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User: deblau

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Comments · 1,154

  1. Re:Unqualified for office on Mayor Bloomberg Battles Fleet Owners Over NYC 'Taxi of Tomorrow' · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The phrase is "crony capitalism". To be vociferously distinguished from "free-market capitalism", which it subverts.

  2. Re:BBC has video - look like quite a recoil on The First Fully 3D-Printed Gun Has Been Successfully Test-Fired · · Score: 1

    Yes, because the first automobile rolled off a perfectly tuned assembly line with 500 horsepower and heated leather bucket seats...

    The first light bulb cost a few pennies to make and could be seen a half mile away...

    The first mobile phone could fit in your pocket and play Angry Birds...

    Yep, no need to get excited folks.

  3. Re:No-fly list should be a no fly on State Secrets, No-Fly List Showdown Looms · · Score: 1
  4. Does anyone still use Firefox? on Firefox 20 Arrives With Per-Window Private Browsing, New Download Manager · · Score: 0

    Just curious.

  5. Re:Yes, but... on The Internet Archive Has Saved Over 10,000,000,000,000,000 Bytes of the Web · · Score: 2

    If you live in Vancouver, it's roughly the number of nanometers you would cover on a round trip drive to the Library of Congress.

  6. Re:I really tried to care... on Trouble For Microsoft Developers With the Windows Store · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You aren't post-geek, you've just graduated past the larval stage. :P

  7. Ask Slashdot: How To Fight Copyright Violations on Ask Slashdot: How To Fight Copyright Violations With DMCA? · · Score: 4, Insightful

    1. Read and understand the law before you try to apply it.
    2. Decide if you really want to pull the trigger.
    3. Hire a lawyer.

  8. Drumroll please... on Patent Troll Goes After Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Yahoo, IBM, Others · · Score: 2
  9. Only idiot marketers on Demonoid Domain Names Up For Grabs · · Score: 2

    As soon as word gets out that Demonoid is down, hits will drop to almost nothing. If the standard domain parking page goes up, they will never get any clicks, and they will never get any repeat hits.

  10. Re:There is a $500 fine for this on NASA's Own Video of Curiosity Landing Crashes Into a DMCA Takedown · · Score: 1

    Takedowns already are filed in the name of a specific individual, usually the attorney for the accuser. All of this information is given to the person whose content was removed, so they can file a counter-notice.

    After the counter-notice is filed, the service provider must restore the content between 10-14 business days, no more and no less. Failure to restore the content opens up the service provider to a lawsuit from the person whose content was removed. The only way to prevent the content going back up is if the accuser actually goes to court and requests a restraining order.

    I have no idea where the $500 figure came from. The law says that anyone who knowingly and materially misrepresents that the material was infringing is liable for all court costs and attorney fees of the alleged infringer. This can be a lot more than $500.

    The law is quite clear on all of these points. To everyone commenting here out of ignorance of the law, go RTFL. http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/512, especially subsections (c) (f) and (g).

  11. Re:Government needs to be slapped down again? on Mathematician Predicts Wave of Violence In 2020 · · Score: 1

    But if a US citizen in 1942 were to go and fight for the Nazi's, and lets say he became a high-up officer-- would we not be justified in going after his life "extrajudicially"?

    No, we would not. We were already at war with Germany, so the solution would be to simply (and legally) kill him in combat.

    What if a US citizen went to Mexico and became a higher up in the militarized drug cartels (lets not turn this into a discussion on drug politics)-- would we be justified in assisting in his death if capture were not an easy option?

    No, we would not. That's a job for Mexico. As a sovereign nation, we have the right to defend our territory. If a violent invader crosses our borders illegally, we are perfectly within our rights to shoot them dead on sight. If they don't cross our borders, it's not our problem.

    You seem to be confusing our recently ineffective justice system for a lack of justice.

  12. Re:For the last f**king time... on Verizon Claims Net Neutrality Violates Their Free Speech Rights · · Score: 1

    Another argument is that corporations are not people, thus shouldn't have free speech. This shows a lack of understanding of corporations. If people want to get together and make a movie criticizing some politician, they should be allowed to. This is not even controversial. A corporation is nothing but a convenient way to get together and be organized. If we abolished corporations, people would achieve the same goals (probably using contract law), except we would pay more as a society to accountants and lawyers for keeping track of all the paperwork. What a waste.

    No, this shows a perfect understanding of corporations. Your argument that without corporations speech would be more expensive, is not an argument attacking the correctness of net neutrality, but only attacking its cost. So what if it's more expensive? Some things, like free speech, are worth the price. And I sincerely doubt that we would pay more to enforce contract law than we do to enforce corporations law, since you can have unregulated contracts but the state has a stake in regulating corporations.

  13. Science reporting on Making Saltwater Drinkable With Graphene · · Score: 2

    Yeah.

  14. Re:Public option on Supreme Court: Affordable Care Act Is Constitutional · · Score: 1

    The right oppose it for ideological reasons, and many on the left because it falls too far short of the universal health care that any civilized country should have.

    You mean welfare states like Greece? Greece spends 1/3 of it's "ordinary" budget on public health care (and over 40% on pensions). Clearly, this is not too much of a burden on their economy...

    Source: http://www.minfin.gr/content-api/f/binaryChannel/minfin/datastore/8d/78/0e/8d780e3337a1e1cb20d1a1707686d7399be4913a/application/pdf/MTFS.pdf

  15. Re:So from here on out ... on Supreme Court: Affordable Care Act Is Constitutional · · Score: 1

    I'd rather die on the hospital floor, thanks. If I'm incompetent enough not to take care after myself, then I'm a drag on society and I don't want everyone else paying for my stupidity.

  16. Re:First dissent on Supreme Court: Affordable Care Act Is Constitutional · · Score: 1

    Obama and the Democrats were idiots for not implementing the "insurance individual mandate" as a tax break / monetary payout to buy health insurance anyways. They could have avoided this entire debate by doing so.

    I agree with you about constitutionality -- Obama could have said "we're going to raise everyone's taxes except you get a deduction if you have health insurance". Except the Dems weren't idiots because it would never have gotten past the House. Republicans wouldn't have voted for a tax hike. They could vote for the original because they viewed it as an insurance industry (in GOP lingo, "corporate") subsidy, and therefore a spending issue rather than a revenue issue.

    The Republicans (and the Democrats) are statist and have no problems spending your money; the only difference between them is which special interest groups they want to spend your money on.

  17. Petition is terrible on Patent Troll Now Armed With Thousands of Nortel Patents · · Score: 1

    This petition to fine patent owners treble damages if the defendant wins is awful, because it screws small inventors. Invent something in your garage? Big MegaCorp steals it, and pays for lawyers you can't even dream of. They win, and you pay triple.

    Awesome idea, got any others?

  18. Re:Sadly, it's all business... on Astronauts Open Dragon Capsule Hatch · · Score: 2

    Nah, 30 seconds is way too soon, hatch openings can take a lot of time. Make it 2 minutes; give the crew some time to overcome that slight adrenaline bump from opening a door into a brand new room. And while a Rickroll would be pretty cool, I think playing the Final Countdown would be funnier.

  19. Re:Can anyone reading this story on Microsoft Wins US Import Ban On Motorola's Android Devices · · Score: 1

    We patent lawyers write, attack, and defend patents for the same reason that any other schmo gets up in the morning and goes into work: someone pays us to. Maybe that type of existence doesn't align with your worldview, but it's nevertheless a perfectly logical explanation.

  20. Re:establish the facts of your standing on High School Students Sue Federal Gov't Over Global Warming · · Score: 1

    It's been tried. Merely being a taxpayer does not grant you standing to sue. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standing_(law)#Taxpayer_standing

  21. Re:Update: No recent hack, just repackaged old dat on 55,000 Twitter Accounts Hacked, Passwords Leaked · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Oh dear, is this the same Adrian Lamo who turned in Bradley Manning over the Wikileaks incident?

    http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/07/manning-lamo-logs/

    I don't know why anyone would ever talk to this guy again for the rest of his life.

  22. Re:Odd... on NY Times: 'FBI Foils Its Own Terrorist Plots' · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Your logic fails because everyone is corruptible: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment

  23. Awesome on Prince of Persia Source Code Released On Github · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This is unbelievably cool, and everyone involved deserves a beer. If you're in the Boston area, send me a tweet @DavidEBlau and I'll buy you drinks for the night!

  24. Re:Prior Art on Activision Blizzard Sued For Patent Infringement Over WoW, CoD · · Score: 1
  25. Re:How did they get a patent... on Activision Blizzard Sued For Patent Infringement Over WoW, CoD · · Score: 2

    Because they filed the original application 16.5 years ago, when there wasn't so much prior art.

    This application is a continuation of and claims priority from U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/353,218 filed Jan. 13, 2009, now U.S. Pat. No. 7,945,856; which is a continuation of and claims priority from U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/591,878, filed Nov. 2, 2006, now U.S. Pat. No. 7,493,558; which is a continuation of and claims priority from U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/632,154, filed Aug. 3, 2000, now U.S. Pat. No. 7,181,690; which is a continuation of and claims priority from U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/747,420, filed Nov. 12, 1996, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,219,045; which claims priority from U.S. Provisional patent application Ser. No. 60/020,296, filed Nov. 13, 1995. The disclosures of all of the foregoing patent documents are incorporated herein by reference.