You must have missed this one - it was posted to/. a couple days ago: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/9013961/Piracy-student-Richard-ODwyer-loses-extradition-case-over-TVShack-website.html
Still in process, but unless the extradition trial gets overturned on appeal, it will happen.
Interesting. You first talk about how you dislike this particular type of DRM, then talk about how you purchased several games via Steam (which inherently has DRM, albeit a fairly loose form of it). Do you find that DRM in principle is acceptable (e.g. your games are account-bound disabling any ability for trade, barter, borrowing, or sale; internet required to activate; internet required to play or at least switch to offline modes), and it is just this specific format (hardware locked) that is offensive?
Let me resolve your misconception with a story. A man has a sink with stopped up drains. He calls a plumber. The plumber comes over, wanders around a bit in the basement, taps on a few pipes, then smacks one really hard with his wrench. The drain starts working again immediately. "That will be $50" says the plumber. "But you just hit a pipe! That's not worth $50!" replies the man. "Oh no, I hit the pipe for free. The $50 is for knowing which pipe to hit, and where."
Having an algorithm to sort is obvious. QuickSort, a specific sorting algorithm, is not necessarily obvious, and is certainly not the first sorting algorithm devised. The specifics of how to detect and appropriately promote more recent results to be cached for spikes in activity is not the same as "cache to avoid being overwhelmed by holiday-specific searches". An updated algorithm for detecting surges in activity and how to cache is potentially new and interesting.
I've heard of it at some game companies. Certainly not all of them, but on some projects I worked, I know I actively looked forward to going to work every day, and the weekends were when I comparatively "worked" doing all those menial living things like getting laundry done. It isn't necessarily a healthy way to be for your entire life (e.g. you aren't going to get out to meet a potential mate or be able to have kids), but it can be a lot of fun solving whatever code or design problems arise, seeing a game come together, and play testing with awesome co-workers. It sure as hell beats hating your job.
If you want the obvious example, take a look at Valve. Most of the people who work there could retire right now. They've made way more than they need to enjoy life. They work there because working together with other awesome people is fun for them. From what I understand of their culture, most of them also have a healthy work/life balance going on, but it wouldn't surprise me if a few need prodding to remember to get out of the office when they're working on a deep problem.
There's actually an additional security factor associated with that feature -- once a card has been used by a given merchant ID, it cannot be used by any other, so even if someone got your card from a given vendor, all they could do is buy additional products from that specific vendor. Note that with some large vendors, this can block uses on the same site with the same card (e.g. Amazon Marketplace is not the same as Amazon is not the same as Amazon Kindle Store is not the same as Amazon Kickstarter).
Step 1: Just send SOPA takedown notices for every supporter's domain.
Step 2: Find every supporter of this bill's website that supports comments. Have a friend in another country place a link to your own Anti-SOPA stick-figure comic in a comment. Use SOPA to get their domain removed.
Step 3: Watch as Anonymous quietly hacks websites to innocuously add in a single small piece of infringing material. Use SOPA to get their domain removed.
And your conviction of atheism is equally socially based. The only argument for atheism that matters in your mind can be simplified into that your friends think it cool. In reality you believe in nothing, you're just somewhat adapted to your environment.
I'm not sure what you're getting at -- my friends don't think it's cool. Most of them are practicing members of some religion. I'm not sure where you could have drawn that from at all. I arrived at atheism after exploring a lot of religious and philosophical teachings and determining that none of them can adequately explain why they are "the one true religion" in such a way that you can't use their arguments against them.
Do you believe in reincarnation? Shiva? Zeus? Japanese Kami? Quetzalcoatl? Can you give me a valid argument from reason that explains why you would consider belief in those gods wrong, but belief in your own right? We have a lot more in common than you'd like to admit, which is why you fight so hard about it. My real conviction is that you are an atheist as well. I just happen to disbelieve one more religion than you.
Without even getting into the actual costs of adapting to the changed climate, a slow and measured move from inherently problematic energy sources (that also happen to contribute to the air pollution problem) to alternative sources (that also happen to not contribute to air pollution, though they each may have their own problems) is less costly than a rapid change when everyone panics because the end comes much faster than anyone expected and generates multiple was for control of those last resources (and, likely, also consumes more of them than are actually gained by victory). You can then tack on the reduced pressure for the adaptations required (as the change will likely still happen, just more slowly), which again reduces costs as the demand increases more slowly allowing supply to keep up.
Any way you look at it, the costs are lower to start making changes now, and major changes made now will have compounded impacts over the coming years.
Biblical Christianity does not break the laws of the universe. Evolution is a clear violation of many laws. Statistically speaking, evolution isn't even possible.
Well, except for that whole "create the world in 7 days" bit, or Noah building an Ark large enough to fit several pairs of every species known on it using ancient wooden ship construction methods, or building a tower so tall that God made people speak different languages suddenly, or a bush burning without being consumed, or Jesus getting crucified until death, then reviving 3 days later, or, for that matter, Mary's parthenogenesis, or the chemical conversion of water into wine, or the creation of matter from nothing... Aside from all of those things, I guess the Bible doesn't break the laws of the universe. Though I probably missed a few.
Which laws does Evolution violate?
Crap in, crap out. The funny thing about the "theory of evolution" is that it has failed to prove anything. Think about carbon dating. How the heck does that work? They determine the age of a fossil by what layer of whatever its called they find it in. But how do they determine the age of the layer, by the type of fossil the find in it. Crap in, crap out. You apply the "magic box" of evolution and it fails. You apply the "magic box" of biblical Christianity and it makes sense.
Well, it defined speciation, which has been observed in nature and in laboratory conditions. There are several observations now of evolutionary processes at work, and the model is much more accurate than the previous thought that all creatures were static from generation to generation, or that only minor characteristics could be modified but new incompatible species could not arise from common ancestors.
Carbon Dating is defined by use of physics, not evolution, so I don't even know how that showed up here (and your use of it seems highly suspect and very similar to the Insane Clown Posse quote of "Magnets, how do they work?" from their song Miracles) -- it comes from knowing about how radioactive elements break down consistently over time, how they appear consistently in living biological matter, then stop refreshing once organisms die. Scientists can then look for relative quantities of those elements in various dead organisms to determine the date. It wouldn't work directly on Fossils, those have had all of their requisite carbon replaced by other materials. Other dating techniques are used for fossilized remains (which can sometimes include carbon dating biological remnants that are in the same sedimentary layer). I don't see how you'd date anything via the "Magic Box" of biblical Christianity to date anything at all.
I had a biology teacher that liked to quip that the meaning of life was to have grandchildren (e.g. that your set of genes proved viable and had their own offspring). It's as good an answer as any, but has reasonable scientific backing for selfish gene behaviors.
I'm not even sure where to start, so I'll start with breaking the basis of almost all of your arguments against the straw-man of atheism you've built for yourself. Assuming life is not a zero-sum game, there is a rational reason for cooperation with strangers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tit_for_tat
Essentially, that says that, on average, cooperation over time benefits both sides more than either side being purely driven by self-interest. That is: rational self-interest states that you will gain more (eventually) if you cooperate most of the time, even with strangers. That gain then leads to improved social standing, which leads to better chances for procreation, which leads to better chances for gene survival.
To continue on, regarding evolution, and long-term thinking: Gene-Survival is what humans (and just about everything else alive) were built to do. So yes, it is a perfectly rational decision to make the world better for my great grand children at a temporary loss to myself since that means my genes will survive, even if I personally won't (since I'll die of old age if nothing else). As my biology teacher once claimed, evolutionary traits of humans state that your purpose in life is to have grandchildren (meaning your children were viable as well). It also means even if I have not had kids, it is worth me sacrificing myself to preserve kith and kin as they are close to my genetic structure (which allows for obviously anti-self-interest activities, like kamikaze attacks, within the framework).
Similarly, maintaining the health of those who are infirm has proven to be a valuable trait for human society -- keeping, say, Stephen Hawking alive at great expense is worth that cost. This originally started as keeping the elderly alive to advise and teach the young while the fit adults gathered food or otherwise did work that required their capabilities. It was later codified, but there is an indirect advantage that can be rationally found as long as there is not a severe shortage of supplies. If it came down to myself or the infirm getting enough food to survive, yes, I pick myself. If there's enough food for both of us, keeping the infirm alive is a net-gain. This can all be derived rationally and logically, without resort to authority.
I think your understanding of Islam and the several various religions and philosophies that comprise what you call Hindu are lacking. I have found the neither Muslim nor "Hindu" (whether you mean the various amalgamations of Vedic and Brahmanism, or also include Buddhists, Jainists, and Sikhs) to be lacking in common human morality in any fashion (and here I mean the basics: don't kill, don't steal, and so on). You'll even find that in purely philosophical "religions", such as Confucianism and Taoism, because they can be rationally derived as the best method toward personal survival, and the human mind is geared to prefer social patterns over asocial patterns.
As for a definition of morality -- it is just that: behaving in a social fashion, rather than an asocial fashion.
Best guess - probably for Customer Service. If you can hack the account website, you can see the last-four (which is there for the customer to know which card is attached to the account). When someone calls in to get an account changed in some fashion, CS can ask for the first-four to verify your identity. They shouldn't have access to password (presumably one-way hashed and salted) or secret question answers (which can be changed via the website anyway), so that won't work for easy ID verification. Dropping the middle 8 means it can't be used for anything else if there's a security breach (like now).
all those bank runs were caused by the banks, in the way that they set up their system of fractional reserve lending. If the banks could not lend out more money than they brought in, there could never be a banking panic because they'd always be able to pay their account holders.
Yeah... not so much.
Unless you are paying for a bank purely as a place to vault your money (equivalent to shoving it under your mattress -- no interest gained, see also: safety deposit box), that money isn't at the bank because they're lending it to someone. You want your money back? They have some on hand to cover that, but not enough to cover every single one of their people who have money deposited coming in, because most of that money was, in turn, lent out as a loan to someone else. Even without fractional reserve at all (which is a fairly new system, really), they still will never have all of the money on hand to completely handle a bank run.
The ability to have a run on a bank is inherent in having a bank capable of handing out loans using deposited funds in order to pay interest to depositors. Fractional Reserve Systems may increase that capacity, but even a bank that "could not lend out more money than they brought in" could have 0 dollars in the vault because exactly as much as they took in from investors they handed out as loans.
"4. J. YouTube reserves the right to discontinue any aspect of the Service at any time."
It's already there. They chose to discontinue their hosting of a video at that time, at the behest of UMG. Anyone using YouTube has agreed to allow Google to do that. The "secret" agreement is the reason they removed it, but the Public TOS spells out that you have assigned them the right to do so. If TheSpoom had agreed with you that you could reassign his wealth and assets at any time, and then you made an agreement with a second party to grant them access to TheSpoom's assets, you could reassign it from TheSpoom without necessarily disclosing that you made a second agreement about it. I'm not seeing the problem here in terms of why you need to see every agreement Google has ever made -- the only one that matters is the one you made that gives Google the right to do whatever the hell they want to and with your content (see also: Section 6, Sub-Section C).
You're missing the point. This is a "All X Are Y, But Not All Y Are X". No Dave is a Susan. If he called a Kilt a Hoop-skirt, that would be a problem, and incorrect. That is what your example poses. However, if his name is Dave (and he is actually a male human), it would still be appropriate to call him "man" or "human" or "person".
Hmm. Clearly we need the infamous Car Analogy... A Kilt is a Skirt in the same way that a Prius is a Car. Kilts are a proper subset of Skirts. Deal with it.
And how hard would it be to put Wikileaks on it, or any site that discloses "secret" details of Guantanamo Bay etc.?
Wikileaks is clearly in violation of the copyright of some of the documents it posts. I'm not sure the U.S. Government can have internally-created material held by copyright against U.S. Citizens, though I suspect not (it seems like public-funding should default to public-domain), but any company's internal memos or other sensitive documents it exposes could legitimately be considered in violation of copyright. Thinking of it now, I'm actually surprised that hasn't succeeded as a shut down method yet. Do they get some sort of safe-harbor under the Freedom-of-the-Press mantle?
No, they want to make it legal to point out "Hey, what you're using isn't good enough." In particular, accidental access due to poor security should be protected. That is, you're still welcome to use whatever software you'd like, but now it's not illegal to tell you when you've chosen poorly, and not illegal for me to make a typo in a URL and see someone else's personal information (the company that allows that access may still be in violation of various laws, such as HIPAA or whatever similar legislation might exist for financial information).
There might be a corollary, I suppose, that once notified, you should fix said flaws to the best of your ability within some fixed appropriate time frame (which I believe already exists for other types of infrastructure and in other sectors).
No. If this "expertise" is so obfuscating, distracting, narcissistic, and power hungry that it causes the "experts" to rule that water doesn't prevent dehydration then we'll trust ourselves rather than them.
Sure, I guess you can do that. In this case, you'll be wrong, but at least you'll feel morally superior and justified in being so.
This is something people who live in the United States might miss -- there is not a profusion of public water fountains in the EU. If you want water, even in a large public venue (such as a conference center), you will need to purchase bottled water, or bring your own. This is opposed to the standard in the U.S. where every restroom has free public water fountains out front.
There's a more obvious case than H1B Visa Holders. Residents of Washington, D.C. are citizens that are taxed but not represented in Congress. It's even on their license plates.
Ja I was thinking like, doesn't having a passenger in the car who sees the store and reminds you we're out of milk at home fall under prior art?
No, no it does not. The Sun is not prior art on the standard incandescent light bulb, and that light bulb is not prior art to the LED, even if all three "just produce light". People have been catching mice for thousands of years, but you can still (in theory) build a better mouse trap, and if no one has done it your way before, you can also patent it. Basic math has been managed for thousands of years by people, but the electronic calculator was still a pretty neat invention deserving of a patent.
The end-result isn't the important part of a patent. It's the specific methodology used to get there. This particular set of patent may appear pretty obvious (e.g. "Hook up GPS locations to Alerts and have it remind you when you get to a specific place"), but specific implementations might be quite complicated and novel indeed (e.g. "Hook up Natural Language processing to get specific words out of a sentence, use a Natural Language database to acquire 'milk' as a conceptual object that could be purchased as the probably intended variation of 'get', use GPS to get current location, use map resources (local or internet) to check for retailers of that product, set multiple locations for alert reminding to purchase milk when user is close to any of those retailers that could sell milk, periodically recheck to ensure user has not passed out of the region that has been set up for those alerts, and all of that handled automatically and without further user input beyond initial 'Remind me to get milk' request").
An editorial, or even blatant slanted articles, would be the equivalent of any corporation running their own campaign as it is not directly associated with the candidate or from that candidate, but clearly comes from the corporation itself. A NYT editorial is exactly what the NYT should be allowed to do. A corporation donating a few million dollars (allowing the candidate to make his or her own ads) is what is being proposed should be stopped.
Slashdot Mirror
You must have missed this one - it was posted to /. a couple days ago: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/9013961/Piracy-student-Richard-ODwyer-loses-extradition-case-over-TVShack-website.html
Still in process, but unless the extradition trial gets overturned on appeal, it will happen.
Interesting. You first talk about how you dislike this particular type of DRM, then talk about how you purchased several games via Steam (which inherently has DRM, albeit a fairly loose form of it). Do you find that DRM in principle is acceptable (e.g. your games are account-bound disabling any ability for trade, barter, borrowing, or sale; internet required to activate; internet required to play or at least switch to offline modes), and it is just this specific format (hardware locked) that is offensive?
"STOP" won't work well in Google searches, especially with all the "Stop SOPA" campaigns happening -- what's the full name on that one?
Really? I thought Occupy had a pretty solid set of grievances to be redressed: http://coupmedia.org/occupywallstreet/occupy-wall-street-official-demands-2009
Let me resolve your misconception with a story. A man has a sink with stopped up drains. He calls a plumber. The plumber comes over, wanders around a bit in the basement, taps on a few pipes, then smacks one really hard with his wrench. The drain starts working again immediately. "That will be $50" says the plumber. "But you just hit a pipe! That's not worth $50!" replies the man. "Oh no, I hit the pipe for free. The $50 is for knowing which pipe to hit, and where."
Having an algorithm to sort is obvious. QuickSort, a specific sorting algorithm, is not necessarily obvious, and is certainly not the first sorting algorithm devised. The specifics of how to detect and appropriately promote more recent results to be cached for spikes in activity is not the same as "cache to avoid being overwhelmed by holiday-specific searches". An updated algorithm for detecting surges in activity and how to cache is potentially new and interesting.
I've heard of it at some game companies. Certainly not all of them, but on some projects I worked, I know I actively looked forward to going to work every day, and the weekends were when I comparatively "worked" doing all those menial living things like getting laundry done. It isn't necessarily a healthy way to be for your entire life (e.g. you aren't going to get out to meet a potential mate or be able to have kids), but it can be a lot of fun solving whatever code or design problems arise, seeing a game come together, and play testing with awesome co-workers. It sure as hell beats hating your job.
If you want the obvious example, take a look at Valve. Most of the people who work there could retire right now. They've made way more than they need to enjoy life. They work there because working together with other awesome people is fun for them. From what I understand of their culture, most of them also have a healthy work/life balance going on, but it wouldn't surprise me if a few need prodding to remember to get out of the office when they're working on a deep problem.
There's actually an additional security factor associated with that feature -- once a card has been used by a given merchant ID, it cannot be used by any other, so even if someone got your card from a given vendor, all they could do is buy additional products from that specific vendor. Note that with some large vendors, this can block uses on the same site with the same card (e.g. Amazon Marketplace is not the same as Amazon is not the same as Amazon Kindle Store is not the same as Amazon Kickstarter).
Removing DNS and Search entries, I believe.
What to do if it passes?
Step 1: Just send SOPA takedown notices for every supporter's domain.
Step 2: Find every supporter of this bill's website that supports comments. Have a friend in another country place a link to your own Anti-SOPA stick-figure comic in a comment. Use SOPA to get their domain removed.
Step 3: Watch as Anonymous quietly hacks websites to innocuously add in a single small piece of infringing material. Use SOPA to get their domain removed.
And your conviction of atheism is equally socially based. The only argument for atheism that matters in your mind can be simplified into that your friends think it cool. In reality you believe in nothing, you're just somewhat adapted to your environment.
I'm not sure what you're getting at -- my friends don't think it's cool. Most of them are practicing members of some religion. I'm not sure where you could have drawn that from at all. I arrived at atheism after exploring a lot of religious and philosophical teachings and determining that none of them can adequately explain why they are "the one true religion" in such a way that you can't use their arguments against them.
Do you believe in reincarnation? Shiva? Zeus? Japanese Kami? Quetzalcoatl? Can you give me a valid argument from reason that explains why you would consider belief in those gods wrong, but belief in your own right? We have a lot more in common than you'd like to admit, which is why you fight so hard about it. My real conviction is that you are an atheist as well. I just happen to disbelieve one more religion than you.
Without even getting into the actual costs of adapting to the changed climate, a slow and measured move from inherently problematic energy sources (that also happen to contribute to the air pollution problem) to alternative sources (that also happen to not contribute to air pollution, though they each may have their own problems) is less costly than a rapid change when everyone panics because the end comes much faster than anyone expected and generates multiple was for control of those last resources (and, likely, also consumes more of them than are actually gained by victory). You can then tack on the reduced pressure for the adaptations required (as the change will likely still happen, just more slowly), which again reduces costs as the demand increases more slowly allowing supply to keep up.
Any way you look at it, the costs are lower to start making changes now, and major changes made now will have compounded impacts over the coming years.
Biblical Christianity does not break the laws of the universe. Evolution is a clear violation of many laws. Statistically speaking, evolution isn't even possible.
Well, except for that whole "create the world in 7 days" bit, or Noah building an Ark large enough to fit several pairs of every species known on it using ancient wooden ship construction methods, or building a tower so tall that God made people speak different languages suddenly, or a bush burning without being consumed, or Jesus getting crucified until death, then reviving 3 days later, or, for that matter, Mary's parthenogenesis, or the chemical conversion of water into wine, or the creation of matter from nothing... Aside from all of those things, I guess the Bible doesn't break the laws of the universe. Though I probably missed a few.
Which laws does Evolution violate?
Crap in, crap out. The funny thing about the "theory of evolution" is that it has failed to prove anything. Think about carbon dating. How the heck does that work? They determine the age of a fossil by what layer of whatever its called they find it in. But how do they determine the age of the layer, by the type of fossil the find in it. Crap in, crap out. You apply the "magic box" of evolution and it fails. You apply the "magic box" of biblical Christianity and it makes sense.
Well, it defined speciation, which has been observed in nature and in laboratory conditions. There are several observations now of evolutionary processes at work, and the model is much more accurate than the previous thought that all creatures were static from generation to generation, or that only minor characteristics could be modified but new incompatible species could not arise from common ancestors.
Carbon Dating is defined by use of physics, not evolution, so I don't even know how that showed up here (and your use of it seems highly suspect and very similar to the Insane Clown Posse quote of "Magnets, how do they work?" from their song Miracles) -- it comes from knowing about how radioactive elements break down consistently over time, how they appear consistently in living biological matter, then stop refreshing once organisms die. Scientists can then look for relative quantities of those elements in various dead organisms to determine the date. It wouldn't work directly on Fossils, those have had all of their requisite carbon replaced by other materials. Other dating techniques are used for fossilized remains (which can sometimes include carbon dating biological remnants that are in the same sedimentary layer). I don't see how you'd date anything via the "Magic Box" of biblical Christianity to date anything at all.
I had a biology teacher that liked to quip that the meaning of life was to have grandchildren (e.g. that your set of genes proved viable and had their own offspring). It's as good an answer as any, but has reasonable scientific backing for selfish gene behaviors.
I'm not even sure where to start, so I'll start with breaking the basis of almost all of your arguments against the straw-man of atheism you've built for yourself. Assuming life is not a zero-sum game, there is a rational reason for cooperation with strangers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tit_for_tat
Essentially, that says that, on average, cooperation over time benefits both sides more than either side being purely driven by self-interest. That is: rational self-interest states that you will gain more (eventually) if you cooperate most of the time, even with strangers. That gain then leads to improved social standing, which leads to better chances for procreation, which leads to better chances for gene survival.
To continue on, regarding evolution, and long-term thinking: Gene-Survival is what humans (and just about everything else alive) were built to do. So yes, it is a perfectly rational decision to make the world better for my great grand children at a temporary loss to myself since that means my genes will survive, even if I personally won't (since I'll die of old age if nothing else). As my biology teacher once claimed, evolutionary traits of humans state that your purpose in life is to have grandchildren (meaning your children were viable as well). It also means even if I have not had kids, it is worth me sacrificing myself to preserve kith and kin as they are close to my genetic structure (which allows for obviously anti-self-interest activities, like kamikaze attacks, within the framework).
Similarly, maintaining the health of those who are infirm has proven to be a valuable trait for human society -- keeping, say, Stephen Hawking alive at great expense is worth that cost. This originally started as keeping the elderly alive to advise and teach the young while the fit adults gathered food or otherwise did work that required their capabilities. It was later codified, but there is an indirect advantage that can be rationally found as long as there is not a severe shortage of supplies. If it came down to myself or the infirm getting enough food to survive, yes, I pick myself. If there's enough food for both of us, keeping the infirm alive is a net-gain. This can all be derived rationally and logically, without resort to authority.
I think your understanding of Islam and the several various religions and philosophies that comprise what you call Hindu are lacking. I have found the neither Muslim nor "Hindu" (whether you mean the various amalgamations of Vedic and Brahmanism, or also include Buddhists, Jainists, and Sikhs) to be lacking in common human morality in any fashion (and here I mean the basics: don't kill, don't steal, and so on). You'll even find that in purely philosophical "religions", such as Confucianism and Taoism, because they can be rationally derived as the best method toward personal survival, and the human mind is geared to prefer social patterns over asocial patterns.
As for a definition of morality -- it is just that: behaving in a social fashion, rather than an asocial fashion.
Best guess - probably for Customer Service. If you can hack the account website, you can see the last-four (which is there for the customer to know which card is attached to the account). When someone calls in to get an account changed in some fashion, CS can ask for the first-four to verify your identity. They shouldn't have access to password (presumably one-way hashed and salted) or secret question answers (which can be changed via the website anyway), so that won't work for easy ID verification. Dropping the middle 8 means it can't be used for anything else if there's a security breach (like now).
all those bank runs were caused by the banks, in the way that they set up their system of fractional reserve lending. If the banks could not lend out more money than they brought in, there could never be a banking panic because they'd always be able to pay their account holders.
Yeah... not so much.
Unless you are paying for a bank purely as a place to vault your money (equivalent to shoving it under your mattress -- no interest gained, see also: safety deposit box), that money isn't at the bank because they're lending it to someone. You want your money back? They have some on hand to cover that, but not enough to cover every single one of their people who have money deposited coming in, because most of that money was, in turn, lent out as a loan to someone else. Even without fractional reserve at all (which is a fairly new system, really), they still will never have all of the money on hand to completely handle a bank run.
The ability to have a run on a bank is inherent in having a bank capable of handing out loans using deposited funds in order to pay interest to depositors. Fractional Reserve Systems may increase that capacity, but even a bank that "could not lend out more money than they brought in" could have 0 dollars in the vault because exactly as much as they took in from investors they handed out as loans.
"4. J. YouTube reserves the right to discontinue any aspect of the Service at any time."
It's already there. They chose to discontinue their hosting of a video at that time, at the behest of UMG. Anyone using YouTube has agreed to allow Google to do that. The "secret" agreement is the reason they removed it, but the Public TOS spells out that you have assigned them the right to do so. If TheSpoom had agreed with you that you could reassign his wealth and assets at any time, and then you made an agreement with a second party to grant them access to TheSpoom's assets, you could reassign it from TheSpoom without necessarily disclosing that you made a second agreement about it. I'm not seeing the problem here in terms of why you need to see every agreement Google has ever made -- the only one that matters is the one you made that gives Google the right to do whatever the hell they want to and with your content (see also: Section 6, Sub-Section C).
You're missing the point. This is a "All X Are Y, But Not All Y Are X". No Dave is a Susan. If he called a Kilt a Hoop-skirt, that would be a problem, and incorrect. That is what your example poses. However, if his name is Dave (and he is actually a male human), it would still be appropriate to call him "man" or "human" or "person".
Hmm. Clearly we need the infamous Car Analogy... A Kilt is a Skirt in the same way that a Prius is a Car. Kilts are a proper subset of Skirts. Deal with it.
And how hard would it be to put Wikileaks on it, or any site that discloses "secret" details of Guantanamo Bay etc.?
Wikileaks is clearly in violation of the copyright of some of the documents it posts. I'm not sure the U.S. Government can have internally-created material held by copyright against U.S. Citizens, though I suspect not (it seems like public-funding should default to public-domain), but any company's internal memos or other sensitive documents it exposes could legitimately be considered in violation of copyright. Thinking of it now, I'm actually surprised that hasn't succeeded as a shut down method yet. Do they get some sort of safe-harbor under the Freedom-of-the-Press mantle?
No, they want to make it legal to point out "Hey, what you're using isn't good enough." In particular, accidental access due to poor security should be protected. That is, you're still welcome to use whatever software you'd like, but now it's not illegal to tell you when you've chosen poorly, and not illegal for me to make a typo in a URL and see someone else's personal information (the company that allows that access may still be in violation of various laws, such as HIPAA or whatever similar legislation might exist for financial information).
There might be a corollary, I suppose, that once notified, you should fix said flaws to the best of your ability within some fixed appropriate time frame (which I believe already exists for other types of infrastructure and in other sectors).
No. If this "expertise" is so obfuscating, distracting, narcissistic, and power hungry that it causes the "experts" to rule that water doesn't prevent dehydration then we'll trust ourselves rather than them.
Sure, I guess you can do that. In this case, you'll be wrong, but at least you'll feel morally superior and justified in being so.
This is something people who live in the United States might miss -- there is not a profusion of public water fountains in the EU. If you want water, even in a large public venue (such as a conference center), you will need to purchase bottled water, or bring your own. This is opposed to the standard in the U.S. where every restroom has free public water fountains out front.
There's a more obvious case than H1B Visa Holders. Residents of Washington, D.C. are citizens that are taxed but not represented in Congress. It's even on their license plates.
Ja I was thinking like, doesn't having a passenger in the car who sees the store and reminds you we're out of milk at home fall under prior art?
No, no it does not. The Sun is not prior art on the standard incandescent light bulb, and that light bulb is not prior art to the LED, even if all three "just produce light". People have been catching mice for thousands of years, but you can still (in theory) build a better mouse trap, and if no one has done it your way before, you can also patent it. Basic math has been managed for thousands of years by people, but the electronic calculator was still a pretty neat invention deserving of a patent.
The end-result isn't the important part of a patent. It's the specific methodology used to get there. This particular set of patent may appear pretty obvious (e.g. "Hook up GPS locations to Alerts and have it remind you when you get to a specific place"), but specific implementations might be quite complicated and novel indeed (e.g. "Hook up Natural Language processing to get specific words out of a sentence, use a Natural Language database to acquire 'milk' as a conceptual object that could be purchased as the probably intended variation of 'get', use GPS to get current location, use map resources (local or internet) to check for retailers of that product, set multiple locations for alert reminding to purchase milk when user is close to any of those retailers that could sell milk, periodically recheck to ensure user has not passed out of the region that has been set up for those alerts, and all of that handled automatically and without further user input beyond initial 'Remind me to get milk' request").
An editorial, or even blatant slanted articles, would be the equivalent of any corporation running their own campaign as it is not directly associated with the candidate or from that candidate, but clearly comes from the corporation itself. A NYT editorial is exactly what the NYT should be allowed to do. A corporation donating a few million dollars (allowing the candidate to make his or her own ads) is what is being proposed should be stopped.
If you have fireplaces with chimneys, you could try opening the flue (without the fire) to see if it would draw air in.