From TFS:

...there's no clear way within the law to actually declare something in the public domain. Instead, the public domain declarations are really more of a promise not to make use of the exclusionary rights provided under copyright.

Ok, so the statement is about a clear way to put something in the public domain. Here's how you clearly put something in within the law: (1) You declare it public domain. (2) Now, keeping it there: You simply exercise a level of ethics even a 5 year old understands: You don't go back on your word, because (for one thing) that would make you a major fucktarded scumbag. (3) Whatever it is, is in the public domain, stays there, totally within the law, end of story.

Sometimes the ideas of law -- which is a hugely flawed instrument -- and the result of actions taken/not-taken get all confused in people's minds. If you want to put something into the public domain, do so, and subsequently just exercise a minimal level of personal honor, and you can be sure that your intent will carry through. The only one who can screw this up is you, and to do that you have to act in a particular way which guarantees you are knowingly acting like a dickhead. So when this clown tells you that you can't get it done, he is impugning your honor, not describing reality, and the only reaction you should have to that is annoyance.

Given that you are honorable and simply don't go back on your word, the user has nothing to worry about either.

So this really isn't about law. This is about your behavior.

Now, I grant you that most an entire generation having grown up with the idea that it's ok to steal IP, and the toxic idiocy of the "information wants to be free" crowd additionally muddying the waters, and the proliferation of people who just can't seem to keep their word, one might have reason to be cynical about this. But remember: TFS is saying that it is hard to put something into PD. It isn't. There's no reason you or I have to act without honor, and there are many reasons, starting from simply sleeping better at night, that we ought to act with honor.

Yes, I've got stuff out there that is PD. No, I will never, ever revoke that status. See how easy that is? 100% effective, too.

erm, "Linus" not "Linux"

I see to have a macro built into my muscle-memory on that one :-)

On one hand, you hear about him flaming out people who break shit in stupid ways.
On the other, you also hear him accepting blame for not checking things properly himself: "Serves me right for not digging all the way down the mess of macros"

Whatever his eccentricities, he sounds quite fair to me.

Where the government is phasing out home mail delivery in favour of "Community Mailboxes"... so now I have to go to the big box in order to collect my frequent junk-mail and occasional important stuff.

There are those who say we should not be responsible for seeing to it that the least-earners among us have health care, sick days, etc. But that whole petri dish thing... that's the result.

Joe the McDonald's window guy has flu/whatever, but he can't take a day (or 3 days) off (might not be allowed to, but can't afford to anyway so, the former is moot.) So Larry goes for lunch, and comes away with whatever Joe had as a bonus. And that goes on all day, for several days. While everyone else in the McDonald's catches it too, thereby extending the event even further, basically until every employee's immune system have handled the problem. And of course, there will be the occasional person who can't manage it -- for whatever reason... compromised immune system, preexisting disease process that complicates matters, old age, whatever. For them, matters can be much worse.

Either we admit that we need to take care of everyone, for everyone's sake, or we'll just keep running into situations where transmissible diseases have far more chance to spread than would otherwise be the case.

Odds are excellent that the only thing unique about the Disney event is that someone noticed it. Most people have probably been on the receiving end of such "petri dish events" many times. Anywhere you have a person with a transmissible disease in a condition suitable for transmission (usually not the entire course) that faces the public, the potential exists.

Anyone in that state should be in bed, properly isolated and medicated. Every time that doesn't happen, we're just shooting ourselves in the foot.

If the car is really dirty, the heck with washing it. Just turn it in and have it reprinted. :) Ok, maybe not. But:

Reprint if you have a fender-bender. Hailstorm. Cat climbed in an open window and sprayed your seats.

Just reprint the car. Love the idea of having it melted down and re-using the material(s.)

I suspect the feds will have something to say about safety issues, though.

I don't want a teleported camshaft that is printed with a 3D printer that uses chocolate for the printing material.

Actually, printing real-world stuff in chocolate via 3d scanning+printing would be *awesome*,and would probably have a decent market. Those scale model cars that you can buy; print those, in chocolate. You can eat your way through the car and see all the intricate parts as you do so.

Get yourself printed...in chocolate. Then eat yourself. Or take a bite outta the boss!

Lots of fun applications there.

And this year, the effectiveness of influenza vaccine in the USA is around 23% or less. For effective vaccines (measles, etc) with severe consequences for infection, it makes sense, but recent research is showing that people who have previously been vaccinated for influenza are actually *more likely* to get sick with a newer strain (again, NOT an issue with the measles vaccine). For flu, I'd guess that people who are exposed to the live virus in small quantities may build more natural immunity than those that a vaccine, but research hasn't shown the cause yet. There are two ways to get immunity after all:
a) An effective vaccine
or
b) Get sick, suffer the consequences, and naturally build immunity

In the case of (b), if you're infectious before showing visible symptoms (and/or you're not willing to become a hermit until you are clear) then the vaccine is still the best route, and more in the community interest. In the US, where sick days are lacking, many people aren't willing (or able) to lose the pay either. You also end up with dipshit parents who deliberately expose their kids to nasty stuff so that they *WILL* get sick and later be immune... which just seems cruel and unnecessary.

There are legitimate reasons for doing it. Businesses which essentially have the telephone equivalent of a NAT (lots of inside lines, only a few incoming numbers), or forwarding etc.

People with VOIP lines may have only an outgoing line with no number to call back. I've had this and used my cellular # for call-display.

That said, there should be a way to authorize or verify numbers for caller-ID purposes, perhaps by sending a text message or confirmation call with a passcode. Then, only those who have registered a number can use it for caller-ID purposes.

Fuck us or not, the situation is what it is. Either we address it, or we don't. Reality is like that, kiddo.

Lemme look... on the vortex container (you know, where all the dirt swirls around), it says "US Mobius Glass, 4th dimension containment division. Certified for virtual particles only."

That help any?

You have not refuted any point I made.

What is the energy level of a cubic foot of space exactly 1 light year past the furthest star on a line directly away from us that is still technically in Andromeda? Presuming you could supply that information (you can't) can you assure me that said cubic foot is in no way contributing to the particular flux of a cubic foot of space one light year the other way? (you can't.)

So the delusion you're carrying around that you know what's going on and are able to definitively say so in such a way as to pooh-pooh my questions is unmasked, and all your complaints resolve to nothing.

I'll be blunt: There are NO "biggest results" in astrophysics that can answer those questions. Consequently, any answers you claim to have in that regard are, at best, evidence-free supposition.

In theory, an H-1B worker is someone who has specialized knowledge not available among US citizens.

A few more years of tech people being unemployable, no one will prepare for tech work here (Why study for an unemployable specialty? Why hire instructors for a course with no students? For that matter, see any courses on buggy whip manufacture?), and the above will go from theory to actuality. If we're going to fix it, we're going to have to fix it now. Otherwise... catastrophe.

And I'm pretty sure that actually means "catastrophe."

but then the cost of living is a lot less in India.

So is the quality of life. We'd like to avoid that.

There are two paths: We degrade our QoL opportunities to rice/noodles/curry+hovel, or they increase their QoL to steaks+home+car+retirement. Either path can be taken, or both with a meeting somewhere in between.

Right now, though, because they have access to our economy for marketing -- selling skill and product -- but they are not operating in our economy for cost of manufacture/labor, we simply cannot compete. Either we break the cycle or this will destroy the rest of our economy just as it has already eviscerated various high profile sectors: rare earths, copper mining, electronics, cars, engineering work, monitors/televisions/displays, pretty much anything China makes, etc.

At this point, the best -- as in, most effective and sure to work -- option is to completely deny foreign access to our economy so we can rebuild. But in order to do that, all those free-market idealists will have to admit they were wrong. And like most things of every class of issue, people really don't like to do that. So probably what you're witnessing here is a complete economic collapse in the making, one that can only be diverted by a major paradigm shift, such as full conversion to an economy of plenty. Robots everywhere, money no longer used to represent work because work doesn't matter, AI, etc. Unfortunately, that looks far enough off, and we're already far enough down the path of economic collapse, that we're not likely to catch such a shift before we shit ourselves and fall in it, economically speaking. At which point, about 1% of the US will move elsewhere, and the rest of us will fight -- most likely literally -- over whatever remains.

Free trade was a nice idea. But it wasn't a good idea.

It's a tough problem to fix. If we come down too hard on companies for hiring guest workers, they'll often open off shore offices.

It's simple (not the same as easy) to fix. (1) Raise trade barriers. (2) If you're in the US, you bank in the US, you invest in the US, you use US materials, you hire US workers, you buy US manufacturing equipment and tooling, and you sell to the US market. (3) If you're not in the US, you don't get to sell to the US market. Period. So if company A moves out of the US, company B will simply take over the market company A abandoned.

We have the resources, we have the workers, and we have the market. What we have to stop doing is bleeding work into other economies, while expecting our standard of living, which was based on our economy, to be retained. We cannot do that while economic systems we have no control over are low-balling the cost of our consumables.

So we either lower our standard of living so we can become employable (doubtful); or go without (that's happening... many of us are unemployable at practical wages); or we develop our job market in the same economic context as we develop our consumables market.

That last is what I'm suggesting. If we do not do that, then until other country's standards of living rise to the standards of ours, we will continue to bleed jobs and prosperity in their direction. Equalization can occur in two ways: Our standard of living can drop to rice+hovel, or their standard of living can rise to house+car+retirement. Presently we are 100% engaged in the former, with no sign whatsoever of being able to get free of the fall. There's little to no sign of the latter.

If we do do that, then we can keep the barriers one way until our economy stabilizes again, and then when it does, drop them just far enough that foreign countries have access to our markets at our prices for items we also sell (only those. If we don't make the item, they can't sell it here. That way, if our market wants it, we get a fair crack at manufacturing it.) In this way, they can compete on quality and style, instead of the economic leverage a piss-poor underclass gives them.

They also have the option to take the higher earnings for their products back and spin up their economies. They probably won't, and frankly, it shouldn't matter to us if they do -- but the opportunity would be there. Give the peasants something to revolt over.