Oddly enough, private religious schools are often better academically than the failed public schools. Probably less dogmatic too. Oddly enough, rich people are often better academically than poor people. Additionally, "successful" public schools are often better academically than "failed" public schools. I don't understand your point.
You can't generalize the quality of education at a school if you don't factor the socioeconomic backgrounds of students who attend them. And why do you say they are failed?
I think the patent reward is a good idea, but the reward would have to be small enough so as not to provide any financial incentive for patent trolls to challenge every patent. What about those whose inventer has died? There are patent attorneys, so I think the government should set up a court whereby judges can revoke obvious patents and fine companies.
Isn't the only agency that grants patents (in the US) the USPTO? In any case, it wouldn't be fair for them to pay. After having read only a few patents related to my research/work, I've often found it difficult to get past all the confusing/BS words used to describe even the simplest things.
Sorta OT, but since you brought up steel tariffs... There was an article about how the new US tariffs on steel imports are hurting Chinese workers. It's from the perspective of the foreign companies and their employees. Personally, I don't like goods, drugs, and other products manufactured in China, but it's still a different perspective.
I would also think that Antigua could negotiate with steel manufacturers of other countries if it were to (hypothetically) increase tariffs. Sure, the US would probably retaliate, but it depends on how much they retaliate.
While I do think Microsoft consistently abuses their monopoly in the OS market, I agree with you that it does not take away from the legitimacy of the anti-trust claims against Google. They're trying to use their search engine and advertising to tie in other features and expand into those markets.
My reasoning is that you seriously have a problem if the FTC actually holds up a merger to investigate anti-trust violations. Especially under the current administration, which is extremely pro-business.
Abraham Lincoln appointed several of his political rivals to his Cabinet, and most historians agree that the diversity of opinions and perspectives helped him understand the situation better and control dissent. This was also the subject of Doris Kearns Goodwin's biographical book about Lincoln, Team of Rivals.
Consumer Reports is an American magazine published by the nonprofit Consumers Union that also does a lot of product testing and reviews. Like Which?, they also buy items from retail establishments, rather than accepting gifts/loaners for reviews. Their annual car review is well-respected.
Healthcare is much of the same too, except the amount of money is much higher. Doctors receive thousands of dollars to be "consultants" or "speakers" of certain drugs.
Mr. Beckerman: Could you also accompany the summary with a short comment about the significance of the legal actions? For example, I learned (from your response to another question) that it is highly unusual for a judge to issue the order to show cause herself. I'm also interested in the sibling post's question about precedence: if the case is dismissed, could it then be used throughout the federal circuit, or is it limited to DC, for example?
We really appreciate everything that you do. I just think adding the information will help this (lay) audience understand its significance better.
I'm not quite sure, but I think that electrical signals from the nerves are much more difficult to record due to the size of the nerves. An EMG, for example, is relatively easy if you stick an electrode into any part of the target muscle.
I'm not really sure about the patient "feeling" the arm; there should be a lot in the literature about patients who think they can feel sensation through their implant, but it's often because of the other nerves around the implant or prosthetic, and not the implant itself.
There is another way to have "thought-controled prosthetics": implant an electrode array directly on the brain and train the user to think of movements. By mapping out the specific brain signals, they can determine which neurons fire when the user wants to move his arm, for example, and then trigger to prosthetic to move in the desired way. It's been shown to work by numerous scientists, such as here and here, among others. They seem to have good success with this method, though I don't know about its long-term efficacy, given that the brain can move.
(Somewhat offtopic)
I realized that most lawyers only take cases they *think* they would win. I don't think that statement is necessarily true. If they're on contingency, then that would probably be true. However, I don't think lawyers in (relatively) small trademark case would be on contingency. Lawyers would want to be billed by the hour.
I remember a study that found that court-appointed, private attorneys cost the government millions more than public defenders would. Additionally, the average sentence received by the private attorneys was significantly longer. The reasoning by the study's author was that private attorneys in criminal cases (who would be paid hourly, as there would be no monetary award) are more likely to take difficult cases to court - and lose. On the other hand, public defenders are more experienced in criminal cases and have no financial incentive to drag cases on. Thus, they tended to settle those earlier, thereby saving money and receiving shorter sentences.
My point is that if you're paying someone hourly, then they would be more likely to take longer. Of course, criminal cases are different than civil cases. Perhaps a second opinion would be beneficial.
My impression is that Stewart and Colbert are slightly liberal (both are self-described Democrats; Stewart says he is probably "more of a socialist or an independent" and Colbert "admits to being a Democrat".) I don't think they necessarily believe that the majority of Americans are moderates, but rather that the majority is more intelligent than the politicians make them out to be. That is, they want politicians to be direct and honest, and not hide behind stupid photo ops or make blatant lies. I think they also want the Republicans to stop preaching their "conservative values" and the Democrats to stop compromising on things like the war (i.e., move left).
No, I don't think Microsoft is guilty of libel or slander. To me, it's more of a tactic to make certain claims but hide behind their ambiguity so as to avoid having to substantiate those claims. I think of it as akin to the White House's argument: "you're guilty of being a threat to national security, but we can't prove it because providing the evidence will violate national security. So we win." It ridiculous, but you don't have to make sense when you're the one in power.
Microsoft and all large companies (including IBM and Sun) have huge patent chests that cover all sorts of different technology. I'm sure that Linux infringes upon many Microsoft patents - we already know how poorly written some patents are. Conversely, Microsoft infringes upon many patents by other companies/institutions/patent trolls. Think of Amazon's One-Click patent; Barnes and Noble removed their "Express Lane" feature from their site because it infringed upon an Amazon patent. We (as in/.) weren't upset that a court ruled B&N guilty of patent infringement, but that the patent was obvious and should never have been given. I think suing MS will just invite them to countersue for infringement; it's probably easier to ignore MS's asinine talk.
It's also the small area that make it easy for companies to offer cell phone service. In addition to having a high population density, it's relatively easier to have enough cell towers to provide coverage over all of Japan, versus a larger country like the U.S. Though I really wish there were more options here; all the major cell phone companies in the U.S. suck.
Since we're on the topic of names, I might as well add that some countries, like the US and UK, use "Burma", whereas the UN (perhaps for diplomatic reasons) uses "Myanmar". Most refer to the people of the country and the official language as "Burmese". And, for what it's worth, the name of the country actually sounds more like "Myanmar" than "Burma" - apparently the latter was a poor transliteration.
What does Carly Fiorina have to do with this case? The pretexting was ordered by Patricia Dunn, who was chairman of the board. She should have to go to jail, more than anyone else.
I don't think you should sue the executives, because the company has much more money. I think it's easier to prove against a company because all you need is evidence that someone intentionally committed a crime, and not a specific person.
I'm a proponent of paper ballots and of a voter verified paper audit trail (VVPAT), and I find optical scan ballots to make a lot of sense. But I can see where electronic voting machines (not necessarily DRE), if designed properly, would be superior to an optical scan machine. What I meant was that a poorly designed optical scan machine would have similar problems to these current crop of DREs, wouldn't they? The manufacturers of the optical scan machines are the same ones who design the DREs, and we already know how incompetent they are.
I've always wondered about the security of optical scan voting machines. Wouldn't they be susceptible to many of the same problems as the DREs? I mean, they're still just a computer, and must decipher the various marks on the ballot to determine which are votes. But at least they do require a physical ballot to be saved.
I'm surprised there's no link to Secretary of State Debra Bowen's site that includes all the analyses, CVs/resumes, and all other documentation regarding the top-to-bottom review: http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/elections_vsr.htm
The overview by Matt Bishop is actually quite an interesting read. In it, he says that they could have found more problems with the three systems, but they were limited by time:
The short time allocated to this study has several implications. The key one is that the results presented in this study should be seen as a "lower bound"; all team members felt that they lacked sufficient time to conduct a thorough examination, and consequently may have missed other serious vulnerabilities. In addition, he also cites the lack of proper information from the vendors as another problem.
It should also be noted that a fourth vendor, Election Systems and Software (ES&S) missed the deadline for submitting their systems for the review. I'll be cynical and just assume that they decided to skip the initial review than to have a bunch of computer researchers hack their systems.
Congress often acts rapidly only in response to big incidents. For example, Sarbanes-Oxley was passed in the wake of the Enron and WorldCom scandals, the PATRIOT Act following the attacks, and the Kefauver-Harris Amendment (which required drug manufacturers to prove the safety and efficacy of a drug) was passed after the thalidomide incident. The PATRIOT Act is an example of a terrible law, in every way. Sarbanes-Oxley has its flaws (some of which you mentioned), but it was not really intended to save money, but rather to hold executives accountable for the company's accounting. The Kefauver-Harris Amendment, IMO, is considered to be a very good (and obvious) requirement.
And as for identity theft, Congress will only pass a sweeping law if some wide-scale incident of identity theft occurs... oh wait...
To add to that, you should request credit reports periodically to monitor for any abuse, if you're in the US. AnnualCreditReport is a site run by the 3 credit reporting agencies. You can request a free credit report per year from EACH company, meaning you could get one every four months.
(Note: depending on which state you live in, you may also be eligible for free credit reports from the companies themselves. The website is run by the credit agencies but I don't believe it's commercial - I think they were compelled to create it under some law - I may be wrong though.)
I think you're being ignorant. I used to work (okay fine, intern) for one of the largest biotechnology companies, so what's your point? Take Pfizer, for example (or any other pharmaceutical company - I just happened to choose this particular one). If you look at their most recent annual report, you'll see that they made $48 billion in revenue. R&D costs were approximately $7.6 billion, whereas "Selling, informational, and administrative expenses" - i.e., mostly marketing - was $15.6 billion. Generally, marketing costs are about twice that of R&D. And for Pfizer, they apparently spent billions on R&D, yet they still made over $19 billion in income/profit.
And the government has always picked up the tab for drug research, or any sort of research. Here's an article titled "Drug Companies Profit from Research Supported by Taxpayers". There has always been federal funding for research, whether it be academic research or private research (like pharmaceutical and defense companies). It's just a matter of the person's ultimate goal.
Don't get me wrong, I'm very grateful to the company and really enjoyed working there. If you want to learn more about your company, perhaps you should read the annual reports and understand the drug development process and the role of the FDA - or maybe anything else that interests you about the company.
That thought hasn't stopped the RIAA from suing others. Isn't that what their "John Doe" lawsuits and ex parte motions are for? To use the legal system for discovery... If there's the possibility that infringement has occurred, the RIAA will take action - even if the evidence shows the defendents are innocent.
Why not? We post disparaging remarks about Gates, Ballmer, the RIAA, or whoever we feel like it. Sure, it's a way to express our opinions without having to leave our parents' basement, but what's to say that some of these posts don't have any merit? I looked at the site, and a lot of it is just racist, sexist, whatever-ist crap. If spoken in public, it's probably slander.
For one of the women (I'm not sure if she's one of the plaintiffs or someone else), they apparently posted the Facebook and Flickr pictures, Facebook profile, and other crap about a girl. They also follow girls around, taking pictures of them to post online. I don't know what was said about other women or people of other ethnicities, but I'm sick of reading those threads.
What about a law school that took those trolls seriously? And after the person owned up to the bad joke, AutoAdmit told the FBI the identity of the person. Apparently someone posted some comment 2 days after the Virginia Tech shooting, and someone at UC Hastings shut down the school for the day. I'm from SF, though I actually didn't hear about it at the time. The guy edited his comment soon after, yet someone copied and pasted it, and maybe called the school or something (Here's the original thread - I don't feel like linking to their site again: www.xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=616215&mc=80& forum_id=2#7959514 ). So, essentially, someone posted some threat online and a school was closed. I don't know why they were happy to assist the FBI regarding that case, yet they're hiding behind a shield of "free speech" in this one.
It looks like his servers are taking a hit, so here's a copy of the e-mail exchange between Andrew Dubber (the academic) and Paul Birch (the music executive). (Stupid lameness filter... I would have posted the text instead.)
Interestingly, Birch posted a comment in response to another person's question about creating backups:
Andrew
Thank you for clarifying these are my personal views not those of the IFPI, RIAA, BPI or others.
In response to Mark I actually think there is nothing wrong with making a copy for your own use, in a sense side-loading to an iPod or similar is an extension of that use. Under current copyright legislation there is a need for customers to be allowed that facility but without it giving rise to them then making multiple copies for sale. The very specific instrument that allows the one and not the other is the difficulty in drafting any amendment.
Paul
Revolver Records So he supports fair-use and time-shifting, but not linking to sites on the web. Yay for stupid opinions!
Slashdot Mirror
You can't generalize the quality of education at a school if you don't factor the socioeconomic backgrounds of students who attend them. And why do you say they are failed?
I think the patent reward is a good idea, but the reward would have to be small enough so as not to provide any financial incentive for patent trolls to challenge every patent. What about those whose inventer has died? There are patent attorneys, so I think the government should set up a court whereby judges can revoke obvious patents and fine companies.
Isn't the only agency that grants patents (in the US) the USPTO? In any case, it wouldn't be fair for them to pay. After having read only a few patents related to my research/work, I've often found it difficult to get past all the confusing/BS words used to describe even the simplest things.
Sorta OT, but since you brought up steel tariffs... There was an article about how the new US tariffs on steel imports are hurting Chinese workers. It's from the perspective of the foreign companies and their employees. Personally, I don't like goods, drugs, and other products manufactured in China, but it's still a different perspective.
I would also think that Antigua could negotiate with steel manufacturers of other countries if it were to (hypothetically) increase tariffs. Sure, the US would probably retaliate, but it depends on how much they retaliate.
While I do think Microsoft consistently abuses their monopoly in the OS market, I agree with you that it does not take away from the legitimacy of the anti-trust claims against Google. They're trying to use their search engine and advertising to tie in other features and expand into those markets.
My reasoning is that you seriously have a problem if the FTC actually holds up a merger to investigate anti-trust violations. Especially under the current administration, which is extremely pro-business.
Abraham Lincoln appointed several of his political rivals to his Cabinet, and most historians agree that the diversity of opinions and perspectives helped him understand the situation better and control dissent. This was also the subject of Doris Kearns Goodwin's biographical book about Lincoln, Team of Rivals.
Consumer Reports is an American magazine published by the nonprofit Consumers Union that also does a lot of product testing and reviews. Like Which?, they also buy items from retail establishments, rather than accepting gifts/loaners for reviews. Their annual car review is well-respected.
Healthcare is much of the same too, except the amount of money is much higher. Doctors receive thousands of dollars to be "consultants" or "speakers" of certain drugs.
Mr. Beckerman: Could you also accompany the summary with a short comment about the significance of the legal actions? For example, I learned (from your response to another question) that it is highly unusual for a judge to issue the order to show cause herself. I'm also interested in the sibling post's question about precedence: if the case is dismissed, could it then be used throughout the federal circuit, or is it limited to DC, for example?
We really appreciate everything that you do. I just think adding the information will help this (lay) audience understand its significance better.
I'm not quite sure, but I think that electrical signals from the nerves are much more difficult to record due to the size of the nerves. An EMG, for example, is relatively easy if you stick an electrode into any part of the target muscle.
I'm not really sure about the patient "feeling" the arm; there should be a lot in the literature about patients who think they can feel sensation through their implant, but it's often because of the other nerves around the implant or prosthetic, and not the implant itself.
There is another way to have "thought-controled prosthetics": implant an electrode array directly on the brain and train the user to think of movements. By mapping out the specific brain signals, they can determine which neurons fire when the user wants to move his arm, for example, and then trigger to prosthetic to move in the desired way. It's been shown to work by numerous scientists, such as here and here, among others. They seem to have good success with this method, though I don't know about its long-term efficacy, given that the brain can move.
I remember a study that found that court-appointed, private attorneys cost the government millions more than public defenders would. Additionally, the average sentence received by the private attorneys was significantly longer. The reasoning by the study's author was that private attorneys in criminal cases (who would be paid hourly, as there would be no monetary award) are more likely to take difficult cases to court - and lose. On the other hand, public defenders are more experienced in criminal cases and have no financial incentive to drag cases on. Thus, they tended to settle those earlier, thereby saving money and receiving shorter sentences.
My point is that if you're paying someone hourly, then they would be more likely to take longer. Of course, criminal cases are different than civil cases. Perhaps a second opinion would be beneficial.
My impression is that Stewart and Colbert are slightly liberal (both are self-described Democrats; Stewart says he is probably "more of a socialist or an independent" and Colbert "admits to being a Democrat".) I don't think they necessarily believe that the majority of Americans are moderates, but rather that the majority is more intelligent than the politicians make them out to be. That is, they want politicians to be direct and honest, and not hide behind stupid photo ops or make blatant lies. I think they also want the Republicans to stop preaching their "conservative values" and the Democrats to stop compromising on things like the war (i.e., move left).
If they're not so tech-savvy, I say we send out "V1@gr@ for Identity Thieves" emails en masse, and see who responds. Then we'll steal their info.
After all, all of the respondents must be identity thieves. Damn them!
No, I don't think Microsoft is guilty of libel or slander. To me, it's more of a tactic to make certain claims but hide behind their ambiguity so as to avoid having to substantiate those claims. I think of it as akin to the White House's argument: "you're guilty of being a threat to national security, but we can't prove it because providing the evidence will violate national security. So we win." It ridiculous, but you don't have to make sense when you're the one in power.
/.) weren't upset that a court ruled B&N guilty of patent infringement, but that the patent was obvious and should never have been given. I think suing MS will just invite them to countersue for infringement; it's probably easier to ignore MS's asinine talk.
Microsoft and all large companies (including IBM and Sun) have huge patent chests that cover all sorts of different technology. I'm sure that Linux infringes upon many Microsoft patents - we already know how poorly written some patents are. Conversely, Microsoft infringes upon many patents by other companies/institutions/patent trolls. Think of Amazon's One-Click patent; Barnes and Noble removed their "Express Lane" feature from their site because it infringed upon an Amazon patent. We (as in
Well, that's my opinion, anyway, and IANAL.
Thanks, that was pretty interesting. I've learned quite a bit.
It's also the small area that make it easy for companies to offer cell phone service. In addition to having a high population density, it's relatively easier to have enough cell towers to provide coverage over all of Japan, versus a larger country like the U.S. Though I really wish there were more options here; all the major cell phone companies in the U.S. suck.
Since we're on the topic of names, I might as well add that some countries, like the US and UK, use "Burma", whereas the UN (perhaps for diplomatic reasons) uses "Myanmar". Most refer to the people of the country and the official language as "Burmese". And, for what it's worth, the name of the country actually sounds more like "Myanmar" than "Burma" - apparently the latter was a poor transliteration.
What does Carly Fiorina have to do with this case? The pretexting was ordered by Patricia Dunn, who was chairman of the board. She should have to go to jail, more than anyone else.
I don't think you should sue the executives, because the company has much more money. I think it's easier to prove against a company because all you need is evidence that someone intentionally committed a crime, and not a specific person.
I'm a proponent of paper ballots and of a voter verified paper audit trail (VVPAT), and I find optical scan ballots to make a lot of sense. But I can see where electronic voting machines (not necessarily DRE), if designed properly, would be superior to an optical scan machine. What I meant was that a poorly designed optical scan machine would have similar problems to these current crop of DREs, wouldn't they? The manufacturers of the optical scan machines are the same ones who design the DREs, and we already know how incompetent they are.
I've always wondered about the security of optical scan voting machines. Wouldn't they be susceptible to many of the same problems as the DREs? I mean, they're still just a computer, and must decipher the various marks on the ballot to determine which are votes. But at least they do require a physical ballot to be saved.
http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/elections_vsr.htm
The overview by Matt Bishop is actually quite an interesting read. In it, he says that they could have found more problems with the three systems, but they were limited by time: The short time allocated to this study has several implications. The key one is that the results presented in this study should be seen as a "lower bound"; all team members felt that they lacked sufficient time to conduct a thorough examination, and consequently may have missed other serious vulnerabilities. In addition, he also cites the lack of proper information from the vendors as another problem.
It should also be noted that a fourth vendor, Election Systems and Software (ES&S) missed the deadline for submitting their systems for the review. I'll be cynical and just assume that they decided to skip the initial review than to have a bunch of computer researchers hack their systems.
Congress often acts rapidly only in response to big incidents. For example, Sarbanes-Oxley was passed in the wake of the Enron and WorldCom scandals, the PATRIOT Act following the attacks, and the Kefauver-Harris Amendment (which required drug manufacturers to prove the safety and efficacy of a drug) was passed after the thalidomide incident. The PATRIOT Act is an example of a terrible law, in every way. Sarbanes-Oxley has its flaws (some of which you mentioned), but it was not really intended to save money, but rather to hold executives accountable for the company's accounting. The Kefauver-Harris Amendment, IMO, is considered to be a very good (and obvious) requirement.
And as for identity theft, Congress will only pass a sweeping law if some wide-scale incident of identity theft occurs... oh wait...
To add to that, you should request credit reports periodically to monitor for any abuse, if you're in the US. AnnualCreditReport is a site run by the 3 credit reporting agencies. You can request a free credit report per year from EACH company, meaning you could get one every four months.
(Note: depending on which state you live in, you may also be eligible for free credit reports from the companies themselves. The website is run by the credit agencies but I don't believe it's commercial - I think they were compelled to create it under some law - I may be wrong though.)
I think you're being ignorant. I used to work (okay fine, intern) for one of the largest biotechnology companies, so what's your point? Take Pfizer, for example (or any other pharmaceutical company - I just happened to choose this particular one). If you look at their most recent annual report, you'll see that they made $48 billion in revenue. R&D costs were approximately $7.6 billion, whereas "Selling, informational, and administrative expenses" - i.e., mostly marketing - was $15.6 billion. Generally, marketing costs are about twice that of R&D. And for Pfizer, they apparently spent billions on R&D, yet they still made over $19 billion in income/profit.
And the government has always picked up the tab for drug research, or any sort of research. Here's an article titled "Drug Companies Profit from Research Supported by Taxpayers". There has always been federal funding for research, whether it be academic research or private research (like pharmaceutical and defense companies). It's just a matter of the person's ultimate goal.
Don't get me wrong, I'm very grateful to the company and really enjoyed working there. If you want to learn more about your company, perhaps you should read the annual reports and understand the drug development process and the role of the FDA - or maybe anything else that interests you about the company.
That thought hasn't stopped the RIAA from suing others. Isn't that what their "John Doe" lawsuits and ex parte motions are for? To use the legal system for discovery... If there's the possibility that infringement has occurred, the RIAA will take action - even if the evidence shows the defendents are innocent.
Why not? We post disparaging remarks about Gates, Ballmer, the RIAA, or whoever we feel like it. Sure, it's a way to express our opinions without having to leave our parents' basement, but what's to say that some of these posts don't have any merit? I looked at the site, and a lot of it is just racist, sexist, whatever-ist crap. If spoken in public, it's probably slander.
& forum_id=2#7959514 ). So, essentially, someone posted some threat online and a school was closed. I don't know why they were happy to assist the FBI regarding that case, yet they're hiding behind a shield of "free speech" in this one.
For one of the women (I'm not sure if she's one of the plaintiffs or someone else), they apparently posted the Facebook and Flickr pictures, Facebook profile, and other crap about a girl. They also follow girls around, taking pictures of them to post online. I don't know what was said about other women or people of other ethnicities, but I'm sick of reading those threads.
What about a law school that took those trolls seriously? And after the person owned up to the bad joke, AutoAdmit told the FBI the identity of the person. Apparently someone posted some comment 2 days after the Virginia Tech shooting, and someone at UC Hastings shut down the school for the day. I'm from SF, though I actually didn't hear about it at the time. The guy edited his comment soon after, yet someone copied and pasted it, and maybe called the school or something (Here's the original thread - I don't feel like linking to their site again: www.xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=616215&mc=80
Interestingly, Birch posted a comment in response to another person's question about creating backups: Andrew
Thank you for clarifying these are my personal views not those of the IFPI, RIAA, BPI or others.
In response to Mark I actually think there is nothing wrong with making a copy for your own use, in a sense side-loading to an iPod or similar is an extension of that use. Under current copyright legislation there is a need for customers to be allowed that facility but without it giving rise to them then making multiple copies for sale. The very specific instrument that allows the one and not the other is the difficulty in drafting any amendment.
Paul
Revolver Records So he supports fair-use and time-shifting, but not linking to sites on the web. Yay for stupid opinions!