The purpose of the treaty is to provide mutual assurance between party states that the other members are not preparing for war against them. More or less, "I'll let you fly over my country and see that I don't have troops amassing in preparation for an invasion if you let me do the same." It was originally proposed as a means for reducing tension between the US and Soviets during the Cold War, but didn't come into effect until decades later.

Towards that end, it really doesn't do much, other than allow nations to see if a large force is building up. The sensor systems must all be commercially available ones that any of the member states can purchase (i.e. no super-fancy x-ray sensors to see inside buildings), so unless you catch the other side unawares (which can't happen, since you have to schedule the flights with them), you're not going to see anything unless they really are building up such a massive force that they're simply unable to hide it.

Anyway, this is actually a pretty routine occurrence, by all accounts. The UK alone has had 40+ such flights over their territory since the treaty came into force in 2002. The US has likewise had dozens of flights over their territory. Ditto for Russia. And the same for the rest of the member states, by and large.

Wouldn't it be nice if there were some way of linking us to additional information on the topic so that we could see his quotes in context? A shame that these things don't exist. They'd be hyper neat.

Yeah, I was going to say, since when is he the CEO again? He vacated the position years ago to let Larry Page handle it. But details. Such difficult.

Let's not be hyperbolic. While it's clear that you don't like what they're doing, can you point to anything they're doing that is actually illegal? Because that R in RICO refers to racketeering, and while they are indeed organized (which is their right under the First Amendment, since we have freedom of association) and do at times place their own interest ahead of those whom they are supposed to be serving (which is true of all of us, to some extent), you would be hard-pressed to argue that everyday schoolteachers are active participants in organized crime.

It's hard to have a reasonable discussion about the actual problems when you're practically Godwin-ing this conversation by implying schoolteachers bear such striking similarities to the Mafia that they deserve to be prosecuted using the same set of laws.

If those are the only two choices, then it's that they're too lazy. This isn't the first new model to lack Windows 7 support via Boot Camp. It's the third. It's actually kinda strange that this one is getting so much publicity, since they've been slowly dropping it with new hardware releases for over a year now.

In related news, we don't need to worry about this bug being used by unscrupulous sorts of folks in the comments here. The one and only time a lack of unicode support has come in useful...

Mr. Lobbyist, there will be plenty of time to deal with far-fetched hypothetical situations later. We can cross that bridge if we ever get there.

Opera Mini, released 2010, and Opera Coast, released 2014
Google Chrome, released 2012
News regarding Firefox, due for release at some point soon

iOS requires that if you use a browser engine in iOS, it must be their version of WebKit for iOS, which is how Chrome and Coast work, but there are ways around even that, and there's nothing stopping you from building a better browser than theirs on top of their engine, which is exactly what others have done. Additionally, Opera Mini gets around the engine issue by moving the rendering to cloud servers. No idea how Mozilla is approaching it.

The distinction that people always seem to forget is that it generally isn't a matter of what you're doing, but is rather a matter of how you're using it. Going off your own example, there's nothing inherently illegal about bundling a browser with your OS. We see devices do this all the time; most of the console manufacturers have built-in browsers with no way to change them, for instance. And there's nothing inherently illegal about doing so well in business that you end up dominating a market; Amazon controls something like 90% of the eBooks market, for instance. But, especially as you get larger, you have a responsibility to not engage in practices that stifle or cripple competition. The market is supposed to be an even field to compete on. You're not allowed to rig the game.

In the case of Microsoft, there were allegations that they were intentionally rigging APIs in Windows to cripple competing browsers. On top of that, downloads back in the day took quite awhile to finish, so the fact that IE was bundled on the disc for a unrelated product that had a dominant market position (Windows) provided them with a seemingly unfair advantage over the other browsers (I don't know that I agree it was unfair, but whatever). The biggest issue, however (at least in the US case), and the piece that everyone forgets, is that they had reached a settlement back in '94 with the FTC that explicitly disallowed them from bundling other products with Windows, since the FTC had accused them of abusing their dominant position in the OS market to gain illicit advantages over their competitors.

THAT'S what made their bundling of IE illegal. Were iPhones in a similar market position and being used to allow Apple to push out competition in related markets, you can bet that Apple would have regulators breathing down their neck too. As it is though, Apple may be a big company, but their influence is no greater when it comes to these areas than that of their primary competitors.

Well, yeah. So is Apple. So is "don't be evil" Google. Suggesting Microsoft isn't evil like the rest of them is just naive. They just took it a step too far and got slapped.

Yes...and? "Engineer" is a regulated term in most US states, and if you look in the codes where the rules are specified, you'll see specific exemptions for software engineers. Which is to say, they're allowed to use the term to describe themselves, but in a very real sense they are engineers in name only, since they aren't subject to any of the conditions, restrictions, or other regulations that are related to engineers.

And even if that weren't the case, there's nothing in the definition of "engineer" that suggests that engineers of any variety are not to be ethical. Impartial, maybe. Not ethical? No way.

Yeah, I did some more research after my post and discovered that I was incorrect when I said that it's the same politicians undoing their own work.

Instead, what apparently happened was that the Christie-appointed members of the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission barred Tesla from selling cars in the state, thus circumventing the legislature entirely. It's taken the Democrat-controlled legislature until now to get a bill back in front of Christie that undoes that damage (and even then, it doesn't undo all of it).

Mind you, I'm a registered Republican, but sometimes I hate the things "my side" does.

The part where it says "like Tesla Motors" in the actual text of the law. It both mentions Tesla explicitly as an example of who this law applies to...

...as well as implicitly refers to Tesla in that the bill is tailored such that it will only ever apply to Tesla. Namely, the bill only applies to manufacturers of Zero Emission Vehicles (ZEVs) engaging in direct sales who were licensed by the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission on or before the start of last year. The only company on that list or that will ever be on that list is Tesla.

There can't be. See the provision above about the date. Even if a "Tesla 2" manufacturer came along and managed to get licensed by the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission (which they can't be, since I believe the part of last year's law that prohibits them is still on the books), they wouldn't have done it before the start of 2014, meaning they wouldn't be eligible for this exemption.

A) Democrats have near-supermajorities in both the Senate and General Assembly of New Jersey (60% in both). Chris Christie may be a Republican, but he can still only sign the laws that are put in front of him. Regardless, that really doesn't matter, since the same politicians who established this law last year are undoing their own work now. Partisanship shouldn't be entering this discussion.

B) I'd love a link to the history of car franchising in America. I have yet to see one and would love to know what the history was or why those protections were established in the first place. Because, based on what I understand so far, they seem to be ancient, anti-competitive laws established by states in response to a perceived crisis that ended decades ago and which are now being used by the formerly-underdog players to abuse their now-dominant positions.

But maybe I have it wrong. Either way, I'd love any links you might have on the subject.

Oh, come on. This bears no resemblance to zoning at all. Zoning establishes areas by use (e.g. commercial, residential, industrial...we've all played SimCity), not by company name on the sign out front. If you want to call it zoning at a state level (presumably to limit the number of dealership lots in the state, as you said in your earlier post), then where are the restrictions on those uses for the rest of the industry? And if this really is zoning, then what's to stop them from simply buying out an existing dealership that is already "zoned" appropriately so that they can increase their count from 4 to 5 in the state?

Oh, yeah, there's a law that's shackling just them and no one else so that they're prevented them from doing exactly that.

Call a spade a spade: it's a caveat tossed in to appease the other side by establishing an unjust restriction on one company's ability to compete in the market. Don't try to pass this off as being something that even remotely resembles zoning.

That's true, but a currency that can't be held onto safely is not a useful currency, and people figured out a long time ago that they cannot be trusted to hold onto their own money. That's why the rise of banking during the Renaissance was such a big deal and why banks are so heavily regulated today. Bitcoin has banks, but they haven't yet proven that they can be trusted, and with people losing their bitcoins when their hard drives fail or a thief takes their drive, bitcoin needs the stability that regulated banks can bring if it wants to thrive.

Seconding Hover. The guys behind it, Tucows, are the same quality guys behind Ting Wireless and have been one of the best domain registrars for years now. They'll handle all of the DNS work of migrating your existing domain for you if you want them to, that way you don't have to worry about it, and their tools for managing your domain are simple to use compared to most.