A guy goes 39 years without a criminal record with anything more significant than a hacking charge on it. And then he suddenly decides to become a rapist 2 weeks after releasing a cache of documents that embarrasses the world's most powerful government and threatening to release more? Are you kidding me?
To be fair, how about this one:
A guy goes 39 years while biding his time for a great cover story, then once he can blame any crime he's accused of on "the CIA's out to get me," he starts raping women willy nilly and nerds believe he's innocent because they love a good conspiracy.
I have no opinion on what he did or did not do. I just feel like bloviating today.
No, it's that talking about income is absolutely gauche. Are/.ers so lacking in social graces that they do not know this? I was taught it when I was a child!
Never heard of any of these sites. I Google shopping comparison, and I get the well known comparison sites I expect to see at the top. I do not get MyTriggers.
While I agree with you, to be fair, perhaps you haven't heard about the sites because Google manipulates search results? I'm just pointing out that your logic does not follow. Correlation, causation, and all that. I know/.ers care a whole lot about that kind of thing, being (by and large) scientists.
Humans evolve. Humans create self replicating robots. Humans go away. Some robots say they were built. Other robots rebut 'But who built the builders?' No one, they were not built.
If a company was really interested in making a product, they'd check the relevant patent numbers online (which is pretty easy to do) and see that they had expired.
You are, of course, assuming that patents only affect large companies' rights to manufacture a product.
A patent grants the right to exclude others from using, making, selling, offering for sale, or important the product. If a company wanted to, they could prevent you, a regular Joe, from using its product. If John buys a piece of software subject to Patent X and the EULA says "non-transferable" in it, and then John gives the software to you, you could be sued for using it, even without knowing about the existence of patents.
Patents aren't just about Boeing manufacturing a new airfoil.
The original purpose of patent systems (IMHO) is not to equalize the opportunities of rich and poor inventors, but rather to reward the creation of non trivial real devices.
Actually the original purpose of patent systems was to encourage the disclosure of something that would otherwise be a trade secret.
Patents were originally intended to protect physical devices from being substantially copied.
So I guess you need to define what you mean by "mathematics" should not be patentable then. If you mean "algorithms," then mathematical algorithms as implemented on a computer absolutely are physical devices.
Can you give me an example of a patented algorithm you find objectionable? I'd like to know what I'm arguing against here.
If I come up with an idea, like a space rocket, but haven't actually built the rocket and don't even know if it might be possible to build it as conceived, then that's not the same as having an actual patentable rocket.
This makes me think you misunderstand US patent law. You cannot get a patent unless the subject matter has been reduced to practice.
And surely we can agree that requiring literal reduction to practice is not a good policy. You'd make it impossible for a poor person with a great idea to patent it! If you came up with an idea for a space rocket, you could never build it! Those things cost billions of dollars.
I for one believe mathematics should not be patentable
To be fair, pretty much anything can be expressed as math. You should at least acknowledge that you're calling for the abolition of nearly all patents.
Every time you buy a computer from a large vendor, it WILL have windows preinstalled. Sure, you could assemble your own or buy from a small, independent retailer that does this for you, but economies of scale will ensure that even with the "microsoft tax", the large vendor will be cheaper.
So let me get this straight: You get a cheaper computer and Windows comes on it? It sounds like Windows is less than free from your perspective!
While I love Hangul, to be fair, Korean has a lot more sounds (14 consonants, 10 vowels = 140 sounds, which can appear in three positions--initial, medial, final) than Japanese (less than 50, and every consonant but 'n' must be followed by a vowel), so the risk of confusion because of homophones is less.
It's an interesting discussion about how to change Chinese and Japanese to an alphabet. I'm personally on the side of "it is possible" because verbal communication happens all the time with little confusion. On the other hand, if you misunderstand someone's speech, you can ask "can you clarify that?"
But people understand films just fine, so I think using any writing system would be fine.
But it's not as simple as "Koreans did it, so the Japanese can, too." The political mountain needed to effect such a change is insurmountable. Japan would have to be a failed state in order to change the writing system in modern times.
if the presentation is relevant then the writer failed
What the hell? Did you just get straight Fs in English growing up? Of course presentation is relevant to prose and poetry! And it's definitely relevant to mathematics and physics!
cursive is stupid
Are we talking about the same thing here? Cursive "is any style of handwriting that is designed for writing notes and letters quickly by hand." Are you saying people should intentionally opt for a writing style that is less mechanically efficient?
Honestly, I found that Washington sample to be nearly trivial to read, and if the image had had a better resolution, I would have had no problems whatsoever. I didn't bother with the others, since I don't speak Italian (Vinci), Latin/French (Leibniz), or German (Luther).
So if your point was that it's hard to read handwritten Washingtonian script, I counter with: 12 years of public school have served me well, I guess.
To be fair, I'm pretty sure your 10-year old self refused because you were a stupid 10-year old, not because you wanted to take some principled stand in favor of logomechanical efficiency.
Slashdot Mirror
To be fair, how about this one:
I have no opinion on what he did or did not do. I just feel like bloviating today.
No, it's that talking about income is absolutely gauche. Are /.ers so lacking in social graces that they do not know this? I was taught it when I was a child!
What? I'm just reacting to what other people are claiming. I didn't present a single fact in my post (except for the fact that "moly" is holy).
The joke's on you. IT'S PYTHON CODE! Now you removed the indentations and it won't run! Bwahahaha!!
Holy moly, is it true that in Sweden telling someone you're using a condom and then not using a condom is rape?!?
Of course, ACTA isn't a work of the US government.
It is a limited resource if 100 cars going 90 on the same street is exponentially more dangerous than only one car going 90 on the same street.
While I agree with you, to be fair, perhaps you haven't heard about the sites because Google manipulates search results? I'm just pointing out that your logic does not follow. Correlation, causation, and all that. I know /.ers care a whole lot about that kind of thing, being (by and large) scientists.
Yeah, and it's only a few centuries^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hseconds since people would have been killed unjustly for secular reasons, too.
I'm a little befuddled. Here's the gist of your post:
Futurama called.
IIRC, not all patents are of the same length.
I've seen this claim before. I'd like a citation, please.
You are, of course, assuming that patents only affect large companies' rights to manufacture a product.
A patent grants the right to exclude others from using, making, selling, offering for sale, or important the product. If a company wanted to, they could prevent you, a regular Joe, from using its product. If John buys a piece of software subject to Patent X and the EULA says "non-transferable" in it, and then John gives the software to you, you could be sued for using it, even without knowing about the existence of patents.
Patents aren't just about Boeing manufacturing a new airfoil.
Actually the original purpose of patent systems was to encourage the disclosure of something that would otherwise be a trade secret.
So I guess you need to define what you mean by "mathematics" should not be patentable then. If you mean "algorithms," then mathematical algorithms as implemented on a computer absolutely are physical devices.
Can you give me an example of a patented algorithm you find objectionable? I'd like to know what I'm arguing against here.
This makes me think you misunderstand US patent law. You cannot get a patent unless the subject matter has been reduced to practice.
And surely we can agree that requiring literal reduction to practice is not a good policy. You'd make it impossible for a poor person with a great idea to patent it! If you came up with an idea for a space rocket, you could never build it! Those things cost billions of dollars.
To be fair, pretty much anything can be expressed as math. You should at least acknowledge that you're calling for the abolition of nearly all patents.
So let me get this straight: You get a cheaper computer and Windows comes on it? It sounds like Windows is less than free from your perspective!
While I love Hangul, to be fair, Korean has a lot more sounds (14 consonants, 10 vowels = 140 sounds, which can appear in three positions--initial, medial, final) than Japanese (less than 50, and every consonant but 'n' must be followed by a vowel), so the risk of confusion because of homophones is less.
It's an interesting discussion about how to change Chinese and Japanese to an alphabet. I'm personally on the side of "it is possible" because verbal communication happens all the time with little confusion. On the other hand, if you misunderstand someone's speech, you can ask "can you clarify that?"
But people understand films just fine, so I think using any writing system would be fine.
But it's not as simple as "Koreans did it, so the Japanese can, too." The political mountain needed to effect such a change is insurmountable. Japan would have to be a failed state in order to change the writing system in modern times.
What the hell? Did you just get straight Fs in English growing up? Of course presentation is relevant to prose and poetry! And it's definitely relevant to mathematics and physics!
Are we talking about the same thing here? Cursive "is any style of handwriting that is designed for writing notes and letters quickly by hand." Are you saying people should intentionally opt for a writing style that is less mechanically efficient?
Honestly, I found that Washington sample to be nearly trivial to read, and if the image had had a better resolution, I would have had no problems whatsoever. I didn't bother with the others, since I don't speak Italian (Vinci), Latin/French (Leibniz), or German (Luther).
So if your point was that it's hard to read handwritten Washingtonian script, I counter with: 12 years of public school have served me well, I guess.
To be fair, I'm pretty sure your 10-year old self refused because you were a stupid 10-year old, not because you wanted to take some principled stand in favor of logomechanical efficiency.
Because "general" comes from French, but "gear" comes from Old Norse.
That's interesting. I managed to learn to read 1000 kanji in about six months, but there's no way I could have learned to write them all in that time.
Well, Old English technically is another language.