Just to get the cart back behind the horse - let's see if the Indian judicial system can work this out correctly. There seems to be an assumption here that India's judicial system is little better than a star-chamber mechanism dispensing kangaroo-court justice. While I'll admit there may be strong political and financial incentives for an Indian court to arbitrarily find Google liable, there's no reason to believe that the Indian courts will fail to correctly perform their function of interpreting and adjudicating Indian law.
I wish that were the case. More likely that India would seek to get the US government to make more H1-b visas available. It's one of the charming things about the Indian government. They do things that benefit their constituent population. Sound familiar?
India would demand that the United States honor international law and force Google to forfeit the demanded resources to satisfy their debt. Whether the United States government would choose to comply is another question, one which would almost certainly be decided by a US court.
By this point, India's legal system would almost certainly have frozen or seized any Google assets located in India; and since Google's trademark and technologies would be among the resources seized . . . there is a tremendous opportunity here to fracture and shatter the internet, once and for all. The (re)Balkanization of the web would almost certainly follow, if this course of events proceeds in the way I've described here.
To close, the course of events I've described can only result from what I consider to be an extremely unlikely act on Google's part - attempting to correct a legal/political situation via technological means (withdrawl of technical services to al Indian-based entities? Think about it). I find it more likely that Google will contest this in an Indian court, with what I consider to be a good chance of prevailing. Even if they lose, Google is not going to go the "cut off my nose to spite my face" route, they're going to comply (after exhausting all other lawful options) and try to find a way to recoup their losses within the laws of the countries they're doing business in.
Look at a world geopolitical map weighted by population.
Now couple what you've just seen with the idea that governments worldwide actively consider taking money from businesses operated in other countries to be even better than taxing successful businesses in their own country.
Throw in one last thought - the Indian government is answerable to the Indian people. Do you really think they'll be pissed off to hear that they've successfully strongarmed billions out of some foreign entity?
I got paid once by an IT firm to perform a single one-hour task. I installed Solaris 2.6 on a SPARC-20. They paid me $65.00 for my time, and this was back in the early 1990's. I stuck a CD in the drive and pressed [F2] and [Enter] a lot. I don't think Sun had any problems with this.
Seconded. Trademark law forbids Dell from charging money for Firefox. The license assertion that nobody can charge for providing a service if that service includes the installation of their product is pretty slim - that's like an auto parts manufacturer stating that any mechanic installing their parts in an automobile must be licensed by them.
Yes, terrible metaphore. All metaphores are terrible.
Back in the seventies. The "hallucinations" are caused by a drop in blood pressure to the brain (affecting the visual cortex), along with a similar drop at the eye itself. There is a clear physiological cause, and the hallucinations generally take the form of a bluish spiral or kaleidoscopic pattern - not "spiders under the skin" or "trails" or "walls melting". Further, subjects were always fully aware that their visual perceptions had no founding in the real world - i.e., they were unlikely to shoot a perceived monster only to discover later that it was a friend.
Incidentally, when you're high enough on pot to see these things, you need to put the bong down. You're just wasting weed at this point (IMHO).
The tolerance you speak of building up isn't a neurological or biological tolerance - it's a functional aspect of your mind, learning to function and cope despite chemical interference with the underlying organic functioning of the brain.
You didn't even mention the exceedingly well documented fact (FACT) that LSD is highly neurotoxic. Brain damage (even if it's only a small percentage of nerve cells and even if they're scattered throughout the brain instead of clustered in one location) is a documented effect of using LSD. Unlike an injury, it doesn't wipe out the (speech/balance/visual) center of the brain - it just generally does damage, leading users to the mistaken impression that there is no damage ("Hey, I can still walk/talk/chew bubblegum", etc).
Know any regular recurring users of LSD? Noticed any decline in their cognitive skills over the years? No? You need to stop doing acid with your buddy.
I believe d-lysergic acid diethylamide is, in fact, naturally occuring - a metabolite of the ergot Claviceps Purpea (a wheat blight) if memory serves. I'd previously understood it to have come out of insecticide research, but I'm unable to find any references to support this and so I'm probably wrong here.
And - just a note - I'm prepared to assert with confidence that LSD is not identical to Psilocybin, Mescaline, DMT or any other hallucinogenic materials. Ask users of these substances and they'll tell you - they cause very different experiences, both during the "high" and the subsequent hangover ("crash", "come-off", etc.).
As a (very reform) Jew, I agree. Religious school (Catholic school, a yeshiva, any religious school) is for teaching religion. They should teach their idea of creation and no other.
If on the other hand you want your youngster educated in science, send them to a school which promises to teach science. You can even send your kids to both and try to help them resolve the contradictions. Gee, what a novel idea - I oughtta patent it.
There is no such thing as a "small, cheap" probe when we're talking about an object as distant as Europa. I won't even mention the added difficulties that orbital mechanics brings to the equation when we're talking about a planetary satellite instead of a planet.
Small - sure. Matter of fact, all space missions strive for "small". Cheap - even the "cheap" Mars rovers weren't exactly cheap.
You mean Jesus wasn't a white, Anglo-Saxon Protestant? I'm shocked, shocked I tell you.
But old Chris Columbus did discover the "New World". Never mind all those people living there, they don't count. They didn't discover the New World, they were part of it. Ergo Christopher Columbus discovered the New World - complete with native population. Even more credit to ol' Chris!
Not unlike the destruction of those mountain-statues (in Afghanistan? Pakistan? Can't remember which nation destroyed them because they were an "insult to Islam", somebody help me here). Can we raze all the nations whose name ends in 'stan'?
The takeaway point I'm trying to make is that two wrongs don't make a right. Three lefts do.
Oops, just reread. Yeah, they can charge for the service of installing Firefox - they're not selling the browser, they're selling the effort to install it.
How dull do you have to be to pay someone to do this for you?
Perhaps Gravity is not constant throughout the Universe. Brane theory suggests that the scalar field called gravity may be subject to local variations in strength (which are pretty hard to measure when your species and their technologies are planet-bound). Perhaps some older theories of galaxy formation have merit, and gravity waves compress different stars differently (because they're in different places) - causing galaxies to have spiral arms and type 1a supernovae to display some variability in total energy released. Perhaps there's dark matter (the real kind, not the made-up kind) which is also feeding into 1a supernovae, causing some variability. Perhaps somebody was shining a green laser-pointer at the star first.
Okay, strike the last . . . but I can sure come up with more to add. Scientists with the correct equipment and training are going to have to make more observations, propose a hypothesis, test it, fix the details of their theory, test it . . . you know the drill.
Slashdot Mirror
Uh, two wrongs don't make a right. Three lefts do.
Just to get the cart back behind the horse - let's see if the Indian judicial system can work this out correctly. There seems to be an assumption here that India's judicial system is little better than a star-chamber mechanism dispensing kangaroo-court justice. While I'll admit there may be strong political and financial incentives for an Indian court to arbitrarily find Google liable, there's no reason to believe that the Indian courts will fail to correctly perform their function of interpreting and adjudicating Indian law.
Blacklist, I think it's called?
I wish that were the case. More likely that India would seek to get the US government to make more H1-b visas available. It's one of the charming things about the Indian government. They do things that benefit their constituent population. Sound familiar?
India would demand that the United States honor international law and force Google to forfeit the demanded resources to satisfy their debt. Whether the United States government would choose to comply is another question, one which would almost certainly be decided by a US court.
By this point, India's legal system would almost certainly have frozen or seized any Google assets located in India; and since Google's trademark and technologies would be among the resources seized . . . there is a tremendous opportunity here to fracture and shatter the internet, once and for all. The (re)Balkanization of the web would almost certainly follow, if this course of events proceeds in the way I've described here.
To close, the course of events I've described can only result from what I consider to be an extremely unlikely act on Google's part - attempting to correct a legal/political situation via technological means (withdrawl of technical services to al Indian-based entities? Think about it). I find it more likely that Google will contest this in an Indian court, with what I consider to be a good chance of prevailing. Even if they lose, Google is not going to go the "cut off my nose to spite my face" route, they're going to comply (after exhausting all other lawful options) and try to find a way to recoup their losses within the laws of the countries they're doing business in.
http://www.cuts-ccier.org/
Now couple what you've just seen with the idea that governments worldwide actively consider taking money from businesses operated in other countries to be even better than taxing successful businesses in their own country.
Throw in one last thought - the Indian government is answerable to the Indian people. Do you really think they'll be pissed off to hear that they've successfully strongarmed billions out of some foreign entity?
I got paid once by an IT firm to perform a single one-hour task. I installed Solaris 2.6 on a SPARC-20. They paid me $65.00 for my time, and this was back in the early 1990's. I stuck a CD in the drive and pressed [F2] and [Enter] a lot. I don't think Sun had any problems with this.
Yes, terrible metaphore. All metaphores are terrible.
You're right, of course.
Please . . . continue . . .
It's disrespectful.
No, I've smoked too much and gotten sick. Our bodies just aren't designed to filter smoke out of air.
Incidentally, when you're high enough on pot to see these things, you need to put the bong down. You're just wasting weed at this point (IMHO).
The tolerance you speak of building up isn't a neurological or biological tolerance - it's a functional aspect of your mind, learning to function and cope despite chemical interference with the underlying organic functioning of the brain.
Know any regular recurring users of LSD? Noticed any decline in their cognitive skills over the years? No? You need to stop doing acid with your buddy.
And - just a note - I'm prepared to assert with confidence that LSD is not identical to Psilocybin, Mescaline, DMT or any other hallucinogenic materials. Ask users of these substances and they'll tell you - they cause very different experiences, both during the "high" and the subsequent hangover ("crash", "come-off", etc.).
If on the other hand you want your youngster educated in science, send them to a school which promises to teach science. You can even send your kids to both and try to help them resolve the contradictions. Gee, what a novel idea - I oughtta patent it.
Oops - wrong thread.
We'll never really know if we don't go look. How much is this kind of knowledge worth?
Small - sure. Matter of fact, all space missions strive for "small". Cheap - even the "cheap" Mars rovers weren't exactly cheap.
Will there be whiskey?
But old Chris Columbus did discover the "New World". Never mind all those people living there, they don't count. They didn't discover the New World, they were part of it. Ergo Christopher Columbus discovered the New World - complete with native population. Even more credit to ol' Chris!
The takeaway point I'm trying to make is that two wrongs don't make a right. Three lefts do.
How dull do you have to be to pay someone to do this for you?
I'm pretty sure it's illegal in the United States. If our law is ahead of yours, you guys are in pretty bad shape!
Okay, strike the last . . . but I can sure come up with more to add. Scientists with the correct equipment and training are going to have to make more observations, propose a hypothesis, test it, fix the details of their theory, test it . . . you know the drill.