Complete truth : And how many people's opinions have you canvassed before deciding what the "Complete truth" is?
One.
And he's not exactly the most impartial source from which to infer the "Complete Truth" is he?
Christ, with people this willing to accept any information without considering how unbiased or reputable the source, no wonder Fox News is so popular in the USA.
Surely, if the Director is worried that an audit of his department will uncover unlicensed software, it's the Director and/or the IT guys who should be worrying about their jobs.
They get pulled into a quiet room and told all would be best if they left the university... tenamount to firing
I dunno, but I'd guess someone who can't spell "tantamount" doesn't have a lot of experience of working in a university. Can you explain to me where you've acquired your knowledge of how Spanish Universities are run?
There are lots of ways to fire people. Quite often, if people commit misconduct great enough to constitute a firing offence (shagging a student, for example), they get fired.
he was pressured to the point where he had to 'resign' - ie. he was fired.
I don't necessarily disbelieve him, but a critical, intelligent mind requires a little further evidence than his own testimony before bitch-slapping anyone else's opinion.
He wasn't fired. He (claims he) was pressurised into resigning. I ain't making any judgement or saying anything else until I've heard an account of events from someone less close to the controversy.
Yeah, lost technologies exist. But the reason they were lost is never that the inventor kept them secret in order to increase his profits margin., which is the point the original proposer wanted us to believe was the case.
Patents would not have protected a single one of these inventions from being lost.
But Bletchley Park had access to patents, so the reason for secrecy had nothing to do with trade secrets (and the military are still doing un-patented, top secret research today). So while it's an interesting historical fact, it doesn't do anything to convince me that patents encourage innovation.
Wars encourage innovation, much of it necessarily secret... that much we do know.
Joe, between you and me, you'll get more consultancy work if the link "Website Construction" at joe.org.uk didn't go to a URL with a typo in it... http://www.joe.org.uk/constuction.html indeed.
one that is slowly turning itself into a democratic monarchy - very much like the (gasp) British government.
Oh, do fuck off. Both the US and the UK have undemocratic and unaccountable institutions at the heart of public life. The difference is ours is almost entirely ceremonial, and yours gets to decide the outcome of elections, despite the fact that every member of the Supreme Court is a political appointee (Here's a shock : on that most important issue, they voted on party political allegiances). Here in the UK, we stick to our old fashioned ways of democracy, like actually counting the ballots.
The difference between Cuba and Saudi Arabia is that Saudi Arabia is willing to work with the US on making changes
Err. No. Don't believe the hype.
The Saudi's are still appalling violators of human rights, and the latest Amnesty International reports suggest they're not about to change. The difference between American treatment of Saudi Arabia and Cuba is based on two things: i) Cuba is near, and the spectre of a communist boogeyman still plays well with the US electorate. ii) Access to one of the world's largest reserves of oil is of more strategic importance than access to the world's best cigars.
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1) Some old time senators who lived through the cold war and cant get over a grudge, right or wrong
They still found time to grant "Most favoured nation" status to China, though.
A democratic nation, any democratic nation, will always have moral highground over a non-democratic one.
Which is why the USA chose to overthrow Democratic Socialist Allende and replace him with Fascist Dictator Pinochet, right?
Look, however much governments (US or otherwise) wish to pretend that their foreign policy is based on morality, it isn't. OK? Foreign policy is solely about protecting your national interests : in terms of finance and security, and the sooner you recognise that, the more sense you'll make of it.
It's not about good guys vs bad guys, and it's especially not about democracy vs. dictatorship. A dictator friendly to US interests (the House of Saud, for instance) is always going to treated more favourably than an unfriendly democrat (say, the President of France, or "Old Europe" as we like to call ourselves).
Actually, the driver of a scanner triggers and controls the movement of the lamp.
Not *all* the code in a scanner driver does that. Some of it is concerned with the capture and interpretation of the data being read. My interpretation (IANAL, and I'm glad IANAL) is that novel methods related to movement of the lamp would be patentable, and the rest wouldn't.
If it was kept secret, it's quite possible it didn't get known at all
Well yes. I'm more than aware of that. That's what I only wanted one example of one that was invented, forgotten because of the inventors profit-driven secrecy, rediscovered and the original invention rediscovered by historians. Tricky, I know, but the OP posited that such things exist, and I'd like to know what caused him to believe that.
[Da Vinci] lots of his discoveries secret.
But his motivation wasn't profit. The inventions he kept secret were, by-and-large, the slightly loony blue-sky ones. They were re-invented later when they were practical. I have no problem with people patenting ideas that are completely impractical for the lifetime of the patent.
I meant things like increased social mobility due to increased general affluence, availability of free education. All the things that mean it is far more easy for me to be a professional scientist despite the fact my grandfather was a coal miner. Previously, such cases were the exception -- scientists came almost exclusively from the upper classes -- now things are much closer to a meritocracy. (Modulo all the concerns about the state of the public school system, which is an interesting topic but not what I want to talk about here.)
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Complete truth : And how many people's opinions have you canvassed before deciding what the "Complete truth" is?
One.
And he's not exactly the most impartial source from which to infer the "Complete Truth" is he?
Christ, with people this willing to accept any information without considering how unbiased or reputable the source, no wonder Fox News is so popular in the USA.
I didn't mean that much less close ;)
Surely, if the Director is worried that an audit of his department will uncover unlicensed software, it's the Director and/or the IT guys who should be worrying about their jobs.
Also, I mispelled technical.
... twice
And I mispelled "misspelled"
I'm in Academia.
There are lots of ways to fire people. Quite often, if people commit misconduct great enough to constitute a firing offence (shagging a student, for example), they get fired.
He wasn't fired. He (claims he) was pressurised into resigning. I ain't making any judgement or saying anything else until I've heard an account of events from someone less close to the controversy.
Yeah, lost technologies exist. But the reason they were lost is never that the inventor kept them secret in order to increase his profits margin., which is the point the original proposer wanted us to believe was the case.
Patents would not have protected a single one of these inventions from being lost.
Damascus steel was not lost because of profit-motivated secrecy on behalf of its inventors.
Greek Fire is the case of an advance being kept secret by a civilisation, not an inventor. And, again, the motivation for secrecy was not profit.
Next.
Today the released a statement saying : Why should it bother us? We manufacture classic motorcycles.
But Bletchley Park had access to patents, so the reason for secrecy had nothing to do with trade secrets (and the military are still doing un-patented, top secret research today). So while it's an interesting historical fact, it doesn't do anything to convince me that patents encourage innovation.
Wars encourage innovation, much of it necessarily secret... that much we do know.
Joe, between you and me, you'll get more consultancy work if the link "Website Construction" at joe.org.uk didn't go to a URL with a typo in it... http://www.joe.org.uk/constuction.html indeed.
You can have that money right after you give the Native American's their land back.
The Saudi's are still appalling violators of human rights, and the latest Amnesty International reports suggest they're not about to change. The difference between American treatment of Saudi Arabia and Cuba is based on two things
i) Cuba is near, and the spectre of a communist boogeyman still plays well with the US electorate.
ii) Access to one of the world's largest reserves of oil is of more strategic importance than access to the world's best cigars.
Look, however much governments (US or otherwise) wish to pretend that their foreign policy is based on morality, it isn't. OK? Foreign policy is solely about protecting your national interests : in terms of finance and security, and the sooner you recognise that, the more sense you'll make of it.
It's not about good guys vs bad guys, and it's especially not about democracy vs. dictatorship. A dictator friendly to US interests (the House of Saud, for instance) is always going to treated more favourably than an unfriendly democrat (say, the President of France, or "Old Europe" as we like to call ourselves).
Have you seen any of Cuba Gooding's recent movies? Frankly, I'd rather sit through a Fidel Castro speech.
I think.
Oh, very good point.
Someone mod this up, I'm going to lunch.
Maybe, but that's not the kind I had in mind.
I meant things like increased social mobility due to increased general affluence, availability of free education. All the things that mean it is far more easy for me to be a professional scientist despite the fact my grandfather was a coal miner. Previously, such cases were the exception -- scientists came almost exclusively from the upper classes -- now things are much closer to a meritocracy. (Modulo all the concerns about the state of the public school system, which is an interesting topic but not what I want to talk about here.)
Although, I wish it had been.