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User: gnupun

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  1. Re:There is no such thing as Intellectual Property on 90 Percent of Businesses Say IP Is "Not Important" · · Score: 1

    Thinking otherwise is counter-productive.

    To paraphrase the post demanding your password, all businesses claiming IP is useless and unimportant, please hand over your list of suppliers, and the prices at which you buy your raw materials/products from them. Also, we would like the entire list of your customers, the names of your employees, their job descriptions and salaries. It would also be great, if we could get detailed plans about all the products you'll be introducing next year

    I suspect most businesses have no idea what IP really means (other than patents and copyright). All their trade secrets are also IP. If they were to release their trade secrets, they would not have profitable business for long.

  2. Re:Everybody happy with iOS7 jailbreak? on Apple Pushes Developers To iOS 7 · · Score: 1

    It would be nice if we were allowed to have multiple versions: ios6 and 7, and choose which version we want to use. It's been almost 30 years since personal computers have been released, and we still have to deal with one OS per computer -- there should be dual-booting at least.

  3. Re:What the hell is the point of these huge number on Swedish Man Fined $650,000 For Sharing 1 Movie, Charged Extra For Low Quality · · Score: 1

    Everyone knows that copy infringement is stealing - that means they must have stolen (and therefore possess) that much worth of property and so are perfectly capable of paying such a fine. Obviously.

    I don't think the people who sell intellectual property (i.e., movies, songs etc) find your joke funny. The man stole indirectly by causing loss of potential income to copyright owners of the movie. But perhaps the judge must give a break down of how exactly uploading this movie deserves $650,000 fine.

    An example would be something like this:
    Number of illegal downloads of the movie: 10,000
    10,000 * $10/per viewer = $100,000
    $50,000 punitive damage
    $30,000 poor quality recording (damaging movie maker rep)
    Total fine: 100,000 + 50,000 + 30,000 = $180,000

  4. These things are so tiny they might be considered weapons of mass spying. I'm not sure the general population will be given access to weaponry.

  5. Re:Expect... on Supreme Court To Review Software Patents · · Score: 1

    If Person A designs a machine, and the design is made public in one way or another, and then Person B (independently of Person A) builds a machine (or writes a program) based on the design, Person B has not stolen anything from Person A.

    Whether or not the design was stolen depends on whether A willingly made the design public. If not, it is theft.

    Person A is not deprived of the design or their own ability to also build a corresponding machine. Person B has done nothing to Person A that he would be morally or economically required to 'compensate' Person A (or anyone else) for. When Person B has completed the machine, Person B is richer and no one is poorer.

    You are really wrong in many of these statements. You need to study business and economics (the basics, not in detail) to understand that more the suppliers for a product, lower the demand per supplier, and therefore lower the selling price and profit. Where there's copycat B, there's bound to be other copycats C, D, E, etc. With so many suppliers of this machine, there will be a price war such that all suppliers will have to reduce their product prices or else go out of business. So, B having access to A's blueprints has caused A to reduce his selling price and profit. Another fact is B is making income off a design he did not create -- so B's a leech and a thief.

    Punishing Person B for building the machine (or even just preventing him from doing so) is morally and economically absurd.

    B's copycat machine may reduce A's profits or even bankrupt him, since he (A) has to expend time, energy and money to create the design, whereas B simply acquired the design for no cost. Since B has caused A economic harm, he is likely to be punished.

  6. Re:Expect... on Supreme Court To Review Software Patents · · Score: 1

    The patent law itself is oppressive: it infringes on our right to free expression, while providing no discernible benefit to the public.

    Preventing you from lifting other people's work without compensation is not oppression. "Free expression" is limited to what was already yours, it does not apply to the ideas conceived by others. Patent law is kinda okay, except for all the idiots who want to take it down.

  7. Re:Not fixed yet on Tesla Model S Battery Drain Issue Fixed · · Score: 1

    Let's convert how much energy is wasted in tesla's sleep mode compared to a fossil fuel car:
    According to yahoo answers, 1 gallon of gasoline = 34.7 kWh.

    Energy consumed by a model s in a month = 30 x 1.1 = 33 kWh
    Converting 33 kWh to equivalent gallons of gasoline = 33 / 34.7 = 0.95 gallons

    The tesla wastes the equivalent of 1 gallon gasoline/month while parked!

  8. Re:Inventors are being targeted by a hate campaign on Patent Troll Bill Clears House With Huge Majority · · Score: 1

    This bill looks like a trojan horse scam. The difference between a valid patent and troll patent can be very subjective. Can someone knowledgeable about the law explain how this bill affects inventors of a valid, non-troll patent? This is other than the 60% chance of paying a big corporation's legal fees if he/she loses a patent fight.

  9. Hypocrisy on Why Engineers Must Consider the Ethical Implications of Their Work · · Score: 2

    What about the scientists and generals and governments that worked to design nuclear bombs? Didn't they have any ethics?

  10. Re:Not a great analogy on Why Competing For Tenure Is Like Trying To Become a Drug Lord · · Score: 1

    I'm not really sure this is an apt analogy.

    Indeed, the analogy is terribly misleading. Here's a list of why the analogy completely fails:

    1. The drug lord managing director makes $500k/year. A tenured professor makes roughly $100k -- that's the same as the drug affiliate manager.
    2. Board directors do very little work -- they mostly monitor their underlings and make some decisions, typical management stuff. The tenured professors do more grunt work. They actually have to read and understand difficult material they are either teaching in their classrooms or doing research on.
  11. Re:Alternative on New Fujitsu Laptop Reads Your Palm, For Security · · Score: 1

    I think the key should be something simple that you can stick in a laptop's usb port. The BIOS and OS do some hardware initialization, read the password and unlock/login the user. The key should also have protections that data relating to the password cannot be stolen (copied.)

  12. Alternative on New Fujitsu Laptop Reads Your Palm, For Security · · Score: 1

    Just as you can use a physical key to open a conventional lock, why can't mobile device manufacturers come up with something that can read a password off a physical electronic key attached to an ordinary key chain.

    One password systems are purely stupid, and biometric systems usually involve invasion of privacy of some sort.

  13. Re:Monstrously Stupid Idea on Should the US Copy Switzerland and Consider a 'Maximum Wage' Ratio? · · Score: 1

    If the CEO wants to earn more, the company needs to raise *ALL* the salaries it pays out.

    That's bullshit. Why should he or the company pay more than market rate for common services like janitors and secretaries? The salary for these jobs should be constant regardless of what the company makes or loses. Do you want to be charged more for groceries than some guy living on minimum wage?

  14. Re:It's not about innovation on Samsung Ordered To Pay Apple $290M In Patent Case · · Score: 2

    Let me tell you something about design patents. The Fashion Industry and Automotive Industries are all about design. They market heavily on design and yet they have no design patents or copyrights in the USA. Despite NOT having such patent protections these markets are more lucrative than nearly any other patent protected markets.

    Only an idiot would not protect their valuable property. Check this link about Ford suing for design patent violation.

  15. Re:how do we solve this then? on Texas Drivers Stopped At Roadblock, Asked For Saliva, Blood · · Score: 1

    but what?
    how do we fix this?

    The problem is partially economical. If cheap, convenient transportation is provided as an alternative to cars, a large amount of drunk driving can be eliminated.

  16. Re:And people called Atlas Shrugged Fiction.... on Venezuela: Cheap Television Sets For All! · · Score: 1

    The bolivar is bullshit, and everybody knows it. That's why it trades at 10 times as many per dollar as the official exchange rate. Venezuela doesn't make televisions.

    But is the normal salary in Bolivars increased 10 times the official rate as well? If not, the workers are getting screwed as they have to import almost everything they consume.

  17. Save money on my car insurance and have an electronic chauffeur? Shut up and take my money!

    Hell yeah, take my money and track and record all my movements for future illegal use. F*** this automated crap!

  18. Re:Ideas vs. Implementation on Larry Page and Sergey Brin Are Lousy Coders · · Score: 2

    Yes, but they had one idea of their own that launched Google. ... It was a good idea, but nothing since then has been "from the top".

    What about:

    • Google Maps — Ability to smooth scroll a large virtual map compared to slow, blocky scroll of older maps sites.
    • Gmail — Huge amount of disk storage for free emails. Before gmail, free email services offered only 3-10 MB space, where you had to regularly clear old emails
    • Search Ads — Users get text ads based on what product/service they are looking for.

    They are not as insignificant as google search, but still quite useful.

  19. Re:The paper gives examples on How Your Compiler Can Compromise Application Security · · Score: 1

    While this check appears to work on a flat address space, it fails on a segmented architecture. Therefore, the C standard states that an overflowed pointer is undefined, which allows gcc to simply assume that no pointer overflow ever occurs on any architecture. Under this assumption, buf + len must be larger than buf, and thus the "overflow" check always evaluates to false. Consequently, gcc removes the check, paving the way for an attack to the system.

    This seems like a GCC bug (assuming no overflow). Why are all compilers being blamed?

  20. Re: Innovation? on Full Screen Mario: Making the Case For Shorter Copyrights · · Score: 1

    If you make money on breaking IP law, fuck you.

    If you're not, then eh, whatever.

    In both cases, the copyright holder is losing a lot of money from potential lost sales. That's what counts.

  21. Re:Still Bad Patents on Finally, a Bill To End Patent Trolling · · Score: 1

    In my ideal world, there would be some formula to assess what is a reasonable return on a given innovation, and once the inventor has reaped that reward, the invention would pass into the public domain.

    That sentiment seems like a combination of communism (inventors' work is not his own, but belongs to the public) and wage slavery (one should not derive more than X dollars wage for Y hours of work instead of the true and unknown market value of the work). Also, who is going to compensate the inventors whose inventions are not commercially successful -- 90% patents don't make money. Your system promotes laziness, because it's not worth inventing stuff except when it is fun or easy to do -- therefore much fewer inventions and progress.

    Why single out inventors? That formula should also be applied to everyone else:

    • Professionals -- They should only be paid their high salaries so as to cover their cost of education. After that, they should work at minimum wage.
    • Manufacturers -- Once the cost of designing their products and fixed cost of manufacturing has been covered, they should charge customers only raw material cost + variable manufacturing cost + small fixed profit. So, you'd be able to a new Ford car for around $3000 and a new iPhone for $150.

    Surely the fact that we have endless debates about the rights and wrongs of patents, copyrights, and so on, is an indicator that there is some inherent problem with the way societies currently implement these concepts.

    Who's starting these debates and what agendas do they have? No writer or inventor owes the general public anything. Patents and copyrights serve as a means to obtain profit in exchange for providing their works.

  22. Re:Still Bad Patents on Finally, a Bill To End Patent Trolling · · Score: 2

    But the inventor, who had the idea once, should get paid each time anything that uses the idea is manufactured, sold, or consumed?

    Replying to my own post for another analogy. Imagine a mechanic repairs 5 cars having problem X in an 8 hour day. Let's say he gets paid around $25 - $50/hr ($400 / day max). Now let's say an inventor invents a device that once installed in each car eliminates or greatly reduces occurrence of problem X. Should the inventor get paid a fixed amount for solving problem X, (similar to the fixed pay of the mechanic), or should be paid per car the device is installed? It should be the latter, as he invention does the work of thousands of mechanics.

  23. Re:Still Bad Patents on Finally, a Bill To End Patent Trolling · · Score: 1

    But the inventor, who had the idea once, should get paid each time anything that uses the idea is manufactured, sold, or consumed?

    Well, yes. The manufacturer uses the idea to build a product that he sells for a profit. The consumer shells out his hard earned cash for the product because it benefits (profits) him in some way. If everyone else profits, why shouldn't the inventor profit from each copy of a product sold?

    Product/service prices are based not just on creation cost, but also benefit cost. That's why a smartphone costs almost the same a laptop or PC, even though the smartphone has slower cpu, lesser RAM.

    That's like cooking a meal once, and expecting to eat it every day for as long as you live.

    Is there anything wrong with that? Authors/painters/song writers/movie makers/tv show makers just create the recipe once and use machines/employees to make the meal everyday. More generally, most big and small businesses operate the same way. They create a recipe that dictates how a business is created (real estate, product ideas, machinery, employees etc.). Once established, the business more or less runs on its own, with the business owner(s) occasionally making key decisions to steer it in the right direction. Granted, running a business is not as automatic as creating a product, but quite similar.

  24. Re:Still Bad Patents on Finally, a Bill To End Patent Trolling · · Score: 1

    Sure, but not paid over and over again for years. They should get paid one time if they sell their idea, or many times if they sell a product based on that idea.

    But you (the consumer) reap the benefits of the idea over and over for infinity years, yet want to pay only once. That's like paying once at a restaurant, and eating there for the rest of year without paying.

    There should be some rather short limits on the patent timeframes.. say 5 years.

    20 years is already very short. In 5 years after grant, the product may have just hit the market and people are just starting be become aware of its benefits. If it expires at that point, the inventor might as well send a copy of his ideas to his competitors instead of patenting them.

  25. Re:It's their money on Knight Capital Fined $12M For a Software Bug That Cost $460M · · Score: 2

    That's like saying mugging is not a crime. Your money is just being redistributed to the needy.