I doubt the Russians have any incentive to change votes.
I mean, the current US political system is just as captured as the previous Soviet system. The only difference is in the Soviet system you had to be a member of the communist party. In the US system you have to be a member of one of 2 parties.
I'd suggest the CIA or NSA have a greater vested interest in changing e-votes than the Russians.
Negotiations between corporations are usually carried out under NDAs.
Even if they aren't, if the companies keep the details confidential and don't release them to the public, then doing anything with that information is a form of insider trading.
If the negotiations weren't done under NDAs, then the companies could have released the details publically, and that would have been ok. However, by keeping the details private, not available to general stock investors and so on, they can't then selectively release the information to other people, favourite investors, friends, other competitors. That is illegal. Either it's public information available to all, investors, competitors, stock brokers, mum and dad, or it is available to no-one (besides the negotiating parties).
And on top of that, when competitors co-ordinate actions in their markets, that is anti-trust law. A goup of supermarkets can't get together and set the prices of their goods together. A group of broadcasters can't get together and set how much they will pay for shows. It's price fixing.
While the 10 commandments may have been written directly by God, no such provenance exists for the bible as a whole.
The bible is a book written by man. Containing all the flaws that implies.
It may not have changed much recently, in the last 500 or 600 years, but the bible that you read today is not the same as the bible from 1800 years ago, which was different to the one from 1600 years ago which was different from the one from 1400 years ago.
The Vatican, prior to the protestant splits, decided what is "the bible", and they have edited it, included and excluded certain parables and stories and whatnot as suited their own personal beliefs and wordly goals.
And, like any book or set of laws, it is open to interpretation. Entire wars have been fought over different interpretations of the same few lines of text. So even if the words written down don't change, what they mean or how they're viewed does change.
When people go to war, conduct genocide, pogroms, murder, torture, exile, because of different interpretations of the same language in the same book? That's madness.
There are buttloads of companies and organizations (e.g. governments) that still use java and have no plans to replace it.
And as to your points:
A) possibly, depending on task. it depends on what you are doing as to whether there are better alternatives.
B) Java is free. When was the last time you paid:
to write code in Java;
for a JVM (binaries to run your Java code in) implementation?
Sure, you CAN pay for those, if you want, but usually you are paying for support or a developer tools (IDE, e.g. J Builder) or management framework (Application Server, e.g. Weblogic, WAS, etc).
C) There are non-oracle implementations of Java.
Don't get me wrong, I do dislike, despise even, Oracle the Company - I think them buying Sun was one of the worst events for the IT industry in the last decade.
The lawyers providing representation in cases do not take oaths. Nothing a lawyer says as part of their cases as representatives or the palintiff of defendent is said under oath. Otherwise they'd all be committing perjury when they make their opening statements "We will prove/disprove that it did/did not happen".
It's only witnesses called to the stand that take the oaths, and if a case, as in these examples, never actually goes to trial, no-one takes any oaths during the entire process.
I'm not saying it's not a fraud on the court, misrepresentation, but what it is not in any way, shape or form is perjury.
"alleged direct expropriations of investments" is a pretty big and vague category.
E.g. the recent tax changes that have been occurring around the world to prevent companies avoiding taxes by offshoring profits could fall under this category.
There is right to trial by jury, however it is usually only automatically applied in serious cases.
If it's a minor case, typically where the maximum jailtime is less than 4 or 5 years, unless the defendant requests a jury trial then it won't go to a jury. Going to a jury adds significant extra cost to the defendant, as it's usually a 'bigger case' so there'll be more lawyers (solicitor + barrister, possibly even a QC), more time, and so on.
Re: Re: not to exclude competing transportation services.
Let's use this analogy instead of the dogs and cats one.
Say the government decides it wants to expand housing, and creates a new neighbourhood of, say 1000 acres.
So, they decide to leave 200 acres as parkland/empty space within it, and sell the other 800 acres in 1/4 acre blocks, with the area mostly zoned for low-density housing (i.e. houses, townhouses, maybe some terrace/patio houses, and the odd small set of apartments, say 2 stories with a half-dozen flats/condo's), and some small shops etc.
So, 10 or 15 years later, they decide to remove the 200 acres of parks and empty spaces, and sell them in 2-10 acre lots for high-density, tenement-style housing. Highrise, low-cost apartment living. Ugly 10, 20 or more story buildings full of low-cost apartmentsand condo's. Increasing the population density 10-fold in a matter of 5-10 years.
Watch the land values in the area plummet. Overnight a 20%, if not 50%, devaluation in existing properties.
Do the government owe anything to the existing property owners who bought on the belief (but not contractual guarantee) that they'd be living in a low-density area with 1/5 of the space being open parklands?
What is weird about these broadband caps is that where I am, since the general availability of xDSL technologies to consumers in the early '00s, caps have been standard. Not only have caps been standard, it's been pretty common to count both incoming and outgoing data in those caps. While we sat back with envy when people from the US were surprised that we had caps.
Every couple of years the caps would change, usually increasing, for no increase -- sometimes a decrease -- in price.
The plan I've been on for the last ~6 years or so is $79/month (naked ADSL2 - no telephone service and I get about 16Mbps sync speeds). Initially it was only 150GB/m, combined data. Which in 2010 was fairly decent, I'd download SD TV, steam games etc, and only exceed the cap (throttled to 256Kb/s down) once every 3 or 4 months, which I could pay an extra $15 for another 15GB (or $5 for 3GB), if I needed for the last few days or week of the month.
Then about 3 years ago it went to 250GB/m, which co-incided nicely with my expanding viewing habits, and allowed me to download 720/1080p for choice programmes, and more TV programmes in general (and a lot of pr0n ;) ). Again, I'd exceed the cap every 3 months or so, and to avoid throttling it was now $15 for an an extra 25GB (or $5 for 5GB) if needed for the tail-end of the month.
About 12 months ago this was increased to 500GB/m. At which point I switched most of my viewing to 1080p, with the filler shows still being SD or maybe 720p (the shows I don't get excited about, but fill the time in between the good shows). I'm not sure what the avoiding-throttling excess was, as I never needed it with 500GB.
And, finally, about 6 months ago, only about 6 months after upping the cap to 500GB/m, it was again upped to -- uncapped. At which point all-downloading-hell broke loose, I download everything, even pilots, in 1080p. Even to the extent of downloading an SD or 720p HD TV episode to watch it now if that's available first and later downloading a 1080p version for savouring... Where I used to have Steam auto-updates turned off to save quota, so I'd only patch games I'm playing right now, now it's turned on for all installed games.
So here I am, gone from 150GB --> 250GB --> 500GB --> uncapped over 6 years, for no price increase, not even inflation or extra hidden costs, yet the US carriers seem to be reversing this trend.
We used to be envious of the broadband situation in the US, but not anymore, not in the last 3 years or so anyway (excluding Google Fibre - drool).
TLDR - the rest of the world is going from caps as standard to big caps or even totally uncapped while the US telcos are reversing direction and introducing unjustified, monopoloy-enabled profiteering caps and increasing prices at the same time.
I don't thine Alice invalidates all software patents, just most.
does no more than require a generic computer to perform generic computer functions
It invalidates software patents that run on generic computers.
What I don't think it invalidates are software patents for specific-purpose computing devices. E.g industrial control systems like the firmware embedded in CnC mills, ABS braking sytems in vehicles, flight control systems that allow fly-by-wire, engine management systems like EFI, medical equipment like pacemakers, printer firmware that controls the printing functions, and so on.
Please learn correct spellings of "smarter" and "lemonade", because you obviously are less intelligent than me. Probably because YOU are one without a proper education, therefore you are ignorant to this subject and your opinion is invalid.
By making this statement and holding the view you have expressed, you have shown yourself to be less than anyone else here.
A person's intelligence, education and knowledge are irrelevant as to whether an opinion is a valid opinion. An opinion is always valid. It may be wrong, it may be lacking, incorrect, limited, sorta right, close, far, good, bad, spot on, way off base. But it is still valid.
If you make the basis of whether even to consider an opinion on the educational and intelligence level of the person expressing the opinion, then you are an elitest, bigoted, limited, arrogant prick.
You are the one showing ignorance.
Most of the great discoveries in the 19th century, prior to the establishment and promulgation of the modern scientific method, were based on ignorance. Many of them were based on pure experimentation with no knowledge of why or what was happening, just that something was. Yet many great discoveries were made.
If an elderly but distinguished scientist says that something is possible, he is almost certainly right; but if he says that it is impossible, he is very probably wrong.”
―Arthur C. Clarke
Just because someone is lacking in education doesn't mean they can't, in fact often means they can, make fundamental contributions. It's usually those who are ignorant of the perceived wisdom of a field that can cut through that preceived wisdom and do what the educated establishment have flat-out stated is impossible.
Unfortunately, companies that service the medical industry also decided a few years ago that it would be a good idea to connect every-damn-thing to networks without first understanding the security ramifications of the decision.
I suspect that they actually did consider the ramifications. And, as any business (or anyone else in general for that matter) should, they probably did a cost benefit analysis. Cost of implementing proper security vs cost of not implementing proper security (e.g. law suits). And they probably came to the conclusion that it was more costly to implement proper security than not.
If he won his lawsuit against the LRSD, then the LRSD were breaking the law. Therefore any monetary cost to them was due to their own illegal activities, and not to Walker.
If Walker files a suit and wins against the LRPD, then the LRPD were the ones breaking the law. Therefore any monetary cost to them will have been due to their illegal actions.
My conclusion? If you want to stop having to spend money on legal fees and payouts for your illegal activities -- stop doing those (blatantly) illegal activities.
If the citizens of Little Rock are unhappy with their tax money being spent by these bodies as a result of their own illegal activities, maybe they should do something about it?
On the post: Senator Wyden Warns That AT&T's New Merger Poses A Massive Threat To Net Neutrality
Re: Re:
I mean, the current US political system is just as captured as the previous Soviet system. The only difference is in the Soviet system you had to be a member of the communist party. In the US system you have to be a member of one of 2 parties.
I'd suggest the CIA or NSA have a greater vested interest in changing e-votes than the Russians.
On the post: DOJ Sues DirecTV, Calling It A 'Ringleader' of Collusion Over Regional Sports Programming
Re: Collusion
Even if they aren't, if the companies keep the details confidential and don't release them to the public, then doing anything with that information is a form of insider trading.
If the negotiations weren't done under NDAs, then the companies could have released the details publically, and that would have been ok. However, by keeping the details private, not available to general stock investors and so on, they can't then selectively release the information to other people, favourite investors, friends, other competitors. That is illegal. Either it's public information available to all, investors, competitors, stock brokers, mum and dad, or it is available to no-one (besides the negotiating parties).
And on top of that, when competitors co-ordinate actions in their markets, that is anti-trust law. A goup of supermarkets can't get together and set the prices of their goods together. A group of broadcasters can't get together and set how much they will pay for shows. It's price fixing.
On the post: FBI Boss Blows Past Policies, Guidelines, His Own Staff To Bring Back Clinton Email Investigation
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Yes, it is.
While the 10 commandments may have been written directly by God, no such provenance exists for the bible as a whole.
The bible is a book written by man. Containing all the flaws that implies.
It may not have changed much recently, in the last 500 or 600 years, but the bible that you read today is not the same as the bible from 1800 years ago, which was different to the one from 1600 years ago which was different from the one from 1400 years ago.
The Vatican, prior to the protestant splits, decided what is "the bible", and they have edited it, included and excluded certain parables and stories and whatnot as suited their own personal beliefs and wordly goals.
And, like any book or set of laws, it is open to interpretation. Entire wars have been fought over different interpretations of the same few lines of text. So even if the words written down don't change, what they mean or how they're viewed does change.
When people go to war, conduct genocide, pogroms, murder, torture, exile, because of different interpretations of the same language in the same book? That's madness.
On the post: Off We Go: Oracle Officially Appeals Google's Fair Use Win
Re: Re: Fair use
There are buttloads of companies and organizations (e.g. governments) that still use java and have no plans to replace it.
And as to your points:
A) possibly, depending on task. it depends on what you are doing as to whether there are better alternatives.
B) Java is free. When was the last time you paid:
Sure, you CAN pay for those, if you want, but usually you are paying for support or a developer tools (IDE, e.g. J Builder) or management framework (Application Server, e.g. Weblogic, WAS, etc).
C) There are non-oracle implementations of Java.
Don't get me wrong, I do dislike, despise even, Oracle the Company - I think them buying Sun was one of the worst events for the IT industry in the last decade.
On the post: Pissed Consumer Sues Reputation Management Firms Over Their Bogus Lawsuit/Fake Defendant/Takedown Scams
Re: A little thing called Perjury
The lawyers providing representation in cases do not take oaths. Nothing a lawyer says as part of their cases as representatives or the palintiff of defendent is said under oath. Otherwise they'd all be committing perjury when they make their opening statements "We will prove/disprove that it did/did not happen".
It's only witnesses called to the stand that take the oaths, and if a case, as in these examples, never actually goes to trial, no-one takes any oaths during the entire process.
I'm not saying it's not a fraud on the court, misrepresentation, but what it is not in any way, shape or form is perjury.
On the post: 'Nice Internet You've Got There... You Wouldn't Want Something To Happen To It...'
Re: Re: Nerd Harder
So create an attack vector, the update server.
Not to mention the central repository it creates of users of that device/software for targeted attacks.
On the post: Geofeedia, In Damage Control Mode, Issues Bogus DMCA Over Brochure Posted By Reporter
Re: Nice reporting!
Well, that is assuming any such evidence exists.
On the post: Tobacco Carve-Out From ISDS Starts To Spread: Another Nail In The Coffin Of Corporate Sovereignty
Re: Re:
E.g. the recent tax changes that have been occurring around the world to prevent companies avoiding taxes by offshoring profits could fall under this category.
On the post: Stepdad Goes To Police With Stepdaughter's Sexts, Asks Them To Intervene, Is Prosecuted For Child Porn
Re:
If it's a minor case, typically where the maximum jailtime is less than 4 or 5 years, unless the defendant requests a jury trial then it won't go to a jury. Going to a jury adds significant extra cost to the defendant, as it's usually a 'bigger case' so there'll be more lawyers (solicitor + barrister, possibly even a QC), more time, and so on.
On the post: Judge Posner Smacks Around Cabbies For Thinking That Cities Allowing Uber Violates Their 'Property Rights'
Re: Re: not to exclude competing transportation services.
Say the government decides it wants to expand housing, and creates a new neighbourhood of, say 1000 acres.
So, they decide to leave 200 acres as parkland/empty space within it, and sell the other 800 acres in 1/4 acre blocks, with the area mostly zoned for low-density housing (i.e. houses, townhouses, maybe some terrace/patio houses, and the odd small set of apartments, say 2 stories with a half-dozen flats/condo's), and some small shops etc.
So, 10 or 15 years later, they decide to remove the 200 acres of parks and empty spaces, and sell them in 2-10 acre lots for high-density, tenement-style housing. Highrise, low-cost apartment living. Ugly 10, 20 or more story buildings full of low-cost apartmentsand condo's. Increasing the population density 10-fold in a matter of 5-10 years.
Watch the land values in the area plummet. Overnight a 20%, if not 50%, devaluation in existing properties.
Do the government owe anything to the existing property owners who bought on the belief (but not contractual guarantee) that they'd be living in a low-density area with 1/5 of the space being open parklands?
Yeah, good luck with that.
On the post: Judge Posner Smacks Around Cabbies For Thinking That Cities Allowing Uber Violates Their 'Property Rights'
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Dogs vs. other animals
On the post: Comcast Dramatically Expands Unnecessary Broadband Caps -- For 'Fairness'
Every couple of years the caps would change, usually increasing, for no increase -- sometimes a decrease -- in price.
The plan I've been on for the last ~6 years or so is $79/month (naked ADSL2 - no telephone service and I get about 16Mbps sync speeds). Initially it was only 150GB/m, combined data. Which in 2010 was fairly decent, I'd download SD TV, steam games etc, and only exceed the cap (throttled to 256Kb/s down) once every 3 or 4 months, which I could pay an extra $15 for another 15GB (or $5 for 3GB), if I needed for the last few days or week of the month.
Then about 3 years ago it went to 250GB/m, which co-incided nicely with my expanding viewing habits, and allowed me to download 720/1080p for choice programmes, and more TV programmes in general (and a lot of pr0n ;) ). Again, I'd exceed the cap every 3 months or so, and to avoid throttling it was now $15 for an an extra 25GB (or $5 for 5GB) if needed for the tail-end of the month.
About 12 months ago this was increased to 500GB/m. At which point I switched most of my viewing to 1080p, with the filler shows still being SD or maybe 720p (the shows I don't get excited about, but fill the time in between the good shows). I'm not sure what the avoiding-throttling excess was, as I never needed it with 500GB.
And, finally, about 6 months ago, only about 6 months after upping the cap to 500GB/m, it was again upped to -- uncapped. At which point all-downloading-hell broke loose, I download everything, even pilots, in 1080p. Even to the extent of downloading an SD or 720p HD TV episode to watch it now if that's available first and later downloading a 1080p version for savouring... Where I used to have Steam auto-updates turned off to save quota, so I'd only patch games I'm playing right now, now it's turned on for all installed games.
So here I am, gone from 150GB --> 250GB --> 500GB --> uncapped over 6 years, for no price increase, not even inflation or extra hidden costs, yet the US carriers seem to be reversing this trend.
We used to be envious of the broadband situation in the US, but not anymore, not in the last 3 years or so anyway (excluding Google Fibre - drool).
TLDR - the rest of the world is going from caps as standard to big caps or even totally uncapped while the US telcos are reversing direction and introducing unjustified, monopoloy-enabled profiteering caps and increasing prices at the same time.
On the post: YouTube Takes Down European Parliament Video On Stopping Torture For 'Violating Community Guidelines'
Re: Re: To be fair
On the post: YouTube Takes Down European Parliament Video On Stopping Torture For 'Violating Community Guidelines'
Re: Re:
On the post: Prominent Pro-Patent Judge Issues Opinion Declaring All Software Patents Bad
software patents surviving Alice
It invalidates software patents that run on generic computers.
What I don't think it invalidates are software patents for specific-purpose computing devices. E.g industrial control systems like the firmware embedded in CnC mills, ABS braking sytems in vehicles, flight control systems that allow fly-by-wire, engine management systems like EFI, medical equipment like pacemakers, printer firmware that controls the printing functions, and so on.
On the post: Prominent Pro-Patent Judge Issues Opinion Declaring All Software Patents Bad
Re: Re: Re: Software Patents
By making this statement and holding the view you have expressed, you have shown yourself to be less than anyone else here.
A person's intelligence, education and knowledge are irrelevant as to whether an opinion is a valid opinion. An opinion is always valid. It may be wrong, it may be lacking, incorrect, limited, sorta right, close, far, good, bad, spot on, way off base. But it is still valid.
If you make the basis of whether even to consider an opinion on the educational and intelligence level of the person expressing the opinion, then you are an elitest, bigoted, limited, arrogant prick.
You are the one showing ignorance.
Most of the great discoveries in the 19th century, prior to the establishment and promulgation of the modern scientific method, were based on ignorance. Many of them were based on pure experimentation with no knowledge of why or what was happening, just that something was. Yet many great discoveries were made.
Just because someone is lacking in education doesn't mean they can't, in fact often means they can, make fundamental contributions. It's usually those who are ignorant of the perceived wisdom of a field that can cut through that preceived wisdom and do what the educated establishment have flat-out stated is impossible.
On the post: Prominent Pro-Patent Judge Issues Opinion Declaring All Software Patents Bad
Re: Re: Re:
The Democratic Republic of Fosspatents.
On the post: Johnson & Johnson Warns Insulin Pump Owners They Could Be Killed By Hackers
They probably did
On the post: Taco John's Continues To Wage A Long-Lost Trademark War To Keep 'Taco Tuesday' From Becoming Generic
Totally Not Taco Johns Taco Tuesday.
On the post: Arkansas Congressman Who Helped Protect Citizens' Right To Record Police Arrested For Recording Police
Re: Little Rock
If Walker files a suit and wins against the LRPD, then the LRPD were the ones breaking the law. Therefore any monetary cost to them will have been due to their illegal actions.
My conclusion? If you want to stop having to spend money on legal fees and payouts for your illegal activities -- stop doing those (blatantly) illegal activities.
If the citizens of Little Rock are unhappy with their tax money being spent by these bodies as a result of their own illegal activities, maybe they should do something about it?
Next >>