The statement contains no non-subjective, non-conditional objective statements, and therefore can't be "proven" wrong.
I don't like spam, but neither do I hate it. It is no more "evil" or indicative of lack of values than commercials. If you're a mother and have found a way to make a living that let's you stay at home and provide a quality, loving and supportive atmosphere for your kids, that's great. You might not have the most noble job in the world, but then, neither do I right now.
This lady's made a trade off, which is a necessary consequence of living in the real world, and it looks like a pretty good one to me. If spam is terrible, then get a spam filter. or lobby your representatives to outlaw it.
She looks like she has a fairly mature, well thought out, and open understanding of what it is she does.
This thread is interesting, and shows the dichotemy between "what should be" and "what is." I would say that the underyling problem is not the questioner's skills, but (as some have alluded to in the HR-filter for keywords comments) is the mindset of businesses.
What most fail to realize is that 5 years in a single tech is probably a bad sign. A "better" programmer would probably have gotten bored and moved on, or moved on because it's highly unlikely that a single technology remains the best solution for that long a period of time.
My advice would thus be this: if you're good, don't worry about it. It takes a few days to pick up 98% of any language/tech., a few hours to learn 98% of the commands and interfaces for an OS etc. (unless you're administering the thing, which takes us back into the few days bit). So, just skim a Java reference, a Linux book, etc. and throw them all on your resume.
If you're not that good, you can hang yourself with this, but, then again, most companies don't know what they're doing with tech anyway (even the experts within the company), so you can get away with just being mediocre.
And, if you find a company that thinks the right way about technology, they'll understand it's a fluid thing and they'll be looking for smart people, not people who've memorized wasted their time memorizing reference books that are available for $20 or online for free.
What you say is probably what many believe, but it is also foolish. These things do not exist in a vacuum. What corporations do/want to do and what laws get passed (either via the legislature or from the bench) are, will be, and have always been tightly intertwined.
What is maybe less common, historically, but which is a fairly obvious possibility given the current political climate and policies of the government, is that capabilities introduced by technology will begin to drive legislation.
There are two primary factors that I see behind this. First, is the simple enablement. The government is less likely to pass laws (or interpret laws to the effect of) limiting peoples rights without a clear way to enforce the law. DVD encryption and the DMCA are an example of this. Why didn't the government do this with VHS? There was pressure to do so, but the industry could not propose any means of enforcement. If the government passed laws that were simple to break and impossible to investigate or prosecute, then respect for laws in general would begin to break down. Especially when there exists a strong and ever-present temptation to break the laws for immediate gain.
The DVD consortium, however, proposed a viable (albeit weak) mechanism to protect their medium and proposed a comprehensive plan to enforce it. There were holes, but it was enough to allow congress to do what they always want to do, help out corporations.
There were many other factors behind the DMCA, and I'm not saying that DVD encryption schemes and policies were sufficient, nor even necessary, but they were a factor, though probably not even the largest (at least not directly).
The other main drive, which has already been alluded to, is industry support. When large companies get together and commit to a technoloy, the government knows that the spin and marketing will get behind whatever it is they are doing. This allows them to do things that, without such support, would be largely unpopular and hurt their chances at getting re-elected. But, with all the money that the government knows will be put behind such self-serving efforts, they can have their cake and eat it to; that is, pass laws detrimental to the rights of their constituency for the benefit of their corporate backers, and still appear to be serving the public interest.
This is a very realy possibility with the LaGrande/Palladium/etc. effort. Besides the work of Intel and MS, the real effort is to make DRM (an misnomer which is already part of the spin and marketing campaign) is a larger effort supported by AMD, RIAA, Hollywood, Sony, etc. With all the money behind the thing, you can bet that not noly can congress be assured of billions being spent to alter or obscure the public perception of the truncation of their rights, but also in millions of dollars of campaign contributions, lobbyists, and outright bribes flowing into their pockets if they, the congress, plays ball with the industry effort.
So, to say that what Intel is doing has nothing do with what legistlators are doing, or that the objectives, goals, and actions of the two are irrelevant, is both short sighted and dangerous. In stating such a thing, you are failing to make even the first, and most obvious connections.
If nothing else, consider this: it is the goal of Intel/MS/etc. and (the bulk of) congressional reperesentatives/senators to increase their power/make money. LaGrande/Palladium/etc. is a mechanism by which they both can do precisely that. So, they will, at the expense of the people.
I am not saying that your assertions or conclusions are without basis. Not at all. They have a strong basis. But, what you fail to realize is that that basis is rooted in the governmental/corporate infrastructure itself, and so necessarily and naturally will bias the basis, and thus your perceptions, to serve it's own interests. You should be very wary of such entaglements.
You might want to look into the legal history of America, and critical thinking skills. If you would like, I would be happy to suggest a number of excellent titles in both areas.
This is a fantastic (definition: based on fantasy : not real (?)) vision of the future by a premier technologist.
Yeah, it does sound like lots of things, an I doubt his technology holds any less promise than thousands that have come before, nor will it fail to underwhelm just as much. As for for the article, and the "vision," etc. it's a friggin' commercial.
Man, a spread in the NYT disguised as news? You can't get better than that. After reading the article (can't seem to access the web site just yet), I certainly didn't learn anything about his great new technology, or information, or about how to make my life better, but I did learn that after I'm done working on my own stuff I should forget about calling the ad people, I'll just call the reporters and get more space, for free.
Actually, the language of the agreement makes it really easy to not do all the things you propose. The problem is that it is not MS products or Windows applications that are covered under the "open protocols" bit. The only thing that is covered is Windows itself--the operating system. So, their network stuff, like Samba etc. is mostly covered (but mostly known already, so no real gain).
Though they argued in the case that IE is part of Windows, they will now certainly say that it is not. Since the oversight comittee is the MS board itself, and the judge is clearly sympathetic, it'll probbaly work. That means no IE or Outlook spects. Same gote with MS office. And any IM application.
On it's face, the judgement looks pretty good--but it was, frankly, clearly designed to fail. Not sure why.
The "caring software" argument is an interesting spin. I agree, that Linux et. al will not limit users the way MS OSes will (Apple BTW, is making a stand). However, there is still *a lot* to be worried about.
Consider that once the thing is there on the chipset, people (namely RIAA and friends) will want to use it. With the DMCA and other such laws already on the books, might not be to hard to *require* Linux to use LaGrande (via legislation) and limit your rights. Any supportted, big distro will be forced to add the stuff in or be shut down.
Once the genie's out of the bottle, it's hard as hell to get him back in again.
This may be good for most people's business (app. developers, hardware of various types), but it certainly isn't good for "everyone's business." One's love of open source/etc. shouldn't blind one to the fact that every company *must* have a proprietary core, whether it be software, services, or whatever.
Your focus on wireless... are you implying that IM is the "killer app" for wireless? That may be true.
The problem with modern media is that the information you get is often so stripped of context that it is worthless. In this case, the numbers "77 say they should be able to copy CDs" has no meaning unless one knows exactly what questions wer asked, how was they were asked, who did the asking, whom was asked, and when?
For instance, if you ask, "Hey, user, would you like to watch movies over the Internet?" you migbt get results like, "Gartner finds 80% of online users ready to for Internet movies on demand." If you ask the same question of coal workers, however, you might find, "there is no support for Internet based movies." And, the real question is, "Would you like to watch movies over the Internet if it required an ISP account of between 100-250/month in order to supply the bandwidth?" Only by asking that question of the actual population which is to be affected could you get a meaningful answer.
Gartner is notorious for slanted and meaningless surveys, and without the actual report (which typically costs many thousands of dollars), we cannot evaluate what these numbers mean at all. Maybe they're good, but theey could just as easily be way off, in either direction.
I feel I should clarify as my original comments were meant in defense of examiners from others on the topic who seemed to lay the blame at their feet.
My comments were meant regarding salaries and education, where meant not in an absolute sense, but to be taken relative to those filing and producing the patents. The point is this, the average examiner makes far less than the average lawyer filing (any important) patent, or the inventor of the patent.
Furthermore, I do not deny that examiners may be well educated, but my comments were not meant as "they are dolts." Again, they were meant as that the education, probably through lack of connections and family wealth rather than lack of merit, is probably, a lot less than the submitter (again, of important patents). Correct me if I'm wrong, but I doubt many examiners went to Harvard, Yale, MIT, or the like.
Again, this is not a judgment on examiners, just a statement of fact.
I agree that the larger problem is the sheer volume of patents and the law has built up around patents. My point in this instance was that many of the plainly ridiculous patents are missed simple because the examiners do not have the expertise, experience, or depth of knowledge to spot the fact that the patent is not about a "uniquie and non-obvious invention," but often an existing, or plainly obvious one.
This is not a knock on examiners, though I agree my original words could have been chosen better, but rather a statement of the facts of the situation. Given the current situation, it would be impossible to expect what is necessary from examiners, which is why, as I said originally, I do not feel they are to blame.
This may be the first worm designed to only harm the unwary... it's a first lots of things, and there are lots of jokes that can be made, but, realisticly, information is expensive.
A number of posts deride those who accept this EULA, but, I believe, that is largley unfair.
How many readers know their senators names? Their representative? How about at the state level? Who's your govenor, your mayor? What's the serial number on your laptop? The VIN number on your car? What's more carcenigenic: aspertane, Sweet n' Low, or potato chips?
These, and many other things, are things we all should, in some sense know, just as we should all follow every debate, write our legislature on every issue......and read every EULA. But information is expensive. It's very expensive. The people that accept these EULAs should read them, but most people, through no fault of their own, do not know how important the thing is. Nor do they have any reason, like many/. readers do, to suspect how dangerous and insedious they can be. So, because they have 1000+ things to do, and only time for 100, they skip over things which, as far as they know, are benign and mere "legal technicalities."
Ignorance is a necessary result of the human condition. You can protect yourself, but then you would spend time doing nothing else than reading EULAs and case law, and that would certainly be a worse life than getting some spam and ads plopped on your computer. Most of the people reading this would have suspected something might be up, but, I guarantee, it might take more sophistication, but we are all vulnerable to this type of thing.
There are lots of factors that go into success or non-success of a company. Technical inclination, long vs. short term goals, staying in touch, over/under management, etc. But, the number one determinant, which I didn't see a post on, is money.
I've started a few companies, and though not rich myself, everyone I've ever dealt with in the business community is. And only 1 person out of roughly two hundred was not rich prior to starting their company. And, universally, what was the single fact best correlated to their company's success? How rich they were before they started tho company.
Gates was rich, and went to Harvard, a school, primarily (especially in 1973) for rich kids. That's where he met Balmer. Money begets connections, which beget success. Other than being rich, the most important thing about Gates was that he isn't stupid.
I can't find an online bio of Ellison or McNealy, but dollars to doughnuts, their daddies were rich and well connected. Do Horatio Alger stories happen? Yes, of course. Andrew Carnegie was one. That's part of the reason why you hear so much about it, it makes good PR to project the image that most successful people "earned it."
But, in the common use of the word, it's not true. Under, over, and mis-management all matter, as do brains, staying in touch, technical knowledge, and people skills. But, the most important of these is a *distant* second to money and the connections it brings. Actually, the most important in this group might be third, since my guess is that luck is second most important. (Though you do, to a large extent, make your own luck.)
Is this mere cynicism? No. I wish the world were different, true, but it is not, so, in order to act most effectively, one must understand the reasons for things. I don't mind that people are rich. I do mind when they attribute it to their "brilliance" when the empirical facts (and I do study the subject) simply do not support such an assertion.
It's a complicated subject, and I'm not saying that rich=success. I am saying that, in the equation for success, rich has the biggest factor in front of it.
(I'm not a lawyer... but if I was, I couldn't do this poist. I have filed and reviewed hundreds of patents, though). In a patent, I'm given to understand it is the claims, not the description, which really matter. The description places the context for the claims, but the claims define the patent.
In the first claim, it seems to be describing a regular e-commerce site, until the part of the first claim:
automatic data processing means for executing inquiries provided by a user in order to search said textual and graphical information through said selected entry path means and for fetching data
as a function of other data;
(Emphasis added.)
As I read this, what they're saying is that the customer searches (by some means, a regular search, or browsing, etc.) for items, and then the results are posted. But look at the last bit. Data is selected "as a function of other data." That's the custumization the description talks about. What's the data? Anything. But, if you only let the customer browse/search and only use that data which the customer just entered (rather than storted profiles or something), you're safe.
The way I read it.
The USPTO is not to blame so much as the Congress. The PTO is staffied mainly by barely-above-minimum wage workers with less than spectacular education or work histories. Sure, the top admins share some of the blame, but mainly have been forced to address questions that are really questions of law for the legislature. But, since Congress is so afraid of distancing constituents, they typically try to pass as little important legistlation as possible, and only do so when the nation demands it of them. Since any patent law change (or even clarification) would piss someone off, no bill ever gets passed.
Thus, the PTO must make policy. It might be the wrong policy, but since they shouldn't have to make the decision in the first place, and are underfunded and under pressure, you cannot blame them entirely for bad decisions.
The patent office itself is not wholly to blame. Examiners make around 30,000, typically, and because of the spate of patents lately are *way* overworked. They are under pressure to get things out the door, are typically not nearly as well educated or have near as much time as people writing patents, and even more rarely have much specialized knowledeg in the fields they are asked to look over. If they did, they'd have another job. It's not the examiners fault, it's the system that hires them.
I have an older powerbook (Lombard, I think), with OS 9, and I still love it. I would much prefer a newer model with OSX and new hardware too, of course, but even given the age (2... 3 years?) it's still a superb laptop. As far as the hardware goes, it still beats out much of what I see out there (for all but processor speed). The price for an Apple desktop is still silly high, but the laptops are, in my opinion, not only worth it, but the best price/quality ratio out there (with think pads a respectable, but very clear second).
Re:Good for linux(?), probably not good for Sun
on
Sun To Sell Linux PCs
·
· Score: 1
Recall that Dell has gotten out of the budget PC market. As far as I can tell looking at the Dell price sheet, it's not really that hard to make a box for less than Dell, even with some support thrown in (which Dell doesn't *really* provide much in the way of in any case). Dell made their name in selling low-cost, moderate quality boxes, and is now coasting on that image. It's really not their business anymore, though.
Slashdot Mirror
The statement contains no non-subjective, non-conditional objective statements, and therefore can't be "proven" wrong.
I don't like spam, but neither do I hate it. It is no more "evil" or indicative of lack of values than commercials. If you're a mother and have found a way to make a living that let's you stay at home and provide a quality, loving and supportive atmosphere for your kids, that's great. You might not have the most noble job in the world, but then, neither do I right now.
This lady's made a trade off, which is a necessary consequence of living in the real world, and it looks like a pretty good one to me. If spam is terrible, then get a spam filter. or lobby your representatives to outlaw it.
She looks like she has a fairly mature, well thought out, and open understanding of what it is she does.
This thread is interesting, and shows the dichotemy between "what should be" and "what is." I would say that the underyling problem is not the questioner's skills, but (as some have alluded to in the HR-filter for keywords comments) is the mindset of businesses.
What most fail to realize is that 5 years in a single tech is probably a bad sign. A "better" programmer would probably have gotten bored and moved on, or moved on because it's highly unlikely that a single technology remains the best solution for that long a period of time.
My advice would thus be this: if you're good, don't worry about it. It takes a few days to pick up 98% of any language/tech., a few hours to learn 98% of the commands and interfaces for an OS etc. (unless you're administering the thing, which takes us back into the few days bit). So, just skim a Java reference, a Linux book, etc. and throw them all on your resume.
If you're not that good, you can hang yourself with this, but, then again, most companies don't know what they're doing with tech anyway (even the experts within the company), so you can get away with just being mediocre.
And, if you find a company that thinks the right way about technology, they'll understand it's a fluid thing and they'll be looking for smart people, not people who've memorized wasted their time memorizing reference books that are available for $20 or online for free.
What you say is probably what many believe, but it is also foolish. These things do not exist in a vacuum. What corporations do/want to do and what laws get passed (either via the legislature or from the bench) are, will be, and have always been tightly intertwined.
What is maybe less common, historically, but which is a fairly obvious possibility given the current political climate and policies of the government, is that capabilities introduced by technology will begin to drive legislation.
There are two primary factors that I see behind this. First, is the simple enablement. The government is less likely to pass laws (or interpret laws to the effect of) limiting peoples rights without a clear way to enforce the law. DVD encryption and the DMCA are an example of this. Why didn't the government do this with VHS? There was pressure to do so, but the industry could not propose any means of enforcement. If the government passed laws that were simple to break and impossible to investigate or prosecute, then respect for laws in general would begin to break down. Especially when there exists a strong and ever-present temptation to break the laws for immediate gain.
The DVD consortium, however, proposed a viable (albeit weak) mechanism to protect their medium and proposed a comprehensive plan to enforce it. There were holes, but it was enough to allow congress to do what they always want to do, help out corporations.
There were many other factors behind the DMCA, and I'm not saying that DVD encryption schemes and policies were sufficient, nor even necessary, but they were a factor, though probably not even the largest (at least not directly).
The other main drive, which has already been alluded to, is industry support. When large companies get together and commit to a technoloy, the government knows that the spin and marketing will get behind whatever it is they are doing. This allows them to do things that, without such support, would be largely unpopular and hurt their chances at getting re-elected. But, with all the money that the government knows will be put behind such self-serving efforts, they can have their cake and eat it to; that is, pass laws detrimental to the rights of their constituency for the benefit of their corporate backers, and still appear to be serving the public interest.
This is a very realy possibility with the LaGrande/Palladium/etc. effort. Besides the work of Intel and MS, the real effort is to make DRM (an misnomer which is already part of the spin and marketing campaign) is a larger effort supported by AMD, RIAA, Hollywood, Sony, etc. With all the money behind the thing, you can bet that not noly can congress be assured of billions being spent to alter or obscure the public perception of the truncation of their rights, but also in millions of dollars of campaign contributions, lobbyists, and outright bribes flowing into their pockets if they, the congress, plays ball with the industry effort.
So, to say that what Intel is doing has nothing do with what legistlators are doing, or that the objectives, goals, and actions of the two are irrelevant, is both short sighted and dangerous. In stating such a thing, you are failing to make even the first, and most obvious connections.
If nothing else, consider this: it is the goal of Intel/MS/etc. and (the bulk of) congressional reperesentatives/senators to increase their power/make money. LaGrande/Palladium/etc. is a mechanism by which they both can do precisely that. So, they will, at the expense of the people.
I am not saying that your assertions or conclusions are without basis. Not at all. They have a strong basis. But, what you fail to realize is that that basis is rooted in the governmental/corporate infrastructure itself, and so necessarily and naturally will bias the basis, and thus your perceptions, to serve it's own interests. You should be very wary of such entaglements.
You might want to look into the legal history of America, and critical thinking skills. If you would like, I would be happy to suggest a number of excellent titles in both areas.
This is a fantastic (definition: based on fantasy : not real (?)) vision of the future by a premier technologist.
Yeah, it does sound like lots of things, an I doubt his technology holds any less promise than thousands that have come before, nor will it fail to underwhelm just as much. As for for the article, and the "vision," etc. it's a friggin' commercial.
Man, a spread in the NYT disguised as news? You can't get better than that. After reading the article (can't seem to access the web site just yet), I certainly didn't learn anything about his great new technology, or information, or about how to make my life better, but I did learn that after I'm done working on my own stuff I should forget about calling the ad people, I'll just call the reporters and get more space, for free.
Actually, the language of the agreement makes it really easy to not do all the things you propose. The problem is that it is not MS products or Windows applications that are covered under the "open protocols" bit. The only thing that is covered is Windows itself--the operating system. So, their network stuff, like Samba etc. is mostly covered (but mostly known already, so no real gain).
Though they argued in the case that IE is part of Windows, they will now certainly say that it is not. Since the oversight comittee is the MS board itself, and the judge is clearly sympathetic, it'll probbaly work. That means no IE or Outlook spects. Same gote with MS office. And any IM application.
On it's face, the judgement looks pretty good--but it was, frankly, clearly designed to fail. Not sure why.
Last I heard, AMD was on board. They're not really in a position to fight MS and RIAA at the moment.
Apple, on the other hand, is not on board, so, unless things have changed last time I looked (and who knows now-a-days?) you're half right.
The "caring software" argument is an interesting spin. I agree, that Linux et. al will not limit users the way MS OSes will (Apple BTW, is making a stand). However, there is still *a lot* to be worried about.
Consider that once the thing is there on the chipset, people (namely RIAA and friends) will want to use it. With the DMCA and other such laws already on the books, might not be to hard to *require* Linux to use LaGrande (via legislation) and limit your rights. Any supportted, big distro will be forced to add the stuff in or be shut down.
Once the genie's out of the bottle, it's hard as hell to get him back in again.
This may be good for most people's business (app. developers, hardware of various types), but it certainly isn't good for "everyone's business." One's love of open source/etc. shouldn't blind one to the fact that every company *must* have a proprietary core, whether it be software, services, or whatever.
Your focus on wireless... are you implying that IM is the "killer app" for wireless? That may be true.
Danger => Dancer. I wish I cauld [sic] securely edit my posts.
Perhaps, if all profit oriented corporations are abominations. But, that's another discussion.
The problem isn't ICANN, it's the fact that we let the thing be run by ICANN in the first place.
Maybe the real question then, is "How can't they get away with this?" (Insert smiling vaudville danger with cane and jazz-hands.)
The problem with modern media is that the information you get is often so stripped of context that it is worthless. In this case, the numbers "77 say they should be able to copy CDs" has no meaning unless one knows exactly what questions wer asked, how was they were asked, who did the asking, whom was asked, and when?
For instance, if you ask, "Hey, user, would you like to watch movies over the Internet?" you migbt get results like, "Gartner finds 80% of online users ready to for Internet movies on demand." If you ask the same question of coal workers, however, you might find, "there is no support for Internet based movies." And, the real question is, "Would you like to watch movies over the Internet if it required an ISP account of between 100-250/month in order to supply the bandwidth?" Only by asking that question of the actual population which is to be affected could you get a meaningful answer.
Gartner is notorious for slanted and meaningless surveys, and without the actual report (which typically costs many thousands of dollars), we cannot evaluate what these numbers mean at all. Maybe they're good, but theey could just as easily be way off, in either direction.
I feel I should clarify as my original comments were meant in defense of examiners from others on the topic who seemed to lay the blame at their feet.
My comments were meant regarding salaries and education, where meant not in an absolute sense, but to be taken relative to those filing and producing the patents. The point is this, the average examiner makes far less than the average lawyer filing (any important) patent, or the inventor of the patent.
Furthermore, I do not deny that examiners may be well educated, but my comments were not meant as "they are dolts." Again, they were meant as that the education, probably through lack of connections and family wealth rather than lack of merit, is probably, a lot less than the submitter (again, of important patents). Correct me if I'm wrong, but I doubt many examiners went to Harvard, Yale, MIT, or the like.
Again, this is not a judgment on examiners, just a statement of fact.
I agree that the larger problem is the sheer volume of patents and the law has built up around patents. My point in this instance was that many of the plainly ridiculous patents are missed simple because the examiners do not have the expertise, experience, or depth of knowledge to spot the fact that the patent is not about a "uniquie and non-obvious invention," but often an existing, or plainly obvious one.
This is not a knock on examiners, though I agree my original words could have been chosen better, but rather a statement of the facts of the situation. Given the current situation, it would be impossible to expect what is necessary from examiners, which is why, as I said originally, I do not feel they are to blame.
This may be the first worm designed to only harm the unwary... it's a first lots of things, and there are lots of jokes that can be made, but, realisticly, information is expensive.
...and read every EULA. But information is expensive. It's very expensive. The people that accept these EULAs should read them, but most people, through no fault of their own, do not know how important the thing is. Nor do they have any reason, like many /. readers do, to suspect how dangerous and insedious they can be. So, because they have 1000+ things to do, and only time for 100, they skip over things which, as far as they know, are benign and mere "legal technicalities."
A number of posts deride those who accept this EULA, but, I believe, that is largley unfair.
How many readers know their senators names? Their representative? How about at the state level? Who's your govenor, your mayor? What's the serial number on your laptop? The VIN number on your car? What's more carcenigenic: aspertane, Sweet n' Low, or potato chips?
These, and many other things, are things we all should, in some sense know, just as we should all follow every debate, write our legislature on every issue...
Ignorance is a necessary result of the human condition. You can protect yourself, but then you would spend time doing nothing else than reading EULAs and case law, and that would certainly be a worse life than getting some spam and ads plopped on your computer. Most of the people reading this would have suspected something might be up, but, I guarantee, it might take more sophistication, but we are all vulnerable to this type of thing.
There are lots of factors that go into success or non-success of a company. Technical inclination, long vs. short term goals, staying in touch, over/under management, etc. But, the number one determinant, which I didn't see a post on, is money.
I've started a few companies, and though not rich myself, everyone I've ever dealt with in the business community is. And only 1 person out of roughly two hundred was not rich prior to starting their company. And, universally, what was the single fact best correlated to their company's success? How rich they were before they started tho company.
Gates was rich, and went to Harvard, a school, primarily (especially in 1973) for rich kids. That's where he met Balmer. Money begets connections, which beget success. Other than being rich, the most important thing about Gates was that he isn't stupid.
I can't find an online bio of Ellison or McNealy, but dollars to doughnuts, their daddies were rich and well connected. Do Horatio Alger stories happen? Yes, of course. Andrew Carnegie was one. That's part of the reason why you hear so much about it, it makes good PR to project the image that most successful people "earned it."
But, in the common use of the word, it's not true. Under, over, and mis-management all matter, as do brains, staying in touch, technical knowledge, and people skills. But, the most important of these is a *distant* second to money and the connections it brings. Actually, the most important in this group might be third, since my guess is that luck is second most important. (Though you do, to a large extent, make your own luck.)
Is this mere cynicism? No. I wish the world were different, true, but it is not, so, in order to act most effectively, one must understand the reasons for things. I don't mind that people are rich. I do mind when they attribute it to their "brilliance" when the empirical facts (and I do study the subject) simply do not support such an assertion.
It's a complicated subject, and I'm not saying that rich=success. I am saying that, in the equation for success, rich has the biggest factor in front of it.
The USPTO is not to blame so much as the Congress. The PTO is staffied mainly by barely-above-minimum wage workers with less than spectacular education or work histories. Sure, the top admins share some of the blame, but mainly have been forced to address questions that are really questions of law for the legislature. But, since Congress is so afraid of distancing constituents, they typically try to pass as little important legistlation as possible, and only do so when the nation demands it of them. Since any patent law change (or even clarification) would piss someone off, no bill ever gets passed.
Thus, the PTO must make policy. It might be the wrong policy, but since they shouldn't have to make the decision in the first place, and are underfunded and under pressure, you cannot blame them entirely for bad decisions.
The patent office itself is not wholly to blame. Examiners make around 30,000, typically, and because of the spate of patents lately are *way* overworked. They are under pressure to get things out the door, are typically not nearly as well educated or have near as much time as people writing patents, and even more rarely have much specialized knowledeg in the fields they are asked to look over. If they did, they'd have another job. It's not the examiners fault, it's the system that hires them.
I have an older powerbook (Lombard, I think), with OS 9, and I still love it. I would much prefer a newer model with OSX and new hardware too, of course, but even given the age (2... 3 years?) it's still a superb laptop. As far as the hardware goes, it still beats out much of what I see out there (for all but processor speed). The price for an Apple desktop is still silly high, but the laptops are, in my opinion, not only worth it, but the best price/quality ratio out there (with think pads a respectable, but very clear second).
Recall that Dell has gotten out of the budget PC market. As far as I can tell looking at the Dell price sheet, it's not really that hard to make a box for less than Dell, even with some support thrown in (which Dell doesn't *really* provide much in the way of in any case). Dell made their name in selling low-cost, moderate quality boxes, and is now coasting on that image. It's really not their business anymore, though.