Patents are bullshit. There is often an striking lack of important information, and you cannot touch it for 20 years in fear of litigation. Patents, science is not.
Take a look at lab time per dollar. You might find that the Chinese researchers put in ten hours, and we put in one for the same cost, and Europe is the same.
Like many bosses say: "Ten hours in the lab can save you one hour in the library". In my eyes, working hard does not beat working a little and thinking a lot. Research simply takes time.
Undergrads publishing is indeed going a step too far. The problem also lies in university administrators, who are happy to use "papers published" as a metric for quality and dole out funding accordingly. Some researchers thrive in this as they are very good at publishing quickly, others, perhaps more thorough, have trouble getting any funding..
I myself like to publish a few well-researched papers per couple of years. My rate is at the moment at less than 1 publication per year.
I mostly read papers from people I trust (i.e. people recommended to me by my supervisors, people I have met and dealt with at conferences and the odd "gem" you stumble across), regardless of the journal they publish in. That said, the sheer barrage of publications means I have no hopes of keeping up with all developments. The days of the well-researched 50-page publication detailing the work of 10 years of research is unfortunately long gone. I get hired for two years, I have to start publishing after a year.
Except that there is a bonus _per paper written_ in f.ex. Chinese institutes, so that it becomes very attractive to just swamp the community with papers. And when you write papers, you cite your colleagues.
There simply is no good metric. You have to judge the quality of the papers and authors by reading them. Tht is not the answer accounting departments want to hear, though.
Trouble is, I do not think this was illegal. The whole market is built around guessing the response of others to actions, so this should not be any different.
True, but you can appoint a weight to their votes through a short questionnaire at the onset of the vote (testing their relevant knowledge level). The questionnaire can be designed in parts, 1/2 general test, and the other quarters by the opposing parties involved.
And? I travel often for business, have family in Indonesia (in-laws), and often send large sums abroad (which is where I live). Does that warrant people investigating me? No. Not everyone with money who travels is suspect.
Yes, the scattering of light has been investigated for almost 100 years now, so not much new in this except that they managed to deconvolute the spread function of the white paint from the image and retrieve the original projection.
the tokamak design is never going to run in continuous mode. To maintain the field strength of one of the magnetic gradients, an ever increasing current in the superconducting magnets is supplied. This has to be (cautiously) removed every n minutes. This is not a problem with the stellarator design, but that is much more complex to build. The idea is to have three tokamaks on one energy producing site, rotating in operation to keep a constant power output.
Sure, but it is universities in this case, which should not have to worry (much) about the money it cost. The problem I see is that I now encounter patents of fields I consider doing research in. In order not to enter legal territory, it is safer for me to research something else.
So if others do as I do, there will be a lot less research than what could have been done in 20 years if there were no patents. It isn't that patents are stopping innovation, they are just slowing it down to a glacial pace.
On top of that you have the question whether it is ethical for publicly funded universities to patent research they promised would be benefiting society when they applied for the grant.
And now they will have patented the hell out of the technology so no-one touches it without having to pay. Of course, this is the way universities make money. Ugh. I still hate the "patent courses" we got in our engineering education... And the teams of helpful university people in the patent office, just chomping at the bit to harvest yet another patent.... or maybe I am just being too negative.
Still no reason not to look at the problem and try to do our best. Who knows, perhaps the threshold is a little more flexible than thought, or we can come up with solutions that would make it more easy to reduce the carbon dioxide (and other gases) output. I, for one, will be reducing my share by eating 70% less meat per week, as indicated by http://www.ted.com/talks/mark_bittman_on_what_s_wrong_with_what_we_eat.html
obtroll, but nevertheless, yes. By all means, think about child porn. If your innate moral sense cannot distinguish between viable sexual partners or children, or if images can turn you into a paedophile, you probably should be very, very careful about what you do anyway.
I beg to differ with your point. I think this is an excellent exercise in figuring out the consequences of one's actions. Indeed, I think this was the purpose of the exercise. Planning a strategy from beginning to end, and predicting the outcome of certain events will surely reinforce the causality training. They will understand the ramifications of what they are planning, because that is the exercise.
Given that the kids were 15, as mentioned above, their sense of morality should already be quite well developed. Therefore I do not expect them to have any doubt in their minds as to what they are planning or thinking about is good or "evil". I actually think this forced thinking about such planning will enable them later on in life to make clearer distinctions between both. In other words, how do you know something is bad if you have not given it serious thought? Apart from the clearest examples (like killing as many innocents as possible), in many cases it is hard to see whether a certain plan has negative or positive consequences.
As for your last point, I think the distinction between adult and children is a little too black-and-white. As soon as you think of yourself as an "adult", you will stop learning from life because you think you (should) already know. That is why you learn when you are young, before you make preconceptions and assume your way into adulthood. I forgot who said it, but this is very applicable: "Stay young, stay foolish".
Finally, hindering thought on the matter will only make kids want to do it more. Supervised thought is better than hindering thought.
Sorry mods, but how the fuck is this flamebait? Simply requesting backing up your claims with actual quotes or page and line-numbers, would be something of value to this discussion. Is even/. now infiltrated by the US gov't?
I think you are on the right track. This is a move to get the us vs. them mentality on the internet, so one can put border crossings on it. Firewalls all the way, and no more of this inter-country unmonitored communication shit.
Slashdot Mirror
Alas, likely untrue: http://www.snopes.com/humor/letters/smithsonian.asp
Patents are bullshit. There is often an striking lack of important information, and you cannot touch it for 20 years in fear of litigation. Patents, science is not.
Take a look at lab time per dollar. You might find that the Chinese researchers put in ten hours, and we put in one for the same cost, and Europe is the same.
Like many bosses say: "Ten hours in the lab can save you one hour in the library". In my eyes, working hard does not beat working a little and thinking a lot. Research simply takes time.
Undergrads publishing is indeed going a step too far. The problem also lies in university administrators, who are happy to use "papers published" as a metric for quality and dole out funding accordingly. Some researchers thrive in this as they are very good at publishing quickly, others, perhaps more thorough, have trouble getting any funding..
I myself like to publish a few well-researched papers per couple of years. My rate is at the moment at less than 1 publication per year.
I mostly read papers from people I trust (i.e. people recommended to me by my supervisors, people I have met and dealt with at conferences and the odd "gem" you stumble across), regardless of the journal they publish in. That said, the sheer barrage of publications means I have no hopes of keeping up with all developments. The days of the well-researched 50-page publication detailing the work of 10 years of research is unfortunately long gone. I get hired for two years, I have to start publishing after a year.
Except that there is a bonus _per paper written_ in f.ex. Chinese institutes, so that it becomes very attractive to just swamp the community with papers. And when you write papers, you cite your colleagues.
There simply is no good metric. You have to judge the quality of the papers and authors by reading them. Tht is not the answer accounting departments want to hear, though.
Good point. Since they take this stance, the infringements should be charged as petty theft, not fines in excess of a million dollars.
Trouble is, I do not think this was illegal. The whole market is built around guessing the response of others to actions, so this should not be any different.
It might even be possible to game the algorithm and cost the firm big money.
They can and they have, but it was deemed illegal: http://www.computerworlduk.com/news/security/3244186/norwegian-traders-convicted-for-outsmarting-us-stock-broker-algorithm/
B.
True, but you can appoint a weight to their votes through a short questionnaire at the onset of the vote (testing their relevant knowledge level). The questionnaire can be designed in parts, 1/2 general test, and the other quarters by the opposing parties involved.
True, you don't even have a functioning government, let alone a dictatorship
... which is exactly what they do as indicated in TFS
The project has been around for a little longer, though.
Anyone else sick of ridiculous lawsuits? Can we get a public vetting vote for lawsuits to determine whether they are worthwhile or not?
And? I travel often for business, have family in Indonesia (in-laws), and often send large sums abroad (which is where I live). Does that warrant people investigating me? No. Not everyone with money who travels is suspect.
Yes, the scattering of light has been investigated for almost 100 years now, so not much new in this except that they managed to deconvolute the spread function of the white paint from the image and retrieve the original projection.
the tokamak design is never going to run in continuous mode. To maintain the field strength of one of the magnetic gradients, an ever increasing current in the superconducting magnets is supplied. This has to be (cautiously) removed every n minutes. This is not a problem with the stellarator design, but that is much more complex to build. The idea is to have three tokamaks on one energy producing site, rotating in operation to keep a constant power output.
Sure, but it is universities in this case, which should not have to worry (much) about the money it cost. The problem I see is that I now encounter patents of fields I consider doing research in. In order not to enter legal territory, it is safer for me to research something else.
So if others do as I do, there will be a lot less research than what could have been done in 20 years if there were no patents. It isn't that patents are stopping innovation, they are just slowing it down to a glacial pace.
On top of that you have the question whether it is ethical for publicly funded universities to patent research they promised would be benefiting society when they applied for the grant.
And now they will have patented the hell out of the technology so no-one touches it without having to pay. Of course, this is the way universities make money. Ugh. I still hate the "patent courses" we got in our engineering education. .. And the teams of helpful university people in the patent office, just chomping at the bit to harvest yet another patent. ... or maybe I am just being too negative.
Still no reason not to look at the problem and try to do our best. Who knows, perhaps the threshold is a little more flexible than thought, or we can come up with solutions that would make it more easy to reduce the carbon dioxide (and other gases) output. I, for one, will be reducing my share by eating 70% less meat per week, as indicated by http://www.ted.com/talks/mark_bittman_on_what_s_wrong_with_what_we_eat.html
B.
well, businesses are people too! Or so I have been told your legal system works..
obtroll, but nevertheless, yes. By all means, think about child porn. If your innate moral sense cannot distinguish between viable sexual partners or children, or if images can turn you into a paedophile, you probably should be very, very careful about what you do anyway.
I beg to differ with your point. I think this is an excellent exercise in figuring out the consequences of one's actions. Indeed, I think this was the purpose of the exercise. Planning a strategy from beginning to end, and predicting the outcome of certain events will surely reinforce the causality training. They will understand the ramifications of what they are planning, because that is the exercise.
Given that the kids were 15, as mentioned above, their sense of morality should already be quite well developed. Therefore I do not expect them to have any doubt in their minds as to what they are planning or thinking about is good or "evil". I actually think this forced thinking about such planning will enable them later on in life to make clearer distinctions between both. In other words, how do you know something is bad if you have not given it serious thought? Apart from the clearest examples (like killing as many innocents as possible), in many cases it is hard to see whether a certain plan has negative or positive consequences.
As for your last point, I think the distinction between adult and children is a little too black-and-white. As soon as you think of yourself as an "adult", you will stop learning from life because you think you (should) already know. That is why you learn when you are young, before you make preconceptions and assume your way into adulthood. I forgot who said it, but this is very applicable: "Stay young, stay foolish".
Finally, hindering thought on the matter will only make kids want to do it more. Supervised thought is better than hindering thought.
There should be no taboo on thinking thoughts.
Also, this will definitely get the attention of the class, as opposed to all the "nice thought" problems that are chucked their way.
Sorry mods, but how the fuck is this flamebait? Simply requesting backing up your claims with actual quotes or page and line-numbers, would be something of value to this discussion. Is even /. now infiltrated by the US gov't?
I think you are on the right track. This is a move to get the us vs. them mentality on the internet, so one can put border crossings on it. Firewalls all the way, and no more of this inter-country unmonitored communication shit.