Posts by Trevor_Pott

Re: Not strange to me...

"I do not believe that 19 Al Qaeda terrorists managed to fool the entire US Secret Service, that they managed to hijack 4 aircraft, whilst leaving no trace of how they managed to execute what can only be considerd as a perfectly executed scenario."

Then you lack imagination. I can personally think of about six different ways this could be pulled off today with the existing security at airports. To say nothing of pre-9/11 security. And I'm not a black ops mastermind. Lots of people have rightly pointed out that much of existing airport security is security theater, not actual security. Imagine how much worse it was "back in the day"?

Also: ECHELON wasn't exactly PRISM, ya know? It was easier to organize bad guys to do bad things back then. I don't see why it's so hard to believe this was doable. It's far harder to defend a fixed point (or a whole crazy metric shitload of fixed points) against a mobile attacker, let alone one that is willing to die to see their mission accomplished.

"I cannot believe that these attacks were not pre-planned by someone on the American side of the fence, it's just not feasible."

Why not? Also: why couldn't Al Qaeda just get some Americans to help them out? Or just bribe the right people? Or infiltrate agents into the government agencies so they had people in the right low level positions to look the other way? Virtually every nation on this planet has spies and saboteurs deep into every other nation...why wouldn't transnational radical movements?

"I cannot believe that there was not a political motivation behind these attacks."

There was. You don't do something like that without a political motive. But why does it have to be an American political motive? And how does "there was a political motive" translate into "it wasn't planes?"

You are just asserting, asserting and asserting. But you aren't joining any of these dots - half of which are provably false - into anything that logically or rationally explains why planes weren't used..

Re: Not strange to me...

"I will give you 1 point for your theory on foreign satellites; this is a subject that I have never seen mentioned anywhere. I presume that foreign governments are not likely to admit spying in the states though, so they have to remain quiet."

Foreign governments spy on America openly all the time. Many - including Canada - have released images from their spy satellites at various times. (For example, I believe we released imagery of the aftermath of hurricane Katrina.) Why would any nation with spy satellites be worried about revealing that they spy on the USA? Everyone does it, and everyone openly talks about it.

"You are right, I cannot prove or disprove what was actually flown into the buildings or Shanksvilel, nor how it was done but I am convinced that it was certainly not done using the means that were publicized."

Why are you convinced of this? The evidence that we, the public, have to hand actually supports the official story perfectly. The only item that I can see which might be conspiratorial is that those who hijacked the plane may not have been in the employ of those we are told they worked for. But there is no way to prove that one way or the other.

"The manner in which the 2 towers and the WTC 7 fell, the statistics of this happening defy all probability. All three building fell “perfectly” to the ground"

Actually, that's incorrect. In buildings where the exterior structure is load bearing, this is how they fall, especially when it's due to thermal stress. I can demonstrate this using ice forts that are commonly built by Canadian children. Also: if you don't believe me, try talking to demolitions experts who are familiar with the design and construction of the towers in question. They'll confirm. Making buildings collapse in that exact manner is their job. There are really neat videos all over youtube of them doing that. They can tell you why and how that amount of jet fuel will cause that exact collapse pattern.

"7 of the hijackers are alive and well, the BBC found them and interviewed them. So ban goes the theory about 19 hijackers."

Why would all members of a hijacking team need to be on the planes? You send the minimum force required so that some can stay behind and train new radicals. For that matter, how do you know they aren't simply mentally ill individuals seeking glory/to be copycats/whatever? There are lots of disturbed people that "attach" themselves to the horrible crimes of others.

"Both “planes” hit their targets perfectly, this is a task that is apparently “extremely, read almost impossible” for a very seasoned 767 pilot and yet they would have us believe that people barely capable of flying a Cesna managed to do it with complete control. ( I have been in and tried a real flight simulator, a C-130 and learned first hand that yes it is difficult to fly a plane. I cant even begin to imagine what it means to fly a 767.... )"

They're actually pretty easy. I've flown several planes, and I'd have no trouble hitting those towers with far more finicky aircraft. Remember that a modern 767 is essentially "fly by wire". Unless you've taken all three computers offline, they will compensate for pretty much everything (including the weird drafts and gusts you get trying to fly that low over a bunch of highrises) and allow you to hit a great big fat target like the twin towers.

Trust me when I say that it is way harder to put one of those planes down on a standard runway in the middle of an Albertan snowstorm (where the winds go 100 kph and shift directions suddenly and randomly). Especially when there's been a local power outage and the IVR is down. Yet I've been on one while it was done, and the pilot absolutely managed to land it on the button.

"Why was a 747 engine found on Murray street. AA and their 767s do not use these kinds of engines."

It was not. I know what you're referring to, and the individuals in question got it wrong, but this has been perpetuated by the conspiracy theorists ever since, regardless.

"When Convar recovered data some of the mainframe hard drives there was proof that more than a 100 Million dollars was illegally moved on the morning of the attack. This leads to believe that someone was aware of something was going to happen."

And? That doesn't mean that people didn't crash planes into it. A does not connect to B in any way.

"TC7 – Not a controlled demolition, very hard to believe. Coincidently it is well known that is was an FBI/CIA/NSA building."

You belief isn't really relevant. People that know more than you are convinced that it happened as described. The overwhelming majority of experts are. Until you have some pretty massive expertise in this area, your opinion is invalid.

"WTC6 Core – Wtf happened t here.."

That's not even a claim of anything.

"The Pentagon – Why do so many pilots and even Gen. Stubblebine refuse to accept that an aircraft hit that building? There are far too many credible people refuting the facts, these are people with nothing to gain and a hell of a lot to lose. This doesn’t make sense."

Why do so many people believe in a deity when none exists, nor there is any proof of it. Most have nothing to gain and a hell of a lot to lose. It doesn't make sense. Yet they continue to believe in a deity that doesn't exist. You are starting from a false premise: that all human being act logically, consistently and rationally. They don't. People do stupid, harmful things based on false evidence all the time.

"Stock markets - 600% increase in “Put Options” on American Airlines on Sept 10….. No one has yet claimed the money that was maid on these transactions..."

And? A does not connect to B. It doesn't remotely indicate that it wasn't planes used to crash into those towers.

"The Pentagon’s defense sensors were switched off except for the one that captued the incoming aircraft? Now this really is hard to believe..."

Those same sensors detect cruise missiles. Which, being honest, is the only thing the pentagon would have had to worry about in a time of peace with no known hostiles anywhere near their location. It's perfectly rational.

"Flight 93 – Shanksville – Absolutley nothing to show that an aircraft hit the ground except for a hole. No parts, no engine, no bodies, no luggage, nothing… A 100 tonnes of Airfcraft + passengers etc just “disintegrated”."

Plenty of wreckage was recovered. You are proceeding from false information and accepting it as truth.

"Please do not respond to the above points, we would be at it for weeks and neither of us would advance. I just want to convey some of the issues for which I do not see, nor have read any truly rational solution that outweighs the pro-conspiracy theory solutions thesis."

Oh, no, I feel I absolutely had to reply to the points. Because what it points out is a pattern of broken logic on your behalf. You are making completely irrational judgements over and over and in many cases clinging to outright false claims that were later clearly and publicly refuted. You have lost any and all objectivity.

You have decided that what occurred was that planes were not crashed into those towers and you are actively altering your perception of reality to fit this. You reject anything that doesn't fit your theory and accept anything - no matter how thoroughly debunked, no matter how irrational - that might support it.

I largely share your distrust of the American government and I am telling you that this instance your objectivity, logic and rationality has been compromised. You have read The Register's forums for enough years to know that I am not someone who would blindly accept anything told to them - especially if it was told to them by supporters of the American government - and I am telling you sir that you have gone to a really dark place here.

I do believe there is lots about 9/11 that we'll never know the 100% truth of. That's perfectly rational to believe, as the US government loves to classify everything, and only release as much information as the law forces them to. I can even buy that it is possible the whole thing was done by some sociopath war profiteer. That's possible.

But it is categorically not possible that those towers were taken down by anything other than a pair of passenger liners. That you insist on claiming this indicates a very severe mental disorder on your part. Please, sir, I beg of you: seek help. You're not well, and the truth of it shows in shattered "logic" and thoroughly refuted evidence that even someone as prejudiced against the American government as I simply cannot accept might be true.

Re: Not strange to me...

@Khaptain

Let me try to put this a simply as possible: the government of the United States of America is not as stupid as you portray them to be.

Look, anyone who reads these forums as much as you knows that I am no fan of the US government. So please, take what I have to say here with careful consideration, instead of dismissing me out of hand for disagreeing with you.

I know that no matter how much physical evidence, video evidence or so forth is presented to you, you will not believe it, because there is always a way to fake it. You know it, I know it; if the United States government wished to fake something like 9/11 in the manner you described, they probably could have.

There's only one problem: I don't believe they're that stupid. Here's why:

By 2001 the United States has had well over 50 years of having the best black ops intelligence community on the planet. They are the smartest, they are the best, they are the most well resourced and by far the most experienced. The whole crux of your belief in their ability to pull of such a conspiracy rests on that fulcrum, and I cannot deny the truth of it.

But in being so experienced they would never - I repeat never - be so careless as to use missiles on those towers, then claim it was planes.

I fully believe that there are people in the US government callous enough to destroy those towers in order to start a war so they can go club some brown people over the head and steal their oil. Dick Cheney alone is the fucking dark lord of the Sith, and he's far from the only one. But I need you to understand this:

If the United States government wished to start a war by getting everyone all riled up about bad guys crashing planed into the twin towers, then they would hijack the fucking planes themselves and crash them into those towers.

The risk of something going wrong, of things not looking right, of some foreign nation having a spy satellite in the right place at the wrong time...there is no black ops department anywhere in the US of A that is stupid enough to use missiles and claim it was planes. Even the fucking janitors can plan a better op than that.

I don't know who crashed those planes into the towers. There certainly seem to be enough crazy fundamentalist Muslims that it's perfectly plausible that exactly who everyone claims was behind it actually was behind it. I could also believe that any of several dozen complete psychopaths in the US government ordered the hit.

But they would absolutely have used real planes full of real people to do it.

And that - that right there - is why your conspiracy theory falls apart. If you wanted to hold up evidence that said "here is why I think the hijackers were actually black ops fanatics hired by Blackwater and in service to Dick Cheney" I might well be inclined to review your evidence and give it honest consideration.

But starting this out with "it wasn't planes, it couldn't have been planes, it had to be missiles" is just lunacy. Sheer lunacy. At the end of the day bra, no black ops team is that sloppy.

Re: Meh.

The Netlist lawsuit looks to be flaming out. To put it bluntly, Netlist is running out of money. Their stock price is in the toilet, their patent judgements are still in limbo, the judge bumped one lawsuit for time and all but killed the other. Netlist got their notice from NASDAQ, has failed to have their much promised "large order" show up for the past 9ish months...

Diablo doesn't have to worry about Netlist anymore because they simply won't be around much longer. At the end of the day, Diablo has access to more financial resources than Netlist do, and they aren't bleeding cash at the same rate. Even if Diablo is guilty of breach of contract - which will be down to how the judge interprets things, methinks - Netlist just might not make it that far.

Hell, Netlist has had to recently admit that they are having trouble "securing raw materials". Rumor has it they only have about $10M left, at a burn rate that will see them bankrupt by June.

Meanwhile, Diablo does have a DDR4 version in the works, it's called Carbon2.

Many of us are skeptical about MCS's claims. is it really that much better than PCI-E? What are the real-world numbers? Do the headline numbers make real world difference in today's applications? All good questions, and I absolutely don't intend to let Diablo just make a bunch of claims without holding their hands to the fire.

We all have questions, so please, do suggest tests to throw at this kit. Getting hold of it has been hard because every single MCS DIMM that Diablo's partners crank out seem to get bought up before anyone can really run them through the wringer. If I have anything to say about it, The Register will get the opportunity to test the validity of Diablo's claims about this technology soon. So let's get some real tests designed to push this stuff to the limits.

At the end of the day, it's about the proving out the tech. The rest of this stuff? I don't think it's going to be an issue for much longer at all.

Re: WTF have you done to this site?

Ars looks a lot better if you log in and play with the settings some. You can move to a much more dense display of the articles, and have them in list form rather than that stupid verge-like tile format. Plus, dark theme, yay!

Ars does a lot wrong, but they do science reporting right and they offer some flexibility in the display of their site. Gotta like that.

Re: Hard on the eyes

I agree. I am currently mocking up a black theme as part of my CSS overrides for El Reg. I can't take all the white. Sadly, there's no ability to choose between various colour schemes in and apply to your profile while logged in, so it's "create overrides, then distribute to every bloody browser I use".

Why don't more sites offer black themes? White on light on dark is way easier for some of us to read than dark on light. Must be getting old. Bad eyes.

Re: sometimes...

How do you get promoted beyond "co-owner of the company/dude who runs the thing?" I'm curious.

Re: This is why...

"I can count on one hand the number of times I've been rewarded after providing exceptional service."

Bingo. Nobody rewards excellence. But they absolutely hold you to it as the new standard, and punish you when you can't maintain it.

Re: Good article

"I do not believe that pretending it is not Christmas, or whatever, is being considerate."

And I believe your beliefs make you an asshole. And that your religion is stupid*. Happy holidays.

*For the record, I have negative respect for your religion, for any country that attempts to make a given religion the "state religion" (officially or unofficially) or for people who believe that everyone around them should behave as though $_religion is to be the default. If you want to worship a sky fairy, go forth and do so on your own time. But by His Noodly Appendage, I'll not let some religious nutter treat me like I should be one of them. I'm not. I will never be. And I find the suggestion that I should be, would want to be, or should pretend that I am overwhlemingly offensive.

Adjust yourself to my lifestyle, if you wish. I'll not be adjusting to yours.

Re: Good article

"Also, in the vein of acting more human, we should probably say "Christmas" instead of "holiday season"."

Why?

Re: sometimes...

"I would assume that the majority of people in management positions are educated people, yes, and that they got there by understanding how to play well with others. "

And when you get home, do you spend your time assuming unicorns exist? Managers are managers thanks to cronyism. There is no other reason.

Re: ".those nations which face up to their moral failures with a modicum of honesty and resolve"

Canada, for one. Anyone else know of any others?

Re: It won't work.

"abortion and breast cancer"

Really? I missed this one. Is this a geolocated bizarreness, or am I just unobservant? (Both are possible.)

Re: You can't use science to disprove theories not based on science

See: Star Trek Voyager, episode Future's End, episodes 3x08 and 3x09.

Re: @trevor

"Informed faith" is an oxymoron. By definition, faith is belief where knowledge isn't possible.

That said, methinks you presume a lot from other "people of faith". Just because you have manged some high level of cognitive dissonance in which you compartmentalize faith and an understanding of at least basic science doesn't mean the majority do.

The number of people out there who honestly believe in the god of the gaps - and use it regularly when attempting to convince atheists their faith is true - is huge. There are far - far - more people out there who reject science, reject the idea that things like "life on other planets" could exist than you seem to be willing to accept.

Maybe you got "lucky" and ended up with a shaman and congregation that actually believe some variant of $_religion that is compatible with $_Y_percent of modern scientific understanding. Congrats. That's pretty cool, in a way, but it isn't the "mainstream" experience.

If anything, those sorts of questions and discussions are carefully avoided by the "mainstream" shamans. They focus on $_mandmans_text and espouse their interpretation. But for billions of people on this planet religion is taught far closer to "$_madmans_text is the literal truth". And there's where it all goes horribly wrong.

If you're a harmless religious type who is capable of somehow reconciling modern science with irrational belief in the unknowable, then to put it bluntly, it doesn't matte what you believe, or why. You are highly unlikely to be a threat.

But the $_mandmans_text literalists? They are threats. Each and every one. Anything that can be done to get people to walk away from that belief system is worth doing. The money spent becomes justified quite quickly when the ranks of the literalists is thinned.

Maybe the move from being a literalist to a science/faith cognitive dissonance type. Cool. Groovy. I don't care. Once they're not $_mandmans_text literalists their chances of being a threat are spectacularly reduced.

So what's important here isn't proving "god doesn't exist" to the cognitive dissonance types. They're not relevant. What matters is having one more tool to use in attempting to save those who have been sucked in to $_mandmans_text literalism.

We'll work on the cognitive dissonance types in future generations, once we've dealt with those who are actual threats.

Re: @Trevor_Pott - Questions And Statements, Valid And Otherwise

"So in the span of a few short words you've managed to go from the correct idea that scientific theories are provisional and subject to change (in consequence of the acquisition of better data, different interpretations of the data or of the pre-existing theories on which the theory under discussion is built, or simply in consequence of someone having newer and maybe better ideas), to the completely erroneous idea that science has arrived at something which you seem to think is very, very close to an incontrovertible truth."

No, I think what's key here is that you seem to believe that a very - very - small possibility that the current theory is false means that, somehow, it is almost inevitable that this will be proven wrong.

I am not taking any offence at all to your asking what is the current state of knowledge. What i took offence to was your request that things be know "beyond a doubt". KNowing anything "beyond a doubt" is utter horseshit, yet that seems to be the standard you require before you believe something.

If anyone is "pompous" here, it's you.

You clearly have an agenda and are determined to see others agree with it, though you're attempting to wrap it up in inquisitiveness.

Contrary to your bogus assertions, I do not believe that we have arrived at "The Truth" at all, because I don't share your irrational requirement for knowledge to be "beyond a doubt". I am, however, entirely content to look at the evidence, say "the possibility that we're wrong about this is irrelevantly small" and move on to building on that knowledge to ask newer questions and learn more things.

You're like a creationist screaming that we shouldn't set about working on new isotopic dating methods because we haven't proven "beyond a doubt" that the Earth isn't only 6000 years old. With perhaps a handful of exceptions, the entire scientific community is perfectly happy with the evidence that the Earth is way the hell older than 6000 years, and is ready to put it's time and effort into getting more accurate information about just how old, and the details of it's evolution.

Similarly, here we are with a scientific community that is pretty chill with the idea that Mars has a wet past, but you're demanding "beyond a doubt" evidence. Most scientists aren't trying to prove Mars had a wet past any more, they accept that it had one. They're not trying to find out how wet, and over what periods, and what the conditions were in those waters, how long did it last, etc?

So, do I find your "stop science, I don't think we're sure beyond a doubt" to be utter fucking horseshit? Absolutely. Do I accept that we've got this "wet Mars" thing taped enough to stop working on if Mars was wet and start working on how wet Mars was? Again: absolutely.

Search hard enough, and you'll find someone with a science degree who will claim the Earth must be younger than 6000 years. If any when they can explain away all the evidence that leads the majority of scientists to accept the more mainstream theory of 4.6B (+/- 0.2B) years, I might listen to the Young Earth types.

Similarly, I am sure you can find a scientist to claim Mars couldn't possibly have been wet. If and when they can explain away all the evidence that leads the majority of scientists to accept the more mainstream theory of "wet Mars", I might listen to the Dry Mars types.

And if you don't like that, blow it out yer arse.

Re: @Grikath: Rocks.

"show me the evidence that proves beyond doubt that it was water and could only have been water, and shows that no other capable liquid could occur on Mars other than water (and since you deemed my question worthy of ridicule, I am expecting a very simple and obvious answer)"

Nothing can be proven beyond doubt. Exhibit A: moon landing deniers.

That said, there are plenty of things on Mars which we've turned up so far that individually are highly likely to be the result of water and cumulatively almost guarantee it. Various clay and mineral deposits (which include things that have water locked up in their crystal matrices), the particular patterns of sedimentation and, IIRC, the rates and patterns of weathering are all evidence for water on Mars. And very specifically water, as opposed to another fluid.

There are other items - for example some sedimentary deposits - that could have been the result of multiple fluids. (Yes, there are sedimentary deposits that fit in both categories.) Unfortunately for the "not water" hypothesis the cumulative evidence says that it is unlikely to the point of irrelevant that there were two different fluid cycles on the planet.

Is it theoretically possible that some completely novel set of chemical interactions took place on Mars that just happens to look exactly like water? Sure. I also could have been switched at birth with the Trevor Pott from an alternate universe. It's just really, really unlikely.

So unlikely that it's up there with "god actually exists". It's not worth considering unless and until we learn some really outrageously new science that could even begin to explain the evidence but reach a different conclusion.

A scientist is always open to the possibility of the bizarre. That said, the business of science is one of probabilities, and science rests on the business end of Occam's razor. Right now, today, water is the only fluid that fits the evidence. What's more, it's the only fluid we know of that can fit the evidence.

Thus, until someone can come up with a means by which another fluid can fluid the evidence, Mars has a wet past, a thick atmosphere and was warm. Given the evidence thus far, alternative hypothesis have a heck of an uphill climb to overturn current theory in this regard.

Re: well , there you have it....

s/"Any truly spiritual person"/No True Scotsman

There are plenty of "spiritual people" that would have you labelled a blasphemer for what you just said. $_text is the literally truth, and anything else is lies. Or didn't you know that?

But, oh, you aren't a fundamentalist, eh? Texts are mooshy and open to interpretation. So then it's all about how you feel about things. Truthiness has more value than truth.

Of course, the part where you are just a sack of chemicals and I can change how you feel by putting the right chemicals into you won't open your mind to the truth of science, will it? Thought not.

My mind is plenty open, sirrah. And I need no more majesty than the universe itself. It's plenty mind boggling as it is, no "higher power" required. In the meantime and between time, the ability to see off some of the "$text is the literal truth" whackos is worth a thousand times the current expenditure on space.

Sadly, I have no idea how to go about enlightening the truthiness brigade, but that won't stop me from seeking a means to that end.

Re: Rocks.

We don't need to observe a thing directly in order to know it occurred. Evidence occurs in multiple forms, and where it can be tested empirically gives science a window into the unobservable.

For example, there are plenty of geochemical signatures that - to our current knowledge at least - can only occur with Mars having had a thicker atmosphere. Perhaps more to the point, when we replicate relevant conditions in a lab (and Earth itself is one hell of a lab, never forget,) we see identical (or near enough as makes no difference) geochemical signatures.

That moves the balance of probability from "Mars was always as you see it now" to "Mars had a large atmosphere". Evidence then starts stacking up and eventually the "thick atmosphere hypothesis" moves from hypothesis to Theory. This means that we no longer need to prove that it occurred; there is so much evidence that it did we can simply take it for granted.

Instead, if you want to advance an alternate hypothesis - for example, the hypothesis that Mars was always as you see it now - you need to do the work. You need to not only demonstrate how this could be true, but explain away all the supporting evidence for the thick Martian atmosphere theory.

That's how science works.

How science doesn't work is that every time something comes along that you disagree with because it makes you uncomfortable you get to derail the conversation by demanding that every single element be explained to you down to base principles. Once something has proven itself enough to be a Theory then the onus isn't on scientists to explain everything to you, but on you to explain how your alternate view of the world fits with the evidence accepted by the scientific community.

In other words: yes Mars had a thick atmosphere. And the burden of proof is on you as the one challenging science for which there is strong evidence to provide not only new evidence for alternate claims, but an explanation for all extant evidence.

Now, if you have an explanation for an alternate hypothesis that matches all extant evidence, I'm entirely open to discussion. Otherwise, you're aught but a troll.

Re: @Mark...well , there you have it....

Alien religions won't likely say "humans are special", though. And I doubt they'll say "control women's vaginas" or "adhere to the authority of the leader of this human cult".

So they're blasphemers.

Re: well , there you have it....

"If we found it, what would it prove?"

It's not about what it would prove so much as what it would disprove. If there is life that is not on Earth, then Earth isn't special, and the case for god or gods becomes much, much more difficult. If life exists (or existed) "out there", then it is a victory for rationalism and critical thinking and an important defeat for faith and Terracentrism.

If your evidence for god is nothing more than an ever-receding pocket of scientific ignorance then the small you can make that pocket of ignorance the fewer people will cling irrationally to faith. If nothing else is achieved from the Mars explorations except that, we will have nonetheless accomplished something mighty.

"But generally a court will kick out a case based just on suspicions, if the plaintiff cannot back up their suspicions with evidence."

Sure, if it's an actual trial. There are lots of instances in which you go to a court to get them to sign off on something but that it doesn't involve a trial. A warrant would be an example.

So it seems to me it's entirely possible here what we're talking about is Big IP going to a court and saying "we suspect BobsDildoShack.com of hosting our IP", getting a ban and then it being up to the owner of BobsDildoShack.com to respond to that ban.

See, in a trial, there's representation. The opportunity to answer your accuser and defend yourself. In anything else, there is absolutely no reason to assume that the court's involvement is anything more than a FISA-court-like rubber stamping process.

Nothing about this seems like these are presented to the court as "cases". As described, it's far more like "getting a warrant". Show minimal evidence, get rubber stamp, and the onus is on the accused, not the accuser.

Except, you know, there's not actually any "getting a warrant" involved, and no reason to assume that even that minimal level of evidence is required.

"As long as the IP holders have to put the evidence before a court of law and prove their suspicions, before a court order allowing the site to be blocked is issued, I don't really have a problem with it."

There's no evidence this is required. Just that Big IP needs to have "suspicions". There was no mention they'd have to actually prove anything.

Re: Hypocrisy?

"Why do you mistrust US so?"

Why should I trust it?

Re: PLUTO.......Planet, planetoid, Celestial Body or what?

Pluto is one step above "comet". It is not a planet. Ceres is a better candidate for "planet" than Pluto. It's a rubble pile just barely large enough to have achieved hydrostatic equilibrium. Barely. Drag that thing into a Mars-like orbit and it would melt.

Space popscicle != planet.

Re: Fair cop?

Arist's OS may use a similar CLI, but that's nothing more than "copying the API." Under the hood it behaves completely differently.

Maybe Cisco could "innovate" a way to actually having customers want to buy Cisco. Or is that beyond their "innovation engine?" Arista's customers are fiercely loyal for a reason: they make damned good tech, and they don't charge a village worth's of virgins and a rare volcano for it.

Cisco network exists only because of lock-in. Period. Everyone else is running to Huawei or Arista. Both for good reasons.

But hey, litigation is easier than innovation, right? Cisco: that's not an "innovation" engine you're running. It's an "acquisition and integration engine", backed by a litigation engine. What's next, rounded corners on packets? Design patent lawsuits?

I expected more from a company like Cisco. The ability to compete on merit, for one.

Re: Fair cop?

Every switch vendor on the planet makes that a marketing item. Supermicro, Dell, etc.

See Oracle v Google for that whole "you can't use our APIs" thing. How'd that work out for Oracle, hmm?