Actually, socialized medicine tends to provide quality healthcare. It's our screwed up high cost system that tends to be sub-par. Even more so if your insurance runs out.

If he had chronic back problems that prevented him from leaving the house, the x-ray was probably of minimal benefit and only done just in case. How much new insight was gained when he did get it and what improvement did it lead to?

So do you also churn your own butter? Cut out the automatic gain control on your stereo and TV?

I get that some people just enjoy driving a manual, I don't get the ones who look down their noses at people who prefer an automatic.

So subtle, in fact, that they don't feel it at all.

Also, it's not true that they can't provide information about NSLs. Google negotiated permission to publish ranges of numbers, and with that precedent established it shouldn't be too hard for others to do the same.

IP isn't just patents. It also includes trade secrets, which is what you're talking about. Trade secret law puts some legal teeth behind your efforts to keep your ideas to yourself.

IMO, the way to test whether or not the patent system is accomplishing its constitutional goal is to look at how much time practitioners spend looking through the patent library to find solutions to their problems, or ideas they can build upon, with the idea that it's better/faster/cheaper to find a developed patent and license it rather than do the hard work of inventing it yourself. If the patent database is heavily used as a research library, then it has accomplished its goal of contributing to the progress of the useful arts and sciences.

Your comment is exactly what corporate attorneys have told me as well, and the fact that it's good advice proves that the system utterly and completely fails the test.

Bah.

Small businesses sue each other all the time. It's not that expensive to sue. It can be incredibly expensive if the parties choose to make it so, and if you sue a megacorp they'll either write you a check to make you go away, or they'll bury you in lawyers, which means you'll need your own big pile of lawyers. But when Quickie Laundromat sues Quickie Laundromat it doesn't cost very much. The parties do much of the legwork themselves to keep the attorneys' time (and bills) low, and they hire cheap lawyers.

Absolutely, police responding to calls have saved lives and prevented crimes. We saw a good example recently in Arapahoe High School. But that only happens when the police happen to be close enough to respond in time, and if they decide to intervene. Generally they do, if they're around, but they're under no legal obligation to do so, at least in the US.

The bottom line is that the old saw "when seconds count, the police are just minutes away", is absolutely correct. Because they're usually not present when the bad stuff happens, police are primarily responsible for making reports and doing light investigation, just as the GP said.

Actually, Google doesn't do that either. It does respond to subpeonas, warrants and National Security Letters, when those documents are provided per the requirements of the law and are narrow and specific (i.e. no dragnets). See David Drummond's numerous public statements on this topic.

I agree, that is a valid concern. I don't believe it will happen, certainly not while Page and Brin are in charge. But it's a possibility. I'm skeptical that it could be made retroactive, but I suppose even that is a possibility.

LOL.

The dataset will be built, regardless. Personally, I'd much rather that it was Google doing it, because Google actually does care about user privacy. In the long term, this isn't a problem with a technological solution, it's going to require a legislative solution. Either that or we'll evolve a society that simply doesn't care about privacy (which isn't an entirely negative idea; read David Brin's "The Transparent Society"). Personally, I'm skeptical of a world that doesn't allow for personal privacy, so I think we need to address it legislatively. I don't know that we need to be quite as draconian about it as some European nations have, but their legal frameworks provide a good starting point.

Google doesn't give the NSA access.

To let me know when the burglars are coming and going.

Happy Hogwatch!

The fact that we're discussing it now shows they chose a decent enough target. They got your attention, didn't they? I'll bet they got the Google and Apple employees' attention. They got their managers' attention too since those people were all late for work.

They tried it your way and didn't even make the back page of the newspaper, so they're upping the ante a bit. Which is more violent, breaking a window or driving someone from their home?

Which would you rather lose, a window or everything you own that won't fit in your pockets?

NO. They maintain that because they were already living there they shouldn't have to leave just because some rich bastards are distorting the local economy.

You seem to maintain that people with more money should be able to banish the less wealthy to wherever they don't want to live.