People note that that blurb forgets to mention these were retail employees, not actual developers. Others respond, saying there's no difference, the consequences would be the same.
But they wouldn't be!
Here's what would happen if it had been a developer at Apple who did this:
A long shadow would rise on the wall, over their LCD monitor. They'd swivel around in their chair, and Steve Himself would be standing there, in a spitting rage. He'd slap them full across the face, spinning them back around, and shout, "How DARE you do this to me! Pick up your crap and get out of my company! Leave your iPod at the door, and peel that 'Apple' sticker off your car, and when you get home, think long and hard about what you've done, and go work for Creative or something!!" Then he'd storm out, kicking the door aside, muttering under his breath.
But from that point on it'd be about the same, yeah.
Yeah but that point kinda misses the obvious... if the system's running IIS, it's running on a Windows box.
So perhaps the problem isn't really that Microsoft wrote it, the problem is that Microsoft wrote it to run on Windows, with its huge market share.
Then again that leads us back to just about the same place: Whether it's a large market share or a small one, the fault clearly lies with Microsoft. Either they wrote crap code for Windows or crap code for IIS... or both.
"Any restriction on such activity is clearly immoral, and the other side hasn't a leg to stand on."
So I should be able to fire up my Super HQ Ultra Quality laser printer, run off a sheet of $100 bills, and use them as legal tender? So I should be able to flip the tiny 1's and 0's in my bank's checking account and give myself a billion dollars on a whim?
Clearly your sweeping generalization needs some retooling. There actually are cases where certain "harmless" activities, like widespread counterfeiting, can effectively disembowel and crush an entire functioning economy. Pirating audio CDs isn't one of those cases, but your "any restriction" statement is erroneous as best.
Yes, that Boston situation is unfortunate, but can you really blame the "tree huggers" for wanting more open space where they are? There are just plain MORE PEOPLE living there than living where you are. The "democratic" vote count is not taken in square yardage, it's taken by head count, and if they wanna grab 14 billion bucks from everyone's pocket, well... they outvote you, squire.:)
Look at it this way: Since they're all packed into one place, that means more open space for us country folk!
Ask a student friend of yours in Oregon to buy one at the Apple store. The student discount is a couple hundred on a MacBook, and if you're shipping to Oregon it's tax free. Heh heh heh.
It's not living "in fear", it's living "in reality", you say... and then you invoke terrorists and child-molesters and a false arrest by the FBI as your base metric for "reality"? Mmmmmmmmmmyeah. Because of all types of people, terrorists and child-molesters are THE most likely to go wardriving for your signal, or live next-door.
Admit it: You have no good reason; you're just too lazy.
Speak for yourself. I've done my share of machine language coding, and I consider C to be low-level, because I can generally look at the (unoptimized) assembly that a C compiler spits out and correlate it with the code I wrote in C. (Of course nowadays all my guesswork is eliminated by a good set of debug symbols.) For this reason, I do not consider any included libraries I link to as a determining factor.
I agree with the creators of the language when they declare it is essentially portable assembly. I also consider it low-lewel because I have done my share of high-level programming, which to me means Objective C (terrific) Flash ActionScript (horrifying) and tangled craploads of object-oriented Perl (still not as bad as Flash). Essentially any such thing for which there's no (or no decent) procedural description, and/or is massively interpreted.
From the thrust of your comments, it looks to me like you resent the declaration of C as "low-level" because it gives you an opportunity to show off what you know about assembly. Nothing more. Unfortunately you picked the wrong forum to do that. >:)
So... I'm curious... how do you counteract voter fraud with this system? Do you have to personally verify your identity when you turn in the envelope? If so, how does this save any time? If not, how is this any different from the "absentee ballot"s which are offered all over the country?
I used to work at a place that had a similar problem. Most of the company worked through strangely modeled apps that ran on ActiveX. At the time I was too much of an OS X fan to "dump" my laptop, but I did end up keeping a PC at my desk just to interface with the %$(&@&() company services. It made me think... perhaps there's a backlash brewing out there in the business landscape, against the inherently insecure ActiveX model, and the excruciating vendor lock-in that Microsoft is perpetuating with it (and its other offerings). I've seen too many fellow employees made completely unproductive - or thrown into a rage - by their Windows boxes, then take it out on the poor IT guys who have to come upstairs from the lab and fix the problem. And mostly because of simple mistakes triggered by piss-poor design decisions back at MS.... or MS-related politics. Probably the worst episode was when the whole company was ordered to switch over to a "free" "beta" version of the Microsoft "digital dashboard" software. An attempt by upper management to save money, no doubt, based on a few phone calls from some cheeky MS sales rep... which actually crippled several departments in the company for months.
Just what I need from Microsoft... yet another entry in the "It's a laptop - without the keyboard!" market.
SRSLY, PPL. Your laptop is bigger than your Nintendo DS is bigger than your PDA is bigger than your cellphone is bigger than your iPod Nano for a good reason: Each is at the minimum allowable size for which user input and output is still efficient. Creating a product with featuritis right out of the gate is not going to magically overcome this I/O hurdle. At best, it's going to sell to a frustrated subset of people who use all the devices it's meant to replace. Then it will go in a drawer.
It's happened dozens of times in the past. It will happen to this product. If it even sees the light of day (which is a valid question given MS's track record lately).
Actually you raise an excellent point that I'm surprised most others here don't see. The relative danger level between Windows and OS X isn't really in the installed base -- it's the application base. Silent back-door vulnerabilities - true viruses and worms that spread without user complicity - have been shoved out of the limelight for years now. Their place has been taken by a huge steaming crapload of malware, pushed by disreputable software vendors and authors.
There is no technical hurdle to writing an application titled ASSBAR that gloms onto Safari in OS X and redirects every other click you make to a pr0n portal -- then putting that application on a flash website with "FREE! INTERNET SPEDUP(TM) FOR OS X!" blinking all over it. OS X package installer asks for the password? So what, it's INTERNET SPEDUP(TM), of course it's legit! And of course, it doesn't come with an uninstaller of any kind. Where's your OS X tool to remove it? Nowhere. TEH ASSBAR OWNZ J00.
There's nothing to prevent ASSBAR from slurping everything out of your Keychain app's Safari section and form-posting it to a script in upper Mongolia, either. It's just a matter of ROI for a scruple-deficient programmer. As the userbase grows, the ROI will increase, and those apps WILL proliferate, and the internet WILL become the same jungle for OS X users as it is for Windows users... The software pool, as you have aptly called it, WILL get leeches and sharks.
Well it's a corporation. You can't jail it so you have to fine it.
Ahh, but there is an alternative punishment - something we can do to corporations that we can't do to people. Cut them in half!
However this raises an immediate question: How do you ensure that the resulting two (or more) entities don't just collude and price-fix their way along as if they were still whole?
It's easy to imagine - two big campuses in Redmond, one given the MS Office suite, one given the Windows codebase - each told by judicial decree that they can no longer cooperate... but one building has all the server farms, and the other building has all the presentation boardrooms... so they just walk back and forth like it's a regular day at Microsoft. Perhaps they mutter under their breath about the wastefulness of the court's judgment as they go.
This is why I wish that as part of a Windows interoperability and documentation settlement, the EU had the authority to say, "Okay, Microsoft. You know that corporate branch you have in Mountain View, where you run all the hotmail services? They're a separate company now, and THEY own MS Office. Expect a phone call from the department chief down there in about a week, asking for all the source code. I'm sure he'll want to establish a relocation package for all your Office coders, too. By the way, the new company is called Officesoft. Play nice with them."
You'd be amazed what a difference physical separation can make in terms of corporate attitude... Unfortunately, the opportunity for a remedy like this for Microsoft withered down to nothing in the first year of Bush Jr(tm)(r)(c)'s reign. Now innovation on the OS front has been STALLED, for 95% of the world, for the past FIFTEEN YEARS. >:(
>> Hardly. The batteries are small, expensive and easy to lose.
>
>And yet bigger than Zen Micro batteries, and they cost about 10
>quid. 20 dollars to you. BANK-BREAKING!
Well, yeah. That's dinner and dessert at a local restaurant.
And I agree: The batteries would be too small, and therefore too easy to lose or leave behind.
>>If something "goes wrong" during your warranty Apple will replace it.
>
>Except they don't count most things as 'going wrong'.
Quit changing the subject. If your battery craps out before a year, Apple will replace it. Don't believe me? Go call an apple support rep and ask.
>14-20 hours is a full days use for most of the population,
>
>Unless you forget. Or you actually are backpacking or camping.
>Or any other of the host of reasons why you might not make it
>back to somewhere with a power-socket and understanding
>electricity bill payers. Why cut off the option on the grounds
>that it's not common?
So go to Fry's and buy that Belkin doohickey that allows you to fully recharge your iPod on four standard (or high-capacity rechargeable) AA-size batteries. It's not much bigger than the bag you'd have to store the spares in ANYWAY, and if you want you can bring an extra twenty thousand batteries along for the ride. Though personally, when I go camping (not full-on backpacking) I find it easier to just recharge the iPod with a car adapter.
>Not everyone goes back to the same house every night, and therefore
>not everyone can charge their iPod every night.
See above solution. You're either going to be bringing your spare batteries, or you're going to be bringing a charger. Either way the total weight of your additional equipment will be about the same. Unless you claim that your friends hand out charged batteries to houseguests regularly.
>>It's not just looks, adding a removeable battery is going to make
>>the unit larger and less durable, unless you make it larger still.
>
>Wow. How much do Apple pay you again?
Jackass.
>Removable batteries are the same size as non-removable ones.
Not really. Non-removable batteries can leave off a fair amount of insulation, and also do not need as high a capacity because a wired connection with a plug is always going to give better througphut than a removable battery pressed onto a pair of contacts with a spring.
>Because, you know, they're made out of the same thing.
Oversimplification, see above.
>The only difference is exposed terminals at one end instead of
>directly connected wiring.
Which actually makes a difference, see above.
This is all besides the point because the issue is not the design and condition of the battery, it's the design of the device INTO WHICH THE BATTERY GOES. And yes, the Zen has a removable battery, but the whole unit is less durable because of the sliding-catch design they appropriated from the designers of cellphones. Drop it on the floor from the right angle and the catch breaks and/or the battery pops off, just like those old cellphones.
It's also less resistant to moisture, including the accumulated sweat from a workout - but in the interest of fairness, that doesn't mean much because, iPod or Zen, you're going to be getting a case or putting it in a sealed bag or container when you do anything risky.
I think the solution for the patent system is to simply amputate the "intellectual property" branch. Thus you cannot patent something unless it has an actual physical form, is a physical product, or a demonstrated working process. Then you take your prototype to the patent office, or have them visit your lab, and you document it thoroughly, along with the especially novel characteristics it has. Then you are granted a number of years of exclusivity in using or selling that product.
So, your ability to capitalize on your invention would be tied very strongly to your active efforts. If you see someone else building the same product based on the novel parts of yours, you can sue them to stop them from eating up your market share. (Their inventive process can't be novel - your machine is thoroughly documented and publicly available at the patent office after all.)
Then (and here's the kicker), aside from paying your legal fees, any profits the infringing company made in the process will not go to you, they will instead go to the patent office, or the National Endowment for the Arts. Which allows you exclusive access to the market for your invention, but not to the money-making efforts and infrastructure of would-be competitors. At a stroke, that rule would eliminate the leech-like nature of patent law.
Well said, but I would like to point out that "living like a king == someone somewhere is paying for it" is not really part of the basic laws of economics. Some pretty specific, non-basic circumstances of economic structure have to come into play before the one translates directly into the other.
Unless you're going to argue that living like a king also includes, by definition, the bloody subjugation of those around you. In which case your point is a political one, not an economic one at all.
Your argument contains the seeds of it's own contradiction. As you say, nowadays, the problem of creator's rights is not so bad in print publication, but film studios and record labels "co-opt" the rights of the creators they sign. But this compares very well to the old system of "patronage" that you mention: The studios and labels front cash to support the promotion, distribution, and future works of their artists - primarily the distribution. It's not so bad for writers because of three things:
1. All they need to produce their work is a twenty dollar typewriter at a thrift store -- if that. 2. You can't make their future work more successful by hiring remix artists or roadies or renting them fancy guitars or cameras or studio time or SFX contracts - the things unrelated to distribution that a label or studio can barter creative rights with. 3. Writers, as a class, compared to band members, are generally a lot less stupid.
There was a big shift in the rights-management of music and film as their industries matured, because it became possible for those industries to make a huge amount of money renting access to their distribution channels. But that shift is reversing, for the same reasons that "patronage" of writers went out of style: The technology to make a great sounding album or a great looking film is coming within reach of the prototypical "starving artist", and the technology to distribute those works is falling within reach of small businesses who do not need to prostrate themselves to a cartel.
In other words, it could all be seen as the developmental cycle of a new artistic medium.:)
In case you folks can't remember, Apple also filed patents years ago for a device whose entire surface can change color based on user input. You combine this with that and an ambient light sensor, and you get a device that can appear to turn transparent on a tabletop.
The Next Big Thing: music players and cellphones that get lost instantly.
Sometimes I think the solution for the patent system is to simply amputate the "intellectual property" branch. Thus you cannot patent something unless it has an actual physical form, is a physical product, or a demonstrated working process. Then you take your prototype to the patent office, or have them visit your lab, and you document it thoroughly, along with the especially novel characteristics it has. Then you are granted a number of years of exclusivity in using or selling that product.
So, your ability to capitalize on your invention would be tied very strongly to your active efforts. If you see someone else building the same product based on the novel parts of yours, you can sue them to stop them from eating up your market share. (Their inventive process can't be novel - your machine is thoroughly documented and publicly available at the patent office after all.) Then (and here's the kicker), aside from paying your legal fees, any profits the infringing company made in the process will not go to you, they will instead go to the patent office, or the National Endowment for the Arts. Which allows you exclusive access to the market for your invention, but not to the money-making efforts and infrastructure of would-be competitors. At a stroke, that rule would eliminate the leech-like nature of patent law.
(Of course, there's absolutely no chance in a million years of this happening, short of an out-and-out revolution, but there you go.)
Perhaps you're just projecting your own study habits onto the rest of the country.... You already abandoned our discussion about Intelligent Design because you couldn't be bothered to actually research evolution. Now you're taking potshots at the American people on grounds of superiority? Pot, kettle, black, et cetera?
This has to be some bizarre kind of pattern. The last time some troll proclaimed this on Slashdot (corporations are only in or for the moneys!!!1!11!), it was also in an article about Apple. And my response to this is the same as to that one.
It's funny... I guess some people just can't stand the idea of a company gaining popularity for legitimate reasons, and especially Apple.
Slashdot Mirror
People note that that blurb forgets to mention these were retail employees, not actual developers. Others respond, saying there's no difference, the consequences would be the same.
But they wouldn't be!
Here's what would happen if it had been a developer at Apple who did this:
A long shadow would rise on the wall, over their LCD monitor. They'd swivel around in their chair, and Steve Himself would be standing there, in a spitting rage. He'd slap them full across the face, spinning them back around, and shout, "How DARE you do this to me! Pick up your crap and get out of my company! Leave your iPod at the door, and peel that 'Apple' sticker off your car, and when you get home, think long and hard about what you've done, and go work for Creative or something!!" Then he'd storm out, kicking the door aside, muttering under his breath.
But from that point on it'd be about the same, yeah.
And you say that to the kids today, and they won't believe you...
But you know, history repeats itself: "iPods" and "pseudopods" act and sound suspiciously the same...
Yeah but that point kinda misses the obvious ... if the system's running IIS, it's running on a Windows box.
... or both.
So perhaps the problem isn't really that Microsoft wrote it, the problem is that Microsoft wrote it to run on Windows, with its huge market share.
Then again that leads us back to just about the same place: Whether it's a large market share or a small one, the fault clearly lies with Microsoft. Either they wrote crap code for Windows or crap code for IIS
"Any restriction on such activity is clearly immoral, and the other side hasn't a leg to stand on."
So I should be able to fire up my Super HQ Ultra Quality laser printer, run off a sheet of $100 bills, and use them as legal tender? So I should be able to flip the tiny 1's and 0's in my bank's checking account and give myself a billion dollars on a whim?
Clearly your sweeping generalization needs some retooling. There actually are cases where certain "harmless" activities, like widespread counterfeiting, can effectively disembowel and crush an entire functioning economy. Pirating audio CDs isn't one of those cases, but your "any restriction" statement is erroneous as best.
Look at it this way: Since they're all packed into one place, that means more open space for us country folk!
Ask a student friend of yours in Oregon to buy one at the Apple store. The student discount is a couple hundred on a MacBook, and if you're shipping to Oregon it's tax free. Heh heh heh.
It's not living "in fear", it's living "in reality", you say ... and then you invoke terrorists and child-molesters and a false arrest by the FBI as your base metric for "reality"? Mmmmmmmmmmyeah. Because of all types of people, terrorists and child-molesters are THE most likely to go wardriving for your signal, or live next-door.
Admit it: You have no good reason; you're just too lazy.
Speak for yourself. I've done my share of machine language coding, and I consider C to be low-level, because I can generally look at the (unoptimized) assembly that a C compiler spits out and correlate it with the code I wrote in C. (Of course nowadays all my guesswork is eliminated by a good set of debug symbols.) For this reason, I do not consider any included libraries I link to as a determining factor.
I agree with the creators of the language when they declare it is essentially portable assembly. I also consider it low-lewel because I have done my share of high-level programming, which to me means Objective C (terrific) Flash ActionScript (horrifying) and tangled craploads of object-oriented Perl (still not as bad as Flash). Essentially any such thing for which there's no (or no decent) procedural description, and/or is massively interpreted.
From the thrust of your comments, it looks to me like you resent the declaration of C as "low-level" because it gives you an opportunity to show off what you know about assembly. Nothing more. Unfortunately you picked the wrong forum to do that. >:)
So ... I'm curious ... how do you counteract voter fraud with this system? Do you have to personally verify your identity when you turn in the envelope? If so, how does this save any time? If not, how is this any different from the "absentee ballot"s which are offered all over the country?
Ahhh, the Slashdot conversational style. Throw a bunch of stereotypes at the previous comment, and see which one sticks.
I used to work at a place that had a similar problem. Most of the company worked through strangely modeled apps that ran on ActiveX. At the time I was too much of an OS X fan to "dump" my laptop, but I did end up keeping a PC at my desk just to interface with the %$(&@&() company services. It made me think ... perhaps there's a backlash brewing out there in the business landscape, against the inherently insecure ActiveX model, and the excruciating vendor lock-in that Microsoft is perpetuating with it (and its other offerings). I've seen too many fellow employees made completely unproductive - or thrown into a rage - by their Windows boxes, then take it out on the poor IT guys who have to come upstairs from the lab and fix the problem. And mostly because of simple mistakes triggered by piss-poor design decisions back at MS. ... or MS-related politics. Probably the worst episode was when the whole company was ordered to switch over to a "free" "beta" version of the Microsoft "digital dashboard" software. An attempt by upper management to save money, no doubt, based on a few phone calls from some cheeky MS sales rep ... which actually crippled several departments in the company for months.
Just what I need from Microsoft ... yet another entry in the "It's a laptop - without the keyboard!" market.
SRSLY, PPL. Your laptop is bigger than your Nintendo DS is bigger than your PDA is bigger than your cellphone is bigger than your iPod Nano for a good reason: Each is at the minimum allowable size for which user input and output is still efficient. Creating a product with featuritis right out of the gate is not going to magically overcome this I/O hurdle. At best, it's going to sell to a frustrated subset of people who use all the devices it's meant to replace. Then it will go in a drawer.
It's happened dozens of times in the past. It will happen to this product. If it even sees the light of day (which is a valid question given MS's track record lately).
Actually you raise an excellent point that I'm surprised most others here don't see. The relative danger level between Windows and OS X isn't really in the installed base -- it's the application base. Silent back-door vulnerabilities - true viruses and worms that spread without user complicity - have been shoved out of the limelight for years now. Their place has been taken by a huge steaming crapload of malware, pushed by disreputable software vendors and authors.
There is no technical hurdle to writing an application titled ASSBAR that gloms onto Safari in OS X and redirects every other click you make to a pr0n portal -- then putting that application on a flash website with "FREE! INTERNET SPEDUP(TM) FOR OS X!" blinking all over it. OS X package installer asks for the password? So what, it's INTERNET SPEDUP(TM), of course it's legit! And of course, it doesn't come with an uninstaller of any kind. Where's your OS X tool to remove it? Nowhere. TEH ASSBAR OWNZ J00.
There's nothing to prevent ASSBAR from slurping everything out of your Keychain app's Safari section and form-posting it to a script in upper Mongolia, either. It's just a matter of ROI for a scruple-deficient programmer. As the userbase grows, the ROI will increase, and those apps WILL proliferate, and the internet WILL become the same jungle for OS X users as it is for Windows users... The software pool, as you have aptly called it, WILL get leeches and sharks.
Well it's a corporation. You can't jail it so you have to fine it.
... but one building has all the server farms, and the other building has all the presentation boardrooms ... so they just walk back and forth like it's a regular day at Microsoft. Perhaps they mutter under their breath about the wastefulness of the court's judgment as they go.
Ahh, but there is an alternative punishment - something we can do to corporations that we can't do to people. Cut them in half!
However this raises an immediate question: How do you ensure that the resulting two (or more) entities don't just collude and price-fix their way along as if they were still whole?
It's easy to imagine - two big campuses in Redmond, one given the MS Office suite, one given the Windows codebase - each told by judicial decree that they can no longer cooperate
This is why I wish that as part of a Windows interoperability and documentation settlement, the EU had the authority to say, "Okay, Microsoft. You know that corporate branch you have in Mountain View, where you run all the hotmail services? They're a separate company now, and THEY own MS Office. Expect a phone call from the department chief down there in about a week, asking for all the source code. I'm sure he'll want to establish a relocation package for all your Office coders, too. By the way, the new company is called Officesoft. Play nice with them."
You'd be amazed what a difference physical separation can make in terms of corporate attitude... Unfortunately, the opportunity for a remedy like this for Microsoft withered down to nothing in the first year of Bush Jr(tm)(r)(c)'s reign. Now innovation on the OS front has been STALLED, for 95% of the world, for the past FIFTEEN YEARS. >:(
>> Hardly. The batteries are small, expensive and easy to lose.
>
>And yet bigger than Zen Micro batteries, and they cost about 10
>quid. 20 dollars to you. BANK-BREAKING!
Well, yeah. That's dinner and dessert at a local restaurant.
And I agree: The batteries would be too small, and therefore too easy to lose or leave behind.
>>If something "goes wrong" during your warranty Apple will replace it.
>
>Except they don't count most things as 'going wrong'.
Quit changing the subject. If your battery craps out before a year, Apple will replace it. Don't believe me? Go call an apple support rep and ask.
>14-20 hours is a full days use for most of the population,
>
>Unless you forget. Or you actually are backpacking or camping.
>Or any other of the host of reasons why you might not make it
>back to somewhere with a power-socket and understanding
>electricity bill payers. Why cut off the option on the grounds
>that it's not common?
So go to Fry's and buy that Belkin doohickey that allows you to fully recharge your iPod on four standard (or high-capacity rechargeable) AA-size batteries. It's not much bigger than the bag you'd have to store the spares in ANYWAY, and if you want you can bring an extra twenty thousand batteries along for the ride. Though personally, when I go camping (not full-on backpacking) I find it easier to just recharge the iPod with a car adapter.
>Not everyone goes back to the same house every night, and therefore
>not everyone can charge their iPod every night.
See above solution. You're either going to be bringing your spare batteries, or you're going to be bringing a charger. Either way the total weight of your additional equipment will be about the same. Unless you claim that your friends hand out charged batteries to houseguests regularly.
>>It's not just looks, adding a removeable battery is going to make
>>the unit larger and less durable, unless you make it larger still.
>
>Wow. How much do Apple pay you again?
Jackass.
>Removable batteries are the same size as non-removable ones.
Not really. Non-removable batteries can leave off a fair amount of insulation, and also do not need as high a capacity because a wired connection with a plug is always going to give better througphut than a removable battery pressed onto a pair of contacts with a spring.
>Because, you know, they're made out of the same thing.
Oversimplification, see above.
>The only difference is exposed terminals at one end instead of
>directly connected wiring.
Which actually makes a difference, see above.
This is all besides the point because the issue is not the design and condition of the battery, it's the design of the device INTO WHICH THE BATTERY GOES. And yes, the Zen has a removable battery, but the whole unit is less durable because of the sliding-catch design they appropriated from the designers of cellphones. Drop it on the floor from the right angle and the catch breaks and/or the battery pops off, just like those old cellphones.
It's also less resistant to moisture, including the accumulated sweat from a workout - but in the interest of fairness, that doesn't mean much because, iPod or Zen, you're going to be getting a case or putting it in a sealed bag or container when you do anything risky.
Old, perhaps ... old enough to recognize when someone's feeding Eliza into their slashdot postings. ;)
I think the solution for the patent system is to simply amputate the "intellectual property" branch. Thus you cannot patent something unless it has an actual physical form, is a physical product, or a demonstrated working process. Then you take your prototype to the patent office, or have them visit your lab, and you document it thoroughly, along with the especially novel characteristics it has. Then you are granted a number of years of exclusivity in using or selling that product.
So, your ability to capitalize on your invention would be tied very strongly to your active efforts. If you see someone else building the same product based on the novel parts of yours, you can sue them to stop them from eating up your market share. (Their inventive process can't be novel - your machine is thoroughly documented and publicly available at the patent office after all.)
Then (and here's the kicker), aside from paying your legal fees, any profits the infringing company made in the process will not go to you, they will instead go to the patent office, or the National Endowment for the Arts. Which allows you exclusive access to the market for your invention, but not to the money-making efforts and infrastructure of would-be competitors. At a stroke, that rule would eliminate the leech-like nature of patent law.
Unless you're going to argue that living like a king also includes, by definition, the bloody subjugation of those around you. In which case your point is a political one, not an economic one at all.
I think you're absolutely right about those design decisions.
"Heeey, no it's right here! ... um. Oh. Right."
[ hangs head in shame ]
1. All they need to produce their work is a twenty dollar typewriter at a thrift store -- if that.
2. You can't make their future work more successful by hiring remix artists or roadies or renting them fancy guitars or cameras or studio time or SFX contracts - the things unrelated to distribution that a label or studio can barter creative rights with.
3. Writers, as a class, compared to band members, are generally a lot less stupid.
There was a big shift in the rights-management of music and film as their industries matured, because it became possible for those industries to make a huge amount of money renting access to their distribution channels. But that shift is reversing, for the same reasons that "patronage" of writers went out of style: The technology to make a great sounding album or a great looking film is coming within reach of the prototypical "starving artist", and the technology to distribute those works is falling within reach of small businesses who do not need to prostrate themselves to a cartel.
In other words, it could all be seen as the developmental cycle of a new artistic medium. :)
The Next Big Thing: music players and cellphones that get lost instantly.
So, your ability to capitalize on your invention would be tied very strongly to your active efforts. If you see someone else building the same product based on the novel parts of yours, you can sue them to stop them from eating up your market share. (Their inventive process can't be novel - your machine is thoroughly documented and publicly available at the patent office after all.) Then (and here's the kicker), aside from paying your legal fees, any profits the infringing company made in the process will not go to you, they will instead go to the patent office, or the National Endowment for the Arts. Which allows you exclusive access to the market for your invention, but not to the money-making efforts and infrastructure of would-be competitors. At a stroke, that rule would eliminate the leech-like nature of patent law.
(Of course, there's absolutely no chance in a million years of this happening, short of an out-and-out revolution, but there you go.)
Perhaps you're just projecting your own study habits onto the rest of the country. ... You already abandoned our discussion about Intelligent Design because you couldn't be bothered to actually research evolution. Now you're taking potshots at the American people on grounds of superiority? Pot, kettle, black, et cetera?
It's funny ... I guess some people just can't stand the idea of a company gaining popularity for legitimate reasons, and especially Apple.
Why is this?