Or lack thereof. All of these recent robot and UAV developments are cool and potentially useful but we still keep missing the boat on the über power source. Lots of law enforcement agencies bought into the quadcopter UAV concept spending tens of thousands of dollars on them only to discover that the flight times are really short. They were expecting to be able to keep them aloft for hours. (Never mind the social issues.) The same thing applies to the snake robot. What's going to happen when the battery dies under a pile of rubble? And if you hard wire it, how is that going to limit its performance given that it has to pull an increasingly heavy cable thought non-smooth environments?
On the one hand, yes, the lawyer goes a bit overboard. But on the other, let's consider this: http://www.google.com/patents/US6368227 Aside from other strange patents, the swinging method patent illustrates a couple of problems. First, regardless of the current state of validity of the patent, the fact that it was granted in the first place shows that prior art doesn't mean what a lot of people think it means. Apparently, to the patent office, it means "we have nothing on file" as opposed to "kids have been doing this since the swing was invented". Second, the patent was granted and then later revoked. That means that examiners time was spent looking at it, then granting it, then subsequently looking at it and revoking it. It should come as no surprise that it takes so long to get a patent seriously looked at when stuff like this is in the pile.
On a related note, I'm not convinced that the new "first to file" rule is a good thing. Suppose you spend years working on an invention and somebody breaks into your offices, copies all the application documents, and then mails them in. How then can you get back what was stolen?
Everyone seems to be missing a key issue here. Everyone is constantly complaining about the high costs of everything. Gasoline? Too expensive. Food? Too expensive. Healthcare? Too expensive. Satellite TV? Too expensive. And on, and on, and on. Why the hell isn't government too expensive? If I have to make do with less, then so does the government.
Most people have never run a business selling something and therefore have no clue how much time it takes to deal with sales taxes. In most states, even if you have no sales in any given month, you still have to file the paperwork. Proponents of this tax keep saying that it will "level the playing field for brick&mortar stores". Bzzzt. Wrong. A mom & pop brick & mortar store only sells locally therefore they don't have to deal with the out-of-state sales taxes. That effectively gives them an advantage rather than leveling the playing field. Furthermore, big box stores such as Wal-mart don't give a damn because they already have an army of accountants to deal with the paperwork.
And then who in each local state government is going to process the paperwork suddenly coming in from 49 other states? Oh, well, gee whiz, we don't have enough bureaucrats to deal with it so we'll have to hire more...and pay them...and give them benefits...and a pension...all at taxpayer expense. But wait, this tax was supposed to close budget shortfalls. Oops. Now you've compounded them.
And ultimately, this will lead to only one thing: inflation. Because nobody is going to take the extra costs up the a$$. They are going to pass it on to the consumer. A VAT tax won't solve this either. In fact it will make it worse because invariably there are sticky fingers all along the government food chain.
The intent of the competition is to turn ideas into working models, not actual product. The goal being to allow the designers and engineers some freedom from the day-to-day grind. Maybe once in a while something they come up with has potential. And certainly they all learn a lot during the process which is useful when working on real product. My point is that most American companies don't encourage this. 3M is one exception and they have incorporated technical "screwing around" into their business model. Sadly, the US economy is more focused on offering services rather than tangible products. The thinking is something like this: "Look! We get to charge people $29.95 a month (plus various and sundry fees and surcharges) for some service that the customer may never use! And we can enforce things like a minimum 2-year contract and oh, btw, that $29.95 is an introductory rate which we'll increase exponentially."
IMHO, this illustrates what's wrong with American companies on several levels. One: Lots of Asian companies allow their engineers full access to the resources of the company to do proof-of-concept competitions. In general, American companies don't. Two: Lots of Asian companies actually make product. Too many American companies are focused on selling services.
Can we dispense with the term "homemade"? This is a bogus term on many levels. A) It implies that there are store-bought (or restaurant-quality) devices available. It's about as useful as calling some fancy devices 'gourmet' bombs. B) It also implies a connection to so-called 'homegrown' terrorists in the same way that the Benghazi attack was due to (and justified by) a video (which it wasn't but what difference does that make). Call them what they are: an improvised explosive device (IED). That is an accurate term because these were not made in a factory and it does not attempt to assign blame.
No, not Linux. I'm concerned that people will start designing everyday product around an RPi because a) that's what they know how to use and b) it's dirt cheap. As a learning tool, it's pretty cool. My personal embedded development beefs come from a things like Linux SBCs not being designed as an appliance with a real power switch. I don't want to waste time waiting for it to boot nor do I want to have to remember to shut it down gracefully. I also have a problem with manufacturers not telling you exactly the process they used to build their toolchain and distro. Chances are that I want to make a change or two to the kernel or busybox or something.
Nothing pisses me off more than programs written dependent on.NET except perhaps every government website that requires you to use IE instead of pretty much every other browser. On further thought, the fact that government websites require you to use effing Lotus to submit forms instead of PDF also sucks.
I'm all for people learning to develop in a Unix environment and working with hardware but how do we keep this from becoming the Javascript/HTML of the hardware world? What I mean is that too many people learn nothing more than Javascript and HTML and call themselves programmers. How do we encourage people to go beyond the basics and not just build everything based on a Raspberry Pi?
Simply reading the text doesn't mean you understand it or can apply what you've learned. And what if it the teacher discovers that most of the class skipped a few pages? Will he put a question on the test that can only be answered if you've read that page? How will that help? And what if you're not a fast reader and simply can't get through dull-as-dishwater prose by some undeservedly famous author? Or what if you're a wicked fast reader but the teacher doesn't believe you and downgrades you because you didn't spend as much time reading as he thinks you should? And what if you read the book before? Do you get downgraded because you didn't read it again?
I'm so sick of the expression "cost the government". It's a weasel expression intended to convince people that all money belongs to the government first and they let you have some only after they've spent whatever they want. Bulldinky. Every day you hear about how things have gotten too expensive. Food? Too expensive. Coffee? Too expensive. Air travel? Too expensive. Higher education? Too expensive. Gasoline? Too expensive. Electricity? Too expensive. Insurance? Too expensive. Rent? Too damn high. Healthcare? Too expensive. Why the hell isn't government too expensive? IMHO, if the government got rid of baseline budgeting and actually reduced expenses across the board, those of us who pay for all that crap might not be hell bent on looking for every write-off under the sun.
Yes but it goes a little further than that. Our current national energy policy doesn't include mass storage of the generated electricity. AFAIK, the only way to do this would be widespread use of dams and reservoirs with hydroelectric generators but that goes against current environmental/social policy. That said, there is another consequence to forced adoption of electric cars without localized long-term energy storage and that is the people will gradually be forced to live and travel only where there is a ready supply of electricity. But maybe that's really their long-term goal: a few massively overcrowded cities and no human presence elsewhere. After all, mother Gaia needs protection from the cancer that is humanity.
What amazes me is that nobody is learning anything from these green technology failures. Most people live in the real world where they know they can't afford to be green. Solar panels? That's nice in theory but when people realize that they might never be able to recoup the investment they say "Next!" Hybrid cars? Sounds fine on paper but when the owners discover how much it costs to replace the battery pack they don't bother installing one and instead run on gasoline only. And then of course most people have a NIMBY attitude towards green technology or they shoot themselves in the foot with their own love of the environment as in the case of killing a green energy project because of some endangered species.
Kids use to go outside and play cowboys & indians and cops & robbers but they can't do that now because it's offensive to indians and robbers. People like Feinstein insist on anthropomorphizing the tool (aka the gun or the magazine) because banning them is an easier goal to attain (and thus looks good on a reelection fundraising resumé) as opposed to dealing with mental illness or making criminal punishment really something people will fear. The video game is no different. The number of guns in the US is estimated at around 270 million yet only a handful are used in horrific crimes by a handful of people. Grand Theft Auto is played by hundreds of thousands of people and less than a hundredth or a thousandth of a percent use it as an excuse to behave badly. The problem really lies in that tiny fraction of people who can't distinguish the fantasy from reality.
The real crime is allowing politicians to avoid addressing the intractable problems while the go for the low-hanging fruit to as to ensure their legacy. Several things need to happen: 1) Term limits. And, no, I don't give a rat's ass about retiring supposedly experienced people because more than likely their experience is more about how to game the system and lining their own pockets than doing real work. 2) Proposed laws need to pass a constitutional test before a few courts before it gets to come up for a vote. People like Feinstein know full well that their legislation is unconstitutional but they don't care because they know it may take 10 years and millions of dollars in legal fees before the SCOTUS strikes it down. 3) Authors of laws determined to be unconstitutional should be removed from office or at least censured.
Wrong again. But let's dispense with reality for a moment and pretend that obesity is a result of lifestyle choice. We are supposed to be tolerant of marijuana use even though real medical treatments of those who supposedly need it are readily available. That is a lifestyle choice. We are supposed to be tolerant of people who want to have totally guilt-free, consequence-free sex while demanding that other people pay for it. That is a lifestyle choice and anyone opposing that choice is to be tarred and feathered in the media. We're supposed to be tolerant of radical Islam to the point of spending money to install ritualistic foot baths in public places but try to hang a copy of the Ten Commandments or a picture of Jesus (or try protesting against a teacher who demands that you stomp on the word 'Jesus') and the ACLU has a field day.
My point is that when it comes to obesity, the media and groups like the ACLU are the ones carrying the torches and pitchforks. They aren't calling for billions of dollars be spent on medical research. They aren't demanding that society give them special consideration and understanding. Ultimately, they are hypocrites. They consider themselves more evolved, if you will, for protecting supposedly certain segments of the population yet they are clearly unevolved in their inconsistency.
My father always told me to get the best education possible because nobody can take it away from you. Excellent advice. That said, because it's intangible, nobody can take it away from you when you default on your student loan, declare bankruptcy, and stick the taxpayers with the bill. Nice work if you can get it. Perhaps if people actually studied for a marketable skill, they wouldn't wind up working at job that requires no thought or training, making an average salary, and stuck with a $200k loan. On the other hand, if the universities did a better job of training students for skills that will be relevant in four years, we'd all be better off. As an engineer graduating in the late 80s, I was taught things that were relevant for the early 80s instead of cutting edge technology. An ultra-left-wing friend of mine once boasted that she spent a semester in Australia and it only cost $150. I said "So let me get this straight: you got a semester of education for $150 but the professors all made much more than that as did all of the support staff but you didn't stick around in the country long enough to contribute to the tax base." She bleated "Well, how do you know I won't go back there?" To which I responded "That was 30 years ago. You're not going back and even if you did, you still wouldn't earn enough to offset the cost of your education."
But a great example from history of why we're doing it wrong can be seen in the episode of Connections entitled "The Long Chain". In essence, Burke discusses the Victorian British system of education versus the German system when the chemical industry was just getting started. The Germans' priority was to open technical schools but to the Brits, training for a career was considered "lower class". The Germans also accepted students based on merit rather than because of their family background. The Germans encouraged links between universities and industry. A practice that was unheard of to Victorians. So when the British had a golden opportunity to get in on the ground floor of the fledgling chemical industry, they scoffed at it, preferring the easy profits from the colonies. It seems that we're seeing a version of this chapter in history being replayed here in the U.S. We accept people in universities because of their background rather than on merit but instead of it being the elite upper class, it's now to satisfy "diversity". In addition, too many schools spend too much time, money, and energy on athletics instead of skills that have value in the world economy.
What I find interesting (and quite frankly, hypocritical) is that the current socially acceptable behavior is that we MUST be tolerant of pretty much everything from fibromyalgia to bipolar disorder (formerly known as manic depression), from ADHD to an ever broadening definition of autism. Furthermore, it's socially acceptable to DEMAND that taxpayers throw gobs of money at treating these things as disabilities. Yet when it comes to obesity, it's considered deviant behavior and is to be ridiculed and punished.
If the guy knowingly and willingly worked with a drug dealer to build this, maybe, just MAYBE it would hold up in court. However, legal precedent being what it is, I doubt it. If the prosecution can't establish a clear link and the guy gets convicted, we're all completely effed. IMHO, legal precedent is on this guy's side because the case of the developers of the VCR didn't hold up in copyright infringement court. Seems to me that the dividing line is whether or not a device is built specifically to break the law. Take the case of Class 3 fully-automatic weapons. Sure, one could make the parts to convert a semi-auto to a full-auto with a CNC mill. Doing so is against the law without a Class 2 manufacturers license from the BATFE. But the company that made the CNC mill isn't responsible and by extension, neither are 3D printer manufacturers. The same goes for early color copiers which were used to print phony money. Canon wasn't held liable.
There's a whole lot of speculation in that article which also says that NK claims to have achieved nuclear fusion. Yeah, right. That explains why the country is in near total darkness at night compared to its neighbors. Even if they have stockpiled plutonium without the means to make it go critical or a rocket to deliver it with, they are more likely to want to sell it. Sure they could build dirty bombs but what good would that do against the south? Make the place uninhabitable doesn't advance NK's realm.
My personal theory is that they don't really have a nuke but a lot of people think they do and NK knows that so they're taking advantage of the situation to try to get something.
Slashdot Mirror
Or lack thereof. All of these recent robot and UAV developments are cool and potentially useful but we still keep missing the boat on the über power source. Lots of law enforcement agencies bought into the quadcopter UAV concept spending tens of thousands of dollars on them only to discover that the flight times are really short. They were expecting to be able to keep them aloft for hours. (Never mind the social issues.) The same thing applies to the snake robot. What's going to happen when the battery dies under a pile of rubble? And if you hard wire it, how is that going to limit its performance given that it has to pull an increasingly heavy cable thought non-smooth environments?
On the one hand, yes, the lawyer goes a bit overboard. But on the other, let's consider this: http://www.google.com/patents/US6368227 Aside from other strange patents, the swinging method patent illustrates a couple of problems. First, regardless of the current state of validity of the patent, the fact that it was granted in the first place shows that prior art doesn't mean what a lot of people think it means. Apparently, to the patent office, it means "we have nothing on file" as opposed to "kids have been doing this since the swing was invented". Second, the patent was granted and then later revoked. That means that examiners time was spent looking at it, then granting it, then subsequently looking at it and revoking it. It should come as no surprise that it takes so long to get a patent seriously looked at when stuff like this is in the pile.
On a related note, I'm not convinced that the new "first to file" rule is a good thing. Suppose you spend years working on an invention and somebody breaks into your offices, copies all the application documents, and then mails them in. How then can you get back what was stolen?
Everyone seems to be missing a key issue here. Everyone is constantly complaining about the high costs of everything. Gasoline? Too expensive. Food? Too expensive. Healthcare? Too expensive. Satellite TV? Too expensive. And on, and on, and on. Why the hell isn't government too expensive? If I have to make do with less, then so does the government.
Most people have never run a business selling something and therefore have no clue how much time it takes to deal with sales taxes. In most states, even if you have no sales in any given month, you still have to file the paperwork. Proponents of this tax keep saying that it will "level the playing field for brick&mortar stores". Bzzzt. Wrong. A mom & pop brick & mortar store only sells locally therefore they don't have to deal with the out-of-state sales taxes. That effectively gives them an advantage rather than leveling the playing field. Furthermore, big box stores such as Wal-mart don't give a damn because they already have an army of accountants to deal with the paperwork.
And then who in each local state government is going to process the paperwork suddenly coming in from 49 other states? Oh, well, gee whiz, we don't have enough bureaucrats to deal with it so we'll have to hire more...and pay them...and give them benefits...and a pension...all at taxpayer expense. But wait, this tax was supposed to close budget shortfalls. Oops. Now you've compounded them.
And ultimately, this will lead to only one thing: inflation. Because nobody is going to take the extra costs up the a$$. They are going to pass it on to the consumer. A VAT tax won't solve this either. In fact it will make it worse because invariably there are sticky fingers all along the government food chain.
Gimme. Now.
The intent of the competition is to turn ideas into working models, not actual product. The goal being to allow the designers and engineers some freedom from the day-to-day grind. Maybe once in a while something they come up with has potential. And certainly they all learn a lot during the process which is useful when working on real product. My point is that most American companies don't encourage this. 3M is one exception and they have incorporated technical "screwing around" into their business model. Sadly, the US economy is more focused on offering services rather than tangible products. The thinking is something like this: "Look! We get to charge people $29.95 a month (plus various and sundry fees and surcharges) for some service that the customer may never use! And we can enforce things like a minimum 2-year contract and oh, btw, that $29.95 is an introductory rate which we'll increase exponentially."
IMHO, this illustrates what's wrong with American companies on several levels. One: Lots of Asian companies allow their engineers full access to the resources of the company to do proof-of-concept competitions. In general, American companies don't. Two: Lots of Asian companies actually make product. Too many American companies are focused on selling services.
Can we dispense with the term "homemade"? This is a bogus term on many levels. A) It implies that there are store-bought (or restaurant-quality) devices available. It's about as useful as calling some fancy devices 'gourmet' bombs. B) It also implies a connection to so-called 'homegrown' terrorists in the same way that the Benghazi attack was due to (and justified by) a video (which it wasn't but what difference does that make). Call them what they are: an improvised explosive device (IED). That is an accurate term because these were not made in a factory and it does not attempt to assign blame.
No, not Linux. I'm concerned that people will start designing everyday product around an RPi because a) that's what they know how to use and b) it's dirt cheap. As a learning tool, it's pretty cool. My personal embedded development beefs come from a things like Linux SBCs not being designed as an appliance with a real power switch. I don't want to waste time waiting for it to boot nor do I want to have to remember to shut it down gracefully. I also have a problem with manufacturers not telling you exactly the process they used to build their toolchain and distro. Chances are that I want to make a change or two to the kernel or busybox or something.
Nothing pisses me off more than programs written dependent on .NET except perhaps every government website that requires you to use IE instead of pretty much every other browser. On further thought, the fact that government websites require you to use effing Lotus to submit forms instead of PDF also sucks.
I give it 48 hours before some ignoramus on a morning TV talk show blames it thusly.
I'm all for people learning to develop in a Unix environment and working with hardware but how do we keep this from becoming the Javascript/HTML of the hardware world? What I mean is that too many people learn nothing more than Javascript and HTML and call themselves programmers. How do we encourage people to go beyond the basics and not just build everything based on a Raspberry Pi?
Simply reading the text doesn't mean you understand it or can apply what you've learned. And what if it the teacher discovers that most of the class skipped a few pages? Will he put a question on the test that can only be answered if you've read that page? How will that help? And what if you're not a fast reader and simply can't get through dull-as-dishwater prose by some undeservedly famous author? Or what if you're a wicked fast reader but the teacher doesn't believe you and downgrades you because you didn't spend as much time reading as he thinks you should? And what if you read the book before? Do you get downgraded because you didn't read it again?
I'm so sick of the expression "cost the government". It's a weasel expression intended to convince people that all money belongs to the government first and they let you have some only after they've spent whatever they want. Bulldinky. Every day you hear about how things have gotten too expensive. Food? Too expensive. Coffee? Too expensive. Air travel? Too expensive. Higher education? Too expensive. Gasoline? Too expensive. Electricity? Too expensive. Insurance? Too expensive. Rent? Too damn high. Healthcare? Too expensive. Why the hell isn't government too expensive? IMHO, if the government got rid of baseline budgeting and actually reduced expenses across the board, those of us who pay for all that crap might not be hell bent on looking for every write-off under the sun.
Shutting down XP in favor of 8 is the equivalent of gradually choking off private insurance for single-payer Long live Windows 7.
Yes but it goes a little further than that. Our current national energy policy doesn't include mass storage of the generated electricity. AFAIK, the only way to do this would be widespread use of dams and reservoirs with hydroelectric generators but that goes against current environmental/social policy. That said, there is another consequence to forced adoption of electric cars without localized long-term energy storage and that is the people will gradually be forced to live and travel only where there is a ready supply of electricity. But maybe that's really their long-term goal: a few massively overcrowded cities and no human presence elsewhere. After all, mother Gaia needs protection from the cancer that is humanity.
What amazes me is that nobody is learning anything from these green technology failures. Most people live in the real world where they know they can't afford to be green. Solar panels? That's nice in theory but when people realize that they might never be able to recoup the investment they say "Next!" Hybrid cars? Sounds fine on paper but when the owners discover how much it costs to replace the battery pack they don't bother installing one and instead run on gasoline only. And then of course most people have a NIMBY attitude towards green technology or they shoot themselves in the foot with their own love of the environment as in the case of killing a green energy project because of some endangered species.
Kids use to go outside and play cowboys & indians and cops & robbers but they can't do that now because it's offensive to indians and robbers. People like Feinstein insist on anthropomorphizing the tool (aka the gun or the magazine) because banning them is an easier goal to attain (and thus looks good on a reelection fundraising resumé) as opposed to dealing with mental illness or making criminal punishment really something people will fear. The video game is no different. The number of guns in the US is estimated at around 270 million yet only a handful are used in horrific crimes by a handful of people. Grand Theft Auto is played by hundreds of thousands of people and less than a hundredth or a thousandth of a percent use it as an excuse to behave badly. The problem really lies in that tiny fraction of people who can't distinguish the fantasy from reality.
The real crime is allowing politicians to avoid addressing the intractable problems while the go for the low-hanging fruit to as to ensure their legacy. Several things need to happen: 1) Term limits. And, no, I don't give a rat's ass about retiring supposedly experienced people because more than likely their experience is more about how to game the system and lining their own pockets than doing real work. 2) Proposed laws need to pass a constitutional test before a few courts before it gets to come up for a vote. People like Feinstein know full well that their legislation is unconstitutional but they don't care because they know it may take 10 years and millions of dollars in legal fees before the SCOTUS strikes it down. 3) Authors of laws determined to be unconstitutional should be removed from office or at least censured.
Wrong again. But let's dispense with reality for a moment and pretend that obesity is a result of lifestyle choice. We are supposed to be tolerant of marijuana use even though real medical treatments of those who supposedly need it are readily available. That is a lifestyle choice. We are supposed to be tolerant of people who want to have totally guilt-free, consequence-free sex while demanding that other people pay for it. That is a lifestyle choice and anyone opposing that choice is to be tarred and feathered in the media. We're supposed to be tolerant of radical Islam to the point of spending money to install ritualistic foot baths in public places but try to hang a copy of the Ten Commandments or a picture of Jesus (or try protesting against a teacher who demands that you stomp on the word 'Jesus') and the ACLU has a field day.
My point is that when it comes to obesity, the media and groups like the ACLU are the ones carrying the torches and pitchforks. They aren't calling for billions of dollars be spent on medical research. They aren't demanding that society give them special consideration and understanding. Ultimately, they are hypocrites. They consider themselves more evolved, if you will, for protecting supposedly certain segments of the population yet they are clearly unevolved in their inconsistency.
Bzzt. Wrong. NEXT!
Wow, that was really a crock of excrement and clearly demonstrates that you know less than nothing about the subject. NEXT!
My father always told me to get the best education possible because nobody can take it away from you. Excellent advice. That said, because it's intangible, nobody can take it away from you when you default on your student loan, declare bankruptcy, and stick the taxpayers with the bill. Nice work if you can get it. Perhaps if people actually studied for a marketable skill, they wouldn't wind up working at job that requires no thought or training, making an average salary, and stuck with a $200k loan. On the other hand, if the universities did a better job of training students for skills that will be relevant in four years, we'd all be better off. As an engineer graduating in the late 80s, I was taught things that were relevant for the early 80s instead of cutting edge technology. An ultra-left-wing friend of mine once boasted that she spent a semester in Australia and it only cost $150. I said "So let me get this straight: you got a semester of education for $150 but the professors all made much more than that as did all of the support staff but you didn't stick around in the country long enough to contribute to the tax base." She bleated "Well, how do you know I won't go back there?" To which I responded "That was 30 years ago. You're not going back and even if you did, you still wouldn't earn enough to offset the cost of your education."
But a great example from history of why we're doing it wrong can be seen in the episode of Connections entitled "The Long Chain". In essence, Burke discusses the Victorian British system of education versus the German system when the chemical industry was just getting started. The Germans' priority was to open technical schools but to the Brits, training for a career was considered "lower class". The Germans also accepted students based on merit rather than because of their family background. The Germans encouraged links between universities and industry. A practice that was unheard of to Victorians. So when the British had a golden opportunity to get in on the ground floor of the fledgling chemical industry, they scoffed at it, preferring the easy profits from the colonies. It seems that we're seeing a version of this chapter in history being replayed here in the U.S. We accept people in universities because of their background rather than on merit but instead of it being the elite upper class, it's now to satisfy "diversity". In addition, too many schools spend too much time, money, and energy on athletics instead of skills that have value in the world economy.
What I find interesting (and quite frankly, hypocritical) is that the current socially acceptable behavior is that we MUST be tolerant of pretty much everything from fibromyalgia to bipolar disorder (formerly known as manic depression), from ADHD to an ever broadening definition of autism. Furthermore, it's socially acceptable to DEMAND that taxpayers throw gobs of money at treating these things as disabilities. Yet when it comes to obesity, it's considered deviant behavior and is to be ridiculed and punished.
If the guy knowingly and willingly worked with a drug dealer to build this, maybe, just MAYBE it would hold up in court. However, legal precedent being what it is, I doubt it. If the prosecution can't establish a clear link and the guy gets convicted, we're all completely effed. IMHO, legal precedent is on this guy's side because the case of the developers of the VCR didn't hold up in copyright infringement court. Seems to me that the dividing line is whether or not a device is built specifically to break the law. Take the case of Class 3 fully-automatic weapons. Sure, one could make the parts to convert a semi-auto to a full-auto with a CNC mill. Doing so is against the law without a Class 2 manufacturers license from the BATFE. But the company that made the CNC mill isn't responsible and by extension, neither are 3D printer manufacturers. The same goes for early color copiers which were used to print phony money. Canon wasn't held liable.
There's a whole lot of speculation in that article which also says that NK claims to have achieved nuclear fusion. Yeah, right. That explains why the country is in near total darkness at night compared to its neighbors. Even if they have stockpiled plutonium without the means to make it go critical or a rocket to deliver it with, they are more likely to want to sell it. Sure they could build dirty bombs but what good would that do against the south? Make the place uninhabitable doesn't advance NK's realm.
My personal theory is that they don't really have a nuke but a lot of people think they do and NK knows that so they're taking advantage of the situation to try to get something.