My naive take on it is that the problem seems to be in allowing patents that are patently [punny, sorry] obvious to be granted. Many things that were probably common knowledge prior to allowing software to be patented were allowed to be patented, and many new patents cover crazy things like "one-click" shopping.
The "one-click" patent shows the key absurdity: almost every interaction on the internet (except for text entry) requires a response to a click on a link/hyperlink. (text entry requires a response to a letter one at a time which occurs on the user's browser on the user's computer.)
So effectively, every single mouse-click results in a complex response on the server-side based on the context of the data entered, perhaps with a "POST". So the request for a "one-click" purchase which agglomerates looking up previously retained data from a database such as name, prior purchase delivery address, prior purchase payment information, et cetera, is really no more than a post requesting a response from the server side.
Why should a server response that says "buy it now, using my previously saved settings as name address payment option + longer explanation" be allowed to be patented just because it's put on a clickable button that says just the "buy it now" part?
That's my rant.
"...all new content-delivery technology should be presumed illegal..."
I was going to make a satiric response to that absurd statement by saying that the government shall soon decree
... all new human beings should be presumed illegal...... until approved by the government."
And then I realized that in the USA, if you don't have a social security number, you are for all intents and purposes an "illegal". Your parents can't even deduct you as a dependent unless you have a social security number, which is often assigned at birth. My mom didn't get her SSN until just before college, and dad didn't get his until he was sixteen and getting a driver's license.
Swift and his Modest Proposal were too subtle for most people.
Draw a line in the sand is my zwei pfennig
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Sexism In Science
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My dad told me and told my sister that we need to stand up for ourselves. My brother was told during an unpaid "undergraduate research opportunity" at a big hospital where he was working on some engineering (EE) stuff to help file some papers. He said "my job here isn't to file papers, it's to do electrical system analysis" or some such thing. Of course, you could say he wasn't going to lose a paid position, but he would have / could have lost a position important for letters of recommendation. His speaking up was held against him, but he drew a line in the sand and stuck with it.
I'd say you need to draw a line in the sand.
Best of luck, and best wishes. Let someone else answer the phone.
What do you do in tech, btw?
Coal is significantly cheaper to use as a source of carbon than sugar is, whether you buy it by the short ton (2000 pounds) as a big ol' company, or at the local Bi-Lo or grocery store.
A ton of sugar would cost a lot more than a ton of coal. http://www.mongabay.com/images/commodities/charts/sugar.html . The amount of coal is so abundant still that the market price of it is lower than the cost of raising sugar-cane or sugar-beets and refining them into sugar.
a ton of coal costs from $30 per 2000 lbs in Y2K upto $150 per 2000 lbs in the year 2008, and about $30-$50 per ton in May of 2012.
a ton of sugar would cost about $600 with the world price of sugar at less than 60 cents per kilogram.
Also, a ton of sugar would cost a lot more than a ton of coal. The amount of coal is so abundant still that the market price of it is lower than the cost of raising sugar-cane or sugar-beets and refining them into sugar.
a ton of coal costs from $30 per 2000 lbs in Y2K upto $150 per 2000 lbs in the year 2008, and about $30-$50 per ton in May of 2012.
a ton of sugar would cost about $600 with the world price of sugar at less than 60 cents per kilogram.
I was commenting on the humor of still calling it sugar, not making light of the achievement of using sugar to heat. Carbon is actually fairly cheap to find without any attached hydrogens or oxygens. It's so abundant that we take the output of coal mines and just burn it for energy. Anyway, the comments about "Alchemy" should have given away the joking tone about rearranging subatomic particles.
Of course there are leftovers. I was not trying to balance the equations for C_6 H_{12} O_6 on one side and Pu^{238}_1 on the other side. I was using my Alchemist's license, which I keep on hand next to my Poetic License. If I were eco-freakin'-good, I could balance it and take the left-over protons+neutrons+electrons and create plain old {H_2 O} out of it.:)
So wait, people, I've got an idea for taking the protons, electrons, and neutrons in Sugar(!) and rearranging groups of 144 neutrons and 94 protons and combining them into a new configuration which is Pu-238 (plutonium 238) and use them to create a super-duper new battery that has even more energy density!
If they can argue that carbonizing C_6 H_12 O_6 into carbon with high temperature still allows them to call it a "sugar battery", I argue that my elemental alchemist's transformation into plutonium can also be called a sugar battery.
How many bars have you been to where you have to provide your Driver's License for them to swipe through a reader for entry? (This is more common at clubs on Fridays and Saturday, and more so if you're in the college-age crowd hangouts)
If so, you've already provided a lot of information about yourself and your time and frequency of visiting which the bars SELL.
Some liquor stores and grocery stores also scan when you're purchasing alcohol. While it's supposed to be illegal, at least in Illinois to use this to acquire and retain address information (cite according to Illinois legal aid, companies sell marketing solutions where they explicitly claim that they can and will retain and market this data.
Have you ever seen someone obviously well over drinking age also getting scanned ahead of you and they say it is only just policy. That's probably the clear sign that they're collecting data to sell it, rather than just to check age on possible underage drinkers.
Natural orifice translumenal endoscopic surgery (NOTES surgery is the full name for this type of surgery going through natural orifices. There are a few conferences on it yearly in the US and UK and Europe alone that I know of, and the Japanese also have some conferences on it.
The lack of an externally observable scar is one benefit, and the ability of wet mucosal membranes to heal more readily is another benefit. The risk of complications and need to convert to open surgical approaches is unquantified thus far, as the procedures are fairly new. (Kind of like how brand new drugs have very few known side effects. Once they get out into a larger population using it that the Phase I and II trials, the known side effects grow rapidly. )
Same thing with new surgical procedures: you can honestly say there are few known side-effects or bad outcomes, but that's just a result of there being so few procedures performed so far. That's hype.
Complications may necessitate conversion to "Open surgical" approaches, the traditional trans-abdominal wall lapartomy.
Option 1b: surgery gets complicated, something gets ruptured (hope its not an artery) and the operation has to be converted to open laparotomy.
Option 2b: laparscopic approach via small incisions in the abdominal wall gets complicated, something gets ruptured, and the operation has to be converted to open laparotomy.
In either case, open laparotomy with a longer abdominal scar will be necessary. There's a lot of experience with laparoscopic approaches and with converting to open in case of emergency. There isn't much (or any) experience with trans-stomach wall for most surgeons.
There have been problems with kidney and liver veins and arteries being nicked during lap. cholecystectomies (gall-bladder surgery) and even cases of kidneys being lost during trans-vaginal approaches to the abdominal cavity. The mucosal walls heal well and are less likely to be exposed to external infection, so that's one benefit; but the likelihood of other complications cannot be quantified yet. (as for mucosal walls, there are also transoral approaches to spinal surgery for the odontoid, and the pull the lips up to transect through the nose for brain surgery of the pituitary, and the oral musoca heals very well.)
Complications may necessitate conversion to "Open surgical" approaches, the traditional trans-abdominal wall lapartomy.
Option 1b: surgery gets complicated, something gets ruptured (hope its not an artery) and the operation has to be converted to open laparotomy.
Option 2b: laparscopic approach via small incisions in the abdominal wall gets complicated, something gets ruptured, and the operation has to be converted to open laparotomy.
In either case, open laparotomy with a longer abdominal scar will be necessary. There's a lot of experience with laparoscopic approaches and with converting to open in case of emergency. There isn't much (or any) experience with trans-stomach wall for most surgeons.
There have been problems with kidney and liver veins and arteries being nicked during lap. cholecystectomies (gall-bladder surgery) and even cases of kidneys being lost during trans-vaginal approaches to the abdominal cavity.
The mucosal walls heal well and are less likely to be exposed to external infection, so that's one benefit; but the likelihood of other complications cannot be quantified yet. (as for mucosal walls, there are also transoral approaches to spinal surgery for the odontoid, and the pull the lips up to transect through the nose for brain surgery of the pituitary, and the oral musoca heals very well.)
Read Technogirl's reply above. It's usually not worth duking it out directly with criminals and ne'er-do-wells who are not above breaking the law (or any of your limbs) to get their way. Get your facts together and try to re-present them to Youtube, find other ways to publicize this, take the registered claimant of their web-site to court (small claims if you want to handle it yourself, regular court with higher limits if you can affortd an attorney) and win a default judgment since they are out of the country and will not appear.
In order for this to work, you must "serve" them proper notice of your suit. You'll need help for this small claims court; you might be better off hiring an attorney to help you with that.
Once you win a default judgment, pass along the appropriate court-case docket and ruling information to Goo-You-tube and ask them to please please now help you and realize that those copycats are the infringer and that you are the rightful holder of the copy-right.
Good luck, sir.
So why exactly would you love to reside in Australia?
What do you think needs to be done in this country for rural (as in Texas between El Paso and San Antonio, or as in Kern County, CA, or as in the area between Tallahassee and Pensacola where even cell phone services drops out on I-10) America as opposed to suburban America?
I think it's a shame that even being a smidge out of distance of DSL/fiber range means you get nothing after so much of our use and service taxes have been paid to the Public Utilities which have these monopolies and have been given right-of-way/easement access often through eminent domain acquisition.
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The "one-click" patent shows the key absurdity: almost every interaction on the internet (except for text entry) requires a response to a click on a link/hyperlink. (text entry requires a response to a letter one at a time which occurs on the user's browser on the user's computer.)
So effectively, every single mouse-click results in a complex response on the server-side based on the context of the data entered, perhaps with a "POST". So the request for a "one-click" purchase which agglomerates looking up previously retained data from a database such as name, prior purchase delivery address, prior purchase payment information, et cetera, is really no more than a post requesting a response from the server side.
Why should a server response that says "buy it now, using my previously saved settings as name address payment option + longer explanation" be allowed to be patented just because it's put on a clickable button that says just the "buy it now" part? That's my rant.
I was going to make a satiric response to that absurd statement by saying that the government shall soon decree
And then I realized that in the USA, if you don't have a social security number, you are for all intents and purposes an "illegal". Your parents can't even deduct you as a dependent unless you have a social security number, which is often assigned at birth. My mom didn't get her SSN until just before college, and dad didn't get his until he was sixteen and getting a driver's license.
Swift and his Modest Proposal were too subtle for most people.
My dad told me and told my sister that we need to stand up for ourselves. My brother was told during an unpaid "undergraduate research opportunity" at a big hospital where he was working on some engineering (EE) stuff to help file some papers. He said "my job here isn't to file papers, it's to do electrical system analysis" or some such thing. Of course, you could say he wasn't going to lose a paid position, but he would have / could have lost a position important for letters of recommendation. His speaking up was held against him, but he drew a line in the sand and stuck with it. I'd say you need to draw a line in the sand. Best of luck, and best wishes. Let someone else answer the phone. What do you do in tech, btw?
A ton of sugar would cost a lot more than a ton of coal. http://www.mongabay.com/images/commodities/charts/sugar.html . The amount of coal is so abundant still that the market price of it is lower than the cost of raising sugar-cane or sugar-beets and refining them into sugar.
a ton of coal costs from $30 per 2000 lbs in Y2K upto $150 per 2000 lbs in the year 2008, and about $30-$50 per ton in May of 2012.
a ton of sugar would cost about $600 with the world price of sugar at less than 60 cents per kilogram.
a ton of coal costs from $30 per 2000 lbs in Y2K upto $150 per 2000 lbs in the year 2008, and about $30-$50 per ton in May of 2012.
a ton of sugar would cost about $600 with the world price of sugar at less than 60 cents per kilogram.
I was commenting on the humor of still calling it sugar, not making light of the achievement of using sugar to heat. Carbon is actually fairly cheap to find without any attached hydrogens or oxygens. It's so abundant that we take the output of coal mines and just burn it for energy. Anyway, the comments about "Alchemy" should have given away the joking tone about rearranging subatomic particles.
Of course there are leftovers. I was not trying to balance the equations for C_6 H_{12} O_6 on one side and Pu^{238}_1 on the other side. I was using my Alchemist's license, which I keep on hand next to my Poetic License. If I were eco-freakin'-good, I could balance it and take the left-over protons+neutrons+electrons and create plain old {H_2 O} out of it. :)
If they can argue that carbonizing C_6 H_12 O_6 into carbon with high temperature still allows them to call it a "sugar battery", I argue that my elemental alchemist's transformation into plutonium can also be called a sugar battery.
The New York times wrote about it back in 2002 http://www.nytimes.com/learning/teachers/featured_articles/20020321thursday.html
and multiple companies advertise hardware to do this: IdentiBar Drivers License Scanning solutions for Nightclubs and Bars.
Some liquor stores and grocery stores also scan when you're purchasing alcohol. While it's supposed to be illegal, at least in Illinois to use this to acquire and retain address information (cite according to Illinois legal aid, companies sell marketing solutions where they explicitly claim that they can and will retain and market this data.
Have you ever seen someone obviously well over drinking age also getting scanned ahead of you and they say it is only just policy. That's probably the clear sign that they're collecting data to sell it, rather than just to check age on possible underage drinkers.
It's enough to make you paranoid. :>)
Complications may necessitate conversion to "Open surgical" approaches, the traditional trans-abdominal wall lapartomy.
Option 1b: surgery gets complicated, something gets ruptured (hope its not an artery) and the operation has to be converted to open laparotomy.
Option 2b: laparscopic approach via small incisions in the abdominal wall gets complicated, something gets ruptured, and the operation has to be converted to open laparotomy.
In either case, open laparotomy with a longer abdominal scar will be necessary. There's a lot of experience with laparoscopic approaches and with converting to open in case of emergency. There isn't much (or any) experience with trans-stomach wall for most surgeons.
There have been problems with kidney and liver veins and arteries being nicked during lap. cholecystectomies (gall-bladder surgery) and even cases of kidneys being lost during trans-vaginal approaches to the abdominal cavity. The mucosal walls heal well and are less likely to be exposed to external infection, so that's one benefit; but the likelihood of other complications cannot be quantified yet. (as for mucosal walls, there are also transoral approaches to spinal surgery for the odontoid, and the pull the lips up to transect through the nose for brain surgery of the pituitary, and the oral musoca heals very well.)
Complications may necessitate conversion to "Open surgical" approaches, the traditional trans-abdominal wall lapartomy. Option 1b: surgery gets complicated, something gets ruptured (hope its not an artery) and the operation has to be converted to open laparotomy. Option 2b: laparscopic approach via small incisions in the abdominal wall gets complicated, something gets ruptured, and the operation has to be converted to open laparotomy. In either case, open laparotomy with a longer abdominal scar will be necessary. There's a lot of experience with laparoscopic approaches and with converting to open in case of emergency. There isn't much (or any) experience with trans-stomach wall for most surgeons. There have been problems with kidney and liver veins and arteries being nicked during lap. cholecystectomies (gall-bladder surgery) and even cases of kidneys being lost during trans-vaginal approaches to the abdominal cavity. The mucosal walls heal well and are less likely to be exposed to external infection, so that's one benefit; but the likelihood of other complications cannot be quantified yet. (as for mucosal walls, there are also transoral approaches to spinal surgery for the odontoid, and the pull the lips up to transect through the nose for brain surgery of the pituitary, and the oral musoca heals very well.)
Read Technogirl's reply above. It's usually not worth duking it out directly with criminals and ne'er-do-wells who are not above breaking the law (or any of your limbs) to get their way. Get your facts together and try to re-present them to Youtube, find other ways to publicize this, take the registered claimant of their web-site to court (small claims if you want to handle it yourself, regular court with higher limits if you can affortd an attorney) and win a default judgment since they are out of the country and will not appear. In order for this to work, you must "serve" them proper notice of your suit. You'll need help for this small claims court; you might be better off hiring an attorney to help you with that. Once you win a default judgment, pass along the appropriate court-case docket and ruling information to Goo-You-tube and ask them to please please now help you and realize that those copycats are the infringer and that you are the rightful holder of the copy-right. Good luck, sir.
So why exactly would you love to reside in Australia? What do you think needs to be done in this country for rural (as in Texas between El Paso and San Antonio, or as in Kern County, CA, or as in the area between Tallahassee and Pensacola where even cell phone services drops out on I-10) America as opposed to suburban America? I think it's a shame that even being a smidge out of distance of DSL/fiber range means you get nothing after so much of our use and service taxes have been paid to the Public Utilities which have these monopolies and have been given right-of-way/easement access often through eminent domain acquisition.