Put another way, if "patent" was synonymous with "legal monopoly"...
...which is it, since a patent is a government-issued ("legal") decree that one ("mono") company or person can control the manufacture of a thing.
... how would you explain the successes of Bell Labs?
Bell Labs' successes mostly came during the pre-AT&T breakup age, when it was part of a heavily regulated monopoly telecommunications company. A heavily regulated monopoly can provide conditions conducive to innovation: if it starts exploiting patents, or not producing new ideas, its regulators can smack it into line, while at the same time the lack of competition can allow a longer-term view.
On the other hand, patent trolls use the monopoly granted by a patent is a unregulated way.
Without gloves you'd break your hands if you stood there punching at somebody's head.
"Head" covers a variety of targets. Punching the forehead? Snap go your knuckles. But punching to the chin, nose, jaw, or ear? With a properly trained and conditioned fist, you can strike to parts of the head without breaking your hand.
It takes a long time to train a fist, though -- at least three years, according to a common karate maxim -- and I still recommend a palm-heel, hammer fist, or knife hand strike. Or an elbow strike, for close-in work.
I'm glad I served; what have you done lately that's bigger than you?
I salute your desire to serve something "bigger than you".
However, I regret that this desire was twisted into service to the U.S. military, perpetrator of brutal and stupid foreign policy for generations. War was, and remains, a racket. I'm certainly not going to say that you have to be "brain damaged" to join -- many intelligent people fall for cons, after all.
There are many ways to serve something "bigger than you" that do not involve supporting the military-industrial complex.
I'd be willing to bet that there isn't a single industry left that doesn't rely heavily on the Internet. Shutting down the Internet is the same as shutting down the economy.
I'd be willing to bet that there isn't a single industry left that doesn't rely heavily on air transport. Grounding all planes is the same as shutting down the economy. And in the wake of the emergency on September 11 2001, temporarily grounding all planes was the only sane thing to do.
The specifics of this proposal may indeed be too broad. But the general idea of cutting the wire to compromised systems and networks in the event of an emergency, is not a bad one.
not only of our basic freedoms that we FOUGHT and DIED for
Uh, you FOUGHT and DIED for the basic freedom to send packets over the Internet? a) I didn't know the dead could post, b) I was unaware of any war fought over the right to send packets, and c) I was unaware that net access was a basic freedom.
Look, I'm as wary of the government as anyone, and the language in this proposal does sound overly broad. But government authority to cut the wire to compromised networks in an emergency might just be a good idea.
Anyone who pays taxes (most people) pays for schools, whether they like it or not.
Actually I believe in many areas, schools are funded by property taxes, which not everyone pays.
Failure to pay those taxes will result in the police coming to kidnap you and lock you in a cage.
When it comes to property taxes, if you want the government-run police to enforce your government-issued deed to your home (on land whose ownership chain rests on some sort of government conquest), I don't think you have much philosophical basis for objecting to paying up. If you want to play the property game, ante up and pay your taxes.
And think it's awfully rare for them to point guns at you for back taxes, unless you're engaging in some sort of fraud. They just seize your bank accounts. If you don't have enough in your bank accounts, they might seize stock assets (in corporations created by government charter) or real estate assets (see above). But the days of capitation taxes, where the government comes along and says "pay me $20 a head or go to jail", are long over.
It's also wrong because because many people (like me) don't want insurance
Which is an indication that the market has failed.
So, instead of having you pay for your insurance, when you get into an car crash and end up in the ER, the bill you can't afford to pay gets spread around to those of us with insurance. Or worse, you catch swine flu, don't go to the ER because it's too expensive, dismiss your illness as "just a cold", and cough on me when we're in line in the grocery store.
In a sane and civilized society, everyone has ready access to health care.
Corn-based "Ethanol" actually produces more pollution through corn crops than conventional oil.
No, it doesn't. Corn ethanol is a lousy choice for biofuels, influenced more by politics than science, but even it is energy-positive -- you get a reduction in CO2 pollution from it.
I could start a pornography stuio right now, with ads and everything and not worry about armed people busting into my office and killing me, and then my family.
Further, anything you put or create on that notebook can still be considered property of the company, even if it;s yours, as any ideas, inventions, creations, documents, etc you deal with are instantly property of the company (this is typically stated in a contract or rules of employment for your firm).
Some companies will attempt to get you to sign such a contract, yes.
When I've come across such, I've pointed out, "hey, according to the literal interpretation of this, you would own any poems or songs I write during the course of my employment here. I'm sure that's not what you meant. Let's re-work this section." I've had good success getting the employer to alter the contract so that the copyright or patent interests apply only to works created within the scope of my employment.
According to the bill currently making its way through the Senate, effective "year one of the plan" (that's 2013 in normal speak) you will no longer be able to opt for private insurance.
No. That is yet another outright falsehood -- i.e., Big Lie -- being put forth by the opponents of reform.
If TiVo has a patent on time-shifting using a harddrive, then that is what the patent covers. We may not like it, but then we should try to change the patent system instead of calling companies that try to defend the patents that they use in actual products "trolls".
The two are not mutually exclusive. Part of the way to fix the broken patent system, is to shame and boycott those who take advantage of its brokenness, to make it against their interest to do so.
Most certainly the guy doesn't even own the source code since he did it under contract from an employer, so he cannot really "release" what is not his...
But of course, in order to claim copyright on the code, they'd have to admit responsiblity.
"Unencumbered capitalism" would like to give you a system controlled by capitalists -- i.e., the big media conglomerates. Their internet would be cable TV with a "buy now!" button.
They are trying to get the courts to rule on whether Global Warming will be _harmful_ to humans.
And no one with two brain cells to rub together doubts that it will be harmful to many humans.
What is the EPA _really_ trying to accomplish with this?
Trying to prevent harm to humans.
Covering CO2 under the Clean Air Act would completely hamstring American businesses, forcing them to severely cut CO2 emissions.
American businesses were able to severely cut acid-rain causing sulfur emissions, and CFC emissions, and still keep growing, but are too dumb to be able to severely cut CO2 emissions? Sorry you have such little faith in American ingenuity.
They certainly aren't trying to _actually_ clean up the air, since worse offenders than the USA already exist and won't be affected by this law at all.
Non sequitur. The EPA can only affect American businesses. And of course the US cannot meaningfully influence other countries to clean up their act until it cleans up its own.
And people expect an average computer user to want to use Linux when they have to make sure their kernel is compiled right to do basic power management?
I expect an "average" computer user to buy a laptop with its OS pre-installed. Like the offerings here and here. And I expect the vendors to proved a kernel compiled with the right options for power management.
This chart (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Temp-sunspot-co2.svg) shows a much better correlation between sunspots and temperature, than between CO2 and termperature.
Uh, no, it doesn't. The trend line for sunspots on that chart, peaked in 1960, and have been on a declining trend ever since. Meanwhile temperatures (on that chart) have been on the upswing.
So, in the 1600s we had a very low number of sun spots and a little ice age.
Except that no, we didn't have a "little ice age". We had a mild cooling period in the Northern Hemisphere, which had intense effects in some areas; but, according to to IPCC, "current evidence does not support globally synchronous periods of anomalous cold or warmth over this timeframe, and the conventional terms of 'Little Ice Age' and 'Medieval Warm Period' appear to have limited utility in describing trends in hemispheric or global mean temperature changes in past centuries."
there's enough problems with legal drugs like alcohol, why do you people keep insisting the answer is MORE drugs?!?!
Ending drug prohibition will not mean more drug use, it will just shift it around to different drugs. More cannabis use, less alcohol use -- which, since cannabis is safer in just about every way, means fewer problems.
More drugs means more choice. I'm sorry if freedom scares you, but more choice means more options to avoid problems.
The biggest problem with drugs is intense fear and paranoia that they induce in people who have never taken them, a fear and paranoia so overpowering that these people actually start pointing guns around to control other people's personal choices about their own bodies.
Corporate taxes are a joke. They just get passed on to the consumer anyway
No more so than payroll taxes get "passed on" to the consumer.
Raise workers taxes, reduce their take home pay; many working-class people are already living paycheck to paycheck, so they have to join together, unionize and strike to demand pay raises to make ends meet. Labor costs go up, end prices go up.
Raise corporate taxes, investors profits -- their unearned income -- is reduced. Too frickin' bad; it's like a tax on your gambling winnings. You can raise prices to try and return your profits to higher levels, but if there's any competition, you'll be undercut by someone willing to keep profits per unit lower and make it up on volume.
If corporate taxes were cut, payroll taxes, of course, would have to rise (modulo massive spending cuts, just what we need in the middle of a recession and two wars). That would shift even more of the tax burden off of the rich and on to the working classes, just what the investment classes would like.
Because their parents suck, politically-correct panty-waisted fools....
Wait wait wait. "Politically-correct" parents are responsible for kids growing up thinking that the sort of behavior seen on Jerry Springer was normal? "Politically-correct" parents would let their kids watch South Park?
Eh, no. Political correctness can be stupid, but it's not the sort of stupidity that neglects filtering what children see and hear -- if anything, it's the opposite sort of stupidity, that thies to make sure that children don't see and hear anything "offensive".
Note the first abduction didn't happen until it had already been in pulps and film.
I was really into UFOs when I was a kid in the 1970s. Back then, people saw all sorts of different aliens: tall ones, short ones, reptilian ones, green-skinned humanoids, and so on. It's interesting how, since Close Encounters of the Third Kind came out, pretty much everyone sees those short, anime-eyed Grays.
It's fun stuff to read about and write tall tales about... and nothing more.
Slashdot Mirror
...which is it, since a patent is a government-issued ("legal") decree that one ("mono") company or person can control the manufacture of a thing.
Bell Labs' successes mostly came during the pre-AT&T breakup age, when it was part of a heavily regulated monopoly telecommunications company. A heavily regulated monopoly can provide conditions conducive to innovation: if it starts exploiting patents, or not producing new ideas, its regulators can smack it into line, while at the same time the lack of competition can allow a longer-term view.
On the other hand, patent trolls use the monopoly granted by a patent is a unregulated way.
"Head" covers a variety of targets. Punching the forehead? Snap go your knuckles. But punching to the chin, nose, jaw, or ear? With a properly trained and conditioned fist, you can strike to parts of the head without breaking your hand.
It takes a long time to train a fist, though -- at least three years, according to a common karate maxim -- and I still recommend a palm-heel, hammer fist, or knife hand strike. Or an elbow strike, for close-in work.
I salute your desire to serve something "bigger than you".
However, I regret that this desire was twisted into service to the U.S. military, perpetrator of brutal and stupid foreign policy for generations. War was, and remains, a racket. I'm certainly not going to say that you have to be "brain damaged" to join -- many intelligent people fall for cons, after all.
There are many ways to serve something "bigger than you" that do not involve supporting the military-industrial complex.
I'd be willing to bet that there isn't a single industry left that doesn't rely heavily on air transport. Grounding all planes is the same as shutting down the economy. And in the wake of the emergency on September 11 2001, temporarily grounding all planes was the only sane thing to do.
The specifics of this proposal may indeed be too broad. But the general idea of cutting the wire to compromised systems and networks in the event of an emergency, is not a bad one.
Uh, you FOUGHT and DIED for the basic freedom to send packets over the Internet? a) I didn't know the dead could post, b) I was unaware of any war fought over the right to send packets, and c) I was unaware that net access was a basic freedom.
Look, I'm as wary of the government as anyone, and the language in this proposal does sound overly broad. But government authority to cut the wire to compromised networks in an emergency might just be a good idea.
Actually I believe in many areas, schools are funded by property taxes, which not everyone pays.
When it comes to property taxes, if you want the government-run police to enforce your government-issued deed to your home (on land whose ownership chain rests on some sort of government conquest), I don't think you have much philosophical basis for objecting to paying up. If you want to play the property game, ante up and pay your taxes.
And think it's awfully rare for them to point guns at you for back taxes, unless you're engaging in some sort of fraud. They just seize your bank accounts. If you don't have enough in your bank accounts, they might seize stock assets (in corporations created by government charter) or real estate assets (see above). But the days of capitation taxes, where the government comes along and says "pay me $20 a head or go to jail", are long over.
Which is an indication that the market has failed.
So, instead of having you pay for your insurance, when you get into an car crash and end up in the ER, the bill you can't afford to pay gets spread around to those of us with insurance. Or worse, you catch swine flu, don't go to the ER because it's too expensive, dismiss your illness as "just a cold", and cough on me when we're in line in the grocery store.
In a sane and civilized society, everyone has ready access to health care.
No, it doesn't. Corn ethanol is a lousy choice for biofuels, influenced more by politics than science, but even it is energy-positive -- you get a reduction in CO2 pollution from it.
Perhaps because these intelligent scientists are intelligent enough to know that this is not true?
Anyway, this idea is about using waste biomass for fuel.
And since no culture relies on watermelons as a basic sustenance crop, the problem with this is what, exactly?
Killing you? Not immediately. But you do have to worry about armed people busting in and forcing you into cages; a California couple were recently jailed for the "crime" of conspiracy to distribute "obscene" material through the mail and over the Internet.
Why not? What does being married and having kids have to do with one's interest in porn?
Some companies will attempt to get you to sign such a contract, yes.
When I've come across such, I've pointed out, "hey, according to the literal interpretation of this, you would own any poems or songs I write during the course of my employment here. I'm sure that's not what you meant. Let's re-work this section." I've had good success getting the employer to alter the contract so that the copyright or patent interests apply only to works created within the scope of my employment.
No. That is yet another outright falsehood -- i.e., Big Lie -- being put forth by the opponents of reform.
The provision in question only changes the way in which private insurance is purchased.
Please stop spreading disinformation.
The two are not mutually exclusive. Part of the way to fix the broken patent system, is to shame and boycott those who take advantage of its brokenness, to make it against their interest to do so.
But of course, in order to claim copyright on the code, they'd have to admit responsiblity.
Um, that would be the "unencumbered capitalism" of the U.S. government's Advanced Research Projects Agency and National Science Foundation, and of European Organization for Nuclear Research ? Sure...
"Unencumbered capitalism" would like to give you a system controlled by capitalists -- i.e., the big media conglomerates. Their internet would be cable TV with a "buy now!" button.
And no one with two brain cells to rub together doubts that it will be harmful to many humans.
Trying to prevent harm to humans.
American businesses were able to severely cut acid-rain causing sulfur emissions, and CFC emissions, and still keep growing, but are too dumb to be able to severely cut CO2 emissions? Sorry you have such little faith in American ingenuity.
Non sequitur. The EPA can only affect American businesses. And of course the US cannot meaningfully influence other countries to clean up their act until it cleans up its own.
I expect an "average" computer user to buy a laptop with its OS pre-installed. Like the offerings here and here. And I expect the vendors to proved a kernel compiled with the right options for power management.
A transponder costs between $21 and $40.
Uh, no, it doesn't. The trend line for sunspots on that chart, peaked in 1960, and have been on a declining trend ever since. Meanwhile temperatures (on that chart) have been on the upswing.
Solar variations over the past 20 years should have had a cooling effect, but instead we've seen warming. Solar variations are not the main driver of the climate change we are currently experiencing.
Except that no, we didn't have a "little ice age". We had a mild cooling period in the Northern Hemisphere, which had intense effects in some areas; but, according to to IPCC, "current evidence does not support globally synchronous periods of anomalous cold or warmth over this timeframe, and the conventional terms of 'Little Ice Age' and 'Medieval Warm Period' appear to have limited utility in describing trends in hemispheric or global mean temperature changes in past centuries."
Ending drug prohibition will not mean more drug use, it will just shift it around to different drugs. More cannabis use, less alcohol use -- which, since cannabis is safer in just about every way, means fewer problems.
More drugs means more choice. I'm sorry if freedom scares you, but more choice means more options to avoid problems.
The biggest problem with drugs is intense fear and paranoia that they induce in people who have never taken them, a fear and paranoia so overpowering that these people actually start pointing guns around to control other people's personal choices about their own bodies.
With all the loopholes, actual corporate tax payments are less than half of that theoretical rate. In 2000, for example, IBM reported $5.7 billion in U.S. profits and paid only 3.4 percent of that in federal income taxes.
No more so than payroll taxes get "passed on" to the consumer.
Raise workers taxes, reduce their take home pay; many working-class people are already living paycheck to paycheck, so they have to join together, unionize and strike to demand pay raises to make ends meet. Labor costs go up, end prices go up.
Raise corporate taxes, investors profits -- their unearned income -- is reduced. Too frickin' bad; it's like a tax on your gambling winnings. You can raise prices to try and return your profits to higher levels, but if there's any competition, you'll be undercut by someone willing to keep profits per unit lower and make it up on volume.
If corporate taxes were cut, payroll taxes, of course, would have to rise (modulo massive spending cuts, just what we need in the middle of a recession and two wars). That would shift even more of the tax burden off of the rich and on to the working classes, just what the investment classes would like.
Wait wait wait. "Politically-correct" parents are responsible for kids growing up thinking that the sort of behavior seen on Jerry Springer was normal? "Politically-correct" parents would let their kids watch South Park?
Eh, no. Political correctness can be stupid, but it's not the sort of stupidity that neglects filtering what children see and hear -- if anything, it's the opposite sort of stupidity, that thies to make sure that children don't see and hear anything "offensive".
I was really into UFOs when I was a kid in the 1970s. Back then, people saw all sorts of different aliens: tall ones, short ones, reptilian ones, green-skinned humanoids, and so on. It's interesting how, since Close Encounters of the Third Kind came out, pretty much everyone sees those short, anime-eyed Grays.
Oh, definitely something more: studying UFOs and similar phenomena can tell us a lot about how human minds assemble reality.