Posts by DavCrav

Re: This is a valid proof that

"This is a valid proof that

you can never have (free and) open source software on closed proprietary hardware."

OK, this is a new definition of 'valid proof' that seems to mean 'not a proof'. Apart from the fact that one example cannot prove a 'never' statement, I fail to see how the hardware makes a difference here.

And what is open-source hardware? Here are the plans to your new microprocessor, you can either buy one off the shelf, or pop down to your shed where you store your 14nm chip fab, and make your own.

Re: Open source is a tough business

"Not to mention that they'll generally prefer to use bad open source software over paying a nominal amount for a well written closed source competitor."

So this is the year of Linux on the desktop then? (Not saying Linux is bad, before anyone starts.)

Re: Licence

"Is there not a licence that is open-source, but requires payment for commercial use?"

Ah, the honour system, or as it's also known, fuck you little guy.

It's now too late to edit my post further. You must be wrong, from a logical perspective.

Suppose the bank collapses, and you have $300k on deposit. You get back $250k, as per FDIC insurance. Who has stolen the other $50k? If it is your property, then it has been stolen by someone, but I'm pretty sure there's nobody you can have arrested for theft.

Since your property has not been stolen (compare with pawn brokers, for example, where in the event of a collapse the administrators cannot take your jewellery), it follows that it was never your money to begin with, and you are a creditor just like anyone else. You are an insured, unsecured creditor, just like a bondholder who has a CDS.

"NO. You have no clue what you are talking about."

I have just checked, and this appears dependent on where you live. If you live in the US, it appears to be your money and not the banks. If you live in the UK, it's definitely the bank's money and not yours.

I live in the UK, and so I am right. If you live in the US, you are also right. You mention FDIC rather than FSCS, so you are probably American. And your complete reluctance to countenance the idea of other countries' legal systems to be different also suggests that.

Edit: checked more, and it appears that you might be wrong. I cannot seem to find a definitive answer in the US, but the “Depositor Preference Rule" seems to suggest that the administrators and secured creditors come before depositors in the event of insolvency. Contrast this with pawn brokers, for example, where they cannot just flog off your stuff if they go bankrupt.

"If I own a bank, I do not own the customers' money in it, even in California. ItooANAL, but even I can see the flaw in your argument."

Actually, you do. In a bank, there is no pile of notes labelled "John Smith's cash". All the cash in a bank (but not in the pockets of the people in the bank) belongs to the bank. What customers have is an account with the bank, and they are creditors. Almost always such creditors are insured by the national government, which makes it different from a general creditor, but no, you don't own any of the cash in your bank.

Re: About the same time that ...

"schools stopped teaching kids how to spell "dike"."

My dictionary also says dike or dyke, although it prefers dike. It is a little old though. It's from 1925.

Re: From Experience (and In Hindsight)...

"Why ? Are you threatening to make them read it or something ?"

I guess it acts as a heat shield.

Re: From Experience (and In Hindsight)...

"Yeah, but every AT power button I used, you could release it and re-press it immediately (think Ludicrous Speed) and catch it before the power actually drained from the system."

I had one where that *almost* worked, so each time you thought it could work this time, and it sounded like it worked, and then drrrn.

Re: From Experience (and In Hindsight)...

"For me it's belt loops that seem to be the target. Always rather jarring when you're walking past a door at speed, and then suddenly you're not."

I thought it was just me, and never mentioned it to anyone because I was clearly a clumsy idiot. This jolting sensation like someone has just grabbed you and yanked you backwards, it's really annoying.

Re: From Experience (and In Hindsight)...

My two-year old is now regularly pointing at the power button on my desktop PC, saying "blue circle", and every couple of minutes trying to press it.

Re: @DavCrav - Intellectual property

"And what will compel them to respect the IP/patent system once you declare it is moral to steal theirs just because it's on that entities list ? Do you realize how may patents they will invalidate in return ? I personally don't think China would dislike that very much."

Well, now that is a different point. The original point was that you aren't allowed to invalidate $COMPANY's patents because the US court system would block that. The argument that $COMPANY's government will retaliate is a different statement, that I wasn't denying earlier. I simply stated that I expect there to be no legal obstacles to, for example, voiding Huawei's 5G patents in the US.

Re: Intellectual property

"Because if you break the IP / patent system for one, you break it for all. You allow some patents to be ignored, the courts would be forced to dismiss other claims, and the whole system of ownership of ideas crumbles to dust."

No they wouldn't. You just invalidate all patents from persons/corporations on the Entities List. I don't think courts will be forced to do anything of the sort, but of course IANAL.

Re: Oddly....

"I looked it up in a few South African newspaper comments sections and people who claimed to be from his area/went to his high school said that the phrase *was* used in the 80s, though maybe not so very commonly."

You want a list of things that kids used a school in the 80s, that I definitely wouldn't call people now? We will start with flid, which is short for Thalidomide. The various forms of spastic, spacca, etc., then all the racial ones, up to and including a word beginning with N.

"I said it thirty years ago at school" is really not an excuse. Notice that there's no proof that he has used it to refer to anyone else than Unsworth.

Re: courts and justice in the US, it's a (medieval) joke *spilling hot coffee*

That, by the way, is libellous, since it's definitely untrue (check it out, as another poster said) and defamatory (the word extort rarely has cuddly connotations).

The coffee was served at 90 degrees Celsius at a drive through, and she suffered third-degree burns. She only asked for medical bills to be covered.

Re: No winners in this one

"Worse things have been said about me on the playground when I was in school... "

Yes. Children are below the age of criminal responsibility. Did they also hire private investigators to try to substantiate their insults when it became clear they were libellous?

"similarly, treating people different because of how much money they make is *DISCRIMINATORY*. "

I'm not. I'm saying that a punishment should be a percentage of your income/net worth. To do otherwise would be to say that because you are rich the law needn't bother you. Which would be, erm, discriminatory.

This should apply to all offences, e.g., motoring offences. They should be dependent on income and wealth.

"Next you'll be wanting to charge MORE MONEY for a loaf of bread if you earn millions per year..."

No. Goods and services should be the same price for all people. But obviously, duh, the law is not a service. A punishment should be the same for all people, and so a parking fine should hurt all people equally. Since anybody of means can laugh at a parking fine, they are, de facto, above parking law. This is clearly unfair, and against the central (albeit laughable) tenet that all are equal before the law.

Re: Musk would have won in an English court too

"Musk apologised and deleted his tweet but, no, that wasn't good enough."

No he didn't. He repeated it in a tweet, then in an e-mail as 'child rapist', thus removing his one defence of 'it's a South African insult', and then tried to hire a PI to prove it, thus demolishing his other defence of 'Just kidding'.

He should have lost in the US, and would definitely lose in the UK where the jury wouldn't have been biased in his favour.

Re: No winners in this one

"2) $190m damages claim is laughable"

It isn't. Damages should be a disincentive. Musk is worth $10bn, so that's <2% of his worth.

Re: Surprised

"Noone's name has been defamed."

False. Why hire a private dick if he wasn't trying to prove it?

This is the smoking gun. He's guilty as sin. Should have sued in the UK.

Re: Surprised

"Will, surprised the wealthy have a different set of rules to the rest of us ? Where have you been ?"

Wealthy American versus poor foreigner. Of course the jury found for the American. The evidence (which is overwhelming) is irrelevant in American vs foreigner cases.

This is why I'm not in favour of an extradition treaty with the US. If they want to convict someone, do it over here, and then you can have them. But definitely not a trial in the US.

Re: Ok but how much tax is fair?

"Hiding assets abroad has been getting harder in recent years, even the Swiss banks are less secret than they used to be."

This is true. A couple of tax havens, for example Switzerland and to some extent Jersey/IoM, have been trying, as little as possible, to clean up their act. This leaves all of the others, like Caymans, Bermuda, Delaware, Panama, Liechtenstein, etc., who do their best to help companies and individuals hide their ill-gotten gains. Oh, and the London property market, of course.

Re: Profits?

"If you look at our governing party's donors, Big Tech is not sponsoring them."

They are the same rules that allow all corporations to dodge tax, not just FAANG. And there are ways to influence government other than donations. For instance, the revolving door between Google and governments, as investigated in, er, Private Eye.

See, for example, this Guardian article.

Re: Ok but how much tax is fair?

"One answer is to abolish corporation tax altogether."

And also abolish multinationals, presumably? Otherwise US corporations would still be shovelling all their UK-made profits back home and not being subject to UK tax.

Country-by-country reporting is the correct way to go, and abolition of the multitude of loopholes through which you can transfer cash between countries. No IP licensing, market value for intra-company goods (e.g., Starbucks coffee beans should be sold to Starbucks UK at market price for beans), and so on.

Or you introduce expected tax: if the group as a whole made n% profit, and UK sales (as determined by where the customer is) are £m, then if the profit made by the UK arm falls significantly below £m * n%, then you have to open your books to the public, journalists, accountants, etc., who can decide if they believe you. If not, the profit assumed will be 3*m*n% and taxed accordingly.

It should help clean up accountants books as well, because if they are too complicated, you get the "I don't believe you" response.

Re: Isn't this the problem?

"This is exactly the point - these companies are reacting to what the law is giving them. So it the law that needs to be corrected (or internationally co-ordinated) such that such options no longer exist."

and then later:

"Sad that France was forced in the EU to go it alone with their "digital tax" strategy "

You forgot to mention that The Trump has waded in threatening to attack France's economy if it does, indeed, make such a law. So it's not nearly as clear cut as certain people here are making out.

Re: Profits?

"Anyway, it's for governments to set the rules, and for people and companies acting within those rules to avoid over-paying."

That kind of don't hate the player hate the game bullshit is only true if the players didn't form large lobbying organizations to get the rules of the game set up so they always win.

It's also irrelevant. If I have sales of $1tn, and profit of $1bn, I'm supposed to pay the same tax as someone with sales of $2bn and profit of $1bn.

Re: Wrong argument

"Personally I would like to see the entire [Twitter] tax evasion system put to the magnifying glass."

Presumably the magnifying glass is needed to find Twitter's profit?

Re: Wrong argument

"They should pay sales tax on what they sell there, income tax and national insurance taxes for people they employ there...

Oh, wait a minute - they do pay all that. So let's not be too quick to drive them away."

If I want to buy something and Amazon has been driven away, I will still buy it.

Re: Wrong argument

"There are international agreements in place covering all this and you will not like the consequences of breaking them."

Ah, so in other words, companies have managed to rig the system so they literally cannot be taxed. OK, sounds like I need to start sending people to jail/backs against the wall until the system unrigs it and suddenly I can do such things.

Re: Wrong argument

"all that branding and IP may be generated in the UK, but the head office may be in the USA."

That's fair. Just because John Smith invents something in the UK for GloboMegaCorp, I fail to see why the UK branch of GMC should have all the benefits of it. I especially don't see why that IP can then be handed over to GMC Cayman who then can license it back to GMC UK. If the IP is really worth that much, GMC Cayman should be paying GMC UK an astronomical fee for that.

If I give a second house to my son, I am charged CGT as if I sold it at market rate. So charge Corporation Tax to GMC UK as if it had sold this IP on the open market, so something like ten times the total global revenue earned from it.

Re: Wrong argument

"The law explicitly says that is not true. Don't like it? Change the law."

Other people also get to vote. And they can be bought off. But it's usually cheaper to buy off people once elected, or buy off the President of a large country to threaten your country if they suggest changing the law.

Re: Wrong argument

"What about franchises? The branding, and IP as a whole, might be the main or even only thing that the franchisor charges for?"

That's a good question. If the franchise is simply a name, and literally everything else is bought by the franchisee from other locations, then I would fail to see how this is even a business. If the franchise includes standards, etc., then they could charge for assessing those.

But indeed, I don't see why a franchise should be able to suck lots of money off the franchisee. They could apportion a cost for current advertising, in essence transferring some local costs onto the franchisee.