The patent acknowledges that a person has a right to earn money from their ideas as well as from their physical labor.
No problem for you to believe that of course, but just to be clear, that has nothing at all to do with the purpose of patents as defined in the US Constitution.
I happen to think that patents are necessary for the promotion of ideas and technology but that isn't the basis on which I think patents are a good thing. The argument hinges on the fact that people have a right to profit from their ideas because they thought of them.
The former point (promotion of progress) is the legal basis for patents in the US, and the latter (the right to profit) has no place whatsoever in US law. I also think it has no place in any reasonable ethics either. You have no right to profit. You can earn profit in the marketplace, or not. You have a right to do whatever you want with your ideas, including attempting to profit from them, but saying you have a right to profit also means someone else has the obligation to give you money. Which I think is wrong.
The notion that ideas are public is simply absurd. If I have an idea nothing can compel me to tell it to you; it's in my head, it's my idea. If I wish to build something using my idea and sell it, that is my right.
And then the idea is... public. Anybody who sees your product now also has your idea.
I disagree with the notion that physical labor can be done for the benefit of the individual but mental labor must be done for public good.
It's been posted already, but the Mythbusters were unable to find any difference in damage or wall or ceiling movement with windows open or closed. With windows open there would be no pressure difference inside and outside the house, so that would indicate that isn't what does the damage.
It's certainly not a large scale scientific test, but it does at least cast doubt on the theory. I think the main problem really is blowing debris. Unless the wind is strong enough to literally blow down the wall (which it can be in a powerful tornado but isn't always), the debris is what's going to knock out windows and punch holes in walls, which then makes the house more vulnerable to further damage, and so on.
If you can keep the outside walls from collapsing, the house may remain intact enough to provide protection to occupants against the flying debris, even if the walls do need to be replaced afterwards. For houses that don't already have a tornado shelter, it could be worthwhile, though maybe it would not be any cheaper than digging a shelter, I don't know.
I'm not saying that this isn't cool, but it's not unique - thinking composite materials here.
You know of another technology/product for cheaply (I assume), easily and quickly strengthening walls against things like tornado debris? By all means let us know. Otherwise, why are you sh***ing on this?
Perhaps it's to keep too many cars from getting into a congested area at once. Maybe the choices are either stopping at every light, or massive nasty gridlock later on.
The cellular network is not ubiquitous (ubiquitous means it's everywhere), and not cheap (IMO). Robust, maybe. I haven't used data services much so can't comment on that.
Often, when normal people says words like "never" or "always" they mean "almost never" and "nearly always", and that's understood by most listeners.
That is true. However, you didn't say "never", you said "not", which IMO is not commonly used to denote hyperbole. Notice I said "not" as well, and that is just what I meant.
Listen, I understand what you were saying - now. If you had just said "I meant barely rotating", then it's cool. But to come back and get in my face about taking your written comments *at face value* makes you seem kind of socially maladjusted. Or insecure, or something. I just think it's kind of a jerk move that you used words other than the actual meaning you were trying to convey, and then blamed the miscommunication on the other person. Whether you're a geek or not I have no idea; since you seem to have some interest in astronomy, probably so. Actually you're on/. so you've got to be at least kind of a geek.
I think you'd be on firmer footing ponting out how needlessly snarky and sarcastic my correction was, rather than claiming that there was no reason to make the correction at all. I mean, there's something to criticize there, I just think you went after the wrong aspect of it.
What Hellier said (at least according to the article) was that this condition should be so short-lived and hard to find that finding it is "unlikely". I liken that to saying that some esoteric sub-atomic particle with an incredibly short half-life is hard to find. If we just happen to see one by chance, though, does that fact alone make it revolutionary? Does the fact that it has a short life mean that finding it, even by accident, would be "impossible"?
I like the analogy (whoa, is this slashdot?). If you go looking for a weird particle and find it on the first try, you keep looking to make sure what's going on, not question the standard model. On the other hand, if you're doing some other experiment and find a weird particle that your theory doesn't suggest should be there, it makes you wonder about the theory, as well as the experiment. Kind of seems like this planet is more the first case, don't you think?
At any rate, it does seem most likely to me that it just hasn't been in this orbit all that long, and will get eaten by the sun at some time. As you said, that we happened to observe it during that time frame is really interesting, but doesn't say anything about the planet.
Please forgive my brash assumption that when you wrote "not rotating", what you actually meant was "not rotating". I can't believe I was so stupid. I clearly should have seen that what you meant was "rotating differently than all the other planets in the solar system." Yeah, that was my bad.
It really depends on how small is small. If you happen to find a 1 in 10,000 birth defect, that's one thing. If you happen to find a baby born with telekinesis, that is something else. So rare it's never been seen, and it's not understood.
I haven't RTFA sorry to say, but if all they're saying is this would be a rare event, then blah. You would expect to find one of those now and then. But it sounds like the scientists are saying they don't even understand how this event is possible. Which is what I was trying to get at with my freaky bridge hand example.
That's not a very good analogy, because what they're studying (planetary systems) isn't random. It would be more like if you dealt bridge hands that were all the 8 of hearts - it shows that there is something you didn't understand about the deck.
Meanwhile, Venus is still sitting right next door and stubbornly not rotating. Something is off with our models, for sure.
You'd better go edit the Wikipedia entry on Venus then, because it states unequivocably that it does in fact rotate. It goes into great detail about its rotation in fact, which is odd if it doesn't rotate at all.
That's such a strange criticism. Blizzard also could have added a portal gun, made you make moral choices, and give you a dog that followed you around and dug up treasure. Maybe their lore didn't want to add in time travel. Maybe none of the developers thought of it.
I agree with you that they didn't need to add time travel. However, if you repeatedly click on an Arbiter, you can see that they did in fact think of it, way back in 199-whatever.:-)
All you've demonstrated is that current battery technology is inferior in energy density to fossil fuels. That's obvious. The original claim was that electricity storage would NEVER be good enough for tanks or planes.
Nobody can offer anything but speculation, but I'm not aware of any physical principles that would, in theory, prevent some sort of electricity storage from being good enough for such uses. In the long term, it seems likely that if a technology is possible and desirable, somebody will come up with a way to make it work.
I understood the last sentence, but it doesn't prove you recorded everything. Once the details have expired, you can't tell if you ever had them or not. I don't know what "inbound links to an expired memory" are. You can definitely know that you used to know something and have forgotten it, but that is very different from knowing that you used to know everything you've ever seen, and have forgotten it.
I was being kind of tongue in cheek along with the rest of the conversation, but it's very well known that we don't remember anything but a small percentage of what we see. Claiming that it gets "recorded" and then immediately forgotten is baseless IMO.
You're right. I tried running 4 videos at once with VLC on Vista, and even after turning off transparency effects my 1.8 GHz dual core with 3 GB RAM (and onboard video card) couldn't play them smoothly. Why you would need to do that I'm not sure, but the fact that a 20-year old computer can do it ~10 times better is still remarkable.
"I think our teams lost sight of what bug-free means, what resilience means, what full scenarios mean, what security means, what performance means, how important current applications are, and really understanding what the most important problems are [sic] customers face are. I see lots of random features and some great vision, but that doesn't translate into great products."
Slashdot Mirror
The patent acknowledges that a person has a right to earn money from their ideas as well as from their physical labor.
No problem for you to believe that of course, but just to be clear, that has nothing at all to do with the purpose of patents as defined in the US Constitution.
I happen to think that patents are necessary for the promotion of ideas and technology but that isn't the basis on which I think patents are a good thing. The argument hinges on the fact that people have a right to profit from their ideas because they thought of them.
The former point (promotion of progress) is the legal basis for patents in the US, and the latter (the right to profit) has no place whatsoever in US law. I also think it has no place in any reasonable ethics either. You have no right to profit. You can earn profit in the marketplace, or not. You have a right to do whatever you want with your ideas, including attempting to profit from them, but saying you have a right to profit also means someone else has the obligation to give you money. Which I think is wrong.
The notion that ideas are public is simply absurd. If I have an idea nothing can compel me to tell it to you; it's in my head, it's my idea. If I wish to build something using my idea and sell it, that is my right.
And then the idea is... public. Anybody who sees your product now also has your idea.
I disagree with the notion that physical labor can be done for the benefit of the individual but mental labor must be done for public good.
Is anybody actually promoting that notion?
Then again, maybe you can. (the CNN article is from January, but various news sources report today that it is available in the US)
It would be one thing to announce you were dropping support for it, and let users migrate to other things.
I haven't really followed the saga, but how is that different from what he did?
It's been posted already, but the Mythbusters were unable to find any difference in damage or wall or ceiling movement with windows open or closed. With windows open there would be no pressure difference inside and outside the house, so that would indicate that isn't what does the damage.
It's certainly not a large scale scientific test, but it does at least cast doubt on the theory. I think the main problem really is blowing debris. Unless the wind is strong enough to literally blow down the wall (which it can be in a powerful tornado but isn't always), the debris is what's going to knock out windows and punch holes in walls, which then makes the house more vulnerable to further damage, and so on.
If you can keep the outside walls from collapsing, the house may remain intact enough to provide protection to occupants against the flying debris, even if the walls do need to be replaced afterwards. For houses that don't already have a tornado shelter, it could be worthwhile, though maybe it would not be any cheaper than digging a shelter, I don't know.
I don't think you'd be putting this stuff on interior walls, would you?
Come on guys - it's physics.
Was there somebody suggesting otherwise?
I'm not saying that this isn't cool, but it's not unique - thinking composite materials here.
You know of another technology/product for cheaply (I assume), easily and quickly strengthening walls against things like tornado debris? By all means let us know. Otherwise, why are you sh***ing on this?
Perhaps it's to keep too many cars from getting into a congested area at once. Maybe the choices are either stopping at every light, or massive nasty gridlock later on.
The cellular network is not ubiquitous (ubiquitous means it's everywhere), and not cheap (IMO). Robust, maybe. I haven't used data services much so can't comment on that.
The ESRB is the only thing holding back the spectre of government-mandated ratings
No, the courts are also doing a good job of that.
Often, when normal people says words like "never" or "always" they mean "almost never" and "nearly always", and that's understood by most listeners.
That is true. However, you didn't say "never", you said "not", which IMO is not commonly used to denote hyperbole. Notice I said "not" as well, and that is just what I meant.
Listen, I understand what you were saying - now. If you had just said "I meant barely rotating", then it's cool. But to come back and get in my face about taking your written comments *at face value* makes you seem kind of socially maladjusted. Or insecure, or something. I just think it's kind of a jerk move that you used words other than the actual meaning you were trying to convey, and then blamed the miscommunication on the other person. Whether you're a geek or not I have no idea; since you seem to have some interest in astronomy, probably so. Actually you're on /. so you've got to be at least kind of a geek.
I think you'd be on firmer footing ponting out how needlessly snarky and sarcastic my correction was, rather than claiming that there was no reason to make the correction at all. I mean, there's something to criticize there, I just think you went after the wrong aspect of it.
What Hellier said (at least according to the article) was that this condition should be so short-lived and hard to find that finding it is "unlikely". I liken that to saying that some esoteric sub-atomic particle with an incredibly short half-life is hard to find. If we just happen to see one by chance, though, does that fact alone make it revolutionary? Does the fact that it has a short life mean that finding it, even by accident, would be "impossible"?
I like the analogy (whoa, is this slashdot?). If you go looking for a weird particle and find it on the first try, you keep looking to make sure what's going on, not question the standard model. On the other hand, if you're doing some other experiment and find a weird particle that your theory doesn't suggest should be there, it makes you wonder about the theory, as well as the experiment. Kind of seems like this planet is more the first case, don't you think?
At any rate, it does seem most likely to me that it just hasn't been in this orbit all that long, and will get eaten by the sun at some time. As you said, that we happened to observe it during that time frame is really interesting, but doesn't say anything about the planet.
Please forgive my brash assumption that when you wrote "not rotating", what you actually meant was "not rotating". I can't believe I was so stupid. I clearly should have seen that what you meant was "rotating differently than all the other planets in the solar system." Yeah, that was my bad.
It really depends on how small is small. If you happen to find a 1 in 10,000 birth defect, that's one thing. If you happen to find a baby born with telekinesis, that is something else. So rare it's never been seen, and it's not understood.
I haven't RTFA sorry to say, but if all they're saying is this would be a rare event, then blah. You would expect to find one of those now and then. But it sounds like the scientists are saying they don't even understand how this event is possible. Which is what I was trying to get at with my freaky bridge hand example.
That's not a very good analogy, because what they're studying (planetary systems) isn't random. It would be more like if you dealt bridge hands that were all the 8 of hearts - it shows that there is something you didn't understand about the deck.
Meanwhile, Venus is still sitting right next door and stubbornly not rotating. Something is off with our models, for sure.
You'd better go edit the Wikipedia entry on Venus then, because it states unequivocably that it does in fact rotate. It goes into great detail about its rotation in fact, which is odd if it doesn't rotate at all.
That's such a strange criticism. Blizzard also could have added a portal gun, made you make moral choices, and give you a dog that followed you around and dug up treasure. Maybe their lore didn't want to add in time travel. Maybe none of the developers thought of it.
I agree with you that they didn't need to add time travel. However, if you repeatedly click on an Arbiter, you can see that they did in fact think of it, way back in 199-whatever. :-)
Basketball might be really awesome with trampolines scattered around the floor, but that's not basketball anymore.
Nope, that's SlamBall.
I'm wondering what your criteria are for declaring something a cult. Care to elaborate?
All you've demonstrated is that current battery technology is inferior in energy density to fossil fuels. That's obvious. The original claim was that electricity storage would NEVER be good enough for tanks or planes.
Nobody can offer anything but speculation, but I'm not aware of any physical principles that would, in theory, prevent some sort of electricity storage from being good enough for such uses. In the long term, it seems likely that if a technology is possible and desirable, somebody will come up with a way to make it work.
Why not? You don't think electricity storage technology will ever be adequate for such tasks? That seems pretty pessimistic.
I understood the last sentence, but it doesn't prove you recorded everything. Once the details have expired, you can't tell if you ever had them or not. I don't know what "inbound links to an expired memory" are. You can definitely know that you used to know something and have forgotten it, but that is very different from knowing that you used to know everything you've ever seen, and have forgotten it.
I was being kind of tongue in cheek along with the rest of the conversation, but it's very well known that we don't remember anything but a small percentage of what we see. Claiming that it gets "recorded" and then immediately forgotten is baseless IMO.
How do you know you record everything if you don't have access to it later?
You're right. I tried running 4 videos at once with VLC on Vista, and even after turning off transparency effects my 1.8 GHz dual core with 3 GB RAM (and onboard video card) couldn't play them smoothly. Why you would need to do that I'm not sure, but the fact that a 20-year old computer can do it ~10 times better is still remarkable.
He sounds pretty clueful to me.
"I think our teams lost sight of what bug-free means, what resilience means, what full scenarios mean, what security means, what performance means, how important current applications are, and really understanding what the most important problems are [sic] customers face are. I see lots of random features and some great vision, but that doesn't translate into great products."
from http://iowa.gotthefacts.org/010807/PLEX_7264.pdf
I haven't read all of them though, maybe he puts his foot in his mouth elsewhere.
How many legitimate customers is it OK to screw with in order to try and fail to stop piracy?