That's not likely a valid contract. That'd be like writing on a check to a creditor something along the lines of "by accepting this check you agree to reduce my APR to 0% and increase my credit limit to INF."
Except that if everyone thought that way, we wouldn't have "safe states" anymore.
Of course, we would. If everyone voted for the candidate that best represented them, we'd still have safe states, but the winner of the state just wouldn't get as many votes. The spoiler effect works when there's only a sufficiently strong minor party/indy candidate that draws from a major party enough to allow the other major party candidate to win. "Spoilers" would generally balance each other out, which would eliminate the effect.
As an aside, failing to vote for someone who "can't win" and voting for the lesser of two evils makes absolutely no sense in the safe states. McCain will win Utah. Guaranteed. Obama can't win Utah under any circumstances, nor can Barr, Nader, McKinney, Baldwin, etc., etc. Therefore, taking the "can't win" thesis to it's logical conclusion the only possible vote one can make is by voting for McCain.
If everyone voted their conscience, we'd get rid of first-past-the-post in a heartbeat. No one would enjoy elections where the winner regularly got about 25% of the vote.
Your vote is independent of all other votes. That is, however you vote does not have any bearing on how other people vote. Now advocating for a certain candidate changes the game a bit, but I'm getting off topic.
Chances are that you live in a "safe state" where neither major party candidate will campaign. Even if you don't, chances are even slimmer that the candidate you vote for will win by exactly one vote and that your state will also be the one that gives him at least 270 electoral votes.
Voting strategically in such situations doesn't make any rational sense. It's really about the warm, fuzzy feeling someone gets by being on the winning team.
Unfortunately, the Senate would never convict him because there'd need to be quite a few Republicans who'd break ranks for him to be removed (67 of 100 Senators must vote in the affirmative to remove an official via impeachment). There aren't even enough Democrats in the House to vote for impeachment because they believe it'd hurt them in the upcoming election.
As another poster mentioned, Bush could anally rape children on national TV, and you couldn't get enough Republicans to vote to remove him.
Impeachment refers to conducting an investigation and filing charges. Removal from office or disqualifying one from holding other office is what the Senate does in their trial.
It pays to note that Bill Clinton was impeached. He just wasn't removed from office because the Senate decided he wasn't guilty of what the House said he did.
As others have said, that scenario is prohibitively unlikely.
I recall during my senior research in crypto that if you take all the computers in the world and dedicate them to do nothing other than brute forcing a 256-bit algorithm, the sun would go nova long before you checked a small fraction of the key space.
I'd rather see real competition in network service than some kind of BS regulation for monopoly service.
Unfortunately, that is quite an undertaking -- creating conditions where network service isn't a monopoly.
At this very moment there is exactly one cable provider servicing Sandusky, Ohio: Buckeye Cablevision. Buckeye Cablevision has a franchise agreement with the city to use the city's rights-of-way. This agreement is not exclusive; any other cable company is more than welcome to negotiate a similar agreement without supplanting Buckeye.
Why doesn't this happen? Everybody agrees that the ROI is insanely low. A new company would have to roll out new infrastructure and then go through the process of trying to convince current Buckeye customers to switch to their services (pretty much everyone who wants cable already has it, so new customers would be negligible). Undoubtedly, some will, but not enough to justify the investment in infrastructure.
This situation is called a natural monopoly.
The only way to foster competition in a natural monopoly is, oddly enough, via government intervention. One solution is to have the government buy the infrastructure via eminent domain and open access to anyone on non-discriminatory terms. This would immediately foster competition.
I'd prefer this solution to net neutrality legislation myself, but I'd prefer net neutrality legislation to simply deregulating the cable/telephone companies. The only thing that keeps them from going all out with anti-customer policies is the current (weak) regulation.
I was speaking mostly to a criminal infringement rather than a simple civil infringement.
Simply releasing a work that was intended for commercial release before it was released is a criminal infringement. Does that stop it from happening? Last I checked, DVD screener rips still exist.
Similarly, false DMCA notices, to the best of my knowledge have been and will continue to be filed with little or no penalty.
My original point is that lots of crimes are federal offenses, but aren't prosecuted.
I don't know of a single case of perjury being prosecuted for a false DMCA notice. I've seen several stories on this website that talk about people filing DMCA notices in bad faith, but no follow-up regarding any prosecutions.
Your point was that people won't file false DMCA notices because it's a federal crime (and with the implication that it carries a harsh penalty). I was simply pointing out that lots of crimes carry harsh penalties, but aren't prosecuted very often.
I don't understand the OMG NOTHING BUT FREE SOFTWARE distros like gNewSense, et al.
If I want to use only free software, I'll just not install anything that isn't free. I'm smart enough to omit "contrib non-free" from my sources.list.
The argument about installing non-free drivers and programs by default is a non-starter, too. Anyone who is aware of F/OSS is aware enough to check the licenses of the programs in their package manager.
The only possible use of such "free only" distros is that some people have a problem with non-free packages existing in the same package mirror as their free stuff or people who get their knickers in a bunch when something non-free is installed by default -- which can be removed in 2 minutes.
Intellectual property isn't even property in any real sense of the word. It's obviously illusory since IP doesn't exist in any physical sense.
That being said, a government-granted monopoly in the dissemination and exploitation of creative works for the purpose of edifying the public is a valid government objective and I support such a monopoly. I support the monopoly only to the extent which those goals are satisfied.
HTH
In a perfect world, where I was dictator, we'd have a 5-year commercial copyright with an option to renew for another 5. Copyright protection would require registration and a copy of the work in question would be deposited with the Library of Congress. For example, if MS wanted Windows 7 to have any copyright protection at all, they'd have to turn over the source code to the LoC.
Patents would work much the same way, but I'd have them only for physical processes where a working model of the invention exists. Business method and software patents need not apply. If someone comes up with the same process independently of another, the former need not pay patent fees.
Trademark law is, for the most part, acceptable.
Trade secrets would have no legal protections outside of standard contracts. No one would be subject to criminal prosecution for divulging company secrets.
It's not pirating if the writers didn't copyright their books in another country.
We expect companies to file patent applications in several countries in order to protect their invention. Why can't we expect the same from authors of creative works?
When your product isn't tangible and is easily copied, the only way you can keep any semblance of control over is by convincing everyone else that they need to pay for the product rather than copying it.
This is an immediate consequence of an "information economy" that deals in intellectual property rather than tangible property.
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That's not likely a valid contract. That'd be like writing on a check to a creditor something along the lines of "by accepting this check you agree to reduce my APR to 0% and increase my credit limit to INF."
The really odd thing is photographs of copyrighted sculptures. There is still some uncertainty over the law here. Is the photograph a derivative work?
As an aside, failing to vote for someone who "can't win" and voting for the lesser of two evils makes absolutely no sense in the safe states. McCain will win Utah. Guaranteed. Obama can't win Utah under any circumstances, nor can Barr, Nader, McKinney, Baldwin, etc., etc. Therefore, taking the "can't win" thesis to it's logical conclusion the only possible vote one can make is by voting for McCain.
If everyone voted their conscience, we'd get rid of first-past-the-post in a heartbeat. No one would enjoy elections where the winner regularly got about 25% of the vote.
They aren't even far left. They're just hyper-partisan Democrats.
Some Psychologist could write quite the interesting dissertation on the groupthink phenomenon just by spending a few months reading the posts there.
Your vote is independent of all other votes. That is, however you vote does not have any bearing on how other people vote. Now advocating for a certain candidate changes the game a bit, but I'm getting off topic.
Chances are that you live in a "safe state" where neither major party candidate will campaign. Even if you don't, chances are even slimmer that the candidate you vote for will win by exactly one vote and that your state will also be the one that gives him at least 270 electoral votes.
Voting strategically in such situations doesn't make any rational sense. It's really about the warm, fuzzy feeling someone gets by being on the winning team.
Well, of course.
Unfortunately, the Senate would never convict him because there'd need to be quite a few Republicans who'd break ranks for him to be removed (67 of 100 Senators must vote in the affirmative to remove an official via impeachment). There aren't even enough Democrats in the House to vote for impeachment because they believe it'd hurt them in the upcoming election.
As another poster mentioned, Bush could anally rape children on national TV, and you couldn't get enough Republicans to vote to remove him.
Party loyalty comes before duty to country.
You can impeach the President for "high crimes and misdemeanors". The House gets to define what a high crime and misdemeanor is.
Therefore, Rep. Kucinich believes that violating the UN Charter is a high crime and/or misdemeanor.
The same way you do when he's in office.
Impeachment refers to conducting an investigation and filing charges. Removal from office or disqualifying one from holding other office is what the Senate does in their trial.
It pays to note that Bill Clinton was impeached. He just wasn't removed from office because the Senate decided he wasn't guilty of what the House said he did.
Yes.
He has to have been a permanent resident of the US for 14 years.
As others have said, that scenario is prohibitively unlikely.
I recall during my senior research in crypto that if you take all the computers in the world and dedicate them to do nothing other than brute forcing a 256-bit algorithm, the sun would go nova long before you checked a small fraction of the key space.
At this very moment there is exactly one cable provider servicing Sandusky, Ohio: Buckeye Cablevision. Buckeye Cablevision has a franchise agreement with the city to use the city's rights-of-way. This agreement is not exclusive; any other cable company is more than welcome to negotiate a similar agreement without supplanting Buckeye.
Why doesn't this happen? Everybody agrees that the ROI is insanely low. A new company would have to roll out new infrastructure and then go through the process of trying to convince current Buckeye customers to switch to their services (pretty much everyone who wants cable already has it, so new customers would be negligible). Undoubtedly, some will, but not enough to justify the investment in infrastructure.
This situation is called a natural monopoly.
The only way to foster competition in a natural monopoly is, oddly enough, via government intervention. One solution is to have the government buy the infrastructure via eminent domain and open access to anyone on non-discriminatory terms. This would immediately foster competition.
I'd prefer this solution to net neutrality legislation myself, but I'd prefer net neutrality legislation to simply deregulating the cable/telephone companies. The only thing that keeps them from going all out with anti-customer policies is the current (weak) regulation.
I was speaking mostly to a criminal infringement rather than a simple civil infringement.
Simply releasing a work that was intended for commercial release before it was released is a criminal infringement. Does that stop it from happening? Last I checked, DVD screener rips still exist.
Similarly, false DMCA notices, to the best of my knowledge have been and will continue to be filed with little or no penalty.
My original point is that lots of crimes are federal offenses, but aren't prosecuted.
I don't know of a single case of perjury being prosecuted for a false DMCA notice. I've seen several stories on this website that talk about people filing DMCA notices in bad faith, but no follow-up regarding any prosecutions.
Your point was that people won't file false DMCA notices because it's a federal crime (and with the implication that it carries a harsh penalty). I was simply pointing out that lots of crimes carry harsh penalties, but aren't prosecuted very often.
It's actually perjury that you'd get charged with if you falsify a DMCA request.
So is copyright infringement...
To each his own, dear friend. :-)
Right.
I don't understand the OMG NOTHING BUT FREE SOFTWARE distros like gNewSense, et al.
If I want to use only free software, I'll just not install anything that isn't free. I'm smart enough to omit "contrib non-free" from my sources.list.
The argument about installing non-free drivers and programs by default is a non-starter, too. Anyone who is aware of F/OSS is aware enough to check the licenses of the programs in their package manager.
The only possible use of such "free only" distros is that some people have a problem with non-free packages existing in the same package mirror as their free stuff or people who get their knickers in a bunch when something non-free is installed by default -- which can be removed in 2 minutes.
It is required for getting statutory damages. If the copyright is not registered, you can only sue for actual damages.
IIRC, of course, since IANAL.
Intellectual property isn't even property in any real sense of the word. It's obviously illusory since IP doesn't exist in any physical sense.
That being said, a government-granted monopoly in the dissemination and exploitation of creative works for the purpose of edifying the public is a valid government objective and I support such a monopoly. I support the monopoly only to the extent which those goals are satisfied.
HTH
In a perfect world, where I was dictator, we'd have a 5-year commercial copyright with an option to renew for another 5. Copyright protection would require registration and a copy of the work in question would be deposited with the Library of Congress. For example, if MS wanted Windows 7 to have any copyright protection at all, they'd have to turn over the source code to the LoC.
Patents would work much the same way, but I'd have them only for physical processes where a working model of the invention exists. Business method and software patents need not apply. If someone comes up with the same process independently of another, the former need not pay patent fees.
Trademark law is, for the most part, acceptable.
Trade secrets would have no legal protections outside of standard contracts. No one would be subject to criminal prosecution for divulging company secrets.
I'd have put it a bit more nicely. Something like "parse error" would have done better.
An anarcho-capitalist who believes in IP is like a libertarian who advocates for a monarchy.
Based on a cost-benefit analysis, I'm willing to bet buying laws is probably one of the best ways to go.
That's the problem with neo-liberalism. Politicians are so cheap that it makes more economic sense to rent seek and buy laws than it does to innovate.
It's not pirating if the writers didn't copyright their books in another country.
We expect companies to file patent applications in several countries in order to protect their invention. Why can't we expect the same from authors of creative works?
When your product isn't tangible and is easily copied, the only way you can keep any semblance of control over is by convincing everyone else that they need to pay for the product rather than copying it.
This is an immediate consequence of an "information economy" that deals in intellectual property rather than tangible property.
I ran a P3 450 w/o a fan (just a heatsink) for quite awhile. You can remove the fan to save your nerves.
Yes.
And because of these misconceptions Mr. Pickens decided the best ROI was using wind.
Have the last word, I guess...