I don't believe that any of the situations I mentioned are "abuses".
As for "bible oaths" being prohibited by the US Constitution, you might want to check again. The bible isn't mentioned, and oath only occurs 4 times and never in a context that could be interpreted as prohibiting such. Courts that use them offer an alternative for those who object to swearing an oath on the bible or to God.
And yes "... all men are endowed by their creator..." is in the Declaration of independence, but I didn't claim it was in the Constitution. What I said was:
Our country is founded by, and the Constitution is based upon the assertion that "...all men are endowed by their creator..."
And the document the founded our country, and which was the context for writing the Constitution is? That's right, the Declaration of Independence. As for the DoI not having any legal power, the US and UK might disagree with that. It may have no legal standing now, but it certainly had a whole lot of legal power when it was written. It was a declaration of rebellion and the founding of a new country, and that's a lot of legal power.
Finally, my arguments aren't based upon "because in it's cradle it was like this", they're based upon the premise that a government that tries to remove all semblance of God from all public places and practices in a country where most of the people believe in some version of God, will suffer a backlash from the populace. Religion is still a major part of the society, to try to deny it in all government affairs is absurd.
Let me start by saying, I'm not religious (spiritual, but no affiliation with any religion) and I'm not interested in living in any type of theocracy. Yet, I believe the doctrine of "Separation of Church and State" has been taken to literally and too extreme, and what we're seeing is a backlash by the religious fundamentalists fighting for what they believe in, and trying to restore some "balance". Remember, 12 of the 13 original colonies each had one predominant religion (different religions in different colonies). They weren't necessarily theocracies, but the predominant religion in each was part of the society, and their laws reflected some of their religious practices (e.g. no business on Sunday, etc.).
Our country is founded by, and the Constitution is based upon the assertion that "...all men are endowed by their creator...", our money says "in God we trust", and in most courts, we swear an oath on a bible. Our entire society is grounded in a belief in a creator/God, and yet, we're now trying to take all references to God/creator out of all public institutions. Seems to me that's a big disconnect, even if you're agnostic.
I noticed that someone below claims the US is a first to invent, not first to file. I'm not a patent expert, so I'll allow that point since I don't have anything to back it up. The rest of my post stands.
The open source project should file their own patent. Because patents in the U.S. are on a first-to-invent basis, and because they can clearly demonstrate having invented it first, their patent will effectively invalidate the other patent. Then sue the other company for violating the patent, win, and use this to fund many decades of x264 development.
Actually, patents are issued based upon who first filed for the patent, not first to invent. However, in this instance, you have a clear cut case of prior art, and a probable claim of fraud and theft. Once you defeat the current attempt to patent, then OSS might be able to obtain a patent, of course, that would be counter to just about everything OSS represents.
No, Texas isn't the center of the universe, it's definitely a little off center. It is however the one of the few places were sanity is still evident in any significant quantity, and that appears to be fading slowly.
How about we at least start with getting the judicial branch to make the executive branch follow the laws established by the legislative branch. And, get stop allowing the legislative branch to exempt themselves from almost every law the pass. Then, we can discuss whether or not separation of church and state is still even a necessary consideration, it might not be at that point.
Don't you find it scary that the global human population is doubling every 35 years give or take? How many doubling periods do you think we have left before very unpleasant things start to happen?
It's not. Population has been growing by 1B per 13 years since the 60's. While that does mean that it doubled from 3B to 6B in 39 years, it's the actual growth is nearly flat, not the growth rate. It will not double in the next 39 years, but it may grow by ~ 50%
The reputable scientist doesn't make outlandish claims, but only other scientists ever see his work.
The disreputable scientist makes unsubstantiated claims for publicity, this usually only works once per scientist.
The smart scientist also doesn't make outlandish claims about his work, he gets journalists to do it for him. That way, he gets the recognition, and better funding opportunities, without compromising his work or reputation.
Looks that way. My post stating a simple fact about Flash on other platforms got rated "troll". I mad no personal attacks and no platform attacks, only noted the comparative performance of Flash on the 3 major platforms.
You may be correct, but I don't consider that a legitimate use any more than EverCookie is legitimate. The ad industry can track too much already, they don't need any more capability.
And when you're looking for hardware specific hacks, each new microarchitecture is likely to behave differently, so each new microarchitecture is functionally a new architecture.
ARM: ARMv7:= ARMv6:= ARMv5, etc.
Intel: Sandy Bridge:= Nehalem:= Merom, etc.
repeat for AMD, PPC, MIPS, Cell, etc.
Even different process sizes, different steppings, and different variants within a microarchitecture may behave differently, although that's less likely.
Hacking a CPU isn't trivial. The payoff is that attacking hardware flaws may bypass OS security
From TFA: Microsoft adds Security Essentials to the Optional section of Microsoft Update
Items in the optional section aren't automatically downloaded or installed, nor does a user even see them unless he/she clicks on a separate button to view the optional updates. MS is offering an optional & free program to protect users from Malware, and a user has to go out of his/her way to see and select that program before it'll be installed, and it's only offered to users who don't already have another AV program installed.
This is almost a "hidden option". I've got concerns about numerous M$ business practices, but I can't object to this one.
BTW - I haven't seen Adobe complaining that M$ offers Silverlight in the Optional section of M$ Update, even though M$ has clearly made some statement against Flash.
All data on Facebook is property of Facebook, not of the people who put it there... so you should be able to ask Facebook to remove it... (according to the text, "companies (i.e. Facebook) will be forced to delete it when asked").
Facebook does not own all (or even most) of the data on FB. From the Facebook Terms of Service:
You own all of the content and information you post on Facebook.
Slashdot Mirror
+1 Funny
It's not just a horror/gore movie spoof anymore.
We have a more pressing issue. The TSA is putting at risk the lives and freedom of countless Americans and non-Americans around the world.
When we've dealt with that, we can revisit the risk of the increasing irrelevant Wikileaks disclosure.
I don't believe that any of the situations I mentioned are "abuses".
As for "bible oaths" being prohibited by the US Constitution, you might want to check again. The bible isn't mentioned, and oath only occurs 4 times and never in a context that could be interpreted as prohibiting such. Courts that use them offer an alternative for those who object to swearing an oath on the bible or to God.
And yes "... all men are endowed by their creator ..." is in the Declaration of independence, but I didn't claim it was in the Constitution. What I said was:
Our country is founded by, and the Constitution is based upon the assertion that "...all men are endowed by their creator..."
And the document the founded our country, and which was the context for writing the Constitution is? That's right, the Declaration of Independence. As for the DoI not having any legal power, the US and UK might disagree with that. It may have no legal standing now, but it certainly had a whole lot of legal power when it was written. It was a declaration of rebellion and the founding of a new country, and that's a lot of legal power.
Finally, my arguments aren't based upon "because in it's cradle it was like this", they're based upon the premise that a government that tries to remove all semblance of God from all public places and practices in a country where most of the people believe in some version of God, will suffer a backlash from the populace. Religion is still a major part of the society, to try to deny it in all government affairs is absurd.
Let me start by saying, I'm not religious (spiritual, but no affiliation with any religion) and I'm not interested in living in any type of theocracy. Yet, I believe the doctrine of "Separation of Church and State" has been taken to literally and too extreme, and what we're seeing is a backlash by the religious fundamentalists fighting for what they believe in, and trying to restore some "balance". Remember, 12 of the 13 original colonies each had one predominant religion (different religions in different colonies). They weren't necessarily theocracies, but the predominant religion in each was part of the society, and their laws reflected some of their religious practices (e.g. no business on Sunday, etc.). Our country is founded by, and the Constitution is based upon the assertion that "...all men are endowed by their creator...", our money says "in God we trust", and in most courts, we swear an oath on a bible. Our entire society is grounded in a belief in a creator/God, and yet, we're now trying to take all references to God/creator out of all public institutions. Seems to me that's a big disconnect, even if you're agnostic.
I noticed that someone below claims the US is a first to invent, not first to file. I'm not a patent expert, so I'll allow that point since I don't have anything to back it up. The rest of my post stands.
The open source project should file their own patent. Because patents in the U.S. are on a first-to-invent basis, and because they can clearly demonstrate having invented it first, their patent will effectively invalidate the other patent. Then sue the other company for violating the patent, win, and use this to fund many decades of x264 development.
Actually, patents are issued based upon who first filed for the patent, not first to invent. However, in this instance, you have a clear cut case of prior art, and a probable claim of fraud and theft. Once you defeat the current attempt to patent, then OSS might be able to obtain a patent, of course, that would be counter to just about everything OSS represents.
The universe has no center, because it has no end.
Well yeah, dude. Texas is.
No, Texas isn't the center of the universe, it's definitely a little off center. It is however the one of the few places were sanity is still evident in any significant quantity, and that appears to be fading slowly.
separation of church and state NOW!!!
How about we at least start with getting the judicial branch to make the executive branch follow the laws established by the legislative branch. And, get stop allowing the legislative branch to exempt themselves from almost every law the pass. Then, we can discuss whether or not separation of church and state is still even a necessary consideration, it might not be at that point.
Don't you find it scary that the global human population is doubling every 35 years give or take? How many doubling periods do you think we have left before very unpleasant things start to happen?
It's not. Population has been growing by 1B per 13 years since the 60's. While that does mean that it doubled from 3B to 6B in 39 years, it's the actual growth is nearly flat, not the growth rate. It will not double in the next 39 years, but it may grow by ~ 50%
But Nobel Prizes aren't worth what they used to be, at least not the Peace Prize.
The reputable scientist doesn't make outlandish claims, but only other scientists ever see his work.
The disreputable scientist makes unsubstantiated claims for publicity, this usually only works once per scientist.
The smart scientist also doesn't make outlandish claims about his work, he gets journalists to do it for him. That way, he gets the recognition, and better funding opportunities, without compromising his work or reputation.
That's a completely unfounded statement, as evidenced by his assertion that Linux is at the end of it's life cycle.
Looks that way. My post stating a simple fact about Flash on other platforms got rated "troll". I mad no personal attacks and no platform attacks, only noted the comparative performance of Flash on the 3 major platforms.
Danger/Sidekick is a perfect example for one of my sig lines:
Cloud computing - if your data is stored in the Cloud, what happens when it rains?
As opposed to shitty code on Windows. Flash is pretty processor intensive on anything.
But it's significantly worse on Mac, and always has been. For Linux it's even worse, there Flash is almost unusable.
You may be correct, but I don't consider that a legitimate use any more than EverCookie is legitimate. The ad industry can track too much already, they don't need any more capability.
This type of research doesn't appear to have any legitimate uses, it appears that it will only be useful to the malware authors.
And when you're looking for hardware specific hacks, each new microarchitecture is likely to behave differently, so each new microarchitecture is functionally a new architecture.
ARM: ARMv7 := ARMv6 := ARMv5, etc.
Intel: Sandy Bridge := Nehalem := Merom, etc.
repeat for AMD, PPC, MIPS, Cell, etc.
Even different process sizes, different steppings, and different variants within a microarchitecture may behave differently, although that's less likely.
Hacking a CPU isn't trivial. The payoff is that attacking hardware flaws may bypass OS security
Tree leaves are currency. And you always thought Douglas Adams was making fun of them.
NVidia achieved that years ago.
Yes, but AMD and the Intel P4 beat them to it.
“porn industry profits flacid; hires lawyers to screw pirates.”
From TFA: Microsoft adds Security Essentials to the Optional section of Microsoft Update
Items in the optional section aren't automatically downloaded or installed, nor does a user even see them unless he/she clicks on a separate button to view the optional updates. MS is offering an optional & free program to protect users from Malware, and a user has to go out of his/her way to see and select that program before it'll be installed, and it's only offered to users who don't already have another AV program installed.
This is almost a "hidden option". I've got concerns about numerous M$ business practices, but I can't object to this one.
BTW - I haven't seen Adobe complaining that M$ offers Silverlight in the Optional section of M$ Update, even though M$ has clearly made some statement against Flash.
All data on Facebook is property of Facebook, not of the people who put it there... so you should be able to ask Facebook to remove it... (according to the text, "companies (i.e. Facebook) will be forced to delete it when asked").
Facebook does not own all (or even most) of the data on FB. From the Facebook Terms of Service:
You own all of the content and information you post on Facebook.