The complete study can be found on the website of the Ministry of Economic Affairs, here. This one's in English; don't be fooled by the Dutch management summary that is included at the start of the document.
In California, consumer prices for electricity were fixed by the state, while supplier prices were left to the market. When there was a shortage of energy, the energy companies in the middle were forced to sell electricity at a loss. Surprise: they cnnot keep that up for very long. That is not a free market
If you get crappy service, you take your business elsewhere, right? If you rent a car, but you find it breaks down all the time because the rental company skimps on maintenance, you go to a different company the next time. In the case of power or telephony, you can choose your carrier or supplier, but you cannot choose a company to deliver the service to your home: that takes place over the local loop... which has also been privatised but is effectively run as a monopoly. If that part of the service stinks, you are stuck. That is not a free market.
What happens in these circumstances is market failure; power grids and local telephony loops are difficult to provide as a truly competitive privatised service, while these same things can be run quite cheaply as a public utility. Even the worst of the free market zealots know that there are things that do not work well in a free market.
We see the same things happening in out country: the local loop, national power grid and national railways are being turned into private enterprise, not into companies operating in a free and competitive marketplace, but into monopolies. These companies raise prices, lower service levels and skip on maintenance, not because of the free market, but because of consumers have nowhere else to go. The telephone company is a good example: in areas where they still have a monopoly such as the local loop and voice telephony service, service has become crappy and prices are ridiculous. But in areas where there is some actual competition, like telephony equipment, long distance calls, GSM, and Internet, consumers see an ever-increasing range of services with prices that are a fraction of what they were under the state monopoly. The free market works, in many cases. Where it doesn't, look first for clues that the 'free market' in that case isn't so free after all.
Power blackouts were caused by inept attempts at privatisation, not by the free market. And no, they are not the same thing.
act like the RIAA and the RIAA's constituents: 1. Sue their own customers.
I see file swappers being referred to as 'the RIAA's customers' a lot, but they really aren't. You wouldn't refer to a grocer as 'someone arresting his own patrons' when he nabs a shoplifter, whould you? Not even if that shoplifter happens to make legitimate purchases from the store from time to time.
I'm glad to see someone getting aggressive on the topic of a time frame. AFAIK, the ISS won't last forever, so as long as we have problems getting people and things up and back from it, it is going to waste.
Setting an aggressive timeframe and some healthy competition against other nations (Europe, China, etc) can do wonders to boost the US space program.
The space race is what got America to the moon in such a short timeframe. Frank Culbertson jr.(a NASA mission director) speculated that if the Russians would have named their space station something like "War", or "We're number one" instead of Mir (Peace/Community), we'd have a large space station, moon base, and a manned mission to Mars by now.
Someone already did, kind of... There's a few shops here in Holland selling motorized scooters, the variety with two wheels in-line under a skateboard-like board. Steering is mechanical, using handlebars on a steering column like on a bike. They're easy to ride: many people rode the unmotorized variety when they were kids... and they start from a few hundred euro's. Here is one. They have added the seat and the other stuff to make it street legal... but they can be had without.
The importer says he's doing reasonable business considering that they're not street legal (just like the Segway)... yet. Legislators are already considering how to fit these into traffic and legalize them.
Less cool than the SegWay, but way cheaper and easier and more reliable to ride. Sounds good to me!
Very true, and I think that there will continue to be a big market for mass-marketed music for those who merely follow fashions and trends.
What is new is the ability to make a profit on music sold in small volumes. In the past, music had to sell well to make it onto the market at all. The great thing about new production and distribution methods, brouhgt about by computers and the Internet, is that they enable people to sell music for a relatively small audience, and still make a profit.
Our biggest problem is that we, as a society, have confused well marketed with "good." There's thousands of great musicians running around that are not well known.
That's why the ability to hear songs before buying is so important, and this label addresses that issue.
I will not buy music before I've heard it. Bt where can I hear stuff outside the mainstream? Not on the radio (they won't play them), and not in the record store (too damn inconvenient to ask to listen to more than a few CDs there). Being able to download songs or listen to streamed music is a big help in selecting artists who have not been previously 'marketed'... so now we can continue to give the RIAA the finger and put our money where our mouth is.
Read this article. Their primary objective was to "get the vehicle into the air using the liquid-propellant aerospike engine.". They certainly achieved that.
Incidentally, anyone else thinks that the Lineair Aerospike engine on the Boeing site (link in main Slashdot article) looks like something out of the movie Dune?
Does anybody miss the days when Unix was respected?
Modded as funny, but there's some sad truth here. Certain developments, mostly by Microsoft, have lowered the entry barrier into computing. This is a good thing in the case of end-users, but things like VB and point-and-click NT server installations and database management tools have brought in droves of drongoes doing development work and system administration.
To use the inaccurate but wildly popular Construction/Architecture analogy: it is like someone has come up with really big Lego blocks with which you can build your own home. These blocks come with plumbing, wiring, and are ready to use. So, now everyone can build their own home, right? Sure... but people will soon find out that properly designing a home is an art, and that you still need to know how to lay a solid foundation before you start building. But if everyone is able to build a home that will stand, more or less, people will lose their respect for architects and construction workers.
And that, my friends, is what I have seen happening in our own IT industry: when company managers saw that pretty much anyone could be taught to program and administer systems, sort of, they started hiring anyone with approcimately the right body temperature. The result is that management, and society in general, has lost its respect for IT professionals. Even when the demand for IT people peaked, interest in IT studies was lukewarm at best, and wages weren't all that good for academics working in IT, compared to their colleagues in other disciplines (at least, this seemed the case in mainland Europe).
I for one do remember when I started in this industry, and when I was indeed respected as a professional. Those days are long gone.
Bah, I misspoke; I meant Windows of course.
That shows how much of an MS lackey I am... these days 'a PC' is common parlance for 'a PC running Windows', and I've kind of accepted that meaning, inaccurate as it is.
You're part right. One reason that I see people choose Windows over Linux is availability of applications, and mainly games. Yes, I know there are games for Linux... but the very fact that Linux fans whoop and cheer over every game company that decides to release something to Linux, should give you pause: apparently it is a rare occurance. The selection of games on Linux is tiny compared to what's available on PCs. And lets face it: many people want to play games on their home computers.
I think first real advance of Linux on the desktop is in the office. People are happy enough to endure Windows on their home machines, but more and more often you read stories about companies switching over for various reasons: draconic Windows license terms, reliability, control, cost of ownership, openness, etc. For this environment, ease of installing software by end users is not as important, and the available applications are sufficient for most office tasks. Luckily many corporate ERP or HR tools such as Siebel and Baan have a web interface these days, so they can be accessed from Linux desktops as well.
But the real test of Linux on the desktop is how friendly that desktop and the applications actually are. One powerful (and often-used) feature of Windows is cutting and pasting. Cutting and pasting of pretty much anything. You can select part of an image in any drawing application (even non-Mirosoft ones), and paste it into Word. You can cut part of a spreadsheet and paste it into Powerpoint. Cut formatted Word text and paste it as RTF into something else? Sure you can.
I haven't kept up with the various Linux desktops lately but last time I looked, copying plain ASCII was about all one could do, and clumsily at that. If we get this one thing right on the Linux desktop, we're one giant stride forward towards a desktop that people will actually like using.
Specialization is good. It's efficient! That's why we have doctors, engineers, hairdressers, etc. Most geeks (correctly) maintain that the average user doesn't have a clue about their computers or networks. While the geek community is tainted by an undercurrent of scorn about this, the general principle that the average person is below-average in most fields of endeavour is unavoidable.
Yes, yes and yes! That is why we elect politicians: we assume that the candidate of our choice will be able to make good and informed decisions, better than we ourselves could.
But I do expect those politicians to listen to reason. As a senior consultant, I assume that I am more knowledgable in most fields than the junior staff members. But I will not dismiss suggestions from juniors out of hand!, when they make sense.
My beef with politicians is not that they assume that the average person cannot grasp complex issues, it is that they assume that every single individual is incapable of grasping complex issues, garbagemen and professors alike, as I said. They only listen to groups or friends, and only groups with whom they have regular business: corporations and their lobbies, unions, and other politicians.
A lot of software development costs large amounts of money and not every company is in the position to make far too much money on a crappy OS to support development of other software. They have to earn that money with the sales of their ideas. And how to protect those ideas? Correctly, by patents.
Wrong. We have copyright for that. The effort expended for writing software is in the implementation of ideas, rather than in the ideas themselves. It's similar to books, which are also protected only by copyright (and sometimes trademarks). We cannot legally copy Harry Potter books, but Rowling is (rightly) not able to patent the concept of a story about some kid who finds out he's a magician, and enrolls in a school of wizardry.
Look at the kinds of software patents granted in the US today, and I dare you to claim that any of these patented 'ideas' are the result of hard work that needs protection. I dare you to claim that no one would have bothered to 'invent' any of these 'ideas' if they would not have been patentable. Also, look at the patent cases in court. Are these cases of small companies protecting their interests, or large companies trying to further bar their markets to other players? Are these cases of real inventors that have a real need to protect their business from a competitor using their invention, or are the claimants in these cases simply owners of a patent on some trivial process which is not relevant to their own business, but with which they try and extort money from other, legitimate users of said process? In most cases, the second option in both these questions is the right answer.
And all of you out there protesting against software patents should be very happy that software protection is not included in copyright protection, because that would make protection probably five time longer (at least).
Huh? Software is protected under copyright and rightly so. If I go through the trouble of writing a complex implementation, I would want my work protected. Again, it is my effort which is protected, not the underlying ideas and principles. People should be free to write their own implementation of the exact same functionality, but they should not be allowed to use mine without my permission. That is how copyright works, and that is how software should be protected.
the politicians who are supposed to represent the people/national interest.
Ah, but the politicians are representing national interests in this case... or at least they think they are.
I know Bolkenstein, the man who drafted the original Directive, from when he was active in national politics. His line of thinking is 'good for corporations = good for the economy = good for the people'. He fails to see how this equation is false in many cases, including the case at hand. Because of this line of reasoning, he will give more weight to the opinion of large corporations, whose impact on the economy is largest. Smaller companies carry less weight, and the least weight of all is given to the voice of an individual person.
Another issue with Bolkenstein and many, many, many other politicians is that they believe that most issues are way too complex for the common people to understand. That is why they think they act in our interests even if they go against our express wishes'. And it's not just the majority of the common people, but all of them: professors and garbage collectors are all equally ignored. In true spirit of the Dutch 'poldermodel', the only groups that have this politician's ear are corporations, unions, and other politicians.
Pioneer Elete series? Or do we go for the Carver Studio series? or do we go for even better? or are we happy with the sub $400.00 junk at best buy? [...] for the average Joe, the best DVD player to buy is the $59.00 APEX cheapie..
Makes me wonder... the other day I walked into the MediaMarkt and picked up a DayTek DVD player for 50 Euros. The picture, sound, ease of use and available features are all just as good as my supposedly good Pioneer player (and before you ask, I have it hooked up to a good TV and a good amp&speaker setup). So why did I spend 500 Euros on the Pioneer, or is that cheap player really supposed to be that cheap? Are we being lured into the 'cheap printer/expensive ink' trap? Hell, my friend bought two of them, he figured one would make a neat gift to someone who didn't have a DVD yet. That'll make for a few more people who will buy new expensive DVDs like the good little consumers that they are.
Heh, incidentally I picked up a refill color cartridge for my OfficeJet there as well. Guess which was more expensive: the ink refill, or the DVD player? We live in a silly world.
I can imagine people appreciate a tool like vi, or notepad for that matter, that has few features and is more or less keyboard-driven. Myself, I use editplus to bang out lots of text for reports, memos and the like... which means I do not have to worry about formatting and such. When I am reaonably happy with the text, I paste it into Word and apply a template and formatting.
But for the more creative writing I still prefer a notepad and pencil for the first draft. I can easily annotate, make drawings, cross out stuff and then decide I want to keep that text after all... and there's just no computer tool that is as easy to use. I find that both the features and the inherent limitations get in the way of creativity.
The drawback of course is that I have to type it ito the computer anyway, at some point.
It to open the source for these "voting machines" so they can continually undergo a public review.
There are two things you need to secure against tampering: the voting and tallying process, and the resulting data. Open source inspection, while certainly useful to verify the priciples of operation of the voting machines, is not sufficient to prevent tampering with either the tallying process or the resulting data.
You will want to ensure that the machine accurately registers and tallies votes. Verifying the source alledgedly used in all the machines is not sufficient: you'd need to inspect the (sufficiently large) CRC of the binaries on each and every of the voting machines. You'll want to verify that they are indeed running the software that you have inspected, not some doctored version.
Even if all machines produce accurate data, that will do little good if anyone can edit the resulting data file, or if the totals are communicated to a central counting facility through a means which allows easy forgery of the results.
The problem with any electronic voting system is its intransparency, not of the program source, but of the voting and tallying process. Once the job of vote registration and counting is delegated to a machine, it becomes invisible. It is like handing a box of paper ballots to anyone in the streets and asking him to tally up the votes without any supervision. You'll have no idea of the accuracy of the resulting count, unless you are able to recount yourself... and for that, you need a paper trail.
I firmly believe that any electronic voting needs to be accompanied by a paper trail, and that the counts must be subject to verification of a recount using this paper trail. An electronic voting machine should either produce a paper ballot which the voter can inspect and post in a lockbox, or it should scan a paper ballot on which the voter has indicated his choice by hand. There arer very good reasons to trust paper ballots over electronic ones that are hidden inside some machine:
- The voter has tangible assurance that the vote that is deposited is the one that he has cast
- The counting rersults are verifiable: the counting can take place in a group of people from all stakeholders in the election, who will all watch each other.
- In case of doubt, a recount can take place using the original ballots counted by a different group of people.
- Most importantly: paper ballots are incredibly hard to forge in bulk, and it is very hard to introduce a significant amount of them into the counting process.
work in industrial modelling, or SFX and animation.
Don't forget, faster processing and faster hardware is what may allow everyone to do things with SFX and high-end animation. The same happened with video editing, CAD, real-time audio processing etc. etc; at one time these were things for high-end computers too expensive for the hobbyist, but these days everyone is doing them.
Once we get the faster processors, we'll find uses for them.
"...(online) petition can make a difference" ?
I won't be too sure about that, not when many MEP doesn't (have time to) browse Internet regularly.
(read Tom Chance's story about his lobbying efforts)
Then again, several MEPs have commented on the amount of petitioning. I wrote one of the MEPs myself, and the reply spoke of the tremendous resistance to the originally proposed directive as evidenced by all the mail she received. I do think the petitioninig has made a difference.
It STILL allows software to be patented.
Exclusions from patentability:
A computer-implemented invention shall not be regarded as making a technical contribution merely because it involves the use of a computer, network or other programmable apparatus. Accordingly, inventions involving computer programs which implement business, mathematical or other methods and do not produce any technical effects beyond the normal physical interactions between a program and the computer, network or other programmable apparatus in which it is run shall not be patentable
Plenty of other such changes in the directive. (I just grabbed the first one that I found quoted by another poster).
BUT we have witnessed cases where corporations are able to twist interpretations, and challenge everyone who questioned to go to court.
Small companies/individuals, which can not afford the cost, will simply admit defeat and comply to whatever the big corporations are demanding them to.
That's my main concern: that disputable or even laughable patents will have to be challenged in court, where big corporations rule (although much less so in the EU compared to the US). In simple cases such as where a patent is in clear violation of the patent laws, or when there is a clear case of prior art, anyone should be easily able to file a request to the patent office to review the patent and have it withdrawn. If the owner of the patent contests the decision, let him go to court to get his patent reinstated.
I'll attach a VGA monitor and use a seperate bluetooth keyboard and mouse
I'd like to see you haul all that extra crap around on your business trips so that you can work comfortably in your hotel room. You probably fly business class, so this VGA monitor doesn't put you over your baggage weight allowance?
If you use your laptop a lot on travels, you'll appreciate the advantages of this model. The advantage doesn't show itself when you use on your lap, for example whilst in an airplane, but it does when you sit down in your hotel room or the client's office for a few hours of work. Most laptops are awful for prolonged work periods. Sure you can hook up an external keyboard to a regular laptop, but you'll have to lug it along all the time, and the screen remains at an awkward position.
I need my data and applications in many different locations, and I hate having to lug around an extra keyboard, not to mention having to hunt around for a few thick books to prop my laptop on and bring the screen to a comfortable height. I'd love to have a laptop like this.
The money was not earned, it was stolen. In most cases, the money was stolen from the shareholders of the corporation in question, who by rights should have either had the money in dividends or seen the money re-invested in the corporate machine.
For the largest part this wealth isn't in the form of money, it's in stock, mostly shares in the company they have founded. Most of these super-rich simply own a goodly chunk of a company that has become immensely valuable.
What remains is the question of whether or not it is right that these people do so well out of founding a company and making it successful. You can look at it two ways. some would say the success of these companies was due not just to the founder, but also due to the hard work of the other employees. Others will point out that the risk and effort taken by the company founder is what enables all these employees to earn a living in the first place. Whatever the case; these company founders are not particularly productive, not to the tune of billions of dollars anyway. But they founded their respective companies and own them... that's where their fortune derives from. Should that ownership be taken away from them when the company takes off? I think not.
Just remember that one of the best ways to become rich yourself is to start your own business and make it successful. Even a moderately successful small-scale company can be worth a nice deal of money; not billions, but enough to keep you comfortable.
You don't even have to start the company yourself. I've been invited to help with a startup... and if I am going to pour my sweat and tears into the company (and with a startup, I can expect to have to), my efforts will be a large contribution to the success of the company. That means I want to have a stake in the potential success as well: not in the form of a large salary, but in a part ownership of the company.
Slashdot Mirror
Here you go: a management summary of the study, and more about the tests. Both in Dutch only, sorry.
The complete study can be found on the website of the Ministry of Economic Affairs, here. This one's in English; don't be fooled by the Dutch management summary that is included at the start of the document.
In California, consumer prices for electricity were fixed by the state, while supplier prices were left to the market. When there was a shortage of energy, the energy companies in the middle were forced to sell electricity at a loss. Surprise: they cnnot keep that up for very long. That is not a free market
If you get crappy service, you take your business elsewhere, right? If you rent a car, but you find it breaks down all the time because the rental company skimps on maintenance, you go to a different company the next time. In the case of power or telephony, you can choose your carrier or supplier, but you cannot choose a company to deliver the service to your home: that takes place over the local loop... which has also been privatised but is effectively run as a monopoly. If that part of the service stinks, you are stuck. That is not a free market.
What happens in these circumstances is market failure; power grids and local telephony loops are difficult to provide as a truly competitive privatised service, while these same things can be run quite cheaply as a public utility. Even the worst of the free market zealots know that there are things that do not work well in a free market.
We see the same things happening in out country: the local loop, national power grid and national railways are being turned into private enterprise, not into companies operating in a free and competitive marketplace, but into monopolies. These companies raise prices, lower service levels and skip on maintenance, not because of the free market, but because of consumers have nowhere else to go. The telephone company is a good example: in areas where they still have a monopoly such as the local loop and voice telephony service, service has become crappy and prices are ridiculous. But in areas where there is some actual competition, like telephony equipment, long distance calls, GSM, and Internet, consumers see an ever-increasing range of services with prices that are a fraction of what they were under the state monopoly. The free market works, in many cases. Where it doesn't, look first for clues that the 'free market' in that case isn't so free after all.
Power blackouts were caused by inept attempts at privatisation, not by the free market. And no, they are not the same thing.
The space race is what got America to the moon in such a short timeframe. Frank Culbertson jr.(a NASA mission director) speculated that if the Russians would have named their space station something like "War", or "We're number one" instead of Mir (Peace/Community), we'd have a large space station, moon base, and a manned mission to Mars by now.
Someone already did, kind of... There's a few shops here in Holland selling motorized scooters, the variety with two wheels in-line under a skateboard-like board. Steering is mechanical, using handlebars on a steering column like on a bike. They're easy to ride: many people rode the unmotorized variety when they were kids... and they start from a few hundred euro's. Here is one. They have added the seat and the other stuff to make it street legal... but they can be had without.
The importer says he's doing reasonable business considering that they're not street legal (just like the Segway)... yet. Legislators are already considering how to fit these into traffic and legalize them.
Less cool than the SegWay, but way cheaper and easier and more reliable to ride. Sounds good to me!
Very true, and I think that there will continue to be a big market for mass-marketed music for those who merely follow fashions and trends.
What is new is the ability to make a profit on music sold in small volumes. In the past, music had to sell well to make it onto the market at all. The great thing about new production and distribution methods, brouhgt about by computers and the Internet, is that they enable people to sell music for a relatively small audience, and still make a profit.
I will not buy music before I've heard it. Bt where can I hear stuff outside the mainstream? Not on the radio (they won't play them), and not in the record store (too damn inconvenient to ask to listen to more than a few CDs there). Being able to download songs or listen to streamed music is a big help in selecting artists who have not been previously 'marketed'... so now we can continue to give the RIAA the finger and put our money where our mouth is.
Read this article. Their primary objective was to "get the vehicle into the air using the liquid-propellant aerospike engine.". They certainly achieved that.
Incidentally, anyone else thinks that the Lineair Aerospike engine on the Boeing site (link in main Slashdot article) looks like something out of the movie Dune?
Yes, I think we can put off 'redesigning our cities' for a bit, untill they sell a few more of them.
Modded as funny, but there's some sad truth here. Certain developments, mostly by Microsoft, have lowered the entry barrier into computing. This is a good thing in the case of end-users, but things like VB and point-and-click NT server installations and database management tools have brought in droves of drongoes doing development work and system administration.
To use the inaccurate but wildly popular Construction/Architecture analogy: it is like someone has come up with really big Lego blocks with which you can build your own home. These blocks come with plumbing, wiring, and are ready to use. So, now everyone can build their own home, right? Sure... but people will soon find out that properly designing a home is an art, and that you still need to know how to lay a solid foundation before you start building. But if everyone is able to build a home that will stand, more or less, people will lose their respect for architects and construction workers.
And that, my friends, is what I have seen happening in our own IT industry: when company managers saw that pretty much anyone could be taught to program and administer systems, sort of, they started hiring anyone with approcimately the right body temperature. The result is that management, and society in general, has lost its respect for IT professionals. Even when the demand for IT people peaked, interest in IT studies was lukewarm at best, and wages weren't all that good for academics working in IT, compared to their colleagues in other disciplines (at least, this seemed the case in mainland Europe).
I for one do remember when I started in this industry, and when I was indeed respected as a professional. Those days are long gone.
Bah, I misspoke; I meant Windows of course. That shows how much of an MS lackey I am... these days 'a PC' is common parlance for 'a PC running Windows', and I've kind of accepted that meaning, inaccurate as it is.
You're part right. One reason that I see people choose Windows over Linux is availability of applications, and mainly games. Yes, I know there are games for Linux... but the very fact that Linux fans whoop and cheer over every game company that decides to release something to Linux, should give you pause: apparently it is a rare occurance. The selection of games on Linux is tiny compared to what's available on PCs. And lets face it: many people want to play games on their home computers.
I think first real advance of Linux on the desktop is in the office. People are happy enough to endure Windows on their home machines, but more and more often you read stories about companies switching over for various reasons: draconic Windows license terms, reliability, control, cost of ownership, openness, etc. For this environment, ease of installing software by end users is not as important, and the available applications are sufficient for most office tasks. Luckily many corporate ERP or HR tools such as Siebel and Baan have a web interface these days, so they can be accessed from Linux desktops as well.
But the real test of Linux on the desktop is how friendly that desktop and the applications actually are. One powerful (and often-used) feature of Windows is cutting and pasting. Cutting and pasting of pretty much anything. You can select part of an image in any drawing application (even non-Mirosoft ones), and paste it into Word. You can cut part of a spreadsheet and paste it into Powerpoint. Cut formatted Word text and paste it as RTF into something else? Sure you can.
I haven't kept up with the various Linux desktops lately but last time I looked, copying plain ASCII was about all one could do, and clumsily at that. If we get this one thing right on the Linux desktop, we're one giant stride forward towards a desktop that people will actually like using.
But I do expect those politicians to listen to reason. As a senior consultant, I assume that I am more knowledgable in most fields than the junior staff members. But I will not dismiss suggestions from juniors out of hand!, when they make sense.
My beef with politicians is not that they assume that the average person cannot grasp complex issues, it is that they assume that every single individual is incapable of grasping complex issues, garbagemen and professors alike, as I said. They only listen to groups or friends, and only groups with whom they have regular business: corporations and their lobbies, unions, and other politicians.
Look at the kinds of software patents granted in the US today, and I dare you to claim that any of these patented 'ideas' are the result of hard work that needs protection. I dare you to claim that no one would have bothered to 'invent' any of these 'ideas' if they would not have been patentable. Also, look at the patent cases in court. Are these cases of small companies protecting their interests, or large companies trying to further bar their markets to other players? Are these cases of real inventors that have a real need to protect their business from a competitor using their invention, or are the claimants in these cases simply owners of a patent on some trivial process which is not relevant to their own business, but with which they try and extort money from other, legitimate users of said process? In most cases, the second option in both these questions is the right answer.
Huh? Software is protected under copyright and rightly so. If I go through the trouble of writing a complex implementation, I would want my work protected. Again, it is my effort which is protected, not the underlying ideas and principles. People should be free to write their own implementation of the exact same functionality, but they should not be allowed to use mine without my permission. That is how copyright works, and that is how software should be protected.
Ah, but the politicians are representing national interests in this case... or at least they think they are.
I know Bolkenstein, the man who drafted the original Directive, from when he was active in national politics. His line of thinking is 'good for corporations = good for the economy = good for the people'. He fails to see how this equation is false in many cases, including the case at hand. Because of this line of reasoning, he will give more weight to the opinion of large corporations, whose impact on the economy is largest. Smaller companies carry less weight, and the least weight of all is given to the voice of an individual person.
Another issue with Bolkenstein and many, many, many other politicians is that they believe that most issues are way too complex for the common people to understand. That is why they think they act in our interests even if they go against our express wishes'. And it's not just the majority of the common people, but all of them: professors and garbage collectors are all equally ignored. In true spirit of the Dutch 'poldermodel', the only groups that have this politician's ear are corporations, unions, and other politicians.
I'm getting a 500 Internal Server Error on the link.
Nice going guys, you slashdotted the EU!
Makes me wonder... the other day I walked into the MediaMarkt and picked up a DayTek DVD player for 50 Euros. The picture, sound, ease of use and available features are all just as good as my supposedly good Pioneer player (and before you ask, I have it hooked up to a good TV and a good amp&speaker setup). So why did I spend 500 Euros on the Pioneer, or is that cheap player really supposed to be that cheap? Are we being lured into the 'cheap printer/expensive ink' trap? Hell, my friend bought two of them, he figured one would make a neat gift to someone who didn't have a DVD yet. That'll make for a few more people who will buy new expensive DVDs like the good little consumers that they are.
Heh, incidentally I picked up a refill color cartridge for my OfficeJet there as well. Guess which was more expensive: the ink refill, or the DVD player? We live in a silly world.
I can imagine people appreciate a tool like vi, or notepad for that matter, that has few features and is more or less keyboard-driven. Myself, I use editplus to bang out lots of text for reports, memos and the like... which means I do not have to worry about formatting and such. When I am reaonably happy with the text, I paste it into Word and apply a template and formatting.
But for the more creative writing I still prefer a notepad and pencil for the first draft. I can easily annotate, make drawings, cross out stuff and then decide I want to keep that text after all... and there's just no computer tool that is as easy to use. I find that both the features and the inherent limitations get in the way of creativity.
The drawback of course is that I have to type it ito the computer anyway, at some point.
You will want to ensure that the machine accurately registers and tallies votes. Verifying the source alledgedly used in all the machines is not sufficient: you'd need to inspect the (sufficiently large) CRC of the binaries on each and every of the voting machines. You'll want to verify that they are indeed running the software that you have inspected, not some doctored version.
Even if all machines produce accurate data, that will do little good if anyone can edit the resulting data file, or if the totals are communicated to a central counting facility through a means which allows easy forgery of the results.
The problem with any electronic voting system is its intransparency, not of the program source, but of the voting and tallying process. Once the job of vote registration and counting is delegated to a machine, it becomes invisible. It is like handing a box of paper ballots to anyone in the streets and asking him to tally up the votes without any supervision. You'll have no idea of the accuracy of the resulting count, unless you are able to recount yourself... and for that, you need a paper trail.
I firmly believe that any electronic voting needs to be accompanied by a paper trail, and that the counts must be subject to verification of a recount using this paper trail. An electronic voting machine should either produce a paper ballot which the voter can inspect and post in a lockbox, or it should scan a paper ballot on which the voter has indicated his choice by hand. There arer very good reasons to trust paper ballots over electronic ones that are hidden inside some machine:
- The voter has tangible assurance that the vote that is deposited is the one that he has cast
- The counting rersults are verifiable: the counting can take place in a group of people from all stakeholders in the election, who will all watch each other.
- In case of doubt, a recount can take place using the original ballots counted by a different group of people.
- Most importantly: paper ballots are incredibly hard to forge in bulk, and it is very hard to introduce a significant amount of them into the counting process.
Once we get the faster processors, we'll find uses for them.
Exclusions from patentability:
A computer-implemented invention shall not be regarded as making a technical contribution merely because it involves the use of a computer, network or other programmable apparatus. Accordingly, inventions involving computer programs which implement business, mathematical or other methods and do not produce any technical effects beyond the normal physical interactions between a program and the computer, network or other programmable apparatus in which it is run shall not be patentable
Plenty of other such changes in the directive. (I just grabbed the first one that I found quoted by another poster).
That's my main concern: that disputable or even laughable patents will have to be challenged in court, where big corporations rule (although much less so in the EU compared to the US). In simple cases such as where a patent is in clear violation of the patent laws, or when there is a clear case of prior art, anyone should be easily able to file a request to the patent office to review the patent and have it withdrawn. If the owner of the patent contests the decision, let him go to court to get his patent reinstated.
If you use your laptop a lot on travels, you'll appreciate the advantages of this model. The advantage doesn't show itself when you use on your lap, for example whilst in an airplane, but it does when you sit down in your hotel room or the client's office for a few hours of work. Most laptops are awful for prolonged work periods. Sure you can hook up an external keyboard to a regular laptop, but you'll have to lug it along all the time, and the screen remains at an awkward position.
I need my data and applications in many different locations, and I hate having to lug around an extra keyboard, not to mention having to hunt around for a few thick books to prop my laptop on and bring the screen to a comfortable height. I'd love to have a laptop like this.
What remains is the question of whether or not it is right that these people do so well out of founding a company and making it successful. You can look at it two ways. some would say the success of these companies was due not just to the founder, but also due to the hard work of the other employees. Others will point out that the risk and effort taken by the company founder is what enables all these employees to earn a living in the first place. Whatever the case; these company founders are not particularly productive, not to the tune of billions of dollars anyway. But they founded their respective companies and own them... that's where their fortune derives from. Should that ownership be taken away from them when the company takes off? I think not.
Just remember that one of the best ways to become rich yourself is to start your own business and make it successful. Even a moderately successful small-scale company can be worth a nice deal of money; not billions, but enough to keep you comfortable.
You don't even have to start the company yourself. I've been invited to help with a startup... and if I am going to pour my sweat and tears into the company (and with a startup, I can expect to have to), my efforts will be a large contribution to the success of the company. That means I want to have a stake in the potential success as well: not in the form of a large salary, but in a part ownership of the company.
My ISP has; they've sent out an email stating their position.