Posts by Shun Fukuda

65 million, 100, what's the difference

Actually, I think you'll find that Patrick Moore used the new version of Excel to arrive at his figures. (There's the IT angle).

He may have been alive 100 years ago, for all I know.

I agree with amanfromMars

I don't think he is from Mars, and "he" is probably not strictly a "Man", but whatever. Fundamentally, I believe that the issue here is not one of technology, but our willingness to use it for revolutionary ends. Let me give you an example.

Napster was created/became popular in the late-90's when the internet was still young, and people didn't really know what to do with it. It turns out, people pretty much wanted free music/porn/warez. Fine. Napster delivered. Bad: the principles behind Napster were labelled criminals, and they were shut down, and many people cried. What happened next was amazing: people suddenly felt entitled to stop buying music. People all over the earth, for no reason whatsoever decided, "sod this, I'm not going to take it anymore" and just plain stopped paying for music. Gnutella, and eventually Bit-Torrent replaced the old Napster network, but if it were not for Napster, these protocols would not have even been developed.

The same can be said for the internet in general: if some brave someone takes that first step and says, "You know what? I'm going to create a protocol/system/node/whatever so amazing, that people all over the world will want to use it, and it'll be free, in the truest sense of the world, and it cannot be censored". Gee...do you really think some puny government is going to be able to stop her/him/it? I am assuming the presence of "dolphins with hands" doing some of this work, here people. Bear with me.

We've already got TCP/IP. Governments are unwilling/unable to stop that protocol from crossing borders. We just need something that rides on top of that, which looks like legitimate http traffic, or whatever, that contains a secret payload -- "subversive" messages. Actually, people's free thoughts, but whatever.

Oh, and how can I agree with amanfromMars and not even know what "he" is saying, nor do I believe that he is a human entity, nor does it matter? I think of him as a Cthuloid, but more of a ptaav, in essence. A sad "person" who is able to grasp quantum mechanical concepts intuitively, but is stuck using keyboard and mouse to do actual communication with English-(roughly)-speaking humans. Sorry to out you man.

You were always the smart one of the family, learning primitive "languages" while the rest of us were happy using telepathy. Go ahead, attempt to speak with these humans. They are an amusing lot. I'm going back to play with Schroedinger's cat, now. Dead or alive, it makes no difference to me. The play's the thing.

9th Circuit Jurisdiction and other

The U.S. court system is divided into State courts and Federal Courts.

The 9th circuit is a Federal Appeals Court which has jurisdiction over quite a few states. California, Oregon, Washington...for a full listing see :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Court_of_Appeals_for_the_Ninth_Circuit

Northern Mariana Islands, w00t!! At any rate, here in the states, you will typically commit crimes in the states (State), or across state lines (Federal). If you sail the Black Pearl across the seven seas and raid the overseas interests of the Great USA Company, then you will most likely be prosecuted in a court of Admiralty (assuming they bother with all that legal mumbo jumbo.)

All Federal cases start in a District Court...then are appealed their corresponding X Circuit Court of Appeal. Obviously, this case started in one of the above states (probably California, since we have the most lawyers). Went to a 3 judge panel, decision was handed down, then one of the parties requested a hearing with the entire court. So, what have we learned from this experience?

If you are a coder, always put a "none of the above" "decline to state" or "unknown/refused to answer" option in your drop down lists. It will save you lots of regulatory headaches. Besides, its nice to be a "gender : none", every once in a while.

Irony: U.S. laws are derived from something called English Common Law. See anything in common?