How the fuck is this modded +4 informative?

What are you smoking? The establishment clause of the first amendment pretty clearly prohibits preference of one religion over another.

Uh, pretty much any high school curriculum for a European history class reads like fucking timeline of Christianity. You know, the late Roman empire and the Vatican, Martin Luther, the Anglican church, Puritans, and all that jazz?

Uh, never at any point do I mention race or even allude to it. Perhaps my post is classist or culturalist (Is that a word?) or something of that nature, but racist?

I am not saying that most of the plagiarizers are from developing nations and Westerners are some kind of shining paragon of virtue. Quite the opposite, in fact. I am saying that those who grew up with formal schooling usually know better, and should suffer the consequences. I only said I suspect most of the students who genuinely were unaware that what they were doing was contrary to the expectation of the assignment, if there are really many cases like that, are probably people who have had little formal education.

I suspect most of the students who genuinely did not realize they were plagiarizing were actually from developing nations with little in the way of formal schooling. I've met plenty of people who manage to morally justify or rationalize plagiarism in their own mind, but I've never met an American student in high school or college, no matter how academically shitty they may be, who ACTUALLY believed cutting and pasting essays was acceptable to their respective academic institution. They may have though it was justified, or "not a big deal," but they always made some kind of deliberate effort to avoid being caught. Any of these kids who gets caught and says "I didn't know it was wrong" is full of shit, and just trying to avoid the consequences.

A student from an entirely different culture in a developing nation, on the other hand, who may not have ever had to write an original essay at any point before being exposed to free online courses, may very well be completely unaware that they are committing an act of academic dishonesty.

Uh, regarding the rounded-corner rectangle design patent thing, how are they not prior art? Design patents are specifically for an appearance/shape, irrespective of function or purpose.

You keep your unity interface the hell out of my QT!

Seriously though, it would be nice to see someone with the resources and, more importantly, the commitment to continue to develop QT. It's too good to let it waste away...

The "between 0.3 to 2.0mm thick" part of the summary is talking about the new thermal sheet, not traditional thermal paste.

Uhm, what now? The only significant piece of drug policy I could find that came out of the FDR administration, The Marijuana Tax Act, was actually ruled UNconstitutional, despite being an exercise in taxing authority rather than drug law per se.

The Controlled Substances Act of 1970, the existing carte blanche for drug prohibition currently wielded by the federal government, was signed into law by President Nixon.

If he "rips it off" then he is violating copyright protections. If he copies the look and feel of the software with the intent to deceive or confuse the customer, then there is probably a trademark violation. If he just duplicates the functionality of the software, well, that's just competition. Deal with it.

The Courier was seriously deep into "Shut up and take my money!" territory. Even if it was just a concept, the technology existed to make it happen. They could have named their own price and made Apple-style mountains of cash. Even now, there still isn't even anything on the horizon that is really comparable to what the Courier proposed to be.

It's not critical to normal, healthy adults in a resting state, but when the heat index hits 105 to 130 F (40-55C), the sick, elderly, and those performing physical labor start dying. I'd wager that over 50% of the deaths attributed to this storm are due to heat-related illness.

I used the term "patent system" to refer specifically to the administration of patents, distinct from the USPTO. Just because a single office administers both systems does not mean that "patent system," "trademark system," and "USPTO" are interchangeable. Patent law and trademark law are related, but nonetheless distinct concepts.

I should also add that I realize that design patents DO exist in our broken patent system, but my point is that design patents do not address any legitimate issue not already handled by trademarks.

Yeah, I acknowledged the existence of design patents. The fact they exist doesn't stop them from being stupid. I had two points, one of which is the design patent shouldn't exist in the first place as it is not relevant to the philosophical basis for a patent system (fostering technical innovation). The second point was that your suggestion that the patent protects against consumer confusion is flat out wrong. That is the intent of trademark protections; design patents instead protect the design full-stop, regardless of the utility of the item. If Apple's rounded rectangle design patent is valid, then they could sue the makers of the Etch-a-Sketch or those little rounded-corner chalkboards we had as kids (prior art much?). Trademark protections address a legitimate issue (consumer confusion), design patents do no such thing while also providing far more wide-reaching implications in their enforcement. This is why I said "the very concept of a design patent is utter horseshit."

No, that confusion is what trademark law protects against. The patent system is design to foster TECHNICAL innovation, and the very concept of a design patent is utter horseshit.

Not to mention appearance and "look and feel" are TRADEMARK issues, and have no business anywhere near the patent system.

I would think so, yes. Nobody gives a shit when academics and journalists bitch about it; they're commoners. It's been obvious from day one that HFT is a zero-sum game that has no value outside of allowing large financial institutions to skim free money off the top of the markets. Since the primary benefactors of HFT have been the fabulously wealthy, its significant when billionaires like Cuban, who probably has/could profit(ed) substantially from HFT due to his wealth and connections, publicly speak out against it. Despite the short term profits available with HFT systems, he seems, unlike many other rich people, to recognize the potentially catastrophic destabilizing effects HFT has on markets.

Between this and his recent live TV appearance where he rips Skip Bayless a new one, Cuban is rapidly becoming one of my favorite billionaires.