Patent trolling never takes the form you describe, except maybe in monopolies like MS. What would be the gain for the troll? They usually either use the tech or license it for some negligible amount.
Firstly, the European Left has been talking shit about America for so long it's not believable. It doesn't mean they'll actually do anything. And they represent less than or equal to 50% of the European populace. Not all of the left is rabidly anti-American either (see Labour for example).
Secondly, Europe does not have an integrated foreign policy. Even if the President of Europe did want to declare war on America (highly unlikely, see first point) it would merely be a polite request. I can't see them persuading anyone except maybe France of the need to invade America.
Lastly, politicians here are blaming America for the financial crisis as it is a convenient escape route to cover their own mismanagement (the only European economy without its own weaknesses is Germany, and Germany is still probably over-exporting). Do not mistake what our leaders say for either popular opinion or the truth.
In fact, my prediction is that with the current left-ward shift in America and right-ward shift in Europe, along with significant agreements on many issues (e.g. Iran), I'd say that the transatlantic alliance is likely to be stronger in the future, not weaker.
It's not the idea, but the implementation, that adds value and takes work to achieve.
This is a lot less clear cut than you seem to think. I am a student in the process industry. At the moment, as part of a project on process design, I'm researching patents. The process is the production of PV-grade silicon from quartz. There are often patents of things which have never been implemented, but are quite specific. For example, is the idea making PV-grade silicon from quartz? Or is it choosing to use a metallurgical-only route? Or is it choosing to use a Cao.SiO2 slag with blown air to purify it? Surely an idea as specific as the last one is worthy of a patent?
But this can also apply to software. After all, most of the elements of software can exist happily in the abstract (e.g. algorithms). Is an algorithm an idea or an implementation? Take the jpeg algorithm, it can't be used as it stands on a computer, but it is also a fully functional program in an abstract form. Idea or implementation?
US wind power capacity surged 50 percent last year to 25 gigwatts
I wasn't aware that live music had its own unit of energy consumption! Perhaps someone could tell me how to scale it to something SI, like gigawatts? I can't find the unit in Google calculator.
I did study these disasters as part of my degree (Chemical Engineering, Imperial College).
Three Mile Island was caused by a jammed-open valve. The steam generators shut down due to a sub-system failure. The emergency system worked perfectly; control rods were added and the reactor core was flooded with cooling water. There was a spike in pressure, which the PORV valve opened to relieve. When the pressure fell further, this valve remained jammed open. The problem with this is that it allowed coolant water in the reactor to flash into steam, effectively leaving pockets of the core uncooled. This caused hot spots and a partial meltdown. This problem was not detected for 2 hours after the start of the incident. While the containment was never actually breached, such a large amount of radioactive steam had built up in the reactor that some radioactive steam had to be vented. This probably caused 1 additional cancer death in the area over 30 years.
The plant safety systems should have handled the accident well, but operators over-rode them. Many people blame the operators for this, but in my opinion they had insufficient data to make the right decision.
Chernobyl is a classic example of Soviet technology; efficient design provided you don't care about safety and an environmental disaster caused by some raving bureaucrat in Moscow.
The design was flawed. A nuclear reactor needs coolant, a moderator and control rods as well as fuel. The moderator slows neutrons to allow them to react. In western reactors, the moderator is the water, which is also the coolant. The upshot of this is that in the event of a catastrophic loss of coolant, the reaction stops and the only heat generated is by radioactive decay.
In Chernobyl, the opposite was true. As the coolant was lost, the reactor produced more heat. Coupled with this, some idiot decided to run an experiment on the plant. This experiment was something along the lines of "Hey, what happens if we shut down the coolant system for a minute and leave the control rods out?".
At 01.23.04 on 26 April 1986, the experiment started. 27 seconds later the operators noted a power increase. 36s into the experiment, the operators ordered a scram of the reactor (i.e. shove in the control rods). This was not possible as the control rods were fully withdrawn and took 10 seconds to enter. Shortly afterwards there was a steam explosion, followed by a hydrogen explosion as the temperature split water. Bad news. The graphite rods had also caught fire by now. They could add water at a high enough rate, so they dropped dolomite into it. As it thermally decomposed it released CO2 to quench the fire.
Basically Three Mile Island was a minor incident in reality, and Chernobyl is not so much an argument against nuclear power as an argument for shooting bureaucrats on a "it's them or me" basis.
Because it just needs to delay the "collectors edition" release long enough for people to buy the game instead of pirating it in the first few weeks. The first few weeks of the release are when the most money is made.
I find the biggest difference is that Britcoms are normally about losers. Compare with the US, say 'Friends'. The main characters are very successful; they have lovely flats near Central Park. I find it hard to have empathy with them. Whenever they have a 'problem' I wish they'd just shut up and catch themselves on. They seem like whiney, spoilt, brats.
Lister, on the other hand, is a slob who lives in an interstellar slum. Yet he always seems pretty chirpy about it. You should check out the US version of Red Dwarf, where some moron at the networks replaced Lister with a super-jock. None of the jokes made sense afterwards.
Of course, there are good US comedies (normally the cartoons) and there are *loads* of really, really bad Britcoms.
The bugs like having two words; metre and meter? In your overzealousness you eradicated the word for metre-as-in-unit. No wonder you guys have trouble with the metric system.
I can tell you from experience that their have been far, far more offensive troll posts on Slashdot
Also, perverted. And just straight disturbing. It's part of what gives slashdot its charm. We're like a big family, and the GNAA etc. are the racist old granny you can't get to shut up.
I appreciate that, and I appreciate that we're just steadily refining models of reality and nothing more. That doesn't change the fact that Newtonian gravity has been falsified.
If you read a little further on that article, you'll see that Newton was well aware that his theory was wanting. My fundamental point as it relates to this discussion is that gravity is *not* as well explained as evolution, no matter how incredible that may seem to the lay person.
Bacteria can evolve in the timescales needed for class work.
You could even use an outbreak of the common cold as an experiment; a new strain of the virus which has evolved to dodge the class's immunity.
The other thing is what do you mean by theory of gravity? Do you mean "things fall', Gallilean gravity, Newtonian, Einsteinian? You can't distinguish between those last two in class, but they each make fundamentally different claims about what gravity is.
Yes. There are well described and observed mechanisms for evolution, more so than gravity believe it or not.
Of course this is probably because evolution occurs at the smallest level on a macro-molecular scale, whereas gravity occurs at the deep sub-atomic level, making it much harder to explore the mechanisms of it.
Nevertheless, we can explain how evolution works. They why is normally more complicated, because you have to work out all the selection pressures.
It incorrectly predicts the orbit of Mercury. It cannot explain gravitational lensing. It assumes that gravity is instantaneous, when we know it must be limited by the speed of light.
Newton's theory is a very useful shortcut, as it is right most of the time. But it's been proven to be wrong. It's just good-enough wrong.
I think it is still an interesting question to consider if there is any liability to Microsoft for damage caused by a virus hosted on their OS.
My instinct is that there isn't, as it is perfectly possible to run Windows virus-free, with varying levels of difficulty. Also, in this case Microsoft made a patch available, so the OS as provided by Microsoft is immune to the attack.
One more time with feeling. I'm British. I know what things are like in Britian, because I live here. I could tell you my weight in kilos but not in Imperial, at least not without working it out in my head.
Slashdot Mirror
I love Britain. My ISP contacts me to tell me they're cutting prices. Only every couple of years, but last time was from GBP24 to GBP18 a month.
So at this rate in six years my broadband will be free. Maybe.
most of London will vote Conservatives
Er, is this a different London to this one? Or this one?
The South East and South tend to vote Tory. London is pretty mixed.
It's from Bike, which was on Piper at the Gates of Dawn.
If memory serves, he was called Gerald.
I'm British.
Also, see the words of our glorious premier re: America starting it.
It's not my idea, it was Elkem Solar of Norway's.
Patent trolling never takes the form you describe, except maybe in monopolies like MS. What would be the gain for the troll? They usually either use the tech or license it for some negligible amount.
You are so wrong it's impossible to believe.
Firstly, the European Left has been talking shit about America for so long it's not believable. It doesn't mean they'll actually do anything. And they represent less than or equal to 50% of the European populace. Not all of the left is rabidly anti-American either (see Labour for example).
Secondly, Europe does not have an integrated foreign policy. Even if the President of Europe did want to declare war on America (highly unlikely, see first point) it would merely be a polite request. I can't see them persuading anyone except maybe France of the need to invade America.
Lastly, politicians here are blaming America for the financial crisis as it is a convenient escape route to cover their own mismanagement (the only European economy without its own weaknesses is Germany, and Germany is still probably over-exporting). Do not mistake what our leaders say for either popular opinion or the truth.
In fact, my prediction is that with the current left-ward shift in America and right-ward shift in Europe, along with significant agreements on many issues (e.g. Iran), I'd say that the transatlantic alliance is likely to be stronger in the future, not weaker.
It's not the idea, but the implementation, that adds value and takes work to achieve.
This is a lot less clear cut than you seem to think. I am a student in the process industry. At the moment, as part of a project on process design, I'm researching patents. The process is the production of PV-grade silicon from quartz. There are often patents of things which have never been implemented, but are quite specific. For example, is the idea making PV-grade silicon from quartz? Or is it choosing to use a metallurgical-only route? Or is it choosing to use a Cao.SiO2 slag with blown air to purify it? Surely an idea as specific as the last one is worthy of a patent?
But this can also apply to software. After all, most of the elements of software can exist happily in the abstract (e.g. algorithms). Is an algorithm an idea or an implementation? Take the jpeg algorithm, it can't be used as it stands on a computer, but it is also a fully functional program in an abstract form. Idea or implementation?
Legal age for what?
US wind power capacity surged 50 percent last year to 25 gigwatts
I wasn't aware that live music had its own unit of energy consumption! Perhaps someone could tell me how to scale it to something SI, like gigawatts? I can't find the unit in Google calculator.
you are arguing against a mind set that has attempted to redefine free.
As though 'Free' didn't have enough definitions already.
I did study these disasters as part of my degree (Chemical Engineering, Imperial College).
Three Mile Island was caused by a jammed-open valve. The steam generators shut down due to a sub-system failure. The emergency system worked perfectly; control rods were added and the reactor core was flooded with cooling water. There was a spike in pressure, which the PORV valve opened to relieve. When the pressure fell further, this valve remained jammed open. The problem with this is that it allowed coolant water in the reactor to flash into steam, effectively leaving pockets of the core uncooled. This caused hot spots and a partial meltdown. This problem was not detected for 2 hours after the start of the incident. While the containment was never actually breached, such a large amount of radioactive steam had built up in the reactor that some radioactive steam had to be vented. This probably caused 1 additional cancer death in the area over 30 years.
The plant safety systems should have handled the accident well, but operators over-rode them. Many people blame the operators for this, but in my opinion they had insufficient data to make the right decision.
Chernobyl is a classic example of Soviet technology; efficient design provided you don't care about safety and an environmental disaster caused by some raving bureaucrat in Moscow.
The design was flawed. A nuclear reactor needs coolant, a moderator and control rods as well as fuel. The moderator slows neutrons to allow them to react. In western reactors, the moderator is the water, which is also the coolant. The upshot of this is that in the event of a catastrophic loss of coolant, the reaction stops and the only heat generated is by radioactive decay.
In Chernobyl, the opposite was true. As the coolant was lost, the reactor produced more heat. Coupled with this, some idiot decided to run an experiment on the plant. This experiment was something along the lines of "Hey, what happens if we shut down the coolant system for a minute and leave the control rods out?".
At 01.23.04 on 26 April 1986, the experiment started. 27 seconds later the operators noted a power increase. 36s into the experiment, the operators ordered a scram of the reactor (i.e. shove in the control rods). This was not possible as the control rods were fully withdrawn and took 10 seconds to enter. Shortly afterwards there was a steam explosion, followed by a hydrogen explosion as the temperature split water. Bad news. The graphite rods had also caught fire by now. They could add water at a high enough rate, so they dropped dolomite into it. As it thermally decomposed it released CO2 to quench the fire.
Basically Three Mile Island was a minor incident in reality, and Chernobyl is not so much an argument against nuclear power as an argument for shooting bureaucrats on a "it's them or me" basis.
Because it just needs to delay the "collectors edition" release long enough for people to buy the game instead of pirating it in the first few weeks. The first few weeks of the release are when the most money is made.
I find the biggest difference is that Britcoms are normally about losers. Compare with the US, say 'Friends'. The main characters are very successful; they have lovely flats near Central Park. I find it hard to have empathy with them. Whenever they have a 'problem' I wish they'd just shut up and catch themselves on. They seem like whiney, spoilt, brats.
Lister, on the other hand, is a slob who lives in an interstellar slum. Yet he always seems pretty chirpy about it. You should check out the US version of Red Dwarf, where some moron at the networks replaced Lister with a super-jock. None of the jokes made sense afterwards.
Of course, there are good US comedies (normally the cartoons) and there are *loads* of really, really bad Britcoms.
The problem is not so much bundling, as the impossibility to unbundle e.g. WMP and IE.
I do think, even as a Good European, that the EU would not be doing this if MS were French. Maybe if they were British.
Mods: Offtopic? Really?
If we keep using it, it will eventually become accepted.
Yeah, but who wants virii?
The bugs like having two words; metre and meter? In your overzealousness you eradicated the word for metre-as-in-unit. No wonder you guys have trouble with the metric system.
I can tell you from experience that their have been far, far more offensive troll posts on Slashdot
Also, perverted. And just straight disturbing. It's part of what gives slashdot its charm. We're like a big family, and the GNAA etc. are the racist old granny you can't get to shut up.
...5 openings, only 4 closed.
I read this and got rather the wrong impression.
Cold shower for me, methinks.
I appreciate that, and I appreciate that we're just steadily refining models of reality and nothing more. That doesn't change the fact that Newtonian gravity has been falsified.
If you read a little further on that article, you'll see that Newton was well aware that his theory was wanting. My fundamental point as it relates to this discussion is that gravity is *not* as well explained as evolution, no matter how incredible that may seem to the lay person.
Bacteria can evolve in the timescales needed for class work.
You could even use an outbreak of the common cold as an experiment; a new strain of the virus which has evolved to dodge the class's immunity.
The other thing is what do you mean by theory of gravity? Do you mean "things fall', Gallilean gravity, Newtonian, Einsteinian? You can't distinguish between those last two in class, but they each make fundamentally different claims about what gravity is.
Evolutionary biology has changed quite a bit since Darwin. Many specific things Darwin said are wrong. But his fundamental idea is still right.
Yes. There are well described and observed mechanisms for evolution, more so than gravity believe it or not.
Of course this is probably because evolution occurs at the smallest level on a macro-molecular scale, whereas gravity occurs at the deep sub-atomic level, making it much harder to explore the mechanisms of it.
Nevertheless, we can explain how evolution works. They why is normally more complicated, because you have to work out all the selection pressures.
Newton's theory of gravity is known to be wrong.
It incorrectly predicts the orbit of Mercury.
It cannot explain gravitational lensing.
It assumes that gravity is instantaneous, when we know it must be limited by the speed of light.
Newton's theory is a very useful shortcut, as it is right most of the time. But it's been proven to be wrong. It's just good-enough wrong.
I think it is still an interesting question to consider if there is any liability to Microsoft for damage caused by a virus hosted on their OS.
My instinct is that there isn't, as it is perfectly possible to run Windows virus-free, with varying levels of difficulty. Also, in this case Microsoft made a patch available, so the OS as provided by Microsoft is immune to the attack.
One more time with feeling. I'm British. I know what things are like in Britian, because I live here. I could tell you my weight in kilos but not in Imperial, at least not without working it out in my head.