Ditto - in fact, having seen time and again what a mess "serious" politicians have made of running things, I think from now on we should all vote based on the candidate's comedic value. The country will still be screwed, but at least we'll get some laughs.
The obvious answer is that the hotspots will be declared legal but anyone who uses them will be branded criminals, in that way Boris gets to keep his promise, the copyright holders get their own way and everyone's happy. Well, everyone apart from the public, but they don't really matter since they're just a machine for generating cash.
Only if "god" is a human - human crimes can only be committed by humans, that's why we put down dogs that turn into killers rather than putting them on trial for murder.
Jesus also preached against idolatry, and yet I've never heard an outcry calling for any cartoonist's death over their pictures. Respecting others' right to disagree, even if it's pathetic behaviour, is a good thing to have. Islam does have some problems here.
Even more interesting, Jesus is a prophet in the muslim faith second only to Mohammed, and yet images of him aren't decried in the same way. The fact that one prophet is regarded more highly than another itself shows a tendency to idolatry, the exact crime the rule against images was meant to prevent.
We according to the Bible, God told Abraham to kill his son - admittedly it also says he didn't let him go through with it, but the very fact that he would put this guy through such mental anguish, and the fact that nevertheless Abraham was willing to follow the order demonstrates the principle behind what GP was saying, even if you discount the 9/11 terrorists as nutters (and to be honest, if there really was a caring god, you'd think he'd do more to stop people doing evil in his name).
How do you know your dog doesn't need an invisible sky fairy. For all we know animals may have religious beliefs
That's why, when you buy a dog as a puppy and take it home and raise it away from other dogs it always turns out to be a psychotic killer because it doesn't have a chance to learn the religion of its fellows. Seriously, if the only thing stopping dogs killing your family is religion, then dogs must either all be psychically attuned so they can learn their religion in isolation, or their god must speak to each and every one of them personally - in which case he at least sounds a lot more pro-active than all of the human gods who haven't really done much for thousands of years.
See also natural law, which is the theory that certain laws arise in nature without the rule of god or man, and can be demonstrated where cultures with wildly different religious beliefs nevertheless tend to develop the same fundamental underlying rules of conduct (against physical violence, murder, theft, etc).
It might be easier to launch something from the shuttle to push the satellite out into deep space than it would be to launch something from the ground. Having said that, I think you're right, they won't waste money on this unless a) there's some new weapons tech they want to trial, or b) we reach crisis point with debris smashing up functioning satellites on a regular basis.
And to bring it back into the realm of copyright - are libraries responsible if they provide a photocopier for their users unless they personally check everything you copy to ensure fair use? Are Blockbusters responsible if someone borrows and copies a DVD because they failed to send one of their employees home with you to check how you used the disk? This seems an incredibly stupid development, to basically say if you're providing a public service, unless you can guarantee people aren't abusing that service, you yourself are liable.
What if they do the same as the coffee shops and libraries - set up a password and then just hand it out to everyone? (and why do they think it's okay that private individuals aren't allowed to share a service they pay for!)
Is there even a law that states that you must secure your WiFi? Because it sure as hell doesn't warn you of the danger of litigation for failure to secure on the equipment itself. In fact, surely Netgear are at risk of being sued now for providing the option to commit an illegal act by even allowing open WiFi on their device. And all those bars and coffee shops where they basically hand out the WiFi key to all and sundry for the cost of a drink - they've got as good as zero security, are they all liable to fines, too? I'm usually the first to say don't judge the... erm judge... too harshly because they're only following the law, but even to me this seems like a pretty clear cut case of some idiot desperately trying to find a way to twist the rules in favour of the **AA and coming up with a ridiculous solution.
I don't believe HTC wouldn't have a formal contract in place with Google over the use of Android - they're not only a massive partner with a whole range of Android phones of their own, they even produce Google's physical phone product for them.
As I understand it, they're a problem for large companies because you pretty much have to accede to the full extent of their demands or your product doesn't ship. That could cost you billions, which puts them in a prime position to really turn the screw. Small companies just aren't such a juicy target for trolls, because the chances are if you try to take them for serious money, they'd be out of business anyway, so they're as likely to just pull the product and, while they still might go out of business, at least deny the troll their loot. Trolls would much rather give the small company time to become a big company before they attack.
While I don't disagree with your reasoning, consider that companies are already innovating on the back of Apple's innovations (which in turn were only possible due to the earlier innovations of other companies), and Apple is seeking to prevent those companies from doing so (well, if the reports of them firing the first volley by suing HTC are correct, I have to admit I've not been following developments here closely). If this shows anything, it's that the patent system is actually a hindrance in a field where the technology naturally wants to advance at lightnight speed.
Maybe, instead of trying to solve how to manage patents, we instead look at managing the enforcement. It seems to me a lot of the issues circulate around the fact that companies sit on patents for years and years, waiting for the widespread infringement to take hold, and only then seek to enforce them when they'd do the most damage. Maybe if there was a stipulation that patents had to be enforced within one year of the first competitor infringing them, and that this must be done for each subsequent competitor who infringes. If you let more than a year pass since a competitor went to market, you lose the right to enforce against them and all future infringers, since at this point the invention has obviously entered the "public consciousness".
This would end the situation of companies being essentially blackmailed for huge sums years after they implemented the technology. Companies could discover, at minimal cost, whether the owner intended to enforce the patent by doing a very small product run. I think this would help redress the balance - after all, patents are meant to be about protecting your invention, not punishing the competition as much as possible, and of course, if the idea was good enough, the competitor will pay the big upfront license fee to use it, it wouldn't harm lone inventors, it would stop patent troll companies sitting on patents for years while the popularity of the competitor's product reaches such a level that they have to accede to your demand or lose millions, it just removes the second guessing element.
The netbook issue was the first thing that struck me with the redesign, too. It's totally baffling to me that, considering the explosion of popularity in netbooks over the last three or four years, Google would now switch to this uncomfortable layout.
This concerns me. If it is just a gathering of facts from the top sites - who is to say that information is even accurate. I find lots of sites that all reference each other with the same false information.
If there are lots of sites referencing each other with the same false information, then apart from the massive time it will save you, how is it different to you visiting all those sites individually and arriving at exactly the same answer? I think this is likely more going to be used by people wanting to find out the name of celebrity X's third husband than as a serious research tool. If it is used for the latter, I'd hope the researcher has the sense to verify the information and is merely using it to help refine their actual search query.
As far as I can tell, it arrives at the answer by trawling through lots of sites and comparing the information to find the common elements - therefore it's not a case of ripping off the exclusive content of one single site, the fact is if Google has enough information to give an answer, your copy is probably already on dozens of sites. It does seem to offer some excellent opportunities for a new wave of Google-bombing, though!
Google has had the ability to display a subset of specific information for a while - so times, calculations, currency conversion, etc. It sounds like this is intended to increase the scope of that by trying to answer some of the more popular free text queries.
Ditto, here - my other half loves parallel parking and sees it as something to be proud of (and honestly it amazes me the spaces she manages to squeeze a 4x4 into), but for me, I too can count the number of times I've actually had to do it versus parking three or four car lengths further away and walking in the last 15 years on the fingers of one hand. I've also known guys in the car industry who routinely perform maneouvres that seem insane to me. When I went to test drive my last car, the guy asked if I wanted to pull the car out of the parking lot, it was between two vehicles with another parked across the front leaving a swing out to the left with literally an inch and a half clearance either side - visually from inside the space looked about a foot narrower than the car width to me! Needless to say, I declined (didn't want to ding up a bunch of shiny new cars to prove a point) so the salesman confidently drove out forwards, we did the drive and then he reversed into the same space. It's all about practice and experience, like most things in life, and I really don't think gender is an issue.
A friend's daughter managed to do a 360 spin on a motorway, at night, in the pouring rain. Lucky it was night, actually - the fact that there were no other cars around probably saved her life, and certainly the fact that she didn't trash her dad's car was a big factor, too.
Nobody objects to you doing stupid things and dying as a result. That's your choice, and adrenaline junkies believe the life affirming feeling is worth the risk. Doing stupid things that endanger the lives of others is a bit harder to swallow.
The issue is that cars don't work in isolation - there are lots of squishy meat-sacks walking around the place, particularly around parked cars. In a real world situation you'd want to be able to check and compensate for that, so slide parking at high speed wouldn't be a good idea. More efficient use of the available space would be more practical, so slow parking but with much less wasted space between vehicles.
Exactly, it's important to remember that this demonstration is just the team showing off what they can do, but the real world implications of allowing robots to take over some of the more mundane but non-trivial tasks is still important and things like this help focus attention on the project in an amusing way. Having said that, if I could get a robot car that parked like this today, I'd be reaching for my chequebook right now:)
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Ditto - in fact, having seen time and again what a mess "serious" politicians have made of running things, I think from now on we should all vote based on the candidate's comedic value. The country will still be screwed, but at least we'll get some laughs.
The obvious answer is that the hotspots will be declared legal but anyone who uses them will be branded criminals, in that way Boris gets to keep his promise, the copyright holders get their own way and everyone's happy. Well, everyone apart from the public, but they don't really matter since they're just a machine for generating cash.
Only if "god" is a human - human crimes can only be committed by humans, that's why we put down dogs that turn into killers rather than putting them on trial for murder.
Jesus also preached against idolatry, and yet I've never heard an outcry calling for any cartoonist's death over their pictures. Respecting others' right to disagree, even if it's pathetic behaviour, is a good thing to have. Islam does have some problems here.
Even more interesting, Jesus is a prophet in the muslim faith second only to Mohammed, and yet images of him aren't decried in the same way. The fact that one prophet is regarded more highly than another itself shows a tendency to idolatry, the exact crime the rule against images was meant to prevent.
We according to the Bible, God told Abraham to kill his son - admittedly it also says he didn't let him go through with it, but the very fact that he would put this guy through such mental anguish, and the fact that nevertheless Abraham was willing to follow the order demonstrates the principle behind what GP was saying, even if you discount the 9/11 terrorists as nutters (and to be honest, if there really was a caring god, you'd think he'd do more to stop people doing evil in his name).
In all seriousness,
How do you know your dog doesn't need an invisible sky fairy. For all we know animals may have religious beliefs
That's why, when you buy a dog as a puppy and take it home and raise it away from other dogs it always turns out to be a psychotic killer because it doesn't have a chance to learn the religion of its fellows. Seriously, if the only thing stopping dogs killing your family is religion, then dogs must either all be psychically attuned so they can learn their religion in isolation, or their god must speak to each and every one of them personally - in which case he at least sounds a lot more pro-active than all of the human gods who haven't really done much for thousands of years.
See also natural law, which is the theory that certain laws arise in nature without the rule of god or man, and can be demonstrated where cultures with wildly different religious beliefs nevertheless tend to develop the same fundamental underlying rules of conduct (against physical violence, murder, theft, etc).
It might be easier to launch something from the shuttle to push the satellite out into deep space than it would be to launch something from the ground. Having said that, I think you're right, they won't waste money on this unless a) there's some new weapons tech they want to trial, or b) we reach crisis point with debris smashing up functioning satellites on a regular basis.
Are you entirely sure that encouraging a bunch of amateurs to fire all kinds of crap into space is definitely the way to solve this..?
And to bring it back into the realm of copyright - are libraries responsible if they provide a photocopier for their users unless they personally check everything you copy to ensure fair use? Are Blockbusters responsible if someone borrows and copies a DVD because they failed to send one of their employees home with you to check how you used the disk? This seems an incredibly stupid development, to basically say if you're providing a public service, unless you can guarantee people aren't abusing that service, you yourself are liable.
What if they do the same as the coffee shops and libraries - set up a password and then just hand it out to everyone? (and why do they think it's okay that private individuals aren't allowed to share a service they pay for!)
Is there even a law that states that you must secure your WiFi? Because it sure as hell doesn't warn you of the danger of litigation for failure to secure on the equipment itself. In fact, surely Netgear are at risk of being sued now for providing the option to commit an illegal act by even allowing open WiFi on their device. And all those bars and coffee shops where they basically hand out the WiFi key to all and sundry for the cost of a drink - they've got as good as zero security, are they all liable to fines, too? I'm usually the first to say don't judge the... erm judge... too harshly because they're only following the law, but even to me this seems like a pretty clear cut case of some idiot desperately trying to find a way to twist the rules in favour of the **AA and coming up with a ridiculous solution.
I don't believe HTC wouldn't have a formal contract in place with Google over the use of Android - they're not only a massive partner with a whole range of Android phones of their own, they even produce Google's physical phone product for them.
As I understand it, they're a problem for large companies because you pretty much have to accede to the full extent of their demands or your product doesn't ship. That could cost you billions, which puts them in a prime position to really turn the screw. Small companies just aren't such a juicy target for trolls, because the chances are if you try to take them for serious money, they'd be out of business anyway, so they're as likely to just pull the product and, while they still might go out of business, at least deny the troll their loot. Trolls would much rather give the small company time to become a big company before they attack.
While I don't disagree with your reasoning, consider that companies are already innovating on the back of Apple's innovations (which in turn were only possible due to the earlier innovations of other companies), and Apple is seeking to prevent those companies from doing so (well, if the reports of them firing the first volley by suing HTC are correct, I have to admit I've not been following developments here closely). If this shows anything, it's that the patent system is actually a hindrance in a field where the technology naturally wants to advance at lightnight speed.
Maybe, instead of trying to solve how to manage patents, we instead look at managing the enforcement. It seems to me a lot of the issues circulate around the fact that companies sit on patents for years and years, waiting for the widespread infringement to take hold, and only then seek to enforce them when they'd do the most damage. Maybe if there was a stipulation that patents had to be enforced within one year of the first competitor infringing them, and that this must be done for each subsequent competitor who infringes. If you let more than a year pass since a competitor went to market, you lose the right to enforce against them and all future infringers, since at this point the invention has obviously entered the "public consciousness".
This would end the situation of companies being essentially blackmailed for huge sums years after they implemented the technology. Companies could discover, at minimal cost, whether the owner intended to enforce the patent by doing a very small product run. I think this would help redress the balance - after all, patents are meant to be about protecting your invention, not punishing the competition as much as possible, and of course, if the idea was good enough, the competitor will pay the big upfront license fee to use it, it wouldn't harm lone inventors, it would stop patent troll companies sitting on patents for years while the popularity of the competitor's product reaches such a level that they have to accede to your demand or lose millions, it just removes the second guessing element.
The netbook issue was the first thing that struck me with the redesign, too. It's totally baffling to me that, considering the explosion of popularity in netbooks over the last three or four years, Google would now switch to this uncomfortable layout.
This concerns me. If it is just a gathering of facts from the top sites - who is to say that information is even accurate. I find lots of sites that all reference each other with the same false information.
If there are lots of sites referencing each other with the same false information, then apart from the massive time it will save you, how is it different to you visiting all those sites individually and arriving at exactly the same answer? I think this is likely more going to be used by people wanting to find out the name of celebrity X's third husband than as a serious research tool. If it is used for the latter, I'd hope the researcher has the sense to verify the information and is merely using it to help refine their actual search query.
As far as I can tell, it arrives at the answer by trawling through lots of sites and comparing the information to find the common elements - therefore it's not a case of ripping off the exclusive content of one single site, the fact is if Google has enough information to give an answer, your copy is probably already on dozens of sites. It does seem to offer some excellent opportunities for a new wave of Google-bombing, though!
Google has had the ability to display a subset of specific information for a while - so times, calculations, currency conversion, etc. It sounds like this is intended to increase the scope of that by trying to answer some of the more popular free text queries.
Ditto, here - my other half loves parallel parking and sees it as something to be proud of (and honestly it amazes me the spaces she manages to squeeze a 4x4 into), but for me, I too can count the number of times I've actually had to do it versus parking three or four car lengths further away and walking in the last 15 years on the fingers of one hand. I've also known guys in the car industry who routinely perform maneouvres that seem insane to me. When I went to test drive my last car, the guy asked if I wanted to pull the car out of the parking lot, it was between two vehicles with another parked across the front leaving a swing out to the left with literally an inch and a half clearance either side - visually from inside the space looked about a foot narrower than the car width to me! Needless to say, I declined (didn't want to ding up a bunch of shiny new cars to prove a point) so the salesman confidently drove out forwards, we did the drive and then he reversed into the same space. It's all about practice and experience, like most things in life, and I really don't think gender is an issue.
A friend's daughter managed to do a 360 spin on a motorway, at night, in the pouring rain. Lucky it was night, actually - the fact that there were no other cars around probably saved her life, and certainly the fact that she didn't trash her dad's car was a big factor, too.
Nobody objects to you doing stupid things and dying as a result. That's your choice, and adrenaline junkies believe the life affirming feeling is worth the risk. Doing stupid things that endanger the lives of others is a bit harder to swallow.
The issue is that cars don't work in isolation - there are lots of squishy meat-sacks walking around the place, particularly around parked cars. In a real world situation you'd want to be able to check and compensate for that, so slide parking at high speed wouldn't be a good idea. More efficient use of the available space would be more practical, so slow parking but with much less wasted space between vehicles.
Exactly, it's important to remember that this demonstration is just the team showing off what they can do, but the real world implications of allowing robots to take over some of the more mundane but non-trivial tasks is still important and things like this help focus attention on the project in an amusing way. Having said that, if I could get a robot car that parked like this today, I'd be reaching for my chequebook right now :)