Well, while the summary says all those cases ended up in front of him, it doesn't say how many of them were for one hearing where it went something like "Your Honor, both sides in this case have reached an agreement we can live with."
I mean, yeah, a lot of these cases are patent trolls. But other cases could be legitimate patent issues between two companies. And you can't sue someone and then just go "Nah, forget all about it" without informing the judge if it's already gotten that far.
Don't hold your breath waiting for the media to learn.
"Hey, it's a tech thing we barely understand! Let's play spot the buzzword and write an article!"
"Hey, it's a medical thing we barely understand, but the word 'cancer' is in the article. Let's write an article how this causes and/or stops cancer in it's tracks!"
Depends on how old those civilizations are, now doesn't it?
The earth is ~4.5 billion years old. Human civilization as we know it is only ~6,000 years old. (Modern humans as a species are only ~200,000 years old.)
There could be other civilizations out there that are centuries behind us in technology, or on par, or far ahead of us. Hell, there could have already been races that hit their version of the singularity and are so far beyond us that they are undetectable.
Hell, there's a strip mall nearby that has a Radio Shack sign, but it's not actually a Radio Shack any more. The store was too cheap to take the sign down when they left, and the people in the location now are too cheap to take the sign down now to remove any confusion.
Depends. If you go out an personally buy a Fitbit, any data collected is not covered under HIPAA. If you are given one by a hospital for them to collect data on you, it IS covered by HIPAA.
You're operating under the assumption that they've thought that far ahead.
Remember when Radio Shack would ask for your phone number/email/whatever when you bought batteries? Or, well, anything, really. It was to collect data for marketing purposes, so they could send you advertisements and coupons and yes, turn around and sell that information to other companies.
But no one at Radio Shack really thought ahead to see that it was an asinine plan. Some marketing guy came up with the idea, and convinced a VP of the company that it the best idea ever, and blammo, you're being asked to fill out what amount to a marketing questionnaire when you make a purchase.
Side note: I never got mad at the Radio Shack employees for this. They're only following corporate dictates. I worked in retail for over a decade. You would be surprised how often some silly-ass policy came down from the corporate offices because someone thought it was the best idea ever.
Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that they've gotten the idea that they want to collect this data, but it doesn't necessarily follow that they know what to do with this data. Other than make money off of it. But like the underpants gnomes, they haven't worked out the intermediate steps yet.
Yes, because all spinal trauma occurs from a blade whose width is measured in angstroms.
Yes, the procedure could fail. In fact, it most likely will. But what they're planning to do to the spinal cords of the patient and the donor body is just a wee bit different in terms of damage than being in a car accident or being whacked across the spine repeatedly with a baseball bat.
We don't push back the bounds of what is impossible without trying.
Now, clearly, I'm not saying we should try _anything_ under the sun to see if it will work. We should have ethics in science and medicine.
But this is a case where the patient is, of his own free will, accepting the risks of this procedure. And the risks are considerable. It is quite likely that he will die from this. It is also quite likely that if he doesn't die, that he won't live very long afterwards, or that his quality of life will not be better than what he has now.
There is, frankly speaking, a very small chance that this will work with resounding success.
But even in failure, there is a chance that we could learn something from this that will make this procedure or other related medical procedures more likely to occur successfully.
I consider myself a decent sci-fi and fantasy fan. Not the biggest fan in the world, but more than a casual fan. I've read a lot of Heinlein, some Asimov, practically all of Pratchett's Discworld series, a chunk of David Drake's work, stuff by Ellison, Gerrold, etc. and so on.
But you know what? I've never read any of the Foundation books from cover to cover. Just can't get into them. I've read other Asimov stuff. Just never got into the Foundation series.
Does that mean I don't think the Foundation series is worthy of having won a special Hugo for "Best all-time series"? *shrug* Doesn't concern me one way or the other. Heck, I've read most of the other series that were in consideration for that award when Foundation won it, and they're all pretty good, so I assume that the Foundation series is too.
But I don't know.
See?
I know there are sci-fi fans out there who can't stand Heinlein's "Future History" books. Hell, I used to live with one.
The problem is that the * Puppies groups are treating subjective opinion like objective fact. "I didn't like this, therefore it's not good, and that it got nominated is a sign that the secret liberal reptilians have taken over the nomination process. Therefore, we have to act against them." (Or something like that. I'm not really sure what their reasoning is.)
I'd also argue it's much easier to promulgate "how to vote" cards.
I mean, think about it. In the '50s, how would you promote the idea of a mass of people voting the same way for the Hugo slate? Massive letter writing campaign, probably.
Because it's not like the definition of "good science fiction" has changed at all in the last 70 years.
I mean, think about it. You probably couldn't get a publisher for the Lensman series if it was being written today. And science fiction has always contained a reflection of the times it was written in. Stuff written during the early part of the Cold War is going to have a very different feel than stuff written today.
You know, I've never been able to understand how people can think Heinlein was a misogynist. It's like they either haven't read his books, or willfully misinterpreted them.
And hell, who knows, sooner or later, it might happen for real. I mean, 30 years ago, things like smart phones, virtual reality gaming (okay, good virtual reality gaming), and self-driving cars were the province of science fiction.
We could still get to this type of blood testing. It's just not through Theranos.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, while the summary says all those cases ended up in front of him, it doesn't say how many of them were for one hearing where it went something like "Your Honor, both sides in this case have reached an agreement we can live with."
I mean, yeah, a lot of these cases are patent trolls. But other cases could be legitimate patent issues between two companies. And you can't sue someone and then just go "Nah, forget all about it" without informing the judge if it's already gotten that far.
HE KNOWS.
That's it, no tofu for you.
Or you watched the recent Mythbusters episode on rockets/gummi bears.
I'm going to go with "Hey, here's a feature which might attract a lot of users, and therefore, we'll have a higher valuation. Consequences be damned."
Never attribute to evil what can be adequately explained by stupidity or greed.
Don't hold your breath waiting for the media to learn.
"Hey, it's a tech thing we barely understand! Let's play spot the buzzword and write an article!"
"Hey, it's a medical thing we barely understand, but the word 'cancer' is in the article. Let's write an article how this causes and/or stops cancer in it's tracks!"
Let's be fair. There's an equally large chunk of (R) voters who vote (R) no matter who is running.
Although I suspect it might shrink a little this election, what with the nomination going to Drumpf.
Depends on how old those civilizations are, now doesn't it?
The earth is ~4.5 billion years old. Human civilization as we know it is only ~6,000 years old. (Modern humans as a species are only ~200,000 years old.)
There could be other civilizations out there that are centuries behind us in technology, or on par, or far ahead of us. Hell, there could have already been races that hit their version of the singularity and are so far beyond us that they are undetectable.
My god, we've invented a technology journalist.
Or, rather, any journalist.
How will this contribute to MeatHab?
Really? We use the hooves of a cow?
Oh wait, hot dogs. My bad. You're right.
The key word there is "theoretically".
Hell, there's a strip mall nearby that has a Radio Shack sign, but it's not actually a Radio Shack any more. The store was too cheap to take the sign down when they left, and the people in the location now are too cheap to take the sign down now to remove any confusion.
Depends. If you go out an personally buy a Fitbit, any data collected is not covered under HIPAA. If you are given one by a hospital for them to collect data on you, it IS covered by HIPAA.
You're operating under the assumption that they've thought that far ahead.
Remember when Radio Shack would ask for your phone number/email/whatever when you bought batteries? Or, well, anything, really. It was to collect data for marketing purposes, so they could send you advertisements and coupons and yes, turn around and sell that information to other companies.
But no one at Radio Shack really thought ahead to see that it was an asinine plan. Some marketing guy came up with the idea, and convinced a VP of the company that it the best idea ever, and blammo, you're being asked to fill out what amount to a marketing questionnaire when you make a purchase.
Side note: I never got mad at the Radio Shack employees for this. They're only following corporate dictates. I worked in retail for over a decade. You would be surprised how often some silly-ass policy came down from the corporate offices because someone thought it was the best idea ever.
Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that they've gotten the idea that they want to collect this data, but it doesn't necessarily follow that they know what to do with this data. Other than make money off of it. But like the underpants gnomes, they haven't worked out the intermediate steps yet.
Yes, because all spinal trauma occurs from a blade whose width is measured in angstroms.
Yes, the procedure could fail. In fact, it most likely will. But what they're planning to do to the spinal cords of the patient and the donor body is just a wee bit different in terms of damage than being in a car accident or being whacked across the spine repeatedly with a baseball bat.
We don't push back the bounds of what is impossible without trying.
Now, clearly, I'm not saying we should try _anything_ under the sun to see if it will work. We should have ethics in science and medicine.
But this is a case where the patient is, of his own free will, accepting the risks of this procedure. And the risks are considerable. It is quite likely that he will die from this. It is also quite likely that if he doesn't die, that he won't live very long afterwards, or that his quality of life will not be better than what he has now.
There is, frankly speaking, a very small chance that this will work with resounding success.
But even in failure, there is a chance that we could learn something from this that will make this procedure or other related medical procedures more likely to occur successfully.
The problem is, WHAT is highly subjective.
Here, I'll show you.
I consider myself a decent sci-fi and fantasy fan. Not the biggest fan in the world, but more than a casual fan. I've read a lot of Heinlein, some Asimov, practically all of Pratchett's Discworld series, a chunk of David Drake's work, stuff by Ellison, Gerrold, etc. and so on.
But you know what? I've never read any of the Foundation books from cover to cover. Just can't get into them. I've read other Asimov stuff. Just never got into the Foundation series.
Does that mean I don't think the Foundation series is worthy of having won a special Hugo for "Best all-time series"? *shrug* Doesn't concern me one way or the other. Heck, I've read most of the other series that were in consideration for that award when Foundation won it, and they're all pretty good, so I assume that the Foundation series is too.
But I don't know.
See?
I know there are sci-fi fans out there who can't stand Heinlein's "Future History" books. Hell, I used to live with one.
The problem is that the * Puppies groups are treating subjective opinion like objective fact. "I didn't like this, therefore it's not good, and that it got nominated is a sign that the secret liberal reptilians have taken over the nomination process. Therefore, we have to act against them." (Or something like that. I'm not really sure what their reasoning is.)
I'd also argue it's much easier to promulgate "how to vote" cards.
I mean, think about it. In the '50s, how would you promote the idea of a mass of people voting the same way for the Hugo slate? Massive letter writing campaign, probably.
Now, it takes a ding-dong with a blog post.
Because it's not like the definition of "good science fiction" has changed at all in the last 70 years.
I mean, think about it. You probably couldn't get a publisher for the Lensman series if it was being written today. And science fiction has always contained a reflection of the times it was written in. Stuff written during the early part of the Cold War is going to have a very different feel than stuff written today.
You know, I've never been able to understand how people can think Heinlein was a misogynist. It's like they either haven't read his books, or willfully misinterpreted them.
Actually, gerrymandering and the benefits of incumbency help just as much as the money does, if not more.
And nothing of value was lost.
Would have been nice, yeah.
And hell, who knows, sooner or later, it might happen for real. I mean, 30 years ago, things like smart phones, virtual reality gaming (okay, good virtual reality gaming), and self-driving cars were the province of science fiction.
We could still get to this type of blood testing. It's just not through Theranos.
Unnecessary and derogatory name-calling on Slashdot.
Take a shot.
To the best of my knowledge, there are numerous attendees who are not delegates or news staff.