I hope you've qualified that statement, because it's rather close to baiting.
I actually wasn't baiting. I'm stating fact. From Wikipedia: "As an economic system, socialism is usually associated with state or collective ownership of the means of production.".
There are many existing socialist nations where no one goes so far as the abolition of private property.
If you define a socialist nation as one that has some social policies, then yes every nation is a socialist nation. In the US we have a welfare system and a graduated tax system, not to mention social security. These are all social policies. There's no pure socialist nation and no pure capitalist nation because both would be very difficult to maintain. In a purely capitalist nation, people who couldn't work would starve. In a completely socialist nation, there would be no reason to work because if you didn't work, you would still get your allocated food, shelter, etc. This causes a downward spiral as no one works.
Whenever we grant major tax breaks to corporations, we aren't becoming more capitalist, we're taxing everyone else to give gifts to these corporations.
I don't see your logic. The dollars that corporations send to the government in the form of taxes currently go to fund programs they do not benefit from. Some examples of this are: Social Security, welfare, etc... Instead, it benefits all of us if we allow them to reinvest this money to create more jobs. It's so simplistic to think that we should tax corporations heavily. One of the best things we can do for our economy is to reduce the cost of capital for corporations. This will create jobs and raise the standard of living. We do this by lowering taxes on corporations.
Wal-mart would die in a truly competitive landscape where values actually competed with pure dollars.
Walmart is in a truly competitive landscape. If you don't want to shop at Walmart, you can go to Albertson's or Safeway, or another grocery or various other forms of retail stores that Walmart competes with. The thing that many people don't like about Walmart is that they do not employ Union workers. The reason Walmart makes so much money is that they have competed very well. This is in part due to the fact that they don't employ union workers. But they also have created many innovations around their distribution system, their use of RFID, etc.
To be philosophical, it depends if you believe in the labor theory of value
In order to believe in the value of labor theory, you have to deny the value of capital. As it says in the "Applicability of LTV" section, describing the value of land (just one example of capital) is problematic with this theory. Or if you believe in socialism, you believe that the government should own all capital and determine it's best use. The capitalist philosophy is that the government cannot make the best decisions about the use of capital and that it should be left up to the free market.
Does this mean, I was paying up to 160% more than what I should have, till now?
Actually, you would have been paying 150% more because 100%/40% = 2.5. 2.5 - 1 = 1.5, In other words, 150%. But yes, this is why competition is good!:)
Hard drive based personal music players will all be replaced by flashed based devices in just 3 years. Disk drives in laptops will be going in 5 years. 3.5 inch drives will be the last hold out at about 10 years.
I agree with you on this point. Actually, the mp3 player I own uses flash and I'm happy with it. With the advent of the internet, the only place where mass storage will be needed is on servers. Even today, you can buy a 32 gB flash drive. For most people that is enough. I would definitly consider using a laptop with a 32 gB flash drive and have my media files stored on a server. If you have a fast internet connection, that's a pretty nice setup.
When the Web 2.0 bubble bursts - when the massive buyouts are done, the millionaires are made and the sites we love today are in the hands of big business - the innovation will grind to a halt, and what's left will be the endless grinding of the marketeering machine.
I find it interesting that ever since the tech bubble burst in 2000, that everyone thinks that everything else is a bubble. Web 2.0 is so young. Last time I checked, mom and pop day traders are not buying and selling Digg.com. I think it's a little premature and presumptive to think that web 2.0 is a bubble. I don't think it deserves that distinction yet. For comparison, Pets.com raised $175 million in an IPO Febuary 2000 and was bankrupt by the end of the year. These companies are being bought by media companies. It's not a bubble until the public gets involved.
Ok, YES Terrorism is not the only way people die. Who every said it was? But Again, I was responding to the statement that "TERRORISM IS FUD PERIOD". It's not just FUD. People did die. Just as people died from drunk driving. Would you say to someone that had a relative die due to a driver that drunk driving laws are just FUD PERIOD? No, I don't think so.
When do people quit using their names and our memories of them to excuse taking our rights and freedoms away. America is being raped by its own leaders.
I was responding to the statement that "terrorism is fud period". For people that lost relatives in the terrorist attacks, it's more than just FUD period. I said nothing about taking freedoms away, etc. I wasn't even responding to the article.
And you are just as guilty as our President for spreading your idiotic rhetoric.
I said nothing about politics. You as a human should be able to see that the previous post was extremely insensative and just plain old not true. Terrorism is more than FUD. If it were just FUD, no one would have died. Even if you hate Bush, etc....you should really think about what you say.
Its too late, get freaking over it.
Forget about politics for a minute and just think about what you're saying. It's too late, [your family member is dead], get freaking over it. I'm not trying to justify any policies, etc. I'm just pointing out that terrorism is real. I'm sorry that it's an inconvenient fact, but the truth is the truth.
I took a look at the graphs. This is very good data. But, I'm not sure I agree with your conclusions. I don't think three years is enough to determine that there is a slow down. According to your data, there's a lot of volatility in this trend. Some years, it goes up by as much as 150%, others it only goes up by 6% (note: not in the last 3 years). Also, 2006 isn't even half way over yet. According to your data, we've already seen a 25% increase in 2006 and we're just begining June! By year end, the compound rate of increase will be greater than 70%. I also wouldn't be surprised if the rate increases for the rest of this year and brings us above the 81% mark. This is because the Segate hard drive has a new technology break through as this article indicated. New breakthroughs are expensive at first, but it will get cheaper fast. With that said, we really only have two slow years (2004, 2005). This is not very unusual. In '98 and '99, there were two slow years. These were followed by 4 years of fast growth. I would not be surprised to see a similar occurance in the remaining years in this decade.
Why do some people have to cling to such technobabble wreckage as if it's cast in stone like this?
I didn't cast it in stone. I did say "if this rate keeps up...". Maybe you missed that part. People probably discuss what you call technobabble wreckage because it's been remarkably accurate for somewhere around 30 years since the trend was noticed. Maybe you're right and the trend will not continue. Maybe this Seagate hard drive will be the highest capacity disk drive ever made. I think it's more likely that the trend will continue though even though I made no such prediction in the previous post. I wonder why this kind of progress troubles some people?
so that's about 600 million times better over the last 34 years. An annual rate of about 183%!
Yeah, the Moore's Law equiv. for storage has been pretty amazing on a dollar for dollar basis. It's actually an 83% increase per year, not 183%, but that's still pretty amazing. That means if we keep up this rate, by the year 2020, we should be discussing a 3 PetaByte (note: peta, not tera) drive for under $500. More likely, it would be a 1 PetaByte drive selling for between $100 - $200 because prices seem to decline as capacity increases. But, hey a 1 PetaByte drive ain't bad.
So can a space elevator be made? "With the technology available today? Never," he says.
This quote sums up the paper. All that the guy is saying is that given today's technology, we can't do it. OF COURSE WE CANT DO IT WITH TODAY'S TECHNOLOGY. If we could, we would have done it. This is why really smart people are working on this. If you use this logic, 10 years ago you could have said, "With the technology available today, we'll never have internet connections faster than 28.8 kbps."
Saying that rejecting software patents somehow equals taking away property rights is rediculous
Software patents are known as intelectual property. So they ARE property. Clearly, you don't believe that people should have the right to patent software. My point is that why distinguish between software and other things that you deem patentable? Software is a mental procedure as you have pointed out. So, what is hardware? In many cases hardware is specified in VHDL code or something similar. Since many hardware innovations involve using high level languages to describe tangible things, you must consider hardware patents out as well. Lets take another example. How about building a bridge? This is a tangable thing. So, it's patentable right? Well, what if the patent is a procedure for how to build a bridge cheaper? This is really a series of mental steps to build the bridge correct? According to your argument, "software" is out because it's a series of mental steps. Shouldn't bridge building be out then too?
What it comes down to is that patents protect, in a large part, procedures and processes. Some of those processes involve a real thing (like a telephone, etc), but a lot of them don't. If you want to take away people's rights to intellectual property, then why not just come out and say it, but the distinction between software specifications and specifications of tangible items is fuzzy at best.
most peope here think that it is obvious that software is not an invention.
Definition of invention (dictionary.com): A new device, method, or process developed from study and experimentation: the phonograph, an invention attributed to Thomas Edison.
does a Java method fit this definition? It's a method. It's developed from study or experimentation.
you're saying that in 1980 the US was taking away people's property rights when it consistantly rejected all attempts to patent software. You're saying that the entire world was taking away people's property rights at the time. You're saying that most of the world is still taking away people's property rights.
Well, if what you say is true, then yes, that's what I'm saying. Before 1980, hardly anyone had a computer, so I can see why the patent offices world wide might have gotten confused. As far as the world taking away property rights I think Europe is currently debating this as we speak and I don't think the US is considering this. I don't know about other parts of the world.
A one hundred digit number may certainly have never been seen before (novel). A one hundred digit number may certainly be non-obvious. A one hundred digit number my certainly be usefull. However a number is not an invention. Math is not an invention. A calculation is not an invention. Logic itself is not an invention. A sequence of mental steps is not an invention.
This is a straw man argument. A one hundred digit number is not patentable because it's not a useful process and therefore does not fit the definition of a utility patent. There are also many things that have been granted a patent like the hyperlink that are obvious and commonly used. These are flaws in the system, but flaws don't mean that you should disband the system altogether. On the contrary, we need to update the system to work in today's world.
The problem is that I haven't seen any algorithm worthy of a patent in a long time. Canonical example: Amazon's stupid "single click" patent. Can you look me in the eyes and truthfully say you think that was legitimate?
You hit the nail on the head. There's definitly patent abuse going on! No doubt about the fact that Amazon's one click patent is a mistake by the patent office. The problem is that we have a broken system. If you have a leaky pipe in your house do you wrip out the pipes? I think the solution is the internet. We need to have a forum where a diverse array of experts can comment on the viability of patents. This could be done in a community like Slashdot for instance. The patent office hasn't changed much since Edison was patenting his inventions. It needs to be updated.
Furthermore, the lifetime on software patents is ridiculously long. The vast majority of "new" algorithms that seem perfectly reasonable today are stale five years from now, and hopelessly obsolete a decade later. For every Knuth, there are a million boneheads reinventing CSS (the "encryption" (hah!) system).
Again, this is a problem that requires reform, not elimination. I agree that we could shorten the life of patents.
Finally, patents were explicitly created to benefit society. What benefit did society get from the obvious and illegitimate "xor mouse cursor" patent?
One example of a silly patent is not good enough to justify getting rid of the patent system. Has Google's page rank algorithm benefited society? You don't want to wipe out a system that has created tremendous innovation, jobs, wealth, etc just because there are some abuses and silly stuff going on at the fringes.
I could actually see the benefit of software patents if they weren't so widely abused, far too long-lasting, and detrimental to the public they were intended to serve. Fix those problems and I'd be happy to reconsider my stance.
We agree on this. But I think that what we disagree on is that there's some sort of crisis that would cause us to have to give up intelectual property rights for the time being until we can fix the patent system. No doubt there are problems, but at this time, the good outweighs the bad.
I guess no one sensed my sarchasm. I do believe in property rights and I think it's very interesting that I was mod up for the previous post. I'm actually totally against banning software patents. I was trying to illustrate that there's no difference between banning software patents and taking away property rights. Apparently I failed.
I really wonder what the discussion was like at the school board meeting. It's like: Hey, we can't let this guy get away with calling us bullies. What should we do about it? Hmmm, lets threaten to expell him. That will teach him. The sad truth is I've seen similar things in the corporate world. Maybe this is a good lesson on how the world works (as a previous poster mentioned).
Now hopefully, they ban all patents. People shouldn't have the right to own an idea because it's better if everyone can use the ideas that people come up with. Come to think of it, why allow people to own anything? Who needs property rights?
They didn't want to make all these kids Apple's or Microsoft's customers. They wanted them to have access to easily extensible software with the code completely available.
Any proprietary OS would have been contrary to the goals of the project.
Last time I checked OS X is based on BSD. Since BSD is open source, the kids would have access to the source.
Dude...your anology is a little off. We're talking about Operating Systems here not kidney transplants and for one thing and for another thing in 2 or 3 years, these things should have more memory and cpu power to handle it. Ever heard of Moore's Law?
Slashdot Mirror
I hope you've qualified that statement, because it's rather close to baiting.
I actually wasn't baiting. I'm stating fact. From Wikipedia: "As an economic system, socialism is usually associated with state or collective ownership of the means of production.".
There are many existing socialist nations where no one goes so far as the abolition of private property.
If you define a socialist nation as one that has some social policies, then yes every nation is a socialist nation. In the US we have a welfare system and a graduated tax system, not to mention social security. These are all social policies. There's no pure socialist nation and no pure capitalist nation because both would be very difficult to maintain. In a purely capitalist nation, people who couldn't work would starve. In a completely socialist nation, there would be no reason to work because if you didn't work, you would still get your allocated food, shelter, etc. This causes a downward spiral as no one works.
Whenever we grant major tax breaks to corporations, we aren't becoming more capitalist, we're taxing everyone else to give gifts to these corporations.
I don't see your logic. The dollars that corporations send to the government in the form of taxes currently go to fund programs they do not benefit from. Some examples of this are: Social Security, welfare, etc... Instead, it benefits all of us if we allow them to reinvest this money to create more jobs. It's so simplistic to think that we should tax corporations heavily. One of the best things we can do for our economy is to reduce the cost of capital for corporations. This will create jobs and raise the standard of living. We do this by lowering taxes on corporations.
Wal-mart would die in a truly competitive landscape where values actually competed with pure dollars.
Walmart is in a truly competitive landscape. If you don't want to shop at Walmart, you can go to Albertson's or Safeway, or another grocery or various other forms of retail stores that Walmart competes with. The thing that many people don't like about Walmart is that they do not employ Union workers. The reason Walmart makes so much money is that they have competed very well. This is in part due to the fact that they don't employ union workers. But they also have created many innovations around their distribution system, their use of RFID, etc.
To be philosophical, it depends if you believe in the labor theory of value
In order to believe in the value of labor theory, you have to deny the value of capital. As it says in the "Applicability of LTV" section, describing the value of land (just one example of capital) is problematic with this theory. Or if you believe in socialism, you believe that the government should own all capital and determine it's best use. The capitalist philosophy is that the government cannot make the best decisions about the use of capital and that it should be left up to the free market.
Does this mean, I was paying up to 160% more than what I should have, till now?
:)
Actually, you would have been paying 150% more because 100%/40% = 2.5. 2.5 - 1 = 1.5, In other words, 150%. But yes, this is why competition is good!
What does it come with? a power plant attached?
:)
It uses cold fusion.
Hard drive based personal music players will all be replaced by flashed based devices in just 3 years. Disk drives in laptops will be going in 5 years. 3.5 inch drives will be the last hold out at about 10 years.
I agree with you on this point. Actually, the mp3 player I own uses flash and I'm happy with it. With the advent of the internet, the only place where mass storage will be needed is on servers. Even today, you can buy a 32 gB flash drive. For most people that is enough. I would definitly consider using a laptop with a 32 gB flash drive and have my media files stored on a server. If you have a fast internet connection, that's a pretty nice setup.
When the Web 2.0 bubble bursts - when the massive buyouts are done, the millionaires are made and the sites we love today are in the hands of big business - the innovation will grind to a halt, and what's left will be the endless grinding of the marketeering machine.
I find it interesting that ever since the tech bubble burst in 2000, that everyone thinks that everything else is a bubble. Web 2.0 is so young. Last time I checked, mom and pop day traders are not buying and selling Digg.com. I think it's a little premature and presumptive to think that web 2.0 is a bubble. I don't think it deserves that distinction yet. For comparison, Pets.com raised $175 million in an IPO Febuary 2000 and was bankrupt by the end of the year. These companies are being bought by media companies. It's not a bubble until the public gets involved.
I can see it now: Satisfaction guaranteed or your software is free.
Ok, YES Terrorism is not the only way people die. Who every said it was? But Again, I was responding to the statement that "TERRORISM IS FUD PERIOD". It's not just FUD. People did die. Just as people died from drunk driving. Would you say to someone that had a relative die due to a driver that drunk driving laws are just FUD PERIOD? No, I don't think so.
CAR ACCIDENTS ARE FUD PERIOD
they are being used to justify basically anything the american government wants to loegalize to suppress its peoples rights. the reason? who knows..
When do people quit using their names and our memories of them to excuse taking our rights and freedoms away. America is being raped by its own leaders.
I was responding to the statement that "terrorism is fud period". For people that lost relatives in the terrorist attacks, it's more than just FUD period. I said nothing about taking freedoms away, etc. I wasn't even responding to the article.
And you are just as guilty as our President for spreading your idiotic rhetoric.
I said nothing about politics. You as a human should be able to see that the previous post was extremely insensative and just plain old not true. Terrorism is more than FUD. If it were just FUD, no one would have died. Even if you hate Bush, etc....you should really think about what you say.
Its too late, get freaking over it.
Forget about politics for a minute and just think about what you're saying. It's too late, [your family member is dead], get freaking over it. I'm not trying to justify any policies, etc. I'm just pointing out that terrorism is real. I'm sorry that it's an inconvenient fact, but the truth is the truth.
TERRORISM IS FUD PERIOD
Try telling that to the families of the 2000+ people that died on 9/11/01.
Is there some reason we can't just apply the same rating system we do for movies and check kids IDs if they want to buy a rated R video game?
Imagine a beowulf cluster of those puppies!
I took a look at the graphs. This is very good data. But, I'm not sure I agree with your conclusions. I don't think three years is enough to determine that there is a slow down. According to your data, there's a lot of volatility in this trend. Some years, it goes up by as much as 150%, others it only goes up by 6% (note: not in the last 3 years). Also, 2006 isn't even half way over yet. According to your data, we've already seen a 25% increase in 2006 and we're just begining June! By year end, the compound rate of increase will be greater than 70%. I also wouldn't be surprised if the rate increases for the rest of this year and brings us above the 81% mark. This is because the Segate hard drive has a new technology break through as this article indicated. New breakthroughs are expensive at first, but it will get cheaper fast. With that said, we really only have two slow years (2004, 2005). This is not very unusual. In '98 and '99, there were two slow years. These were followed by 4 years of fast growth. I would not be surprised to see a similar occurance in the remaining years in this decade.
Why do some people have to cling to such technobabble wreckage as if it's cast in stone like this?
I didn't cast it in stone. I did say "if this rate keeps up...". Maybe you missed that part. People probably discuss what you call technobabble wreckage because it's been remarkably accurate for somewhere around 30 years since the trend was noticed. Maybe you're right and the trend will not continue. Maybe this Seagate hard drive will be the highest capacity disk drive ever made. I think it's more likely that the trend will continue though even though I made no such prediction in the previous post. I wonder why this kind of progress troubles some people?
so that's about 600 million times better over the last 34 years. An annual rate of about 183%!
Yeah, the Moore's Law equiv. for storage has been pretty amazing on a dollar for dollar basis. It's actually an 83% increase per year, not 183%, but that's still pretty amazing. That means if we keep up this rate, by the year 2020, we should be discussing a 3 PetaByte (note: peta, not tera) drive for under $500. More likely, it would be a 1 PetaByte drive selling for between $100 - $200 because prices seem to decline as capacity increases. But, hey a 1 PetaByte drive ain't bad.
I'd really love to see what politicians are going to do to improve software quality.
So can a space elevator be made? "With the technology available today? Never," he says.
This quote sums up the paper. All that the guy is saying is that given today's technology, we can't do it. OF COURSE WE CANT DO IT WITH TODAY'S TECHNOLOGY. If we could, we would have done it. This is why really smart people are working on this. If you use this logic, 10 years ago you could have said, "With the technology available today, we'll never have internet connections faster than 28.8 kbps."
Saying that rejecting software patents somehow equals taking away property rights is rediculous
Software patents are known as intelectual property. So they ARE property. Clearly, you don't believe that people should have the right to patent software. My point is that why distinguish between software and other things that you deem patentable? Software is a mental procedure as you have pointed out. So, what is hardware? In many cases hardware is specified in VHDL code or something similar. Since many hardware innovations involve using high level languages to describe tangible things, you must consider hardware patents out as well. Lets take another example. How about building a bridge? This is a tangable thing. So, it's patentable right? Well, what if the patent is a procedure for how to build a bridge cheaper? This is really a series of mental steps to build the bridge correct? According to your argument, "software" is out because it's a series of mental steps. Shouldn't bridge building be out then too?
What it comes down to is that patents protect, in a large part, procedures and processes. Some of those processes involve a real thing (like a telephone, etc), but a lot of them don't. If you want to take away people's rights to intellectual property, then why not just come out and say it, but the distinction between software specifications and specifications of tangible items is fuzzy at best.
most peope here think that it is obvious that software is not an invention.
Definition of invention (dictionary.com): A new device, method, or process developed from study and experimentation: the phonograph, an invention attributed to Thomas Edison.
does a Java method fit this definition? It's a method. It's developed from study or experimentation.
you're saying that in 1980 the US was taking away people's property rights when it consistantly rejected all attempts to patent software. You're saying that the entire world was taking away people's property rights at the time. You're saying that most of the world is still taking away people's property rights.
Well, if what you say is true, then yes, that's what I'm saying. Before 1980, hardly anyone had a computer, so I can see why the patent offices world wide might have gotten confused. As far as the world taking away property rights I think Europe is currently debating this as we speak and I don't think the US is considering this. I don't know about other parts of the world.
A one hundred digit number may certainly have never been seen before (novel). A one hundred digit number may certainly be non-obvious. A one hundred digit number my certainly be usefull. However a number is not an invention. Math is not an invention. A calculation is not an invention. Logic itself is not an invention. A sequence of mental steps is not an invention.
This is a straw man argument. A one hundred digit number is not patentable because it's not a useful process and therefore does not fit the definition of a utility patent. There are also many things that have been granted a patent like the hyperlink that are obvious and commonly used. These are flaws in the system, but flaws don't mean that you should disband the system altogether. On the contrary, we need to update the system to work in today's world.
The problem is that I haven't seen any algorithm worthy of a patent in a long time. Canonical example: Amazon's stupid "single click" patent. Can you look me in the eyes and truthfully say you think that was legitimate?
You hit the nail on the head. There's definitly patent abuse going on! No doubt about the fact that Amazon's one click patent is a mistake by the patent office. The problem is that we have a broken system. If you have a leaky pipe in your house do you wrip out the pipes? I think the solution is the internet. We need to have a forum where a diverse array of experts can comment on the viability of patents. This could be done in a community like Slashdot for instance. The patent office hasn't changed much since Edison was patenting his inventions. It needs to be updated.
Furthermore, the lifetime on software patents is ridiculously long. The vast majority of "new" algorithms that seem perfectly reasonable today are stale five years from now, and hopelessly obsolete a decade later. For every Knuth, there are a million boneheads reinventing CSS (the "encryption" (hah!) system).
Again, this is a problem that requires reform, not elimination. I agree that we could shorten the life of patents.
Finally, patents were explicitly created to benefit society. What benefit did society get from the obvious and illegitimate "xor mouse cursor" patent?
One example of a silly patent is not good enough to justify getting rid of the patent system. Has Google's page rank algorithm benefited society? You don't want to wipe out a system that has created tremendous innovation, jobs, wealth, etc just because there are some abuses and silly stuff going on at the fringes.
I could actually see the benefit of software patents if they weren't so widely abused, far too long-lasting, and detrimental to the public they were intended to serve. Fix those problems and I'd be happy to reconsider my stance.
We agree on this. But I think that what we disagree on is that there's some sort of crisis that would cause us to have to give up intelectual property rights for the time being until we can fix the patent system. No doubt there are problems, but at this time, the good outweighs the bad.
I guess no one sensed my sarchasm. I do believe in property rights and I think it's very interesting that I was mod up for the previous post. I'm actually totally against banning software patents. I was trying to illustrate that there's no difference between banning software patents and taking away property rights. Apparently I failed.
I really wonder what the discussion was like at the school board meeting. It's like: Hey, we can't let this guy get away with calling us bullies. What should we do about it? Hmmm, lets threaten to expell him. That will teach him. The sad truth is I've seen similar things in the corporate world. Maybe this is a good lesson on how the world works (as a previous poster mentioned).
Now hopefully, they ban all patents. People shouldn't have the right to own an idea because it's better if everyone can use the ideas that people come up with. Come to think of it, why allow people to own anything? Who needs property rights?
They didn't want to make all these kids Apple's or Microsoft's customers. They wanted them to have access to easily extensible software with the code completely available. Any proprietary OS would have been contrary to the goals of the project.
Last time I checked OS X is based on BSD. Since BSD is open source, the kids would have access to the source.
Dude...your anology is a little off. We're talking about Operating Systems here not kidney transplants and for one thing and for another thing in 2 or 3 years, these things should have more memory and cpu power to handle it. Ever heard of Moore's Law?