Err, I think you mean "steganography" - I don't think your secretary's shorthand would do much to hide the information being transmitted;)
Re:Broadband won't be utilised in games for years.
on
The Modem Lives On
·
· Score: 5
The European Union now has a bigger economy than the USA by a third
That's funny - according to my handy-dandy CIA World Factbook, in 1999 the aggregate GDP for the 15 member nations of the EU was about $8 trillion. And (drum roll, please), for the US, about $9.3 trillion. Now, we could examine the per capita GDP of both, but, if we note that the US has ~50 million fewer people than the EU, we can clearly see that such an examination would only make you look even worse. But then again, why let some inconvenient facts get in the way of an otherwise ill-considered pontification?;)
Not this again. Read what you wrote a little more closely (Article VI sec. 2, for those playing at home) - this is a fairly common misreading of this section of the Constitution. It doesn't say "any Thing in _this_ Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding" - it says "any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding."
See, a little parsing will reveal that treaties supersede STATE laws and constitutions (as they should - states weren't intended to be able to conduct their own, separate, foreign policies), not the U.S. Constitution. See, for example, Reid v. Covert, 354 US 1 (1957).
so all they are saying is that Napster is still going to be shut down, it's just that the original decision needs to be a little less broad reaching.
Exactly...after skimming it quickly, they're dead. Period. It's just a matter of time now, and a very short time, barring a miracle (i.e., a further stay from SCOTUS). Not very likely...
HA! Now I know you're BS'ing...anyone who has ever tried to call DirecTV customer service KNOWS that no actual humans work there, only an absurdly recursive phone-menu-and-light-jazz system...
I don't think the idea is that tetrachromats see "other colors."
I think you're exactly right here. They don't see some color on a frequency that the rest of us are incapable of perceiving...although it would be extra-cool if they saw slightly into the near-IR or UV ranges. Since the average noncolorblind human perceives the colors in the visible spectrum just fine, there aren't mysterious "new" colors in that spectrum that only tetrachromats (new word of the day) can perceive. Instead, it seems that they would have a "richer" visual experience than the rest of us do, seeing subtle color differences that others don't.
I suppose that this would be akin to the effect that you see when comparing the same picture in 8 bit vs. 16 bit vs. 24 bit color, where the higher color depths seem richer and more lifelike - this would be the next step beyond...now that I think about it, the standard 24-bit color wheel would probably look rather "unsmooth" to them, as a 256 color wheel would to you or I.
Maybe the best way to imagine it would be to think of it as spending your life on some wonderfully mild psychoactive drug...;)
Not to nitpick, but zebra mussels were almost certainly introduced into the Great Lakes accidentally, via the bilge water of European ships traveling through the area. There's really no reason to intentionally introduce them into an area, especially an area where they have no natural predators like the Great Lakes, since they are the most useless creature on God's green earth.
Well, that's not entirely true - they do an excellent job of filtering out pollution from the waters where they live - the Great Lakes today are much cleaner than they were 10 years ago, due partly to their work.
I've not seen anything assuring that it won't do any harm either.
And how are you supposed to prove that this rice (or any GM food) is 100%, all-the-time, in-all-circumstances, goddamn you-bet, safe? No matter what the product or technology, someone will be harmed by it. I'm sure that some fool out there in the world, at some point, has managed to seriously harm themselves with a Q-tip. Does that mean that the benefits of Q-tips must be denied to everyone?
Look, the issue is, as always, a matter of tradeoffs. Do something (that is, allow those who need it to have access to the rice) and a few people might get sick or die. Do nothing, and hundreds of thousands or maybe millions of people will die. It's that simple.
For most of the people in the poorer parts of the world, I suspect that the choice is self-evident...
I agree with almost everything you've said, but that simple truth is that the best way to counter such ideologies as National Socialism is not to drive them underground, as this ruling attempts to do, but to listen, and thereby craft counterarguments to refute them.
Such ideologies can rarely withstand the close and careful scrutiny of the general populace. For further reading, I would recommend (it really ought to be required reading for everyone in a free society, but there you go) "On Liberty" by John Stuart Mill, a fellow way ahead of his time.
Mill makes the case that even offensive speech serves a purpose in a free society, if for no other reason than to provide a horrible couterexample. By driving such things underground, you guarantee that they continue to fester. Nazism is morally abhorrent, yes, but sunshine is very often the best disinfectant....
Okay, I freely admit that I am woefully ignorant of the process of creating DVD's, but, leaving aside issues of disk layering/space limitations...
...once I have ripped and decrypted a DVD, what's to stop me from using that data to "author" a new movie ostensibly created by me? E.g., "Mr. DVD recorder, please burn 'my' movie, which I have just shot and edited - I call it 'The Matrix', and it stars Keanu Reeves...I think it'll be a huge hit."
You are confusing real life with "Survivor" again.
That's funny you should mention that. For anyone, Republican or Democrat, who needs a little relief from all this, check out Joel Achenbach's column yesterday in the Washington Post. I nearly choked, and spit coffee all over the keyboard....
A sample:
Transcript of the First Presidential Ballot Counting Session, Nov. 8, 2000
JIM LEHRER (MODERATOR): Good evening from the Miami Beach Convention Center. I'm Jim Lehrer
of the News Hour on PBS. On this stage tonight I am joined by the two major presidential candidates, Vice President Al Gore and Texas Gov. George W. Bush, and by these 17 plastic bins of Florida election ballots.
An eighteenth bin, containing 3,472 ballots, has been disallowed due to the discovery that every ballot was signed with the name "Hyram J. Spinkster." Still under discussion is whether to count a large sack of ballots that mysteriously descended by parachute this morning over the city of West Palm Beach. Both campaigns have agreed that any absentee ballots cast by a citizen who then expired prior to Election Day will be counted as one-half of a vote.
Under the rules established by the Emergency Presidential Commission on Counting, each candidate will be given 90 seconds to count ballots, at which time his opponent will be given 30 seconds for rebuttal. Each candidate has scratch paper and two sharpened pencils.
I alone control the pencil sharpener.
When all the ballots are counted, I will review the tabulations. The candidate with the fewest votes must bring me his tribal torch. I will then extinguish the torch and send him into the Everglades. The winner receives the presidency and one million dollars. We begin with Vice President Gore.
Well, the way I see it right now (~11 AM in the east) is this (someone check my math):
CNN is reporting that thus far in the recount (32 of 67 counties reporting), Bush has gained 346 votes, for a new total of 2,909,481 and Gore has gained 1,189 votes for a new total of 2,908,540.
So, therefore, of the 32 counties reporting thus far, Bush has picked up an average of (346/32) = 10.81 votes per county and Gore has gained an average of (1189/32)= 37.15 votes per county.
So, if we extrapolate that to the remaining 35 counties, we find that Bush should pick up a further (10.81*35) = 378 votes and Gore an additional (37.15*35) = 1300 votes.
Add these to the current totals:
Bush: 2,909,481 + 378 = 2,909,859
Gore: 2,908,540 + 1300 = 2,909,840
And Bush wins....by 19 votes.
Of course, this is utter BS, since I didn't look to see which counties have reported and which remain unreported, so I have no way of knowing whether the reporting counties are heavily skewed towards one party or the other, but it's interesting to doodle on my pad instead of working;)
I don't want to sound rude, but have you ever studied large scale economics? Inflation of prices will occur in all economic models, but a government with sound politics will be able to keep it in check.
Don't worry 'bout it, but, yes, I have. So, what policies will government pursue in order to increase net purchasing power, which as I stated, your plan doesn't do?
And by no means would the citizen wage be fixed - it should of course follow the inflation curve and raise (or lessen) accordingly.
Okay. So, you institute your $5000 minimum existence benefit, but prices rise to negate any any real benefit to this. "No problem," you say, "We'll just adjust my citizen bonus upward accordingly." At which point, prices again inflate to account for your newly adjusted bonus. And then you are back at the beginning, except now you've inflated prices that much more.
I'm sorry, but my original criticism still stands. Unless you fix prices, citizens will see no real benefits from such a plan.
Wow, you have a pretty funny idea of "working". At the risk of injecting some common sense into this thread, allow me to point out that this plan of yours only "works" if you fix prices, and hold them at whatever level they were at before you instituted your idea, otherwise prices will simply inflate to account for the increase in everyone's gross income. Basically what you'll see is a gradual (or possibly very rapid) increase in prices of roughly the same percentage as whatever percentage of per capita income $5000 is.
So, in gross terms, yes you've "increased" everyone's income by giving them a check for $5000, but in terms of net purchasing power (i.e., what they earn minus what they spend), they see zero benefit. All you've done with your plan is, essentially, wave a magic wand and redefine what zero-income means. This is, by the way, precisely why minimum wage requirements don't alleviate poverty - prices adjust to account for increased wages. Period.
But wait, I thought no contract could take away rights. E.g., I can't sign a contract that takes away my right to free speech for some amount of money.
Au contraire, you most certainly can, so long as your signing such a contract is voluntary and informed. It's how nondisclosure agreements work.
As an example, I used to work for a fair-sized commercial bank. In addition to being criminally liable under the Banking Secrecy Act, I am civilly liable, now and for the rest of my life, if I reveal customer information to a non-bank employee. In fact, I am only permitted to discuss customer account information with other bank employees insofar as it is necessary to conduct normal bank business.
Of course, this is a restriction of my First Amendment free-speech rights, but it's legal, since I had the choice to refuse to agree on my first (and what would have been my last) day on the job.
You can sign away (legally) all sorts of rights in a contract. The Seventh Amendment gives you a right to a jury trial "where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars", yet every EULA (and many, many other contracts) in the world has a clause whereby you waive your right to a jury trial. This is completely legal, since you had the opportunity to refuse the terms of the contract at the outset.
Please, I am not defending the practice of EULAs in general--I find them completely odious myself, but clauses whereby you sign away some fundamental right are, by themselves, legal...
Just as a quick aside, for those who don't already know, the second link in spaceorb's post is from John Young's really excellent "Cryptome" site at jya.com/crypto.htm The site is primarily devoted to the technological and political aspects of law enforcement and intelligence agencies around the world, and is a great resource for those of you out there interested in things like echelon, TEMPEST, wiretapping, etc. Very cool and highly recommended...
parachute pants Izod shirts (remember? with the little fucking alligator?) deck shoes "London Fog" jackets with the sleeves pushed up your first walkman
This is the most common manifestation of racial disregard.
Racial disregard? What the hell does that mean? Would you like me to treat people differentially based on their race? Favoring some groups over others based on their race? No? Well, then, I'm gonna have to disregard their race and treat them as individuals. Racial disregard? Guilty, I guess...
Considering the "I didn't do nothing to you" defense, aren't you omitting the possibility that slashdot-terminal actually "didn't do nothing"? Suppose he (or she!) never actually treated someone prejudicially based on their race/ethnicity/gender? Or have we entered some social-science fantasyland where, because slashdot-terminal is (presumably) white, he/she is automatically guilty of discrimination?
Your tap-dance from "I didn't do nothing" to an implication that/.-term is somehow akin to the Hitler Youth is as offensive as it is stupid.
What we have here is the social-theorists version of "original sin"--I/you/we discriminate simply by being white. If you actually swallowed that shit in your sociology/psychology classes, I sort of feel sorry for you. Why not try a useful skill, one that enables you to contribute to society in some manner?
Edison could spend his time inventing new things because his life was paid for by the things he'd invented previously. If he didn't know that he would achieve a financial pay off from his efforts, I doubt he would have done what he did
I think he would. Most scientists don't do their work with the sole goal of profit in mind. They do it for the love of their work.
Yeah, but the point is, even if he had been willing to do it for free, he wouldn't have been able to. Edison, keep in mind, basically created a prototype for modern R&D processes, according to a basic plan, something like this:
1) Obtain working capital (personal funds, venture capital, etc.); 2) Invest money in researching and developing new ideas; 3) Invent 999 new things (processes, goods, whatever) that are worthless in and of themselves (or unpopular, or impractical, or otherwise flops); 4) Given hard work, a good idea, and a little luck, invent one thing that's revolutionary and instantly valuable to others; 5) Take profits from this one invention and return to step 1.
It is important to notice that the one profitable invention has to subsidize ALL your work.
The point is, without being able to own and realize the profits from your work, your work can't be self-sustaining. Those VC guys that sink money into new startups only do that because they expect to see a profit from it someday--they don't fund research out of the goodness of their hearts. And if the people they fund don't own their own work, and can't profit by it, neither can they. And then what is the incentive to provide seed money to anyone?
Now, don't get me wrong--I think patents of mathematics are silly and wrong. But, there is a reason to protect intellectual property in general--it provides an incentive to inventors to invent, and eventually EVERYONE profits from this...
Re:Jon Katz definately proves the point.
on
The Regulon
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· Score: 1
Gotta love people who can't spell correcting other people who can't spell....
You mean "definetely." You shouldn't defame a reporter if you can't spell.
Slashdot Mirror
P100! Talk about spoiled! Why, my abacus is connected to the 'net via two tin cans and a piece of str....oh, fuck it. Nevermind....
(just bringing this to it's inevitable conclusion)
One word: stenography.
;)
Err, I think you mean "steganography" - I don't think your secretary's shorthand would do much to hide the information being transmitted
The European Union now has a bigger economy than the USA by a third
;)
That's funny - according to my handy-dandy CIA World Factbook, in 1999 the aggregate GDP for the 15 member nations of the EU was about $8 trillion. And (drum roll, please), for the US, about $9.3 trillion. Now, we could examine the per capita GDP of both, but, if we note that the US has ~50 million fewer people than the EU, we can clearly see that such an examination would only make you look even worse. But then again, why let some inconvenient facts get in the way of an otherwise ill-considered pontification?
Not this again. Read what you wrote a little more closely (Article VI sec. 2, for those playing at home) - this is a fairly common misreading of this section of the Constitution. It doesn't say "any Thing in _this_ Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding" - it says "any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding."
See, a little parsing will reveal that treaties supersede STATE laws and constitutions (as they should - states weren't intended to be able to conduct their own, separate, foreign policies), not the U.S. Constitution. See, for example, Reid v. Covert, 354 US 1 (1957).
But thanks for playing...
so all they are saying is that Napster is still going to be shut down, it's just that the original decision needs to be a little less broad reaching.
Exactly...after skimming it quickly, they're dead. Period. It's just a matter of time now, and a very short time, barring a miracle (i.e., a further stay from SCOTUS). Not very likely...
So then I got a job taking calls for DirecTV..
;)
HA! Now I know you're BS'ing...anyone who has ever tried to call DirecTV customer service KNOWS that no actual humans work there, only an absurdly recursive phone-menu-and-light-jazz system...
The tone of the info given does sound a bit odd, doesn't it? It almost sounds as if it were lifted straight from some promotional brochure...
Oh, well. Innocent until proven guilty, I guess.
I don't think the idea is that tetrachromats see "other colors."
I think you're exactly right here. They don't see some color on a frequency that the rest of us are incapable of perceiving...although it would be extra-cool if they saw slightly into the near-IR or UV ranges. Since the average noncolorblind human perceives the colors in the visible spectrum just fine, there aren't mysterious "new" colors in that spectrum that only tetrachromats (new word of the day) can perceive. Instead, it seems that they would have a "richer" visual experience than the rest of us do, seeing subtle color differences that others don't.
I suppose that this would be akin to the effect that you see when comparing the same picture in 8 bit vs. 16 bit vs. 24 bit color, where the higher color depths seem richer and more lifelike - this would be the next step beyond...now that I think about it, the standard 24-bit color wheel would probably look rather "unsmooth" to them, as a 256 color wheel would to you or I.
Maybe the best way to imagine it would be to think of it as spending your life on some wonderfully mild psychoactive drug...;)
Not to nitpick, but zebra mussels were almost certainly introduced into the Great Lakes accidentally, via the bilge water of European ships traveling through the area. There's really no reason to intentionally introduce them into an area, especially an area where they have no natural predators like the Great Lakes, since they are the most useless creature on God's green earth.
;)
Well, that's not entirely true - they do an excellent job of filtering out pollution from the waters where they live - the Great Lakes today are much cleaner than they were 10 years ago, due partly to their work.
See, there's always a tradeoff...
I've not seen anything assuring that it won't do any harm either.
And how are you supposed to prove that this rice (or any GM food) is 100%, all-the-time, in-all-circumstances, goddamn you-bet, safe? No matter what the product or technology, someone will be harmed by it. I'm sure that some fool out there in the world, at some point, has managed to seriously harm themselves with a Q-tip. Does that mean that the benefits of Q-tips must be denied to everyone?
Look, the issue is, as always, a matter of tradeoffs. Do something (that is, allow those who need it to have access to the rice) and a few people might get sick or die. Do nothing, and hundreds of thousands or maybe millions of people will die. It's that simple.
For most of the people in the poorer parts of the world, I suspect that the choice is self-evident...
I agree with almost everything you've said, but that simple truth is that the best way to counter such ideologies as National Socialism is not to drive them underground, as this ruling attempts to do, but to listen, and thereby craft counterarguments to refute them.
Such ideologies can rarely withstand the close and careful scrutiny of the general populace. For further reading, I would recommend (it really ought to be required reading for everyone in a free society, but there you go) "On Liberty" by John Stuart Mill, a fellow way ahead of his time.
Mill makes the case that even offensive speech serves a purpose in a free society, if for no other reason than to provide a horrible couterexample. By driving such things underground, you guarantee that they continue to fester. Nazism is morally abhorrent, yes, but sunshine is very often the best disinfectant....
Ethics? Illegality?
Fair use? Archival copies?
Okay, I freely admit that I am woefully ignorant of the process of creating DVD's, but, leaving aside issues of disk layering/space limitations...
...once I have ripped and decrypted a DVD, what's to stop me from using that data to "author" a new movie ostensibly created by me? E.g., "Mr. DVD recorder, please burn 'my' movie, which I have just shot and edited - I call it 'The Matrix', and it stars Keanu Reeves...I think it'll be a huge hit."
;)
You are confusing real life with "Survivor" again.
That's funny you should mention that. For anyone, Republican or Democrat, who needs a little relief from all this, check out Joel Achenbach's column yesterday in the Washington Post. I nearly choked, and spit coffee all over the keyboard....
A sample:
Transcript of the First Presidential Ballot Counting Session, Nov. 8, 2000
JIM LEHRER (MODERATOR): Good evening from the Miami Beach Convention Center. I'm Jim Lehrer of the News Hour on PBS. On this stage tonight I am joined by the two major presidential candidates, Vice President Al Gore and Texas Gov. George W. Bush, and by these 17 plastic bins of Florida election ballots.
An eighteenth bin, containing 3,472 ballots, has been disallowed due to the discovery that every ballot was signed with the name "Hyram J. Spinkster." Still under discussion is whether to count a large sack of ballots that mysteriously descended by parachute this morning over the city of West Palm Beach. Both campaigns have agreed that any absentee ballots cast by a citizen who then expired prior to Election Day will be counted as one-half of a vote.
Under the rules established by the Emergency Presidential Commission on Counting, each candidate will be given 90 seconds to count ballots, at which time his opponent will be given 30 seconds for rebuttal. Each candidate has scratch paper and two sharpened pencils.
I alone control the pencil sharpener.
When all the ballots are counted, I will review the tabulations. The candidate with the fewest votes must bring me his tribal torch. I will then extinguish the torch and send him into the Everglades. The winner receives the presidency and one million dollars. We begin with Vice President Gore.
Well, the way I see it right now (~11 AM in the east) is this (someone check my math):
;)
CNN is reporting that thus far in the recount (32 of 67 counties reporting), Bush has gained 346 votes, for a new total of 2,909,481 and Gore has gained 1,189 votes for a new total of 2,908,540.
So, therefore, of the 32 counties reporting thus far, Bush has picked up an average of (346/32) = 10.81 votes per county and Gore has gained an average of (1189/32)= 37.15 votes per county.
So, if we extrapolate that to the remaining 35 counties, we find that Bush should pick up a further (10.81*35) = 378 votes and Gore an additional (37.15*35) = 1300 votes.
Add these to the current totals:
Bush: 2,909,481 + 378 = 2,909,859
Gore: 2,908,540 + 1300 = 2,909,840
And Bush wins....by 19 votes.
Of course, this is utter BS, since I didn't look to see which counties have reported and which remain unreported, so I have no way of knowing whether the reporting counties are heavily skewed towards one party or the other, but it's interesting to doodle on my pad instead of working
DirecTV has been broadcasting HBO in HDTV for more than a year now. You've gotta see it to believe it....
Here's DTV's original press release anouncing the service.
I don't want to sound rude, but have you ever studied large scale economics? Inflation of prices will occur in all economic models, but a government with sound politics will be able to keep it in check.
Don't worry 'bout it, but, yes, I have. So, what policies will government pursue in order to increase net purchasing power, which as I stated, your plan doesn't do?
And by no means would the citizen wage be fixed - it should of course follow the inflation curve and raise (or lessen) accordingly.
Okay. So, you institute your $5000 minimum existence benefit, but prices rise to negate any any real benefit to this. "No problem," you say, "We'll just adjust my citizen bonus upward accordingly." At which point, prices again inflate to account for your newly adjusted bonus. And then you are back at the beginning, except now you've inflated prices that much more.
I'm sorry, but my original criticism still stands. Unless you fix prices, citizens will see no real benefits from such a plan.
Wow, you have a pretty funny idea of "working". At the risk of injecting some common sense into this thread, allow me to point out that this plan of yours only "works" if you fix prices, and hold them at whatever level they were at before you instituted your idea, otherwise prices will simply inflate to account for the increase in everyone's gross income. Basically what you'll see is a gradual (or possibly very rapid) increase in prices of roughly the same percentage as whatever percentage of per capita income $5000 is.
So, in gross terms, yes you've "increased" everyone's income by giving them a check for $5000, but in terms of net purchasing power (i.e., what they earn minus what they spend), they see zero benefit. All you've done with your plan is, essentially, wave a magic wand and redefine what zero-income means. This is, by the way, precisely why minimum wage requirements don't alleviate poverty - prices adjust to account for increased wages. Period.
I stood up and said "hola! mi llama cmdrtaco!" they were confused
I'm sure they were, since that (sort of) translates to "Hello! My CmdrTaco flame!"
But wait, I thought no contract could take away rights. E.g., I can't sign a contract that takes away my right to free speech for some amount of money.
Au contraire, you most certainly can, so long as your signing such a contract is voluntary and informed. It's how nondisclosure agreements work.
As an example, I used to work for a fair-sized commercial bank. In addition to being criminally liable under the Banking Secrecy Act, I am civilly liable, now and for the rest of my life, if I reveal customer information to a non-bank employee. In fact, I am only permitted to discuss customer account information with other bank employees insofar as it is necessary to conduct normal bank business.
Of course, this is a restriction of my First Amendment free-speech rights, but it's legal, since I had the choice to refuse to agree on my first (and what would have been my last) day on the job.
You can sign away (legally) all sorts of rights in a contract. The Seventh Amendment gives you a right to a jury trial "where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars", yet every EULA (and many, many other contracts) in the world has a clause whereby you waive your right to a jury trial. This is completely legal, since you had the opportunity to refuse the terms of the contract at the outset.
Please, I am not defending the practice of EULAs in general--I find them completely odious myself, but clauses whereby you sign away some fundamental right are, by themselves, legal...
Just as a quick aside, for those who don't already know, the second link in spaceorb's post is from John Young's really excellent "Cryptome" site at jya.com/crypto.htm
The site is primarily devoted to the technological and political aspects of law enforcement and intelligence agencies around the world, and is a great resource for those of you out there interested in things like echelon, TEMPEST, wiretapping, etc. Very cool and highly recommended...
parachute pants
Izod shirts (remember? with the little fucking alligator?)
deck shoes
"London Fog" jackets with the sleeves pushed up
your first walkman
This is the most common manifestation of racial disregard.
/.-term is somehow akin to the Hitler Youth is as offensive as it is stupid.
Racial disregard? What the hell does that mean? Would you like me to treat people differentially based on their race? Favoring some groups over others based on their race? No? Well, then, I'm gonna have to disregard their race and treat them as individuals. Racial disregard? Guilty, I guess...
Considering the "I didn't do nothing to you" defense, aren't you omitting the possibility that slashdot-terminal actually "didn't do nothing"? Suppose he (or she!) never actually treated someone prejudicially based on their race/ethnicity/gender? Or have we entered some social-science fantasyland where, because slashdot-terminal is (presumably) white, he/she is automatically guilty of discrimination?
Your tap-dance from "I didn't do nothing" to an implication that
What we have here is the social-theorists version of "original sin"--I/you/we discriminate simply by being white. If you actually swallowed that shit in your sociology/psychology classes, I sort of feel sorry for you. Why not try a useful skill, one that enables you to contribute to society in some manner?
Edison could spend his time inventing new things because his life was paid for by the things he'd invented previously. If he didn't know that he would achieve a financial pay off from his efforts, I doubt he would have done what he did
I think he would. Most scientists don't do their work with the sole goal of profit in mind. They do it for the love of their work.
Yeah, but the point is, even if he had been willing to do it for free, he wouldn't have been able to. Edison, keep in mind, basically created a prototype for modern R&D processes, according to a basic plan, something like this:
1) Obtain working capital (personal funds, venture capital, etc.);
2) Invest money in researching and developing new ideas;
3) Invent 999 new things (processes, goods, whatever) that are worthless in and of themselves (or unpopular, or impractical, or otherwise flops);
4) Given hard work, a good idea, and a little luck, invent one thing that's revolutionary and instantly valuable to others;
5) Take profits from this one invention and return to step 1.
It is important to notice that the one profitable invention has to subsidize ALL your work.
The point is, without being able to own and realize the profits from your work, your work can't be self-sustaining. Those VC guys that sink money into new startups only do that because they expect to see a profit from it someday--they don't fund research out of the goodness of their hearts. And if the people they fund don't own their own work, and can't profit by it, neither can they. And then what is the incentive to provide seed money to anyone?
Now, don't get me wrong--I think patents of mathematics are silly and wrong. But, there is a reason to protect intellectual property in general--it provides an incentive to inventors to invent, and eventually EVERYONE profits from this...
Gotta love people who can't spell correcting other people who can't spell....
You mean "definetely." You shouldn't defame a reporter if you can't spell.
Ahem.
Try "definitely".
Thank you.