Well, if I have time later I'll dump on you all the corner-cutting deals and operator mishaps at Fukushima to ponder at. I wonder how can you claim expertise and be so oblivious to the details of the disaster there. If I were working in the "nuclear industry", I would have familiarized myself with the accident simply on the grounds of professional interest. Cheers, fellow elf-lord.
Well, my experience is probably influenced by me being too close to the two worst disasters - I happened to be within few hundred km of both Chernobyl and Fukushima when they happened, and have to bear the cost of the consequences of two nuclear disasters myself - but my observations of the way nuclear industry and regulators operates worldwide don't exactly inspire my confidence in the safe handling of technology.
Japan has always had a bad culture when it comes to nuclear safety, but the depth of Fukushima fuckup really surprised me. Russia isn't far behind from what I know and see. The many old nuclear plants in Eastern Europe engage in a lot of worrying practices (substandard fuel, hushing up of minor accidents, etc.) and are nearing their end of life, so more construction probably with Russian tech will ensue, with all associated risks. China with its "stellar" industrial safety record isn't exactly inspiring confidence, and neither is India, and both have plans to build a lot of reactors. Even Germany admitted their reactors aren't up to their own regulations after the post-Fukushima inspections.
So, the "safety culture" of the nuclear industry is, IMHO, severely overhyped worldwide. If nuclear accident outcomes could easily be contained, I could have cared less, but alas it doesn't seem to be the case.
I don't know what your purported expertise is, and you will excuse me if I take it as I take any anonymous claim to expertise on Internet boards, that is, very lightly.
What I am talking about is not the technology of nuclear power, but rather the management of the said technology. Do you have anything from my original comment that you disagree with, or are you going to keep asking us to believe you because you claim expertise and throw "FUD" around? I can back my claims of incompetence, greed and political motivation in the nuclear sector winning over safety and for that I don't need to know every detail of the plant construction.
there is nothing wrong with nuclear technology. It, of itself, is safe.
In short, this is a very simplistic way to put it. All I am saying is that even before the issues of technology come into play, there is the issue of having a good enough social framework to ensure nuclear safety. This is the necessary condition to get right before it even makes sense to consider the technological issues of nuclear safety, and this condition is rarely satisfied even in developed countries, as the Fukushima debacle has shown beyond doubt.
The technological issues at hand aren't trivial either -- there is no such thing as "nuclear technology" per se, there are all kinds of reactors, built by all kinds of groups, connected to all kinds of control equipment and operated by various organizations with complex vendor relations, etc. Saying "it is safe" without context is rather meaningless.
The problems in Fukushima had jackshit to do with tsunamis, and a lot to do with incompetence, greed and political pressure, during plan construction, during operation and, finally, during the disastrous handling of the incident after the earthquake. Those problems are universal problems that tend to plague the nuclear sector everywhere, because many view it as prestigious, there are "national security" concerns, the orders are large and a lot of money is swapped under the table in deals that cut various corners, etc.
Since fission nuclear power, if done for safely and accounted for properly, is insanely expensive to begin with, and the costs multiply many times over in the case of a nuclear fuckup, coming up with better alternatives is not a bad idea.
Thanks, looks like an interesting read. I have seen quite a few economics research papers that firmly establish harm from the patent system, and practically none that show clear and unambiguous benefits. It will be interesting to evaluate my thinking in the context of how benefits of patents in bio and chem are justified in it.
As to your previous post, you say that we must fight the attempts to subvert the system as best as we can. I agree, with the little caveat that while fighting them, we should always use the best tools available to analyze the sources of the problem, and keep an open mind for the best solution. It may not be obvious, traditional or even patentable.
developing a website is not comparable to, for example, developing a completely new type of fancy technology like say, some kind of display, or battery, or lightweight strong material.
Why? These days most of product development happens largely in software. If you get something good enough to prototype, you can usually get a patent for that even without actually making it. I have a friend who is an automotive engineer and has a few patents. His inventions were totally made "in his garage", and his design equipment to this day is a couple of 486DX machines, which he's been using for 20 years now. Not only that, he has patented his ideas without ever building a prototype, just describing it.
Apple is actually not a good example either way because their game is design, quality, polish, and marketing
On the contrary, it is a very good example, because their history reinforces all points I am making -- that innovation can pay out even without enforcing patents; and that patents will be the first "weapon" of choice against competition, before innovation. Besides, even if your opinion is that Apple does little technical innovation, that is not what the society at large thinks.
Unfortunately I can't prove my point in the end
It is not you. As I pointed out in the first post, "IP" is impossible to get right even theoretically. No matter how you start, the presence of monopolistic rents will bring in excess profits, and these will provide the incentive and means for abuse. And since inventing is much harder work than lobbying, the likelihood is that such systems will convert from one that mainly fosters innovation into one that primarily fosters lobbying and litigation.
The better argument you can make on theoretical grounds is that investment in knowledge in general will be less than optimal, and this should be corrected. But whether creating monopoly rents the right way to address this issue is by no means clear.
in a world without patents, will businesses still invest as much money researching and developing new technologies if those new technologies can be freely copied the minute they put them on the market?
I understand the logic behind your argument, however I am asking about some facts that would prove your point. I gave you an example that shows your theory wrong - the Web. The most dynamic, most innovative business area of the past 20 years. Almost without patents, and routing around them when possible. What's your set of facts that counters this?
Didn't Apple wield the IP stick very early on, when Windows first came out?
And what did put Apple further ahead in terms of business results? The innovation, good marketing and strong competitiveness they showed in the past 5 years, or the epic legal battles of the early 90s that they lost?
You make it sound that a competitive market will not innovate, but for that [citation] is sorely [needed].
I can show you clearly the causal link between monopolistic rents from patents and other related rights and the coordinated effort of the big players to shift those to their advantage. IFPI, WIPO and other lawyers' organizations exist, lobby aggressively and get all kinds of arbitrary laws that protect their profits in harm to the society at large. The harm is there, is obvious and is often discussed in the media. Can you show a similarly clear link between patent monopolistic rents and innovation speed? And if you compare the magnitude of the two, which is larger?
Can you show that without patents, innovation would slow down very significantly? I think not. Take Apple for example -- they were innovative, came up with several very successful products in a very competitive market, and stayed on top for nearly a decade before the competition caught up with them. During that time, they did not really the threat of patents -- the advantage in know-how, marketing and product quality was enough. Now, when they seem relatively out of steam, and the competition is catching up, instead of innovating further, they fall back to a concerted, international legal campaign against it. It looks to me that the "IP" does not exactly work to promote innovation in this specific instance. The situation is the same in many other "knowledge economy" fields. Consider the rise of the web. It was relatively open from the start, competition was fierce. Is the pace of innovation any slower? Did relative dearth of patents prevent people from cashing in on the web? Why are people still innovating in this area, so contrary to your argument?
Your argument can be re-stated like this: in a world without patents, will people stop chasing business profits? Will product differentiation by quality and design stop working? What is a better incentive to innovate -- a constant pressure to be better in design and quality than your competitors, or several years of guaranteed rents? The answers are quite obvious, and not kind to your argument.
But this is exactly what economic theory predicts. Intervene in the market with good intentions -- e.g. create monopoly profits for innovators -- and watch your "new" rules being exploited by rent-seekers, who then use the monopolistic profits to lobby for furthering the rules, further hampering the economy. The theory is very clear and explicit about it -- and has always been ignored in favor of patents.
The other prediction of the theory is that since the profit/loss is unevenly distributed (many people have a small loss, but few people reap enormous benefits), even in a democracy you're unlikely to see a change in the rules unless the loss becomes large enough that is painful to most individuals so that they take action. So, the crazy patent rules will be with us for a long time.
On devices I need physical keyboard sensation, I have a physical keyboard. On devices with touchscreens, I have workflows that eliminate the need to type. And ideally, I want to drive them all from my brain implant. So, for me, this is a waste of precious R&D resources in the wrong direction.
Don't worry, they won't be using neither expensive helium, nor dangerous hydrogen. They'll use the good old safe heated CO2, which they'll get by burning propane.
That's no profit, that's redistribution. It sounds very nice on theory, but there is one little problem - the people who decide how to spend tend to give it to their friends and relatives 120% of the time (if you include debt). And these friends and relatives are not in the R&D business.
The problem with Koreans is that online bullying is apparently wide-spread and vicious. So vicious, it appears, that some public personalities committed suicides because of anonymous attacks on them on forums that post private information, insults, lies, manipulative information and what not. Mind you, I have this image of the scary and borderline criminal Korean netscape from the Japanese media, which is to say it is probably incomplete and somewhat biased, but it probably covers with the prevailing opinion in the mainstream Korean media and political opinion.
Now, that's a con art, I can give them that. Art in the sense used by that neanderthal guy drawing pictures the cave, that unknown Phoenician who made those pretty pictures on the amphoras, the Roman sculptors or Michelangelo and DaVinci? Nah, not really.
Actually, if you want to go with perl all the way, then it'll be three - Learning Perl, the first edition of Advanced Perl Programming and Mastering Algorithms in Perl. Or, picturewise, the llama book, the panther book and the wolf book. As good a start as any, perhaps, but in no way substitute for Knuth.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, if I have time later I'll dump on you all the corner-cutting deals and operator mishaps at Fukushima to ponder at. I wonder how can you claim expertise and be so oblivious to the details of the disaster there. If I were working in the "nuclear industry", I would have familiarized myself with the accident simply on the grounds of professional interest. Cheers, fellow elf-lord.
Well, my experience is probably influenced by me being too close to the two worst disasters - I happened to be within few hundred km of both Chernobyl and Fukushima when they happened, and have to bear the cost of the consequences of two nuclear disasters myself - but my observations of the way nuclear industry and regulators operates worldwide don't exactly inspire my confidence in the safe handling of technology.
Japan has always had a bad culture when it comes to nuclear safety, but the depth of Fukushima fuckup really surprised me. Russia isn't far behind from what I know and see. The many old nuclear plants in Eastern Europe engage in a lot of worrying practices (substandard fuel, hushing up of minor accidents, etc.) and are nearing their end of life, so more construction probably with Russian tech will ensue, with all associated risks. China with its "stellar" industrial safety record isn't exactly inspiring confidence, and neither is India, and both have plans to build a lot of reactors. Even Germany admitted their reactors aren't up to their own regulations after the post-Fukushima inspections.
So, the "safety culture" of the nuclear industry is, IMHO, severely overhyped worldwide. If nuclear accident outcomes could easily be contained, I could have cared less, but alas it doesn't seem to be the case.
Perhaps you mean a few company splits.
I understand the claim, I was only curious about the specific logic behind the round number :)
I don't know what your purported expertise is, and you will excuse me if I take it as I take any anonymous claim to expertise on Internet boards, that is, very lightly.
What I am talking about is not the technology of nuclear power, but rather the management of the said technology. Do you have anything from my original comment that you disagree with, or are you going to keep asking us to believe you because you claim expertise and throw "FUD" around? I can back my claims of incompetence, greed and political motivation in the nuclear sector winning over safety and for that I don't need to know every detail of the plant construction.
there is nothing wrong with nuclear technology. It, of itself, is safe.
In short, this is a very simplistic way to put it. All I am saying is that even before the issues of technology come into play, there is the issue of having a good enough social framework to ensure nuclear safety. This is the necessary condition to get right before it even makes sense to consider the technological issues of nuclear safety, and this condition is rarely satisfied even in developed countries, as the Fukushima debacle has shown beyond doubt.
The technological issues at hand aren't trivial either -- there is no such thing as "nuclear technology" per se, there are all kinds of reactors, built by all kinds of groups, connected to all kinds of control equipment and operated by various organizations with complex vendor relations, etc. Saying "it is safe" without context is rather meaningless.
How so? I am genuinely curious, as I don't follow US stocks closely.
Yeah, sure. And I am the elf-lord Feanor.
Let me summarize your post: you got nothing.
The problems in Fukushima had jackshit to do with tsunamis, and a lot to do with incompetence, greed and political pressure, during plan construction, during operation and, finally, during the disastrous handling of the incident after the earthquake. Those problems are universal problems that tend to plague the nuclear sector everywhere, because many view it as prestigious, there are "national security" concerns, the orders are large and a lot of money is swapped under the table in deals that cut various corners, etc.
Since fission nuclear power, if done for safely and accounted for properly, is insanely expensive to begin with, and the costs multiply many times over in the case of a nuclear fuckup, coming up with better alternatives is not a bad idea.
Thanks, looks like an interesting read. I have seen quite a few economics research papers that firmly establish harm from the patent system, and practically none that show clear and unambiguous benefits. It will be interesting to evaluate my thinking in the context of how benefits of patents in bio and chem are justified in it.
As to your previous post, you say that we must fight the attempts to subvert the system as best as we can. I agree, with the little caveat that while fighting them, we should always use the best tools available to analyze the sources of the problem, and keep an open mind for the best solution. It may not be obvious, traditional or even patentable.
developing a website is not comparable to, for example, developing a completely new type of fancy technology like say, some kind of display, or battery, or lightweight strong material.
Why? These days most of product development happens largely in software. If you get something good enough to prototype, you can usually get a patent for that even without actually making it. I have a friend who is an automotive engineer and has a few patents. His inventions were totally made "in his garage", and his design equipment to this day is a couple of 486DX machines, which he's been using for 20 years now. Not only that, he has patented his ideas without ever building a prototype, just describing it.
Apple is actually not a good example either way because their game is design, quality, polish, and marketing
On the contrary, it is a very good example, because their history reinforces all points I am making -- that innovation can pay out even without enforcing patents; and that patents will be the first "weapon" of choice against competition, before innovation. Besides, even if your opinion is that Apple does little technical innovation, that is not what the society at large thinks.
Unfortunately I can't prove my point in the end
It is not you. As I pointed out in the first post, "IP" is impossible to get right even theoretically. No matter how you start, the presence of monopolistic rents will bring in excess profits, and these will provide the incentive and means for abuse. And since inventing is much harder work than lobbying, the likelihood is that such systems will convert from one that mainly fosters innovation into one that primarily fosters lobbying and litigation.
The better argument you can make on theoretical grounds is that investment in knowledge in general will be less than optimal, and this should be corrected. But whether creating monopoly rents the right way to address this issue is by no means clear.
in a world without patents, will businesses still invest as much money researching and developing new technologies if those new technologies can be freely copied the minute they put them on the market?
I understand the logic behind your argument, however I am asking about some facts that would prove your point. I gave you an example that shows your theory wrong - the Web. The most dynamic, most innovative business area of the past 20 years. Almost without patents, and routing around them when possible. What's your set of facts that counters this?
Didn't Apple wield the IP stick very early on, when Windows first came out?
And what did put Apple further ahead in terms of business results? The innovation, good marketing and strong competitiveness they showed in the past 5 years, or the epic legal battles of the early 90s that they lost?
You make it sound that a competitive market will not innovate, but for that [citation] is sorely [needed].
I can show you clearly the causal link between monopolistic rents from patents and other related rights and the coordinated effort of the big players to shift those to their advantage. IFPI, WIPO and other lawyers' organizations exist, lobby aggressively and get all kinds of arbitrary laws that protect their profits in harm to the society at large. The harm is there, is obvious and is often discussed in the media. Can you show a similarly clear link between patent monopolistic rents and innovation speed? And if you compare the magnitude of the two, which is larger?
Can you show that without patents, innovation would slow down very significantly? I think not. Take Apple for example -- they were innovative, came up with several very successful products in a very competitive market, and stayed on top for nearly a decade before the competition caught up with them. During that time, they did not really the threat of patents -- the advantage in know-how, marketing and product quality was enough. Now, when they seem relatively out of steam, and the competition is catching up, instead of innovating further, they fall back to a concerted, international legal campaign against it. It looks to me that the "IP" does not exactly work to promote innovation in this specific instance. The situation is the same in many other "knowledge economy" fields. Consider the rise of the web. It was relatively open from the start, competition was fierce. Is the pace of innovation any slower? Did relative dearth of patents prevent people from cashing in on the web? Why are people still innovating in this area, so contrary to your argument?
Your argument can be re-stated like this: in a world without patents, will people stop chasing business profits? Will product differentiation by quality and design stop working? What is a better incentive to innovate -- a constant pressure to be better in design and quality than your competitors, or several years of guaranteed rents? The answers are quite obvious, and not kind to your argument.
But this is exactly what economic theory predicts. Intervene in the market with good intentions -- e.g. create monopoly profits for innovators -- and watch your "new" rules being exploited by rent-seekers, who then use the monopolistic profits to lobby for furthering the rules, further hampering the economy. The theory is very clear and explicit about it -- and has always been ignored in favor of patents.
The other prediction of the theory is that since the profit/loss is unevenly distributed (many people have a small loss, but few people reap enormous benefits), even in a democracy you're unlikely to see a change in the rules unless the loss becomes large enough that is painful to most individuals so that they take action. So, the crazy patent rules will be with us for a long time.
On devices I need physical keyboard sensation, I have a physical keyboard. On devices with touchscreens, I have workflows that eliminate the need to type. And ideally, I want to drive them all from my brain implant. So, for me, this is a waste of precious R&D resources in the wrong direction.
Don't worry, they won't be using neither expensive helium, nor dangerous hydrogen. They'll use the good old safe heated CO2, which they'll get by burning propane.
That's no profit, that's redistribution. It sounds very nice on theory, but there is one little problem - the people who decide how to spend tend to give it to their friends and relatives 120% of the time (if you include debt). And these friends and relatives are not in the R&D business.
Apparently, 4chan pales in comparison to the said Korean boards. It is, after all, inspired by the much more "appropriate" 2ch ;)
Hehe, yeah, it appears so.
The problem with Koreans is that online bullying is apparently wide-spread and vicious. So vicious, it appears, that some public personalities committed suicides because of anonymous attacks on them on forums that post private information, insults, lies, manipulative information and what not. Mind you, I have this image of the scary and borderline criminal Korean netscape from the Japanese media, which is to say it is probably incomplete and somewhat biased, but it probably covers with the prevailing opinion in the mainstream Korean media and political opinion.
You don't use batteries? I envy you.
Now, that's a con art, I can give them that. Art in the sense used by that neanderthal guy drawing pictures the cave, that unknown Phoenician who made those pretty pictures on the amphoras, the Roman sculptors or Michelangelo and DaVinci? Nah, not really.
Thanks.
Actually, if you want to go with perl all the way, then it'll be three - Learning Perl, the first edition of Advanced Perl Programming and Mastering Algorithms in Perl. Or, picturewise, the llama book, the panther book and the wolf book. As good a start as any, perhaps, but in no way substitute for Knuth.