The difference between distributing and using your software.

If I had a site where people could watch the pirate copies of movies for free - would the MPAA not care, because I'm not distributing the movies I'm just 'using' them.

Some airlines are profitable, Southwestern, Ryanair, Easyjet, Westjet - but this is offset by national airlines which aren't.

US airlines are never profitable because the more money they lose apparently the more willing people are to bail them out

It's more like a doctor being able to take out a $M life insurance policy on a patient before he operates!

Or, while we're on the analogy train, a doctor taking out a $MM life insurance policy on a terminal patient before he performs an operation (which will in no way help the patient live longer), collecting the patient's health insurance dollars along the way.

Does anybody seriously doubt that they don't already do this ?

I believe this was the reason for the telecom immunity sell-out: http://articles.sfgate.com/2009-02-27/bay-area/17190307_1_ob...

Like when you thought you had bought a movie, but it turns out you don't have the right to watch it on your computer, or in another country, or in your car, or skip the trailers.

But strangely when the plastic disk breaks you don't get a new replacement one - even though all you bought was a licence to watch the contents

So you want faster-better-cheaper using COTS technologies but also want to keep the 1000s of pork-barrel in my state Nasa jobs ?

I don't see where tgerhard claimed that was a desirable outcome. I only see tgerhard reporting on the opinion others have from a position of knowledge.

I live in Michigan, half my family works for car companies one way or another, and I was and am still against the auto bailouts. Locally healthy for me, perhaps, but in my opinion still bad policy for the country. (My point not being that I want to debate that point, but that location does not have to dictate opinion.)

Sorry, wasn't meant personally - but you get the point. Q; How many states DON'T have a Nasa facility?

After 50+ years of pork barrel? I would bet on "none".

Hmmm - varied At the moment I close my browser in the same way as I close my editor, with the little cross in top right.

But I close my new intuitive iPad app by stroking the background image to the top left? Or turning the window upside down? And of course it's different for each app.

For what designer interfaces do for you - take a look at all the non-standard, non-rectangular DVD/Mp3 player tools installed by random hardware makers.

Obligatory Hitchhikers quote:

"For years radios had been operated by means of pressing buttons and turning dials; then as the technology became more sophisticated the controls were made touch-sensitive — you merely had to brush the panels with your fingers; now all you had to do was wave your hand in the general direction of the components and hope. It saved a lot of muscular expenditure of course, but meant that you had to sit infuriatingly still if you wanted to keep listening to the same programme."

Life imitating art and vice versa.

Sci-Fi has a great influence in developing new technology, as it's a great source of ideas. Take the moon landing as an example.

To follow on from the quote you gave above, the next stage is thought-control of machines. It's got it's own difficulties too though - it's very difficult to clear your mind to the degree necessary to control things:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uyrd0uOuyms

> Life imitating art and vice versa.

Am I the only one that finds it tremendously amusing when life imitates comedy?

I wonder, how difficult would it be to detect whether a user of some sort of brain interface simply is or is not irritated by the particular on-screen thing s/he is looking at?

There is a big tag at the bottom of each page saying you submit it under cc-wiki. This is a good thing, it's better than you having to read through 100s of pages of their own license to discover that they reserve the rights to put in a pay wall later.

This is exactly Stack Overflow's (mis)understanding. The statement on the bottom of the page is that user-submitted content is licensed under cc-wiki. That they are granting you a license to use it under cc-wiki. The statement is not that you will license your content to Stack Overflow under cc-wiki. I can easily say, "The entire content of Hacker News is in the public domain." Without asking for permission though, this statement is meaningless. Same with Stack Overflow.

The distance selling act - which gives you the right to say no and return it within 7 days - was lobbied for by the online retailers.

They felt people wouldn't order online if there were too many scams. Now that people are comfortable ordering online they are presumably lobbying for it to be revoked.

One reason for the shipping refund is that importers use it as a way around VAT. They typically sell some item for 1e with 25e shipping and so it comes in under the VAT limit.