They're related, in as much as humans are related to mice--taxonomologically anyway.
While the similarities might have been a result of evolutionary forces (not unlike the marsupial wolves that bore an uncanny resemblance to normal wolves), there's certainly a chance this particular animal has a more common ancestor with the ticks than the lobsters.
To a certain extent, one can rely on puns and other clever charater substitution methods to go around the filters. However, there are two problems with this that limits its use.
1) In order to find something, it must exist. So someone has to use the exact same character combination for the exact same meaning in a web page. This is quite difficult, as there are hundreds of possible substitution combinations ("misspellings if you will") for just Tiananmen alone. Which one would a site use? Furthermore, few of them are trivial, and never is any one phrase trivial to any majority. For example, off the top of my head, I would have substituted "gate"/"door" (men) with "culture" (men) or "peace" (an) with "peace" (wo). To substitute "heaven" with "money" would have been beyond me. It isn't about intelligence or knowledge either, though both attributes help in increasing the number of trivial subsitutions and the ability to find non-trivial substitutions. This difference is the result of the differences in thought pattern between us.
2) While certain phrases can be standardized (like the English-equivalent pr0n for porn), those can easily be filtered out as well once they have gained enough popularity. There are also unintended side effects for such actions. There might be something else using the standard substitute character combination. It might even be popular enough that there are a number of sites for it, but not so popular that everyone in China knows of it. At best then, the unoffending sites would not be visited and people will have a little less information. At worst, anyone associated with those sites would be immediately arrested and jailed as if they had participated in trying to get around the filters. It may sound a little extreme, but given the Chinese government's track record, not unthinkable.
Of course if you shoot someone on purpose it's your fault, but what if, perhaps, a manufacturing defect caused the gun to discharge without you pulling the trigger? Did you ever consider that there MAY BE OTHER FACTORS INVOLVED
Perhaps you shouldn't be pointing the gun at anyone then.
We can't do anything about these virii at the moment, and I'm not so sure we should. There's no point in worrying about those things, just as there's little point in worrying about a gun discharging due to a manufacturing defect. What we can do is moderate our consumption and keep tabs on what we consume. There are subtances that are helpful in small quantities, but harmful in large ones (the most common being alcohol products like wine or beer). Consider fatty foods one such poison. To continue with the gun analogy, we shouldn't be pointing a gun at someone we don't want to shoot in the first place.
Interesting as it is from an academic standpoint, this is just another way for overweight people to assign blame to anything but themselves. Sure a chain of circumstances could have resulted in obesity. But the individual is as much a part of that chain as the food, the society, and these viruii. If the chain had been broken at that point, obesity would not ensue.
Re:It'll be a sad state of affairs when this happe
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A Flu Pandemic?
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· Score: 2, Interesting
I see only two problems with moving research of this type into non-profit organizations (e.g. the government, since they're the ones funding the majority of research into obscure and rare diseases anyway, as no company would do it, since they can't make money on the treatments). The first is the usual inefficiency and waste associated with a lack of profit. But that is countered by the life-saving purpose of the research, which is more of a drive for the majority of the researchers than any monetary return. The importance of the research more than makes up for the lack of a year-end bonus. The second is that though there's knowledge, there won't be anyone or any resources to materialize the knowledge. That's where companies come in--to turn the knowledge into a product that the average layman can use. And that's what they should only be allowed to make money doing.
But what happens when there's simply no interest in the knowledge and hence no funding. Well, even for the most obscure disorders and illnesses (like the genetic disorder where children physically mature many times faster than natural whose name I forget), there's someone working on it. It may be slow, but research is still happening. As for a lack of interest by companies in producing actual pills or machines that deliver the treatment, well, that would be true whether companies have patented the science to the treatment or not. Companies should still be able to donate their resources in such situations.
To use the example you cite, there's still plenty of AIDS research going on. Just today, there's news about someone who appears to have fought off the virus, and there's a great amount of public interest in that person. The interest and subsequent research is just not in the private sector. So no one manufactures the deliverable product if they can't control the formula (who would want to compete when they can have a monopoly?). But forcing pharmaceuticals to only be able to make money from manufacturing treatments solves this particular problem, since companies then have no choice but to use public domain knowledge to make their products (or they don't make products, go bankrupt, and someone else jumps in). In addition, AIDS research has also slowed down because though AIDS isn't cureable, it is treatable, and even better, preventable. If AIDS turned airborne (which is very unlikely right now), you'd better believe that people will jump to find a vaccine or cure, money or no money.
As for this avian flu, I'm certain if the Tamiflu was never created (because no one saw that it could make money), there'd still be researchers looking for a cure, likely in the academic world. And once one's found, at least one company will try to produce a product from it. By now, there'd be a dozen companies jumping onto it with their own version of the medicine, and there wouldn't be any problems. On top of that, the death rate by now would likely be much lower, since those who actually sought treatment would be able to afford it too.
Generally speaking, I'm of the opinion that all scientific research should be in the public domain. What should be patentable is the engineering end, which covers methods and applications--like a new method of delivering the treatment. Patenting science will only result in the halting of progress in any civilization (imagine if Newton patented calculus). If knowledge is horded like some kind of treasure, then only the dragons will be wealthy and everyone else impoverished, not to mention at the mercy of said dragons (major companies, in case you don't get the metaphor).
It'll be a sad state of affairs when this happens.
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A Flu Pandemic?
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· Score: 3, Insightful
What really gets me is that even if there's some pandemic that could potentially wipe out half of the human race, at the same time, there's also a company that's charging $100 per dose for the treatment of the disease because they hold the patent to the medication or technique and they can milk it for all its worth.
I wholeheartedly applaud governments that step in and invalidate such patents under these circumstances so that they can procure and administer the treatment to their people as they see fit. However, I still find it unfortunate that only the wealthier governments can do this (look at AIDS and Africa). The poorer governments still need to rely on complying with the treaties to the letter or risk becoming even poorer. Even then, not all governments, regardless of wealth, will do this.
I am, of course, specifically talking about the good ol' US of A. When this killer flu arrives in the US, we all know the government isn't going to step in like some of the Asian governments. So what'll end up happening is that the poor and needy who have no health care are completely devastated because they can't afford the treatment or the insurance to pay for the treatment, while the wealthy survive unscathed because they can afford to. And that's really what's most sad--that the wealthiest nation in the world isn't charitable enough to care for its own people. Public welfare be damned, so long as the pharmaceuticals can make back their research money.
As for those screaming that the patent holder will likely license the patent for making generics in such an event, I have two things to say:
1) Licensing takes care of supply, but still doesn't address the cost issue for low-income, medically uninsured people. 2) The way diseases can so quickly spread, by the time anyone recognizes the gravity of the situation, it'll be likely to be too little, too late. Again, supply will go up moderately, but demand will skyrocket.
Well, there are bound to be users that will do exactly that, but with the recent publicity that Sony's rootkit has received, I think people will more than likely think twice before typing in their password after they pop in a Sony CD to be played. I think the media coverage (not to mention the lawsuit) has made people very wary of Sony and Sony CD's in general. While there's likely a good number of Mac users that switched from Windows to avoid the security problems of the latter, and really are no better than the typical Windows user when it comes to security, they also tend to be more savvy in terms of keeping up with current events, as the really clueless would've probably stuck with Windows, or not be among the demographics at which these Sony CD's are targeted.
I think this is the root of the problem: supporters of ID think that evolution is some kind of belief that one can choose to or not to subscribe in.
On the contrary, there is nothing to believe about evolution. There's no faith involved. If someone desputes evolution, that person can look up all the research done on and about it. And if that person can come to a conclusion through the information in the research that is both simpler and better explains the data, then that theory will be seriously considered as an alternative to evolution. However, at the moment, none of the data points to some intelligent designer, and on the contrary, points to a lot of random acts of mutation. Everything from genetic disorders to the physical similarities between all living beings (excluding virii, which are not considered living in most circles) points to evolution.
And, evolution through natural selection is testable and has been tested. The most recent example is the appearance of the superbug, a.k.a. the antibiotic-resistant strains of microbes that posters have already discussed far above. Because antibiotics kill off all the non-resistant strains of bateria, the ones that mutate and develop resistance to the antibiotics will have no competition and will propogate. This is why infections in hospitals are so deadly; antibiotics are used so often there that most infections are due to one of these superbugs. So yes, natural selection is tried and true. The only time natural selection doesn't work is when applied to humans, but that's not a failure of natural selection so much as it is an introduction of other factors into the equations of survival.
The main target will be movie studios I think -- already they have to fight off hacks who claim that someone read their script and stole the idea, now they'd be liable even if the "idea" was never shown to anyone or published.
Way to get the MPAA and RIAA to do something for society for a change. If there's anyone willing and ready to fight the patent system, it'll be them, either in court, or through legislation. And even if they lose (which would certainly spell doom for the US as a world power afterwards), at least that'll be money and effort away from suing kids or trying to put draconian laws on media through congress.
I think, as most siblings have pointed out already, the most common issue with lawyers are their morals, or the lack thereof. Decent people will not help others ruin the lives of senior citizens or 12 year olds willing, and if they do so unintentially, they will attempt to make amends. So any decent person in the position of the MPAA/RIAA's legal representative would immediately quit. Let's just assume for the sake of argument that these people are decent human beings. Then why haven't they done this? Obviously, the money's too good. And that is where the problem comes in. There's something very wrong about sacrificing morals for dough. I think it's called being immoral, but there might be a more appropriate word.
Maybe, you would argue that these are the bad apples--the ones that give the rest of the lawyers a bad name. Then for the love of all that is good, go and defend your occupation and your reputation, if you think it is worth your time and efforts defending. Fly yourself over there and give legal council to those people--for free. That's what decent people do. If they see something unjust happening to other people, and it is within their power to stop it, they do it. If someone intentionally releases a bad patch that introduces security holes into a popular open-source application, you'd better believe that there'd be a patch out to fix the problem and an immediate blacklisting of the person from the FOSS community the moment people find out about it. Yeah, you argue, but it doesn't cost much to release a software patch. To help these victims of corporate greed would require spending time and money, probably better spent putting food on the table and the kids through college. Besides, vacation time is limited. So I guess lawyers don't mind having their good name tarnished, so long as they still have work.
All in all, the behavior of your average, everyday lawyer is undefendable and any attempts to do so is just more excuses as to why it isn't pragmatic to be good, decent, humane, or noble--especially not to those who need the most help--on top of being intelligent.
I noticed you listed intelligent, progressive, and interesting as being a part of a lawyer's makeup. That's probably true, since it does take a certain amount of intelligence and education afterwards to get through law school. However, that says nothing about their morals. Hitler and Stalin were probably just as intelligent, interesting, and from their perspective, progressive, and perhaps even more so than the average lawyer. That doesn't mean they shouldn't've been opposed, violently or otherwise. And yes, lawyers haven't really doing anything attrocious as the two aforementioned personages. But to call draw the analogy between them and Nazi or Soviet Party members wouldn't be too far off. After all, what they did wasn't their fault; it's their superiors' (the clients in the case of the lawyers) orders and they're just following orders.
Oh, BTW, if you think that by my standards, a lot of people in this world are bad, then yes, I would agree. And there are people who are worse (the ones who are actually making the decisions to sue 12 year olds), but that still doesn't make the other people bad. I wouldn't necessarily agree with killing all of them, but I would do everything I can to not be like them.
That would result in a non-functioning government. It's like asking politicians to build you a computer.
There are two issues at hand, and both are related. The first is the relative lack of knowledge of the average politician on anything other than politicking. Most of the politicians in office these days can win the hearts of the people with sweet words, but they have no idea WTF they're talking about the rest of the time. I'm not just talking about bible thumpers. Politicians require political savvy to remain in office--nothing else. This means that politicians have a tendency to be good at nothing other than politics. But that's why they have advisors. In particular, the President has his cabinet, and each member of the cabinet is given charge of a certain area of specialty.
The second problem is the speed that technology is growing. We've been seeing exponential growth in technology and technology-related fields since the Renaissance. Human intellect just can't keep up. For a politician to keep up with what's happening technology-wise requires more and more people because previous fields of expertise are splitting up into two or more separate fields. For example, in the 60's, we had programmers. Now, we have C programmers, Java programmers, OO programmers, web designers, scripters, software architects, etc. Yet, our economey does not grow exponentially. Politicians cannot afford to hire fifty people just to advise on "technology," which covers everything from your house to your car to your computer.
So what do we do? Either we slow down technological growth (like that'll happen) or we, the average citizen, will have to bring our elected representatives' attentions to issues that we feel are important. That means writing letters, petitioning, rallies, public demonstrations, etc. Or, we can do away with representatives completely, but let me remind you that whatever you might think, there are a lot more people who are much more ignorant on more important issues than you might like to believe. That, of course, includes anyone who's ever complained about a liberal arts class (or for that matter, any class) when majoring in an unrelated field.
This is a non-argument with respect to the topic, if you really think about it.
By the same line of argument, writing a *NIX program with libraries that have no corresponding Windows implementations would likewise make porting equally as difficult. Or, an example of your argument would be that porting Wine to OSX is difficult. Yes, it's a good idea to use common libraries. But that's a design decision, and has nothing to do with what platform to write for. If Windows doesn't have the same libraries as *NIX, then the developers would have to either choose one or build their own layer between their application and the platforms' native libraries. The article, I think, complains that developers would be more inclined to choose *NIX over Windows because of their biases towards the FOSS platform, and that's the real issue at hand (or at least part of it).
Now, what I want to know is what you mean by "more useful" platforms. IIRC, Windows is the most practical platform to code for, given that it has the largest userbase. OK, so the average intelligence of its userbase might be less than the average intelligence of the *NIX userbase. But when it comes to practicality, coding for Windows is the most practical in many more standpoints than coding for Linux, which is why there are so many games coded for Windows and comparatively few for Linux. Same goes with applications. So maybe Windows is the more "useful" platform, albeit the difference is shrinking every day.
Antitrust law doesn't expire in 2007, only close government supervision does.
You are right. Having a monopoly isn't something the government can regulate; being a monopoly is not against the law. Companies can't just sue another company for being successful. It is only when Microsoft engages in unfair business practices where they use the advantages of their monopoly status that it becomes an issue of antitrust. But whether to sue them under antitrust laws is up to the government, specifically the attorney general (antitrust is a civil matter, not a criminal one).
That largely depends on the administration in office. Sure future antitrust violations will be dealt with more harshly. If they never get sued by the government, the only thing that'll happen is that they'll pay some large sum in fines to a bunch of small or already-dead companies and go about their merry way. And even if the DOJ does get involved, well Microsoft received a large fine the last time, setting the precedent to fine them even more (yes, it can be argued that fines aren't enough, but then again, that was argued for this case too and Microsoft was still largely fined). Anyhow, this administration is likely not going to act and we know little to nothing about the next one. Yet the settlement conveniently expires before then. By the time the next administration comes around to suing them again for unfair business practices, they'd have bought up all the so-called victims and the prosecution wouldn't have much of a leg to stand on except for Microsoft's history. And all Microsoft would need to ask then in defense is where the prosecution's witnesses are.
Once they're out from under the microscope, it doesn't give them free reign to do as they please, but it does loosen their chains considerably.
Already there are over 100 antitrust suits against them winding their way though a multidistrict panel
And there have been countless antitrust suits and unfair business practices suits before that. What really is litigation to Microsoft? Just part of the cost of doing business. Microsoft has been engaged in this business model for a very long time. Everyone sues Microsoft. Microsoft either settles with them for some amount of money, or loses, and is fined some amount of money. To Microsoft, these fines and suits are looked at like their utility bills.
Which is one reason I no longer work there.
I would work for Google too if given the choice. They get free food.:p
That's one of the things that's so frightening, and so ineffectual about the settlement. It's possible Vista's launch is planned to coincide with the ending of their settlement terms. It'll probably be something like one app in Office 12 (like Word or Powerpoint) with it, or even a dumbed down version of said product (like the way Outlook Express is). After all, when people buy Office, they buy it for Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and Outlook as a package. Including Word with Vista won't hurt sales of office, but it might help to kill the whole open formats thing.
I think this has been discussed quite a bit in the past already. Apple can at most be accused of having a monopoly in the mp3-player world, and that's not quite true (there are a lot of competing players in the market, it's just that nobody buys them). They also haven't attempted to kill their competition through monopolistic practices. Their competition survives just fine by using alternative software, and it isn't iTunes or FairPlay that's the cause of the competition's failure to gain any marketshare.
On the other hand, Microsoft has used and still wants to use their monopoly in the OS market to force out competition (OS2) and even in other markets (Netscape).
Which makes you wonder what Microsoft will be doing once those clauses of their settlement expires in 2008. Perhaps what they're really regreting is the manager letting the cat out of the bag before they could legally do it.
Honestly, the moment I saw this, I was like, wow, a real editorial! In a real news media outlet, that's exactly what this qualifies as, and it is exactly for something like this that the opinions/editorial section is still present in every news media today. Op/eds were precisely where editors could rant, rave, and bitch, and I quite frankly was disappointed to find such pieces having disappeared altogether recently (there's an op/ed section every week for newpapers and every issue for mags). All we see today are repostings of reader submissions, which give the editors a mechanical (and therefore, rather unimportant) aura from the reader's perspective. To put it another way, while this entry indeed surprised me, it also made me smile and say to myself, "finally!" The lack of grammar and spelling errors is a definite bonus too.;)
The way I see it, anyone who bitches that this is in the wrong place, probably does so (besides the aforementioned reasons by ancestors and in other threads) because that person has never picked up a newspaper or magazine and actually read it front to back. The tendency of these people to have high UID's is largely because they are the youths who did not know/. 7 or 8 years ago. This says a lot about where we are headed as a society, but I won't get into that.
Anyway, to wrap it up, my excuse was that since I missed 500000 (which was about when I began reading/.), I was waiting for 1M. I just couldn't wait anymore because posting as AC has become so damn difficult these days.
Actually, IIRC, back when the patent system actually worked, I believe a working prototype was required to even file the application. On top of that, the object had to be non-trivial and without prior art before the patent would be issued. I don't remember the reasoning behind why this system was changed, but it did open up a pandora's box.
The AOL/TW merger wasn't so simple. At the time, AOL had a larger market cap than TW, and essentially, it was AOL who bought out TW, though because their market cap was close, it wasn't a full buy-out and turned into an unequal merger of sorts. The thing is, AOL knew it was eventually going to die even then. They had no broadband services, and they knew that was the future of the internet. So they bought out a company who had (RoadRunner came before AOLTW), thinking they could milk their dial-up cash cow for as long as possible and slowly switch to broadband afterwards. Unfortunately, that model didn't work. Everybody wanted RR for the speed, but no one wanted AOL (which became essentially a cheezy, crappy portal), especially when AOL was $10 on top of broadband. Google had a lot to do with this actually. So TW spits the dying AOL back out.
Microsoft isn't merging with AOL. They're buying AOL out. AOL isn't worth too much nowadays, so for M$, this probably isn't a very risky investment. M$ used to compete with AOL (MSN, remember?), and pretty much lost. It would be relatively easy to integrate AOL's business into their own. This is a tactical maneuver by M$ to lower Google's share prices. Actually, they're hoping for Google's share price to plummet with the loss of 10% of revenue. If share prices go low enough, it could be a fatal blow, as Google won't have the capital to continue its growth. M$ is hoping for that outcome. However, if this doesn't pan out, and Google's share prices remain the same at the end of the day, M$ probably won't be able to do much else with AOL. Dial-up is losing subscribers every day to broadband, especially as broadband prices go below AOL's prices (right now, most DSL packages still require a landline). M$ might be able to salvage the AOL brand, but other than Aim and Mapquest, AOL has nothing going for it. And the behemoth that is Google looks ready to gobble up marketshare in these areas too. M$ could prop AIM up for a little while, or use it to reinforce their Messenger userbase, but with Google entering the market and products like GAIM and Trillian, I predict it'll turn out like AOL's buyout of ICQ. As for the brand itself, it's going sour too, and if AOL continues to swarm their users with ads, it'll only get worse.
So yeah, if this move doesn't bring down Google's share prices, M$ will be stuck with another dying brand. My prediction is that it probably won't move the stock price any, as investors are getting more and more tech savvy by the day. They'll know that AOL's losing subscribers, and the 10% of customers that Google might lose to this move will easily be recovered in the next few years. If M$ wants to kill Google, they'll have to win back the userbase. And that won't happen until M$ starts changing its business practices. We might as well be waiting for the first Martian colony.
Well, the debate itself between whether FF or IE is more secure has been going on since forever. This Symantec article is the latest incarnation of that debate. It's sort of like the debate over whether Linux is ready for mainstream home use or not or how google continues to grow; not a week goes by without at least one. But this one article pretty much has two entries (three including this one). At the least, if this had been included in or come in the form of an update to the dupe, it would at least lend legitimacy to the dupe. But a third one? And a rehash of a comment in the dupe at that?
Disappointed, to say the least, but maybe my surprise is unjustified.
This isn't a dupe, technically, but shouldn't this bit have gone with the dupe of the Symantec report below as an update or something? After all, someone posted the link in the comments to that (duped) story shortly after it appeared.
But if this is a dupe, what might it be called? A trupe? April-fools joke on a regular day?
With M$'s brigade of lawyers, they'll have the reporter either in jail, or this guy fired before the new year. That was quite the mistake really. It probably would have been better if word of mouth carried this information out. Of course, this would make the legitimacy of the information suspect to controversy and debate, but it wouldn't compromise the anonymity of this person. Nor would it matter. M$ employees seem to think this guy is real, and if enough agree on this person's legitimacy, that's all that really matters in the end. But I'm just being pessimistic. We'll see the fallout (if any) from this soon enough.
That having been said, putting the blog on Google was a brilliant idea. Google might not like the results of this guy's message, but they'll certainly like the bad publicity this gives M$, and I'll bet they'll be willing to go to certain lengths to defend this guy. That having been said, I wonder what measures these people (the person writing the entries and the people commenting) take to secure their anonymity. Anonymous proxy? TOR? In-house TOR-like network (there's a lot of software people after all)? Nothing? After all, other than the individuals' computers (I assume everyone's smart enough to thoroughly secure their computers), the potential point of failure in terms of anonymity for anyone associating themselves with the blog would be Google, who whould have logs of their IP's.
As for that statement about the love/hate relationship, these are the people who are the most passionate about what they do. They really are what companies need the most. Organization is good, but a bunch of people fired-up to do their job ensures that things actually gets done and done right. After all, the energy from these people rubs off onto others, thus energizing everyone around them. Middle/upper management and executives might not like them though, as these are the people who also tend to be the most vocal about the things that are going wrong. In the case of M$, it seems things are definitely going wrong.
Slashdot Mirror
They're related, in as much as humans are related to mice--taxonomologically anyway.
While the similarities might have been a result of evolutionary forces (not unlike the marsupial wolves that bore an uncanny resemblance to normal wolves), there's certainly a chance this particular animal has a more common ancestor with the ticks than the lobsters.
Which would make it a giant hairy aquatic tick.
Is it just me, or does it bear uncanny resemblance to a tick except much bigger and with two giant pincers in the front?
Total Annihilation (9/1997) had a watcher mode. A mod by the swedes allowed multiplayer games to be recorded and replayed.
To a certain extent, one can rely on puns and other clever charater substitution methods to go around the filters. However, there are two problems with this that limits its use.
1) In order to find something, it must exist. So someone has to use the exact same character combination for the exact same meaning in a web page. This is quite difficult, as there are hundreds of possible substitution combinations ("misspellings if you will") for just Tiananmen alone. Which one would a site use? Furthermore, few of them are trivial, and never is any one phrase trivial to any majority. For example, off the top of my head, I would have substituted "gate"/"door" (men) with "culture" (men) or "peace" (an) with "peace" (wo). To substitute "heaven" with "money" would have been beyond me. It isn't about intelligence or knowledge either, though both attributes help in increasing the number of trivial subsitutions and the ability to find non-trivial substitutions. This difference is the result of the differences in thought pattern between us.
2) While certain phrases can be standardized (like the English-equivalent pr0n for porn), those can easily be filtered out as well once they have gained enough popularity. There are also unintended side effects for such actions. There might be something else using the standard substitute character combination. It might even be popular enough that there are a number of sites for it, but not so popular that everyone in China knows of it. At best then, the unoffending sites would not be visited and people will have a little less information. At worst, anyone associated with those sites would be immediately arrested and jailed as if they had participated in trying to get around the filters. It may sound a little extreme, but given the Chinese government's track record, not unthinkable.
Of course if you shoot someone on purpose it's your fault, but what if, perhaps, a manufacturing defect caused the gun to discharge without you pulling the trigger? Did you ever consider that there MAY BE OTHER FACTORS INVOLVED
Perhaps you shouldn't be pointing the gun at anyone then.
We can't do anything about these virii at the moment, and I'm not so sure we should. There's no point in worrying about those things, just as there's little point in worrying about a gun discharging due to a manufacturing defect. What we can do is moderate our consumption and keep tabs on what we consume. There are subtances that are helpful in small quantities, but harmful in large ones (the most common being alcohol products like wine or beer). Consider fatty foods one such poison. To continue with the gun analogy, we shouldn't be pointing a gun at someone we don't want to shoot in the first place.
Interesting as it is from an academic standpoint, this is just another way for overweight people to assign blame to anything but themselves. Sure a chain of circumstances could have resulted in obesity. But the individual is as much a part of that chain as the food, the society, and these viruii. If the chain had been broken at that point, obesity would not ensue.
I see only two problems with moving research of this type into non-profit organizations (e.g. the government, since they're the ones funding the majority of research into obscure and rare diseases anyway, as no company would do it, since they can't make money on the treatments). The first is the usual inefficiency and waste associated with a lack of profit. But that is countered by the life-saving purpose of the research, which is more of a drive for the majority of the researchers than any monetary return. The importance of the research more than makes up for the lack of a year-end bonus. The second is that though there's knowledge, there won't be anyone or any resources to materialize the knowledge. That's where companies come in--to turn the knowledge into a product that the average layman can use. And that's what they should only be allowed to make money doing.
But what happens when there's simply no interest in the knowledge and hence no funding. Well, even for the most obscure disorders and illnesses (like the genetic disorder where children physically mature many times faster than natural whose name I forget), there's someone working on it. It may be slow, but research is still happening. As for a lack of interest by companies in producing actual pills or machines that deliver the treatment, well, that would be true whether companies have patented the science to the treatment or not. Companies should still be able to donate their resources in such situations.
To use the example you cite, there's still plenty of AIDS research going on. Just today, there's news about someone who appears to have fought off the virus, and there's a great amount of public interest in that person. The interest and subsequent research is just not in the private sector. So no one manufactures the deliverable product if they can't control the formula (who would want to compete when they can have a monopoly?). But forcing pharmaceuticals to only be able to make money from manufacturing treatments solves this particular problem, since companies then have no choice but to use public domain knowledge to make their products (or they don't make products, go bankrupt, and someone else jumps in). In addition, AIDS research has also slowed down because though AIDS isn't cureable, it is treatable, and even better, preventable. If AIDS turned airborne (which is very unlikely right now), you'd better believe that people will jump to find a vaccine or cure, money or no money.
As for this avian flu, I'm certain if the Tamiflu was never created (because no one saw that it could make money), there'd still be researchers looking for a cure, likely in the academic world. And once one's found, at least one company will try to produce a product from it. By now, there'd be a dozen companies jumping onto it with their own version of the medicine, and there wouldn't be any problems. On top of that, the death rate by now would likely be much lower, since those who actually sought treatment would be able to afford it too.
Generally speaking, I'm of the opinion that all scientific research should be in the public domain. What should be patentable is the engineering end, which covers methods and applications--like a new method of delivering the treatment. Patenting science will only result in the halting of progress in any civilization (imagine if Newton patented calculus). If knowledge is horded like some kind of treasure, then only the dragons will be wealthy and everyone else impoverished, not to mention at the mercy of said dragons (major companies, in case you don't get the metaphor).
What really gets me is that even if there's some pandemic that could potentially wipe out half of the human race, at the same time, there's also a company that's charging $100 per dose for the treatment of the disease because they hold the patent to the medication or technique and they can milk it for all its worth.
I wholeheartedly applaud governments that step in and invalidate such patents under these circumstances so that they can procure and administer the treatment to their people as they see fit. However, I still find it unfortunate that only the wealthier governments can do this (look at AIDS and Africa). The poorer governments still need to rely on complying with the treaties to the letter or risk becoming even poorer. Even then, not all governments, regardless of wealth, will do this.
I am, of course, specifically talking about the good ol' US of A. When this killer flu arrives in the US, we all know the government isn't going to step in like some of the Asian governments. So what'll end up happening is that the poor and needy who have no health care are completely devastated because they can't afford the treatment or the insurance to pay for the treatment, while the wealthy survive unscathed because they can afford to. And that's really what's most sad--that the wealthiest nation in the world isn't charitable enough to care for its own people. Public welfare be damned, so long as the pharmaceuticals can make back their research money.
As for those screaming that the patent holder will likely license the patent for making generics in such an event, I have two things to say:
1) Licensing takes care of supply, but still doesn't address the cost issue for low-income, medically uninsured people.
2) The way diseases can so quickly spread, by the time anyone recognizes the gravity of the situation, it'll be likely to be too little, too late. Again, supply will go up moderately, but demand will skyrocket.
Well, there are bound to be users that will do exactly that, but with the recent publicity that Sony's rootkit has received, I think people will more than likely think twice before typing in their password after they pop in a Sony CD to be played. I think the media coverage (not to mention the lawsuit) has made people very wary of Sony and Sony CD's in general. While there's likely a good number of Mac users that switched from Windows to avoid the security problems of the latter, and really are no better than the typical Windows user when it comes to security, they also tend to be more savvy in terms of keeping up with current events, as the really clueless would've probably stuck with Windows, or not be among the demographics at which these Sony CD's are targeted.
I think this is the root of the problem: supporters of ID think that evolution is some kind of belief that one can choose to or not to subscribe in.
On the contrary, there is nothing to believe about evolution. There's no faith involved. If someone desputes evolution, that person can look up all the research done on and about it. And if that person can come to a conclusion through the information in the research that is both simpler and better explains the data, then that theory will be seriously considered as an alternative to evolution. However, at the moment, none of the data points to some intelligent designer, and on the contrary, points to a lot of random acts of mutation. Everything from genetic disorders to the physical similarities between all living beings (excluding virii, which are not considered living in most circles) points to evolution.
And, evolution through natural selection is testable and has been tested. The most recent example is the appearance of the superbug, a.k.a. the antibiotic-resistant strains of microbes that posters have already discussed far above. Because antibiotics kill off all the non-resistant strains of bateria, the ones that mutate and develop resistance to the antibiotics will have no competition and will propogate. This is why infections in hospitals are so deadly; antibiotics are used so often there that most infections are due to one of these superbugs. So yes, natural selection is tried and true. The only time natural selection doesn't work is when applied to humans, but that's not a failure of natural selection so much as it is an introduction of other factors into the equations of survival.
The main target will be movie studios I think -- already they have to fight off hacks who claim that someone read their script and stole the idea, now they'd be liable even if the "idea" was never shown to anyone or published.
Way to get the MPAA and RIAA to do something for society for a change. If there's anyone willing and ready to fight the patent system, it'll be them, either in court, or through legislation. And even if they lose (which would certainly spell doom for the US as a world power afterwards), at least that'll be money and effort away from suing kids or trying to put draconian laws on media through congress.
I think, as most siblings have pointed out already, the most common issue with lawyers are their morals, or the lack thereof. Decent people will not help others ruin the lives of senior citizens or 12 year olds willing, and if they do so unintentially, they will attempt to make amends. So any decent person in the position of the MPAA/RIAA's legal representative would immediately quit. Let's just assume for the sake of argument that these people are decent human beings. Then why haven't they done this? Obviously, the money's too good. And that is where the problem comes in. There's something very wrong about sacrificing morals for dough. I think it's called being immoral, but there might be a more appropriate word.
Maybe, you would argue that these are the bad apples--the ones that give the rest of the lawyers a bad name. Then for the love of all that is good, go and defend your occupation and your reputation, if you think it is worth your time and efforts defending. Fly yourself over there and give legal council to those people--for free. That's what decent people do. If they see something unjust happening to other people, and it is within their power to stop it, they do it. If someone intentionally releases a bad patch that introduces security holes into a popular open-source application, you'd better believe that there'd be a patch out to fix the problem and an immediate blacklisting of the person from the FOSS community the moment people find out about it. Yeah, you argue, but it doesn't cost much to release a software patch. To help these victims of corporate greed would require spending time and money, probably better spent putting food on the table and the kids through college. Besides, vacation time is limited. So I guess lawyers don't mind having their good name tarnished, so long as they still have work.
All in all, the behavior of your average, everyday lawyer is undefendable and any attempts to do so is just more excuses as to why it isn't pragmatic to be good, decent, humane, or noble--especially not to those who need the most help--on top of being intelligent.
I noticed you listed intelligent, progressive, and interesting as being a part of a lawyer's makeup. That's probably true, since it does take a certain amount of intelligence and education afterwards to get through law school. However, that says nothing about their morals. Hitler and Stalin were probably just as intelligent, interesting, and from their perspective, progressive, and perhaps even more so than the average lawyer. That doesn't mean they shouldn't've been opposed, violently or otherwise. And yes, lawyers haven't really doing anything attrocious as the two aforementioned personages. But to call draw the analogy between them and Nazi or Soviet Party members wouldn't be too far off. After all, what they did wasn't their fault; it's their superiors' (the clients in the case of the lawyers) orders and they're just following orders.
Oh, BTW, if you think that by my standards, a lot of people in this world are bad, then yes, I would agree. And there are people who are worse (the ones who are actually making the decisions to sue 12 year olds), but that still doesn't make the other people bad. I wouldn't necessarily agree with killing all of them, but I would do everything I can to not be like them.
That would result in a non-functioning government. It's like asking politicians to build you a computer.
There are two issues at hand, and both are related. The first is the relative lack of knowledge of the average politician on anything other than politicking. Most of the politicians in office these days can win the hearts of the people with sweet words, but they have no idea WTF they're talking about the rest of the time. I'm not just talking about bible thumpers. Politicians require political savvy to remain in office--nothing else. This means that politicians have a tendency to be good at nothing other than politics. But that's why they have advisors. In particular, the President has his cabinet, and each member of the cabinet is given charge of a certain area of specialty.
The second problem is the speed that technology is growing. We've been seeing exponential growth in technology and technology-related fields since the Renaissance. Human intellect just can't keep up. For a politician to keep up with what's happening technology-wise requires more and more people because previous fields of expertise are splitting up into two or more separate fields. For example, in the 60's, we had programmers. Now, we have C programmers, Java programmers, OO programmers, web designers, scripters, software architects, etc. Yet, our economey does not grow exponentially. Politicians cannot afford to hire fifty people just to advise on "technology," which covers everything from your house to your car to your computer.
So what do we do? Either we slow down technological growth (like that'll happen) or we, the average citizen, will have to bring our elected representatives' attentions to issues that we feel are important. That means writing letters, petitioning, rallies, public demonstrations, etc. Or, we can do away with representatives completely, but let me remind you that whatever you might think, there are a lot more people who are much more ignorant on more important issues than you might like to believe. That, of course, includes anyone who's ever complained about a liberal arts class (or for that matter, any class) when majoring in an unrelated field.
This is a non-argument with respect to the topic, if you really think about it.
By the same line of argument, writing a *NIX program with libraries that have no corresponding Windows implementations would likewise make porting equally as difficult. Or, an example of your argument would be that porting Wine to OSX is difficult. Yes, it's a good idea to use common libraries. But that's a design decision, and has nothing to do with what platform to write for. If Windows doesn't have the same libraries as *NIX, then the developers would have to either choose one or build their own layer between their application and the platforms' native libraries. The article, I think, complains that developers would be more inclined to choose *NIX over Windows because of their biases towards the FOSS platform, and that's the real issue at hand (or at least part of it).
Now, what I want to know is what you mean by "more useful" platforms. IIRC, Windows is the most practical platform to code for, given that it has the largest userbase. OK, so the average intelligence of its userbase might be less than the average intelligence of the *NIX userbase. But when it comes to practicality, coding for Windows is the most practical in many more standpoints than coding for Linux, which is why there are so many games coded for Windows and comparatively few for Linux. Same goes with applications. So maybe Windows is the more "useful" platform, albeit the difference is shrinking every day.
Antitrust law doesn't expire in 2007, only close government supervision does.
:p
You are right. Having a monopoly isn't something the government can regulate; being a monopoly is not against the law. Companies can't just sue another company for being successful. It is only when Microsoft engages in unfair business practices where they use the advantages of their monopoly status that it becomes an issue of antitrust. But whether to sue them under antitrust laws is up to the government, specifically the attorney general (antitrust is a civil matter, not a criminal one).
That largely depends on the administration in office. Sure future antitrust violations will be dealt with more harshly. If they never get sued by the government, the only thing that'll happen is that they'll pay some large sum in fines to a bunch of small or already-dead companies and go about their merry way. And even if the DOJ does get involved, well Microsoft received a large fine the last time, setting the precedent to fine them even more (yes, it can be argued that fines aren't enough, but then again, that was argued for this case too and Microsoft was still largely fined). Anyhow, this administration is likely not going to act and we know little to nothing about the next one. Yet the settlement conveniently expires before then. By the time the next administration comes around to suing them again for unfair business practices, they'd have bought up all the so-called victims and the prosecution wouldn't have much of a leg to stand on except for Microsoft's history. And all Microsoft would need to ask then in defense is where the prosecution's witnesses are.
Once they're out from under the microscope, it doesn't give them free reign to do as they please, but it does loosen their chains considerably.
Already there are over 100 antitrust suits against them winding their way though a multidistrict panel
And there have been countless antitrust suits and unfair business practices suits before that. What really is litigation to Microsoft? Just part of the cost of doing business. Microsoft has been engaged in this business model for a very long time. Everyone sues Microsoft. Microsoft either settles with them for some amount of money, or loses, and is fined some amount of money. To Microsoft, these fines and suits are looked at like their utility bills.
Which is one reason I no longer work there.
I would work for Google too if given the choice. They get free food.
That's one of the things that's so frightening, and so ineffectual about the settlement. It's possible Vista's launch is planned to coincide with the ending of their settlement terms. It'll probably be something like one app in Office 12 (like Word or Powerpoint) with it, or even a dumbed down version of said product (like the way Outlook Express is). After all, when people buy Office, they buy it for Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and Outlook as a package. Including Word with Vista won't hurt sales of office, but it might help to kill the whole open formats thing.
I think this has been discussed quite a bit in the past already. Apple can at most be accused of having a monopoly in the mp3-player world, and that's not quite true (there are a lot of competing players in the market, it's just that nobody buys them). They also haven't attempted to kill their competition through monopolistic practices. Their competition survives just fine by using alternative software, and it isn't iTunes or FairPlay that's the cause of the competition's failure to gain any marketshare.
On the other hand, Microsoft has used and still wants to use their monopoly in the OS market to force out competition (OS2) and even in other markets (Netscape).
Which makes you wonder what Microsoft will be doing once those clauses of their settlement expires in 2008. Perhaps what they're really regreting is the manager letting the cat out of the bag before they could legally do it.
Honestly, the moment I saw this, I was like, wow, a real editorial! In a real news media outlet, that's exactly what this qualifies as, and it is exactly for something like this that the opinions/editorial section is still present in every news media today. Op/eds were precisely where editors could rant, rave, and bitch, and I quite frankly was disappointed to find such pieces having disappeared altogether recently (there's an op/ed section every week for newpapers and every issue for mags). All we see today are repostings of reader submissions, which give the editors a mechanical (and therefore, rather unimportant) aura from the reader's perspective. To put it another way, while this entry indeed surprised me, it also made me smile and say to myself, "finally!" The lack of grammar and spelling errors is a definite bonus too. ;)
/. 7 or 8 years ago. This says a lot about where we are headed as a society, but I won't get into that.
/.), I was waiting for 1M. I just couldn't wait anymore because posting as AC has become so damn difficult these days.
The way I see it, anyone who bitches that this is in the wrong place, probably does so (besides the aforementioned reasons by ancestors and in other threads) because that person has never picked up a newspaper or magazine and actually read it front to back. The tendency of these people to have high UID's is largely because they are the youths who did not know
Anyway, to wrap it up, my excuse was that since I missed 500000 (which was about when I began reading
Actually, IIRC, back when the patent system actually worked, I believe a working prototype was required to even file the application. On top of that, the object had to be non-trivial and without prior art before the patent would be issued. I don't remember the reasoning behind why this system was changed, but it did open up a pandora's box.
Dear Nintendo,
We like where your new controller design is headed. Our Xbox controller could never achieve such originality.
Regards,
Microsoft
Nintendo's reply:
Dear Microsoft,
We are great fans of your Xbox too. We hope the 360 does just as well.
Sincerely,
Nintendo
The AOL/TW merger wasn't so simple. At the time, AOL had a larger market cap than TW, and essentially, it was AOL who bought out TW, though because their market cap was close, it wasn't a full buy-out and turned into an unequal merger of sorts. The thing is, AOL knew it was eventually going to die even then. They had no broadband services, and they knew that was the future of the internet. So they bought out a company who had (RoadRunner came before AOLTW), thinking they could milk their dial-up cash cow for as long as possible and slowly switch to broadband afterwards. Unfortunately, that model didn't work. Everybody wanted RR for the speed, but no one wanted AOL (which became essentially a cheezy, crappy portal), especially when AOL was $10 on top of broadband. Google had a lot to do with this actually. So TW spits the dying AOL back out.
Microsoft isn't merging with AOL. They're buying AOL out. AOL isn't worth too much nowadays, so for M$, this probably isn't a very risky investment. M$ used to compete with AOL (MSN, remember?), and pretty much lost. It would be relatively easy to integrate AOL's business into their own. This is a tactical maneuver by M$ to lower Google's share prices. Actually, they're hoping for Google's share price to plummet with the loss of 10% of revenue. If share prices go low enough, it could be a fatal blow, as Google won't have the capital to continue its growth. M$ is hoping for that outcome. However, if this doesn't pan out, and Google's share prices remain the same at the end of the day, M$ probably won't be able to do much else with AOL. Dial-up is losing subscribers every day to broadband, especially as broadband prices go below AOL's prices (right now, most DSL packages still require a landline). M$ might be able to salvage the AOL brand, but other than Aim and Mapquest, AOL has nothing going for it. And the behemoth that is Google looks ready to gobble up marketshare in these areas too. M$ could prop AIM up for a little while, or use it to reinforce their Messenger userbase, but with Google entering the market and products like GAIM and Trillian, I predict it'll turn out like AOL's buyout of ICQ. As for the brand itself, it's going sour too, and if AOL continues to swarm their users with ads, it'll only get worse.
So yeah, if this move doesn't bring down Google's share prices, M$ will be stuck with another dying brand. My prediction is that it probably won't move the stock price any, as investors are getting more and more tech savvy by the day. They'll know that AOL's losing subscribers, and the 10% of customers that Google might lose to this move will easily be recovered in the next few years. If M$ wants to kill Google, they'll have to win back the userbase. And that won't happen until M$ starts changing its business practices. We might as well be waiting for the first Martian colony.
Well, the debate itself between whether FF or IE is more secure has been going on since forever. This Symantec article is the latest incarnation of that debate. It's sort of like the debate over whether Linux is ready for mainstream home use or not or how google continues to grow; not a week goes by without at least one. But this one article pretty much has two entries (three including this one). At the least, if this had been included in or come in the form of an update to the dupe, it would at least lend legitimacy to the dupe. But a third one? And a rehash of a comment in the dupe at that?
Disappointed, to say the least, but maybe my surprise is unjustified.
This isn't a dupe, technically, but shouldn't this bit have gone with the dupe of the Symantec report below as an update or something? After all, someone posted the link in the comments to that (duped) story shortly after it appeared.
But if this is a dupe, what might it be called? A trupe? April-fools joke on a regular day?
With M$'s brigade of lawyers, they'll have the reporter either in jail, or this guy fired before the new year. That was quite the mistake really. It probably would have been better if word of mouth carried this information out. Of course, this would make the legitimacy of the information suspect to controversy and debate, but it wouldn't compromise the anonymity of this person. Nor would it matter. M$ employees seem to think this guy is real, and if enough agree on this person's legitimacy, that's all that really matters in the end. But I'm just being pessimistic. We'll see the fallout (if any) from this soon enough.
That having been said, putting the blog on Google was a brilliant idea. Google might not like the results of this guy's message, but they'll certainly like the bad publicity this gives M$, and I'll bet they'll be willing to go to certain lengths to defend this guy. That having been said, I wonder what measures these people (the person writing the entries and the people commenting) take to secure their anonymity. Anonymous proxy? TOR? In-house TOR-like network (there's a lot of software people after all)? Nothing? After all, other than the individuals' computers (I assume everyone's smart enough to thoroughly secure their computers), the potential point of failure in terms of anonymity for anyone associating themselves with the blog would be Google, who whould have logs of their IP's.
As for that statement about the love/hate relationship, these are the people who are the most passionate about what they do. They really are what companies need the most. Organization is good, but a bunch of people fired-up to do their job ensures that things actually gets done and done right. After all, the energy from these people rubs off onto others, thus energizing everyone around them. Middle/upper management and executives might not like them though, as these are the people who also tend to be the most vocal about the things that are going wrong. In the case of M$, it seems things are definitely going wrong.
At the risk of sounding like an old fart
:)
*checks ID number*
There's some correlation between the two, but I just can't put my finger on what it is.