That is certainly only your own opinion. According to your theory there are dense generations followed by hyper-intelligent generations. No, the theory is based on the fact that you have a much smaller sample size than the general population (some college classes are as small as 8 people). With a smaller sample size you are more likely to have individual samples deviate from the strict bell curve. If you have classes of 100s of students it makes more sense, and typically you will see the distribution more clearly. Worse is that a competitive system creates competition between students. In such circumstances it is against a students best interest to help others learn. It shouldn't be student vs. student it should be student vs. material. It lets students help each other learn, and increase the overall level of academic accomplishment. I have fond memories of study groups in college, sometimes all it took was a different perspective or different explaination for you to "get" the material. When you have a group working together, helping each other, you'll have more people understanding, than if everybody worked alone. School isn't a "self-congratulory pat on the back" nor is it a competition, it is designed to help students learn and reflect that the students have a certain degree of skill. If all the students in the class have a "high" level of skill they all deserve to have a "high" grade, same as if they all have a "low" level of skill. A bell shaped curve every year means you have a moving target each year and is contrary to employers being able to acurately determine the intellectual of the students. "Control" comes when you have a fixed set of standards, if those standards are met the student gets the accompanying grade (despite what the fellow students get). There is no room for arguement, no difference between samples, all students are held to the same level. In college I had a professor give a student a fellow "B" who was just below the expectations of an "A". The student tried to negotiate the grade, and the professor pulled out an article about grade inflation (which I agree is a problem). The fact is there is a level of understanding that student needed, they did not accomplish it, there was no negotiating room, as it should be.
I have found it to be a beautiful, and fun RTS game. That said, it is an RTS game, so those looking for something similar to the table top experience might be disappointed. Some of the concepts like "cover" don't appear to be as fully fleshed out as they could have been. In general though the game plays well, and the units are diverse, interesting, and it takes time to recognize how to use each one well (things like "jump" abilities and grenades can make big difference if you use them right). It is definately a game I will be picking up when it comes out.
Yeah I had classes like that too. There are a few high level engineering (transport phenomenon, and non-mechanical properties of materials) that come to mind. Just think all the engineers out there only know half as much as they were taught... makes you wonder:)
Weren't Indiana Jones, Who Framed Roger Rabit, and Rocketeer set in the same time period? Just because they chose that era for a setting doesn't mean it is a nostalgia film. I wouldn't worry about the "walker" folks, I worry whether the new generation will like the film style.
Did you know that there are no "below average" college graduates? Proof: In order to graduate from college you must have a GPA equating to a C or better. That is because grades should be a reflection of a student's mastery of the material, not how a student relates to their peers. There are classes where 70% is an A, not to get more students with A's but because that is the expected level of understanding. In fact, that class had less A's than most others with the typical 90% scale. Ask an American and a Japanese if they are "good in math". The Japanese will typically say "no", the American will say "yes". Most Americans feel they are not good at math and ungood at egnlish.
If you look at the website there is a video (E3?). In it they describe it will be subscription based at $24.95 a month and you get hardware free for 24 month commitment ($300 in first year?). If you go month to month it's $200 for the hardware. Because this requires a broadband connection only, there is a limited market for this product. I can easily see racking up $68M just because of the massive amount of advertising and promotions required to break into a very tough market.
If the were no protection on infomation sharing, a company still has a great advantage of doing the research There is very little advantage in doing the research. If somebody else copies my exam in class, I have the great advantage of doing the research, though I'm stuck with the same grade. Will it help me on the next exam? Yes, but the kid next to me is still getting the same grades I am. So they will complain and whine how they would never invest $500 million if the payoff was "only" $600 million So who is going to fund their next $500 million dollar project? Who will invest in a company where the rate of return is lower? Are you going to put your retirement money to a company earning 5% or one earning 50% rate of return? Once you dry up the investment dollars you dry up industries that rely heavily on IP. You clearly didnt try to use your computer in any way that was not approved by those vendors when they colluded to agree on their restricted view of how things should be, even though, when you purchased your PC, you purchased a "general computing" device and not a DRM-infected "enterntainment center". Yes my computer is so locked down, I can't do any research on it, I can't do my own programming, I can't even play non-approved music. Oh wait, I can. If my computer becomes DRM infested, then I can just not buy it. I can vote with my dollars, and purchase an alternative machine. I know legislation keeps pushing in that direction, and I am against that. Had he/she any say in this? Children rarely have any say in the decisions of the parents. Like I said, this would affect a small population since the patent will expire round about the time the child can conceive. You are also assuming nobody else comes up with an alternate method for gene therapy. which would be easilly obtainable from a sample of few hair or blood drops Most likely not, unless you know what you are looking for (which you wont since people wont publish the information), it will take a long time to reverse engineer a gene treatment. It would require a large sample of treated people to determine what sequence(s) were affected. Such agreements would be unenforcable if infomation were not "property". No, even though the information isn't property, the act of sharing information, would damage the company and they could sue. You oversimplified what I am proposing. Academia would be the leading source of discovery, sponsored by both taxpayers and industry who (even though they will not be able to hide this data from each other) would still hope to be quicker to bringing the actual product to market then the next guy So now the goverment decides how we progress? They would have the power now that they hold all the pursestrings. You propose to take away the greatest source for R&D spending and don't think that will greatly impact the rate of progress? As I said before I am for limited protections, not goverment forcing things down my throat. IP does not mean INDUCE or DMCA, those are perversions of the original concepts. An important aspect of IP is encouraging things to get into public domain. Current copyright law does not do this, patent law did, until they started to misapply to software and other more general concepts. I don't believe the "fix" is wholesale abandonment of IP.
Because there are some jobs that you can't quantify in hours. It's not like, spend 8 hours answering phones all day. How long does it take to invent something? How long does it take to manage? If I think about a problem at home can I charge my company? I don't mind salary system, some days I work more, some days I work less than 8 hours (usually work more, but I enjoy my job). Last week most of the exempt employees took off at lunchtime in anticipation for the holiday weekend. The hourly had to stay working until the clock hit 5. There are also situations where salaried employees get overtime because its the expection of their job, like supervisors for 12 hour shift employees. The system isn't all that bad, but it does require more from the employee to demand expectations up front (so they don't keep loading you with projects) and to ensure they are managing their own time wisely.
Not necessarily, it depends on why the person does something like this. In most cases the psychological reasons for creating a worm/virus, also would make the person want to brag about their accomplishment. Maybe they do it because they want to show off their skills and boost their ego. In most cases people aren't happy knowing they are the greatest in the world, they want everybody else to affirm that feeling so they brag about their accomplishment to get recognition. Maybe they do it to get revenge, and they want those suffering to know who is causing the pain. I think more than likely the person would end up talking. Just a few drinks at the bar and they might open up about their great accomplishment to uninterested patrons.
Re:Removing motivation to create innovative IP
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Would you want to see Linux ior FreeBSDtaxed heavily Maybe a better term than tax, is registration fee (which is a form of taxation). What a registration fee does is give money to the public (goverment) in exchange for the protections that the intellectual property does not go into public domain. If I write a book now, I instantly get all the protections of the state with regards to copyright (whether I like it or not). A registration based system would mean I have the option to let my works go into public domain or I must pay a periodic fee so that I get the protections of the state. It would also mean that people would be less likely to just sit on IP, like abandonware, because there is a cost to them. In my example above, perhaps providers of Linux distros might subscribe voluntarily to such a service in order to have the financial means to act against GPL (or, in the case of FreeBSD, BSD) violators This system already exists, its the RIAA and MPAA. They are subscription services that represent the best interest of their members. This system is okay, except that it only provides protections to the members not to the public. I would like to see a system of IP protection that forces companies to make an effort to protecting what they produce, rather than instantly getting full protection of the state at 0 cost.
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I am in complete agreement with your post. As an investor why would I sink money into a company that won't give me a return on what I invest? Now if the investment dollars dry up, companies can't do R&D and you slow down progress. The openness of the current systems allows alternatives to be made, but the time it takes to find an alternate solution, gives the original innovater time to recoup their investment.
Re:Not to self-aggrandize...
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"laypeople" here on slashdot have been expounding for years? I think you mean "not-laid-people" here on slashdot.
Re:Removing motivation to create innovative IP
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So, the decendents of Og, inventor of the wheel, should receive royalties from everyone who rides, drives, pushes, or pulls devices with "circular freely rotating attachments designed to facilitate movement"? In perpetuity? No Only for a limited time, that is why IP is only given limited protections (patents 17 years). Though Copyright has gotten way out of hand. I think it should be given the same limited time of protection. It encourages risk taking and sharing the ideas, because the only way to get protection is demonstrating how something works and how to make it. In your example Og could put a big box around his invention and drive the vehicle himself and only let people ride, not peaking what goes on underneath. So it is conceivable he and his family could hide the secret in perpetuity. With the current system Og could charge (for a limited time) those who make wheels, but has to let everyone know how they are made. Pretty soon there will be oval wheels, wheels made out of a different material, spoked wheels, all different enough to get around the limited patent protections. I don't like the application of certain parts of the current system (ie software patents, and length of copyright) because they break with the original ideas set forth for IP protection. I think IP in general is something important to encourage people to invest (sometimes millions of dollars) and find a better way and recoup that investment. And then, enforcement is not universal, but rather selective -- it could be argued that if you can't catch ALL the illegal music sharers, you shouldn't single out any of them We can't catch all car theives, but we enforce the law to keep most honest people honest. Most people wouldn't steal a car if they are late to an appointment because of the possibility of getting caught. If you remove the enforcement there is now nothing to lose. I would propose that, if we are to have intellectual property laws, the cost of their enforcement should be paid by those that benefit from them, in proportion the the value of the protected ideas, i.e. the income streams they generate I agree, there should be some taxation on intellectual property (ie copyright registration), similar to car registration and property taxes, to pay for enforcement.
No, it is just plain unworkable, unfair and counter-productive. No a system that has no protections is unworkable and counterproductive. Unless you provide incentive there is no purpose to risk taking. We saw this with the failure of large scale socialism. Risk taking and rewarding risk taking is essential for progress. Why would a company spend $500 million to come up with something new when it gives them no competitive advantage? Academic research isn't perfect, it's filled with politics. If you have a proposal which is based on theories outside what is generally accepted, often times you won't get money. There are few grants for reseaching revolutionary ideas. If the company makes its "proprietary" DNA availaible as part of a gene-maniuplation therapy, to say make infants immune from AIDS, then that "proprietary" sequence is now inside a child for whom the parents bought the "treatment" at conception. The decision is up to the consumer, they don't force the parents to use the gene therapy. The parents purchased with the understanding of the consequences. Worst case would be this only affects 1 generation, and society could benifit from the discovery for the rest of time. I prefer this over the company giving people a "special treatment" they don't share with anybody else, and nobody knows what is going on, only that it makes the child immune from aids. Is it a vaccine? Is it gene therapy? How will others "reverse engineer" a child? How long do you think that would take? If they played it your way, there would be no compatibility between various brands of computers (as IBM would own the patent to "their" standard) and likely much slower version of computer revolution would occur. The status quo is companies "playing things my way" I didn't realize my video card and mice and hard drives, and monitor are all incompatible. I wish I could buy off the shelf parts from many manufacturers rather than just one. That's what industrial standards are for. The companies agree its in their best interest to not fragment the market, so they come up with a standard. Then each company tries to come up with the best implementation of that standard. I believe that it does the exact opposite as any attempts at "hoarding" it are bound to be far less successful (due to the nature of information) then litigation using perverted laws You'll still get horrible litigation. There will be more draconian non-disclosure agreements and investors suing anybody who shares information. You can never get away from litigation. Meanwhile the information industry becomes unattractive for investment, and unstable as companies collapse once their secrets get out. You also convert an industry that is investing time, money, and resources, on innovation, into a bunch of factories copying what comes out of acedemia. So, yes I do think it will stifle progress.
That's why I like the idea of having to register your copyrights, and renew them yearly (at small fee) until the copyright ends If you think you can still profit from something then you have to make an effort to protect it from becoming public domain.
Dude, if you can find the landfill, your hearts desires will come true:
I think the "stram roller" would have ruined them. If not the cement would have gotten on the catridge connector, and i don't care how hard you blow on it, the cement won't come off. Just walk around and fall into sewers, nothing like live action ET!
Oh yeah i forgot about "new math" I was thinking more about the concept of the textbook. You can have a good math textbook, or a good hard science book. You can't really have a "good" social science book. At least "new math" makes the kids feel better about themselves, and that's what is important, how the kids feel. You are so cruel with your old math, I bet you've never thought about what would happen if 1+1 could = 3. It's important for kids to explore those possibilites. 1.59+1.1=1.7
I don't think there is a one-size-fits-all solution. Some people need a more structured environment to grow, and become self diciplined. Others who are more free thinkers would just be aliented by that sort of environment. College isn't for everybody, the military isn't for everybody, travelling the world isn't for everybody. I've seen each of these experiences help friends figure their way through life, I also can see how being forced into the wrong situation could do more harm. It's really an individual thing.
Math textbooks are fine, science textbooks are okay. Once you get into social sciences though textbooks are just a tiny piece of the puzzle, since they present the author's interpretation. In highschool we didn't have a "history textbook" we had the school district's book we called the "Gahrity(sp?) text" we also got photocopies of journal articles, historical text, and other documents by other authors that offered differing interpretations. Then it was up to the students to take all this information and come up with a logical supported arguement that showed understanding of both the event and possible causes. (ie Boston Tea Party was about the protection of tea smuggling profits) This was a situation where there were many "right" answers, but you had to demonstrate higher thinking skills and form a well thought out arguement. It is important to have a good teacher who knows and is interested in the subject (not a gym instructor covering an english class) and who cares about teaching.
No no no! You have to phase shift the tachyon wave harmonics, and run them through a flux inverter.... dilithium crystals will just make the giant space creature angry. Don't worry its a typical first year red shirt mistake.
I went to public school, I don't think they are unfixable. I think that the "lump all the students together" and educate to the lowest common denominator is the problem. There is a population drags down the learning of the rest of the students. Because kids are forced to go to school, and teachers are forced to not "leave any child behind" it drags down everybody. Throw the dead weight aside and let most of us learn! Luckily my school district offered a public highschool that was specificly for more advanced students (not just math/science, but also music & literature). This made the environment in the classroom for students and teachers more conducive to learning. More importantly, the teachers could teach more advanced concepts. Rather than doing a report basically summarizing "Frankenstein", you had to interpret the underlying messages. I learned more calculus in highschool than my first year of college. I had intelligent friends from jr. high who went to "normal" high schools and it ended up screwing up their lives. A few got in the wrong crowd and became alcoholics or total stoners, or the pace of their curriculum was so slow they'd get frustrated and quit learning. Some also went on to college, but lacked study skills so were slower to keep up with the faster pace of learning. Once we recognize that not all students are equally intelligent and that we shouldn't hold the more advanced ones (or even the average students) back so the slow kids "feel good about themselves" the better our school system will be. We do this for sports, if you're not good enough to make the team too bad.
I hope it's not just taking command of a starship. I think ST would make a better MMORPG than SW just because of the bredth of the universe. SW was focused on war. Star Trek had war, exploration, engineering, and diplomacy. Just think, people could focus on engineering to make better ships, sensors, etc, which enable others to explore more distant planets and discover new technologies/resources, which enables new engineering research so you have an economic cycle. Throw in random aliens that you have to go to war with (brings in the wargammers) so you can explore new planets, and you've given a wide bredth of gameplay that would be appealing to many gamers. If you want PvP just make neutral zones PvP areas. Lots of possibilities. I didn't really like star trek, but as a universe it is more well rounded and I think could provide alot of very different and interesting role playing experiences.
Slashdot Mirror
That is certainly only your own opinion. According to your theory there are dense generations followed by hyper-intelligent generations.
No, the theory is based on the fact that you have a much smaller sample size than the general population (some college classes are as small as 8 people). With a smaller sample size you are more likely to have individual samples deviate from the strict bell curve. If you have classes of 100s of students it makes more sense, and typically you will see the distribution more clearly.
Worse is that a competitive system creates competition between students. In such circumstances it is against a students best interest to help others learn. It shouldn't be student vs. student it should be student vs. material. It lets students help each other learn, and increase the overall level of academic accomplishment. I have fond memories of study groups in college, sometimes all it took was a different perspective or different explaination for you to "get" the material. When you have a group working together, helping each other, you'll have more people understanding, than if everybody worked alone.
School isn't a "self-congratulory pat on the back" nor is it a competition, it is designed to help students learn and reflect that the students have a certain degree of skill. If all the students in the class have a "high" level of skill they all deserve to have a "high" grade, same as if they all have a "low" level of skill.
A bell shaped curve every year means you have a moving target each year and is contrary to employers being able to acurately determine the intellectual of the students. "Control" comes when you have a fixed set of standards, if those standards are met the student gets the accompanying grade (despite what the fellow students get). There is no room for arguement, no difference between samples, all students are held to the same level.
In college I had a professor give a student a fellow "B" who was just below the expectations of an "A". The student tried to negotiate the grade, and the professor pulled out an article about grade inflation (which I agree is a problem). The fact is there is a level of understanding that student needed, they did not accomplish it, there was no negotiating room, as it should be.
I have found it to be a beautiful, and fun RTS game. That said, it is an RTS game, so those looking for something similar to the table top experience might be disappointed.
Some of the concepts like "cover" don't appear to be as fully fleshed out as they could have been. In general though the game plays well, and the units are diverse, interesting, and it takes time to recognize how to use each one well (things like "jump" abilities and grenades can make big difference if you use them right).
It is definately a game I will be picking up when it comes out.
I volunteer for blinking lights monitoring.
Yeah I had classes like that too. There are a few high level engineering (transport phenomenon, and non-mechanical properties of materials) that come to mind. :)
Just think all the engineers out there only know half as much as they were taught... makes you wonder
Weren't Indiana Jones, Who Framed Roger Rabit, and Rocketeer set in the same time period?
Just because they chose that era for a setting doesn't mean it is a nostalgia film. I wouldn't worry about the "walker" folks, I worry whether the new generation will like the film style.
In this world of tomorrow do we get flying cars?
I don't care about robots, submarine planes, or ray guns. I WANT MY FLYING CAR
Did you know that there are no "below average" college graduates? Proof: In order to graduate from college you must have a GPA equating to a C or better.
That is because grades should be a reflection of a student's mastery of the material, not how a student relates to their peers. There are classes where 70% is an A, not to get more students with A's but because that is the expected level of understanding. In fact, that class had less A's than most others with the typical 90% scale.
Ask an American and a Japanese if they are "good in math". The Japanese will typically say "no", the American will say "yes".
Most Americans feel they are not good at math and ungood at egnlish.
If you look at the website there is a video (E3?). In it they describe it will be subscription based at $24.95 a month and you get hardware free for 24 month commitment ($300 in first year?). If you go month to month it's $200 for the hardware. Because this requires a broadband connection only, there is a limited market for this product.
I can easily see racking up $68M just because of the massive amount of advertising and promotions required to break into a very tough market.
If the were no protection on infomation sharing, a company still has a great advantage of doing the research
There is very little advantage in doing the research. If somebody else copies my exam in class, I have the great advantage of doing the research, though I'm stuck with the same grade. Will it help me on the next exam? Yes, but the kid next to me is still getting the same grades I am.
So they will complain and whine how they would never invest $500 million if the payoff was "only" $600 million
So who is going to fund their next $500 million dollar project? Who will invest in a company where the rate of return is lower? Are you going to put your retirement money to a company earning 5% or one earning 50% rate of return? Once you dry up the investment dollars you dry up industries that rely heavily on IP.
You clearly didnt try to use your computer in any way that was not approved by those vendors when they colluded to agree on their restricted view of how things should be, even though, when you purchased your PC, you purchased a "general computing" device and not a DRM-infected "enterntainment center".
Yes my computer is so locked down, I can't do any research on it, I can't do my own programming, I can't even play non-approved music. Oh wait, I can. If my computer becomes DRM infested, then I can just not buy it. I can vote with my dollars, and purchase an alternative machine. I know legislation keeps pushing in that direction, and I am against that.
Had he/she any say in this?
Children rarely have any say in the decisions of the parents. Like I said, this would affect a small population since the patent will expire round about the time the child can conceive. You are also assuming nobody else comes up with an alternate method for gene therapy.
which would be easilly obtainable from a sample of few hair or blood drops
Most likely not, unless you know what you are looking for (which you wont since people wont publish the information), it will take a long time to reverse engineer a gene treatment. It would require a large sample of treated people to determine what sequence(s) were affected.
Such agreements would be unenforcable if infomation were not "property".
No, even though the information isn't property, the act of sharing information, would damage the company and they could sue.
You oversimplified what I am proposing. Academia would be the leading source of discovery, sponsored by both taxpayers and industry who (even though they will not be able to hide this data from each other) would still hope to be quicker to bringing the actual product to market then the next guy
So now the goverment decides how we progress? They would have the power now that they hold all the pursestrings. You propose to take away the greatest source for R&D spending and don't think that will greatly impact the rate of progress?
As I said before I am for limited protections, not goverment forcing things down my throat. IP does not mean INDUCE or DMCA, those are perversions of the original concepts. An important aspect of IP is encouraging things to get into public domain. Current copyright law does not do this, patent law did, until they started to misapply to software and other more general concepts. I don't believe the "fix" is wholesale abandonment of IP.
Because there are some jobs that you can't quantify in hours. It's not like, spend 8 hours answering phones all day. How long does it take to invent something? How long does it take to manage? If I think about a problem at home can I charge my company?
I don't mind salary system, some days I work more, some days I work less than 8 hours (usually work more, but I enjoy my job). Last week most of the exempt employees took off at lunchtime in anticipation for the holiday weekend. The hourly had to stay working until the clock hit 5.
There are also situations where salaried employees get overtime because its the expection of their job, like supervisors for 12 hour shift employees.
The system isn't all that bad, but it does require more from the employee to demand expectations up front (so they don't keep loading you with projects) and to ensure they are managing their own time wisely.
Not necessarily, it depends on why the person does something like this. In most cases the psychological reasons for creating a worm/virus, also would make the person want to brag about their accomplishment.
Maybe they do it because they want to show off their skills and boost their ego. In most cases people aren't happy knowing they are the greatest in the world, they want everybody else to affirm that feeling so they brag about their accomplishment to get recognition. Maybe they do it to get revenge, and they want those suffering to know who is causing the pain.
I think more than likely the person would end up talking. Just a few drinks at the bar and they might open up about their great accomplishment to uninterested patrons.
Would you want to see Linux ior FreeBSDtaxed heavily
Maybe a better term than tax, is registration fee (which is a form of taxation). What a registration fee does is give money to the public (goverment) in exchange for the protections that the intellectual property does not go into public domain. If I write a book now, I instantly get all the protections of the state with regards to copyright (whether I like it or not).
A registration based system would mean I have the option to let my works go into public domain or I must pay a periodic fee so that I get the protections of the state. It would also mean that people would be less likely to just sit on IP, like abandonware, because there is a cost to them.
In my example above, perhaps providers of Linux distros might subscribe voluntarily to such a service in order to have the financial means to act against GPL (or, in the case of FreeBSD, BSD) violators
This system already exists, its the RIAA and MPAA. They are subscription services that represent the best interest of their members. This system is okay, except that it only provides protections to the members not to the public.
I would like to see a system of IP protection that forces companies to make an effort to protecting what they produce, rather than instantly getting full protection of the state at 0 cost.
I am in complete agreement with your post.
As an investor why would I sink money into a company that won't give me a return on what I invest? Now if the investment dollars dry up, companies can't do R&D and you slow down progress.
The openness of the current systems allows alternatives to be made, but the time it takes to find an alternate solution, gives the original innovater time to recoup their investment.
"laypeople" here on slashdot have been expounding for years?
I think you mean "not-laid-people" here on slashdot.
So, the decendents of Og, inventor of the wheel, should receive royalties from everyone who rides, drives, pushes, or pulls devices with "circular freely rotating attachments designed to facilitate movement"? In perpetuity?
No Only for a limited time, that is why IP is only given limited protections (patents 17 years). Though Copyright has gotten way out of hand. I think it should be given the same limited time of protection.
It encourages risk taking and sharing the ideas, because the only way to get protection is demonstrating how something works and how to make it.
In your example Og could put a big box around his invention and drive the vehicle himself and only let people ride, not peaking what goes on underneath. So it is conceivable he and his family could hide the secret in perpetuity. With the current system Og could charge (for a limited time) those who make wheels, but has to let everyone know how they are made. Pretty soon there will be oval wheels, wheels made out of a different material, spoked wheels, all different enough to get around the limited patent protections.
I don't like the application of certain parts of the current system (ie software patents, and length of copyright) because they break with the original ideas set forth for IP protection. I think IP in general is something important to encourage people to invest (sometimes millions of dollars) and find a better way and recoup that investment.
And then, enforcement is not universal, but rather selective -- it could be argued that if you can't catch ALL the illegal music sharers, you shouldn't single out any of them
We can't catch all car theives, but we enforce the law to keep most honest people honest. Most people wouldn't steal a car if they are late to an appointment because of the possibility of getting caught. If you remove the enforcement there is now nothing to lose.
I would propose that, if we are to have intellectual property laws, the cost of their enforcement should be paid by those that benefit from them, in proportion the the value of the protected ideas, i.e. the income streams they generate
I agree, there should be some taxation on intellectual property (ie copyright registration), similar to car registration and property taxes, to pay for enforcement.
No, it is just plain unworkable, unfair and counter-productive.
No a system that has no protections is unworkable and counterproductive. Unless you provide incentive there is no purpose to risk taking. We saw this with the failure of large scale socialism. Risk taking and rewarding risk taking is essential for progress. Why would a company spend $500 million to come up with something new when it gives them no competitive advantage?
Academic research isn't perfect, it's filled with politics. If you have a proposal which is based on theories outside what is generally accepted, often times you won't get money. There are few grants for reseaching revolutionary ideas.
If the company makes its "proprietary" DNA availaible as part of a gene-maniuplation therapy, to say make infants immune from AIDS, then that "proprietary" sequence is now inside a child for whom the parents bought the "treatment" at conception.
The decision is up to the consumer, they don't force the parents to use the gene therapy. The parents purchased with the understanding of the consequences. Worst case would be this only affects 1 generation, and society could benifit from the discovery for the rest of time. I prefer this over the company giving people a "special treatment" they don't share with anybody else, and nobody knows what is going on, only that it makes the child immune from aids. Is it a vaccine? Is it gene therapy? How will others "reverse engineer" a child? How long do you think that would take?
If they played it your way, there would be no compatibility between various brands of computers (as IBM would own the patent to "their" standard) and likely much slower version of computer revolution would occur.
The status quo is companies "playing things my way" I didn't realize my video card and mice and hard drives, and monitor are all incompatible. I wish I could buy off the shelf parts from many manufacturers rather than just one.
That's what industrial standards are for. The companies agree its in their best interest to not fragment the market, so they come up with a standard. Then each company tries to come up with the best implementation of that standard.
I believe that it does the exact opposite as any attempts at "hoarding" it are bound to be far less successful (due to the nature of information) then litigation using perverted laws
You'll still get horrible litigation. There will be more draconian non-disclosure agreements and investors suing anybody who shares information. You can never get away from litigation. Meanwhile the information industry becomes unattractive for investment, and unstable as companies collapse once their secrets get out. You also convert an industry that is investing time, money, and resources, on innovation, into a bunch of factories copying what comes out of acedemia. So, yes I do think it will stifle progress.
POW! CLICK! DING! 503!
That's why I like the idea of having to register your copyrights, and renew them yearly (at small fee) until the copyright ends
If you think you can still profit from something then you have to make an effort to protect it from becoming public domain.
Dude, if you can find the landfill, your hearts desires will come true:
I think the "stram roller" would have ruined them. If not the cement would have gotten on the catridge connector, and i don't care how hard you blow on it, the cement won't come off.
Just walk around and fall into sewers, nothing like live action ET!
Oh yeah i forgot about "new math" I was thinking more about the concept of the textbook.
You can have a good math textbook, or a good hard science book. You can't really have a "good" social science book.
At least "new math" makes the kids feel better about themselves, and that's what is important, how the kids feel. You are so cruel with your old math, I bet you've never thought about what would happen if 1+1 could = 3. It's important for kids to explore those possibilites.
1.59+1.1=1.7
I don't think there is a one-size-fits-all solution. Some people need a more structured environment to grow, and become self diciplined. Others who are more free thinkers would just be aliented by that sort of environment.
College isn't for everybody, the military isn't for everybody, travelling the world isn't for everybody. I've seen each of these experiences help friends figure their way through life, I also can see how being forced into the wrong situation could do more harm.
It's really an individual thing.
Math textbooks are fine, science textbooks are okay. Once you get into social sciences though textbooks are just a tiny piece of the puzzle, since they present the author's interpretation.
In highschool we didn't have a "history textbook" we had the school district's book we called the "Gahrity(sp?) text" we also got photocopies of journal articles, historical text, and other documents by other authors that offered differing interpretations. Then it was up to the students to take all this information and come up with a logical supported arguement that showed understanding of both the event and possible causes. (ie Boston Tea Party was about the protection of tea smuggling profits) This was a situation where there were many "right" answers, but you had to demonstrate higher thinking skills and form a well thought out arguement.
It is important to have a good teacher who knows and is interested in the subject (not a gym instructor covering an english class) and who cares about teaching.
No no no! You have to phase shift the tachyon wave harmonics, and run them through a flux inverter.... dilithium crystals will just make the giant space creature angry.
Don't worry its a typical first year red shirt mistake.
I went to public school, I don't think they are unfixable. I think that the "lump all the students together" and educate to the lowest common denominator is the problem.
There is a population drags down the learning of the rest of the students. Because kids are forced to go to school, and teachers are forced to not "leave any child behind" it drags down everybody. Throw the dead weight aside and let most of us learn!
Luckily my school district offered a public highschool that was specificly for more advanced students (not just math/science, but also music & literature). This made the environment in the classroom for students and teachers more conducive to learning. More importantly, the teachers could teach more advanced concepts. Rather than doing a report basically summarizing "Frankenstein", you had to interpret the underlying messages. I learned more calculus in highschool than my first year of college.
I had intelligent friends from jr. high who went to "normal" high schools and it ended up screwing up their lives. A few got in the wrong crowd and became alcoholics or total stoners, or the pace of their curriculum was so slow they'd get frustrated and quit learning. Some also went on to college, but lacked study skills so were slower to keep up with the faster pace of learning.
Once we recognize that not all students are equally intelligent and that we shouldn't hold the more advanced ones (or even the average students) back so the slow kids "feel good about themselves" the better our school system will be. We do this for sports, if you're not good enough to make the team too bad.
I hope it's not just taking command of a starship. I think ST would make a better MMORPG than SW just because of the bredth of the universe. SW was focused on war. Star Trek had war, exploration, engineering, and diplomacy.
Just think, people could focus on engineering to make better ships, sensors, etc, which enable others to explore more distant planets and discover new technologies/resources, which enables new engineering research so you have an economic cycle.
Throw in random aliens that you have to go to war with (brings in the wargammers) so you can explore new planets, and you've given a wide bredth of gameplay that would be appealing to many gamers. If you want PvP just make neutral zones PvP areas. Lots of possibilities.
I didn't really like star trek, but as a universe it is more well rounded and I think could provide alot of very different and interesting role playing experiences.