So, Mister Ballmer, if you want to filter Chinese search engine results, you must license our patent. The license will only cost you ten schmazillion dollars.
What? The price is too high? Then I'm afraid you won't be able to legally filter your results, now will you?
What? You don't think this is a valid patent? Maybe all business process patents are invalid. Let's litigate it.
. . . and so on . . . or maybe something far less hopeful.
If you're playing the long game you only need your enemy to support you until you're strong enough to kill them without doing too much damage to yourself.
I wouldn't be surprised if China is the United States of the next century, in the same way that superpowers like England and Spain were overshadowed by the US.
No worries. The US didn't kill England or Spain and they seem to be doing well enough today.
You don't need to be a superpower to be safe, healthy, prosperous and at peace. In fact, it's easier to be at peace if you're not. Just keep your eyes open, refuse the temptation of the brass ring and enjoy your ride.
have you thought about the posibility that when robots do all the jobs that no one wants to do, productivity might increase by enough to allow all the people to live comfortably
Not to quibble, but all people could live comfortably on what we produce now. There is, unfortunately, the political problem of many people wanting to live lavishly, and a significant subset of those who are determined to live obscenely.
Y'see? Those darned greater-than/less-than angle thingies aren't user friendly. That's because the people who designed it didn't have business first in mind. They'll never be used by anyone but mathematicians and hobbyists. Future technology won't even support them -- all quantity comparisons will be done by an easy to use graphical interface, making mathematicians obsolete. Only $199 for the home user edition, $399 for the small business edition, $599 for the professional edition, and $899 for the phenominal cosmic power edition. Buy it now or we'll cut off your water.
It seems to me that privacy only matters if there is a threat of sanction for the private behavior. Hiding stuff tends to add a layer of unhealthy psych because of the continual threats to the integrity of the cloak.
The real need is to roll back the ability of the mob to make your life miserable if you choose to think or do something that is unconventional.
In the long run, which is going to leave us in a better position? Should we be fighting to maintain privacy in the face of increasingly efficient snooping, or fighting for freedom of thought and action?
Not that anyone's really going sacrifice much to achieve either of those goals . . . .
In your health care position paper, you say you can lower prescription drug costs by eliminating wasteful restraints on the market. You're probably right, and I think the biggest restraint is the artificial monopoly granted through patents.
Do you think that property rights naturally extend to a person's published ideas and uterrances, or is the copyright clause of the US constitution an unwarranted restraint of the market?
Slashdot Mirror
Because it's not a crisis until it's a crisis. Once it's a crisis, THEN it's a crisis.
It's really that simple.
Bet you creamed at the fact that you managed to shoehorn both 'quagmire and 'fora' into the same sentence there in an attempt to sound smart.
Maybe the poster is actually smart.
At least, you should consider the possibility.
Dreams suck.
Patenting censorship. How can this be bad?
So, Mister Ballmer, if you want to filter Chinese search engine results, you must license our patent. The license will only cost you ten schmazillion dollars.
What? The price is too high? Then I'm afraid you won't be able to legally filter your results, now will you?
What? You don't think this is a valid patent? Maybe all business process patents are invalid. Let's litigate it.
. . . and so on . . . or maybe something far less hopeful.
If you're playing the long game you only need your enemy to support you until you're strong enough to kill them without doing too much damage to yourself.
I wouldn't be surprised if China is the United States of the next century, in the same way that superpowers like England and Spain were overshadowed by the US.
No worries. The US didn't kill England or Spain and they seem to be doing well enough today.
You don't need to be a superpower to be safe, healthy, prosperous and at peace. In fact, it's easier to be at peace if you're not. Just keep your eyes open, refuse the temptation of the brass ring and enjoy your ride.
have you thought about the posibility that when robots do all the jobs that no one wants to do, productivity might increase by enough to allow all the people to live comfortably
Not to quibble, but all people could live comfortably on what we produce now. There is, unfortunately, the political problem of many people wanting to live lavishly, and a significant subset of those who are determined to live obscenely.
Y'see? Those darned greater-than/less-than angle thingies aren't user friendly. That's because the people who designed it didn't have business first in mind. They'll never be used by anyone but mathematicians and hobbyists. Future technology won't even support them -- all quantity comparisons will be done by an easy to use graphical interface, making mathematicians obsolete. Only $199 for the home user edition, $399 for the small business edition, $599 for the professional edition, and $899 for the phenominal cosmic power edition. Buy it now or we'll cut off your water.
I think you got it backwards. Pay the students and they'll learn even if they have crummy teachers.
It seems to me that privacy only matters if there is a threat of sanction for the private behavior. Hiding stuff tends to add a layer of unhealthy psych because of the continual threats to the integrity of the cloak.
The real need is to roll back the ability of the mob to make your life miserable if you choose to think or do something that is unconventional.
In the long run, which is going to leave us in a better position? Should we be fighting to maintain privacy in the face of increasingly efficient snooping, or fighting for freedom of thought and action?
Not that anyone's really going sacrifice much to achieve either of those goals . . . .
In your health care position paper, you say you can lower prescription drug costs by eliminating wasteful restraints on the market. You're probably right, and I think the biggest restraint is the artificial monopoly granted through patents.
Do you think that property rights naturally extend to a person's published ideas and uterrances, or is the copyright clause of the US constitution an unwarranted restraint of the market?