Not being a US resident, nor being married, I cannot help asking if the oath in question does not depend on the ritual itself? That is, not all rituals have an explicit question of other marriages. Or is it a part of the mandatory paperwork?
It's the paperwork. The marriage ceremony is, well, ceremonial. Without a government issued marriage license, the government generally does not recognize that the marriage exists (which means that for the purpose of taxes, social security, etc, the two people are still single).
(there are "common law marriages", which are still legally valid in some states in the US, that require no marriage license, but these are becoming rarer and rarer - only 9 states still allow them).
Aha, but it is a violation of US law to go to another country solely for the purpose of performing an act which is illegal in the USA.
Only if the law in question gives a strong indication (if not explicitly detailing) that it is intended to be applied to US citizens in other nations. For instance, traveling to another country to have sex with a minor *is* punishable in the US, even if the act is legal in the country where it happens. But in that case, the PROTECT Act of 2003 explicitly makes it illegal to do so - before that Act was passed, there was no legal basis for prosecuting individuals who did this. So it's possible for a US citizen to be prosecuted here for what was a non-crime in the country where the act was committed, but this is *not* the default for all laws.
Who told you that? It's Schedule A. That means it's illegal to use it without jumping through many hoops.
There is no "Schedule A" for drugs. I'm assuming you mean "Schedule I" under the Controlled Substances Act, which regulates commerce (production, distribution, etc) of various substances. It does not in any way make it illegal to use them. AFAIK, the federal government doesn't even have to authority to outlaw use of drugs (except on federal land) as the only part of the Constitution they can use for drug regulation is the Commerce Clause.
Your comment had small pieces of useful information but it was wrapped in gobs of misinformation. As such it looks like a deliberate attempt to mislead people. At best, you're wrong.
I'd say the same about your posts, but they're missing the small pieces of useful information as well.
BTW, if someone wants fly to Holland to smoke pot they'll have to remember that it's actually illegal to do so, even though it's openly tolerated by the Dutch government. But they can still be busted for it there, and they can be busted for it when they get back home, if the US AG has the evidence.
Now for the real question - what the hell have *you* been smoking?
If you commit a crime, you can only be tried and punished for it in the jurisdiction in which the crime occurred. If you, a private citizen of the US, go to the Netherlands, commit a murder there, then return to the US, you can NOT be tried for that crime in the US. At most, you can be arrested by US authorities, and sent to the Netherlands to stand trial (whether or not this is the case depends on what extradition treaties, if any, exist between the US and the Netherlands).
(note that the rules are somewhat different if you are an active duty serviceman - the military has automatic jurisdiction over all criminal acts of active duty personnel, regardless of where those acts occurred)
Now if you were in the Netherlands, and you hired a hit man to kill someone in the US, you could potentially be tried and convicted in a US court - under the "accessory before the fact" and "conspiracy" concepts, you are as guilty as the actual killer, even if you were on another continent when the crime was committed.
*That* is the basic theory underlying the trials of those captured in Afghanistan - they were involved in the planning of attacks against US targets, and as such the US should have jurisdiction over them.
And finally - smoking pot isn't illegal *anywhere* in the US. The laws all revolve around cultivation, possession, sale, etc. The only criminal penalties for using are the "driving under the influence" laws if you get caught driving while stoned.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but unless you're a constituent of the government in question, what the fuck do you care?
Let's see - a country with the world's 2nd largest population and 11th largest economy. Gee, events there couldn't possibly have any effect on the rest of the world, now could they?
This story is important in India. In the rest of the world, it's merely sensationalist, and Wikileaks may be using it to distract from its crimes
Er, what crimes? Or are you assuming that since Assange has been accused of something, all of the people involved in Wikileaks must be co-conspirators?
It should be easy to find ot if this person had such an aid.
Well, they *obviously* found someone named "Nachiketa Kapur", whose response was "There was no cash to point out to". Note that it wasn't "I don't work for Mr Sharma", or "I have no connection to that political party", or anything else that might indicate that he was *not* in fact Mr Sharma's aide.
What we'll probably discover is that Mr. Kapur is officially employed by someone other than Mr Sharma, in some position that on paper has nothing to do with politics. But Kapur's response indicates that he is involved in that party, and has some association with Sharma.
If you are unwilling to trust the government why are you willing to trust Wikileaks? Just wondering since this leak as far as I can see has no data to support it. And the best way to earn trust would be to release a bunch of leaks unaltered and then when it is worth the risk release an altered one.
Because governments routinely lie, while Wikileaks has yet to be caught in *any* sort of fabrication? Your theory of them building their reputation via real information so they can then fabricate some false info suffers from one major problem - what does Wikileaks get from risking that hard earned reputation? Is causing a scandal in India really worth risking the whole Wikileaks project?
That's not how law works. If there are 100 identical cases and the first one has a certain decision then, unless appeals are involved, the rest basically inherit the same decision by precedent. There's no point at which a judge can get tired of doing his job and change his mind on the verdict. And you could really only argue abuse of process if the plaintiff is losing every time; if they're winning then what are you even talking about?
You clearly don't understand how "Common Law" system works. There are two types of precedent - binding and persuasive.
If 100 cases with identical circumstances are filed, then the first one resolved provides persuasive precedent - other cases can refer to it to try and persuade the judge in their case that the ruling in the first case is the proper ruling for their case as well. But judges can and do disagree, so there's no guarantee that just because one judge rules one way, another judge won't rule the other.
Once a matter has been reviewed and ruled upon by an appellate court, it becomes binding precedent, but only for those courts beneath that particular appellate court. In other jurisdiction it remains persuasive precedent (though appellate decisions do tend to carry more weight than lower court decisions).
A case can slowly work its way up the ladder, until eventually it reaches the Supreme Court. Once the SCOTUS has ruled on an issue, it becomes binding precedent for all courts in the US.
Also, precedent requires the cases to be identical - a court may make a different ruling, if they can be convinced that the specific issues in the precedent are sufficiently different that the ruling in that precedent should not apply.
you should dig a bit deeper. SCEA is seeking this information in order to argue that the case should be argued in California rather than New Jersey. So far, this has nothing to do with "the funds he has made from his work' -- and it likely never will. As to whether Geoot did anything illegal, that's what the whole case is about... if we're lucky, Geohot will prevail.
And when the MAFIAA types file their John Doe suits against hundreds or thousands, they're just seeking the information required to file proper lawsuits against the copyright infringers. Yeah, right...
Sony is using the excuse of proving that California is the proper venue to engage in a fishing expedition, in the hopes of netting more people to subject to harassment-by-litigation. Sure, they'd love to keep the Geohot case in California where they have their animatronic simulation of a judge working in their favor, but that's hardly the entire reason for seeking the Paypal info.
Hmm? I thought the whole reason we use AC (thanks to Edison winning the argument with Tesla) was because there is less loss over long distances when compared to DC. Edison wanted One Big Plant generating power, and Tesla wanted many small, local plants. I guess I will have to re-read this - I apologize, I'm a biologist not a physicist.
You mean the argument that Edison *lost* - he was the big proponent of DC, while Tesla and Westinghouse were behind AC.
I'm pretty sure if they granted them the first time around, they're not changing their mind. It's not like there's been some kind of change to the patent laws between now and then, and changing the decision would really amount to admitting they screwed up the first time.
Don't bet on that - the USPTO does grant reexaminations, but regularly changes or invalidates patents based on reexaminations.
In the case of 3rd party requests for reexamination such as this, if the reexam is granted, there's a very good chance the patent will either be invalidated, or some of the claims will be removed or changed (about 71% according to this (somewhat old) report).
Further, the attacks appeared to originate from computers on IP (Internet protocol) addresses in Beijing, between 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. local time there, suggesting that the culprits were regular company employees rather than freelance or unprofessional hackers, McAfee said in its report.
Or maybe those responsible has pwned some computers at a business, which were only turned on between 9 and 5. While McAfee's conclusion is possible, I wouldn't consider it likely without some other evidence supporting it.
If the Stanford Prison Experiment has taught one and only one thing is that given power without oversight always leads to abuse and corruption.
You make it sound like that experiment revealed some great truth that wasn't already known, but anyone who spent any time studying history in the last couple thousand years was already fully aware of that particular insight...
See anyone dying of Smallpox? Measles? Polio? Diphtheria? Tetanus?
How much money each year did pharmaceutical companies make from selling palliatives for those conditions? Vaccine sales are chump change - Big Pharma makes billions per year selling over-the-counter "remedies" to suppress the symptoms. They aren't going to be happy with an effective vaccine that can substantially reduce demand for those products.
Assuming larger trials prove this vaccine to be effective, I expect it to become commonplace in Europe fairly quickly. But in the US, given Big Pharma's influence with the bureaucrats who are supposed to be regulating them, I expect such a vaccine will have to meet some exceptionally high standards before it gets FDA approval.
But as I understand Net Neutrality, the groups that support it don't want ISP to be able to charge higher fees for faster/better access to their networks, right? If so, how does that make other connections slower? It's like arguing that Priority Mail service makes First Class mail slower.
Consider this analogy: You're shopping in a store, and step into a line to check out. Such lines are normally strictly FIFO (First In, First Out), so the amount of time required for you to reach the register is based solely on how long it takes the people ahead of you to check out.
Now, add in a special policy of the store, where certain customers have "priority checkout", and are allowed to cut into the line ahead of anyone already in line. Each time such a customer cuts into the line, it adds to the amount of time it will take you to reach the register.
Your ISP is charging you X number of dollars per month for access to their network. YouTube's ISP is charging them X number of dollars per month for access to their network. You ISP and their ISP have some sort of agreement that they will take packets from each other's network.
Then your ISP goes to YouTube, and says "for X dollars per month, we will push your packets to the head of the queue, providing the best possible service to your customer". Sounds okay? Sure, unless you happen to be Netflix, whose packets are now being being pushed back in the queue because YouTube's packets are cutting into the line...
Tell me why a person has no right to profit from their labor, and I'll answer your question.
It's not an issue of "has no right to profit from their labor". It's an issue of "has no right to always profit any time any person anywhere views/listens to the work they produced".
The media companies aren't in danger of going bankrupt, despite their constant whining and moaning about how piracy is killing their business. They are still quite profitable. They just aren't making the profits they *think* they should be making, based on the assumption that anytime anyone, anywhere, views/listens to a work they created, they should get paid for it.
I would strongly agree that if someone is making a profit from selling a work, then the creator of the work deserves a share of that profit. But I also strongly disagree that the creator deserves to make a profit every time someone sees/hears the work.
Doesn't this screw over people who invent something and don't want it patented, or can't afford to?
As for the first part - too bad. The patent deal is that you get a limited monopoly in exchange for revealing how the invention works. If you don't want to file the patent (revealing how it works), then neither get nor deserve any protection.
The second issue is quite valid, though. If you have a great idea, but lack the money to patent it, then you can *try* to keep it secret until you can acquire the necessary funds, but if the secret leaks, or if someone else comes up with the same thing, then you're screwed.
There's no expensive and lengthy court case (where you can lose by running out of money) to determine who invented it first. The debate will be over the day that they look at the postmarks.
That's a nice theory. But in reality, a major corp with a suitable (i.e. ethically deficient) legal team can tie up anyone but another major corporation in court until they go bankrupt. The fact that all evidence is against them is only a minor problem - look at how long SCO was able to tie things up without ever producing any real evidence to back up their claims.
They basically resold a game that had already been made to players that had already purchased it but no longer wanted to pay a monthly fee. Once those players have bought up all that content (again) they are done spending money unless Turbine generates a lot more content. I'll give them credit, their free to play model is the best one out yet... but they certainly didn't triple their profits.
That's not really true. The big advantage to the F2P model isn't forcing players to re-buy content, but rather to draw in new players. Which is exactly what's happening (at least in DDO - can't speak for LotRO since I don't play it). There are still plenty of "old-timers", a lot of whom still pay for "VIP" (subscription) status. But the number of new players outnumber the old-timers by at least 5 to 1. The F2P switch has allowed them to increase their player base substantially.
And in the case of DDO, a lot of new content has been released since the F2P switch. I expect them to do the same with LotRO.
That may be true, but if they were making a profit it was a tiny one. A good friend of mine works at Turbine, and things were very tight and not looking good for a long time. It sounds like they were very close to shutting down entirely when Warner Bros. bought them last year and brought a nice infusion of cash, which allowed them to try the free-to-play model that seems to be working out well (also allowed them to hire some new people and pay the bonuses and raises they had been going without for years)
The DDO switch to free-to-play happened well before the Warner buyout, and the profitability shown by that change is, I suspect, one of the things that made Warner think they were a good acquisition. The LotRO switch to F2P was just a follow-up, with the hopes that it would prove as profitable as the DDO switch had been.
First part, right on. Second part? Dead wrong. Seriously - take a look and see when the last time any serious air-to-air combat was done in visual range. It's been a half century since pilots could see the planes they were shooting at. Guns on fighters are largely an afterthought, or for ground targets. "Dogfights" happen at distances of miles now.
That kind of thinking resulted in the F4 (half a century ago), which had no guns, but relied upon missiles.
They later added a gun pod, because the rules of engagement required them to visually identify the target, and by the time they did so, they were too close for their more advanced missiles to be really effective.
All US fighter designs since then have included a co-axial gun, to handle just such situations.
If you're in a situation where you know that a given radar blip is an enemy, then BVR (Beyond Visual Range) kills are in fact the norm. But in a situation where you need to verify first that the target is hostile, then WVR (Within Visual Range) combat would be required, and depending on the exact events having a gun available can easily determine whether or not you survive the encounter.
During the Gulf War(s), WVR combat was quite common, though missile kills *were* more common than gun kills.
It has been at least 50 years since heat-seeking missiles were invented. They can hunt down a fighter with far more accuracy than a human pilot can, they can withstand much higher accelerations, they are much cheaper than a manned fighter plane.
Why do they insist on manned fighter aircraft?
And how exactly do you get that missile locked onto a target without a plane (with a pilot) doing so? Radar alone doesn't cut it - there are too many ways to avoid it (stealth design, low-altitude flight, etc).
And there's also the issue of target identification - if you rely on missiles to deal with all targets, there's no human there to visually determine that it is in fact a hostile, and not a 747 with a messed up transponder.
Just about anything else. No sanely designed programming language will ever require you to label each line of code and throw and require the lines to be renumbered whenever you want to put new code in the middle.
I take it you haven't used any BASIC variant in the last 20 years or so. Line numbers, as in GWBASIC, aren't required for any modern BASIC.
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Not being a US resident, nor being married, I cannot help asking if the oath in question does not depend on the ritual itself? That is, not all rituals have an explicit question of other marriages. Or is it a part of the mandatory paperwork?
It's the paperwork. The marriage ceremony is, well, ceremonial. Without a government issued marriage license, the government generally does not recognize that the marriage exists (which means that for the purpose of taxes, social security, etc, the two people are still single).
(there are "common law marriages", which are still legally valid in some states in the US, that require no marriage license, but these are becoming rarer and rarer - only 9 states still allow them).
Aha, but it is a violation of US law to go to another country solely for the purpose of performing an act which is illegal in the USA.
Only if the law in question gives a strong indication (if not explicitly detailing) that it is intended to be applied to US citizens in other nations. For instance, traveling to another country to have sex with a minor *is* punishable in the US, even if the act is legal in the country where it happens. But in that case, the PROTECT Act of 2003 explicitly makes it illegal to do so - before that Act was passed, there was no legal basis for prosecuting individuals who did this. So it's possible for a US citizen to be prosecuted here for what was a non-crime in the country where the act was committed, but this is *not* the default for all laws.
Who told you that? It's Schedule A. That means it's illegal to use it without jumping through many hoops.
There is no "Schedule A" for drugs. I'm assuming you mean "Schedule I" under the Controlled Substances Act, which regulates commerce (production, distribution, etc) of various substances. It does not in any way make it illegal to use them. AFAIK, the federal government doesn't even have to authority to outlaw use of drugs (except on federal land) as the only part of the Constitution they can use for drug regulation is the Commerce Clause.
Your comment had small pieces of useful information but it was wrapped in gobs of misinformation. As such it looks like a deliberate attempt to mislead people. At best, you're wrong.
I'd say the same about your posts, but they're missing the small pieces of useful information as well.
BTW, if someone wants fly to Holland to smoke pot they'll have to remember that it's actually illegal to do so, even though it's openly tolerated by the Dutch government. But they can still be busted for it there, and they can be busted for it when they get back home, if the US AG has the evidence.
Now for the real question - what the hell have *you* been smoking?
If you commit a crime, you can only be tried and punished for it in the jurisdiction in which the crime occurred. If you, a private citizen of the US, go to the Netherlands, commit a murder there, then return to the US, you can NOT be tried for that crime in the US. At most, you can be arrested by US authorities, and sent to the Netherlands to stand trial (whether or not this is the case depends on what extradition treaties, if any, exist between the US and the Netherlands).
(note that the rules are somewhat different if you are an active duty serviceman - the military has automatic jurisdiction over all criminal acts of active duty personnel, regardless of where those acts occurred)
Now if you were in the Netherlands, and you hired a hit man to kill someone in the US, you could potentially be tried and convicted in a US court - under the "accessory before the fact" and "conspiracy" concepts, you are as guilty as the actual killer, even if you were on another continent when the crime was committed.
*That* is the basic theory underlying the trials of those captured in Afghanistan - they were involved in the planning of attacks against US targets, and as such the US should have jurisdiction over them.
And finally - smoking pot isn't illegal *anywhere* in the US. The laws all revolve around cultivation, possession, sale, etc. The only criminal penalties for using are the "driving under the influence" laws if you get caught driving while stoned.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but unless you're a constituent of the government in question, what the fuck do you care?
Let's see - a country with the world's 2nd largest population and 11th largest economy. Gee, events there couldn't possibly have any effect on the rest of the world, now could they?
This story is important in India. In the rest of the world, it's merely sensationalist, and Wikileaks may be using it to distract from its crimes
Er, what crimes? Or are you assuming that since Assange has been accused of something, all of the people involved in Wikileaks must be co-conspirators?
It should be easy to find ot if this person had such an aid.
Well, they *obviously* found someone named "Nachiketa Kapur", whose response was "There was no cash to point out to". Note that it wasn't "I don't work for Mr Sharma", or "I have no connection to that political party", or anything else that might indicate that he was *not* in fact Mr Sharma's aide.
What we'll probably discover is that Mr. Kapur is officially employed by someone other than Mr Sharma, in some position that on paper has nothing to do with politics. But Kapur's response indicates that he is involved in that party, and has some association with Sharma.
If you are unwilling to trust the government why are you willing to trust Wikileaks? Just wondering since this leak as far as I can see has no data to support it. And the best way to earn trust would be to release a bunch of leaks unaltered and then when it is worth the risk release an altered one.
Because governments routinely lie, while Wikileaks has yet to be caught in *any* sort of fabrication? Your theory of them building their reputation via real information so they can then fabricate some false info suffers from one major problem - what does Wikileaks get from risking that hard earned reputation? Is causing a scandal in India really worth risking the whole Wikileaks project?
That's not how law works. If there are 100 identical cases and the first one has a certain decision then, unless appeals are involved, the rest basically inherit the same decision by precedent. There's no point at which a judge can get tired of doing his job and change his mind on the verdict. And you could really only argue abuse of process if the plaintiff is losing every time; if they're winning then what are you even talking about?
You clearly don't understand how "Common Law" system works. There are two types of precedent - binding and persuasive.
If 100 cases with identical circumstances are filed, then the first one resolved provides persuasive precedent - other cases can refer to it to try and persuade the judge in their case that the ruling in the first case is the proper ruling for their case as well. But judges can and do disagree, so there's no guarantee that just because one judge rules one way, another judge won't rule the other.
Once a matter has been reviewed and ruled upon by an appellate court, it becomes binding precedent, but only for those courts beneath that particular appellate court. In other jurisdiction it remains persuasive precedent (though appellate decisions do tend to carry more weight than lower court decisions).
A case can slowly work its way up the ladder, until eventually it reaches the Supreme Court. Once the SCOTUS has ruled on an issue, it becomes binding precedent for all courts in the US.
Also, precedent requires the cases to be identical - a court may make a different ruling, if they can be convinced that the specific issues in the precedent are sufficiently different that the ruling in that precedent should not apply.
you should dig a bit deeper. SCEA is seeking this information in order to argue that the case should be argued in California rather than New Jersey. So far, this has nothing to do with "the funds he has made from his work' -- and it likely never will. As to whether Geoot did anything illegal, that's what the whole case is about... if we're lucky, Geohot will prevail.
And when the MAFIAA types file their John Doe suits against hundreds or thousands, they're just seeking the information required to file proper lawsuits against the copyright infringers. Yeah, right...
Sony is using the excuse of proving that California is the proper venue to engage in a fishing expedition, in the hopes of netting more people to subject to harassment-by-litigation. Sure, they'd love to keep the Geohot case in California where they have their animatronic simulation of a judge working in their favor, but that's hardly the entire reason for seeking the Paypal info.
You watch too many movies.
You don't read enough history.
Hmm? I thought the whole reason we use AC (thanks to Edison winning the argument with Tesla) was because there is less loss over long distances when compared to DC. Edison wanted One Big Plant generating power, and Tesla wanted many small, local plants. I guess I will have to re-read this - I apologize, I'm a biologist not a physicist.
You mean the argument that Edison *lost* - he was the big proponent of DC, while Tesla and Westinghouse were behind AC.
.htraE ylno eht si sihT .tuoba gniklat er`uoy tahw wonk t'nod I .uoy rof taht dexiF
I'm pretty sure if they granted them the first time around, they're not changing their mind. It's not like there's been some kind of change to the patent laws between now and then, and changing the decision would really amount to admitting they screwed up the first time.
Don't bet on that - the USPTO does grant reexaminations, but regularly changes or invalidates patents based on reexaminations.
In the case of 3rd party requests for reexamination such as this, if the reexam is granted, there's a very good chance the patent will either be invalidated, or some of the claims will be removed or changed (about 71% according to this (somewhat old) report).
From TFA:
Further, the attacks appeared to originate from computers on IP (Internet protocol) addresses in Beijing, between 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. local time there, suggesting that the culprits were regular company employees rather than freelance or unprofessional hackers, McAfee said in its report.
Or maybe those responsible has pwned some computers at a business, which were only turned on between 9 and 5. While McAfee's conclusion is possible, I wouldn't consider it likely without some other evidence supporting it.
If the Stanford Prison Experiment has taught one and only one thing is that given power without oversight always leads to abuse and corruption.
You make it sound like that experiment revealed some great truth that wasn't already known, but anyone who spent any time studying history in the last couple thousand years was already fully aware of that particular insight...
See anyone dying of Smallpox? Measles? Polio? Diphtheria? Tetanus?
How much money each year did pharmaceutical companies make from selling palliatives for those conditions? Vaccine sales are chump change - Big Pharma makes billions per year selling over-the-counter "remedies" to suppress the symptoms. They aren't going to be happy with an effective vaccine that can substantially reduce demand for those products.
Assuming larger trials prove this vaccine to be effective, I expect it to become commonplace in Europe fairly quickly. But in the US, given Big Pharma's influence with the bureaucrats who are supposed to be regulating them, I expect such a vaccine will have to meet some exceptionally high standards before it gets FDA approval.
But as I understand Net Neutrality, the groups that support it don't want ISP to be able to charge higher fees for faster/better access to their networks, right? If so, how does that make other connections slower? It's like arguing that Priority Mail service makes First Class mail slower.
Consider this analogy: You're shopping in a store, and step into a line to check out. Such lines are normally strictly FIFO (First In, First Out), so the amount of time required for you to reach the register is based solely on how long it takes the people ahead of you to check out.
Now, add in a special policy of the store, where certain customers have "priority checkout", and are allowed to cut into the line ahead of anyone already in line. Each time such a customer cuts into the line, it adds to the amount of time it will take you to reach the register.
Your ISP is charging you X number of dollars per month for access to their network. YouTube's ISP is charging them X number of dollars per month for access to their network. You ISP and their ISP have some sort of agreement that they will take packets from each other's network.
Then your ISP goes to YouTube, and says "for X dollars per month, we will push your packets to the head of the queue, providing the best possible service to your customer". Sounds okay? Sure, unless you happen to be Netflix, whose packets are now being being pushed back in the queue because YouTube's packets are cutting into the line...
Tell me why a person has no right to profit from their labor, and I'll answer your question.
It's not an issue of "has no right to profit from their labor". It's an issue of "has no right to always profit any time any person anywhere views/listens to the work they produced".
The media companies aren't in danger of going bankrupt, despite their constant whining and moaning about how piracy is killing their business. They are still quite profitable. They just aren't making the profits they *think* they should be making, based on the assumption that anytime anyone, anywhere, views/listens to a work they created, they should get paid for it.
I would strongly agree that if someone is making a profit from selling a work, then the creator of the work deserves a share of that profit. But I also strongly disagree that the creator deserves to make a profit every time someone sees/hears the work.
Doesn't this screw over people who invent something and don't want it patented, or can't afford to?
As for the first part - too bad. The patent deal is that you get a limited monopoly in exchange for revealing how the invention works. If you don't want to file the patent (revealing how it works), then neither get nor deserve any protection.
The second issue is quite valid, though. If you have a great idea, but lack the money to patent it, then you can *try* to keep it secret until you can acquire the necessary funds, but if the secret leaks, or if someone else comes up with the same thing, then you're screwed.
There's no expensive and lengthy court case (where you can lose by running out of money) to determine who invented it first. The debate will be over the day that they look at the postmarks.
That's a nice theory. But in reality, a major corp with a suitable (i.e. ethically deficient) legal team can tie up anyone but another major corporation in court until they go bankrupt. The fact that all evidence is against them is only a minor problem - look at how long SCO was able to tie things up without ever producing any real evidence to back up their claims.
With a live mouse down your pants, you'll confess to anything!
For some people, maybe. But I doubt practitioners of this sport would even be fazed by a mouse in the pants...
They basically resold a game that had already been made to players that had already purchased it but no longer wanted to pay a monthly fee. Once those players have bought up all that content (again) they are done spending money unless Turbine generates a lot more content. I'll give them credit, their free to play model is the best one out yet... but they certainly didn't triple their profits.
That's not really true. The big advantage to the F2P model isn't forcing players to re-buy content, but rather to draw in new players. Which is exactly what's happening (at least in DDO - can't speak for LotRO since I don't play it). There are still plenty of "old-timers", a lot of whom still pay for "VIP" (subscription) status. But the number of new players outnumber the old-timers by at least 5 to 1. The F2P switch has allowed them to increase their player base substantially.
And in the case of DDO, a lot of new content has been released since the F2P switch. I expect them to do the same with LotRO.
That may be true, but if they were making a profit it was a tiny one. A good friend of mine works at Turbine, and things were very tight and not looking good for a long time. It sounds like they were very close to shutting down entirely when Warner Bros. bought them last year and brought a nice infusion of cash, which allowed them to try the free-to-play model that seems to be working out well (also allowed them to hire some new people and pay the bonuses and raises they had been going without for years)
The DDO switch to free-to-play happened well before the Warner buyout, and the profitability shown by that change is, I suspect, one of the things that made Warner think they were a good acquisition. The LotRO switch to F2P was just a follow-up, with the hopes that it would prove as profitable as the DDO switch had been.
First part, right on. Second part? Dead wrong. Seriously - take a look and see when the last time any serious air-to-air combat was done in visual range. It's been a half century since pilots could see the planes they were shooting at. Guns on fighters are largely an afterthought, or for ground targets. "Dogfights" happen at distances of miles now.
That kind of thinking resulted in the F4 (half a century ago), which had no guns, but relied upon missiles.
They later added a gun pod, because the rules of engagement required them to visually identify the target, and by the time they did so, they were too close for their more advanced missiles to be really effective.
All US fighter designs since then have included a co-axial gun, to handle just such situations.
If you're in a situation where you know that a given radar blip is an enemy, then BVR (Beyond Visual Range) kills are in fact the norm. But in a situation where you need to verify first that the target is hostile, then WVR (Within Visual Range) combat would be required, and depending on the exact events having a gun available can easily determine whether or not you survive the encounter.
During the Gulf War(s), WVR combat was quite common, though missile kills *were* more common than gun kills.
It has been at least 50 years since heat-seeking missiles were invented. They can hunt down a fighter with far more accuracy than a human pilot can, they can withstand much higher accelerations, they are much cheaper than a manned fighter plane.
Why do they insist on manned fighter aircraft?
And how exactly do you get that missile locked onto a target without a plane (with a pilot) doing so? Radar alone doesn't cut it - there are too many ways to avoid it (stealth design, low-altitude flight, etc).
And there's also the issue of target identification - if you rely on missiles to deal with all targets, there's no human there to visually determine that it is in fact a hostile, and not a 747 with a messed up transponder.
"We expected a Limewire topology to be as reliable as a Phone companyi topology and oddly enough that bit us in the ass."
Yeah - I mean, with a phone company topology, it'd be impossible for, say, 50% of AT&T's long distance network to be shut down by a software bug, wouldn't it?
Just about anything else. No sanely designed programming language will ever require you to label each line of code and throw and require the lines to be renumbered whenever you want to put new code in the middle.
I take it you haven't used any BASIC variant in the last 20 years or so. Line numbers, as in GWBASIC, aren't required for any modern BASIC.