Since ms makes that much in PROFITS (not revenue) per MONTH off it's (illegal) monopoly, the find is nothing. They should penilize (yep) ms that much per WEEK. Hit them enough to make it hurt, to comply, to open up...
"Finally, these are in no way analogous to property tax because property tax is just on land, not on the various other things you own."
Mwo???? (WHAT???)
Have you ever opened a business or filed for a business permit? Well, i did, in Oregon (the business never went anywhere, but i incorporated one on the assumption that i'd get somewhere), and when i went to the county assessor to apply for a local business permit, one of the clerks gave me a form asking me to self-assess the value of property being used for the business.
So, of course i asked her what it was for. She said that at the end of the business/tax year the county would assess a tax on property. She tried to assuage my concerns by saying that it only is a tax on amounts above (i think) $7,000, or $11,000. She said it would apply only to things in the office of the business.
Well, i've been collecting books, magazines, drawings, tools and such and using them in my hobby of drawing/designing ships. By business plan and articles of incorporation design, i was only going to give the corporation a COPY of my CD, valued at, say, $1.50 for the CD media, and grand it permission to make ONLY as many copies as necessary to fulfill actual orders for my drawings. It would NOT have the right to make more copies or give away for free any copies. Also, i was the sole employee/officer, and was going to pay myself with normal hours and pay.
Anyway, i told the clerk there was in no way going to be a tax on MY PERSONAL PROPERTY. She said that if anything was IN the office (a 3rd room in my apartment) or NEAR the desk where i sat. Not just chairs, pens, computers, and the like, but also any LIBRARIES (professional libraries i would have thought), ANY documents or compilations (paper or electronic) that was somehow contributing to the operation or success of the business.
Of course, i glazed or glared at her as if the county was stone out of its mind thinking that i would allow my personal property to be treated as if it were a lawyer/s tomes of law books, or a physician's complete desk reference and so on. The business was getting a COPY of my finished drawings, on CD, and was not in the business of actual DESIGN. It was not much different than a hobby painter segregating a small area to sell a completed hobby work, not run a business of buying materials out of business money, charging/billing the business for time on a hobby effort, and so on.
So, i had to go to the IRS to find out what the hell the county was trying to get away with. One IRS employee (and you have to realize there ARE good, helpful people at the IRS) told me, "David, what you need to do is create a division of property ownership." Fixating on my dilemma, i misunderstood him and diverged onto some issues i was having, which my have killed my business plan before even getting off the ground. Like how the hell after one year, was i going to afford a property tax assessment on MY PERSONAL the county ascribed to as being the COMPANY'S PERSONAL (business) PROPERTY when the business might not sell more than $60 the first year (and, indeed, i managed to sell JUST under $65 (3 drawings) in the whole time...).
But, the IRS agent steered me straight. He said i need to create a division of ownership. Incorporate, into my Articles of Incorporation, very restrictive language limiting the rights and activities of the company. Spell out what it is allowed and disallowed, how it will acquire the property being sold, specify that the company is not CREATING property or goods, but merely is SELLING finished goods...
So, i went back to the State BOE (Board of Equalization) and filed like 8 or 11 pages of the AOI, got them stamped, and made a matter of public record that this little company i created was built with a poison pill in case of any attempts by state or corporation to in an uncouth manner try to come into possession of my art and originals and other property. When i went to the county clerk and applied for my business license, i told her i incorporated and seg
Something EXTREME? Like hanging certain of the lobbyist, corrupt case judges, and placing bounties on the wretched of the CEO's who've taking uncouth advantage of the broken patent system.
What we need is to change the system (by hook or crook to get things jumpstarted) by nullifying dubious patents, plunging the purported value into chaos.
Also, change the system by saying SIMULTANEOUS/PLURAL, MULTI-PARTY INVENTION IS PERMITTED. Let the product success in the market be determined by actual consumer purchases, not purported road maps of envisioned market cap and market penetration.
The US patent system is WHOLLY corrupted by big interests and wholly undeserving of an existence or right to issue rights to a patent based on tweaked mods. As mentioned before, most awarded patents are just work-around to defeat (by need or by greed) an existing patent.
So, i believe that it should be OK for someone to invent something and then if not wealthy enough to take it to market, still be allowed patent protection. This forces others to become inventive, ingenious, or the like. If their product truly IS deserving of a patent, the market will validate it. Superior products should survive on their WORTHINESS in the EYES of PURCHASERS, not by sheer dint of a patent number and certificate.
Just look at the Blackboard vs Desire2Learn case. A decent CRM, Google or Slashdot engine, an easy-to-use front end of a relational or object database, and some data protocols and good old-fashioned teacher-inspired/utilized grading systems and multi-industry scheduling and process management (BOMS - such as Agile come to mind....as do things like MINTO, etc...)
Treat scheduled classes as products with a life cycle, value, as having parts (students, faculty, staff, etc...) and propagate it among users local and remote, and you INSTANTLY can kick off the patent table all sorts of products. Even without pursuing one's own patent, the mere assemblage and tweaking of products could be the perfect end-run around products UNWORTHY of a patent. Just charge for installation, service, maintenance, and upgrading.
(Note: lower-casing of "i" intentional.... i am coming to the believe that the importance of the 'i' is woefully overrated, and there should be a movement to deprecate the importance of "I" to "i", and maybe even deprecate many other so-called "proper nouns". Anyway, on with the comment...)
Why even SELL in the first place? Why not create the technology or idea or product and license it under some "for-lease-available-but-no-sale-available" protection?
Why does EVERYthing seem to have to be "for sale" when it comes to exchange or transfer or change in ownership rights? Wait, i think i know why. It's because the new owners want to freeze out the originator in case the value goes up. Greedy-assed assumers of property just have very little capacity to reward a TRUE inventor or originator of something.
But, a flaw in my idea is that co-owership could be corrupted, as is the case with recording artists screwed by many recording labels. If, say, i invent the next doo-dad that is an instant hit and is valued at $500 millions, and i sell it and get $300 thousands post-tax, i'd be a fool. So, i should pursue a tiered performance arrangement. New owner NEVER cuts me out. i get some amount of cash up front, plus a percentage of gross OR net... my choice, renewable every quarter that income statements are closed.
Problem is, creative accounting accountants and Enron-like executives will find a tricky-dick way to report one set of numbers to wall street, and another to the pain-in-their-ass-leeches-original-inventors who they want to pay as little as possible.
So, the SMART inventors do what the Google and other people did: create a company, stick with it, and don't get bought out. Ride that valuation/market cap wave, and keep innovating or, umm, buying up newer, smaller, more nimble companies to keep the microsofts at bay.
But, taxing intellectual property of small inventors who often can barely afford the copyright and maybe a patent FILING APPLICATION (and not even finish the entire process, due to costs) is just about very close to heinous. If i've created things that *might* turn into a hit, why should i face a hostile takeover just because a lien or foreclosure is place on my invention because of inability to pay or failure to pay for a tax for which i might not agree?
Maybe they could come over to here and help reduce the cost of broadband and cable service.
Plus, if P2P catches (or caches) on, then it could be likened to PG&E (Pacific Gas & Electric) rebates or cost offsets where the energy users return energy TO the supplier. In this case, with P2P going on, does that mean someday that not only the Set Top Boxes (STBs) of the subscribers but their COMPUTERS become resources of the ISP/content provider? If consumers purchase their own STBs, then they are helping the P2P/mesh network.
(I wonder if the ISPs/content providers will embed new subscriber duty clauses requiring the subscriber to not install firewalls or appliances that might en masse hinder the P2P/mesh... And, if so, what becomes of set top box security and computer security?)
Thus, EU *or* US-based P2P-enjoying subscribers should benefit (get/receive/demand) price reductions, improved service stability, and a guarantee against cable-co greed asking for annual price increases.
But, alas, the US-based lobbyists will conjure up an agenda to prevent consumer gains, I somehow suspect.
I was referring to "memos" as in the move "Office Place", as in the guy being pestered by management over a memo he got, but forgot to adhere to.... PC Load Letter was a later scene....
GOD DAMN, can moderators themselves to a little googling before using their annointed powers. The context was meant to be funny, and now you spoilt it, byatch!
The mobile tower probably is and HAS been a squadron of Predator (or unnamed, undisclosed, covered/black-ops) drones.
Looks to me like the Taliban will pull an Iraq and set up a mesh radar to find these drones. They might even use one-time microwave jammers to fry the sky-bugs...
Or, they can just send the DIA/CIA on wild goose chases. Put the suspected phones in vehicles that make regular and irregular but fixed runs. Deliver critical messages the old fashion way: Carrier Pigeon. That bird will be more able to evade the predator, since unless the Predator has a super synthetic aperture radar, the pigeon's natural features as natural predator evasion coloring/maneuverability might help it. Question is: how to train the pigeon in SERE: Survival, Escape, Resistance & Evasion, AKA, "lose the tail".
I looked at BOTH sites, Blackboard, and Desire2Lean, and both their products tried my patience, as far as the demos go.
D2L's intro spewed buzzwords for maybe a minute, but it was quite grating. Worse, no pause or rewind or similar buttons.
BB's demo had pause button, but instantly reminded me of a webified version of ms access, which i would never want to touch.
If both apps are just turning to code what was done by hand, how can BB win? Both interfaces seem different, judging by their demos. Granted, getting hold of the functional versions of each will be the best way to compare them.
I suppose, were I to sit down with 100 teachers, and ask each for their advice on creating an automated grade point average, curve break points, and so on, it would not be research, but patent infringement. If that is the case, then the judge, the court, and the USPTO all need fids and anchor chains hammered up their rear ends.
Any programmer-turned-teacher should be free to develop and freely distribute OR SELL their OWN implementation of grading and scheduling systems.
As for some hare-brained idea that there is something novel about a student being a teaching aid in one subject and a student in another, that's just the height of idiocy.
Example, when I was in the USN (US Navy, many moons ago), we had this thing called "BMI" Basic Military Instruction. Sometimes, a senior seaman or 3rd class petty officer monitored as another subordinate lectured. Later in the week, or in the month, or the quarter, another sailor gave another lecture or course of material. Over time, we had our PQS (Personnel Qualification Charts) filled by date, time, pass/fail/understand/etc and other items.
Fast-forward to real-world college or high school settings. Math whiz kid mentors history kid in one year or semester or quarter or trimester. Science whiz mentors both, while Student D mentors the other 3. Later, in other classes, all are mentoring some or others.
It's just a souped-up database that schedules classes and helps create bell curves. Depending on the database, this need not even be achieved programmatically. Modules with lookup tables might do just as well, lending greatly to data atomicity, integrity and to other benefits of relational databases.
How in the hell is BB's positioning/"differentiation" novel?
Generally, when I watch combat or similar films/movies, I too don't want to be bothered by scenes of sex. When I was younger, I'd rail against it or just brood. Nowadays, I just zone through it and think of something else for the 30 or 55 seconds of frivolous sex.
However, even in peace or just maneuvers, there will be sex.
When I was in high school JROTC our unit, along with other schools' units from all around the state, went to an army base for various training for about 5 days. 2 days into it we were on SERE (Survival Escape, Resistance & Evasion) maneuvers at night. One student from one unit had an attraction to a girl from another school's unit. (There were some 20-30 different squads, mixed up so we wouldn't be with our own classmates...)
Being the squad leader, he ordered us to hold fast after the starburts went off and we were close to being discovered. At one point, regular US army troops walked RIGHT OVER us in ankle-deep grass, just like in the movies. We were glad we weren't detected. But, at another point, the squad leader had us maintain location while he went off to bang the girl who was waiting for him. Unlike movies I'd seen.
That was just one of those "Truth is stranger than fiction" moments. But, now, I can't remember if that was Camp Bullis in Tx, or Fort Ord, but it was 81/82 or 82/83 for me.
"It seems like waiting until the jury came to a decision and then overturning it doesn't result in a fair verdict."
Why should the judge hand-hold these assholes? They are supposed to KNOW better. He laid down the rules, they know the expected conduct, and they flauted his court. So, Judge Matsch should mash their asses up against the wall. Kick em in the balls, kick'em TWICE (to take the sentiment of Gene Hackman's character in Crimson Tide... "Aye, aye, SIR. FIRE the nukes. Drop those fuckers. Drop 'em TWICE!)
We NEED these kinds of judges with guts, and a firm hand. This should serve as a wakeup call. And if Matsch is rubbed out, then set up a Star Chamber in his name!
Maybe Judge Matsch's ruling see inCubation in courtrooms, and maybe the standing ruling will cause need for inTubation in shyster lawyers?
Remember Mr. Mudd, and the saying that followed his demise (your name will be MUD)? Maybe Judge Matsch will be famous for slaying corrupt patent lawyers... The headlines will read:
Cross THIS judge and you will be MATSCHED Out of Practice"
To me, this topic just means that ms are trying to commercialize (without running afoul of laws) what NSA, DIA, DIS, and others in the alphabet soup intelligence community have been doing for some years, or WISH they could do in the next two years.
But, since ISPs are able to slow your traffic enough to brute force any encryption or sniff out any torrents you're using (don't be so smug as to think the ISP isn't throttling your traffic to ferret out your encryption keys...), what's so hard about mshaft and others improving the click through tracking? Even though I block the shit out of doubleclick in my firewall and in konqueror and firefox and flock, I am pretty confident that SOMETHING about my surfing habits will in short order be aggregated. Might not serve well for ads purposes, but for monitoring, since that's what the gp said is just a monitoring excuse, well, what are we going to do except stop surfing, or surf so anonymously that we end up cutting of communication advantages of the Internet(s)/web?
Slashdot Mirror
Since ms makes that much in PROFITS (not revenue) per MONTH off it's (illegal) monopoly, the find is nothing. They should penilize (yep) ms that much per WEEK. Hit them enough to make it hurt, to comply, to open up...
Check out:
http://theworld.org/?q=node/16292
"Finally, these are in no way analogous to property tax because property tax is just on land, not on the various other things you own."
Mwo???? (WHAT???)
Have you ever opened a business or filed for a business permit? Well, i did, in Oregon (the business never went anywhere, but i incorporated one on the assumption that i'd get somewhere), and when i went to the county assessor to apply for a local business permit, one of the clerks gave me a form asking me to self-assess the value of property being used for the business.
So, of course i asked her what it was for. She said that at the end of the business/tax year the county would assess a tax on property. She tried to assuage my concerns by saying that it only is a tax on amounts above (i think) $7,000, or $11,000. She said it would apply only to things in the office of the business.
Well, i've been collecting books, magazines, drawings, tools and such and using them in my hobby of drawing/designing ships. By business plan and articles of incorporation design, i was only going to give the corporation a COPY of my CD, valued at, say, $1.50 for the CD media, and grand it permission to make ONLY as many copies as necessary to fulfill actual orders for my drawings. It would NOT have the right to make more copies or give away for free any copies. Also, i was the sole employee/officer, and was going to pay myself with normal hours and pay.
Anyway, i told the clerk there was in no way going to be a tax on MY PERSONAL PROPERTY. She said that if anything was IN the office (a 3rd room in my apartment) or NEAR the desk where i sat. Not just chairs, pens, computers, and the like, but also any LIBRARIES (professional libraries i would have thought), ANY documents or compilations (paper or electronic) that was somehow contributing to the operation or success of the business.
Of course, i glazed or glared at her as if the county was stone out of its mind thinking that i would allow my personal property to be treated as if it were a lawyer/s tomes of law books, or a physician's complete desk reference and so on. The business was getting a COPY of my finished drawings, on CD, and was not in the business of actual DESIGN. It was not much different than a hobby painter segregating a small area to sell a completed hobby work, not run a business of buying materials out of business money, charging/billing the business for time on a hobby effort, and so on.
So, i had to go to the IRS to find out what the hell the county was trying to get away with. One IRS employee (and you have to realize there ARE good, helpful people at the IRS) told me, "David, what you need to do is create a division of property ownership." Fixating on my dilemma, i misunderstood him and diverged onto some issues i was having, which my have killed my business plan before even getting off the ground. Like how the hell after one year, was i going to afford a property tax assessment on MY PERSONAL the county ascribed to as being the COMPANY'S PERSONAL (business) PROPERTY when the business might not sell more than $60 the first year (and, indeed, i managed to sell JUST under $65 (3 drawings) in the whole time...).
But, the IRS agent steered me straight. He said i need to create a division of ownership. Incorporate, into my Articles of Incorporation, very restrictive language limiting the rights and activities of the company. Spell out what it is allowed and disallowed, how it will acquire the property being sold, specify that the company is not CREATING property or goods, but merely is SELLING finished goods...
So, i went back to the State BOE (Board of Equalization) and filed like 8 or 11 pages of the AOI, got them stamped, and made a matter of public record that this little company i created was built with a poison pill in case of any attempts by state or corporation to in an uncouth manner try to come into possession of my art and originals and other property. When i went to the county clerk and applied for my business license, i told her i incorporated and seg
Haiku?
Imagine programming code semantically written as Haiku. It would baffle the hell out of anyone trying to put you out of a job...
Are these millions of monkeys capTURED or capTHA'd?
Something EXTREME? Like hanging certain of the lobbyist, corrupt case judges, and placing bounties on the wretched of the CEO's who've taking uncouth advantage of the broken patent system.
What we need is to change the system (by hook or crook to get things jumpstarted) by nullifying dubious patents, plunging the purported value into chaos.
Also, change the system by saying SIMULTANEOUS/PLURAL, MULTI-PARTY INVENTION IS PERMITTED. Let the product success in the market be determined by actual consumer purchases, not purported road maps of envisioned market cap and market penetration.
The US patent system is WHOLLY corrupted by big interests and wholly undeserving of an existence or right to issue rights to a patent based on tweaked mods. As mentioned before, most awarded patents are just work-around to defeat (by need or by greed) an existing patent.
So, i believe that it should be OK for someone to invent something and then if not wealthy enough to take it to market, still be allowed patent protection. This forces others to become inventive, ingenious, or the like. If their product truly IS deserving of a patent, the market will validate it. Superior products should survive on their WORTHINESS in the EYES of PURCHASERS, not by sheer dint of a patent number and certificate.
Just look at the Blackboard vs Desire2Learn case. A decent CRM, Google or Slashdot engine, an easy-to-use front end of a relational or object database, and some data protocols and good old-fashioned teacher-inspired/utilized grading systems and multi-industry scheduling and process management (BOMS - such as Agile come to mind....as do things like MINTO, etc...)
http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/570552.html
http://www.deskeng.com/articles/aaadje.htm
Treat scheduled classes as products with a life cycle, value, as having parts (students, faculty, staff, etc...) and propagate it among users local and remote, and you INSTANTLY can kick off the patent table all sorts of products. Even without pursuing one's own patent, the mere assemblage and tweaking of products could be the perfect end-run around products UNWORTHY of a patent. Just charge for installation, service, maintenance, and upgrading.
(Note: lower-casing of "i" intentional.... i am coming to the believe that the importance of the 'i' is woefully overrated, and there should be a movement to deprecate the importance of "I" to "i", and maybe even deprecate many other so-called "proper nouns". Anyway, on with the comment...)
Why even SELL in the first place? Why not create the technology or idea or product and license it under some "for-lease-available-but-no-sale-available" protection?
Why does EVERYthing seem to have to be "for sale" when it comes to exchange or transfer or change in ownership rights? Wait, i think i know why. It's because the new owners want to freeze out the originator in case the value goes up. Greedy-assed assumers of property just have very little capacity to reward a TRUE inventor or originator of something.
But, a flaw in my idea is that co-owership could be corrupted, as is the case with recording artists screwed by many recording labels. If, say, i invent the next doo-dad that is an instant hit and is valued at $500 millions, and i sell it and get $300 thousands post-tax, i'd be a fool. So, i should pursue a tiered performance arrangement. New owner NEVER cuts me out. i get some amount of cash up front, plus a percentage of gross OR net... my choice, renewable every quarter that income statements are closed.
Problem is, creative accounting accountants and Enron-like executives will find a tricky-dick way to report one set of numbers to wall street, and another to the pain-in-their-ass-leeches-original-inventors who they want to pay as little as possible.
So, the SMART inventors do what the Google and other people did: create a company, stick with it, and don't get bought out. Ride that valuation/market cap wave, and keep innovating or, umm, buying up newer, smaller, more nimble companies to keep the microsofts at bay.
But, taxing intellectual property of small inventors who often can barely afford the copyright and maybe a patent FILING APPLICATION (and not even finish the entire process, due to costs) is just about very close to heinous. If i've created things that *might* turn into a hit, why should i face a hostile takeover just because a lien or foreclosure is place on my invention because of inability to pay or failure to pay for a tax for which i might not agree?
Gonna take a leap...
Maybe they could come over to here and help reduce the cost of broadband and cable service.
Plus, if P2P catches (or caches) on, then it could be likened to PG&E (Pacific Gas & Electric) rebates or cost offsets where the energy users return energy TO the supplier. In this case, with P2P going on, does that mean someday that not only the Set Top Boxes (STBs) of the subscribers but their COMPUTERS become resources of the ISP/content provider? If consumers purchase their own STBs, then they are helping the P2P/mesh network.
(I wonder if the ISPs/content providers will embed new subscriber duty clauses requiring the subscriber to not install firewalls or appliances that might en masse hinder the P2P/mesh... And, if so, what becomes of set top box security and computer security?)
Thus, EU *or* US-based P2P-enjoying subscribers should benefit (get/receive/demand) price reductions, improved service stability, and a guarantee against cable-co greed asking for annual price increases.
But, alas, the US-based lobbyists will conjure up an agenda to prevent consumer gains, I somehow suspect.
Pedia page with a stub for "Comcast"?
Children of the Corn, or we'll hear "May the farts be with you"
If he caches u you're THROUGH....
Whazzup, -G?
Correction to my "Office Place"... I meant "Office Space"...
"Off-topic"-modding moderators have...
I was referring to "memos" as in the move "Office Place", as in the guy being pestered by management over a memo he got, but forgot to adhere to.... PC Load Letter was a later scene....
GOD DAMN, can moderators themselves to a little googling before using their annointed powers. The context was meant to be funny, and now you spoilt it, byatch!
The mobile tower probably is and HAS been a squadron of Predator (or unnamed, undisclosed, covered/black-ops) drones.
Looks to me like the Taliban will pull an Iraq and set up a mesh radar to find these drones. They might even use one-time microwave jammers to fry the sky-bugs...
Or, they can just send the DIA/CIA on wild goose chases. Put the suspected phones in vehicles that make regular and irregular but fixed runs. Deliver critical messages the old fashion way: Carrier Pigeon. That bird will be more able to evade the predator, since unless the Predator has a super synthetic aperture radar, the pigeon's natural features as natural predator evasion coloring/maneuverability might help it. Question is: how to train the pigeon in SERE: Survival, Escape, Resistance & Evasion, AKA, "lose the tail".
Might make movie of the week...
"What the FUCK is 'PC Load Letter'?"
But, businesses ARE embedded, umm, in bed, with microsoft. They just haven't processed the depths of penetrations...
Um, wait... hold that thought...
I looked at BOTH sites, Blackboard, and Desire2Lean, and both their products tried my patience, as far as the demos go.
D2L's intro spewed buzzwords for maybe a minute, but it was quite grating. Worse, no pause or rewind or similar buttons.
BB's demo had pause button, but instantly reminded me of a webified version of ms access, which i would never want to touch.
If both apps are just turning to code what was done by hand, how can BB win? Both interfaces seem different, judging by their demos. Granted, getting hold of the functional versions of each will be the best way to compare them.
I suppose, were I to sit down with 100 teachers, and ask each for their advice on creating an automated grade point average, curve break points, and so on, it would not be research, but patent infringement. If that is the case, then the judge, the court, and the USPTO all need fids and anchor chains hammered up their rear ends.
Any programmer-turned-teacher should be free to develop and freely distribute OR SELL their OWN implementation of grading and scheduling systems.
As for some hare-brained idea that there is something novel about a student being a teaching aid in one subject and a student in another, that's just the height of idiocy.
Example, when I was in the USN (US Navy, many moons ago), we had this thing called "BMI" Basic Military Instruction. Sometimes, a senior seaman or 3rd class petty officer monitored as another subordinate lectured. Later in the week, or in the month, or the quarter, another sailor gave another lecture or course of material. Over time, we had our PQS (Personnel Qualification Charts) filled by date, time, pass/fail/understand/etc and other items.
Fast-forward to real-world college or high school settings. Math whiz kid mentors history kid in one year or semester or quarter or trimester. Science whiz mentors both, while Student D mentors the other 3. Later, in other classes, all are mentoring some or others.
It's just a souped-up database that schedules classes and helps create bell curves. Depending on the database, this need not even be achieved programmatically. Modules with lookup tables might do just as well, lending greatly to data atomicity, integrity and to other benefits of relational databases.
How in the hell is BB's positioning/"differentiation" novel?
is
"N-T-I... Oh, Non-Terrestrial Intelligence. That's Better than CIA..." (from the Abyss)
Generally, when I watch combat or similar films/movies, I too don't want to be bothered by scenes of sex. When I was younger, I'd rail against it or just brood. Nowadays, I just zone through it and think of something else for the 30 or 55 seconds of frivolous sex.
However, even in peace or just maneuvers, there will be sex.
When I was in high school JROTC our unit, along with other schools' units from all around the state, went to an army base for various training for about 5 days. 2 days into it we were on SERE (Survival Escape, Resistance & Evasion) maneuvers at night. One student from one unit had an attraction to a girl from another school's unit. (There were some 20-30 different squads, mixed up so we wouldn't be with our own classmates...)
Being the squad leader, he ordered us to hold fast after the starburts went off and we were close to being discovered. At one point, regular US army troops walked RIGHT OVER us in ankle-deep grass, just like in the movies. We were glad we weren't detected. But, at another point, the squad leader had us maintain location while he went off to bang the girl who was waiting for him. Unlike movies I'd seen.
That was just one of those "Truth is stranger than fiction" moments. But, now, I can't remember if that was Camp Bullis in Tx, or Fort Ord, but it was 81/82 or 82/83 for me.
"It seems like waiting until the jury came to a decision and then overturning it doesn't result in a fair verdict."
Why should the judge hand-hold these assholes? They are supposed to KNOW better. He laid down the rules, they know the expected conduct, and they flauted his court. So, Judge Matsch should mash their asses up against the wall. Kick em in the balls, kick'em TWICE (to take the sentiment of Gene Hackman's character in Crimson Tide... "Aye, aye, SIR. FIRE the nukes. Drop those fuckers. Drop 'em TWICE!)
We NEED these kinds of judges with guts, and a firm hand. This should serve as a wakeup call. And if Matsch is rubbed out, then set up a Star Chamber in his name!
http://violin.en.alibaba.com/product/50076425/50363804/Electric_Cello/Electric_Violin.html
From GREAT Alibaba...
KALAMAZOO!
Here is a VIOlin...
MADE just for YOU!
(6,4,6,4... now where is my reward?)
http://www.denverpost.com/popular/ci_8354619
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_2007_Dec_31/ai_n21176158
http://finance.google.com/finance?q=NYSE:MDT&morenews=10&rating=1&origin=71
Probably baaad news for Medtronic?
They might need to sign up for voluntary procedure at or products from Medasonic.
http://www.cja-jca.org/cgi/reprint/41/4/281.pdf
Maybe Judge Matsch's ruling see inCubation in courtrooms, and maybe the standing ruling will cause need for inTubation in shyster lawyers?
Remember Mr. Mudd, and the saying that followed his demise (your name will be MUD)? Maybe Judge Matsch will be famous for slaying corrupt patent lawyers... The headlines will read:
Cross THIS judge and you will be MATSCHED Out of Practice"
Thanks! i hope you didn't get into trouble at work or home.
To me, this topic just means that ms are trying to commercialize (without running afoul of laws) what NSA, DIA, DIS, and others in the alphabet soup intelligence community have been doing for some years, or WISH they could do in the next two years.
But, since ISPs are able to slow your traffic enough to brute force any encryption or sniff out any torrents you're using (don't be so smug as to think the ISP isn't throttling your traffic to ferret out your encryption keys...), what's so hard about mshaft and others improving the click through tracking? Even though I block the shit out of doubleclick in my firewall and in konqueror and firefox and flock, I am pretty confident that SOMETHING about my surfing habits will in short order be aggregated. Might not serve well for ads purposes, but for monitoring, since that's what the gp said is just a monitoring excuse, well, what are we going to do except stop surfing, or surf so anonymously that we end up cutting of communication advantages of the Internet(s)/web?
subtract?