Posts by DavCrav 3894 publicly visible posts • joined 19 Nov 2007
"Hmm... I wonder if someone would decide that now they're on US soil it's finders keepers and off they go to the Smithsonian?"
It would be ironic if British artefacts were plundered and carted off half-way round the world to be displayed in a museum. However, nowadays it's going to be difficult for that to stand up in court.
"I can still fire up a Windows 3.11 machine if I want to..."
Good luck getting it to work on any computer you can buy. But I see your point.
As an aside, i could never get on with 3.11, and only really got used to Windows with 95. Coming from Workbench I should have been more comfortable with 3.11 than 95, but for some reason I got very confused with it.
Who is truly to blame here:
Me, for stealing your organs, or you, for having such a juicy liver?
"I too can browse the videos and extract a lot of info.. Should I also be held in contempt of GDPR laws, of course not..."
If you collate it into a database of PII of random people (not, for example, your family) then yes, you have committed a crime. And it should be illegal to keep a database of people's information that they did not give you.
Hmm. You (not just you) seem to think that the EU27 are a very united bunch. In fact, without the UK in the mix, they will be slightly more united, but only because they will be pulling in 27 different directions, rather than 28.
The UK could be relied upon by a bunch of countries to throw a spanner in the works of most of the stupid Euro-nonsense, and so what came out was the better stuff. Now the Dutch, Danes and Swedes will have to do their own objecting.
"After that the rules can be redrafted so that the UK isn't a compulsory signatory but can join as an observer (similar agreements with non-EU states exist)."
If the reules are redrafted, it has to go through the whole approval process again.
And without the UK, the EPO is still important, but much less so. I expect there to be less than zero chance of the current government of handing control of patents to the EU, especially if it's not part of the trade deal.
"That court is likely to be moved to mainland Europe but that still leaves the main issue: can a non-EU country be a part of a European unitary patent system?"
Here's another issue then: will the UK, particularly in its current tizz about foreign courts, still want to be part of the EPO if there is not London-based branch of it? And if they withdraw, it collapses again.
"Um, the reference there seems to be to Hussain, whose evidence was reported as having been affected by the risk of prejudicing his US appeal."
But the judge should, and almost certainly is, cogniscant of the fact that Hussain is appealing the judgment, and so doesn't want to be caught in a perjury trap. If POTUS can use that argument, surely Hussain can.
I guess the point is that the more you discuss a case, the more likely it is to say something that, possibly accidentally, contradicts something said earlier, especially when discussing recollections of past events. "I don't remember" and "I do remember" appear contradictory, but are not if spoken at different times. But a US court will throw you in jail for that sort of flip flopping, especially if you are a foreigner and have a name like Hussain. (Of course, the US legal system is definitely not corrupt, xenophobic or racist.) Hence shutting up in the US system is an absolute must.
"I'm sorry, first you're saying that Hussain was entirely justified, then you say that his involvement was "wildly overblown" ?"
Yes, both are possible. If you play a bit part in a legal undertaking, and somebody claims you played a major role in a criminal undertaking, what you did is both entirely legitimate and overblown.
"I wonder how many Americans are buying the cheap rip-offs, knowing full well what they are - or just not caring."
I once bought something from eBay, and paid about the correct price for it. (I only bought it from there because I couldn't find it anywhere else.) When it arrived it was the Chinese kock-off version. I complained to the seller that having paid the correct price, I should get the real thing and not some knock off. He then said in an actual eBay message that it's exactly the same as the real thing, just not made by them. I pointed out that he has just admitted to knowingly selling counterfeit goods, and he gave me half my money back, closed his account, and I haven't seen him on there since.
So in reality, he just opened up a new storefront doing exactly the same thing.
"So the moral question is whether the end justifies the means? What right do you have to limit or put a stop to the activities of a charity simply because you don't like the way it raises funds?"
It is raising funds from tax though. Societies function only because of a social contract, which sees everyone who is able (i.e., earning) chipping in and then society decides on which things should be paid for. Tax-free charitable giving bypasses the bit where the rest of society gets a say.
Fundamentally, tax is the payment you make to society for being allowed to live in it and enjoy its benefits. You personally shouldn't be able to dictate how your tax money is spent.
"How on earth is it immoral?"
It's immoral because you have decided that your causes are more important than what society has decided should be paid for. So it's deeply arrogant and egotistical.
Making a (gift-aided) donation to the RSPCA, which is overfunded, takes money away from schools and hospitals, which are underfunded.
"Charities get the basic rate (20%) automatically. If you are a higher rate taxpayer, you can claim the rest back for yourself in your annual tax return."
Finally! Someone posts the correct answer after many posts about Gift Aid.
Personally, I think making charity donations tax deductible is wrong, as it allows the rich to direct their taxes towards pet projects, often with side-benefits for them (think donations to opera houses, museums, etc.).
"You studied chaos theory and are seriously stating that it is not applicable to climate modelling?"
It's applicable to weather modelling, not climate modelling. I'm not trying to decide the path of a particular storm, I'm trying to understand broad parameters of the system. Chaos is not important with this, any more than it is when measuring water flow in a river, another chaotic system assuming real-world conditions. I don't care where a given molecule ends up, just where the water goes.
If it were impossible to predict what happens in chaotic systems, we would have difficulty designing helicopters.
"Disabling the equipment is only a condition of the discount. If you want to keep yours, simply pay full price."
I downvoted you because, in a world that is currently on fire, companies should be forcibly disbanded for offering people a discount if they deliberately cause more pollution and emissions.
"Sonos gave an offer where you could upgrade bits of your kit for a large discount. You didn't take up the offer your kit was not disabled. The whole point was to stop people taking the upgrade then keeping their old kit, or selling the old kit on."
Yes. It's an offer that deliberately creates more waste. It is unacceptable.
"There are myriad potential causes (that interact, undoubtedly - perhaps some of those who claim 'the science is settled' should learn about chaos theory)."
I know about chaos theory, having studied it during my degree in mathematics. Chaos theory is not applicable here.
"Just because the SillyCon Valley worker is paid too much. Pay them as much as in Bangladesh and the cost of living in SillyCon Valley will drop too."
No, it's because workers in the developed world are much more productive, so they are paid a lot more on a global scale. However, in order to not have all retail workers starve to death, they are paid more than people who are similarly productive in Bangladesh. Of course, to pay the local baker, who is nowhere near productive enough to justify this wage, enough to live, the cost of loaves of bread has to increase.
Thus a rise in the cost of living is a way to redistribute the increased productivity gains that the more productive parts of society have produced, if the tax system is not managing it.
You really don't want to pay all people the same throughout the world for the same job. There would be no good way to redistribute income then, and the resulting inequality would make today look like communism.
"I like that you think companies are anything other than people."
I specifically wrote actual real people to avoid this corporations are legal persons nonsense that exists in some jurisdictions.
It was such a stupid legal fudge I cannot believe it has survived. "Only people can own things. We could write laws saying that companies can also own things, or we could just call companies people. That couldn't possibly go wrong further down the line."
"This must be what this 'entitled' business that I keep hearing about is."
Yes, definitely entitlted. Stupid entitled companies, that think that they somehow own ideas, names, buildings, land. Since companies don't really exist as a physical entity, what right do they have to anything?
Society, meaning the collection of actual real people in the country, allow companies to exist. It writes the rules of engagement, not companies. Hence we have employment rights, a minimum wage, etc.. Companies have no God-given right to exist and untrammelled power to do whatever they fancy. Humans can, and should, constrain their activities so that they benefit humans. Otherwise, what's the point of their existence?
"I may be wrong, but I beileve that was determined to be OK as it was supposed to be an insult rather than a litteral accusation of pedophilia."
You are wrong. It was determined to be OK because the defendant was rich and the plaintiff a poor foreigner.
"(My understanding is that Musk didn't try to dig up dirt until after the law suit was suggested)"
Even if he didn't try to prove it until after he was sued, and I don't believe that to be the case, that is just evidence that he wasn't meaning it as an insult. If I call you a cunt, and you sue me for it, I am unlikely to go and see a doctor to try to prove that you are a female reproductive organ.
"There's always the Eudora model (free software, support via contract)
The problem with this is that if you're doing this, you _really_ need to pay attention to what the endusers want and deal with the bug reports. Writing things off as "not a problem" or "works for me" doesn't sit well with paying customers."
And, of course, you need to make sure there are enough bugs in your program that people need the support.
"With the existence of the FDIC, isn't a bit unfair to refer to depositors as "unsecured" creditors? That insurance does generally come through..."
Unsecured creditors who have a CDS then.
It means they aren't at the front of the queue (or in the US, line) when the default happens. Being insured means the federal government is on the hook for the payments, rather than them getting (some of) their money back through the administrators.
"One might think that before the body was in the ground a reasonable effort had been made to identify the corpse."
If I remember correctly, they were on holiday in India at the time of his 'death'. A quick few rupees to a doctor and you can get a piece of paper saying anything you want.
"Go to HR" has to be the worst possible advice for anything work related. HR are not your friends. They are the enemy. Under no circumstances should you involve HR in anything unless absolutely necessary, and then only if you have cast-iron evidence you are innocent/the victim/etc., also away from company property so they cannot get hold of it.
HR are there for the company's benefit, not yours.
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