People are making a fundamental error in terminology here. If you're looking to hire someone for a programming job, then you shouldn't be looking at someone with a CS degree. Computer Science is not about coding or programming, it's about the practices behind it. If you want a coder, go hire a code monkey from your local technical college. If you want someone to design the software, make sure it's sane, and then hand it off to a code monkey, then hire a CS grad.
I've met some guys who were decent coders but not very good designers, but I've never once encountered the opposite. I haven't seen much in the way of correlation between lack or presence of a degree.
Never mind the lettuce, what about the cows? How will cows stand up to low gravity? How will they grow enough grass to feed them? The ISS hasn't provided any experimental data on this.
Cows should be fine, because they can jump over the moon.
Apparently.
It's the little dog I'm worried about.
I understand there could be issues with absentee silverware and place settings.
It makes sense. If export demand spikes or production dips you want to have a reserve to use to stabilize the price so people keep buying the stuff instead of switching to something else, so your business model and power remain intact. It is for the exact same reason we have oil reserves.
And here I thought it was because of the enormous number of things that would completely stop working without oil.
The point of the patent system is to allow inventors time to recuperate their investment costs and earn a profit from their invention. It is supposed to protect inventors from more moneyed interests stealing their idea and using the advantage of existing production and distribution infrastructures to out-compete the inventor without any research expenditures because such an outcome would discourage invention. If the patent system only protects the interest of the rich, then it fails at the core goal of acting as an inducement for invention.
Instead it just acts as an additional barrier to entry protecting established actors and has the opposite effect of the intended goal. Established actors don't have as much of an incentive to invest in the production of innovations that could disturb their market position. Some obvious examples would be Kodak and Microsoft.
It's all a matter of conjecture until we check out the numbers, and I don't know an easy of getting all the relevant data, nor am I inclined to conduct the volume of analysis for a slashdot post. I'll concede that your point may be correct, but without the math to back it all up we're all just guessing.
It will not work as a proof of concept, because what we learn from it will not apply to a space elevator anchored on Earth.
The biggest issues to work around in most projects are the ones nobody thought of at the beginning. Even though many of the variables will be different for the moon vs Earth, it'll be useful to know that a) it can be done, and b) what the unexpected problems were.
If you're rich, or a large corporation, you can pay your renewal fees, eat the cost and in 10 years you will utterly dominate the market. You'll make 10000x the cost that those patent renewal fees ran you. If you're poor however, you're left with only a few choices. You can sell your patent to someone who can afford the upfront costs of the renewal fees. You can partner with someone, who will undoubtedly demand the lions share of your profits because without their money will will get next to nothing. Either way, you're buying the cheap, leaky boots. Either way, you won't see a fraction the profit off your invention that you would if you had the money to pay for the patent renewals.
This problem is inevitable and in fact already exists. The real question is whether or not a progressively expensive patent system will exacerbate that issue, and whether or not the pains of that exacerbation will be outweighed by the pool of patents that will expire earlier. I don't disagree with your analysis, namely that the richer you are the better use you can make of your resources (IOW, having twice as much money can potentially grant you more than twice as much power), but I do dispute the assumption that it would necessarily be worse than the current system.
A rich person will be able to spend the money upfront for future gain that a poor, or even upper middle class person has no chance or raising on their own. Poor people don't have investments because they cannot afford to have them, not because they don't understand the benefits of having a long term income.
If you're arguing that rich people have greater resources available to them than poor people... that's kind of the definition.
I'm not saying that patents won't cost more, I'm saying that the profit margins on patents would decrease, making them a less desirable investment for people of any level of means. This in turn would result in a greater number of patents expiring at an earlier date.
Also, IIRC when Sam Vimes was with the wealthy (widow? It's been a long time) woman, he eventually ditched the expensive boots for the cheap ones because he felt they gave him a better feel for the city. Not really that relevant, but worth pointing out that the expensive boots weren't necessarily as much better as they seemed.
This would put patent renewal in the hands of the wealthiest, further tipping the balance in the favor of the rich.
I think the idea (I've actually heard it applied to copyrights rather than patents, but for this particular argument they're very similar) is to produce the following effects:
1. Dormant patent portfolios become unprofitable very rapidly which would make a dent in submarine patents 2. Costs increase exponentially so that only the most profitable patents get renewed
Even for the wealthy, this isn't a question of what you can afford, it's a question of how much you can profit from it. The rich won't hold on to a patent if it will cost them more money than they can gain to do so.
It also works better for inexperienced programmers than it does for seasoned vets.
My understanding of the process is that it's ideally a pair with one seasoned vet who is supposed to have the large view and one junior programmer who is supposed to be handling the details while learning from the seasoned vet.
So we should change things to that it's no longer legal to sell marijuana to minors?
Currently those who sell it don't care about how old those they sell to are as they have no business/cannabis retailer license to lose, if they get busted they're busted.
How often do your local liquor stores sell to minors? (You might live in some horrible backwater where they don't give a crap but where I live they card 30-year-olds "just to be safe")
That's a fair argument, but I would counter that underage kids currently have older brothers/sisters that will buy stuff for them, and failing that there's the tried and true approach of hanging out outside the store until you kind find someone willing to buy it for you for a few bucks. Or stealing your parent's stash. It's not like underage drinking doesn't happen.
Just to be clear, I believe legalization should happen, I just don't think it would solve this particular problem.
But pot use after age 18 doesn't have long-term affects on IQ, only for the time immediately after consuming the drug. This was an important point lost in the summary. So, marijuana should be illegal for young kids to smoke.
Agreed.
If marijuana were legal and regulated like alcohol, we would see less young people abusing the drug.
So we should change things to that it's no longer legal to sell marijuana to minors?
I can't find a reference for it, but I remember reading that if you eliminate aging and disease, some actuary worked out that the life expectancy would be roughly 800 years before you die in some kind of accident / murder / etc.
1) The level of damages should not exceed 10 times the value of the product/song
And where did you get that number from? So, if you are a music artist and you sell your song for $1 from your small, low traffic website, I, as a big corporation can take your song and distribute it from my big high traffic website for free and sell a million dollars worth of advertising. And the most you can sue me for is $10?
Actually, this is close to the scenario for which the statutory damage amounts were created for. We should distinguish between someone who pirated a single copy of a song for personal use vs a person (or organization) who is willfully redistributing for profit.
Slashdot Mirror
One of them is that I have just realized how to pass a Turing test -- just have your program pretend to be a frothing nutcase.
I've heard that the program most often mistaken for a human was frequently rude and nasty to its correspondents.
-- I got my nickname tsa long before the TSA existed so please refrain from making remarks about the TSA.
OT, but
I suppose you would describe the TSA as a bunch of no-talent ass clowns?
People are making a fundamental error in terminology here. If you're looking to hire someone for a programming job, then you shouldn't be looking at someone with a CS degree. Computer Science is not about coding or programming, it's about the practices behind it. If you want a coder, go hire a code monkey from your local technical college. If you want someone to design the software, make sure it's sane, and then hand it off to a code monkey, then hire a CS grad.
I've met some guys who were decent coders but not very good designers, but I've never once encountered the opposite. I haven't seen much in the way of correlation between lack or presence of a degree.
Dunno, I think that one fits pretty well... "Hey guys, we've got another PITA to investigate."
I'm thinking in an article talking about the 70+ crowd the parachute and stunt stats are pretty much sampling noise.
I'm glad they clarified that the injuries were from *unintentional* falls.
Never mind the lettuce, what about the cows? How will cows stand up to low gravity? How will they grow enough grass to feed them? The ISS hasn't provided any experimental data on this.
Cows should be fine, because they can jump over the moon.
Apparently.
It's the little dog I'm worried about.
I understand there could be issues with absentee silverware and place settings.
Oh, sure, every large(!) supermarket has a dozen or so flasks on disply
He said never even seen.
It makes sense. If export demand spikes or production dips you want to have a reserve to use to stabilize the price so people keep buying the stuff instead of switching to something else, so your business model and power remain intact. It is for the exact same reason we have oil reserves.
And here I thought it was because of the enormous number of things that would completely stop working without oil.
I mean I never have even seen, smelled, or eaten anything with maple syrup.
If you said you didn't like it, I could accept that. But not so much as seen it? Where does one live to avoid all contact whatsoever with maple syrup?
The arses are red
And the faces are blue
Get that in your head
Or no baboon paint for you
The point of the patent system is to allow inventors time to recuperate their investment costs and earn a profit from their invention. It is supposed to protect inventors from more moneyed interests stealing their idea and using the advantage of existing production and distribution infrastructures to out-compete the inventor without any research expenditures because such an outcome would discourage invention. If the patent system only protects the interest of the rich, then it fails at the core goal of acting as an inducement for invention.
Instead it just acts as an additional barrier to entry protecting established actors and has the opposite effect of the intended goal. Established actors don't have as much of an incentive to invest in the production of innovations that could disturb their market position. Some obvious examples would be Kodak and Microsoft.
It's all a matter of conjecture until we check out the numbers, and I don't know an easy of getting all the relevant data, nor am I inclined to conduct the volume of analysis for a slashdot post. I'll concede that your point may be correct, but without the math to back it all up we're all just guessing.
It will not work as a proof of concept, because what we learn from it will not apply to a space elevator anchored on Earth.
The biggest issues to work around in most projects are the ones nobody thought of at the beginning. Even though many of the variables will be different for the moon vs Earth, it'll be useful to know that a) it can be done, and b) what the unexpected problems were.
If you're rich, or a large corporation, you can pay your renewal fees, eat the cost and in 10 years you will utterly dominate the market. You'll make 10000x the cost that those patent renewal fees ran you. If you're poor however, you're left with only a few choices. You can sell your patent to someone who can afford the upfront costs of the renewal fees. You can partner with someone, who will undoubtedly demand the lions share of your profits because without their money will will get next to nothing. Either way, you're buying the cheap, leaky boots. Either way, you won't see a fraction the profit off your invention that you would if you had the money to pay for the patent renewals.
This problem is inevitable and in fact already exists. The real question is whether or not a progressively expensive patent system will exacerbate that issue, and whether or not the pains of that exacerbation will be outweighed by the pool of patents that will expire earlier. I don't disagree with your analysis, namely that the richer you are the better use you can make of your resources (IOW, having twice as much money can potentially grant you more than twice as much power), but I do dispute the assumption that it would necessarily be worse than the current system.
A rich person will be able to spend the money upfront for future gain that a poor, or even upper middle class person has no chance or raising on their own. Poor people don't have investments because they cannot afford to have them, not because they don't understand the benefits of having a long term income.
If you're arguing that rich people have greater resources available to them than poor people... that's kind of the definition.
I'm not saying that patents won't cost more, I'm saying that the profit margins on patents would decrease, making them a less desirable investment for people of any level of means. This in turn would result in a greater number of patents expiring at an earlier date.
Also, IIRC when Sam Vimes was with the wealthy (widow? It's been a long time) woman, he eventually ditched the expensive boots for the cheap ones because he felt they gave him a better feel for the city. Not really that relevant, but worth pointing out that the expensive boots weren't necessarily as much better as they seemed.
This would put patent renewal in the hands of the wealthiest, further tipping the balance in the favor of the rich.
I think the idea (I've actually heard it applied to copyrights rather than patents, but for this particular argument they're very similar) is to produce the following effects:
1. Dormant patent portfolios become unprofitable very rapidly which would make a dent in submarine patents
2. Costs increase exponentially so that only the most profitable patents get renewed
Even for the wealthy, this isn't a question of what you can afford, it's a question of how much you can profit from it. The rich won't hold on to a patent if it will cost them more money than they can gain to do so.
My farts smell like roses.
Rose's what?
Like Rose's farts. Duh. You can't tell them apart.
we can talk about it in complete detail when it makes sense, i don't need to smell your farts
You might change your mind if you were working with me. My farts smell like roses.
Theoretically pair programming is supposed to pair up programmers with other programmers, not with management.
Hrmm. My farts smell like modular, well engineered roses?
we can talk about it in complete detail when it makes sense, i don't need to smell your farts
You might change your mind if you were working with me. My farts smell like roses.
It also works better for inexperienced programmers than it does for seasoned vets.
My understanding of the process is that it's ideally a pair with one seasoned vet who is supposed to have the large view and one junior programmer who is supposed to be handling the details while learning from the seasoned vet.
So we should change things to that it's no longer legal to sell marijuana to minors?
Currently those who sell it don't care about how old those they sell to are as they have no business/cannabis retailer license to lose, if they get busted they're busted.
How often do your local liquor stores sell to minors? (You might live in some horrible backwater where they don't give a crap but where I live they card 30-year-olds "just to be safe")
That's a fair argument, but I would counter that underage kids currently have older brothers/sisters that will buy stuff for them, and failing that there's the tried and true approach of hanging out outside the store until you kind find someone willing to buy it for you for a few bucks. Or stealing your parent's stash. It's not like underage drinking doesn't happen.
Just to be clear, I believe legalization should happen, I just don't think it would solve this particular problem.
But pot use after age 18 doesn't have long-term affects on IQ, only for the time immediately after consuming the drug. This was an important point lost in the summary. So, marijuana should be illegal for young kids to smoke.
Agreed.
If marijuana were legal and regulated like alcohol, we would see less young people abusing the drug.
So we should change things to that it's no longer legal to sell marijuana to minors?
I can't find a reference for it, but I remember reading that if you eliminate aging and disease, some actuary worked out that the life expectancy would be roughly 800 years before you die in some kind of accident / murder / etc.
The whole thing was a HUGE publicity stunt and a big dick waving contest between the US and the USSR.
If only there were someone worth waving our dicks at now.
1) The level of damages should not exceed 10 times the value of the product/song
And where did you get that number from? So, if you are a music artist and you sell your song for $1 from your small, low traffic website, I, as a big corporation can take your song and distribute it from my big high traffic website for free and sell a million dollars worth of advertising. And the most you can sue me for is $10?
Actually, this is close to the scenario for which the statutory damage amounts were created for. We should distinguish between someone who pirated a single copy of a song for personal use vs a person (or organization) who is willfully redistributing for profit.