then they could always move to a country that doesn't get into spats with the WTO and therefore has their rights preserved.
More generally, when you want to punish a nation you really have no choice but to punish people who had nothing to do with the crimes of that nation. A nation isn't a person - you can't lock it up in jail/etc. A nation is nothing more than a collection of people, and when you do things to that nation it is inevitable that they will affect people who live inside it.
I don't think there would necessarily be an issue if online casinos were actually banned. It turns out that only foreign online casinos were banned - domestic companies could still run them. That seems like a VERY clear-cut WTO violation. An online-only ban is a bit more of a gray area as it obviously interferes with international trade, but sets restrictions on domestic trade as well.
The claim that you didn't realize that the work was copyrighted is a defense you could raise. Under US law the defense of unintentional infringement is defeated by a copyright notice, but the law does NOT say that the defense is guaranteed in the absence of a notice.
The work is still copyrighted. If you REALLY didn't realize this and can persuade a court of this then you'd probably get off might easier, or maybe even entirely (though the US concept of "getting off" might not make you happy in light of what they consider fair damages).
However, if you actually send the file to somebody in Antigua and somebody can show evidence to demonstrate this, then your infringement is obviously not unintentional. If you've even looked at the original product with the notice then it would be a hard defense to mount. Somebody who does work on Linux is not going to be able to persuade a court that they never realized it was copyrighted, until one day when they went to an unusual source for the code and looked for a copyright notice and didn't see one.
Agreed. In the enterprise I think that tablets are more popular than warranted just due to the coolness factor - decision makers love them. Actually, I think tablets are great for decision makers - they're consumers of information and tablets excel at consumption. The problem is that the decision makers assume that what works for them will work for those who report to them, and those people tend to be content creators, and tablets aren't all that great for content creation.
I think tablets will take off in the enterprise in a few niches where they work really well, and for senior leaders. Otherwise, I think that the hype is already starting to pass. Sure, people are happy to have them as a second computer, but how many businesses want to buy two computers for every employee? When ordinary laptops start getting old employees will ask to replace them with new laptops.
The reason tablets are growing is because they are a growth market. Nobody will buy one more laptop unless their old one dies - they will buy an extra tablet on top though...
Win95 was really the only transition here that was somewhat dramatic - it was a fairly large change from 3.1. The rest have been basically changing window themes and such, but other than finding a few config items anybody familiar with 95 could pick up win7 and launch programs and such without much trouble. The ribbon was a bigger change, but that wasn't at the OS level.
Win8 is a much larger change. Frankly, even change aside it seems like two OSes bolted into one with the whole metro-vs-desktop thing. It just doesn't feel cohesive, and metro doesn't really seem like something I'd even want to use. So, it is a big change, and a bad one at that.
The only protection I have from fraud is legal, and to use a debit card is to give up that legal protection.
Citation needed. Every fraudulent transaction I've had on my debit card has been reversed without complaint. Sounds like you might want to switch banks. Now, maybe a pin transaction is different. I'll have to check on that. IIRC, my bank even protects me from fraudulent ATM withdrawals (gun-to-head ATM withdrawals, kidnappings, ATM cameras, over-the-shoulder-pin-surfing etc), but I could be wrong.
I'm not sure how the laws apply to debit cards when using a signature, but it is entirely possible that your bank is treating you better than the law requires them to. That's wonderful, but one shouldn't count on it.
And worse, with PIN transactions, the account holder assumes the risk of fraud, which is large, and the fault of banks creating a ridiculous transaction system based on a set of "secret" numbers (printed on the card).
Yup, this is why I never use debit cards. Credit cards are completely insecure. The only protection I have from fraud is legal, and to use a debit card is to give up that legal protection.
That's just another reason NOT to do a demonstration. Everybody KNOWS the US has extremely good targeting - that we couldn't possibly miss.
If a demonstration were mounted there are only three possible logical outcomes:
1. The demonstration goes better than expected.
2. The demonstration goes as well as expected.
3. The demonstration goes worse than expected.
People already expect perfection, so the chances of #1 happening are almost impossible (how do you do better than a bullseye?). I'll agree that #2 is by far the most likely outcome, but there is no benefit to achieving #2 as it won't change anybody's expectations. #3 is unlikely, but always possible (there is ALWAYS the possibility that things could go wrong). So, mounting a demonstration is really all downside - it can't possibly improve the world's awe of US weapons because the world is already in awe of US weapons. It could, however, decrease the world's awe, which would be bad for the US.
Dell made half a billion dollars last quarter. The only reason anybody wants to sell it is because if somebody like MS buys it and does abusive market tying they could gouge consumers and make even more.
Chances are the company that makes the toothpaste you buy makes plenty of money too, despite making essentially the same product for decades. Sure, they probably don't make a 500% markup on each tube, but they make plenty.
Agree. Sure, I love that T-Mobile is decent, but they're quite small compared to Verizon/ATT. Consumers should have a choice of more than one national carrier if they want a family plan and unlocked phones.
This depends on the carrier. T-Mobile has become more upfront with the charges, and now factor in the cost of the phone in your monthly charges, and charge less if you BYOP or when you have paid off your phone. Not as much less as they should, but still.
Not sure what you mean by "not as much less as they should." If you buy a top-of-the-line phone on a value plan the downpayment and monthly payments work out to about the retail price of the phone - if anything you're getting a break on time value of money. Now, I will say that their phones tend to be pricey compared to what you can find unlocked online.
If you don't get a phone from them at all their plans are quite reasonable. Sure, I'd like them to be cheaper, but they're about the cheapest national carrier in the US, so it is a bit hard to say that they're ripping anybody off. I'm paying about $100/mo for four phones, two of which have unlimited voice, and two of which have 2GB/mo 4G data and unlimited 2G data. I've yet to buy a phone from them since I switched to the value plan (Nexus 4 from Google, iPhone, ~1 yr old used android phone, and an ancient feature phone - and yes, that is 3 smartphones and two data plans, which works just fine with T Mobile if you don't get the phones from them (and you disable the APNs)).
I'd love the options Europeans enjoy, and I'd love to see regulatory reform in the US to make it happen. However, T-Mobile is the least crooked of the lot right now so I really hate to make them the target of the mud.