sees_all1

Biggest thing is that if you're trying to write a game, or some other thing, and it turns profitable, you might be infringing on outstanding patents. If they try and sue you, they'll do everything in their power to prove that you had prior knowledge, meaning they want triple damages. Protect yourself, and don't go looking at patents if you're going to develop something.

Actually I do develop software, it is just that I believe in FOSS. Nobody should be allowed to patent software because a lot of the time, there are only so many ways you can make something work (efficiently). And I like how you bring up Apple, who has some of the most [cabbage] patents ever. Reducing a CPU's frequency by interrupting it? Yeah, who the hell granted them that patent? Been done how long and APPLE GETS THE PATENT? You are free to believe in what you want, but saying just because software patents cease to exist doesn't mean companies won't need code monkeys. Is developing software your job? Are you paid to do it? Once you written your software for your company, how do they feel about you posting the source on the internet? Also, if you don't believe Apple should have got a patent for that, find the appropriate prior art and sue them. My point in posting that link that in order to be in business at all, you need to protect your intellectual property.

Leveled dungeoneering to 86 last night. 5:5 speed runs with one leech (that paid attention) are actually tremendous XP... Floors 1-9 we were averaging about 5k experience each (even with a couple deaths), and each floor took less than 7 minutes. I think medium and large dungeons take too long for what they are, especially when a mercenary or monolith halfway through sinks a team.

When you file a patent application, you "teach the world how to do something". In return, you're hoping for a monopoly on that something (patent granted). Because you invented it, and you hold the rights to it, you can be as unreasonable as you want. Some of our favorite companies are like this, hell even Apple is aggressive in its IP protections. These patents were originally filed and used, but when the company that owned them went bankrupt, this company saw value in it. Jagex, and anyone else could have tried to buy these. The unfortunate thing in this scenario is that the company sued first, then asked questions later. They also waited to the end of the life for the patent - its easier (and cheaper, probably) to sue for damages over the last 10 years than to negotiate a licensing contract for the next 10.

You are everything wrong with the current state of computer software if you are supporting software patents. Get a job developing software, then let me know how you feel. I like getting paid to work.

If the federal government refuses to tackle illegal immigration, perhaps our civilian efforts are better spent making Mexico a better place?

IP disputes are not frivolous, and if you read into the article, they brought the suit because it appeared Jagex was infringing on their rights. When they examined the source code, and the claims in the patent, they found this was not the case. Obtaining a patent is not an easy process, and it is not cheap either. Patents (especially in tech/computer fields) tend to take on the order of 5-7 years if all goes well, and may cost in excess of $100,000. In the United States, a patent grants you up to 20 years of a monopoly on your invention. If Jagex was infringing on the patent holder's rights, they should pay. This was not the case, and its unfortunate that the lawsuit took so much time, effort, and money to defend. Also, for all of you young budding game developers, I suggest you do not look at those patents. If you knowingly infringe on patents in the United States, you're liable for triple damages. The easiest way to avoid this is to stay ignorant.

http://statistics.adoption.com/information/adoption-statistics-hoping-to-adopt.html If you have an unwanted child, chances are great that someone will be willing to adopt. You'll find that many couples in the United States that initially have trouble adopting children but are successful later on tend to go overseas at great expense to adopt children from other countries - my cousin is from kazakhstan. It cost my aunt and uncle on the order of $40,000 to adopt him when it was all said and done. Finding homes for newborns is less of an issue than finding homes for teenagers. I believe there are also laws in the US that allow someone to hand their baby off at public service places - such as police stations, fire departments, or emergency rooms without threat of prosecution. If you find that you really do not want to keep your child, these laws make it easy to give them a better life. http://www.wikihow.com/Drop-Off-an-Unwanted-Baby

I'm not certain that "proper funeral" is a basic human right. But to answer your personal question, yes, I would cry if I lost my child. I'd have a funeral, and I'd name him or her. I think its a similar situation to people at pro-life rallies / marches that hold signs that say "I regret lost fatherhood" or "I regret my abortion"

This is true, however it is illegal to kill bald eagle eggs as they will live if you dont damage them. [i provided another common for life argument which is hard to fight against] That there is good eating. Yeah, I went there. That's also to say that current US law is messed up.

I saw it as you were bringing morality into a law debate. :rolleyes: The position I've outlined several times is why a fetus is biologically human and should have legal rights. Seems to me that arguing morals is less worthwhile than arguing about religions, at least one tries to tie itself to history. Oh, and people do have funerals after miscarriages. And you wouldn't count a dead baby in a census because its dead. There are certificates of stillbirths, though, obtainable from state health departments. Its kinda the opposite of certificates of live births.

I mean I've used this a few times and the only person to contradict me is bonkers who just disagreed with me without providing a reason because 'there is no point.' Doesn't matter how you see humanity - humans are still granted rights and are protected by law. The big question in this debate is when are you legally protected, when are you granted rights? Because obviously stomping on another human being is punished more severely by law than stomping on a cockroach, or most any other animal for that matter. But that argument also goes to what I said - "The more off topic you can pull the debate, the harder it is for the pro-life side to establish their argument."

There can never be a negative amount of an item. I object. Unless you are talking about how much you've gained of something, when you actually lost it. So you could earn -10 dollars. Also antimatter. But that's imaginary. Math is based on real objects, like +10 dollars. And I can't see anti-matter. I object. -1 is real, sqrt(-1) (known as i or j to EE's) is imaginary. I know, lots of crazy stuff. Luckily we do a pretty good job hiding it from people.

could do parent's vehicle or the make of the bus/train you ride :wink:

No feedback on the new rule, so I assume its OK with everyone. Sorry for the double post, but the new item is automobile. Post the vehicle that you ride in or drive the most. I drive a 2009 Chevy Cobalt. I got it a month before Cash for Clunkers, but still bought it pretty much new for about half off. Talk about a good deal, I benefited from the bailout. http://www.edmunds.com/used/2009/chevrolet/cobalt/101028087/prices.html I give it 4/5 stars. Can't complain on the price, nothing major has gone wrong yet (knocks on wood), and I get decent gas mileage.

Frank Lloyd Wright architecture in America is ftw. Better than that Chinese crap anyway. :wink: I know, troll harder. There is something to be said about a well designed structure, no matter where it is or who built it, is breathtaking. My favorites are bridges - each one presents a different set of problems, and can be as beautiful as they are functional. They also show how far humanity has come from a scientific and engineering standpoint in the past 200 years, verses the thousands of years before that.

:mrgreen: 6/10

To me, that makes it sound like you're babbling on about a non-issue. In a structured debate, attacking your opponent is the fastest way to lose.

Looks pretty neutral at the moment, no strong arguments on either side. Hence I'm asking sees_all to present a strong argument for both sides EDIT - Page 16 looks good, might print a few pages of that during break I won't do your work for you, but it should be easy to find the talking points here. I'll put some of the strategies in here for both sides. If the people you're debating are incompetent, you'll be able to "win" the debate regardless of the side they put you on. Common pro-choice strategy include forcing your opponent to defend the "corner" cases - rape, incest, medical "necessities", and the "compassionate" cases - deformities or long term suffering. Your focus needs to be entirely on the woman, paint her as the victim, and marginalize the fact that theres a child within. You can also talk about situations which endanger the life of the mother - such as anemia or ectopic pregnancies. You can also broaden the focus towards a macro view - abortion can "solve" world hunger, poverty, and overpopulation. The more off topic you can pull the debate, the harder it is for the pro-life side to establish their argument. The pro-choice case is weak against a strong personhood argument; if you're on this side you and have to defend against this argument, you need to do the best you can to dehumanize the baby. Never refer to the baby as "baby", he or she, child, human etc. Do the best you can to obfuscate the fact that you're talking about an individual. If it comes to it, you can bring up the fact that the sperm and egg cell already existed before conception, and theres nothing "special" about a one-celled zygote. Don't use that as your original position, more as a last resort, because you'll already be playing into a personhood argument. Also, be careful in your choice of language. If this is a class assignment, I'm unsure how the debate is scored, but don't leave room for your opponent to nail you on the facts - things that can easily be refuted by the simplest of definitions. Your best bet is to use the term fetus, and avoid unscientific terminology or specific terminology. Fetus applies to the entire pregnancy, embryo/zygote/blastocyst only applies to the very start. "Ball of cells" or "Fertilized Egg" are unscientific and are easy enough to refute without much effort. If you're on the pro-life side of the debate, personhood is your argument. You need to argue that at conception, when the sperm cell fertilizes the egg cell, a new, unique human being forms. If you can get the other side to argue on your terms - when does a human being come into existance - you'll have won; the rest of the argument is very straight forward. You also need to establish your definitions carefully - abortion refers exclusively to induced abortion (not miscarriages/spontaneous abortions), does not include removal of a spontaneously terminated pregnancy, and is not the procedure required for dangerous ectopic pregnancies. You need to be very careful with your language and your position. A successful personhood argument requires that you cannot compromise, even in the difficult cases. You need to make it very clear that the right to live is the most fundamental human right, and it trumps any other circumstance. If your opponent starts to argue about rape or incest, you can stick to your line about the right to life, or you can attack their argument with stories about cover up and continued abuse. If your opponent argues about compassion, and abortion because of quality of life for the genetically deformed, you can liken their argument to eugenics and by extension the holocaust. If you need more breadth in your argument, different than personhood, you can discuss the dangers of abortion - the percentage of botched abortions, the correlation between abortion and subsequent miscarriages, and the correlation between abortion and breast cancer. If you do this, you must remember that correlation does not imply causation, and that only experiments - not studies - can prove or disprove a hypothesis. You can also discuss the uglier sides of choice - scandals covering up under-age abortion, the disproportionate numbers of minorities receiving abortion / racist roots of planned parenthood, and the disproportionate number of "pro-choice" crimes against pro-lifers. Last thing - look at and know sources. Anything from the Guttmacher Institute has a strong pro-choice spin to it, usually anything with "life" in their name has a pro-life spin.

We're at #3 right now... I think its a bit unfair that we're going up against a forum that actually likes to pee diapers...

I'm pretty sure the bots of today would be smart enough to figure out the inventory was moved and locate it. It probably wouldn't take more than a few hours of scripting either. :l Yeah, but it'd be a surprise move and a cheap shot aimed at banning all accounts using a bot at a certain point in time. A human would see the interface has changed and adapt readily, a bot wouldn't be programmed to deal with it. If its a one time deal, sure bot writers could code for that, but in the meantime Jagex would have taken out a significant portion of the cheating population.

You know, jagex needs to change their interfaces a bit. Simply moving the inventory from one side of your screen to another after an hour of play would nail all bots that log in almost instantly. Or moving locations around in a significant fashion, for a couple hours. Small, targeted measures like that would be very easy to implement, and it'd make hell for bot developers.

o be, or not to be: that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of trou

"order and safety" are distilled versions of morality, stemming from "its wrong to harm another individual."

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