Our government is just a group of empowered citizens. As always I believe ignorance is the most insidious enemy of freedom.
I also believe taking an us/them attitude is not only illogical, but dangerously foists power onto a small number of inherently flawed (human) individuals.
They are always us. Never let yourself fall into thinking any differently.
What it will do is enable the government (for whatever hair-brained reasons) to track LAW ABIDING citizens. Criminals, those people bent on breaking the law, will simply buy the phones off-market or use falsified documentation.
Yet another brilliantly thought-out law which misses mark entirely. Maybe someday only criminals will have rights and everyone else will be guilty until proven innocent?
That's got to be the strangest euphemism for anus I've heard in a long time. Bravo! I guess Apple is even more of a trend sitter then I'd given them credit with!
1) They want fancy new stuff.
2) They hate/fear change.
3) They want to be heard.
4) They don't want to register/post/make the effort to explain themselves.
5) They want balloons or fireworks.
6) They hate balloons and fireworks.
7) They want influence.
8) They don't want other members to share this influence.
If CCP has luck with this council approach that could be good news, because usually there's a fair degree of disconnect between business and consumer. The trouble I've seen with the hardcore play-test groups and what-not is often these groups represent a very small segment of the population and tend to be led by a core group of semi-fascist idiots who covet their perceived (and often actual) influence and tend to flame and/or alienate any new comers who express ideas (because naturally, if it was a good idea they have already had it).
Agreed. Repressing mans ability to express or otherwise sublimate his sexuality makes man dangerous, not better. See any large, dogmatic religious organization for further references.
Shit, at times I think the USA is aiming to get kicked out as well.
We'd been competing with Britain for this for a long time (who I think with the cameras had been winning) when out of nowhere comes under-dog Australia with boat-loads of crazy, which just goes to show, Kiwis are Western Cultures last hope (or was it Italy?).
A bacteria colony might do the same. It seems to be a side-effect of life and the alternatives are usually catastrophe, starvation, pestilence/disease or whatever thinning, decimating or simply eradicating the organism 'naturally'. Personally I like humanity warts and all, so I vote amazing ways to create energy from resources now please.
As an added bonus if we prove to be clever enough as an organism our reach (and therefore our available resources) might extend far beyond this beautiful little rock we call home.
Facebook users aren't security experts, they're family members, friends and loved ones. You remember those, right?
Living in my IT bubble in San Diego it was easier for me to bag on Facebook and 'look down' on it's users but now that I'm unemployed and living temporarily with family I seen how useful it is for them to keep in touch with friends and relatives in a way that letters or email simply can't emulate.
Besides, if we really thought Facebook was that bad instead of bitching about it we'd be the talent pool responsible for creating a better alternative (unless you believe that only venture-funded MBAs can take on such a technological challenge). For instance, I've never liked any of the popular/available dating sites, so what do you think I'm doing while I learn Mongodb in my free time?
I've used e-cigarettes, albeit not in the way most users do (hint: think green[ish]) but I'm pretty intimately familiar with them after developing my own..um.. formula.
The basic e-cigarette devices is roughly the same size and shape as a regular cigarette and are composed of a battery (lithium-ion in most cases) which screws into the atomizer and cartridge with a led at the tip (of the battery) which lights up as you draw air through the atomizers (usually referred to simply as the atty).
E-cigs deliver nicotine in a solution based on either Propylene Glycol or Vegetable Glycerin. This liquid is what they put into the cartridges, which use a simple wick to get bring the nicotine solution (commonly referred to as e-juice) into contact with the atomizer (which produces relatively low heat to vaporize the solution).
Most commercial e-juice has a lot of additional crap in it, including flavoring, stabilizers and other chemicals. While it's been pretty well established that the combustion by-products produced by burning tobacco are pretty bad for you I suspect very little is known about the possible effects of vaporizing the various chemicals delivered by the e-cigarettes, particularly the possible build-up of either Propylene Glycol or Vegetable Glycerin in the lungs.
That said, if the ALA is serious about it's primary mission I'd prefer they sponsor research into possible health effects and/or benefits of using one of these devices over smoking traditional cigarettes because for many people these are useful devices that provide a reasonable means of nicotine delivery. And if we consider the relatively small doses of nicotine safe I think these devices are perfectly acceptable chemical delivery systems, however they are health/medical devices and probably *should* be seeing some critical scrutiny.
Most e-cigarettes are manufactured in China and use a fairly similar/common design across brands. Calling them a healthy alternative without any real hard data to back that claim up (in regard to either the vaporized e-juice or the device itself as it's been designed) seems pretty questionable.
It would be one of the first smart things the studios had done a in a long time. Digital media itself has no value, it's not finite or limited in any substantial way, there's really no overhead involved in storing or transporting it and the cost of reproducing it is essentially...zero.
The value of all entertainment has always been in the experience. If you want to produce value with your digital media you'd be much better off focusing on ways to improve the theater experience, which you can control and commoditize better.
Sharing movies is simply reality and criminalizing it would be a ridiculous long-term solution, but that doesn't mean there's no way to keep movie making profitable. Avatar was a good start and maybe in a few generations the suits in Hollywood will start to understand why.
Ubiquity was just proof that even good projects can make bad decisions. It was DOA. It interestingly solved a problem by doing something no-one needed.
I agree with you. But patents for existing things (prior work), obvious things (which typically attempt to restrict the obvious use of existing technologies) shouldn't be permited under either system.
Further I suggested: patents should only be granted for new ideas or new technologies and should never extend their protection onto old or existing technology.
So the great new idea can gain fair 1-3 year market protection, but may not form a symbiotic patent with the existing technologies. Once a patents protection ends a technology should remain unencumbered and free to use by the business, individuals and greater society that made it's creation possible.
Pharmaceutical companies are a good example. What's a 1-3 year lead (lets just say 3) worth to their market? Remember, the competitors will have to meet the same requirements, leaving them at a roughly 3 year disadvantage. And barring disaster or incompetence who will be first to market? First to brand? I'm not suggesting the solution I've put forth is without fault, but so far I haven't exactly seen it. Competition is good for everyone. No-one should be hamstrung by business process protections lasting 2 decades. That's not innovation, that's stifling innovation and crippling the value of our export economy.
If research costs can't be recouped by monopolistic 1-3 year lead maybe bending the law to suit your business model is a good solution. But at 20 years we're talking about artificially slowing innovation by almost a full generation. And that's only taking appropriate use into consideration.
If you can't accomplish it in 1-3 years, chances are you simply won't.
But let me clarify a little. I'm currently developing a social network-like application (feel free to roll your eyes, but there are some features about it that you probably will see as at least somewhat useful, I hope anyway). I'm doing this on my own, creating a fresh code-base and using 1 or 2...unusual schema/functional approaches. So I might be a fine representative of your struggling, independent developer.
So the question I might have in scenario we've described is at what point do I seek a patent? I'm in early development right now, testings done mostly in-house and if I wanted feedback from a friend or colleague I might use an NDA (probably not, but MMV). There's a lot of work developing an application, but the protection a patent provides isn't necessarily required for all of it.
Maybe later during funding rounds I'd want my patent in place, or even if I push forward with live/public alpha or beta, that might be the time. But that still gives me 1-3 years from the point the patent is granted to build my product with a little protection in place.
If you can't start dark or fail to achieve a substantial advantage with a monopolistic 1-3 year lead I'm not sure why we should allow your 'assets' to stand in the way of those who might succeed.
And lets not forget that technology (like everything else) has been built on the backs of the thinkers and innovators who came before us.
Should software or any kind of technology pay licensing fees to every company, college, individual or institution who took part in developing the technologies we use in our own bid to improve or invent things?
Simpler solution: Besides all the other problems with them [...] software patents are a net drag on the economy, therefore they should be eliminated.
Well..
I'm not sure that's much of a compromise. Compromising might not be fun, but an uncompromising position usually leads to stone-walling.
I'm not sure you've taken into consideration all of the possible collateral effects. Mainly, the resulting focus on the use of copyright to protect such assets. Restrictive licensing and the inevitable bending of copyright to suit software and traditional hard technologies. Not to mention copyrights ever increasing length.
If we turn the situation around by only slightly tweaking the existing patent system we can create a system that encourages business while increasing the rate at which new technologies become generally available. We end up with a more rapid and competitive technology life-cycle. Which is what we need to maintain relevance as a world technology leader, otherwise what is it we should export? Services? English and Spanish speaking call-centers? Will we have to resort to military-based expansionism when we fail to product high-quality exportable commodities?
I think the best solution for all parties is to quickly put the patent system back in shape. America is a country that has been founded on innovation and it would be crime to lose any lead we might have gained by allowing this protectionism to continue to work against the society and businesses that once created it.
We're getting to a point where even big business has started to look critically at the patent system and it's effecting our ability to compete and stay relevant in the global market. I can understand how big business might have wanted to come to this but it seems increasingly likely they underestimated their positions as technology world leaders and in the next several years our exports and technologies will be increasingly at risk as the system we developed continues to ham-string our ability to develop and deliver new and innovative technologies.
American businesses, even multinationals don't want to become one of the worlds largest technology third-worlds and that's the risk we face if continue to allow business processes to dictate a societies technology and innovation.
Business needs protection, encouragement, but too much strong protection and the business trades inertia where it once held innovation and relevance. America is a great nation, and a strong producer of innovative products and technologies but we won't remain so indefinitely if we continue to legislate our competitive advantage. Sooner or later some nations will choose to not be bullied into international copyright or patent treaties and we will slowly be left to our unproductive back-biting and infighting.
Slashdot Mirror
So, just to be clear, you're saying being a professional gamer sounds like a lot of work...
They might feel good, but we'll have to wait and see if/what any long-term effects might be.
Our government is just a group of empowered citizens. As always I believe ignorance is the most insidious enemy of freedom.
I also believe taking an us/them attitude is not only illogical, but dangerously foists power onto a small number of inherently flawed (human) individuals.
They are always us. Never let yourself fall into thinking any differently.
What it will do is enable the government (for whatever hair-brained reasons) to track LAW ABIDING citizens. Criminals, those people bent on breaking the law, will simply buy the phones off-market or use falsified documentation.
Yet another brilliantly thought-out law which misses mark entirely. Maybe someday only criminals will have rights and everyone else will be guilty until proven innocent?
Maybe it's been censored in your country?
Donut.
You are obviously someone who has never had a good wife.
That's got to be the strangest euphemism for anus I've heard in a long time. Bravo! I guess Apple is even more of a trend sitter then I'd given them credit with!
Users, oh users!
1) They want fancy new stuff.
2) They hate/fear change.
3) They want to be heard.
4) They don't want to register/post/make the effort to explain themselves.
5) They want balloons or fireworks.
6) They hate balloons and fireworks.
7) They want influence.
8) They don't want other members to share this influence.
If CCP has luck with this council approach that could be good news, because usually there's a fair degree of disconnect between business and consumer. The trouble I've seen with the hardcore play-test groups and what-not is often these groups represent a very small segment of the population and tend to be led by a core group of semi-fascist idiots who covet their perceived (and often actual) influence and tend to flame and/or alienate any new comers who express ideas (because naturally, if it was a good idea they have already had it).
Didn't Mad Max and friends pioneer this?
Agreed. Repressing mans ability to express or otherwise sublimate his sexuality makes man dangerous, not better. See any large, dogmatic religious organization for further references.
We'd been competing with Britain for this for a long time (who I think with the cameras had been winning) when out of nowhere comes under-dog Australia with boat-loads of crazy, which just goes to show, Kiwis are Western Cultures last hope (or was it Italy?).
Says the Human!
A bacteria colony might do the same. It seems to be a side-effect of life and the alternatives are usually catastrophe, starvation, pestilence/disease or whatever thinning, decimating or simply eradicating the organism 'naturally'. Personally I like humanity warts and all, so I vote amazing ways to create energy from resources now please.
As an added bonus if we prove to be clever enough as an organism our reach (and therefore our available resources) might extend far beyond this beautiful little rock we call home.
...Don't hate the players hate the game dawg!
Facebook users aren't security experts, they're family members, friends and loved ones. You remember those, right?
Living in my IT bubble in San Diego it was easier for me to bag on Facebook and 'look down' on it's users but now that I'm unemployed and living temporarily with family I seen how useful it is for them to keep in touch with friends and relatives in a way that letters or email simply can't emulate.
Besides, if we really thought Facebook was that bad instead of bitching about it we'd be the talent pool responsible for creating a better alternative (unless you believe that only venture-funded MBAs can take on such a technological challenge). For instance, I've never liked any of the popular/available dating sites, so what do you think I'm doing while I learn Mongodb in my free time?
I've used e-cigarettes, albeit not in the way most users do (hint: think green[ish]) but I'm pretty intimately familiar with them after developing my own ..um.. formula.
The basic e-cigarette devices is roughly the same size and shape as a regular cigarette and are composed of a battery (lithium-ion in most cases) which screws into the atomizer and cartridge with a led at the tip (of the battery) which lights up as you draw air through the atomizers (usually referred to simply as the atty).
E-cigs deliver nicotine in a solution based on either Propylene Glycol or Vegetable Glycerin. This liquid is what they put into the cartridges, which use a simple wick to get bring the nicotine solution (commonly referred to as e-juice) into contact with the atomizer (which produces relatively low heat to vaporize the solution).
Most commercial e-juice has a lot of additional crap in it, including flavoring, stabilizers and other chemicals. While it's been pretty well established that the combustion by-products produced by burning tobacco are pretty bad for you I suspect very little is known about the possible effects of vaporizing the various chemicals delivered by the e-cigarettes, particularly the possible build-up of either Propylene Glycol or Vegetable Glycerin in the lungs.
That said, if the ALA is serious about it's primary mission I'd prefer they sponsor research into possible health effects and/or benefits of using one of these devices over smoking traditional cigarettes because for many people these are useful devices that provide a reasonable means of nicotine delivery. And if we consider the relatively small doses of nicotine safe I think these devices are perfectly acceptable chemical delivery systems, however they are health/medical devices and probably *should* be seeing some critical scrutiny.
Most e-cigarettes are manufactured in China and use a fairly similar/common design across brands. Calling them a healthy alternative without any real hard data to back that claim up (in regard to either the vaporized e-juice or the device itself as it's been designed) seems pretty questionable.
It would be one of the first smart things the studios had done a in a long time. Digital media itself has no value, it's not finite or limited in any substantial way, there's really no overhead involved in storing or transporting it and the cost of reproducing it is essentially...zero.
The value of all entertainment has always been in the experience. If you want to produce value with your digital media you'd be much better off focusing on ways to improve the theater experience, which you can control and commoditize better.
Sharing movies is simply reality and criminalizing it would be a ridiculous long-term solution, but that doesn't mean there's no way to keep movie making profitable. Avatar was a good start and maybe in a few generations the suits in Hollywood will start to understand why.
Ubiquity was just proof that even good projects can make bad decisions. It was DOA. It interestingly solved a problem by doing something no-one needed.
Then I'd like to ask, did you need patent protection to create your product?
I agree with you. But patents for existing things (prior work), obvious things (which typically attempt to restrict the obvious use of existing technologies) shouldn't be permited under either system.
Further I suggested: patents should only be granted for new ideas or new technologies and should never extend their protection onto old or existing technology.
So the great new idea can gain fair 1-3 year market protection, but may not form a symbiotic patent with the existing technologies. Once a patents protection ends a technology should remain unencumbered and free to use by the business, individuals and greater society that made it's creation possible.
Pharmaceutical companies are a good example. What's a 1-3 year lead (lets just say 3) worth to their market? Remember, the competitors will have to meet the same requirements, leaving them at a roughly 3 year disadvantage. And barring disaster or incompetence who will be first to market? First to brand? I'm not suggesting the solution I've put forth is without fault, but so far I haven't exactly seen it. Competition is good for everyone. No-one should be hamstrung by business process protections lasting 2 decades. That's not innovation, that's stifling innovation and crippling the value of our export economy.
If research costs can't be recouped by monopolistic 1-3 year lead maybe bending the law to suit your business model is a good solution. But at 20 years we're talking about artificially slowing innovation by almost a full generation. And that's only taking appropriate use into consideration.
If you can't accomplish it in 1-3 years, chances are you simply won't.
...unusual schema/functional approaches. So I might be a fine representative of your struggling, independent developer.
But let me clarify a little. I'm currently developing a social network-like application (feel free to roll your eyes, but there are some features about it that you probably will see as at least somewhat useful, I hope anyway). I'm doing this on my own, creating a fresh code-base and using 1 or 2
So the question I might have in scenario we've described is at what point do I seek a patent? I'm in early development right now, testings done mostly in-house and if I wanted feedback from a friend or colleague I might use an NDA (probably not, but MMV). There's a lot of work developing an application, but the protection a patent provides isn't necessarily required for all of it.
Maybe later during funding rounds I'd want my patent in place, or even if I push forward with live/public alpha or beta, that might be the time. But that still gives me 1-3 years from the point the patent is granted to build my product with a little protection in place.
If you can't start dark or fail to achieve a substantial advantage with a monopolistic 1-3 year lead I'm not sure why we should allow your 'assets' to stand in the way of those who might succeed.
And lets not forget that technology (like everything else) has been built on the backs of the thinkers and innovators who came before us.
Should software or any kind of technology pay licensing fees to every company, college, individual or institution who took part in developing the technologies we use in our own bid to improve or invent things?
Well..
If we turn the situation around by only slightly tweaking the existing patent system we can create a system that encourages business while increasing the rate at which new technologies become generally available. We end up with a more rapid and competitive technology life-cycle. Which is what we need to maintain relevance as a world technology leader, otherwise what is it we should export? Services? English and Spanish speaking call-centers? Will we have to resort to military-based expansionism when we fail to product high-quality exportable commodities? I think the best solution for all parties is to quickly put the patent system back in shape. America is a country that has been founded on innovation and it would be crime to lose any lead we might have gained by allowing this protectionism to continue to work against the society and businesses that once created it.
We're getting to a point where even big business has started to look critically at the patent system and it's effecting our ability to compete and stay relevant in the global market. I can understand how big business might have wanted to come to this but it seems increasingly likely they underestimated their positions as technology world leaders and in the next several years our exports and technologies will be increasingly at risk as the system we developed continues to ham-string our ability to develop and deliver new and innovative technologies.
American businesses, even multinationals don't want to become one of the worlds largest technology third-worlds and that's the risk we face if continue to allow business processes to dictate a societies technology and innovation.
Business needs protection, encouragement, but too much strong protection and the business trades inertia where it once held innovation and relevance. America is a great nation, and a strong producer of innovative products and technologies but we won't remain so indefinitely if we continue to legislate our competitive advantage. Sooner or later some nations will choose to not be bullied into international copyright or patent treaties and we will slowly be left to our unproductive back-biting and infighting.