TrackMeNot
I am in no way affiliated with these guys but I think the concept is pretty elegant, in a brute force way.
Essentially your real searches become invisible again in a sea of random searches.
The absence of prior art is not sufficient to prove the worth of a patent, and certainly not enough to avoid sarcastic comments. My point is that it looks pretty obvious.
"The e-commerce patents in question ranged from hyperlink technology to electronic ordering."
Hyperlink technology?
Electronic ordering?
Sweet jesus, these guys at IBM are geniuses, are there any alienware nobel prizes for this kind of incredible breakthroughs?
Unfortunately several studies declare that about half the drivers will have below average intelligence.:)
Seriously, drivers are actually pretty efficient self-optimizing machines. The only problem is they have little immediate incentives to play nicely with others. Traffic flow control is a rather complex (and chaotic) process to optimize, and it is an area where significant investments are being made today (for example under the FP7 in europe). It is a field which has potential for efficiency gains by bettering the perceived "group intelligence" of large numbers of drivers.
It seems that many species would be extinct by the time they finish this in 10 years. Why not just make it a wiki and then it could be completed in a fraction of the time and perhaps not as many species would be extinct by the time their entry is completed. Or just find a way to do it faster without compromising the integrity of the entries. I thought the problem would be with fact that the species were extinct in 10 years. Apparently the bigger problem is the integrity of the entries.
You make a good point there, and kudos for the reference. Although it would fall under the scope of my original response under 4), to point out that "need not be confined to" and "the fullness of his or her experience as well as the lawyer's objective viewpoint" is pretty thin in a business that's so very recent. Keep in mind that the law moves at a slow pace, and the rules of the profession have that in mind. IMHO, it is _harsh_ to consider the lawyers presumed failings "stupid or grossly ignorant, perhaps even to the point of professional negligence." It is defensible, I give you that, but it is harsh. Good enough?
1. I don't think lawyers are paid to manage the public relations of whatever company. 2. They should advise about the possible _legal_ consequences of their actions, which is something they love doing anyway, and I find no cause to believe they did otherwise. 3. Lawyers are selling a service, not protecting fools from themselves. 4. The business is changing at such a pace that lawyers would be fools to make that kind of call, while turning down a (wealthy) client. Nobody knows for certain whatever is going to happen, much less in this business. 5. I don't see any indication that the company was ill-informed when opting for this strategy. I bet they knew fully the possible scenarios, and I bet they couldn't care less if some website made a fuss about it.
I don't know if you have any specific example in mind, but the *AAs mob ignored the whole piracy thing for a few years, then they started various propaganda campaigns before they started suing their customers. That's an escalation strategy to me. You don't start by showing your full hand, it does not make sense. Even the mafia starts by alluding to potential hypothetical accidents, then by horse's heads, etc.:)
Just like any other professionals. Although I hate them as much as the next guy, they did not cause this mess. This mess is caused by out-dated business models, corrupt legislation, impunity and progress, amongst other factors that have historically caused civil disobedience. To blame the lawyers is not only a cliché, it is confusing the issue. Lawyer language can be aggressive, but when you bring in lawyers it means you have already tried nicely.
The TCO benefits of open-source are obvious, but only if wielded by the right hands, TANSTAFL!
1) Define better what you want to accomplish. (Objective, benefits, expectations)
2) Define better your resources. (Budget, Team, Time)
3) Define better your school. (Size, budget, number of students, teachers)
4) Draft a one-page document with this information, roll it up and use it to play whack-a-mole with local bean-counters.
5) Come back for more.
The openness of your source should be the least of your worries.
As everybody has already commented, this article is based on fundamentally flawed logic on so many levels that it is difficult to enumerate, so I'll stick to some important points.
1) You can oppose copyright and support open-source at the same time. In fact, if you do oppose copyright, you're only viable strategy IS to support open-source, while copyright is THE LAW and stuff.
2) You can also support a concept while knowing that it is unimplementable. You can find several examples in History books.
3) "members of the anti-copyright crowd cite the GPL (GNU Public License) as an alternative to copyright" is not an example of irony but of a practical stop-gap solution.
4) The "look at what happens if the GPL is unenforceable." is a bizarre glimpse into a strange world that conveniently ignores a bunch of nasty truths, all in all pretty well debunked on other comments, although I find it most revealing that the "world without GPL", does have DRM! The "dreamworld" turns out to be more like a "strawworld" .
My personal opinion is that copyright has a place, and therefore should not be abolished, in a *perfect world*. However, due to the fact that the world is what it is, I would be perfectly happy with that bloated-and-abused-out-of-proportion-sorry-excuse- for-a copyright law getting abolished. So you see, I actually support and not support the same thing at the same time, and I have not disappeared in a puff of logic.
well, not new, just your run-of-the-mill lurker. Anyway, I find TFA poorly researched and rather superficial, much like the whole school-issued-laptops program. I've been a math teaching assistant at college for a few years, and have worked in IT most of my life. I feel somewhat qualified to have an opinion on this issue. The problem is not the laptops. It is not the kids. It is not even the teachers. The problem is management (ie PHBs) not thinking stuff through, and lazy journalists. If I was a journalist I would try to get answers to these questions: A) What was the plan of the program? B) What did they expect to accomplish? C) How was the actual implementation? D) What analysis was done afterwards to correct the problem? E) Why are the kids getting blamed?
I suspect the answers will be: a) 1. Give laptops to kids 2. ? 3. Congratulate myself
b) The more money I pour into laptops, the better kids grades will be. Just because.
c) kids got laptops, and nobody (teachers and students) had any clue what to do with them, so they mostly fooled around. And the problems were with a. and b.
d) Too busy blaming the kids for education management FUs.
e) Because they are the weakest link.
Of course, other questions cross my mind: - How many kids had used computers before? - How many used them at home? - How many parents got involved with the program? - How many parents where computer-savvy? - What budget did the teachers have available for computer courses for themselves? and so on and so forth...
Imagine I share lots of files that are copyrighted by me, but have names such as bimbo_singer_of_the_month.mp3.
I then get sued for infringement, but the files they have downloaded from my computer are actually copyrighted by me, and *they* are guilty of illegal copying of *my* work.
Would this stand up in court?
several countries went from democracies to totalitarian governments and dictatorships in the space of a few months. A spotty fraction of this kind of information was used by these governments in europe to steal, inprison, starve, torture, rape and kill millions of european citizens, and their families and closer friends.
A few years ago in Europe, several countries which did not have totalitarian governments where invaded and conquered by countries that had them, and the same thing happened. Other "voluntarily" gave up a part of their soverignty to join as "allies". To pay for that "privilege", they put millions of their citizens at the mercy of those countries peacefully.
Those citizens weren't always jews.
In a few years we have NO guarantee of which kind of government we are going to have in our country. It may even be a government from a foreign power, or our country may be forced to join an "alliance".
Do you know what Hitler would do with this kind of information about you?
This is not only another salvo in the war for freedom, it means the ante just went up thousand-fold. It means there is no turning back, because everything is at stake.
People who have commited no crime will die because of this, and other, collected and stored information.
Democracy is no guarantee against the future.
Emmanuel Goldstein
DISCLAIMER: If you are a dictator of my country sometime in the future, this message is designed only to catch people likely of commiting thought-crimes. Please mod this up doubleplusgood.
Slashdot Mirror
TrackMeNot I am in no way affiliated with these guys but I think the concept is pretty elegant, in a brute force way. Essentially your real searches become invisible again in a sea of random searches.
The absence of prior art is not sufficient to prove the worth of a patent, and certainly not enough to avoid sarcastic comments. My point is that it looks pretty obvious.
"The e-commerce patents in question ranged from hyperlink technology to electronic ordering." Hyperlink technology? Electronic ordering? Sweet jesus, these guys at IBM are geniuses, are there any alienware nobel prizes for this kind of incredible breakthroughs?
Sun makes OS software, so this is pretty close to their core. Doesn't look like a bad bet on the face of it.
"Sun will sell the software only in a binary version to ensure compatibility across different systems. "
Can anybody explain this to me?
Unfortunately several studies declare that about half the drivers will have below average intelligence. :)
Seriously, drivers are actually pretty efficient self-optimizing machines. The only problem is they have little immediate incentives to play nicely with others. Traffic flow control is a rather complex (and chaotic) process to optimize, and it is an area where significant investments are being made today (for example under the FP7 in europe). It is a field which has potential for efficiency gains by bettering the perceived "group intelligence" of large numbers of drivers.
Unless they get all tangled up of course. My staff will send you a new Internet in that case.
You make a good point there, and kudos for the reference.
Although it would fall under the scope of my original response under 4), to point out that "need not be confined to" and "the fullness of his or her experience as well as the lawyer's objective viewpoint" is pretty thin in a business that's so very recent. Keep in mind that the law moves at a slow pace, and the rules of the profession have that in mind.
IMHO, it is _harsh_ to consider the lawyers presumed failings "stupid or grossly ignorant, perhaps even to the point of professional negligence."
It is defensible, I give you that, but it is harsh. Good enough?
I'm sorry, but I just don't agree:
1. I don't think lawyers are paid to manage the public relations of whatever company.
2. They should advise about the possible _legal_ consequences of their actions, which is something they love doing anyway, and I find no cause to believe they did otherwise.
3. Lawyers are selling a service, not protecting fools from themselves.
4. The business is changing at such a pace that lawyers would be fools to make that kind of call, while turning down a (wealthy) client. Nobody knows for certain whatever is going to happen, much less in this business.
5. I don't see any indication that the company was ill-informed when opting for this strategy. I bet they knew fully the possible scenarios, and I bet they couldn't care less if some website made a fuss about it.
I don't know if you have any specific example in mind, but the *AAs mob ignored the whole piracy thing for a few years, then they started various propaganda campaigns before they started suing their customers. That's an escalation strategy to me. :)
You don't start by showing your full hand, it does not make sense.
Even the mafia starts by alluding to potential hypothetical accidents, then by horse's heads, etc.
Just like any other professionals.
Although I hate them as much as the next guy, they did not cause this mess.
This mess is caused by out-dated business models, corrupt legislation, impunity and progress, amongst other factors that have historically caused civil disobedience.
To blame the lawyers is not only a cliché, it is confusing the issue.
Lawyer language can be aggressive, but when you bring in lawyers it means you have already tried nicely.
The TCO benefits of open-source are obvious, but only if wielded by the right hands, TANSTAFL!
1) Define better what you want to accomplish. (Objective, benefits, expectations)
2) Define better your resources. (Budget, Team, Time)
3) Define better your school. (Size, budget, number of students, teachers)
4) Draft a one-page document with this information, roll it up and use it to play whack-a-mole with local bean-counters.
5) Come back for more.
The openness of your source should be the least of your worries.
As everybody has already commented, this article is based on fundamentally flawed logic on so many levels that it is difficult to enumerate, so I'll stick to some important points.- for-a copyright law getting abolished. So you see, I actually support and not support the same thing at the same time, and I have not disappeared in a puff of logic.
1) You can oppose copyright and support open-source at the same time. In fact, if you do oppose copyright, you're only viable strategy IS to support open-source, while copyright is THE LAW and stuff.
2) You can also support a concept while knowing that it is unimplementable. You can find several examples in History books.
3) "members of the anti-copyright crowd cite the GPL (GNU Public License) as an alternative to copyright" is not an example of irony but of a practical stop-gap solution.
4) The "look at what happens if the GPL is unenforceable." is a bizarre glimpse into a strange world that conveniently ignores a bunch of nasty truths, all in all pretty well debunked on other comments, although I find it most revealing that the "world without GPL", does have DRM! The "dreamworld" turns out to be more like a "strawworld" .
My personal opinion is that copyright has a place, and therefore should not be abolished, in a *perfect world*. However, due to the fact that the world is what it is, I would be perfectly happy with that bloated-and-abused-out-of-proportion-sorry-excuse
*puff*
well, not new, just your run-of-the-mill lurker.
Anyway, I find TFA poorly researched and rather superficial, much like the whole school-issued-laptops program.
I've been a math teaching assistant at college for a few years, and have worked in IT most of my life. I feel somewhat qualified to have an opinion on this issue.
The problem is not the laptops. It is not the kids. It is not even the teachers. The problem is management (ie PHBs) not thinking stuff through, and lazy journalists. If I was a journalist I would try to get answers to these questions:
A) What was the plan of the program?
B) What did they expect to accomplish?
C) How was the actual implementation?
D) What analysis was done afterwards to correct the problem?
E) Why are the kids getting blamed?
I suspect the answers will be:
a)
1. Give laptops to kids
2. ?
3. Congratulate myself
b)
The more money I pour into laptops, the better kids grades will be. Just because.
c)
kids got laptops, and nobody (teachers and students) had any clue what to do with them, so they mostly fooled around. And the problems were with a. and b.
d)
Too busy blaming the kids for education management FUs.
e)
Because they are the weakest link.
Of course, other questions cross my mind:
- How many kids had used computers before?
- How many used them at home?
- How many parents got involved with the program?
- How many parents where computer-savvy?
- What budget did the teachers have available for computer courses for themselves?
and so on and so forth...
Imagine I share lots of files that are copyrighted by me, but have names such as bimbo_singer_of_the_month.mp3. I then get sued for infringement, but the files they have downloaded from my computer are actually copyrighted by me, and *they* are guilty of illegal copying of *my* work. Would this stand up in court?
several countries went from democracies to totalitarian governments and dictatorships in the space of a few months. A spotty fraction of this kind of information was used by these governments in europe to steal, inprison, starve, torture, rape and kill millions of european citizens, and their families and closer friends.
A few years ago in Europe, several countries which did not have totalitarian governments where invaded and conquered by countries that had them, and the same thing happened. Other "voluntarily" gave up a part of their soverignty to join as "allies". To pay for that "privilege", they put millions of their citizens at the mercy of those countries peacefully.
Those citizens weren't always jews.
In a few years we have NO guarantee of which kind of government we are going to have in our country. It may even be a government from a foreign power, or our country may be forced to join an "alliance".
Do you know what Hitler would do with this kind of information about you?
This is not only another salvo in the war for freedom, it means the ante just went up thousand-fold. It means there is no turning back, because everything is at stake.
People who have commited no crime will die because of this, and other, collected and stored information.
Democracy is no guarantee against the future.
Emmanuel Goldstein
DISCLAIMER: If you are a dictator of my country sometime in the future, this message is designed only to catch people likely of commiting thought-crimes.
Please mod this up doubleplusgood.