look at how sharp the blades have to be
Do they really have to be that sharp? I faintly recall that the blades on my parents' old lawnmower were pretty dull, despite being good at cutting the grass. And grass trimmers, used to cut grass where a lawnmower can't reach, are usually just using a rotating steel wire, with a circular cross-section. So I'd guess that speed is much more important than sharpness when cutting grass.
Of course, that would make it a bit too conspicuous to be a good spy satellite.
In addition, even the ultra-high-resolution cameras in spy satellites would probably not be of that much use from geostationary orbit (GEO), since GEO is very far away (~36,000 km). Spy satellites are likely put in a polar Low Earth Orbit (LEO) at approx. 200 km altitude. This gives much more detailed images, and also allows the satellite to cover the entire Earth without spending any fuel.
If discover or invent an even cheaper, easier way to get energy out of water now, we'll have another "industrial revolution" type of growth, and come to an even worse dead-end when that runs out too.
Except sunlight isn't expected to run out in a timeframe that humanity can fathom.
even though various national patent bureaus act differently and are issuing illegal software patents.
Since the directive was scrapped, there are no EU rules for or against software patents. This means that it is up to the national governments to decide whether they are legal or not. If they decide that they are legal, the patent office is hardly issuing "illegal patents".
On the other hand, there sure is the European Patent Convention, which expressly forbids patents on software, though patent offices and patent attorneys argue that since the convention says "software as is", it only means the actual code. Thus they argue that it does not preclude patenting the effect the software has when executed in a computer.
But, what do I know, IANAL.
or demand them to add some Russian repositories in the apt-get config file so they can get unlicensed, pirated versions of those and break the law.
Unless the term piracy now also includes patent infringement those codecs aren't pirated. They are simply illegal to distribute in the United States because the US allows software patents, and the software is covered by such US patents. The codecs in questions are perfectly legal in any country where software is not patentable.
IIRC, posts modded Funny does not give any karma bonus.
But think about it: you want NoScript from Google, considering that Chrome's only real claim-to-fame is to run JavaScript faster than everyone else.
There is really no conflict here. I want to use Javascript on certain web sites, and when I do I want good Javascript performance, but on the other hand I don't want any random site to be able to run Javascript (or any other executable content) in my browser without me first expressly approving it.
*Remembers malicious scripts from the nineties that pop up a dialog box that moves around when you try to close it, or just open a new dialog box when you close the first one, etc, etc*
Obese Owl?
I seriously doubt Microsoft will actually assert charges of patent infringement against anyone... ever.
Specific charges, with patent numbers specified, we might perhaps not see. Vague charges without specifics has already been seen multiple times, e.g. when they claimed that OSS infringed on hundreds of Microsoft patents, and that OSS will be made to pay in due time.
Microsoft's involvement in the software patent arms race was quite reluctant and I suspect that is still the case.
It may have been reluctant at first, but soon they realized the FUD value in patents. Using your patents to offensively intimidate others (i.e. not defensively in response to a patent infringement lawsuit) clearly shows that whatever reluctance they may have had in the past is now completely gone.
Politicians wanting to get Iraq producing at 100% again and more importantly, not controlled by US haters, invade.
It would be nice if the actual politicians would invade themselves, instead of sending young boys to do their dirty work.
Interesting you used the word "firing line".
Especially in America, business is very often described in war-like terms.
Not Doom, but Quake. Here it is.
there is nothing we can do to stop it.
That's not as certain as you might think. Severe glaciations can be caused by quite a small difference in global temperatures. A fairly small dip in temperature causes some glaciation, which increases the albedo of the planet, reflecting more sunlight back into space, further decreasing the temperature, and so on.
Thus, a fairly small temperature drop might initiate a feedback loop that can make the world much colder. We are probably not capable of pulling the Earth out of a glaciation in the near future, especially a severe glaciation, but it is not unthinkable that we might be able to prevent the initiation of such a feedback loop, which requires far less effort.
However the current ecosystem is in a bit of peril, some say that we're currently living through the 6 great extinction of earth
Yeah, the Holocene extinction event. But that is not from any specific cause, but rather many human-related causes combined. I'm not surprised that air and water pollution, overfishing, overhunting, habitat loss due to e.g. agriculture, and other factors could combine to cause something similar to one of the big extinction events.
Eminently put. The planet is not in trouble, global warming or not. The planet has been much hotter and much colder, with significantly different atmospheric conditions (higher CO2, higher O2, vastly different contents pre-O2, etc), not to mention the continents that have been in vastly different positions. In fact, the time we are living in is comparably speaking an anomaly. For most of the time since the Earth was formed, there has been no ice on this planet whatsoever.
So the Earth is absolutely not in trouble. We, on the other hand, might be in trouble. If the worst predictions of the climate scientists become reality, sea level rises may destroy a lot of our fixed infrastructure, such as cities. Humanity will likely survive, but life wouldn't be as easy as now.
Always think of something new; this helps you forget your last rotten idea. -- Seth Frankel
