I'm a last-year Engineering student. Instead of studying like hell and knowing the material, you can take advantage of the fact that the professors, are, in general, incredibly lazy.
All you have to do is "cheat" on the assignments by getting old ones, working in groups, or using tools like MATLAB. Your assignments are worth (in my experience) 5-30 percent of the final grade. If you do the same with the labs (20-30 percent), you can have 25-60 percent going into the final.
Then comes the best part: If you memorize an old final, you'll get a great mark. You'll probably do better than if you study the material. Why? The profs tend to keep the same finals (or very similar) finals from year to year, and don't update them when the texts change. In other words, you are often tested on stuff you didn't learn. This was the case with a Math course I took. The midterms (5, worth 20% each) were from when the course was using a different text and covered different material. The ONLY way to pass was to memorize the old tests. Knowing the material presented would net you a failure.
The end result? You can get an A average without learning a thing. I know. I learned the material. As a result, I've got a B- average. My lab marks are about 95%, showing that I do actually know what the hell I'm doing. But without those old tests, I got hosed every time. (Except for the previously mentioned Math course.)
So, what do you do about cheating? There's nothing you can really do. The penalties for cheating aren't severe enough to concern the average student. Worst case, they'll get a zero on the assignment, and chances are, they would have got a zero anyway. They lose nothing! One guy I went to school with wrote notes ON HIS HANDS for every test. The result? One year of "Dean's Vacation."
It's been going on for years and will continue. I'm sure you've cheated in some way. I'll wager that your profs have at least one assignment in their past that had their name, but not their sweat. No offence, but there's probably a reason that they're not in industry.
I had something similar happen to me. A couple of bullies at University (yes, really) smashed some of my stuff, made a movie, and sent it to everyone in my name. When I corrected my contact information, I ended up getting a spam rampup from 0 (really) to over 1500 a day. I was also contacted by various agencies to buy stuff. (Some, like the Jehova's Witnesses, know that they're othen used for pranks and leave you alone. I don't have a fireplace, so it's not like I got free kindling, either.:(
Sadly, there's nothing that can be done. While I know - trust me, I know - she feels violated, there's nothing she can do but put filters on her email and move on. For physical junk mail, put a note on your mailbox saying, "No junk mail." A lot of postal services will stop delivering. If that doesn't work, tell the senders that she's dead or left you with no forwarding address.
If she's concerned about indentity theft, she could consider getting a flag put on her credit report that forces people to call her. I don't know how it works; I heard another slashdotter mention it once in passing.
My Mastercard company was pretty good at getting my junk mail stopped. I told them that if I got any more from them or their associates, I'd cancel my card. Now the only junk mail I get is from the World Wildlife Federation. (I bought a Polar Bear as a gag present for my brother.)
If they mean, "If someone installs every certificate and plugin that anybody, anywhere, writes there's a possible breach," then is that really a MS problem?
I used to use Netscape. I loved it. It was WAY better than IE. Now it's junk and the only way to look at a webpage is with IE. Sure, I could pay for some other browser, but it's not worth my money. Ooh, I can look at warez sites - I'm so 3173133. Again, browse smarter and don't click on every freakin' link and OK box that shows up. I haven't heard people here bitch about being able to run machine level code via Java. (Cup holder, anyone?) Frankly, if you're dumb enough to get screwed over by a security flaw, then you probably don't deserve a computer in the first place.
It's lame, but if the majority of pages are rendered and tested with IE, it's probably the way to go. If you started driving a right-hand drive car, you don't have much of a right to complain about how the roads are designed for left-hand cars. (Or the other way around if you're in Europe.) If you say, "IE doesn't support the [obscure foo] tag," then maybe you should use another tag that renders properly on all browsers.
Good luck! I was up at 250 lbs before I started biking, and I'm down to a more reasonable 180-190. (Depending on whether I'm biking or not.)
I've got to tell you a few important things:
1. It's going to suck. The first few weeks will be the toughest. You'll want to stop a LOT. Do it. Don't kill yourself. Rest if you have to. I had to take 17 breaks on my first ride. It wasn't very far - only about 8 km. There were times when I thought I was going to die. There were a few times when I was sure that I just had. Now I can go almost any distance, any terrain, any incline in town.
2. Get one of those dinky waving flags. It's the best safety device money can buy. The buys in the cars don't care about running you down, but they do care about scratching their finish.
3. Find out if there's a cycing coalition in town. They should have road safety classes or general advice. They should have biking maps, which show the inclines of local hills.
4. Bike shorts are worth the money. I have ones with an outer layer of loose fabric so I'm not a walking sausage.
I run Windows 2000. It's up to date, and it has been since I installed it. I don't use a firewall, and only installed a virus scanner two days ago after my wife insisted. Despite that, I've never had a virus. My prefered method for dealing with people trying to get in is pop up a message on their computer to stop. Either that, or I call their mom. (Which is usually a very funny conversation - give it a try sometime!)
Anyway, I blame my College for my lack of infection. The only email program we could use was pine. I still use it to this day, and it's my favorite email program. Nothing to configure, nothing to install, works anywhere in the world, extremely lag-resistant. The most important feature - you can't click on anything.
I digress: back to infection. No matter what program you're using, you can't just run whatever random garbage Undugu sends you. The majority of users will not understand that. My father, for example, can't understand the concept of Spyware, Adware, or Pr0nware. Eventually I had no choice but to physically destroy a CD he bought. It installed Spyware and Pr0nware, and he would not beleive me, no matter how many times I explained.
So, what does that have to do with Linux? It's simple. The majority of Linux users are smart enough to not click on any random thing that gets sent to you. That's the difference. It's like a gas station that offers free gas. The catch? It's 50 octane. A lot of people would go. Yes, they would. Those of us who know something about cars would know that that kind of rating would seriously mess up your car. Sure, you could install a refinery into your car and add anti-knocking agents, but you're better off not getting gas there.
People who use Linux are, from my experience, very well knoweldged about computers and take care of them. Once the goal of "Linux for the Masses" is achieved, then - AND ONLY THEN - will you see the true devastation that rampant idiocy can wreak on an operating system.
Yeah, it's underhanded when a company makes it phone home when you've cracked it. However, it's illegal for you to crack it. You're lucky that they aren't calling the... uh... whoever it is that deals with software pirates.
I'm not perfect here - I've got some software that's not, exactly, paid for. (I plan on getting the real versions once I graduate.) Some of the features don't work. I don't bitch about it, because I didn't friggin' pay for it. I also don't pay for multiple compies of games so I can play them on my home network. (One thing that Mircosoft does right - 1 disk covers many people.)
The intelligent thing may have been for the software to stop working. However, you can get cracks for that. I'm sure software publishers are getting tired of all the cracks.
The interesting thing is to see if that company will lower the price of the product. I mean, the software's now uncrackable, right? And part of the cost of software is to pay for all the pirated copies, right?
The board lives outside anyway, with all the dust, gerbils, and crazy cooling systems.
As long as you don't break open the sterile case, you could swap boards in a sandstorm and not have contamination issues. The clean assembly is a good idea for the platters, but even that's not really required.
Do you remember the story a few years ago about a guy tricking out his hard drives with pexiglass covers? In the words of Taco(?) , "That, ladies and gentlemen, takes balls!"
When I want to make a call, I ask one of my friends, "Hey, can I use your cell for a minute?" Either that or I use a pay phone. Remember those? 25 cents gets you a ten-minute call, and no roaming charges apply.
Instead of this silly scheme, just make organ donation the default. Instead of assuming that you're not an organ donor, the doctors can assume that you ARE an organ donor. I know that there are religious reasons not to be a donor, but for most people, who cares? It's not like you're going to come back for your spleen later.
Mind you, I sincerely hope that when I go, by the time all the donations are done, there's nothing left to go into the box.
Come on, guys. Every single one of us has seen brain scan images of people remembering or doodling. In those images, different parts of the brain do different tasks.
For example, I don't use my occipital lobe when I'm not looking at stuff. Once I start doing visual work, ol' occy goes to work.
The idea that we only use 10% of our brain is silly. We're not latent psychics or telekinetics, nor does the other 90% hold penguins. We just don't use all of our brain all of the time. Throughout the day, though, you'll use all of your brain, unless part has been removed via surgery, accident, or believing the US "President".
Don't buy a PDA or laptop. They'll get stolen, you can't drop them more than once, and you can't put formulae into them without getting MathType. Also, you can't possibly type as fast as the professor talks.
I use books. Plain old pen and paper. I've got the free student journal they give out in September for organization. I put my own cover on so I can tell it apart from the other students'.
For notes, I use three colours of ink, a pencil, and a ruler. I buy bound books (like the Hilroy Neatbooks). I don't write down what the prof says, I write down what s/he MEANS. You can parrot back all you want, but if you can write it in your own words, then you'll cut down on your study time by a long shot.
Finally, to prove that I'm the Alpha Dork, I built a desk extender that clips onto the desks. They're too small to have two pages open at once otherwise.
It's a thoroughly ridiculous concept. You can't ban an A/D or D/A converter any more than you can ban air or kittens or potatoes.
Trying to ban A/D converters is like trying to ban tea or koolaid. "Oh, my tapwater won't work with this teabag from Japan."
It's obvious that nobody involved has talked to an Engineer, or even an Engineering student. You can make an A/D converter from a handful of resistors and an op-amp. Any reasonably intelligent person could wire one together in, say, 5-10 minutes. (More time = more bits). Then you store the digital data stream in whatever digital format you want, and use the same converter (essentially, but not technically correct, wired backwards) on the other end to do the D/A conversion. It's super easy to do.
Ooh. On second thought, maybe I do want this legislation to go through. I'll make a friggin' fortune making mod chips for all kinds of devices. It's not like US law applies to me.
A regular electronic device is not capable of working properly in the microwave range. The electrons do not travel quickly enough to pass through the transistors in the chip.
Further, it would mess up navigation in the area. Why do you think your wireless network is set to 2.4G, and your microwave to 2.45G? It's so you don't crash planes when you heat up a buritto or upload a new kernel.
It's fake. You simply can't get past that boundary.
Lowest Common Denominator - the least number which works as a denominator for both fractions. In the case of 1/100 and 1/4, 100 is the lowest common denominator.
Least Common Multiple - the least number that can be evenly divided into both fractions. In the case of 1/100 and 1/4, 4 is the least common multiple.
So, the Lowest Common Denominator is at the very least, the highest of all numbers present. Thus, in order to cater to the LCD, you should go for the most educated and sophisticated in the audience.
No amount of regulation saying, "Hey, you can't look at pictures of Nazi stuff!" is going to change that. You cannot hide something and think that nobody will find out about it or talk about it. It is only through education and discussion that we can deal with things like the Holocaust and the rebirth of Naziesque movements. If you never talk to your kids about Nazis, and your school never talks about Nazis, and and your country never talks about Nazis, guess who will talk to your kids about Nazis? That's right, Nazis. I'm not sure they'd have what we'd call "a historically accurate portrayal of events", either. Banning the discussion of something like this is exactly what Nazi recruiters want - people who have never discussed the issue, and have never thought critically about Nazis.
I know it's not about Nazis, but about whether a country should block access to certain materials based on their laws. However, it's nonsensical for the same reason. If you try to shelter someone from a hot topic through ignorance, you only end up hurting those you try to protect. If we talked to our kids more about adult stuff on the web, they'd be more protected from it. If we talked to our friends about cults, we'd be more protected from them. You can't block someone from researching a topic. If they really want to find out about it, they will. When they go to find out about it, the only ones freely giving the information will be the exact same people you're trying to banish.
Let's say I invent something. Let's also say it's extremely marketable. Should I not get compensated for my invention? Should I let some huge company steal my invention and market it to make money? That happened to Linux - I don't think everyone works at RedHat or Stormix for free. I don't know how much Torvald is being paid (I assume he is) but there are a lot of people getting rich while having little or nothing to do with the design of Linux.
What will happen is US patents will be ingnored as frivolous. Really, what's the point of them right now? To give NCR and Rambus money? I wouldn't be surprised if some new patent comes out for "A device which tells time" demanding that anyone who owns a watch sends them $5. The companies that engage in these lawsuits weaken your standing in the international community. It's pathetic to watch. It reminds me of two toddlers crying to mom over who had red juice first.
Don't get me wrong. Inventing things for the benifit of humanity is a good thing. I'd love nothing better then to be set up somewhere with a lab and told to "just invent stuff. If you need anything, or if your family needs anything, let us know, and we'll take care of it." That's not going to happen - yet. In the meantime, I'll invent things, get patents, make money, and defend my intellectual property.
The best you can do is show that is works in the general case. There are always problems that either don't work with any given Theorem or turn out to be a horrible carnival of yuck. (You can, however, prove a Law, but that's a question left to philosophers.)
The hard part is in the discovery.
We're called "Non-US residents". The taxes are called "exchange", "duty", "brokerage fees", and "shipping". Sometimes it's more than the price of the item.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm a last-year Engineering student. Instead of studying like hell and knowing the material, you can take advantage of the fact that the professors, are, in general, incredibly lazy.
All you have to do is "cheat" on the assignments by getting old ones, working in groups, or using tools like MATLAB. Your assignments are worth (in my experience) 5-30 percent of the final grade. If you do the same with the labs (20-30 percent), you can have 25-60 percent going into the final.
Then comes the best part: If you memorize an old final, you'll get a great mark. You'll probably do better than if you study the material. Why? The profs tend to keep the same finals (or very similar) finals from year to year, and don't update them when the texts change. In other words, you are often tested on stuff you didn't learn. This was the case with a Math course I took. The midterms (5, worth 20% each) were from when the course was using a different text and covered different material. The ONLY way to pass was to memorize the old tests. Knowing the material presented would net you a failure.
The end result? You can get an A average without learning a thing. I know. I learned the material. As a result, I've got a B- average. My lab marks are about 95%, showing that I do actually know what the hell I'm doing. But without those old tests, I got hosed every time. (Except for the previously mentioned Math course.)
So, what do you do about cheating? There's nothing you can really do. The penalties for cheating aren't severe enough to concern the average student. Worst case, they'll get a zero on the assignment, and chances are, they would have got a zero anyway. They lose nothing! One guy I went to school with wrote notes ON HIS HANDS for every test. The result? One year of "Dean's Vacation."
It's been going on for years and will continue. I'm sure you've cheated in some way. I'll wager that your profs have at least one assignment in their past that had their name, but not their sweat. No offence, but there's probably a reason that they're not in industry.
I had something similar happen to me. A couple of bullies at University (yes, really) smashed some of my stuff, made a movie, and sent it to everyone in my name. When I corrected my contact information, I ended up getting a spam rampup from 0 (really) to over 1500 a day. I was also contacted by various agencies to buy stuff. (Some, like the Jehova's Witnesses, know that they're othen used for pranks and leave you alone. :(
I don't have a fireplace, so it's not like I got free kindling, either.
Sadly, there's nothing that can be done. While I know - trust me, I know - she feels violated, there's nothing she can do but put filters on her email and move on. For physical junk mail, put a note on your mailbox saying, "No junk mail." A lot of postal services will stop delivering. If that doesn't work, tell the senders that she's dead or left you with no forwarding address.
If she's concerned about indentity theft, she could consider getting a flag put on her credit report that forces people to call her. I don't know how it works; I heard another slashdotter mention it once in passing.
My Mastercard company was pretty good at getting my junk mail stopped. I told them that if I got any more from them or their associates, I'd cancel my card. Now the only junk mail I get is from the World Wildlife Federation. (I bought a Polar Bear as a gag present for my brother.)
If they mean, "If someone installs every certificate and plugin that anybody, anywhere, writes there's a possible breach," then is that really a MS problem?
I used to use Netscape. I loved it. It was WAY better than IE. Now it's junk and the only way to look at a webpage is with IE. Sure, I could pay for some other browser, but it's not worth my money. Ooh, I can look at warez sites - I'm so 3173133. Again, browse smarter and don't click on every freakin' link and OK box that shows up. I haven't heard people here bitch about being able to run machine level code via Java. (Cup holder, anyone?) Frankly, if you're dumb enough to get screwed over by a security flaw, then you probably don't deserve a computer in the first place.
It's lame, but if the majority of pages are rendered and tested with IE, it's probably the way to go. If you started driving a right-hand drive car, you don't have much of a right to complain about how the roads are designed for left-hand cars. (Or the other way around if you're in Europe.) If you say, "IE doesn't support the [obscure foo] tag," then maybe you should use another tag that renders properly on all browsers.
Yeah, I could tell by the trailers that Underworld was going to suck. Here's an amusing tidbit, though:
My next door neighbour pre-ordered it from Amazon before it hit theaters. He's already paid them $30 for the DVD. Isn't that hilarious?
Of course, I saw Tuck Everlasting and Master of Disguise, so I guess I have to laugh at myself, too.
Good luck! I was up at 250 lbs before I started biking, and I'm down to a more reasonable 180-190. (Depending on whether I'm biking or not.)
I've got to tell you a few important things:
1. It's going to suck. The first few weeks will be the toughest. You'll want to stop a LOT. Do it. Don't kill yourself. Rest if you have to. I had to take 17 breaks on my first ride. It wasn't very far - only about 8 km. There were times when I thought I was going to die. There were a few times when I was sure that I just had. Now I can go almost any distance, any terrain, any incline in town.
2. Get one of those dinky waving flags. It's the best safety device money can buy. The buys in the cars don't care about running you down, but they do care about scratching their finish.
3. Find out if there's a cycing coalition in town. They should have road safety classes or general advice. They should have biking maps, which show the inclines of local hills.
4. Bike shorts are worth the money. I have ones with an outer layer of loose fabric so I'm not a walking sausage.
I run Windows 2000. It's up to date, and it has been since I installed it. I don't use a firewall, and only installed a virus scanner two days ago after my wife insisted. Despite that, I've never had a virus. My prefered method for dealing with people trying to get in is pop up a message on their computer to stop. Either that, or I call their mom. (Which is usually a very funny conversation - give it a try sometime!)
Anyway, I blame my College for my lack of infection. The only email program we could use was pine. I still use it to this day, and it's my favorite email program. Nothing to configure, nothing to install, works anywhere in the world, extremely lag-resistant. The most important feature - you can't click on anything.
I digress: back to infection. No matter what program you're using, you can't just run whatever random garbage Undugu sends you. The majority of users will not understand that. My father, for example, can't understand the concept of Spyware, Adware, or Pr0nware. Eventually I had no choice but to physically destroy a CD he bought. It installed Spyware and Pr0nware, and he would not beleive me, no matter how many times I explained.
So, what does that have to do with Linux? It's simple. The majority of Linux users are smart enough to not click on any random thing that gets sent to you. That's the difference. It's like a gas station that offers free gas. The catch? It's 50 octane. A lot of people would go. Yes, they would. Those of us who know something about cars would know that that kind of rating would seriously mess up your car. Sure, you could install a refinery into your car and add anti-knocking agents, but you're better off not getting gas there.
People who use Linux are, from my experience, very well knoweldged about computers and take care of them. Once the goal of "Linux for the Masses" is achieved, then - AND ONLY THEN - will you see the true devastation that rampant idiocy can wreak on an operating system.
You can take the guy's picture, find out where he parked your car, and tell the cops. That's what this software is doing:
Hey, this guy's stealing...
He lives here...
This is what he looks like...
[Hello, police?]
Yeah, it's underhanded when a company makes it phone home when you've cracked it. However, it's illegal for you to crack it. You're lucky that they aren't calling the... uh... whoever it is that deals with software pirates.
I'm not perfect here - I've got some software that's not, exactly, paid for. (I plan on getting the real versions once I graduate.) Some of the features don't work. I don't bitch about it, because I didn't friggin' pay for it. I also don't pay for multiple compies of games so I can play them on my home network. (One thing that Mircosoft does right - 1 disk covers many people.)
The intelligent thing may have been for the software to stop working. However, you can get cracks for that. I'm sure software publishers are getting tired of all the cracks.
The interesting thing is to see if that company will lower the price of the product. I mean, the software's now uncrackable, right? And part of the cost of software is to pay for all the pirated copies, right?
Yeah, I'll hold my breath.
Did you have to burn your keyboard afterwards? ;)
The board lives outside anyway, with all the dust, gerbils, and crazy cooling systems.
As long as you don't break open the sterile case, you could swap boards in a sandstorm and not have contamination issues. The clean assembly is a good idea for the platters, but even that's not really required.
Do you remember the story a few years ago about a guy tricking out his hard drives with pexiglass covers? In the words of Taco(?) , "That, ladies and gentlemen, takes balls!"
What kind of techy friends ARE these? "Hey, he unplugged a faulty board, replaced it with a new one, and IT STARTED WORKING."
What a freakin' miracle.
Now, if you start fixing CRT monitors like that, then you're freakin' crazy.
When I want to make a call, I ask one of my friends, "Hey, can I use your cell for a minute?" Either that or I use a pay phone. Remember those? 25 cents gets you a ten-minute call, and no roaming charges apply.
It's that easy. No contract, no phone to buy.
Instead of this silly scheme, just make organ donation the default. Instead of assuming that you're not an organ donor, the doctors can assume that you ARE an organ donor. I know that there are religious reasons not to be a donor, but for most people, who cares? It's not like you're going to come back for your spleen later.
Mind you, I sincerely hope that when I go, by the time all the donations are done, there's nothing left to go into the box.
Come on, guys. Every single one of us has seen brain scan images of people remembering or doodling. In those images, different parts of the brain do different tasks.
For example, I don't use my occipital lobe when I'm not looking at stuff. Once I start doing visual work, ol' occy goes to work.
The idea that we only use 10% of our brain is silly. We're not latent psychics or telekinetics, nor does the other 90% hold penguins. We just don't use all of our brain all of the time. Throughout the day, though, you'll use all of your brain, unless part has been removed via surgery, accident, or believing the US "President".
Don't buy a PDA or laptop. They'll get stolen, you can't drop them more than once, and you can't put formulae into them without getting MathType. Also, you can't possibly type as fast as the professor talks.
I use books. Plain old pen and paper. I've got the free student journal they give out in September for organization. I put my own cover on so I can tell it apart from the other students'.
For notes, I use three colours of ink, a pencil, and a ruler. I buy bound books (like the Hilroy Neatbooks). I don't write down what the prof says, I write down what s/he MEANS. You can parrot back all you want, but if you can write it in your own words, then you'll cut down on your study time by a long shot.
Finally, to prove that I'm the Alpha Dork, I built a desk extender that clips onto the desks. They're too small to have two pages open at once otherwise.
He says that for 100,000 people, you'd pay about $5 million to set up and deploy the game.
Let's see: 100,000 people * $10 per month * 12 months per year = $12 million per year.
$12 million - $5 million = $7 million
Nope, that's not profitable at all.
...since the folks at the airlines will be using "black", "brown", and "white" to determine the threat levels.
It's a thoroughly ridiculous concept. You can't ban an A/D or D/A converter any more than you can ban air or kittens or potatoes.
Trying to ban A/D converters is like trying to ban tea or koolaid. "Oh, my tapwater won't work with this teabag from Japan."
It's obvious that nobody involved has talked to an Engineer, or even an Engineering student. You can make an A/D converter from a handful of resistors and an op-amp. Any reasonably intelligent person could wire one together in, say, 5-10 minutes. (More time = more bits). Then you store the digital data stream in whatever digital format you want, and use the same converter (essentially, but not technically correct, wired backwards) on the other end to do the D/A conversion. It's super easy to do.
Ooh. On second thought, maybe I do want this legislation to go through. I'll make a friggin' fortune making mod chips for all kinds of devices. It's not like US law applies to me.
A regular electronic device is not capable of working properly in the microwave range. The electrons do not travel quickly enough to pass through the transistors in the chip.
Further, it would mess up navigation in the area. Why do you think your wireless network is set to 2.4G, and your microwave to 2.45G? It's so you don't crash planes when you heat up a buritto or upload a new kernel.
It's fake. You simply can't get past that boundary.
1. Buy the CD.
2. Take it home and burn two copies. (Three if you want to keep a copy)
3. Return the original CD. Remember, they HAVE to take it back.
4. Mail one burned CD to Hilary Rosen, and one to the head of Universal. Attach notes saying, "Still burnable. Try again."
Lowest Common Denominator - the least number which works as a denominator for both fractions. In the case of 1/100 and 1/4, 100 is the lowest common denominator.
Least Common Multiple - the least number that can be evenly divided into both fractions. In the case of 1/100 and 1/4, 4 is the least common multiple.
So, the Lowest Common Denominator is at the very least, the highest of all numbers present. Thus, in order to cater to the LCD, you should go for the most educated and sophisticated in the audience.
Get this - there were, and are, Nazis.
No amount of regulation saying, "Hey, you can't look at pictures of Nazi stuff!" is going to change that. You cannot hide something and think that nobody will find out about it or talk about it. It is only through education and discussion that we can deal with things like the Holocaust and the rebirth of Naziesque movements. If you never talk to your kids about Nazis, and your school never talks about Nazis, and and your country never talks about Nazis, guess who will talk to your kids about Nazis? That's right, Nazis. I'm not sure they'd have what we'd call "a historically accurate portrayal of events", either. Banning the discussion of something like this is exactly what Nazi recruiters want - people who have never discussed the issue, and have never thought critically about Nazis.
I know it's not about Nazis, but about whether a country should block access to certain materials based on their laws. However, it's nonsensical for the same reason. If you try to shelter someone from a hot topic through ignorance, you only end up hurting those you try to protect. If we talked to our kids more about adult stuff on the web, they'd be more protected from it. If we talked to our friends about cults, we'd be more protected from them. You can't block someone from researching a topic. If they really want to find out about it, they will. When they go to find out about it, the only ones freely giving the information will be the exact same people you're trying to banish.
Let's say I invent something. Let's also say it's extremely marketable. Should I not get compensated for my invention? Should I let some huge company steal my invention and market it to make money? That happened to Linux - I don't think everyone works at RedHat or Stormix for free. I don't know how much Torvald is being paid (I assume he is) but there are a lot of people getting rich while having little or nothing to do with the design of Linux.
What will happen is US patents will be ingnored as frivolous. Really, what's the point of them right now? To give NCR and Rambus money? I wouldn't be surprised if some new patent comes out for "A device which tells time" demanding that anyone who owns a watch sends them $5. The companies that engage in these lawsuits weaken your standing in the international community. It's pathetic to watch. It reminds me of two toddlers crying to mom over who had red juice first.
Don't get me wrong. Inventing things for the benifit of humanity is a good thing. I'd love nothing better then to be set up somewhere with a lab and told to "just invent stuff. If you need anything, or if your family needs anything, let us know, and we'll take care of it." That's not going to happen - yet. In the meantime, I'll invent things, get patents, make money, and defend my intellectual property.
The best you can do is show that is works in the general case. There are always problems that either don't work with any given Theorem or turn out to be a horrible carnival of yuck. (You can, however, prove a Law, but that's a question left to philosophers.) The hard part is in the discovery.
We're called "Non-US residents". The taxes are called "exchange", "duty", "brokerage fees", and "shipping". Sometimes it's more than the price of the item.