"The government's duty is to perform services that are by their very nature not profitable. Public schools, police, fire, national defense, etc... it there isn't a profitable model that can provide these services at the level we expect, the it is up to the government to suplement or perform those services."
I notice you leave health out of this list, and I'm intrigued as to what your reason (if any) was for this?
The reason I'm intrigued is that in Europe it's something that we tend to lump in with schools, police, fire, but in America it's not, many Americans believe it is something that can be made profitable through health insurance and so forth, and as such I have to wonder if, having left it out, you did so because you agree with this.
If that is the case, then are you able to explain why you view it as different to say, fire insurance, or crime insurance to justify as to whether you should be able to get assistance from the police, or fire department, dependent on whether you've paid such insurance?
If it's not the case and you missing it out was merely an oversight, or an attempt to simply avoid the debate then I apologise! I'm just genuinely intrigued to know how some Americans square away that facet of the healthcare debate.
As someone whose worked in UK public sector, I can tell you it's likely a bit of both.
I worked in IT for education, and it was not uncommon for £350 PCs to be bought at around £1500, and maybe £700 or so of software on top that would never be used.
I take issue with this:
"but itâ(TM)s ludicrous in the extreme to suggest â" as the Daily Mail does â" that the Cabinet Officeâ(TM)s IT department could pop down to its local branch of Dixons, buy a batch of £250 budget desktops and be none the worse for it."
I think it's unfair to write this point off- warranties will be included with such systems, as will the Windows license, sure they'll have to buy Office on top, and there are support costs too, but chances are you can still make it all come in at well under half the £3664 figure by buying, not necessarily from Dixons or anywhere, but directly from a supplier and bypassing the "approved government IT supplier" bullshit which was basically just code for "IT supplier someone in the government has a vested interest in".
Just to illustrate this point a little further, as part of a major programme to get laptops into schools, we had to evaluate a number of suppliers (this was some years back now) Dell was chosen in the end, for a contract of 3000+ laptops, with a combination of the bulk volume discount and an education discount they could be bought for £675 without VAT. Problem is, they could be bought by a home user directly from Dell's site for £500 with VAT, however this wasn't an option, because we had to buy through the approved agreement.
Fact is, public sector does grossly overpay for things, and a lot of the time it's because public officials are biased towards some company and so setup absurd agreements- whether it's that they directly have shares in the firm, or whether they just fancy the sales lady, I've seen it all.
Of course, even outside the per-system costs there are bigger savings to be had, my local council just went straight into a massive Microsoft contract without even investigating alternatives such as FOSS, and without trying to bargain Microsoft down by saying well look, we can do it cheaper with FOSS... nope, they just signed the contract and spent a few million tax payers money, all because the head of IT was a little too friendly with the Microsoft sales exec.
Absolutely, releasing data is only of value if the general public have the competence to correctly understand whether supposed interpretations drawn from that data are correct.
Releasing data such that people who don't care about the science and just have a specific agenda to pursue can say "look the data proves it!" even if they've done nothing to show the data proves it, simply makes that agenda-based argument look even more valid than it really is.
The problem is, data is only worthwhile if the public are smart enough to recognise when people are doing real sound scientific analysis on the data, and when people are playing fast and loose with it. In this respect I can understand why real scientists who have spent months doing a full blown analysis on the data get fucked off that on release, some waste of space spends a data writing a counter-argument that isn't valid, claiming the data backs it up, without an ounce of science behind it, and the public falls hook line and sinker for it because that's the outcome they want to hear. I can only imagine how frustrating that must be- it's annoying enough when your argument on sites like this is modded down even when you provide sources showing it's demonstrably correct and then someone posts some invalid bullshit response and gets modded up because it's what the crowd wants to hear. Suffering that after months of research is bound to be pissing annoying for scientists and they have my sympathy over it.
Really, the fundamental problem, is the low level of scientific education in the general public- were they better educated, and more questioning over such things, then releasing the data would likely further science overall.
So let me get this straight, you're trying to equate a bit of disagreement in the scientific community, and a whole bunch of unsourced hearsay, with someone who explicitly backs a completely and utterly unscientific fairy tale over the scientifically sound theory of evolution?
Joking aside, to be fair, I'd imagine it's the sort of place that gets a decent amount of EU funding for this sort of thing too, so I can quite imagine that they probably have better net access than most of the mainland does.
Fair enough, re-read your original post though, it made you seem like you were happy to use Paypal to spite LulzSec, particularly when you can pay for the humble indie bundle just as easily without Paypal- might as well equally avoid them when you can, support LulzSec or not, there are plenty of reasons to avoid Paypal as much as possible regardless.
Er, no, quite the opposite, I'm one of those rational types who basis his support of some entity on the reality of the situation, not some irrational reason to support an entity that is likely to harm you in future.
There should be more people who think like this in diplomatic services and politics, because it's thanks to people like you that the CIA armed Al Qaeda against the Russians thinking "Hey, the enemy of my enemy is my friend", and well, look how well that turned out on 9/11. Not the smartest move really was it? This is of course before you look at similar cases of CIA meddling gone wrong stretching all the way from South America to Asia. Even Iran is enjoying it's US equipped air force to this day too.
So on the contrary, it is you who should avoid politics and diplomatic services, because people who think like you have fucked the world up enough already, yet apparently still haven't learnt their lesson. How many times do people like you have to be bitten by the very people you supported thinking nothing could go wrong because you shared an enemy, even if you were enemies yourselves? Once? twice? three times? or do you just enjoy the pain?
So don't come crying when siding with your enemy's enemy who is still your enemy, you then get fucked by them in the future because you foolishly sided with them.
Certainly if you merely came up with the idea and did little that was productive beyond that and paid someone else to do it but made billions then it would seem reasonable the people that did the actual work got a fair amount of money for it. I don't see how the economy would collapse unless you mean collapse for the multi-billionaires who have more money than they know what to do with but still try to hoarde more, meaning there has to be an inherently poorer class.
If anything it'd improve the economy drastically, because rather than money being hoarded by the ultra-rich and nothing done with it it'd be in the hands of people who would spend it, which creates jobs.
No one is saying the guy should have a half-half split or any such thing, but certainly the fact he made only a few thousand pounds whilst Lucas many billions is a bit disproportionate, it doesn't seem unfair that he can now make a few hundred thousands pounds out of it now. If the Indian guy came up with a character in your game that was popular in the game, then I see little reason why he shouldn't be able to take that character on his own projects- you've already made enough off your part of the story, why begrudge him to make a bit off the work he did too like reusing the code or characters he designed in his own projects?
Oh I dunno, think about it, one of the most boring places to live on Earth, a computer, an internet connection, and a bored teenager. Seems like the exact sort of place you'd expect this sort of thing to happen!
Supporting Paypal because you don't like Lulzsec would be a bit like supporting Hitler because you wanted a different PM to Churchill in the UK in WW2.
The enemy of your enemy, isn't necessarily your friend.
Well taking into account simply that the first group call themselves "WebNinjas", and to date have had this information out there for some time but seems to have come to nothing, and the second group managed to shoot dead a Brazilian who was going to work on the tube by firing at his head 7 times point blank because they thought he was an arabic terrorist then I'd put my bets on the neither option.
Because court rulings in other EU states have sometimes been used as precedent in other European nations?
If the German law or ruling in question was reached because of some European human rights law for example then it becomes even more relevant that precedent elsewhere in the EU may be relevant because both countries will be equally bound by that European law.
"This is contrary to the Tea Party. If you mentioned them because of their views on limited government and individual liberty, well then you are right on...and more power to them!"
Is this the same party that's against a woman's right to decide to have an abortion, and against gay marriage rights or have you found some other kind of party or something? From what I can see the Democrats still seem to be the party most friendly to gay rights and pro-choice camps, so how have they failed in relation to the Tea Party in this respect?
The Tea Party may well claim to be about limited government and individual liberty, but really, what they say they want, and what they actually push for, couldn't be more in conflict.
It's like when Sarah Palin claims about how she's all about protecting free speech too, but then sends people with guns to intimidate political candidates at town hall meetings, and calls for the silencing of the likes of Julian Assange- saying she wants free speech, and actually wanting it are again two different things.
But that gets right to the root problem with the Tea Party - it's built on a flood of hypocrisy and ignorance.
I don't think he's suggesting the Tea Party rank and file are part of some plot, but the Tea Party elite. The rank and file are just poor dumb bastards who follow along.
It's not like such thing is impossible, in World War II of course many of the German people weren't complicit in plotting to kill the jews or planning to invade half of Europe but they still supported the party in it's rise to power because it gave the same kind of populist rhetoric that sounded like a good explanation as to why their country had gone to shit.
Now i'm not really one for conspiracy theories, so I'll admit the OP's does sound a little over the top and unlikely, but I don't think we should underestimate the danger of smart evil people praying on the gullability of the uneducated to help drive their plans whilst keeping them completely naive to what they're really after.
"The problem is our current social security and medicare/medicaid system are systematically flawed."
Yes, and the greater irony is that that is because the same Republicans wouldn't let you have a OMG SOCIALIST!!! healthcare system like the NHS in the UK.
So fundamentally, they're the cause of both problems- they force half arsed compromise social welfare programmes, then complain about them being half-arsed and use it as an excuse to fuck things even further.
Yes, and the UK just saw the first evidence for 10 years that in a small hidden away part of the universe, sane copyrights do exist!
Even though this guy won, the case basically said Lucas had 15 years to monetise the design, and since then this guy, who moulded the original helmets, may now make some money off that having seemingly made fuck all from the original billions the Star Wars franchises netted Lucas and friends.
All in all, it seems like a decent outcome. Lucas got to make his money from story telling and directing, this guy got to make money from his talent- creating props. Is that such a bad thing? Should Lucas really have been able to make money on even the bits he was talentless at? Even there he had 15 years to do so it would seem!
I wasn't aware of the specifics of this case but was primarily responding to the GP who was suggesting there was maybe something scientists could do to stand up against government muzzling of science in general which he claims is occuring in Australia too- I was merely pointing out that of course there is, and I think it's pretty straightforward!
I agree that stifling discussion of an issue is a further problem that needs to be dealt with.
Countermeasures such as "Go fuck yourselves" and release it anyway?
Leak it via Wikileaks or whatever if you want plausible deniability to avoid losing your job assuming you're in a country with sane employment laws where your employer has to have good cause to get rid of you.
From what I've seen the higher sales figure of the Wii didn't make up for it's lower attach rate, and lack of worthwhile online services, and lower online sales.
The 360 and PS3 had higher attach rates, and were selling games at, on average, about $20 more. They also had higher sales of digital content like DLC, movies, downloadable games etc. and the 360 of course has 20million odd XBox Live gold subscribers which are effectively pure profit.
I've certainly not seen anything yet suggesting it's a foregone conclusion that the Wii won on net profit, but I'd certainly be interested to see evidence and a break down of this.
Which is based on the unproven assumption that it needs to be paid for.
It's an idea they're using, just like each time you cook yourself a meal you're using an idea someone thought up before you. Do you pay license fees to someone each time you cook a meal?
If Google have genuinely written the whole Dalvik VM etc. themselves, then they've basically just cooked a meal from scratch, and sure they copied the ingredients from somewhere else, but that's how humans advance- by building on other's ideas before them where it's a good idea, and improving on things where it's not, hence their own VM.
Google+ kind of merges Twitter and Facebook together, people can have separate walls for different "circles", and if they have a wall for their public circle then they effectively have a Twitter like feed with the features of Facebooks wall (i.e. longer posts etc.).
So you have this situation where you have your classic Facebook style social network, but also where you can have feeds from people like Linus Torvalds or whover you want to add posting news such that you basically have a more customised, more personal news feed like Slashdot's front page too.
It's not that it brings anything new to the table therefore per-se, but it does integrate your Facebook, your Twitter, and your news Feeds with a more personal twist to them into one nice clean package. The fact it manages your circles from the outset rather than hacking it on as per Facebook is a big bonus too. You can publish news to your public feed and be arranging a get together within your family circle, whilst arranging your weekend with your friends with ease because it's designed precisely for that.
"Hell just change the names in the papers and the lawsuits read the same, the only difference is the fanboi love for the latter company"
Well, and apart from the minor fact that the Sun-Microsoft case was an antitrust complaint, and the Oracle-Google case is a patent/IP infringement case?
Come on, you're usually smarter than this. Microsoft wanted to kill Java because it feared it'd make it easier for software to be developed for non-Microsoft platforms and would hence harm their domination of the desktop. Google used Java because it's the most taught and well known language in the world as well as being prominently used inside Google itself, and so the syntax and features made sense to use for their implementation of a VM. I don't see how you can class wanting to destroy or take over something to be equivalent to wanting to use something.
So yeah, they're almost the same, I guess, if by almost, you mean, completely and utterly different.
Slashdot Mirror
"The government's duty is to perform services that are by their very nature not profitable. Public schools, police, fire, national defense, etc... it there isn't a profitable model that can provide these services at the level we expect, the it is up to the government to suplement or perform those services."
I notice you leave health out of this list, and I'm intrigued as to what your reason (if any) was for this?
The reason I'm intrigued is that in Europe it's something that we tend to lump in with schools, police, fire, but in America it's not, many Americans believe it is something that can be made profitable through health insurance and so forth, and as such I have to wonder if, having left it out, you did so because you agree with this.
If that is the case, then are you able to explain why you view it as different to say, fire insurance, or crime insurance to justify as to whether you should be able to get assistance from the police, or fire department, dependent on whether you've paid such insurance?
If it's not the case and you missing it out was merely an oversight, or an attempt to simply avoid the debate then I apologise! I'm just genuinely intrigued to know how some Americans square away that facet of the healthcare debate.
As someone whose worked in UK public sector, I can tell you it's likely a bit of both.
I worked in IT for education, and it was not uncommon for £350 PCs to be bought at around £1500, and maybe £700 or so of software on top that would never be used.
I take issue with this:
"but itâ(TM)s ludicrous in the extreme to suggest â" as the Daily Mail does â" that the Cabinet Officeâ(TM)s IT department could pop down to its local branch of Dixons, buy a batch of £250 budget desktops and be none the worse for it."
I think it's unfair to write this point off- warranties will be included with such systems, as will the Windows license, sure they'll have to buy Office on top, and there are support costs too, but chances are you can still make it all come in at well under half the £3664 figure by buying, not necessarily from Dixons or anywhere, but directly from a supplier and bypassing the "approved government IT supplier" bullshit which was basically just code for "IT supplier someone in the government has a vested interest in".
Just to illustrate this point a little further, as part of a major programme to get laptops into schools, we had to evaluate a number of suppliers (this was some years back now) Dell was chosen in the end, for a contract of 3000+ laptops, with a combination of the bulk volume discount and an education discount they could be bought for £675 without VAT. Problem is, they could be bought by a home user directly from Dell's site for £500 with VAT, however this wasn't an option, because we had to buy through the approved agreement.
Fact is, public sector does grossly overpay for things, and a lot of the time it's because public officials are biased towards some company and so setup absurd agreements- whether it's that they directly have shares in the firm, or whether they just fancy the sales lady, I've seen it all.
Of course, even outside the per-system costs there are bigger savings to be had, my local council just went straight into a massive Microsoft contract without even investigating alternatives such as FOSS, and without trying to bargain Microsoft down by saying well look, we can do it cheaper with FOSS... nope, they just signed the contract and spent a few million tax payers money, all because the head of IT was a little too friendly with the Microsoft sales exec.
Absolutely, releasing data is only of value if the general public have the competence to correctly understand whether supposed interpretations drawn from that data are correct.
Releasing data such that people who don't care about the science and just have a specific agenda to pursue can say "look the data proves it!" even if they've done nothing to show the data proves it, simply makes that agenda-based argument look even more valid than it really is.
The problem is, data is only worthwhile if the public are smart enough to recognise when people are doing real sound scientific analysis on the data, and when people are playing fast and loose with it. In this respect I can understand why real scientists who have spent months doing a full blown analysis on the data get fucked off that on release, some waste of space spends a data writing a counter-argument that isn't valid, claiming the data backs it up, without an ounce of science behind it, and the public falls hook line and sinker for it because that's the outcome they want to hear. I can only imagine how frustrating that must be- it's annoying enough when your argument on sites like this is modded down even when you provide sources showing it's demonstrably correct and then someone posts some invalid bullshit response and gets modded up because it's what the crowd wants to hear. Suffering that after months of research is bound to be pissing annoying for scientists and they have my sympathy over it.
Really, the fundamental problem, is the low level of scientific education in the general public- were they better educated, and more questioning over such things, then releasing the data would likely further science overall.
So let me get this straight, you're trying to equate a bit of disagreement in the scientific community, and a whole bunch of unsourced hearsay, with someone who explicitly backs a completely and utterly unscientific fairy tale over the scientifically sound theory of evolution?
Really? Got an agenda much?
Joking aside, to be fair, I'd imagine it's the sort of place that gets a decent amount of EU funding for this sort of thing too, so I can quite imagine that they probably have better net access than most of the mainland does.
Fair enough, re-read your original post though, it made you seem like you were happy to use Paypal to spite LulzSec, particularly when you can pay for the humble indie bundle just as easily without Paypal- might as well equally avoid them when you can, support LulzSec or not, there are plenty of reasons to avoid Paypal as much as possible regardless.
Er, no, quite the opposite, I'm one of those rational types who basis his support of some entity on the reality of the situation, not some irrational reason to support an entity that is likely to harm you in future.
There should be more people who think like this in diplomatic services and politics, because it's thanks to people like you that the CIA armed Al Qaeda against the Russians thinking "Hey, the enemy of my enemy is my friend", and well, look how well that turned out on 9/11. Not the smartest move really was it? This is of course before you look at similar cases of CIA meddling gone wrong stretching all the way from South America to Asia. Even Iran is enjoying it's US equipped air force to this day too.
So on the contrary, it is you who should avoid politics and diplomatic services, because people who think like you have fucked the world up enough already, yet apparently still haven't learnt their lesson. How many times do people like you have to be bitten by the very people you supported thinking nothing could go wrong because you shared an enemy, even if you were enemies yourselves? Once? twice? three times? or do you just enjoy the pain?
Yes, if you're stupid.
So don't come crying when siding with your enemy's enemy who is still your enemy, you then get fucked by them in the future because you foolishly sided with them.
Certainly if you merely came up with the idea and did little that was productive beyond that and paid someone else to do it but made billions then it would seem reasonable the people that did the actual work got a fair amount of money for it. I don't see how the economy would collapse unless you mean collapse for the multi-billionaires who have more money than they know what to do with but still try to hoarde more, meaning there has to be an inherently poorer class.
If anything it'd improve the economy drastically, because rather than money being hoarded by the ultra-rich and nothing done with it it'd be in the hands of people who would spend it, which creates jobs.
No one is saying the guy should have a half-half split or any such thing, but certainly the fact he made only a few thousand pounds whilst Lucas many billions is a bit disproportionate, it doesn't seem unfair that he can now make a few hundred thousands pounds out of it now. If the Indian guy came up with a character in your game that was popular in the game, then I see little reason why he shouldn't be able to take that character on his own projects- you've already made enough off your part of the story, why begrudge him to make a bit off the work he did too like reusing the code or characters he designed in his own projects?
Oh I dunno, think about it, one of the most boring places to live on Earth, a computer, an internet connection, and a bored teenager. Seems like the exact sort of place you'd expect this sort of thing to happen!
Supporting Paypal because you don't like Lulzsec would be a bit like supporting Hitler because you wanted a different PM to Churchill in the UK in WW2.
The enemy of your enemy, isn't necessarily your friend.
Yes, I just godwinned this thread. Live with it!
Well taking into account simply that the first group call themselves "WebNinjas", and to date have had this information out there for some time but seems to have come to nothing, and the second group managed to shoot dead a Brazilian who was going to work on the tube by firing at his head 7 times point blank because they thought he was an arabic terrorist then I'd put my bets on the neither option.
Because court rulings in other EU states have sometimes been used as precedent in other European nations?
If the German law or ruling in question was reached because of some European human rights law for example then it becomes even more relevant that precedent elsewhere in the EU may be relevant because both countries will be equally bound by that European law.
Yeah but even they're too small to be useful!
Christ, with the slowness of BT, I'm amazed they even have internet out there yet.
"This is contrary to the Tea Party. If you mentioned them because of their views on limited government and individual liberty, well then you are right on...and more power to them!"
Is this the same party that's against a woman's right to decide to have an abortion, and against gay marriage rights or have you found some other kind of party or something? From what I can see the Democrats still seem to be the party most friendly to gay rights and pro-choice camps, so how have they failed in relation to the Tea Party in this respect?
The Tea Party may well claim to be about limited government and individual liberty, but really, what they say they want, and what they actually push for, couldn't be more in conflict.
It's like when Sarah Palin claims about how she's all about protecting free speech too, but then sends people with guns to intimidate political candidates at town hall meetings, and calls for the silencing of the likes of Julian Assange- saying she wants free speech, and actually wanting it are again two different things.
But that gets right to the root problem with the Tea Party - it's built on a flood of hypocrisy and ignorance.
I don't think he's suggesting the Tea Party rank and file are part of some plot, but the Tea Party elite. The rank and file are just poor dumb bastards who follow along.
It's not like such thing is impossible, in World War II of course many of the German people weren't complicit in plotting to kill the jews or planning to invade half of Europe but they still supported the party in it's rise to power because it gave the same kind of populist rhetoric that sounded like a good explanation as to why their country had gone to shit.
Now i'm not really one for conspiracy theories, so I'll admit the OP's does sound a little over the top and unlikely, but I don't think we should underestimate the danger of smart evil people praying on the gullability of the uneducated to help drive their plans whilst keeping them completely naive to what they're really after.
"The problem is our current social security and medicare/medicaid system are systematically flawed."
Yes, and the greater irony is that that is because the same Republicans wouldn't let you have a OMG SOCIALIST!!! healthcare system like the NHS in the UK.
So fundamentally, they're the cause of both problems- they force half arsed compromise social welfare programmes, then complain about them being half-arsed and use it as an excuse to fuck things even further.
Yes, and the UK just saw the first evidence for 10 years that in a small hidden away part of the universe, sane copyrights do exist!
Even though this guy won, the case basically said Lucas had 15 years to monetise the design, and since then this guy, who moulded the original helmets, may now make some money off that having seemingly made fuck all from the original billions the Star Wars franchises netted Lucas and friends.
All in all, it seems like a decent outcome. Lucas got to make his money from story telling and directing, this guy got to make money from his talent- creating props. Is that such a bad thing? Should Lucas really have been able to make money on even the bits he was talentless at? Even there he had 15 years to do so it would seem!
I wasn't aware of the specifics of this case but was primarily responding to the GP who was suggesting there was maybe something scientists could do to stand up against government muzzling of science in general which he claims is occuring in Australia too- I was merely pointing out that of course there is, and I think it's pretty straightforward!
I agree that stifling discussion of an issue is a further problem that needs to be dealt with.
Countermeasures such as "Go fuck yourselves" and release it anyway?
Leak it via Wikileaks or whatever if you want plausible deniability to avoid losing your job assuming you're in a country with sane employment laws where your employer has to have good cause to get rid of you.
Source?
From what I've seen the higher sales figure of the Wii didn't make up for it's lower attach rate, and lack of worthwhile online services, and lower online sales.
The 360 and PS3 had higher attach rates, and were selling games at, on average, about $20 more. They also had higher sales of digital content like DLC, movies, downloadable games etc. and the 360 of course has 20million odd XBox Live gold subscribers which are effectively pure profit.
I've certainly not seen anything yet suggesting it's a foregone conclusion that the Wii won on net profit, but I'd certainly be interested to see evidence and a break down of this.
Which is based on the unproven assumption that it needs to be paid for.
It's an idea they're using, just like each time you cook yourself a meal you're using an idea someone thought up before you. Do you pay license fees to someone each time you cook a meal?
If Google have genuinely written the whole Dalvik VM etc. themselves, then they've basically just cooked a meal from scratch, and sure they copied the ingredients from somewhere else, but that's how humans advance- by building on other's ideas before them where it's a good idea, and improving on things where it's not, hence their own VM.
Google+ kind of merges Twitter and Facebook together, people can have separate walls for different "circles", and if they have a wall for their public circle then they effectively have a Twitter like feed with the features of Facebooks wall (i.e. longer posts etc.).
So you have this situation where you have your classic Facebook style social network, but also where you can have feeds from people like Linus Torvalds or whover you want to add posting news such that you basically have a more customised, more personal news feed like Slashdot's front page too.
It's not that it brings anything new to the table therefore per-se, but it does integrate your Facebook, your Twitter, and your news Feeds with a more personal twist to them into one nice clean package. The fact it manages your circles from the outset rather than hacking it on as per Facebook is a big bonus too. You can publish news to your public feed and be arranging a get together within your family circle, whilst arranging your weekend with your friends with ease because it's designed precisely for that.
"Hell just change the names in the papers and the lawsuits read the same, the only difference is the fanboi love for the latter company"
Well, and apart from the minor fact that the Sun-Microsoft case was an antitrust complaint, and the Oracle-Google case is a patent/IP infringement case?
Come on, you're usually smarter than this. Microsoft wanted to kill Java because it feared it'd make it easier for software to be developed for non-Microsoft platforms and would hence harm their domination of the desktop. Google used Java because it's the most taught and well known language in the world as well as being prominently used inside Google itself, and so the syntax and features made sense to use for their implementation of a VM. I don't see how you can class wanting to destroy or take over something to be equivalent to wanting to use something.
So yeah, they're almost the same, I guess, if by almost, you mean, completely and utterly different.