Awesome... I see that Century Media and Nuclear Blast are not RIAA labels, which is awesome. A lot of bands I like (Sentenced, Iced Earth, Blind Guardian, Dimmu Borgir etc.) are on those... I feel a lot better knowing that.
No doubt, but thankfully Cary is not the entire Triangle.
I've never heard anyone up here in Boston that was happy when they heard they were being shipped down there.
That's OK, I've never met anybody down here who was happy about being transferred to Boston.
Work on not having everything shut down after 1" of snow first.
Aaah, but that's the rub... we don't often get much more than 1" of snow! I for one will take that over living in Boston (and other points north) anyday.:-)
Do you think you'll have to pay more or less than $0.99 for your favorite throwback band.
Heh, I'm hoping less. I could rack up on "hair band" music if the price drops to about $0.25 per track. Lots of it would be a steal even at $0.50 / track...
Personally, I relish the though of all the kids that must have the latest/greatest junk out of the studios paying buku dollars in order to subsidize me buying up older stuff I used to love in College
I hadn't really thought of it that way, but good point. Let the guy paying $1.50 / song for Hoobastank subidize my fix for Twisted Sister, Dokken, Quiet Riot, Motley Crue, etc. Yeah, that sounds kinda nice...
Buying music online should be less expensive than buying the equivelant CD, since you're not getting as much value when you buy online (see: DRM), and the manufacturers aren't paying for packaging and shipping. If they push the prices up to where all the tracks on a given CD cost more than just buying the CD, you'd have to be an idiot to download from an online store.
Within that framework though, I don't see any reason not to have flexible pricing. Most of the music I listen to is older, less popular stuff anyway, so I'd probably benefit (if I actually used iTunes in the first place). I hope Krokus, Vixen, White Sister, Rough Cutt, Faster Pussycat, etc. songs go down to about a quarter each... I might actually start buying online then.
The US is nice and all, but I'd rather live in a country that doesn't make a habit out of invading other countries.
Well, I can understand your sentiment, but I'd move to a country that is *not* high on the list of countries for the US to invade. As soon as the Canadians get tired of giving us their water, electricity and oil, I bet they'll be the target of a "liberation" exercise...
There are three areas for biotech/pharma growth: Boston, San Diego and San Francisco (with some occuring in the I-95 corridor).
I don't know if you were referring to RTP / Raleigh / Durham when you said "I-95 corridor" but that area is becoming a hotbed for the biotech / pharmaceutical industry. All of the local business magazines have been saying for a couple of years now that this area is becoming less and less of a telecom / software oriented area, and more biotech / pharma. The main companies getting venture capital here are bio-techs, the state government is pushing bio-tech like mad, the community colleges are adding bio-tech related degree programs, etc.
Now RTP might not be *as* significant as the other areas you mention, but there's a lot of evidence that this area is becoming a major player in those industries. Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing is another question...:-)
"SHA-1 is a wounded fish in shark-infested waters, but I'm more worried about MD5 because it's used everywhere," said Niels Ferguson, a cryptographer at Microsoft Corp. "Try to switch away from SHA-1 as quickly as you can, but switch away from MD5 first," he said when asked what recommendations he has regarding the algorithms during a panel discussion at the conference.
Actually, the only app I've had real problems replacing is MS Project, ironically I need it for my Software engineering degree; You'd think developers had no need for project management tools. Maybe I should submit an ask slashdot?;)
Have you looked at http://www.openworkbench.org/? It's a formerly commercial PM package that went opensource a while back.
I've seen this before, but why is C/C++ marked as a high-level language (as in the summary)? C/C++ are LOW-level languages
I've never heard that before... everyone I know, and all the literature I've read that described programming languages, considers assembler as "low level" and anything at a higher level of abstraction as "high level." With the exception of a few folks who try to describe C as a "mid level language" or as "high level assembler."
Calling C++ a "low level language" is absolutely a mistake anyway. It's really a mixed-paradigm language, which includes "low-level" abstractions and some very "high-level" ones. Just because you have the option of dropping down to a low-level close to the hardware doesn't mean you have to.
The analysis is that something can only be "invented" once.
Yeah, I know that's they way it's interpreted, but I will respectfully disagree. If two people working on opposite sides of the word, with no contact or communication whatsoever, come up with the same "invention" at (or nearly at) the same time, is it proper to say that one gets rights to it and the other doesn't? I personally think not. But then again, I disagree with a great many things...
After that, whoever comes up with it (on their own, as the case may be) is not technically "inventing" the concept.
A suggestion which raises all sorts of intriguing issues regarding what it means to "invent" something, and what the definition of a "concept" is, etc. But at that level, one is changing topics to philosophy, and objective arguments become scarcer and scarcer. If we go down this path, pretty soon we'll be arguing over the definition of "objective" and then somebody will get into what Quine says about truth relative to common definitions, blah... pretty soon nobody will remember what we started talking about in the first place.
Regarding the Libertarian topic.. yeah. I'm not asking you to agree, but the fact is that it is read into the term "Inventors" by every lawyer and judge who desires to continue a successful career in patent law.
Then I suppose it's a good thing that I'm not interested in going into patent law for a living...:-)
Under the constitution, the guy who discovers (independently) at a later date has no right to the invention.
That's not strictly true. All the constitution says about that is in the enumerated powers clause, which contains
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
So Congress has the *power* (under the Constitution) to implement patents... but it isn't *required* to do so.
And the bigger issue is, "rights" cannot be taken away by Constitutions, laws, or anything else. "Rights" just are. You only lose a right when you fail to defend it. Personally - as a Libertarian - I do not acknowledge any implicit authority on the part of the government to restrict someone from taking advantage of a "discovery" simply because someone else discovered it sooner and filed a paper with the government. But now we're getting into political ideology which is really a separate discussion. And even all Libertarians don't agree on exactly what "intellectual property" means and whether or not the government has any role in regulating it.
That's basically the current rule and it's impossible to clearly enforce. The current way around this is to claim, for example, a mathematical algorithm that produces a result which is displayed on a screen, transmitted to another computer, or some equivalent "physical manifestation".
Aaargh. Well, if that patent office accepts logic of that sort, then we have bigger problems. Aaah, well, I'm actually in favor of scrapping the entire notion of patents anyway, so this just reinforces my opinion. They cause more harm than good, and they violate the rights of an inventor who discovers (independently) something which someone else has already patented. After all, the government has no valid claim to any authority to regulate what I can do with my thoughts. Just because someone else had it first doesn't make it "theirs."
And as in In re Sarkar, this practice "exalts form over substance" and allows basically every reasonable implementation of the algorithm to be patented. Personally, I think more weight should be given to the analysis in Sarkar, but for some reason that I don't fully understand (perhaps the age of the case?) its analysis is often dismissed in more recent case law.
Interesting, if I find some spare time I'll look that up and read it over.
It would help corporations with lots of capital. It would basically eliminate the concept of the individual inventor except in the Pasta Pot technology. Also, a prototype really has nothing to do with the patent examination process. An inventor is entitled to broader patent protection than his prototype, so the scale model is really little more than an extremely expensive toy.
Well, as expensive as patents are - even if you file it yourself - and considering the expense of a patent attorney, I'd say the average solo inventor is already screwed by the existing patent system. I expect that large companies with plenty of capital already benefit more from patents than individuals do.
It's called Pre-Grant Publication, it's part of the Patent Cooperation Treaty, and it's been in place for basically every patent application filed since 2000. 37 CFR 1.99 allows for a 3rd party to submit prior art and has been in place for years and years, but I've never heard of anyone using it.
I wonder why nobody uses it? Maybe they just need to publicize it more? I've heard the idea suggested before and did not know that it was already in place.
There is a proposed bill in Congress that will expand this facility. Soliciting comments from the public is a very touchy subject. You could quickly get into situations where competitors in the marketplace get into inequitable conduct at the patent office and nobody at the USPTO is equipped or prepared to straighten that out.
Yep, that would be a possibility. Sounds like another good argument for scrapping patents altogether.
They have patent examiners; they don't have fraud examiners. You submit a patent and I (your competitor) miraculously submits all sorts of technical analysis, expert opinions, etc., that give the examiner so many things to doubt that your patent will never issue, regardless of the prior art.
I'll be honest in saying that I believe that there are about 3-5 inventions per year, max, that actually deserve patent protection (this is assuming that one accepts that patents are a good idea in general). So the scenario you paint doesn't exactly disturb me. If there is any reasonable issue to question the validity of the patent, I say reject it. But, that's just my opinion.
As far as I know, examiners have never been paid based on allowing or rejecting patents. They are currently salaried, exempt employees who have no interests in whether an application issues except for filling out the paperwork.
Interesting, I believe I'd heard otherwise. Or maybe it was their performance review, not their actual compensation, which I'd heard was tied to the number of accepted
No "legal definition of invention" and we're talking about an aspect of the legal system. Brilliant. You have the knife in this gunfight.
Gunfight? Who's fighting? Maybe you are, I'm not. I said what I had to say, you're free to agree or disagree, that's your choice.
By the same token, I don't know much about plumbing. However, as a mature adult, I readily acknowledge that I don't know anything about plumbing and hence you won't find me engaging in a public tirade about how plumbers are lazy idiots who are screwing up the world. See, before I did that, I'd make sure that I had at least a very basic understanding, based on fact, of plumbing.
Apples and Oranges, bub. That paragraph has absolutely nothing to do with the discussion at hand.
So maybe you aren't the expert on how the patent system works?
I never claimed to be.
Some people are, and when they read what you've shared with the Slashdot community, you pretty much look like an ass.
I'm sure just as many people reading this discussion will find you to be the ass, as find me so. Honestly, I couldn't care less what you - or anybody else here - thinks of me. If considering me an ass makes you feel better, then please continue to do so. Consider it a public service, my little gift to you.
If you or anyone has a single sentence test that clears up this extremely complicated issue, everyone in the patent industry is listening.
"Computer software, algorithms, methods and techniques; numerical / mathematical algorithms, manipulations and techniques; and any other "inventions" with no physical manifestation - are NOT eligible for patent protection."
Or something to that effect.
Requiring a physical prototype of the invention would help as well. There should also be a method of publishing patent applications for public review, and a simple, direct method for the public to submit comments and references to prior art, before a new patent is approved. Patent examiners also should not get paid based on the number of patents reviewed, rejected, approved, etc. Make 'em salaried, exempt employees, with no motivation to reject or approve patents that relates to their compensation. And get patent examiners who are actually skilled in the fields where they will be examining patents: eg, require a degree in mechanical engineering for examiners who will examine patents for boilers, a degree in electrical engineering for examiners who will examine patents on new transformers, etc.
Great. That has absolutely nothing to do with the legal concept of "obvious" as defined by 35 USC 103, Graham v. Deere, or any other legal precedent defining patentability.
Doesn't it? Because if a brain-dead zombie could have invented this, then surely someone versed in that field could have...
Because hey, maybe I'm the one who doesn't know what he's talking about.
Well, you obviously missed English class when they spoke about "intentional hyperbole to make a point."
The point being, our patent system is busted when it allows crap like this to be patented.
Ficticious patent application? Did you just make that up?
As a matter of fact, I did.
What does that even mean?
You're a smart kid, I'm sure you can figure it out.
Where are you getting your legal concept of "invention"? I'm sincerely interested - I've read hundreds of pages of court decisions, the manual of patent examining procedure, picked apart 37 CFR and 35 USC, but I'm interested in where you came up with your definition.
I don't claim to have a "legal definition of invention." However, the current "legal" definition does include, I believe, some verbiage regarding "obviousness." This particular invention IS "obvious to a skilled practitioner" or however it's worded. It's the kind of thing that is so obvious that nobody rational would thing of applying for a patent on it in the first place, because it's so obviously obvious!
This "invention" is so frickin' obvious that one of those brain-dead zombies from "Night of the Living Dead" could have invented it. My pet Dalmatian has thought of more innovative ideas than this. This is crap, it's nothing, it's not an "invention," it doesn't deserve a patent, and Amazon should be fined for filing a ficticious patent application.
Sure, browsers work on every platform, and AJAX apps don't need a download, that's great. But the same thing could be done with java if everyone had a JVM, or anything else.
You could do the same stuff with XUL also, if everybody ran a Mozilla based browser, or if XUL became a standard and other vendors started supporting it...
I use Print-It! to restore the Print command to the context menu. Of course it never should have been taken out in the first place, but that's an argument for another day.
The "point" (if there is one) isn't really about whether ID is correct or not. The problem is that it's not a valid, falsifiable, scientific theory. It's just some ID that might explain things that we can't otherwise explain. ID really is no better than the Flying Spaghetti Monster theory, that's the problem.
If people want to believe in ID, fine (I lean that way myself), but it's ridiculous to let these religious fundamentalist nutjobs screw up the educational system and start redefining the very meaning of "science." But as it stands, there is absolutely no basis for teaching ID as any sort of accepted, favorable, or meaningful theory... all the people saying "if you're going to teach ID, teach FSM" aren't just being fascetious, they have a very valid point.
This statement; "given your talents as a coder and someone elses talent as a coder" means they are equal in this area and the only difference is the degree.
Assuming you really have some objective metric by which you can evaluate coding talent, then that seems (more or less) reasonable. I thought you meant you would dismiss the non degree holding candidate without any consideration at all, which is what I was saying would be pretty short-sighted.
I'm not impressed with "coders" who are able to assimilate programming languages but couldn't tell me the difference between a shell sort and a selection sort.
But that begs the question of whether the candidate with the degree is necessarily more informed in regards to things like algorithms, etc. I don't think that's an assumption that is valid. Just because one candidate has a degree doesn't mean they know more than the guy who doesn't. There are other avenues to gain that sort of knowledge, other than sitting in a classroom taking credit classes towards a degree.
I'll allow that, on average, a candidate with a degree is *likely* to be better educated than one who is not, which leads back to what I was saying before... if you want average, then plays the odds, avoid the extra time and expense of really probing the candidates deeply, and accept that. But if you want the cream of the crop, you have to consider that the guy with just a high-school diploma *might* be a guy who sits around and reads Knuth for giggles and could teach algorithms at a higher level than the average B.S. degree holder.
I would suggest that you should also consider motivation and interest... a guy who skated through his B.S. in computer science, barely passing, because he heard that "computers are where the money is" might be quickly surpassed by the high-school guy who loves computing like it's nobody's business and spends his every spare hour taking classes, reading, learning new stuff, etc. So that leads to asking if you're interested in hiring and developing great employees, or do you want somebody you can just drop in and treat like a human widget?
Does this mean I should hire the high school dropout because he might be the next Bill Gates?
Not at all... I'm just saying that if you want "the best" you have to "leave no stone unturned," so to speak. So that means bringing the high-school guy in, interviewing him thoroughly, maybe testing him, and actually making an effort to determine if he's for real, instead of just dismissing him out of hand. Maybe 9 times out of 10 you will decide not to hire the guy... but that 1 guy in 10 (or 1 in 50 or 1 in 100, whatever) might just be a damn fine addition to your company.
It takes much more than "coding" to be hiring material and I despise cleaning up after them.
I agree, but I get the impression that that statement still reflects your assumption that somebody without a degree is "just a coder" and is necessarily inferior to someone with a degree. And again, I don't that that is always true.
FWIW, we're not *all* like that. Some of us Americans acknowledge that the rest of the world exists, and is just as important as (or more important than) the USofA.
There's no good reason why professionals like sys admins and software engineers should be working in cubicles. It's not a suitable work environment and it's disrespectful for a company to ask you to work in such an environment. I'll bet the managers still have private offices, no? So tell me, why should they work in offices and not everybody else?
Companies have this false economy in mind when they do this crap, they think they're saving money. But they fail to account for the lost productivity - not to mention security concerns, as pointed out by the OP.
As a manager I must say that given your talents as a coder and someone elses talent as a coder... with the only difference being one of you has a CS degree and the other dropped out of high-school, guess which one I will hire?
Are you saying that you'll make your decision on nothing but "degree vs. non-degree?" That's the way your statement came off.
If so, you're taking a very short-sighted view of things, and you're going to miss out on some damn good employees. If you're happy with generally average employees, then fine... on balance if you hire based on a simple criteria like that, your employees will likely be an average lot. OTOH, if you want the best, really top-flight talent, you are going to have to dig, investigate each candidate thoroughly, and not make simplistic decisions like ruling out non degree holders.
Neither approach is "right" or "wrong," but you should understand the implications of choosing one or the other.
Slashdot Mirror
Awesome... I see that Century Media and Nuclear Blast are not RIAA labels, which is awesome. A lot of bands I like (Sentenced, Iced Earth, Blind Guardian, Dimmu Borgir etc.) are on those... I feel a lot better knowing that.
CARY = Containment Area for Relocated Yankees.
:-)
No doubt, but thankfully Cary is not the entire Triangle.
I've never heard anyone up here in Boston that was happy when they heard they were being shipped down there.
That's OK, I've never met anybody down here who was happy about being transferred to Boston.
Work on not having everything shut down after 1" of snow first.
Aaah, but that's the rub... we don't often get much more than 1" of snow! I for one will take that
over living in Boston (and other points north) anyday.
Do you think you'll have to pay more or less than $0.99 for your favorite throwback band.
Heh, I'm hoping less. I could rack up on "hair band" music if the price drops to about $0.25 per track. Lots of it would be a steal even at $0.50 / track...
Personally, I relish the though of all the kids that must have the latest/greatest junk out of the studios paying buku dollars in order to subsidize me buying up older stuff I used to love in College
I hadn't really thought of it that way, but good point. Let the guy paying $1.50 / song for Hoobastank subidize my fix for Twisted Sister, Dokken, Quiet Riot, Motley Crue, etc. Yeah, that sounds kinda nice...
Buying music online should be less expensive than buying the equivelant CD, since you're not getting as much value when you buy online (see: DRM), and the manufacturers aren't paying for packaging and shipping. If they push the prices up to where all the tracks on a given CD cost more than just buying the CD, you'd have to be an idiot to download from an online store.
Within that framework though, I don't see any reason not to have flexible pricing. Most of the music I listen to is older, less popular stuff anyway, so I'd probably benefit (if I actually used iTunes in the first place). I hope Krokus, Vixen, White Sister, Rough Cutt, Faster Pussycat, etc. songs go down to about a quarter each... I might actually start buying online then.
The US is nice and all, but I'd rather live in a country that doesn't make a habit out of invading other countries.
Well, I can understand your sentiment, but I'd move to a country that is *not* high on the list of countries for the US to invade. As soon as the Canadians get tired of giving us their water, electricity and oil, I bet they'll be the target of a "liberation" exercise...
There are three areas for biotech/pharma growth: Boston, San Diego and San Francisco (with some occuring in the I-95 corridor).
:-)
I don't know if you were referring to RTP / Raleigh / Durham when you said "I-95 corridor" but that area is becoming a hotbed for the biotech / pharmaceutical industry. All of the local business magazines have been saying for a couple of years now that this area is becoming less and less of a telecom / software oriented area, and more biotech / pharma. The main companies getting venture capital here are bio-techs, the state government is pushing bio-tech like mad, the community colleges are adding bio-tech related degree programs, etc.
Now RTP might not be *as* significant as the other areas you mention, but there's a lot of evidence that this area is becoming a major player in those industries. Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing is another question...
Does anyone else feel that the UK is becoming an ultra right wing religious police state?
You mean like the USofA? Yeah, I noticed that too...
So is SHA1 the recommended alternative?
i ty/story/0,10801,99852,00.html
a re/story/0,10801,105875,00.html
No, see:
http://www.computerworld.com/securitytopics/secur
and
http://www.computerworld.com/softwaretopics/softw
I like this quote:
"SHA-1 is a wounded fish in shark-infested waters, but I'm more worried about MD5 because it's used everywhere," said Niels Ferguson, a cryptographer at Microsoft Corp. "Try to switch away from SHA-1 as quickly as you can, but switch away from MD5 first," he said when asked what recommendations he has regarding the algorithms during a panel discussion at the conference.
Actually, the only app I've had real problems replacing is MS Project, ironically I need it for my Software engineering degree; You'd think developers had no need for project management tools. Maybe I should submit an ask slashdot? ;)
Have you looked at http://www.openworkbench.org/? It's a formerly commercial PM package that went opensource a while back.
I've seen this before, but why is C/C++ marked as a high-level language (as in the summary)? C/C++ are LOW-level languages
I've never heard that before... everyone I know, and all the literature I've read that described programming languages, considers assembler as "low level" and anything at a higher level of abstraction as "high level." With the exception of a few folks who try to describe C as a "mid level language" or as "high level assembler."
Calling C++ a "low level language" is absolutely a mistake anyway. It's really a mixed-paradigm language, which includes "low-level" abstractions and some very "high-level" ones. Just because you have the option of dropping down to a low-level close to the hardware doesn't mean you have to.
The analysis is that something can only be "invented" once.
:-)
Yeah, I know that's they way it's interpreted, but I will respectfully disagree. If two people working on opposite sides of the word, with no contact or communication whatsoever, come up with the same "invention" at (or nearly at) the same time, is it proper to say that one gets rights to it and the other doesn't? I personally think not. But then again, I disagree with a great many things...
After that, whoever comes up with it (on their own, as the case may be) is not technically "inventing" the concept.
A suggestion which raises all sorts of intriguing issues regarding what it means to "invent" something, and what the definition of a "concept" is, etc. But at that level, one is changing topics to philosophy, and objective arguments become scarcer and scarcer. If we go down this path, pretty soon we'll be arguing over the definition of "objective" and then somebody will get into what Quine says about truth relative to common definitions, blah... pretty soon nobody will remember what we started talking about in the first place.
Regarding the Libertarian topic.. yeah. I'm not asking you to agree, but the fact is that it is read into the term "Inventors" by every lawyer and judge who desires to continue a successful career in patent law.
Then I suppose it's a good thing that I'm not interested in going into patent law for a living...
Under the constitution, the guy who discovers (independently) at a later date has no right to the invention.
That's not strictly true. All the constitution says about that is in the enumerated powers clause, which contains
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
So Congress has the *power* (under the Constitution) to implement patents... but it isn't *required* to do so.
And the bigger issue is, "rights" cannot be taken away by Constitutions, laws, or anything else. "Rights" just are. You only lose a right when you fail to defend it. Personally - as a Libertarian - I do not acknowledge any implicit authority on the part of the government to restrict someone from taking advantage of a "discovery" simply because someone else discovered it sooner and filed a paper with the government. But now we're getting into political ideology which is really a separate discussion. And even all Libertarians don't agree on exactly what "intellectual property" means and whether or not the government has any role in regulating it.
That's basically the current rule and it's impossible to clearly enforce. The current way around this is to claim, for example, a mathematical algorithm that produces a result which is displayed on a screen, transmitted to another computer, or some equivalent "physical manifestation".
Aaargh. Well, if that patent office accepts logic of that sort, then we have bigger problems. Aaah, well, I'm actually in favor of scrapping the entire notion of patents anyway, so this just reinforces my opinion. They cause more harm than good, and they violate the rights of an inventor who discovers (independently) something which someone else has already patented. After all, the government has no valid claim to any authority to regulate what I can do with my thoughts. Just because someone else had it first doesn't make it "theirs."
And as in In re Sarkar, this practice "exalts form over substance" and allows basically every reasonable implementation of the algorithm to be patented. Personally, I think more weight should be given to the analysis in Sarkar, but for some reason that I don't fully understand (perhaps the age of the case?) its analysis is often dismissed in more recent case law.
Interesting, if I find some spare time I'll look that up and read it over.
It would help corporations with lots of capital. It would basically eliminate the concept of the individual inventor except in the Pasta Pot technology. Also, a prototype really has nothing to do with the patent examination process. An inventor is entitled to broader patent protection than his prototype, so the scale model is really little more than an extremely expensive toy.
Well, as expensive as patents are - even if you file it yourself - and considering the expense of a patent attorney, I'd say the average solo inventor is already screwed by the existing patent system. I expect that large companies with plenty of capital already benefit more from patents than individuals do.
It's called Pre-Grant Publication, it's part of the Patent Cooperation Treaty, and it's been in place for basically every patent application filed since 2000. 37 CFR 1.99 allows for a 3rd party to submit prior art and has been in place for years and years, but I've never heard of anyone using it.
I wonder why nobody uses it? Maybe they just need to publicize it more? I've heard the idea suggested before and did not know that it was already in place.
There is a proposed bill in Congress that will expand this facility. Soliciting comments from the public is a very touchy subject. You could quickly get into situations where competitors in the marketplace get into inequitable conduct at the patent office and nobody at the USPTO is equipped or prepared to straighten that out.
Yep, that would be a possibility. Sounds like another good argument for scrapping patents altogether.
They have patent examiners; they don't have fraud examiners. You submit a patent and I (your competitor) miraculously submits all sorts of technical analysis, expert opinions, etc., that give the examiner so many things to doubt that your patent will never issue, regardless of the prior art.
I'll be honest in saying that I believe that there are about 3-5 inventions per year, max, that actually deserve patent protection (this is assuming that one accepts that patents are a good idea in general). So the scenario you paint doesn't exactly disturb me. If there is any reasonable issue to question the validity of the patent, I say reject it. But, that's just my opinion.
As far as I know, examiners have never been paid based on allowing or rejecting patents. They are currently salaried, exempt employees who have no interests in whether an application issues except for filling out the paperwork.
Interesting, I believe I'd heard otherwise. Or maybe it was their performance review, not their actual compensation, which I'd heard was tied to the number of accepted
No "legal definition of invention" and we're talking about an aspect of the legal system. Brilliant. You have the knife in this gunfight.
Gunfight? Who's fighting? Maybe you are, I'm not. I said what I had to say, you're free to agree or disagree, that's your choice.
By the same token, I don't know much about plumbing. However, as a mature adult, I readily acknowledge that I don't know anything about plumbing and hence you won't find me engaging in a public tirade about how plumbers are lazy idiots who are screwing up the world. See, before I did that, I'd make sure that I had at least a very basic understanding, based on fact, of plumbing.
Apples and Oranges, bub. That paragraph has absolutely nothing to do with the discussion at hand.
So maybe you aren't the expert on how the patent system works?
I never claimed to be.
Some people are, and when they read what you've shared with the Slashdot community, you pretty much look like an ass.
I'm sure just as many people reading this discussion will find you to be the ass, as find me so. Honestly, I couldn't care less what you - or anybody else here - thinks of me. If considering me an ass makes you feel better, then please continue to do so. Consider it a public service, my little gift to you.
If you or anyone has a single sentence test that clears up this extremely complicated issue, everyone in the patent industry is listening.
"Computer software, algorithms, methods and techniques; numerical / mathematical algorithms, manipulations and techniques; and any other "inventions" with no physical manifestation - are NOT eligible for patent protection."
Or something to that effect.
Requiring a physical prototype of the invention would help as well. There should also be a method of publishing patent applications for public review, and a simple, direct method for the public to submit comments and references to prior art, before a new patent is approved. Patent examiners also should not get paid based on the number of patents reviewed, rejected, approved, etc. Make 'em salaried, exempt employees, with no motivation to reject or approve patents that relates to their compensation. And get patent examiners who are actually skilled in the fields where they will be examining patents: eg, require a degree in mechanical engineering for examiners who will examine patents for boilers, a degree in electrical engineering for examiners who will examine patents on new transformers, etc.
Great. That has absolutely nothing to do with the legal concept of "obvious" as defined by 35 USC 103, Graham v. Deere, or any other legal precedent defining patentability.
Doesn't it? Because if a brain-dead zombie could have invented this, then surely someone versed in that field could have...
Because hey, maybe I'm the one who doesn't know what he's talking about.
Well, you obviously missed English class when they spoke about "intentional hyperbole to make a point."
The point being, our patent system is busted when it allows crap like this to be patented.
Ficticious patent application? Did you just make that up?
As a matter of fact, I did.
What does that even mean?
You're a smart kid, I'm sure you can figure it out.
Where are you getting your legal concept of "invention"? I'm sincerely interested - I've read hundreds of pages of court decisions, the manual of patent examining procedure, picked apart 37 CFR and 35 USC, but I'm interested in where you came up with your definition.
I don't claim to have a "legal definition of invention." However, the current "legal" definition does include, I believe, some verbiage regarding "obviousness." This particular invention IS "obvious to a skilled practitioner" or however it's worded. It's the kind of thing that is so obvious that nobody rational would thing of applying for a patent on it in the first place, because it's so obviously obvious!
This "invention" is so frickin' obvious that one of those brain-dead zombies from "Night of the Living Dead" could have invented it. My pet Dalmatian has thought of more innovative ideas than this. This is crap, it's nothing, it's not an "invention," it doesn't deserve a patent, and Amazon should be fined for filing a ficticious patent application.
Sure, browsers work on every platform, and AJAX apps don't need a download, that's great. But the same thing could be done with java if everyone had a JVM, or anything else.
You could do the same stuff with XUL also, if everybody ran a Mozilla based browser, or if XUL became a standard and other vendors started supporting it...
I use Print-It! to restore the Print command to the context menu. Of course it never should have been taken out in the first place, but that's an argument for another day.
The "point" (if there is one) isn't really about whether ID is correct or not. The problem is that it's not a valid, falsifiable, scientific theory. It's just some ID that might explain things that we can't otherwise explain. ID really is no better than the Flying Spaghetti Monster theory, that's the problem.
If people want to believe in ID, fine (I lean that way myself), but it's ridiculous to let these religious fundamentalist nutjobs screw up the educational system and start redefining the very meaning of "science." But as it stands, there is absolutely no basis for teaching ID as any sort of accepted, favorable, or meaningful theory... all the people saying "if you're going to teach ID, teach FSM" aren't just being fascetious, they have a very valid point.
This statement; "given your talents as a coder and someone elses talent as a coder" means they are equal in this area and the only difference is the degree.
Assuming you really have some objective metric by which you can evaluate coding talent, then that seems (more or less) reasonable. I thought you meant you would dismiss the non degree holding candidate without any consideration at all, which is what I was saying would be pretty short-sighted.
I'm not impressed with "coders" who are able to assimilate programming languages but couldn't tell me the difference between a shell sort and a selection sort.
But that begs the question of whether the candidate with the degree is necessarily more informed in regards to things like algorithms, etc. I don't think that's an assumption that is valid. Just because one candidate has a degree doesn't mean they know more than the guy who doesn't. There are other avenues to gain that sort of knowledge, other than sitting in a classroom taking credit classes towards a degree.
I'll allow that, on average, a candidate with a degree is *likely* to be better educated than one who is not, which leads back to what I was saying before... if you want average, then plays the odds, avoid the extra time and expense of really probing the candidates deeply, and accept that. But if you want the cream of the crop, you have to consider that the guy with just a high-school diploma *might* be a guy who sits around and reads Knuth for giggles and could teach algorithms at a higher level than the average B.S. degree holder.
I would suggest that you should also consider motivation and interest... a guy who skated through his B.S. in computer science, barely passing, because he heard that "computers are where the money is" might be quickly surpassed by the high-school guy who loves computing like it's nobody's business and spends his every spare hour taking classes, reading, learning new stuff, etc. So that leads to asking if you're interested in hiring and developing great employees, or do you want somebody you can just drop in and treat like a human widget?
Does this mean I should hire the high school dropout because he might be the next Bill Gates?
Not at all... I'm just saying that if you want "the best" you have to "leave no stone unturned," so to speak. So that means bringing the high-school guy in, interviewing him thoroughly, maybe testing him, and actually making an effort to determine if he's for real, instead of just dismissing him out of hand. Maybe 9 times out of 10 you will decide not to hire the guy... but that 1 guy in 10 (or 1 in 50 or 1 in 100, whatever) might just be a damn fine addition to your company.
It takes much more than "coding" to be hiring material and I despise cleaning up after them.
I agree, but I get the impression that that statement still reflects your assumption that somebody without a degree is "just a coder" and is necessarily inferior to someone with a degree. And again, I don't that that is always true.
FWIW, we're not *all* like that. Some of us Americans acknowledge that the rest of the world exists, and is just as important as (or more important than) the USofA.
There's no good reason why professionals like sys admins and software engineers should be working in cubicles. It's not a suitable work environment and it's disrespectful for a company to ask you to work in such an environment. I'll bet the managers still have private offices, no? So tell me, why should they work in offices and not everybody else?
Companies have this false economy in mind when they do this crap, they think they're saving money. But they fail to account for the lost productivity - not to mention security concerns, as pointed out by the OP.
As a manager I must say that given your talents as a coder and someone elses talent as a coder... with the only difference being one of you has a CS degree and the other dropped out of high-school, guess which one I will hire?
Are you saying that you'll make your decision on nothing but "degree vs. non-degree?" That's the way your statement came off.
If so, you're taking a very short-sighted view of things, and you're going to miss out on some damn good employees. If you're happy with generally average employees, then fine... on balance if you hire based on a simple criteria like that, your employees will likely be an average lot. OTOH, if you want the best, really top-flight talent, you are going to have to dig, investigate each candidate thoroughly, and not make simplistic decisions like ruling out non degree holders.
Neither approach is "right" or "wrong," but you should understand the implications of choosing one or the other.
or:
Internet Virtual Objects Refreshed remotelY