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Comment Re:Eyecandy in cost of usability (Score 1) 1124

From your link:

7 Can any applications use the license?

The license is available for applications on any platform, except for applications that compete directly with the five Office applications that currently have the new UI (Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Access). We wanted to make the IP available broadly to partners because it has benefits to Microsoft and the Office Ecosystem. At the same time, we wanted to preserve the uniqueness of the Office UI for the core Office productivity applications.

Firefox does not compete with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook or Access. Microsoft might claim Thunderbird competes with Outlook, if the Mozilla folks want to add ribbons there as well, but unless the actual license text is substantially different, there should not be any problem for Firefox other than possibly users' objections.

Then it's a stupid idea to implement it. This way you're furthering the use of a patented technology thus software patents.

Comment Re:Heaven forbid... (Score 1) 517

You make the mistake of assuming that the 'evidence' presented is true. you also make the mistake assuming any trial by jury is a fair one, considering anybody that is a member of FIJA is almost immediately removed from the jury pool. That leaves out the informed people, leaving only the idiots to judge your guilt or innocence.

Idiots without Fox News is still way better than idiots with Fox News.

Comment Re:Well Then (Score 1) 754

I have a good friend who is a licensed Chiropractor, and also licensed as a family-practice M.D. He fully understands the limitations of Chiropractic techniques and won't hesitate to advise patients go to a medical specialist for any condition he might detect. Additionally, he would never make any claims he knows to be false, for example, that chiropractic adjustments can help conditions like ulcers, or whatever other ridiculous things fraud Chiropractors claim. He advises companies on ergonomics, and frequently attends health fairs.

Are there fraud Chiropractors? Yes. Are all Chiropractors frauds? Of course not.

Guess what? There are also fraud M.D.s. And fraud lawyers, and fraud plumbers and...

Yes, and fraud lawyers and M.D.s are persecuted by the law? As a criminal offence that is... So your point is?

Comment Re:MOD UP (Score 1) 754

Great post, and exactly right. These anti-alternative-therapy people keep claiming alternative therapies "aren't scientific", but neither is traditional medicine. Doctors are just trained to compare symptoms with available pharmaceuticals and prescribe something and see if it works. It's totally shooting in the dark, and there's very little work in the medical industry that I see to understand how the body really works and develop safe and effective therapies for problems. Worse, all the pharmaceuticals have loads of negative side-effects.

There's a lot of people with various problems (like chronic fatigue syndrome) that traditional medicine has done absolutely nothing to find relief for, so they're forced to turn to anything that might help. You can cry all you want that it's bogus, but trying nearly anything beats sitting on your ass and suffering.

Oh come on. You might as well explain that mechanics are not using science since they poke at a machine to see if it wriggles and then do something to make it work again.

Yes, MDs are educated to be mechanics and not scientists, but that does not mean they don't USE GOOD, RIGOROUSLY TESTED science. In any case it is solar years ahead of the "alternative medicine" whatever that means.

Comment Re:Misleading article/summary (Score 3, Insightful) 754

Which is as it should be - if I write "Darkness404 molests goats" then unless it is true why should I not compensate you for the resulting harm to your reputation? Whereas if it is true, then I have done nothing but convey the truth of the situation to the audience.

It does look like guilty until proven innocent, and that's what confuses a lot of people. But if you think about it, the defendant has accused the plaintiff of something, so yes, it's up to the defendant to prove it.

Except that's not true. Simon said "science behind the treatment is bogus", not that the chiropractors were bogus, which means that tey are misinformed, not lying intentionally. And the science behind the treatments they propose is bogus.

An old journalists' proverb is "if in doubt, leave it out".

Yeah, that's what I say - if you can't prove that you don't molest children you must not deny the charges?

Expecting the plaintiff to prove the statements aren't true is ridiculous. Unless Darkness404 has been shadowed by numerous independent witnesses for his entire life he can't prove that he never ever indulged in a little caprine frolicking.

Well it depends if its libel. Simon said the treatments are not proven, which he CAN defend. The problem is the judge interprets his words as "chiropractors are lying to patient" which he did not say and did not mean.

Justifying the statement is not an exercise in proving its absolute truth, either.

If you can convince the court is true, then that's good enough.

You may remember the cases that Fat Bob Maxwell won against Private Eye; at least some of the accusations were factually true, but the magazine couldn't prove it at the time. So legally, they were false.

Yeah, the problem is the court actually misunderstood the words Simon was saying. They are trying him for the equivalent of saying "chiropractors know they are not helping people but lie to them" (which is not only not what he meant but is indefensible in every sense of the word) vs the actual words "treatments chiropractors give have not been proven to be scientifically sound". All the problems are the misinterpretation of the word BOGUS.

Comment Re:Let's hope... (Score 1) 651

Well it depends on what you mean by force someone not to listen to someone else. It's one too many negatives so it's not quite clear.

For example, let's say PETA has a de-humanizing rally like they usually do. And I create some posters exposing them as the terrorist scum they are - am I free to show them to the bystanders? Can PETA demand that I don't give my brochures and that on their rally only they have that right?

If people are DUMB enough so that the class didn't want to hear the speaker, who's to blame? Or if it was one-two students, just have them out of the room - it's ok, the professor is in charge and he has the right.

Comment Re:Let's hope... (Score 1) 651

Have you been to the lecture? Have you actually witnessed it first account?

Yes, I demand the right to speak but that does not stop me from exercising MY right to speak. If I deem speech to be inappropriate for the audience, like some quack homeopath nutritionist horse-shit peddler (as dara o'briain said) selling bullcrap to an uninformed audience I WILL feel compelled to silence him. Yes, I would use rational arguments, and I will probably wait for him to finish.

But that's me. Maybe those students didn't have the nerve to watch that guy spew hatred towards their own people. Maybe they didn't have the capacity to let him finish. I can't judge them because I wasn't there, and so shouldn't you.

Comment Re:Let's hope... (Score 1) 651

Being a guest speaker does not give you any kind of immunity. It is ludicrous to demand that - freedom to speak does imply freedom to be heard.

And no, punishing students for disagreeing with merely a point of view of a guest speaker is not fair by a long shot.

Maintaining order is another point, but I have not been to the lectures mentioned in the thread and so you haven't. A mere "we want the borders closed with Mexico and Canada" can convey quite a lot of hatred by being said in the proper context and proper intonation, so I really can't judge the students.

Comment Re:What the? (Score 1) 653

Now, coming to your view, you have considered only scientists and artists. The point, I guess, being that the world is the way it is now only due to scientific achievements. I disagree on that. Politics and military has played a far far bigger role in shaping the world as we see it now.

And what is that makes military and political advancements possible, if not science and technology?

But of course it's God, dammit!

Comment Re:What I want (Score 1) 554

In TC - by using the second password!

The location of the header of the hidden partition is a hash based on the second password. Thus if you unlock with the first password only, TC doesn't know if there is a hidden one, thus you risk destruction of the hidden filesystem (or some records thereof).

Comment Re:Other reasons (Score 1) 487

The police use them extensively in the downtown area where I live. I actually saw one pull over a car once. But, apart from being terribly expensive, one of my friends bought one. He'd ride it to work when the weather wasn't horrid, as well as around town on the weekends. He had a blast with it for about four months, until he hit that patch of mislaid pavers....

Double compound fracture. Ow. Thousands of dollars in medical bills, even after insurance. My curiosity completely evaporated. Much like my desire to buy a motorcycle dies every few months when I see one that's wiped out on the interstate.

Grow some balls man ...

Comment Re:The NRC should build this into the cost. (Score 1) 315

Good luck with the insurance policy. As AIG shows, what makes anybody think the insurance company will have the money - or even be around - in 60 years to cover the cost of dismantling a reactor?

The only way you can get nuclear power to pan out financially is if you have the government own and run all the reactors on what amounts to a non-profit basis (as in France, with EDF, which is something like 80% government-owned). You can't even get private insurance for the things (and I wouldn't trust private insurers to pay out in the event of a major incident, anyhow).

Even in France, EDF isn't in great financial shape. They don't have enough money to support their pension obligations and all decommissioning expenses, although presumably the French government has made enough money off EDF over the years they could pick up some of that tab and still ultimately leave taxpayers in the black.

The reality is, fission power never has and never will make much financial sense. When France went nuclear in the post WWII era there weren't any viable alternatives for them, but clearly that's no longer the case today for many nations, the United States included.

Wow, you actually think AIG's customers got screwed over?

Man, you're soooo clueless ...

Comment Re:Just keep competition alive (Score 2, Insightful) 381

Well, he might live in Japan, but I live in Bulgaria (pop. density 68.9/km2, vs 31/km2 for USA) and I have 10 MBit connection for about 20 USD, while even in the most desolate inhabited area you can get at least DSL connection.

We have 1/7 of the nominal GDP per capita, so don't tell me it's just Japan. It's just everyone besides USA, and the faster you accept that, the faster you'll be able to fight for your rights.

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