Hopefully the supreme court refuses to hear this thereby granting this the force of precedent.
It already has precedent in the First Circuit.
As for the rest of the country,
I don't think that the SCOTUS refusing to hear a case
automatically makes anything a precedent
for all circuits. They have to hear the case for that to happen.
The real oddity here is not that dogs have good noses... a ton of animals do. Humans are actually the oddity. There seems to be a negative correlation between intelligence and smelling ability, perhaps because having lots of rational thought takes enough brain space that smelling gets pushed aside.
According to Neil Shubin, author of Your Inner Fish,
the trade-off that human ancestors made was the ability to have better color vision (not intelligence) than smell.
This means that you can prove the correctness of the code, presumably automatically, so presumably very quickly...no need for peer reviews and test deployments.
If that's true, then why wasn't it apparently done in the first place to prevent the bug that he supposedly fixed?
This is a lie created by political entities wanting to push legislation down your throat. If you are sick and cannot afford treatment, the government will step in with medicaid and medicare respectfully.
So if you're a 45-year-old, have no health insurance, can not pay out-pf-pocket, and need a kidney transplant, you're saying that the government will pay the entire cost?
There is already no profit in cancer cure, as it would be immoral to refuse it to sick people.
Treatment is already refused to sick people in the US who either have no health insurance, whose health insurance won't cover a particular procedure, or who can't afford to pay out-of-pocket.
Maybe they will throw Bush into jail. So what? What's past is past, and having someone serve prison time won't help a bit. I mean, prison time is to punish someone for their deeds and hopefully teach them to not do it again.
Prison time also serves as a deterrent to prevent others from doing it.
Corporations are not citizens and do not have the right of free speech.
Corporations are people
and have been ruled to have First Amendment rights.
Citizenship is irrelevant.
The First Amendment never uses the word "citizen."
A person on US soil doesn't need to be a citizen to have First Amendment rights.
(However, in Harisiades v. Shaugnessy, it was upheld that the government can deport a non-citizen for his speech -- but that cases dates from 1952 when communism was illegal.)
It is obvious. The law has to be the way that it is currently because otherwise every guilty person would challenge every jury verdict. But just because the law is that way doesn't mean it's right.
Huh? The only difference between having 1 jury and N juries is that all N juries must return a guilty verdict to find the defendant guilty; otherwise it's not guilty.
I really don't get what your problem with that is. Nobody is talking about imposing anything. The juries are still the sole arbiters of what constitutes reasonable doubt.
I was the jury foreman on a murder trial and I'm really glad in that case there was only one jury b/c there were some real nutjobs on both sides (acquital and top punishment regardless of facts).
If there were two juries and they were kept separate,
you would not have known about the make-up of the other jury and whether there were any "nut-jobs" in it.
By forcing the jury to stick to the process of evaluating the facts, we were able to reach a verdict (vol manslaughter) that was supported by the evidence.
And that's precisely what each jury foreman would have done. Your point?
There's no downside to having two juries, but there is a significant upside.
They are quite frequently composed of folk who take their responsibility seriously, are committed to thinking through the evidence, and are willing to learn from their fellow jurors.
That's nice, but their sentiments are irrelevant. And, again, his point is that they should reach independent verdicts.
... if two juries comeback with different verdicts all you know is that half thought there was reasonable doubt and half thought there wasn't.
If there is any reasonable doubt, then there is reasonable doubt and the defendant should be found not guilty. Again, that's his point.
No, it's a great article.
The fact that you apparently don't "get it" means you don't understand anything about statistics or human nature.
Case in point: you know those signs politicians get placed on people's lawns, e.g., "Vote Jones for Governor"? I never understood their purpose. I mean who in their right mind would be swayed by a lawn sign instead of what the candidate stands for?
It turns out that a lot of "average" people are swayed by such signs because a lot "average" people have a herd mentality and are subject to peer pressure. It takes an extraordinary person to vote based on actual data and his own convictions, his neighbors be damned.
Juries are comprised of "average" people who, by definition, didn't manage to get out of jury duty. As the article mentions, one or two vocal individuals can dominate the jury and bend others to their will -- not because they're right, but because they're strong-willed and the rest succumb to peer pressure. That's not the way to take away a person's freedom.
Dawkins' idea of having, say, two separate juries of 6 people each where each jury is not allowed to talk to the other is a much better idea: if they both agree on "guilty," then the evidence was sufficiently compelling -- twice, independently; if they disagree, it obviously means there is reasonable doubt.
The Constitution guarantees you the right to trial by jury. This means that government must bring its case before a jury of The People if government wants to deprive any person of life, liberty, or property. Jurors can say no to government tyranny by refusing to convict.
I suppose you've never heard of the term OBVIOUS before?
As I've pointed out several times already: if it were so obvious, why didn't somebody else do it before Apple (for a portable and multifunction device)?
I've seen lots of digital cameras (portable devices) that changed from portrait to landscape orientation using accelerometers.
Irrelevant since the Apple patent's initial claim is:
A computer-implemented method, comprising: at a portable multifunction device with a touch screen display and one or more accelerometers, displaying information on the touch screen display in a portrait view or a landscape view based on an analysis of data received from the one or more accelerometers; detecting a predetermined finger gesture on or near the touch screen display while the information is displayed in a first view, wherein the first view is one of the portrait view and the landscape view; in response to detecting the predetermined finger gesture, displaying the information in a second view and locking the display of information in the second view, wherein the second view is the other of the portrait view and the landscape view; and unlocking the display of information in the second view in response to a determination that the device is placed in an orientation where the second view matches an orientation of the display based on an analysis of data received from the one or more accelerometers.
Emphasis added. A digital camera is not a multifunction device. And I'm betting it didn't use finger gestures at all much less to lock the display.
Tagging photos isn't reorienting the screen, Radius devices weren't portable, and the iPhone and iPad don't use any kind of switch.
The Apple patent is: portable device AND accelerometers AND screen orientation.
Combination of previously existing things that weren't used together is patentable. Also, all good inventions seem obvious after the fact. The reality is, however, that nobody else actually did it (so I guess it wasn't all that obvious, was it?).
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It already has precedent in the First Circuit. As for the rest of the country, I don't think that the SCOTUS refusing to hear a case automatically makes anything a precedent for all circuits. They have to hear the case for that to happen.
I assume the author meant, "... to improved file system access." See here.
Except the people who built the pyramids were not slaves.
According to Neil Shubin, author of Your Inner Fish, the trade-off that human ancestors made was the ability to have better color vision (not intelligence) than smell.
To me, "correctness of the code" means it's doing what you thought it should be doing. If not, then it's a bug. Bug does not have to equal crash.
If that's true, then why wasn't it apparently done in the first place to prevent the bug that he supposedly fixed?
So if you're a 45-year-old, have no health insurance, can not pay out-pf-pocket, and need a kidney transplant, you're saying that the government will pay the entire cost?
Treatment is already refused to sick people in the US who either have no health insurance, whose health insurance won't cover a particular procedure, or who can't afford to pay out-of-pocket.
Who wouldn't prefer anything as a gift? If they end up liking it better than what they've got, they keep it; if not, they return it with the receipt.
No, they still might end up wanting it: they just might want to know something about it first. I'm one of that 65%.
... without even reading the summary or article!
Prison time also serves as a deterrent to prevent others from doing it.
Corporations are people and have been ruled to have First Amendment rights. Citizenship is irrelevant. The First Amendment never uses the word "citizen." A person on US soil doesn't need to be a citizen to have First Amendment rights. (However, in Harisiades v. Shaugnessy, it was upheld that the government can deport a non-citizen for his speech -- but that cases dates from 1952 when communism was illegal.)
It is obvious. The law has to be the way that it is currently because otherwise every guilty person would challenge every jury verdict. But just because the law is that way doesn't mean it's right.
I really don't get what your problem with that is. Nobody is talking about imposing anything. The juries are still the sole arbiters of what constitutes reasonable doubt.
If there were two juries and they were kept separate, you would not have known about the make-up of the other jury and whether there were any "nut-jobs" in it.
And that's precisely what each jury foreman would have done. Your point?
There's no downside to having two juries, but there is a significant upside.
That's nice, but their sentiments are irrelevant. And, again, his point is that they should reach independent verdicts.
If there is any reasonable doubt, then there is reasonable doubt and the defendant should be found not guilty. Again, that's his point.
No, it's a great article. The fact that you apparently don't "get it" means you don't understand anything about statistics or human nature.
Case in point: you know those signs politicians get placed on people's lawns, e.g., "Vote Jones for Governor"? I never understood their purpose. I mean who in their right mind would be swayed by a lawn sign instead of what the candidate stands for?
It turns out that a lot of "average" people are swayed by such signs because a lot "average" people have a herd mentality and are subject to peer pressure. It takes an extraordinary person to vote based on actual data and his own convictions, his neighbors be damned.
Juries are comprised of "average" people who, by definition, didn't manage to get out of jury duty. As the article mentions, one or two vocal individuals can dominate the jury and bend others to their will -- not because they're right, but because they're strong-willed and the rest succumb to peer pressure. That's not the way to take away a person's freedom.
Dawkins' idea of having, say, two separate juries of 6 people each where each jury is not allowed to talk to the other is a much better idea: if they both agree on "guilty," then the evidence was sufficiently compelling -- twice, independently; if they disagree, it obviously means there is reasonable doubt.
While true, a trial by jury is also one of the most conspicuously bad good ideas anyone ever had.
I always thought that's what arbitrary meant. Random (to me, an admitted geek) is always in the mathematical sense.
As I've pointed out several times already: if it were so obvious, why didn't somebody else do it before Apple (for a portable and multifunction device)?
Irrelevant since the Apple patent's initial claim is:
Emphasis added. A digital camera is not a multifunction device. And I'm betting it didn't use finger gestures at all much less to lock the display.
The Apple patent is: portable device AND accelerometers AND screen orientation.
Combination of previously existing things that weren't used together is patentable. Also, all good inventions seem obvious after the fact. The reality is, however, that nobody else actually did it (so I guess it wasn't all that obvious, was it?).
Motors existed. Bicycles existed. By your logic, the first motorcycle shouldn't have been patentable.
Putting two things together than previously existed most certainly is patentable.
Portable and using accelerometers.