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User: LordLucless

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  1. But how did he make money?! on Project To Turn Classical Scores Into Copyright-Free Music Completed · · Score: 4, Funny

    I thought the recording industry had definitively proved that if you didn't assert copyrights, there was no possible way for the starving artists* to be compensated for their hard work, and it would spell the end of recorded music?

    * all artists are starving. That's why they look good in music videos.

  2. Re:The sky is falling...not. on US Court Sides With Gene Patents · · Score: 2

    It means the judges have more control over the law.

    Whether you're punished for something becomes less and less about the law, and more and more about the judge the more ambiguous the law is. There is supposed to be a delineation between creating the law (legislature) and applying the law (judicial). Moreover, the law is public - people can read it, object to it, push for it to be changed. It's much harder to do that with a judge's interpretation of the law.

    Fundamentally, the purpose of the law is to provide an answer to the question "Am I allowed to do this?" If the law's answer is "I dunno, it's ambiguous. Try it and see what the judge says." then the law is useless.

  3. As expected on Scientists Set Bold Plan For Future Exploration of the Sun · · Score: 4, Funny

    4 posts: 2 "at nights", 2 "manned expeditions".

    Carry on, Slashdot.

  4. Re:The sky is falling...not. on US Court Sides With Gene Patents · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Ambiguity helps to prevent exploits.

    Or allow them. It cuts both ways.

    And that's assuming it's even possible to craft an unambiguous law. Human language isn't particularly well suited to that task.

    And in that case, the ambiguity is an unfortunate side-effect, not "the beauty of the law"

    An ambiguous law almost inevitably leads to selective enforcement. This is a bad thing, because it puts power in the hands of the interpreters of the law, rather than the law itself.

  5. Re:The sky is falling...not. on US Court Sides With Gene Patents · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The beauty of law is its ambiguity.

    Certainly, for those who make six figures exploiting such ambiguity it is.
    For people who actually just want to know whether a given action makes the liable or not, the ambiguity of the law is contrary to its fundamental purpose.

  6. Re:The Reality Distortion Field on Judge Suggests Apple Is "Smoking Crack" With Witness List In Samsung Case · · Score: 1

    What parts, exactly? Have a look at their design patent. There are not many parts described there. At beast it's "flat with a lightly curved back", "rounded corners", "placement of a single button", "placement of ports".

  7. Re:Unfortunately, UK has become Uncle Sam's lapdog on UK Authorities Threaten To Storm Ecuadorian Embassy To Arrest Julian Assange · · Score: 1

    So as long as you get one fact right, nobody's allowed to point out your inconsistencies on the others. Gotcha.

  8. Re:He REALLY pissed off governments.... on UK Authorities Threaten To Storm Ecuadorian Embassy To Arrest Julian Assange · · Score: 1

    If it's a warrant for an embassy, it's not a valid warrant. Embassies are inviolable. If the British government retracted the Ecuadorian embassy's status as an embassy just so it could execute the warrant, that's exactly the sort of technicality that nobody gives a shit about.

    And it'd make both headlines, depending on who's pulling the strings on the various newspapers.

  9. Re:Unfortunately, UK has become Uncle Sam's lapdog on UK Authorities Threaten To Storm Ecuadorian Embassy To Arrest Julian Assange · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Not so much the "right to bear arms", but the fact that arms technology at that time was cheap enough and simple enough that individuals could own and use them. There is a far, far wider gap today between civilian and military grade equipment. Sure, Americans have the right to bear arms, but the US Government has right to bear carrier groups, remote drones, laser-guided missiles and tank divisions. Even if an individual had the "right" to own those things, there's no practical way they could, and no way they could ever serve as a counterveiling force against the governments own military.

    The only way you're winning that sort of fight is if the military itself splits, and some proportion of it backs the uprising.

  10. Re:Will be really surprised if they storm the plac on UK Authorities Threaten To Storm Ecuadorian Embassy To Arrest Julian Assange · · Score: 1

    But officially the reason the UK is willing to storm the embassy isn't over wikileaks, or due to US pressure. Officially they're doing this because he's wanted for questioning in Sweden. My point was that the drastic measures Britain is willing to take give away the lie - it's obviously not about what they claim it is.

  11. Re:The UK specifically said they won't be raiding on UK Authorities Threaten To Storm Ecuadorian Embassy To Arrest Julian Assange · · Score: 2

    "You need to be aware that there is a legal base in the UK, the Diplomatic and Consular Premises Act 1987, that would allow us to take actions in order to arrest Mr Assange in the current premises of the embassy.

    We sincerely hope that we do not reach that point, but if you are not capable of resolving this matter of Mr Assange's presence in your premises, this is an open option for us."

    They may not do it, but they have threatened to to do it. Might wanna upgrade the AI a bit, script-boy.

  12. Re:Unfortunately, UK has become Uncle Sam's lapdog on UK Authorities Threaten To Storm Ecuadorian Embassy To Arrest Julian Assange · · Score: 4, Informative

    The British empire was still existant then, but it wasn't "taking about half the countries on the damn planet as colonies"; it's expansion had pretty much halted by 1914.

  13. Re:Will be really surprised if they storm the plac on UK Authorities Threaten To Storm Ecuadorian Embassy To Arrest Julian Assange · · Score: 1

    A ten-thousand person civilian escort from the embassy to the airport would be quite impressive as well. Not to mention symbolic.

  14. Re:Will be really surprised if they storm the plac on UK Authorities Threaten To Storm Ecuadorian Embassy To Arrest Julian Assange · · Score: 1

    all to to capture a guy for revealing low-level intelligence of a wholly separate government

    No no no, this isn't about Wikileaks at all, remember. It's about capturing a guy who may have committed a misdemeanour in Sweden, whose police want to question him about the matter (hasn't been convicted, hasn't even been charged, plaintiffs have withdrawn their complaints).

  15. Re:He REALLY pissed off governments.... on UK Authorities Threaten To Storm Ecuadorian Embassy To Arrest Julian Assange · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Do you really think people in this league of politics are impressed by technicalities? Yes, they could, and it would be legal. But even if they give it back after they've gained forced entry and made an arrest, the damage is done. The moment they do, every other country will have the option of exercising that same perfectly legal right against all of Britain's embassies. At the very least, I'd expect the British to be packed off home from Ecuador, and any other country that's pissed at Britmerica has a golden opportunity to expose their hypocritical concepts of "democracy" on the world stage.

    They would be provoking a major international diplomatic incident, quite probably with multiple, powerful countries involved, over (allegedly) whether Assange spends a week picking up trash in Stockholme.

  16. Re:patent office = fail on Samsung: Apple Stole the iPad's Design From Univ of Missouri Professor · · Score: 1

    The GP wasn't saying that the definition of prior art only encompassed existing patents, he said that was all that was searched. As a patent examiner, can you give us a rundown on the SOP for searching for prior art? As far as I can tell, the patent office doesn't do a particularly exhausting search, relying on the courts to invalidate any patents that should have been invalidated by prior art they didn't find.

  17. Re:Bill of Digital Rights on WIPO Broadcasting Treaty Back On the Table · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What, so they've got three documents they can ignore when drafting laws instead of just two?

  18. Re:Needs some other name than Computer Science. on Khan Academy Launches Computer Science Curriculum · · Score: 1

    Into to Software Development?

  19. Re:get off your high horse on Khan Academy Launches Computer Science Curriculum · · Score: 0

    What does childhood have to do with it? I thought Khan Academy tought serious academic subjects?

    Like basic spelling? I guess it, along with application development doesn't meet your personal criteria for a "serious academic subject". Probably too useful and productive in real situations. After all, it's not a "serious academic subject" unless it involves studying dead people is it?

  20. Re:Slow news day? on Amarok 2.6 Music Player Released · · Score: 3, Informative

    I dunno, I'm still using the old version. But, to summarize the summary:
    - Bugfixes
    - Stability Increase (really, bugfixes by another name - instability is a bug)
    - Improved iDevice support (which I don't use - I'm on Android)
    - Change in default settings (which I could have changed anyway if I'd wanted)
    - Improved album cover support (which I don't really care about - I listen to music when my eyes are otherwise occupied)

    Granted, some people will probably find it's support of iDevices useful, and someone may care about album cover art, but there doesn't seem to be any major changes here.

  21. Re:This is all the summary needed to include on Detecting Depression From How (Not What) You Browse · · Score: 1

    I think its more that "heavy" chatting and emailing correlates to having less such contact IRL (people with face-to-face relationships don't spend as much time maintaining online ones), and that having few IRL relationships correlates to depression.

    It's not "having online friends makes you sad" its "having no IRL friends makes you sad". Measuring the degree of communication with online friends is just a simple heuristic for determining if someone has many face-to-face friends.

  22. Re:Slow news day? on Amarok 2.6 Music Player Released · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Hah, off-topic? If that's off-topic, can someone point me to something on-topic?

  23. Slow news day? on Amarok 2.6 Music Player Released · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm a Linux and Amarok user, but do I really need a slashdot article about a primarily bugfix and stability point-release of a media player?

  24. Re:Conspiracy to defraud on 'Pirate' Website Owner Sentenced To 4 Years In Prison · · Score: 1

    Except he didn't share other peoples content. That was the whole point of the post you replied to. It helps to read these things before you comment.

  25. Re:Here's the right way to handle this situation. on Patient Just Wants To See Data From His Implanted Medical Device · · Score: 1

    Ahh, yep. Because if you can point to anyone, anywhere, in any point of time who had it worse than you, any otherwise-legitimate complaint you have is rendered irrelevant, since it's only a "white people problem". Enjoy the taste of bootsole as the rest of the world walks over you - and remember, you have no reason to complain. It's not like you're some Egyptian slave; it's only a white person problem.