People are curious, they like to innovate and they will do it even if they are not compensated directly. Ah, here's the root of the problem. This statement is too broad. Engineers like to innovate. Inventors like to innovate. Artists like to innovate.
Politicians and executives (and most of the rest of the world) do not. They want monetary compensation and they want it now.
Guess which of the above groups decide how the system works.
Thus proving something everyone on Slashdot already knew: when it comes to rapidly advancing technology, patents do nothing but move the state of the art back 10 or 20 years.
If people stop watching, they'll use the standard RIAA-style defense: "We're losing viewers because everyone is recording/pirating/stealing our shows! Quick, implement more restrictions!" Then they will slowly, ever so slowly, die off.
This is one of those situations where it actually makes sense to root for free-market capitalism.
85% of Chinese Likes Censorship
A Pew Internet & American Life Project report indicates that of an overwhelming majority of Chinese people that believed the internet should be "managed or controlled," 85% want the government to do this managing.
from the well-nevermind-then dept.
It's a method for gathering sunlight, like many others. As stated between the lines of TFA, there is a certain amount of sunlight that might be gathered that makes it through the atmosphere and hits earth. This is a good thing... but considering the amount of energy we as a species use today, mainly in form of oil, sunlight is limited. Or put differently: there's no way we're going to bait-and-switch the sun into doing the job oil does today. The Sun produces a lot of energy. If we had some super-efficient way of converting sunlight to usable energy, we could replace oil for most uses. Lack of energy from the Sun is not the problem - efficiency and limited funding is.
On an unrelated note, I'd like to point out the last lines of TFA:
Brown and Nobles are now researching the best methods to scale up efficient and cost-effective production of cyanobacteria. Two patent applications, 20080085520 and 20080085536, were recently published in the United States Patent and Trade Office. Patents on biological processes are never good. What are these patents and what does this mean?
Not true. Microsoft has stated that it will ship Windows 7 at a fixed date and will be including whatever features they can fit in in that timeframe. In other words, your post should have read:
Oh, please. You know as well as I do that "Windows 7" will be shipped no sooner than 2009, and will maybe contain only one or two of the many, many features they will be promising us in the meantime <sarcasm>Big difference!</sarcasm>
$ ping insovietrussiadomainregister.su PING insovietrussiadomainregister.su (208.72.120.248) 56(84) bytes of data. 64 bytes from insovietrussiadomainregister.su (208.72.120.248): icmp_seq=1 ttl=49 time=69.8 ms 64 bytes from insovietrussiadomainregister.su (208.72.120.248): icmp_seq=2 ttl=49 time=65.0 ms 64 bytes from insovietrussiadomainregister.su (208.72.120.248): icmp_seq=3 ttl=49 time=65.1 ms 64 bytes from insovietrussiadomainregister.su (208.72.120.248): icmp_seq=4 ttl=49 time=71.9 ms 64 bytes from insovietrussiadomainregister.su (208.72.120.248): icmp_seq=5 ttl=49 time=68.7 ms 64 bytes from insovietrussiadomainregister.su (208.72.120.248): icmp_seq=6 ttl=49 time=66.8 ms 64 bytes from insovietrussiadomainregister.su (208.72.120.248): icmp_seq=7 ttl=49 time=315 ms
--- insovietrussiadomainregister.su ping statistics --- 8 packets transmitted, 7 received, 12% packet loss, time 7002ms rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 65.092/103.319/315.648/86.713 ms
useit.com is about useability, not looks. The point I was trying to make was that, when your goal is accessibility, you shouldn't forget basic principles of design for average (i.e. "normal") users.
When designing web sites I always write my HTML to be so flexible with styles you would think it was written for the CSS Zen Garden. Why? Because I know that when I redesign the site's layout, as I inevitably will for one reason or another, I don't have to go mucking around in all my HTML to make the page look different. It certainly doesn't hurt the site's accessibility.
I am evaluating your claim that the connectors on certain Tartan brand products infringe Monster's design patents and trademarks. However, the information supplied with your letter is plainly inadequate to support a claim of infringement and so I am writing to you to ask for further information and clarification regarding your claims.
I will begin by addressing your trademark/trade dress claim. You have referred to two trademark registrations, and have attached some printouts from the USPTO system but the depiction of the marks on the drawings provided is small and indistinct, making it difficult to determine exactly what the alleged resemblance is, and I need further information from you. This made me laugh. Monster Cable wants to initiate a trademark suit and can't send a legible image of the trademark? Sounds like something SCO would do...
Does anyone do parallel programming in Java? Do you rely on the JVM to make your code paralell? How does all that work? Parallel programming on multi-core CPUs in Java is (relatively) easy. You just start a whole bunch of threads and use language features to synchronize them - the JVM handles making sure they all execute simultaneously and efficiently.
Of course, the JVM doesn't help you design an algorithm that is actually worth parallelizing...
Name one category of software that would not have been developed without patents and name a few specific products. Annoying interactive cartoon interfaces. Microsoft Bob. Clippit.
Subway cars are roomy enough to invite certain fish, too heavy to shift easily in storms, and durable enough that we won't have to care about them throwing off debris for decades. There, fixed it for you.
But then we can harvest the proteins from the white blood cells of a different, and even more awesome animal. Sharks with lasers! Aw, dang, someone got it first...
Wow... this actually sounded like a good thing until
Optical drives have been left out to prevent kids from playing 'unauthorized games.' This is quite possibly the stupidest way to add "parental controls" to a children's laptop. What right do they have to determine what games are unauthorized? (And why are all CD games unauthorized? It seems that that typing teacher with the dancing cartoons is dangerous now!)
Slashdot Mirror
Politicians and executives (and most of the rest of the world) do not. They want monetary compensation and they want it now.
Guess which of the above groups decide how the system works.
Thus proving something everyone on Slashdot already knew: when it comes to rapidly advancing technology, patents do nothing but move the state of the art back 10 or 20 years.
If people stop watching, they'll use the standard RIAA-style defense: "We're losing viewers because everyone is recording/pirating/stealing our shows! Quick, implement more restrictions!" Then they will slowly, ever so slowly, die off.
This is one of those situations where it actually makes sense to root for free-market capitalism.
Imagine that syntax parser. [shudders]
On an unrelated note, I'd like to point out the last lines of TFA: Brown and Nobles are now researching the best methods to scale up efficient and cost-effective production of cyanobacteria. Two patent applications, 20080085520 and 20080085536, were recently published in the United States Patent and Trade Office. Patents on biological processes are never good. What are these patents and what does this mean?
[...gets out "Karma Fire Extinguisher"...]
Sounds cool... but I'm still waiting for my water balloon railgun. It was supposed to come in last we
FOOSH!!
As expected...
Who else looked at the title and went, "Oh God, Stephen Wolfram is involved, RUN LIKE HELL"?
So... eBay's CEO wants to sell Skype because it is making too much money?
I am awed by the clarity of his reasoning!
When designing web sites I always write my HTML to be so flexible with styles you would think it was written for the CSS Zen Garden. Why? Because I know that when I redesign the site's layout, as I inevitably will for one reason or another, I don't have to go mucking around in all my HTML to make the page look different. It certainly doesn't hurt the site's accessibility.
I will begin by addressing your trademark/trade dress claim. You have referred to two trademark registrations, and have attached some printouts from the USPTO system but the depiction of the marks on the drawings provided is small and indistinct, making it difficult to determine exactly what the alleged resemblance is, and I need further information from you. This made me laugh. Monster Cable wants to initiate a trademark suit and can't send a legible image of the trademark? Sounds like something SCO would do...
Of course, the JVM doesn't help you design an algorithm that is actually worth parallelizing...
Oh, wait...
[runs from moderators with anti-meme missiles]
I sense an attempt to sell more USB drives.
I forget - is that one of the signs of the end of the world? No, that's the four horsemen.
Quick, everyone! Download Slashdotter so that we can at least fake that we had a pink April Fools joke this year!
Oh, wait...