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> it is by default legal until we decide to make it illegal.

No, it's legal because of the Federal Arbitration Act passing in 1925. Prior to that, waiving of such rights "in advance by agreement" was explicitly disallowed, as SCOTUS determined in Insurance Company v. Morse (1874).


The idea is that the sound of an impact drill adds to the noise pollution of a supposedly "natural" area, and that they're "too easy" so they result in a proliferation of bolts in the rock. There's a lot of argument back and forth on the subject in places like Yosemite, where it sees so much traffic that it could hardly be called natural anymore. Personally, I'd rather hear 12 seconds of a Li-ion rotohammer than 30 minutes of some dude whacking a hand drill with a hammer, and since they make better holes, a rotohammer drills more symmetrical holes and is going to let the bolt seat better and it won't result in a proliferation of cratered out rock where old bolts pull out and have to be replaced by drilling new holes next to it. It's a touchy subject for a lot of folks. Some don't like "permanent" protection at all, but in places they don't allow bolts you end up with "temporary permanent" nylon slings tied around rocks all over the place. Doesn't really seem better.


>The US doctrine have always been fleet warfare with large formations of US ships sailing alone on the open sea or in some water they have complete dominance over

One of the problems with the US Navy over the last 70+ years has been a tendency act as if they're still fighting WW2. It shows up in a lot of places in interesting ways. Another example is the USMC's fixation with hot beach amphibious assault, a tactic which is completely outdated with the advent of modern air power, and which hasn't actually been utilized since the Incheon landing in 1950.


- In 1991 4th Brigade was kept afloat in the Gulf, forcing the Iraqi army to devote resources to protecting beaches in and around Kuwait, and away from the border where the actual assault took place. Then they snuck the brigade ashore and added them to the striking power across the border.

Absent the ability to assault across a beach, those Iraqi divisions would have been on the border.


>I wonder why signatures replaced signet rings?

As the need for legal documentation spread downward from the upper classes, they needed an identification method that anyone could use, and wasn't limited to people who could afford to have a unique piece of jewelry crafted.


The problem is that a lot of people aren't capable of working remotely and/or treat work from home as a day off.

Well, that's half the problem. The other half is the tendency of many managers to view all requests to work from home as a request to stay home and goof off on the clock. I've worked places where the apparent measure of productivity is how many aggregate ass-in-seat hours the department put in.


>closing the fuel cycle loop in a way that is proliferation resistant

Isn't simply using a non-PUREX reprocessing method sufficient? Realistically, a "nuclear club" nation like the US/France/GB only needs to ensure that the reprocessed fuel contains enough non-Pu239 isotopes that any attempt at a bomb with stolen Pu would necessarily fizzle. The fact that the nation itself could (theoretically) produce Pu239 via the process and cause "proliferation" seems far fetched in the absence of the Cold War level rivalry that was the original proliferation impetus. Warheads are expensive. Nobody who already has a bunch of them already is really interested in making more.


>Turns out the answer was _always_ "No."

My experience has been the opposite. I bought a Pebble so I could know whether I had to put down my tools, pull out my phone, and answer a call from my boss; or if I could just ignore yet another call from an idiot coworker.

>When Pebble sold out to Garmin

I wish. Garmin might have done something with it. They sold out to FitBit, whose major motivation was the elimination of a competitor.


no, it just prolongs the inevitable. The first player to gain an edge on the others still eventually wins, it's just that it takes hours instead of minutes.


That's not the reason. Benadryl being in blister packs long predates its use in meth cooking, like by 30 years. The real reason is more likely marketing. If they sold them in a bottle, the amount they charge for those few tiny pills would seem outrageous. A blister pack gives the packaging more volume.


>But reading McMH does not compete with browsing those real estate listings. So it's probably fair use.

No facet of the fair use defense is based on the fact that one is exploiting a market for the work that the rightsholder currently isn't. On the contrary, the fact that one is exploiting any market at all with the work is a strike against any fair use defense.


That's my personal test. It has nothing to do with established law. She is writing a blog; original rights-holder is trying to sell a house. There is no particular reason why either one should "win", as they are not in competition.

Attempting to argue that to a judge that does not employ the same boundary test is therefore likely to fail.

I get these types of responses all the time, whenever someone detects that I am crossing onto foreign turf. The law does not belong exclusively to legislators, judges, and lawyers. I am entitled to have an opinion that conflicts with established precedents. And as many of us are painfully aware, the law is sometimes an ass.


But the entire point of copyright is to prevent less-ethical businesspeople from exploiting the intellectual works of others for their financial benefit, i.e. the rights holders earnings are injured and they are legally allowed to seek compensation for that injury.

This person is co-opting the images, but not to sell the homes or defame the work of the photographer, but to mock the (ugly) style of the homes. There is no impact to the rights holders or even the people using the photos by virtue of this silly little blog existing.


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