Just curious, but how does China benefit from a drastic devaluation of the currency of its largest export market? Sure, they could do it, by why would they scuttle the economy that buys more than 1/5 of their exports?
Because it leaves them the mightiest nation on Earth and frees up sources for raw materials like oil, of course.
China is a dictatorship, not democracy or even a plutocracy. That means that whoever sits on the throne decides policy, and neither the people nor the corporations have anything to say to it. Even if Chinese economy suffers temporarily from USA's collapse, what do the leaders care ? Their needs are met no matter what, their people don't starve to death or anything like that, and there's more resources left to them once the smoke clears - remember that growing Chinese economy needs raw materials to get luxuries to the people in the long run, and USA is a direct competitor there.
China doesn't need USA, it's just useful to it, and sooner or later there's going to be a power struggle anyway, so why wouldn't China crush USA if the opportunity presents itself ? That's the good side of dictatorship - you can make long-term plans without needing to worry about re-election in four years.
In the Wild West period, you and another guy are arguing about the ownership of a gold mine. You are both tought enough to shoot even when mortally wounded, so neither of you will, since you both know that the other guy is going to shoot (launch nukes) even if you get him first. Since you have nothing better to do, you start cooperating: you cook dinner, the other guy does the dishes. You defend the mine against thieves together. You benefit from each other. Then the other guy falls asleep. What will you do ? Cut his throat and claim the mine to yourself or let him sleep since he's beneficial to you ?
Better yet, it isn't a gold mine, it is the only source of fresh water on a deserted island. And it only makes enough water for one...
I know that..but do you know that there are libraries statically linked into the kernel as well?
While I can't say that I'd ever gone through Linux code to find what libraries it may include, I find it quite likely that it indeed includes some. What about it ?
Your single program still uses those libraries; they have simply been packed into the same file as the main program.
And they only serve that main program, effectively having become part of it, just like libraries statically linked into the kernel.
Um, so ? If your userland consists of a single statically linked program, what does it have to do with my argument (that the kernel is not sufficient by itself to operate the computer and therefore the kernel is not the whole OS) ?
If you want to argue that an OS is usefull withotu any applications then your argument still stands.
I'm arguing that the kernel, by itself, is insufficient to operate the computer - to give it commands and have it execute them.
If you want to hold that MS Office for example is part of the OS for an office worker (since it is what makes a Windows computer 'usable' to them) then your argument stands..
The office worker doesn't need to have MS Office installed in order to operate - do something with - her computer; for example, you can install Office without having Office already installed:). But you can't install Office if all that is in the computer is the kernel; you can't operate the computer with the kernel alone.
Whether or not Office is actually useful I don't get here; I prefer concentrating on writing the text, not herding automatic functions and helpers.
Anyway, this seems to get down to the definition of "Operating System". You appear to be arguing that the kernel alone is the operating system (which, in the case of Hurd, raises the question just what is the kernel - the very core, the message passing hub, doesn't neccessarily even need to run at ring 0), while I maintain that the term includes everything needed to give me some kind of command prompt or other way to give commands.
If there's nothing else we disagree on, it seems to be pointless to continue this.
Once you realize you are no more important to this universe than a common ant you may gain a bit of perspective on your self-realized importance.
Speaking of self-importance... how do you know how important someone or something else is to the universe ? And how do you define "important" in this context - is the universe a sentient being which assigns importance or unimportance to you ?
Someone who makes sweeping statements about universal truths really shouldn't blame others of self-importance.
Point is that there isn't any correlation between the name of an OS (or any app) and the parts it consists of.
"Linux" is the name of the kernel of severeal OS's, and "Linux distro" is what those OS'es are usually collectively called, so clearly in this case there is a correlation.
Or consider "Red Hat Linux".
Besides, last I checked, GPL did not have a provision which required to append "GNU/" to any app which makes use of FF's code. RMS is being completely anal and annoying about the whole "GNU/Linux" thing.
Last I checked there is no law against being anal and annoying, especially if you're right:). Besides, consider: maybe it annoys him just as much when people don't acknowledge that the system has GNU parts. Maybe that's why he keeps on repeating it.
But I could add a single application, name it init, and as long as it is linked statically to everything else it might need, this would work fine.
True. But do you know what statically linking actually does ? It places copies of all the libraries used by the program into the program executable.
userland provides lots of libraries and tools, and with that, an application and user interface. It is not needed for running a specific (and correctly linked) application however.
Your single program still uses those libraries; they have simply been packed into the same file as the main program.
In any case, in your example, the userland is the program, and my argument that the kernel by itself is insufficient to make a working OS still stands.
Nice classy troll: the text stays almost coherent while still being utter nonsense, and is free from spelling errors. Glad to know there's still professionals around. Keep your tail bushy:).
While the ideal to have a "free" world filled with people who share their work no matter the cost may sound very appealing, so does the world of Utopia or paradise.
I was unaware that there was any cost to sharing my work. Please tell me, to whom do I have to pay for this privilege and how much ?
In the real world this isn't going to happen, not in the amounts these people are talking about.
In the real world, Free Open Sourced Software is used daily by millions and the usage is growing. Therefore observed reality seems to contradict your claim.
And why should we try to force this freedom onto people and as such deny them their right to do what they want to do?
I was unaware that someone was forcing people to use the GPL. I did know there are several benefits for using it, such as access to GPL-licensed libraries, but that is hardly coercion.
Tell me, who is this dastardly villain who flaps in the night and holds the gun to the developers head, forcing him to license his code under the GPL, despite it not being based on or containing any GPL-licensed code he does not have any permission besides the GPL itself to use ?
Who are we to tell them what to do when they wish to use our software?
The GPL specifically states that it doesn't cover the usage of the software, so your question is nonsensical. The GPL only covers the redistribution of GPL-licensed software, as is, in altered form, or as a part of any other product. And who is the copyright holder of the GPL-licensed code to tell who can redistribute his code and under what circumstances ? Why, he's the copyright holder, of course.
Now, one might argue that the whole copyright system should be done away with, and I'm all for it, since it would mean that I could finally get open sourced drivers for my NVidia video card. But until it happens, the copyright holder is the copyright holder, and has the right under law to forbid or allow redistribution as he sees fit.
Isn't that exactly what started all this; the imense EULA's and the likes where you basicly hand over everything and right but the kitchen sink to the publisher? Now I sorta see the same thing happening, but in the other sense of the word.
What other sense of what word ?
If it wasn't for fanatism like this then several "non-free" programs would have made it into the several Linux distributions by long now, thus increasing the functionality of the whole product tenfold. And even now, when many people download these programs first thing after installing a Linux distribution do we still have people around who whine "No, we can't distribute that with the distribution because it would be tainted".
Actually, the GPL doesn't forbid including proprietary programs in the same disk as GPL'd programs, as long as they don't form a single program. What's stopping this from happening is that most proprietary programs have licenses that forbid redistribution, so the Linux vendors are forbidden - by the proprietary program's copyright holder - to add the proprietary program to their distribution.
Do not blame the GPL for something it has nothing to do with.
Or, maybe developers are using the GPL because *they* can still use the code for commercial development but others *can't*.
The others can use the code for commercial purposes. However, if they redistribute the code or binaries made from it, they have to give any changes to the code back under the GPL.
So Microsoft could make their own Linux distro and sell it for profit, but they would have to make any changes to the code available under GPL, and couldn't stop anyone else from adapting those changes to their own distribution.
And here is way - if it was true than Microsft and Apple should be calling their software "BSD/Windows" and "BSD/OSX", since they both have lots of BSD software in them.
The userland != the OS. The OS *is the kernel*. The rest is just tools on top.
Then please don't call it "Windows", call it "kernel32.dll" (or whatever file contains the kernel).
The kernel is the core of the operating system. It is not the whole system by itself since, by itself, it is insufficient to operate the system. Just try it: install Lilo (or Grub) and Linux kernel to an empty partition, and try to boot. The kernel will halt with kernel panic, since it can't find init, and can't do anything useful by itself.
One can argue just what programs constitute the operating system, but the kernel alone sure as hell won't let you operate the machine. Unless it's some perverted ultra-monolithic setup.
Maybe this food should be labeled as having the innocuous virus, and the other food should be labeled as having the dangerous bacteria the virus kills.
"Warning: this food contains preservatives derived from genetically engineered bacteriophagic viruses".
"Warning: due to the lack of bacteriophagic preservatives in this food, it may contain potentially dangerous bacteria not found in food so preserved."
Warning labels for food with and without the virus preservatives.
It is very tempting to take the choice out of people's hands "for their own good", but that's the exact same attitude that led to the Prohibition, Comics Code, content filtering in public libraries, dress codes in public schools, and Jack Thompson's crusade against games.
And Social Security.
Hardly. The idea of social security is to give enough resources to survive to those unable to get them themselves. This does not take any choices out of their hands, even if there is conditions for getting the ss, since they can always choose to not take it.
Or were you referring to the fact that social security is funded through taxes, and taxation is not voluntary ? Well, guess what: there's a price for everything, including living in a society.
Does a potatoe have a label? Does an antelope have Nutrician Facts on it's side?
No, but a package containing them does.
Wild plants and animals were humans ORIGINAL food. THAT is the 'default'.
The default is that you kill or gather whatever it is you're eating with your very own hands, so you know exatly what it is. Since that is impractical in our society, we have invented labels to achieve the same end.
Excuse me, but you don't have to be rich to legitimately have an idea first. Some inventors become rich off their ideas, sure, but they didn't have a great idea because they were rich.
But you do have to be rich to succesfully defend your patent against any corporation that would challenge it in court. You need to hire a lawyer and keep on paying him as long as the case lasts, and since the corporation can drag the court case so it lasts for years - just look at the SCO vs. IBM, which, while not a patent case, does clearly show just how long court cases can go on - and if you run out of money and can't pay the lawyer anymore, the corporation wins by default.
Show me the part of patent law that says "to be awarded a patent you have to make more then $x a year" or "you must have more than $x net worth".
I have never claimed such a law exist. I have simply stated that this is the logical consequence of how the legal system works - or rather how it malfunctions. If you are rich you can abuse the system to crush those who are poor. It's the same effect te RIAA uses to blackmail money from people by threatening them with lawsuits; guilty or innocent, the cost of defending themselves in court would be too high.
So am I, but truth doesn't imply completeness. The line needs to be drawn somewhere. That cow you want to eat may have ingested some kind of poison which suffused every cell of its body, and by eating it you could die. So it seems relevant, except that every slice of roast beef would have to include a 5000-page manual. At a certain point, we have to trust that the experts (that would be the FDA and other organizations) are, in fact, experts.
Do you truly have trouble understanding the difference between a substance that was deliberate inserted into the foodstuff and substance that got there by a freak accident and couldn't possibly be included in the list of ingredients since, after all, it's presence was an unforseen accident, or are you simply making a rather pathetic attempt at astroturfing for the meat industry that doesn't want people to be able to discriminate against whatever makes the industry more profits ?
And in the latter case, do you truly want to make your money this way, even when it leads to you, too, being unable to tell what you're actually eating ?
So considering that the overwhelming preponderance of scientific opinion on the matter is that these things are, in fact, perfectly safe (and safer than eating bacteria), it's perfectly rational and correct for the "default" case to be "virus included."
No, it is not. The natural and correct default is that the label includes any and all substances that went into the package. Leaving them out serves no purpose beyond making the people unable to make informed decisions. Which, of course, is exactly what the industry wants: anything that slows the bacterial growth in the meat allows them to be kept on the display longer and handled with lesser care, leading to greater profits. Your proposition is nothing more than an attempt to get around the "truth in advertising" by changing the meaning of "truth".
A lie of omission is still a lie. Selling someone a food that has been purposefully injected with bacteria-killing viruses and neglecting to mention this, when such injections aren't common knowledge, makes you a fraudster and deserves you a long visit in the local jail. Whether or not these viruses are actually good for the customer is completely irrelevant to the matter; that you took the choice out of his hands, and in fact made it so that he never even knew that there was any choice involved, is in itself wrong.
It is very tempting to take the choice out of people's hands "for their own good", but that's the exact same attitude that led to the Prohibition, Comics Code, content filtering in public libraries, dress codes in public schools, and Jack Thompson's crusade against games. It is wrong, it has always been wrong, and it will never stop being wrong, no matter how stupid you think the masses are being.
What's more, a virus whose survival strategy is to infect bacteria doesn't really gain anything from trying to infect animal cells. When was the last time we had any infection, with or without human intervention, that made such an enourmous leap?
Presumably sometimes after the first multi-cellular organisms developed.
But you are going about this backwards. A virus doesn't think, it doesn't ask itself: "Can I gain anything by infecting these human cells instead of bacterial cells?" The virus infects the first cell it comes accross it can infect, human or bacterial; the question is if it's possible for the virus to mutate in such a way that it can infect the human cell, not if it's a wise thing for it to do so.
Or, more to the point: how likely is such a mutation to occur ? It is certainly possible, since otherwise we wouldn't have any viruses, they'd all be limited to infecting bacteria.
Patents are needed to give people the incentive to innovate to begin with. Let's say that you come up with some novel, highly efficient form of the internal combustion engine. You put millions into research, mortgaged your house, everything. Without a patent, or equivalent legal means of protetion, some auto manufacturer could by 1 engine, tear it down, and due to the economies of scale begin producing it more cheaply than you almost immediately. So you've just pissed away years of effort and millions of dollars. That would be OK with you?
If you put everything you had into the research, to the point that you had to mortgage your house, you don't have enough left to take on the auto manufacturer in the court - not that you ever had, since mortgaging your own house makes it clear that you aren't working for or an owner of a large company. Therefore, your patent is completely useless, and the only thing suing the manufacturer for patent violation will do is get your patent invalidated when you run out of the money to pay lawyers to defend it.
In fact, the auto manufacturer could patent the technology themselves and sue you if you try to build and sell your own intention. A patent lawsuit is a war of attrition, and you don't have the resources to win.
So, not only do patents fail to protect small inventors, they actually against them. Checkmate & case closed.
But conversly, Its Utterly Obtuse to be force fed a million libraries, as part of the language STANDARD. the JVM does not need to have so much extra Bloat, the smallest ive ever seen a java program on windows was a 25MB memory footprint, and that was less than a meg of compiled java code.
I don't think that the programs code size has much to do with its memory footprint. A simple image manipulation program, for example, is almost certainly going to allocate many times its code size just when it first loads any moderate size image.
Nothing stops them defining and releasing a standard set of libraries, but why does every bloody program have to load so much more than it needs, its a perfectly decent language for what it does, but the standard libraries have got to be separated, segmented, and organised, if i need just 3 libraries for a program, i dont want to load the entire standard java package for them, i want the three libraries and the absolute minimum of core libraries, and thats something java seems pretty poor at doing.
First, you may wish to separate, segment and organize your text into separate sentences before requiring anyone else to do so for their libraries;).
Second, since part of the Java specification is that classes are only loaded when they are first referenced, if your program only uses 3 classes from the Java API then only those 3 get loaded, at least in theory.
Well Joe can release whatever Java interpreter he wants, there's no guarantee that anyone's going to use it.
Actually, Joe can't release an incompatible Java virtual machine, since "Java" is a trademark so Sun can bitchslap Joe if Joe tries to claim that his non-conformant VM has anything to do with Java, just like they did Microsoft. Now, Joe can release a piece of shit Java VM, but it must comform to the Java spec to be called Java.
In any case, I for one wish that someone fixes the bugs in Sun's implementation of Graphics2D; the documentation specifically states that certain drawing methods can't block, but they do anyway, and always return "false" to make things even worse.
Throw them all, er most of them, out of office and elect Libertarians to replace them.
Who will then use their newfound position of power to force their agenda down everyone's throats and ignore any negative side effects it will have (such as people starving to death since simultaneously removing social security and the remaining trade barriers will lead to the rest of industries to flee to cheap labor countries and cause an economic collapse and mass unemployment). Just like every other political party does.
Libertarians, once elected, won't lessen the powers of the central government, because to do so would lessen their own power, and once they lose it, maybe their opponents will gain it and undo all their hard work. Better guard the power so no one else can misuse it. They can't give power to the masses since the masses want things like social security, public roads and police- and firefighters, all of which require money and therefore taxation, and are therefore directly contradictory to the libertarian ideals.
You can't touch without being touched, that's Newton's third law. And you can't wield power and come out unscathed. Human beings simply aren't strong enough to wield power and resist its temptations, the most important being the temptation to not give the power away when faced with certainty that it will next be held by your opponent. Libertarians shall prove to be no different, if they ever manage to gain a significant amount of power.
Vampire, The Masquerade: Bloodlines is another RPG that kicked arse. That seems to have a policy of never having less than 2 solutions to a major quest which is admirable (sneaking, brute force, speed and social manipulation being the main ones). But even then you are playing though pre-defined missions in a specially designed environment designed to force you down certain paths that control your fate.
But is that really any different from tabletop RPGs ? While I've never played them, I have read quite a few rulebooks, guides and pre-made adventurers - they are quite interesting on their own right, and I especially liked "Deities & Demigods". The common factor in every one of them seems to be: "How to stop the players from doing anything you don't want them to, thereby sending events into an unexpected direction." My personal favorite was how you stop someone who has the "Wish" spell from using it to solve a puzzle:
"I wish I could solve this puzzle."
"Okay, you now feel capable of solving the puzzle."
Based on these guides, it seems to me that the term "Dungeon Master" is quite fitting, since the basis for the job seems to be keeping the players from leaving their predefined path.
If a human being with knowledge and understanding of both real and the game world as well as human imagination can't roll with the changes and adapt to them, then surely it is unreasonable to expect a computer program that has none of these to be able to do so.
Can any actual Pen-and-Paper RPG player comment on this ? How much freedom does playing with a human arbitrator allow, compared to a computer ?
Here's to hoping they don't screw up the next iteration of Fallout so badly.
Or Arcanum. I'd love to see Arcanum 2 with Morrowind's plugin system and modern graphics. There's so many unsolved plot ends too, from Dorian-Ka's battle zombies to what the dark elves will do now that Arronax has returned.
Any fantasy game where you can help form a labor union for orcs deserves a sequel;).
Slashdot Mirror
If your brain chemistry is sufficiently fucked up, nothing makes you happy. That's what depression is - the inability to take joy from anything.
Because it leaves them the mightiest nation on Earth and frees up sources for raw materials like oil, of course.
China is a dictatorship, not democracy or even a plutocracy. That means that whoever sits on the throne decides policy, and neither the people nor the corporations have anything to say to it. Even if Chinese economy suffers temporarily from USA's collapse, what do the leaders care ? Their needs are met no matter what, their people don't starve to death or anything like that, and there's more resources left to them once the smoke clears - remember that growing Chinese economy needs raw materials to get luxuries to the people in the long run, and USA is a direct competitor there.
China doesn't need USA, it's just useful to it, and sooner or later there's going to be a power struggle anyway, so why wouldn't China crush USA if the opportunity presents itself ? That's the good side of dictatorship - you can make long-term plans without needing to worry about re-election in four years.
In the Wild West period, you and another guy are arguing about the ownership of a gold mine. You are both tought enough to shoot even when mortally wounded, so neither of you will, since you both know that the other guy is going to shoot (launch nukes) even if you get him first. Since you have nothing better to do, you start cooperating: you cook dinner, the other guy does the dishes. You defend the mine against thieves together. You benefit from each other. Then the other guy falls asleep. What will you do ? Cut his throat and claim the mine to yourself or let him sleep since he's beneficial to you ?
Better yet, it isn't a gold mine, it is the only source of fresh water on a deserted island. And it only makes enough water for one...
While I can't say that I'd ever gone through Linux code to find what libraries it may include, I find it quite likely that it indeed includes some. What about it ?
Um, so ? If your userland consists of a single statically linked program, what does it have to do with my argument (that the kernel is not sufficient by itself to operate the computer and therefore the kernel is not the whole OS) ?
I'm arguing that the kernel, by itself, is insufficient to operate the computer - to give it commands and have it execute them.
The office worker doesn't need to have MS Office installed in order to operate - do something with - her computer; for example, you can install Office without having Office already installed :). But you can't install Office if all that is in the computer is the kernel; you can't operate the computer with the kernel alone.
Whether or not Office is actually useful I don't get here; I prefer concentrating on writing the text, not herding automatic functions and helpers.
Anyway, this seems to get down to the definition of "Operating System". You appear to be arguing that the kernel alone is the operating system (which, in the case of Hurd, raises the question just what is the kernel - the very core, the message passing hub, doesn't neccessarily even need to run at ring 0), while I maintain that the term includes everything needed to give me some kind of command prompt or other way to give commands.
If there's nothing else we disagree on, it seems to be pointless to continue this.
Speaking of self-importance... how do you know how important someone or something else is to the universe ? And how do you define "important" in this context - is the universe a sentient being which assigns importance or unimportance to you ?
Someone who makes sweeping statements about universal truths really shouldn't blame others of self-importance.
"Linux" is the name of the kernel of severeal OS's, and "Linux distro" is what those OS'es are usually collectively called, so clearly in this case there is a correlation.
Or consider "Red Hat Linux".
Last I checked there is no law against being anal and annoying, especially if you're right :). Besides, consider: maybe it annoys him just as much when people don't acknowledge that the system has GNU parts. Maybe that's why he keeps on repeating it.
True. But do you know what statically linking actually does ? It places copies of all the libraries used by the program into the program executable.
Your single program still uses those libraries; they have simply been packed into the same file as the main program.
In any case, in your example, the userland is the program, and my argument that the kernel by itself is insufficient to make a working OS still stands.
Nice classy troll: the text stays almost coherent while still being utter nonsense, and is free from spelling errors. Glad to know there's still professionals around. Keep your tail bushy :).
I was unaware that there was any cost to sharing my work. Please tell me, to whom do I have to pay for this privilege and how much ?
In the real world, Free Open Sourced Software is used daily by millions and the usage is growing. Therefore observed reality seems to contradict your claim.
I was unaware that someone was forcing people to use the GPL. I did know there are several benefits for using it, such as access to GPL-licensed libraries, but that is hardly coercion.
Tell me, who is this dastardly villain who flaps in the night and holds the gun to the developers head, forcing him to license his code under the GPL, despite it not being based on or containing any GPL-licensed code he does not have any permission besides the GPL itself to use ?
The GPL specifically states that it doesn't cover the usage of the software, so your question is nonsensical. The GPL only covers the redistribution of GPL-licensed software, as is, in altered form, or as a part of any other product. And who is the copyright holder of the GPL-licensed code to tell who can redistribute his code and under what circumstances ? Why, he's the copyright holder, of course.
Now, one might argue that the whole copyright system should be done away with, and I'm all for it, since it would mean that I could finally get open sourced drivers for my NVidia video card. But until it happens, the copyright holder is the copyright holder, and has the right under law to forbid or allow redistribution as he sees fit.
What other sense of what word ?
Actually, the GPL doesn't forbid including proprietary programs in the same disk as GPL'd programs, as long as they don't form a single program. What's stopping this from happening is that most proprietary programs have licenses that forbid redistribution, so the Linux vendors are forbidden - by the proprietary program's copyright holder - to add the proprietary program to their distribution.
Do not blame the GPL for something it has nothing to do with.
The others can use the code for commercial purposes. However, if they redistribute the code or binaries made from it, they have to give any changes to the code back under the GPL.
So Microsoft could make their own Linux distro and sell it for profit, but they would have to make any changes to the code available under GPL, and couldn't stop anyone else from adapting those changes to their own distribution.
Then please don't call it "Windows", call it "kernel32.dll" (or whatever file contains the kernel).
The kernel is the core of the operating system. It is not the whole system by itself since, by itself, it is insufficient to operate the system. Just try it: install Lilo (or Grub) and Linux kernel to an empty partition, and try to boot. The kernel will halt with kernel panic, since it can't find init, and can't do anything useful by itself.
One can argue just what programs constitute the operating system, but the kernel alone sure as hell won't let you operate the machine. Unless it's some perverted ultra-monolithic setup.
A terminal patient isn't going to be voting anymore, so why would the government give a shit about him ?
That's something to consider, for all those who want to make mandatory IQ tests or whatever a precondition for being allowed to vote.
"Warning: this food contains preservatives derived from genetically engineered bacteriophagic viruses".
"Warning: due to the lack of bacteriophagic preservatives in this food, it may contain potentially dangerous bacteria not found in food so preserved."
Warning labels for food with and without the virus preservatives.
Hardly. The idea of social security is to give enough resources to survive to those unable to get them themselves. This does not take any choices out of their hands, even if there is conditions for getting the ss, since they can always choose to not take it.
Or were you referring to the fact that social security is funded through taxes, and taxation is not voluntary ? Well, guess what: there's a price for everything, including living in a society.
No, but a package containing them does.
The default is that you kill or gather whatever it is you're eating with your very own hands, so you know exatly what it is. Since that is impractical in our society, we have invented labels to achieve the same end.
But you do have to be rich to succesfully defend your patent against any corporation that would challenge it in court. You need to hire a lawyer and keep on paying him as long as the case lasts, and since the corporation can drag the court case so it lasts for years - just look at the SCO vs. IBM, which, while not a patent case, does clearly show just how long court cases can go on - and if you run out of money and can't pay the lawyer anymore, the corporation wins by default.
I have never claimed such a law exist. I have simply stated that this is the logical consequence of how the legal system works - or rather how it malfunctions. If you are rich you can abuse the system to crush those who are poor. It's the same effect te RIAA uses to blackmail money from people by threatening them with lawsuits; guilty or innocent, the cost of defending themselves in court would be too high.
Do you truly have trouble understanding the difference between a substance that was deliberate inserted into the foodstuff and substance that got there by a freak accident and couldn't possibly be included in the list of ingredients since, after all, it's presence was an unforseen accident, or are you simply making a rather pathetic attempt at astroturfing for the meat industry that doesn't want people to be able to discriminate against whatever makes the industry more profits ?
And in the latter case, do you truly want to make your money this way, even when it leads to you, too, being unable to tell what you're actually eating ?
No, it is not. The natural and correct default is that the label includes any and all substances that went into the package. Leaving them out serves no purpose beyond making the people unable to make informed decisions. Which, of course, is exactly what the industry wants: anything that slows the bacterial growth in the meat allows them to be kept on the display longer and handled with lesser care, leading to greater profits. Your proposition is nothing more than an attempt to get around the "truth in advertising" by changing the meaning of "truth".
A lie of omission is still a lie. Selling someone a food that has been purposefully injected with bacteria-killing viruses and neglecting to mention this, when such injections aren't common knowledge, makes you a fraudster and deserves you a long visit in the local jail. Whether or not these viruses are actually good for the customer is completely irrelevant to the matter; that you took the choice out of his hands, and in fact made it so that he never even knew that there was any choice involved, is in itself wrong.
It is very tempting to take the choice out of people's hands "for their own good", but that's the exact same attitude that led to the Prohibition, Comics Code, content filtering in public libraries, dress codes in public schools, and Jack Thompson's crusade against games. It is wrong, it has always been wrong, and it will never stop being wrong, no matter how stupid you think the masses are being.
Presumably sometimes after the first multi-cellular organisms developed.
But you are going about this backwards. A virus doesn't think, it doesn't ask itself: "Can I gain anything by infecting these human cells instead of bacterial cells?" The virus infects the first cell it comes accross it can infect, human or bacterial; the question is if it's possible for the virus to mutate in such a way that it can infect the human cell, not if it's a wise thing for it to do so.
Or, more to the point: how likely is such a mutation to occur ? It is certainly possible, since otherwise we wouldn't have any viruses, they'd all be limited to infecting bacteria.
If you put everything you had into the research, to the point that you had to mortgage your house, you don't have enough left to take on the auto manufacturer in the court - not that you ever had, since mortgaging your own house makes it clear that you aren't working for or an owner of a large company. Therefore, your patent is completely useless, and the only thing suing the manufacturer for patent violation will do is get your patent invalidated when you run out of the money to pay lawyers to defend it.
In fact, the auto manufacturer could patent the technology themselves and sue you if you try to build and sell your own intention. A patent lawsuit is a war of attrition, and you don't have the resources to win.
So, not only do patents fail to protect small inventors, they actually against them. Checkmate & case closed.
I don't think that the programs code size has much to do with its memory footprint. A simple image manipulation program, for example, is almost certainly going to allocate many times its code size just when it first loads any moderate size image.
First, you may wish to separate, segment and organize your text into separate sentences before requiring anyone else to do so for their libraries ;).
Second, since part of the Java specification is that classes are only loaded when they are first referenced, if your program only uses 3 classes from the Java API then only those 3 get loaded, at least in theory.
Actually, Joe can't release an incompatible Java virtual machine, since "Java" is a trademark so Sun can bitchslap Joe if Joe tries to claim that his non-conformant VM has anything to do with Java, just like they did Microsoft. Now, Joe can release a piece of shit Java VM, but it must comform to the Java spec to be called Java.
In any case, I for one wish that someone fixes the bugs in Sun's implementation of Graphics2D; the documentation specifically states that certain drawing methods can't block, but they do anyway, and always return "false" to make things even worse.
Who will then use their newfound position of power to force their agenda down everyone's throats and ignore any negative side effects it will have (such as people starving to death since simultaneously removing social security and the remaining trade barriers will lead to the rest of industries to flee to cheap labor countries and cause an economic collapse and mass unemployment). Just like every other political party does.
Libertarians, once elected, won't lessen the powers of the central government, because to do so would lessen their own power, and once they lose it, maybe their opponents will gain it and undo all their hard work. Better guard the power so no one else can misuse it. They can't give power to the masses since the masses want things like social security, public roads and police- and firefighters, all of which require money and therefore taxation, and are therefore directly contradictory to the libertarian ideals.
You can't touch without being touched, that's Newton's third law. And you can't wield power and come out unscathed. Human beings simply aren't strong enough to wield power and resist its temptations, the most important being the temptation to not give the power away when faced with certainty that it will next be held by your opponent. Libertarians shall prove to be no different, if they ever manage to gain a significant amount of power.
Shouldn't matter from the point of selling it - you are simply selling the installation right in the latter case.
I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice, and damn those who made it neccessary to state it.
But is that really any different from tabletop RPGs ? While I've never played them, I have read quite a few rulebooks, guides and pre-made adventurers - they are quite interesting on their own right, and I especially liked "Deities & Demigods". The common factor in every one of them seems to be: "How to stop the players from doing anything you don't want them to, thereby sending events into an unexpected direction." My personal favorite was how you stop someone who has the "Wish" spell from using it to solve a puzzle:
"I wish I could solve this puzzle."
"Okay, you now feel capable of solving the puzzle."
Based on these guides, it seems to me that the term "Dungeon Master" is quite fitting, since the basis for the job seems to be keeping the players from leaving their predefined path.
If a human being with knowledge and understanding of both real and the game world as well as human imagination can't roll with the changes and adapt to them, then surely it is unreasonable to expect a computer program that has none of these to be able to do so.
Can any actual Pen-and-Paper RPG player comment on this ? How much freedom does playing with a human arbitrator allow, compared to a computer ?
Or Arcanum. I'd love to see Arcanum 2 with Morrowind's plugin system and modern graphics. There's so many unsolved plot ends too, from Dorian-Ka's battle zombies to what the dark elves will do now that Arronax has returned.
Any fantasy game where you can help form a labor union for orcs deserves a sequel ;).
Especially if Oblivion is anything like Morrowind, where console commands are needed to counter disappearing characters and other bugs.
Because they have money and power and the normal people don't.