mckoss

Why aren't French entrepreneurs rioting in the streets to protest against protectionist laws that primarily serve to shield incumbents from competition?

On the Nature of Things (De rerum natura) by Lucretius is a fascinating glimpse at the foundation of scientific thought from the 1st century BC. I just finished reading it; it's an interesting mix of combining logic with observation to try to understand physical phenomenon. He gets many things wrong from a modern understanding of physics; but there are many prescient ideas including the idea of indivisible particles of matter and that much of what we interpret as "solid" is primarily composed of empty space.

Chaining. Definitely for chaining.

Alaska paid residents $1,800 in 2014 under its Permanent Fund program (a negative tax).

Thanks! Seems like there is a market for durable "portable" structures that can be built on disputed land, and then moved if needed.

Thanks, I misread the comment.

From my memory, they had a reputation for bait and switch - raising money during a disaster, but spending it elsewhere. I think they cleaned that up, including a change in leadership.

This article is new in claiming innefectiveness at usefully spending money to help disaster victims. I would love to see a detailed audit.

Can $2,000 build a whole house? Even in Haiti? I would think 10x that for anything we would call a "house". Its not surprising there is a vast unmet need in Haiti given its poverty and the scale of the disaster.

I would not let a single news story exclude you from including them. I've seen too many cases where journalists completely botch an investigative story due to biased sources and their own ignorance.

I personally would like to see the Red Cross's response.

I don't agree that the modern Red Cross has anything to do with Christianity. I've never heard of them evangelizing or take any position on religion. Why do you think that?

I would worry about lead investors front running their trades; its pretty easy to make money in the market if you can get a large number of people copying your trades AFTER you make your own.

Paper describing the proposal for Telescope time-allocation:

http://arxiv.org/pdf/0906.1943.pdf

See also Google's blog post summarizing Borg -> Kubernetes improvements.

http://blog.kubernetes.io/2015/04/borg-predecessor-to-kubern...

Does that matter? There was nothing drug specific about the site implementation - you could sell anything you wanted to (gold, collectables, etc).

He provided a system that could be used as a valuable service for legal activities. It could also be used for illegal or banned activities in various jurisdictions.

I'm just saying that it's a dangerous precedent to say that anyone creating a communication or transaction platform can be held liable for conspiring with users who use it to commit crimes.

Agreed. From the FBI press release on his conviction[1] no mention of the murder-for-hire charge. This conviction and sentencing all stem from the drug-selling business enterprise.

Our war-on-drugs sentencing is quite disproportional, IMHO; imputing societal harms that are unfounded. After all, Mr. Ulbright simply provided a safer way for consenting individuals to enter personal financial transactions.

Silk Road is a drop in the bucket compared to all the transactions arranged over SMS messages and using cash - but we don't hold AT&T and the Federal Reserve responsible for running a criminal enterprise.

===== ULBRICHT, 30, of San Francisco, California, was found guilty of: one count of distributing narcotics, one count of distributing narcotics by means of the Internet, and one count of conspiring to distribute narcotics, each of which carries a maximum sentence of life in prison and a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years; one count of engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise, which carries a maximum sentence of life in prison and a mandatory minimum sentence of 20 years in prison; one of count of conspiring to commit computer hacking, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison; one count of conspiring to traffic in false identity documents, which carries a maximum sentence of 15 years; and one count of conspiring to commit money laundering, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. The maximum sentences are prescribed by Congress and are provided for informational purposes only, as the sentence will be determined by the judge. ULBRICHT is scheduled to be sentenced on May 15, 2015.

  [1] http://www.fbi.gov/newyork/press-releases/2015/ross-ulbricht-the-creator-and-owner-of-the-silk-road-website-found-guilty-in-manhattan-federal-court-on-all-counts

Bob Simon of 60 Minutes also died this way in February. Wear your seatbelts in cabs and Ubers, people!

I'm sorry; I don't see it. I've seen hundreds of date pickers and color pickers and alerts, and they look very similar. The visual design language of the web co-evolves across millions of sites. There are only just so many ways these things can be done. I prefer to have a web filled with familiar, usable components, rather than every designer trying to make the same control somehow novel.

Unless these folks wholesale copied your html and CSS source code, I don't think you need be getting upset about it. The "look and feel" cases between Apple and Microsoft settled this issue in the 90's - it's not protectable.

ACLU Response

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_q83Y5nyOSE

I was hoping to see a list based on how the price of a product better communicates a product's value. It's sad to me that there is so much energy focused on the manipulation of the buyer as the goal.

Frankly, I consider the aggressive use of these tactics to be a sign that the company is manipulative and untrustworthy.

The right to peaceable assembly in the First Amendment of the Constitution SHOULD mean that the government cannot require a permit to do so (otherwise, it wouldn't be a RIGHT).

If a large number of people want to get from point A to point B, even on foot, an accommodation of normal traffic laws should be made to allow that.

Why the hell are police arresting peaceful protestors?

Not that far but:

"As part of our Patent Acquisition Agreement (see section 4.4), sellers will retain a license back to their patent. For you lawyers out there, the license is “irrevocable, non­exclusive, non­transferable, non­assignable (including by operation of law or otherwise), non­sublicensable, worldwide, [and] fully paid­up.”

Thanks. So it seems all a publisher has to do is avoid using ad-like terminology in their ad URLs. They can just stick them in /images/id along with regular content images and AdBlocm will have no way to tell them difference.

How does it distinguish Ad from Content in that case?

Note the journalistic bias - describing Kim Dotcom as "notorious".

I agree - totally illegal (or should be).

It seems to me a Stingray is designed specifically to get around the need for a court order. OTW they would just subpoena the records of a cell carrier to get the information on a target they suspect.

>>> Our government’s copyright enforcement framework treats infringements as civil matters that generally require legal counsel.

I wish it did! Most infringement of a commercial work seems to incur criminal penalties (though you can recover civil damages as well).

http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap5.html

You can't selectively block content on an SSL connection w/o having a back door to the encryption keys used to secure the connection. A man in the middle attack would be detectable unless the root certificates were compromised.

Looks like techcrunch is running an unwanted article injector :-)

On further thought, you're right. I would not condone any sort of violent response. But a criminal investigation should be made, even if it leads to Chinese authorities.

(Just as we should have criminal investigations over US surveillance programs...).