Thank goodness TechDirt and the NYT continued to follow this story and outed the troll: Smart Options (in context even the name is f'ed up). It's a good read and even has cringingly terrible troll on troll fighting: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150510/07083630948/patent-trolls-frivolous-attack-startup-forces-startup-to-sell-out-to-another-patent-troll.shtml

Stories like this simply crush my desire to strike out on my own in software development. We seriously need patent reform!

488 lawsuits?!? NO. Try more like 3500....
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/06/01/donald-trump-lawsuits-legal-battles/84995854/


It's hilarious that his legal argument is that anyone of Latino descent, Muslim, Arab descent, Jewish descent, or really anyone not a WASP logically and properly hate him because of his stances so much that they'll commit felonies against him with no thought to their own career. Doesn't that mean he's clearly admitting that if he was president he would have the least effective presidency ever simply from all the frivolous lawsuits, attacks, and roadblocks to "progress" he'll have to defend against daily? Not what we need in today's climate, where a politician that can actually get things done is needed badly....although considering what he wants to do, it would be the only good thing about his presidency, that it failed to further his agenda.

Absolutely not a straw man when the statement it contradicts was "The idea that some lives matter less is the root of all that's wrong with the world.”
At what point do you decide (for yourself, the only one you get to decide for) 'sentience' exists? Shrimp? Crabs? If so, then logically also mosquitos, gnats, and ticks.
Also, why have YOU decided so capriciously that 'sentience' is the measure of a life's worth? What, if anything, do you base that decision on? Perhaps a sense of biological superiority?

BUT you insist others adopt YOUR definitions of non violence, oppression, exploitation, others, property.

Again, you insist that "every human believes" something you believe. That's absolutely not true of ANYTHING, and totally wrong about this topic...clearly. It clearly doesn't 'when it concerns humans' or we wouldn't be murdering and torturing each other as we are.

We clearly disagree that animal consumption is the MAIN issue globally....just as we clearly disagree that it's even a possibility for humanity to switch to a purely vegetarian diet...pasture land is not the same as farmable land.

There are certainly ecological issues with meat production on the scale and in the manner we do it today...there was no such issue when the population being fed was 1/10 what it is today....no one burned massive portions of the rainforests to raise cattle 150 years ago, they didn't need to.

When I see a video like this that highlights people being kind to animalS (the dog AND the bird) it's disturbing that people are so disconnected with normalcy that they see a connection with murder and torture....or that they see murder and torture where it doesn't exist, and disturbing that they feel the need to shit on the happy video comments with a 'but you're all murdering bastards...feel bad and capitulate'.

Yeah, again, I don't click random links, and I don't get science from the internet, no need to read any vegan propaganda. Thanks

Ask 10 people on the street if they think it's OK to humanely raise animals for consumption, 9.95 of them will say "yes".
Now you are equating intentional harm with unintentional harm, equating intentional frivolous casual injuring and killing for pleasure with occasional unintentional injuring and killing for an essential purpose.

Can't but include the late Christopher Hitchens comments on Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11
To describe this film as dishonest and demagogic would almost be to promote those terms to the level of respectability. To describe this film as a piece of crap would be to run the risk of a discourse that would never again rise above the excremental. To describe it as an exercise in facile crowd-pleasing would be too obvious. Fahrenheit 9/11 is a sinister exercise in moral frivolity, crudely disguised as an exercise in seriousness. It is also a spectacle of abject political cowardice masking itself as a demonstration of "dissenting" bravery.

And a link to some more discussion from Hitchen's on Moore's complete willingness to ignore all fact and reality to produce crowd pleasing tripe:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZdLiKGaw00

Thanks for that (I think! ) -- that video is certainly guilty of pushing the anti-SJW take rather than just showing what happened, but at least now I understand what she was going on about.

Having figured that out, my only reaction is that if they (the SJW types) get that worked up about something that frivolous, I can't even begin to imagine how they are going to survive in the "real world" after college... Watch that first step outside of the "safe" zone; it's a doozy.

I don't mean to detract or lessen this, but the only philosophical material here was the last 20 seconds where he basically said "Don't blame and don't hold grudges." Otherwise, the entire video was like a wide-eyed kid in a candy store. It was not really all that stark, and kind of reminds me of an Amish that decides to leave his enclave. Perhaps the quality people see is the dreaming they believe they experience? Perhaps it is the fact that free people waste more on hate and frivolous, benign shit than this guy did locked up. Perhaps the video is really just pointless without our injection of a point.

Matt said no.

Any volunteers? It really is a fine whiskey, and it's running out quickly. It would be a shame to waste it on frivolous drinking.

While I would LIKE to think that's the case, I do believe that, if it was the law that one has to produce ID in that state/city/county and he refused, he would have at the least been handed a small fine by the judge, because his guilt would be obvious and on camera. EDIT: That's actually how I want judges to behave, leeway on sentencing, but if the law was obviously unequivocally broken, conviction.

I think it's rare that a judge completely throws out a good case just because it's silly, unfortunately. That would put him/her at odds with the police big time. How would the police know if any stop they make will be considered 'frivolous' or 'silly' by whichever judge they happen to get?

According to all I can find on Google, there's no stop and ID law in Virginia, where this happened. They tried to create one in Richmond, Va, but it was thrown out because they had not made a law requiring all people to HAVE ID, so the law was useless and completely unenforceable.
Also, what I can find said that in states where there IS a 'stop and ID' law, the officer must still have a reasonable suspicion you are committing a crime to enact it. (In this case, the empty holster gives reasonable suspicion he has a concealed weapon, which would be another legitimate reason to ask for ID in many states, or at least the concealed weapon permit which would serve the same purpose...but not in Virginia)

Kids in the Hall sketches are also more thought provoking than SNL. SNL is more of a contemporary pop culture reference machine like Mad magazine and Family Guy.

The pop cultural references in KitH are to things of higher value like early cinema classics (Citizen Kane), Nietzsche, Morrison Hotel, surrealism, film noir; and with heavy pro LGBT, pro environmental (the beaver!) and anti corporate themes; displaying the frivolity of office politics, and the HARDCORE Canadian law enforcement.

What does SNL give but a couple'a chuckles, eh?

When you have multiple law schools packed to the brim and pumping out new lawyers every year, you have to expect that they are going to be looking for work once they hit the street.

If you have local tv, watch it during the day sometime. Every other commercial is a law office ad promoting themselves. Hurt in an accident, call me. Fall down some stairs at work, call me. Neighbor's dog humps yours, call me.

If we had a reasonable law on the books that made frivolous lawsuits riskier for the plaintiffs, there would be a cry from lawyers comparable to the mythical one from Alderaan. The sad thing is, we are so overflowing with lawyers that in many cases they cannot find jobs, but the schools still have waiting lists to get in.

pfft, the rich have welfare, they just call it tax breaks, and they have the lobbyists to keep them.

No one wants those on foodstamps to use them for alcohol and other frivolous items. name me one non-foodstamp-using person who does? It's a strawman that the right obsessively cling to.

As with so many things, it's not about laws or bureaucracy, it's about enforcement. laws mean nothing without enforcement. I'm getting sick of seeing more and more panhandlers downtown where I live and I completely agree that handouts are not an efficient solution.

but you know what isn't a good solution either? negative reinforcement. We've been living under the conservative idea that if we just keep punishing the poor and making their lives more miserable, then obviously that will be motivation to not be poor.

IT DOESN'T WORK. maybe it works for a small percentage of people, but those people aren't poor then. so you have a group of people that are continually being punished and devalued for no good fucking reason because if they aren't motivated to not be poor under these kinds of conditions, then they never will be.

so again, we have this situation where there are two solutions that aren't really effective, but one is slightly less bad than the other. sure some people may use their foodstamps for alcohol and other shit...but many people do actually use their foodstamps for...food. shock.

Even if you had a much more equal distribution of wealth, we're still going to have poor people and people in poverty.

I think the issue is largely mired in health, physical and mental. Even with all our technology...mental health is still unreliable and some people are so physically impaired that they can't work or work well.

Despite largely claiming to be pro-life, the right would either secretly want them to die alone in an alley or make them indentured servants to some corporation if they aren't already. That, I submit, is no life, at least not a good and healthy one.

I don't have the answer, all we can really do is point out that many of the things we've tried aren't working and will never work, and even if there are some successes, it's still largely inefficient, but what's the alternative? if you are "pro-life" then an inefficient solution is still preferable to a solution that simply doesn't work. So I call bullshit on people who like to claim they have the solution. If someone out there has the solution, they certainly haven't demonstrated it yet.

OMG, that sounds amazing. It's frivolous in the end, but you have to respect the skill, planning... everything basically, about a film that attempts such a thing. Will do my best to check this out ASAP.

I have also never seen this 'data' about how windmills are frivolous, and I've looked. All I can ever find are individuals that have no personal knowledge of the systems making unfounded claims. Certainly there are instances of poorly planned 'windfarms' that, because of lack/over abundance of wind don't work properly, or because of regulation and electric company resistance are cost prohibitive. Personal/home units (where they can be erected, and have proper wind conditions) can be great, especially for off grid living. It magnifies the possibilities of a solar system because it generates when the sun isn't out (like when there's a storm) using the same battery system and inverter/converter system the solar uses, so there's little added cost. If you got into solar early enough, the rebates available made the systems a great deal (in some cases, nearly free after the rebate). My system, which cost me a ton of cash, has paid for itself in under 8 years (if you don't consider that electricity rates have gone up considerably since I bought it, if you do count that it was closer to a 6.5 years for full payback, with a minimum 20+ year system lifespan) thanks to rebates and tax breaks...and the systems are far cheaper today than when I bought mine. I've also not lost hundreds (or thousands) of dollars worth of food due to numerous week long power outages, like my neighbors have.
I often consider adding a smallish wind turbine so I have more generation power, especially needed when the power goes out during a storm, which is exactly when a turbine could shine. My issue is jackhole neighbors that would likely not give 'permission' to erect the mast, or would complain about the turbine noise (reasonably or not).
So, in my semi-educated opinion, turbines CAN be a great solution when done right, and can also be economical, especially when compared to the electric company. Of course you can find instances of poor planning making them poor performers, but that's not the norm.

Wind turbines to provide the comparable megawatts for millions of homes ARE a frivolous waste. The huge amounts needed for wasteful, programmed, energy-addicted peeps IS a huge logistical clusterfuck of resources there, notarobot.

Your example of one family with a turbine and a solar array is fine and all (the upfront cost for such a setup is a shitload of funds and the upkeep of his dual set-up is probably a complete bitch of a money-pit to maintain) but were talking efficiency for the masses here.. Your 'research' should be based upon something besides what seems more of an emotionally passionate ideal moreso than anything practical for the many.

Personally, I think this virgin-trail-run Bloom box bullshit is simply another snake-oil scam. Much more work need be done to ever make them practical. What really should done in the realm of a practical kind of "reality" (otherwise known as a construct...reality that is) is to revive anti-trust/monopoly laws to hobble the robber-baron's once again...

Go listen some Bucky Fuller perhaps and try to awaken from the pipe-dream of monkey-business-as-usual instead of towing some lazy cop-out nouveau-hippy green-party line??