I'd rather the government just be straight up protectionist and say solutions must be made in the USA
And when other countries also pass protectionist laws we'll end up with Great Depression II. The US exported more than $1 Trillion, do you really want many of those jobs lost?
We need to preserve freedom and industry.
Your proposal does not preserve freedom, it restricts it. You would deny Americans from deciding what they want to do with their money.
It is not only not good common sense but it is actually bad economically. The protectionist law Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, which became law in 1930, led to the Great Depression. When one country enacts protectionist laws other countries pass their own protectionist laws in retaliation which shuts down trade. Economies then collapse causing recessions and depressions.
If you want to help create US jobs, reduce if not get rid of Payroll taxes. Besides all the taxes employers have to deduct from employee pay checks, employers have to also pay taxes. The FICA or Medicare and Social Security tax, employers have to pay half of it. They have to pay federal and state unemployment taxes as well. Not only that but they have to pay accountants to calculate how much has to be paid in taxes. These taxes are paid for every employee, reduce the number of employees and the taxes are reduced as well. Reducing, I'd prefer them to be abolished, federal income and payroll taxes would allow employers to hire more employees and or pay them more. And more people making more money will boost the economy. They will have more money to buy more, driving demand, and or they will invest more thus creating more jobs.
I am completely sick of being screwed over by the corporatist plutocrats.
So hold them accountable, just don't shut down trade.
Those emails have now been rejected by Apple as fake.
But it's not clear those emails are fake. "The technology world took a bizarre new twist Friday when Apple officials denied that an email purportedly sent by chief executive Steve Jobs on the subject of the iPhone 4's antenna problems was a fake." Get that, Apple denies the email is fake?
Or: EUR 13 (USD 16) per month for a virtual linux server with unlimited traffic and 50GB diskspace.
Okay, thanks. I see that that's in Germany but as Wikileaks is international it could held there. Does Germany have safeguards for leakers though? Recently Iceland passed a law just for this. Iceland Votes "Já" To Proposed News Haven. Cheap rates doesn't matter if a host has to allow the government to know who sends leaks to Wikileaks.
And before you have to ask: I'm just a satisfied customer...
It does shoot down your post. In it you said Lamo was not a journalist, whether he was or not he did claim to be one.
as the first thing I said was that the Shield Law has absolutely ZERO impact on this case, as it protects Journalists from being forced to identify sources, but does nothing to prevent them from voluntarily giving up their sources.
True but that is not what my post was about. My post was to point out Lamo did in fact claim to be a journalist, and as such he could protect his sources.
Oh and nice effort at Godwin-ing the thread. Associating me with the NAZI's doesn't weaken my points.
Another mind reader who can't read my mind. I did not attempt any effort at "Godwin-ing the thread". I simply pointed out that like many Germans you refuse to look at facts, and the fact is is Lamo told Manning he was a journaist. If you can not understand that I see no reason to continue, why when you don't understand?
With all of the big corporate entities buying and merging, your radio, newspaper and television media is increasingly controlled by fewer and fewer people.
With the internet it's relatively easy to join the media, the hard part being getting found.
At least in government there's always the threat that a politician will lose his or her job if they displease the people.
Bush only lost his job because of the term limit presidents have. That despite the fact that he started a war many people opposed. I'm still waiting to see those WMDs it was claimed Sadam had. Obama's approval rating isn't good, actually 45% strongly disapprove while 44% approve of Obama's performance as president.
With a corporate entity, they don't have to appease anyone as long as they make money.
Corporate entities, most anyway, only make money when they appease enough to have enough buyers.
Personally as I've been saying for years I want the FCC abolished and people allowed to homestead the airwaves. If I wanted to and could afford it I should be able to start a radio station that is for say model railroad enthusiasts, who were some of the first computer hackers.
Taxpayer-funded national broadcasters, like ABC (Australia), BBC or CBC can be critical of the government in a way that corporate broadcasters cannot be critical of their parent company.
I can't speak about elsewhere but in the US the national broadcasters can be, but aren't always, critical of government. Fox News is pretty critical of Obama, just as it was about Clinton. On the other hand I haven't heard any national news broadcaster, including Fox, ask Bush where all those WMDs Bush said Saddam had are. And with the airwaves homesteaded there could be even more voices to listen to.
I don't think that money for the site is a problem, given that you can get a decent webhosting package (cgi + 2 databases) with unlimited traffic for about 50 USD per year.
Can you provide a host that provides that for that much money? Well, looking at just storage and bandwidth I guess there are some that do like iPage but I wonder how reliable they are. Others CNet lists cost more or have limited bandwidht and storage. Aplus.net, the first on the CNet list, has personal websites for $65.45 for the year but storage is limited to 20 GB and data transfer 250GB. HostMySite.com is next with Linux hosting for $13 a month. It's basic plan has 20 GB of storage and 500 GB of monthly data transfer.
if you're not observant enough to see the guy leaning on the RPG launcher, or the guy next to him with the AK-47
Provide proof there were RPGs and AK-47s in the possession of those shot. Not what looked like them but actual weapons. I dare you to provide proof.
go ahead and say that since bad people have done something in the past, that "those in the military" are all atrocity-committing evil-doers. Enjoy that twisted world view
Have you ever even served in the military, or know someone who has? I served in the US Army as well as have a nephew who's a Marine who has served in Iraq. He'd be there now, with his unit, but doctors found something wrong with his heart. Because of it he may get a medical discharge. So yes, I know about the military, do you have first hand experience yourself? Or are you just mouthing off at what you disagree with? Enjoy your own twisted world view.
Further Lamo's coverage under the Shield law, even if it worked like you indicate it does, would be of questionable value since he is not a Journalist. He's not even working as a freelance journalist. He's a source who provided information to a journalist.
That shoots down the rest of your post, if it needed it. But in fact it doesn't. The citizens of the USA is entitled to know what the government, military, and military personnel do as a function of their job. If the people do not know what the government does how can they make educated decisions on whether to support or oppose what's done in their names? You, like many Germans while the NAZIs ruled, may want to be dumb and stupid but I don't.
They used video of an attack on weapons-carrying insurgents (in an area where insurgents had been shooting at people all day)
No matter how many tymes I look and search I do not see those being shot at with any weapons. Not one. I doubt the children were armed either. And it's not like innocent civilians are never targeted. Mi Lai was a real massacre of villagers by the US military in Viet Nam and not staged. Abu Ghraib was also real. To ignore or deny atrocities perpetrated by those in the US military is to deny reality. Calling themselves Christians, when they are not, some in the military even take pride in saying "Kill them all, let God sort them out."
An overwhelming majority of the beer and wine and spirits we drink are made from specialized yeasts. Its not terribly difficult to keep a specialized yeast strain from being contaminated by other yeasts.
What do you do? I used to freeze starter in ice cube trays however I stopped because I preferred making different beers and wines. I don't make enough to justify keeping starter for each style. So I buy a strain of yeast for each one now. I'm hoping to grow kiwis in my garden next year or the year after then make wine with them. If so I may go ahead and start keeping frozen starter again, if I find a strain that works well.
Ethanol from corn is not cost competitive. The only reason corn is used to make ethanol is because of the massive subsidies corn ethanol gets. Brazil, the second largest producer and the world's largest exporter of ethanol uses sugarcane as it's feedstock. Sugarcane produces more ethanol than corn does. Even better as a feedstock is switchgrass.
Independent farming (aka "family" farming) is one of the hardest ways to make money, and thank goodness there are still people willing to do it. Far from being in a position of power regarding their transactions with "speculators" farmers are pretty much at their mercy.
Farmers are only at the mercy of the markets if they allow it. Instead of selling to speculators, who can themselves lose money, farmers can start a Community-supported agriculture, CSA, program. Local people can buy a share of produce where during harvesting a boxed share is delivered to or picked up by the consumer. Slowly but surely CSA is growing as are organic farms, many are part of CSA programs.
As you correctly point out, those speculators are the futures markets that provide the farmers with some stability.
It's the same with CSA, the buyers are speculating what the farmer can harvest and the farmer gets operating capital up front.
I don't know about you, but I'm not yet willing to completely cede our food supply to the Duponts and ADMs of the world.
I don't know about DuPont, substitute Cargill though and I'm with you. If government is going to subsidize food at all instead of giving billions of dollars to these large corporations, give the money to those in need. Expand Food Stamps, where those in need get help instead of enriching the already wealthy.
It'd seem to me that any country that could make a surplus on staple crops could actually benefit from higher prices. Excess produce can be sold for higher prices, bringing higher income.
That's not how economics works, the scarce costs more than the abundant. For instance when the supply of silicon does meet the demand the price of silicon goes up. And when supply is greater than demand then prices go down.
The problem comes when you're importing food to survive, like haiti.
Question, why are Haitians importing food instead of their farmers growing food? Because of the massive subsidies given to large agricultural businesses in Australia, Canada, the EU, Japan, and the US. When US exporters can sell US corn in Mexico cheaper than Mexican farmers can grow it, I'm using Mexico as an example because corn originated in Mexico and Central America, because the US government gave them billions of dollars in subsidies Mexican farmers can not compeat. Corporations like Archer Daniels Midland, which the Freemarket and Libertarian think-tank CATO Institute has called the most prominent recipient of corporate welfare in recent U.S. history. Another good example of corporate welfare is Cargill, the largest privately held corporation, it's so large that if it was listed on stock exchanges it would be on Fortune 500's list of the top 10 largest corporations.
You will get no argument from me that the Options markets are parasitic
Quite the contrary, options markets like the Chicago Merc give sellers access to buyers and visa versa. The same with hedge funds. Where things go wrong is where large operations have fast and fat pipelines to the markets and can execute orders mili-seconds ahead of others. Those who deal in options can lose as much if not more than they can gain. A brother-in-law of mine used to day trade and he warned me about options just for this reason.
My question about the whole benefits of yeast produced ethanol thing is whether, in the long term, it can actually produce enough energy to make the whole process carbon neutral. Can we power all the devices that produce the industrial byproducts with all of the energy from those by products?
The process is, or can be, carbon neutral. It can actually be carbon negative, taking more carbon out of the atmosphere than what's released when farmed then used. That's because the residue, what's left after the alcohol is produced, can be added to or buried in the soil keeping some carbon in the ground. A benefit is that that increases the fertility of the soil so more can be grown on poor land.
However is there enough land to grow crops to produce alcohol? Or Diesel fuel? I doubt it.
Does it even make sense, in the long term, to invest the time, money, and fossil fuels in the process of developing this type of technology (biofuels, in general) in favor of more direct methods of harnessing the Sun's energy (like solar panels (and thus necessarily batteries/fuel cells), and sort of by extension, fusion)?
This is my own opinion, which others also have, is that future energy needs will require a number of different energy sources to be developed. In warm arid areas algae can be farmed to produce hydrogen and or biofuels. Other biofuels such as this can be produced on land where food crops will not grow. In places where ground source heat is close to the surface geothermal energy can be used. Geothermal energy can even be used as a baseload. Where sunny solar, concentrated solar, PVs, and solar thermal energy can be used. Then where windy, wind turbines can be used.
SciAm has the article A Solar Grand Plan concluding solar energy "could supply 69 percent of the U.S.'s electricity and 35 percent of its total energy by 2050." As regards wind the NREL Wind Energy Resource Atlas of the United States details the wind potential of various regions of the US. The Rocky Mountains alone contain enough wind potential to provide the 48 contiguous states with electricity. So what's needed next is a national smart grid and baseloads. According to another SciAm article currently blackouts, brownouts, and other power losses cost US businesses $80 Billion a year so it makes sense to build a new grid and make it smart. Then for the baseload, as stated above geothermal can provide some with Natural Gas fired power plants supplying more until a cleaner baseload source is developed.
every patent is published, in a freely searchable database.
But is the source code published? A searchable database doesn't mean much if the searcher can't see how something was done. If more than one person creates a product that does X but they do it in different ways, it's too bad for those who do not get to the patent office in tyme to file a patent.
The first patent act was written in 1790, three years after the Constitution was written. I don't think it really departs from the founding father's intent, considering they were all involved in it. Thomas Jefferson was even the first patent examiner.
Two things here. One is that even when Thomas Jefferson was patent examiner a working copy was required so that the average professional in the industry could duplicate what was being patented. I doubt the compleat source code for software patents is included though. And two, software already enjoys copyrights. And even those copyrights don't include the compleat source code. According to Copyright Witness only the first 25 pages of source code is needed.
You do realize that IEEE hasn't had a problem with software patents for pretty much forever, right?
That is the problem, the IEEE does not disavow software patents. With software patents allowed all of those who do not have the big war chests to patent anything and everything loses. Only mega-corporations are safe.
It appears that the case is: No one won, No one lost.
Wrong, the Supreme Court left the door to software patents open and as long as software patents are allowed individual programmers, open source projects, small businesses, on up to medium businesses loses. The only ones to win are the mega-corporations that have the resources, money, to patent everything they can which they can then cross-license to other mega-corporations.
Slashdot Mirror
I'd rather the government just be straight up protectionist and say solutions must be made in the USA
And when other countries also pass protectionist laws we'll end up with Great Depression II. The US exported more than $1 Trillion, do you really want many of those jobs lost?
We need to preserve freedom and industry.
Your proposal does not preserve freedom, it restricts it. You would deny Americans from deciding what they want to do with their money.
Falcon
It is not only not good common sense but it is actually bad economically. The protectionist law Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, which became law in 1930, led to the Great Depression. When one country enacts protectionist laws other countries pass their own protectionist laws in retaliation which shuts down trade. Economies then collapse causing recessions and depressions.
If you want to help create US jobs, reduce if not get rid of Payroll taxes. Besides all the taxes employers have to deduct from employee pay checks, employers have to also pay taxes. The FICA or Medicare and Social Security tax, employers have to pay half of it. They have to pay federal and state unemployment taxes as well. Not only that but they have to pay accountants to calculate how much has to be paid in taxes. These taxes are paid for every employee, reduce the number of employees and the taxes are reduced as well. Reducing, I'd prefer them to be abolished, federal income and payroll taxes would allow employers to hire more employees and or pay them more. And more people making more money will boost the economy. They will have more money to buy more, driving demand, and or they will invest more thus creating more jobs.
I am completely sick of being screwed over by the corporatist plutocrats.
So hold them accountable, just don't shut down trade.
Falcon
Then they just do what haliburton did, and move their headquarters out of the US, to Dubai...
No need to go to the Middle East. Monaco, on the Med surrounded by France with Italy 16 miles away, has no income tax and low business taxes.
Falcon
Those emails have now been rejected by Apple as fake.
But it's not clear those emails are fake. "The technology world took a bizarre new twist Friday when Apple officials denied that an email purportedly sent by chief executive Steve Jobs on the subject of the iPhone 4's antenna problems was a fake." Get that, Apple denies the email is fake?
Either Apple employees are not telling the truth about the email being fake or they are not telling the truth about them not being fake. However Apple has said iPhone 4 Signal Strength Calculations Were Wrong and Apple iPhone 4 Reception Bars: A Distorted Reality.
Falcon
Can you provide a host that provides that for that much money?
Yes. :-) Have a look at hosteurope.de (website only available in english, so I'm posting a google-translation link).
2GB Webspace, 2 MySQL databases, PHP 5, Python, Ruby, CGI-scripts, traffic-flatrate, EUR 15,- (USD 18,-) setup, EUR 3,50 (USD 4,34) per month.
Or: EUR 13 (USD 16) per month for a virtual linux server with unlimited traffic and 50GB diskspace.
Okay, thanks. I see that that's in Germany but as Wikileaks is international it could held there. Does Germany have safeguards for leakers though? Recently Iceland passed a law just for this. Iceland Votes "Já" To Proposed News Haven. Cheap rates doesn't matter if a host has to allow the government to know who sends leaks to Wikileaks.
And before you have to ask: I'm just a satisfied customer...
I wish the US had such low bandwidth costs. T1 lines costs hundreds of dollars.
Falcon
It does shoot down your post. In it you said Lamo was not a journalist, whether he was or not he did claim to be one.
as the first thing I said was that the Shield Law has absolutely ZERO impact on this case, as it protects Journalists from being forced to identify sources, but does nothing to prevent them from voluntarily giving up their sources.
True but that is not what my post was about. My post was to point out Lamo did in fact claim to be a journalist, and as such he could protect his sources.
Oh and nice effort at Godwin-ing the thread. Associating me with the NAZI's doesn't weaken my points.
Another mind reader who can't read my mind. I did not attempt any effort at "Godwin-ing the thread". I simply pointed out that like many Germans you refuse to look at facts, and the fact is is Lamo told Manning he was a journaist. If you can not understand that I see no reason to continue, why when you don't understand?
Falcon
It may have an effect. Especially after the comments Steve Jobs told one iPhone owner.
Steve Jobs tells angry iPhone 4 owner to "relax". Steve Jobs told an owner who posted a video of his problem on YouTube "No, you are getting all worked up over a few days of rumors. Calm down." Get a Life..
Falcon
With all of the big corporate entities buying and merging, your radio, newspaper and television media is increasingly controlled by fewer and fewer people.
With the internet it's relatively easy to join the media, the hard part being getting found.
At least in government there's always the threat that a politician will lose his or her job if they displease the people.
Bush only lost his job because of the term limit presidents have. That despite the fact that he started a war many people opposed. I'm still waiting to see those WMDs it was claimed Sadam had. Obama's approval rating isn't good, actually 45% strongly disapprove while 44% approve of Obama's performance as president.
With a corporate entity, they don't have to appease anyone as long as they make money.
Corporate entities, most anyway, only make money when they appease enough to have enough buyers.
Personally as I've been saying for years I want the FCC abolished and people allowed to homestead the airwaves. If I wanted to and could afford it I should be able to start a radio station that is for say model railroad enthusiasts, who were some of the first computer hackers.
Taxpayer-funded national broadcasters, like ABC (Australia), BBC or CBC can be critical of the government in a way that corporate broadcasters cannot be critical of their parent company.
I can't speak about elsewhere but in the US the national broadcasters can be, but aren't always, critical of government. Fox News is pretty critical of Obama, just as it was about Clinton. On the other hand I haven't heard any national news broadcaster, including Fox, ask Bush where all those WMDs Bush said Saddam had are. And with the airwaves homesteaded there could be even more voices to listen to.
Falcon
I don't think that money for the site is a problem, given that you can get a decent webhosting package (cgi + 2 databases) with unlimited traffic for about 50 USD per year.
Can you provide a host that provides that for that much money? Well, looking at just storage and bandwidth I guess there are some that do like iPage but I wonder how reliable they are. Others CNet lists cost more or have limited bandwidht and storage. Aplus.net, the first on the CNet list, has personal websites for $65.45 for the year but storage is limited to 20 GB and data transfer 250GB. HostMySite.com is next with Linux hosting for $13 a month. It's basic plan has 20 GB of storage and 500 GB of monthly data transfer.
Falcon
Still can't provide proof can you?
Falcon
Complaining that people aren't giving you enough money and taking down a site is simply babyish.
And waiting and hoping money falls from the skies to pay for servers and bandwidth is living in a fantasy.
Falcon
if you're not observant enough to see the guy leaning on the RPG launcher, or the guy next to him with the AK-47
Provide proof there were RPGs and AK-47s in the possession of those shot. Not what looked like them but actual weapons. I dare you to provide proof.
go ahead and say that since bad people have done something in the past, that "those in the military" are all atrocity-committing evil-doers. Enjoy that twisted world view
Have you ever even served in the military, or know someone who has? I served in the US Army as well as have a nephew who's a Marine who has served in Iraq. He'd be there now, with his unit, but doctors found something wrong with his heart. Because of it he may get a medical discharge. So yes, I know about the military, do you have first hand experience yourself? Or are you just mouthing off at what you disagree with? Enjoy your own twisted world view.
Falcon
Further Lamo's coverage under the Shield law, even if it worked like you indicate it does, would be of questionable value since he is not a Journalist. He's not even working as a freelance journalist. He's a source who provided information to a journalist.
Lamo did claim to be a journalist. Salon's article The strange and consequential case of Bradley Manning, Adrian Lamo and WikiLeaks says Lamo did tell Manning he was a journalist. Whether he was or not he claimed to be a journalist.
That shoots down the rest of your post, if it needed it. But in fact it doesn't. The citizens of the USA is entitled to know what the government, military, and military personnel do as a function of their job. If the people do not know what the government does how can they make educated decisions on whether to support or oppose what's done in their names? You, like many Germans while the NAZIs ruled, may want to be dumb and stupid but I don't.
Falcon
They used video of an attack on weapons-carrying insurgents (in an area where insurgents had been shooting at people all day)
No matter how many tymes I look and search I do not see those being shot at with any weapons. Not one. I doubt the children were armed either. And it's not like innocent civilians are never targeted. Mi Lai was a real massacre of villagers by the US military in Viet Nam and not staged. Abu Ghraib was also real. To ignore or deny atrocities perpetrated by those in the US military is to deny reality. Calling themselves Christians, when they are not, some in the military even take pride in saying "Kill them all, let God sort them out."
Falcon
An overwhelming majority of the beer and wine and spirits we drink are made from specialized yeasts. Its not terribly difficult to keep a specialized yeast strain from being contaminated by other yeasts.
What do you do? I used to freeze starter in ice cube trays however I stopped because I preferred making different beers and wines. I don't make enough to justify keeping starter for each style. So I buy a strain of yeast for each one now. I'm hoping to grow kiwis in my garden next year or the year after then make wine with them. If so I may go ahead and start keeping frozen starter again, if I find a strain that works well.
Falcon
corn
Ethanol from corn is not cost competitive. The only reason corn is used to make ethanol is because of the massive subsidies corn ethanol gets. Brazil, the second largest producer and the world's largest exporter of ethanol uses sugarcane as it's feedstock. Sugarcane produces more ethanol than corn does. Even better as a feedstock is switchgrass.
Falcon
Troll
Falcon
Independent farming (aka "family" farming) is one of the hardest ways to make money, and thank goodness there are still people willing to do it. Far from being in a position of power regarding their transactions with "speculators" farmers are pretty much at their mercy.
Farmers are only at the mercy of the markets if they allow it. Instead of selling to speculators, who can themselves lose money, farmers can start a Community-supported agriculture, CSA, program. Local people can buy a share of produce where during harvesting a boxed share is delivered to or picked up by the consumer. Slowly but surely CSA is growing as are organic farms, many are part of CSA programs.
As you correctly point out, those speculators are the futures markets that provide the farmers with some stability.
It's the same with CSA, the buyers are speculating what the farmer can harvest and the farmer gets operating capital up front.
I don't know about you, but I'm not yet willing to completely cede our food supply to the Duponts and ADMs of the world.
I don't know about DuPont, substitute Cargill though and I'm with you. If government is going to subsidize food at all instead of giving billions of dollars to these large corporations, give the money to those in need. Expand Food Stamps, where those in need get help instead of enriching the already wealthy.
Falcon
It'd seem to me that any country that could make a surplus on staple crops could actually benefit from higher prices. Excess produce can be sold for higher prices, bringing higher income.
That's not how economics works, the scarce costs more than the abundant. For instance when the supply of silicon does meet the demand the price of silicon goes up. And when supply is greater than demand then prices go down.
The problem comes when you're importing food to survive, like haiti.
Question, why are Haitians importing food instead of their farmers growing food? Because of the massive subsidies given to large agricultural businesses in Australia, Canada, the EU, Japan, and the US. When US exporters can sell US corn in Mexico cheaper than Mexican farmers can grow it, I'm using Mexico as an example because corn originated in Mexico and Central America, because the US government gave them billions of dollars in subsidies Mexican farmers can not compeat. Corporations like Archer Daniels Midland, which the Freemarket and Libertarian think-tank CATO Institute has called the most prominent recipient of corporate welfare in recent U.S. history. Another good example of corporate welfare is Cargill, the largest privately held corporation, it's so large that if it was listed on stock exchanges it would be on Fortune 500's list of the top 10 largest corporations.
Falcon
You will get no argument from me that the Options markets are parasitic
Quite the contrary, options markets like the Chicago Merc give sellers access to buyers and visa versa. The same with hedge funds. Where things go wrong is where large operations have fast and fat pipelines to the markets and can execute orders mili-seconds ahead of others. Those who deal in options can lose as much if not more than they can gain. A brother-in-law of mine used to day trade and he warned me about options just for this reason.
Falcon
My question about the whole benefits of yeast produced ethanol thing is whether, in the long term, it can actually produce enough energy to make the whole process carbon neutral. Can we power all the devices that produce the industrial byproducts with all of the energy from those by products?
The process is, or can be, carbon neutral. It can actually be carbon negative, taking more carbon out of the atmosphere than what's released when farmed then used. That's because the residue, what's left after the alcohol is produced, can be added to or buried in the soil keeping some carbon in the ground. A benefit is that that increases the fertility of the soil so more can be grown on poor land.
However is there enough land to grow crops to produce alcohol? Or Diesel fuel? I doubt it.
Does it even make sense, in the long term, to invest the time, money, and fossil fuels in the process of developing this type of technology (biofuels, in general) in favor of more direct methods of harnessing the Sun's energy (like solar panels (and thus necessarily batteries/fuel cells), and sort of by extension, fusion)?
This is my own opinion, which others also have, is that future energy needs will require a number of different energy sources to be developed. In warm arid areas algae can be farmed to produce hydrogen and or biofuels. Other biofuels such as this can be produced on land where food crops will not grow. In places where ground source heat is close to the surface geothermal energy can be used. Geothermal energy can even be used as a baseload. Where sunny solar, concentrated solar, PVs, and solar thermal energy can be used. Then where windy, wind turbines can be used.
SciAm has the article A Solar Grand Plan concluding solar energy "could supply 69 percent of the U.S.'s electricity and 35 percent of its total energy by 2050." As regards wind the NREL Wind Energy Resource Atlas of the United States details the wind potential of various regions of the US. The Rocky Mountains alone contain enough wind potential to provide the 48 contiguous states with electricity. So what's needed next is a national smart grid and baseloads. According to another SciAm article currently blackouts, brownouts, and other power losses cost US businesses $80 Billion a year so it makes sense to build a new grid and make it smart. Then for the baseload, as stated above geothermal can provide some with Natural Gas fired power plants supplying more until a cleaner baseload source is developed.
Falcon
Nothing like solving the energy issues for the wealthy while letting the poor starve just a little faster.
Gee, imagine poor people with land that can't grow food on growing crops for fuel they can sell, then being able to buy food.
Falcon
every patent is published, in a freely searchable database.
But is the source code published? A searchable database doesn't mean much if the searcher can't see how something was done. If more than one person creates a product that does X but they do it in different ways, it's too bad for those who do not get to the patent office in tyme to file a patent.
The first patent act was written in 1790, three years after the Constitution was written. I don't think it really departs from the founding father's intent, considering they were all involved in it. Thomas Jefferson was even the first patent examiner.
Two things here. One is that even when Thomas Jefferson was patent examiner a working copy was required so that the average professional in the industry could duplicate what was being patented. I doubt the compleat source code for software patents is included though. And two, software already enjoys copyrights. And even those copyrights don't include the compleat source code. According to Copyright Witness only the first 25 pages of source code is needed.
Falcon
You do realize that IEEE hasn't had a problem with software patents for pretty much forever, right?
That is the problem, the IEEE does not disavow software patents. With software patents allowed all of those who do not have the big war chests to patent anything and everything loses. Only mega-corporations are safe.
Falcon
It appears that the case is: No one won, No one lost.
Wrong, the Supreme Court left the door to software patents open and as long as software patents are allowed individual programmers, open source projects, small businesses, on up to medium businesses loses. The only ones to win are the mega-corporations that have the resources, money, to patent everything they can which they can then cross-license to other mega-corporations.
Falcon