What is known nowadays as electroconvulsive therapy, otherwise known as ECT, is not the horrorshow most people envision and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is not an example of what happens with ECT anymore. From what I recall patient's are no longer awake, they are immobilized to prevent the body from convulsing (ie you do not thrash around. iirc this is done through chemical means) and electricity is precisely (down to waveform. I remember seeing the diagrams in a case study) applied to certain areas of the brain. From what I remember, it is used to treat extremely severe depression that does not respond to drug therapy. There may be other illnesses in which ECT is a useful treatment but I'm not sure. Anyway, the facts are ECT is a successful treatment for severe life-threatening depression. This form of treatment is *not* lightly considered or prescribed. There are side effects, most notably with memory. I forget exactly how long ECT provides a cure but it was most certainly not a 'come in every week to get your shock type deal.'
While I find it extremely sad and abhorrent to know of what Turing and others endured I felt it was needed to clarify what ECT has evolved into. Back in the late 80s I worked for a psychiatrist in a hospital's geropsych ward. At first it creeped me out to learn he was doing research in ECT but my supervisor was good enough to take the time and frankly discuss the issue with me.
Btw, homosexuality is *not* a mental illness and has not been classified as one since DSM-III, maybe even DSM-II. DSM-III did have a listed disorder for people who had homosexual urges and who specifically did not desire them. It been a long time since I've studied clinical psych. I'm pretty sure DSM-IV is out by now and it is possible even that disorder has been scrapped. Little Johnny's parents may be motivated to get him commited because he is gay but the doctor who is doing the paper work is not listing that as the reason for committal. I personally find this to be of little comfort.
No. "Ma Bell" already has raped Company A because they have hood-winked the patent office into issuing them a Byzantine legal fortress of patents. Company A will suddenly find that their precious widget which was going to make them all rich violates patent XYZ. Oh and by the way, your use of XOR on that cursor pixel violates patent 123 and you will owe us a license fee for that too. (Oh, and no laughing people that particuliar patent was issued)
There is an interesting article by Bryan Pfaffenberger on this subject in Linux Journal's web site. I especially admire this quote from that article
It was never the object of patent laws to grant a monopoly for every trifling device, every shadow of a shade of an idea, which would naturally and spontaneously occur to any skilled mechanic or operator in the ordinary progress of manufactures. Such an indiscriminate creation of exclusive privileges tends rather to obstruct than to stimulate invention. It creates a class of speculative schemers who make it their business to watch the advancing wave of improvement, and gather its foam in the form of patented monopolies, which enable them to lay a heavy tax on the industry of the country, without contributing anything to the real advancement of the arts. It embarrasses the honest pursuit of business with fears and apprehensions of unknown liability lawsuits and vexatious accounting for profits made in good faith.
--U.S. Supreme Court, Atlantic Works vs. Brady, 1882
Now let's look at the figures from this article. Up to 1998, a mere 12,000 software patents were issued. Within the last year, 40,000 have been issued and by 2000 it is expected that 100,000 software patents will have been granted. Boy, computers and algorithim research have been around what? Approx 50+ years? The US has allowed software patents since when? And by Y2K nearly 90 percent of all patents will have come in the *past two years*?! 88,000 patents that have no prior art in them, that are truely innovative and that would have not been naturally discovered by someone else. Excuse my cynicism but having checked out a few sites and having examined some of the truly bone headed patents that have been applied for and issued, I simply have no faith that corporate America (or any business) will responsibly submit software patents or that the PTO can/will properly staff itself and take the time to seperate the wheat from the chaff.
Finally, and again I quote from the article:
Recently, AT&T notified open-source software author Bruce Perens that the company was filing a patent application on the core principle used in his Electric Fence debugging package. The company claimed it had invented the technique a year prior to Perens' release of the code. If AT&T gets the patent and Perens continues to distribute Electric Fence, he could be hit with a patent infringement lawsuit.
B4 everybody gets off on a huge tangent please note that the author says "could be hit" not will be hit. That said, this brings up another huge issue. How in the fsck does one fight an unwarranted software patent? Legal aid costs, time spent in court is money out of your pocket. Corporations over time develop war chests specifically for legal problems. They can wait it out through appeal after appeal. How long in the industry can your product be put on hold until it becomes obsolete?
Also note that I have taken only one side of the picture. A large corp against a smaller company or single developer. I haven't even begun to examine the other side of this. The parasite who lands a bogus software patent and then extorts money from other companies.
For software patents to work would require a much stricter metric than what is currently being used to issue them and a complete review of all patents currently issued. I do not believe the PTO, the government or corporate America has the desire/will to make this happen. I also do not believe they have the desire to rectify the original mistake and get rid of software patents altogether. IMO, the only people who will benefit from software patents are the lawyers. The little guy and the public good certainly have been left out of the equation.
As for the Archie Bunker rant, I suggest you drop it. Disco may be back but trite jingoism went out a long time ago. You also have not proven that technology needs IP to function in a capitalistic market. Come back when you have more data and a more mature method of debate.
Geez, when did the political correctness bug escape the States?:) I thought when the rest of the world wasn't using various and creative curses to describe the people of the USA that they refered to "us" as Americans. And as you put it, you are from Brazil and therefore Brazilian.
And maybe things have changed in current education but I thought there was a continent called _North_ America and one called _South_ America. With all these different ways of qualifying how one is an American I find it hard to believe that I'm "stealing other people's rights..."
Of course, being a member of a magnanimous society and willing to please, I am more than happy to have Brazil as a 51st state and consider you an "Amazonian American".
Slashdot Mirror
Can somebody moderate this one up please. It's actually a useful idea.
What is known nowadays as electroconvulsive therapy, otherwise known as ECT, is not the horrorshow most people envision and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is not an example of what happens with ECT anymore. From what I recall patient's are no longer awake, they are immobilized to prevent the body from convulsing (ie you do not thrash around. iirc this is done through chemical means) and electricity is precisely (down to waveform. I remember seeing the diagrams in a case study) applied to certain areas of the brain. From what I remember, it is used to treat extremely severe depression that does not respond to drug therapy. There may be other illnesses in which ECT is a useful treatment but I'm not sure. Anyway, the facts are ECT is a successful treatment for severe life-threatening depression. This form of treatment is *not* lightly considered or prescribed. There are side effects, most notably with memory. I forget exactly how long ECT provides a cure but it was most certainly not a 'come in every week to get your shock type deal.'
While I find it extremely sad and abhorrent to know of what Turing and others endured I felt it was needed to clarify what ECT has evolved into. Back in the late 80s I worked for a psychiatrist in a hospital's geropsych ward. At first it creeped me out to learn he was doing research in ECT but my supervisor was good enough to take the time and frankly discuss the issue with me.
Btw, homosexuality is *not* a mental illness and has not been classified as one since DSM-III, maybe even DSM-II. DSM-III did have a listed disorder for people who had homosexual urges and who specifically did not desire them. It been a long time since I've studied clinical psych. I'm pretty sure DSM-IV is out by now and it is possible even that disorder has been scrapped. Little Johnny's parents may be motivated to get him commited because he is gay but the doctor who is doing the paper work is not listing that as the reason for committal. I personally find this to be of little comfort.
There is an interesting article by Bryan Pfaffenberger on this subject in Linux Journal's web site. I especially admire this quote from that article
Now let's look at the figures from this article. Up to 1998, a mere 12,000 software patents were issued. Within the last year, 40,000 have been issued and by 2000 it is expected that 100,000 software patents will have been granted. Boy, computers and algorithim research have been around what? Approx 50+ years? The US has allowed software patents since when? And by Y2K nearly 90 percent of all patents will have come in the *past two years*?! 88,000 patents that have no prior art in them, that are truely innovative and that would have not been naturally discovered by someone else. Excuse my cynicism but having checked out a few sites and having examined some of the truly bone headed patents that have been applied for and issued, I simply have no faith that corporate America (or any business) will responsibly submit software patents or that the PTO can/will properly staff itself and take the time to seperate the wheat from the chaff.
Finally, and again I quote from the article:
B4 everybody gets off on a huge tangent please note that the author says "could be hit" not will be hit. That said, this brings up another huge issue. How in the fsck does one fight an unwarranted software patent? Legal aid costs, time spent in court is money out of your pocket. Corporations over time develop war chests specifically for legal problems. They can wait it out through appeal after appeal. How long in the industry can your product be put on hold until it becomes obsolete?
Also note that I have taken only one side of the picture. A large corp against a smaller company or single developer. I haven't even begun to examine the other side of this. The parasite who lands a bogus software patent and then extorts money from other companies.
For software patents to work would require a much stricter metric than what is currently being used to issue them and a complete review of all patents currently issued. I do not believe the PTO, the government or corporate America has the desire/will to make this happen. I also do not believe they have the desire to rectify the original mistake and get rid of software patents altogether. IMO, the only people who will benefit from software patents are the lawyers. The little guy and the public good certainly have been left out of the equation.
As for the Archie Bunker rant, I suggest you drop it. Disco may be back but trite jingoism went out a long time ago. You also have not proven that technology needs IP to function in a capitalistic market. Come back when you have more data and a more mature method of debate.
Geez, when did the political correctness bug escape the States? :) I thought when the rest of the world wasn't using various and creative curses to describe the people of the USA that they refered to "us" as Americans. And as you put it, you are from Brazil and therefore Brazilian.
And maybe things have changed in current education but I thought there was a continent called _North_ America and one called _South_ America. With all these different ways of qualifying how one is an American I find it hard to believe that I'm "stealing other people's rights..."
Of course, being a member of a magnanimous society and willing to please, I am more than happy to have Brazil as a 51st state and consider you an "Amazonian American".
To paraphrase Heinlein in Stranger in a Strange Land:
We laugh because we hurt.