Bad comparison. California has 54 electoral college votes and Connecticut has 7 or about 13% as much as California. On the other hand California has 39.5 million people and Connecticut has about 3.6 million or about 9% as much as California. The American system is rigged to allow tyranny of the minority. Low population states get disproportionally high representation in elected positions. If their representation was proportional using Connecticut as the base Florida would have 77-78 electoral college votes.

Patriot act next?

It will run on 16 gb. MS claims it will boot with 4 and is "adequate" on 8.

Do you feel better now that you have successfully trolled? Have you successfully affirmed your man hood?

Applied to be a cub scout back then was told "we have enough kids already". They took all my friends.

You pick the terms of your license. Those terms allow for GPL software to use it by your license. GPL software sets terms for their license. If you choose not to abide by GPL license for the code then of course you can't use it. Just as others can't use your code without abiding by your chosen license. You are free to make your choice and do. They are free to make their choice and do. The fact is that your choice doesn't override their chosen license for their code. You each have equal freedom.

Extend it to "the day you announce you will never publish a copyrighted work (that you own the rights to) that copyright expires".

Police have been known to rig line ups. One guy was dressed by the police exactly like the suspects description (they provided the clothes as they hadn't found anything similar when searching his apartment) and didn't dress any of the other people in the line up that way. He was eventually exonerated. Police have been known to rig things when they are SURE of guilt but don't have the evidence, this is just one example.

Fingerprint evidence can be as bad. You may remember after the Madrid bombings the FBI was asked for help with the fingerprints. They found about a dozen people who were partial matches to the fuzzy digital photo of the prints. They chose the Moslem and assumed his guilt with no evidence he was out of the U.S., they pointed to one of his child custody clients (he was a lawyer) was found to have "terrorist connections" (and that may be that someone you casually know casually knows someone related to a suspected terrorist they never met) AFTER he was no longer a client. When the Spanish authorities said it can't be him, here is a clearer image of the prints they refused even to check. He was held SECRETLY in custody with the police denying it (Patriot Act) for some time with no contact with family or a criminal lawyer). The Spanish caught the real criminal.

Another way police misuse fingerprints is that if they KNOW they have the right guy but the fingerprint expert says "not a match" they keep resubmitting it and insisting on another review till the expert says "OK, you're right, just leave me alone" just to get them of HIS back. The expert of course should be reporting them to their higher ups for trying to coerce a false experts report.

Or you can get them by the current crisis with there being the possibility of living for years longer with being in fair shape for their age.

She also wore Gold. But since she was retired neither applies.

Wealth care system. If you have the wealth then they care.

They do carry legal authority when it is in the license for the product you are/were using. They can audit and then fine you if you don't have all the licensing information available. They don't care if it was lost or misplaced, time to pay the piper and a lot of small companies fail audits even with having been scrupulously honest. Others because someone installed a package illicitly that wasn't legal and no one noticed.

Then there are the audits that involve products you haven't used in years but since that license was open ended you can still be audited and there can be "leftovers" from that prior installation that the uninstall procedures left behind, still leaving you legally liable if you don't have the retained licensing or even if you do sometimes.

Microsoft LOVES subscriptions. They have a steady revenue stream. If they sell you a product they have a HUGE stream for short time (if the upgrade is popular) then for years only a trickle, stock price rises with the surge then falls with the trickle. They then need to add features that you want OR change it to make the new version incompatible to FORCE upgrades. A version that is good enough that no one wants/needs to upgrade doesn't help the revenue stream.

Not all trade secrets can be patented. A company I worked for had a product that because they added a tiny percentage of a second chemical that caused a reaction resulting in "unknown" end products they didn't have to reveal that it was the primary chemical that was the overwhelming majority that made it work. If they had to market it as that chemical they couldn't get people to pay the jacked up price. Couldn't be patented but was a trade secret. Yes it ripped off the customers.

GPL is almost always used as a weapon to defend against those who want to take the code and not give back to the community. If you don't want to give back don't use the GPL'd code and there is no way the GPL can be used as a weapon against you. And by using the code it means in your own programs that you want to distribute without distributing the code, not just run programs that are under the GPL. Simple you don't like the GPL don't use code under the GPL.