I start a new hardware store in a growing town. It's a physical construction that nobody has done in that town before. Why can't I patent that idea and stop other people starting a competing hardware store when they see it's a success?
If you invent some new construction material or method that has some improvement over what already exists and that an average architect or engineer would never come up with, then sure, I'd be fine with you getting a patent for it. If you're talking about a patent on the concept of "a store that sells building tools and materials", then the fact that commerce has existed for a few thousand years probably qualifies as prior art.
Sorry, but this one would be horrible even for BadAnalogyGuy.
Because, some poor sucker programmer, living in his mom's basement, could come up with the same idea tomorrow, and find a way to make it work so much better.
Better enforcement of the non-obviousness requirement should help this situation. Just like a machine that an average car mechanic could invent shouldn't be patentable, software that an average programmer could come up with shouldn't be patentable, regardless of how one feels about software patents in general.
Software, reduced to it's most basic level, is nothing more than a series of zeros and ones. Numbers. Manipulating those numbers is what makes software work.
A machine, reduced to it's most basic level, is nothing more than a collection of atoms. Particles. Manipulating those particles is what makes a machine work.
I'm not arguing for or against software patents here, I'm only pointing out that the "software is just an algorithm" argument isn't as perfect as a lot of people think it is.
uh, there are plenty of changes to this game.
Orb stacking change, new heroes, new unique abilities never seen in DoTA (Zephyr), courier abilities, reconnecting, stats, matchmaking, maps, new graphics for well known models, lots of balancing with items.
None of those are significant gameplay changes. The closest to a real gameplay change in your list is that orbs stack, and probably the only reason they never did in any Warcraft III maps is because that's how the game engine worked and there was no way to change that.
League of Legends is a superior game in most respects, and it's from the same people that made the original DOTA mod.
When you say original, do you mean the real original, or the horribly unbalanced piece of crap that was made by people that had nothing to do with the original that came after that?
As to tetrachomats and their obvious evolutionary advantages, there is the corresponding hypothesis that being colorblind makes it easier for you to spot certain shapes.
I remember hearing and/or reading that colorblind men were used in scout planes during the mid-20th century because they tended to not be fooled by camouflage. It may have been because of the different green sensitivity, or because people who are colorblind tend to do more shape-based recognition.
Pretty sure you're thinking of state income tax. In states with no income tax, property taxes tend to be significantly higher to make up for it. New Hampshire is the well-known example in New England.
I just want everyone in power to pull their dicks out of our asses for a year or two, so that we can have a chance to recover from all their fucking "solutions."
That's pretty similar to how I described the 2008 elections. No matter who won, you knew you were going to take it in the ass, you were just voting for who you thought would be more likely to use lube first.
There's the science, which universally points towards global warming
Until you can create replicas of Earth (and probably a large part of the solar system as well) in a laboratory and arrange predictable, repeatable experiments, I don't think any science-oriented person should be making such absolute statements.
What's the cost of doing something about it (in terms of food production, delayed development, reduced energy availability) compared to the cost of not doing something about it (in terms of food production, lost occupied land, ecological diversity). It's those numbers that I've never seen realistically presented, and it's those numbers that should inform the decisions. Why don't we see those numbers? Because it's really really hard to figure them out, probably impossible with our current understanding of climate, geology, ecology, economics, and sociology.
One of my pet peeves is that those are political questions, not scientific questions. It's a legitimate position to say that we should do something even if the hypothesis might be wrong, but saying that we should do something does not equal scientific proof. This isn't directed specifically at you, nor am I saying whether the hypothesis is right or wrong, I'm only trying to point out that there should be a certain amount of seperation between the scientific and political parts of the discussion.
This is why I always laugh at people that claim CNN is biased. CNN doesn't have a "left" or "right", "liberal" or "conservative", or "Democrat" or "Republican" bias. CNN's only bias is towards repeating whatever people with no lives send them via Twitter.
And I skipped my senior prom to go to the national math meet (finished 17th in my state that year). It wasn't all that tough of a decision for me. And I ended up meeting a girl there that I then dated for over two overs.
I know I will be called a troll for asking this: but how is the SA AG's view on computer games flawed? It should be obvious to anyone that he believes that the views of his constituency (which BTW is more than just teenaged and 18-25 year old anglophone middle class computer-literate males) are not supportive of a "wider range" of content in video games. Given what he does, his decision is quite sensible.
To cater to the sensibilities of other people, and decide that their needs come before some others, does not necessarily make him "anti" anyone. Just like how if x is not larger than 3, it does not automatically make is smaller than 3, but it could also be equal.
Even if this is the view of his constituency, you're talking about tyranny of the majority, which is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, problem with a democratic government.
Sure, there's always the possibility of language that ends up being ambiguous. I was referring specifically to items in the W3C standard that are intentionally left as a decision for the implementation.
I suspect that most of the people at Comedy Central understand this whole Internet thing better than most of the executives in the other divisions of Viacom. As for The Daily Show and Colbert Report, I'm not sure why people would go to YouTube to watch them anyway, since you can already watch them for free on the shows' web sites.
Slashdot Mirror
I start a new hardware store in a growing town. It's a physical construction that nobody has done in that town before. Why can't I patent that idea and stop other people starting a competing hardware store when they see it's a success?
If you invent some new construction material or method that has some improvement over what already exists and that an average architect or engineer would never come up with, then sure, I'd be fine with you getting a patent for it. If you're talking about a patent on the concept of "a store that sells building tools and materials", then the fact that commerce has existed for a few thousand years probably qualifies as prior art.
Sorry, but this one would be horrible even for BadAnalogyGuy.
Because, some poor sucker programmer, living in his mom's basement, could come up with the same idea tomorrow, and find a way to make it work so much better.
Better enforcement of the non-obviousness requirement should help this situation. Just like a machine that an average car mechanic could invent shouldn't be patentable, software that an average programmer could come up with shouldn't be patentable, regardless of how one feels about software patents in general.
Software, reduced to it's most basic level, is nothing more than a series of zeros and ones. Numbers. Manipulating those numbers is what makes software work.
A machine, reduced to it's most basic level, is nothing more than a collection of atoms. Particles. Manipulating those particles is what makes a machine work.
I'm not arguing for or against software patents here, I'm only pointing out that the "software is just an algorithm" argument isn't as perfect as a lot of people think it is.
uh, there are plenty of changes to this game. Orb stacking change, new heroes, new unique abilities never seen in DoTA (Zephyr), courier abilities, reconnecting, stats, matchmaking, maps, new graphics for well known models, lots of balancing with items.
None of those are significant gameplay changes. The closest to a real gameplay change in your list is that orbs stack, and probably the only reason they never did in any Warcraft III maps is because that's how the game engine worked and there was no way to change that.
League of Legends is a superior game in most respects, and it's from the same people that made the original DOTA mod.
When you say original, do you mean the real original, or the horribly unbalanced piece of crap that was made by people that had nothing to do with the original that came after that?
You do know what party controls New York, right?
Well, Michael Bloomberg is still mayor, so I think it depends on the day of the week.
I blame the paradigm of "government". No competition. No alternative sources for their services.
Yeah, those countries that have two competing governments are just a blast to live in.
Awesome. I know I had heard/read about this (as I posted above), but now I have a source. Thank you much.
As to tetrachomats and their obvious evolutionary advantages, there is the corresponding hypothesis that being colorblind makes it easier for you to spot certain shapes.
I remember hearing and/or reading that colorblind men were used in scout planes during the mid-20th century because they tended to not be fooled by camouflage. It may have been because of the different green sensitivity, or because people who are colorblind tend to do more shape-based recognition.
I expect color blind people may have a different ratio of rods to cones which would help night vision.
Why would you expect that? Do you even know how red-green colorblindness works?
Are you sure that's a sales tax? Many states have separate taxes for motor vehicle titles and registration, in addition to regular sales tax.
Pretty sure you're thinking of state income tax. In states with no income tax, property taxes tend to be significantly higher to make up for it. New Hampshire is the well-known example in New England.
I just want everyone in power to pull their dicks out of our asses for a year or two, so that we can have a chance to recover from all their fucking "solutions."
That's pretty similar to how I described the 2008 elections. No matter who won, you knew you were going to take it in the ass, you were just voting for who you thought would be more likely to use lube first.
There's the science, which universally points towards global warming
Until you can create replicas of Earth (and probably a large part of the solar system as well) in a laboratory and arrange predictable, repeatable experiments, I don't think any science-oriented person should be making such absolute statements.
What's the cost of doing something about it (in terms of food production, delayed development, reduced energy availability) compared to the cost of not doing something about it (in terms of food production, lost occupied land, ecological diversity). It's those numbers that I've never seen realistically presented, and it's those numbers that should inform the decisions. Why don't we see those numbers? Because it's really really hard to figure them out, probably impossible with our current understanding of climate, geology, ecology, economics, and sociology.
One of my pet peeves is that those are political questions, not scientific questions. It's a legitimate position to say that we should do something even if the hypothesis might be wrong, but saying that we should do something does not equal scientific proof. This isn't directed specifically at you, nor am I saying whether the hypothesis is right or wrong, I'm only trying to point out that there should be a certain amount of seperation between the scientific and political parts of the discussion.
Weather |= Climate
Weather is now weather or climate? Well that should make the debate easier.
Oh yeah, he'll just get that rainstorm that knocked out his internet to give him a warning next time.
Done and done.
CNN lacks content to have a bias
This is why I always laugh at people that claim CNN is biased. CNN doesn't have a "left" or "right", "liberal" or "conservative", or "Democrat" or "Republican" bias. CNN's only bias is towards repeating whatever people with no lives send them via Twitter.
And I skipped my senior prom to go to the national math meet (finished 17th in my state that year). It wasn't all that tough of a decision for me. And I ended up meeting a girl there that I then dated for over two overs.
I know I will be called a troll for asking this: but how is the SA AG's view on computer games flawed? It should be obvious to anyone that he believes that the views of his constituency (which BTW is more than just teenaged and 18-25 year old anglophone middle class computer-literate males) are not supportive of a "wider range" of content in video games. Given what he does, his decision is quite sensible.
To cater to the sensibilities of other people, and decide that their needs come before some others, does not necessarily make him "anti" anyone. Just like how if x is not larger than 3, it does not automatically make is smaller than 3, but it could also be equal.
Even if this is the view of his constituency, you're talking about tyranny of the majority, which is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, problem with a democratic government.
Sure, there's always the possibility of language that ends up being ambiguous. I was referring specifically to items in the W3C standard that are intentionally left as a decision for the implementation.
There is no such thing as innovation in software, just different ways to do things.
I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you're trying to be funny.
Have you ever read any W3C standards? There are a lot of parts that are left to the discretion of the implementation.
When you tax the rich too heavily, it reduces their motivation to produce and enhances their motivation to hide their assets.
Yeah, because if I'm only going to make $9 million this year instead of $10 million, there's just no point in my even getting up in the morning.
I suspect that most of the people at Comedy Central understand this whole Internet thing better than most of the executives in the other divisions of Viacom. As for The Daily Show and Colbert Report, I'm not sure why people would go to YouTube to watch them anyway, since you can already watch them for free on the shows' web sites.