They may get away with it as far as we are concerned, but they may have trouble sleeping at night.
I doubt it, they are probably high-fiving the stuff that did get deleted and how much they did get away with. After all, this is just a game to them. They won big on this round. And, remember, they are religious zealots.
If you had read further, you would have seen that I do include other administrations in this, both Democrat and Republican. But, you sound like that might have been insulting or bothersome to you. If that is all the further I listened to (or about) the politicians, I would know nothing about them. Sorry. It is true, they are involved in many of these things. It is also true that many other if not most other administrations have been involved in these things as well. Why try? For that, why try to make the world better? Why try to point out problems where they lie as others might disagree? No, why not try? For all you have to loose is in the lack of trying. Why had you not tried to read further? Now, there is a question. To understand others, you must read past yourself. I am not palatable to all, oh well. I am not an author nor a writer nor do I have an editor, and I am not trying to sell Kool Aid here. Just express my thoughts and opinions. Sorry if you disagree with them, you loss. I still read others posts, even if I do not agree with or like what they say. How else would I know another's viewpoint?
Now, I will be the first to admit that if Bush had been the only candidate up for election to President, I would have voted for none of the above. I tend to study the past of people being elected and his past led me to believe that he would do certain things. I did claim that he would invade Iraq. I did claim that the economy would come apart under his shift. I did claim that America would suffer on the world stage. There are things I thought he would try to accomplish that he has not been able to, but did try (Social Security - I agree with partial privatization, and then using it as a safety net, not as it currently is.) Many of my friends told me I was nuts (my town is primarily republican). He was a compassionate conservative (oxymoron in and of itself). So, that is my disclaimer. I saw through the Emperor's new clothes before he was put in place. It is an annoying habit to my wife, but I do like to dig in to the background of stuff. Normally, when I vote, I find myself voting for the candidate who I believe will do the least (damage). Occasionally I get surprised and a candidate actually does more good than bad or vice versa. I am not perfect and I only separate myself from most other voters in that I do check out a candidate's history and use a large grain of salt with their speeches. Words are easy to waste, actions are proof of will.
Now, back to the regularly scheduled topic. In many places, businesses, governments, etc, policies for data retention and hardware destruction are put into place more for legal CYA than they are for maintenance. People in power do things. People working for people in power do things. It is the nature of the beast. They do not want to get caught for doing things, so they come up with clever and legal ways to not get caught. What makes this administration so spectacular is the length of which they have taken this ball and how much destruction they have accomplished compounded by how much their compatriots have profited off of the situations that have resulted and solidly in the public eye to boot (war is a great distraction for most people). They are not unique, alone or even in the minority on what they have done, only in the incredible depth they have taken these actions.
Bush and Co are dirty. Thats an easy given. But, so have been their predecessors going back for a long time. They stand in *common* company. But, as many other people in other lines of work can say, they have gone further and seen further with their craft, as they stand on the shoulders of giants.
Most admins in most companies, including the white house, follow their orders from PHBs. I bet the admins in place are rather competent and following orders rather well. As in most things, follow the money and you find the culprit.
Given that so much of the current administration is involved in cover ups and lies to the American public, how could this be viewed as surprising. These guys are very good at what they really do, and no, running a country is not it. The Presidency and the houses are merely tools for these people to get what they want accomplished. Be it laws that benefit them or an ego trip. I am not talking about Republicans or Democrats. Think about where the money comes from. Who backs these people?
I know plenty of people who have gotten into politics because they wanted to serve their communities. I do not know anyone who has progressed beyond the local level without becoming tainted. As they go higher up into politics, they tend to pick up more debts. They make compromises. Name the last independent President.
Politics is dirty. Power abuse is dirty. They go hand in hand for a very good reason. Most people who want power want it for a personal reason. They believe they are right, they are better, they can do better. Whatever the reason, they in their heart know they deserve it and are normally unwilling to accept hindrances they can secretly get past. They understand that to get what they want, they have to break the rules and lie sometimes. They become very good at getting away with it, or they never make it to the top. If you doubt this, take a look back at all of the politicians who have made it to the houses or the presidency.
Look at work. Who makes it to the top without doing something along the way? Not to the first or second level, but to the top. Many people who want the job bad enough do what it takes to get the job and do unsavory things along the way. They like to keep those things secret. They get very good at it. Period. Or they would not be at the top.
That is why transparency in politics is critical. That is why no communication or meeting in the government should ever be unrecorded. Maybe kept classified in a very few cases, but always permanently recorded. Let them sweat with the fear of impropriety as opposed to the fear of discovery. There will always be people who can go back in time to read or listen to transcripts. It is much more difficult to uncover hidden secrets.
In case you can not tell, I inherently do not trust officials. Even those I know well. I know all to well about the hidden lives and deals many of them have. Even those with a golden heart get trapped. It is inevitable for most. They are trying to accomplish things they believe in (assuming they are of a good hear tin the first place) and little compromises are needed to get the job done. Little compromises beget bigger compromises. It is how politics works. Compromise. Unfortunately, some of these compromises are nasty little secrets, and they cause more nasty little secrets and bigger nasty secrets. Like a snowball. You can not tell the difference until they are discovered. It is what they do. Like actors, they put on a face and do not show their true will or fear. Most would never be elected if they did.
So, the current group destroyed the evidence before it was asked for. They knew what was there. They knew what it could cause and they knew how to manipulate the rules to cover it up. Makes them pretty damn good at what they do. Yeah, the bosses knew what they were asking for. Did they break any laws? I do not know, but rest assured, this activity is completely in line with the rest of the actions of this administration and many other administrations. Secrets are the name of the power game.
And finding out who owns the patent and negotiating a deal can avoid all damages. Of course, the owner of the patent could simply refuse to license use of the patent, but that would be an unusual situation that could have far greater expenses if the patent owner simply shuts down the product line after it is in full swing.
On the other hand, maybe the companies are hoping to make their money before the law suit is settled or an injunction is imposed. Then, the company wins no matter what.
Really? A person who feels wide awake is not necessarily alert. They merely feel wide awake. Like a drunk who has consumed a pot of coffee. They are wide awake, on a caffeine high, but the alcohol (a drug!) is still doing its job as well. Not having enough sleep causes certain internal chemical issues that directly effect performance. Putting something on the dashboard to short circuit your ability to be notified by your body that you need to recharge those chemicals is not a *good* solution to anything. It would be more akin to using speed or a large pot of coffee, not adding safety equipment.
I am not sure the terrorists have truly missed their mark. They may have totally missed the time frame.
Society changes slowly. As new limitations are introduced and more liberties and rights are taken away, we are slow to learn to accept them (we have a choice?). As each change becomes accepted, the next incremental change is introduced. There are opportunists involved in this sequence of events who will consolidate power and leverage the situation to gather more control through laws or lack thereof that directly impact our rights and freedoms.
I am willing to bet that Bin Laden understands all to well that the state is the ultimate form of terror. He has had a rather good education in Afghanistan from the USSR and in his own country. He also knows how to manipulate people to attain his goals, and I doubt his is beholden to the truth, even if he thinks he is. He has a moral belief (religious or not) that he is right and his cause is just (even if it is merely revenge). He has involved others and trained them in his ways. His people can go to sleep and wake up many years later. The only way to truly beat them is by loosing our freedoms and liberties. Until we maintain a truly superior moral high ground in all of our collective dealings, he and his kind have an arguable war against tyranny for those who feel repressed and injured by those parties. And, there is no way to accomplish that without a completely transparent world where there are no secrets, and there are no secret dealings. Everyone can know everything and about anyone all the time. That is a chilling thought. The current reaction to terrorism has sent us two opposite directions at once. The public is having its rights and liberties eroded more and more in the name of security and financial gain (though I am not certain there is much of a difference and that in the end, it is only financial gain). The government is getting more secretive about what it is and is not doing let alone to whom it is doing whatever it is doing. I am willing to bet he/they consider that alone to be a major victory. They do not have to destroy our country to win, only our way of life.
He has seen first hand what government tyranny can do to people, and that may be the real goal. He also knows how that tyranny caused the eventual downfall of the USSR. The government simply collapsed under its own repressive weight. If the US were to continue down the road it is traveling, what do you think will happen as more and more of our daily life, business and emotional energy is soaked up by paranoia and expensive security apparatus.
The amount of impact on the economy, and more importantly, the general public's health that can be tolerated before breaking is limited. One debatable question is how much stress can be absorbed? As stress levels rise in a nation, especially because of governmental intrusion and interference where it ought not be, the productivity of the populace will reach a plateau (feeling safe) and start to slide (feeling intruded upon) and then collapse (feeling oppressed). Mental health issues will rise as justified paranoia causes stress related problems. In turn, so will physical health issues related to stress, like heart disease, diabetes and other such conditions/diseases start to increase faster. Yeah, many of these are related to diet and excercise as well, but adding extra unhealthy stress on top will only multiply the situation and leave the average person feeling more helpless/hopeless and therefore unwilling or unable to do anything about their plight. If the slide continues to far in that direction, then people might become much more *excited* about events and take matters more into their own hands.
Another question, is where are we on that slide? Are we approaching the plateau, people feeling safer in general and willing to give up more liberties in exchange for more security? Are we at the top and now ready for a slide back down in either direction depending on which direction our government now t
I do not think you are missing the actions of an average American. Many of us (I am an American) are stubborn (news flash?), morally convicted and aggressive individuals. Many of us on a flight that was hijacked now would probably take actions into our own hands if we perceived the proper authorities on board had lost control.
Now, I am not saying this would be done intelligently, with planning or anything else that might make the outcome better, but I am fairly certain that the proverbial hornet's nest would have been disturbed. The problem here is that if there are proper authorities on board, and they have not been smoked out, this presents an even greater difficulty for those responsible for handling the situation, as now they not only have to contend with the criminals involved, but they also have to contend with the strong possibility that many looses cannons are going to make their will known.
What is the correct answer in a situation like that? I have no idea, but I too would rather die than let the plane I am on be used as a weapon. I would rather take a chance at living than bow down to dying. I think most Americans would think the same way. Fear of death and fear of missing the ones we love is a very powerful motivator.
It really boils down to the technically ignorant doing work that requires at some point a certain minimum level of technical competence. Kind of like a PHB making computer and networking decisions. I have not flown commercial in many years. The more stories I hear from my friends who still fly, the more I will take the train. There may be a case where I will fly again some day, but not if a viable alternative is available. I used to like to fly. I liked zipping into different cities, doing my job and popping back. It was exciting. Now, it would just be painful. Not my cup of tea.
BTW, if you fly on private craft, my experience so far has been a decided lack of idiots to deal with. Kind of makes the cost and time to get a pilots license that much more attractive.
I am not a builder/construction worker but a friend of mine is. I consult him on almost all of my house construction needs. He has in the past told me that adding a basement is much more cost effective long term than a second floor. Basements are much easier to control the environment on than a second floor, have much lower heating and cooling costs, and in fact when used right, can actually lower the HVAC cost for the entire house. He also explained that building a basement is less expensive (in this area) than adding a second floor on a new house. On an already existent house without a basement, it can be much more expensive to excavate the basement than to add the second floor unless you do it yourself. He said the most expensive part of adding a basement is the manpower to safely dig out the new basement under the existing foundation, or move the house off the existing foundation to dig a new foundation (basement level).
Most basements have window wells, windows that are just at or below ground level, and many have an exposed external, or mostly exposed external wall (depending on the grading of the property the house is built upon.)
Now, I am not in the construction business, but he and his family have been for over 80 years, so I trust his opinion.
.there is a level of accountability that should be enforced both during, and after your time in office
Yeah - nothing against you, but come on. Bill Clinton got caught with an extra-marital affair, and was put up for impeachment for lying under oath about it. The current president lied, manipulated people in positions of authority and created an environment where his business allies could earn billions off of the war and he is not even being investigated. *accountability* Give me a break. Pres Bush Jr is the one who finally showed me the futile light of our current governmental/business systems.
The current president has done more damage to our future than any other force, person or organization in the US's history. There really is a price to pay for the incredible amount of debt we have and the debacles in Iraq and Afghanistan. It creates instability in the regions, the world, the markets and it weakens our governments ability to deal with a real crisis when it occurs (and they do occur). Saddam was evil, but not a crisis and through GW's actions, we have given fundamentalism another strong foothold in the Middle East. We can not afford (financially) to stick around long enough in Iraq to fix the problems that are there now.
He has made thousands of people incredibly wealthy (not just wealthy) with his politics. If there has been a President in history who needs to be investigated for the well being of our national future, if not only for the strong potential for serious criminal conduct, it is President Bush Jr.
Accountability is only possible with transparency and memory. People have to be able to see and then want to remember what they have seen. As we have neither in sufficient quantity, we do not have accountability. I think Bush will walk away from this a wealthy man with no fear of being prosecuted for what he has done.
Not infallible, just very very wise compared to modern people. They had plenty of issues, not the least of which were moral perspectives that have been proven dead wrong (slavery for instance). However, even though they had their faults, they seem to have had a much better grasp on what makes as good government than those who are in/modifying our government(s) today. They understood basic things like the passive tyranny of religion and state being mixed together. They understood the evils of having too much power in one place (hence checks and balances). They understood the evils of large companies (corps now) manipulating things until laws became untenable. They understood all of this and so much more. Maybe it has to do with the focus that their time's conditions forced them into. Maybe the blatant tyranny of the King and *respectable* companies of the time made their conditions that much more obvious. I can not say why their vision was so much better than our vision is today. I only know from what I have read that it was. Maybe it was because they were fighting a common enemy and they had to work together. Maybe our individual greed is what is really tearing our country apart. I do not have the answer to why, I just tend see what.
As far as the topic of the thread, I refer back to this thread. I think this becomes a very good case for a property tax on IP. We have property tax in many if not most places to pay for things like Fire protection, Police, schools and much more. This becomes a matter of taxing property to help regulate, protect and serve the owners of that property. I would think there does not need to be a more conducive reason to tax IP than this. And, as in property taxes for land, if the property is abandoned, it becomes public domain or is auctioned off to recover back taxes. Seems reasonable, and places cost where cost is accrued.
I smell marketing droid oil. I do favor fixing security issues, but as soon as the TPM becomes involved, rational assumptions vanish. MS has a history of *fixing* things to include new technologies they are having a hard time pushing. TPM is a huge technology for them that they have had an incredibly difficult time pushing. Microsoft needs this technology to win for their game plan to succeed. Trusted Computing in general and remote control of customer PCs is a huge win for them for everything from piracy to open source to media. If they can lock the hardware and software together, excluding things like *nix, then they win. That does not discount the need to fix security issues, but there are other huge benefits for Microsoft to fix this issue if it utilizes TPM as the solution.
The only reason Unix people don't like that is for historical reasons
Bzzt. Wrong! Please play again.
The reason linux/unix people like the GUI uncoupled from the kernel is performance. You see, the GUI occupies memory, processor and these days seems to require a graphics card to work effectively. I do not want that on any of my servers. No GUI wanted. Nothing to do with the good old days, nothing to do with look and feel. It is about raw numbers. if the GUI is hogging even 4% of my systems resources, that 4% is not available. You might say geez, 4% is nothing. Well, maybe in the world of the casual user, but to anyone who actually pushes their computer, even 1/2% is something.
Also, GUIs tend to crash the OS. CLUIs tend to not crash the OS (other applications might though). Heck, I can not remember the last time a CLUI crashed on me. It might have happened once or twice in the eighties. We call that stability. That is another important word for servers. If you are only familiar with Microsoft's products and performance abilities, then you might not know these. I am used to mainframes and *nix systems. The applications I am used to working with had a very low tolerance for downtime. Try telling the plant supervisor in a 24x7 plant that the 2000 employees twiddling their thumbs are doing so because the systems you are in charge of are crashing/running like a dog. That don't fly. Uptime equals dollars. Stability equals dollars. Productivity equals dollars. I have never seen the stability or the performance on a GUI system that I see on non-GUI systems. Then again, that is probably why every Microsoft shop I have worked in has scheduled reboots for most servers at least weekly, if not nightly - just after the full backup.
Microsoft may try to define the game IBM is playing in, but IBM is the one that chooses the games it plays. As far as I can tell from what I have seen and what I know people are using in the companies I touch, IBM is winning. They are even winning while using MicroSoft Windows.
Yeah, MicroSoft corporation. That is why they had such a huge cash surplus. So, They did not disburse those funds to pay someone up front. They held onto them to use them later and if they had decided not to, they could be still building up that savings without end. How would you recommend taxing those earnings? Simply tell all corporations to horde all monies they make, as none of the monies that are not payed out are ever going to be taxed?
I would either tax corporations, or the people, but not both, anything else is double taxation
You do not understand how taxes are paid then. There are some areas of potential double taxation, but the monies used to pay employee taxes are not in turn taxed at the corporate level. They are a pre-tax expense, the government never looks at those monies as taxable, so there is no double taxation. I have paid both sets of taxes for years, and I have never had to pay double taxes.
MicroSoft is a corporation. Corporations are entities, like people in many ways, legally. If I make money, I get taxed. If I then pay someone else for services, they get taxed. If I pay someone to perform my services, I pay an employers contribution of their income tax, but their salary is a pre-tax expense. Same thing for corporations, I see no issue. Definitely, no double taxation. The corporation is only taxed on its profits, not on any expenses.
Maybe, you might be referring to shareholders receiving dividends. That is kind of a gray area. I personally think of it as interest only payment on a debt, and therefor ought not be taxed before disbursement (not counted as part of taxable earnings), but with all of the loopholes companies get anyway, I have no problem with this tax. Clean out all of the corporate perks that allow them to pay relatively few taxes, and I would love to see the dividends counted as pre-tax expenses.
Semantics... Destroyer of capitalism, as in destroyer of life, not necessarily the one who has destroyed capitalism, but as in the one who would for personal or corporate gain. In his niche of the market, capitalism either is or *pretty much* is dead. Name a competing OS, a competing Word Processor/Spreadsheet/... Apple is trying, but they are not competing, they are merely existing in a very small niche that was forced to be left alone. Why do you think so much focus from Apple has been anything but their computer lines?
There may be other products out there, especially for the we will not feed the MicroSoft Troll crowd, but what other applications in those markets have any real market share? Look at what MS has done to completely shut out competition. Look at the OOXML debacle! Look at the introduce bugs to breaks competitors software fiascoes! Look at the pricing schemes that MS uses. Look at all of the evidence and all of the companies bankrupted by MS practices along the aforementioned lines. Capitalism is emphatically about the best product winning in an open and FAIR market. Capitalism ceases to exist when the market is no longer truly open or fair. To better understand this, first read this Capitalism and then read this Market Economy. You must understand that theses systems only work when a true free price system is in play. With Microsoft, it has not been in play for a long time. It is possible for a primarily capitalistic system to exist with non-free market systems operating along side it, benefiting from it. We have seen that in the telcos and cable companies for years.
They both make good bio-weapons, but for different targets and reasons. True, Ebola is fast acting. But, in some situations, that is ideal. It is also harder to spread, in many situations that would be ideal. The biggest use of Ebola though is not the actual virus, but the the mechanics of how it works. Only eight genes! That is relatively simple to work with. And, as a bonus, it requires only a few genes to be inserted in another virus/bacterium. So, as it is, unaltered, yeah, pretty boring, but then again, on it own, sulfur is not worth much either in a gun.
Slashdot Mirror
Wishful thinking, but I think too many people in DC would hang (from all parties) if they actually enforced something like this.
InnerWeb
They may get away with it as far as we are concerned, but they may have trouble sleeping at night.
I doubt it, they are probably high-fiving the stuff that did get deleted and how much they did get away with. After all, this is just a game to them. They won big on this round. And, remember, they are religious zealots.
InnerWeb
If you had read further, you would have seen that I do include other administrations in this, both Democrat and Republican. But, you sound like that might have been insulting or bothersome to you. If that is all the further I listened to (or about) the politicians, I would know nothing about them. Sorry. It is true, they are involved in many of these things. It is also true that many other if not most other administrations have been involved in these things as well. Why try? For that, why try to make the world better? Why try to point out problems where they lie as others might disagree? No, why not try? For all you have to loose is in the lack of trying. Why had you not tried to read further? Now, there is a question. To understand others, you must read past yourself. I am not palatable to all, oh well. I am not an author nor a writer nor do I have an editor, and I am not trying to sell Kool Aid here. Just express my thoughts and opinions. Sorry if you disagree with them, you loss. I still read others posts, even if I do not agree with or like what they say. How else would I know another's viewpoint?
Now, I will be the first to admit that if Bush had been the only candidate up for election to President, I would have voted for none of the above. I tend to study the past of people being elected and his past led me to believe that he would do certain things. I did claim that he would invade Iraq. I did claim that the economy would come apart under his shift. I did claim that America would suffer on the world stage. There are things I thought he would try to accomplish that he has not been able to, but did try (Social Security - I agree with partial privatization, and then using it as a safety net, not as it currently is.) Many of my friends told me I was nuts (my town is primarily republican). He was a compassionate conservative (oxymoron in and of itself). So, that is my disclaimer. I saw through the Emperor's new clothes before he was put in place. It is an annoying habit to my wife, but I do like to dig in to the background of stuff. Normally, when I vote, I find myself voting for the candidate who I believe will do the least (damage). Occasionally I get surprised and a candidate actually does more good than bad or vice versa. I am not perfect and I only separate myself from most other voters in that I do check out a candidate's history and use a large grain of salt with their speeches. Words are easy to waste, actions are proof of will.
Now, back to the regularly scheduled topic. In many places, businesses, governments, etc, policies for data retention and hardware destruction are put into place more for legal CYA than they are for maintenance. People in power do things. People working for people in power do things. It is the nature of the beast. They do not want to get caught for doing things, so they come up with clever and legal ways to not get caught. What makes this administration so spectacular is the length of which they have taken this ball and how much destruction they have accomplished compounded by how much their compatriots have profited off of the situations that have resulted and solidly in the public eye to boot (war is a great distraction for most people). They are not unique, alone or even in the minority on what they have done, only in the incredible depth they have taken these actions.
Bush and Co are dirty. Thats an easy given. But, so have been their predecessors going back for a long time. They stand in *common* company. But, as many other people in other lines of work can say, they have gone further and seen further with their craft, as they stand on the shoulders of giants.
InnerWeb
Most admins in most companies, including the white house, follow their orders from PHBs. I bet the admins in place are rather competent and following orders rather well. As in most things, follow the money and you find the culprit.
Given that so much of the current administration is involved in cover ups and lies to the American public, how could this be viewed as surprising. These guys are very good at what they really do, and no, running a country is not it. The Presidency and the houses are merely tools for these people to get what they want accomplished. Be it laws that benefit them or an ego trip. I am not talking about Republicans or Democrats. Think about where the money comes from. Who backs these people?
I know plenty of people who have gotten into politics because they wanted to serve their communities. I do not know anyone who has progressed beyond the local level without becoming tainted. As they go higher up into politics, they tend to pick up more debts. They make compromises. Name the last independent President.
Politics is dirty. Power abuse is dirty. They go hand in hand for a very good reason. Most people who want power want it for a personal reason. They believe they are right, they are better, they can do better. Whatever the reason, they in their heart know they deserve it and are normally unwilling to accept hindrances they can secretly get past. They understand that to get what they want, they have to break the rules and lie sometimes. They become very good at getting away with it, or they never make it to the top. If you doubt this, take a look back at all of the politicians who have made it to the houses or the presidency.
Look at work. Who makes it to the top without doing something along the way? Not to the first or second level, but to the top. Many people who want the job bad enough do what it takes to get the job and do unsavory things along the way. They like to keep those things secret. They get very good at it. Period. Or they would not be at the top.
That is why transparency in politics is critical. That is why no communication or meeting in the government should ever be unrecorded. Maybe kept classified in a very few cases, but always permanently recorded. Let them sweat with the fear of impropriety as opposed to the fear of discovery. There will always be people who can go back in time to read or listen to transcripts. It is much more difficult to uncover hidden secrets.
In case you can not tell, I inherently do not trust officials. Even those I know well. I know all to well about the hidden lives and deals many of them have. Even those with a golden heart get trapped. It is inevitable for most. They are trying to accomplish things they believe in (assuming they are of a good hear tin the first place) and little compromises are needed to get the job done. Little compromises beget bigger compromises. It is how politics works. Compromise. Unfortunately, some of these compromises are nasty little secrets, and they cause more nasty little secrets and bigger nasty secrets. Like a snowball. You can not tell the difference until they are discovered. It is what they do. Like actors, they put on a face and do not show their true will or fear. Most would never be elected if they did.
So, the current group destroyed the evidence before it was asked for. They knew what was there. They knew what it could cause and they knew how to manipulate the rules to cover it up. Makes them pretty damn good at what they do. Yeah, the bosses knew what they were asking for. Did they break any laws? I do not know, but rest assured, this activity is completely in line with the rest of the actions of this administration and many other administrations. Secrets are the name of the power game.
InnerWeb
Trolls must not read the news....
All the candidates were hit
InnerWeb
And finding out who owns the patent and negotiating a deal can avoid all damages. Of course, the owner of the patent could simply refuse to license use of the patent, but that would be an unusual situation that could have far greater expenses if the patent owner simply shuts down the product line after it is in full swing.
On the other hand, maybe the companies are hoping to make their money before the law suit is settled or an injunction is imposed. Then, the company wins no matter what.
Who knows, it is corporate and political America.
InnerWeb
While we are in the land of what if....
What if she is squatting to make a point about the brokenness of the patent system?
InnerWeb
Really? A person who feels wide awake is not necessarily alert. They merely feel wide awake. Like a drunk who has consumed a pot of coffee. They are wide awake, on a caffeine high, but the alcohol (a drug!) is still doing its job as well. Not having enough sleep causes certain internal chemical issues that directly effect performance. Putting something on the dashboard to short circuit your ability to be notified by your body that you need to recharge those chemicals is not a *good* solution to anything. It would be more akin to using speed or a large pot of coffee, not adding safety equipment.
I am not sure the terrorists have truly missed their mark. They may have totally missed the time frame.
Society changes slowly. As new limitations are introduced and more liberties and rights are taken away, we are slow to learn to accept them (we have a choice?). As each change becomes accepted, the next incremental change is introduced. There are opportunists involved in this sequence of events who will consolidate power and leverage the situation to gather more control through laws or lack thereof that directly impact our rights and freedoms.
I am willing to bet that Bin Laden understands all to well that the state is the ultimate form of terror. He has had a rather good education in Afghanistan from the USSR and in his own country. He also knows how to manipulate people to attain his goals, and I doubt his is beholden to the truth, even if he thinks he is. He has a moral belief (religious or not) that he is right and his cause is just (even if it is merely revenge). He has involved others and trained them in his ways. His people can go to sleep and wake up many years later. The only way to truly beat them is by loosing our freedoms and liberties. Until we maintain a truly superior moral high ground in all of our collective dealings, he and his kind have an arguable war against tyranny for those who feel repressed and injured by those parties. And, there is no way to accomplish that without a completely transparent world where there are no secrets, and there are no secret dealings. Everyone can know everything and about anyone all the time. That is a chilling thought. The current reaction to terrorism has sent us two opposite directions at once. The public is having its rights and liberties eroded more and more in the name of security and financial gain (though I am not certain there is much of a difference and that in the end, it is only financial gain). The government is getting more secretive about what it is and is not doing let alone to whom it is doing whatever it is doing. I am willing to bet he/they consider that alone to be a major victory. They do not have to destroy our country to win, only our way of life.
He has seen first hand what government tyranny can do to people, and that may be the real goal. He also knows how that tyranny caused the eventual downfall of the USSR. The government simply collapsed under its own repressive weight. If the US were to continue down the road it is traveling, what do you think will happen as more and more of our daily life, business and emotional energy is soaked up by paranoia and expensive security apparatus.
The amount of impact on the economy, and more importantly, the general public's health that can be tolerated before breaking is limited. One debatable question is how much stress can be absorbed? As stress levels rise in a nation, especially because of governmental intrusion and interference where it ought not be, the productivity of the populace will reach a plateau (feeling safe) and start to slide (feeling intruded upon) and then collapse (feeling oppressed). Mental health issues will rise as justified paranoia causes stress related problems. In turn, so will physical health issues related to stress, like heart disease, diabetes and other such conditions/diseases start to increase faster. Yeah, many of these are related to diet and excercise as well, but adding extra unhealthy stress on top will only multiply the situation and leave the average person feeling more helpless/hopeless and therefore unwilling or unable to do anything about their plight. If the slide continues to far in that direction, then people might become much more *excited* about events and take matters more into their own hands.
Another question, is where are we on that slide? Are we approaching the plateau, people feeling safer in general and willing to give up more liberties in exchange for more security? Are we at the top and now ready for a slide back down in either direction depending on which direction our government now t
I do not think you are missing the actions of an average American. Many of us (I am an American) are stubborn (news flash?), morally convicted and aggressive individuals. Many of us on a flight that was hijacked now would probably take actions into our own hands if we perceived the proper authorities on board had lost control.
Now, I am not saying this would be done intelligently, with planning or anything else that might make the outcome better, but I am fairly certain that the proverbial hornet's nest would have been disturbed. The problem here is that if there are proper authorities on board, and they have not been smoked out, this presents an even greater difficulty for those responsible for handling the situation, as now they not only have to contend with the criminals involved, but they also have to contend with the strong possibility that many looses cannons are going to make their will known.
What is the correct answer in a situation like that? I have no idea, but I too would rather die than let the plane I am on be used as a weapon. I would rather take a chance at living than bow down to dying. I think most Americans would think the same way. Fear of death and fear of missing the ones we love is a very powerful motivator.
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It really boils down to the technically ignorant doing work that requires at some point a certain minimum level of technical competence. Kind of like a PHB making computer and networking decisions. I have not flown commercial in many years. The more stories I hear from my friends who still fly, the more I will take the train. There may be a case where I will fly again some day, but not if a viable alternative is available. I used to like to fly. I liked zipping into different cities, doing my job and popping back. It was exciting. Now, it would just be painful. Not my cup of tea.
BTW, if you fly on private craft, my experience so far has been a decided lack of idiots to deal with. Kind of makes the cost and time to get a pilots license that much more attractive.
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This is the government, they don't need to mount a coup. They already run things.
They already have, we just missed it. Very clever of them to have gotten rid of the "by the people for the people problem" they were facing.
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I am not a builder/construction worker but a friend of mine is. I consult him on almost all of my house construction needs. He has in the past told me that adding a basement is much more cost effective long term than a second floor. Basements are much easier to control the environment on than a second floor, have much lower heating and cooling costs, and in fact when used right, can actually lower the HVAC cost for the entire house. He also explained that building a basement is less expensive (in this area) than adding a second floor on a new house. On an already existent house without a basement, it can be much more expensive to excavate the basement than to add the second floor unless you do it yourself. He said the most expensive part of adding a basement is the manpower to safely dig out the new basement under the existing foundation, or move the house off the existing foundation to dig a new foundation (basement level).
Most basements have window wells, windows that are just at or below ground level, and many have an exposed external, or mostly exposed external wall (depending on the grading of the property the house is built upon.)
Now, I am not in the construction business, but he and his family have been for over 80 years, so I trust his opinion.
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Yeah - nothing against you, but come on. Bill Clinton got caught with an extra-marital affair, and was put up for impeachment for lying under oath about it. The current president lied, manipulated people in positions of authority and created an environment where his business allies could earn billions off of the war and he is not even being investigated. *accountability* Give me a break. Pres Bush Jr is the one who finally showed me the futile light of our current governmental/business systems.
The current president has done more damage to our future than any other force, person or organization in the US's history. There really is a price to pay for the incredible amount of debt we have and the debacles in Iraq and Afghanistan. It creates instability in the regions, the world, the markets and it weakens our governments ability to deal with a real crisis when it occurs (and they do occur). Saddam was evil, but not a crisis and through GW's actions, we have given fundamentalism another strong foothold in the Middle East. We can not afford (financially) to stick around long enough in Iraq to fix the problems that are there now.
He has made thousands of people incredibly wealthy (not just wealthy) with his politics. If there has been a President in history who needs to be investigated for the well being of our national future, if not only for the strong potential for serious criminal conduct, it is President Bush Jr.
Accountability is only possible with transparency and memory. People have to be able to see and then want to remember what they have seen. As we have neither in sufficient quantity, we do not have accountability. I think Bush will walk away from this a wealthy man with no fear of being prosecuted for what he has done.
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The founding fathers were completely against slavery.
So, that would explain why several had slaves. Thank you very much for clearing that up.
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Not infallible, just very very wise compared to modern people. They had plenty of issues, not the least of which were moral perspectives that have been proven dead wrong (slavery for instance). However, even though they had their faults, they seem to have had a much better grasp on what makes as good government than those who are in/modifying our government(s) today. They understood basic things like the passive tyranny of religion and state being mixed together. They understood the evils of having too much power in one place (hence checks and balances). They understood the evils of large companies (corps now) manipulating things until laws became untenable. They understood all of this and so much more. Maybe it has to do with the focus that their time's conditions forced them into. Maybe the blatant tyranny of the King and *respectable* companies of the time made their conditions that much more obvious. I can not say why their vision was so much better than our vision is today. I only know from what I have read that it was. Maybe it was because they were fighting a common enemy and they had to work together. Maybe our individual greed is what is really tearing our country apart. I do not have the answer to why, I just tend see what.
As far as the topic of the thread, I refer back to this thread. I think this becomes a very good case for a property tax on IP. We have property tax in many if not most places to pay for things like Fire protection, Police, schools and much more. This becomes a matter of taxing property to help regulate, protect and serve the owners of that property. I would think there does not need to be a more conducive reason to tax IP than this. And, as in property taxes for land, if the property is abandoned, it becomes public domain or is auctioned off to recover back taxes. Seems reasonable, and places cost where cost is accrued.
InnerWeb
which leverages the Trusted Platform Module (TPM)
I smell marketing droid oil. I do favor fixing security issues, but as soon as the TPM becomes involved, rational assumptions vanish. MS has a history of *fixing* things to include new technologies they are having a hard time pushing. TPM is a huge technology for them that they have had an incredibly difficult time pushing. Microsoft needs this technology to win for their game plan to succeed. Trusted Computing in general and remote control of customer PCs is a huge win for them for everything from piracy to open source to media. If they can lock the hardware and software together, excluding things like *nix, then they win. That does not discount the need to fix security issues, but there are other huge benefits for Microsoft to fix this issue if it utilizes TPM as the solution.
InnerWeb
The only reason Unix people don't like that is for historical reasons
Bzzt. Wrong! Please play again.
The reason linux/unix people like the GUI uncoupled from the kernel is performance. You see, the GUI occupies memory, processor and these days seems to require a graphics card to work effectively. I do not want that on any of my servers. No GUI wanted. Nothing to do with the good old days, nothing to do with look and feel. It is about raw numbers. if the GUI is hogging even 4% of my systems resources, that 4% is not available. You might say geez, 4% is nothing. Well, maybe in the world of the casual user, but to anyone who actually pushes their computer, even 1/2% is something.
Also, GUIs tend to crash the OS. CLUIs tend to not crash the OS (other applications might though). Heck, I can not remember the last time a CLUI crashed on me. It might have happened once or twice in the eighties. We call that stability. That is another important word for servers. If you are only familiar with Microsoft's products and performance abilities, then you might not know these. I am used to mainframes and *nix systems. The applications I am used to working with had a very low tolerance for downtime. Try telling the plant supervisor in a 24x7 plant that the 2000 employees twiddling their thumbs are doing so because the systems you are in charge of are crashing/running like a dog. That don't fly. Uptime equals dollars. Stability equals dollars. Productivity equals dollars. I have never seen the stability or the performance on a GUI system that I see on non-GUI systems. Then again, that is probably why every Microsoft shop I have worked in has scheduled reboots for most servers at least weekly, if not nightly - just after the full backup.
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Ok, I'll bite..
Microsoft may try to define the game IBM is playing in, but IBM is the one that chooses the games it plays. As far as I can tell from what I have seen and what I know people are using in the companies I touch, IBM is winning. They are even winning while using MicroSoft Windows.
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Always has worked for me.
All profits go to someone,
Yeah, MicroSoft corporation. That is why they had such a huge cash surplus. So, They did not disburse those funds to pay someone up front. They held onto them to use them later and if they had decided not to, they could be still building up that savings without end. How would you recommend taxing those earnings? Simply tell all corporations to horde all monies they make, as none of the monies that are not payed out are ever going to be taxed?
I would either tax corporations, or the people, but not both, anything else is double taxation
You do not understand how taxes are paid then. There are some areas of potential double taxation, but the monies used to pay employee taxes are not in turn taxed at the corporate level. They are a pre-tax expense, the government never looks at those monies as taxable, so there is no double taxation. I have paid both sets of taxes for years, and I have never had to pay double taxes.
MicroSoft is a corporation. Corporations are entities, like people in many ways, legally. If I make money, I get taxed. If I then pay someone else for services, they get taxed. If I pay someone to perform my services, I pay an employers contribution of their income tax, but their salary is a pre-tax expense. Same thing for corporations, I see no issue. Definitely, no double taxation. The corporation is only taxed on its profits, not on any expenses.
Maybe, you might be referring to shareholders receiving dividends. That is kind of a gray area. I personally think of it as interest only payment on a debt, and therefor ought not be taxed before disbursement (not counted as part of taxable earnings), but with all of the loopholes companies get anyway, I have no problem with this tax. Clean out all of the corporate perks that allow them to pay relatively few taxes, and I would love to see the dividends counted as pre-tax expenses.
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Damned Sith!
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At that point, I'd rather have the Nuclear powered backpack. Think of all the fun you could have with that.
InnerWeb
Semantics... Destroyer of capitalism, as in destroyer of life, not necessarily the one who has destroyed capitalism, but as in the one who would for personal or corporate gain. In his niche of the market, capitalism either is or *pretty much* is dead. Name a competing OS, a competing Word Processor/Spreadsheet/... Apple is trying, but they are not competing, they are merely existing in a very small niche that was forced to be left alone. Why do you think so much focus from Apple has been anything but their computer lines?
There may be other products out there, especially for the we will not feed the MicroSoft Troll crowd, but what other applications in those markets have any real market share? Look at what MS has done to completely shut out competition. Look at the OOXML debacle! Look at the introduce bugs to breaks competitors software fiascoes! Look at the pricing schemes that MS uses. Look at all of the evidence and all of the companies bankrupted by MS practices along the aforementioned lines. Capitalism is emphatically about the best product winning in an open and FAIR market. Capitalism ceases to exist when the market is no longer truly open or fair. To better understand this, first read this Capitalism and then read this Market Economy. You must understand that theses systems only work when a true free price system is in play. With Microsoft, it has not been in play for a long time. It is possible for a primarily capitalistic system to exist with non-free market systems operating along side it, benefiting from it. We have seen that in the telcos and cable companies for years.
Does that make sense to you?
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They both make good bio-weapons, but for different targets and reasons. True, Ebola is fast acting. But, in some situations, that is ideal. It is also harder to spread, in many situations that would be ideal. The biggest use of Ebola though is not the actual virus, but the the mechanics of how it works. Only eight genes! That is relatively simple to work with. And, as a bonus, it requires only a few genes to be inserted in another virus/bacterium. So, as it is, unaltered, yeah, pretty boring, but then again, on it own, sulfur is not worth much either in a gun.
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