In this specific case, there's -already- a default licence that says who can do what wit software in the absence of specific permission from you. It's called copyright. It spells out clearly and unambigously what one can do, and what one needs the permission of the author to do.

The only possible source of confusion is if publishing something openly on the web constitutes implicit permission to do something more than what copyright already allows.

Not "probably" -- definitely.

A *one* watt saving is at $0.15 Kwh a saving of $0.00015/hour while surfing. If an average surfing employee costs $30/hour then we're talking a 0.005% reduction in cost for that employee -- if the employee surfs for 1000 hours/year, then that's a win if the employee, over those 1000 hours, waste no more than 3 minutes.

Not really. Sure, if you multiply a tiny number for 10,000 then you get a higher number. But every other number rises for that company too, so the savings stay tiny relative to the rest of the budget.

1 watt saved times 10000 is 10 KW saved for every hour those computers are used for browsing. If an average corporate computer is used for browsing 10 hours a week, then you're talking a saving of $150 - $250/year, depending on how much AC they use and what power-prices they pay.

$250 on the budget of a 10.000 employee firm is no more noticeable than $0.25 in the budget of a 10 employee firm -- it's still a saving of $0.025/year pro employee. In practice, this is down in the noise.

"they", as in Afghanistan or Iraq, didn't send 737s. A extremist organization did. And yes, it's a huge problem that organizations exist which are extremist enough to be in favor of violence for their political goals. (it doesn't help much that those goals are repugnant to most of us)

So the question is, what policies will help most in figthing such organizations ? It's not clear that every drone-strike creates new terrorists, but it does seem clear that continued occupation by foreign forces, spiced up with the occasional abuse from some soldier or other, creates increased resentment and probably is radicalizing. Drone-strikes are just a tiny bit of that puzzle.

I'm not terribly concerned with somehow insulting a person who doesn't exist.

I don't think those are remotely comparable. At those times, the US was in a full out war with the nations they bombed. Japan was not occupied by allied forces, and with some cells of opposition left, Japan, the nation, was at war with USA.

The current "war" is different. It's a war of ideas. Having the military upper hand is a given -- the sum total of military expenditures in all those countries where most drone-strikes are made, don't add up to 5% of USAs spending. The question really is not if USA is military superior to Afghanistan.

Nominally, Afghanistan is at peace. Nominally, criminals of any kind inside it's borders, is a police matter. Yes I know, that doesn't quite match the reality. Nevertheless there's a -huge- gulf between police-methodology and having flying killer-robots run by a occupying nation circling the landscape day and night, raining death on whomever is deemed a threat to USA.

It's debatable if the examples you gave where supportable too, but in any case the situation was -entirely- different.

True. But the kicker is that there's zero evidence that the "why" answers of religion are in any way better than anyone elses random guesses. And in a few ways they're distinctly WORSE.

The purpose of your life is to please a "loving" God who will nevertheless send you straight to HELL if you fail to unquestionably do as he says ?

Why two fibres ? You can do full-duplex on a single fiber. Not that the price-differential would be much anyway.

That's true mostly because religion retreats from those areas where science arrives. Because it cannot compete, seeing as science actually *works*.

Religion used to have opinions on lightning. (Thor, the god of thunder being angry blabla) But that's no longer sustainable now that science has a better explanation, one that makes sense and fits the observations. Science can quantify ligthning, they can predict it, they can shield you from it, they can even harness it.

The same is true for disease. Draught. Variations in the mechanical properties of iron. (it's brittle because of high carbon-content, not because you failed to sacrifice a hen while melting it...)

Today, religion is mostly stuck at "why", since there's very few areas left where religions answer to "how" aren't laughable.

No you don't. But you *do* need to believe that the world is regular, i.e. that there are rules which the world follows. If there are no rules, then obviously the quest to discover them is fruitless.

Not much: All adult males in a strike-zone are militants. A strike-zone is an area where the US military is making a strike, thus all adult males hit by US strikes are by definition militants.

Drone strikes certainly work in killing people, often even bad people. The problem is that if you kill one bad person, but in the process radicalize the population where two new persons are now willing to use violence against the US, you're not really closer to your goal.

Hypocrisy is always higher where norms are stricter. People *pretend* in public to adhere to very strict rules, but in practice they're human, so in private they're no better than the rest of us.

Demand celibacy from priests, and see what happens. It's not unique to Iran. Thus when puritanical conservative folks complain about "moral degradation", they're really just complaining that ordinary folks do in public the stuff they've -always- been doing in private.

That's true for some. But the people of Iran are diverse, and most young people have some influence over whom they marry. This can range from a pretty free choice (though often with more constraints than we're used to) to "which one of these 4 candidates do you prefer ?" kinda choice.

Overall, I'd say men in Iran has more freedom than women, but you are completely correct that the restrictive religion dominating society there poses severe limitations on the freedom of both genders.

Yeah. I've said the same thing to some Iranian friends of mine. The higher divorce-rate in Norway compared to Iran, is not a sign that marriages work less well here. It's just a sign that people have a CHOICE, and can actually divorce rather than spend the rest of their lives in a miserable love-less marriage.

True. But reduce and remove -some- parts of overhead, while leaving other parts intact, and the overall result is still a reduction.