If there was a time where it was possible to get rid of software patents it is NOW! Once this goes through it will be another 50 years of bitching on/. until something of this magnitude comes along and you will probably be dead by then.
It's not so simple. Modern manufacturing takes place on multiple continents and is assembled in different countries. Who's to say that making a part of a device that is patented in one country and assembling it in another where the patent doesn't apply is illegal? This is actually one of the premises behind AT&T vs. Microsoft(still to be decided).
Don't forget, in a global economy, you can order directly from overseas where the product will arrive in a brown box, uninspected and unverified against local laws. Even buying a patented(in the US) product from a foreign country and bringing it into(or even selling in) the US is questionable.
Are patented goods to be jailed in artificial manmade borders across which crossing is illegal? We've seen this with DVDs regioning and its futility. Money will always find a path of least resistance.
I understand this: Europe doesn't have software patents. Proving that having no software patents increases one's company's ability to compete is left as an exercise.
There was an article on this a little while ago(I only know because I put it in my journal).
The resolution capability of the human eye provides the ultimate limiting factor in displays. Unfortunately, in the past estimates of this value varied considerably because we lacked a good model of the human eye. In 1998, however, Michael Deering proposed that the resolution of each eye topped out at 16 million pixels.
Compare this value to what we see in a movie theater. Studios now regularly scan movies from film to digital intermediate formats for editing. The current state of the practice is 4K a resolution of 4,096 × 2,160, or about 9 million pixels.
Robert Clark, a researcher for the US Geological Survey, points out that to reach a human's maximum visual acuity requires 530 pixels per inch for a 20 × 13.3-inch display viewed at 20 inchesa total of 74 million pixels. Clark also estimates that devices will need roughly 576 million pixels to display a 120-degree field of view at the limits of human vision.
I hate that tired old argument. Does it matter if it is humans that are causing it? After it's run its course there won't be any left to debate what the hell caused it.
Actually Mars and Venus don't have any major plate activity and haven't for Millions of years(see wikipedia). It's also why they have weak magnetic fields as the internal dynamo is what sustains a magnetic field. Internal dynamo drives plate tectonics which are sustained by the cooling action of surface and core exchanges. Mars is dead geologically, meaning that it has no volcanic activity and we think that the core has (probably) hardened. Incidentally, Venus is a much better candidate for colonization, but currently it's a little too hot due to the runaway greenhouse effect (it's surface is 450C). Probes sent there melt and get crushed do to surface pressure soon after they land. It's also a good example for those people who say there is no global warming. Look no further than our bastard twin planet.
Actually there IS something backing MMO money. It's the fact that you can't get a bot or developers to do all this for you for a fraction of the price. Call it a "good faith" in the process of obtaining MMO stuff. As long as there's a faith in the stability of the process the price will be stable. As soon some developer starts adding more cash for real cash it will drop the MMO gold will be worthless since nobody will want to obtain something so cheaply gotten(X hours in office vs Y hours on computer).
It's not that different in the real world actually. If we find out that someone has been printing lots and lots of money--inflation. Reminder for inflation: currency value sinks. Your money now is worth less than a minute ago. Real money? It's just a number of bills in circulation. But nowadays it is also not much more than a number in a database.
As for gold backing...it didn't work out so well. If you don't remember, Johnson was printing money like a madman to fund a war(hmm sounds familiar). Don't want to ruin the story, but it happens that when you have the gold standard you can't just print more money than you have gold or people will make a run on the gold(once they find out) and all your wealth goes poof!
So what backs the dollar now? Good question. The answer: Oil. You can only buy oil in dollars at 2 stock exchanges, one in Britain one in US. If you want to buy oil you need lots and lots of money in reserve at your bank. That's why you haven't seen that much inflation even though oil price is up. All the foreign banks keep needing to have large amounts of dollars at hand so people can use them to buy oil. It's all pretty funny actually. If you really think about it, inflation is a sort of tax. Every time someone holds dollars and the Fed prints more money it goes down in value. That difference is what the Fed pockets as a sort of gimmie tax for printing more money. So relax, there really is something backing the dollar. Just hope it doesn't go poof!
"How do you measure buzz? You don't. It's something that experienced people in this industry can just feel. And that's the condition Microsoft should fear. Because buzz can turn into something much harder to combat than sheer numbers."
A splotch on the windshield?
Let me propose a similar economic view. Lets look at the dynamics of labor and profit you alluded to. Lower labor costs result in higher profits. When you're an employer you clearly want as many people as possible applying for your opening so you can get the lowest price. That's essentially what has happened with manufacturing.
All those low skilled jobs went bye-bye when smart people with degrees(read: you) figured out, hey why not move all our factories overseas and fire all these high-payed no-skilled two-bit complaining fat-ass Americans and have all these agreeable starving foreigners(read: Chinese) work for much much less and we can treat them like crap, pollute their environment and they'll be happy about it! Plus we can all give ourselves raises for our brilliance! Brilliant!
Ah but you keep saying, "I'm no lazy ass redneck. I got a bunch of scribbles on a piece of pressed parchment see?" Well I got news for you. And Greenspan and Bill Gates have news for you:
Computer science employment is growing by nearly 100,000 jobs annually. But at the same time studies show that there is a dramatic decline in the number of students graduating with computer science degrees.
Startion salaries for computer science grads in June 2001 were $52,473(adj. inflation $59,732.11) and in 2006 declined to $51,305.
Maybe we couldn't take the greeter and do the programmer's job but we got someone else to do the programmer's job and now he can compete with the greeter for his job. It's a win-win situation. You see, they really were the same in an economic sense--not Bill Gates.
Good luck with your $30/hr job. You will be earning the big bucks now.
The guy is an IP lawyer. IP should be abolished. I don't think he would agree. The same reason why I don't expect him to know the horrors of letting people patent algorithms, I don't think you should expect him to know the difference between open and closed source. Clearly he will get more business in a "closed source" environment.
"I'm not sure the bazaar analogy works," Abrams said. "Neither cathedral nor bazaar are the same in the AJAX Web space; rather there is a continuum that reaches across space."
Anyone have any idea what this claptrap means?
Ah that's an easy one. You see, if you nuke the crap out of a planet, eventually the minute particles of cathedrals and bazaars will evenly spread out through space by a form of osmosis. It's a perfectly simple principle of discombobulation.
In the section entitled Beat Linux there's this blurb: "Fold extended functionality into commodity protocols / services and create new protocols." This extended functionality has to do with patents. Read up on how they stunted OpenGL with threats of IP infringement on pixel and vertex shaders to see this is a real threat. Also the patent deal with Novell is only an indication of things to come. It makes sense too. The code license doesn't matter as long as you control what you can code. Microsoft is slowly decommoditizing standards by patenting the underlying logic(something's gotta stick). On the other hand, you can't really blame them for taking advantage of our broken patent system. There are plenty of other parasites out there eager and willing to do it.
WARNER BROS. RECORDS INC.; UMG RECORDINGS INC.; SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT; ARISTA RECORDS LLC; and BMG MUSIC
Those are the big boys of RIAA. Learn 'em, avoid 'em. There's plenty of artists out there who aren't sellouts. I am not a fan of music created in indentured servitude. It ends up sounding plastic and pathetic. And you're likely to disappointed in a live show when you figure out all the "enhancements" they have so blissfully done. Music should come from the heart and not from some contract on some synthetic schedule and then get gutted in the editing room ready for consumption by zombies.
There are 2 arguments here and Rubin is spreading FUD hoping nobody will notice. One is the private caches of copyrighted data--Google Books and Youtube now. The other--"Google takes the position that everything may be freely copied unless the copyright owner notifies Google and tells it to stop" that he's piggybacking on top of the prior one. However that is the law according to DMCA, not according to Google's wishes.
Another comment "Companies that create no content of their own, and make money solely on the backs of other people's content, are raking in billions through advertising revenue and I.P.O.s" is laughable. Does indexing all that data come for free? Does it have no value? Same could be said of RIAA MPAA but they do provide 'services' although they might be overpaid for what they offer. Actually now that I think of it, ALL services offer no content of their own but make something of that content. And often the content itself is the outgrowth of somebody else's work and trying to draw lines in the sand where there aren't any is a burdensome affair. See the mix tape busts, the parody takedowns etc. Copyright needs an overhaul. In a world where copying is free how can you charge a price?
Just out of curiosity, have any of those that downloaded the torrent bought either of your books? If somebody found some value in your work they would surely encourage($$) you to produce more. Especially if you're small-time when it's much harder. Maybe the bagel man analogy doesn't work on the Internet?
"The sale of Posilac is illegal in virtually every developed country with the exception of the United States. Recent studies have shown that lab rats absorbed IGF-1 during the digestive process, which subsequently caused cysts and other cancerous growths to form in the test animals flesh. Despite numerous official requests for the FDA to revoke the approval for Monsanto's product, no such action has been taken thus far."
As for FDA, I can't even begin to tell you howbadly it's managed. Thankfully they thought about a perfect side dish to our Dolly steaks. Maybe we shouldn't wonder why health care costs are skyrocketing and people are getting fatter...
Slashdot Mirror
If there was a time where it was possible to get rid of software patents it is NOW! Once this goes through it will be another 50 years of bitching on /. until something of this magnitude comes along and you will probably be dead by then.
It's not so simple. Modern manufacturing takes place on multiple continents and is assembled in different countries. Who's to say that making a part of a device that is patented in one country and assembling it in another where the patent doesn't apply is illegal? This is actually one of the premises behind AT&T vs. Microsoft(still to be decided).
Don't forget, in a global economy, you can order directly from overseas where the product will arrive in a brown box, uninspected and unverified against local laws. Even buying a patented(in the US) product from a foreign country and bringing it into(or even selling in) the US is questionable.
Are patented goods to be jailed in artificial manmade borders across which crossing is illegal? We've seen this with DVDs regioning and its futility. Money will always find a path of least resistance.
Because then companies in those countries would have a competitive advantage over ones in the patent encumbered ones. That just wouldn't be fair.
I understand this: Europe doesn't have software patents. Proving that having no software patents increases one's company's ability to compete is left as an exercise.
I think the main issue here is that the "patent covenant" they signed up on is useless. At least from a practical standpoint.
I'm wondering if this is being used in in freetype?
Importing technology by exporting artificially cheap goods made with that technology?
The same way that feeding a fire with fuel is not the way to stop it.
I hate that tired old argument. Does it matter if it is humans that are causing it? After it's run its course there won't be any left to debate what the hell caused it.
Actually Mars and Venus don't have any major plate activity and haven't for Millions of years(see wikipedia). It's also why they have weak magnetic fields as the internal dynamo is what sustains a magnetic field. Internal dynamo drives plate tectonics which are sustained by the cooling action of surface and core exchanges.
Mars is dead geologically, meaning that it has no volcanic activity and we think that the core has (probably) hardened.
Incidentally, Venus is a much better candidate for colonization, but currently it's a little too hot due to the runaway greenhouse effect (it's surface is 450C). Probes sent there melt and get crushed do to surface pressure soon after they land. It's also a good example for those people who say there is no global warming. Look no further than our bastard twin planet.
Actually there IS something backing MMO money. It's the fact that you can't get a bot or developers to do all this for you for a fraction of the price. Call it a "good faith" in the process of obtaining MMO stuff. As long as there's a faith in the stability of the process the price will be stable. As soon some developer starts adding more cash for real cash it will drop the MMO gold will be worthless since nobody will want to obtain something so cheaply gotten(X hours in office vs Y hours on computer).
It's not that different in the real world actually. If we find out that someone has been printing lots and lots of money--inflation. Reminder for inflation: currency value sinks. Your money now is worth less than a minute ago. Real money? It's just a number of bills in circulation. But nowadays it is also not much more than a number in a database.
As for gold backing...it didn't work out so well. If you don't remember, Johnson was printing money like a madman to fund a war(hmm sounds familiar). Don't want to ruin the story, but it happens that when you have the gold standard you can't just print more money than you have gold or people will make a run on the gold(once they find out) and all your wealth goes poof!
So what backs the dollar now? Good question. The answer: Oil. You can only buy oil in dollars at 2 stock exchanges, one in Britain one in US. If you want to buy oil you need lots and lots of money in reserve at your bank. That's why you haven't seen that much inflation even though oil price is up. All the foreign banks keep needing to have large amounts of dollars at hand so people can use them to buy oil. It's all pretty funny actually. If you really think about it, inflation is a sort of tax. Every time someone holds dollars and the Fed prints more money it goes down in value. That difference is what the Fed pockets as a sort of gimmie tax for printing more money. So relax, there really is something backing the dollar. Just hope it doesn't go poof!
"How do you measure buzz? You don't. It's something that experienced people in this industry can just feel. And that's the condition Microsoft should fear. Because buzz can turn into something much harder to combat than sheer numbers." A splotch on the windshield?
All those low skilled jobs went bye-bye when smart people with degrees(read: you) figured out, hey why not move all our factories overseas and fire all these high-payed no-skilled two-bit complaining fat-ass Americans and have all these agreeable starving foreigners(read: Chinese) work for much much less and we can treat them like crap, pollute their environment and they'll be happy about it! Plus we can all give ourselves raises for our brilliance! Brilliant!
Ah but you keep saying, "I'm no lazy ass redneck. I got a bunch of scribbles on a piece of pressed parchment see?" Well I got news for you. And Greenspan and Bill Gates have news for you:
Startion salaries for computer science grads in June 2001 were $52,473(adj. inflation $59,732.11) and in 2006 declined to $51,305.
Maybe we couldn't take the greeter and do the programmer's job but we got someone else to do the programmer's job and now he can compete with the greeter for his job. It's a win-win situation. You see, they really were the same in an economic sense--not Bill Gates.
Good luck with your $30/hr job. You will be earning the big bucks now.
The guy is an IP lawyer. IP should be abolished. I don't think he would agree. The same reason why I don't expect him to know the horrors of letting people patent algorithms, I don't think you should expect him to know the difference between open and closed source. Clearly he will get more business in a "closed source" environment.
Ah that's an easy one. You see, if you nuke the crap out of a planet, eventually the minute particles of cathedrals and bazaars will evenly spread out through space by a form of osmosis. It's a perfectly simple principle of discombobulation.
In the section entitled Beat Linux there's this blurb: "Fold extended functionality into commodity protocols / services and create new protocols." This extended functionality has to do with patents. Read up on how they stunted OpenGL with threats of IP infringement on pixel and vertex shaders to see this is a real threat. Also the patent deal with Novell is only an indication of things to come. It makes sense too. The code license doesn't matter as long as you control what you can code.
Microsoft is slowly decommoditizing standards by patenting the underlying logic(something's gotta stick). On the other hand, you can't really blame them for taking advantage of our broken patent system. There are plenty of other parasites out there eager and willing to do it.
And you don't need to change the batteries.
There are 2 arguments here and Rubin is spreading FUD hoping nobody will notice. One is the private caches of copyrighted data--Google Books and Youtube now. The other--"Google takes the position that everything may be freely copied unless the copyright owner notifies Google and tells it to stop" that he's piggybacking on top of the prior one. However that is the law according to DMCA, not according to Google's wishes.
Another comment "Companies that create no content of their own, and make money solely on the backs of other people's content, are raking in billions through advertising revenue and I.P.O.s" is laughable. Does indexing all that data come for free? Does it have no value? Same could be said of RIAA MPAA but they do provide 'services' although they might be overpaid for what they offer. Actually now that I think of it, ALL services offer no content of their own but make something of that content. And often the content itself is the outgrowth of somebody else's work and trying to draw lines in the sand where there aren't any is a burdensome affair. See the mix tape busts, the parody takedowns etc. Copyright needs an overhaul. In a world where copying is free how can you charge a price?
"By the time NASA is done, Congress should approve funding for survey missions to the Asteroid Belt."
Mission approved! BRB.
Just out of curiosity, have any of those that downloaded the torrent bought either of your books? If somebody found some value in your work they would surely encourage($$) you to produce more. Especially if you're small-time when it's much harder. Maybe the bagel man analogy doesn't work on the Internet?
What's in that milk?
"The sale of Posilac is illegal in virtually every developed country with the exception of the United States. Recent studies have shown that lab rats absorbed IGF-1 during the digestive process, which subsequently caused cysts and other cancerous growths to form in the test animals flesh. Despite numerous official requests for the FDA to revoke the approval for Monsanto's product, no such action has been taken thus far."
Don't try and tell people though.
As for FDA, I can't even begin to tell you how badly it's managed. Thankfully they thought about a perfect side dish to our Dolly steaks. Maybe we shouldn't wonder why health care costs are skyrocketing and people are getting fatter...
Don't count on it.
"New Royalty Rates Could Kill (Legal) Internet Radio (in the USA)"