Bullshit. The constitution is an enumeration of powers possessed by the government. The list of rights embodied in the amendments are only examples, and the founding fathers thoughtfully included the ninth AND tenth amendments as a reminder of that. There was an argument over having a bill of rights at all, and those opposed based their objection on the idea that, over time, an enumeration of rights would come to be seen as an inclusive, limited list and undermine freedoms instead of enabling them. And here we are today, where most people believe the part in bold above.

Yes, I understand. That doesn't contradict my message: I have to grant an easement to utility companies to set poles in my backyard. As a whole, this is a good thing since it prevents private entities (like a cranky neighbor) from blocking deployment of those utilities to everyone else.

In the exact same vein, I think it's unreal that AT&T - who owns that pole in the easement in my backyard - can block deployment of a utility that everyone wants to use. If I had to grant an easement to AT&T, I think it's completely fair that they should be forced to grant an easement to Google to use the pole for its intended purpose.

You and AC seem to think that I'm against utility easements when I said nothing of the sort.

Priced like a nexus 5, while I'm dreaming.

I read the FTA and I didn't get any proof that we were living in a simulation at all.

Because it doesn't claim that. Hologram != Simulation.


The FTA is throwing around the word hologram, but IMHO that is a bit a stretch. Or maybe I don't know the official scientific definition of a hologram.

It just means that our universe seems to have more dimensions than it really does, for certain purposes. By analogy with a visual hologram, which looks 3d but all the depth information resides entirely in the interference patterns encoded in a 2d image.

It doesn't have anything to do with a holodeck or the universe as a simulation or even really invalidate the laws of physics as we currently know them. At best, it might mean that someday (a long, long time away) we can find a way to cheat certain of those laws that exist only as emergent behavior from the actual underlying system.

We *do* provide transcripts for almost all videos. Your point?

Fedora has a corporation tied to them as well. Fedora is so pro-OSS that you cannot even obtain it with built-in MP3 support. The Fraunhofer corporation (GmbH?) owns patents on critical MP3 technology and even though they've stated that it's available free for non-commercial use, Red Hat won't bundle it because it's not 100% OSS without encumbrances.

A corporation doesn't have be rapacious if it doesn't want to. Fewer of them would be if we'd all stop giving our money to the ones that are.

But those physical poles are in my physical backyard. If I have to grant utilities an easement, then I am perfectly fine with them having to grant an easement to other utilities.

Their main purpose is to provide profit for the shareholders.

One way of doing that is to extract as many fees as possible from retail banking customers while doing as little to earn the fees as possible.

I clued into this ages ago, so I use a no-fee online account for the vast majority of my personal banking.

I can use paper checks entirely for free, but if I want to transfer funds directly to someone else's account the bank wants a fairly substantial fee for the service even though it could be done entirely automatically with no person in the loop.

Makes zero sense...

The original topic poster wrote it like what they did was for a good purpose. While I might like journalists to do investigations of politicians I dislike bursting peoples trust in anonymity.

I have a no-frills online bank that will let me transfer funds for free to other bank accounts, but they have to be *my* accounts and I have to send in a form and a void check first and it takes a while to set up each account.

On the other hand, I can use a paper check at no charge. (They even send me new checks for free.)

This makes no sense. A check is simply a piece of paper with bank account information on it. Why can't I enter that information manually (or scan it electronically) and do a direct transfer into someone's account?

It can't be security, since there will be a direct record of the transaction. It would be no more risky than an existing inter-account transfer.

In reality, in the software world, all too often the patents are protecting what people want to do, or the behaviour of the system.

Nokia may or may not be liable to this tax. The rule of the land you have to follow.

You've just hit on the real problem here, but not how you meant it.

Yes, each culture has its own "rule of the land" that foreign investors need to follow. In the case of India, that means "Grease every palm you see or everyone from the PM down to the beat-cop will make your life hell". And that holds true in a great many places, not just India (though India seems to have institutionalized that practice to a degree that completely dwarfs any other nominally-1st-world nation).

Unfortunately, since Nokia also does business in the US, and the US has this curious delusion that we can impose our laws on the rest of the world, obeying this Indian "unwritten law" would put Nokia in violation of the FCPA. That then puts everyone in an awkward situation.

I fully expect we'll start seeing more and more companies simply skip the US market entirely to avoid dealing with our bullshit. We resemble the guy at the party giving away free cocaine at this point - Grudgingly popular, but no one hangs out with him the next day.

The assassination thing gets tried now and then, but assassinated leaders have a habit of being replaced by other leaders, who are not always better. Sometimes, instead, they're replaced by multiple would-be leaders and a civil war, also not necessarily better.