The thing is with good old snail mail, the recipient is stated by name (usually) on the envelope, so even if it goes to the wrong address (correctly delivered or not) the intended recipient is still clear (and presumably correct). In an email, the recipient and the address are the same thing, and as you say, you need to open the mail and read it to even see the intended recipient ("Hi Bob,"). That said, your comments about parish boards and extortion are perfectly correct, except they don't seem to be going after this guy for exotrtion. I'm beginning to get the sense that 'computer' laws are the new tax laws, in that it's easier to get a successful prosecution for a 'computer' offence than to do the old police legwork of of proving intent in a traditional extortion case.
I've always wondered about this sort of thing. Specifically how useful those disclaimers are at the end of company emails; This email may contain confidential information intended solely for the recipient. blah blah blah. Well the recipient (in the technical sense) is whoever the email is addressed to; bob@company.com or bob@compnay.com are two different recipients. Also, these emails are almost always sent in clear text, making it pretty clear the sender doesn't give a rat's ass about the recipients right to privacy. Yes this guy was being a dick, but I wouldn't call it illegal. I would argue that it's not like moving in next to Mitt Romney. It's more like renting the post box next to his, and people sending mail to mitt romney at the wrong postbox number without using envelopes. Sender's fault.
Of course, to be fair, the domain squatting thing is more like renting thousands of post boxes all over the place, and reading everyone's mail... except it's still all postcards and unenveloped stuff. And he still didn't do anything illegal, since email isn't protected under the second ammendment or the laws preventing post from being opened is it? Before anyone bitches about violation of privacy of emails, they should encrypt their mail. This applies especially to companies, who are in the perfect position to make it easy, convenient and MANDATORY for clients to use public key encrypted email.
Patents in some form or another have existed for centuries. In the middle ages, they were called guilds, and they did anything BUT increase innovation. Also, you ignore two very important confounding variables: widespread minimum levels of public education, and a general increase in inflation adjusted terms of worldwide wealth. Artistic output hasn't increased because of copyrights, it's increased because more people can afford to patronize artists, and more artists can make a living. It wouldn't matter if copyright had existed 300 years earliler if no one could afford the work anyway. With technological innovation, the higher wealth levels have allowed society to invest more in innovation, as opposed to subsistence. Yes there is a chicken and egg problem here, in that technology was the cause of the improvements in civilisation's situation. But it's been an incremental system, with technology improving society, and society improving technology in turn. That system doesn't rely on patents or intellectual property. I'm not saying it isn't affected by IP laws, but I'm really not sure they improve the situation. So, no! An ass backwards correlation is not enough for me.
Patents don't support invention (in the sense of single inventor); If there were no patents individual inventors will still inovate to improve their own lot regardless of their lack of ability to profit. They profit from the invention itself. As in the old adage, necessity is the mother or invention. And my own addtion: Laziness is the father of invention. Both of these things will lead to innovation without IP. There are however some projects to big for an individual to work on, or evena group of individuals to work on within a single lifetime. This is where patents drive innovation. Patents encourage companies to work on the big problems over the long term, becasue they translate the benefits of innovation from social benefit to monetary benefit to shareholders. Society does not benefit nearly as much from the end results, precisely becasue they can't be copied/produced/improved on freely, and most of the time, the maximum benefit to society is delayed until patent expiration. Until then, the profit motive generally makes the ultimate product available only to those with a certain degree of wealth.
Considering the intent behind the video, I think they're probably going in the right direction. They are marketing. They are trying to market science. There are billions of girls in the world who fall for far douchier bullshit adds about cosmetics/clothes/etc. Guys fall for similar crap, no arguments there, the products and style are just different, not the bullshit level. Going on past efforts, this approach would probably have seemed very likely to succeed. Also consider that the video was probably not produced by the EC itself, it was more likely outsourced to to some marketing firm with not a single scientist on staff, and they don't know how to market anything other lipstick to 14 year olds. I don't know what would have worked, but I can tell what wouldn't work... showing scientists doing their daily thing. Science is not a spectator sport. It doesn't generate interest except through participation. Does any of this make the video less sexist? No! Is the EC any less responsible? No! Will this video have any positive effect on the recruitment of women into science careers? Maybe...
If you're going to bundle Windows and sell Windows, we require nothing else but Windows to be installed (or all things to be optional on first boot so people can choose from a "install the crap or not" menu).
This sort of behaviour is the very definition of antitrust.
Also, recall that a fresh windows installation is pretty useless (or at least was back in the days of 95/XP.) You practically needed additional utilities to just have a useful operating environment. Winzip, Nero, and all those dozens of little utilities you had to install, never mind actual software packages like Office, Photoshop, etc. The OEM's should be allowed to install additional software, so as to present the end user with a 'functional user experience'. They install complete crap though, no arguments there. That was wrong. But the idea of allowing it in principle isn't. These days with Win 7, less so; at least you can burn a CD and get into zip files.
Nonsense! They do not rely on facts! That are able to make facts. And that's all they need. Fact! Just prepend the word "fact" to any statment, preferably with an exclamation mark and it makes it so.
Since most the damage is going to come from botnets, wouldn't striking back just be hurting some innocent grandma who visited the wrong website? Unless they actually dedicate some resources into finding out who's behind the botnet, something various governments and large multi-nationals have a spectacularly poor record at; not 0% success, but close. And I imagine that most of the time they'll run straight into either a large organised crime ring (mafia, russian mob, etc) or worse, a national government like China. Bad idea.
In my first year as an undergraduate in South Africa (where fees are probably fairly cheap compared to the rest of the world) I paid approximately $1000 for the year. I needed to buy 7 books overall, costing a total of approximately $350 (bought new). This was in 1997. All the books were imported and the prices based mostly on the US price, plus the usual healthy markup and taxes. So, yes! It makes a bloody difference. One book was more than a month's rent for me. The developing world sure could use some free text-books, and quite frankly, the developing world should take the lead here too. There are some excellent professor's who develop world class text books teaching at universities in the third world. third world governments should be subsidizing THEM to write these materials, as it will save on education costs in the long run.
Want a recipe for a nasty workplace? Negotiate different salaries for each employee, and then let them all know who's making what.
So don't pay people different amounts for the same jobs/pay grades, or have a well established openly available system for differentiating between employees, like KPI's, seniority bonuses to encourage staff retention. That the "socialist" way. Most employers are scared of that way, so they prefer the capital^H^H^H^H^H^H^H robber baron way, where they treat labour as a "free market", except they don't allow anyone to make informed decisions. The way Is see it, either go the "socialist" route, or the full free market route, where every salary is a negotiated individually, and every salary is public knowledge.
Coca Cola and Cellphones have higher penetration in most third world countries than clean water and electricity. Coca Cola's physical distribution system is fucking amazing... after a natural disaster, coke will find it's way to the afflicted area faster than water tankers with a military escort, I shit you not. So yeah, it's easy enough to find a cooldrink (soda for the americans) vending machine in the back and beyond of rural africa. The coke that comes out of it will even be ice cold roughly one third of the time, and it'll be restocked by a guy on a bicycle carrying a cooler box. Cellphones, really it's a no brainer. The infrastructure is way cheaper to develop than fixed line fibre or copper, and the potential markets are well worth the money. No matter where you are in the third world, you will always be able to find three things: Cigarettes, Coca Cola, and prepaid airtime vouchers.
Wifi, I'll agree is far less likely... but there are those closed system sim networks used for ATMs and card machines that are essentially free to operate as far as the end users are concerned, once a governement negotiates a flat rate with the cellphone companies
Okay, this petition is stupid and will only hurt the small guy. Say for example I work really hard on something and get a patent.
Only if we assume the court will invariably make the wrong decision. I realize that's exactly what we are saying will happen, but that really indicates the problem is with how the courts operate, not with the patent system specifically. I don't know about the US, but in my country you can sue someone for malicious prosecution, which is somewhat analogous to the penalties proposed. If the little guy needs to sue the big guy, he can get his paycheck if he's in the right (assuming a functional court system). If the big guy sues the little guy unfairly, and loses, the little guy can sue with malicious prosecution, the possibility of which is meant to act as a deterrent to bigger assholes. Find a way to make money have less influence on the outcome of a court case.
There is no ambiguity regarding industry/sector: If you apply for the patent protection within the mobile phones sector, you get protection there and nowhere else. If you want protection in multiple sectors, pay for them all... If you do try to game the system by applying for sectors with longer terms, when you are really trying to operate in a sector with shorter terms, your activities in the shorter term sector are not protected... I don't see the problem... I'll admit that there probably will be issues in setting up the boundaries of the sectors to start with, and mobile phone vs software are probably lousy examples. I was thinking something more along the lines of electronics (3 years), software (1 year), pharma (10 years), mechanical design (5 years) etc...
Fixed term across all industries is unreasonable. Instead I would suggest having patents awarded with industry specific time limits, but very short ones. Also, if you apply for a patent in a specific industry, the patent only protects you from commercial efforts in that industry sector. Add to this a ramp up cost. The first term is free. The second term costs $X, where X is industry specific. The third term costs 2x$X, and it keeps doubling from there. You can extend a patent as long as you want to, but the cost keeps doubling. If you have a product really worth protecting, it will be commercially viable to protect it for a few extra terms. If you've patented some bullshit idea even you can't profit from, then you won't pay the extension costs, and others can use it soon enough. Third scenario: you have something that's giving you a small edge, but it's not mind blowing (e.g. magnetic power ports on apple macs); the extension costs would become onerous very quickly...
Yes, they managed with SOPA. I'm not saying it'll happen often, or easily. But if the law is heinous enough, and the majority of people disagree with it (and are made aware of it -- this is probably the key) then anit-SOPA like activity has an effect.
Slashdot Mirror
The thing is with good old snail mail, the recipient is stated by name (usually) on the envelope, so even if it goes to the wrong address (correctly delivered or not) the intended recipient is still clear (and presumably correct). In an email, the recipient and the address are the same thing, and as you say, you need to open the mail and read it to even see the intended recipient ("Hi Bob,"). That said, your comments about parish boards and extortion are perfectly correct, except they don't seem to be going after this guy for exotrtion. I'm beginning to get the sense that 'computer' laws are the new tax laws, in that it's easier to get a successful prosecution for a 'computer' offence than to do the old police legwork of of proving intent in a traditional extortion case.
I've always wondered about this sort of thing. Specifically how useful those disclaimers are at the end of company emails; This email may contain confidential information intended solely for the recipient. blah blah blah. Well the recipient (in the technical sense) is whoever the email is addressed to; bob@company.com or bob@compnay.com are two different recipients. Also, these emails are almost always sent in clear text, making it pretty clear the sender doesn't give a rat's ass about the recipients right to privacy. Yes this guy was being a dick, but I wouldn't call it illegal. I would argue that it's not like moving in next to Mitt Romney. It's more like renting the post box next to his, and people sending mail to mitt romney at the wrong postbox number without using envelopes. Sender's fault.
Of course, to be fair, the domain squatting thing is more like renting thousands of post boxes all over the place, and reading everyone's mail... except it's still all postcards and unenveloped stuff. And he still didn't do anything illegal, since email isn't protected under the second ammendment or the laws preventing post from being opened is it? Before anyone bitches about violation of privacy of emails, they should encrypt their mail. This applies especially to companies, who are in the perfect position to make it easy, convenient and MANDATORY for clients to use public key encrypted email.
Patents in some form or another have existed for centuries. In the middle ages, they were called guilds, and they did anything BUT increase innovation. Also, you ignore two very important confounding variables: widespread minimum levels of public education, and a general increase in inflation adjusted terms of worldwide wealth. Artistic output hasn't increased because of copyrights, it's increased because more people can afford to patronize artists, and more artists can make a living. It wouldn't matter if copyright had existed 300 years earliler if no one could afford the work anyway. With technological innovation, the higher wealth levels have allowed society to invest more in innovation, as opposed to subsistence. Yes there is a chicken and egg problem here, in that technology was the cause of the improvements in civilisation's situation. But it's been an incremental system, with technology improving society, and society improving technology in turn. That system doesn't rely on patents or intellectual property. I'm not saying it isn't affected by IP laws, but I'm really not sure they improve the situation. So, no! An ass backwards correlation is not enough for me.
Patents don't support invention (in the sense of single inventor); If there were no patents individual inventors will still inovate to improve their own lot regardless of their lack of ability to profit. They profit from the invention itself. As in the old adage, necessity is the mother or invention. And my own addtion: Laziness is the father of invention. Both of these things will lead to innovation without IP. There are however some projects to big for an individual to work on, or evena group of individuals to work on within a single lifetime. This is where patents drive innovation. Patents encourage companies to work on the big problems over the long term, becasue they translate the benefits of innovation from social benefit to monetary benefit to shareholders. Society does not benefit nearly as much from the end results, precisely becasue they can't be copied/produced/improved on freely, and most of the time, the maximum benefit to society is delayed until patent expiration. Until then, the profit motive generally makes the ultimate product available only to those with a certain degree of wealth.
Considering the intent behind the video, I think they're probably going in the right direction. They are marketing. They are trying to market science. There are billions of girls in the world who fall for far douchier bullshit adds about cosmetics/clothes/etc. Guys fall for similar crap, no arguments there, the products and style are just different, not the bullshit level. Going on past efforts, this approach would probably have seemed very likely to succeed. Also consider that the video was probably not produced by the EC itself, it was more likely outsourced to to some marketing firm with not a single scientist on staff, and they don't know how to market anything other lipstick to 14 year olds. I don't know what would have worked, but I can tell what wouldn't work... showing scientists doing their daily thing. Science is not a spectator sport. It doesn't generate interest except through participation. Does any of this make the video less sexist? No! Is the EC any less responsible? No! Will this video have any positive effect on the recruitment of women into science careers? Maybe...
s/here here/here .... aaah fuck it, I give up
s/are to/are two/ ... need caffeine
There are to problems here here.
If you're going to bundle Windows and sell Windows, we require nothing else but Windows to be installed (or all things to be optional on first boot so people can choose from a "install the crap or not" menu).
This sort of behaviour is the very definition of antitrust.
Also, recall that a fresh windows installation is pretty useless (or at least was back in the days of 95/XP.) You practically needed additional utilities to just have a useful operating environment. Winzip, Nero, and all those dozens of little utilities you had to install, never mind actual software packages like Office, Photoshop, etc. The OEM's should be allowed to install additional software, so as to present the end user with a 'functional user experience'. They install complete crap though, no arguments there. That was wrong. But the idea of allowing it in principle isn't. These days with Win 7, less so; at least you can burn a CD and get into zip files.
s/that are/that they are/
The scary thing about children is that are self-obsessed and tend to throw their toys when they don't get their own way... oh wait.
Nonsense! They do not rely on facts! That are able to make facts. And that's all they need. Fact! Just prepend the word "fact" to any statment, preferably with an exclamation mark and it makes it so.
Talk about a self referential sig!
Since most the damage is going to come from botnets, wouldn't striking back just be hurting some innocent grandma who visited the wrong website? Unless they actually dedicate some resources into finding out who's behind the botnet, something various governments and large multi-nationals have a spectacularly poor record at; not 0% success, but close. And I imagine that most of the time they'll run straight into either a large organised crime ring (mafia, russian mob, etc) or worse, a national government like China. Bad idea.
In my first year as an undergraduate in South Africa (where fees are probably fairly cheap compared to the rest of the world) I paid approximately $1000 for the year. I needed to buy 7 books overall, costing a total of approximately $350 (bought new). This was in 1997. All the books were imported and the prices based mostly on the US price, plus the usual healthy markup and taxes. So, yes! It makes a bloody difference. One book was more than a month's rent for me. The developing world sure could use some free text-books, and quite frankly, the developing world should take the lead here too. There are some excellent professor's who develop world class text books teaching at universities in the third world. third world governments should be subsidizing THEM to write these materials, as it will save on education costs in the long run.
Apart from not using a salt, what the hell were they doing using SHA1?
No no, it's an HTTP 9.11
'Nuff said
Want a recipe for a nasty workplace? Negotiate different salaries for each employee, and then let them all know who's making what.
So don't pay people different amounts for the same jobs/pay grades, or have a well established openly available system for differentiating between employees, like KPI's, seniority bonuses to encourage staff retention. That the "socialist" way. Most employers are scared of that way, so they prefer the capital^H^H^H^H^H^H^H robber baron way, where they treat labour as a "free market", except they don't allow anyone to make informed decisions. The way Is see it, either go the "socialist" route, or the full free market route, where every salary is a negotiated individually, and every salary is public knowledge.
Coca Cola and Cellphones have higher penetration in most third world countries than clean water and electricity. Coca Cola's physical distribution system is fucking amazing ... after a natural disaster, coke will find it's way to the afflicted area faster than water tankers with a military escort, I shit you not. So yeah, it's easy enough to find a cooldrink (soda for the americans) vending machine in the back and beyond of rural africa. The coke that comes out of it will even be ice cold roughly one third of the time, and it'll be restocked by a guy on a bicycle carrying a cooler box. Cellphones, really it's a no brainer. The infrastructure is way cheaper to develop than fixed line fibre or copper, and the potential markets are well worth the money. No matter where you are in the third world, you will always be able to find three things: Cigarettes, Coca Cola, and prepaid airtime vouchers.
Wifi, I'll agree is far less likely... but there are those closed system sim networks used for ATMs and card machines that are essentially free to operate as far as the end users are concerned, once a governement negotiates a flat rate with the cellphone companies
Okay, this petition is stupid and will only hurt the small guy. Say for example I work really hard on something and get a patent.
Only if we assume the court will invariably make the wrong decision. I realize that's exactly what we are saying will happen, but that really indicates the problem is with how the courts operate, not with the patent system specifically. I don't know about the US, but in my country you can sue someone for malicious prosecution, which is somewhat analogous to the penalties proposed. If the little guy needs to sue the big guy, he can get his paycheck if he's in the right (assuming a functional court system). If the big guy sues the little guy unfairly, and loses, the little guy can sue with malicious prosecution, the possibility of which is meant to act as a deterrent to bigger assholes. Find a way to make money have less influence on the outcome of a court case.
The most direct losses will be cloud based services. Watch everything move back to the local network very quickly...
Almost noone thinks it's wrong... and maybe it's time to reflect that in the laws we live by?
There is no ambiguity regarding industry/sector: If you apply for the patent protection within the mobile phones sector, you get protection there and nowhere else. If you want protection in multiple sectors, pay for them all... If you do try to game the system by applying for sectors with longer terms, when you are really trying to operate in a sector with shorter terms, your activities in the shorter term sector are not protected... I don't see the problem ... I'll admit that there probably will be issues in setting up the boundaries of the sectors to start with, and mobile phone vs software are probably lousy examples. I was thinking something more along the lines of electronics (3 years), software (1 year), pharma (10 years), mechanical design (5 years) etc...
Fixed term across all industries is unreasonable. Instead I would suggest having patents awarded with industry specific time limits, but very short ones. Also, if you apply for a patent in a specific industry, the patent only protects you from commercial efforts in that industry sector. Add to this a ramp up cost. The first term is free. The second term costs $X, where X is industry specific. The third term costs 2x$X, and it keeps doubling from there. You can extend a patent as long as you want to, but the cost keeps doubling. If you have a product really worth protecting, it will be commercially viable to protect it for a few extra terms. If you've patented some bullshit idea even you can't profit from, then you won't pay the extension costs, and others can use it soon enough. Third scenario: you have something that's giving you a small edge, but it's not mind blowing (e.g. magnetic power ports on apple macs); the extension costs would become onerous very quickly...
America can afford this?
Yes, they managed with SOPA. I'm not saying it'll happen often, or easily. But if the law is heinous enough, and the majority of people disagree with it (and are made aware of it -- this is probably the key) then anit-SOPA like activity has an effect.