Corporations may be people in some legal respects, but they sure as hell can't vote.
Sure they can, "one viewer, one vote" for elections, and "one lobbyist, one vote" for bills. Together, this simplifies to "one dollar, one vote", and we all know that corporations have many more dollars than individuals.
Also, if you take a 65nm chip of a certain speed, and move it to 45nm, then power consumption is reduced. The same will be true moving to 32nm.
Maybe. Capacitance-related power consumption will fall, but didn't one of the more recent process shrinks actually increase power usage because of unexpectedly high leakage currents? I know there were news articles about some sort of unexpected power issues relating to a process shrink.
Blah. Do you know how much CPU it took to fucking land someone on the moon? Why does it take 200 times that just to browse the web?
Because space travel is mathematically dead simple, you have a couple of low-degree differential equations to solve for a very small data set. A high-school student could probably do it in an afternoon with a slide rule (in fact, I think I recall hearing that (early?) astronauts actually did carry slide rules in case of computer failure). Video codecs (like for youtube) are much more complex and operate on much larger sets of data.
Who made the claim is irrelevant. It was all over the media, and the media is what people go by, not scientific papers. If any scientist stepped forward to say "that's bull", they got a tiny little block of text on page 27. If any scientist stepped forward to confirm it, they got the cover.
That's how skewed the coverage is. It's not "allowed" to voice any other opinion but the "correct" one.
That sounds less like favoring the party line, and more like "we're all DOOMED" making for profitable headlines.
This article, and the research it talks about, is nothing but bad science. Computer models? Tree rings? Proxy indicators? This isn't the internet we're talking about, people, its the climate. IE the temperature. And how do you measure temperature? Well, I use a thermometer, why can't these people?
They've found a way to turn a supercomputer into an extremely powerful thermometer, far better than that wimpy glass tube you have.
We all know that, over time, layers of sediment build up, and so, by digging into the ground you are seeing the earth as it was some time ago - so why don't the scientists just use a thermometer to measure the temperature of the soil at different depths?
Because their superpowerful supercomputing thermometer is far to big to stick in the ground like that.
I would just have a lot more faith in the models if they were open source.
Yes, because climate scientists would rather act as gatekeepers for patches submitted by kids in their basements than focus on the work they're paid to do.
"Open source" doesn't have to mean "patches welcome:)".
I'm a leftie, and my mouse is on the right, like.. well.. all the other lefties I know. Actually, I have never seen someone use a mouse of the left, though I'm sure that weirdo exists.
I'm left-handed and have my mouse on the left (with the "normal" right-handed button setup). Before I had my own computer I used the mouse on the right -- partly so I didn't have to keep switching it, partly because the desk the computer was on made it inconvenient to put on the left, and mostly because it was a right-hand-only "ergonomic" mouse.
A lever makes one man capable of lifting several tons by means of his own strength.
A library lets me learn many times what I could discern on my own. A computer lets me design things that would otherwise be impossibly complex, or solve impossibly complex formulas. Newer programs can solve problems for me, given only a way to rate solutions.
Where is the lever for the mind that makes thousands of brilliant technological advances out of a single man's half-baked brain fart?
That would be like a "lever" that lets one man lift several tons and arrange them into a skyscraper by just flailing about wildly.
Where is the force-multiplier for the mind?
Libraries, slide rules, computers, the Internet,... there's lots, as long as your mind is open.
When it comes to solving problems, nothing beats hard work
"Whenever possible, teach the computer to do your work for you."
I had an interesting problem to solve at work today, calculating the number of weekdays in a particular range (if someone of "off work" from 2008-05-29 thru 2008-07-02, how many actual work days is that). I didn't bother solving it, I just recognized that the Internet is smarter than I am and asked Google about it.
I've also automated away a significant part of my work, with something rather similar to unit tests. Instead of inspecting all the data I generate to see if it's sane, I can just run a program that tells me. This program also knows what's valid better than I do, since I'm not the only person adding checks to it.
not even the "singularity"
But that's because the "singularity" is nonsense. There are plenty of non-nonsense things that do in fact work better than "hard work".
The monopoly power granted in order to do this is clearly harmful (especially so in fast-moving industries), and is not strictly necessary in order for new development to be profitable.
Your opinion. My opinion is that it lets companies reap rewards for products people want to buy. So they will invest XYZ dollars and hopefully make that money plus a profit.
The entire point is that others need your permission to use/improve something you've patented. This is clearly a harm, since it causes them difficulty in doing something useful. It is also clear that patents are not strictly necessary, as innovation has existed without patents. That there is also a benefit (which you cite as your opinion) is entirely irrelevant to this; patents cause harm (restrictions on using existing knowledge) and also have a benefit (greater potential gains for generating new knowledge).
I've seen decent arguments in Against Intellectual Monopoly that historically the downsides have not been smaller than the benefits (sometimes significantly greater, but sometimes closer to even), for software the downsides should be relatively much greater, because the barriers to entry are so very low without such interference and because the fast pace makes the stagnation last relatively longer.
I've seen decent arguments for IP, though monopoly is harder then it seems. People claim MS is a monopoly - but they aren't....Apple, Linux, etc. Barriers to entry into the software industry is what you can program. All you need is a computer software engineering skills and a computer.
And enough luck to avoid the attention of the patent trolls (or legit companies that just got there first).
You see patents as a short term Consumer gets screwed as the people who may be best able to implement the patented invention cannot, although that isn't necessary true as the people who hold the patent could be the best able to implement it or have licensed it to people who can or have an overall patent sharing agreement with other companies.
This doesn't make much sense (semi-incoherent run on sentence).
So in general Patents only suck for Open Source Implementers, or some small companies.
Observably not the case, big companies get sued by eachother and small companies and patent trolls. Also, does not follow from the given argument.
If a Company cant have a guarantee that their R&D dollars will pay off then they won't have R&D.
Observably false: there can never be a guarantee that R&D will pay off, yet somehow companies still have R&D.
Without Patents right after your invention comes out within a couple months people will reverse engineer your product and make and sell a cheaper version of your idea (Because they don't have the high R&D overhead)
I think it's longer than "a couple months", and the knock-off will very likely be lower quality, and you'll already have your first-mover advantage.
So in a world with no Patents there will be much less R&D and less innovation.
This is observably not the case, and in fact a decent argument can be made that historically (as opposed to theoretically) patents have actually stifled innovation.
Or people will hold onto their new ideas much longer as not having a mechanism to properly sell their ideas along.
Or there will be no reason to hold on to the idea, because there will be no expectation that an idea by itself is actually worth anything.
You only think that is so because unfortunately it conflicts with the Open Source Idea.
This is trolling/flamebait.
But in reality you are just a fringe group who (I am not trying to insult you) really doesn't matter that much.
There are many, many ways to build cheap and extremely competitive telecoms networks that would end the cartels overnight. They don't mostly happen because patents block innovation wherever it is a threat.
I thought they mostly didn't happen because local (or sometimes state?) governments sell monopoly rights on physically laying the cables (supposedly to reduce the time the streets are torn up, or something)?
Like anything else, if abused they can be harmful but if applied correctly they allow a company/person reap rewards on the time/money they spent developing something.
No, they make it easier to reap rewards, or to reap rewards out of proportion to what was invested. The monopoly power granted in order to do this is clearly harmful (especially so in fast-moving industries), and is not strictly necessary in order for new development to be profitable. The question is whether the benefits (additional innovation) are greater than the downsides (stagnation from higher barriers to entry)... I've seen decent arguments in Against Intellectual Monopoly that historically the downsides have not been smaller than the benefits (sometimes significantly greater, but sometimes closer to even), for software the downsides should be relatively much greater, because the barriers to entry are so very low without such interference and because the fast pace makes the stagnation last relatively longer.
Most computer aficionados are familiar with the idea that software and hardware are logically equivalent. We CAN build specialized hardware to do what we would have our software do.
It would seem a bit anomalous, therefore, to allow a patent on specialized hardware that embodies precisely the same inventive character as its patent ineligible software counterpart.
AIUI, anything "legitimately" patentable must center around causing some sort of physical change, so that sort of hardware wouldn't count. The only thing that counts is something where the main point is turning some physical input into a different physical output, and it doesn't really matter whether parts of this involve software or not. (But it obviously can't be all software, because software is re-purposable and non-physical.)
However R&D isn't cheap You could spend millions on R&D for a invention. If a Company cant have a guarantee that their R&D dollars will pay off then they won't have R&D. Patents insure that your invention give you the completive advantage for a time to make up the loss revenue in R&D.
Patents mean that you might not be legally allowed to use the results of your R&D without paying off someone else first. They also don't ensure that the results of your R&D will actually be useful or sellable. The only mean that others can't directly copy your results, but copying something physical takes long enough that you'd probably have a substantial first-mover advantage anyway.
So in a world with no Patents there will be much less R&D and less innovation. Or people will hold onto their new ideas much longer as not having a mechanism to properly sell their ideas along.
Patents have historically resulted in some area of technology being made "off limits" to further development for a couple decades, I believe that Against Intellectual Monopoly has a good account of this happening with the steam engine.
So if I invent a whole new replacement for the transistor that can reduce the scale in the same way the original transistor improved on the vacuum tube, but I have no capacity to fabricate it in any useful way, I should derive no benefit?
Ideas are cheap, it's all the details that have to be worked out during implementation that are the important part (plus the other important part, working out all the extra details that make mass production feasible).
On the one side of this controversy... are those... who argue that patents must be available to encourage innovation in devising new ways to conduct business in the global information-based economy, including encouragement for new ways of digitizing business methods.
Yeah, because turning innovation into a minefield is a really good way to encourage it, as is connecting rewards to high speed paperwork-fu rather than marketplace superiority (or even novelty; see IIRC radio and steam engine, the "inventors" were those who first combined other people's ideas in a paperwork filing).
but these days I have noticed the pro-life forces favor using science in their arguments, demonstrating clearly how very early life begins in the womb.
It begins much earlier that that, hasn't Monty Python taught you anything?
Every sperm is sacred, every sperm is great, if a sperm is wasted, God gets quite irate.
To use the run-time you need a GPL-compatible code generation chain, and it doesn't matter how the pieces connect together.
With an "interesting" definition of GPL-compatible. You have to be allowed to combine the plugin with GCC, but I don't see anything about needing to be allowed to distribute (um, convey) the resulting combinations. Which is odd, since the GPL allows you to combine it with pretty much anything so long as you don't convey the result.
I'm fairly certain the hotel *could* have me arrested for stealing their soap, it's just not usually worth their time.
Can they actually use the soap after you leave? All the ones I've seen have (unopened) individually wrapped soap, which I assume is meant to be disposable for hygiene reasons (can't have people using the previous guest's dirty soap).
Slashdot Mirror
Corporations may be people in some legal respects, but they sure as hell can't vote.
Sure they can, "one viewer, one vote" for elections, and "one lobbyist, one vote" for bills. Together, this simplifies to "one dollar, one vote", and we all know that corporations have many more dollars than individuals.
Also, if you take a 65nm chip of a certain speed, and move it to 45nm, then power consumption is reduced. The same will be true moving to 32nm.
Maybe. Capacitance-related power consumption will fall, but didn't one of the more recent process shrinks actually increase power usage because of unexpectedly high leakage currents? I know there were news articles about some sort of unexpected power issues relating to a process shrink.
Blah. Do you know how much CPU it took to fucking land someone on the moon? Why does it take 200 times that just to browse the web?
Because space travel is mathematically dead simple, you have a couple of low-degree differential equations to solve for a very small data set. A high-school student could probably do it in an afternoon with a slide rule (in fact, I think I recall hearing that (early?) astronauts actually did carry slide rules in case of computer failure). Video codecs (like for youtube) are much more complex and operate on much larger sets of data.
Why is it like that? Why can't these things be software controlled?
But how do you do that when the network is broken?
Sorry, but according to the global warming experts, the sun has absolutely no effect on the global temperature.
Day being typically warmer than night is purely an illusion, and if the sun disappeared tomorrow global temperatures wouldn't change.
Who made the claim is irrelevant. It was all over the media, and the media is what people go by, not scientific papers. If any scientist stepped forward to say "that's bull", they got a tiny little block of text on page 27. If any scientist stepped forward to confirm it, they got the cover.
That's how skewed the coverage is. It's not "allowed" to voice any other opinion but the "correct" one.
That sounds less like favoring the party line, and more like "we're all DOOMED" making for profitable headlines.
This article, and the research it talks about, is nothing but bad science. Computer models? Tree rings? Proxy indicators? This isn't the internet we're talking about, people, its the climate. IE the temperature. And how do you measure temperature? Well, I use a thermometer, why can't these people?
They've found a way to turn a supercomputer into an extremely powerful thermometer, far better than that wimpy glass tube you have.
We all know that, over time, layers of sediment build up, and so, by digging into the ground you are seeing the earth as it was some time ago - so why don't the scientists just use a thermometer to measure the temperature of the soil at different depths?
Because their superpowerful supercomputing thermometer is far to big to stick in the ground like that.
I would just have a lot more faith in the models if they were open source.
Yes, because climate scientists would rather act as gatekeepers for patches submitted by kids in their basements than focus on the work they're paid to do.
"Open source" doesn't have to mean "patches welcome :)".
I'm a leftie, and my mouse is on the right, like.. well.. all the other lefties I know. Actually, I have never seen someone use a mouse of the left, though I'm sure that weirdo exists.
I'm left-handed and have my mouse on the left (with the "normal" right-handed button setup). Before I had my own computer I used the mouse on the right -- partly so I didn't have to keep switching it, partly because the desk the computer was on made it inconvenient to put on the left, and mostly because it was a right-hand-only "ergonomic" mouse.
I computer can only spit out facts.
Ah, but they can spit out useful facts that nobody told them, like this bizzare shape makes a very good antenna.
A lever makes one man capable of lifting several tons by means of his own strength.
A library lets me learn many times what I could discern on my own. A computer lets me design things that would otherwise be impossibly complex, or solve impossibly complex formulas. Newer programs can solve problems for me, given only a way to rate solutions.
Where is the lever for the mind that makes thousands of brilliant technological advances out of a single man's half-baked brain fart?
That would be like a "lever" that lets one man lift several tons and arrange them into a skyscraper by just flailing about wildly.
Where is the force-multiplier for the mind?
Libraries, slide rules, computers, the Internet, ... there's lots, as long as your mind is open.
When it comes to solving problems, nothing beats hard work
"Whenever possible, teach the computer to do your work for you."
I had an interesting problem to solve at work today, calculating the number of weekdays in a particular range (if someone of "off work" from 2008-05-29 thru 2008-07-02, how many actual work days is that). I didn't bother solving it, I just recognized that the Internet is smarter than I am and asked Google about it.
I've also automated away a significant part of my work, with something rather similar to unit tests. Instead of inspecting all the data I generate to see if it's sane, I can just run a program that tells me. This program also knows what's valid better than I do, since I'm not the only person adding checks to it.
not even the "singularity"
But that's because the "singularity" is nonsense. There are plenty of non-nonsense things that do in fact work better than "hard work".
The monopoly power granted in order to do this is clearly harmful (especially so in fast-moving industries), and is not strictly necessary in order for new development to be profitable.
Your opinion. My opinion is that it lets companies reap rewards for products people want to buy. So they will invest XYZ dollars and hopefully make that money plus a profit.
The entire point is that others need your permission to use/improve something you've patented. This is clearly a harm, since it causes them difficulty in doing something useful. It is also clear that patents are not strictly necessary, as innovation has existed without patents. That there is also a benefit (which you cite as your opinion) is entirely irrelevant to this; patents cause harm (restrictions on using existing knowledge) and also have a benefit (greater potential gains for generating new knowledge).
I've seen decent arguments in Against Intellectual Monopoly that historically the downsides have not been smaller than the benefits (sometimes significantly greater, but sometimes closer to even), for software the downsides should be relatively much greater, because the barriers to entry are so very low without such interference and because the fast pace makes the stagnation last relatively longer.
I've seen decent arguments for IP, though monopoly is harder then it seems. People claim MS is a monopoly - but they aren't....Apple, Linux, etc. Barriers to entry into the software industry is what you can program. All you need is a computer software engineering skills and a computer.
And enough luck to avoid the attention of the patent trolls (or legit companies that just got there first).
How is this opposing view point a flamebait.
Let's see here...
You see patents as a short term Consumer gets screwed as the people who may be best able to implement the patented invention cannot, although that isn't necessary true as the people who hold the patent could be the best able to implement it or have licensed it to people who can or have an overall patent sharing agreement with other companies.
This doesn't make much sense (semi-incoherent run on sentence).
So in general Patents only suck for Open Source Implementers, or some small companies.
Observably not the case, big companies get sued by eachother and small companies and patent trolls. Also, does not follow from the given argument.
If a Company cant have a guarantee that their R&D dollars will pay off then they won't have R&D.
Observably false: there can never be a guarantee that R&D will pay off, yet somehow companies still have R&D.
Without Patents right after your invention comes out within a couple months people will reverse engineer your product and make and sell a cheaper version of your idea (Because they don't have the high R&D overhead)
I think it's longer than "a couple months", and the knock-off will very likely be lower quality, and you'll already have your first-mover advantage.
So in a world with no Patents there will be much less R&D and less innovation.
This is observably not the case, and in fact a decent argument can be made that historically (as opposed to theoretically) patents have actually stifled innovation.
Or people will hold onto their new ideas much longer as not having a mechanism to properly sell their ideas along.
Or there will be no reason to hold on to the idea, because there will be no expectation that an idea by itself is actually worth anything.
You only think that is so because unfortunately it conflicts with the Open Source Idea.
This is trolling/flamebait.
But in reality you are just a fringe group who (I am not trying to insult you) really doesn't matter that much.
As is this.
There are many, many ways to build cheap and extremely competitive telecoms networks that would end the cartels overnight. They don't mostly happen because patents block innovation wherever it is a threat.
I thought they mostly didn't happen because local (or sometimes state?) governments sell monopoly rights on physically laying the cables (supposedly to reduce the time the streets are torn up, or something)?
Like anything else, if abused they can be harmful but if applied correctly they allow a company/person reap rewards on the time/money they spent developing something.
No, they make it easier to reap rewards, or to reap rewards out of proportion to what was invested. The monopoly power granted in order to do this is clearly harmful (especially so in fast-moving industries), and is not strictly necessary in order for new development to be profitable. The question is whether the benefits (additional innovation) are greater than the downsides (stagnation from higher barriers to entry)... I've seen decent arguments in Against Intellectual Monopoly that historically the downsides have not been smaller than the benefits (sometimes significantly greater, but sometimes closer to even), for software the downsides should be relatively much greater, because the barriers to entry are so very low without such interference and because the fast pace makes the stagnation last relatively longer.
Most computer aficionados are familiar with the idea that software and hardware are logically equivalent. We CAN build specialized hardware to do what we would have our software do.
It would seem a bit anomalous, therefore, to allow a patent on specialized hardware that embodies precisely the same inventive character as its patent ineligible software counterpart.
AIUI, anything "legitimately" patentable must center around causing some sort of physical change, so that sort of hardware wouldn't count. The only thing that counts is something where the main point is turning some physical input into a different physical output, and it doesn't really matter whether parts of this involve software or not. (But it obviously can't be all software, because software is re-purposable and non-physical.)
However R&D isn't cheap You could spend millions on R&D for a invention. If a Company cant have a guarantee that their R&D dollars will pay off then they won't have R&D. Patents insure that your invention give you the completive advantage for a time to make up the loss revenue in R&D.
Patents mean that you might not be legally allowed to use the results of your R&D without paying off someone else first. They also don't ensure that the results of your R&D will actually be useful or sellable. The only mean that others can't directly copy your results, but copying something physical takes long enough that you'd probably have a substantial first-mover advantage anyway.
So in a world with no Patents there will be much less R&D and less innovation. Or people will hold onto their new ideas much longer as not having a mechanism to properly sell their ideas along.
Patents have historically resulted in some area of technology being made "off limits" to further development for a couple decades, I believe that Against Intellectual Monopoly has a good account of this happening with the steam engine.
So if I invent a whole new replacement for the transistor that can reduce the scale in the same way the original transistor improved on the vacuum tube, but I have no capacity to fabricate it in any useful way, I should derive no benefit?
Ideas are cheap, it's all the details that have to be worked out during implementation that are the important part (plus the other important part, working out all the extra details that make mass production feasible).
On the one side of this controversy... are those... who argue that patents must be available to encourage innovation in devising new ways to conduct business in the global information-based economy, including encouragement for new ways of digitizing business methods.
Yeah, because turning innovation into a minefield is a really good way to encourage it, as is connecting rewards to high speed paperwork-fu rather than marketplace superiority (or even novelty; see IIRC radio and steam engine, the "inventors" were those who first combined other people's ideas in a paperwork filing).
but these days I have noticed the pro-life forces favor using science in their arguments, demonstrating clearly how very early life begins in the womb.
It begins much earlier that that, hasn't Monty Python taught you anything?
Every sperm is sacred, every sperm is great, if a sperm is wasted, God gets quite irate.
I don't see why Negroponte's OLPC project didn't succeed before.
Politics/idealism, related to "economies of scale don't work that way".
To use the run-time you need a GPL-compatible code generation chain, and it doesn't matter how the pieces connect together.
With an "interesting" definition of GPL-compatible. You have to be allowed to combine the plugin with GCC, but I don't see anything about needing to be allowed to distribute (um, convey) the resulting combinations. Which is odd, since the GPL allows you to combine it with pretty much anything so long as you don't convey the result.
I'm fairly certain the hotel *could* have me arrested for stealing their soap, it's just not usually worth their time.
Can they actually use the soap after you leave? All the ones I've seen have (unopened) individually wrapped soap, which I assume is meant to be disposable for hygiene reasons (can't have people using the previous guest's dirty soap).
Stuff like this is only news when real reformers like RMS get cabinet appointments.
I thought we were supposed to keep religion out of government?