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Touchpad Patent Holder Tsera Sues Just About Everyone
eldavojohn writes "Okay, well, maybe not everyone but more than twenty companies (including Apple, Qualcomm, Motorola and Microsoft) are being sued for a generic patent that reads: 'Apparatus and methods for controlling a portable electronic device, such as an MP3 player; portable radio, voice recorder, or portable CD player are disclosed. A touchpad is mounted on the housing of the device, and a user enters commands by tracing patterns with his finger on a surface of the touchpad. No immediate visual feedback is provided as a command pattern is traced, and the user does not need to view the device to enter commands.' Sounds like their may be a few companies using that technology. The suit was filed on July 15th in the favoritest place ever to file patent claim lawsuits: Texas Eastern District Court. It's a pretty classic patent troll; they've been holding this patent since 2003 and they just noticed now that everyone and his dog are using touchpads to control portable electronic devices."
Says the downtrodden prole with his own 3000-MHz computer.
Please, we have enough resources for every human on this planet to have its own free 3000Mhz computer and free internet and whatnot. But its more profitable for a handful of people to have the remaining billions pay for such things.
Do you D?
But this isn't about every human being on the planet, now, is it? What entitles you to a 3000 MHz computer, while so many go without?
I am not impressed
And rightly so. Capitalism is just one of several known forms of economy, and they are pretty much all bad. The difference is minor; in capitalism you can be richer or poorer; in socialism you can be just as poor as any of your neighbors. Neither of them offers an advantage on average, even if we agree on how to measure the said advantage. Both capitalism and socialism exhibited positive and negative surges, and both have decayed into uselessness by now. Small businesses are near death, and in many markets they are dead for many years, obsoleted by box stores of Safeway and Wal-Mart kind. You just can't compete on prices with Wal-Mart. Cleaners still hang around, and burrito places, and noodle shops, but they are irrelevant to the economy; they are not in stock market indexes.
There is no democracy anywhere on the planet; what you have is just varying means to pacify the populace, complete with elections of prearranged candidates (a.k.a. sock puppets.) Countries were, and still are, ruled by the elite that does not represent anyone but themselves. Premiers and Presidents are simply their helmsmen - and you never see the captain. But indirectly you can use the golden rule to figure out who commands the ship.
Capitalism's acceptance of human greed is more honest, compared to socialism. However socialism's resistance to human greed is a better goal. Remember a ST:TNG episode where Enterprise rescued some frozen elite from capitalist past - how horrible their attitude was, how much out of place in a nearly communist society of ST they were? Humans themselves are the problem, and rearrangement of chairs on the deck of Titanic won't help. Many a philosopher posed this question, and the answers that we know (such as coming from Marx and Lenin) are not particularly helpful. Eventually, though, chances are that the people will have to change themselves or die. IMO the latter option is far more likely because human behavior, aggressive and always seeking dominance, is encoded in genes. And of course most aggressive humans climb to the top, to rule over the rest. I'm not impressed by any of that either; I'd much prefer to live in a nearly-static society where sentient beings have no aggression, mild curiosity, and no desire for power over others. Unfortunately whenever a SciFi writer depicts such a society, in the very next chapter it is all wiped out by a trigger-happy platoon of Klingon types or sold into slavery by greedy Ferengi types. Sad.
What's that question got to do with whether capitalism is a good idea or a bad idea?
You need to differentiate between setting the rules and playing the game.
I might be of the opinion that there should be 3 hole cards in Texas Hold 'em rather than two. And I might be able to argue well for that rule change. But meanwhile, whilst everyone else is playing the two hole card version, it doesn't undermine my credibility to play that game and play it well.
Likewise, I might be of the opinion that a political system where decisions are made by rolling a dice would be far better than democracy. And I might argue that position well. But it doesn't undermine my credibility if whilst that system doesn't exist, I live out my existence in the political system I am in, and ive it well.
Just because a person thinks that capitalism is wrong, does not mean he needs to become a monk or a hermit. Indeed he might play the capitalism game extremely well, and still be able to argue that a different system would be better in every way. Without there being any contradiction in his actions.