"Why is it immoral to claim ownership of an invention you didn't invent yourself, but purchased from the inventor? Are you suggesting that patents should be inalienable, and only the inventor may ever own the patent rights to his invention?"
It's not. You're an idiot troll. Fuck off.
I said that the scenario you paint is not what's happening in the real world.
On some levels we agree - I do think that the PTO is failing miserably in its job and have a huge problem with the patents its isuing. The whole "patent troll" issue involves companies who are abusing this.
Now, if you are of the opinion that as long as a corporationis within the letter of the law then everything is fine with the world then you won't see a problem with this. Some people, however, consider it immoral regardless of how the system is set up, to claim ownership of and money from the inventions of others just because the broken system allows you to.
"You see, if company A invents something and KEEPS IT SECRET, while company B later invents something and MAKES IT KNOWN TO THE PUBLIC IN THE FORM OF A PATENT, then company B SHOULD BE entitled to patent rights. This is the quid-pro-quo of the patent system."
You again miss the point - company B haven't invented anything, they've used the failing of the PTO to obtain patents on things that they have no claim to have invented.
Either you didn't understand why people were calling these companies "trolls" or you were deliberately misrepresenting the situation in order to stir things up - trolling. It's sometimes difficult to tell which.
My last post is anything but a flame or a troll, in fact I described the reason these companies are labelled "trolls" quite calmly and simply I thought.
ANyway, never mind, you clearly don't understand what the word "troll" actually means in these contexts, nor wish to. OR perhaps you are again misrepresenting things in order to provoke a reaction. Either way I'm done. Bye.
...or you're the troll. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt for now. You make the mistake of assuming that patents are filed by genuine inventors and that the patent office actually give a crap about what they pass.
The scenario you describe is NOTHING like what we see in real life. Dr. X in your situation is absolutely not a patent troll.
Now, Mr. Y on the other hand, he spends his time (with Mr Z, his IP lawyer) thinking up as many spurious and badly worded patents as possible. He tries to make them vague, but kinda new sounding. Occasionally he likes to throw in something someone else has already done.
Mr Z sends these off to the US patent office who take his money and grant his patents without researching what they mean or what they really cover.
Later, Y and Z take companies to court over products which may or may not infringe on these really badly worded patents. These companies are using things that are either standard, obvious or their own invention. A lot of them pay up to avoid court, especially given how rare it is for costs to be awarded to defendants.
This is exactly what Y and Z want, this is what makes Y and Z trolls. They haven't invented a thing, yet they try to extort money from those that do.
GW is a climate phenomenon caused by us chucking crap into the atmosphere. Pollution is another problem with a similar source. Both are really big issues affecting humans and other animals, both are due to our activity.
I think that the problem isn't so much that lawyers wouldn't be appropriate becase they don't know how to make laws, but more that they represent only one profession and could become rather biased in their own favour. Democratically elected parliaments/congress/senates would (IMHO) benefit from a wide range of political standpoints and technical ability to draft a law is not necessarily the primary attribute I'd look for in a representative.
TFA does say further down that possible prevention measures are still shaky and may not be able to distinguish legal file transfer from other types.
I still think the senator likely works entirely on buzzwords and "P2P bad!" "RIAA good!" is about as fine a distinction as we'll ever get from a politician because it's all about the "message" we send to young people rather than actually having any sort of sensible, rational code of law.
... that develops applications, mostly in C, I also find it extremely useful, especially when installing software. Some installers change the state of the system, some problems only occur first time round. There is nothing else like the ability to take your blank windows VM, copy it, install stuff, screw around with it in every possible way and then when you're done just delete the thing. They also allow you to install stuff you just don't want on your native box, but need to develop against.
And you still have that blank windows install to clone again when you need it.
From TFA: "The Reid plan would require colleges to: # "Provide evidence" to the Education Department that they have "developed a plan for implementing a technology-based deterrent to prevent the illegal downloading or peer-to-peer distribution of intellectual property.""
Linux is intellectual property. It's not illegal to distribute linux over P2P, however TFA, and probably the good senator, does not make that distinction.
It's not a comparable device (the iPhone is missing a lot of capabilities), but the UK market is driven by heavily discounted handsets. N95 free*
*if you sign up to 18 months at lots of money per month
Buying sim-free phones is extremely unusual behaviour here. Even if people know they're paying for the phone through their contract, they just don't sheel ou a few hundred for a handset, they split the cost.
So whilst apple *coul* sell it sim-free for around the same price as some other sim-free high end phones, it just won't shift much volume.
Democracy is supposed to represent the interests of the people, not of whoever pays the politicians' reelection funds. It's corruption. Now if only we could actually persuade the populaton to vote out assholes thsat do this...
but american idol is far more fun and far less effort.
Despite no proven detrimental effect to Canada they have passed laws to restrict behaviour and use tax money to enforce the restrictions, all at the say so of corporate interests.
This pretty much sums up what I hate about the world right now. Democracy is dead.
I've done it in C before. Helps if you have already redefined malloc/calloc/realloc/free, if not then replace all calls to these (and new, delete etc) with calls to your versions. Make the code call macros which record the line and file number. IE -
my_malloc_macro is what code calls when it wants a chunk of heap.
When new memory is allocated my_malloc (or whatever) adds a copy of the calling line and file name to a list or hash table along with the pointer value and the size. Then free searches the list of allocated memory for the relevant pointer value and removes it.
Then simply add another function to display the memory usage. You can see what's in place at any one time or (what I found useful) get it to dump out everything still allocated just before the program ends. Assuming you have a clean shutdown process.
Of course you get into problems with threads, I was lucky enough to be using a set of runtime libraries that provided a "Stop all other threads" and a "restart all other threads" call. It slows your program down significantly, but it still works well.
You're saying that people will buy it because they're not tech savvy enough to know that there are many phones already in existance that can do everything the iPhone can do (touch screen excepted) and are likely to be a fraction of the price?
I mean, my free (with 30 dollar a month subscription) LG U830 plays music just fine. And my old phone (Nokia N70) which I've had since 2005 and got free wit a 60 dollar a month contract did everything the iPhone will do PLUS it allowed me to run whatever apps I wanted on Symbian OS without them having to be signed by Apple or Cingular.
The iPhone is another apple trick - take existing tech, repackage and advertise to people who like form over substance and like to feel smug about it. They'll claim innovation, style, reliability (all things that Nokia have been doing really well for a long time) when actually delivering a shiny box that can do less than older devices.
And are able to be operated by people with no hands?
Yah, right. If there are specialised machines for that now then keep 'em, everyone else can put a tick in a box. It's even simpler than punch cards. You use a pen and put a tick in the big black box.
If you can't put a tick in a box because you're too dumb then you shouldn't be breathing, let alone voting.
I used to suffer the tetris thing when I was a kid. Play it all day, dream it all night, suddenly find yourself in the bathroom in the morning, half asleep, trying to figure out how best to fit the soap into the sink and then laugh out loud at yourself.
Lately "katamari damacy", "we love katamari" and "me and my katamari" have done the same thing to me.
If you have a big enough patent portfolio and lots of patents people need then licensing brings in loads of cash year after year. And for absolutely no new work.
Now, I don't necessarily think this is a good thing, but hell, it's a major revenue stream for some companies.
I worked on gait recognition a little a few years ago. It's not about spotting people's attitudes or thought by their walk. It's based on the theory that gait is a biometric, like a fingerprint. This has yet to be conclusively proven.
You then measure the gait of an individual comitting a crime (in the case where footage does not reveal the face clearly) and use it, fingerprint like, to identify suspects.
This is not 1984. This is not big brother.
What IS big brother like is the proliferation of cameras, regardless of the recognition techniques behind it.
Slashdot Mirror
"Why is it immoral to claim ownership of an invention you didn't invent yourself, but purchased from the inventor? Are you suggesting that patents should be inalienable, and only the inventor may ever own the patent rights to his invention?"
It's not. You're an idiot troll. Fuck off.
I said that the scenario you paint is not what's happening in the real world.
"Let me explain something to you:
There is only thing you can EVER do with a patent: Sue people."
Tell that to IBM, the world's most prolific patent filer. They make a lot of money licensing patents.
Your impression of me is stupid and incorrect. Troll.
On some levels we agree - I do think that the PTO is failing miserably in its job and have a huge problem with the patents its isuing. The whole "patent troll" issue involves companies who are abusing this.
Now, if you are of the opinion that as long as a corporationis within the letter of the law then everything is fine with the world then you won't see a problem with this. Some people, however, consider it immoral regardless of how the system is set up, to claim ownership of and money from the inventions of others just because the broken system allows you to.
"You see, if company A invents something and KEEPS IT SECRET, while company B later invents something and MAKES IT KNOWN TO THE PUBLIC IN THE FORM OF A PATENT, then company B SHOULD BE entitled to patent rights. This is the quid-pro-quo of the patent system."
You again miss the point - company B haven't invented anything, they've used the failing of the PTO to obtain patents on things that they have no claim to have invented.
Umm, no, it's legitimate use.
Either you didn't understand why people were calling these companies "trolls" or you were deliberately misrepresenting the situation in order to stir things up - trolling. It's sometimes difficult to tell which.
My last post is anything but a flame or a troll, in fact I described the reason these companies are labelled "trolls" quite calmly and simply I thought.
ANyway, never mind, you clearly don't understand what the word "troll" actually means in these contexts, nor wish to. OR perhaps you are again misrepresenting things in order to provoke a reaction. Either way I'm done. Bye.
...or you're the troll. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt for now. You make the mistake of assuming that patents are filed by genuine inventors and that the patent office actually give a crap about what they pass.
The scenario you describe is NOTHING like what we see in real life. Dr. X in your situation is absolutely not a patent troll.
Now, Mr. Y on the other hand, he spends his time (with Mr Z, his IP lawyer) thinking up as many spurious and badly worded patents as possible. He tries to make them vague, but kinda new sounding. Occasionally he likes to throw in something someone else has already done.
Mr Z sends these off to the US patent office who take his money and grant his patents without researching what they mean or what they really cover.
Later, Y and Z take companies to court over products which may or may not infringe on these really badly worded patents. These companies are using things that are either standard, obvious or their own invention. A lot of them pay up to avoid court, especially given how rare it is for costs to be awarded to defendants.
This is exactly what Y and Z want, this is what makes Y and Z trolls. They haven't invented a thing, yet they try to extort money from those that do.
Seriously, WTF?
GW is a climate phenomenon caused by us chucking crap into the atmosphere.
Pollution is another problem with a similar source. Both are really big issues affecting humans and other animals, both are due to our activity.
I think big blue will make sure they don't leave a stain anywhere.
Hey cts, long time no see....
I think that the problem isn't so much that lawyers wouldn't be appropriate becase they don't know how to make laws, but more that they represent only one profession and could become rather biased in their own favour. Democratically elected parliaments/congress/senates would (IMHO) benefit from a wide range of political standpoints and technical ability to draft a law is not necessarily the primary attribute I'd look for in a representative.
TFA does say further down that possible prevention measures are still shaky and may not be able to distinguish legal file transfer from other types.
I still think the senator likely works entirely on buzzwords and "P2P bad!" "RIAA good!" is about as fine a distinction as we'll ever get from a politician because it's all about the "message" we send to young people rather than actually having any sort of sensible, rational code of law.
... that develops applications, mostly in C, I also find it extremely useful, especially when installing software. Some installers change the state of the system, some problems only occur first time round. There is nothing else like the ability to take your blank windows VM, copy it, install stuff, screw around with it in every possible way and then when you're done just delete the thing. They also allow you to install stuff you just don't want on your native box, but need to develop against.
And you still have that blank windows install to clone again when you need it.
VMs are a fantastic dev tool.
From TFA:
"The Reid plan would require colleges to:
# "Provide evidence" to the Education Department that they have "developed a plan for implementing a technology-based deterrent to prevent the illegal downloading or peer-to-peer distribution of intellectual property.""
Linux is intellectual property.
It's not illegal to distribute linux over P2P, however TFA, and probably the good senator, does not make that distinction.
It's not a comparable device (the iPhone is missing a lot of capabilities), but the UK market is driven by heavily discounted handsets. N95 free*
*if you sign up to 18 months at lots of money per month
Buying sim-free phones is extremely unusual behaviour here. Even if people know they're paying for the phone through their contract, they just don't sheel ou a few hundred for a handset, they split the cost.
So whilst apple *coul* sell it sim-free for around the same price as some other sim-free high end phones, it just won't shift much volume.
He makes a lot of valid points, the iPhone is seriously lacking capabilities compared to what's on the european market.
Democracy is supposed to represent the interests of the people, not of whoever pays the politicians' reelection funds. It's corruption. Now if only we could actually persuade the populaton to vote out assholes thsat do this...
but american idol is far more fun and far less effort.
Sickening. Genuinely sickening.
Despite no proven detrimental effect to Canada they have passed laws to restrict behaviour and use tax money to enforce the restrictions, all at the say so of corporate interests.
This pretty much sums up what I hate about the world right now. Democracy is dead.
I respectfully disagree.
Keeping track of what you have in memory is a great way to find out what you're using and when, and find ways of controlling it.
And it's dead simple, plus you don't then need the GC or reference counter at runtime, you #define it out for production builds.
I've done it in C before. Helps if you have already redefined malloc/calloc/realloc/free, if not then replace all calls to these (and new, delete etc) with calls to your versions. Make the code call macros which record the line and file number. IE -
void* my_malloc(size, linenum, filename);
#define my_malloc_macro(size) my_malloc(size, __LINE__, __FILE__)
my_malloc_macro is what code calls when it wants a chunk of heap.
When new memory is allocated my_malloc (or whatever) adds a copy of the calling line and file name to a list or hash table along with the pointer value and the size.
Then free searches the list of allocated memory for the relevant pointer value and removes it.
Then simply add another function to display the memory usage. You can see what's in place at any one time or (what I found useful) get it to dump out everything still allocated just before the program ends. Assuming you have a clean shutdown process.
Of course you get into problems with threads, I was lucky enough to be using a set of runtime libraries that provided a "Stop all other threads" and a "restart all other threads" call. It slows your program down significantly, but it still works well.
You're saying that people will buy it because they're not tech savvy enough to know that there are many phones already in existance that can do everything the iPhone can do (touch screen excepted) and are likely to be a fraction of the price?
I mean, my free (with 30 dollar a month subscription) LG U830 plays music just fine. And my old phone (Nokia N70) which I've had since 2005 and got free wit a 60 dollar a month contract did everything the iPhone will do PLUS it allowed me to run whatever apps I wanted on Symbian OS without them having to be signed by Apple or Cingular.
The iPhone is another apple trick - take existing tech, repackage and advertise to people who like form over substance and like to feel smug about it. They'll claim innovation, style, reliability (all things that Nokia have been doing really well for a long time) when actually delivering a shiny box that can do less than older devices.
You have BIG, seperate boxes. You put a notice up saying "If your mark strays into more than one box your vote is void".
Thats it.
So all the machines cater for the blind too?
And are able to be operated by people with no hands?
Yah, right. If there are specialised machines for that now then keep 'em, everyone else can put a tick in a box. It's even simpler than punch cards. You use a pen and put a tick in the big black box.
If you can't put a tick in a box because you're too dumb then you shouldn't be breathing, let alone voting.
They will be able to tell where I'm looking. Advertisers, Law Enforcement, that hot chick on the underground...
Damn
Hmm. One could almost do this with a piece of paper!
If only there was a way to mark a piece of paper with the candidate's names and then have a box next to each!
And perhaps some sort of paper marking implement to be given to the voter such that they may indicate their choice...
I fear such technology may be beyond us.
I used to suffer the tetris thing when I was a kid. Play it all day, dream it all night, suddenly find yourself in the bathroom in the morning, half asleep, trying to figure out how best to fit the soap into the sink and then laugh out loud at yourself.
Lately "katamari damacy", "we love katamari" and "me and my katamari" have done the same thing to me.
If you have a big enough patent portfolio and lots of patents people need then licensing brings in loads of cash year after year. And for absolutely no new work.
Now, I don't necessarily think this is a good thing, but hell, it's a major revenue stream for some companies.
I worked on gait recognition a little a few years ago. It's not about spotting people's attitudes or thought by their walk. It's based on the theory that gait is a biometric, like a fingerprint. This has yet to be conclusively proven.
You then measure the gait of an individual comitting a crime (in the case where footage does not reveal the face clearly) and use it, fingerprint like, to identify suspects.
This is not 1984. This is not big brother.
What IS big brother like is the proliferation of cameras, regardless of the recognition techniques behind it.