Your analogy is flawed because you are conflating ongoing service with one time service.

The correct analogy would be if your required special gas only sold by the company the created you car, and they would refuse to sell you gas unless you could be shown to be the 'authorized owner' of the vehicle. This is something you would know when buying the car and with the full expectation and understanding that it is a limitation of the car.

Incidentally, a more accurate analogy is already what happens with car registration: you may not drive it without having ownership transferred to you and paying for the transfer (known as "sales tax") . If you want to argue that you can loan it out, I'd point out that you can almost certainly do the same, and with fewer limits, with your XBox / account.

> Patents don't preclude anyone from using/reusing/selling software.

Completely incorrect, and so blatantly so I am uncertain how you even came to that conclusion.

Among the things patents can restrict, courtesy of the MPEG-LA:
*) Having a copy of software
*) Running software
*) Distributing software
*) Distributing the output of software.
Where "software" is any executable doing a patented operation, regardless of the copyright.

This is, in part, because software patents essentially cover "a machine that does X" rather that "X". Thus, putting a program that does X on you computer means that you constructed a machine doing X without a license from the patent holder. I'm not entirely sure how/why distribution of the machine code can be restricted or how they can attach strings to the output, but rest assured that those restrictions are very real. One fun consequence of that latter is that you can owe the MPEG-LA distribution royalties on a movie you shot using a consumer camera because the license on the camera's encoder only covers very limited commercial usage.

My admittedly cursory understanding of the EU judgement is that it basically states that a copyright holder cannot enforce their right to control distribution after first sale. To reiterate: The right to sole distribution, one of the many rights included in copyright, cannot be used to restrict resale.

The go on to explicitly indicate that a contractual term may forbid resale. Also, they do not address any extent to which resold software be usable. As a result, this basically doesn't address a system like this; it's merely a decision on the scope of copyright law as far as I can tell.

That is entirely untrue: you are buying a copy. What you can do with that copy is limited by copyright law (including the concepts of fair use) and every other applicable law (e.g. DMCA). A copy may come with an explicit license altering what you may do with it. For example, software EULAs will usually allow you to install a copy and create a backup. Without the ELUA you still have a copy; whether it has any value is another argument. Could there be exceptional cases where a copy might come with a shrink wrap license that says you must return the copy (without refund) if you violate it or don't agree? Possible, but it would quite likely unenforceable.

Even in this case, you are totally welcome to sell your game without going through MS's hoops; just don't expect it to work on MS's console. Why? Because that's what the copy does. If you modify it to work, you've broken copyright law by creating a derivative work. A license doesn't even come into play.

The only way your 'temporary/rental' bit makes any sense is if you meant it in the same way that one is only renting a car before it's eventual return to it's proper form of stardust. Just like a book from 100 years ago or a CD right now. A copy is a copy and the thing you bought. Just as owning a car doesn't entitle you to gas to make it go, owning a game copy doesn't entitle you to a console and authorization to make it play.

> How about we actually fucking teach kids about guns, how they work, and what they're used for?

We gave up on actually fucking teaching kids anything some time ago now.

The awfulness of this post is pretty remarkable. Sidestepping the wrong "your":
*) This antibiotic isn't for "taking", it's for things that aren't edible like soap and toothpaste
*) Overuse of antibiotics doesn't "raise your resistance to them", at best it increases the bacteria's resistance to them, but in actually it just increases the chance of creating an antibiotic resistance strain. Almost all of the time, however, any resistant bacteria that may develop are killed by other means (like your immune system) and don't live on.
*) One should never save antibiotics, but rather take them when prescribed and as prescribed. While your post could be construed as saying that, the reality is that antibiotics generally require a prescription so it's unlikely anyone will have any to save unless they were sick but are feeling better halfway through the prescription. Saving them at that point is the worst possible thing you can do; not taking a full regimen is what is primarily responsible for resistance.

All that being said, the first point is the most important: this is an external antibiotic. Since it's not applying evolutionary pressure while the bacteria are in your body, there isn't a combined force to make deadly resistant bacteria: ones that survive the antibiotic may not be as effective in the body and thus no one cares. Further, even if that is not the case, the mechanism of action is not the same as other antibiotics so it can still be killed off effectively. For instance, MRSA which is resistant to basically every internal antibiotic can be killed by Triclosan (the chemical in question).

It's very important to understand that not all antibiotics are the same. Something like a blast furnace will kill bacteria and they will never develop a resistance to it, period. However, it will also kill all of humanity so it's not a fantastic treatment for infection. Ditto with chemicals like ethylene oxide or other physical means like gamma rays. Something like bleach is also very effective at killing bacteria, and can even do so on human skin, but obviously doesn't leave the skin doing so well on longer exposure. There are many many things that kill bacteria. The only ones that are really 'special' and need careful use are the ones that can kill bacteria without killing people. Triclosan kind of falls in the middle and while it deserves some consideration, that 'ZOMG RESISTANCE" response isn't really appropriate either.

So your point is that BAC is a weak test and the limit is basically meaningless since in the range 0.08 - 0.05 the dependence is far more based on the individual than the actual numerical value. And you think that this is a good idea because it might discourage the handful of people that are negatively impacted within that range that decide to not chance it anymore? I.e. the responsible people who aren't impaired enough to discount their impairment and the law?

While I appreciate the 'better safe than sorry' perspective, I think that it really misses a major problem: DUI is not harmful. DUI merely increases the possibility for harm, but it does not cause it; something that can decidedly not be said about being arrested for a DUI. Thus, it's important for society (well, a functional one, which isn't really ours) to balance the harm of arrest with the value of reducing the probability of harm due to DUI. Frankly, I think either the current punishment at 0.15 or a traffic ticket at 0.05 (or both) is better for that than throwing people in jail at 0.05 just to be safe.

Remember, you can always throw the book at people who actually cause an accident while intoxicated.

> Taking away driving privileges over 60? No. Requiring regular re-testing/re-certification? Absolutely... provided that you require it for *everybody*.

Don't be silly, driving isn't based on skill. That's why there's a minimum driving age and a maximum speed and maximum BAC. We don't test those things, they're one size fits all. No driving after 60 is as entirely reasonable as no driving before your proposed 21, or even the 16-18 we currently have. After all, there are those of us that had more care and responsibility when we were just old enough to reach the petals than many have at the ripe age of 21.

I have yet to see a nonviable solution to storing nuclear waste. The problem is that no one wants viable, they want perfect. The standards are being set by the fearful, with the design to not really make storage safe, but to make it impossible in order to kill the industry.

No, it's not. Not even in this particular case: he could have still have been charged with some kind of conspiracy to smuggle. Making it legal to own/use/make/buy/sell drugs doesn't make it legal to do anything with them like bypass customs or kill someone with them.

Sure, the DEA is an especially nasty enforcement branch and getting rid of them would help, but this is a much broader issue than just the DEA and drugs. It's about liability and it's limits and what level of proof is needed to say what you know.

So, am I to understand that the point of your post is that they can connect the ID from your old phone to the ID of your new phone?
Still a total non issue.

Consider:
> I can of course ask you to identify yourself through an app or whatnot to attach a name/email to you and match that to my CRM system.

Well, wouldn't the new device offer the the same app and attachment? Why worry about the fingerprint when the person put their id/email into an app and sent it to you?

I'm still with the OP: this identification is a non-issue. You already have an IMEI identifying your phone and a SIM/SSN/etc identifying your account/number. Quite possibly you even have a name/email for your store. Anyone that could come up with this fingerprint, well, would have to already have those things in order to collect the info needed to fingerprint to begin with. What more does this provide?

If the notion is that this would allow someone to logically link, say, a prepaid burn phone to someone's contract phone I find that highly dubious. If you have two devices they are almost certainly for two different situations: thus, two different fingerprints. It's not like you randomly decide which phone you're taking shopping on a given day.

He was not made an example of. In fact, he is only being punished for one incident, at half the maximum penalty, even though he actually hit two aircraft (the original and then the police helicopter searching for him). The the law is being applied completely fairly.

And the rest of your post is a load of crap. It's not about vengeance _or_ rehabilitation, it's about getting the behavior to stop and society putting their foot down. No one cares about this guy, what they care about is that they don't have to worry about some douche bag taking down their aircraft for the lulz. Rehabilitation is a weak fallback a best, the ideal is the crime/criminal never happening.

While I do agree that a random vindictive throwing-the-book-at is not helpful, throwing around a few maximum (or at least heavy) sentences when a crime (like this one) is on the upswing is. It catches headlines and shows potential criminals that the risks are greater than they thought.

It is a bit over the top, and I agree that 2 weeks (or even better, a lot community service) might be more appropriate for the deed... Though then again, this is something that risks doing permanent vision damage so even though it may not have this time, it's still nasty. I'm pretty sure you can't shoot someone and claim 'no harm no foul' because they lived.

AND, the problem is that these assholes are basically impossible to catch. Punishments can't just consider the problem of the deed but also the ease of getting away with it. If the punishment for stealing was to just return what you stole, then why not steal? I'm not normally a fan of 'making an example of', but all factors considered, I think that this is a very appropriate punishment. Hopefully this will send a message that this stuff isn't funny.

I'm not 16 either, and have more experience driving than most fighter pilots do flying.

While your point is well made, it doesn't really apply to this discussion: The law being proposed would affect everyone (except, basically, cops). So your fighter pilot (or a professional driver) would be pulled over and ticketed just like they were a 16 year old with a learner's permit. The only reason age comes up is because the guy seems to think only (very) young people like to try new tech, and so... I dunno wither we should be thinking of them, the children, or maybe we shouldn't care because anyone older than like, their mid-twenties wouldn't want this newfangled crap anyways. I'm a little curious where he thinks a 16 year old is going to get the $1+k to buy these, but I doubt he gave this that much thought.

Indeed. It is a little nice to see folks you don't like slug it out, and I dare say my opinion of Paypal almost went up slightly.

Still, we have to face that fact that in the end all this information is ending up in the same place. It's just a matter of who makes money selling it.