If something becomes truly necessary, any rational person would support it, wouldn't you say? But it isn't necessary, and I see little value in going off on such contrafactual flights of fantasy.
I don't see much value in public education about history, because so much of what I was taught (based on standards set at the state level) I later found to be false. It seems to be mostly an excuse to load kids up with propaganda, and boring propaganda at that. I have some doubts as to whether tighter Federal control would make it better, but it could hardly make it any worse. I don't really see geography as a politicized subject; is there really a political issue about the height of Everest or the area of Antarctica?
Of course I have a say over the matter: I vote. If the fee were grossly excessive relative to the public cost of caring for the uninsured, then there would be a rational basis for complaint, just like any tax or fee. But it isn't.
I don't believe that children are qualified to determine what level of education is best for them. You have to be educated to have a rational idea of what sort of education is needed. So the decision must be made at a level higher than that of the consumer of education, namely the child. So then the question becomes: how much higher?
I believe that every individual has the right to at least a basic level of education, and I believe that the Federal government is in the best position to set minimal standards to protect this right.
Simply that I don't see local control as an end in itself. Some things are most successfully handled at a local level, some things at a the Federal level. I take an evidence based view toward what level of control works best for a particular purpose.
I am not convinced that one world government is necessary to set reasonable standards for science education in the US. On what basis do you believe that it is?
Some "slippery slopes" just aren't all that slippery.
Oh what a horrible abuse of power! If you don't have health insurance you have to pay a modest fee that goes a small way toward defraying the public cost of healthcare for the uninsured--like yourself. An idea that is so abusive of personal freedom that that it was invented by the Heritage Foundation
Actually many scientists are religious, and many of them are Christian. Hardly surprising, since the major Christian denominations recognize the overwhelming evidence for the reality of evolution. So it's not a science versus religion debate--it is educated people with a wide variety of religious beliefs who accept scientific knowledge versus fundamentalist extremists who want to impose ignorance on everybody else's children because scientific knowledge challenges their narrow dogma.
No, you could always have the ultimate in local control and have individuals decide for themselves whether they want to educate their kids or rent them out to sweatshops instead.
Sorry, I'm skeptical of the view that having standards for science education set at the Federal level by actual sciences necessarily implies Federal control of my thermostat. We have had Federal standards for many things for hundreds of years, yet I still control my own thermostat. Some "slippery slopes" just aren't all that slippery
Local control is overrated. I think that if the religious cranks actually end up running the country, the US is doomed anyway. But our government has stood fast against continuous assault by religious cranks almost since its inception, so I'm not terribly concerned. On the other hand, we have plenty of examples to show us that at the local level, it is not at all hard for a small, organized group of cranks to take over school boards and substitute their dogma for science
Yes I want standards for teaching children about science to be set by scientists, not by religious cranks. If that requires top down control, then that's a strong argument for top down control
Can you provide citation or other evidence? Here is one of many reports that state the contrary. Here's another. Here are descriptions of the Xerox Star and Xerox Alto interfaces that don't seem to illustrate these features. Here's video of the Xerox Star, showing the use of dedicated keys, rather than drop-down menus, to carry out basic operations like copy, move, undo, and text formatting, the use of a "Move" key with point-and-click instead of drag-and-drop to arrange files on the desktop or move files into folders, the use of a "Properties sheet" instead of direct editing to change filenames, the use of a Delete key instead of dragging files to the trash, the use of an "Open" key instead of double-click to open a file, the absence of text selecting by dragging, etc.
But copyright only matters if you copy the actual bytes, while patents apply even if you implement it from scratch and have never seen the patented invention before.
This is a common misconception, but there is case law, stretching back to Pacman/Muchkin case in the 1980's, that copyright covers the visual representations of computer programs as well as the actual text of the source and object code.
So computer displays may be protected by design patents, which last for 14 years, conventional patents, which last for 20 years, copyright, which lasts for 120 years, or trademark/trade dress, which potentially lasts forever.
You're kidding. Not even an actual device, but a concept video--and of a pen-based tablet, at that? Many companies, including Apple, built pen-based tablets, but none of them ever sold very well. The iPad was a success precisely because it wasn't that kind of device.
Apple is now swearing to the judge that the really do plan to call all of those witnesses, and that they can manage the time so that they can do it in the time allotted. They will be in trouble with the judge if they list witnesses that they do not call.
All these are no more than abstract ideas, unless you specify HOW they are implemented technically, and even then they would only be worthy of a patent if the implementation is technically inventive, i.e. no ordinary CS engineer would have figured how to do it using known techniques.
I suppose that this is relevant in some wishful-thinking world of how you imagine that patents ought to work, but that is not the standard that modern courts apply. Indeed, requiring that a patent should be the sort of thing that "no ordinary engineer could have figured out how to do using known techniques" is so restrictive that it would have excluded a large percentage of the patents of the early industrial age. And these features were hardly abstract ideas--they were features of actual, physical devices.
I'm amazed that you think copyright protection is preferable. After all, if they had been patented, these features would have long since passed into the public domain, while copyrighted features would still be protected, and would remain so for decades yet to come.
No, as you would have noticed if you'd read more carefully, I pointed out that protection back in those days was based on copyright law, not patent, so the issues you raise were irrelevant. However, based upon subsequent court precedents, it is clear that many of those features would be considered patentable by modern standards. They were, in fact, not merely ideas but based on a specific implementations--you may have heard of them; they were known as the Apple Lisa and Apple Macintosh.
As an aside, it is preferable for such features to be protected by patent rather than by copyright, as the term of patent is much shorter than copyright. Any design or technical features patented at that time (if modern rules had applied) would have passed into the public domain quite a few years ago, but any copyrights are still valid. Indeed, the original patent on the mouse had expired by the time the Apple Lisa was introduced.
There's nothing particularly unhinged about it. Apple wants to keep its options open about which witnesses to call in the limited time remaining to them, which makes a lot of more paperwork for the court. The judge is irritated because Apple cannot possibly call all of those witnesses, and is insisting that Apple make up its mind in advance.
Actually, there are quite a few aspects of the Apple operating system that did not come from Xerox:
The Finder and its interface Drag-and-drop file manipulation, including dropping files onto a trash icon Drop-down menus Multiple views of the file system (e.g. icon vs. list) OS support for drawing into partially obscured windows Desk accessories Direct editing of file names Copying data in multiple formats to the clipboard Automatic updating of windows when rearranged
However, it is not quite true that Apple did not protect its ideas. At that time, computer software was protected more by copyright than patents, as the court precedents that determined that software features are patentable had not yet been established. Rather, Apple was tricked by Microsoft into licensing the key original features of the Mac operating system to them. In return for developing software for the Mac, Microsoft asked for a license to some features of the Mac GUI, including some of the unique features listed above. Because Microsoft was pursuing a very different approach to a GUI, with data displayed in separate panes of the display rather than in overlapping windows, Jobs apparently felt that their OS was not directly competing with the Mac, and agreed. Microsoft then turned around and released a version of Windows that blatantly copied Apple's approach. Betrayed, Apple sued, arguing "We licensed those features for the original version of Windows, not the one that imitates the Mac." The court reasonably responded, "Well then, you should have specified that int he license," and Apple lost.
But it is probably true that this early experience contributed Apple's modern no-tolerance approach toward companies they perceive as crossing the line that separates competition from copying.
It's certainly locked down in the sense of the physical nature of it. The RAM is soldered in, the battery glued on, the main storage is designed specifically for the one machine and the usual Gigabit Ethernet port is gone, replaced with a proprietary dongle that you plug into a Thunderbolt port. It may not be software lockdown, but it certainly is hardware lockdown. And that's not to mention that in order to boot Linux, you have to jump several hoops to get the bootloader to realise there's something other than OS X there.
Whether or not it is easy it is to swap hardware components has nothing to do with software compatibility. And if you really want a standard wired ethernet port (most people use laptops on wireless these days, you know, so it is hard to justify making a laptop thicker just to make room for it), you simply buy the computer with the adapter that provides one. And the problems reported were not in getting the Mac to boot from Linux (which is quite routine; people have been doing for years and Apple has not changed anything to prevent it), but rather minor glitches with the new hardware.
So a computer is "garbage" if it is not designed to deal with users who are so careless as to pour liquid into it? Face it: removable batter or not, if you spill liquid into your laptop keyboard, the likelihood that you will be able to pull the battery before anything is damaged is very close to zero. If you really are that clumsy, you probably should not buy any laptop computer--or at least buy one of those plastic keyboard protectors to go with it.
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If something becomes truly necessary, any rational person would support it, wouldn't you say? But it isn't necessary, and I see little value in going off on such contrafactual flights of fantasy.
I don't see much value in public education about history, because so much of what I was taught (based on standards set at the state level) I later found to be false. It seems to be mostly an excuse to load kids up with propaganda, and boring propaganda at that. I have some doubts as to whether tighter Federal control would make it better, but it could hardly make it any worse. I don't really see geography as a politicized subject; is there really a political issue about the height of Everest or the area of Antarctica?
Of course I have a say over the matter: I vote. If the fee were grossly excessive relative to the public cost of caring for the uninsured, then there would be a rational basis for complaint, just like any tax or fee. But it isn't.
No
I don't believe that children are qualified to determine what level of education is best for them. You have to be educated to have a rational idea of what sort of education is needed. So the decision must be made at a level higher than that of the consumer of education, namely the child. So then the question becomes: how much higher?
I believe that every individual has the right to at least a basic level of education, and I believe that the Federal government is in the best position to set minimal standards to protect this right.
Simply that I don't see local control as an end in itself. Some things are most successfully handled at a local level, some things at a the Federal level. I take an evidence based view toward what level of control works best for a particular purpose.
I am not convinced that one world government is necessary to set reasonable standards for science education in the US. On what basis do you believe that it is?
Some "slippery slopes" just aren't all that slippery.
Oh what a horrible abuse of power! If you don't have health insurance you have to pay a modest fee that goes a small way toward defraying the public cost of healthcare for the uninsured--like yourself. An idea that is so abusive of personal freedom that that it was invented by the Heritage Foundation
Actually many scientists are religious, and many of them are Christian. Hardly surprising, since the major Christian denominations recognize the overwhelming evidence for the reality of evolution. So it's not a science versus religion debate--it is educated people with a wide variety of religious beliefs who accept scientific knowledge versus fundamentalist extremists who want to impose ignorance on everybody else's children because scientific knowledge challenges their narrow dogma.
In the sense that a Federal government must by definition have authority, certainly.
No, you could always have the ultimate in local control and have individuals decide for themselves whether they want to educate their kids or rent them out to sweatshops instead.
Sorry, I'm skeptical of the view that having standards for science education set at the Federal level by actual sciences necessarily implies Federal control of my thermostat. We have had Federal standards for many things for hundreds of years, yet I still control my own thermostat. Some "slippery slopes" just aren't all that slippery
Local control is overrated. I think that if the religious cranks actually end up running the country, the US is doomed anyway. But our government has stood fast against continuous assault by religious cranks almost since its inception, so I'm not terribly concerned. On the other hand, we have plenty of examples to show us that at the local level, it is not at all hard for a small, organized group of cranks to take over school boards and substitute their dogma for science
Yes I want standards for teaching children about science to be set by scientists, not by religious cranks. If that requires top down control, then that's a strong argument for top down control
Can you provide citation or other evidence? Here is one of many reports that state the contrary. Here's another. Here are descriptions of the Xerox Star and Xerox Alto interfaces that don't seem to illustrate these features. Here's video of the Xerox Star, showing the use of dedicated keys, rather than drop-down menus, to carry out basic operations like copy, move, undo, and text formatting, the use of a "Move" key with point-and-click instead of drag-and-drop to arrange files on the desktop or move files into folders, the use of a "Properties sheet" instead of direct editing to change filenames, the use of a Delete key instead of dragging files to the trash, the use of an "Open" key instead of double-click to open a file, the absence of text selecting by dragging, etc.
This is a common misconception, but there is case law, stretching back to Pacman/Muchkin case in the 1980's, that copyright covers the visual representations of computer programs as well as the actual text of the source and object code.
So computer displays may be protected by design patents, which last for 14 years, conventional patents, which last for 20 years, copyright, which lasts for 120 years, or trademark/trade dress, which potentially lasts forever.
You're kidding. Not even an actual device, but a concept video--and of a pen-based tablet, at that? Many companies, including Apple, built pen-based tablets, but none of them ever sold very well. The iPad was a success precisely because it wasn't that kind of device.
Sounds more like the kind of routine driver problems that almost invariably crop up with a new hardware platform or a new interface.
Apple is now swearing to the judge that the really do plan to call all of those witnesses, and that they can manage the time so that they can do it in the time allotted. They will be in trouble with the judge if they list witnesses that they do not call.
I suppose that this is relevant in some wishful-thinking world of how you imagine that patents ought to work, but that is not the standard that modern courts apply. Indeed, requiring that a patent should be the sort of thing that "no ordinary engineer could have figured out how to do using known techniques" is so restrictive that it would have excluded a large percentage of the patents of the early industrial age. And these features were hardly abstract ideas--they were features of actual, physical devices.
I'm amazed that you think copyright protection is preferable. After all, if they had been patented, these features would have long since passed into the public domain, while copyrighted features would still be protected, and would remain so for decades yet to come.
No, as you would have noticed if you'd read more carefully, I pointed out that protection back in those days was based on copyright law, not patent, so the issues you raise were irrelevant. However, based upon subsequent court precedents, it is clear that many of those features would be considered patentable by modern standards. They were, in fact, not merely ideas but based on a specific implementations--you may have heard of them; they were known as the Apple Lisa and Apple Macintosh.
As an aside, it is preferable for such features to be protected by patent rather than by copyright, as the term of patent is much shorter than copyright. Any design or technical features patented at that time (if modern rules had applied) would have passed into the public domain quite a few years ago, but any copyrights are still valid. Indeed, the original patent on the mouse had expired by the time the Apple Lisa was introduced.
There's nothing particularly unhinged about it. Apple wants to keep its options open about which witnesses to call in the limited time remaining to them, which makes a lot of more paperwork for the court. The judge is irritated because Apple cannot possibly call all of those witnesses, and is insisting that Apple make up its mind in advance.
Actually, there are quite a few aspects of the Apple operating system that did not come from Xerox:
The Finder and its interface
Drag-and-drop file manipulation, including dropping files onto a trash icon
Drop-down menus
Multiple views of the file system (e.g. icon vs. list)
OS support for drawing into partially obscured windows
Desk accessories
Direct editing of file names
Copying data in multiple formats to the clipboard
Automatic updating of windows when rearranged
However, it is not quite true that Apple did not protect its ideas. At that time, computer software was protected more by copyright than patents, as the court precedents that determined that software features are patentable had not yet been established. Rather, Apple was tricked by Microsoft into licensing the key original features of the Mac operating system to them. In return for developing software for the Mac, Microsoft asked for a license to some features of the Mac GUI, including some of the unique features listed above. Because Microsoft was pursuing a very different approach to a GUI, with data displayed in separate panes of the display rather than in overlapping windows, Jobs apparently felt that their OS was not directly competing with the Mac, and agreed. Microsoft then turned around and released a version of Windows that blatantly copied Apple's approach. Betrayed, Apple sued, arguing "We licensed those features for the original version of Windows, not the one that imitates the Mac." The court reasonably responded, "Well then, you should have specified that int he license," and Apple lost.
But it is probably true that this early experience contributed Apple's modern no-tolerance approach toward companies they perceive as crossing the line that separates competition from copying.
You might as well read the time from a stopped clock.
Whether or not it is easy it is to swap hardware components has nothing to do with software compatibility. And if you really want a standard wired ethernet port (most people use laptops on wireless these days, you know, so it is hard to justify making a laptop thicker just to make room for it), you simply buy the computer with the adapter that provides one. And the problems reported were not in getting the Mac to boot from Linux (which is quite routine; people have been doing for years and Apple has not changed anything to prevent it), but rather minor glitches with the new hardware.
So a computer is "garbage" if it is not designed to deal with users who are so careless as to pour liquid into it? Face it: removable batter or not, if you spill liquid into your laptop keyboard, the likelihood that you will be able to pull the battery before anything is damaged is very close to zero. If you really are that clumsy, you probably should not buy any laptop computer--or at least buy one of those plastic keyboard protectors to go with it.