Nuclear power plants are notoriously unprofitable without government subsidy.
Now he's rich, so he's got a good shot at that subsidy and nuclear may prove to be profitable if fossil-based fuels rise in cost, so you may have a point.
I prefer rolling-release distros -- Shuttleworth's idea doesn't even have a translation into that world. I don't think Debian will ever get on board. They've been perfectly clear that they release whenever it's ready.
Those of us who like a rolling release can always use the testing or unstable branch of Debian. Debian testing might as well be "Debian Desktop Edition" since stable is too stale and testing is more stable than one may think by chance. Hell, even unstable rarely gives me problems.
When you get right down to it, nothing can contradict that a supernatural being exists outside of it's actually appearing to us... at which point it would become a natural being since we could observe it.
I can believe that the only two people in the world are Steven Hawking and Darl McBride and that ice cream is made from grub worms. If anyone provides me with evidence to the contrary, I can always say "Ah, but that's just what $DEITY wants you to think!"
The only thing a belief in a deity doesn't support is non-belief in a deity.
Copyright infringement attaches to works infringed, not copies made. After you make that first infringing copy, you can copy at will without worrying about more liability.
I'm going to get the MPAA/RIAA good. I'm going to set up a torrent tracker/ice cream shop. My primary purpose will be making ice cream, so I'll be free of liability.
Joking aside, quite a bit of copyright law doesn't care if you intend to infringe or not.
This post I just wrote right now is *exactly* as copyrighted as any Hollywood movie or RIAA song. Not "exactly". They've very likely registered those works with the copyright office, which gets them some extra ammo when it comes to infringement cases (I believe you can only get statutory damages if you register your work, but I'm not positive). Absent that, your post, but not mine (all my posts are public domain), is copyrighted as well.
Patents provide the patent owner with the exclusive right to a process, machine, etc., so end users can be sued for infringement since they are using the process, machine, etc. without a license.
In practice this doesn't ever happen because your average end user doesn't have enough money to make the suit worthwhile. I believe in the 80s Apple threatened to go after people who bought Apple clones. AFAIK, it's never been actually done in any large amount due to the aforementioned reasons.
It would depend on how many times they decided to taser me.
You can torture people with a baseball bat if you use it incorrectly (correctly?). The same goes with tasers. If used as one would use a gun, they are a useful tool for LEOs. If used as a replacement for standard operating procedure ("I told him to freeze and he didn't, so I'd better give him a jolt"), they are no longer a useful tool.
Your statement implies that you believe torturing someone is a lesser crime than killing them. If you think carefully about it, you might change your mind.
Would you rather have been put to the rack and burned at the stake during the Spanish Inquisition or shot between the eyes? I know I'd have preferred the latter.
I'll bet the the UN means that the use of a stun gun and/or taser is not torture if used only in the same circumstances as one would use their pistol.
I believe that the untrained or lazy officer would use a taser instead of attempting to defuse the situation with good police work and practices. Unfortunately many an officer thinks they have carte blanche to use the weapon indiscriminately because it doesn't kill people.
The only US Copyright registry is the government-run one. In fact the author states this (but calls it private because he's on a SERIOUS RANT)
privately run (by the friends and cronies of the U.S. government) registries
Copyright.gov:
In general, copyright registration is a legal formality intended to make a public record of the basic facts of a particular copyright. However, registration is not a condition of copyright protection. Even though registration is not a requirement for protection, the copyright law provides several inducements or advantages to encourage copyright owners to make registration.
Not as long as there are no term limits for Congressional seats.
Actually it's gerrymandering that's the real problem. Term limits don't mean jack when a district is a one-party district. The district where I grew up (OH-05) hasn't elected a Democratic congressman since the Great Depression.
It's even worse in the Senate than the House. Some members of the Senate have served for over 30 years.
Well, Senators are re-elected 1/3 as much as representatives, so getting re-elected twice nets an 18-year career. Robert Byrd (D-WV) has been in the Senate for 49 years and in Congress for 55 years. John Dingell (D-MI), the Dean of the House, has been a representative for over 52 years. So the problem is equally bad.
I've bought "international editions", which I'm sure you know are just cheap/paperback copies of the original book.
I never saw one that said reimportation into the US/UK/[enter 1st world country here] was a breach of any contract, but one did say something to the effect of "yeah, this is technically legal, but you're really hurting our profits".
But what if Universal had signed a contract with each and every DJ and reviewer that got a promo copy that said "in exchange for getting this CD a week early, you have to keep it secret." Would people still be in favor of the rule that the person with their hands on the physical copy gets to do whatever they want with it?
except that they did nothing of the sort. Not to mention that they'd be going after the DJs/radio stations for breach of contract, not this copyright nonsense.
In many areas the franchise agreement isn't exclusive, but no one wants to compete because the ROI is horrible.
I was on the cable advisory board in Fairborn, Ohio. It was our job to review the franchise agreement every year and be sure that Time Warner was living up to it.
Whet it was time to renew the agreement we had two options, reject or accept it. Rejecting it meant that no one in town had cable anymore -- not a good idea. It also came up in our meetings that anyone at any time could negotiate another franchise agreement with us. No one ever did for the reasons I mentioned above.
Essentially, the cable companies have the local governments by the balls after the initial negotiation.
One system of lines that any party can sell services over makes a lot of sense.
That's exactly right. I've advocated that the government needs to buy up the infrastructure via eminent domain and allow free access. That'd create competition which should lower prices and increase service quality.
Depending on which state you live in the franchise is not exclusive; I know it isn't in Ohio because the law says so.
The problem is that most cities/areas can only support one cable company, so Time Warner isn't about to try to compete with Comcast. They'd have to build out new wires or rent Comcast's for a non-small fee and then convince people who are Comcast customers to switch to them. The ROI isn't very good.
The problem here is that last mile access is usually a natural monopoly. This distorts the market. Could you imagine what the prices would be if you could choose from any cable provider anywhere in the country? That competition would get us closer to a free market.
The only way we'll get anything close to a free market is if the government (state, local, whomever) buys the lines under eminent domain and forces open access. Odd that government intervention would create a freer market, but it's true.
Customers don't accept it because they don't understand the first thing about how communications networks work.
The fact that there is nowhere near perfect information and that last mile access is usually a natural monopoly (if not a statutory one) in most places, the free market will not work as advertised.
And for that matter, the only ones who are willing to take up arms against the government are those who would do so only if the government came to take their arms.
This problem is very much reduced under a fair and equitable voting system. There are many people who'd love to vote for a minor party or independent candidate (a non-lizard) but feel that voting for one of the major party candidate (a lizard) must be done because they are the only candidates who can win. A way to express preferences is a much fairer method. I prefer approval voting because instant runoff has some mathematical properties that give me pause. The Condorcet method should also be looked at, but I fear it's too mathematically complex for the average person to readily understand.
Another problem is the hoops minor party and independent candidates must go through in many states just to secure a place on the ballot. Gerrymandering is yet another electoral problem we have to put up with.
Both of these problems will not be fixed in the near term because the current crop of politicians dilute their power by enacting these reforms. Creating competition for oneself is hardly the best way to ensure re-election. The only solution to this chicken-and-egg problem I can see having any chance of working is running a single candidate for each office that acts as a sort of stand-in for electoral reform. That way no candidate can be thought of as siphoning votes from a major party candidate since electoral reform is an ostensibly ideologically neutral issue. In light of that, one would expect to see more voters voting their conscience rather than against the lizard that they don't want in office.
The reason this happens can be easily explained with a short excerpt of a good book by a man named Douglas Adams:
"I come in peace", it said, adding after a long moment of further grinding, "take me to your Lizard."
Ford Prefect, of course, had an explanation for this...
"It comes from a very ancient democracy, you see..."
"You mean, it comes from a world of lizards?"
"No", said Ford,... "nothing so simple. Nothing anything like so straightforward. On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people."
"Odd", said Arthur, "I thought you said it was a democracy."
"I did", said Ford. "It is."
"So", said Arthur, hoping he wasn't sounding ridiculously obtuse, "why don't people get rid of the lizards?"
"It honestly doesn't occur to them", said Ford. "They've all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they've voted in more or less approximates to the government they want."
"You mean they actually vote for the lizards?"
"Oh yes", said Ford with a shrug, "of course."
"But", said Arthur, going for the big one again, "why?"
"Because if they didn't vote for a lizard", said Ford, "the wrong lizard might get in."
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Assuming you're correct (and I don't doubt that you are, on the whole), that still doesn't change the fact that they aren't profitable.
Whining about peoples' misconceptions doesn't magically put more money in your account.
Nuclear power plants are notoriously unprofitable without government subsidy.
Now he's rich, so he's got a good shot at that subsidy and nuclear may prove to be profitable if fossil-based fuels rise in cost, so you may have a point.
Right.
The guy knows that the writing's on the wall with respect to fossil fuels. He's just moving on to the next challenge.
That's exactly right, but to do so the distributor pretty much has to be the government unless you want distributor monopolies. In the above scenario:
Distributor: I don't have to increase capacity because the retailers can't go anywhere else for lines.
Methinks it's time for the biggest eminent domain purchase in the history of the country.
Those of us who like a rolling release can always use the testing or unstable branch of Debian. Debian testing might as well be "Debian Desktop Edition" since stable is too stale and testing is more stable than one may think by chance. Hell, even unstable rarely gives me problems.
When you get right down to it, nothing can contradict that a supernatural being exists outside of it's actually appearing to us ... at which point it would become a natural being since we could observe it.
I can believe that the only two people in the world are Steven Hawking and Darl McBride and that ice cream is made from grub worms. If anyone provides me with evidence to the contrary, I can always say "Ah, but that's just what $DEITY wants you to think!"
The only thing a belief in a deity doesn't support is non-belief in a deity.
Copyright infringement attaches to works infringed, not copies made. After you make that first infringing copy, you can copy at will without worrying about more liability.
I'm going to get the MPAA/RIAA good. I'm going to set up a torrent tracker/ice cream shop. My primary purpose will be making ice cream, so I'll be free of liability.
Joking aside, quite a bit of copyright law doesn't care if you intend to infringe or not.
Patents provide the patent owner with the exclusive right to a process, machine, etc., so end users can be sued for infringement since they are using the process, machine, etc. without a license.
In practice this doesn't ever happen because your average end user doesn't have enough money to make the suit worthwhile. I believe in the 80s Apple threatened to go after people who bought Apple clones. AFAIK, it's never been actually done in any large amount due to the aforementioned reasons.
It would depend on how many times they decided to taser me.
You can torture people with a baseball bat if you use it incorrectly (correctly?). The same goes with tasers. If used as one would use a gun, they are a useful tool for LEOs. If used as a replacement for standard operating procedure ("I told him to freeze and he didn't, so I'd better give him a jolt"), they are no longer a useful tool.
Your statement implies that you believe torturing someone is a lesser crime than killing them. If you think carefully about it, you might change your mind.
Would you rather have been put to the rack and burned at the stake during the Spanish Inquisition or shot between the eyes? I know I'd have preferred the latter.
I'll bet the the UN means that the use of a stun gun and/or taser is not torture if used only in the same circumstances as one would use their pistol.
I believe that the untrained or lazy officer would use a taser instead of attempting to defuse the situation with good police work and practices. Unfortunately many an officer thinks they have carte blanche to use the weapon indiscriminately because it doesn't kill people.
In general, copyright registration is a legal formality intended to make a public record of the basic facts of a particular copyright. However, registration is not a condition of copyright protection. Even though registration is not a requirement for protection, the copyright law provides several inducements or advantages to encourage copyright owners to make registration.
And maybe if the small copyright holder cared one iota about their work, they'd register it.
I've bought "international editions", which I'm sure you know are just cheap/paperback copies of the original book.
I never saw one that said reimportation into the US/UK/[enter 1st world country here] was a breach of any contract, but one did say something to the effect of "yeah, this is technically legal, but you're really hurting our profits".
You can implement something approximating TCP on top of UDP, but you'd better make sure everyone you're talking to us using the same standard.
I was on the cable advisory board in Fairborn, Ohio. It was our job to review the franchise agreement every year and be sure that Time Warner was living up to it.
Whet it was time to renew the agreement we had two options, reject or accept it. Rejecting it meant that no one in town had cable anymore -- not a good idea. It also came up in our meetings that anyone at any time could negotiate another franchise agreement with us. No one ever did for the reasons I mentioned above.
Essentially, the cable companies have the local governments by the balls after the initial negotiation.
That's exactly right. I've advocated that the government needs to buy up the infrastructure via eminent domain and allow free access. That'd create competition which should lower prices and increase service quality.
Depending on which state you live in the franchise is not exclusive; I know it isn't in Ohio because the law says so.
The problem is that most cities/areas can only support one cable company, so Time Warner isn't about to try to compete with Comcast. They'd have to build out new wires or rent Comcast's for a non-small fee and then convince people who are Comcast customers to switch to them. The ROI isn't very good.
The problem here is that last mile access is usually a natural monopoly. This distorts the market. Could you imagine what the prices would be if you could choose from any cable provider anywhere in the country? That competition would get us closer to a free market.
The only way we'll get anything close to a free market is if the government (state, local, whomever) buys the lines under eminent domain and forces open access. Odd that government intervention would create a freer market, but it's true.
Customers don't accept it because they don't understand the first thing about how communications networks work.
The fact that there is nowhere near perfect information and that last mile access is usually a natural monopoly (if not a statutory one) in most places, the free market will not work as advertised.
And for that matter, the only ones who are willing to take up arms against the government are those who would do so only if the government came to take their arms.
This problem is very much reduced under a fair and equitable voting system. There are many people who'd love to vote for a minor party or independent candidate (a non-lizard) but feel that voting for one of the major party candidate (a lizard) must be done because they are the only candidates who can win. A way to express preferences is a much fairer method. I prefer approval voting because instant runoff has some mathematical properties that give me pause. The Condorcet method should also be looked at, but I fear it's too mathematically complex for the average person to readily understand.
Another problem is the hoops minor party and independent candidates must go through in many states just to secure a place on the ballot. Gerrymandering is yet another electoral problem we have to put up with.
Both of these problems will not be fixed in the near term because the current crop of politicians dilute their power by enacting these reforms. Creating competition for oneself is hardly the best way to ensure re-election. The only solution to this chicken-and-egg problem I can see having any chance of working is running a single candidate for each office that acts as a sort of stand-in for electoral reform. That way no candidate can be thought of as siphoning votes from a major party candidate since electoral reform is an ostensibly ideologically neutral issue. In light of that, one would expect to see more voters voting their conscience rather than against the lizard that they don't want in office.
The reason this happens can be easily explained with a short excerpt of a good book by a man named Douglas Adams:
... "nothing so simple. Nothing anything like so straightforward. On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people."
"I come in peace", it said, adding after a long moment of further grinding, "take me to your Lizard."
Ford Prefect, of course, had an explanation for this...
"It comes from a very ancient democracy, you see..."
"You mean, it comes from a world of lizards?"
"No", said Ford,
"Odd", said Arthur, "I thought you said it was a democracy."
"I did", said Ford. "It is."
"So", said Arthur, hoping he wasn't sounding ridiculously obtuse, "why don't people get rid of the lizards?"
"It honestly doesn't occur to them", said Ford. "They've all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they've voted in more or less approximates to the government they want."
"You mean they actually vote for the lizards?"
"Oh yes", said Ford with a shrug, "of course."
"But", said Arthur, going for the big one again, "why?"
"Because if they didn't vote for a lizard", said Ford, "the wrong lizard might get in."