The Economist is written for Economists, and you'd expect Economists to be able to comment on the damage that patents cause to society with some degree of authority.
You could say the same thing of Scientific American, which around this same period of time was engaged in the practice of securing patents for American inventors.
"Appeal to authority" is a perilous logical fallacy because it's so seductive. It's kind of like the Dark Side of the Force; it seems easier in the short run, but in the long run it weakens you, corrupts you. Makes you wear black at fancy parties.
Facial expression of emotion is in part tied to upbringing. Unless they have really good computer-based images from the year 1503, this can't help but be less accurate than if it were used against a modern image.
It's the American Idol of developers. "We'll let you show off, decide who's best, sign them to a nasty license, and own your soul."
No, it's Superstar USA. They tell you they're looking for the best programmer and giving him a job at Google, but really they're looking for the worst and he has to do hardware for Microsoft AND software for Sun.
What you've cited is the Supreme Court refusing to grant certiorari to a case because they don't have jurisdiction over it. The fact that a justice chose to vent over the issue before having heard the case isn't much of an indicator that four others would have decided the way he pre-prejudiced himself to lean. Further, the underlying state case dealt with a private airport and state use of the land. That a state would rule that they can thrust a structure up in front of incoming airplanes and force an airport to operate in defiance of federal standards or not at all isn't exactly proof that nationwide, an individual can arbitrarily choose to deprive a business of a pre-existing stream of revenue and then demand a ransom. What you're discussing is essentially a bit of under-the-table eminent domain; it doesn't speak to private issues at all.
What you need to do instead is look at the opposite situation - what bad can come from it?
No. What bad is LIKELY to come from it is rational; what bad CAN come from it isn't.
What's the worst that can come from having police? They could arrest innocent people. Guess we can't have police.
What's the worst that can come from letting the army have guns? They could shoot civilians. Poof, no army.
What's the worst that can come from allowing cameras to be sold? Child pornography. Ditto computers. Also the printing press.
Retaining information so that it can be gotten to, and requiring a court-ordered search warrant to obtain it, is considered adequate safeguard with all sorts of other information. To act on that information would still require search warrants or probable cause, just like any other information gained by the police.
The sooner they make them, the better. With all the cable channels that keep cropping up, it's harder and harder to find a good actor who hasn't been on national television in some capacity.
I remember last year on "Next Action Star", they kicked a lady off in one segment, and the very first commercial after that segment was a national ad for some cosmetics or personal grooming product, starring her. The ad still runs, while the show and its winners fade into the murky depths of ill-remembered bad TV.
We catch a terrorist. I'm not talking about somebody we just think might maybe be a terrorist, I mean we yank him out from behind the wheel of the van bomb in the basement of the skyscraper, or the other passengers monkey-stomp him unconscious as he tries to break into the cockpit of the airplane.
We search his home, and find a computer. On it, we find an email from Ayman Al-Zawahiri, saying "Abdullah will email you the instructions for where to pick up the anthrax." We don't find a copy of the email from Abdullah, and Thunderbird is configured to always prompt him for his Earthlink IMAP password. When we ask him for his password, he says "your mother sews socks that smell". After we type that in, we find out that it's not actually his password, it's just an insult.
Are you saying that you don't think it would be a good thing if we could go ask Earthlink for a list of everybody that's emailed him in the last two years, and cross-reference that with emails received by other known terrorists? Maybe go talk to anybody with the address "abdullah1987@hotmail.com" who emailed him?
If what people are objecting to is a feared misuse of this information, then oversight and legal protections are a better answer than throwing the smoking baby out with the bathwater.
If you honestly think it's not safe for a private company to have this information sitting where a court-granted search warrant could retrieve it, then you probably need to be lobbying to replace your local landfill and garbage trucks with curbside incineration service, too; but don't imply, as the submitter did, that it's not an anti-terrorism effort just because it could also be misused.
This is akin to deciding that a school isn't being honest when they say they're buying new computers for educational purposes just because some kid says he's going to install Quake on one of them.
Pointing out to the audience that their gravity explanation is total bullocks would seem an ethical must as well.
Buried in the website for the program, there is an indication that the science advisor for the show only agreed to do it after he was assured that they are going to flag onscreen whenever what he's saying to the contestents is dodgy. I have not seen the program (which is already airing) to determine if this is indeed the case.
No, you don't. You do not have the right to use my property, and I'm perfectly within my rights to build on it even if it's inconvenient to you or harms your business.
You can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me. Property rights don't extend from your basement to the orbit of Pluto.
All of your "one cent a dih or I..." statements don't work for the same reason "one cent a plate or I stand outside your restaurant and vomit continually" doesn't work; civil suits.
You take action to prevent me from conducting my lawful commerce, and I sue you. No FCC is necessary (perhaps desireable, but not necessary) for that.
Ditto for shoving a building up into my laser. If your building was there first I wouldn't be able to knock it down for my laser without eminent domain, but if my laser is there first and you decide to block it, I have a cause of action.
Eminent domain isn't necessary to the formation of a robust telecommunications infrastructure.
It's possible to do this sort of hoax and end up having not made a fool of the subject(s), but instead given them an opportunity to choose to make fools or heroes of themselves. See two seasons of Joe Schmoe for examples of this.
It's also possible to do this and end up just being mean jackasses. See The WB's Superstar USA for an example of this.
Which sells, and which doesn't? Joe Schmoe ran two seasons, and the first "winner" has been on other reality shows, where he's welcomed and regarded as a great guy. Superstar USA appeared to kind of peter out with a dismal ending and contestant on the verge of tears, and has never been heard from again. The "winner" is widely regarded as a life-support system for a lovely set of breasts.
Spike has feelers out for a third season of Joe Schmoe, on their web site. All mention of Superstar USA appears to be gone from the WB web site other than the first press release announcing they were going to do the series.
And then what? Does that make the Register story obsolete too?
It is the nature of "carved on stone tablets" media to become obsolete. They are a little obsolete the instant they're published, and become more so over time.
For Wikipedia users to respond to that article by posting a definition of "Moral Responsibility" underscores one of the ways in which Wikipedia is potentially superior to The Register; Wikipedia can evolve more quickly. This is fitting, since "Wiki" means "quick".
This is not to say that The Register doesn't have advantages over Wikipedia. The controversy that engendered the article illustrates one of those ways.
My posting was not intended to take a side in this debate; that belongs in the comments. I intentionally used similar language to describe the actions of both The Register and the users of Wikipedia.
In fact, my original submission included language intended to further balance the posting; ScuttleMonkey judged that it wasn't necessary and removed it. I respect his judgement as an editor.
Don't touch my Willie, I don't know you that well Help yourself to some Haggard or some Jones; hell Lord, anybody else I don't know what you've heard, I ain't that kind of guy So don't touch my Willie, we'll get along just fine
I am not sure where you got the troll equals terrorist meme from. It doesn't ring true for me.
It works for me. He claimed that "troll" was being used the same way American and British politicians use "terrorist". In his chosen example, "troll" was being used correctly, which makes his comparison an accurate one.
Look at it like this, at least they are not spending their money on trying to figure out ways to stockpile enough munitions to destroy the Earth 4 times over.
No, because they've already got that many nukes; ours.
They've stockpiled several tons of plutonium in case they need to make them, however, and have publicly stated that they have knowledge to build them. Most analysts predict they'd be able to test within a year if they didn't have our nuclear arsenal to protect them.
ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS EXCEPT ITOKAWA. ATTEMPT NO LANDING THERE.
extra lowercase text added because of stupid filters. come on guys, allow for the possibility that people with really high karma might be using lots of capital letters for a legitimate reason.
The headline makes it sound like Emacs is in some kind of danger. I think it's probably one of the programs with the least likelihood of going away, ever; almost everybody who uses it is qualified to maintain it and reluctant to stop using it. Emacs will be around as long as keyboards.
What's your title, Progammer/Analyst? Business Application Analyst?
Sticking "Senior" before that is a promotion. Changing "Analyst" to "Advisor" is a promotion. Going from a coder who reports to a manager and writes whatever crap they tell you to a coder who reports to a managing director or a vice president and designs the programs that hundreds of other people are writing, without the headaches of having to manage those people, is a promotion.
It's the same for system administration positions. Going from Technical Analyst to Senior Technical Analyst is a promotion. Becoming a Technical Advisor is a promotion. Becoming a Technical Fellow is a promotion. None of those are management positions in most places I've worked.
Cat-herding. Only the cats are developers, and the herding involves ensuring they have all their changes ready by certain deadlines so that testing can be completed before the load window. They want that testing to complete on time, and they want you to be flexible on when it starts, and on how much they jam into it after it's already started. Oh, and they mark every request as priority "Critical" because "it gets ignored if we don't."
Well, yes. That's what giving money to organizations means. The government does have an obligation to determine whether or not the actions of those bodies which it gives money to are acting in the public good.
"acting in the public good" is an aggregate definition, not something you apply to every single action of the organization, and drop them like a hot potato if they do one thing "wrong". If that were the standard, all government aid to all universities should be immediately stopped.
If the government gives money to an organization known to restrict speech in lieu of doing it themselves, how is that any different than them passing a law to do it?
Name one organization that doesn't restrict speech. You can't, because they all do. Most do so only in accordance with the law. That's the case here; he voluntarily signed a Code of Ethics, and then he violated it. You don't get to defraud people by lying to them about your intention to uphold your side of a contract.
Good logic, but you miss the point. An employee is no more likely to hurt you after giving you their resignation than before. They likely knew much sooner, so they've had all the time they needed to do anything.
They're no more likely, but they're no less likely, either, and BEFORE they resign you're unaware of the risk. Once they resign, you're aware of the risk; if they do something wrong before you're aware of the risk, it's less your fault than if they do something wrong AFTER you're aware of the risk.
You're not protecting the company against that former employee; you're protecting it against the shareholders.
Slashdot Mirror
The Economist is written for Economists, and you'd expect Economists to be able to comment on the damage that patents cause to society with some degree of authority.
You could say the same thing of Scientific American, which around this same period of time was engaged in the practice of securing patents for American inventors.
"Appeal to authority" is a perilous logical fallacy because it's so seductive. It's kind of like the Dark Side of the Force; it seems easier in the short run, but in the long run it weakens you, corrupts you. Makes you wear black at fancy parties.
Facial expression of emotion is in part tied to upbringing. Unless they have really good computer-based images from the year 1503, this can't help but be less accurate than if it were used against a modern image.
I got mine from a public toilet seat.
It's the American Idol of developers. "We'll let you show off, decide who's best, sign them to a nasty license, and own your soul."
No, it's Superstar USA. They tell you they're looking for the best programmer and giving him a job at Google, but really they're looking for the worst and he has to do hardware for Microsoft AND software for Sun.
I don't know, I think before any of that you could like put resources towards feeding people and providing them with fresh drinking water.
If you give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day. If you teach a man to fish, he'll eat for the rest of his life.
This is about teaching the next generation how to fish and produce fresh drinking water.
(holds breath waiting for the inevitable "fire" post).
What you've cited is the Supreme Court refusing to grant certiorari to a case because they don't have jurisdiction over it. The fact that a justice chose to vent over the issue before having heard the case isn't much of an indicator that four others would have decided the way he pre-prejudiced himself to lean. Further, the underlying state case dealt with a private airport and state use of the land. That a state would rule that they can thrust a structure up in front of incoming airplanes and force an airport to operate in defiance of federal standards or not at all isn't exactly proof that nationwide, an individual can arbitrarily choose to deprive a business of a pre-existing stream of revenue and then demand a ransom. What you're discussing is essentially a bit of under-the-table eminent domain; it doesn't speak to private issues at all.
What you need to do instead is look at the opposite situation - what bad can come from it?
No. What bad is LIKELY to come from it is rational; what bad CAN come from it isn't.
What's the worst that can come from having police? They could arrest innocent people. Guess we can't have police.
What's the worst that can come from letting the army have guns? They could shoot civilians. Poof, no army.
What's the worst that can come from allowing cameras to be sold? Child pornography. Ditto computers. Also the printing press.
Retaining information so that it can be gotten to, and requiring a court-ordered search warrant to obtain it, is considered adequate safeguard with all sorts of other information. To act on that information would still require search warrants or probable cause, just like any other information gained by the police.
The sooner they make them, the better. With all the cable channels that keep cropping up, it's harder and harder to find a good actor who hasn't been on national television in some capacity.
I remember last year on "Next Action Star", they kicked a lady off in one segment, and the very first commercial after that segment was a national ad for some cosmetics or personal grooming product, starring her. The ad still runs, while the show and its winners fade into the murky depths of ill-remembered bad TV.
Ok, assume the following scenario:
We catch a terrorist. I'm not talking about somebody we just think might maybe be a terrorist, I mean we yank him out from behind the wheel of the van bomb in the basement of the skyscraper, or the other passengers monkey-stomp him unconscious as he tries to break into the cockpit of the airplane.
We search his home, and find a computer. On it, we find an email from Ayman Al-Zawahiri, saying "Abdullah will email you the instructions for where to pick up the anthrax." We don't find a copy of the email from Abdullah, and Thunderbird is configured to always prompt him for his Earthlink IMAP password. When we ask him for his password, he says "your mother sews socks that smell". After we type that in, we find out that it's not actually his password, it's just an insult.
Are you saying that you don't think it would be a good thing if we could go ask Earthlink for a list of everybody that's emailed him in the last two years, and cross-reference that with emails received by other known terrorists? Maybe go talk to anybody with the address "abdullah1987@hotmail.com" who emailed him?
If what people are objecting to is a feared misuse of this information, then oversight and legal protections are a better answer than throwing the smoking baby out with the bathwater.
If you honestly think it's not safe for a private company to have this information sitting where a court-granted search warrant could retrieve it, then you probably need to be lobbying to replace your local landfill and garbage trucks with curbside incineration service, too; but don't imply, as the submitter did, that it's not an anti-terrorism effort just because it could also be misused.
This is akin to deciding that a school isn't being honest when they say they're buying new computers for educational purposes just because some kid says he's going to install Quake on one of them.
Pointing out to the audience that their gravity explanation is total bullocks would seem an ethical must as well.
Buried in the website for the program, there is an indication that the science advisor for the show only agreed to do it after he was assured that they are going to flag onscreen whenever what he's saying to the contestents is dodgy. I have not seen the program (which is already airing) to determine if this is indeed the case.
No, you don't. You do not have the right to use my property, and I'm perfectly within my rights to build on it even if it's inconvenient to you or harms your business.
You can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me. Property rights don't extend from your basement to the orbit of Pluto.
All of your "one cent a dih or I..." statements don't work for the same reason "one cent a plate or I stand outside your restaurant and vomit continually" doesn't work; civil suits.
You take action to prevent me from conducting my lawful commerce, and I sue you. No FCC is necessary (perhaps desireable, but not necessary) for that.
Ditto for shoving a building up into my laser. If your building was there first I wouldn't be able to knock it down for my laser without eminent domain, but if my laser is there first and you decide to block it, I have a cause of action.
Eminent domain isn't necessary to the formation of a robust telecommunications infrastructure.
It's possible to do this sort of hoax and end up having not made a fool of the subject(s), but instead given them an opportunity to choose to make fools or heroes of themselves. See two seasons of Joe Schmoe for examples of this.
It's also possible to do this and end up just being mean jackasses. See The WB's Superstar USA for an example of this.
Which sells, and which doesn't? Joe Schmoe ran two seasons, and the first "winner" has been on other reality shows, where he's welcomed and regarded as a great guy. Superstar USA appeared to kind of peter out with a dismal ending and contestant on the verge of tears, and has never been heard from again. The "winner" is widely regarded as a life-support system for a lovely set of breasts.
Spike has feelers out for a third season of Joe Schmoe, on their web site. All mention of Superstar USA appears to be gone from the WB web site other than the first press release announcing they were going to do the series.
And then what? Does that make the Register story obsolete too?
It is the nature of "carved on stone tablets" media to become obsolete. They are a little obsolete the instant they're published, and become more so over time.
For Wikipedia users to respond to that article by posting a definition of "Moral Responsibility" underscores one of the ways in which Wikipedia is potentially superior to The Register; Wikipedia can evolve more quickly. This is fitting, since "Wiki" means "quick".
This is not to say that The Register doesn't have advantages over Wikipedia. The controversy that engendered the article illustrates one of those ways.
My posting was not intended to take a side in this debate; that belongs in the comments. I intentionally used similar language to describe the actions of both The Register and the users of Wikipedia.
In fact, my original submission included language intended to further balance the posting; ScuttleMonkey judged that it wasn't necessary and removed it. I respect his judgement as an editor.
Don't touch my Willie, I don't know you that well
Help yourself to some Haggard or some Jones; hell Lord, anybody else
I don't know what you've heard, I ain't that kind of guy
So don't touch my Willie, we'll get along just fine
I am not sure where you got the troll equals terrorist meme from. It doesn't ring true for me.
It works for me. He claimed that "troll" was being used the same way American and British politicians use "terrorist". In his chosen example, "troll" was being used correctly, which makes his comparison an accurate one.
Look at it like this, at least they are not spending their money on trying to figure out ways to stockpile enough munitions to destroy the Earth 4 times over.
No, because they've already got that many nukes; ours.
They've stockpiled several tons of plutonium in case they need to make them, however, and have publicly stated that they have knowledge to build them. Most analysts predict they'd be able to test within a year if they didn't have our nuclear arsenal to protect them.
ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS EXCEPT ITOKAWA. ATTEMPT NO LANDING THERE.
extra lowercase text added because of stupid filters. come on guys, allow for the possibility that people with really high karma might be using lots of capital letters for a legitimate reason.
The headline makes it sound like Emacs is in some kind of danger. I think it's probably one of the programs with the least likelihood of going away, ever; almost everybody who uses it is qualified to maintain it and reluctant to stop using it. Emacs will be around as long as keyboards.
I still won't use it, but it'll be around.
Golf. Watch the Masters in HD, and all will be revealed.
Management isn't the only route for promotion.
What's your title, Progammer/Analyst? Business Application Analyst?
Sticking "Senior" before that is a promotion. Changing "Analyst" to "Advisor" is a promotion. Going from a coder who reports to a manager and writes whatever crap they tell you to a coder who reports to a managing director or a vice president and designs the programs that hundreds of other people are writing, without the headaches of having to manage those people, is a promotion.
It's the same for system administration positions. Going from Technical Analyst to Senior Technical Analyst is a promotion. Becoming a Technical Advisor is a promotion. Becoming a Technical Fellow is a promotion. None of those are management positions in most places I've worked.
...they want yesterday back.
What is this job that no one likes?
Cat-herding. Only the cats are developers, and the herding involves ensuring they have all their changes ready by certain deadlines so that testing can be completed before the load window. They want that testing to complete on time, and they want you to be flexible on when it starts, and on how much they jam into it after it's already started. Oh, and they mark every request as priority "Critical" because "it gets ignored if we don't."
I wouldn't touch it with a 3 meter pole.
Well, yes. That's what giving money to organizations means. The government does have an obligation to determine whether or not the actions of those bodies which it gives money to are acting in the public good.
"acting in the public good" is an aggregate definition, not something you apply to every single action of the organization, and drop them like a hot potato if they do one thing "wrong". If that were the standard, all government aid to all universities should be immediately stopped.
If the government gives money to an organization known to restrict speech in lieu of doing it themselves, how is that any different than them passing a law to do it?
Name one organization that doesn't restrict speech. You can't, because they all do. Most do so only in accordance with the law. That's the case here; he voluntarily signed a Code of Ethics, and then he violated it. You don't get to defraud people by lying to them about your intention to uphold your side of a contract.
Good logic, but you miss the point. An employee is no more likely to hurt you after giving you their resignation than before. They likely knew much sooner, so they've had all the time they needed to do anything.
They're no more likely, but they're no less likely, either, and BEFORE they resign you're unaware of the risk. Once they resign, you're aware of the risk; if they do something wrong before you're aware of the risk, it's less your fault than if they do something wrong AFTER you're aware of the risk.
You're not protecting the company against that former employee; you're protecting it against the shareholders.