Thing is the current patent system mostly rewards those who aren't really innovative!
The ones who are really innovative are like the Douglas Engelbart sort - invent something in the 1960s, then only in the 1980s and later people start to understand the use of _some_ of it.
Whereas people who invent "break eggs to make an omelette" get patents all the time.
As the technological and scientific fields avance and become more specialized it becomes harder and less likely for a patent examiner to be able to judge an application's worthiness within a reasonable amount of time.
In my opinion it is better for there to be Prizes for Innovation, which can be awarded after an invention is proven. There is no monopoly granted except that "you are the first recognized inventor of X". You get your reward from the prize money and the recognition.
It is easier to judge based on hindsight. You could have two classes of prizes (but many prizes) - the first class is awarded by experts in the field and the second awarded by members of the public.
BTW: If the pace of progress is supposed to be increasing (and marketing and distribution is supposed to be better), the protection terms for patents (and copyrights) should be getting shorter and not longer:).
Despite all that, Peter the Apostle seems to have regarded him as a righteous man.
My reading of Gen 18 concludes that "Given persuasion from Abraham, God would not destroy the whole city of Sodom if at least 10 people in it were as _righteous_ as Lot".
So if Lot can be regarded as righteous it's good news for sinful flawed people. I don't think I can manage the Abraham standard of righteousness. But I hope never to get to the level of Lot's neighbours in Sodom:).
Lastly, David (and thus Jesus) is descended from Ruth who was a Moabite.
Thing is, are they dying earlier because of all that smoking? Back in the 1980s the stats must have been something like > 60% of males smoking.
They still seem to be living rather long, maybe the tobacco they use in Japan isn't grown using as much phosphate fertilizer and so less radioactive (and thus less carcinogenic)?
Anyway, I once told a smoking friend my reasoning on why smoking wasn't so bad for everyone else (and I might have even thanked him), and for some reason he immediately tried to quit;).
I personally think that people legally regarded as adults should be allowed to smoke and there should be places readily available for them to smoke in (in some cases they should have to pay for them - either through taxes or other means). However they should also be informed and educated about the full consequences of their decision to smoke (including addiction, successful quitting rate).
Nonono, people are supposed to work, eat, drink and consume, and hopefully die soon after their most productive years.
After all, lots of people and governments apparently are worried about the "aging population".
Be a patriot, sacrifice yourself for your country! Supersize!
Maybe we can give a "Fatty Heart Medal" to the most notable ones posthumously and hold a nice ceremony for their friends and family. I guess we could also give a posthumous "Black Lung Medal" to the chain smokers as well.
It gives the ones at the top of the pyramid a lot of free time though:).
It's a bit like the good old days where the slaves did most of the labour and thus the upper classes could sit around and talk about politics or physics.
If you were a shareholder in a company would you be happy if its bosses didn't try to squeeze every last drop from the employees?
"You can't blame the parents fully in any of these situations. Obviously they weren't able to effectively parent in this case, but they didn't shoot themselves."
They shouldn't take the full blame. And whatever blame they get I think at the least, the mother has "paid" for it already.
I've used pp and it worked well enough for me. Of course if you have binary modules you need to build them on a platform that's compatible with the intended destination.
Often a bug is a matter of opinion/taste, and opinions/tastes change.
For instance some might say a program should stop if it discovers it suddenly can't log anymore. Others might say it should continue running and ignore the logging problem. And others might say it should continue running and try to log elsewhere. What would a perfect program do? I really don't know.
And the other reason why you don't get perfect software:
If shopping malls cost the same as now to design, but cost the equivalent of "make mall" and "coffee break" to build, people would be shopping in "buggy" shopping malls as soon as the blueprint is good enough to "compile".
Because the bosses won't bother waiting for stuff to be "perfect". They'd want to start collecting rent/$$$ ASAP.
And most shoppers and shopkeepers won't care either - as long as nobody gets killed or maimed, just stick a few warning signs over stuff that isn't working properly yet.
"I think his suggestion was to 'build it twice' via prototyping"
They do that already except that they ship and sell the prototypes to the customers too;).
See the problem with software is:
When the "blueprint" compiles and mostly works, you ship it as version 1.0 When the prototype/"clay model" works, you ship it as version 2.0 When the first production build works, you ship it as version 3.0 After fixing some more bugs you ship 3.1
And why do you ship "blueprints" etc?
Because each step costs about as much, and sometimes the first step costs even more than the subsequent steps.
People often compare software engineering with civil engineering or other stuff, and ask "why can't software be just as good?".
For civil engineering, the cost of making a blueprint is usually a fraction (10%? ) of making the "real thing". In event of concerns/problems the bosses will be more inclined to spend millions to redesign that multibillion dollar skyscraper before actually starting to build it.
In contrast it should be no surprise that bosses are seldom inclined to spend millions to redesign "million dollar" software;).
The build phase of a skyscraper could involve thousands of labourers, machinery and could cost billions and take years.
Whereas the build phase of software often involves the programmer doing "make all" and going for a coffee break.
Not saying this treatment won't work, just saying don't get your hopes up.
Mice don't usually live longer than 2 or 3 years, whereas humans do. The human body might already be doing stuff like that or even superior stuff.
So there's a high chance that what works for mice for age related problems won't work for humans.
Analogy: Researcher says, "hey I've just found that steel and concrete allows us to make bigger and taller mud huts", and then saying "We should use steel and concrete to make skyscrapers bigger and taller". When what we might need is something better than the usual steel and concrete.
If none of the other voters want to run and/or the voters prefer either Twiddledee or Twiddledum, then I say things are working as well as they can be.
If nobody better wants to do the job, then you've got the best.
If the "best" is crap, well that's the People's fault isn't it?
That's what you get when you have a "Government by the People".
Well as I said one of the benefits of allowing everyone to send to the moderated "everyone" account is it makes it easier for you to know who the idiots are.
For a savvy company it can be very useful information.
Whereas if you bounced the email back automatically, in practice nobody will know.
The other benefit is just maybe you might want to let that particular email from "random employee" through.
There was at least one employee who actually spammed everyone for his direct marketing stuff... He got everyone which included the bosses;).
That said, I think there actually should be a distribution list for the entire company - it can be useful for some stuff.
However the actual name should be hard to guess, and secret.
Then you set up the "everyone" list for people to send to which actually goes to a moderator.
If the moderator thinks the email should go out, it is sent out via the "secret-real-everyone-list", otherwise it isn't.
If the email indicates that the sender has significant lack of discretion or intelligence, the moderator may wish to pass it to the Bosses concerned so that they can take necessary measures.
In one of the places I worked for "everyone" actually went to the Big Boss(es), and I think it worked reasonably well.
It's not a PHB fuckup, but there is no vast conspiracy either, there doesn't need to be. All there needs to be is a bunch of selfish intelligent rational individuals who are interested in making money.
Hint #1: if you don't know who the wolves are, you are the sheep;). Hint #2: The "complex mathematical constructs" are just ways to hide stuff from the sheep.
They like to claim all that fancy stuff reduces risk and increases returns, but if you believe all that, I have a "High Grade Structured Bridging Fund" based on highly complex mathematics for you to invest in.
They are players playing games in The Casino with Other People's Money. New Fancy Math= new fancy games to play.
When they win, they get a share of the winnings. When they lose, they just make zero $$$.
So what would you expect some intelligent and rational people to do in that situation?
If you arrange things so that they themselves also would lose something they value significantly, and limit "new timers" to smaller funds (they are only licensed to manage bigger funds if they have proven themselves), then things should improve.
Trouble is if you have some "special event" and everyone piles into the same zone.
AFAIK, you will have to do sharding if you want to keep costs down. So once people start piling on, you shunt them into other shards/instances.
Unless of course he has actually said something interesting in the article...
But since it's not in the summary I'm not bothering to RTFA;).
Another reason why you have to shard (or keep the numbers of interacting humans down) anyway:
Even if the hardware+software can cope, the people will start to find it annoying when thousands of people start yelling "WTS/WTB rare items!" or "LOLZ!" every few seconds.
Slashdot Mirror
Thing is the current patent system mostly rewards those who aren't really innovative!
:).
The ones who are really innovative are like the Douglas Engelbart sort - invent something in the 1960s, then only in the 1980s and later people start to understand the use of _some_ of it.
Whereas people who invent "break eggs to make an omelette" get patents all the time.
As the technological and scientific fields avance and become more specialized it becomes harder and less likely for a patent examiner to be able to judge an application's worthiness within a reasonable amount of time.
In my opinion it is better for there to be Prizes for Innovation, which can be awarded after an invention is proven. There is no monopoly granted except that "you are the first recognized inventor of X". You get your reward from the prize money and the recognition.
It is easier to judge based on hindsight. You could have two classes of prizes (but many prizes) - the first class is awarded by experts in the field and the second awarded by members of the public.
BTW: If the pace of progress is supposed to be increasing (and marketing and distribution is supposed to be better), the protection terms for patents (and copyrights) should be getting shorter and not longer
What if such a God was indeed in charge of the universe?
:).
Go look at the universe around you, are you really so certain that that's not the case?
As for me, like a lot of things in this universe, I think it's not quite as simple as you are putting it
Despite all that, Peter the Apostle seems to have regarded him as a righteous man.
:).
My reading of Gen 18 concludes that "Given persuasion from Abraham, God would not destroy the whole city of Sodom if at least 10 people in it were as _righteous_ as Lot".
So if Lot can be regarded as righteous it's good news for sinful flawed people. I don't think I can manage the Abraham standard of righteousness. But I hope never to get to the level of Lot's neighbours in Sodom
Lastly, David (and thus Jesus) is descended from Ruth who was a Moabite.
Thing is, are they dying earlier because of all that smoking? Back in the 1980s the stats must have been something like > 60% of males smoking.
;).
They still seem to be living rather long, maybe the tobacco they use in Japan isn't grown using as much phosphate fertilizer and so less radioactive (and thus less carcinogenic)?
Anyway, I once told a smoking friend my reasoning on why smoking wasn't so bad for everyone else (and I might have even thanked him), and for some reason he immediately tried to quit
I personally think that people legally regarded as adults should be allowed to smoke and there should be places readily available for them to smoke in (in some cases they should have to pay for them - either through taxes or other means). However they should also be informed and educated about the full consequences of their decision to smoke (including addiction, successful quitting rate).
Nonono, people are supposed to work, eat, drink and consume, and hopefully die soon after their most productive years.
After all, lots of people and governments apparently are worried about the "aging population".
Be a patriot, sacrifice yourself for your country! Supersize!
Maybe we can give a "Fatty Heart Medal" to the most notable ones posthumously and hold a nice ceremony for their friends and family. I guess we could also give a posthumous "Black Lung Medal" to the chain smokers as well.
It gives the ones at the top of the pyramid a lot of free time though :).
It's a bit like the good old days where the slaves did most of the labour and thus the upper classes could sit around and talk about politics or physics.
If you were a shareholder in a company would you be happy if its bosses didn't try to squeeze every last drop from the employees?
"You can't blame the parents fully in any of these situations. Obviously they weren't able to effectively parent in this case, but they didn't shoot themselves."
They shouldn't take the full blame. And whatever blame they get I think at the least, the mother has "paid" for it already.
Which part says Moses fucked his daughters?
Based on your comments I think you haven't really read the Bible either.
I've used pp and it worked well enough for me. Of course if you have binary modules you need to build them on a platform that's compatible with the intended destination.
http://search.cpan.org/~smueller/PAR-Packer-0.982/lib/pp.pm
Is there really a thing as "perfect software"?
Often a bug is a matter of opinion/taste, and opinions/tastes change.
For instance some might say a program should stop if it discovers it suddenly can't log anymore. Others might say it should continue running and ignore the logging problem. And others might say it should continue running and try to log elsewhere. What would a perfect program do? I really don't know.
And the other reason why you don't get perfect software:
If shopping malls cost the same as now to design, but cost the equivalent of "make mall" and "coffee break" to build, people would be shopping in "buggy" shopping malls as soon as the blueprint is good enough to "compile".
Because the bosses won't bother waiting for stuff to be "perfect". They'd want to start collecting rent/$$$ ASAP.
And most shoppers and shopkeepers won't care either - as long as nobody gets killed or maimed, just stick a few warning signs over stuff that isn't working properly yet.
"I think his suggestion was to 'build it twice' via prototyping"
;).
;).
They do that already except that they ship and sell the prototypes to the customers too
See the problem with software is:
When the "blueprint" compiles and mostly works, you ship it as version 1.0
When the prototype/"clay model" works, you ship it as version 2.0
When the first production build works, you ship it as version 3.0
After fixing some more bugs you ship 3.1
And why do you ship "blueprints" etc?
Because each step costs about as much, and sometimes the first step costs even more than the subsequent steps.
People often compare software engineering with civil engineering or other stuff, and ask "why can't software be just as good?".
For civil engineering, the cost of making a blueprint is usually a fraction (10%? ) of making the "real thing". In event of concerns/problems the bosses will be more inclined to spend millions to redesign that multibillion dollar skyscraper before actually starting to build it.
In contrast it should be no surprise that bosses are seldom inclined to spend millions to redesign "million dollar" software
The build phase of a skyscraper could involve thousands of labourers, machinery and could cost billions and take years.
Whereas the build phase of software often involves the programmer doing "make all" and going for a coffee break.
Civil engineering:
design cost << build phase cost
Software engineering:
design cost >> build phase cost
So how does full warranty work for OSS software?
Not saying this treatment won't work, just saying don't get your hopes up.
Mice don't usually live longer than 2 or 3 years, whereas humans do. The human body might already be doing stuff like that or even superior stuff.
So there's a high chance that what works for mice for age related problems won't work for humans.
Analogy: Researcher says, "hey I've just found that steel and concrete allows us to make bigger and taller mud huts", and then saying "We should use steel and concrete to make skyscrapers bigger and taller". When what we might need is something better than the usual steel and concrete.
If none of the other voters want to run and/or the voters prefer either Twiddledee or Twiddledum, then I say things are working as well as they can be.
If nobody better wants to do the job, then you've got the best.
If the "best" is crap, well that's the People's fault isn't it?
That's what you get when you have a "Government by the People".
"people learn to put TRUE stock in something that only increases in value -- themselves "
Some people decrease in value after a certain age.
And some people have negative value.
Is she elected? If she is and is reelected in the next election, then the voters really don't know what they are doing ;).
If you are paranoid about keeping secrets, thermite is your friend.
:).
It'll be a while before they develop tech for recovering stuff erased with thermite.
How to use it or rig it up is beyond the scope of this discussion
You then lose the marvelous opportunity to find out who the idiots are and what they tried to say to everyone :).
Works best if the approved emails still appear like they came from the actual sender.
"it's fairly easy to have the OS wipe all user & program data from the memory at shutdown"
If you're paranoid that doesn't help. People can just yank the power cord, or even pull the chips from their sockets.
"You might think you turned your computer off and destroyed RAM contents"
Even for conventional RAM, most of the contents stay for quite a while after power loss. And the colder the chips are the longer the duration.
Try turning off your computer and then immediately booting something that lets you peek into the RAM.
See: http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/blog/felten/new-research-result-cold-boot-attacks-disk-encryption
Well as I said one of the benefits of allowing everyone to send to the moderated "everyone" account is it makes it easier for you to know who the idiots are.
For a savvy company it can be very useful information.
Whereas if you bounced the email back automatically, in practice nobody will know.
The other benefit is just maybe you might want to let that particular email from "random employee" through.
There was at least one employee who actually spammed everyone for his direct marketing stuff... He got everyone which included the bosses ;).
That said, I think there actually should be a distribution list for the entire company - it can be useful for some stuff.
However the actual name should be hard to guess, and secret.
Then you set up the "everyone" list for people to send to which actually goes to a moderator.
If the moderator thinks the email should go out, it is sent out via the "secret-real-everyone-list", otherwise it isn't.
If the email indicates that the sender has significant lack of discretion or intelligence, the moderator may wish to pass it to the Bosses concerned so that they can take necessary measures.
In one of the places I worked for "everyone" actually went to the Big Boss(es), and I think it worked reasonably well.
Unless it happened to be a "darwin award" type of death.
It's not a PHB fuckup, but there is no vast conspiracy either, there doesn't need to be. All there needs to be is a bunch of selfish intelligent rational individuals who are interested in making money.
;).
Hint #1: if you don't know who the wolves are, you are the sheep
Hint #2: The "complex mathematical constructs" are just ways to hide stuff from the sheep.
They like to claim all that fancy stuff reduces risk and increases returns, but if you believe all that, I have a "High Grade Structured Bridging Fund" based on highly complex mathematics for you to invest in.
They are players playing games in The Casino with Other People's Money. New Fancy Math= new fancy games to play.
When they win, they get a share of the winnings. When they lose, they just make zero $$$.
So what would you expect some intelligent and rational people to do in that situation?
If you arrange things so that they themselves also would lose something they value significantly, and limit "new timers" to smaller funds (they are only licensed to manage bigger funds if they have proven themselves), then things should improve.
Trouble is if you have some "special event" and everyone piles into the same zone.
;).
AFAIK, you will have to do sharding if you want to keep costs down. So once people start piling on, you shunt them into other shards/instances.
Unless of course he has actually said something interesting in the article...
But since it's not in the summary I'm not bothering to RTFA
Another reason why you have to shard (or keep the numbers of interacting humans down) anyway:
Even if the hardware+software can cope, the people will start to find it annoying when thousands of people start yelling "WTS/WTB rare items!" or "LOLZ!" every few seconds.