Yes as of last April only:

"In April 2013, Microsoft released an open source JPEG XR library under the BSD licence.[41][42] ... the previously released "HD Photo Device Porting Kit"[43] was incompatible with the GNU GPL."

I'm trying to get you to explain how your out for age discrimination doesn't also apply to racial discrimination.

You're saying that daycares don't discriminate based on the characteristics of kids, because they are actually providing the service to the parents. So I'm responding that if the daycare doesn't provide service to black kids, but black parents are fine (in other words, black parents could enroll an adopted while child), that's STILL racial discrimination. I mean it's rather obvious.

So if we accept that the child's race plays a role, then why doesn't the child's age?

I mean the real answer is that the needs and supervision requirements of a 20 year old are very different than a 2-5 year old, so the daycare is justified in having an age policy. In other words, we as a society say that it's okay for daycares to discriminate based on age because age plays a significant role in what is required. Race, in theory, does not... the care required by a black 5 year old is not substantially different than the care required by a white 5 year old.

But you didn't say that.

Yes, of course it is.. if the preschooler is qualified to be admitted, and they don't admit him, that is age discrimination. In reality universities are happy to admit underage people if they are qualified. I've heard of 12 year olds in college. If an 11 year old were qualified, they'd admit the 11 year old. I don't believe there is a minimum age to attend university, although practically speaking no 2 year old is realistically going to be qualified.

Dog food is a huge exaggeration, unless you mean it metaphorically in which case I agree -- people should eat their own dog food in that their benefits should be tied to what they produced themselves. That's kind of how it is already, except that current retirees are taking too much out of the system compared to what they produced, and there's a pretty radical wealth redistribution component where poor people get much more than they put in, and "rich" people (middle class and up) get less.

I don't have an iPad (or a tablet of any kind) so maybe I'm not understanding this.. does Apple really not know who the device and/or user account belongs to? Surely Apple products have some kind of user system, and when you create your user account you reveal your name and probably address, and if the person ever bought anything there's a credit card linked to it as well... no?

I have an Android phone and I'm virtually certain that Google could tie my name and address to this bit of hardware.

I see... Your argument confused me because we are talking about what the laws should be. But now you're revealing that your definition of consequential and inconsequential is simply a mirror of what the state already says.

If the laws changed so that it's okay to not do business with minorities, then you would support that, because minorities would not be able to win a court case about it, because it's not against the law.

How is that useful to the discussion?

I've been fascinated with algae production of biodiesel for a decade now. I'm curious, the DOE proof of concept that you're talking about.. is that in 1980's dollars or today?

From what I've heard there have been plenty of commercial attempts to produce biodiesel from algae and they have failed.

That's what people say, but it's impossible to know for sure what drives terrorism recruitment. If we were sending in troops on the ground to do hand to hand fighting and getting our asses whooped by terrorists who still used dirty tactics, I personally don't think it would make one whit of difference. There would still be civilians getting killed (perhaps fewer). There would probably be more disruption (more invaders, take longer, less ability to target precisely). The local populations would still be Muslim and the war would still be cast as the foreign infidels fighting against the noble lions of Islam.

I mean all you have to do is look at how Pakistan reacted to the secret CIA program that found Bin Laden. That didn't kill innocent people... in fact it helped vaccinate their country. Did they say "Oh wow what awesome humanitarian tactics, we approve!! Please start doing this more instead of drone strikes this is so cool." Nope.

It's true that al Qaeda was off our radar.. that's largely because the US public did not give two shits about the Middle East or any Muslim countries prior to 9/11. That stuff was Israel's problem and India's problem and Russia's problem... and we kinda sorta thought maybe they deserved it for their own actions. Kashmiri Muslim terrorists were still thought of as freedom fighters or rebels. Same with Chechens, Palestinians, etc.

Al Qaeda was receiving state support from the Taliban in Afghanistan before 9/11. There is also a large chance that they received funding from the Saudis and from Pakistan, both of which have interests in keeping terrorism alive and well, if at a low buzz inside their own borders. I haven't heard the argument you're making that al Qaeda was in the final stages of collapse, I'm curious what evidence you have of that.

What if those costs are more different than you think? For instance, what do you think Iran's army pays for gas and oil? What does China's army pay? Even if ultimately the cost is the same due to opportunity costs, that would mask the true military expenditure. For instance, if China (which is an oil importer) says "Here in China, the army pays $0.10/gallon for gas. If you sell gas here, you have to do that" then they report $0.10/gallon gas in their military expenditures... but obviously they are getting more value for that.

The US military establishment has shit tons of money and most of the budget operates transparently and within the overall economy. I mean we know that when they buy gas, they are paying market price. When they build an airbase, they probably acquired the land through the market, or eminent domain which is supposed to be a fair price. What do you think China does when they build a new airbase? What cost is recorded?

Don't get me wrong, I'm definitely not saying that the US doesn't have more military capability than other countries. I'm just saying that I think the differences are somewhat exaggerated because the US is a really expensive place to do stuff. Our Navy gets sued over stupid shit like SONAR hurting whales and dolphins. In China they execute activists who cause problems. All that stuff has an impact too, it's not just dollars that we need to look at.

Oh yeah, forgot to add.. after abolishing Social Security, old people with no income could go on welfare.

Social Security actually is a welfare program since poor people get a disproportionately high benefit compared to what they paid in.. it's just not called welfare because back when it was originally proposed, most people were still properly ashamed at not pulling their own weight.

I support regressive taxes in general because it makes all people at least somewhat aware of what stuff costs.

Considering things like the EITC were invented to offset payroll taxes for the poor, I don't think you can say it's entirely regressive.. it's just that the numbers appear on different pieces of paper so some people don't connect them. It's still regressive for some people (guess who... the middle class of course!) but not for the poor.

Personally I think the concept of Social Security is utterly stupid and should be abolished. The vast majority of people don't even understand what it is. It's billed as a forced savings program... and you can see how effective that idea is when you read comments from folks nearing retirement who say dumb stuff like they have "paid into the system" and therefore they "earned" their full benefits. They honestly don't know that people starting their careers today pay a higher rate than they did when they started their careers. They honestly don't know that the money they saved largely went to pay for existing retirees... who paid EVEN LESS into the system than they did.

The common man won't be allowed to have his own fusion reactor, so it will remain under control of the existing power brokers. All it will do is reduce their costs.

Since they are given state-sanctioned monopolies they don't need to worry about a competitor offering lower rates either.

Mostly... it's also paid for with interest on the debt that Social Security owns. I'm not sure what percentage of public debt is held by the SS Trust Fund, but I'm sure it's not negligible.. and about 6% of the overall budget goes to interest in general.

For now, but it's projected to run out and then become a burden on the general tax revenue. Or result in a SS tax increase. Probably both, plus reduced benefits.

Yay, my generation gets to pay more than any generation before it, and get either the same or worse benefits than previous generations! Awesome deal! I love social safety nets that fuck over future generations!

Wrong, the debt that the Social Security Trust Fund purchases is not interest-free. You can see that here: http://www.ssa.gov/oact/progda...

Even if the special issue bonds were interest-free, that criticism wouldn't make sense. That would mean the Trust Fund is giving the government interest-free loans, and then being paid back later. That is completely different than if they didn't save the money to begin with, but still had to be paid back later when they're out of money.

The Trust Fund will run out of money one day and we'll have to cut benefits or divert general funds to pay make it up or raise SS taxes, but that is quantitatively different from if there was no Trust Fund to begin with.

I asked you an analogous question about race but you didn't reply.

Your viewpoint simply does not make sense because it would provide an end-run around all discrimination laws. "My lawn mowing service does not do business with blacks. But we don't discriminate against blacks... we discriminate against people with black biological parents. But we're not providing service to the biological parents so that's okay!!"

Your analogy with the barber doesn't make sense because you are asking the barber to perform a different service for the same client. I'm talking about a daycare providing the same service to a different client. The needs and supervision requirements of a 6 year old don't substantially differ from those of a 5 year old... and yet, a daycare would be perfectly within its rights to say "Sorry, we stop providing care at 5." That's age discrimination.

That's a HUGE "except" right there, until we're weaned off the stuff in the next few decades (hopefully).

You can't seriously think that's the terrorist perspective. In asymmetric warfare, the smaller group rarely gives the bigger group a chance to fight back, or they'd be destroyed pretty quickly. Most tactics in asymmetric warfare involve hiding before the enemy can retaliate, and using surprise attacks to your advantage. Not to mention terrorists have no problem attacking people who have no capability to fight back (women and children, wounded people in hospitals, etc) even if you did give them the chance.

I haven't read a study about this, but common sense says that comparing our dollars to China's dollars and Iran's dollars doesn't make sense because they have different purchasing power. One of the big costs in the military, even today when it's so driven by technology and equipment, is manpower. If China's soldiers cost 1/5 what we pay, then we may be outspending them but not necessarily getting more for it. You can't necessarily use economy-wide purchasing power parity figures either because I suspect a lot of military expenditure falls outside the normal economy, especially in some countries.

Two paychecks doesn't mean the same number of hours or the same level of difficulty.

Also I wonder how comprehensive the definition of "housework" is. It should include all work outside of your job, I guess, not just stuff in the house. So things like taking the car for an oil change should count, coaching the kids' soccer team should count, etc.