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.

I don't have to show this, it's common knowledge. We've discussed the fact here repeatedly.

But it isn't, because of the massive loads they carry, and the extremely hard tires which are designed pretty much exclusively for tread life and reducing rolling friction.

Ok, so I RTFA, and I see "One right that all creators have is to undo copyright transfers and licenses after thirty-five years have passed, under some conditions." [...] "Copyright termination means that any license, including a perpetual public license, can be revoked." But that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about making a promise not to sue for use of the work, which is not the same thing as offering a license for the use of the work. If you make an explicit and public promise not to sue, separately from any licensing, that's different from offering a license and then revoking it later. Licensing something for any use is not the same as placing it in the public domain, and promising not to sue for any use seems the only way to effectively actually do that otherwise.

This is a threat to the GPL, the MIT, and other [F]OSS licenses. But it's not a threat to the public domain.

I do think that we should have a public domain registry, where we can explicitly give up our right to a work in perpetuity. But why should we need one? We already have a legal concept which should permit accomplishing the same thing.

Right, and the question is whether that is actually justified, or whether it's just a revenue generation scheme.

No, a proliferation of taxis does that. See, under the current system, I can't get a taxi in a timely fashion, so I can't reasonably not have a car.

A prius exerts more force per square inch on the pavement than a large pickup, because of the reduced contact area and the increased hardness of the tires. Meanwhile, OTR trucks do vastly more damage than either — as it turns out, passenger vehicles affect the road very little (even hybrids, with their high weight carried on LRR tires) while OTR trucks do pretty much all the road damage.

In conclusion, if the basis for the fee is road damge, then a Prius should pay more than an F-350, but neither one should really pay anything compared to an OTR truck.

insurance estimates already account for this by charging for mileage

They don't penalize you for having a family, although then you have more passengers in the car, unless you plan to let some of those family members drive. What's the difference?

Well, they do, but only while you are carrying a passenger.

pretty much the only AA batteries anyone who doesn't know better should be buying are eneloop... if not those, then eneloop XX. But those are heinously expensive. basic eneloops have been independently tested to be the best bang for the buck, especially if you get their starter packs at costco which come with a charger and some battery adapters. they're Ultra Low Self-Discharge batteries and they also have good capacities. eneloop XX is cool for super hungry devices, like some older cameras.

I use a T-BB18 Trackman Wheel and it has those detents too, but at least one of them doesn't match up with the notches in the wheel, and the mouse will scroll while I barely move the wheel within it. This was basically the cheapest trackball they made, and it's been discontinued in favor of a wireless version which I don't like as much because of the weight.

this is a good project to play with then, because microswitches are cheap on ebay and their leads are fat. get yourself an el cheapo solder sucker and you're in there. you do need a halfway decent iron, though, because you want to get the job done quick and it always takes longer to reheat than to heat. I have a couple of temp controlled wellers and I got an 800 degree pointy tip for one of them which is really nice for that sort of thing.

You mean no new proprietary driver for you. The old one still exists. It didn't magically stop working because a new driver came out.

You can install an indexed search tool on older Ubuntu versions. But regardless, if newer Ubuntu doesn't support older nVidia drivers, how is that nVidia's fault?

Wait, I just saw this:

CPU without PAE? How quaint. Maybe you should join this millenium. But there are some non-PAE kernels for Ubuntu floating around out there, sometimes.

Along with your work, you provide a promise not to sue, giving up all your rights to the work in question. It's clearly illegal to do that with the intent of changing your mind later.

It would be nice if there were a no-copyright-registration process, which would certainly remove any and all doubt. But it's not like it's unclear, now. If there's no promise not to sue, look for something else.

You still don't understand how the Logitech website works. When they reuse a product name, the old product is renamed in the database to remove the conflict, and listed only under its model number. But here is an ebay listing showing the exact device in question, asshole. You could have found this yourself with google if you weren't such a dumbshit.

That you can get it yanked for trivial moving violations commited when not even driving a commercial vehicle, of the type that people regularly engage in. This is only really a problem because the court has the right to deny you the right to go to traffic school even if you weren't driving a commercial vehicle (or with commercial purpose) at the time. People don't usually go to traffic school because they committed an infraction through ignorance, they typically knew what they were doing was illegal, so there's really no grounds for closing this particular loophole to these people. It's wrong because especially if your livelihood depends on it, but really in any situation, you shouldn't be held to a higher standard than anyone else while operating non-commercially. And that's only because everyone should be held to the same standard while driving, regardless of reason. We're told over and over again that it's a privilege and not a right, but some of us seem to be more privileged than others.

The fact that so many of us didn't get any chemistry is vindication of the statement that we're fucked, though. Being a nerd, I figured it out the first time I heard it, which was convenient since I first heard it from one of the people instrumental in spreading the meme early on. Being a part of the scruz geek scene was fairly magical, even though I caught the tail end of the golden years.

Everyone should be getting basic chemistry and biology, like it or not. I never had to dissect anything. Closest I've come is carving up food. Never learned much about biology at all, or chemistry for that matter.

That's why many of us didn't want the USDA involved in organic certification. Sure enough, they allow many things which really have no business falling under such a label. We knew it would just shit on the whole concept, which involves cyclical systems — it's not just about a list of banned products.