Patents and copyrights are in a sense mutually exclusive, since they deal with different things. You're right: patents are about "processes", and copyrights about "implementations". It's in making the distinction between the two that they're really not mutually exclusive. For instance, algorithms are patentable (e.g. LZW compression). A software implementation of an algorithm (i.e. the actual code) is copyrightable, just like any other written work. So yeah, you can patent the method, and then copyright the specific implementation.
That's why I thought it was stupid that Dickinson brought up the fact that copyrights last longer than patents. It doesn't matter for the majority of cases. Nobody's really complaining that you're not allowed to steal source code. Barnes and Noble were taken to court for reimplementing the one-click system, not just grabbing Amazon's code and changing the logos (which would be a clear copyright violation). Software lies on a grey line between "algorithm" and "written work", and so far (unfortunately, IMHO), the courts are finding that they can be protected as both.
Just to clarify, Linux did not bring UNIX to "microcomputers". The article was correct: "microcomputer" usually refers to the workstation-like things that DEC, et al. were producing in the early 80's, before the booming of the PC market. Your Amiga (and my C64) wasn't part of that group. Those machines were bigger (physically), faster, and a hell of a lot more expensive. And, by and large, they ran UNIX.
You're right, though. UNIX wasn't available outside of businesses and universities, because microcomputers were not cheap. Linux brought UNIX to PC's, and it was cheap. The article wasn't wrong; there's a distinction between "microcomputer" and "PC".
All of the numerical comments are interesting, but I've always thought there was more of a literary connection. One of the more famous chapters in Western literature is chapter 42 in Moby Dick. It consists of Ismael on the deck of Pequod, musing about the philosophical implications of the color white. An interesting read, although it's buried in the midst of 60 some odd chapters on the history of whaling (nothing like a 19th century action-adventure novel!).
Since there are many other (somewhat oblique) references to Moby Dick (i.e. the missile->whale thing, and of course the "you are here" torture device), I'd always assumed that perhaps that was one of the reasons for choosing 42. Does Melville live?
Did anyone (who read the article) notice what the required lego task actually was? I was hoping that it would involve creativity (i.e. cars with propellers, sailing ships with lasers, and all those other engineering miracles I performed years ago), but rather it involves EXACTLY COPYING a robot which is in another room. It seems as if the test is designed to indicate leadership ability, since the robot must be built by a group, under some guidelines. I suppose that's a worthy goal, but it seems that since you've already got all those multi-colored bricks, you might as well give a more creative task. Oh well, maybe there will be a "freestyle" component on next year's exam.
The report is not talking only about "paranoia. Schizo-effective disorders. Manic depression. Depression. Mania. Schizophrenia. OCD. ADHD. MPD.". It mentions ADD and "hyperactivity disorders" prominently. Though I didn't bother to read the full Surgeon General's report, I would suspect that a large portion of the "22% of Americans with diagnosable disorders" would be diagnosed with some form of ADD or hyperactivity. These two disorders are rampantly over-diagnosed. The orginal poster was correct that children who are more active than "normal", or even those that actually show interest in learning, often receive these labels from teachers and schools who see no other way of dealing with it. Too many kids today are drugged for the simple crime of being bored in schools which show no desire to engage them.
We wonder why some children behave disruptively in school, but it's quite obvious in many cases. Put an adult in a boring situation (make him/her watch CSPAN, or pro bowling...), and they'll disengage themselves, think about something else, etc. That's a defense mechanism that we learn because it's not acceptable to shoot rubber bands or make paper airplanes at meetings. Bore a child, however, and they won't "tune out" mentally. They'll fidget, play with their pencils, toss things around, etc.; they'll be "hyperactive". They don't have a mental disorder: they're bored. Why? Well, you'd be bored too if you were 5-10 years old, and had to sit at a desk all day and fill out worksheets.
I suspect that most of these "diagnosable disorders" are actually some form of ADD/ADHD, which while it certainly exists and is a biological disorder, is often misdiagnosed. Rather than fix a broken educational system that insists on catering to the lowest common denominator, we blame children instead. After all, they don't vote, and if you drug them, they don't complain either.
Interesting information, but I have a couple caveats:
1. The article mentioned that they examined 16 subjects. Sixteen people isn't really enough to draw any sort of conclusions, as the chance of seeing statistical anomalys is just too great. I'm sure it takes a great deal of time to count synapses, so they'll probably continue to study more people in the future. As of now, however, I don't think there's enough data to draw any meaningful conclusions.
2. The article mentioned that the researchers counted two types of synapses in the prefrontal cortex and the occipital cortex. It then says that 17% more synapses were counted in the more educated people. If the 17% increase was observed in both cortexes (plural sp.?), then it would seem to be meaningless. More educated people don't need to see more than others, so the occipital cortex, devoted to "simple visual perception", shouldn't be any different in the two groups. If the increase was seen only in the prefrontal cortex, then that might be significant. Otherwise, it's probably just a statistical thing (only 16 people...).
The researchers probably answered these questions in their study, and the article probably just missed these points. As is usually the case, it's probably more faulty journalism than faulty science.
Not that anyone will follow this thread to this depth, but I felt the need to clarify the H-bomb issue. The bombs that ended WWII were fission devices, one based on uranium, the other on plutonium. The H-bomb project was begun after WWII, and led by Edwin Teller, a physicist who had worked on the original bombs (and evidently didn't have second thoughts about doing so).
That being said, H-bombs are fusion devices, and generally have at least a couple orders of magnitude greater destructive capacity that similarly sized fission devices (fusion involves considerably more energy than fission). The really big 100 megaton devices that we have (I presume they're on ICBM's) are fusion bombs. So yeah, we've been able to do fusion since the 50's, but it'd be nice to be able to control it for energy purposes. Bomb knowledge is nice for trivia, but I'd be nice to discuss working fusion reactors instead.
Unless you work/live in an environment in which you can't trust your co-workers/family, just write your passwords down and keep them in any convenient place. If someone breaks into your home/office, probably the last thing you'd be concerned about is someone having stolen your passwords. You'll be able to remember them easily, and someone attacking your system remotely certainly won't be able to see a piece of paper sitting on your desk (barring some sort of bizarre webcam setup...).
Slashdot Mirror
Patents and copyrights are in a sense mutually exclusive, since they deal with different things. You're right: patents are about "processes", and copyrights about "implementations". It's in making the distinction between the two that they're really not mutually exclusive. For instance, algorithms are patentable (e.g. LZW compression). A software implementation of an algorithm (i.e. the actual code) is copyrightable, just like any other written work. So yeah, you can patent the method, and then copyright the specific implementation.
That's why I thought it was stupid that Dickinson brought up the fact that copyrights last longer than patents. It doesn't matter for the majority of cases. Nobody's really complaining that you're not allowed to steal source code. Barnes and Noble were taken to court for reimplementing the one-click system, not just grabbing Amazon's code and changing the logos (which would be a clear copyright violation). Software lies on a grey line between "algorithm" and "written work", and so far (unfortunately, IMHO), the courts are finding that they can be protected as both.
Matt
Just to clarify, Linux did not bring UNIX to "microcomputers". The article was correct: "microcomputer" usually refers to the workstation-like things that DEC, et al. were producing in the early 80's, before the booming of the PC market. Your Amiga (and my C64) wasn't part of that group. Those machines were bigger (physically), faster, and a hell of a lot more expensive. And, by and large, they ran UNIX.
You're right, though. UNIX wasn't available outside of businesses and universities, because microcomputers were not cheap. Linux brought UNIX to PC's, and it was cheap. The article wasn't wrong; there's a distinction between "microcomputer" and "PC".
Matt
All of the numerical comments are interesting, but I've always thought there was more of a literary connection. One of the more famous chapters in Western literature is chapter 42 in Moby Dick. It consists of Ismael on the deck of Pequod, musing about the philosophical implications of the color white. An interesting read, although it's buried in the midst of 60 some odd chapters on the history of whaling (nothing like a 19th century action-adventure novel!).
Since there are many other (somewhat oblique) references to Moby Dick (i.e. the missile->whale thing, and of course the "you are here" torture device), I'd always assumed that perhaps that was one of the reasons for choosing 42. Does Melville live?
Proving that high school was good for something,
Matt Evans
Did anyone (who read the article) notice what the required lego task actually was? I was hoping that it would involve creativity (i.e. cars with propellers, sailing ships with lasers, and all those other engineering miracles I performed years ago), but rather it involves EXACTLY COPYING a robot which is in another room. It seems as if the test is designed to indicate leadership ability, since the robot must be built by a group, under some guidelines. I suppose that's a worthy goal, but it seems that since you've already got all those multi-colored bricks, you might as well give a more creative task. Oh well, maybe there will be a "freestyle" component on next year's exam.
Matt Evans
The report is not talking only about "paranoia. Schizo-effective disorders. Manic depression. Depression. Mania. Schizophrenia. OCD. ADHD. MPD.". It mentions ADD and "hyperactivity disorders" prominently. Though I didn't bother to read the full Surgeon General's report, I would suspect that a large portion of the "22% of Americans with diagnosable disorders" would be diagnosed with some form of ADD or hyperactivity. These two disorders are rampantly over-diagnosed. The orginal poster was correct that children who are more active than "normal", or even those that actually show interest in learning, often receive these labels from teachers and schools who see no other way of dealing with it. Too many kids today are drugged for the simple crime of being bored in schools which show no desire to engage them.
We wonder why some children behave disruptively in school, but it's quite obvious in many cases. Put an adult in a boring situation (make him/her watch CSPAN, or pro bowling...), and they'll disengage themselves, think about something else, etc. That's a defense mechanism that we learn because it's not acceptable to shoot rubber bands or make paper airplanes at meetings. Bore a child, however, and they won't "tune out" mentally. They'll fidget, play with their pencils, toss things around, etc.; they'll be "hyperactive". They don't have a mental disorder: they're bored. Why? Well, you'd be bored too if you were 5-10 years old, and had to sit at a desk all day and fill out worksheets.
I suspect that most of these "diagnosable disorders" are actually some form of ADD/ADHD, which while it certainly exists and is a biological disorder, is often misdiagnosed. Rather than fix a broken educational system that insists on catering to the lowest common denominator, we blame children instead. After all, they don't vote, and if you drug them, they don't complain either.
Interesting information, but I have a couple caveats:
1. The article mentioned that they examined 16 subjects. Sixteen people isn't really enough to draw any sort of conclusions, as the chance of seeing statistical anomalys is just too great. I'm sure it takes a great deal of time to count synapses, so they'll probably continue to study more people in the future. As of now, however, I don't think there's enough data to draw any meaningful conclusions.
2. The article mentioned that the researchers counted two types of synapses in the prefrontal cortex and the occipital cortex. It then says that 17% more synapses were counted in the more educated people. If the 17% increase was observed in both cortexes (plural sp.?), then it would seem to be meaningless. More educated people don't need to see more than others, so the occipital cortex, devoted to "simple visual perception", shouldn't be any different in the two groups. If the increase was seen only in the prefrontal cortex, then that might be significant. Otherwise, it's probably just a statistical thing (only 16 people...).
The researchers probably answered these questions in their study, and the article probably just missed these points. As is usually the case, it's probably more faulty journalism than faulty science.
Matt
Impressive karma...
Not that anyone will follow this thread to this depth, but I felt the need to clarify the H-bomb issue. The bombs that ended WWII were fission devices, one based on uranium, the other on plutonium. The H-bomb project was begun after WWII, and led by Edwin Teller, a physicist who had worked on the original bombs (and evidently didn't have second thoughts about doing so).
That being said, H-bombs are fusion devices, and generally have at least a couple orders of magnitude greater destructive capacity that similarly sized fission devices (fusion involves considerably more energy than fission). The really big 100 megaton devices that we have (I presume they're on ICBM's) are fusion bombs. So yeah, we've been able to do fusion since the 50's, but it'd be nice to be able to control it for energy purposes. Bomb knowledge is nice for trivia, but I'd be nice to discuss working fusion reactors instead.
Unless you work/live in an environment in which you can't trust your co-workers/family, just write your passwords down and keep them in any convenient place. If someone breaks into your home/office, probably the last thing you'd be concerned about is someone having stolen your passwords. You'll be able to remember them easily, and someone attacking your system remotely certainly won't be able to see a piece of paper sitting on your desk (barring some sort of bizarre webcam setup...).