Well, I'm not talking about a death ray or anything. I'm talking about new tech that doesn't yet have any laws protecting the public from some danger posed by a new invention, but which patent laws could stop from distribution. Stuff that would make its possessor laugh in the face of patent laws or any other laws, because they've got more power, shouldn't be disclosed, and typically isn't, as a matter of national security. But violating a patent to make, say, some new radio jammer or eavesdropper is going to raise a barrier to the patent jumper, even if they do have a lot of lawyers, and a reckless disregard for public safety.
But your question does show that patents are only very rarely justifiable at all. There is even less legitimate reason to put most NASA inventions that the whole country pays for into the hands of some single monopoly on it.
It's bad enough that NASA patents its inventions at all. But perhaps it's occasionally necessary, to prevent dangerous tech from getting into private hands. And maybe if the patents were awarded to American holders strategically to "promote progress in science and the useful arts", which is the only basis patents have, from the Constitution, they might be worth their infringements on free communication and further innovation.
But those inventions were paid for by the entire American public, as directed under the government elected by the public to serve the entire public. Simply turning them over to private corps for a little money doesn't justify the public investment.
It's just another subsidy forced on the entire public on some special preference for some private corporation. I thought Republicans hated that kind of thing.
I wish CodeWeavers would go and get Google SketchUp, their "easy 3D drawing" program, to work on Wine for Linux. Because that's the only way to make models to export into Google Earth (Earth does have a Linux version, SketchUp does not).
There's all kinds of crashing problems with SketchUp on Wine in simple things like opening/saving/exporting files, corrupted cursors and icons, which a team like CodeWeavers could probably straighten out pretty quick. Since Google hasn't shown any progress towards releasing a Linux version of SketchUp, someone else has to do the work.
Believing what someone in authority told you when you didn't know any better isn't "evidence".
Such "evidence" of the tooth fairy, Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny is also "not entirely absent". But even most Christians stop believing in at least one of them.
There is no brand of Creationism that is scientific. They all start with an unprovable assertion that "god created the universe", and then cherrypick info, mostly from an old book that has many contradictory versions but which they believe is "literally and totally true", that sounds consistent with that predetermined conclusion.
Not only is that wrong, it's not at all science. It's faith, which is the most unreliable way to know anything, and is completely different from science, which is determined by only proof. Proof destroys faith, but Creationists prefer faith, to the point of denying any fact that they possibly can, usually by ignoring it.
If Democrats had won 10 more Senate seats in 2006, they would have a filibuster-proof Senate majority. Since 34 seats were up for election, it was not "mathematically impossible" to get the 60 seats. It was just electorally impossible. Even winning the 6 seats (without losing any) that gave them the barest majority was a highly improbable feat.
What Democrats got that no one bargained for was Republicans setting records for filibusters in each of the 2 years since. Which Republicans have done to thwart any meaningful change in the Congress, backed by Bush's veto power. Veto power that Bush used only once in 6 years he had a Republican-controlled Congress (to veto stemcells), but has used over and over again to stop anything that the large Republican minority can't block first.
You are the one lying about how Congress works. You are just another Republican.
No, you just don't understand government, or even what you just quoted.
Indeed Obama said "from a theological perspective or a scientific perspective [...] that's above my pay grade". Saying that he is neither a top theologian nor a top scientist. He was saying the opposite of what you're saying: that science or theology might answer that question, but he's an expert in neither of those.
So it's no surprise that you don't understand that Obama's legislative record doesn't show him saying human rights start at birth, though it does show him saying that human rights start no later than birth.
You're just another Republican who hears whatever confirms what you want to hear, despite the facts.
Wow, you personally attack me with a load of invented strawman BS, then attempt to stop me from disagreeing by claiming that I have an echo chamber.
You just perfectly described no one better than yourself.
Which is indeed quite the Republican style, to project your denial of your worst faults onto your enemy who you also fear as much as you fear yourself.
Congratulations, your echo chamber is a hall of mirrors.
Tell Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch and Bear Stearns that the sky isn't falling.
You Republicans should just get the hell out of the way as the cleanup squad comes around once again to save your ass along with everyone else, the way it does once a generation after Republicans have stolen everything there was to steal.
Oh, and tell all the Red States getting subsidized by all the Blue States that the Blue States are somehow living off the gravy of paying the Red States to live. Because that has indeed worked for decades now to get Red States to vote Republican, since it does work to rip off Blue States beneath those total lies.
Now give me a "But Clinton..." for old times sake.
In fact, Bush himself rarely governs even when he is physically present in the White House. His handlers, cronies and lobbyists do what passes for "governing". When Bush is at his mansion (that you like to call "the ranch", though it doesn't do anything but pose photo ops), he's doing even less. He's watching football with his buddies, and practicing whatever is his next big "catapult the propaganda" gig somewhere.
Oh, and Reagan took naps. Lots and lots of naps.
I don't know why Republicans pretend that they're electing a president. Especially when Republicans have claimed for decades that the government doesn't do anything, anyway - but does way too much of it. And then proves it by running the government that way.
Just look around. Doesn't the ruins of the US economy, foreign policy and credibility after years of Republican rule give you a hint?
No, you're from the part of the world where people will say anything to spin stupid nonsense peddled by Republicans.
It was perfectly clear that Palin was indeed claiming that the physical proximity of Alaska to Russia gives her "foreign policy insight".
Much like Bush claimed to have physically looked into Putin's eyes and seen his soul, even if that's a load of faithy mumbo jumbo. Though both those Republicans are clearly just spewing BS to whoever will repeat it.
But I'll bet you that Palin hasn't even actually stood on Alaskan ground and physically looked at Russian territory. Because she is totally full of what we call "lies".
So you're saying that Palin has more experience than McCain to be president. Why not reverse the ticket (other than basic sanity, because she is indeed even worse than McCain).
Palin's "executive experience", like McCain's non-executive experience, is bad experience. George Bush has loads more executive experience - and I expect that you, Anonymous Republican Coward, would prefer more Bush.
Oh, as for the rest of your zombie Republican talking points: When Obama said that deciding the moment when a collection of 46 chromosomes becomes legally a "human life" is "above his pay grade", he was referring to god. I thought you faithy Republicans went nuts for that kind of thing, not against it. And you've got a lot of nerve to whine about "voting present" when #1: Bush hasn't even been present for most of his catastrophic reign (though Cheney has no plans to leave the Cheney Bunker from which he's run the country the past 8 years). And #2: McCain has not even been present in the Senate for most of the past two years, even though Obama, Clinton, Biden, Dodd and the rest managed to do their jobs while campaigning.
And finally, thanks for admitting that you think that Barack Obama is a "secret Muslim". Though of course his Christian pastor hates America, too.
Being a Republican means never having to make any sense at all. Just stay scared and cowering at anything Karl Rove cooks up, and everyone will be OK. Except that after 8 years of Bush, ruling at the end of 12 years of the Republican Congress, every national institution is in a shambles. You personally are worse off than you were 4 years ago. Unless that is really you, Karl Rove, fat from your reign of terror, and sucking up yet more paychecks for yet another Republican campaign "gone wild".
Of course when I point out that McCain/Palin is the Creationist ticket, that McCain/Palin will lie to a questionnaire until they get power to do whatever they want, the Republican TrollMods come out of the woodwork to call it "troll", rather than actually try to prove I'm wrong. Because they can't.
Anonymous TrollModding is just another Republican dirty trick. Is that you, Karl Rove?
She's not that hot, except compared to McCain and the rest of the politicians we usually see. She's no hotter than my next door neighbor (who's not that hot). Neither of them are qualified to be VP (or president, which is the only mandatory qualification for a VP).
And Palin's voice actually grates my nerves like the "blackboard fingernails" that everyone says Hillary Clinton has (Clinton's not hot, either).
Of course they'll talk a good science game (after farming that questionnaire out to one of the lobbyist lawfirms that make up their campaign) when the geeks ask during a campaign. Then these "Compassionate Conservatives" will just show they were lying once they're past the Election Day "accountability moment", and get the power to drag us all back to the Stone Age.
Does my NAT firewall, with my private IP# addresses behind it, make me the enemy of Sir Berners-Lee's "One and Open" Web? Will his W3 Foundation give me a C Block?
No, if you even bothered to click the link I so helpfully included, you'd see in the first few paragraphs that not only do the audiophile reviewers say it's $180, but they point out that it's a special discount to the public for a limited time, even though it rises to only about $250, and that it's worth something like 10x as much for its quality.
But hey, why not just say something stupid in public?
SoundAndVision.com (_Stereo Review_ magazine's website) is giving audiophile raves to a $180, 5.6 inch, 9.5 ounce portable speaker called Foxl. So the answer to the question is that for about $500, a projector and the Foxl could make a microscopic kit into a hugely entertaining movie theater.
If the driver transfer HW is in every USB client driver chip, the design resources and extra HW are tiny at the huge scales of every USB device.
The "out of date drivers" problem is no less with CDs than with USB ROMs. But with CDs, you have to throw out the obsolete CDs, while the USB ROMs just need to get reflashed. Obvious economic benefits, especially since flashing USB is a cheaper, faster operation that can be scaled with a bunch of USB hubs much cheaper than a bunch of CD-R drives.
CDs don't cost $0 each. And supporting the device with CDs, that require user intervention, is expensive (and unpredictably so).
As I detailed, the economics favor embedding the drivers into every USB client controller, so the cost is spread across every of the millions of USB devices sold every month.
But somehow, even though I explained that all in detail, you clearly don't get it. And you're unclear on what I get.
I don't think you understand how this works. There doesn't need to be standard USB drivers or interfaces for all classes. Only one: the USB transfer of the stored data that is the device's unique (and arbitrary) driver itself. That driver and storage/IO HW and its programming would be exactly the same (or with just a few simple and standard variations) for every USB client chip in the world. In the hundreds of millions of USB chips sold each year, that cost per item would probably be $0.25 or less. And have much greater benefits: the actual benefit of USB, which is plug and play. Which not only sells more devices to more unsophisticated users, but also to cut costs of packaging, delivery and support.
Since so many people in the PC world don't seem to get this simple point, maybe it won't arrive in that industry. The new USB spec doesn't seem to have it, which would have been the time: once a decade. So I'd just bet that the equivalent of USB for mobile "phone" peripherals will include it. Probably part of a future BlueTooth spec, so the user doesn't even have to do anything, not even plug it in: just approve the installation. If adding a new peripheral were a matter of just saying "OK" when it's available, that opens the market to literally billions of people, without hardly any support costs. Much cheaper and more profitable than installing a driver from a CD, with all its special cases.
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Well, I'm not talking about a death ray or anything. I'm talking about new tech that doesn't yet have any laws protecting the public from some danger posed by a new invention, but which patent laws could stop from distribution. Stuff that would make its possessor laugh in the face of patent laws or any other laws, because they've got more power, shouldn't be disclosed, and typically isn't, as a matter of national security. But violating a patent to make, say, some new radio jammer or eavesdropper is going to raise a barrier to the patent jumper, even if they do have a lot of lawyers, and a reckless disregard for public safety.
But your question does show that patents are only very rarely justifiable at all. There is even less legitimate reason to put most NASA inventions that the whole country pays for into the hands of some single monopoly on it.
It's bad enough that NASA patents its inventions at all. But perhaps it's occasionally necessary, to prevent dangerous tech from getting into private hands. And maybe if the patents were awarded to American holders strategically to "promote progress in science and the useful arts", which is the only basis patents have, from the Constitution, they might be worth their infringements on free communication and further innovation.
But those inventions were paid for by the entire American public, as directed under the government elected by the public to serve the entire public. Simply turning them over to private corps for a little money doesn't justify the public investment.
It's just another subsidy forced on the entire public on some special preference for some private corporation. I thought Republicans hated that kind of thing.
Carly Fiorina severly damaged Hewlett-Packard as its CEO, and has been campaigning for McCain ever since HP fired her.
With that kind of endorsement, America's tech industry should fear McCain as Fiorina's choice for president.
Even just a commandline util that converts .SKP to .KML/.KMZ files would be a breakthru, if it were FOSS.
I wish CodeWeavers would go and get Google SketchUp, their "easy 3D drawing" program, to work on Wine for Linux. Because that's the only way to make models to export into Google Earth (Earth does have a Linux version, SketchUp does not).
There's all kinds of crashing problems with SketchUp on Wine in simple things like opening/saving/exporting files, corrupted cursors and icons, which a team like CodeWeavers could probably straighten out pretty quick. Since Google hasn't shown any progress towards releasing a Linux version of SketchUp, someone else has to do the work.
Believing what someone in authority told you when you didn't know any better isn't "evidence".
Such "evidence" of the tooth fairy, Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny is also "not entirely absent". But even most Christians stop believing in at least one of them.
There is no brand of Creationism that is scientific. They all start with an unprovable assertion that "god created the universe", and then cherrypick info, mostly from an old book that has many contradictory versions but which they believe is "literally and totally true", that sounds consistent with that predetermined conclusion.
Not only is that wrong, it's not at all science. It's faith, which is the most unreliable way to know anything, and is completely different from science, which is determined by only proof. Proof destroys faith, but Creationists prefer faith, to the point of denying any fact that they possibly can, usually by ignoring it.
Yes. Not just because he's a Creationist, but because he also believes that the bible is literally true, and that god's law really runs politics.
Ron Paul is batshit crazy, and the people who want him president are bigger suckers than are Nader's supporters.
If Democrats had won 10 more Senate seats in 2006, they would have a filibuster-proof Senate majority. Since 34 seats were up for election, it was not "mathematically impossible" to get the 60 seats. It was just electorally impossible. Even winning the 6 seats (without losing any) that gave them the barest majority was a highly improbable feat.
What Democrats got that no one bargained for was Republicans setting records for filibusters in each of the 2 years since. Which Republicans have done to thwart any meaningful change in the Congress, backed by Bush's veto power. Veto power that Bush used only once in 6 years he had a Republican-controlled Congress (to veto stemcells), but has used over and over again to stop anything that the large Republican minority can't block first.
You are the one lying about how Congress works. You are just another Republican.
No, you just don't understand government, or even what you just quoted.
Indeed Obama said "from a theological perspective or a scientific perspective [...] that's above my pay grade". Saying that he is neither a top theologian nor a top scientist. He was saying the opposite of what you're saying: that science or theology might answer that question, but he's an expert in neither of those.
So it's no surprise that you don't understand that Obama's legislative record doesn't show him saying human rights start at birth, though it does show him saying that human rights start no later than birth.
You're just another Republican who hears whatever confirms what you want to hear, despite the facts.
Oh, I meant "libertarian". See what I mean?
Wow, you personally attack me with a load of invented strawman BS, then attempt to stop me from disagreeing by claiming that I have an echo chamber.
You just perfectly described no one better than yourself.
Which is indeed quite the Republican style, to project your denial of your worst faults onto your enemy who you also fear as much as you fear yourself.
Congratulations, your echo chamber is a hall of mirrors.
Tell Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch and Bear Stearns that the sky isn't falling.
You Republicans should just get the hell out of the way as the cleanup squad comes around once again to save your ass along with everyone else, the way it does once a generation after Republicans have stolen everything there was to steal.
Oh, and tell all the Red States getting subsidized by all the Blue States that the Blue States are somehow living off the gravy of paying the Red States to live. Because that has indeed worked for decades now to get Red States to vote Republican, since it does work to rip off Blue States beneath those total lies.
Now give me a "But Clinton..." for old times sake.
In fact, Bush himself rarely governs even when he is physically present in the White House. His handlers, cronies and lobbyists do what passes for "governing". When Bush is at his mansion (that you like to call "the ranch", though it doesn't do anything but pose photo ops), he's doing even less. He's watching football with his buddies, and practicing whatever is his next big "catapult the propaganda" gig somewhere.
Oh, and Reagan took naps. Lots and lots of naps.
I don't know why Republicans pretend that they're electing a president. Especially when Republicans have claimed for decades that the government doesn't do anything, anyway - but does way too much of it. And then proves it by running the government that way.
Just look around. Doesn't the ruins of the US economy, foreign policy and credibility after years of Republican rule give you a hint?
No, you're from the part of the world where people will say anything to spin stupid nonsense peddled by Republicans.
It was perfectly clear that Palin was indeed claiming that the physical proximity of Alaska to Russia gives her "foreign policy insight".
Much like Bush claimed to have physically looked into Putin's eyes and seen his soul, even if that's a load of faithy mumbo jumbo. Though both those Republicans are clearly just spewing BS to whoever will repeat it.
But I'll bet you that Palin hasn't even actually stood on Alaskan ground and physically looked at Russian territory. Because she is totally full of what we call "lies".
So you're saying that Palin has more experience than McCain to be president. Why not reverse the ticket (other than basic sanity, because she is indeed even worse than McCain).
Palin's "executive experience", like McCain's non-executive experience, is bad experience. George Bush has loads more executive experience - and I expect that you, Anonymous Republican Coward, would prefer more Bush.
Oh, as for the rest of your zombie Republican talking points: When Obama said that deciding the moment when a collection of 46 chromosomes becomes legally a "human life" is "above his pay grade", he was referring to god. I thought you faithy Republicans went nuts for that kind of thing, not against it. And you've got a lot of nerve to whine about "voting present" when #1: Bush hasn't even been present for most of his catastrophic reign (though Cheney has no plans to leave the Cheney Bunker from which he's run the country the past 8 years). And #2: McCain has not even been present in the Senate for most of the past two years, even though Obama, Clinton, Biden, Dodd and the rest managed to do their jobs while campaigning.
And finally, thanks for admitting that you think that Barack Obama is a "secret Muslim". Though of course his Christian pastor hates America, too.
Being a Republican means never having to make any sense at all. Just stay scared and cowering at anything Karl Rove cooks up, and everyone will be OK. Except that after 8 years of Bush, ruling at the end of 12 years of the Republican Congress, every national institution is in a shambles. You personally are worse off than you were 4 years ago. Unless that is really you, Karl Rove, fat from your reign of terror, and sucking up yet more paychecks for yet another Republican campaign "gone wild".
You sick bastard.
Moderation 0
50% Insightful
50% Troll
Of course when I point out that McCain/Palin is the Creationist ticket, that McCain/Palin will lie to a questionnaire until they get power to do whatever they want, the Republican TrollMods come out of the woodwork to call it "troll", rather than actually try to prove I'm wrong. Because they can't.
Anonymous TrollModding is just another Republican dirty trick. Is that you, Karl Rove?
She's not that hot, except compared to McCain and the rest of the politicians we usually see. She's no hotter than my next door neighbor (who's not that hot). Neither of them are qualified to be VP (or president, which is the only mandatory qualification for a VP).
And Palin's voice actually grates my nerves like the "blackboard fingernails" that everyone says Hillary Clinton has (Clinton's not hot, either).
Palin is a Creationist. McCain is a fossil.
Of course they'll talk a good science game (after farming that questionnaire out to one of the lobbyist lawfirms that make up their campaign) when the geeks ask during a campaign. Then these "Compassionate Conservatives" will just show they were lying once they're past the Election Day "accountability moment", and get the power to drag us all back to the Stone Age.
Does my NAT firewall, with my private IP# addresses behind it, make me the enemy of Sir Berners-Lee's "One and Open" Web? Will his W3 Foundation give me a C Block?
No, if you even bothered to click the link I so helpfully included, you'd see in the first few paragraphs that not only do the audiophile reviewers say it's $180, but they point out that it's a special discount to the public for a limited time, even though it rises to only about $250, and that it's worth something like 10x as much for its quality.
But hey, why not just say something stupid in public?
SoundAndVision.com (_Stereo Review_ magazine's website) is giving audiophile raves to a $180, 5.6 inch, 9.5 ounce portable speaker called Foxl. So the answer to the question is that for about $500, a projector and the Foxl could make a microscopic kit into a hugely entertaining movie theater.
If the driver transfer HW is in every USB client driver chip, the design resources and extra HW are tiny at the huge scales of every USB device.
The "out of date drivers" problem is no less with CDs than with USB ROMs. But with CDs, you have to throw out the obsolete CDs, while the USB ROMs just need to get reflashed. Obvious economic benefits, especially since flashing USB is a cheaper, faster operation that can be scaled with a bunch of USB hubs much cheaper than a bunch of CD-R drives.
CDs don't cost $0 each. And supporting the device with CDs, that require user intervention, is expensive (and unpredictably so).
As I detailed, the economics favor embedding the drivers into every USB client controller, so the cost is spread across every of the millions of USB devices sold every month.
But somehow, even though I explained that all in detail, you clearly don't get it. And you're unclear on what I get.
I don't think you understand how this works. There doesn't need to be standard USB drivers or interfaces for all classes. Only one: the USB transfer of the stored data that is the device's unique (and arbitrary) driver itself. That driver and storage/IO HW and its programming would be exactly the same (or with just a few simple and standard variations) for every USB client chip in the world. In the hundreds of millions of USB chips sold each year, that cost per item would probably be $0.25 or less. And have much greater benefits: the actual benefit of USB, which is plug and play. Which not only sells more devices to more unsophisticated users, but also to cut costs of packaging, delivery and support.
Since so many people in the PC world don't seem to get this simple point, maybe it won't arrive in that industry. The new USB spec doesn't seem to have it, which would have been the time: once a decade. So I'd just bet that the equivalent of USB for mobile "phone" peripherals will include it. Probably part of a future BlueTooth spec, so the user doesn't even have to do anything, not even plug it in: just approve the installation. If adding a new peripheral were a matter of just saying "OK" when it's available, that opens the market to literally billions of people, without hardly any support costs. Much cheaper and more profitable than installing a driver from a CD, with all its special cases.
We put drivers for the version of Windows, Mac and Linux on the device, if we think those markets justify the cost.
Why would we need any other way than embedding and a website to get the drivers?
The only part of the driver model that needs to be standard is the one that gets the real driver off the USB device.
This problem isn't nearly as complex or hard as you make it out.