No. This will mean that there will be more people finding more prior art, and therefore more documents to wade through and more correspondence with the Patent Office. This means more expenses rather than less. I'm not saying it's a bad idea (I already argued against one application), but it won't make patenting inventions cheaper. The patent examiner will still do a literature search and find things in addition to whatever this process finds.
On the other hand, it mean that enforcing patents will become a bit easier because the general level of patents will be higher so there'll be less to litigate about.
I thought conservatives were against government welfare, which means welfare funded by taxes. If we're "wired" to be altuistic, doesn't that mean that we'll donate money or work to solve problems without being forced to pay taxes to do so?
Other than drugs, all of those are useful. Remember that we are living way out of specifications.
Sex is how we get more people. People are good. For most of our history, population density was very low.
Violence is how we get rid of people and animals who want to hurt us. Things that want to hurt us are bad.
Pigging out is bad when food is easily available. For most of human history, it wasn't. Pigging out was a way to save calories for when food will not be available.
Altruism means doing nice things to the people around you. If people around you prefer you were dead, you're a lot less likely to survive. See violence.
Drugs probably sit on chemical receptors that were originally there for a useful purpose.
You have the right to try. You may or may not succeed.
"Love it or leave it" is just more facist crap. Stop trying to strip me of my constitutional rights.
I didn't realize I was doing that. I didn't write this.sig as a reply to you. I wrote it in 1998, as I was leaving Israel to build my life in the US. I hated conscription (I consider it a form of slavery), so I moved to a country where the government isn't as likely to vote my children into uniforms. Since then, I haven't seen anything that changed my mind (US citizen as of two weeks ago).
I wrote it as a way to tell people that if they don't like something their government does, and they don't think they have a snowball's chance in hell of changing it, they can still make a difference in their lives by finding a better package deal from another government. I apologize if you think that pointing out you have a right to leave the country strips you of any of your constitutional rights.
"A free market in the field of government" means that if a government is bad you have the option to abandon it, and the country it runs, and find a better place to live.
If you want dreams, dream them. Find like minded people and try to achieve them. Don't expect them to come from our leaders, who just happened to win a popularity contest.
Even in the Internet world, publishers can serve a useful purpose. I gladly pay Baen $6 for an e-book when I can find something to read for free. Why? Because they do the work of selecting good manuscripts, editing them, and even training beginner authors so they'll write better books in the future.
The RIAA companies could adapt to fulfill that role. However, they will be much smaller and less profitable. In the short term, it's better for them to try and defend their dying business any way they can. In the long term... the managers will probably be working for another company, so they don't think about the long term.
1. Information the government wants to be available, which is produced by tax money and consumers can get for free. 2. Information the government would rather you didn't have, which costs consumers money.
Do you really want the government deciding what information should be easily accessible? Do you want people to be bribed to consume government propaganda?
Like Wikipedia, except for requiring proven education to get a grant or to review articles. Don't get me wrong, I love Wikipedia - but I hope my doctor doesn't rely on it when prescribing medication.
A currency that is backed by a commodity is one that is pegged in value to that commodity. If there is a bank that commits to take a $20 bill and give me an ounce of gold, then the USD is gold backed. If there is a gold merchant you would gave given me an ounce of gold for $250 in 2000 and would give me one for $650 today, and does not commit to any future exchange rate, then the dollar is not backed by gold.
Similarly, since the cost of a barrel of oil varies and nobody commits to a future price beyond a year or so, the dollar is not backed by oil. The fact that oil producers decided to accept dollars is irrelevant - they can change their mind tomorrow.
> Do not blame an ideology for the people who believes in it.
You mean, "don't judge it by what it has achieved in practice, almost every single time it was tried" (Kibbutzim worked better, but they are only inhabited by people who want to be there).
If only they were this creative and imaginative when sitting down to try to solve a conflict peacefully. This goes for both sides, and it applies in most conflicts.
Technologies are developed by scientists and engineers. Creativity and imagination and core requirements for the job.
Peaceful solutions are developed by politicians and diplomats. Core job requirements include charisma and the ability to get people to do things. Creativity and imagination are not required, and may even be liabilities.
Therefore, even assuming that the will to have peace exists (I can make the case it doesn't, but I don't want to get into that argument), the people responsible are probably not competent to find peaceful solutions. The Middle East would probably be better off if you shot the top 100 people in each country.
If the assets of the business are all intellectual, then this would work. Source code, etc. can be forked (so can patents using non exclusive licenses). However, most businesses have other assets that aren't so easy to fork: physical assets, contracts, reputation, etc.
This form of an employee owned and managed business is called a worker's cooperative http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worker_cooperative. It's a pretty old idea, which has its advantages and disadvantages.
Many open source projects work because of
1. A charismatic leader, such as Linus.
2. The fact that if said leader misbehaves it's easy for even a small group of competent programmers to fork the project. This forces leaders to strive for consensus.
#1 can happen in a co-op (or a regular business). #2 is a lot harder in a business.
The music isn't the utility. The psychological effect you get from listening to the music is the utility, usually. That can be reproduced by other bands that sell customer-friendly music.
Capitalistic Humility is the virtue of selling what the customers want to buy, not what you want to sell. Seems WB forgot that. It is obvious why this format will be better for WB and the music industry in general. The only drawback is that it sucks for the customers, the people whose money the music industry wants.
They seem to be like Ford prior to the attack of the Japanese car manufacturers or Apple before the release of Windows 3.1. Complacent, expensive, and sure there is no other alternative for the customer. It might be a good idea to short their stock.
Print on Demand is only likely to make you significant amounts of money (the definition of professional in my book) if you discover a market niche that existing publishers are unaware of and therefore don't serve. The editors at Baen can probably evaluate your Science Fiction book's marketability a lot better than you can, and if they tell you it sucks, it probably does. However, publishers are completely unaware of the pent-up demand for free-fall cookbooks. If you wrote a free-fall cookbook, and you believe the market is there for it, print on demand is probably your only venue. If you succeed, you can start a small publishing house, run it successfully for a few years, and then sell it to one of the huge corporate publishers.
People sign contracts that waive rights they would have otherwise enjoyed all the time. I have a right to free speech, but I signed a contract that I won't disclose my employer's secrets. I have a right to medical privacy, but I waived that right, partially, so that my doctor's office will be able to bill my insurance company.
A contract that waives your right to sue in a court of law, or your right to sue for gross negligence, would not be enforced by the courts. A license contract between Blockbuster and Sony in which Blockbuster promised not to resell games would probably be valid.
Of course, IANAL, and it also depends on who sued whom, where, and who paid for the better lawyer.
The Sony - Blockluster contact can include a section where Blockluster waives the Right of First Sale. Blockluster doesn't have to sign it, Sony doesn't have to produce rentable copies of their games.
The privacy policy is part of the contract. A company that violated its privacy policy, in a way that could be proven at court, could be sued. It's not a very strong guarantee (guess who can afford the better lawyers), but it's something.
1. People died around retirement age anyway, so it didn't cost that much.
2. They worked physically demanding jobs that couldn't be done effectively by somebody old.
3. While they were in the prime of their life, they busted themselves raising large family.
1 & 3 certainly no longer hold. If generation n+1 has twice as many people as generation n, then generation n+1 will be able to take care of generation n for five years on the average. If generation n+1 is smaller than generation n, then generation n+1 is unlikely to take care of generation n for twenty years on the average (while raising their own children) - especially if generation n is perfectly able to work.
This means that something happen to retirement assets. Those that are debt will probably be inflated to be worth less (that will also help with the public debt). Those that are equity are usually based on the expectation of being able to sell them at a higher price - they'll lose value when generation n+1 can afford to buy less retirment assets than generation n.
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No. This will mean that there will be more people finding more prior art, and therefore more documents to wade through and more correspondence with the Patent Office. This means more expenses rather than less. I'm not saying it's a bad idea (I already argued against one application), but it won't make patenting inventions cheaper. The patent examiner will still do a literature search and find things in addition to whatever this process finds.
On the other hand, it mean that enforcing patents will become a bit easier because the general level of patents will be higher so there'll be less to litigate about.
I thought conservatives were against government welfare, which means welfare funded by taxes. If we're "wired" to be altuistic, doesn't that mean that we'll donate money or work to solve problems without being forced to pay taxes to do so?
Drugs probably sit on chemical receptors that were originally there for a useful purpose.
Could you elaborate? How does the nature of quantum mechanics invalidate a moral theory?
It's my country. *I have a right to change it.*
.sig as a reply to you. I wrote it in 1998, as I was leaving Israel to build my life in the US. I hated conscription (I consider it a form of slavery), so I moved to a country where the government isn't as likely to vote my children into uniforms. Since then, I haven't seen anything that changed my mind (US citizen as of two weeks ago).
You have the right to try. You may or may not succeed.
"Love it or leave it" is just more facist crap. Stop trying to strip me of my constitutional rights.
I didn't realize I was doing that. I didn't write this
I wrote it as a way to tell people that if they don't like something their government does, and they don't think they have a snowball's chance in hell of changing it, they can still make a difference in their lives by finding a better package deal from another government. I apologize if you think that pointing out you have a right to leave the country strips you of any of your constitutional rights.
"A free market in the field of government" means that if a government is bad you have the option to abandon it, and the country it runs, and find a better place to live.
"Director of information policy at the Cato Institute..." Oh, I'm sorry, am I supposed to continue giving a shit after that?
Not if you believe that rights only belong to people who happen to agree with you.
If you want dreams, dream them. Find like minded people and try to achieve them. Don't expect them to come from our leaders, who just happened to win a popularity contest.
Even in the Internet world, publishers can serve a useful purpose. I gladly pay Baen $6 for an e-book when I can find something to read for free. Why? Because they do the work of selecting good manuscripts, editing them, and even training beginner authors so they'll write better books in the future.
The RIAA companies could adapt to fulfill that role. However, they will be much smaller and less profitable. In the short term, it's better for them to try and defend their dying business any way they can. In the long term... the managers will probably be working for another company, so they don't think about the long term.
This makes for two parallel systems:
1. Information the government wants to be available, which is produced by tax money and consumers can get for free.
2. Information the government would rather you didn't have, which costs consumers money.
Do you really want the government deciding what information should be easily accessible? Do you want people to be bribed to consume government propaganda?
Like Wikipedia, except for requiring proven education to get a grant or to review articles. Don't get me wrong, I love Wikipedia - but I hope my doctor doesn't rely on it when prescribing medication.
A currency that is backed by a commodity is one that is pegged in value to that commodity. If there is a bank that commits to take a $20 bill and give me an ounce of gold, then the USD is gold backed. If there is a gold merchant you would gave given me an ounce of gold for $250 in 2000 and would give me one for $650 today, and does not commit to any future exchange rate, then the dollar is not backed by gold.
Similarly, since the cost of a barrel of oil varies and nobody commits to a future price beyond a year or so, the dollar is not backed by oil. The fact that oil producers decided to accept dollars is irrelevant - they can change their mind tomorrow.
> Do not blame an ideology for the people who believes in it.
You mean, "don't judge it by what it has achieved in practice, almost every single time it was tried" (Kibbutzim worked better, but they are only inhabited by people who want to be there).
If only they were this creative and imaginative when sitting down to try to solve a conflict peacefully. This goes for both sides, and it applies in most conflicts.
Technologies are developed by scientists and engineers. Creativity and imagination and core requirements for the job.
Peaceful solutions are developed by politicians and diplomats. Core job requirements include charisma and the ability to get people to do things. Creativity and imagination are not required, and may even be liabilities.
Therefore, even assuming that the will to have peace exists (I can make the case it doesn't, but I don't want to get into that argument), the people responsible are probably not competent to find peaceful solutions. The Middle East would probably be better off if you shot the top 100 people in each country.
If the assets of the business are all intellectual, then this would work. Source code, etc. can be forked (so can patents using non exclusive licenses). However, most businesses have other assets that aren't so easy to fork: physical assets, contracts, reputation, etc.
This form of an employee owned and managed business is called a worker's cooperative http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worker_cooperative. It's a pretty old idea, which has its advantages and disadvantages.
Many open source projects work because of
1. A charismatic leader, such as Linus.
2. The fact that if said leader misbehaves it's easy for even a small group of competent programmers to fork the project. This forces leaders to strive for consensus.
#1 can happen in a co-op (or a regular business). #2 is a lot harder in a business.
The music isn't the utility. The psychological effect you get from listening to the music is the utility, usually. That can be reproduced by other bands that sell customer-friendly music.
Capitalistic Humility is the virtue of selling what the customers want to buy, not what you want to sell. Seems WB forgot that. It is obvious why this format will be better for WB and the music industry in general. The only drawback is that it sucks for the customers, the people whose money the music industry wants.
They seem to be like Ford prior to the attack of the Japanese car manufacturers or Apple before the release of Windows 3.1. Complacent, expensive, and sure there is no other alternative for the customer. It might be a good idea to short their stock.
Print on Demand is only likely to make you significant amounts of money (the definition of professional in my book) if you discover a market niche that existing publishers are unaware of and therefore don't serve. The editors at Baen can probably evaluate your Science Fiction book's marketability a lot better than you can, and if they tell you it sucks, it probably does. However, publishers are completely unaware of the pent-up demand for free-fall cookbooks. If you wrote a free-fall cookbook, and you believe the market is there for it, print on demand is probably your only venue. If you succeed, you can start a small publishing house, run it successfully for a few years, and then sell it to one of the huge corporate publishers.
People sign contracts that waive rights they would have otherwise enjoyed all the time. I have a right to free speech, but I signed a contract that I won't disclose my employer's secrets. I have a right to medical privacy, but I waived that right, partially, so that my doctor's office will be able to bill my insurance company.
A contract that waives your right to sue in a court of law, or your right to sue for gross negligence, would not be enforced by the courts. A license contract between Blockbuster and Sony in which Blockbuster promised not to resell games would probably be valid.
Of course, IANAL, and it also depends on who sued whom, where, and who paid for the better lawyer.
The Sony - Blockluster contact can include a section where Blockluster waives the Right of First Sale. Blockluster doesn't have to sign it, Sony doesn't have to produce rentable copies of their games.
It won't kill the rental business. It will let game publishers sell two types of copies:
1. Single console copies for the home market.
2. Multiple console copies for the rental market.
#2 will cost more than #1, but not so much that Blockbuster will want to leave the video game rental business.
I stand corrected. It's still a sue-able thing to not follow it, though.
The privacy policy is part of the contract. A company that violated its privacy policy, in a way that could be proven at court, could be sued. It's not a very strong guarantee (guess who can afford the better lawyers), but it's something.
Retirement was invented when:
1. People died around retirement age anyway, so it didn't cost that much.
2. They worked physically demanding jobs that couldn't be done effectively by somebody old.
3. While they were in the prime of their life, they busted themselves raising large family.
1 & 3 certainly no longer hold. If generation n+1 has twice as many people as generation n, then generation n+1 will be able to take care of generation n for five years on the average. If generation n+1 is smaller than generation n, then generation n+1 is unlikely to take care of generation n for twenty years on the average (while raising their own children) - especially if generation n is perfectly able to work.
This means that something happen to retirement assets. Those that are debt will probably be inflated to be worth less (that will also help with the public debt). Those that are equity are usually based on the expectation of being able to sell them at a higher price - they'll lose value when generation n+1 can afford to buy less retirment assets than generation n.