It may indeed count - lots of products have latent features included specifically to support future developments or accessories, or interoperability with perhaps some other product or service which is still in development.

The "car's design" may not be a "secret" in the most casual sense of that term, but there may be software features, or other aspects of things like interface design that are not yet put to work because new options are coming down the road. Even if a not-yet-used feature or interface is patented, that doesn't mean that knowledge of it or how it might leverage other third-party deals for new behavior or features isn't considered very much to be sensitive information and exactly the sort of thing you'd want to discuss under and NDA. I may have a patent on something, but that doesn't mean that everything I have to say with prospective partners or employees or retailers is something that I consider insignificantly strategic or sensitive to want to protect.

Just because you can walk into a datacenter doesn't mean you'll understand, by looking around, every last competitive detail about how things are being done under the hood.

I have a pile of equipment running in a datacenter. There's a two-way NDA in place to protect both their operations and mine, not that either of us are doing anything terribly exciting. Sometimes the NDA is there just to keep the overall nature of the business arrangements or financial information from being disclosed. For example, I don't want MY customers to be able to pick around and find out what I pay for my co-lo space. Likewise, my datacenter doesn't want me to write a blog describing their internal security operations, or what I pay for the particular deal we struck three mergers/acquisitions ago.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-...

Well, a random set of 7 words will rarely form a sentence.

Sure it does. Just because a product is available to buy doesn't meant that every aspect of its design, operation, or future plans for evolution and enhancement by the manufacturer are something they consider public domain.

Nothing. Both I and the people who wrote it completely understand the context in which it's used. YOU on the other hand, are inventing a completely new interpretation of the constitution wherein the document they wrote to limit the government's ability to infringe on your rights is suddenly (but just in this case!) suddenly the exact opposite. Which part of "shall not be infringed" are YOU have trouble with? Again, please link to any - even ONE - writing by a single author of the constitution that suggests, for a moment, that they intended the second amendment, let along the entire document, to be a limit on the people, in stead of a limit on the government. Go ahead, cite some heretofore undiscovered writings. Please!

What? You can't find any? I thought so.

The founders intent was to make sure that the government "shall not infringe" on the right of the people to keep and bear arms. Why? Because they also had to stand up an army ("militia") on occasion, and didn't want ANYONE (especially people like you) to be confused and begin to think that it was only the militia that would be allowed to keep and bear arms. Your inability to read 18th century writing in the context in which it was written doesn't change the entire purpose of the constitution into a regulatory document that limits your freedoms. It's exactly the opposite.

So, go ahead: cite a single piece of correspondence, a single page from the federalist papers, ANYTHING that begins to support your inability to parse the language. You won't even bother to try, because you know you're just making stuff up in hopes that someone else reading your posts will think the constitution is a freedom limiting, rather than a freedom protecting document. You're just pretending that you don't understand that the constitution leaves it up to the states to pass legislation that sets forth criminal penalties for things like murder. Why you want to look so dumb is a bit of a mystery.

So, fire away. Let's see something other than your backwards assertions. You claim to know the founders' intent, but you cannot trouble yourself to actually cite a single passage from any of them that backs up what you say. Go for it. Show that you're not a liar by doing something other than stamping your feet.

So you're saying the FBI is lying now? Please show your evidence - not just you having another fit - that indicated where, precisely, they are incorrect in their reporting. No? You don't have any, do you?

Tens of thousands of people are killed using knives, pipes, and cars, etc. Have you just not got around to finding a way to re-interpret the constitution to claim the founders wanted people to be well trained in their use? You keep dodging that question. Why? Because you know you're deliberately trying to mislead on this topic.

OK! Ready for your links to historical writings. Go.

If you want, you can start by finding some opposition to the people who wrote the huge body of documents surrounding the forming and adoption of the amendments.

Here's a typical example, from Remarks on the First Part of the Amendments to the Federal Constitution from 1789: "Whereas civil-rulers, not having their duty to the people duly before them, may attempt to tyrannize, and as military forces, which must be occasionally raised to defend our country, might pervert their power to the injury of their fellow citizens, the people are confirmed by the article in their right to keep and bear their private arms." Case in point. They're talking about the amendment preserving the individual right to keep and bear arms, privately, specifically because there will also be a government-armed/trained militia/army. You are deliberately flipping their intent upside down in an attempt to reinvent the constitution to suit your tastes.

How about Samuel Adams, clarifying things for you, in 1788: "And that the said Constitution be never construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press, or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms; or to raise standing armies, unless necessary for the defense of the United States, or of some one or more of them; or to prevent the people from petitioning, in a peaceable and orderly manner, the federal legislature, for a redress of grievances; or to subject the people to unreasonable searches and seizures of their persons, papers or possessions." That sums up the first round of amendments nicely, and makes it plainly clear (to everyone but you, because you're trying to wish it away, and assume that they wrote just one of those amendments as a regulation requiring limits rather than protecting liberty) that ALL of those amendments are intended to LIMIT THE GOVERNMENT'S POWER. To prevent the government from infringing on things like freedom of speech, freedom to keep their own arms, assembly, etc.

You're probably thinking of some other founders, right? You wouldn't want to involve people like Jefferson, probably, because it would ruin your narrative? Jefferson loved to quote Beccaria, incuding this one: "False is the idea of utility that sacrifices a thousand real advantages for one imaginary or trifling inconvenience; that would take fire from men because it burns, and water because one may drown in it; that has no remedy for evils, except destruction. Laws that forbid the carrying of arms laws of such a nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they act rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man."

I'll look forward to you citing a specific example of the second amendment being described by any of the people who wrote and implemented all of those contemporary amendments, as protecting a right that was in ANY way conditional on passing some sort of government test of skill. You seem certain that intent exists: put up, or shut up. Show the thinking that defines the founders' concepts of a skill test for individual gun ownership, something that they repeatedly say shall not be infringed.

OpenVMS handles invalid logons correctly. It locks out the terminal (that is, the network address) of the intruder. Why Microsoft, and most of the rest of the industry, does not understand how this is more secure and less vulnerable to DOS, I don't know.

Could be - who knows. I'm sure that's exactly the sort of thing that would come out in the civil trial, or, being absent from any evidence provided in the suit, possibly cause the judge to throw the whole thing out. I'm party to multiple NDA's, and it can be very dangerous ground if you're not careful.

Except that's not what the amendment means, it's not what it says, and it's not what the people who wrote it said - in their MANY supporting letters and other documents - that they meant. You are going out of your way to avoid basic facts because you want to convert the constitution into a document that regulates individual freedoms.

I notice that when asked to cite the basis for a whole list of irrational assertions on your part, you're just ignoring that. Why? Because you don't have anything to go on.

I get it. You think that of all the dangerous things in the world, and despite the countless other ways that people are murdered every year, that you think guns shouldn't be allowed. Fine, that's your opinion. It's an opinion completely lacking any perspective, relative to everything else mentioned, but you're entitled to your opinion. What you're NOT entitled to are your own set of facts. Facts: the people who wrote the constitution explained exactly why they did it, and there are copious contemporary writings that demonstrate you have your understanding of not only wrong, but exactly backwards. The only possibility is that you're well aware of that, but are pretending otherwise because you're hoping that gullible readers will fall for it, in support of your agenda. Otherwise, you'd actually address the issues raised - which you won't, because you can't without showing that you're BSing about it.

The only thing you ARE doing is trotting out a link to some stats about Canadian homicide rates. That page indirectly brings up the notion of the high homicide rate in the US. Fine! Let's talk about that (again). If you remove from the US stats a handful of specific areas where urban gang crime is very high (even though, by your standards, it should be a paradise because of the most restrictive gun laws in the country), then the homicide rates are actually lower than elsewhere.

So I'll ask you again, on the off chance you're feeling braver this time: reconcile those facts. Don't link to a web site about Canada. Actually address the substance of the matter, directly, in your own words: how does a place like Chicago, which has some of the most draconian, restrictive gun laws in the country - just the way you like it! - end up having a murder problem that accounts for a huge portion of the entire country's statistics? Is it possible that the problem is actually the people who are killing each other over gang turf? That happens in other places, too - only they use machetes and other implements ... but for exactly the same reasons. You're confusing the tools with the people who use them, and then try to turn the constitution inside out in order to avoid making a judgement call about local behavior in certain demographic sub-groups.

You are also unable to understand the difference between "owning" and "using." To you belive that you shouldn't be allowed to own a large, razor-sharp kitchen knife without government-provided training? No? Why not? Be specific. Otherwise, your hypocrisy on the subject will be plain enough for even you to see.

Clarkson was the one to report the assault so if anyone was looking for an excuse out of re-upping a contract it was probably Clarkson. This way he can leave without carrying any of the baggage simply quitting the show would have given him.

Jeremy will be fine. He knows that every other channel has been trying for years to poach him away from the BBC and once he sold his interest in the show to the BBC a year or so ago his income was no longer tied to how well Top Gear itself did.

I'm not debating that. I presume that the company doing the complaining here is suggesting that despite the existing and well-discussed concept of modularity, they had something proprietary that was new or especially creative in leveraging that general concept. That's the sort of nitty-gritty detail that an NDA is supposed to protect.

Oh, so you've abandoned the whole "the second amendment is actually a safety regulation" line of argument?

So how do you explain the fact that gun ownership continues to climb, while homicides of all kinds (including those in which a gun was used) are steadily going down? Please be specific in reconciling your use of the word "more" with the actual stats, which show "less."

Please cite the sentence or passage, written by me, in which I hysterically describe what you're saying. An actual link, please.

Please reconcile that assertion with the actual observed facts: places like Miami saw an immediate drop in violent crime of all kinds, including murder, when citizens there were no longer as limited in their ability to own and carry firearms. A huge and growing violent crime problem there reversed itself and has been going down ever since, even as more people are owning - and in many cases, getting permits to carry - guns.

While you're explaining that, please explain how some of the most restrictive laws in the country (in Chicago, for example) exist in places where violent crime is steadily increasing? How can that be? How is it that your idea of making it harder for non-criminals to own a gun is causing more violent crime? Please be specific in explaining your theory.

Please cite a single example, ever, of my saying or implying any such thing. Be specific.

In the meantime, reconcile that irrational assertion with the fact that people use firearms hundreds of thousands of times a year in the US alone to prevent or stop violence from happening. Usually, without firing a single shot. How do you reconcile those statistics with your fantasy notion of every single altercation escalating to death? I know how: you're fantasizing.

By "extra" you mean the opposite, right? Because there are fewer deaths now than five years ago, than ten years ago, or twenty five years ago. Spend a minute looking at the information published by the FBI, who have nicely bundled all of that information up for you, so that your completely made-up picture of the situation can be corrected with basic facts.

But at least you've given up thinking of the constitution as a body of regulations limiting your freedom. That's a start.

Fixing it by harmonizing VAT rates would require treaty changes and be politically hard to hand one of the big financial levers to the european central bank, especially given not all countries are in the eurozone - imagine the US forcing all state sales taxes to the same rate, set by the fed, and you get the idea.

The U.S. is even worse off. There are nearly 10,000 sales tax jurisdictions in the U.S.

The solution is to reverse who is responsible for updating the tax rates. There are a lot more retailers than there are tax jurisdictions. It's stupid to force every retailer do duplicate each others' efforts and update tax rate data from every tax jurisdiction every day. Instead, make it the responsibility of each tax jurisdiction to update their tax rate on a central database every day. Every retailer can then simply download an updated tax table from the central database at the beginning of every business day. That completely eliminates the duplicated effort and produces the most efficient economic system (for distributing sales tax rates at least).

A huge wall seems like an ugly and in-elegant solution. Building large mounds of forested areas would be much more attractive and useful (as a wildlife, tourist, and a tree resource). As a backup - build man made lakes at a higher altitude that can dump into the ocean in under 20 minutes and time the water dump to coincide with the tsunami.

If you watched video of the 2011 tsunami, you've seen that it isn't a singular wave which comes ashore and retreats back (there are such tsunamis, usually caused by local landslides, but this wasn't one of them). It's more like a 20 minute tide, inexorably raising the mean sea level so seawater went further and further onto land (relatively slowly too - a car could outrun it). So mounds and forested area would do nothing - the seawater would just go around them. Lakes of water dumped in would do nothing either, unless the volume of water in the lakes approached the volume of water coming in from the tsunami. Meaning you'd need a 250 mile lake, which creates the risk of an artificial tsunami should the restraining systems for the lake water ever fail.

The concrete barricade idea doesn't have to be ugly. Inevitably, every beach has a road parallel to it. In California it's highway 1 (Pacific Coast Highway, or PCH). They could simply elevate that road atop 4 stories of concrete. The beach could be accessed through tunnels in the concrete, with a mechanical door manually shut during a tsunami alert, and metal backup doors set up like one-way valves that automatically slam shut in the event of water pressure on the other side. From the beach side, you'd have a view of the ocean, beach, a contiguous concrete wall, and the mountains in the background. Maybe the tops of a few tall buildings, but it should be a simpler and uncluttered view that may actually be an improvement over the current cluttered cityscape. From the city side, you could only see the beach and ocean from taller buildings. But smaller buildings which lose their ocean view would be the ones most at risk from a tsunami anyway, so you're making a pure risk-based trade-off there.

Or, show it to prospective customers/partners under a Non Disclosure Agreement. Like happens millions of times a year throughout most industries, and probably (I'd be very surprised to find otherwise) happened in this case.

So you're comparing an imagined "mass hysteria" that manifests itself as years-long legislative and regulatory exercises and countless court reviews and modifications ... with low-information violent individual idiots who are hugely outnumbered by people who actually seek to defend and protect the victims of the sort of unwarranted assaults described?