Lucky me. I managed to figure out it was crap fairly quickly. Yay, Open Media, Yay Matt Drudge letting Lucianne Goldberg post trash on his site(stuff she later admits was plain false). Sure Large media institutions get things wrong, that doesn't make an internet version of talk radio any better(or nearly as good).
What do you mean by social structures evolving organically? There have been "governments" at least since there has been writing, and I dare say human beings are better off than they were 6,000 years ago. I guess societies that are pretty loosely organized, such as "Big Man" societies might be your ideal libertarian, societies, but then again, they haven't "evolved" much at all. If anything, what human history shows about government is that in the absence of it, social structures, rather than developing "organically," tend to move about quickly as the Ross Ice Shelf, if at all. Governments are part and parcel of human cultural development, rather than an impediment(though they can be, the former Soviet Union being a prime example). I don't think we should take the knee-jerk position that government interference must always be minimal. After all, Texas has minimal government interference, and it's a backwater.
Why not get rid of sales tax, period. I can understand why states want to tax: it's unfair for the Internet to be a tax-free zone and leave local business in a tax(high-price) ghetto. 'Course sales tax is pretty regressive anyway, Alan Keyes notwithstanding, so maybe it should be done away with anyway. Replace revenue with slight jump in income tax(oh but progressive taxes are socialistic and classist, right?)
"...but as you probably understand, we're sorta restricted in what we can say." No, I don't understand. Is that a restriction on content, and what does it say about restrictions in the future?
The preliminary inunction says more than that. The legal standard requires that the party seeking the injunction show a "substantial likelihood" of winning on the merits.
Actually, I think Barnes & Noble has another defense other than obviousness. The fact that the patent doesn't actually work as claimed. I believe that is a lack of enablement. The patent claims that it is one-click, but it is not. After all, how do you identify yourself to Amazon when you go the website? Gee, do you enter a password? Is that the identifier that is referred to in the patent?
There is no appeal yet because there is nothing to appeal. Remember, all Judge Jackson is make certain conclusions about what the facts in this case are, he hasn't fashioned any remedy yet. The right to appeal is automatic, but you can only appeal from a final judgement, and this is not one(A final judgment will be in the form of an Order making MS do certain things and say that it is final). Microsoft could then appeal the judgement, and amongst its arguments are that the judge got the facts wrong. Still, at best MS could get a new trial, based on some evidentiary screw-up by the judge. No way an appeals court will throw Jackson's findings of fact and come to its own conclusions. The sun would fall out of the sky first(if it did, it's corrupt). But in reality, the only thing MS could fight is the remedy, which it won't because most likely there will be some sort of consent decree with Justice and the states.
I read that they were working for the Feds. They may have been scumbags, it seems more likely somebody found out they were snitches and wasted them. Fact is few people will actually go out and kill because they got screwed out of money(especially honest ones). They just go to the cops, if they're smart enough to realize they got scammed. But there a plenty of people, once they get dirty, who will kill to avoid heavy jail terms. They only got fined 650k 'cause they cut a deal for information
NY Times article suggest another use: solar cells. Imagine going camping with a solar-powered tent, refugee camps providing their own power, every flat surface turned into either monitor or a power surface. http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/99/10/biztech/ articles/29blue.html
NY Times article suggest another use: solar cells. Imagine going camping with a solar-powered tent, refugee camps providing their won power, every flat surface turned into either monitor or a power surface. http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/99/10/biztech/ articles/29blue.html
Actually, you only have to prove that no one was using the invention before filing the application. Application to approval time can take years. you could also prove an earlier date of invention, but that, I think, only goes about a year before application date
Actually, there are no "official" projections that Social Security will Not go bust unless something is done. As I said before, projections that it will go bust project GNP growth at lower than depression-era growth over a period of fifty years. Granted, the baby boom is now bust, but GNP growth doesn't seem to take into account the possibility, nay, the likelihood of productivity gains that offset fertility declines. As for the stock market, we are in the midst(who knows if its the tail end) of a bubble. Not to imply any lack of skill in investing on your part, but how long do you think stocks can float on PE ratios of infinity?
Maybe more Third World immigration to developed countries is a good thing, for the human race, that is. After all, it's well known that there is plenty of food to feed everybody, but that it is not well distributed. Third World countries have enough food, for the most part, but somehow many have the occasional disastrous famine, a phenomenon that is actually easy to prevent(during black '47, food was exported from Ireland to England). Its just a matter of distribution. Immigration from the third world is just people voting on policy with their feet, from places with poor food distribution to places with relatively equal distribution. Instead of changing policy in there own country, they leave. The implications are pretty poor: the third world loses is educated citizens, decreasing the effectiveness of social policies designed to increase equality, etc.
Yeah, China's coercive policies have been fantastically ineffective in stemming population growth, though it manage to eliminate a whole bunch of women, if you like that sort of thing. Bangladesh managed to cut its fertility rate by almost half in a decade without adopting that policy. Educating women and giving them access to credit made them a hell of lot less interested in pumping out toddlers
I fail to see why population shrinkage is a bad thing. Do we not owe a responsibility to children that are born, rather than those that are unborn? After all, India just went over one billion and that is a damn poor country, barely able to feed the people it has. While there is a link with declining fertility and a large welfare state, that isn't the only part of the equation. The evidence shows time and time again that democratic countries are more successful in decreasing fertility, not by coercive means, but increasing equality, in form of economic opportunities(education, easy access to credit, participation in the work force) and real social and political freedoms. If high fertility rates are so great, why are there so many motels owned by Patels in this country, and why is it so easy for me to get good CHinese food in New York?
You might want to read a book by a Harvard economist that recently came out called Development as Freedom, that talks about this.
And if you are worried about Social Security, the projections that it is going to go bust are based on GNP growth projections that lower than any historical period in this century, including the 1930's, so either the experts are quite wrong or we're in for a half-century depression
Slashdot Mirror
Lucky me. I managed to figure out it was crap fairly quickly. Yay, Open Media, Yay Matt Drudge letting Lucianne Goldberg post trash on his site(stuff she later admits was plain false). Sure Large media institutions get things wrong, that doesn't make an internet version of talk radio any better(or nearly as good).
What do you mean by social structures evolving organically? There have been "governments" at least since there has been writing, and I dare say human beings are better off than they were 6,000 years ago. I guess societies that are pretty loosely organized, such as "Big Man" societies might be your ideal libertarian, societies, but then again, they haven't "evolved" much at all. If anything, what human history shows about government is that in the absence of it, social structures, rather than developing "organically," tend to move about quickly as the Ross Ice Shelf, if at all. Governments are part and parcel of human cultural development, rather than an impediment(though they can be, the former Soviet Union being a prime example). I don't think we should take the knee-jerk position that government interference must always be minimal. After all, Texas has minimal government interference, and it's a backwater.
Why not get rid of sales tax, period. I can understand why states want to tax: it's unfair for the Internet to be a tax-free zone and leave local business in a tax(high-price) ghetto. 'Course sales tax is pretty regressive anyway, Alan Keyes notwithstanding, so maybe it should be done away with anyway. Replace revenue with slight jump in income tax(oh but progressive taxes are socialistic and classist, right?)
"...but as you probably understand, we're sorta restricted in what we can say." No, I don't understand. Is that a restriction on content, and what does it say about restrictions in the future?
The preliminary inunction says more than that. The legal standard requires that the party seeking the injunction show a "substantial likelihood" of winning on the merits.
Actually, I think Barnes & Noble has another defense other than obviousness. The fact that the patent doesn't actually work as claimed. I believe that is a lack of enablement. The patent claims that it is one-click, but it is not. After all, how do you identify yourself to Amazon when you go the website? Gee, do you enter a password? Is that the identifier that is referred to in the patent?
The FoF is so goddamn clear its a work of art. It's legal writing at its best.
There is no appeal yet because there is nothing to appeal. Remember, all Judge Jackson is make certain conclusions about what the facts in this case are, he hasn't fashioned any remedy yet. The right to appeal is automatic, but you can only appeal from a final judgement, and this is not one(A final judgment will be in the form of an Order making MS do certain things and say that it is final). Microsoft could then appeal the judgement, and amongst its arguments are that the judge got the facts wrong. Still, at best MS could get a new trial, based on some evidentiary screw-up by the judge. No way an appeals court will throw Jackson's findings of fact and come to its own conclusions. The sun would fall out of the sky first(if it did, it's corrupt). But in reality, the only thing MS could fight is the remedy, which it won't because most likely there will be some sort of consent decree with Justice and the states.
IMHO the Internet doesn't make any money. Exhibit 1: Amazon.com
I read that they were working for the Feds. They may have been scumbags, it seems more likely somebody found out they were snitches and wasted them. Fact is few people will actually go out and kill because they got screwed out of money(especially honest ones). They just go to the cops, if they're smart enough to realize they got scammed. But there a plenty of people, once they get dirty, who will kill to avoid heavy jail terms. They only got fined 650k 'cause they cut a deal for information
These guys were working as informers for the Feds.
NY Times article suggest another use: solar cells. Imagine going camping with a solar-powered tent, refugee camps providing their own power, every flat surface turned into either monitor or a power surface. http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/99/10/biztech/ articles/29blue.html
NY Times article suggest another use: solar cells. Imagine going camping with a solar-powered tent, refugee camps providing their won power, every flat surface turned into either monitor or a power surface. http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/99/10/biztech/ articles/29blue.html
Just looked at the patent, filing date is Sept 1997.
Actually, you only have to prove that no one was using the invention before filing the application. Application to approval time can take years. you could also prove an earlier date of invention, but that, I think, only goes about a year before application date
Actually, there are no "official" projections that Social Security will Not go bust unless something is done. As I said before, projections that it will go bust project GNP growth at lower than depression-era growth over a period of fifty years. Granted, the baby boom is now bust, but GNP growth doesn't seem to take into account the possibility, nay, the likelihood of productivity gains that offset fertility declines. As for the stock market, we are in the midst(who knows if its the tail end) of a bubble. Not to imply any lack of skill in investing on your part, but how long do you think stocks can float on PE ratios of infinity?
Maybe more Third World immigration to developed countries is a good thing, for the human race, that is. After all, it's well known that there is plenty of food to feed everybody, but that it is not well distributed. Third World countries have enough food, for the most part, but somehow many have the occasional disastrous famine, a phenomenon that is actually easy to prevent(during black '47, food was exported from Ireland to England). Its just a matter of distribution. Immigration from the third world is just people voting on policy with their feet, from places with poor food distribution to places with relatively equal distribution. Instead of changing policy in there own country, they leave. The implications are pretty poor: the third world loses is educated citizens, decreasing the effectiveness of social policies designed to increase equality, etc.
Yeah, China's coercive policies have been fantastically ineffective in stemming population growth, though it manage to eliminate a whole bunch of women, if you like that sort of thing. Bangladesh managed to cut its fertility rate by almost half in a decade without adopting that policy. Educating women and giving them access to credit made them a hell of lot less interested in pumping out toddlers
I fail to see why population shrinkage is a bad thing. Do we not owe a responsibility to children that are born, rather than those that are unborn? After all, India just went over one billion and that is a damn poor country, barely able to feed the people it has. While there is a link with declining fertility and a large welfare state, that isn't the only part of the equation. The evidence shows time and time again that democratic countries are more successful in decreasing fertility, not by coercive means, but increasing equality, in form of economic opportunities(education, easy access to credit, participation in the work force) and real social and political freedoms. If high fertility rates are so great, why are there so many motels owned by Patels in this country, and why is it so easy for me to get good CHinese food in New York?
You might want to read a book by a Harvard economist that recently came out called Development as Freedom, that talks about this.
And if you are worried about Social Security, the projections that it is going to go bust are based on GNP growth projections that lower than any historical period in this century, including the 1930's, so either the experts are quite wrong or we're in for a half-century depression