Heh...Funny way to put it:-) I can see it now. "Go Soyuz, and leave the launching to us." In truth, the vehicle seems fairly safe and reliable. May as well use it. For now, it's the cheapest way to go. I bet their ontime record is better than some airlines. At least Russian airlines(I kid).
The smart EU corp won't try to compete. They'll invest. Let's not play games here. They want to make money. They don't care how. To the croporation, there is no "U.S." or "EU". These borders exist to separate us, not them. Their money and executives travel freely while we wait months for visas to visit some countries. Americans can't go to Cuba, unless he's some John Deere exec trying sell tractors. All restrictions must move aside for business. What the hell. I'll say it here also. From where in all of our democracies do these people get their privileges and authority? That's right...from you and me. If you want to take away their power, you know what you need to do.
I wouldn't be so pessimistic about the EU's fortunes. There's plenty of old European money involved in U.S. businesses. It's not so much a land grab perpetrated by the U.S. as it is by regular corporations from all parts. I connot overemphasize that need for all voters to monitor their reps closely and not be distracted by the sex scandal of the week(that's how we got DMCA). Otherwise this will only get worse. Quit talking about your great democracies and then vilify the people that, YOU the voter, put into office. If you don't use the power that you all claim to have with your votes, then you're just talking out your butt. I repeat, the problem is NOT with your gov't. It's with you and your neighbors. If the EU refuses to represent the will of the people, then all the people of Europe need to unite and vote to dissolve the European Union...and vote in something else. If their unwilling to go through the hassle, then this is what they'll get.
The RIAA can't know who they are suing before they get started, now can they?
YES!! They can and should. They don't have any right to go around netting up everybody just to catch a few. This whole pressing charges against an object(a la RICO) thing is outrageous and shouldn't be allowed. This the same as some redneck sheriff using RICO to steal your Suburban if he finds a roach in the ashtray.
...people who get caught are mostly choosing to settle...
Well hell, some of those other cases, including rape, are settled, too. That means nothing. The point is that if one chooses to maintain his innocence or his rights, the penalty can be harsher than an assault charge. What you call settlement in the ??AA cases, I call blackmail. People are being blackmailed into not standing up for their rights. It happens all the time in drug cases, too. If you "cooperate", we'll let you off light. Maybe if enough people can stand up and fight, we can beat this thing back and put Pandora back into her box...or put the needle back into the haystack...or something like that. It would be so cool to see somebody get a good lawyer and actually win.
The 200+ million drones who amount to the average citizen in the US elect the ones who will in turn elect a candidate.
I recognize that, yes, most of us are easily distracted drones. My point is, whose fault is that? I simply can't blame anyone other than the drones themselves. Many of them choose to live that way. It's like the battered woman who won't leave her husband. It's like an addiction, and any change will be worse than what they have now. It really calls into question the value of democracy itself. It's just not good to give power to the majority if they're going to vote and act on bad information.
Well, I'm as anti corporate as the next guy, but I still insist that we are the ones who gave then their power. We purport to live in a democracy(or democractic republic for those of you who are easily distracted by these things). Let's prove it and see if it's true. Vote for the guy you don't always see on the TV. Vote for the guy that's not in corporate pockets. You just have to start a little earlier in the process. The primaries for instance. If anybody tries to stops the winner from taking power, then we'll know what kind of system we actually live under, won't we? Again, I don't see anybody ordering you to believe what you see on the tube. If corporations can collude, why can't we? I do believe that we out number them. I'm pretty sure we can out vote them. We just have to quit being so easily distracted. We let them lead us astray. The corps control the exposure because we fail to create alternatives. As far as the economy is concerned, they don't have any more control over that any more than they do over politics that we don't give them. We buy their stuff and use their credit cards because it's convenient, and we can be fairly certain that there will be more tomorrow. We made this system what it is today. We buy the things that they spoon feed us, and we vote for our politician the same way. There's plenty of people running for office, but you won't listen to them because you(editorial in all cases) choose to believe the FUD coming from the majors when they tell you that the other guy is nuts, loony, a communist, etc. This is not their fault. These matters can easily be controlled the moment we ALL decide not to be slaves to anyone.
They're the old Microsoft. Nobody practiced such harware and software lock-in like Apple did before they produced OSX. However, that's also one of the things that made the mac work so well. Everything was perfectly matched. It wasn't until Firewire and USB that we could use much third party hardware like printers and keyboards and mice(oh my). Really, Apple is more like Sun. Software and hardware lock-in are still there. For me, the quality of the product makes up for it. Now they make a computer that works great AND you can tinker with it to your heart's delight. That's something else you couldn't really do until OSX. Tinkering was(and still kind of is) the only advantage the PC had over the mac.
Now that's where Microsoft has a winner(besides pinball and solitare). Theirs is the only one that goes past the power of 5000. If you have the time, it will calculate to infinity. If it doesn't, I want to be the first to use one of these new clusters to find its limit...in my lifetime.
But with the bizzare way in which the EU works, the wishes of both the people and of the member governments can be overridden by unelected beaurocrats, some of whom were appointed years ago by politicians who are no longer in power.
Well then, the people of Europe are in quite a pickle. Maybe they should all unite to vote the EU out of existance. What could possibly be more ironic?.
Sorry guys. I have to go with the (modded)troll as far as what he says about our representitves. It's OUR responsiblity to monitor the actions of our reps and to vote them out of office if they don't look after our welfare. This goes for the U.S. and Europe alike. It is we who give them the power, and it is we who can take them out. Nobody is forcing you to vote for them. Until someone puts a gun to your head and tells you who to vote for, you don't have a case. I find it kind of wierd that you all talk about the greatness of your democracies and still so vehemently hate the people you vote for. If you have a problem here, it's not with your gov't. It's with you and your neighbors. I do agree that the rest of his comments were trollish. I guess it's all about taking the bad with the good.
The head of the project though did say that this is something that need a lot more data before any major conclusions can be drawn.
Why can't they be honest and just spell it out? "The head of the project though did say that this is something that need a lot more money before any major conclusions can be drawn." Every single study I've seen says exactly the same thing. "Our data is inconclusive..." "Further study is necessary." These things aren't there to find answers. They exist to perpetuate themselves. I'm doing a study on the subject. You could help by making out your check to...
Heh, I liked that. Just so you know, That bastian(huh?) of self responsibility, Paul Harvey, made a comment on his show a few years ago about the possible role of food alergies in ones behavior while commenting about Columbine. Some people, as we know, do react badly to sugar, peanuts, dairy, etc. Some foods can trigger epilepsy, migranes, and other little nasties. Just do you feel in the morning before that first sip of coffee? or that first drag on a cigarette? There might be some truth to those old jokes. I will say this. Our surroundings(that includes what you see on the tube) do have an effect on us. However small and temporary. If you stare at something for a long time, you still see the image after you close your eyes for a while. All of our senses react the same way. Bright light causes temporary blindness. Loud noises will cause ringing in your ears, making you unable to hear quiet sounds for a while. Chili will burn your mouth long after you stop eating it. There's no reason to believe that our brians are any different. Video games, by themselves, will affect you, however temporarily. The good thing is that we recover. But without a counterbalance, these things with constant repetition can cause problems while you're "under the infuence". The obvious solution is not to ban these things, but to make sure that there's an antidote. I hope this useless babble made everything perfectly clear.
One thing I like about most gov't funded roads is that most of them don't say "Private Property-Keep Off". In other words, everybody has access to those roads, not just the owner or the highest bidder. That trumps your damn property values any day of the week. A person's ability to travel is more valuable to me. Some things are good to have funded by that "One Stop" shop we call gov't. I'd rather pay money to one person to administer to the proper places than to have to pay out a thousand different checks for every little services I use. There are things I trust the post office with more than FedEx. In fact, probably the only reason FedEx is any good at all, is because they have to compete with the post office. I also trust the gov't to do a better job at keeping the lights on. Of course that only applies to the U.S. Down here, we get knocked off every time it looks like rain. Things work better when we have alternatives, and sometimes gov't is a good alternative. It helps keep the private guys more honest if we, the community(gov't) give 'em actual competition.
Toll roads are generally better-maintained than government-run roads...
Well...You obviously never lived in Illinois. I used to drive I-94(toll, but it was still gov't) from Chicago into Wisconsin plenty of times. The toll road all the way to the border was bump, bump, bump over the expansion seams in the concrete. The moment I crossed into Wisconsin(tax payer funded roads) it was comparatively like a billiard table. Which states actually have privately funded highway construction and maintenance? The interstate system was a federal project.
It also blurs 4 distinct areas of law that should never be blurred. Patent, copyright, trademark, and trade secret.
For me it all falls under the heading of IP in the same way Protestants, Catholics, Southern Baptists, etc go under the heading of Christianity. Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism(sp), etc. are very distinct from each other, but they still fit under the general desription of religion. Since patent, copyright, trademark, and trade secret all describe in their own way the ownership of ideas and processes, The term IP is a nice, short way to describe the general concept. What I am really getting at here is that I don't know what you're trying to say.
That's part of the problem. We don't have a competitive marketplace. We have gov't protected monopolies. The problem of collusion is very real. In a real competetive marketplace, this won't be an issue. As it is, we have "different" products serviced by the same company.
But we don't own the pool. Somebody else does, and they could order us out at any time. GPL hasn't been held up to scrutiny by an actual judge yet(to my knowledge), so I'm not holding my breath on its ability to protect us. If all these companies perform a 180, I don't think GPL has a chance.The law and the lawmaker is on their side. They will tolerate GPL as long as it benefits them and doesn't interfere with the bottom line. That's fine with me, but let's not depend on their good will to keep ourselves afloat. We need to keep a certain distance. Let's not forget their history. Nothing's really changed. Everybody is still making lots of money. If GPL were to present any real danger at all to the status quo, they will do everything in their power to stamp it out.
Slashdot Mirror
Heh...Funny way to put it:-) I can see it now. "Go Soyuz, and leave the launching to us." In truth, the vehicle seems fairly safe and reliable. May as well use it. For now, it's the cheapest way to go. I bet their ontime record is better than some airlines. At least Russian airlines(I kid).
The smart EU corp won't try to compete. They'll invest. Let's not play games here. They want to make money. They don't care how. To the croporation, there is no "U.S." or "EU". These borders exist to separate us, not them. Their money and executives travel freely while we wait months for visas to visit some countries. Americans can't go to Cuba, unless he's some John Deere exec trying sell tractors. All restrictions must move aside for business. What the hell. I'll say it here also. From where in all of our democracies do these people get their privileges and authority? That's right...from you and me. If you want to take away their power, you know what you need to do.
I wouldn't be so pessimistic about the EU's fortunes. There's plenty of old European money involved in U.S. businesses. It's not so much a land grab perpetrated by the U.S. as it is by regular corporations from all parts. I connot overemphasize that need for all voters to monitor their reps closely and not be distracted by the sex scandal of the week(that's how we got DMCA). Otherwise this will only get worse. Quit talking about your great democracies and then vilify the people that, YOU the voter, put into office. If you don't use the power that you all claim to have with your votes, then you're just talking out your butt. I repeat, the problem is NOT with your gov't. It's with you and your neighbors. If the EU refuses to represent the will of the people, then all the people of Europe need to unite and vote to dissolve the European Union...and vote in something else. If their unwilling to go through the hassle, then this is what they'll get.
Why don't we outlaw wars...
Because, quite simply, war is good business.
IANAP
I Am Not A Planetarium?
The RIAA can't know who they are suing before they get started, now can they?
YES!! They can and should. They don't have any right to go around netting up everybody just to catch a few. This whole pressing charges against an object(a la RICO) thing is outrageous and shouldn't be allowed. This the same as some redneck sheriff using RICO to steal your Suburban if he finds a roach in the ashtray.
...people who get caught are mostly choosing to settle...
Well hell, some of those other cases, including rape, are settled, too. That means nothing. The point is that if one chooses to maintain his innocence or his rights, the penalty can be harsher than an assault charge. What you call settlement in the ??AA cases, I call blackmail. People are being blackmailed into not standing up for their rights. It happens all the time in drug cases, too. If you "cooperate", we'll let you off light. Maybe if enough people can stand up and fight, we can beat this thing back and put Pandora back into her box...or put the needle back into the haystack...or something like that. It would be so cool to see somebody get a good lawyer and actually win.
The 200+ million drones who amount to the average citizen in the US elect the ones who will in turn elect a candidate.
I recognize that, yes, most of us are easily distracted drones. My point is, whose fault is that? I simply can't blame anyone other than the drones themselves. Many of them choose to live that way. It's like the battered woman who won't leave her husband. It's like an addiction, and any change will be worse than what they have now. It really calls into question the value of democracy itself. It's just not good to give power to the majority if they're going to vote and act on bad information.
...how can we expect to hit the $2,000,000,000 to save Hubble?
That's why we have the IRS.
I, for one, would be very surprised to find squatters living on the Hubble.
Well, I'm as anti corporate as the next guy, but I still insist that we are the ones who gave then their power. We purport to live in a democracy(or democractic republic for those of you who are easily distracted by these things). Let's prove it and see if it's true. Vote for the guy you don't always see on the TV. Vote for the guy that's not in corporate pockets. You just have to start a little earlier in the process. The primaries for instance. If anybody tries to stops the winner from taking power, then we'll know what kind of system we actually live under, won't we? Again, I don't see anybody ordering you to believe what you see on the tube. If corporations can collude, why can't we? I do believe that we out number them. I'm pretty sure we can out vote them. We just have to quit being so easily distracted. We let them lead us astray. The corps control the exposure because we fail to create alternatives. As far as the economy is concerned, they don't have any more control over that any more than they do over politics that we don't give them. We buy their stuff and use their credit cards because it's convenient, and we can be fairly certain that there will be more tomorrow. We made this system what it is today. We buy the things that they spoon feed us, and we vote for our politician the same way. There's plenty of people running for office, but you won't listen to them because you(editorial in all cases) choose to believe the FUD coming from the majors when they tell you that the other guy is nuts, loony, a communist, etc. This is not their fault. These matters can easily be controlled the moment we ALL decide not to be slaves to anyone.
The system is working as it is intended to.
It most certainly is. The lawyers awash in money, and we get stuck with the tab.
"Here in America, you've got a lot of novel ideas. In Russia, the policemen never fire "warning shots"." -Yakov Smirnoff
You get the idea
They're the old Microsoft. Nobody practiced such harware and software lock-in like Apple did before they produced OSX. However, that's also one of the things that made the mac work so well. Everything was perfectly matched. It wasn't until Firewire and USB that we could use much third party hardware like printers and keyboards and mice(oh my). Really, Apple is more like Sun. Software and hardware lock-in are still there. For me, the quality of the product makes up for it. Now they make a computer that works great AND you can tinker with it to your heart's delight. That's something else you couldn't really do until OSX. Tinkering was(and still kind of is) the only advantage the PC had over the mac.
If it's supposed to be a big calculator...
Now that's where Microsoft has a winner(besides pinball and solitare). Theirs is the only one that goes past the power of 5000. If you have the time, it will calculate to infinity. If it doesn't, I want to be the first to use one of these new clusters to find its limit...in my lifetime.
But with the bizzare way in which the EU works, the wishes of both the people and of the member governments can be overridden by unelected beaurocrats, some of whom were appointed years ago by politicians who are no longer in power.
Well then, the people of Europe are in quite a pickle. Maybe they should all unite to vote the EU out of existance. What could possibly be more ironic?.
Sorry guys. I have to go with the (modded)troll as far as what he says about our representitves. It's OUR responsiblity to monitor the actions of our reps and to vote them out of office if they don't look after our welfare. This goes for the U.S. and Europe alike. It is we who give them the power, and it is we who can take them out. Nobody is forcing you to vote for them. Until someone puts a gun to your head and tells you who to vote for, you don't have a case. I find it kind of wierd that you all talk about the greatness of your democracies and still so vehemently hate the people you vote for. If you have a problem here, it's not with your gov't. It's with you and your neighbors. I do agree that the rest of his comments were trollish. I guess it's all about taking the bad with the good.
The head of the project though did say that this is something that need a lot more data before any major conclusions can be drawn.
Why can't they be honest and just spell it out? "The head of the project though did say that this is something that need a lot more money before any major conclusions can be drawn." Every single study I've seen says exactly the same thing. "Our data is inconclusive..." "Further study is necessary." These things aren't there to find answers. They exist to perpetuate themselves. I'm doing a study on the subject. You could help by making out your check to...
Heh, I liked that. Just so you know, That bastian(huh?) of self responsibility, Paul Harvey, made a comment on his show a few years ago about the possible role of food alergies in ones behavior while commenting about Columbine. Some people, as we know, do react badly to sugar, peanuts, dairy, etc. Some foods can trigger epilepsy, migranes, and other little nasties. Just do you feel in the morning before that first sip of coffee? or that first drag on a cigarette? There might be some truth to those old jokes. I will say this. Our surroundings(that includes what you see on the tube) do have an effect on us. However small and temporary. If you stare at something for a long time, you still see the image after you close your eyes for a while. All of our senses react the same way. Bright light causes temporary blindness. Loud noises will cause ringing in your ears, making you unable to hear quiet sounds for a while. Chili will burn your mouth long after you stop eating it. There's no reason to believe that our brians are any different. Video games, by themselves, will affect you, however temporarily. The good thing is that we recover. But without a counterbalance, these things with constant repetition can cause problems while you're "under the infuence". The obvious solution is not to ban these things, but to make sure that there's an antidote. I hope this useless babble made everything perfectly clear.
One thing I like about most gov't funded roads is that most of them don't say "Private Property-Keep Off". In other words, everybody has access to those roads, not just the owner or the highest bidder. That trumps your damn property values any day of the week. A person's ability to travel is more valuable to me. Some things are good to have funded by that "One Stop" shop we call gov't. I'd rather pay money to one person to administer to the proper places than to have to pay out a thousand different checks for every little services I use. There are things I trust the post office with more than FedEx. In fact, probably the only reason FedEx is any good at all, is because they have to compete with the post office. I also trust the gov't to do a better job at keeping the lights on. Of course that only applies to the U.S. Down here, we get knocked off every time it looks like rain. Things work better when we have alternatives, and sometimes gov't is a good alternative. It helps keep the private guys more honest if we, the community(gov't) give 'em actual competition.
Toll roads are generally better-maintained than government-run roads...
Well...You obviously never lived in Illinois. I used to drive I-94(toll, but it was still gov't) from Chicago into Wisconsin plenty of times. The toll road all the way to the border was bump, bump, bump over the expansion seams in the concrete. The moment I crossed into Wisconsin(tax payer funded roads) it was comparatively like a billiard table. Which states actually have privately funded highway construction and maintenance? The interstate system was a federal project.
It also blurs 4 distinct areas of law that should never be blurred. Patent, copyright, trademark, and trade secret.
For me it all falls under the heading of IP in the same way Protestants, Catholics, Southern Baptists, etc go under the heading of Christianity. Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism(sp), etc. are very distinct from each other, but they still fit under the general desription of religion. Since patent, copyright, trademark, and trade secret all describe in their own way the ownership of ideas and processes, The term IP is a nice, short way to describe the general concept. What I am really getting at here is that I don't know what you're trying to say.
...as is natural in a competitive marketplace...
That's part of the problem. We don't have a competitive marketplace. We have gov't protected monopolies. The problem of collusion is very real. In a real competetive marketplace, this won't be an issue. As it is, we have "different" products serviced by the same company.
You forgot to convert it to metric hours.
...we are building a public patent pool...
But we don't own the pool. Somebody else does, and they could order us out at any time. GPL hasn't been held up to scrutiny by an actual judge yet(to my knowledge), so I'm not holding my breath on its ability to protect us. If all these companies perform a 180, I don't think GPL has a chance.The law and the lawmaker is on their side. They will tolerate GPL as long as it benefits them and doesn't interfere with the bottom line. That's fine with me, but let's not depend on their good will to keep ourselves afloat. We need to keep a certain distance. Let's not forget their history. Nothing's really changed. Everybody is still making lots of money. If GPL were to present any real danger at all to the status quo, they will do everything in their power to stamp it out.