No, the article didn't overlook the stupidly obvious, you did, because you failed to read the next paragraph:
"While it's true that Mozilla strongly relies on Google's royalties, don't forget that Google is completely reliant on search traffic"
and later:
"In all likelihood, Firefox is probably the cheapest source of traffic that Google has."
and:
"If Google fails to renew its contract with Mozilla, do you think that Microsoft would blink an eye at spending $85 million for the majority share of Firefox's 450 million surfers?"
Of course, if you had a clue, you could have just read the title to get the gist of the article: "Why Google Needs Firefox"
Social security was NEVER intended to be a retirement fund.
Do you have a citation for that? On the surface, this statement is absurd. Go ahead and read the original act.
From the Preamble: "An act to provide for the general welfare by establishing a system of Federal old-age benefits, and by enabling the several States to make more adequate provision for aged persons, blind persons, dependent and crippled children, maternal and child welfare, public health, and the administration of their unemployment compensation laws; to establish a Social Security Board; to raise revenue; and for other purposes. "
And from TITLE II- FEDERAL OLD-AGE BENEFITS: "Every qualified individual (as defined in section 210) shall be entitled to receive, with respect to the period beginning on the date he attains the age of sixty-five, or on January 1, 1942, whichever is the later, and ending on the date of his death, an old-age benefit (payable as nearly as practicable in equal monthly installments) as follows"
In then goes on to describe how the payments are tied to the wages earned. Are you seriously claiming this wasn't a retirement fund?
Google is clearly on the right side of the java debacle. Java is licensed GPL2, which allows forks. The copyright license doesn't cover patents, true, but if you license your code to allow forks, and then sue for copyright infringement, I call estoppel.
You can only fork if your fork is also GPL. Licensing under GPL doesn't mean you throw all your copyrights away. In particular, many open source projects make money by having a GPL version along with a corporate-license version (such as MySQL).
As you note, there's also the question of patents. Again, if your fork is GPL, then you've been given rights to the patents. If it isn't, then you don't have rights.
No, but you can get modded up for posting a shallow comment that applies to the headline only. Maybe if you weren't rushing to get the first post in you could have at least read the summary.
It only makes sense that if you are taxed for winnings that you should should be allowed to deduct losses. Imagine if you were playing poker in a casino. Would you require taxes on every winning hand, but not every losing hand?
"The following rules apply to casual gamblers. [..] You may deduct gambling losses only if you itemize deductions. However, the amount of losses you deduct may not be more than the amount of gambling income reported on your return."
To be honest, comic book movies have been getting churned out year after year for the past 30 or so years, possibly longer.
I think there was a definite spike starting around the time of X-Men and then Spiderman, especially when it comes to Marvel Comics characters. Now that they've gotten to Green Lantern, I think it's starting to run out of steam, and won't be as big a genre in the future.
Exactly. Super heroes stories are the modern mythology; they never die they just keep being told and retold just like people have been doing for thousands of years before.
Another case in point: vampires. The amount of successful vampire films/stories sold over time is incredible.
If you want lambdas and such, why wouldn't you just use LISP or Scheme instead of trying to hack it into a C-syntax family language.
Because those languages have different features than a language like Java -- the biggest being that they are not statically typed. It's a useful enough feature that hacking it into the language is worth it.
Also, there's tons of Java code and programmers already in place, and people don't want to abandon it all just to gain a new feature.
A riot is almost never a good thing. The people punished usually have nothing to do with whatever it is people are rioting about, if in fact they are even rioting for some worthwhile cause.
Because it looks like a statue. It will startle you if you see it move when you thought it was just a statue, though. However, after that it's merely just a novelty that a person can stand still and look like a statue.
People doing the robot?
They look like a person pretending to be a robot. Why should it be scary?
The Simpsons only trigger my "god this animation quality is crap" mode when the episode is bad.
Noting crap animation is not the same as the "uncanny" feeling.
How come the desk-lights from Pixar are perfectly understood by people but Final Fantasy Spirits Within failed?
Because one looks like a light behaving in a cute fashion, and the other looks like a human that is not quite right. That's the fundamental premise of Uncanny Valley.
The example given by the parent of a herd of zombies has been proven by "Thriller" to be untrue.
"Thriller" was designed to be scary. People pay to go to horror movies. The problem is when you aren't trying to resemble dead people, yet do so.
Is there a law that says software has to get fat over time?
Yes, it's the natural order of software. "Gee, wouldn't it be nice to have feature X?" And usually the answer is "yes", at least for a large enough number of people. Repeat that over enough years and your software will become bloated.
The cycle starts anew when the bloat becomes too much, and people flock to a lightweight competitor.
"The U.S. faced harsh critique for its unilateral denouncement of the retroactivity of the Berne Convention defined in article 18,[8][10] and ultimately had to reverse its position. The copyright restoration implemented by the URAA in 17 USC 104A[11] remedied the situation and brought the U.S. legislation in-line with the requirements of the Berne Convention.[12]"
Nothing to do with "harmonizing" to beyond 50 years.
I'm not sure why you are bringing up the Berne convention at all as it was several years before this even happened (with the US).
It is mentioned in my quote above with regards to URAA, and it's still in effect. If you claim anything past the 50 years is required, it's up to you to provide evidence with an actual cite, not just tossing around names.
"However, the WIPO Copyright Treaty made no reference to copyright term extension beyond the existing terms of the Berne Convention, but there was a degree of association. This was because the United States Congress passed both the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, which enacts copyright term extension during the same week and used the same method using voice vote to make it less likely that the news media would report on the bills. In addition, the European Union adopted its own copyright term extension around the same time."
Just because there was collusion doesn't mean it was required by treaty. I've now provided several concrete references with quotes to back up my statements. All you have done is toss around a bunch of names.
Please provide a direct quote from an actual treaty that requires the United States to recognize an additional 20 years beyond what is specified in the Berne Convention.
It states: "The countries of the Union may grant a term of protection in excess of those provided by the preceding paragraphs. [..] In any case, the term shall be governed by the legislation of the country where protection is claimed; however, unless the legislation of that country otherwise provides, the term shall not exceed the term fixed in the country of origin of the work."
You do realize that the Bono and DMCA laws were the implementations of international treaties right? Once congress ratified the Uruguay round table agreements, the WCT and WPPT treaties, they were constitutionally mandates to create the law on it.
I looked at the Wikipedia article for the Sonny Bono law , and it says nothing about being passed to fill the requirements of a treaty. What it does say is that they wanted to "harmonize" the US law with the European Union law. Please cite a treaty that the US has ratified that states life+70 is required.
They're talking about letting you play all their games (at least all of EA Sports) for a subscription price, like Netflix does for movies. That doesn't sound like a bad deal to me, depending on price. If it was $10 month with all the benefits of online play on every platform, I'd buy it.
Slashdot Mirror
Article overlooks the stupidly obvious
No, the article didn't overlook the stupidly obvious, you did, because you failed to read the next paragraph:
"While it's true that Mozilla strongly relies on Google's royalties, don't forget that Google is completely reliant on search traffic"
and later:
"In all likelihood, Firefox is probably the cheapest source of traffic that Google has."
and:
"If Google fails to renew its contract with Mozilla, do you think that Microsoft would blink an eye at spending $85 million for the majority share of Firefox's 450 million surfers?"
Of course, if you had a clue, you could have just read the title to get the gist of the article: "Why Google Needs Firefox"
Social security was NEVER intended to be a retirement fund.
Do you have a citation for that? On the surface, this statement is absurd. Go ahead and read the original act.
From the Preamble:
"An act to provide for the general welfare by establishing a system of Federal old-age benefits, and by enabling the several States to make more adequate provision for aged persons, blind persons, dependent and crippled children, maternal and child welfare, public health, and the administration of their unemployment compensation laws; to establish a Social Security Board; to raise revenue; and for other purposes. "
And from TITLE II- FEDERAL OLD-AGE BENEFITS:
"Every qualified individual (as defined in section 210) shall be entitled to receive, with respect to the period beginning on the date he attains the age of sixty-five, or on January 1, 1942, whichever is the later, and ending on the date of his death, an old-age benefit (payable as nearly as practicable in equal monthly installments) as follows"
In then goes on to describe how the payments are tied to the wages earned. Are you seriously claiming this wasn't a retirement fund?
Google is clearly on the right side of the java debacle. Java is licensed GPL2, which allows forks. The copyright license doesn't cover patents, true, but if you license your code to allow forks, and then sue for copyright infringement, I call estoppel.
You can only fork if your fork is also GPL. Licensing under GPL doesn't mean you throw all your copyrights away. In particular, many open source projects make money by having a GPL version along with a corporate-license version (such as MySQL).
As you note, there's also the question of patents. Again, if your fork is GPL, then you've been given rights to the patents. If it isn't, then you don't have rights.
Unless they had a way of testing for our existence, and of developing a way to tell us of it.
I see you've invoked Flatland.
Can I patent this thermodynamics stuff?
No, but you can get modded up for posting a shallow comment that applies to the headline only. Maybe if you weren't rushing to get the first post in you could have at least read the summary.
It only makes sense that if you are taxed for winnings that you should should be allowed to deduct losses. Imagine if you were playing poker in a casino. Would you require taxes on every winning hand, but not every losing hand?
http://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc419.html
"The following rules apply to casual gamblers. [..] You may deduct gambling losses only if you itemize deductions. However, the amount of losses you deduct may not be more than the amount of gambling income reported on your return."
So does a protest that blocks the street in front of a store being protested, or even the neighboring stores in the strip mall.
You can't legally block access to a store or a street with a protest. You have to let people through.
+1 smug and ideological bullshit.
To be honest, comic book movies have been getting churned out year after year for the past 30 or so years, possibly longer.
I think there was a definite spike starting around the time of X-Men and then Spiderman, especially when it comes to Marvel Comics characters. Now that they've gotten to Green Lantern, I think it's starting to run out of steam, and won't be as big a genre in the future.
Video game movies, more likely.
They've been doing that for quite some time: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Films_based_on_video_games
Exactly. Super heroes stories are the modern mythology; they never die they just keep being told and retold just like people have been doing for thousands of years before.
Another case in point: vampires. The amount of successful vampire films/stories sold over time is incredible.
If you want lambdas and such, why wouldn't you just use LISP or Scheme instead of trying to hack it into a C-syntax family language.
Because those languages have different features than a language like Java -- the biggest being that they are not statically typed. It's a useful enough feature that hacking it into the language is worth it.
Also, there's tons of Java code and programmers already in place, and people don't want to abandon it all just to gain a new feature.
You say that like rioting is a bad thing.
A riot is almost never a good thing. The people punished usually have nothing to do with whatever it is people are rioting about, if in fact they are even rioting for some worthwhile cause.
We have to abolish both wealth and government if we are to be free.
Tyranny of the mob. If you want to be truly "free", go live on an island by yourself. There's always going to be some give and take within a society.
Why does a human statue not frighten us?
Because it looks like a statue. It will startle you if you see it move when you thought it was just a statue, though. However, after that it's merely just a novelty that a person can stand still and look like a statue.
People doing the robot?
They look like a person pretending to be a robot. Why should it be scary?
The Simpsons only trigger my "god this animation quality is crap" mode when the episode is bad.
Noting crap animation is not the same as the "uncanny" feeling.
How come the desk-lights from Pixar are perfectly understood by people but Final Fantasy Spirits Within failed?
Because one looks like a light behaving in a cute fashion, and the other looks like a human that is not quite right. That's the fundamental premise of Uncanny Valley.
The example given by the parent of a herd of zombies has been proven by "Thriller" to be untrue.
"Thriller" was designed to be scary. People pay to go to horror movies. The problem is when you aren't trying to resemble dead people, yet do so.
Is there a law that says software has to get fat over time?
Yes, it's the natural order of software. "Gee, wouldn't it be nice to have feature X?" And usually the answer is "yes", at least for a large enough number of people. Repeat that over enough years and your software will become bloated.
The cycle starts anew when the bloat becomes too much, and people flock to a lightweight competitor.
My use of it is justified by his "no harm, no foul" argument.
You didn't answer my question. Appealing to what happens in a game designed to have such occurrences is ridiculous.
Rosa Parks also spent one day in jail waiting to be bailed out.
I'd bet that in her day going to jail for a minor offense didn't involve a strip search with a "cheek spread".
So he downloaded tons of scientific truth, and took extraordinary means to do so.
There is a saying... "no harm, no foul."
Let's say I broke into your home, watched some television or did some browsing on your computer, and left. Would you still feel the same?
I, for one, welcome our New World Order.
For fucks sake, do you want me to read it to you too?
I want you to quote an actual legal text, instead of tossing around a bunch of names. Without being precise, your claims are fatuous.
I told you, it was the Uruguay Round table agreements that mandated we had to maintain and honor the copyright terms set out in the EU directive
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/URAA
"The U.S. faced harsh critique for its unilateral denouncement of the retroactivity of the Berne Convention defined in article 18,[8][10] and ultimately had to reverse its position. The copyright restoration implemented by the URAA in 17 USC 104A[11] remedied the situation and brought the U.S. legislation in-line with the requirements of the Berne Convention.[12]"
Nothing to do with "harmonizing" to beyond 50 years.
I'm not sure why you are bringing up the Berne convention at all as it was several years before this even happened (with the US).
It is mentioned in my quote above with regards to URAA, and it's still in effect. If you claim anything past the 50 years is required, it's up to you to provide evidence with an actual cite, not just tossing around names.
One more for you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Intellectual_Property_Organization_Copyright_Treaty
"However, the WIPO Copyright Treaty made no reference to copyright term extension beyond the existing terms of the Berne Convention, but there was a degree of association. This was because the United States Congress passed both the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, which enacts copyright term extension during the same week and used the same method using voice vote to make it less likely that the news media would report on the bills. In addition, the European Union adopted its own copyright term extension around the same time."
Just because there was collusion doesn't mean it was required by treaty. I've now provided several concrete references with quotes to back up my statements. All you have done is toss around a bunch of names.
Please provide a direct quote from an actual treaty that requires the United States to recognize an additional 20 years beyond what is specified in the Berne Convention.
It states: "The countries of the Union may grant a term of protection in excess of those provided by the preceding paragraphs. [..] In any case, the term shall be governed by the legislation of the country where protection is claimed; however, unless the legislation of that country otherwise provides, the term shall not exceed the term fixed in the country of origin of the work."
You do realize that the Bono and DMCA laws were the implementations of international treaties right? Once congress ratified the Uruguay round table agreements, the WCT and WPPT treaties, they were constitutionally mandates to create the law on it.
I looked at the Wikipedia article for the Sonny Bono law , and it says nothing about being passed to fill the requirements of a treaty. What it does say is that they wanted to "harmonize" the US law with the European Union law. Please cite a treaty that the US has ratified that states life+70 is required.
They're talking about letting you play all their games (at least all of EA Sports) for a subscription price, like Netflix does for movies. That doesn't sound like a bad deal to me, depending on price. If it was $10 month with all the benefits of online play on every platform, I'd buy it.