It is all about making things free that didn't used to be. Devalues everything over time - creators get the message that they might as well make it free when they have a choice before someone takes that choice away from them.
Or, creators get the message that they might as well not make anything at all.
Yes, that "Long name... amazing results" crap is apparently a franchise or branch operation. When I was in college, the local job search using that tag was "Spokane Area Help Wanted dot com" or something similar. Long name indeed.
Now that I'm all grown up, the local job search using that same phrase is "Fargo Jobs dot com". "Fargo Jobs dot com: Long name... amazing results!" Are you friggin' kidding me? 9 letters. Microsoft.com is just as long of a name as that.
I hesitate to think what the owners of Fargo Jobs dot com would consider a short name... FJ.com? F.com? Just.com?
(This post is in no way an endorsement of "Fargo Jobs dot com" or its ilk...)
Often it is the specific method that is granted a patent, not the entire concept as a whole. Unfortunately, overly broad patents are often granted, but this doesn't seem to be the case here (the specific method of separating audio and video in storage, then recombining them in an MPEG stream).
To go even further off topic: I remember my mom brought home some pet stain cleaner and was laughing hysterically. I asked what the problem was, and she pointed out the directions.
"Apply liberally, sniff and retreat."
Now why, I asked, would they need to tell you to get the hell away from the pet stain after sniffing it? Like you're going to hang out there, breathing in the sweet vapors?
Unfortunately, my dad didn't find it as funny, since he read it as "treat again", which of course was what they meant.
Back in 1965 the term may have been 15 or 17 years. Today, the term is 20 years. Every 10 years or so Congress will get together and increase the term for their friends whose patents are about to expire. Nice guys, really.
Rights are granted for the benefit of the whole of society, not single individuals: otherwise you might as well reintroduce slavery, as it was very beneficial to a few guys.
Are you insane? All rights are granted to individuals only, never to "society". In your example, for instance, the South benefited greatly as a society from institutionalized slavery - not just "a few guys". I'm not here to say slavery is right (in fact it is very wrong), but that granting rights to "society" means granting rights to the majority. In that case, whatever the majority (or "society") finds desirable is correct. If society decrees that slavery is beneficial, under your model of rights, then slavery is allowed.
Under the individual rights model, as the US is founded on, each individual citizen is granted all the rights of every other citizen. You have the right to be free from being enslaved, I have the right to be free from being enslaved, Bob has... get the picture?
You are not damaged by someone else who's using your methods (this does not block you from using them), unless you mean by competition, and last time I checked there is quite a load of legislation that actually protects competition, as it is demonstrated to improve product quality for society.
Pretend for a moment that you've been slaving (hehe) away in your basement to create a new method for conducting business that is vastly superior to the well-established companies already in the market. You create a new company to compete with these multi-billion dollar per year corporations, and with your business method you have the potential to blow them away. However, without a patent on your new method, all the established companies copy you immediately.
Not only did you not benefit from your hard work, you basically did all your competitors a favor by giving it away for free. You worked for nothing. What's the point in doing it again next time you have a good idea? You tell your story to a few friends, who tell it to a few more friends, and all of a sudden no one wants to innovate.
Allowing a patent on your business method gives your startup company a fighting chance to establish itself in the marketplace. The limited term of patents (currently 20 years) means that eventually, yes, all your competitors will be able to use the same business method that made you so fantastically successful. Know what that means? Time to innovate again.
Also, for the other companies that cannot use your business method, they must innovate new and even more improved business methods to compete with *you* now - they can't just use your idea and stop there.
I wish you damn socialists would just stop complaining that other people have better opportunities and luck than you because they came up with something people want and you didn't. Show me something you've invented or created and shared with the whole world gratis - what's that? You can't? Oh.
What good is a computer left to its own devices? There are very few computers in use that are useful when not used. The moronic user factor *is* an aspect of computer security, and often having a secure system means protecting against things that users do -- intentionally or not.
But the majority never should be able to remove the rights of even the smallest minority. In this case, the select group of rich companies have a right to control the distribution of the software they create - that's copyright.
It's like in the US right now: should the majority (religious persons) be able to take away the right of the minority (atheists) to not practice religion? Should the majority (caucasians) be able to take away the rights of the minority (other races) just because they wanted the government to? (not that they do)
So, this happened 13 billion light years away, and therefore 13 billion years ago (assuming that gamma rays travel at the speed of light in a vacuum). How is it that we arrived at this point, here on earth, to observe this event *13 billion years* ahead of the light from the event? Especially if the universe itself is only between 13-15 billion years old?
Is the earth, our solar system, and the Milky Way travelling faster than the light from the Big Bang, then slowing down enough for light from this event to catch up? Or did this event not happen 13 billion years in *our* past, but just in the *general* past?
I think the answer's more than just "No". It involves explaining to the Slashdot crowd that while most of us enjoy finding out new things and solving problems with our computers, the vast majority of the public has a love/hate relationship with computers.
I've installed several distros on my Compaq Presario 900Z laptop, which anyone who's tried to install Linux on a laptop knows can be a nightmare. I did this because I enjoy working through problems like that. Normal people, say 95% of the population, would have given up after the first boot disk stalled.
I guess my point is this: until Linux is as easy to install and use as the computers that come with Windows, it can't compete in the broader market.
Do the cells actually "change" their receptors, or are they mutated with different receptors at the time they divide? So while 98% of cancer cells are vulnerable to one treatment because they have "healthy" receptors, the 2% with mutated receptors are not.
No, not constantly drunk... it would be an endless cycle of New Year's Eve Drunk and New Year's Day Hungover. Doesn't sound like a very good time to me.
... and now those who registered their.xxx domain with New.net are screwed.
Did you have a great website running at girlswholikegirlswholikeghandi.xxx? Well, be prepared to lose that domain if you're not quick enough to snatch it up when ICANN offers it.
Ryan
Would you rather make $10 a day surfing the web, $10 a day working in a shoe factory for 14 hours, or $0 a day without a job? I'd say Google is doing them a favor. (wink)
The wages may be extreme, but the cost of living is also "extreme" in the same way.
Thing is, they didn't register "google.com.net" - they registered "com.net". The "google" part is called a wildcard, and any "*.com.net" would go to SoGoSearch. (See this report about yahoo.sex.com).
The real problem lies in web browsers that append ".net" to a domain name when the.com version cannot be accessed.
You don't have to wait for.xxx... New.net has been offering this extension for years.
Which brings up an interesting question: can ICANN just usurp New.net's market in.xxx domains without compensating New.net for the destruction of their business? I believe this already happened with the.biz extension, which was originally offered by Atlantic Root Network.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, you are entitled to protection against unreasonable searches or seizures in a rented hotel room. Stoner v. California set that precedent.
Or, creators get the message that they might as well not make anything at all.
a one-legged chinese hooker.
... named Irene?
No... named Eileen!
Whoosh ...
Yes, that "Long name ... amazing results" crap is apparently a franchise or branch operation. When I was in college, the local job search using that tag was "Spokane Area Help Wanted dot com" or something similar. Long name indeed.
... amazing results!" Are you friggin' kidding me? 9 letters. Microsoft.com is just as long of a name as that.
... FJ.com? F.com? Just .com?
...)
Now that I'm all grown up, the local job search using that same phrase is "Fargo Jobs dot com". "Fargo Jobs dot com: Long name
I hesitate to think what the owners of Fargo Jobs dot com would consider a short name
(This post is in no way an endorsement of "Fargo Jobs dot com" or its ilk
Often it is the specific method that is granted a patent, not the entire concept as a whole. Unfortunately, overly broad patents are often granted, but this doesn't seem to be the case here (the specific method of separating audio and video in storage, then recombining them in an MPEG stream).
To go even further off topic: I remember my mom brought home some pet stain cleaner and was laughing hysterically. I asked what the problem was, and she pointed out the directions.
"Apply liberally, sniff and retreat."
Now why, I asked, would they need to tell you to get the hell away from the pet stain after sniffing it? Like you're going to hang out there, breathing in the sweet vapors?
Unfortunately, my dad didn't find it as funny, since he read it as "treat again", which of course was what they meant.
Matthew Lesko unavailable for comment.
Cell phones, not cell processors.
Back in 1965 the term may have been 15 or 17 years. Today, the term is 20 years. Every 10 years or so Congress will get together and increase the term for their friends whose patents are about to expire. Nice guys, really.
Are you insane? All rights are granted to individuals only, never to "society". In your example, for instance, the South benefited greatly as a society from institutionalized slavery - not just "a few guys". I'm not here to say slavery is right (in fact it is very wrong), but that granting rights to "society" means granting rights to the majority. In that case, whatever the majority (or "society") finds desirable is correct. If society decrees that slavery is beneficial, under your model of rights, then slavery is allowed.
Under the individual rights model, as the US is founded on, each individual citizen is granted all the rights of every other citizen. You have the right to be free from being enslaved, I have the right to be free from being enslaved, Bob has ... get the picture?
You are not damaged by someone else who's using your methods (this does not block you from using them), unless you mean by competition, and last time I checked there is quite a load of legislation that actually protects competition, as it is demonstrated to improve product quality for society.
Pretend for a moment that you've been slaving (hehe) away in your basement to create a new method for conducting business that is vastly superior to the well-established companies already in the market. You create a new company to compete with these multi-billion dollar per year corporations, and with your business method you have the potential to blow them away. However, without a patent on your new method, all the established companies copy you immediately.
Not only did you not benefit from your hard work, you basically did all your competitors a favor by giving it away for free. You worked for nothing. What's the point in doing it again next time you have a good idea? You tell your story to a few friends, who tell it to a few more friends, and all of a sudden no one wants to innovate.
Allowing a patent on your business method gives your startup company a fighting chance to establish itself in the marketplace. The limited term of patents (currently 20 years) means that eventually, yes, all your competitors will be able to use the same business method that made you so fantastically successful. Know what that means? Time to innovate again.
Also, for the other companies that cannot use your business method, they must innovate new and even more improved business methods to compete with *you* now - they can't just use your idea and stop there.
I wish you damn socialists would just stop complaining that other people have better opportunities and luck than you because they came up with something people want and you didn't. Show me something you've invented or created and shared with the whole world gratis - what's that? You can't? Oh.
What good is a computer left to its own devices? There are very few computers in use that are useful when not used. The moronic user factor *is* an aspect of computer security, and often having a secure system means protecting against things that users do -- intentionally or not.
It's like in the US right now: should the majority (religious persons) be able to take away the right of the minority (atheists) to not practice religion? Should the majority (caucasians) be able to take away the rights of the minority (other races) just because they wanted the government to? (not that they do)
Some parts of Ontario are on the same latitude as northern California ... in fact they have several wineries in that area.
Is the earth, our solar system, and the Milky Way travelling faster than the light from the Big Bang, then slowing down enough for light from this event to catch up? Or did this event not happen 13 billion years in *our* past, but just in the *general* past?
Gah! Confusing!
I've installed several distros on my Compaq Presario 900Z laptop, which anyone who's tried to install Linux on a laptop knows can be a nightmare. I did this because I enjoy working through problems like that. Normal people, say 95% of the population, would have given up after the first boot disk stalled.
I guess my point is this: until Linux is as easy to install and use as the computers that come with Windows, it can't compete in the broader market.
Do the cells actually "change" their receptors, or are they mutated with different receptors at the time they divide? So while 98% of cancer cells are vulnerable to one treatment because they have "healthy" receptors, the 2% with mutated receptors are not.
No, not constantly drunk ... it would be an endless cycle of New Year's Eve Drunk and New Year's Day Hungover. Doesn't sound like a very good time to me.
Did you have a great website running at girlswholikegirlswholikeghandi.xxx? Well, be prepared to lose that domain if you're not quick enough to snatch it up when ICANN offers it. Ryan
The wages may be extreme, but the cost of living is also "extreme" in the same way.
Ah, the old high school policy debate topic of 1997-1998 ... that brings me back.
Oh, how innocent your mind appears to be ...
Yahoo tried to do just that with sex.com. Didn't work for Yahoo, won't work for Google.
The real problem lies in web browsers that append ".net" to a domain name when the .com version cannot be accessed.
The Rock.
Which brings up an interesting question: can ICANN just usurp New.net's market in .xxx domains without compensating New.net for the destruction of their business? I believe this already happened with the .biz extension, which was originally offered by Atlantic Root Network.
- Ryan