I bet your typical photoshop user has no idea that GIFs are patented. Which means Adobe will feel no pressure whatsoever to lower prices
The question is not how well the end user understands the cost structure of producing software (of course they don't, and of course they have no clue that some patent expired.)
The question is how competitive the market for these software products are. If it is competitive, prices will fall regardless of what the customer knows. Not out of the godness of the companies hearts, but because they will have to or lose business to the competition. Of course the opposite is true as well; everybody knows that CDs have a ridiculous markup but nothing is happening because that market is not competitive at all.
If the record industry wanted to save itself, they'd drop the cost of CDs down to $8 or less and partner with someone like Apple to deliver a real legal digital music service. Then they might find a more sympathetic ear in regards to piracy.
Hum. I think it is pretty clear that the record labels will keep fighting to get the old days back.
What I don't understand is that the artists haven't realized that they don't need record labels anymore. They can record their songs for cheap and sell them over the internet like you suggest and make more money than they ever got from RIAA.
Record companies will keep fighting until the last drop; I am eagerly awaiting the artists realizing that they don't need expensive middle men anymore.
This is actually an interesting problem, I answered without thinking myself. Here is a new hypothesis.
1 The thether is rotating all the time.
2 An approaching space craft accelerates to the same speed as the arm of the tether, in the lower position
3 They attach. Since they had the same speed - no energy lost or orbital momentum lost.
4 When the tether rotates, we note that
-The ends have the same speed as before
-The center of gravity has shifted
5 At the other extreme position, the space craft is released.
- Because it was traveling at the same speed as the thether the rotational speed of the tether remains unchanged
- However, because the tether craft was rotating around a different point than before its center of gravity is now lower than it used to be
6 The tehter craft uses inventive new drives to slowly lift its center of gravity again, while keeping the same spin
This thing is going to transfer momentum to the space craft it is boosting, right? Where is it getting it from? Something has to get that cable spinning, and I don't see how to get the tether started/respun after it has be put in orbit/used to boost without using just as much energy as you have saved by using it.
The momentum is collected slowly but efficiently by the tether system. This essentially lifts the system up slowly, which is the same as collecting momentum in a rotary system.
The whole point of the exercise is that you replace inefficient rockets with efficient new propulsion drives. And these drives can lift the tether craft slowly (because it is already in orbit), they don't have to do it explosively.
In the works you site they build an elevator all the way from surface to space; in other words it is extremely long.
In this case, the craft is much shorter and already in space. Rather than lifting something all the way along a cable, you accelerate it by swinging a shorter cable and throw it off.
From an energy perspective, you exchange rockets working inefficiently for a short time for solar-powered engines working efficiently but slowly for a long time. In the space elevators you mention, you rather use more conventional engines like in an electric train.
1. Do people choose cars based on safety?
or
2. Do they chose cars based on color/comfort/racing strip/stupid"fins"(a la 7 0's)?
Yes. Most people look at both. But sure, some people think it is more important to have "fins"(a la 70's), than to have a good airbag. In our society people have the choice to make such priorities. People have always made such choices, it is not the fault of some marketers.
But the issue here is not style vs. safety. The issue here is chosing effective safety solutions versus useless safety solutions. And my point is that the latter tends not to be very successful commercially, and car companies know this.
It's BRAKE, not break, you fucknozzle. Learn to speak English.
I apologize for that. Misspelling "brake" is a characteristic of us fucknozzles. It has to do with English being our second language, and typing quickly. We do similar errors in our third and fourth languages as well.
Anonymous Cowards are inspirations for us, they always demonstrate perfect grammar, spelling and word choices and their second languages are flawless.
I agree that this is is the world from Honda's perspective. But, this may be a surprise, I actually think this is pretty much in the interest of the consumer also.
I know it is cynical, but what do you propose instead? One alternative is of course. If (accident>0)
exec recall
Do you realize the consequence of this? Recalls every other day. Or, if you designed a car with this equation in mind, it would be so expensive that nobody would buy it.
By the way, the government uses basically the same equation when designing roads or considering safety projects. It is impossible to make everything perfectly safe - there is a limited amount of resources and money. So instead, you evaluate all possible improvements towards the same criteria, the estimated number of human lives that can be saved. Then you put a large but finite amount of money on that; in the U.S. the governement uses the figure around $2 Million, other countries use lower numbers. As the economy grows, we can afford better and better safety and we put a larger and larger premium on human lives. It may be cynical, but it is simply the most efficient way to spend money on safety.
But remember that profits come from people being willing to pay extra for the gadget. If many people are willing to pay a premium for it, and it rarely fails catastrophically, then they will build it, otherwise not. Why would people be willing to pay for it if it did not work? Isn't this a reasonable criterium for evaluating the gadget? What would the equation be in your ideal world? If you made a businees out of that equation do you think you would get any customers?
Perhaps it is the typical SlashDotters familiarity with the concept of probability that makes us suspicious. What percentage of false-positives would be acceptable for a car that applies its own brakes?
Not very many false-positives. Put the point is that Honda knows this.
It is probably safe to say that Honda understands just as well as you or I what is an acceptable failure rate. Furthermore, they know tons more about how this technology works and what is feasible to achieve. Given all of that, they have concluded that it is worth pursuing.
That tells me that it is probably going to work. Otherwise, you have to assume that you have a better understanding of customer preferences and this radar technology than does Honda. I am surprised to see how many Slashdotters that are willing to draw that conclusion after just reading the two line summary about the technology.
The trouble the previous poster was referring to is that so much depends on context. For instance, what if I'm in a left turn lane drive directly toward a car in an oncoming left turn lane? We're not going to collide, but does my car know that?
Perhaps the emergency system does not kick in until the car can calculate that a collision is inevitable or at least come very likely. In your left turn example, this would not be the case, because both of you are travelling at speeds where you have plenty of time to break or turn before hitting each other.
But if you came speeding into the intersection, the car could calculate that even if the driver would break, and/or turn, there would be no way to avoid a collision. Time to tighten the seat belt and try to slow down.
Generally speaking, I am surprised to see how negative Slashdotters are to new technology, especially before knowing much about how it works. The assumption always seems to be that the implementation will be completely useless, dangerous and insecure.
Of course there will be troubles to get this to work properly. Honda will solve those problems, and put the technology in their expensive cars. If it is efficent and cheap enough it will go mainstream. That's all there is to it, pretty much.
Well, frankly I have not met anyone, I just heard it somewhere. Maybe I should not believe such things but then again some religious people seem to have stopped thinking altogether. You have people who believe that they will be reborn as a better creature if they wear a pink dress and spend four hours per day counting beads. Or that the creator of the universe will be upset if they turn on a light switch on a Saturday or cut their sideburns. Or that they will get to sleep with a bunch of virigns in paradise if they crash a plane into the World Trade center. Or that the Earth is the center of the universe and was created a few thousand years ago.
Given that such beliefs are prevalient why is it unreasonable that some people think that pi=3?
And, interestingly, the poster before you claims to have met 5 such persons.
To all those people who think that no one believes that anymore, I've run into FIVE people who insist that Pi is 3. The funny thing is that they are impervious to logic.
Maybe it is just a joke (it was an AC). But the sad thing is, I truly don't know when religious pleople are joking or when they really believe these things. Best,
Generally speaking, Sweden (or the rest of Europe, for that matter) is not at all as literal about their constitution as is the US. Occasionally, this is not so bad because common sense prevails over unexpected outcomes of ancient formulations. In this case and many others, however, politicians can infringe of freedoms of speach easier than in the US.
A second observation is that Sweden is a small country that always emphasizes international cooperation. In the EU this means that they are usually among the first to implement new EU laws. In the past, they have implemented crazy internet laws (such as making it illegal to write the name of any person on your web page without a written permission) before anyone else. Then the bigger countries thought it through they realized that it was too crazy even for Europe and sent it back Brussel to have it changed.
Somewhere in the Bible I think a round pillar is described to be 30 [ancient unit] around and 10 across. That may be where they got it from.
I believe that some Christian fundamentalists to this day still insist that pi=3. Of course, if they had studied mathematics, they would have realized that God probably decided that one significant digit was sufficient to describe the proportions of this particular monument:-)
modern-day version of cavemen smashing rocks together and ogling over the results.
This is actually a valid question, I am sure a lot of Joes and Janes out there are wondering the same thing. I'll try my best to give an answer that everyone should be able to understand.
First of all, most physics is much more applied, they deal with things like building superconductors, nanotechnology, lasers and other cool stuff with everyday applications.
However, for cutting edge basic research we are looking at things that are very small, much smaller than atoms. We don't have any tools to do cool stuff with this, we don't even know how it works. In other words, we have just found a new type of rock - but we are yet clueless about even the basic properties. Furthermore, all of our old rock-tools are useless. So what can we do? Well, we make the simplest possible experiment we can do, we bang them together and see what happens. Do they bounce? Fall into little pieces? Stick together? Explode? Make an interesting sound?
When we know this we can start thinking about how to apply our knowledge and construct tools accordingly.
But of course at that point, the basic researchers will have moved on to an even smaller level and will be smashing new rocks together and ogle over the results.
Because it is only a few atoms that have this high temperature. 10 atoms that are 10^12 degrees hotter than the environment can heat up the 10^13 surrounding atoms by one degree. That is, it is enough energy to heat up one nanogram of material one degree. I would not sleep over it.
This is of course a very rough calculation, but the point is that we are not so much dealing with enormous energies as with moderate energies concentrated to extremely small matter. They are not going to blow something big up.
...is the software industry leaving the U.S. in droves for less litigious countries.
but...
...you can still develop IP-incompliant software for less litigous countries in the US
...you can still develop IP-compliant software for the US in less litigious countries
Software development is a global business. Changes in one market affects development everywhere, not just developers that happen to live in that market.
1. A method of placing an order for an item comprising:
under control of a client system,
displaying information identifying the item; and
in response to only a single action being performed, sending a request to order the item along with an identifier of a purchaser of the item to a server system;
under control of a single-action ordering component of the server system,
receiving the request;
retrieving additional information previously stored for the purchaser identified by the identifier in the received request; and
generating an order to purchase the requested item for the purchaser identified by the identifier in the received request using the retrieved additional information; and
fulfilling the generated order to complete purchase of the item
whereby the item is ordered without using a shopping cart ordering model.
When you see a main claim with "comprising" followed by a number of points, then this means that all the points must be fulfilled for the patent to hold. In other words, if you can do a single point differently then you are free implement it without infringing. But yes, it is pretty broad.
Since I am trying to patent some stuff right now, I actually know a thing or two about patents. I'll try to straighten out some of the questionmarks and misconceptions that seem prevalient.
In Europe, the patents can be issued for the entire union from the central office. This is much more expensive than in the US, primarily because everything has to get professional, technical transaltions into three langauges. However, even though the patents are issued for the entire EU, they are actually enforced locally in each country. Different European countries have different criteria and standards, the same patent may very well be ruled to apply in one country but not in another. I think the article deals with some guidlines regarding software and business methods; I don't believe it will change the overall picture and it should be seen in that context.
Some quick points about software and business methods in the US. In general, for these to be patentable, they must fulfill the following (these are some of the important conditions in lay mans terms):
-It must be new, in other words no records that anyone has ever done it before
-It must provide a tangible benefit - pure mathematics or very abstract and general algorithms do not work
-It cannot be obvious, even to professionals in the field
-The inventor must demonstrate that he or she actually knows how to implement it (preferably by doing so) - The patent is only valid for the implementation that the inventor describes
These are actually quite reasonable conditions, wouldn't you say? I have not read the infamous one-click shopping patent, but note that generally speaking it is not possible to patent "shopping by only one click", you have to describe how you do it, and the patent is only valid for that implementation. Of course, sometimes it is possible to be quite general in the description, such as "save the customer's info in a memory, recognize customer by a cookie, initiate transaction based on saved data when customer clicks shopping button". On top of that the one-click patent is questionable from the obviousness criterium.
I wish to point out, however, that the set of patents that get discussed on Slashdot are the examples of extreme outliers when it comes to obviousness and generality. Frequently they are also misunderstood and exagerated, either by the original magazine, the story submitter or both.
For example, a few weeks ago there was a story on Amazon patenting selling used items next to new ones. A dozen people got 5, insightful ratings for pointing out how crazy this was. In fact, the patent only covered a specific technique of soliciting new sellers (or something similar).
I truly challenge you to show me this âoerich set of hominid finds.â
Well, if you would read mainstream scientific journals you would know that every few years they dig up something new interesting that looks brainier than a modern monkey but less so than modern man. And of course, the vast majority of these are not frauds. This last find is one example, australipathecus (spelling?) is another. If you by "show evolution of man" demand water-tight proof for a particular evolutionary path, then you are right; the finds do not do this. But put together with modern cladistic techniques they form a more and more complete view of likely evolutionary paths and relationships between the finds. For more modern finds you can also use DNA, for example Neanderthal DNA was recently used to rule out the possibility of extensive cross-breeding with modern humans.
For years people claimed that all âoetrueâ scientists KNEW that evolution is a fact. Yet they never really agreed on exactly HOW we evolved
This is certainly true but I don't really see the contradiction. Scientists agree on some basic evolutionary principles, perhaps the relative age of various finds, but not on some particulars like the relationships between different incomplete finds. Similar behaviours are true for all scientific fields; scientists agree that T-Rex ate meat but disagree over exactly how (some say it was a vulture, others a predator).
Evolution has only been kept alive by the dogmatic faith that so many âoescientistsâ have in it
When you throw out evolution, do you do so in general or just for your own species? Because evolution of for example bacteria and viruses can and has been observed directly in a lab - you don't need dogmatic faith to believe in something that is happening in front of your eyes! If you change the sugar mix for some bacteria you can observe how they after every replication become (on average) better and better adapted to methabolize the new type of food (and less so to the old type no longer provided).
Logic is based on the law of causality. Therefore in order for anything to exist there must be a cause. And in order for God to exist He would have to come from outside the confines of causality.
Well, we both agree that everything cannot be caused by something else; that leaves no room for a first thing. However, you draw the conclusion that this first thing, which is not caused by something else, is an intelligent all-powerful being with a particular interest in what humans do on Sunday mornings and to whom they have sex. In my mind the first thing that is not caused by something else may as well be a collection of particles in a dense space.
It is science that changes its mind everytime something new is discovered, cant they stick with one story.
Science is progressive, and while it updates and refines its stories, it does not change its mind altogether.
Some facts and theories are well established, other areas are still controversial and scientists argue over them in conferences and scientific papers. But as this happens, the general level of understanding increases, controversies are settled and the field moves on to new ground - where there are new mysteries and room for new revisions.
In this case, Darwin's general theory of natural selection is well established. The general principles have not changed. A rich set hominid finds have given us a more and more complete view of human evolution. Finding one more skull makes the picture more complete, but it is not like all previous finds are made useless. Rather, some of the hypotheses formed with the old fact base have to be updated.
Economically, however, Sales Tax (or VAT as its called here in the UK) is a vital tool for regulation of the economy, as lower Income Tax and higher VAT encourages people to save accounts)
The shortcoming of this argument is that the value of savings is in their future spending power. If everything today became more expensive, would you start saving more money? Probably not, unless you believe that goods will become cheaper again in the future (citizens of Europe have given up any illusions that VAT will fall)
The real difference between income tax and VAT happens when people travel between countries. Then people are generally encouraged to travel to places with higher income tax/ VAT ratio. Of course many governements try to stop this by introducing tax free shopping for tourists.
In principle, you can never patent the intangible idea. Only implementations are patentable.
Thus it is not possible to patent "a fooble program that is three times faster", without describing how it was implemented. If you are an open source programmer (my hat off to you) you can read my patent (all patents are freely available on the internet) and see if you can implement a fast fooble program in a different way - and thus not infringing on the patent.
Of course, occasionaly the implementation and the idea are almost the same - or it is almost impossible to achieve the idea without using your particular implementation (I suspect that this is what happened in the infamous one-click-shopping case).
I agree that software patents are a slippery slope, and I think that some of the patents (in particular the oddballs that show up on Slashdot) are outragous. I have also noted, however, that patent stories are often pulled from magazines that have not actually read the patent - and tend to describe it much more general than it really is. For example, recently there was a story on Amazon getting a patent for selling used books next to new ones. About 20 posts with 5, Insightful ratings pointed out how crazy this was. But I actually read the patent and found that what was actually patented was a particular technique for soliciting new sellers of used goods (or something similar). Because Slashdot patent stories are on examples that are both extreme and misunderstood/ excagerated most readers get a very distorted view of what is actually patentable.
I feel that if I spent a lot of time and effort figuring out a way to do it without looking at your code, I should be allowed the fruits of my labors
This is the one thing I strongly disagree with in your post. First of all, if it really is patented then you can freely read a clear description in the patent itself (contrary to common belief, you don't need to be a lawyer) - you don't need to do a reverse engineering. Second, it is not generally the case that anybody who works hard with something should be given the fruits of their labors - preparation for a bank robbery is an example of the contrary.
Slashdot Mirror
I bet your typical photoshop user has no idea that GIFs are patented. Which means Adobe will feel no pressure whatsoever to lower prices
The question is not how well the end user understands the cost structure of producing software (of course they don't, and of course they have no clue that some patent expired.)
The question is how competitive the market for these software products are. If it is competitive, prices will fall regardless of what the customer knows. Not out of the godness of the companies hearts, but because they will have to or lose business to the competition. Of course the opposite is true as well; everybody knows that CDs have a ridiculous markup but nothing is happening because that market is not competitive at all.
Tor
If the record industry wanted to save itself, they'd drop the cost of CDs down to $8 or less and partner with someone like Apple to deliver a real legal digital music service. Then they might find a more sympathetic ear in regards to piracy.
Hum. I think it is pretty clear that the record labels will keep fighting to get the old days back.
What I don't understand is that the artists haven't realized that they don't need record labels anymore. They can record their songs for cheap and sell them over the internet like you suggest and make more money than they ever got from RIAA.
Record companies will keep fighting until the last drop; I am eagerly awaiting the artists realizing that they don't need expensive middle men anymore.
Tor
This is actually an interesting problem, I answered without thinking myself. Here is a new hypothesis.
1 The thether is rotating all the time.
2 An approaching space craft accelerates to the same speed as the arm of the tether, in the lower position
3 They attach. Since they had the same speed - no energy lost or orbital momentum lost.
4 When the tether rotates, we note that
-The ends have the same speed as before
-The center of gravity has shifted
5 At the other extreme position, the space craft is released.
- Because it was traveling at the same speed as the thether the rotational speed of the tether remains unchanged
- However, because the tether craft was rotating around a different point than before its center of gravity is now lower than it used to be
6 The tehter craft uses inventive new drives to slowly lift its center of gravity again, while keeping the same spin
Tor
This thing is going to transfer momentum to the space craft it is boosting, right? Where is it getting it from? Something has to get that cable spinning, and I don't see how to get the tether started/respun after it has be put in orbit/used to boost without using just as much energy as you have saved by using it.
The momentum is collected slowly but efficiently by the tether system. This essentially lifts the system up slowly, which is the same as collecting momentum in a rotary system.
The whole point of the exercise is that you replace inefficient rockets with efficient new propulsion drives. And these drives can lift the tether craft slowly (because it is already in orbit), they don't have to do it explosively.
Tor
In the works you site they build an elevator all the way from surface to space; in other words it is extremely long.
In this case, the craft is much shorter and already in space. Rather than lifting something all the way along a cable, you accelerate it by swinging a shorter cable and throw it off.
From an energy perspective, you exchange rockets working inefficiently for a short time for solar-powered engines working efficiently but slowly for a long time. In the space elevators you mention, you rather use more conventional engines like in an electric train.
Tor
1. Do people choose cars based on safety? or
2. Do they chose cars based on color/comfort/racing strip/stupid"fins"(a la 7 0's)?
Yes. Most people look at both. But sure, some people think it is more important to have "fins"(a la 70's), than to have a good airbag. In our society people have the choice to make such priorities. People have always made such choices, it is not the fault of some marketers.
But the issue here is not style vs. safety. The issue here is chosing effective safety solutions versus useless safety solutions. And my point is that the latter tends not to be very successful commercially, and car companies know this.
Tor
It's BRAKE, not break, you fucknozzle. Learn to speak English.
I apologize for that. Misspelling "brake" is a characteristic of us fucknozzles. It has to do with English being our second language, and typing quickly. We do similar errors in our third and fourth languages as well.
Anonymous Cowards are inspirations for us, they always demonstrate perfect grammar, spelling and word choices and their second languages are flawless.
Tor
Why would people be willing to pay for it if it did not work?
Marketing.
I don't buy it. Look at cars around you. What picture do you find most accurate:
1 Cars get more and more safety features that don't work, but people buy them anyway because of marketing.
2 Cars get more and more safety features that do work, and as a result car safety has improved dramatically over the past 50 years.
Tor
I agree that this is is the world from Honda's perspective. But, this may be a surprise, I actually think this is pretty much in the interest of the consumer also.
Take your first equation.
(cost_of_lawsuit_settlements - cost_of_recall) >0
exec recall
else exec just_settle_lawsuits
I know it is cynical, but what do you propose instead? One alternative is of course.
If (accident>0)
exec recall
Do you realize the consequence of this? Recalls every other day. Or, if you designed a car with this equation in mind, it would be so expensive that nobody would buy it.
By the way, the government uses basically the same equation when designing roads or considering safety projects. It is impossible to make everything perfectly safe - there is a limited amount of resources and money. So instead, you evaluate all possible improvements towards the same criteria, the estimated number of human lives that can be saved. Then you put a large but finite amount of money on that; in the U.S. the governement uses the figure around $2 Million, other countries use lower numbers. As the economy grows, we can afford better and better safety and we put a larger and larger premium on human lives. It may be cynical, but it is simply the most efficient way to spend money on safety.
Your second equation is probably right also:
(potential_profits - cost_of_failure_and_lawsuits) >=0
exec new_gadget
else exec remove_new_gadget
But remember that profits come from people being willing to pay extra for the gadget. If many people are willing to pay a premium for it, and it rarely fails catastrophically, then they will build it, otherwise not. Why would people be willing to pay for it if it did not work? Isn't this a reasonable criterium for evaluating the gadget? What would the equation be in your ideal world? If you made a businees out of that equation do you think you would get any customers?
Tor
Perhaps it is the typical SlashDotters familiarity with the concept of probability that makes us suspicious. What percentage of false-positives would be acceptable for a car that applies its own brakes?
Not very many false-positives. Put the point is that Honda knows this.
It is probably safe to say that Honda understands just as well as you or I what is an acceptable failure rate. Furthermore, they know tons more about how this technology works and what is feasible to achieve. Given all of that, they have concluded that it is worth pursuing.
That tells me that it is probably going to work. Otherwise, you have to assume that you have a better understanding of customer preferences and this radar technology than does Honda. I am surprised to see how many Slashdotters that are willing to draw that conclusion after just reading the two line summary about the technology.
Tor
The trouble the previous poster was referring to is that so much depends on context. For instance, what if I'm in a left turn lane drive directly toward a car in an oncoming left turn lane? We're not going to collide, but does my car know that?
Perhaps the emergency system does not kick in until the car can calculate that a collision is inevitable or at least come very likely. In your left turn example, this would not be the case, because both of you are travelling at speeds where you have plenty of time to break or turn before hitting each other.
But if you came speeding into the intersection, the car could calculate that even if the driver would break, and/or turn, there would be no way to avoid a collision. Time to tighten the seat belt and try to slow down.
Generally speaking, I am surprised to see how negative Slashdotters are to new technology, especially before knowing much about how it works. The assumption always seems to be that the implementation will be completely useless, dangerous and insecure.
Of course there will be troubles to get this to work properly. Honda will solve those problems, and put the technology in their expensive cars. If it is efficent and cheap enough it will go mainstream. That's all there is to it, pretty much.
Tor
Who? Name me one!
Well, frankly I have not met anyone, I just heard it somewhere. Maybe I should not believe such things but then again some religious people seem to have stopped thinking altogether. You have people who believe that they will be reborn as a better creature if they wear a pink dress and spend four hours per day counting beads. Or that the creator of the universe will be upset if they turn on a light switch on a Saturday or cut their sideburns. Or that they will get to sleep with a bunch of virigns in paradise if they crash a plane into the World Trade center. Or that the Earth is the center of the universe and was created a few thousand years ago.
Given that such beliefs are prevalient why is it unreasonable that some people think that pi=3?
And, interestingly, the poster before you claims to have met 5 such persons.
To all those people who think that no one believes that anymore, I've run into FIVE people who insist that Pi is 3. The funny thing is that they are impervious to logic.
Maybe it is just a joke (it was an AC). But the sad thing is, I truly don't know when religious pleople are joking or when they really believe these things. Best,
Tor
A few notes to put this in perspective.
Generally speaking, Sweden (or the rest of Europe, for that matter) is not at all as literal about their constitution as is the US. Occasionally, this is not so bad because common sense prevails over unexpected outcomes of ancient formulations. In this case and many others, however, politicians can infringe of freedoms of speach easier than in the US.
A second observation is that Sweden is a small country that always emphasizes international cooperation. In the EU this means that they are usually among the first to implement new EU laws. In the past, they have implemented crazy internet laws (such as making it illegal to write the name of any person on your web page without a written permission) before anyone else. Then the bigger countries thought it through they realized that it was too crazy even for Europe and sent it back Brussel to have it changed.
Tor
Somewhere in the Bible I think a round pillar is described to be 30 [ancient unit] around and 10 across. That may be where they got it from.
:-)
I believe that some Christian fundamentalists to this day still insist that pi=3. Of course, if they had studied mathematics, they would have realized that God probably decided that one significant digit was sufficient to describe the proportions of this particular monument
Tor
modern-day version of cavemen smashing rocks together and ogling over the results.
This is actually a valid question, I am sure a lot of Joes and Janes out there are wondering the same thing. I'll try my best to give an answer that everyone should be able to understand.
First of all, most physics is much more applied, they deal with things like building superconductors, nanotechnology, lasers and other cool stuff with everyday applications.
However, for cutting edge basic research we are looking at things that are very small, much smaller than atoms. We don't have any tools to do cool stuff with this, we don't even know how it works. In other words, we have just found a new type of rock - but we are yet clueless about even the basic properties. Furthermore, all of our old rock-tools are useless. So what can we do? Well, we make the simplest possible experiment we can do, we bang them together and see what happens. Do they bounce? Fall into little pieces? Stick together? Explode? Make an interesting sound?
When we know this we can start thinking about how to apply our knowledge and construct tools accordingly.
But of course at that point, the basic researchers will have moved on to an even smaller level and will be smashing new rocks together and ogle over the results.
Tor
1e12ÂF is 5.56e11ÂC. 1e12ÂC is 1.8e12ÂF. While any of those numbers could be accurately described as "fucking HOT", it still makes a difference.
That difference is false accuracy, because we are only dealing with one significant digit in 10^12 degrees.
In other words, it is no point in discussing differences of a factor of 2 when we only have information accurate to a factor of 10.
Tor
Since they only give one significant digit it does not matter, as
10^12 C ~= 10^12 K ~= 10^12 F
The differ by less than a factor 2, which is insignificant when you only have accuracy to a factor of 10.
(On the other hand, it is from physics so it is probably Kelvin).
Tor
Because it is only a few atoms that have this high temperature. 10 atoms that are 10^12 degrees hotter than the environment can heat up the 10^13 surrounding atoms by one degree. That is, it is enough energy to heat up one nanogram of material one degree. I would not sleep over it.
This is of course a very rough calculation, but the point is that we are not so much dealing with enormous energies as with moderate energies concentrated to extremely small matter. They are not going to blow something big up.
Tor
but...
Software development is a global business. Changes in one market affects development everywhere, not just developers that happen to live in that market.
Tor
Here is the one-click patent. It's pretty broad:
1. A method of placing an order for an item comprising:
under control of a client system,
displaying information identifying the item; and in response to only a single action being performed, sending a request to order the item along with an identifier of a purchaser of the item to a server system;
under control of a single-action ordering component of the server system, receiving the request;
retrieving additional information previously stored for the purchaser identified by the identifier in the received request;
and generating an order to purchase the requested item for the purchaser identified by the identifier in the received request using the retrieved additional information;
and fulfilling the generated order to complete purchase of the item whereby the item is ordered without using a shopping cart ordering model.
When you see a main claim with "comprising" followed by a number of points, then this means that all the points must be fulfilled for the patent to hold. In other words, if you can do a single point differently then you are free implement it without infringing. But yes, it is pretty broad.
Tor
Since I am trying to patent some stuff right now, I actually know a thing or two about patents. I'll try to straighten out some of the questionmarks and misconceptions that seem prevalient.
In Europe, the patents can be issued for the entire union from the central office. This is much more expensive than in the US, primarily because everything has to get professional, technical transaltions into three langauges. However, even though the patents are issued for the entire EU, they are actually enforced locally in each country. Different European countries have different criteria and standards, the same patent may very well be ruled to apply in one country but not in another. I think the article deals with some guidlines regarding software and business methods; I don't believe it will change the overall picture and it should be seen in that context.
Some quick points about software and business methods in the US. In general, for these to be patentable, they must fulfill the following (these are some of the important conditions in lay mans terms):
-It must be new, in other words no records that anyone has ever done it before
-It must provide a tangible benefit - pure mathematics or very abstract and general algorithms do not work
-It cannot be obvious, even to professionals in the field
-The inventor must demonstrate that he or she actually knows how to implement it (preferably by doing so)
- The patent is only valid for the implementation that the inventor describes
These are actually quite reasonable conditions, wouldn't you say? I have not read the infamous one-click shopping patent, but note that generally speaking it is not possible to patent "shopping by only one click", you have to describe how you do it, and the patent is only valid for that implementation. Of course, sometimes it is possible to be quite general in the description, such as "save the customer's info in a memory, recognize customer by a cookie, initiate transaction based on saved data when customer clicks shopping button". On top of that the one-click patent is questionable from the obviousness criterium.
I wish to point out, however, that the set of patents that get discussed on Slashdot are the examples of extreme outliers when it comes to obviousness and generality. Frequently they are also misunderstood and exagerated, either by the original magazine, the story submitter or both.
For example, a few weeks ago there was a story on Amazon patenting selling used items next to new ones. A dozen people got 5, insightful ratings for pointing out how crazy this was. In fact, the patent only covered a specific technique of soliciting new sellers (or something similar).
Tor
I truly challenge you to show me this âoerich set of hominid finds.â
Well, if you would read mainstream scientific journals you would know that every few years they dig up something new interesting that looks brainier than a modern monkey but less so than modern man. And of course, the vast majority of these are not frauds. This last find is one example, australipathecus (spelling?) is another. If you by "show evolution of man" demand water-tight proof for a particular evolutionary path, then you are right; the finds do not do this. But put together with modern cladistic techniques they form a more and more complete view of likely evolutionary paths and relationships between the finds. For more modern finds you can also use DNA, for example Neanderthal DNA was recently used to rule out the possibility of extensive cross-breeding with modern humans.
For years people claimed that all âoetrueâ scientists KNEW that evolution is a fact. Yet they never really agreed on exactly HOW we evolved
This is certainly true but I don't really see the contradiction. Scientists agree on some basic evolutionary principles, perhaps the relative age of various finds, but not on some particulars like the relationships between different incomplete finds. Similar behaviours are true for all scientific fields; scientists agree that T-Rex ate meat but disagree over exactly how (some say it was a vulture, others a predator).
Evolution has only been kept alive by the dogmatic faith that so many âoescientistsâ have in it
When you throw out evolution, do you do so in general or just for your own species? Because evolution of for example bacteria and viruses can and has been observed directly in a lab - you don't need dogmatic faith to believe in something that is happening in front of your eyes! If you change the sugar mix for some bacteria you can observe how they after every replication become (on average) better and better adapted to methabolize the new type of food (and less so to the old type no longer provided).
Logic is based on the law of causality. Therefore in order for anything to exist there must be a cause. And in order for God to exist He would have to come from outside the confines of causality.
Well, we both agree that everything cannot be caused by something else; that leaves no room for a first thing. However, you draw the conclusion that this first thing, which is not caused by something else, is an intelligent all-powerful being with a particular interest in what humans do on Sunday mornings and to whom they have sex. In my mind the first thing that is not caused by something else may as well be a collection of particles in a dense space.
Best, Tor
It is science that changes its mind everytime something new is discovered, cant they stick with one story.
Science is progressive, and while it updates and refines its stories, it does not change its mind altogether.
Some facts and theories are well established, other areas are still controversial and scientists argue over them in conferences and scientific papers. But as this happens, the general level of understanding increases, controversies are settled and the field moves on to new ground - where there are new mysteries and room for new revisions.
In this case, Darwin's general theory of natural selection is well established. The general principles have not changed. A rich set hominid finds have given us a more and more complete view of human evolution. Finding one more skull makes the picture more complete, but it is not like all previous finds are made useless. Rather, some of the hypotheses formed with the old fact base have to be updated.
Tor
Economically, however, Sales Tax (or VAT as its called here in the UK) is a vital tool for regulation of the economy, as lower Income Tax and higher VAT encourages people to save accounts)
The shortcoming of this argument is that the value of savings is in their future spending power. If everything today became more expensive, would you start saving more money? Probably not, unless you believe that goods will become cheaper again in the future (citizens of Europe have given up any illusions that VAT will fall)
The real difference between income tax and VAT happens when people travel between countries. Then people are generally encouraged to travel to places with higher income tax/ VAT ratio. Of course many governements try to stop this by introducing tax free shopping for tourists.
Tor
In principle, you can never patent the intangible idea. Only implementations are patentable.
Thus it is not possible to patent "a fooble program that is three times faster", without describing how it was implemented. If you are an open source programmer (my hat off to you) you can read my patent (all patents are freely available on the internet) and see if you can implement a fast fooble program in a different way - and thus not infringing on the patent.
Of course, occasionaly the implementation and the idea are almost the same - or it is almost impossible to achieve the idea without using your particular implementation (I suspect that this is what happened in the infamous one-click-shopping case).
I agree that software patents are a slippery slope, and I think that some of the patents (in particular the oddballs that show up on Slashdot) are outragous. I have also noted, however, that patent stories are often pulled from magazines that have not actually read the patent - and tend to describe it much more general than it really is. For example, recently there was a story on Amazon getting a patent for selling used books next to new ones. About 20 posts with 5, Insightful ratings pointed out how crazy this was. But I actually read the patent and found that what was actually patented was a particular technique for soliciting new sellers of used goods (or something similar). Because Slashdot patent stories are on examples that are both extreme and misunderstood/ excagerated most readers get a very distorted view of what is actually patentable.
I feel that if I spent a lot of time and effort figuring out a way to do it without looking at your code, I should be allowed the fruits of my labors
This is the one thing I strongly disagree with in your post. First of all, if it really is patented then you can freely read a clear description in the patent itself (contrary to common belief, you don't need to be a lawyer) - you don't need to do a reverse engineering. Second, it is not generally the case that anybody who works hard with something should be given the fruits of their labors - preparation for a bank robbery is an example of the contrary.
Tor