So, Mr. "IT Worker", how do you enjoy waiting a minimum of 20 seconds
An IT worker can afford a faster Internet without government's help. He can not be the poster child for you to use to justify increased taxation and government control.
What makes you say this? I understand, why people want Internet access, but nobody needs it. Not for things other than a) work — which better be sufficiently gainful to allow them to pay for it; b) entertainment — which should not be subsidised at all.
(1) This grant program is exclusively for "working poor" (or poor people, period) to get Internet access; and
(2) All a poor person would/should/could want to do with the Internet is upload resumes so they can stop being poor / living in rural areas.
Aha, so here we have an "Insightful" justification for a mission creep. Let's see...
Having access to a very fast Internet pipe can change someone's life in a revolutionary way.
Is such a possibility a right the government must ensure?
- Pro gamer - without a fast connection for rapid access to new games and patches, and low latency, one cannot reach the pinnacle of pro gaming, no matter how hard they try (unless you intend to become a pro at a turn-based game where latency is relatively unimportant)
This one is an awesome example. Just wonderful. So, to allow people — no matter how remote their dwellings — to become pro gamers, a federal subsidy must be established and maintained. With a multitude of Federal employees and US Senators (of whom there are only 100 in the whole world, BTW) busying themselves with it?
With the rest of us hoping, they'll do it better than they did with public schools or VA Hospitals, for just two examples?
These people should not be penalized for living in rural areas.
I know, I know — I should be penalized for living in an urban area instead, right?
And by the way, they're paying taxes, too
Why can't they simply pay ISPs directly — bypassing the government middlemen and without my contribution to their becoming "pro gamers" and "podcasters"?
No, no, no. Just being first shouldn't be enough to gain a patent. Putting an HTML file on a CD-ROM is obvious to anyone skilled in the art, even if it hasn't been done before.
I did not say, the patent is valid, because it is old. I said, it may be valid, if it was registered before it became obvious to anyone skilled in the art. Read...
If something is patented, it may still be declared obvious to someone skilled in the art after the fact
Even if it was not so obvious, when it was first issued? Could you cite the relevant rule/law?
I don't think so, because a great many patents become obvious once published — "Oh, shit, why didn't I think of that?!" — overturning them immediately after that seems to defeat the purpose...
Ideas are a dime a dozen, and very few are original. Many patents are frivolous.
Well, this is a problem. But not the entire concept of patents or intellectual property.
So, before I copy each file on a CDROM, I am supposed to spend a few days on "research"...?
No, this is a case of abuse, and your company, probably, should've fought it. On the other hand, if it was patented before the idea became obvious to anyone "skilled in the art", then this was not an abuse and you should pay them. Because they paid the original patent-holder — likely, a fellow/.-er...
And second, without intellectual property protection, such starting of a company becomes unduly difficult too.
A company producing an actual product can be given different protections from a NPE, since they can show actual damages.
(So, no countering of the first reason I listed?) Essentially, you are saying, no patents should be granted until an actual product — or a prototype — has been devised. That may be an Ok requirement, but it still requires patents — just changes the rules for their issuance. And it would not have helped you with that HTML-file on CDROM thing — for whoever patented that, would've had no problem devising a "product"...
The problem is that independent inventors, who patent their inventions, and then enforce those patents, are contributing NOTHING to society
What? Of course, they contribute — their ideas. Ideas, which you find sufficiently useful to want to use them...
They are just parasites preying on companies that came up with the same idea independently
Did they come up with it independently?
And if so, why would they go through all that effort-duplication instead of checking, what's already been patented, for example?
If you want to be a inventor, you should work for (or start) a company that actually produces products.
Nonsense. First of all, there is a relatively little overlap between the set of people capable of inventing cool things and the set of those capable of running/starting a company — these activities require vastly different skill sets and personality traits.
And second, without intellectual property protection, such starting of a company becomes unduly difficult too. Your idea can be copied (stolen) with impunity by someone you spoke to even before you offer a product to market. The inventor partners with a businessman, explains his idea to him... — why does the businessman even need the inventor after this?
And even if some people may have enough scruples not to do it before, after you've come to market it will be "open season" on your invention. Established corporations — with loads of business acumen and manufacturing capabilities — will drive you out of business...
Presumably, most of the/. readers produce ideas and other intangible and easily copied once created things for a living. In other words, we are paid for these intangible things.
Why, then, are most people so negative on other people selling and buying them? The hated "patent trolls" buy ideas from people, who have them — thus rewarding our colleagues. What is theirs, they are entitled to reselling — at whatever price the market will bear. This is normal and perfectly ethical.
Yes, the weaponized litigation practiced by some of these firms is most reprehensible, but they are hardly the only ones partaking of it. Until we change our legal practices to make sure, the loser pays winner's legal costs by default, the side with a bigger legal budget will keep "winning" before entering the courtroom.
But none of it supports the abolishment of the very concept of intellectual property in general and patents in particular, which is so often suggested here. Are these suggestions coming from fools and/or folks short of their own ideas? What's going on?
Google engineers have been feeding text from steamy romance novels to an artificial intelligence (AI) engine in order to give Google's technology -- like its mobile app -- the ability to produce more human, conversational text
Shakespeare, Azimov, London, Dreiser, Churchill, Wells, Byron, Elliot no longer cut it? Not even O'Henry for some levity?
It is not "my" article. I linked to it, because it offered the large chunk of the IG's report not available on other pages popping up on Google. That their editorializing does not fully support my accusation is not surprising — they are firmly "in the tank" with Hillary and Democrats. But the facts they cited do support my accusation and I reposted the relevant text entirely.
like saying a murder in person went to prison "because among other things he ran a red light"
Except I did not withhold anything and cited the entire paragraph, which listed all of the things — the murders and the traffic infractions alike — that the report considered "most troubling" about the ex-Ambassador. Use of unapproved e-mail service among them. Madame Secretary read the report, but set up her own server anyway.
ie, you lied, again.
You obsession with me is troubling and unhealthy. But, if you find my ideas so intriguing, I once again invite you to subscribe to my newsletter.
Well, somehow I suspected, you'll see government as the solution...
if we assume that national governments are neutral in this, then they can place a proper value on that environmental cost
Wow, talk about begging the question. Are they neutral? Or will they happily (ab)use this power you propose we give them to reward supporters and punish opponents?
And even if they are free of any agenda — just how can they (or anyone) calculate these costs? The people, who can't keep almost any project within budget and on-time and are notorious for mishandling even the high-profile ones — you are going to trust them to calculate the incalculable?
BP's oil-spill was projected to cost almost $70 bln, for example — but ended up costing $20 bln. Which side would the government have erred on computing the costs of an oil-well ahead of time? And what would it do with the surplus, if the estimates turned out to be exaggerated?
based on the environmental cost of generating the power
Computed by who?
Talking about "cost" only makes sense, when there is a free market with competing suppliers using different technologies...
"Environmental cost" is notoriously incalculable — as both "Greenpeace" and the oil companies will attest from their respective sides of this barricade.
somehow you turned "he wasn't fired over email" into "he was fired over email"....
False. Seems like you didn't read the post you were replying to. AGAIN. What I actually said was, and I emphasize the part you missed:
Hillary Clinton fired America's Ambassador to Kenya [politifact.com] over — among other things — his use of "commercial e-mail":
Which is exactly, what the Politifact article says. And this is the most pro-Democrat link out there, so they would try to de-emphasize her hypocrisy — but could not. Not quite.
"The Ambassador’s greatest weakness is his reluctance to accept clear-cut U.S. Government decisions. He made clear his disagreement with Washington policy decisions and directives concerning the safe-havening in Nairobi of families of Department employees who volunteered to serve in extreme hardship posts; the creation of a freestanding Somalia Unit; and the nonuse of commercial email for official government business, including Sensitive But Unclassified information [emphasis mine -mi]. Notwithstanding his talk about the importance of mission staff doing the right thing, the Ambassador by deed or word has encouraged it to do the opposite."
To have setup and used her own e-mail server for "official government business, including Sensitive But Unclassified information" is the height of hypocrisy — the greatest sin of a politician. That the server contained not merely "sensitive", but in same cases "top secret" data may be, what will send her to prison. But it is the hypocrisy, that ought to derail her presidential bid.
Whether or not her server was hacked by anyone is besides the point.
It means bad use of metaphor. Not entirely unlike exclaiming "what the fuck", when no romance (much less sexual intercourse) is anywhere near the topic.
A friend of mine had a child with a Cesarean. She was sewed up by two people afterwards — an experienced doctor on one side and a young "resident" on the other.
The resident's side remained painful for two weeks longer than the experienced doctor's side. If a robot can do these things in the near future, it would be welcome progress indeed. We are very short on doctors.
HTTPS version of every single domain hosted on Blogspot
This may be overly cynical of me, but could they be doing this to imbue the sense of improved security, while still being able to decrypt and observe the traffic themselves? For themselves as well as for the government, where the particular datacenter is located?
And, yes, even if they are being self-serving, this is still good news for folks accessing these sites from places, where government does far worse things to the innocent, than mere snooping.
Seriously, picture the old Uncle Sam character — wearing tall head, the blue jacket and striped pants. Now try to imagine other contenders — from both major parties — in the outfit.
Trump is the only one, who can possibly fit. There is even a red-haired variant, if you must quibble...
Slashdot Mirror
Interestingly, according to FCC, only the poor need Internet-subsidy — the view you yourself denounced as "incredibly narrow-minded" only a short while ago.
An IT worker can afford a faster Internet without government's help. He can not be the poster child for you to use to justify increased taxation and government control.
What makes you say this? I understand, why people want Internet access, but nobody needs it. Not for things other than a) work — which better be sufficiently gainful to allow them to pay for it; b) entertainment — which should not be subsidised at all.
Aha, so here we have an "Insightful" justification for a mission creep . Let's see...
Is such a possibility a right the government must ensure?
This one is an awesome example. Just wonderful. So, to allow people — no matter how remote their dwellings — to become pro gamers, a federal subsidy must be established and maintained. With a multitude of Federal employees and US Senators (of whom there are only 100 in the whole world, BTW) busying themselves with it?
With the rest of us hoping, they'll do it better than they did with public schools or VA Hospitals, for just two examples?
I know, I know — I should be penalized for living in an urban area instead, right?
Why can't they simply pay ISPs directly — bypassing the government middlemen and without my contribution to their becoming "pro gamers" and "podcasters"?
Why would not they — as long as there is profit to be made?
"Offsetting" where? To people living in other areas. Why are they forced to subsidise Internet-access in low population density areas?
Why should there be a "government grant program" for this at all?
Yeah, because 4Mbps just is not enough for the "working poor" to work on their resumes and send them to would-be employers...
So, ISIS using Twitter is tolerable, but US government — no, that's just wrong?
Ah, well, they started to go after "violent extremism" too now, finally. The "optics" must've gotten really bad...
Unfortunately, they don't distinguish between terrorists and, for example, Ukrainians defending their country.
Don't knock it. Bookmark the link and use it any time an Illiberal sneers at you with something like "reality has Liberal bias".
2035? That's far enough in the future for most of today's politicians — except the junior ones — to have retired and/or moved on...
Get the credits and compliments now, never have to answer for them.
Not entirely unlike the dire global warming predictions we see in the popular press every week or so.
I did not say, the patent is valid, because it is old. I said, it may be valid, if it was registered before it became obvious to anyone skilled in the art. Read...
Even if it was not so obvious, when it was first issued? Could you cite the relevant rule/law?
I don't think so, because a great many patents become obvious once published — "Oh, shit, why didn't I think of that?!" — overturning them immediately after that seems to defeat the purpose...
Well, this is a problem. But not the entire concept of patents or intellectual property.
No, this is a case of abuse, and your company, probably, should've fought it. On the other hand, if it was patented before the idea became obvious to anyone "skilled in the art", then this was not an abuse and you should pay them. Because they paid the original patent-holder — likely, a fellow /.-er...
(So, no countering of the first reason I listed?) Essentially, you are saying, no patents should be granted until an actual product — or a prototype — has been devised. That may be an Ok requirement, but it still requires patents — just changes the rules for their issuance. And it would not have helped you with that HTML-file on CDROM thing — for whoever patented that, would've had no problem devising a "product"...
What? Of course, they contribute — their ideas. Ideas, which you find sufficiently useful to want to use them...
Did they come up with it independently?
And if so, why would they go through all that effort-duplication instead of checking, what's already been patented, for example?
Nonsense. First of all, there is a relatively little overlap between the set of people capable of inventing cool things and the set of those capable of running/starting a company — these activities require vastly different skill sets and personality traits.
And second, without intellectual property protection, such starting of a company becomes unduly difficult too. Your idea can be copied (stolen) with impunity by someone you spoke to even before you offer a product to market. The inventor partners with a businessman, explains his idea to him ... — why does the businessman even need the inventor after this?
And even if some people may have enough scruples not to do it before, after you've come to market it will be "open season" on your invention. Established corporations — with loads of business acumen and manufacturing capabilities — will drive you out of business...
May as well go back to sail ships... Maybe, not as fast, but certainly much more capable.
Presumably, most of the /. readers produce ideas and other intangible and easily copied once created things for a living. In other words, we are paid for these intangible things.
Why, then, are most people so negative on other people selling and buying them? The hated "patent trolls" buy ideas from people, who have them — thus rewarding our colleagues. What is theirs, they are entitled to reselling — at whatever price the market will bear. This is normal and perfectly ethical.
Yes, the weaponized litigation practiced by some of these firms is most reprehensible, but they are hardly the only ones partaking of it. Until we change our legal practices to make sure, the loser pays winner's legal costs by default, the side with a bigger legal budget will keep "winning" before entering the courtroom.
But none of it supports the abolishment of the very concept of intellectual property in general and patents in particular, which is so often suggested here. Are these suggestions coming from fools and/or folks short of their own ideas? What's going on?
Shakespeare, Azimov, London, Dreiser, Churchill, Wells, Byron, Elliot no longer cut it? Not even O'Henry for some levity?
It is not "my" article. I linked to it, because it offered the large chunk of the IG's report not available on other pages popping up on Google. That their editorializing does not fully support my accusation is not surprising — they are firmly "in the tank" with Hillary and Democrats. But the facts they cited do support my accusation and I reposted the relevant text entirely.
Except I did not withhold anything and cited the entire paragraph, which listed all of the things — the murders and the traffic infractions alike — that the report considered "most troubling" about the ex-Ambassador. Use of unapproved e-mail service among them. Madame Secretary read the report, but set up her own server anyway.
You obsession with me is troubling and unhealthy. But, if you find my ideas so intriguing, I once again invite you to subscribe to my newsletter.
Wow, talk about begging the question. Are they neutral? Or will they happily (ab)use this power you propose we give them to reward supporters and punish opponents?
And even if they are free of any agenda — just how can they (or anyone) calculate these costs? The people, who can't keep almost any project within budget and on-time and are notorious for mishandling even the high-profile ones — you are going to trust them to calculate the incalculable?
BP's oil-spill was projected to cost almost $70 bln, for example — but ended up costing $20 bln. Which side would the government have erred on computing the costs of an oil-well ahead of time? And what would it do with the surplus, if the estimates turned out to be exaggerated?
Itself a shameful practice to be abolished...
Computed by who?
Talking about "cost" only makes sense, when there is a free market with competing suppliers using different technologies...
"Environmental cost" is notoriously incalculable — as both "Greenpeace" and the oil companies will attest from their respective sides of this barricade.
False. Seems like you didn't read the post you were replying to. AGAIN. What I actually said was, and I emphasize the part you missed:
Which is exactly, what the Politifact article says. And this is the most pro-Democrat link out there, so they would try to de-emphasize her hypocrisy — but could not. Not quite.
Hillary Clinton fired America's Ambassador to Kenya over — among other things — his use of "commercial e-mail":
To have setup and used her own e-mail server for "official government business, including Sensitive But Unclassified information" is the height of hypocrisy — the greatest sin of a politician. That the server contained not merely "sensitive", but in same cases "top secret" data may be, what will send her to prison. But it is the hypocrisy, that ought to derail her presidential bid.
Whether or not her server was hacked by anyone is besides the point.
Sure. But now the users will think themselves more secure. And they will be indeed — except not from Google.
You and I realize this. Many others might not.
It means bad use of metaphor. Not entirely unlike exclaiming "what the fuck", when no romance (much less sexual intercourse) is anywhere near the topic.
A friend of mine had a child with a Cesarean. She was sewed up by two people afterwards — an experienced doctor on one side and a young "resident" on the other.
The resident's side remained painful for two weeks longer than the experienced doctor's side. If a robot can do these things in the near future, it would be welcome progress indeed. We are very short on doctors.
Many thanks to the FAA (Peace be upon it) indeed for its kind permission.
This may be overly cynical of me, but could they be doing this to imbue the sense of improved security, while still being able to decrypt and observe the traffic themselves? For themselves as well as for the government, where the particular datacenter is located?
And, yes, even if they are being self-serving, this is still good news for folks accessing these sites from places, where government does far worse things to the innocent, than mere snooping.
Seriously, picture the old Uncle Sam character — wearing tall head, the blue jacket and striped pants. Now try to imagine other contenders — from both major parties — in the outfit.
Trump is the only one, who can possibly fit. There is even a red-haired variant, if you must quibble...