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Comment Re: There is only one "Solar system" (Score 4, Informative) 81

"Solar System" in this case would be a specific noun, and as such warrants the capitalization. Sol, our Star, is also a specific noun, hence its warrant of capitalization, just as we would capitalize a person's name. If one is referring to "a solar system" in a generic sense rather than an unknown but implied specific Star and it's surrounding Planets, then lower case is appropriate.

Comment Re:He cant or wont? (Score 1) 382

Semantics: the branch of linguistics and logic concerned with meaning. There are a number of branches and subbranches of semantics, including formal semantics, which studies the logical aspects of meaning, such as sense, reference, implication, and logical form, lexical semantics, which studies word meanings and word relations, and conceptual semantics, which studies the cognitive structure of meaning.

Not the US Constitution, however the War Powers Resolution of 1973 (50 U.S.C. 1541-1548) is Federal Law of the United States, and acknowledged by the UN Security Council. The United States Constitution creates the Separation of Powers as well as the mechanisms for the Legislative Branch to enact new laws, which themselves become part of the United States Code. In this case, the Legislative Branch wanted the law, the Executive (Nixon) vetoed it, and was then overridden by a 2/3 vote in both Legislative Houses at which point it became law.

There is a clear distinction between a "Declaration of War", the use of an "Authorization of Military Force" provision by Congress, or simply "Going to War", as is possible without Congressional Approval under the War Powers Resolution of 1973.

Under the War Powers Resolution of 1973, the President can commit our Armed Forces to any act that seen fit without authorization from Congress in the form of an Authorization of Military Force or a formal Declaration of War with the following restrictions placed on it:
- the President must notify Congress within 48 hours of committing armed forces to military action.
- armed forces are forbidden from remaining for more than 60 days + a 30 day withdrawal period.

Comment Re:Hard to get excited. (Score 5, Insightful) 129

And when Facebook is saying that only 1.48% of their bandwidth is going towards images. That puts said reduction 5% reduction at a new percent of 1.41% at the expense of increased CPU time to transcode all existing images, which is itself not free. It is a marginal savings, even for an organization the size of Facebook. It certainly adds up over time, which is great, but when there is really great low hanging fruit like cutting the 37% of their bandwidth used on videos by 20-30% by getting HEVC or VP9 really working well (would then be 26% total), then that is a way to save significant money not just in Bandwidth but in Disk Space for retention as well.

Comment Hard to get excited. (Score 1, Interesting) 129

Sorry, it is hard to get excited about marginal improvements in still raster image compression. Yes, rasters are really important and everything, but at the same point images themselves are so absurdly small already compared to the likes of video technologies, and video is the vast majority of the internet. Seems like a better use of their time to focus on making HEVC or VP9 more capable.

Comment Re:He cant or wont? (Score 1) 382

Authorizations to Use Military Force are intended to be joint efforts taken by multiple members of the United Nations and specifically for the purpose of engaging in "Peace Keeping" (boy, is that a wonderful euphemism!) operations.

Still, legally a separate distinction from a "Declaration of War" or other incidents of just "Going to War".

Semantics, I know, but the thread ultimately revolves around the Legal Powers assigned to each Branch of Government, and those semantics do matter in that regard, even more so when talking about superseding the legal authority for State Sovereignty amidst conflicting interpretation of laws as to whether something like Tesla's Sales Practices should be able to function under the terms of Federal Jurisdiction due to the Interstate Commerce Clause or whether it should be controlled by individual State laws due to customers "residing" within a State and them purchasing an automobile.

Comment Re:He cant or wont? (Score 1) 382

It was my understanding that "he" in the OP's context was more the "title" rather than this specific man, since this specific man has in fact not "declared war, gone to war, ..."

There have been "authorizations to use military forces in peacekeeping operations in compliance with guidelines of UN Resolutions" but not a "Declaration" by the Executive and in the eyes of the law there is a pretty gigantic distinction (Morally, there is none).

States do have some degree of sovereignty when it comes to making their own laws.

The President has the authority to enact an Executive Order which will have with it the full force of law with it, but only within the confines of Federal Law.

So, the OP is completely wrong in that the President can't legally do either of those two things due to the Separation of Powers for the Executive Branch.

There is something to be said for the Interstate Commerce Clause placing this into Federal jurisdiction rather than State, but that would be a very massive change and would probably be better suited for the Supreme Court rather than either the Legislative or Judicial branches.

Comment Re:For us dummies.... (Score 1) 382

Technically, it is because laws are on the books to require that only parties that are approved by the State legislatures be authorized to sell, dismantle, repair, or license new or used vehicles in a commercial, for profit setting. Some states went in and made laws to govern Dealerships themselves as being "third parties" from the manufacturers themselves to promote competition and reduce pricing collusion between Dealerships within a geographic region. Sure, the Manufacturer still sets MSRP and even the price at which the Dealership buys the vehicle, but in those states those Dealerships need to operate independently from the Manufacturer to prevent them from artificially limiting supply of products that may sell better but have lower margins to drive people towards higher margin purchases or other non-defined but considered sleazy business practices that make serial killers look like saints compared to the average car salesman.

Basically, think of it like the eBook fiasco that has been going on. Apple let the Publishers set an MSRP versus Amazon saying "everything only costs this price, regardless of writer, content, or what you charge us." Apple's giving Publishers more control over pricing of their products on a minute by minute basis allowed them to increase their pricing for their products while preventing customers from being able to purchase a fungible product at a similar price point as they were able to do previously.

Or on the flip side, Amazon is going in and telling people "nope, you aren't allowed to buy this new title from us because we choose not to sell it to you, but you can buy this completely different product that is more lucrative for us instead", effectively using their customers as pawns against a publisher to negotiate more lucrative terms.

Neither are really directly comparable, but that is as close a comparison as I can find at this time. More of a "let's push through some laws years ago to protect us from some of these horror stories that our friends of friends of friends told us about dealing with a bad used car salesman."

Comment Obligatory South Park Quote (Score 4, Funny) 138

Mr. Garrison: What do you think, Mr. Marsh? You ready to put a down payment on that baby?
Randy Marsh: Well yeah, but I just had one question about how it works. Well, it seems all the buttons on these front and rear flexi-grips are also found on the side of the vehicle.
Mr. Garrison: Yep.
Randy Marsh: So, they don't really do anything.
Mr. Garrison: Right.
Randy Marsh: So then, couldn't I just order one that works without going in and out of my ass and mouth?
Mr. Garrison: [pause] ... Well, I guess you could.
Customers: Huh? What's that? What'd he say?

So... they give us Hulu...

Comment Re: Wow. (Score 4, Insightful) 204

JetBoil has a lot of pieces that can become damaged and compromise the efficiency of the product. This one is a single, solid piece that just functions by having a much larger surface area due to the rippled surface of the pan, thereby allowing it to contact more of the heat source than a conventional, single solid piece pan. This pan would appear easier to clean by far, and more difficult to damage.

Comment Re: Uh (Score 4, Informative) 278

We are also only talking about 12,000 hard drives per year with appropriate spares to account for that recording capacity. That is certainly quite doable. That also wouldn't take up that much space... 36 disks per 4u server and we are also only talking about 36 cabinets, accounting for switching, cable management, and the like. That doesn't seem that far outside the realm of possibility, from a space, monetary, power, network capacity or logistics standpoint.

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