It might be gross benefit, but it's not net benefit.
Pun intended.
Killing thousands of civilians, spending billions (or
is it trillions now?) of dollars, etc, etc, can't possibly
be worth better prosthetics. The amount of money spent
on this research is a fraction of a percent of the cash
cost of the war. Think of how that money could have
been used... it's sickening.
Not exactly... Who do you think funds the academics?
It's true that academics can pursue riskier, more speculative areas of research. It's
cost-effective for them to do so; they've got less overhead and grad
students are cheap, and success criteria is different than for businesses
-- publish a bunch
of well-regarded, widely-cited papers, and you're in good shape.
(you never need to earn back the investment money)
However, academics get their money from businesses and funding
agencies who do have their eye on the bottom line. If an academic
doesn't work on something that they feel is relevant (or abandons
research they're funded to do in order to work on something cooler)
then the money dries up really fast.
I've been on both sides of this (currently funder, formerly fundee)
and I can tell you without doubt that academic research is a market,
just like everything else.
After a few meetings with pot and alchohol, you start meeting the same people one-to-one or in smaller and smaller groups...
Yeah, in the US we call that "jail".
Actually I'm just envious because most of the people I've met on the Internet are either looking for help with debugging some piece of code I touched ten years ago, or Brazillians looking for Orkut hookups, or both. I've never met any of these people face to face. That would be a nice change.
As long as beer and pot weren't required.
What else would you expect, given that most people access reality
through a computer or TV screen? Why ask a person when you can
ask a computer? Why deal with ordinary
people in your neighborhood when you can risklessly gape at people
who are much more beautiful
or who lead more exciting or
important lives,
or perhaps take comfort in the fact that you can always find abundant
reinforcement for your choices online?
And here I am, typing this, while my kids are playing in the other
room, inventing a much more exciting world, which I am welcome to
join. Gotta go!
There's nothing substantive in TFA. There's nothing to do but speculate at this point.
I doubt that any company would go to court to defend a claim that they own programming language-to-language translation. If they are, then they'll lose or have the case tossed
out.
More likely is that someone at Morfik looked at the output from the google toolkit and noticed
that it was suspiciously similar to the output from their own ("we never got the parens to line
up properly for a nested if and google's compiler messes up in exactly the same way... hmmm" -- or something like that).
Of course, this is just speculation. Still waiting for something resembling facts...
I don't think that it's completely different. Imagine if it was some other company (take your favorite non-microsoft game, for example) who told you that their next game required Vista. Would your feelings be any different?
Imagine that you're a strategist working for microsoft. Your choices:
Write the game for XP. Ignore Vista features that XP doesn't support. Hope that Vista is sufficiently backward-compatible so that it runs well on Vista.
Write the game for XP (like above) and then port it to Vista.
Just write it once for Vista and don't look back.
I don't know whether you'd pick #1 or #2. Either way, now try to rationalize your choice to your boss...
I have an old mac that would have been tossed in the dumpster a long time ago except that it is the only hardware I have that can correctly run some games my daughters love. Should I be angry that I'm forced to use a particular platform in order to run software that I want? Should I sue the game
manufacturer for never getting around to porting it to some other platform?
In any case, if you want to get huffy about Microsoft lock-in, there are plenty of cases that don't
involve games but instead are real time-and-money wasting problems... (Why isn't Entourage
the same as Outlook?)
It's true that the combination of high cost to develop a game and the high probability that any given game is a dud make it very difficult for an "indie" to compete with the big boys, particularly in the on-line multiplayer world. If you do everything right, then eventually you'll make a bunch of money, buy odds are that you'll have to eat a lot of losses first.
But this isn't the first time this has come up. For example, at GDC this year there was something called Project DarkStar from Sun that aims to level the play field by providing the infrastructure (software and hardware, I think) for people developing MMORPGs
in return for a cut of the action -- if the game doesn't make money, then it's free; if the game
makes money, then the game developer pays a cut. Intriguing model. They had some nice demos. If it pans out then I think there could be a lot of new, imaginative, risky games that start to appear.
People with skills can turn free or valueless things into things that can be sold and have tangible value, and they'll do it for a lot less than those things are worth, creating wealth for others. I think some guy wrote something about that once.
This is "news" because everyone treats Google like they're special, different, blessed, and the saviour of the internet.
They're not. They're a bunch of guys with a great PR machine, who like to make money, and who are surrounded by a bunch of technonerds. Behind the hype, Google is the Walmart of the internet.
Pull the plug too early? Her husband would say "we" waited many years too long...
According to the autopsy,
this drug would have had to have done a lot more than described here. Maybe if they'd given it to her when she first fell into a coma (we'll never know) but by the time she died, her brain was irreperable.
That's not how the business works. You don't need to click on an ad, you just need to look at it. Thanks to your typo, you've just been shown a lot of ads, and caused money to change hands.
you'll usually never see someone patent an idea just so that it can be public domain
Probably true (I have no numbers to say either way). But it is undeniable that there are plenty of people who will gladly sacrifice hundreds or thousands of hours of their time to get an open source project under way. Ironic.
My guess is that most OSS developers do it for fun rather than altruism or
personal beliefs -- and fun isn't fungible.
Slashdot Mirror
Pun intended.
Killing thousands of civilians, spending billions (or is it trillions now?) of dollars, etc, etc, can't possibly be worth better prosthetics. The amount of money spent on this research is a fraction of a percent of the cash cost of the war. Think of how that money could have been used... it's sickening.
Cute and ingenious design but not something you'd want to go faster than about 2mph.
(Let the obvious rocker-boogie jokes begin...)
It's true that academics can pursue riskier, more speculative areas of research. It's cost-effective for them to do so; they've got less overhead and grad students are cheap, and success criteria is different than for businesses -- publish a bunch of well-regarded, widely-cited papers, and you're in good shape. (you never need to earn back the investment money)
However, academics get their money from businesses and funding agencies who do have their eye on the bottom line. If an academic doesn't work on something that they feel is relevant (or abandons research they're funded to do in order to work on something cooler) then the money dries up really fast.
I've been on both sides of this (currently funder, formerly fundee) and I can tell you without doubt that academic research is a market, just like everything else.
So cheating these folks should be like shooting fish in a barrel. (No surprise it's a slashdot staple.)
If you know what Big Brother is, I wouldn't have to. Now run along.
Your homework assignment is to read "1984" by Orwell.
Yeah, in the US we call that "jail".
Actually I'm just envious because most of the people I've met on the Internet are either looking for help with debugging some piece of code I touched ten years ago, or Brazillians looking for Orkut hookups, or both. I've never met any of these people face to face. That would be a nice change. As long as beer and pot weren't required.
What else would you expect, given that most people access reality through a computer or TV screen? Why ask a person when you can ask a computer? Why deal with ordinary people in your neighborhood when you can risklessly gape at people who are much more beautiful or who lead more exciting or important lives, or perhaps take comfort in the fact that you can always find abundant reinforcement for your choices online?
And here I am, typing this, while my kids are playing in the other room, inventing a much more exciting world, which I am welcome to join. Gotta go!
We have always been at war with Eurasia.
And at least Google tells the Chinese that they're being censored.
You think that somehow makes it OK?
(Actually, Google tells us that they're telling the Chinese they're being censored. That's not exactly how it looks to the Chinese users.)
Yeah, Google creeps me out, too.
I doubt that any company would go to court to defend a claim that they own programming language-to-language translation. If they are, then they'll lose or have the case tossed out.
More likely is that someone at Morfik looked at the output from the google toolkit and noticed that it was suspiciously similar to the output from their own ("we never got the parens to line up properly for a nested if and google's compiler messes up in exactly the same way... hmmm" -- or something like that).
Of course, this is just speculation. Still waiting for something resembling facts...
Yeah, perhaps the mountains on some other planet.
Sucks to this.
Google's record isn't quite as bad as that of Microsoft, but I see your point.
Imagine that you're a strategist working for microsoft. Your choices:
I don't know whether you'd pick #1 or #2. Either way, now try to rationalize your choice to your boss...
I have an old mac that would have been tossed in the dumpster a long time ago except that it is the only hardware I have that can correctly run some games my daughters love. Should I be angry that I'm forced to use a particular platform in order to run software that I want? Should I sue the game manufacturer for never getting around to porting it to some other platform?
In any case, if you want to get huffy about Microsoft lock-in, there are plenty of cases that don't involve games but instead are real time-and-money wasting problems... (Why isn't Entourage the same as Outlook?)
But this isn't the first time this has come up. For example, at GDC this year there was something called Project DarkStar from Sun that aims to level the play field by providing the infrastructure (software and hardware, I think) for people developing MMORPGs in return for a cut of the action -- if the game doesn't make money, then it's free; if the game makes money, then the game developer pays a cut. Intriguing model. They had some nice demos. If it pans out then I think there could be a lot of new, imaginative, risky games that start to appear.
People with skills can turn free or valueless things into things that can be sold and have tangible value, and they'll do it for a lot less than those things are worth, creating wealth for others. I think some guy wrote something about that once.
They're not. They're a bunch of guys with a great PR machine, who like to make money, and who are surrounded by a bunch of technonerds. Behind the hype, Google is the Walmart of the internet.
On behalf of everyone living in California or Massachusetts, I'd like to say that you're spoiled rotten.
1,600 sq/ft? Above average here. $800 month house payment? Not much more than the taxes.
According to the autopsy, this drug would have had to have done a lot more than described here. Maybe if they'd given it to her when she first fell into a coma (we'll never know) but by the time she died, her brain was irreperable.
Guess they ran out of good foreign films to rip off...
I just hope they don't patent it!
Probably true (I have no numbers to say either way). But it is undeniable that there are plenty of people who will gladly sacrifice hundreds or thousands of hours of their time to get an open source project under way. Ironic.
My guess is that most OSS developers do it for fun rather than altruism or personal beliefs -- and fun isn't fungible.