"Whoever makes, uses, sells, or offers for sale a patented invention without authorization infringes the patent".
Just making the second car would be infringement, as would driving it.
This is also why the 'self replicating' arguments fall apart. It does not matter where the thing came from, if you use it without authorization you are infringing.
You don't know that they violated the patent, because you are not Monsanto. The key phrase from the patent law is '... sells... without authorization infringes the patent'. Most likely, Monsanto considers anyone who sells the stuff labelled as other than seed for planting to be authorized. If they didn't do that they would effectively make their product worthless, since nobody would be able to sell it for any reason. It then becomes up to the buyer to not use the product without authorization (ie by planting it), because using without authorization is patent infringement.
How old are these 'old' days you are remembering? I am guessing more than 200 years, because they never existed in the US. US patent law has always said 'whoever makes, uses, sells, or offers for sale a patented invention without authorization infringes the patent'. The mere act of 'purchasing' does not mean you can do whatever you want, unless the purchase itself included the authorization. In this case, the purchase did not include the authorization (and could not have, since the seller did not have the authorization to pass on).
I've read this about a million times on here, but nobody has yet to cite an actual case that didn't involve specific action on the farmer's part. Do you have such a cite?
It is whatever the goverment says it is. In the UK is apparently 'required' that you accept it. It the US, it is not.
"This statute means that all United States money as identified above are a valid and legal offer of payment for debts when tendered to a creditor. There is, however, no Federal statute mandating that a private business, a person or an organization must accept currency or coins as for payment for goods and/or services. Private businesses are free to develop their own policies on whether or not to accept cash unless there is a State law which says otherwise. For example, a bus line may prohibit payment of fares in pennies or dollar bills. In addition, movie theaters, convenience stores and gas stations may refuse to accept large denomination currency (usually notes above $20) as a matter of policy."
"Legal tender" does NOT mean that 'people have to accept (it)'. Legal tender means it is legal to offer cash for payment, but nobody is required to ACCEPT your payment in cash.
The only thing that was 'easy' about this was cloning the cards. The real problem was the some banked got hacked, account limits raised, safeguards removed, etc. I am guessing that wasn't 'easy' this time, and will be even harder from now on. The idea that this could happen 100s or thousands of times on this scale is ludicrous.
See, you can't even estimate the cost correctly for a joke. At your cost of $13.82 per sticker, just adding stickers to all cards and ATMs would cost $8.5B, not including the cost of getting the stickers to the cards.
Wait, do you actually believe that the cost of adding smart chips to all credit cards, modifying all ATMs to use the smart chips, etc would be LESS than $45M? What are you smoking? There are almost 620 MILLION credit cards in the US. There are 2.2 MILLION ATMs in the US. Please tell us how you plan to upgrade all of that for less than $45M.
The problem is not underestimation of risk, it is underestimation of cost by the second-guessers.
It comes down to which costs more: fixing the security problems, or losses due to security problems. My guess is that fixing the security problems would cost far more, so don't think anything is going to change.
Which brings up one final point - what is the cost of 'deferring' maintenance on software? To go back to an example you used: suppose I have SQL Server 2005. Is it any more or less expensive for me to go to 2008 and then 2012? What if I skip 2008 and go directly to 2012? What if I keep running on 2005? What is the business case for doing the upgrades?
If I have a roof I am going to want to replace it as close to it's expected life as possible. There is no advantage in doing it earlier, and if I wait too long I may suffer additional costs due to water damage, etc. What is the case for software. For many businesses, it seems that they take the same approach - wait until the last possible minute (which may be when the hardware it runs on is no longer available). Wait too long and you may be unable to perform some functions you need. But what is the driver for doing upgrades earlier than that point?
Yes, IT people would just love to always be on the latest and greatest. But what is the BUSINESS reason for always being on the latest and greatest?
A factory owner has a pretty good idea what his maintenance requirements (and costs) are going to be. He can figure on normal wear items, stressed parts breaking/needing replacement, modifications to support new business requirements, etc. He is probably not figuring into his maintenance costs the fact that the engineer did a crappy job making sure the machine had a solid surface to sit on, and now the floor is buckling under the machine, requiring extensive repairs to both the floor and the machine.
So my question is: when custom software is created/deployed, is the business made aware of the maintenance costs? In other words, does the business assume that 'maintenance' is going to involve bug fixes, new requirements, etc, or are they told up front that maintenance includes the costs of having chosen a crappy base? And by 'crappy base' I mean this: if your custom app requires ANY work (even a recompile) because of an upgrade to the underlying platform, you have chosen a crappy base. If they were told that they would be forever running on the upgrade treadmill because of their choices and did not plan accordingly then that is on the business. If they were not told that, the fault lies squarely on IT.
So yes, I do think that most businesses would consider bug fixes and new requirements to be maintenance. Workload forced on the business because of 'upgrades' of underlying stuff should not be considered normal, and is a sign someone did not do their job properly.
Yes, but factory owners will continue repairing that old machinery (even fabricating new parts themselves if needed) as long as the machine suits the needs of the business, no matter how old the machinery gets. Some factories are running with machines more than 100 years old. Factory owners do not just replace functional machinery just because they hired some new mechanic that thinks that any machinery not put together with metric screws is magically obsolete.
Custom software IS treated like machinery in that sense. As long as it suits the needs of the business (and not the whims of the IT staff) it will continue to be used and there is no need to spend more money on it. By far, most of the expensive, failed 'upgrade' projects you see are not driven by business changes or requirements, they are attempts to replace a fully functional system for no reason other than 'it is old'. And that is where the problem is - OK, so I spend a bunch of money to replace the existing functional system with one that (hopefully) performs at least the same functions, but in just a few years THAT system will be 'old', and I get to start all over again. And if all of that money spent does not result in lower costs or increase revenue it is just money down the drain.
You completely missed the point. The only reason you can just 'type a zipcode' is because someone else is doing all of the work of figuring out the best route to get your package delivered. That someone else has to know all kinds of stuff you don't (including traffic laws in every jurisdiction your package goes through). And just like there are companies that will do all that work to deliver you package, there are companies that, given a zipcode, will tell you exactly how much tax to collect, and they will do all that nasty paperwork for you.
Uh, no. The only way you can be guilty of something is if you break a law. If someone gets killed on your property because you created an unsafe condition you may be found guilty of gross negligence (killing someone is against the law). In the scenario you described you are not guilty of anything because leaving your car unlocked with money in it is not against the law. Your insurance company may refuse to pay because you created a higher risk than you agreed to, but that in no way means you are guilty of anything or `deserve` to be robbed. The robbers actions are completely 100% his own doing.
Right in the summary: " the tiny drone cannot carry its own power source, so has to stay tethered to the ground. It also relies on a computer to monitor its motion and adjust its attitude"
Do you even know what FUD is? It stands for Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt. In other words, your entire post is FUD.
Health problems? Where is real, documented evidence of health problems caused by smart meters?
Inaccurate readings? Happens with analog meters too (and gas meters and water meters). Big difference is, when someone with an old meter has a problem they call the power company, not the local TV station.
'Caught' using 'stealth like tactics'? What does that even mean. I don't know how it is in BC, but in the US part of the deal when signing up for service is that you give permission for the power company to come onto your 'private property' for the purposes of reading meters and maintaining their equipment. They don't need any more permission than that. And the meters are THEIR property, not the homeowners, so it is no surprise that they would just cut off illegally installed locks. What is kind of surprising is that, having cut off the lock, they don't just remove the meter and leave you without service altogether.
What a pile of crap. IBM did in fact have several competitors in the 'mainframe' space - Amdahl, Hitachi, Fujitsu, etc. Throughout the 90's they all disappeared. Why would they do that - they had already crossed your magical 'barrier to entry'? Because they were approaching your 'ideal' state of 0 profit. IBM itself was suffering losses. So what did IBM do? They took a good look at themselves and tried to figure out 'what are we really good at, what is our value'. Then they sold off the pieces of the business that did not figure in to that question, and INVESTED MONEY (even in years when they had losses) into the areas of the business where they were strong (like mainframes). The result was a mainframe that was better than what the competition had, and the competition was done. None of that had a damn thing to do with 'being a monopoly'.
You also keep saying 'monopoly' like there is something wrong with being a monopoly - there is not. The only time being a monopoly is a problem is when you use that position to prevent competition in other areas. Having a 'monopoly' by offering the best product is not in any way a problem.
You are the one with the simpleminded view. In your world, the only meaning of 'competition' is offering the same thing at a lower price. In the real world, competition usually involves making a better or different product. That making of better or different products is a benefit to everyone, whereas your '0 profit' version of competition is of value to nobody. Yes, you will not have to pay as much for the very few things that are available, but that is important since you yourself will have nothing to spend anyway.
So, in other words, you were just trolling? Stringing together a bunch of inflammatory words to make it sound like something nefarrious was happening, but with enough weaslness built in that you claim otherwise.
Your version of 'ideal' competition sounds like pure hell, where nothing new would ever be created because the is exactly zero motive to do anything. No thanks.
No, you don't "got it". Thanks for putting words in my mouth though.
There are two reasons why gas stations use the 'discount for cash' gimmick, and neither of them really has to do with credit card fees.
First, is the 'get you in the store' discount. Second is 'trick people into thinking our gas is cheaper'.
Where I live the rules for gas station price advertising are set by the county, and I live on the border of two counties. One county just says that 'a' price must be displayed on the large sign visible from the rule. In this county, almost all of the gas stations have a 'cash discount', and THAT is the price that is displayed. Of course, most people do not pay that price. The other county says 'if you have multiple prices, they must ALL be displayed'. Not surprisingly the only stations that offer a 'cash discount' are in areas where people are most likely to make poor decisions once they are in the store (namely near colleges).
As for 'human contact', well, if that is your idea of human contact I feel sorry for you. I prefer the human contact of the family, friends, and coworkers that a stop at the gas station is amost always delaying. You go ahead and enjoy your human contact in the gas station (maybe the cashier will even touch your hand when giving you change!). In the meantime, I will be several miles closer to the place I really want to be (which is NEVER the gas station).
If all else were equal more people would probably pay cash. But things are not equal. If you pay with a card there is no need to go into the store. If you pay with cash, you MUST go into the store. And once they have you in the shop, they can tempt you with all kinds of things you may not otherwise buy, or would buy somewhere much cheaper. Hmm, maybe I should get buy a coffee, soda, or water. Maybe a little snack would be good, etc. Furthermore, at least where I am, if you pay with cash you must pay BEFORE you pump the gas. Which means, unless you are very lucky, you will either have a not full tank when you leave (thereby requiring more stops at the gas station), or you will have to go back into the store AGAIN to get your change. All to save a measly 50-60 cents on a $50-60 fillup. No thanks.
The question which everyone is ignoring is 'why are they still using this'? The speculation is that they are lazy, cheap, protecting jobs, stupid, etc. However, there is a video of the company on YouTube, and if you watch it you can see why they are still using this machine. The whole place is run by punch cards. They use punch cards for inventory control, job time counting, and controlling some of the industrial machinery. This machine is just used to run reports of inventory, etc.
Could this all be replaced? Of course. Is it as simple as a spreadsheet? Not even close.
Note that it is not at all uncommon to be in this situation. Industrial equipment lasts far longer than IT. For some reason, companies seem reluctant to spend a few million dollars replacing perfectly functional equipment just because the IT aspects of it are outdated.
Read it (and watch the video) again. The 'robot' is a smart phone with an app, a special pair of glasses, and a device with a camera, laser pointer, and microphone. A person is still doing all the work, the 'robot' is just a way to get assistance from someone in a remote location.
From TFA: "IBM says the smart maintenance project is the result of collaboration with the University of Sheffield Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) which works to develop high-tech systems that can resolve advanced manufacturing problems."
All the video talks about is solving manufacturing problems, nothing at all to do with datacenters.
Slashdot Mirror
"Whoever makes, uses, sells, or offers for sale a patented invention without authorization infringes the patent".
Just making the second car would be infringement, as would driving it.
This is also why the 'self replicating' arguments fall apart. It does not matter where the thing came from, if you use it without authorization you are infringing.
You don't know that they violated the patent, because you are not Monsanto. The key phrase from the patent law is '... sells ... without authorization infringes the patent'. Most likely, Monsanto considers anyone who sells the stuff labelled as other than seed for planting to be authorized. If they didn't do that they would effectively make their product worthless, since nobody would be able to sell it for any reason. It then becomes up to the buyer to not use the product without authorization (ie by planting it), because using without authorization is patent infringement.
How old are these 'old' days you are remembering? I am guessing more than 200 years, because they never existed in the US. US patent law has always said 'whoever makes, uses, sells, or offers for sale a patented invention without authorization infringes the patent'. The mere act of 'purchasing' does not mean you can do whatever you want, unless the purchase itself included the authorization. In this case, the purchase did not include the authorization (and could not have, since the seller did not have the authorization to pass on).
I've read this about a million times on here, but nobody has yet to cite an actual case that didn't involve specific action on the farmer's part. Do you have such a cite?
It is whatever the goverment says it is. In the UK is apparently 'required' that you accept it. It the US, it is not.
"This statute means that all United States money as identified above are a valid and legal offer of payment for debts when tendered to a creditor. There is, however, no Federal statute mandating that a private business, a person or an organization must accept currency or coins as for payment for goods and/or services. Private businesses are free to develop their own policies on whether or not to accept cash unless there is a State law which says otherwise. For example, a bus line may prohibit payment of fares in pennies or dollar bills. In addition, movie theaters, convenience stores and gas stations may refuse to accept large denomination currency (usually notes above $20) as a matter of policy."
"Legal tender" does NOT mean that 'people have to accept (it)'. Legal tender means it is legal to offer cash for payment, but nobody is required to ACCEPT your payment in cash.
Legal tender just means a creditor has to accept it as payment of a debt by the debtor.
Untrue. Legal tender means it is legal to OFFER payment in cash. However, nobody is required to ACCEPT your cash payment.
The only thing that was 'easy' about this was cloning the cards. The real problem was the some banked got hacked, account limits raised, safeguards removed, etc. I am guessing that wasn't 'easy' this time, and will be even harder from now on. The idea that this could happen 100s or thousands of times on this scale is ludicrous.
See, you can't even estimate the cost correctly for a joke. At your cost of $13.82 per sticker, just adding stickers to all cards and ATMs would cost $8.5B, not including the cost of getting the stickers to the cards.
So much for that theory
Wait, do you actually believe that the cost of adding smart chips to all credit cards, modifying all ATMs to use the smart chips, etc would be LESS than $45M? What are you smoking? There are almost 620 MILLION credit cards in the US. There are 2.2 MILLION ATMs in the US. Please tell us how you plan to upgrade all of that for less than $45M.
The problem is not underestimation of risk, it is underestimation of cost by the second-guessers.
It comes down to which costs more: fixing the security problems, or losses due to security problems. My guess is that fixing the security problems would cost far more, so don't think anything is going to change.
Which brings up one final point - what is the cost of 'deferring' maintenance on software? To go back to an example you used: suppose I have SQL Server 2005. Is it any more or less expensive for me to go to 2008 and then 2012? What if I skip 2008 and go directly to 2012? What if I keep running on 2005? What is the business case for doing the upgrades?
If I have a roof I am going to want to replace it as close to it's expected life as possible. There is no advantage in doing it earlier, and if I wait too long I may suffer additional costs due to water damage, etc. What is the case for software. For many businesses, it seems that they take the same approach - wait until the last possible minute (which may be when the hardware it runs on is no longer available). Wait too long and you may be unable to perform some functions you need. But what is the driver for doing upgrades earlier than that point?
Yes, IT people would just love to always be on the latest and greatest. But what is the BUSINESS reason for always being on the latest and greatest?
A factory owner has a pretty good idea what his maintenance requirements (and costs) are going to be. He can figure on normal wear items, stressed parts breaking/needing replacement, modifications to support new business requirements, etc. He is probably not figuring into his maintenance costs the fact that the engineer did a crappy job making sure the machine had a solid surface to sit on, and now the floor is buckling under the machine, requiring extensive repairs to both the floor and the machine.
So my question is: when custom software is created/deployed, is the business made aware of the maintenance costs? In other words, does the business assume that 'maintenance' is going to involve bug fixes, new requirements, etc, or are they told up front that maintenance includes the costs of having chosen a crappy base? And by 'crappy base' I mean this: if your custom app requires ANY work (even a recompile) because of an upgrade to the underlying platform, you have chosen a crappy base. If they were told that they would be forever running on the upgrade treadmill because of their choices and did not plan accordingly then that is on the business. If they were not told that, the fault lies squarely on IT.
So yes, I do think that most businesses would consider bug fixes and new requirements to be maintenance. Workload forced on the business because of 'upgrades' of underlying stuff should not be considered normal, and is a sign someone did not do their job properly.
Yes, but factory owners will continue repairing that old machinery (even fabricating new parts themselves if needed) as long as the machine suits the needs of the business, no matter how old the machinery gets. Some factories are running with machines more than 100 years old. Factory owners do not just replace functional machinery just because they hired some new mechanic that thinks that any machinery not put together with metric screws is magically obsolete.
Custom software IS treated like machinery in that sense. As long as it suits the needs of the business (and not the whims of the IT staff) it will continue to be used and there is no need to spend more money on it. By far, most of the expensive, failed 'upgrade' projects you see are not driven by business changes or requirements, they are attempts to replace a fully functional system for no reason other than 'it is old'. And that is where the problem is - OK, so I spend a bunch of money to replace the existing functional system with one that (hopefully) performs at least the same functions, but in just a few years THAT system will be 'old', and I get to start all over again. And if all of that money spent does not result in lower costs or increase revenue it is just money down the drain.
You completely missed the point. The only reason you can just 'type a zipcode' is because someone else is doing all of the work of figuring out the best route to get your package delivered. That someone else has to know all kinds of stuff you don't (including traffic laws in every jurisdiction your package goes through). And just like there are companies that will do all that work to deliver you package, there are companies that, given a zipcode, will tell you exactly how much tax to collect, and they will do all that nasty paperwork for you.
Uh, no. The only way you can be guilty of something is if you break a law. If someone gets killed on your property because you created an unsafe condition you may be found guilty of gross negligence (killing someone is against the law). In the scenario you described you are not guilty of anything because leaving your car unlocked with money in it is not against the law. Your insurance company may refuse to pay because you created a higher risk than you agreed to, but that in no way means you are guilty of anything or `deserve` to be robbed. The robbers actions are completely 100% his own doing.
Right in the summary: " the tiny drone cannot carry its own power source, so has to stay tethered to the ground. It also relies on a computer to monitor its motion and adjust its attitude"
Do you even know what FUD is? It stands for Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt. In other words, your entire post is FUD.
Health problems? Where is real, documented evidence of health problems caused by smart meters?
Inaccurate readings? Happens with analog meters too (and gas meters and water meters). Big difference is, when someone with an old meter has a problem they call the power company, not the local TV station.
'Caught' using 'stealth like tactics'? What does that even mean. I don't know how it is in BC, but in the US part of the deal when signing up for service is that you give permission for the power company to come onto your 'private property' for the purposes of reading meters and maintaining their equipment. They don't need any more permission than that. And the meters are THEIR property, not the homeowners, so it is no surprise that they would just cut off illegally installed locks. What is kind of surprising is that, having cut off the lock, they don't just remove the meter and leave you without service altogether.
What a pile of crap. IBM did in fact have several competitors in the 'mainframe' space - Amdahl, Hitachi, Fujitsu, etc. Throughout the 90's they all disappeared. Why would they do that - they had already crossed your magical 'barrier to entry'? Because they were approaching your 'ideal' state of 0 profit. IBM itself was suffering losses. So what did IBM do? They took a good look at themselves and tried to figure out 'what are we really good at, what is our value'. Then they sold off the pieces of the business that did not figure in to that question, and INVESTED MONEY (even in years when they had losses) into the areas of the business where they were strong (like mainframes). The result was a mainframe that was better than what the competition had, and the competition was done. None of that had a damn thing to do with 'being a monopoly'.
You also keep saying 'monopoly' like there is something wrong with being a monopoly - there is not. The only time being a monopoly is a problem is when you use that position to prevent competition in other areas. Having a 'monopoly' by offering the best product is not in any way a problem.
You are the one with the simpleminded view. In your world, the only meaning of 'competition' is offering the same thing at a lower price. In the real world, competition usually involves making a better or different product. That making of better or different products is a benefit to everyone, whereas your '0 profit' version of competition is of value to nobody. Yes, you will not have to pay as much for the very few things that are available, but that is important since you yourself will have nothing to spend anyway.
So, in other words, you were just trolling? Stringing together a bunch of inflammatory words to make it sound like something nefarrious was happening, but with enough weaslness built in that you claim otherwise.
Your version of 'ideal' competition sounds like pure hell, where nothing new would ever be created because the is exactly zero motive to do anything. No thanks.
I am curious as to exactly what you think IBM has a monopoly on.
No, you don't "got it". Thanks for putting words in my mouth though.
There are two reasons why gas stations use the 'discount for cash' gimmick, and neither of them really has to do with credit card fees.
First, is the 'get you in the store' discount. Second is 'trick people into thinking our gas is cheaper'.
Where I live the rules for gas station price advertising are set by the county, and I live on the border of two counties. One county just says that 'a' price must be displayed on the large sign visible from the rule. In this county, almost all of the gas stations have a 'cash discount', and THAT is the price that is displayed. Of course, most people do not pay that price. The other county says 'if you have multiple prices, they must ALL be displayed'. Not surprisingly the only stations that offer a 'cash discount' are in areas where people are most likely to make poor decisions once they are in the store (namely near colleges).
As for 'human contact', well, if that is your idea of human contact I feel sorry for you. I prefer the human contact of the family, friends, and coworkers that a stop at the gas station is amost always delaying. You go ahead and enjoy your human contact in the gas station (maybe the cashier will even touch your hand when giving you change!). In the meantime, I will be several miles closer to the place I really want to be (which is NEVER the gas station).
If all else were equal more people would probably pay cash. But things are not equal. If you pay with a card there is no need to go into the store. If you pay with cash, you MUST go into the store. And once they have you in the shop, they can tempt you with all kinds of things you may not otherwise buy, or would buy somewhere much cheaper. Hmm, maybe I should get buy a coffee, soda, or water. Maybe a little snack would be good, etc. Furthermore, at least where I am, if you pay with cash you must pay BEFORE you pump the gas. Which means, unless you are very lucky, you will either have a not full tank when you leave (thereby requiring more stops at the gas station), or you will have to go back into the store AGAIN to get your change. All to save a measly 50-60 cents on a $50-60 fillup. No thanks.
The question which everyone is ignoring is 'why are they still using this'? The speculation is that they are lazy, cheap, protecting jobs, stupid, etc. However, there is a video of the company on YouTube, and if you watch it you can see why they are still using this machine. The whole place is run by punch cards. They use punch cards for inventory control, job time counting, and controlling some of the industrial machinery. This machine is just used to run reports of inventory, etc.
Could this all be replaced? Of course. Is it as simple as a spreadsheet? Not even close.
Note that it is not at all uncommon to be in this situation. Industrial equipment lasts far longer than IT. For some reason, companies seem reluctant to spend a few million dollars replacing perfectly functional equipment just because the IT aspects of it are outdated.
Read it (and watch the video) again. The 'robot' is a smart phone with an app, a special pair of glasses, and a device with a camera, laser pointer, and microphone. A person is still doing all the work, the 'robot' is just a way to get assistance from someone in a remote location.
From TFA: "IBM says the smart maintenance project is the result of collaboration with the University of Sheffield Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) which works to develop high-tech systems that can resolve advanced manufacturing problems."
All the video talks about is solving manufacturing problems, nothing at all to do with datacenters.