Like the aforementioned hacker example, it is basically a lost cause to attempt to restore the proper meaning of these words in the public discourse.
It may be a lost cause but I'll keep tilting at the wind mills. In some ways I'm getting good at lost causes, almost 12 years ago I was hit in an accident and while in a coma the docs told my family it would be a miracle if I lived. I'm here now and I totally disagree with them, instead of a miracle my life has been a living hell.
No matter how often "ethical hackers" claim the word for themselves or try to give it a meaning contrary to what the general populace believes the word to mean, it still carries that meaning.
The meaning has been maligned because that's how the mass media uses it and no one corrects them on it.
Look at the etymology of "hack".
I have, have you? The Online Etymology Dictionary is pretty good, read the second (2) entry particularly. As used with writers "hack" dates back to 1749, whereas with criminals using computers it first appears in 1984. It's ethical meaning was used years before then. I first came across the ethical meaning in the mid to late 1970s in magazines like "Byte: The small and micro systems journal" magazine. My fav writers in "Byte" was Steve Ciarcia who wrote the column "Circuit Cellar" which became it's own magazine and Jerry Pournelle's "Chaos Manor".
The "founding fathers" were not for "small government"
"Jefferson attempted to eliminate the national debt because of his wish for small government. He also decreased the size of the military" ""While smaller governments are better adapted to the ordinary objects of society, larger confederations more effectually secure independence and the preservation of republican government." --Thomas Jefferson to the Rhode Island Assembly, 1801. ME 10:262. "Compare Alexander Hamilton's views of national government with those of Thomas Jefferson.?" "A wise and frugal government which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government." - Thomas Jefferson. Also on that page a quote from James Madison, "The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse." Now notice I did not say all of the Founding Fathers wanted small government, Alexander Hamilton was one of them that wanted a strong and powerful federal government.
those we traditionally call the founding fathers were almost all Federalists
Both Thomas Jefferson and James Madison repudiated the Federalists positions. Thomas Paine wrote many books and essays in support of small government, his "Common Sense", yes I have and read it along with other writings of his, was a cry for small government.
The idea that the Federalists were for "small government" shows a laughable ignorance of the early history of the Republic
Can you show me where I said the Federalists were for small government, or where I said all of the Founding Fathers were federalists? Perhaps you don't know your history, or are you blowing smoke out of your ass?
Falcon
Oh, and while Thomas Paine wasn't a Founding Father like Hamilton, Jefferson, and Washington he wrote the line "These are the times that try men's souls" in "The Crisis" while serving under General Washington's command. It served to help keep the Continental Army from disintegrating.
Sometimes I think a parenting course should be mandatory, but that's just me.
I don't believe in making anything like that mandatory. I do believe though it would be good to have parenting classes readily available. I don't know if they still do it but the Catholic Church used to require Catholics who were getting married to go through counseling before they could have a church wedding, which I believe is a good idea as well.
The point is that if a PC repair person does any form of "investigation" on a computer, then they must be PI license. Technically, if you don't do any investigation at all, you don't need a PI license.
TFA says nothing about only requiring repair shops who do investigations to be licensed. It says anything the "government deems to be an 'investigation,'" must have the PI license. If a computer is showing problems then the repair person has to investigate, another word for diagnose or troubleshoot, why. Individuals too can be charged with a crime: "But the repair shops are not the only ones at risk. The law also criminalizes consumers who knowingly use an unlicensed company to perform any repair that constitutes an investigation in the eyes of the government."
I would not have a problem with a PC repair license that is all about being qualified.
All licensing does is restrict the little person from compeating. Some years back another story where a license was being required was posted on/. This one was about North Dakota and other states requiring people who post other people's items for sale on eBay to be licensed as an auctioneer, as part of the qualifications they even had call out like one, "Going once, going twice, sold!"
I'm all about choice, I think everyone should make their own choices and should be free to make their own mistakes, that why I am pro-choice but anti-abortion. I also am a proponent of relaxing drug laws, but I don't advocate drug use, I rarely even take aspirin. I think that conservatives are just as likely to disallow choice, even libertarians are guilty of it, but they would never admit it.
The liberal mindset is that you are not allowed to choose
That's not a liberal mindset. The original liberalism, Classical Liberalism which stems from The Age Of Enlightenment and The Age of Reason, was all about liberty and small government. Among the USA's Founding Fathers who were Liberals were Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Thomas Paine. The father of Capitalism Adam Smith was a Liberal. As used today "liberal" and "liberalism" has been twisted to mean something a lot different than it did.
Then again other words have had the same thing done to them, like "hack" and "hacker". Whereas a hack used to mean something creative and a hacker was someone who hacked, and writers were hacks too, today they are used for crimes and criminals. As used with computers a hacker follows the Hacker ethic.
But lately, so does the Eurotrash thumbing their nose at the people that actually fought for THEIR freedom and got them their rights to actually have the rights to talk shit to their own and our government.
No Europeans fought for their freedom? Which is it, Charles de Gaulle wasn't European or didn't fight for freedom. The Swing Kids weren't Germans and didn't fight the NAZIs? And there was no Warsaw Uprising.
right? Any so called terrorists on the other side of the world were created by the US with their damn oppression!
The US also helped terrorists with finance and firearms. The US helped the Mujadeen fighting in Afghanistan against the Soviets, and that includes the Taliban. When he came to office the current president, Bush, gave the Taliban $43 million of taxpayer money.
Eastern Europe, Asia, Western Europe, Africa, would ALL be better off had the USSA (as you so lovingly put it) had left all your affairs alone 1900 to 1970, right?
While some places may of been worse if the US didn't do anything in other places people have suffered gravely because of the US. For instance President Ford and Henry Kissinger gave the green light to Indonesia's Suharto to invade East Timer, and supported the invasion with firearms despite a congressional ban. About 200,000 East Timorese were massacred after the invasion, that's 1/3 of the population of East Timor. Or take Iran, in the 1950s the US supported an overthrow of a democratically elected government and replaced it with the Shah. At the same tyme Ford supported Suharto he also supported General Pinochet's overthrow of Chile's elected president after which tens of thousands of people disappeared.
The problem with the EU Constitution was that it was several hundred pages. Even with all the amendments the Constitution of the USA fits on only a few pages. I can go down to Barnes and Noble and buy a pocket edition I can carry in my pocket, Ron Paul carries one. If someone legal can't be read and understood, within reason, in a few minutes by the average person there's something wrong with it.
The matter is way too complex to really understand
That's because it was soooo long.
I don't think it should have had a referendum in the first place.
Democracy is soo inefficient, what's needed instead is a dictatorship.
How is "revenue the product had generated" calculated? For example if I'm sony and I have a patent on some small part of the PS3, how do you calculate the "revenue" from the item? Sony could argue that they receive no revenue since the PS3 is sold at a loss and part of that loss is the components they aren't even charging for. Meanwhile they're keeping anyone from building something similar.
I hadn't thought about companies selling at a loss.
Another example would be Microsoft having a patent on some small software device used in Windows. I'm fairly certain they do:)
Well I did say bar software patents.
In short, how do you calculate revenue on a patent that isn't licensed but rather only used in one's own product, but not necessarily a substantial portion of that product?
I hadn't thought of that either. I don't have all the answers, obviously, but at least I offer ways of fixing a broken patent system, it's easy to criticize something without offer any solutions. But nothing gets done that way. What's your plan of action?
First disallow software patents, software is already protected by copyright.
I'd take it further. Disallow patents (ie. interference by the government in the citizen's business) for all areas where it cannot be scientifically justified that patents are a clear net win for society. In other words the onus is on the patent office to justify their costly existence, not on us to justify that they shouldn't.
I don't know whether patents are needed or not but that's why I came up with my proposal. Adam Smith called them a necessary evil.
Have patent times varying by field, again scientifically justified. e.g. if we have pharmacy patents at all it might be justified having the time length extended by the length of testing.
After that if the patent holder wants to keep the patent then require them to pay a royalty, the first five year extension would cost say 5% of the average of revenue the product had generated the first five years.
Too easily gamed. Form two companies. One sells the product with the patented technology at minimal cost to the second company. Use structural impediments to make sure nobody else will buy it. Second company makes all the profits.
That's Hollywood accounting. Simply require anyone who can afford it to be able to buy whatever it is to be able to buy it from the manufacturer.
Another way to reform the patent system is to require patent holders to release a product utilizing the patents within a couple of years of the issue of them.
Too easily gamed. Sell a hand made, useless product at a ruinous cost that nobody in their right mind would buy. Keep patents on the shelf indefinitely doing that.
If a corporation does that it's liable to be sued by stockholders, aren't some Yahoo! shareholders suing or threaten to sue Yahoo! for it's refusal to accept MS's offer? Maybe what you're meant was that one company sets up another one to manufacture a product who then sells it exclusively the the first one. Simply make that illegal. What I said about Hollywood accounting above addresses it as well.
Reading the rest it appears you oppose patents "entire patent edifice". To a degree I am too, for instance I don't like the thought one person can be prevented from selling something they came up with independently but someone else received a patent on it first, however companies and people have to have a reason to spend the tyme and money to invent something. As Adam Smith said patents are a necessary evil.
But this system still won't help to sink patent trolls, moreso it would actually give an incentive to patent trolls:
File or buy Patent A, but then don't have any revenue on it, because this is taxed.
I covered this when I said "require patent holders to release a product utilizing the patents within a couple of years of the issue of them." If they don't sell a product using a patent then they loose that patent. Then a proper financial analysis should show they'd make more money by selling as much as they could with a decent profit margin than by setting a high price.
Taxes on patents related to revenue are a boon to submarine patents.
Submarine patents are avoided by this requirement as well.
(On the other hand taxes which aren't related to revenue are a problem for small companies with minimal revenue because they wouldn't be able to finance holding a patent).
Ah, I address this by saying the patent holder pay a royalty on the revenue. Anybody who can't afford to manufacture the item itself could in one way or another, say with a fixed cost or profit margin, pay a generic or no name fabricator. From what I understand this is pretty standard in electronics with components and ICs. Heck not even Apple builds their own equipment, my MacBook Pro was shipped from a third party factory in Shanghai. Apple designs things then has someone else actually build them.
Falcon
PS: Actually at first Thomas Jefferson and James Madison opposed them. Eventually TJ was convinced they could help and he sat down with an Actuary table and calculated a term of 14 year with one 14 extension possible. Adam Smith thought they were a necessary evil.
Fact is, you have no way of knowning if it is a nonsensical patent claim or not.
Yes he does if he is an expert in the field. In fact this is the only group which can say whether a patent is obvious
Having experts review patents would help, the problem with this though is the costs. An expert in the field would make more money working in the field than they would as an examiner. Patent application fees could be raised but this could have the adverse effect of preventing people from patenting. There is a solution though. First disallow software patents, software is already protected by copyright. Secondly have patents terms last only a short tyme, say 5 to 7 years. After that if the patent holder wants to keep the patent then require them to pay a royalty, the first five year extension would cost say 5% of the average of revenue the product had generated the first five years. For a second five year extension they'd have to pay say a 15% royalty. Patent holders can then decide whether it's worthwhile to keep a patent or release it.
Another way to reform the patent system is to require patent holders to release a product utilizing the patents within a couple of years of the issue of them. They could either release the product themselves or license the patent to someone else who has released a product. If within 2 years if a product is not released the patent is released to the public, ie put in the public domain.
Notice when talking about keeping a patent I said a royalty on the revenue the product made not on the profit. By using revenue instead of profit, they couldn't use Hollywood accounting. Then with a product needing to be released you avoid patent trolls.
when we're redirecting enough solar energy to electricity that we start losing vegetation?
Any vegetation effected by solar power, PVs or concentrated, will only be where the concentrators or PVs are.
Nuclear, on the other hand, won't still the tides, it won't slow the winds, it doesn't soak up the sun's radiation, and it won't release the CO2 that we now know from experience warms the earth.
Forgetting mining, the construction of nuclear power plants releases a lot of CO2. Construction of plants require prodigious amounts of concrete and steel, both of which require massive amounts of heat energy to manufacture, and more than likely it come from coal. Then there's the need to transport them.
...the wind potential off the Mid Atlantic comes to 330 [gigawatts]
Look at that another way - that's 330GW (but really a lot more, since windmills aren't 100% efficient) of energy getting taken out of the global airmass every year and put into our air conditioners and refrigerators. Nuclear takes that 330GW (again, more in reality) out of a fairly small amount of uranium or thorium.
Like there are air conditioners and refrigerators of the coast. There are more than likely houses with them near mining and manufacturing though. Then there's the need for water for the mining yet water isn't readily available where the uranium is. In Colorado "Gov. Ritter Signs Uranium Mining Water Protection Bill".
The Univ. of Delaware study you linked to (see, I click! I read! Feel the love, Falcon.) plans to generate 330GW of power annually - from 166,720 turbines floating on top of fifty thousand square miles of ocean.
That area is still capable of being used as it is now. Ships and sail boats can still sail. Fishermen can still fish, actually because of the platforms needed for wind ginnies more fish could live there. Then with more fish more people could be encouraged to swim or snorkel and dive, which could boost the economy of the area. This is being done in Florida, artificial reefs are made by sinking cleaned objects which then encourages coral to grow. The coral offers shelters and food to fish.
That's a wind farm roughly one-fifth the area of Texas
Texas, specifically west Texas has wind farms that prod
With that said, I suggest you read the submitter's words more closely:
Okay. I did miss the part about wiring the house.
Finally, as for CFLs, 1/4 of a hell of a lot of electricity, is still a hell of a lot of electricity. Even with a small house, you're still almost certain to draw more power for just lighting than a large appliance would.
I have 6 light fixtures with 2 12 watt CFLs in each. If I turned all of them on at the same tyme, I have at most 3 on at any 1 tyme and then only for a few minutes at most, that comes to 144 watts. I just checked the power my expresso-cappuccino uses and that's 900 watts and I'm sure the refrigerator uses much more. However my scanner only used 15 watts, the TV 126, and the dvd player 23. So it really depends on what appliances are going to be used. Now if submitter wants to wire the while house then yes a pro should design and wire the system. Especially, seeing as how the person doesn't say they are Off the Grid, because it would need to be intertied.
Slashdot Mirror
Like the aforementioned hacker example, it is basically a lost cause to attempt to restore the proper meaning of these words in the public discourse.
It may be a lost cause but I'll keep tilting at the wind mills. In some ways I'm getting good at lost causes, almost 12 years ago I was hit in an accident and while in a coma the docs told my family it would be a miracle if I lived. I'm here now and I totally disagree with them, instead of a miracle my life has been a living hell.
Falcon
No matter how often "ethical hackers" claim the word for themselves or try to give it a meaning contrary to what the general populace believes the word to mean, it still carries that meaning.
The meaning has been maligned because that's how the mass media uses it and no one corrects them on it.
Look at the etymology of "hack".
I have, have you? The Online Etymology Dictionary is pretty good, read the second (2) entry particularly. As used with writers "hack" dates back to 1749, whereas with criminals using computers it first appears in 1984. It's ethical meaning was used years before then. I first came across the ethical meaning in the mid to late 1970s in magazines like "Byte: The small and micro systems journal" magazine. My fav writers in "Byte" was Steve Ciarcia who wrote the column "Circuit Cellar" which became it's own magazine and Jerry Pournelle's "Chaos Manor".
Falcon
The "founding fathers" were not for "small government"
"Jefferson attempted to eliminate the national debt because of his wish for small government. He also decreased the size of the military" ""While smaller governments are better adapted to the ordinary objects of society, larger confederations more effectually secure independence and the preservation of republican government." --Thomas Jefferson to the Rhode Island Assembly, 1801. ME 10:262. "Compare Alexander Hamilton's views of national government with those of Thomas Jefferson.?" "A wise and frugal government which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government." - Thomas Jefferson. Also on that page a quote from James Madison, "The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse." Now notice I did not say all of the Founding Fathers wanted small government, Alexander Hamilton was one of them that wanted a strong and powerful federal government.
those we traditionally call the founding fathers were almost all Federalists
Both Thomas Jefferson and James Madison repudiated the Federalists positions. Thomas Paine wrote many books and essays in support of small government, his "Common Sense", yes I have and read it along with other writings of his, was a cry for small government.
The idea that the Federalists were for "small government" shows a laughable ignorance of the early history of the Republic
Can you show me where I said the Federalists were for small government, or where I said all of the Founding Fathers were federalists? Perhaps you don't know your history, or are you blowing smoke out of your ass?
Falcon
Oh, and while Thomas Paine wasn't a Founding Father like Hamilton, Jefferson, and Washington he wrote the line "These are the times that try men's souls" in "The Crisis" while serving under General Washington's command. It served to help keep the Continental Army from disintegrating.
Hope I didn't offend, I should have said some libertarians...
Well I'm more of a Classical Liberal whereas it seems at least some Libertarians are more like Corporate Libertarians.
Falcon
Sometimes I think a parenting course should be mandatory, but that's just me.
I don't believe in making anything like that mandatory. I do believe though it would be good to have parenting classes readily available. I don't know if they still do it but the Catholic Church used to require Catholics who were getting married to go through counseling before they could have a church wedding, which I believe is a good idea as well.
Falcon
The point is that if a PC repair person does any form of "investigation" on a computer, then they must be PI license. Technically, if you don't do any investigation at all, you don't need a PI license.
TFA says nothing about only requiring repair shops who do investigations to be licensed. It says anything the "government deems to be an 'investigation,'" must have the PI license. If a computer is showing problems then the repair person has to investigate, another word for diagnose or troubleshoot, why. Individuals too can be charged with a crime: "But the repair shops are not the only ones at risk. The law also criminalizes consumers who knowingly use an unlicensed company to perform any repair that constitutes an investigation in the eyes of the government."
Falcon
I would not have a problem with a PC repair license that is all about being qualified.
All licensing does is restrict the little person from compeating. Some years back another story where a license was being required was posted on /. This one was about North Dakota and other states requiring people who post other people's items for sale on eBay to be licensed as an auctioneer, as part of the qualifications they even had call out like one, "Going once, going twice, sold!"
Falcon
....when did it become ok in America to FORCE an entire profession to become an arm of the government.....
When they passed income tax and payroll withholding laws, every employer became an arm of the IRS.
Which I'm against, what a person earns when they work should not be taxed. Tax corporations but not their employees, tax on profits.
Falcon
I think it makes sense for skills to be licensed in areas where life and limb are potentially at risk.
So you want to license parents then?
Falcon
I'm all about choice, I think everyone should make their own choices and should be free to make their own mistakes, that why I am pro-choice but anti-abortion. I also am a proponent of relaxing drug laws, but I don't advocate drug use, I rarely even take aspirin. I think that conservatives are just as likely to disallow choice, even libertarians are guilty of it, but they would never admit it.
Same here, and I am a Libertarian.
Falcon
The liberal mindset is that you are not allowed to choose
That's not a liberal mindset. The original liberalism, Classical Liberalism which stems from The Age Of Enlightenment and The Age of Reason, was all about liberty and small government. Among the USA's Founding Fathers who were Liberals were Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Thomas Paine. The father of Capitalism Adam Smith was a Liberal. As used today "liberal" and "liberalism" has been twisted to mean something a lot different than it did.
Then again other words have had the same thing done to them, like "hack" and "hacker". Whereas a hack used to mean something creative and a hacker was someone who hacked, and writers were hacks too, today they are used for crimes and criminals. As used with computers a hacker follows the Hacker ethic.
Falcon
I've been critical of the US on Internet forums; is this going to give me hassle getting in when I visit next month?
Didn't you know, this is all about oppressing political dissidents.
Falcon
But lately, so does the Eurotrash thumbing their nose at the people that actually fought for THEIR freedom and got them their rights to actually have the rights to talk shit to their own and our government.
No Europeans fought for their freedom? Which is it, Charles de Gaulle wasn't European or didn't fight for freedom. The Swing Kids weren't Germans and didn't fight the NAZIs? And there was no Warsaw Uprising.
Falcon
right? Any so called terrorists on the other side of the world were created by the US with their damn oppression!
The US also helped terrorists with finance and firearms. The US helped the Mujadeen fighting in Afghanistan against the Soviets, and that includes the Taliban. When he came to office the current president, Bush, gave the Taliban $43 million of taxpayer money.
Falcon
Eastern Europe, Asia, Western Europe, Africa, would ALL be better off had the USSA (as you so lovingly put it) had left all your affairs alone 1900 to 1970, right?
While some places may of been worse if the US didn't do anything in other places people have suffered gravely because of the US. For instance President Ford and Henry Kissinger gave the green light to Indonesia's Suharto to invade East Timer, and supported the invasion with firearms despite a congressional ban. About 200,000 East Timorese were massacred after the invasion, that's 1/3 of the population of East Timor. Or take Iran, in the 1950s the US supported an overthrow of a democratically elected government and replaced it with the Shah. At the same tyme Ford supported Suharto he also supported General Pinochet's overthrow of Chile's elected president after which tens of thousands of people disappeared.
The problem with the EU Constitution was that it was several hundred pages. Even with all the amendments the Constitution of the USA fits on only a few pages. I can go down to Barnes and Noble and buy a pocket edition I can carry in my pocket, Ron Paul carries one. If someone legal can't be read and understood, within reason, in a few minutes by the average person there's something wrong with it.
The matter is way too complex to really understand
That's because it was soooo long.
I don't think it should have had a referendum in the first place.
Democracy is soo inefficient, what's needed instead is a dictatorship.
Falcon
I've commonly seen cost estimates of 8-10K to file of which 0.5-1K is filing fees.
Even $500 is too much for some, not all inventors have a lot of money.
Fslcon
How is "revenue the product had generated" calculated? For example if I'm sony and I have a patent on some small part of the PS3, how do you calculate the "revenue" from the item? Sony could argue that they receive no revenue since the PS3 is sold at a loss and part of that loss is the components they aren't even charging for. Meanwhile they're keeping anyone from building something similar.
I hadn't thought about companies selling at a loss.
Another example would be Microsoft having a patent on some small software device used in Windows. I'm fairly certain they do :)
Well I did say bar software patents.
In short, how do you calculate revenue on a patent that isn't licensed but rather only used in one's own product, but not necessarily a substantial portion of that product?
I hadn't thought of that either. I don't have all the answers, obviously, but at least I offer ways of fixing a broken patent system, it's easy to criticize something without offer any solutions. But nothing gets done that way. What's your plan of action?
Falcon
First disallow software patents, software is already protected by copyright.
I'd take it further. Disallow patents (ie. interference by the government in the citizen's business) for all areas where it cannot be scientifically justified that patents are a clear net win for society. In other words the onus is on the patent office to justify their costly existence, not on us to justify that they shouldn't.
I don't know whether patents are needed or not but that's why I came up with my proposal. Adam Smith called them a necessary evil.
Have patent times varying by field, again scientifically justified. e.g. if we have pharmacy patents at all it might be justified having the time length extended by the length of testing.
"Drug industry spends nearly twice as much on marketing than on research and development". "An alternative to pharmaceutical patents". Also pharmaceutical companies don't do all the research, for instance the NCI, National Cancer Institute spent $183 million to develop Taxol, a drug for cancer chemotherapy, then sold all the "rights" to use the testing data to Bristol-Myers Sqibb for $43 million. This was in the late 1980s, by 2000 it was estimated BMS made $1 billion a year by 2000 on Taxol sales.
After that if the patent holder wants to keep the patent then require them to pay a royalty, the first five year extension would cost say 5% of the average of revenue the product had generated the first five years.
Too easily gamed. Form two companies. One sells the product with the patented technology at minimal cost to the second company. Use structural impediments to make sure nobody else will buy it. Second company makes all the profits.
That's Hollywood accounting. Simply require anyone who can afford it to be able to buy whatever it is to be able to buy it from the manufacturer.
Another way to reform the patent system is to require patent holders to release a product utilizing the patents within a couple of years of the issue of them.
Too easily gamed. Sell a hand made, useless product at a ruinous cost that nobody in their right mind would buy. Keep patents on the shelf indefinitely doing that.
If a corporation does that it's liable to be sued by stockholders, aren't some Yahoo! shareholders suing or threaten to sue Yahoo! for it's refusal to accept MS's offer? Maybe what you're meant was that one company sets up another one to manufacture a product who then sells it exclusively the the first one. Simply make that illegal. What I said about Hollywood accounting above addresses it as well.
Reading the rest it appears you oppose patents "entire patent edifice". To a degree I am too, for instance I don't like the thought one person can be prevented from selling something they came up with independently but someone else received a patent on it first, however companies and people have to have a reason to spend the tyme and money to invent something. As Adam Smith said patents are a necessary evil.
Falcon
But this system still won't help to sink patent trolls, moreso it would actually give an incentive to patent trolls:
File or buy Patent A, but then don't have any revenue on it, because this is taxed.
I covered this when I said "require patent holders to release a product utilizing the patents within a couple of years of the issue of them." If they don't sell a product using a patent then they loose that patent. Then a proper financial analysis should show they'd make more money by selling as much as they could with a decent profit margin than by setting a high price.
Taxes on patents related to revenue are a boon to submarine patents.
Submarine patents are avoided by this requirement as well.
(On the other hand taxes which aren't related to revenue are a problem for small companies with minimal revenue because they wouldn't be able to finance holding a patent).
Ah, I address this by saying the patent holder pay a royalty on the revenue. Anybody who can't afford to manufacture the item itself could in one way or another, say with a fixed cost or profit margin, pay a generic or no name fabricator. From what I understand this is pretty standard in electronics with components and ICs. Heck not even Apple builds their own equipment, my MacBook Pro was shipped from a third party factory in Shanghai. Apple designs things then has someone else actually build them.
Falcon
PS: Actually at first Thomas Jefferson and James Madison opposed them. Eventually TJ was convinced they could help and he sat down with an Actuary table and calculated a term of 14 year with one 14 extension possible. Adam Smith thought they were a necessary evil.
Fact is, you have no way of knowning if it is a nonsensical patent claim or not.
Yes he does if he is an expert in the field. In fact this is the only group which can say whether a patent is obvious
Having experts review patents would help, the problem with this though is the costs. An expert in the field would make more money working in the field than they would as an examiner. Patent application fees could be raised but this could have the adverse effect of preventing people from patenting. There is a solution though. First disallow software patents, software is already protected by copyright. Secondly have patents terms last only a short tyme, say 5 to 7 years. After that if the patent holder wants to keep the patent then require them to pay a royalty, the first five year extension would cost say 5% of the average of revenue the product had generated the first five years. For a second five year extension they'd have to pay say a 15% royalty. Patent holders can then decide whether it's worthwhile to keep a patent or release it.
Another way to reform the patent system is to require patent holders to release a product utilizing the patents within a couple of years of the issue of them. They could either release the product themselves or license the patent to someone else who has released a product. If within 2 years if a product is not released the patent is released to the public, ie put in the public domain.
Notice when talking about keeping a patent I said a royalty on the revenue the product made not on the profit. By using revenue instead of profit, they couldn't use Hollywood accounting. Then with a product needing to be released you avoid patent trolls.
FalconKnow what would stop these nonsensical patent claims? Massive punitive damages.
A better way to stop them is to bar software patents.
FalconYou seem to be under the impression I am advocating coal
No, I don't have the impression you're pro coal. I do think you're pro nuclear power, wanting to build more power plants "with only a few thousand nuclear plants, eventually, powering the US" .
Environmental impact of energy production comes from the waste emissions
Environmental impacts also come from mining as well as pre and post processing solid waste.
That's where nuclear becomes a very attractive option.
Uranium mining can be very dirty and destructive. "Uranium mining left a legacy of death". The Navajo have had to live with it. "Navajos won't allow uranium mining"[pdf]. Throughout the world it's mostly Indigenous peoples who carry the burden of uranium mining. "Indigeneous Peoples Call for Global Ban on Uranium Mining".
when we're redirecting enough solar energy to electricity that we start losing vegetation?
Any vegetation effected by solar power, PVs or concentrated, will only be where the concentrators or PVs are.
Nuclear, on the other hand, won't still the tides, it won't slow the winds, it doesn't soak up the sun's radiation, and it won't release the CO2 that we now know from experience warms the earth.
Forgetting mining, the construction of nuclear power plants releases a lot of CO2. Construction of plants require prodigious amounts of concrete and steel, both of which require massive amounts of heat energy to manufacture, and more than likely it come from coal. Then there's the need to transport them.
Like there are air conditioners and refrigerators of the coast. There are more than likely houses with them near mining and manufacturing though. Then there's the need for water for the mining yet water isn't readily available where the uranium is. In Colorado "Gov. Ritter Signs Uranium Mining Water Protection Bill".
The Univ. of Delaware study you linked to (see, I click! I read! Feel the love, Falcon.) plans to generate 330GW of power annually - from 166,720 turbines floating on top of fifty thousand square miles of ocean.
That area is still capable of being used as it is now. Ships and sail boats can still sail. Fishermen can still fish, actually because of the platforms needed for wind ginnies more fish could live there. Then with more fish more people could be encouraged to swim or snorkel and dive, which could boost the economy of the area. This is being done in Florida, artificial reefs are made by sinking cleaned objects which then encourages coral to grow. The coral offers shelters and food to fish.
That's a wind farm roughly one-fifth the area of Texas
Texas, specifically west Texas has wind farms that prod
With that said, I suggest you read the submitter's words more closely:
Okay. I did miss the part about wiring the house.
Finally, as for CFLs, 1/4 of a hell of a lot of electricity, is still a hell of a lot of electricity. Even with a small house, you're still almost certain to draw more power for just lighting than a large appliance would.
I have 6 light fixtures with 2 12 watt CFLs in each. If I turned all of them on at the same tyme, I have at most 3 on at any 1 tyme and then only for a few minutes at most, that comes to 144 watts. I just checked the power my expresso-cappuccino uses and that's 900 watts and I'm sure the refrigerator uses much more. However my scanner only used 15 watts, the TV 126, and the dvd player 23. So it really depends on what appliances are going to be used. Now if submitter wants to wire the while house then yes a pro should design and wire the system. Especially, seeing as how the person doesn't say they are Off the Grid, because it would need to be intertied.
FalconI do wish they would bring back their guerrilla power features though :-)
Ah, I miss those guerrilla power articles, it's been several years or so.
Falcon