mortarman81mm

Mike Wuerthele said:

glennh said:

With all due respect, I think only those who have access to classified government information should be the ones speaking on this subject.

EVERYTHING in China is owned and controlled by the Chineses Communist Party not the Chinese People including TikTok!

An old communist once said “a capitalist is a fool who will sell the rope to his own hanging!” 

Well please let me update this by say….“TikTok influencers are naïve money making fools that are selling the ropes to everyone’s and every society’s hangings! 

Nah. I'm a voter. And, following your own logic, that means that only the chairs of the Select Intelligence Committee -- who said that they didn't tell the house or the senate everything -- should be the only ones who get to have an opinion.

It's America; of course you get to have your opinion. With all due respect, it doesn't mean it's an informed one. 

Not that that's anyone's fault but Washington's for not providing people with enough information (without giving away methods and sources) to make up their own minds. However, having worked at senior levels of government, I have a high degree of confidence these actions aren't being taken precipitously, or capriciously. 

This article is just your hot take, and as is typical with folks who want to comment on governmental workings, is absent any real understanding of how government really works. I realize you worked in government for a number of years, Mike, but did you work at the policy level? If you had, you'd communicate a more even-handed view of what's happening here.

If you want background, I retired after 30 years of service in the Army and Air Force, which included time spent working in the office of a member of the Joint Chiefs coordinating policy actions.

Yeah, politicians are going to politick. But when something is this controversial it's nearly impossible to get so many of them to agree. The mere fact there is so much alignment on this issue should communicate just how big a deal this is.

Anyone who really believes the Chinese government does NOT have a hand controlling what Tik Tok is doing are either ignorant, or willfully blind. There is no part of that society the government doesn't try to control. Don't forget, this is the country where the government has implemented a social credit system and is using facial recognition to publicly name and shame people. I mean, Orwell much?

This is also the country that has set up 'police stations' in foreign countries to harass, intimidate, and silence any person of Chinese extraction that criticizes China.

THAT'S the country you want having access to your data? If they do this to their own citizens, how constrained do you think they'll be about taking action against the citizens of other nations?

So, it's a common misunderstanding that when an appeal is made in the US courts it is the decision that is being appealed, but that is not the case. An appeal can only be made on the basis of an error in law. That is, the court of original jurisdiction made an error in how the law was applied (whether procedural or substantive) that materially affected the outcome of the case.

Consequently, VirnetX failed to gain Certiorari in its appeal to the US Supreme Court (USSC) of the Federal Circuit's decision because the USSC did not see either an error in law by the Circuit (i.e., it ruled for Apple appropriately), or any compelling points at law (VirnetX failed to prove there was any new law or legal theory) that required a decision/clarification for the guidance of US jurisprudence. 

In Apple's case with VirnetX, the Circuit Court adjudged that VirnetX's patents were rightfully declared invalid by the USPTO Tribunal in a different hearing from the one it originally conducted in the case between Apple and VirnetX. Consequently, as a matter of law, Apple could not be made to pay for infringing on patents that were invalid, and plaintiff had no case.

Patent trolls lose again.

13485 said:
I think I agree with everything. I watch Monsters because I find the CGI excellent, even if the acting/scripts are laughable. For All Mankind ran out of ideas long ago and is now more soapy than ever. And Joel Kinnaman is hereby being nominated for the Worst Beard & Aging Makeup on Major TV. I find Foundation has very creative, almost beautiful, visuals, but I think condensing a few thousand pages of Asimov is proving too hard--others warned of this a couple of years ago, but I thought it might work. Wrong. The long time between seasons hasn't helped. 

I'll watch it because I like sci-fi, but there are problems.

LOL! I concur about the makeup for Joel Kinnamen - it is pretty awful...

As for "Foundation", having read the complete series a few times, I was VERY skeptical, but then I was also skeptical of "Lord of the Rings" but Peter Jackson pulled it off so I held out hope. I think the fundamental problem with "Foundation" is the timeline is so sweeping, covering such a massive span of time and space, it inherently invites discontinuities and disjointedness because the storyline is very complex. Trying to meld the small of psychohistory (it's development) with the large (the events it actually predicts and the political effects of those predictions) is a challenge that I believe could be met, but it would require an extremely patient viewer and a commitment to multiple seasons to really tell the story in toto.   

While Apple may have the money to fund epic sci-fi programming, I've found that all too often the scripts and acting are uneven. They really need to be a bit more selective in determining which studios they're going to trust with their money. While I'm a huge fan of 'For All Mankind', and 'Monarch', there are definitely moments when the writing, acting, or both have fallen down and (unfortunately) undermined a moment in an episode. And I won't even get started on 'Foundation'...   


It won't stop me from watching because, on balance, I think the productions are super enjoyable, but it does mar the overall quality of the shows.