Wouldn't the patent trolls then just hire the patent owners? Right now they will pay a certain amount of dollars to buy the patent... instead, they can hire the owner for a certain amount of time for the same money... and put in the contract (labor agreement) who gets what money in which case.
I just hope they can shut down all Wi-Fi because the Wi-Fi infringes on a patent that a bunch of lawyers bought (over a Wi-Fi connection). It would be perfect irony, and hopefully it would wake up someone in Washington to do something about the patent laws.
I started writing this post, and I thought you made a joke about the FSZ... and I thought I'd just write something witty (which will then get modded down for bad humor). Then I decided to quickly doublecheck, and this Free Speech Zone is actually a real thing. Wow.
Then I read a bit more on wikipedia, and I found out that in the US, you're not always allowed to protest, except in your FSZ... which is practically hidden from public view.
Don't get me wrong - yes, I agree that the corporations have an obligation to maximize profits for their shareholders. That's fine. But - politicians, judges, and regulators like the FCC have an even greater obligation to represent taxpayers, voters, consumers, and/or citizens. And, those politicians have basically sold out to the corporations under discussion.
So, don't complain about the companies. Instead, complain about the politicians, judges and regulators who sold out to them.
Companies just do their part of the deal: to get as much money as possible for as little effort as possible... and get away with it without losing customers. Customers should switch to another company if the current internet provider seems a bad deal. Governments should make sure you have a choice - that there is competition rather than a cartel where all companies basically offer the same product at the same price.
It seems to me that the companies do their job: they're earning money. It seems to me that you're doing your job too: you're an angry customer and you want change. Me too, btw. It seems to me however that there is no choice, and that means that some regulators are screwing up and letting the companies get away with being a cartel or a monopoly, and getting away with throttling.
Capitalism is a fine system, but it is my belief that it requires some regulation... and that's been lacking for a while now.
Umm... you just described any average company. They all want to maximize profits. Companies have a commitment to their shareholders/investors to maximize profit... if they don't do that, the investors would be stupid to invest.
We've defeated the old communists so that this system can dominate the world. Don't complain now.
It produces 2.1 watts for how long? 1 second? 100ms? I guess it could make some LEDs flash.
RTFA - it's even better than you think.
The Pavegen floor tiles flex a slight 5 millimeters when stepped on, capturing kinetic energy which is either stored in lithium polymer batteries beneath its surface or converted into 2.1 watt-hours of electricity and distributed throughout surrounding lights. (emphasis mine)
TFA says it produces 2.1 Watt hours for every step someone takes on the tike. Since 1 Wh is 3600 J, we can conclude it produces about 7.5 kJ at every step (according to the website)... and it takes this kinetic energy from the human shoppers.
7.5 kJ of kinetic energy, in a human... hmmm... what are the shoppers doing? Freefalling from 500 m altitude onto those tiles? Jumping off speeding trains into the tiles?
The problem is that 7.5 kJ of kinetic energy, for a human of 80 kg, would require this human shopper to run at 14 m/s. I did a quick Google search, but it seems Usain Bolt only achieves about 12 m/s.
Correct me if I'm wrong but the photons will have an accelerating effect, so even if it's 20mph after one month, wouldn't it be faster than 40mph in 2 months? I.e. will speed then be superlinear? With nothing slowing it down (besides its own mass) the particles will keep nudging the object ever faster, and since it's in a field of basically limitless "fuel" it'll achieve incredibly fast speeds... after a long while.
If the acceleration is constant, then velocity increases linearly. But the craft will move away from the sun, photon density will decrease, so the acceleration will actually decrease, and the velocity will increase with a less-than-linear amount in time.
I think that the mass of 100 kg that we're working with in this little example is a bit too much.
The economy is built on a set of beliefs. There are phrases like "consumer confidence", which show how subjective it all is. And then there are the politicians who have to base their decisions on limited and conflicting information, while keeping their voters in mind.
It would be silly to suggest that S&P would have an objective analysis about the economy and the USA's financial status. And it would be silly to suggest that politicians would really let this analysis influence their plans.
So, really, there's nothing to see here. Move along, move along!
Revenue is the wrong number to use. Use the percentage of earnings [...]
You can argue that it must be paid from earnings (that's profit, isn't it?), or revenues minus expenses. Fair enough. But then we do that on both sides of the equation: We also calculate the percentage of a 100 euro fine compared to my annual savings.
Companies can put a LOT of stuff on expenses. They can put new shiny offices, heating and electricity, transportation including business trips and team-building events, new furniture, and company dinners and even the investments and expansions on expenses. So, I'll do the same. And what do you know, I have hardly ANY savings at all. If I take my income, and subtract the rent, the food, all shoppings, an occasional party and my holidays, then there's nothing left. So, the 100 euro fine is close to 100% of my savings (because I'll actually have to reduce expenses to pay it).
It's fine by me to use this method to calculate it. Still, I think revenue is more fair.
A 100 euro fine is normal for a person making a relatively minor mistake... like doing something stupid while drunk, or speeding 10-20 mph. 100 euro is 0.25% of a regular annual income of 40000 euro/year...
I'd like to see a big business take a fine of 0.25% of the revenue (revenue, not profit, obviously) for relatively small mistakes. Take British telecom (mentioned earlier in this thread) for example: A revenue of about 30 billion euro / year. A minor mistake should lead to 0.25% of 30 billion = 75 million euro. And that's for small mistakes.
It would certainly bring an extra incentive to be careful.
Companies are legal entities that can get away with far too much!
The police can usually be quite creative when it comes to punishing people when they do something stupid on a night out. There are vague concepts like 'public disorder' or 'disturbing the peace' which allow them to lock up someone for at least a night. Can't they apply that to a company that gets drunk? Close it down for 12 hours until it's sober again?
Finland was (and still is) not even a part of NATO. In addition, Nokia certainly was not a big player in those days.
They probably had listening posts in Norway or Sweden, and some components might have been bought from Nokia... but you either exaggerate, or you completely made up that story.
Because someone will, or already has, misinterpreted the correlation to mean that more torrent downloads leads to higher game reviews. So as you can see, piracy is really good for the game industry!
Tomorrow, mainstream news websites will report that game reviewers boost downloads. Next week, talkshows will discuss the financial consequences for the gaming industry of allowing websites to review games. Next month, politicians will consider banning game reviewers.
The accountability should not be the person making the decision... it should be the owner(s). The owner(s) of a company employ a CEO, managers and employees, but ultimately owner(s) have the final responsibility.
People would invest with a lot more sense and ethics.
I also don't like a police state where you can get arrested for no apparent reason. But it's not like there was "no apparent reason". He was playing with goddamn nuclear material!
What should the police have done according to all you complaining people? Kindly request that he refrains from building a nuclear reactor, and that he delivers the nuclear material before noon the next day, because although it's a grey area in the law, it's best not to play with it in a residential area?
Of course they raided the apartment and confiscated the whole thing. And when you raid an apartment, and confiscate stuff, you also arrest people.
Don't complain. Every now and then, slashdot tells us about a new OS/program/game/plugin. Almost always, this is advertisement in some way, although sometimes they only link to the review, instead of directly to the download site. But anyway, even if slashdot doesn't link, the download site is only 1 Google hit away.
At this very moment, my Slashdot frontpage reveals a "slashvertisement" for this Chrome plugin... but also for some Diablo Auction House, a computer for marriages in Texas, Galaxy Tab 10.1, iPad 2 and Ubuntu One Cloud Storage. And in addition, it negative (anti)-advertisements against Paypal, WinXP and Internet Explorer in 3 different articles. So?
I find this particular "slashvertisement" quite useful and interesting.
-- Sure, mod me down for flaming. Complaining about/. is ok, but complaining about the complainers isn't, right?
Compared to the construction of a new space station, the fuel costs of keeping the ISS in (a higher) orbit are negligible.
I really think that the space agencies around the world should consider recycling parts of the ISS: - Solar panels (couple of tons of electricity producing silicon, producing a couple of megawatts) - Living quarters, including water recycling toilet - Space robot arm - Storage modules
Maybe the labs need to be replaced because new experiments are needed... but I think that a lot of money can be saved if some major parts of the ISS are recycled for ISS v2.
Slashdot Mirror
Wouldn't the patent trolls then just hire the patent owners? Right now they will pay a certain amount of dollars to buy the patent... instead, they can hire the owner for a certain amount of time for the same money... and put in the contract (labor agreement) who gets what money in which case.
I just hope they can shut down all Wi-Fi because the Wi-Fi infringes on a patent that a bunch of lawyers bought (over a Wi-Fi connection). It would be perfect irony, and hopefully it would wake up someone in Washington to do something about the patent laws.
I started writing this post, and I thought you made a joke about the FSZ... and I thought I'd just write something witty (which will then get modded down for bad humor). Then I decided to quickly doublecheck, and this Free Speech Zone is actually a real thing. Wow.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_speech_zone
Then I read a bit more on wikipedia, and I found out that in the US, you're not always allowed to protest, except in your FSZ... which is practically hidden from public view.
Exactly!
TFA is about the ultimate ad block: the police came and removed the poster!
Chuck Norris does.
Don't get me wrong - yes, I agree that the corporations have an obligation to maximize profits for their shareholders. That's fine. But - politicians, judges, and regulators like the FCC have an even greater obligation to represent taxpayers, voters, consumers, and/or citizens. And, those politicians have basically sold out to the corporations under discussion.
So, don't complain about the companies. Instead, complain about the politicians, judges and regulators who sold out to them.
Companies just do their part of the deal: to get as much money as possible for as little effort as possible... and get away with it without losing customers.
Customers should switch to another company if the current internet provider seems a bad deal.
Governments should make sure you have a choice - that there is competition rather than a cartel where all companies basically offer the same product at the same price.
It seems to me that the companies do their job: they're earning money.
It seems to me that you're doing your job too: you're an angry customer and you want change. Me too, btw.
It seems to me however that there is no choice, and that means that some regulators are screwing up and letting the companies get away with being a cartel or a monopoly, and getting away with throttling.
Capitalism is a fine system, but it is my belief that it requires some regulation... and that's been lacking for a while now.
Umm... you just described any average company. They all want to maximize profits.
Companies have a commitment to their shareholders/investors to maximize profit... if they don't do that, the investors would be stupid to invest.
We've defeated the old communists so that this system can dominate the world. Don't complain now.
When you know the Dutch weather, I am very surprised they're good at something related to solar energy.
It produces 2.1 watts for how long? 1 second? 100ms? I guess it could make some LEDs flash.
RTFA - it's even better than you think.
The Pavegen floor tiles flex a slight 5 millimeters when stepped on, capturing kinetic energy which is either stored in lithium polymer batteries beneath its surface or converted into 2.1 watt-hours of electricity and distributed throughout surrounding lights. (emphasis mine)
TFA says it produces 2.1 Watt hours for every step someone takes on the tike. Since 1 Wh is 3600 J, we can conclude it produces about 7.5 kJ at every step (according to the website)... and it takes this kinetic energy from the human shoppers.
7.5 kJ of kinetic energy, in a human... hmmm... what are the shoppers doing? Freefalling from 500 m altitude onto those tiles? Jumping off speeding trains into the tiles?
The problem is that 7.5 kJ of kinetic energy, for a human of 80 kg, would require this human shopper to run at 14 m/s. I did a quick Google search, but it seems Usain Bolt only achieves about 12 m/s.
Correct me if I'm wrong but the photons will have an accelerating effect, so even if it's 20mph after one month, wouldn't it be faster than 40mph in 2 months? I.e. will speed then be superlinear? With nothing slowing it down (besides its own mass) the particles will keep nudging the object ever faster, and since it's in a field of basically limitless "fuel" it'll achieve incredibly fast speeds... after a long while.
If the acceleration is constant, then velocity increases linearly.
But the craft will move away from the sun, photon density will decrease, so the acceleration will actually decrease, and the velocity will increase with a less-than-linear amount in time.
I think that the mass of 100 kg that we're working with in this little example is a bit too much.
Thomas J. Watson, president of IBM, famously said "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_J._Watson#Famous_misquote
Apparently the company still pursues the same goal.
The economy is built on a set of beliefs. There are phrases like "consumer confidence", which show how subjective it all is.
And then there are the politicians who have to base their decisions on limited and conflicting information, while keeping their voters in mind.
It would be silly to suggest that S&P would have an objective analysis about the economy and the USA's financial status.
And it would be silly to suggest that politicians would really let this analysis influence their plans.
So, really, there's nothing to see here. Move along, move along!
Revenue is the wrong number to use. Use the percentage of earnings [...]
You can argue that it must be paid from earnings (that's profit, isn't it?), or revenues minus expenses. Fair enough. But then we do that on both sides of the equation: We also calculate the percentage of a 100 euro fine compared to my annual savings.
Companies can put a LOT of stuff on expenses. They can put new shiny offices, heating and electricity, transportation including business trips and team-building events, new furniture, and company dinners and even the investments and expansions on expenses.
So, I'll do the same. And what do you know, I have hardly ANY savings at all. If I take my income, and subtract the rent, the food, all shoppings, an occasional party and my holidays, then there's nothing left. So, the 100 euro fine is close to 100% of my savings (because I'll actually have to reduce expenses to pay it).
It's fine by me to use this method to calculate it. Still, I think revenue is more fair.
A 100 euro fine is normal for a person making a relatively minor mistake... like doing something stupid while drunk, or speeding 10-20 mph.
100 euro is 0.25% of a regular annual income of 40000 euro/year...
I'd like to see a big business take a fine of 0.25% of the revenue (revenue, not profit, obviously) for relatively small mistakes.
Take British telecom (mentioned earlier in this thread) for example: A revenue of about 30 billion euro / year. A minor mistake should lead to 0.25% of 30 billion = 75 million euro.
And that's for small mistakes.
It would certainly bring an extra incentive to be careful.
Companies are legal entities that can get away with far too much!
The police can usually be quite creative when it comes to punishing people when they do something stupid on a night out. There are vague concepts like 'public disorder' or 'disturbing the peace' which allow them to lock up someone for at least a night. Can't they apply that to a company that gets drunk? Close it down for 12 hours until it's sober again?
I call b-sh-t.
Finland was (and still is) not even a part of NATO. In addition, Nokia certainly was not a big player in those days.
They probably had listening posts in Norway or Sweden, and some components might have been bought from Nokia... but you either exaggerate, or you completely made up that story.
Because someone will, or already has, misinterpreted the correlation to mean that more torrent downloads leads to higher game reviews. So as you can see, piracy is really good for the game industry!
Tomorrow, mainstream news websites will report that game reviewers boost downloads.
Next week, talkshows will discuss the financial consequences for the gaming industry of allowing websites to review games.
Next month, politicians will consider banning game reviewers.
You have the right not to introduce yourself, resulting in a situation where people may recognize your face, but do not know your name.
Facebook's face recognition removes that right, and even removes the burden that someone has to ask someone else about your name.
-- You have nothing to hide? Don't come crying to me when all your personal data is available on the internet for everyone to see.
The accountability should not be the person making the decision... it should be the owner(s). The owner(s) of a company employ a CEO, managers and employees, but ultimately owner(s) have the final responsibility.
People would invest with a lot more sense and ethics.
I also don't like a police state where you can get arrested for no apparent reason. But it's not like there was "no apparent reason". He was playing with goddamn nuclear material!
What should the police have done according to all you complaining people? Kindly request that he refrains from building a nuclear reactor, and that he delivers the nuclear material before noon the next day, because although it's a grey area in the law, it's best not to play with it in a residential area?
Of course they raided the apartment and confiscated the whole thing. And when you raid an apartment, and confiscate stuff, you also arrest people.
Good job, Sweden.
I expect quite a high percentage of that to be recycled, actually.
Don't complain. Every now and then, slashdot tells us about a new OS/program/game/plugin. Almost always, this is advertisement in some way, although sometimes they only link to the review, instead of directly to the download site. But anyway, even if slashdot doesn't link, the download site is only 1 Google hit away.
At this very moment, my Slashdot frontpage reveals a "slashvertisement" for this Chrome plugin... but also for some Diablo Auction House, a computer for marriages in Texas, Galaxy Tab 10.1, iPad 2 and Ubuntu One Cloud Storage. And in addition, it negative (anti)-advertisements against Paypal, WinXP and Internet Explorer in 3 different articles. So?
I find this particular "slashvertisement" quite useful and interesting.
-- Sure, mod me down for flaming. Complaining about /. is ok, but complaining about the complainers isn't, right?
As opposed to... monohedral?
... As opposed to really ugly or boring polyhedral dice?
Bah... the amount of jobs per megawatt will drop for solar as factories get bigger and more efficient.
Still, it shows that solar has moved from an interesting research topic to a real (profitable) industry.
Compared to the construction of a new space station, the fuel costs of keeping the ISS in (a higher) orbit are negligible.
I really think that the space agencies around the world should consider recycling parts of the ISS:
- Solar panels (couple of tons of electricity producing silicon, producing a couple of megawatts)
- Living quarters, including water recycling toilet
- Space robot arm
- Storage modules
Maybe the labs need to be replaced because new experiments are needed... but I think that a lot of money can be saved if some major parts of the ISS are recycled for ISS v2.