Mostly people will defraud themselves, there's no reason why "rich, famous and sexy person uses product X" should imply "product X will make me rich, famous and sexy".
You my friend, are labouring under the presumption that human-beings are rational. Taking advantage of the human condition is why we have a laws in the first place -- because we could scape every law in the rulebook if people could be trusted to behave themselves.
That's how power works in our society. It is not about what is "right", but what suites the needs of the big players. Our system is *obviously* better than anything before it -- it has many checks and balances -- but I think people expect too much from it when they think that patent laws should be revised merely because it would be a sensible thing to do.
That's called a taking, and the ex-patent holders would be able to sue the government for the value of the patents.
I find it ludicrous that the government would be threatened with litigation for passing laws. Surely the laws themselves would have to be impugned -- which means referring to the constitution.
If a firm really has merit to their case, then there will be lawyers scrambling to represent them. In effect it is the lawyers that take on the risk of losing, but they also win big when the case is successful.
The notion of outsourcing litigation to an efficient entity which is there to make money with no repercussions on the investors (limited liability) makes my skin crawl. The law should be about justice, and has met the latest slickest incarnation of exploitation for profit -- morals be damned.
The solution is to have a system that discourages this type of wanton litigiousness, but we haven't reached that stage yet. A few more powerful people in wall street will have to have their fingers burnt first.
It costs the public more, but you also get a benefit: namely patent free technologies that can be incorporated into products far and wide.
Yes. But. Value is defined by the bottom line, not something abstract like the "public good".
They exist solely to sue. They are the personification of what is wrong with the patent system.
And also with the corporate system altogether. Something about an entity that grants investors limited liability over its actions to make a return on investment -- as though that in-and-of-itself is proof that a particular corporation is a net-benefit to society.
Limited liability has replaced social justice in our society. I think we'd see a lot less unethical behaviour if investors were held responsible the more egregious actions those making money for them.
until he actually got elected and realized that he couldn't.
I'll raise you one.
Obama always knew he couldn't affect that much change -- although he always wanted to. In the end, politics is about power and if power is wielded effectively it is more about practicality than idealism.
Keep in mind that if you want to change the direction, it is much more effective to reach for the steering wheel -- than rocking the boat, sinking it, and trying to build a new one.
And encrypting multiple time with the same key will, for any reasonably secure crypto system*, not increase security.
I understand that from a theoretical point of view, but from a practical point of view -- how would you break an encrypted file if it is doubly encrypted, even if you knew both algorithms involved. How do you solve the problem of recognizing if you'd actually decrypted with the first key, so that you can start working with the second key?? Haven't you increased the key-space to an exponent of itself (in practical terms), and therefore created something vastly more secure?
The have it better now than anytime in their history.
There are now two Chinas. The vast majority are working poor, and are severely and even cruelly suppressed. PBS has a good documentary about 1989, which includes an extensive section on what working in China is like now, and how the country has been changing.
If you watch this documentary, you might easily see why a large number of chinese people might want to revolt, if they weren't so completely powerless.
I read an interesting series of psych experiments on rationality in decision making. The upshot was that thinking rationally about choices upsets carefully arranged heuristics that do a pretty good job. The caveat is that an expert in a particular field will have the ability to make the right choice --- and articulate it rationally.
Participants had to choose a poster to place in their dorm room for 6 months. After 6 months, they filled out a questionnaire on how satisfied they were with the posters. The control group just choose their poster from a collection of posters. The experimental group had to articulate rational reasons for their choice. The control group were more satisfied with their choice.
A similar experiment was done with jam tasting. When people were asked to give reasons and critically evaluate the jams, they produced results inconsistent with their enjoyment of the jam, and also with expert opinions about the jam. However, when those internal heuristics were left to do their thing -- people made better choices.
I think it is fair to call this gut instinct -- don't over-think the problem. Not applicable to experts within their field of choice, nor to every situation, but generally application to most people in most situations.
As computer programmers, we generally have powerful ability to manipulate abstract thoughts -- that is not generally developed in Joe or Jane Average. Thus, we have a bias towards thinking about things, in the same wielding a hammer makes everything look like a nail. The architypal computer programmer is a bit of a braniac.
I would like to see an erudite and academically sound biography of Confucius. Maybe it's a great movie that is replacing Avatar -- but there's an equal chance that it is somewhat presentist and ceremonial.
The Chinese are smart. Our year 2010 is the Chinese year 4707. They have an ANCIENT culture.
The rampant cronyism and corruption in our society is a drop in the bucket compared to China. Damn straight they have an ancient culture -- and ancient problems as well. One chinese told me "dictatorship is in the culture".
I would be suspicious of any government (or person) who *demands* that you reflect them back the way they want to be seen. The great glorious perfect nation of China is a lot like Narcissus in the story of Narcissus and Echo.
That is factually inaccurate. He was informed that the sale had taken place once it was done. The mistake Monty made was to sell MySQL to shareholders years ago. It probably wasn't a mistake either, although there should have been a clause in the shareholder agreement about the resale of MySQL.
We should focus our anger on corporate interference in the public good. Too many people think too highly of our corporate mode. Political interference combined with laissez-faire capitalism creates corporate welfare and the pursuit of profits by plundering the public good. Costs are cut by pushing the burden of economic behaviour into "externalities", and this is not regulated.
The laissez-fair capitalists want to divorce government from the economy -- but ironically, that's what the Soviet Union needed. Really we need a doctrine of divorcing the economy from government.
And that ain't socialism. It is really the exact opposite.
When in doubt, optimize code for future maintainability and legibility. Hardware gets faster. Programmers don't.
There is an important caveat to this -- although it might be obvious. You *always* design and code with awareness asymptotic time complexity, and sometimes space complexity. If you just think "optimize later", then you might be doing a root canal on your code.
I only say this because there are so many developers who have no idea about how to use algorithms and data structures.
Socialist crackpots have defined socialism and communism as good, hence by definition nothing bad is part of it.
The right-wing has branded socialism as fundamentally bad, and anything remotely not lassez-faire as a left-wing "crackpot" idiocy.
You then went on to completely mischaracterize moral individualism. Take a course in ethics or social psychology. Might add some substance to your arguments.
Slashdot Mirror
The problem is dishonesty in marketing, not marketing itself.
You can remove the marketing from dishonesty, but you cannot remove the dishonesty from marketing. Buyer beware.
Mostly people will defraud themselves, there's no reason why "rich, famous and sexy person uses product X" should imply "product X will make me rich, famous and sexy".
You my friend, are labouring under the presumption that human-beings are rational. Taking advantage of the human condition is why we have a laws in the first place -- because we could scape every law in the rulebook if people could be trusted to behave themselves.
> What the heck is wrong with marketing? Doing scientific research into how to make children more effective naggers is plain immoral.
That's how power works in our society. It is not about what is "right", but what suites the needs of the big players. Our system is *obviously* better than anything before it -- it has many checks and balances -- but I think people expect too much from it when they think that patent laws should be revised merely because it would be a sensible thing to do.
That's called a taking, and the ex-patent holders would be able to sue the government for the value of the patents.
I find it ludicrous that the government would be threatened with litigation for passing laws. Surely the laws themselves would have to be impugned -- which means referring to the constitution.
It would be too costly to follow-up on every patent to make sure people actually did what they said they would.
When you are awarding $500 million in damages, I'm sure that the price of an investigation would be chump change.
If a firm really has merit to their case, then there will be lawyers scrambling to represent them. In effect it is the lawyers that take on the risk of losing, but they also win big when the case is successful.
The notion of outsourcing litigation to an efficient entity which is there to make money with no repercussions on the investors (limited liability) makes my skin crawl. The law should be about justice, and has met the latest slickest incarnation of exploitation for profit -- morals be damned.
The solution is to have a system that discourages this type of wanton litigiousness, but we haven't reached that stage yet. A few more powerful people in wall street will have to have their fingers burnt first.
It costs the public more, but you also get a benefit: namely patent free technologies that can be incorporated into products far and wide.
Yes. But. Value is defined by the bottom line, not something abstract like the "public good".
Sad but true story.
They exist solely to sue. They are the personification of what is wrong with the patent system.
And also with the corporate system altogether. Something about an entity that grants investors limited liability over its actions to make a return on investment -- as though that in-and-of-itself is proof that a particular corporation is a net-benefit to society.
Limited liability has replaced social justice in our society. I think we'd see a lot less unethical behaviour if investors were held responsible the more egregious actions those making money for them.
Both are being manipulated. And the patent office as well.
until he actually got elected and realized that he couldn't.
I'll raise you one.
Obama always knew he couldn't affect that much change -- although he always wanted to. In the end, politics is about power and if power is wielded effectively it is more about practicality than idealism.
Keep in mind that if you want to change the direction, it is much more effective to reach for the steering wheel -- than rocking the boat, sinking it, and trying to build a new one.
And encrypting multiple time with the same key will, for any reasonably secure crypto system*, not increase security.
I understand that from a theoretical point of view, but from a practical point of view -- how would you break an encrypted file if it is doubly encrypted, even if you knew both algorithms involved. How do you solve the problem of recognizing if you'd actually decrypted with the first key, so that you can start working with the second key?? Haven't you increased the key-space to an exponent of itself (in practical terms), and therefore created something vastly more secure?
Internally, they only have to prove it to their own satisfaction, which it would seem they've done.
Proof is a powerful negotiating tool. Make the chinese government red-faced -- gives you leverage.
Inconceivable
The have it better now than anytime in their history.
There are now two Chinas. The vast majority are working poor, and are severely and even cruelly suppressed. PBS has a good documentary about 1989, which includes an extensive section on what working in China is like now, and how the country has been changing.
If you watch this documentary, you might easily see why a large number of chinese people might want to revolt, if they weren't so completely powerless.
I read an interesting series of psych experiments on rationality in decision making. The upshot was that thinking rationally about choices upsets carefully arranged heuristics that do a pretty good job. The caveat is that an expert in a particular field will have the ability to make the right choice --- and articulate it rationally.
Participants had to choose a poster to place in their dorm room for 6 months. After 6 months, they filled out a questionnaire on how satisfied they were with the posters. The control group just choose their poster from a collection of posters. The experimental group had to articulate rational reasons for their choice. The control group were more satisfied with their choice.
A similar experiment was done with jam tasting. When people were asked to give reasons and critically evaluate the jams, they produced results inconsistent with their enjoyment of the jam, and also with expert opinions about the jam. However, when those internal heuristics were left to do their thing -- people made better choices.
I think it is fair to call this gut instinct -- don't over-think the problem. Not applicable to experts within their field of choice, nor to every situation, but generally application to most people in most situations.
As computer programmers, we generally have powerful ability to manipulate abstract thoughts -- that is not generally developed in Joe or Jane Average. Thus, we have a bias towards thinking about things, in the same wielding a hammer makes everything look like a nail. The architypal computer programmer is a bit of a braniac.
I would like to see an erudite and academically sound biography of Confucius. Maybe it's a great movie that is replacing Avatar -- but there's an equal chance that it is somewhat presentist and ceremonial.
The Chinese are smart. Our year 2010 is the Chinese year 4707. They have an ANCIENT culture.
The rampant cronyism and corruption in our society is a drop in the bucket compared to China. Damn straight they have an ancient culture -- and ancient problems as well. One chinese told me "dictatorship is in the culture".
I would be suspicious of any government (or person) who *demands* that you reflect them back the way they want to be seen. The great glorious perfect nation of China is a lot like Narcissus in the story of Narcissus and Echo.
He sold MySQL to Sun and then left Sun.
That is factually inaccurate. He was informed that the sale had taken place once it was done. The mistake Monty made was to sell MySQL to shareholders years ago. It probably wasn't a mistake either, although there should have been a clause in the shareholder agreement about the resale of MySQL.
3) False -- Name me one language that doesn't have OpenGL bindings
How about this
We should focus our anger on corporate interference in the public good. Too many people think too highly of our corporate mode. Political interference combined with laissez-faire capitalism creates corporate welfare and the pursuit of profits by plundering the public good. Costs are cut by pushing the burden of economic behaviour into "externalities", and this is not regulated.
The laissez-fair capitalists want to divorce government from the economy -- but ironically, that's what the Soviet Union needed. Really we need a doctrine of divorcing the economy from government.
And that ain't socialism. It is really the exact opposite.
Perhaps you will find the availability heuristic interesting.
And that is just what governments want
That is wrong. The enemy is not the government but industry think thanks and public relations organizations.
When in doubt, optimize code for future maintainability and legibility. Hardware gets faster. Programmers don't.
There is an important caveat to this -- although it might be obvious. You *always* design and code with awareness asymptotic time complexity, and sometimes space complexity. If you just think "optimize later", then you might be doing a root canal on your code.
I only say this because there are so many developers who have no idea about how to use algorithms and data structures.
Socialist crackpots have defined socialism and communism as good, hence by definition nothing bad is part of it.
The right-wing has branded socialism as fundamentally bad, and anything remotely not lassez-faire as a left-wing "crackpot" idiocy.
You then went on to completely mischaracterize moral individualism. Take a course in ethics or social psychology. Might add some substance to your arguments.
Can we *PLEASE* have an intelligent discussion?